letter to selene
A letter to Selene, the moon goddess, written four years after my hysterectomy and double oophorectomy. Part of my ongoing work on liminality, Greek diaspora identity, and writing through the body. This piece was originally published on The Liminal Compass on Substack.
This is a vulnerable part of me, one I’ve been afraid to share publicly. Hope you enjoy.
As the moon approaches, bringing her subtle light in the dark sky, I sit here and write in the land of my ancestors. Of her, of them. Selene, I can feel her as she rises peeking over my shoulder, reminding me that she’s coming. She appears to me in dreams, in the tension of my neck, in the messages that come through thought, smell, sound, impression. Selene carries my wishes in her reflection. She listens to my whispers as I speak them into candlelight, she consults the ancestors in my requests.
I came to Greece with mysterious illness. After decades of searching, in the midst of a pandemic, a deep personal and global trauma unfolding – a doctor, a diagnosis, and a prognosis were formed. A hysterectomy and double oophorectomy, not come by any easy means, but through many nights of wailing and gnashing of teeth. With the sweet hints of olive, fig, and citrus, the summer cacophony of cicada, I sat under the moon and I begged her, I begged my ancestors for help. In earnest I spoke to the ancestors of land and spirit: I have come home and you have given me a way out. Now, I give the part of me that must be sacrificed and I leave her in your care.
More than 20 years of menstruation, in darkness we arrived at the hospital. The goddess of the night sky watched as I said goodbye to my womb. The spark of the feminine carried in darkness, night paths and private horrors lit by the light of Selene, who has watched over women throughout time.
The land of my ancestors, where women like me have lived for millennia, working with the soil and the cycles of the moon. But she was here before this, too. When the people of the Earth spoke to the goddess directly. The moon, her handmaiden, has watched over the lands. Where my parents left and I had returned, only to leave the physical manifestation of the feminine behind. Selene has been there, watching our pain and our power – our transformation.
As I contemplate my own transformation, I think of the womb as Selene made manifest in the body. We shift within as the moon does above: new, waning, waxing, and full. The womb follows the cycles she learned from Selene. In this cycle of life, after relinquishing my womb back to her origin soil, Selene watches over me. I still feel the cycles within, womb or not. Selene guides us when we care to listen to her wisdom.
The hands of the earth hold her now, but Selene looks down upon the ashes of her physical form. She, who witnessed the crying and the fear, the debilitating pain and the pleas for relief, watches over my womb now as she watches over all the wombs of my ancestors. Her energy hasn’t waned. The energetic womb remains intact within my body as long as it breathes life. And the moon smiles down upon her, too.
She shines down upon my head amongst the olives and figs, she shines down in the dawn as the crickets begin to chirrup, she shines down as the gusts of winter wind send chills down my spine, she hides in the shadows of the clouds as the mighty lightning of divinity illuminates the skies. Even when she is hidden, we know her strength. Selene is a witness to darkness.
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a companion piece with prompts to explore your own connection to the dark is coming later this month. If you’d like to go deeper into the liminal, subscribe and get my work directly to your inbox. If you like what I do want want to support, consider buying me a coffee here.
