I Consent To The Journey

Those words keep echoing in my head tonight."I consent to the journey."Today I interviewed Mollena, Dan and dawn for my podcast.  The conversation topic was consent, and the journey rambled from place to place, story to story, feeling to word to deed.  It was funny and sad and delicious... as it needed to be.At the end of the podcast, Dan asked what would happen if he went to Raven, gave him a deer skin pouch, and said "take me on a journey."  Take me where spirit leads you.  Would he be okay if Raven fucked him up the ass, for example.Well, you said yes to the journey... the rest of the table.Consenting to the journey does not mean being happy with the outcome.  It means agreeing to take the trip.I have been embracing this concept a lot recently.  Take me on a journey, my beautiful Goddess.  Join me on a journey, my sweet Boy.  Don't give me safewords, because I don't want to be safe.  I want to say yes, yes to my life, my love, my journey, my path- and accept personal responsibility for my part in saying yes.Does that mean that consent does not matter?  No.Does that mean all bad things that happen were meant to happen and it's okay that injustice happens across this planet?  No.It matters.  I am acutely aware that they matter.  I still negotiate for my health and safety, and those I care for, and those who share the world with me that I care for in turn.  Let us all be set up for highest success.And yet, the mystery, the veil.  I see my Sister holding up a mantle of ocean waves, and I bow before her.  Possibility and Flow.  Possibility and Flow.  Leannan the Dead smirks at me and goes back to Work.I consent to the journey.  Let the roads I have agreed to unfold as they will, and I will walk them with excellence, love, and occasionally, sorrow.  Waves will come and we will paddle on.Let me play this way, I think, rather than order from the menu.  Let me love this way, rather than set the script in advance.  But this is not an either or.  It is a neither, a both, a blending.  I open to each journey, having packed the bags for the adventure with the tools we will each need to succeed.I kneel and kiss the ground.  I kneel and kiss the ground again.  I prostrate myself, and kiss the ground before her cave.I consent to the journey.