What does "self-sovereignty" mean (and is it really possible)?

I'm dreaming of Crete.... and a sailboat.... and my poor dog who will puke.

My obsession with self-sovereignty probably started back in Ireland when a flight of crows flew raucously over my head as I lay in the grass recovering from jet lag. Perhaps I wouldn't have sworn they were talking to me if I wasn't so deliriously tired... perhaps. But, as it was, I was exhausted, and the walls of the world felt micron thin, and so I had the first of many conversations with the crows.

The Irish know a bit about birds and a lot about people… at least that’s true of the Irish that were hanging about my teacher’s cottage. Sometimes I would catch someone glancing skyward before side-eyeing me. More than once during my apprenticeship there, I overheard a person say to my teacher: She's the Morrigan's, that one.

The Morrigan?

If you don’t know your Celtic mythology, this is a pretty strange statement. (Heck, everything I’ve written is a bit odd but some days I just have to go there.) The Morrigan was a warrior goddess. She was also a shapeshifter who could take the form of a crow. (I’ve always wondered how those Irish folk knew I was chatting up her birds.)

On the surface, the Morrigan's a bit of a dark character: her crows would fly over battlefields deciding who would live and who would die. But “The Morrigan,” it turns out, is not a name, it’s a title: The Great Queen. So the Morrigan speaks to us of sovereignty.

The way I translated the comment about “being the Morrigan’s” was that folks were noticing my independent streak. The Morrigan became an avatar for self-sovereignty.

The concept of self-sovereignty— how one governs oneself— has been up for me of late. It creeps into my thoughts in a myriad of ways: am I eating in a way that’s best for me or compromising with the needs of my husband? Am I spending time with people I want to be with or giving into a feeling of obligation? Am I reading the books I want to be reading or following some prescription for what I think I should read? (I was, by the way, very pleased to know I’m not the only one who gets caught in this particular conundrum. If you want a ridiculously gorgeous reflection on this topic, check out this article by

Sophie Strand

. It’s so good, I became a paying member of her community immediately.)

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My Irish teacher used to say that life happened in phases. After the Mother phase of life— a time in which we are busy with creating and nurturing— we step into our Queendom, a time when what we have created no longer needs us to tend to it on a daily basis; a time we can feel free to be ourselves.

When I thought about this while in my thirties, it seemed like a gift, this time of Queendom. Something to work towards, the reward that would come after decades of hard work. It was like retirement but better! I translated being “free to be myself” as “being able to do whatever I wanted.” Like when I hit a certain age, a magic wand would be waved taking away all my responsibilities and making me rich enough to fund any adventure I desired. I pictured myself with flowing silver hair picnicking on the deck of a sailboat in Greece.

When I think about this phase of Queendom now, of being that kind of sovereign, I go back to The Morrigan and what sovereignty meant when the stories of the Celtic gods and goddesses were being woven into the psyche of Ireland. A king or queen was sovereign because of their relationship with the land they ruled. They were a servant of place, as much as of people. Sovereignty didn’t mean “I can do whatever I want.” Instead it meant “I am a steward for the greater good.”

So, it would follow, that self-sovereignty means I am a steward for my own greater good.

So… does this mean I can do whatever I want? Give it all up for Greece and a sailboat?

Another teacher, a man with whom I studied herbal medicine, had himself learned the plants with his grandfather who was a Cherokee medicine man. This teacher often told the group of us that the individualism we strive for in Western culture would be considered an illness to the Cherokee way of thinking.

I don’t live in a void, and neither do you. My greater good is not just my own, it is connected to many other people’s lives and needs, it is rooted in the land I live upon, it is one point on a spiraling web of interconnections. I have a dog who gets carsick. I can’t imagine the poor dude on a boat… in Greece.

So now, midway through my fifties, I’m hearing my Irish teacher’s assertion differently: Queendom is a time you feel free to be yourself. She’s not talking about doing whatever you want with no thought of consequences or the needs of others. Instead your Queendom is a time to be sovereign— in divine relationship with the world around you— while BEING yourself, removing the masks our roles in life sometimes force upon us. It’s not about what you do, it’s about who you are.

I think we could all spend a little time calling in our inner queen (yes, guys, you, too, have an inner queen). What would it feel like to be that kind of self-sovereign?

Hmmmm….

OK, your turn. Tell me something true! Have you worked with the concept of self-sovereignty? Do you see it as being about being able to do whatever you want or more about being in charge of your own interiority? Do you think it’s selfish to focus on your own needs and desires?

xx Maia

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