Meditation to meet The Cailleach Make yourself comfortable in a place where you won’t be disturbed. Close your eyes and begin to focus on your breathing. Take deep breaths in…and out. As the world around you dissipates you find yourself on a hillside, the air is biting cold and the ground beneath your feet is covered in a fresh white blanket of snow. However you don’t feel the cold as you are wrapped in a warm woollen cloak which you pull closer around you. You listen but there are no sounds, just the silence of a land in slumber beneath the snow. Take a look around you and notice the landscape, the mountains in the distance and the scattering of lone trees all standing bare against the backdrop of snow. The sky is blue and the weak winter sun is trying its best to warm the land. As you look around you notice what looks like the entrance to a cave and a slight waft of smoke drifting out from within so you start to make your way towards it. Your feet crunch in the crisp white snow and your breath turns to mist as you breathe. As you walk you notice a few large black crows are circling above high in the blue sky. As you draw near to the cave entrance you can smell the smoke from a wood fire, it is dark inside the cave but you enter hesitantly. A voice calls out to you from the inner cavern inviting you to come in. You follow the voice and the smoke from the fire to see an old woman hunched over a cauldron hanging above a wood fire. She beckons you to sit down. You sit in silence for a short while, watching the smoke from the fire and the old woman stirring the contents of the cauldron. Then she stops and comes to sit beside you. She takes your hand in hers and looks at you. Her eyes are full of knowledge and wisdom and so very ancient she holds the mysteries of all time. Ask her what you need to know…listen to her answer very carefully… When you are finished she reaches into her pocket and hands you a gift, a reminder of what you have talked about. You take it and thank her. When you are ready you say farewell and rise, leaving the warmth and darkness of the cave without looking back. You walk back across the snow covered hillside to the point where you arrived. Slowly and gently come back to the here and now, wriggle your fingers and toes and open your eyes. Have a drink and something to eat and write down the message that The Cailleach gave to you.
From:
Pagan Portals The Cailleach by Rachel Patterson
