Lily Rose,
Dark, deep pearl.
A gem rendered in tumultuous waters.
Of the many things I'd like to pop in Steve O's mouth, words are not one of them. Therefore what follows are the happy flotsom and jetsom of my wandering mind.
I do not believe in this punishing aspect. I do believe that the modern world has lost an awareness of the healing capacity of the dark and so we equate it with evil, destruction, loss and in this case, punishment. Our higher brains will perhaps always live at odds with our reptilian core, but there is a beautiful redemption (and evolutionary boon) implicit in reclaiming not only our personal shadows but our cultural ones too.
What we lack are the rites and rituals that honour every aspect of the life and death cycle. Push morality to one side, call upon your wisdom and compassion, for you are a consort of The Great Goddess. In her dark aspect call her Lilith, Erishkigal, Morgana, Baba Yuga, the Black Madonna, Hekate, Kali, Durga...
The cycles of Virgin, Mother, Crone and Death are constant. Nothing can prevent this turning.
You and I and the sweet souls who gather here in some way understand that we are not alone in a cold universe, that there is soul beyond the self, that war yields opposites and that death and sex are the most beautiful of mysteries and precursors of rebirth.
Let us forgive Freud and his followers their misogynistic bias and the morality it inevitably invites.
You are Woman.
You are underworld and earth and sea and sky.
You, my dear Lily Rose, are more alive with Natural intelligence than the writers whose thinking you follow.
I adore the sweet tension of your unfolding and I cherish the healing you give and give and give.
The stillness and the watchfulness and the questing to follow words that at times made great sense, and at other times left me adrift without a strong tether ... you've gathered my confusion into a spiral that twists upon itself, twists again, and springs forth with a completely new vision. The stillness ripples, unstilled.
I feel the salty place of tears, not just the surface tears in the eyes, but the origin. That place that has remained so elusive, you've cast open the doorway to that beautiful, grieving place.
I know of the Virgin, the untouched so deeply protected within me, and the Mother, the need to nurture and protect, and I am awakening into the Crone, the woman of such life-experiences and grief. Death, death is a friend, awaiting with patience until I finish my life-path.
Morgana .... a revelation of a name, gifted from a dream. This I will share. In 1980, early May, I dreamt of a volcanic eruption. The mountain nearest was Mt. Rainier, so it was in my dream, my great mountain spewed ash. It confused me, as I was unaware that mountains erupted with anything other than lava. Within two weeks, Mt. Saint Helen's erupted, and a week later, rained ash upon our home. Many years later, while unpacking into the new home my husband had purchased for us, I found a journal with this dream ... and the other aspect of this dream was also written to this paper. Within the same dream of ash raining, my last name had become Morgan. I took this piece of paper to my husband, my proof. I had forgotten. Like so many of my memories, this, too, had fallen into darkness. I have carried his last name close to my heart for over 25 years.
When there is talk of the dark side, of anger and hate and violent thoughts .... this has not coincided with the darkness that stirs in me.
The warm-darkness. This is the unity, the perfection of our being. Life and Death in an endless cycle. This is what I seek.
with love, grace and gratitude,
^_^