Conclusion
The cycle of the lunar dance reveals the ring of pearls that crowns a night-dark vessel. It is the Cauldron of the Chief of Annwn, sovereign of the Otherworld, and it will not boil the food of a coward. When consciously tended with intention, however, a seeker may use its power to accomplish the Great Work.
In the personal Otherworld of the Unconscious within each of us, this potent vessel of transformation awaits. Like Arthur, we must undertake a journey to reclaim this powerful artifact, but it that is only the beginning of the process. What this vessel of intention yields depends wholly upon what we bring to it; like countless before us, we are called to take a close look at the circumstances and content of our inner and outer lives, and for each component we must ask ourselves the Grail question: Whom does this serve? If the answer is anything but service to our authentic sovereignty, we have found where work must be done.
One way to engage in this revelatory process is by following the pearlescent pathway laid out to us in myth. Like Ceridwen, we must set the cauldron to boil, activating it by kindling our inner hearth fire through our focused and directed will. A year’s worth of healing herbs are placed within this vessel: each one a resonance of the lessons found in the stories of the goddesses of Avalon, each one a Green Ally to help us reflect these lessons onto the stories of our own lives.
Each moon is a mirror, each pearl a key to our own unfolding. We work to distill the darkness of our shadow so that we may liberate the bright drops of our wisdom. We work to catalyze our growth so that we may drink deeply of our sovereign nature.
The Great Work is to seek and fully embody the recognition of the truth of our ultimate union and connection with the Divine. We may accomplish it through the rarification of the Self until consciousness of our wholeness is obtained and our sovereign potential is realized. This path of personal alchemy both accompanies and is supported by the process of shadow integration. We must seek out outmoded and unconscious reactionary defense strategies so that we may repattern them into deliberate responses that are centered in clarity and personal sovereignty. Our goal as evolving beings is to live in the now as consciously as possible without being limited by pain from the past or fear of the future. When we center ourselves in the flow of nature and work with it rather than against it, we are able to harness the powerful tides of these cyclic forces to clear, cleanse, and empower ourselves to actualize the person we were each born to be.
Healed. Holy. Whole.