"Ritual of Endarkenment" - A Winter's Meditation (with Masks)

 

Here is a Meditation I wrote (and performed) back in 1998.  The painting I did a few years before that, and it was titled "past desire, ambition or grief, I rest in the Earth a seed."  Another title might be "Incubation".   The sleeping figure is entwined with all other life, and a shaft of water, or perhaps light, nourishes the dreaming figure that waits during Winter's long gestation and rest,  for the season of new beginnings.  

I reflect as always on the Sanctity of the cycles of the Earth, to which we belong, along with all other living beings.   Perhaps that was the true "Original Sin", when the patriarchs began to invent religions and philosophies that somehow made us "apart" from the cyclical, magical animals we are, among so many other kinds of magical sentient beings.  Yes, I think that is what "sin" means to me.

You do not have to be good. 

You do not have to walk on your knees

 For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. 

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

 love what it loves

 ......Mary Oliver

  

RITUAL OF ENDARKENMENT

Close your eyes, and see  a cord

a shining umbilical cord at your naval

that goes down,

into the dreaming Earth.

Into the darkness, the silence, follow,

that luminous cord, 

un-becoming, 

un-knowing

As you descend

into the warm darkness

one by one remove your masks.

One by one, take them off

feel the heavy weight of each as 

you let it fall, as you descend. 

Let each mask fall away, but

take a moment to see it before it falls

into the Earth,

into the darkness.

Take off the mask of competence,

the mask of your accomplishments.

what does that mask look like?

Take  off the child's mask,  the little one

laughing with delight,

the child crying helplessly in an empty room.

Take it off  with tenderness.

The masks of relationship, the masks you wear with others,

the mask of the lover, the mate, the parent,

the mask of conflict, the mask of the warrior,

the mask of affiliation, of responsibility, of duty:

take each one off, hold it in your hand, let it go,

into the darkness, see them fall, 

the question "who am I?"

falling soft, like a feather

And take off the mask of  age

the accumulated years that whisper 

I'm just a kid, I'm middle aged, I'm old,

I must, I can't, I will I should

it's too late, I can't.........

take them all off, let go, feel the weight leave you.

The masks of your parents that you also learned to wear,

their fears and dreams

embedded in the shape of your face,

remove them with respect

and with pity,

and descend

to the last masks, the shadow masks

the masks you do not look at, but always cling to,

see them in your hands

faces of despair, of rage, of helpless pain.....

 

and let them go,

into the darkness, into the dreaming Earth.

Rest, and  wait.

Ask  for the dreams

 

the unborn ones

that wait to be born in you

empty, and held in the womb of the Earth

invite them to come 

the guidance and inspiration

that will infuse your new year.

Make that prayer of incubation

into the darkness,

feel it like a pulse among the roots,

that deep umbilical holding you safe. 

 

Rest and  know you are held,

a seed, a child, a hope, a potential. 

Begin to ascend at last.

As you rise, see the masks you've discarded -

one by one, take them in your hands.

Perhaps some you no longer need;

some you will examine more closely in the future.

Perhaps some you discard, 

release them and watch them fall away.

And some you wear more lightly.  Feel their weight.

And as you emerge 

into the sunlit world, feel that unbroken cord,

 

shining, unseen,

holding  you to your origin. 

And always, always generous.

(1998)

"La Voz Mitológica" - Reflections on the Butterfly

 

"The butterfly dancer must be old because she represents the soul that is old. She is wide of thigh and broad of rump because she carries so much. Her grey hair certifies that she need no longer observe taboos about touching others. She is allowed to touch everyone: boys, babies, men, women, girl children, the old, the ill, and the dead. The Butterfly Woman can touch everyone. It is her privilege to touch all, at last. This is her power. Hers is the body of La Mariposa, the butterfly."

 "La Mariposa" …excerpt from Women Who Run with The Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Years ago (about 15, to be exact) I was living in a trailer court, but spending most of my time caring for my mother, who had a house not too far away.  It was no easy time,  as my mother was in her 90's,  my brother Glenn had had a brain stem stroke and was on life support in a facility, and my other brother, David (who thankfully lived part of the time in his house in California) was, and still is, aggressively hostile and paranoid toward me.  That's why my trailer was my personal sanctuary.

I didn't know any of the (mostly elderly) people in the  trailer court, so I was very surprised to see that someone had left a bag hanging from the door to my old motorhome one afternoon.  It contained two greenish rolls of what the label called "Butterfly Carpet" - you spread them out on soil, water, and up comes a garden of flowers guaranteed to attract butterflies. I never found out who thought to leave this "butterfly food"  for me, but considering my fascination with butterfly stories, it was a synchronicity I took note of.  A "butterfly carpet" to help me remember that things will change, transformation and new possibility will come eventually.  

Years later, I still remember the symbolic "nourishment" that provided for "this butterfly". Just plant and water. I remember looking at those rolls of "butterfly food" some unknown person had left, and found a living metaphor that gave me heart, then and now. 

Butterflies are not only lovely creatures that embody the perfect metaphor for transformation. They are also the final life stage of the caterpillar, responsible for laying the eggs that will ensure future generations. They are generators of the future. And, they also have another job to do. A very important job. They are Pollinators. They must  see to it that not only caterpillars, but many other kinds of life are able to have a future. Just as diminishing populations of honey bees threaten the food crops, so too are these creatures potent, and vitally important to the Web of life on our planet.  

"And here too come visitors, some of whom are very starved of their geno-myths, detached from the spiritual placenta. They have forgotten their ancient Gods. They come to watch the ones who have not forgotten."  

In Clarissa Pinkola Estes famous book Women Who Run With the Wolves she tells the wonderful story of waiting to see the "Butterfly Dancer" at a Native American Pueblo ceremony (I believe at one of the Hopi pueblos). Perhaps tourists, waiting a long, hot, dusty day to see her, expected a slender, ephemeral Indian maiden; no doubt they were shocked out of their paradigm to see, finally, the grey haired Butterfly Dancer emerge, slow, sure, heavy, with her traditional tokens of empowerment.  An old woman.

"Her heavy body and her very skinny legs made her look like a hopping spider wrapped in a tamale. She hops on one foot and then on the other. She waves her feather fan to and fro. She is The Butterfly arrived to strengthen the weak. She is that which most think of as not strong: age, the butterfly, the feminine."

In the context of the cyclical ritual these dances symbolize and invoke for the Hopi,  the vital work of pollination is no job for for an inexperienced girl, no trivial job for a pretty child. It's a job for one who has lived, and lived, and can thus seed and generate the future from that solid base of experience and understanding.  As Estes goes on to say, 

"Butterfly Woman mends the erroneous idea that transformation is only for the tortured, the saintly, or only for the fabulously strong. The Self need not carry mountains to transform. A little is enough. A little goes a long way. A little changes much. The fertilizing force replaces the moving of mountains. Butterfly Maiden pollinates the souls of the earth: It is easier that you think, she says. She is shaking her feather fan, and she’s hopping, for she is spilling spiritual pollen all over the people who are there, Native Americans, little children, visitors, everyone. This is the translator of the instinctual, the fertilizing force, the mender, the rememberer of old ideas. She is La voz mitológica."

"La voz mitológica". The mythic voice. 

A very important concept that touches the Archetypes, the Ancestors, and the lively, evolving, yet ancient country of Mythos.  As Estes points out, among the audience who come to watch, rather than participate with, the rituals of the Hopi, are many who, unknowingly, are "visitors, very starved of their geno-myths, detached from the spiritual placenta.".  The Mythic Voice has great power to animate, enliven,sanctify, and en-chant, our world, which Modernism and Capitalism has turned into a lifeless commodity, a thing.  The "Mythic Voice" has the authority to re-call (or should I say re-sing)  our longing for  the re-enchantment of the World back from the places it has been buried, dismissed, left to dry up like a discarded leaf.  And yet the longing and the seeds of that longing remain, ever ready, like the "butterfly food blanket" (gifted by a stranger to me) to rise up as sprouts, then leafy plants, then flowers that provide food for the beautiful winged Pollinators of the imagination.   I find that I wrote numerous times in this Blog:

"We're Incubating the Future with the Stories we tell. So What Are They?"

I think on this a lot.   Because we need, especially now, "wise pollinators", women and men who can help to imagine and thus generate what Ursula Leguin called "Realists of a larger Reality".  We need them now, very much.

For Thanks Giving: The Pilgrimage of the Starfish

a poem  I think of at Thanks Giving.  

  Starfish
  by Eleanor Lerman

This is what life does. It lets you walk up to
the store to buy breakfast and the paper, on a
stiff knee. It lets you choose the way you have
your eggs, your coffee. Then it sits a fisherman
down beside you at the counter who says, "Last night,
the channel was full of starfish."  And you wonder,
is this a message, finally, or just another day?

Life lets you take the dog for a walk down to the
pond, where whole generations of biological
processes are boiling beneath the mud. Reeds
speak to you of the natural world: they whisper,
they sing. And herons pass by. Are you old
enough to appreciate the moment? Too old?
There is movement beneath the water, but it
may be nothing. There may be nothing going on.

And then life suggests that you remember the
years you ran around, the years you developed
a shocking lifestyle, advocated careless abandon,
owned a chilly heart. Upon reflection, you are
genuinely surprised to find how quiet you have
become. And then life lets you go home to think
about all this. Which you do, for quite a long time.

Later, you wake up beside your old love, the one
who never had any conditions, the one who waited
you out. This is life’s way of letting you know that
you are lucky. (It won’t give you smart or brave,
so you’ll have to settle for lucky.) Because you
were born at a good time. Because you were able
to listen when people spoke to you. Because you
stopped when you should have and started again.

So life lets you have a sandwich, and pie for your
late night dessert. (Pie for the dog, as well.) And
then life sends you back to bed, to dreamland,

while outside, the starfish drift through the channel,
with smiles on their starry faces as they head
out to deep water, to the far and boundless sea.

 

Christine Clawley and NDE's

Christine Clawley is a good friend of mine, a fellow Board Member of the Southern Arizona Friends of Jung, a Counselor and Psychologist with a broad Practice, a frequent speaker at Conferences on Near Death Experiencers, and also a neighbor.  Christine has a Master's of Arts in Depth Counseling Psychology from the Pacifica Graduate Institute, and a  Bachelor's Degree in Philosophy & Psychology, Summa Cum Laude University of Colorado Boulder, and a thriving Practice here in Tucson.  

Christine is currently working on a Documentary about the phenomenon of Synchronicity (a subject near and dear to my own heart) with her husband and partner Tony Woellner (Circling Hawk Productions), called  The Tapestry of Time - A film exploring the meaning and nature of time through the lens of synchronicity.  The Documentary is still in production, but the Trailer, which features interviews with Robert Moss and Trish and Robb MacGregor, among others, may be viewed at Circling Hawk Productions website.  I look forward greatly to seeing the film completed, as I feel it's subject is important, the interviews are very insightful, and Christine and Tony have edited it beautifully.  

Here Christine has given me permission to share here an Interview she did with Jeff Mara about her own NDE experience when she was in an extended coma. Since this is the time of endings as the Wheel turns to winter, this interview seems appropriate.

 https://youtu.be/xuS2K8mg3UU?si=-bCOjO7_bU2CHrIB

Telling the World in a Dangerous Time: The Importance of Myth

"Goddess Speaks" by Earth Traditions Community at the Parliament of World Religions 2023

 

Recently I found myself joining conversations about possible futures in our very uncertain world, as we face both Climate Change and the possible end of the American experiment in democracy, which Trump and his very wealthy supporters, seem determined to do.  These are uncertain times indeed to be alive in.  I pulled up the following article, which I wrote in 2017, because it seemed to offer a reminder I needed, once again, unfortunately.

"Weaving" from "Restoring the Balance" (2004)

             TELLING THE WORLD IN A TIME OF DROUGHT: 

                                     Artists as Myth Makers

                                                           by Lauren Raine MFA (2017) 

“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, From a Broken Web

Recently I travelled cross country, joining conversations that always seemed to end with a question.  Since many of my friends are artists (I include writers, performers, ritualists, dancers, storytellers, and a number of shamans in the category as well) the question seems to come down to "what do we do now?"  

How do we, in a time that seems bent on eliminating education, free speech, environmental preservation, social ethics, and possibly even any kind of consensual truth…..as practitioners of the arts, increasingly marginalized by society, how do we find meaningful identity? 

"A Mask for Shattering Old Paradigms" (2024)

My own response is that I believe it's vital for artists to remember that we are myth makers.  Throughout history artists of all kinds have possessed the imaginal tools to invent and re-invent the myths that were the cultural underpinnings for their time.  

Phil Cousineau, author of  Once and Future Myths: The Power of Ancient Stories in Our Lives (2001) cautioned that if we don't become aware of both our personal and our cultural myths which "act like gravitational forces on us" we risk becoming overpowered, overshadowed, and controlled by them.  Myths are in many ways the templates of how we compose our societal and personal values, as well as how people organize their religions.  As Cousineau commented further, "the stories we tell of ourselves determine who we become, who we are, and what we believe."  

The human mind has a unique ability to abstract.  A stone is not always a stone - sometimes it becomes a symbol of something, a manifestation of a deity, or it can also become intentionally invisible, even when it stubs our toes.  An interpretation of "God" is something that whole nations have lived or died for.  And depending on the aesthetics of a particular culture, foot binding, skull extension, or bouffant hairdos can be experienced as erotic beauty.  If the worlds we know are, indeed, experienced through the lens of the stories we tell about them, then how are those stories serving or not serving the crucial time we live in?

A renunciate myth of the Earth as "not real" or a "place of sin and suffering" does not serve the environmental crisis facing a global humanity.   Stories that make women lesser beings do not release the creative brain power of half the human race.  A cultural mythos that celebrates violence and competition do not contribute to nurturance and sustainability.   Stories of "rugged individualism" may not be as useful in a time when science, sociology, ecology, theology, and even physics are demonstrating that all things are interdependent. 

I remember years ago participating in a week long intensive with the Earth Spirit Community of New England.  The event took place in October, in celebration of the closing of the year, the "going into the dark" time.  The closing ritual occurred at twilight.  Bearing candles, different groups wove through the woods toward a distant lodge from which the sound of heartbeat drums issued.  Slowly the lodge filled, illuminated with candles.  As we sat on the floor, lights gradually went out, we were blindfolded and the drums abruptly stopped. 

We felt bodies rush by us as hands turned us.  The sounds of wind, and half understood voices, someone calling, someone crying, or a bit of music came from all directions.  As we lost any sense of direction or time we became uncomfortable, frightened and disoriented.  I felt as if I was in a vast chamber, the very halls of Hades, listening to echoing voices of the lost.  And when it felt like the formless dark would never stop:  silence.  And the quiet sound of the heartbeat drum returned, re-connecting us to the heart of the Earth.

As blindfolds were removed I found myself in a room warmly illuminated with candles.  On a central platform sat a woman enthroned in brilliant white, illuminated with candles and flowers.  At her feet were baskets of bread.  Slowly we rose, took bread and fruit, and left the "Temple".  And as we left, on each side of the entrance, stood a figure in a black cape.  Each had a mirror over his or her face – mirror masks, reflecting our own faces.  

Now that was a ritual telling of the myth!  We had entered mythic space, we had participated together in the Great Round of death and return to the light - and none of us would ever forget it.

"Invocation of Bridgit" 

I am suggesting that artists, troubled as my friends and I have been, step away for a while from the complex questions of identity so beloved by the art world, cast aside as well the dismissal, even hostility of the current anti-intellectual environment.  Instead, let us view ourselves  as engaged in a sacred profession.   We are pollinators of the imagination,  holding  threads in  a great weaving of myth, threads that extend into a time  yet to come, and far back into a barely glimpsed past.  If "the Universe is made of stories, not atoms" as the poet  Muriel Rukeyser famously said, the only real question for us now is "what kinds of stories are we weaving"?     

"The new myth coming into being through the triple influence of quantum physics, depth psychology and ecology suggests that we are participants in a great cosmic web of life, each one of us indissolubly connected with all others through that invisible field. It is the most insidious of illusions to think that we can achieve a position of dominance in relation to nature, life or each other. In our essence, we are one."

Anne Baring 

References:

Keller, Catherine;  From a Broken Web: Separation, Sexism and Self,

       Beacon Press  (1988)

Baring, Anne;  "A New Vision of Reality" from her website

       http://www.annebaring.com/

Cousineau, Phil; Once and Future Myths: The Power of Ancient Stories in

        Modern Times,  Conori Press (2001)

The Earthspirit Community, Twilight Covening (1993),   

         http://www.earthspirit.com/ 

Rukeyser, Muriel;  The Collected Poems of Muriel Rukeyser,  McGraw (1978)

Samhain (And the Day of the Dead)

"Past Desire, Hope or Change, I Rest in You, A Seed" (1994)

The air has a fragile, and Magical, quality at this time of year, and particularly on this collection of Last Harvest Festival/Going into the Dark days.  Samhain, Dia de Los Muertos.  Even though Halloween has reduced the sanctity of this day, honored and celebrated across millenia and across many human cultures, to a highly  commercial party, still, there is some felt spirit of a hidden sacredness, a specialness about these days even among the most unimaginative of souls. 

The Witches New Year, November 1st, has always seemed to me a different way of looking at the beginning of a new year, a new cycle.  The traditional placement of the New Year is at the Winter Solstice.  Yes, the return of the Sun does seem a most appropriate beginning.......... the Sun/Son is born again, the adored Child is born.  But........... this time of Ending, of the Going into the Darkness of winter also has its own kind of sanctity and appropriateness, depending on one's perspective.  

It is the beginning of the great Rest cycle, the return to the great Underground Realm our various ancestors conceived of throughout many times and cultures.  The Realm of Hecate, Hella, Maat, Ereshkigal, Fra Holle, Hades, Pluto, Anubis, Cerridwen.......... and so on.  And going even farther back, to a time before humans even had names to personify their deities, going back to the  Caves "of forgotten dreams", they believed they were going back into the generative, mysterious,  incubation of Mother Earth's Womb.  They saw that all life seemed to return there,  after summer's explosion, returning  to rest, returning to ultimately be reborn.

So, from that perspective, perhaps this time of "going into the Dark" might be seen as a true beginning, because it is a time of listening, listening and awaiting conception that has not yet arrived, at the Roots, at the Roots, at the Roots.  

 https://youtu.be/s0t6mws2vgY?si=v8-BQns5xV1C4GiC

The Ritual at the Women & Spirituality Conference

 

My colleague Patricia Ballentine and I were very pleased and moved by the Ritual Theatre we created with women from Rochester and other parts of Minnesota for the Women and Spirituality Conference which took place the 4th through the 6th of October in Rochester, Minnesota.  It was difficult working via Zoom with a cast I only met in person at the dress rehearsal the night of the Event at the Chateau Theatre downtown, but Spirit was there indeed:  everything went perfectly, and the Goddess was a felt Presence with every Invocation.  I copy some of the text of the Ritual here, and photographs of some of the cast,  graciously provided by Virginia Cooper, one of the Facilitators of the Conference.

Our beautiful and mystical Music was provided by Nicole Neill Roen  and Friends,  with "She Who Hears the Cries of the World" by Jennifer Berezon.  In addition to myself and Patricia Ballentine our Storytelling was beautifully shared with the poet Esther Marcella.

The performance script was written by myself (Spider Woman Speaks), Erica Swadley (Invocation of the Great Mother), Diane Darling (Bridgit), and the Invocations of the Goddess were by Patricia Ballentine .  With many thanks to Virginia Cooper , Lisa Spiral  and the Conference for making this possible!

"O Great Mother Goddess,  we call on you now.

We invite your presence in circle. Surround and encompass us.

Rise up from your roots.  Hear us, our voices of pathos.

See our dancing feet, how we beat out your rhythms.

With our hearts, we drum you back:

We are staggering toward you.

Will you run one hundred steps to us?

Will you spread your mantle of peace?"

......Excerpt, "Invocation of the Great Mother"   

Bonnie Berquam  as White Tara

"Om Tare, Tu Tare, Tare Soha

White Tara, Bodhisattva

 hear us now………. "

Cathy Peterson  as Bridgit

"I am still with you, children of the children of the children

of The Lost Isles, the Western Shores, children of Tiranog - 

I have not forgotten you, far from the homelands.

Remember Me, when the bard sings:

Raise a glass of golden mead to Brigid, Lady of the Celts"

Patricia Ballentine weaving Spider Woman's Web

"Once, you could see the Web just as plain as day. 

Song lines, ley lines, threads, links, the pattern.

Each shining thread connected to each shining, light woven strand.

You say you can't see it - Well, take a look around!

You don't need to climb a mountain to get the big picture!

All of its snaking rivers 

and twining roots

Are inside of you"

Jurema Silva as Yemeya

“We Call Upon Yemeya, Ocean Mother, “Yey Omo Eja”, She Who is the Mother of the world,She Whose Children are the Fish and the great whales and all the wealth of the sea ... The great tides are your rhythms and moods. Bring to us your gifts of Beauty, Compassion and Protection.”

Susan Langston as The Cailleach

"We Call Upon The Cailleach, Old Woman of Winter, most Ancient Ancestor, Divine Hag who creates the landscape with her giant strides and staff, brings the changing seasons of cold and wind. She whose face is as weathered as the rocks and as blue as ice, Bring us your gifts of Endurance, Wisdom, and Primal Ancestry"

Spider Woman weaving with the Audience

Deb Erickson as Flora 

"We Call Upon Flora, Goddess of flowers and springtime whose steps upon the Earth dance forth the returning fertility of the land. She whose presence infuses the air with the perfume that attracts the bees and teases into expression the blossoming of new love. Bring us your gifts of Playfulness, Imagination, and Inspiration! "

Shawn Vougeot as Quon Yin

 “We call upon Quan Yin, Goddess of Mercy, Bodhisattva of Compassion, holder of the healing waters, who through your arms offer comfort to the suffering of the world. She who hears the cries of the World, Bring us your gifts of Kindness, Honesty and Mercy. "

Raechel Murphy as The Goddess of the Turning Year

"We Call Upon The Goddess of the Turning Year, She who stands at the crossroad of the Wheel of the ever turning year. She reminds us that we are ever changing and ever moving with all living beings, and our lives mirror the Turning of the Seasons, each beautiful, each challenging. Bring us your gifts of the Return of the Sun in the dark of Winter, and the Promise of new life as a new year begins."

Dalia Gamal as Isis 

 “We Call Upon Isis, Lady of Ten Thousand names. Moon and Mother of the sun. Mourning wife and tender sister, you are the culture –bringer and giver of healt. You who have known sorrow and bring the gift of grieving….you who flooded the Nile with your tears, Bring to us your gifts of Restoration….and Renewal!

Kay Rydeen as Green Tara  

“We Call Upon Green Tara, Goddess of immediate action, remover of obstacles, She who is of youthful face and peaceful presence yet poised for quick movement and encouragement as we aspire toward enlightenment. Bring us your gifts of Presence, and the Removal of Fears."

Kva Mary Wajer as Hagia Sophia 

We Call Upon Sophia, Mirror of Wisdom, You who are the first and the last, honored one and scorned one….whore and holy one, wife and virgin…Mother and daughter, the Silence beyond comprehension. Bring us your gifts of Self Knowing and Expanded Consciousness”

Tina Cotterman as Gaia

"We Call Upon Gaia, the Mother of All, Eldest of all beings. She births and sustains allthe creatures of the world, all that go upon the land, and all in the paths of the waters, and all that eek the skies, and all that grow under the Sun: She feeds all of Her vast generosity, and Her beauty that sustains and evolves us. Hail, Mother Earth. Bring us your gifts of Beauty, Ecology of Soul among All Beings, and the ability to cherish our Source in Gaia."