Her voice is hard to capture; the screech of a crow, the rattle of the east wind, the melodious hum of wings in the grass, and the squelch of mud between stones and moss. Her voice is less voice and more everything.
This is why she is the Ancient Storyteller.
She tells not one story, but all of them.
And I use “she” loosely in this context. She is beyond gender, more akin to the she we use for Earth or the primordial goddess. She, as in the beginning. She, as in, what will remain. She, as in, the record.
This is your guide for Marrowkeeper Season in the Mythosomatic Sanctuary.
The ancient storyteller: whose tales have no beginning and no end, but help us make sense of the joy, ecstasy, terror, and grief that we experience in rolling tides with the rest of humanity. At our own time, in our own way, with our own story and embodiment, but not as anything new. She helps us find comfort in the depths of the story, in the reassurance that we are not the first, nor the last, and we’re certainly not alone.
She points to your bones that hold you and connect you, and then gestures to your organs that move you through emotion.
Here, she intimates, is where we experience and let it go. Here is where we pound and gnash and writhe until the laugh breaks free and the story drifts apart like ash on the wind.
She doesn’t speak as much as gesture.
A hand on your sacrum.
A wing along your shoulder blades.
A forehead pressed to yours.
A breath on your sternum.
Pressing upward under your ribs.
The ancient story wasn’t always experienced in words, and she’ll challenge you to reclaim the somatic experience of instruments played in caves, painting on stones, and being in the presence of death and ecstasy. Of emotion without a reason, not explaining why you feel, just feeling it. She’ll help guide you to the words in time, but first, she’ll guide you away from them.
You’ll get to know your energetic guide in the first week of each season.
They’ll be there for you in ways that the community, and even I, can’t be. Someone to turn to if you need the support of ages and capacity of everything, but also a guide and being that will return you to yourself or help usher you to what you need.
Throughout the season you’ll orient to them as a guide and will feel how your relationship with them changes as you move through the season, and the Bone and Organ Realms.
Is it mandatory that you work with the guide? No. Nothing in the Sanctuary is mandatory, it’s all an invitation. But she’s there for you, should you find that you need her.
It wasn’t part of the original plan for the Sanctuary to have seasonal guides.
I thought I would do the majority of the holding and support (and in my human and energetic way, I will do my part), but it became clear that this space wasn’t mine to guide alone. The more I tuned into the Sanctuary, the more I noticed these larger-than-life spirits lingering, helping to shape the space and guard the gates. When I sat and listened they showed me their role.
So like much of this offer, it wasn’t crafted from my human self, but arose from the spirit of the space itself. And it will mutate and shift with the space. Not only as we move from season to season, but I have a feeling the guides may change from year to year. The ancient storyteller may not always be the guide for Marrowkeeper season. Next year at this time, another may step forward.
To work with her in the Mythosomatic Sanctuary, you simply have to step through the gates. A guided/recorded journey to meet her is available on January 5th when we begin, but her energy is there already if you ask her to show herself.
At the gates ready to welcome you,
Ash
P.S. The gates to Marrowkeeper Season will remain open until December 22 OR until this constellation is full, whichever comes first. Half of the spaces are currently filled, which means there's room for 22 more people in the Return, and a handful of folks ready for the personalized work of the Descent.