12/06/2026
In the old stories…
In the old stories, when the wild daughter readies herself for a great renewal, she reclaims her “seven sovereign powers.”
To reclaim means “to call back.” During her soul’s dark night, the wild daughter underwent a great and transformational journey where she left seven sacrifices behind in the name of a new truth, a never-before-seen North Star she would now forever move toward.
Sacrifice means to “make sacred.” She left these pieces of herself behind at the seven portals, slowly stripping away her old story, composting the dead dreams and tired aches so she might see herself and her world more clearly.
Now, upon her renewal, she ascends back through the seven wild gates where she left parts of her old self behind. She moves nearer to her newfound truth, oriented toward the threshold between who she once was and who she has now become. As she claws her way toward the light again, she “calls back” the alchemized and amplified versions of her original sacrifices.
In essence, this is what she gave up, and this is what those sacrifices turned into as they were “made sacred” during her great metamorphosis.
First, the wild daughter reclaims a new way of being in the world. This might be her very power to exist. Once, she sacrificed her vitality here. Now, that sacrifice has become her most fundamental “sovereign power.” When referring to medicine, sovereign means “potent in a high degree.” Here, the wild daughter “calls back” her very bones, a more potent rootedness, her power to be here and now.
Power means “that with which work can be done.” After the first reclamation, the wild daughter honors her creaturely nature, her right to breathe and be, so her sacred work in the world, her great art whatever it might be, can be done.
The second reclamation is the wild daughter’s feeling and sensory nature. When she arrives at this second portal, she understands a deep feeling was sacrificed here once-upon-a-time, an old feeling that took on a new shape during her time in the dark chrysalis of her transformation. Now, she calls back her sensuality, her power to feel, emote, and be present in the totality of her senses.
The third reclamation is the wild daughter’s fiery will, her ability to affect change on her world. Here, at the third portal, she once left behind her old identity, even her old name. She may have snuffed her inner fire here so her secret initiation could be left unwitnessed.
Her passion, drive, and creative expression dimmed, slowed, and cooled. Now, she calls back her will. She relights the candles on her inner altar, and she remembers her agency, her power to “produce an effect,” her right to give shape to her world.
The fourth reclamation is the wild daughter’s heart and hands, her power to love and be loved, her right to heal, forgive, and empathize. At the fourth portal, she may have sacrificed her interconnectedness, her old way of relating to her kindred, to her found and blood family. Now, she calls back her heart. Her hands grow back. She calls back her compassion…
…her generosity toward self and others. Her inner lover begins to live again, and the wild daughter begins to appreciate the profound beauty in her world once more.
The fifth reclamation is the wild daughter’s voice, her power to speak, to make her story known, to participate in the world through language and gesture. At the fifth portal, she left behind an old way of speaking as her initiation was beginning. She may have ceased to speak about a particular happening altogether. She refused to return to dead and dusty patterns of organizing her story.
She began re-membering, that is re-ordering and re-organizing, the chapters in her story that made her who she was. Now, only now, the wild daughter calls back her voice. She begins to speak in new ways, louder ways, with a new rhythm and a new resonance. Her boldness of spirit is amplified here, and she sings again, as if for the first time.
The sixth and seventh reclamations occur just on the cusp of renewal, just as the wild daughter readies herself to step from the cave’s dark mouth, beyond the cracked walls of her chrysalis, out of the husk-egg-womb-tomb that contained her initiation. Here, when her metamorphosis was just beginning, she left behind an old belief about the world, an old way of knowing and seeing. The sudden realization that her old belief was incorrect, false, indoctrinated into her, or simply no longer true may have been the very catalyst for her descent into the dark.
She left her crown there at the seventh portal, and she left her eyes behind at the sixth portal. Now, on the verge of her next once-upon-a-time, the wild daughter calls back her power to see and her power to believe. As she does, her new North Star shines ever-brighter, and she steps into the world again.
And all possibilities in her life come back.
“The old stories say the muse never dances in the sunlight but dwells deep in the underground. Here, in the wells, foxholes, and caves, a soft fire is tended by a hag who knows no glamour. In a rough and rolling voice, she speaks of an art that can be born only in the dark, only in the secret cocoons and subterranean caverns where unnamed rivers flow. When the evening goes quiet, I know how to find this place. I recover the map to the muses’ cave from the forbidden underground and set out to find a forgotten magick. Wait for me.”
Heathen Prayer 6.5. In the Muses’ Cave: When the Evening Goes Quiet
Bones & Honey: A Heathen Prayer Book
©️ 2023 Danielle Dulsky, New World Library
Available wherever books are sold 🌀
