Crone's Cairn - When the Brain Reigns
A Stone Turned in the Crone’s Cairn Series | A 'Journey' Stone
Crone Stone Name: Wheel
Cycle: Mother
Stage of Maureen Murdock’s Heroine’s Journey: Road of Trials
Author’s Notes
“The Welsh Aianrhod means silver wheel … a guiding light of hope in one’s search for destiny.”
~ Carol Lee Campbell, Creator of the Crone Stones
Drawing the “Wheel” stone, I found myself asking the oldest question of all.
What force actually steers us?
But what is destiny?
The blunt version:
“Destiny” is a human attempt to frame meaning around the collisions between our choices, our temperament, and the world’s unpredictability. It’s not a cosmic guarantee, and it’s not a script written somewhere that you have to follow.
My brain is the engine; my identity sits at the wheel.
My identity keeps learning how to drive—less jerky, more honest—on a road trip toward greater authenticity.
Brain Reigns
How dare you dangle destiny. Fate is my own design. Okay, okay— you win. Maybe less than mine. Chill me to my marrow as limbic twines unwind. Cut the strings—carefully. Puppet master blinds. Try to control. Want to believe. But I cannot forget my mind. Neurons fire, full of spark. Logic wages war. Raw emotions shatter dark— limbic knows what for. Pathways slither plasticity, responding blind, protecting me. Neo builds its dams— but limbic still flows free. Neo gray plays God; limbic rescues me. Hidden, I now feel. Free will is not quite real. Not real is what I feel. Neo cortex burns; limbic shelters me. One is the storm. One is the ship. Each one seeks to be me. My mind controls my destiny— mostly seldom free. Warmed by sun, soaked by waves, fate is out to sea. Among the waves, finding warmth, I have to think I’m free. So time and time and time again, brain rains down on me. Puppeteer. Guardian. Gray matter— still. Still me.
~jlynn
Do you believe in destiny—or only in circuitry?
And when you look at your own life…
who’s driving your journey: the cortex or the limbic?
