Women are born with antlers where their eyes used to be. Long ago and just yesterday, women forfeited daytime sight for soul retrieval. We renounced what we see by the sun alone, in return for antennae of infinite knowing that stretch without end into the vast cosmos, and down into the knowing center of the earth. A mainline to the wisdom of the ancients, in exchange for seeing what the light hits only. It was a good trade.

If you sit still long enough, you can feel your antlers. The heavy truth is here. Lift your head to the stars and make them beacons. You know that soul knowing has filled you from the beginning. So much that your fine skull sprouted an armored intuition. This is where the stars and earth keep their secrets, sprouting from your head. Satellites for knowing that’s older than the stars. The learning, the mistakes, the beauty of all the women past, present, and future. Every war ever waged. They hold the wisdom of peace, longed for and created from devastation. Ground, up.

Dear woman, don’t you know they tingle when an intruder is near? Don’t you know they have a language you can learn? Do you know their whispers can travel down into your heart so say a quiet, “yes” to this and “no” to that? Do you know that sometimes their knowing travels down to your guts? Or makes your legs run far away before your mind has a chance to catch up? Or flings you into a right embrace? Yes, you do.

Your antlers are yours. They are not like the antlers you are used to. They are not visible by the light. They do not shed. They are yours.

Those velvet tips touch stars and pull down necessary light. They change shape to fit you through brush, and pillows, and hats, and let you duck underneath the moon. Your antlers hold the world in balance. Your secret knowing is all we have.

Deer woman, guard it. There are intruders. There are moments, and beliefs, and people you have adopted. Intruders that would like to have your antlers, to take them from you. They would like to silent your knowing, make you go invisible and think you do not know things that the stars do. They would like to steal what cannot be stolen. Crowned woman, antlers are weapons. Use them. Bow your head, bare your teeth, say your words out loud, cut what needs cutting. Hold the world in balance.