"To every woman her own truth and the Goddess within"*
The snow was 'somewhere else' when I left the house last night. It fell lightly on my way home but by 1am the garden looked ethereal, lit by the white shroud covering the sky. Snow lay heaped on every branch of the denuded tree and on every square of the trellis fence. I wondered what the effect would have been had I weaved the solar lights through the trellis squares or draping the curtain of lights across it before the snow fell. I hadn't yet convinced myself to buy the coloured acrylic squares to attach to parts of the trellis, to give it a Mondrian styling with the lights. I would have liked to see the colours being cast across the snow on the ground last night.
As always, my mind races with ideas but my physical being cannot commit to the resources for such flights of fancy. As it is so with the book. I had read more but reached a stumbling point, which I have now accepted is the natural break point of Midwinter for Igraine.
Previously I disregarded Igraine as a minor character but I find this is not the case. Mid-winter is her time. Her time to be released from her shackles of marriage, albeit by death speeded by her own hand. Yes, she plays her part in shaping her fate - even if it does coincide with what is planned by the powers that be. She is no helpless pawn in their great game. And having made her choice, she ultimately sacrifices herself to her love for Uther, casting aside both her children to the loneliness of their own fates.
And unknowingly, each child then enters the great game.
Igraine departs, her task completed. No, I do not think she would live out her life as a devout Christian, forsaking her knowledge of her previous lives as a priestess from beyond the seas. In this life, she has done what was required - to the extent of having blood on her hands, knowing there would be retribution. With that knowledge unearthed, she would always be a priestess at her very being.
Midwinter - the darkest night but there follows the time to prepare for new beginnings as it is the turning of the seasons and the long road back to spring is ahead.
