A SHRINE TO CATHUBODUA
We are circling, glad of the battle: we |
Cathubodua: the Warmonger, the Destroyer, the Commander and the Path-Clearer. She bestows bloodlust, carves out violent roads through the opposition, and lays obstacles to dust. She is the Battle-Crow, the bodua or badb; Her feast is the carrion of a kill, Her celebrations the victory of a war. All that She is is passion. Like lightning, She charges everything She touches with vibrant energy, sweet, bloody life, pulsing and pounding, sensual and demanding: liquid smoke, rattling heartbeat. The heady, bitter taste of blood in your mouth when you're pushed too far is Her domain. The primal urge in the human psyche to attack, provoke, slaughter is Her domain. She is everywhere, in everything we touch that holds passion within it.
Anything that makes us cutthroat. You aspire to lead your legal department, or have the most popular and profitable bakery in town? Cathubodua is there, drinking in the spilled tears of your competitors. You aspire to make art that brings critics to their knees? She is there, watching you as you pour your blood, sweat and tears into the work. There is war on the battlefield, yes, a bloody and violent and fatal war; but there is war too in the small, quiet places, in the depression victim fighting to stay alive, in the entry-level peon with wide eyes and a hard heart. These, too, are Her wars, and this is where She lives. Hers is the heartbeat of soldiers, the stuttering breath of ambassadors, the clenched fist of the protest.
Anything that makes us cutthroat. You aspire to lead your legal department, or have the most popular and profitable bakery in town? Cathubodua is there, drinking in the spilled tears of your competitors. You aspire to make art that brings critics to their knees? She is there, watching you as you pour your blood, sweat and tears into the work. There is war on the battlefield, yes, a bloody and violent and fatal war; but there is war too in the small, quiet places, in the depression victim fighting to stay alive, in the entry-level peon with wide eyes and a hard heart. These, too, are Her wars, and this is where She lives. Hers is the heartbeat of soldiers, the stuttering breath of ambassadors, the clenched fist of the protest.