The hagstone sits on a bed of crossroad dirt - it was gathered under a full moon and in the light of darkness I found her, and she found me. Our Lady Beneath is a Folk Saint that approached me, and that I have been working with for some time now. She is Triformed, and rules over the boundaries between Land, Sea, and Sky. She is below the roots, in the depths of the ocean, and in the milky cosmos. She is that which is constantly shedding her skin, always changing and always growing.
She sits within the hole of the hagstone, acting as its keeper, and guardian. She is betwixt and between, and is emerging as a new spirit that is deep in my practice with her. She is the persistence of water through a stone.
I summon her through the sigil, drawn in the dirt, or with dirt - it doesn't matter so long as dirt is involved. She is the decomposition, the decay, and the growth thereafter. She is Chthonic, yet warm and inviting, gives sight through honesty, and holds the sacred and the profane without contradiction. Attended to by the dead, she is Healer, Mother, and Child, mourning the loss of what could have been, and what was.
The Oil has finally finished brewing, and with it, a novena was cast. 9 days of prayer over the oil, and it is finally complete. I've been anointing myself with it daily for about a week now and It feels very much like her energy and the oil takes to the vessel very well. I plan on making this a perpetual oil, to be decanted and refilled as needed. It's vibes are very much tied to the three, and the crossroads. It is an oil of change, of growth, of birth and death and cycles ever turning, it is the lockwork and clockwork of Our Lady Beneath. It smells earthy with woody undertones, like fresh trodden dirt and moss. The oil is a vessel to which she dwells in, the essence of her healing.
The Hagstone serves as focal point to my workings with her, I anoint the hagstone with the oil each morning before the back of my neck, the palms of my hands, and the soles of my feet. It is an exercise in grounding and with that I walk with her throughout the day. She presides over holy water, and the sacred intersection of fire-in-water.
I keep coming back to her below the earth, in the hallowed hills of the Otherworld. It is in this world that I explore the threshold, and all it has to offer. It is through this that I am able to glimpse her in all her darkened glory. I sip the Heart Opening Tincture -> For persistence. For the growth that aches deep in your bones, a drop is enough to open the heart when feeling stuck, when needing release - it all comes together in a swift motion of the scissors.
Inscribing the sigil in the dirt allows me to better connect with her energy - I call her forth with prayer, whispered in the moonlight. The Upper World, The Middle World, and the Under World all combine as one, as she is the threshold between.
While drawing the sigil, prayers are recited and the invocation is whispered. It is part of the process of calling her forth. And as the serpent sheds its skin, the Lady herself is born crawling out between the threshold. She is emotion. She is the in-between of the magic I dance in on my day to day life - the magic of change and growth, always cycling through life, death, and rebirth cycles. I work hard to cultivate this relationship, and Our Lady Beneath is there to guide my hand as I do the work.
Several recipes have sprung forth from these Ladies' Workings, and it has been very much a work in progress - the key turns in the lock. I am excited to try out this powder, formulated to work with the dead - for burning and and offering to the dead, for they know their own, and ash is the language of the dead.
She is Triformis, triple formed in the moonlight. Through this she finds the way through the hagstone - the worm wriggles through with boughs of honey dripping down deep through the realms into her hands - the offering. The Oil is created, prayed over weeks of workings, novenas, and lunar cycles.
Crow-Seeing looks through the eye of the threshold. She is the sister who sees from above — the world on the other side, the shape of what is coming, the pattern that is revealed to one who watches from above. The hagstone is her eye. Her element is air, her color white, her symbol the open eye or the single feather. She is offered water placed at a threshold or crossroads, bones left in high places, and silence offered in the moment before a difficult truth is spoken.
Coyote-Crossing walks through the door. She is the sister who stands at the crossing — the threshold itself, the moment between this side and that, the change that happens in the act of passing through. The hagstone is her door. Her element is earth, her color black, her symbol the fork in the road or a single footprint. She is offered coins left at crossroads, tobacco, strong drink, red thread, and brief fire.
Serpent-Circling coils beneath. She is the sister of the depths — the dark earth the threshold opens down into, the underworld that waits below every crossing, the coiled wisdom that remembers what the surface has forgotten. The hagstone is her grave. Her element is sea, her color red, her symbol the coil. She is offered tears or wine poured into the earth, milk, hagstone water, blood in small measure, and bones buried deep. Iron is not offered to her.
Her Patronage as I have learned it:
Patron Saint of the Queer Threshold — coming out, hard conversations, transitions (gender and otherwise), moments where you must say this is who I am and risk the answer. She stands at the door you're afraid to open. She does not push. She waits.
Tender of the Queer Dead — ancestors of sundered lines, the ones the church would not claim, the murdered, the suicides, those who died before they could be themselves. She tends them because no one else would. Simon is with her. So are Sylvia Rivera, Marsha P. Johnson, Leslie Feinberg — and every queer dead who crossed without a proper rite.
Companion of the Wearing-Through — not the dramatic threshold-crossings but the long slow transitions: medical transition, grief that takes years, recovery that has no finish line. The patience of the worm that wears through stone. She sits beside you in the duration.
Folk Devil — the trickster, the one who takes things from you to teach you. The Coyote's teeth. She will not lie, but she will let you lie to yourself until you're ready to stop. She takes offerings and gives lessons, not always pleasant ones.
Faerie Saint — like Joan of Arc, she speaks through inclination and dream. You make deals with her, you do not worship her. The deal is simple: I will cross the threshold you show me. In return, you will be there when I arrive. Do not break the deal. The Coyote remembers.
What She Does Not Do:
She does not promise safety. She promises presence.
She does not make the crossing for you. You must walk.
She does not take away the grief. She sits with you in it.
She does not answer every prayer. Some she simply stays beside you through.