Poems

Song of Awen

Cerridwen, dark mother; tell me about love.
She laughed.
You think love is easy. Love is hard She said.
Real love is a day in, day out graft.
Love is cleaning up the vomit, scraping the poo off the bathroom floor, wiping away the blood.
Real love is not for the weak or cowardly.
Love can make you want to kill the people who bully your ugly son.
Love can make you want to murder the boy who stole the three sacred drops.
Love is not all flowers and honey.
Love can be bitter as bile and twice as poisonous.
Love can twist your guts worse than any stomach ache.
It can leave you in a void of darkness when the loved one goes away.
Love can steal souls.
And yet…and yet…
She shook her head.
Love can bring the greatest joy we can ever possess.
Love transforms us like nothing else.
It can fill us with a boundless life-giving joy.
Like the rose with the thorn you can never truly love someone without pain.
It is the price we pay for love.
But it is so worth it.

This is my poem for the Dark Moon Ritual on 14th Feb.
By Janet Bouddica Parfitt

Cerridwen, dark lady of transformation,

you who are there at all endings bringing peace and rest to those in suffering and pain, be with me when I am struggling and cannot see a way through.
Dark Mother, shine your light into all my darkest places.

Help me love my shadow parts.
Help me to not deny all my feeling of rage, anger, frustration and guilt but help me to understand that it is these very emotions that make me human.

Help me to let go of trying to be perfect and all things to all people and let me learn just to be kinder to myself and others.
Let me feel compassion for others suffering.
Let me not see my sensitivity as a weakness but as a strength; for it is the part of me that reaches out to all other sentient being and sends them love.

Cerridwen, blessed mother, help me to be a voice to the speechless, a shield for the defenceless, and a lover to all those who feel they have no love.
Let me be a guide for those who have lost their way.
Let me help others to look into your dark mirror so that they may better understand themselves.
Let me not project my pain and my wounding onto others but to accept responsibility for my feelings and my actions. Let your love guide my hands into healing. Let your eyes see that everyone is worthy of love and respect.

And let the love that is in your heart flow through me and into the rest of the world. Blessed be.

Janet Boudicca Parfitt August 2020