Love Letter to White Painted Woman

Beloved Goddess, 

By honoring my cycles as Changing Woman, you show me how to love and trust my feminine body and resilient spirit, and how to live in a sacred way with intentional purpose. From maiden to bleeding woman - from bleeding woman to crone; you are the bridge between the worlds. For four nights you guide our rite of passage, and teach us the ancient ways of womanhood. For four days and nights we dance, standing our ground throughout the entire ceremony- keeping beat with the drums for one hundred and thirty songs. We do not sleep, but vision. Our dream visions create our sacred life. 

White Painted Woman, you show us that this world is one of shadow and illusion; that the true reality is in the otherworld- the world of Power and Great Mystery: Creator.  

Perhaps, it is you who keeps our spirit here for four nights after our physical death- close to our home, then, leading us through our final rite of passage from this world of shadow dreams into the true world. 

Sometimes, when I am alone with the trees, just before the sun rises over the horizon, I close my eyes and sing the Apache Sunrise Ceremony song:

I come to White Painted Woman,

By means of long life I come to her.

I come to her by means of her blessing.

I come to her by means of her good fortune.

I come to her by means of all her different fruits.

By means of the long life she bestows, I come to her.

By means of this holy truth.

Greet me when the time comes for my final rite of passage. Stay with me as I dance. Be with me throughout my journey as I cross the bridge between crone and my authentic self. 

Thank you.

-Yours devotedly