Inkling: The Temple of Ixchel, The Earthquake, and the Crone

Ixchel, Mayan goddess of the moon and medicine — sacred site pilgrimage, somatic ritual, crone initiation, and what a 6.1 earthquake at an ancient temple has to do with poison as medicine.

The wildest moments on a trip aren’t always the photos, they’re the seconds when your body goes still and something ancient feels close. We’re back from Mexico and I’m sharing a quick, spontaneous inkling from Priestess Initiations while I finish editing a longer, more structured release coming Saturday: Blood Mysteries, a rich conversation on the menstrual cycle, PMS, and PMDD with my friend Gabby (an LPCC here in Colorado). I also pull back the curtain on the very real indie podcast process of recording on one mic and taking the time to do it well.

Then we go to Isla Mujeres, the Island of Women, and into the orbit of Ixchel, the Mayan moon goddess tied to medicine, weaving, the sea, and multiple aspects that echo maiden, mother, and crone. At Punta Sur, her sacred site and the easternmost point of Mexico, I talk through what it felt like to touch the temple stone and receive an unexpected inner vision: an old woman moving through darkness, chanting and drums, snake medicine, and the unsettling clarity that poison can also be healing.

As if the landscape wanted to underline the message, we experience two earthquakes, including a 6.1 that shakes the hotel room. We also witness sea turtles mating and feel the paradox of pleasure, fear, creation, and destruction braided together. The theme that lingers is simple but demanding: trust the spiral, even when the lesson is unnamed.

If you want a deeper dive on Ixchel, Isla Mujeres, and what “crone wisdom” actually looks like in real life, tell me in the comments. Subscribe, share this with a friend who loves goddess lore and pilgrimage stories, and leave a review so more listeners can find the show.

Transcript

Quick Hello And Schedule Update

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome back to Priestess Initiations. I'm Casey, and today is an inkling episode. For those of you that don't know, inkling episodes are just really spontaneous little episodes I record on my phone. And this morning is feeling like an inkling for a variety of reasons. Namely, that my partner Matt and I just got back from a trip to Mexico. We were on Illa Mujeres, which means Island of Women. And I'll talk about that in a minute, but I first want to just name that your full episode is still coming this week. It's probably going to drop on Saturday. That is Blood Mysteries. It's about the cycle, PMS, PMDD. It's super rich information. It's a longer full episode. It's about an hour long. And it's with a special guest, a friend of mine, Gabby. She's also an LPCC here in Colorado. Really rich and informational. And as an indie podcaster, I have to I record us both on the same mic, which means I have to do a lot more editing. I don't have two nice microphones. And so one day I'll invest. But I'm not doing enough interviews just yet to make that worth it. So thank you for being patient with me. But I just wanted to drop in today and say hello. And yeah, and I'm feeling tired today and wanting to honor my body and not rush through the editing process. And so yeah, I wanted to drop in as well and tell you a little bit about my trip and um start deciding whether or not at some point you want a full episode on

Meeting Ixchel On Isla Mujeres

SPEAKER_00 1:54

this. So you can let me know in the comments if you'd like a full episode on some of what I'm talking about today. But um yeah, our trip was eventful, and Ilamuharis is associated with the goddess Ikshell. Um, and I want to make sure I'm pronouncing that correctly, but I'm pretty sure it's Ikshell or Eshell. Um yeah, I think it's Eshell. And she is a Mayan goddess, and it's kind of her island. She has a temple and a ruin on it. She's the Mayan goddess of the moon, medicine, weaving the sea. Um, she has multiple aspects, kind of like Hecate, maiden mother crone, and she in her crone form is sometimes called goddess O. Um and sometimes she is depicted. Well, so I don't know. I'm I'm going back and forth here. You get to see me kind of ramble in these episodes. But she on the island, most people don't work with her crone aspect. I had an experience with her crone aspect, which is super cool, so I want to talk about that. But on the island today, she is still worshipped by the Mayan people in Mexico, and they'll still come to see her as a fertility goddess primarily. So she's mostly worshipped in her mother aspect. But apparently, there used to be um rite of passage rituals near that temple, too, where people would come for their transition from maiden to mother. And so she really has maiden mother and crone and different phases of her associated with different parts of the moon phases. Um, she also relates to all three planes of existence, kind of like Isis. She's a healing goddess, so she's kind of between Isis and Hecate, was like my sense of her. She's really fierce. I got this like fierceness that might have been the moon cycle I was there for. But she's a goddess of paradox, of destruction and creation. And the temple at Punta Sur, which means South Point on Isla Mujeras, is one of her sacred sites. It is the easternmost point of all of Mexico. So it's the first land touched by sunrise. And women for thousands of years have made pilgrimage there. And so of course, we of course we visited the temple, and there's all these newer statues that the government paid to have put up, and so you can see kind of modern statues of her. Um, and the old ruins are small, but they are powerful, and you're kind of on these like big sea cliffs with this crystal clear water out there. Um

Temple Vision And Two Earthquakes

SPEAKER_00 5:09

but while we were there, so we arrived at Punta Sur and we went through the gates and we paid the little six dollars or whatever it is to get into the park. And um we took a photo like two minutes before there was an earthquake. And the first earthquake was smaller, I think it was a 4.2 magnitude, so we actually didn't even feel that. Um, but there was an earthquake when I was there, which is kind of cool on this temple land. And so I, you know, we we went through and I I touched the stone. There was an area, like some of it's some of it's just got a rope in front of it, but there's an area where there's an ancient wall that there's just nothing in front of. Um, there's no signs saying not to touch that part, and so so I touched that ancient stone and I just closed my eyes for a moment and I saw kind of this image um of an old woman moving through the darkness. It was very kind of snakey. She was carrying a bowl. There was chanting, I was hearing chanting and drums. Um, I had the like sense of like kind of flames flickering in the distance, the sense of being in the jungle, large cats kind of behind me somehow, and this idea of snake medicine. And there was a sense that the there was poison in that bowl, but that that poison was medicine. It was like this old deepness and recognition. And so that was pretty cool. I haven't made sense of it yet, um, but I'm sharing it here in its rawest form. Um, and then we were sitting in this old kind of it's not a sea cave, it's like a tunnel in the cliff. You can kind of climb down, and there was a tunnel that was going through the cliff, and I just sat down because it was hot and I wanted a shady moment, and there was breeze coming through, and I was thinking to myself, you know, I bet this is where people sat when they were hot, because it's kind of the closest you can get to AC. The breeze is just whipping through that tunnel and it's shady and lovely. And we looked out and we saw sea turtles mating, and it was our second pair that we'd seen on that trip, which is pretty rare, but this is their mating season. Um, but we saw them, they were just out there, and really beautiful, and there was something interesting about that, and then we got back to the hotel and I laid down on the bed. I just kind of collapsed. I was like, oh my gosh, I see. And the second I laid down, the room was shaking, and it was like I was like, oh, is someone jackhammering the you know, are they doing construction suddenly on the pathways outside? But our hotel was very small, it's only like a 12-room place, very niche. Um, Hotel La Jolla. It's called Really Beautiful. Highly recommend it. Stuff was lovely. Um, they kind of have their own private rocky beach where you can go snorkel right off of. It's not sandy, but you can snorkel right off of there, and there's lots of fish. Um and there was a second earthquake, and that one was a 6.1, which is in like the top four earthquakes in the whole region of Quintaroo, like ever recorded. So that was pretty crazy. Um and we were fine, everything was fine, but yeah, it was it was an interesting experience, and it felt like I felt like Ikshell was speaking. Some people say that she is associated with earth and earthquakes in addition to the sea. Um yeah, and so I don't know where I'm going with this, but I've been thinking it might be fun at some point to do an episode on her and dive deeper in my explorations of her, and I wanted to share something cool

Crone Wisdom And Trusting The Spiral

SPEAKER_00 9:30

with you today. Um, and so yeah, so I arrived at Ikshell's temple, and Ikshell showed up and showed me crone wisdom. And there's still a lot that I'm learning from that. Um, part of what I'm feeling is that the crone holds poison as wisdom, darkness as medicine, pleasure as initiated um was something that was coming through. It's still unnamed, and that confusion's part of it. Um you have to trust the spiral. And so this is my inkling today, my offering for you, and you're gonna get a much more structured episode on Saturday. Um, and it's it's gonna be great. I'm so excited for the wealth of wisdom that Gabby brought to that episode. So let me know in the comments if you'd like to learn more about Ixhell, we can learn it together. Um, obviously, I've been doing some research and there's lots more about that trip. That was beautiful. We swam with whale sharks and um saw dolphins and all the things. So excited to talk more about that if that is of interest. Okay, see you soon. Trust the spiral.