"The Hands of Spider Woman" .... Excerpt from "A WEBBED VISION"

What might we see, how might we act, if  we saw with a webbed vision? 

The world seen through a web of relationships…as delicate as spider’s silk, 

yet strong enough to hang a bridge on.” 

Catherine Keller, Theologian

 From a Broken Web 

I began this Blog in 2007 when I went to Michigan on a Fellowship with Aldon B. Dow Creativity Center and Northwood University.  The basis for my Fellowship was a personal and Community Arts Project I developed based on the ubiquitous Native American "Legends of the Spider Woman". .... a mythic Presence throughout the Americas that has called to me for many years.  My quest to "follow the trail of Spider Woman" has been fraught with beauty, synchronicities, and many conversations with kindred souls.  

The Dictionary defines an "archetype" as: 

"the original pattern or model from which all things of the same kind are copied or on which they are based; a model or first form; prototype.  (in Jungian psychology) a collectively inherited unconscious idea, pattern of thought, image, etc., universally present in individual psyches."

I suppose the mythic and conversant intimacy I feel with "Spider Woman" could thus be explained, by a psychologist,  as the 'presence of a universal archetype that has inspired me'.  I do live in the Southwest, and pentimentoes of the earlier Native American cultures are ever beneath the surface.  I tend to think that "archetypes" are not just psychological patterns, but that they  have a primal life of their own, and they grow and change through time and culture.  Even saying that, it doesn't quite ring true for me.  Spider Woman has been a mentor and guiding intelligence for me, and She has an important message for us all in this time.   She, in my opinion, is not confined to any one culture or time or interpretation - She is simply too big for that!

Spider Woman (called by the Keresan Pueblo people Tse Che Nako, "Thought Woman") is an  archetype that occurs, with many variations,  from the Mayan Earth Mother to the Spider and Cross symbol found among early Mississippian Mound Builders to the Great Weaver of the Navajo, and a Creatrix figure among  the Pueblo peoples.

The Mayan and Hopi Calendars ended in 2012, signalling the end of the Fourth Age and the  advent of the Fifth Age.   Among  Pueblo legends it is Spider Woman who comes at the end of each Age to lead the "new people" through the Kiva hole (which might be seen as a birth canal) into the next World. 
 

"Kiva at Spruce Tree House" by Adam Baker

I believe She calls to us now, across the ages and across human cultures, to remember that we also are "making the world with the stories we tell", and that at the core of the New Story that MUST ARISE for us to survive into the next Age there is the profound truth of the unity and  inter-dependency of  all life.  The "Great Web" that lies beneath and above and within every manifestation.  

Perhaps the World Wide Web, within which I write, is Her latest appearance......

I've just begun to return to that body of work I did recently, to the many many images I have done over the years that are Woven, Rooted, Webbed..........and I find I do not speak this woven language alone, I have many, many colleagues who are also "Spider Woman's grandchildren".    Among my archives I  found a short excerpt from  a performance piece with two "voices" I wrote some 12 years ago, and never developed.........but I felt like sharing it here.

There is a simple Loom on stage. Long threads extend in various ways from the Loom, some disappearing off stage.  A woman sits musing at the loom.  

Weaver (Voice 1):

At the very very very very very
small quantum level
it gets strange, very strange indeed.

It seems that particles, the playful dust motes of eternity,
can be both solid, and not solid
particles, and waves,
form and not form
Depending upon where the observer is,
who the observer is,
and what the observer is thinking.

Form, it would seem, has an identity crisis.



Voice 2 (off stage, unseen):

Tse che nako
Thought-Woman,
is sitting and thinking as she weaves.

She thought about her two daughters
and together they created this world
and the four worlds below.

The spider, Thought-Woman,
named all things
and as she named them
they appeared. She is thinking of a story now
and the story I'm telling you
she is thinking
as I'm telling you

Weaver (Voice 1):

Water, Dr. Masuru Emoto has discovered,
Is talking to us all the time.
We can learn to listen he says
by freezing water, 
and observing what happens to the crystals that form

"Water", he writes, "exposed to the words "thank you"
 formed beautiful geometric crystals, no matter what language was spoken. 
But water exposed to "you fool" and other degrading words
resulted in broken and deformed crystals."

What's a word, but a crystallization of a thought?

Last night I wrote "thank you" on my water bottle
with a magic marker
I am drinking gratitude now


Voice 2 (off stage, unseen)

Tsityostinako the Spider was called
"thought woman" by Pueblo people
because they believe Her thoughts 
are always becoming something.

Tsityostinako lives
at the empty  Center of the Web
singing  the world into being
with the stories She tells.  

"Your father", she told her daughters,
"lives in the Sky, 
but we live here, in the land and in the red  clay,
and among the leaves, and the night,
and the day, and the animals, and those who fly,
and swim, in all the peoples of the worlds."

Then She taught Her daughters how to sing.

"Here's a basket for each of you", She said,
"filled with seeds, and little pictures of animals.
Go plant what's in each basket
at the four quarters of the world,
and everywhere in between."

And that's how her granddaughters the Yellow Women
were born, along with corn and mesquite and coyotes,
and that's how Sun Youth,
and Spider woman's grandsons
the Warrior Twins were born.
And ravens, and wrens,
and eagles and mice
and how all this world
become populated.

Weaver (Voice 1):

Grandmother Spider can be so small,
like a spider, very difficult to see.
Each strand She spins is so transparent
so invisible,
you'll never see it
unless you learn to look
in a certain way.

So small and yet  everywhere
always there, maybe, whispering in the wind,
on your shoulder, even  now, as you ask
these questions with an open heart. 
Always there, talking,
trying to help Her grandchildren.


Voice 2 (off stage, unseen)

She is sitting in her room now,
thinking up a good story,
an old story, 
a New Story:

I'm telling you
the story 
She is thinking.

"Belly Hill" - Gobekli Tepe, The Birthplace of Western Civilization?

Since posting about the Bosnian Pyramids, I received an email from my friend Susan about another megalithic mystery I was not aware of,  the buried temples of Turkey, Gobekli Tepe,  a ceremonial  landscape that may very well be 12,000 years old.  Gobekli Tepe  means  "Belly Hill" or "Hill With A Navel".   According to Wikipedia, 

"Göbekli Tepe is the oldest, human-made religious structure yet discovered. The site is located on a hilltop, and contains 20 round, (now) subterranean structures, four of which have currently been excavated. Each building has a diameter of 10–30 meters, and is decorated with massive (mostly) T-shaped limestone pillars that are the most striking feature of the site.  That neolithic people with such primitive flint tools quarried, carved, transported uphill, and erected these massive pillars has astonished the archaeological world, and must have required a staggering amount of manpower and labor.  In the structures, two pillars were placed in the center of each circle, possibly to help support the roof, and up to eight pillars were evenly positioned around the walls of the room.  Many of the pillars are decorated with carved reliefs of animals and of abstract enigmatic pictograms. The pictograms may represent commonly understood sacred symbols, as known from Neolithic cave paintings elsewhere."  Wikipedia

The structures on this site were built about 12,000 years ago (10,000BC) during the last ice age,  and intentionally buried about 8,000 years ago. No one knows who these people were, what the massive buildings were for, or  why they were buried. After 13 years of work only an estimated 5% has been uncovered.  Amazing........pyramids in Bosnia, and stone circles in Turkey, of such great antiquity.***

Turkey is near the area called the Fertile Crescent, until recently regarded as home to the earliest human civilizations of Mesopotamia, the "Cradle of Civilization".  These lands now so disturbed by conflict, revolution, war  and the struggle for  diminishing reserves of oil ,  the source of power for our civilization......are also the homeland of the ancient Great Mother, the lands of Innana, Ishtar, Astarte, Lilith, and the Shekinah, the feminine face of God in Judaism. 

As so often happens, a synchronicity, a thread from the Great Web,was thrown my way when I received an email from a colleague, Israeli artist Dorit Bat Shalom, inviting me to join a group of artists exploring peacemaking in the Mideast on the same page with Susan's link to "Belly Hill".  What came to mind immediately was a conversation Dorit and I had long ago, a conversation that has a resonance for me with this mysterious site. 

We were speaking of  the degradation of the feminine throughout western culture, religion, language.  When even God is gendered male to the exclusion of the other half of the human psyche, and further, defined primarily as a warrior god,  we are split and divided.  Humanity is divided against itself, and the Mother archetype is degraded.   Speaking beyond politics to an ancient wound,  Dorit asked,  

"How can there ever be peace without the Shekinah?  The Shekinah, the Goddess,  has been driven away from the holy lands. We  can not heal without Her."  

The Goddess has many faces - the Trilogy of Maiden, Mother, Crone, the Divine Feminine, the Dark Goddess, and Mother Earth.  Archeologist Marija Gimbutas pointed out the cultural bias of our time when she suggested that so called "fertility fetishes" (read that "paleolithic pornography") such as the famous Venus of Willendorf were not

 just fetishes, but probably represented instead the prime Deity, the "Great Mother".   Here is the immeasurably ancient womb/tomb idea, the original source of burial ritual, as well as death/rebirth ordeals of being buried alive  in shamanic societies.  New life, the primal mystery,  our ancestors observed, comes from women,  thus, life comes from Mother Earth as well, and returns to her womb again for rebirth. The Belly of the Mother.

Once again, one can only ask in awe, why would ancient peoples go to such difficulty to create vast megalithic ceremonial structures, charting and coursing the land with circles, pyramids,  avenues, creating sacred landscapes that were, perhaps, hundreds of years in the making, and thousands of years in use?  Gobekli Tepe, and possibly the pyramid complex being discovered in Bosnia, make Stonehenge, and Avebury, and the strange Callenish stones of the Hebrides.....seem modern.  Still, there seems a continuity.  I speculate that these sacred landscapes  were sited with a knowledge of, and reverence for,  the energies of the earth, the  geo-magnetic and spiritual forces.  They sited them to contain and utilize the "Geomantic Source"  for their spiritual life, which might very well have included the primal mystery or enactment of the   birth-death-rebirth cycle ( a relatively "recent" example of this was the Eleusinian Mysteries which lasted some 2,000 years, and whose origins may go back to Minoan, and even Neolithic times. ****)  The site's Turkish  name,  which means  "Belly Hill" or "Hill With A Navel"  is an interesting coincidence  when one considers this so ancient site in the "cradle of civilization".  "Navel of the World"......certainly, a site with revered circled enclosures,  which could have imitated the circles of planetary, seasonal life, perhaps, the round womb of the earth Mother.   Perhaps, a complex dedicated to the first and most ancient of human rites, coupled with an experiential understanding of the power of earth energies that we need to reclaim.   

"Ancestral Midwives" (2009)

The author of one of the articles about Gobekli Tepe  I read made some (annoying) conjectures about the "Garden of Eden". 

("Do these mysterious stones mark the site of the Garden of Eden?"

By Tom Knox   Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1157784/Do-mysterious-stones-mark-site-Garden-Eden.html#ixzz1eRkv1W6r)

I wish mythology was a part of all curriculum, because so few people take the time to explore some of the origins of the very mythologies that inform our culture and religions.  But then, people don't like to have their myths disturbed, because, after all, it's quite disturbing.  You just might end up having to change your worldview!

Long before there was a "Garden of Eden, original sin, or snakes that seduced Eve and hence left her responsible for all the miseries of mankind" there was the Great Mother and Her circular rites.  Gimbutas has suggested that before the Goddess was even personified as Hathor, or Isis, or Inanna,  She was the mysterious place and force of birth and death, Mother Earth. 

In Biblical lore, the snake is "Eve-ill".  Sometimes the evil snake is personified as Lilith, the shadow Goddess who is a temptress in the Tree of Life, talking Eve into disobeying God.  When Patrick drove the snakes from Ireland, he drove out the earlier Druidic religion, and their reverence for the magical forces of nature.  But what is the snake in antiquity, why is this symbol so very  ubiquitous, once sacred, then with the advent of Patriarchal religions, profane?  In ancient Egypt we see the snake mounted at the forehead (the third eye or vision center) of all images of gods, goddesses, and royalty.  In fact the most ancient word for "goddess"  in Egypt was the same word as that for cobra. 

The snake (sometimes represented as dragons)  represents the sinuous, serpentine, moving energies of the earth - which move across the land like the passage of the wind, the  passage of water currents, like rivers undulating across a plain.  Since apparently early cultures always identify the Earth with the feminine, with the Great Mother and Her womb/tomb/rebirth cycle - hence the relationship between goddess and snake.  I believe the snake was also identified with geomagnetic phenomena, the leys and  invisible movements or currents of esoteric earth energies.

It may well be that we lost "Eden" not for disobeying  the rather arbitrary rules of a God who often displayed a bad temper, but rather, when human consciousness changed, along with the mythic structures that supported culture.  What might the ancients teach us now, in the 11th Hour of a civilization that is not sustainable, and has lost its primal reverence for the Great Mother, for Gaia? 

Sheela.................  think of the "goddess shaped " temples of Malta....................

*****

"Eleusis" probably derives from a pre-Greek (Cretan)  Goddess of Childbirth, Eileithyia or Ilithyia who was adopted into Greek religion.  "According to some authors her name does not have an Indo-European etymology, which for R. F. Willets strengthens her link with Minoan culture. "The links between Eileithyia, an earlier Minoan goddess, and a still earlier Neolithic prototype are, relatively, firm," Willets wrote. "The explanation is as simple as it is important. The continuity of her cult depends upon the unchanging concept of her function. Eileithyia was the goddess of childbirth; and the divine helper of women in labour has an obvious origin in the human midwife".  Wikipedia

***

I never rains but it pours, and another friend brought to my attention another possibly 12,000 year old monument complex, discovered off the coast of Japan.  What do we really know of  history? 

"Invocation for Mabon" by Robin Williamson

Brushwood 2016 by Theresa Guzman

The Equinox approaches, the bright and darkening liminal day of Balance.  I thought this morning of this poem by the wonderful Scottish Bard Robin Williamson, as I also remembered so many sweet memories of Fall back east, moonlight in Vermont, fallen apples in rural New York, drinking mead with friends as we celebrated Mabon.  

One of my first ritual performances was an event devoted to the Great Mother, organized by my friend Farusha, in New York City.  It took place in a "black box" theatre in the East Village, but what I brought to share with the audience was a basket of apples I found lying in the green grass around an apple tree in upstate, rural New York.  To see those fallen apples was the utter truth of the great Generosity of Gaia, of our Mother Earth, always given.  After I finished my performance I told the story of the apples I gathered, and offered them.   I expected very few of that sophisticated urban audience would take any - to my great surprise, they took every one, and ate them right there in the theatre.

There was a time when humans thought of themselves as part of the Community of life - when they negotiated with the animals and the elementals, when they listened to the voices of the trees and the medicine plants, when they thanked the buffalo for their sacrifice, when they joined in the great Song of life, a part of the chorus.  We urgently must reclaim this en-chanted paradigm, and I feel Robin Williamson's beautiful poem so fully captures that vision.

With great gratitude, may the Day of Balance bring Balance into all our lives.

You that create the diversity of the forms:

Open to my words
You that divide it and multiply it

Hear my sounds

Ancient associates and fellow wanderers
You that move the heart in fur and scale

I join with you

You that sing bright and subtle
Making shapes 
that my throat cannot tell

You that harden the horn
And make quick the eye

You that run the fast fox 
and the zigzag fly

You sizeless makers of the mole
And of the whale:  aid me and I will aid you

You that lift the blossom
and the green branch
You who make symmetries more true

Who dance in slower time

Who watch the patterns

You rough coated
Who eat water

Who stretch deep and high
With your green blood
My red blood 

let it be mingled

Aid me and I will aid you

I call upon you

You who are unconfined
Who have no shape
Who are not seen

But only in your action
I will call upon you

You who have no depth
But choose direction

Who bring what is willed
That you blow love
upon the summers of my loved ones
That you blow summers
 upon those loves of my love


Aid me and I will aid you

I make a pact with you

You who are the liquid
Of the waters
And the spark of the flame:

I call upon you

You who make fertile the soft earth
And guard the growth of the growing things
I make peace with you

You who are the blueness of the blue sky
And the wrath of the storm
I take the cup with you

Earth shakers

And with you
the sharp and the hollow hills
I make reverence to you

Round wakefulness 

We call the Earth

I make wide eyes to you

You who are awake

Every created thing
both solid and sleepy
Or airy light,
I weave colors 'round you

You who will come with me

I will consider it Beauty

I will consider it

Beauty, beauty

by Robin Williamson 

Published by  WARLOCK MUSIC, LTD.

https://youtu.be/7xvIDX9gKhg

Martin Gray and the Spirit of Place

 "I experienced contact with something or someone sentient and much greater than my individual self. I had experienced contact, even momentary communion, with the "essence" of what could be called a transpersonal presence. Afterwards I was told by the local shaman or caretaker that I had met with the guardian spirit of the place.....Pilgrim Martin Gray described a (similar) unification experience he had while attending a Shinto religious festival."

Debra D. Carroll "From Huacas to Mesas"
DIALOGUES WITH THE LIVING EARTH, James and Roberta Swan (1989)

I have been thinking again about my Pilgrimage to sacred places of Southern England last year, and thinking about the Sanctity of  place in general.  In light of the terrible destruction that is now going on, the destruction of the Amazon, of the Arctic temperate forests, of the forests of Africa, thinking of the ignorance and greed that is fueling this................and thinking about the numinous, intelligent, living  sense of "presence" I have experienced so many times in nature, and in particular in power places.  

I have a book (which I greatly value and have on display) by  Martin Gray, who spent some twenty years of his life visiting sacred places around the world as an international  pilgrim. ( I take the liberty of sharing below an article from his amazing book, SACRED EARTH.**)

I myself have experienced things "paranormal" at places of power, inexplicable experiences that include heightened energy, dowsing rods that go crazy or "helicopter", orbs, strange photographs, dreams, visions, and other phenomena.  Some of those places, if I pause to consider, influenced me to make changes in my life that were  significant. 

"The Lady of Avalon" (artist unknown)

 
When I climbed the Tor in Glastonbury,  I remember that  all my photos were oddly infused with violet light.....which is the color   associated with the Lady of Avalon, the "Numina" or Genus Loci of Glastonbury. My camera hasn't taken "purple photos" before or since. 

I remember when I was living with with my former husband in upstate New York in the 90's. Where we lived was a rural area rapidly being built up with industry. One of the mysterious places in the area, to me at least, was a field I used to visit. To get to that field, which bordered our property, one had to go through a kind of obstacle course - you crossed an old stone wall, immediately ran into a rusted barbed wire fence, and then tramped through a barrier of poison ivy, grape vines and small trees.

Braving all of this, a beautiful field appeared.  Bordered on all sides by trees, you could stand there in the tall grass, or the snow, and see nothing of the warehouses or homes nearby. It felt, oddly, as if it was somehow protected, as if you entered a special, quiet, mysterious place. The land had obviously once been worked, but it had been left fallow for many years, and in the center  of the field, if you looked, was a  "fairy circle". Small trees, bushes, even tall grasses formed a surprisingly visible circle. With my divining rods, I found there was a ley crossing in that exact spot - the rod "helicoptered" and whirled.

We  were actively involved in Earth based spiritual practices, and my ex  facilitated an enthusiastic  men's group. One night when the moon was full the group, energized by drumming, decided to visit the field. There was snow on the ground, and as the young men strode to the stone wall, something pushed two of them into the snow! Being young, they got up and chose to go forward again - and something  pushed both of them backwards once more! They fell on their behinds in the snow! This was apparently enough moonlit strangeness for everyone, and the group  turned around and went home. 

The next day, we took offerings to the edge of the field. I remember placing crystals and flowers on a stone, and as I did, I felt such an overwhelming sense of sorrow that tears ran down my face. I believe I was feeling the sorrow of the guardian spirit of that place.  It was a very intense feeling, and sadly, a  year later there was an oil spill in a nearby truck depot, and the wetlands that bordered "the Field" suffered tremendous ecological damage, and a big tree we associated with our "Green Man" died.

I don't know what the "meaning" of this experience was, except that I and my former husband experienced communion with an intelligence of nature that belonged to that special place.  Perhaps it was the "Guardian" of that place?  The Numina that cared for it, the spirit that sensed the advance of industry that would destroy the beauty and ecological balance that was there?  I can't know, I only remember what I recount in this story.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Non-corporeal Beings: 

The mysterious influences of spirits, devas and angelic beings associated with sacred sites

by Martin Gray

Sages and seers from antiquity have repeatedly remarked that the dimension we see with our physical eyes is not the only dimension of existence. Many other realms exist and within them a variety of beings, spirits, energies and entities. Traditional peoples the world over have spoken of the existence of these presences, calling them such names as elves, gnomes, leprechauns, devas, fairies, genies and ghosts.

Since time immemorial humans have sought contact with these unseen forces. Shamanic practitioners communicate with the spirits of animals, ancestors and the plant world. Psychics, clairvoyants and mediums conduct séances to speak with entities from nonvisible realms. Religious mystics affirm the presence of angels, deities and other heavenly beings. Whatever we choose to call these entities, and however we attempt to explain them, it is certain that something mysterious is happening in dimensions other than those perceptible by our normal senses of sight, hearing, touch and smell.

These mysterious presences seem to be especially concentrated at the power places and sacred sites. In some holy places, particularly those of remote forest and desert tribes, these unseen presences are the sole focus of ritual activities. No Christian church or Buddhist temple will be found there, only a small shrine indicating the abode of some nature spirit. In the world's more celebrated pilgrimage shrines, these presences receive less acknowledgment than the primary religious deities. While the presence of the unseen forces usually long precedes the arrival of the historical religion that now maintains the pilgrimage shrine, those forces are frequently denied, dismissed, demonized or given only marginal importance. In the temples of Burma where we find great monuments to the Buddhist faith surrounded by small shrines dedicated to a host of pre-Buddhist spirits called Nats. In the Christian churches of Europe, Britain and Ireland flow springs long ago dedicated to pagan earth goddesses. And in the courtyards of enormous south Indian temples stand numerous small shrines housing various spirits called yakshas, nagas and asuras.

These unseen forces may affect pilgrims without their having any knowledge of the forces, or they may purposely be summoned to appear by the performance of ritual actions and invocations. Traditional rituals practiced at many shrines are potent, time-honored methods for invoking various spirit forces. Such methods are not the only way to summon the mysterious powers. Focused mental intention is an effective method of invocation, and prayer and meditation are the tools of spirit communication.

It is beneficial to first learn something about the nature or character of the spirit entities that inhabit a sacred site. Reading guidebooks concerning the mythology and archaeology of the site or questioning shrine administrators and priests are good approaches. The unseen forces will be described in terms such as spirits, devas or angels. These terms are simply metaphors for the actual character or personality of the forces. These terms also serve as metaphorical representations indicating how the forces will psychologically and physiologically affect human beings. Next, carefully consider the character of the unseen forces dwelling at a sacred site - this important point should not be lightly dismissed. Those forces may have either beneficial or disturbing effects on different people. Invocation of unseen forces at sacred sites is a powerful practice. It is important to exercise caution lest unwanted forces be admitted into an individual's personal energy field.

Martin Gray

The Chalice Well,  Glastonbury

"There is an earth-based energy available to human beings, concentrated at specific places all across the planet, which catalyzes and increases this eco-spiritual consciousness. These specific places are the sacred sites discussed and illustrated on this web site. Before their prehistoric human use, before their usurpation by different religions, these sites were simply places of power. They continue to radiate their powers, which anyone may access by visiting the sacred sites. No rituals are necessary, no practice of a particular religion, no belief in a certain philosophy; all that is needed is for an individual human to visit a power site and simply be present. As the flavor of herbal tea will steep into warm water, so also will the essence of these power places enter into one’s heart and mind and soul. As each of us awakens to a fuller knowing of the universality of life, we in turn further empower the global field of eco-spiritual consciousness. That is the deeper meaning and purpose of these magical holy places: they are source points of the power of spiritual illumination."

Martin Gray

 

** Sacred Earth is written and photographed by Martin Gray and is the culmination of twenty-five years of travel to hundreds of sacred sites in more than one hundred countries.  Gray’s stunning photographs and fascinating text provide unique insight into why these powerful holy places are the most venerated and visited sites on the entire planet. Maps adapted from the National Geographic Society show the locations of all the sites presented, and a thorough appendix includes a comprehensive list of over 500 of the world’s sacred sites.  The book can be purchased from the author on his website:  www.sacredsites.com

"Now I Become Myself" by May Sarton

TODAY I enter my 7th Decade.  And this Poem by May Sarton seems entirely appropriate.  Circling around, I have found,  "There is time and Time is young."

Now I Become Myself

Now I become myself. It’s taken
Time, many years and places;
I have been dissolved and shaken,
Worn other people’s faces,
Run madly, as if Time were there,
Terribly old, crying a warning,
‘Hurry, you will be dead before-’

(What? Before you reach the morning?
Or the end of the poem is clear?
Or love safe in the walled city?)

Now to stand still, to be here,
Feel my own weight and density!
The black shadow on the paper
Is my hand; the shadow of a word
As thought shapes the shaper
Falls heavy on the page, is heard.

All fuses now, falls into place
From wish to action, word to silence,
My work, my love, my time, my face
Gathered into one intense
Gesture of growing like a plant.
As slowly as the ripening fruit
Fertile, detached, and always spent,
Falls but does not exhaust the root,
So all the poem is, can give,
Grows in me to become the song,
Made so and rooted by love.

Now there is time and Time is young.
O, in this single hour I live
All of myself and do not move.
I, the pursued, who madly ran,
Stand still, stand still, and stop the sun!

May Sarton

                          

Psychic Vampires, Empaths and Energy Theft

I've come to believe, experientially  more than conceptually,  that mind is more than the physical body and brain, and that we are far more connected with each other, and our planet,  than we can imagine. We are  very permeable, indeed we have to be so, because we are constantly exchanging life force with the planet and everyone who has ever lived with every breath we take; exchanging energy and information with each step we take and every word we utter. The exchange and negotiation of energy is the fundamental dance of life.

Most people value empathy, the ability to sense and often emotionally experience, or resonate with, what others are feeling.   Empathic individuals are usually compassionate people, sensitives who often become healers, teachers, and profound listeners.  Highly empathic people have excellent "antennas" - if they have experience and discernment, they can scan the emotional and psychic environment  and determine what is going on beneath the surface.  If they don't, they can  absorb energy that is not their own unwittingly.   I believe this skill of discernment takes time to mature, and an empathic child or unskilled person can often become overwhelmed.  Because being empathic can also be detrimental, overwhelming, and even life threatening, and is one of the reasons sensitive people often become alcoholics or recluses in order to "tune out the noise".  Highly empathic people, what Dr. Judith Orloff calls "intuitive empaths", can be like velcro - everything sticks to them.  

People are always discharging emotional energy. Children scream in anger, cry in frustration, and laugh with pleasure when their needs are met, and so do adults, if not always as obviously. Sometimes it's absolutely necessary to tell our stories, to have our pain witnessed by compassionate others in order to change, to "fore-give", to let go of the trauma and move fore-ward in our lives.  But some people have become addicted to dumping negative emotional energy on others, and they can leave an empathic individual drained, or feeling scattered and crazy from absorbing their energy.  This can be true of collective energies as well. 

I don't like the term "psychic vampires" because of its judgemental terminology.  It implies that dreadful, inhuman people are stalking the streets, ready to suck up all of your lifeforce, when the fact is, most of us have at various times in our lives been draining or exhausting.    Sometimes people are energy draining because they are, in Buddhist terms, unskillful in their understanding of how to manage their own energy systems, in how to manage their thoughts and social interactions in other words.  Many people are energetically exhausting because they have become addicted to complaining, or have adopted a "victim" life stance, which can be addictive as well as socially supported.   Carolyn Myss spoke about what she called a "culture of woundology" as a related issue.   

Some people have learned, as children, negative ways of achieving attention, which is a form of energy theft if it's not willingly given.  I had an acquaintance I worked with who could be absolutely relentless in demanding attention, to the point where otherwise calm, poised people would "lose it" around him.  Including me.........one day I found myself screaming at him at the top of my lungs.  It was at that moment I noticed he was smiling blissfully - and I painfully saw, briefly,  a small child who had found the only way he knew to get attention. 

And many people are just plain worn out, ill, grieving, troubled by misfortune,  or elderly, and haven't got a lot of personal energy.  That doesn't make them "vampires".  That often makes them people in need of a little understanding and kindness.

True psychic vampires are rare.  Most of those are people who emotionally or physically can't generate their own energy.  Only a very few are conscious psychic vampires, people who have learned to gather the life energies of others.  These people are addicts.

About 15 years ago, I broke my leg, and was confined to a wheelchair for 4 months.  It happened that I was offered a couch in a friends studio, which was in a lovely complex that had other studios, a few shops, and a chiropractor's office, so people were always coming and going, which I enjoyed.  But because so much of my energy was going into mending my broken bones, and I often felt weak, I became quite sensitive to how interactions with others affected me.  Some people were like bright lights - I felt enlivened when they entered the room.  Most were neutral.

But there was one woman I'll never forget.   Although she was a fascinating woman, who ironically was a practicing psychic, every time she came by to visit  I'd be flat on my back afterwards, sometimes all day.   I don't know if I would have realized her "vampire" effect so clearly, had I not been in a sensitive lowered energy state because of my healing  recovery.   What made her like that?  I can't possibly know, although I would bet it arises from some kind of traumatic childhood.   I have also met, only once, a very rare conscious "psychic vampire", who knew what he was doing and practiced a form of energy theft consciously.  But that is another story.

                                            

Excerpted from:   Psychic Vampires by Sarah Biggs

So why is it you keep attracting these soul suckers?

Indigos and Empaths are innate healers and are drawn to those in need.  
Newsflash: Energy Vampires don't want to be healed!! They don't want to be saved.It's the attention you give them when they have a (usually self-created and unnecessary) problem that they crave.  They are survivalists. As long as they have a food source - you, they have no incentive to heal or take care of themselves. The more you try to solve their problems the more problems they are going to have.

Energy Vampires often serve as a mirror to your own self-worth. 

You open the door to Energy Vampires through your insecurities. You may have your own feelings of victim-hood or powerlessness. You may be approval seeking. Co-dependence issues is their golden ticket to ride.  It's possible that you may only feel good about yourself when you help others. You may feel unworthy of love or friendship unless you do something for it. You may feel guilt for having good fortune when so many others seem to be down and out.

You may have an addiction to Energy Vampires. Do you like being needed? Do you have the need to please? Does being around an Energy Vampire make you feel better about yourself?You may be an Energy Vampire yourself. When you allow yourself to be drained by an Energy Vampire do you turn around and drain somebody else? Do you only get attention when something negative is going on?

The truth is, you have to vibrate on the same level as an Energy Vampire in order to attract one into your life. Your thoughts and your core beliefs are what creates your vibration. Your emotions are your indication as to what vibration you hold.

No protection technique is going to save you from an Energy Vampire.

Staking Energy Vampires:

Commit to doing what it takes to be happy. Raise your vibration so high as to not be a tool for an Energy Vampire. Don't live your life based on others expectations of you. Meet your own needs. Set boundaries. Saying NO does not make you an asshole (though they will certainly try to make you feel that way). Being a good person is not determined by how much you self-sacrifice. 

Be a vibrational match to the kind of people you want to be around. If you want to be around respectful, competent, and well adjusted people - you need to project those qualities from within yourself. Root out any negative core beliefs about yourself that attract the people you don't want in your life. Transmute those beliefs into positive ones so that positive people will show up accordingly.

Realize that Source is an infinite energy. We all have our very own stream of Source Energy. So, it is actually impossible to give away your energy or to have it taken from you. It's just that Energy Vampire's actions cause you to have negative thoughts that pinch you off from your own Source. When your Source Energy flow is restricted you start to get physical symptoms of exhaustion, confusion, depressed, etc.

Make feeling good a priority. Get your Source Energy pumping by doing what you love and what energizes you. Love yourself enough not to be liked by those that exhaust and bring you down. You don't owe anyone anything. You are worthy of a reciprocal and respectful relationship without having to serve and provide your life force energy.  

You can hold thoughts that allow Source Energy or thoughts that resist and restrict it. It's up to you. Consider doing Shadow Work to uncover your resistant vibrations. 

Sara Biggs Website is:  https://www.honusapien.com/about.html

http://www.honusapien.com/attracting-energy-vampires.html
                                     

ASTARTE in the Desert

With age,

I’ve learned to watch my feet.

I’ve become cautious of falls,

the honest frailty of bones,

and equally fragile,

the choices found at every crossroad.

Time, I’ve discovered, makes us bend -

we learn the habit of looking down.

I was blessedly nowhere,

At a truck stop off I-40 falling off the edge of the world.

A nameless little desert town,  disappearing

into a sweet black halcyon midnight

I was blessedly nowhere,

just between “here” and “there” after a summer rain,

the smell of diesel and chaparral, 

black reflecting  pools
on hot asphalt beneath my feet

when You

made your gracious, puddled descent:

     Luminous Orion,

     and faithful Sirius, the dog star,

     Antares, the Scorpion’s tail,

     The Pleiades dancing forever

     in Indra’s shining jewel net,

     And the Big Dipper

     offering, offering forever

Looking up, I heard you singing:

"Wait for me, Wait for me"

Lauren Raine

2005
from "Aphrodite in Brooklyn and Other Mythic Voices"