ha-gold

[ha-gold]

A thousand year ago, there was a Wise Woman, who lived in a cluster of hawthorn trees, half-way between the village and the forest, known as The Hedge. Gathering magic from the forest, and bringing it to the village, she rode the gap between two realities.

Her name was The Hedge-Rider.

Part mystic, part medicine-woman, part midwife and wizard, there was no male equivalent for The Hedge-Rider, because to dwell within the void, had always been a feminine role. Women had formed and carried humanity within their wombs, since the beginning of the species. The Hedge-Rider had been around for so long, she existed even before The English language.

A Proto-Germanic word, Hagatusjon was formed from haga (meaning hedge) and tysja (meaning fairy God-mother). The Hedge-Rider was known quite literally, as The Mystical Wise Woman of the Hedge. It was only in the thirteenth century, when Proto-Germanic and Anglo-Saxon merged into Middle English, that Hagatusjon or “Haga-rider” was shorted to the name we know today. Hag. Or as the modern dictionary will tell us: repulsive, ugly old woman. Oh how the Hedge-Rider has been demeaned. Literally, her name has devolved its entire meaning: De-meaning.

Slipping from the highest archetype a woman in Europe could aspire to, The Hag now rests, in the lowest place a woman could land: Because of course, there is nothing worse as a woman, than to be ugly, and old.

Or so they tell us…

But let’s not dwell on this. We were also participants in allowing our suppression, silencing and sexualisation. Lets leave the past behind us, and look ahead. The Hags are returning.

And I know this, because I’m one of them.

It was late last century, when my mother, Mrs Gold, was in her garden, labouring. She laboured for two days. Eventually, I landed earth-side, blue, limp, and lifeless. The doctor took my still body, rushed me into ICU, pumped my lungs, and incubated me in a glass box.

‘I don’t think she’s going to make it’, he told my Mother. ‘And if she does’, he added, ‘she’ll probably be brain damaged.’

But my mother prayed, filled in the birth certificate, and all was well.…

Nearly. Except for one thing.

In all the chaos, nobody noticed what my Mother had named me. It was right there on the birth certificate. She had given me the initials H.A.G. And it didn’t take very long for people to notice.

No woman would choose to embody a name known for its ugliness, and for this reason, I used a different name for most of life. Only in the last few months have I returned fully to my old name. And I did it, because I knownow, with complete certainty, that I’m meant be a Hedge-Rider, and I knowthat I was given this name, to reclaim it for my sisters. It is time for The Hedge-Riders to return. Although it might not look like you think it’s gonna look.

You see…Wise women were never called to go to battle. Feminism told us to fight, and it didn’t work. The opposite doesn’t work either. Patriarchy told us to submit. But you can’t win a war through surrender.

Both paths are wrong. And the answer is something else entirely.

The true power of femininity, of The Hag, is not found in rising up against man, but in stepping to meet him, in courage and grace. Her power isn’t found in submission or sexualisation, but in standing in the unfiltered strength, wisdom and energy of raw womanhood. The greatest power of women –– the power the earth needs right now — is not found in our ability to fight or surrender. It isn’t our softness or our hardness. Our power is found in the void. It is found in standing in impossible places. In holding impossible things. In making peace where there is no peace to be made. In alchemising what has been utterly broken. In creating, healing, loving and finding grace, even when there is none left to be seen. The Hedge-Riders are the rebuilders of broken bridges and the growers of new crops in burned out fields.

This is what Hedge-Riders can do.

And this is what the world needs. Fairy-godmothers. Void dwellers. Wizards. Mystics. Believers. Mothers. Midwives and Medicine women.

So. If you think you might be a Hedge-Rider too, please… Lay down your swords. Throw away your filters and fillers and botox. Stop silencing your wizening and ageing and ripening. Women, it’s time to cease being afraid of our power, our beauty, our ugliness, our love and our magic. It is all interwoven, and we need all of it. We need to rewrite the script on The Hags.

And so. Into the hedge we go.

– H.A.Gold

Aka The Hedge-Rider