The Bean Feasa Rising
There is a species of sight granted only in extremity—
a way of seeing that arrives through rupture.
In grief, beauty becomes unbearable and exact.
Light does not blaze; it shimmers.
It threads the dark like a needle pulling gold.
I understand the holiness of this step
only after the horizon collapses—
when forward is measured in inches,
when tears must remain dammed behind my eyes
because if they fall, they will take the village with them.
In these hours, survival is not dramatic.
It is exacting.
It is breath, then breath.
It is the quiet violence of choosing to remain.
Will I ever graduate from the school of suffering?
Will grief rise cleanly to the surface,
or cling forever to its cavernous dwelling?
I call back my wild daughter
from the hands that dare
appoint themselves her masters.
Let them meet the Bean Feasa,1
standing in wildfire without char.
The blaze recognizes its own.
Ash gathers at my feet like snowfall—
my skin carries the molten memories.
My heart is tender—achingly so—
yet my spine is hammered steel,
tempered in the red-hot chambers
of ancient grandmothers’ wombs.
Their fire runs clean in me.
It separates chaff from wheat.
It burns away only what is false.
I am not untouched.
I am annealed.
Wise Woman in the Irish language — The Seer Visionary, holder of prophecy, intuitive guide, and messenger.