The Key

I wear a key around my neck. It rests on a chain next to a silver and gold (or gold and white gold; can’t tell) snake pendant and a gold ring with a small sapphire in it (that has never fit me, so on my necklace it stays). The key itself is silver colored, and looks like a standard house key.

The snake is from my mom. The ring was my grandmother’s (sapphire was her birth stone). The key I received from Hekate at Spring Mysteries Festival, and I have worn it ever since.

(I wore, for a time, two beads on this same necklace — both red, one given to me by Persephone and one by Hestia at the same festival. However they were strung on thread that ended up fraying and breaking, and so they sit in my house until I can figure out where to put them.)

I realize now what She really gave me. It was the key to myself. The more I wear it, the stronger I become. I grow, and I molt. I shed my skin. Unlocking the carapace of hurt, the protective shield that guarded against more hurt, that has covered me for so long and allowing the true Morag to come forth.

This is not a bing bang boom deal, over and done with in an instant. It’s a journey. A threshold I will stand in for a long time now, until I’m finally ready to walk through and into the next room. I’m in a liminal space now. The key has opened the door and I stand in it. I feel the power of that doorway. I gather the courage to take the next step.