Priestess of the Void

I meditate on synchronicity. And if the synchronicity involves a word, all the better. This weekend was not exception. The word was Void.

I was researching the obsolete constellation of Cerberus. Why, you might ask? Simply because the three headed dog was my previous synchronicity. The search was somewhat futile as very little is written about this constellation. No significant stars, no known reason for it's origin nor it's demise. Yet the word Void appeared like a star in it's own right in the deep sky of my mind. This was the first of the synchronicities.

I recalled my first experience with "The Void". I was a young mother on my second round of meditation studies, my first having been as a teen in the 60's. I was sitting cross-legged on a blanket on the old hardwood floor of my living room, the babies down for a nap. I had been practicing meditation for a few months. Just emptying my mind and going deep within. On this late spring morning I closed my eyes and looked at the dark inside of my lids. My consciousness dropped as if I had been in an elevator. But the ride didn't go down incrementally...one floor down...next floor down...ding, ding, ding with every level down. The sensation was one of falling at an incredible speed and down a blackness that seemed to pull me towards nothing but oblivion.

The experience couldn't have lasted more that a few seconds, but it felt like a lifetime. I was terrified. I was horrified. I had only one context for the experience - Hell!

A few years before I had attended a couple of charismatic Christian churches. After studying with them for a while I decided their laws and restrictions didn't make sense and went back to meditation based on no particular philosophy or tradition. Just me picking up where I had left off - checking out the frontier of consciousness and the mind.

When I experienced that darkness...that falling, falling sensation...that insurmountable fear, my default setting was "This is bad! This is wrong! This is the devil's work." And I stopped meditating. I trashed any books that were unsanctioned by the churches and attempted to live as a good  fundamentalist Christian wife. That was it's own kind of Void...but that's another story.

It's been over thirty years since I had that experience, and I have not felt it again. And neither have I attempted to meditate in that way. I learned something of how really intense and dangerous the mysterious, the esoteric, the unknown can be for the dilettante and uninitiated. But my curiosity has not deserted me. I've learned to creep up on the Void from different angles. I get close to the edge, but always far enough to not get sucked in by the vortex.

All this to say that this time the Void didn't come during meditation. It came instead as a familiar pattern of pain and rejection from my narcissistic father... a terrifying sensation in it's own right. But this is not about father bashing. Instead, I've finally come to the realization that the Void I experience
will never be filled by him. And this realization came across from this line by Emily Carding from her Tarot of the Sidhe:

"I give wholly to the Void, to be holy in The World."

The sentence struck me like lightning. I understood it immediately as this - if I want to stop the fear and terror of falling I need to give myself over to the acceptance of it, whatever 'it' is. Not as a helpless victim, but as a powerful creator of my own experience. 

With this understanding I looked at what benefit I have gained from the experience of falling for the naive idea that this time the narcissist will be different. This time he will hug me and hold me and tell me how much he loves me. This time he will apologize for all the ways he hurt me. I know logically none of this is going to happen, but the little girl's heart is always full of hopeful innocence. And as far as my relationship with my father is concerned I have stayed a child.

Until now...

This weekend I accepted the terms of endearment. I gave myself wholly to the Void. I fell fearlessly into dark feathered arms and landed in a world were the perspective is upside down...the sky is below and the trees grow above me...and suddenly it all makes sense. I hang myself up on the relationship because I am growing my Soul. I am cultivating balance and temperance. I am learning to pick myself up, spread my wings, and fly. 

All these years I have been falling. Time after time I'd fall into the trap and cry. I'd find comfort in the people who love me in a way that lifts me up again. And now I get up on my own. This was the second synchronicity.

The third was this:

"Priestess of the Void"

The words represent the first lesson from an on-line course by Renee Starr. Consecration follows initiation. It feels una-void-able and perfectly timed.

Dear Soul-Lights,

As this season comes to an end, I'm thankful for the time of darkness and look forward to the beginning of a new cycle as December Solstice approaches. From Samhain on the Feminine has gone on an inward quest, a Lunar quest, where She gestated the Inner Light and spiraled inward. By the early morning hours of Tuesday in our Northern Hemisphere, She will symbolically rebirth the Light once again, as She does every year, and the cycle will begin anew. 

I've been working with my own Lunar consciousness - Moon cycles, dreams, shadow, body symbology, Tarot, my Soul's creative expression through writing. And I've worked with two Goddesses - Sulis and Freya - very different energies which I feel created a vital balance.

From Sulis, the Goddess of Healing Springs, I learned to honor my feelings in a deeper way by sensing more how they flow through my body. My body informs my feelings, and my feelings inform my body. When I listen, I am whole. 

From Freya, the Norse Goddess of Love and War, I've learned to acknowledge how these two opposing forces play out in my inner life. They both take skill...and wisdom to know what's required and when...for now. 

I will continue to honor my Lunar consciousness, of course, but I look forward to how it will shift and integrate with the soft winter radiance of Sol. I intend to quest for the Feminine Solar energy as well as the Masculine in ways that are supportive and sustainable for all of Life. I believe the culture of patriarchal ways of being in the world are coming to an end...at the very least within my own psyche. All relationships and experiences that I am involved with will reflect this and I will endeavor to express this truth in hopes of nurturing a transformative process within and without. 

I give thanks to all of you who read my 'chicken scratch'. I say that with affection, as I often feel like a broody hen when I sit down to write. I make a little nest for myself and Emily, my cat usually joins me, which makes it difficult to find a place for the computer as they both want my lap. 

This blog is not about passing on more info, or promoting something, or sharing what someone else has written. It's about participating the act of creation. I see us all creating wholeness and moving together in synch with the most loving intentions. 

Con mucho Amor!

draws from the well

Freya's Necklace

Everyday I go on a Medicine Walk. I call it that because I usually walk alone and use the time to practice walking meditation, or listen to talks regarding things of a spiritual nature. During my walks something seemingly inconsequential, but extraordinary nevertheless, usually happens and today was no exception.

I walked listening to a talk regarding the Goddess Freya. I was surprised to learn of this story regarding the Norse Goddess of Love and War about a gold and amber necklace she considered her most beautiful possession. This necklace was a piece made by four dwarves that she paid for by granting each a day and night solely in her company. To acquire it Freya had to leave Valhalla and travel to Earth, her childhood home, across the Rainbow Bridge that spans the two realms. The acquisition speaks of a return to her origins and the reclamation of the source of Freya's power and magic. For this reason the necklace was later stolen by one of the other god's of the Norse pantheon and Freya had to go to war to retrieve it.

As I listened to the speaker recount how she had re-enacted this story in Sacred Drama and Ceremony, I suddenly recalled a necklace that I just recently put away because it had become a poignant reminder of loss. My necklace is not amber, but it is made of chestnut and amber colored stones. The speaker described how she had participants take apart a necklace that no longer served to remind them of love, and then reassemble the necklace in a way that symbolized their coming through an experience transformed. 

As I continued to walk deep in thought, I tried to imagine taking apart my necklace and redesigning it but, in my imagination, it refused to come apart. It was precisely at that moment that the ordinary became the extraordinary.

In my mind's eye, Freya appeared and surprised me by saying, "You earned the necklace, dear one, and paid the price. Now look to the sky for the symbol of transformation you seek."

In the twilight, the last light of the setting sun still brightened the mountains. On this cool and breezy autumn day a Hawk drifted across the sky tilting it's body one way then another. The movement showed first the amber colored underbelly, then, as it tilted the other way, it's sepia wings shone like burnished gold. The Hawk's tail blazed red like a flame fanned by a sudden gust of wind. 

I stopped walking awed by the beauty of this messenger and gazed through moist eyes as the Hawk slipped further away towards the mountains. In that instant I felt transformed. The thought of the necklace no longer evoked a sense of loss but of appreciation for the hours of dedication I had given in service through embodying the teachings of the Sacred Feminine. The Hawk, one of my Medicine Animals, reminds me that I am not alone as I continue forth along the Spiral Path reclaiming the freedom to fully own the power of the inner wisdom that is my birthright. 

It is said that Freya is a Goddess who loves to come unbidden. I thank Her for gracing me me today with the magic of love and healing.

The Third Gate

The night sky is beautiful in it's starry mystery, and even more so when I learn how the planets tell story after story. Mythic tales are taking place all night, in moonlit or moonless sky. The stories unfold while we sleep. The Wise Ones of old listened and took care to write it down for us. Those who want to awaken get up, peer through sleepy eyes, and listen to the ancient wisdom.

A Goddess has been descending.

Venus, as the Morning Star, enacts the tale of Inanna, passing through 7 Gates on her way down through the depths of the Mother. She goes to visit Ereshkigal who presides over the Underworld. Up to last Saturday, November 7, She had previously gone through two Gates, but this one representing the Throat Chakra, is often one that proves most difficult. Like a bottle neck, psychic debris accumulates here and we can find the path is congested with resentments and regrets.

The descent is an initiatory right of passage that all are welcomed to participate in through meditation and journeying. Through Venus, Inanna shares the timeline of her descent story with us, collectively and individually, so that while we experience common themes, the personal journey is unique onto each.

Soul Journey ~ I stand at the Gate. It is liminal space. It is a threshold. Once I step through, who I once was I will no longer be. I don't stand alone however, a dream figure holding sheaves of wheat is by my side.

The Gate is magnificent made of wrought iron adorned with golden triskeles. It's impossibly large as it reachers almost as tall as the incense cedars and deodars surrounding it. It appears to guard a palatial estate in what Shamans refer to as the Lower World.

I wait for it to open. Nothing happens.

I come closer and pound on it. Still nothing happens.

I speak to it...call to Her, or anyone who might hear. Still nothing.

I wonder if I'm focusing enough, or if I'm doing something that keeps the Gate from opening to me.

Because it won't open I start to look around for another way of entry. The dream figure is waiting patiently seemingly unconcerned and not offering anything by way of suggestions.

After sometime a small wood door appears down at the bottom of the grand Gate. It's very narrow, and very low to the ground. I reach for the small handle and the door opens easily. I peek through with one eye but see nothing. Getting through this tiny door is another story. Remember Alice? But there's no potion, or rabbit. There's only the dream figure waiting.

Back in ordinary reality, I get up off the ground where I am meditating and physically enact the journey. By embodying the difficulty, the bewildering puzzle, I live my question 'how do I get through?' After a few minutes of enacting my own inner journey, I suddenly feel an inner 'karplunk' as if something internal has fallen, and an unpleasant experience that has been bothering me comes to mind. I resist the urge to complain. In this sacred space I listen quietly. My Soul wordlessly reveals the truth of the matter: I need to let go of all the ways I have not listened to my inner voice. I need to accept that what looks like rejection is truly protection. I need to trust that a bounty of love and creativity is available to me for the asking. Following the story of Inanna, I know it is now time to symbolize these insights by taking off my necklace, symbol of the Throat Chakra.

A slow trembling takes over my body like a pleasant hum. I recognize it as personal power returning.

I get it - I needed to empower myself through this letting go so I can move forward on my own quest.

The dream figure hands me the sheaves of wheat - the promise of bounty - and they become part of who I am.

The little wood door closes just at the moment that an intrepid little Mouse sneaks through, and the 3rd Gate opens just wide enough to let me pass.