Call me by my true names
Seer, Pythia, Oracle,
Witch and Priestess,
Woman even, for that I am
In the amazing lineage of
Both Lilith and Eve

Call me Crow Daughter
Owl Woman, Queen of
Myself as I lean into the
Fierceness of An’Morrighan
And wield Boudicca’s sword

Call me Erishkigal and Inanna
That both/and of dark and light
With wisdom of shedding
All that no long suits or fits
Then Rising in the Shining
Of new and embodied ways

Call me Bridgid as I hold
Wisdom’s flame within
The very being of my heart,
My soul and Her land

Call me Isis Auset as I feel into
The agony of both life and death
Sekhmet even or Bast as my
Feline ways shred the cords
Of patriarchal indoctrination

Call me Wolf as I Howl in
The exuberance of the
Voice of my Being and
That web that is my tribe

Call me by any or all
For I have walked these
Paths, these Leylines
SInce the beginning of
Time… that of the land
And that of woman

Call me Nothing and
Call me Everything for it
Matters not your naming
Of one who is older than
The stars, the planets and
Has travelled beyond the
Boundaries of this time

Call me by my true names
Those which have no words
Only the wind’s breeze
And the waters waves
Those that rise with the sun
And dance in the moonlight

For I am that which came first
I am that which comes last
And I will be the Traveller who
Inhabits it all at the end of time

—The Traveller by Arlene Bailey
From Return to Mago E’Magazine