Posts Tagged ‘symbolism’

An ounce of mother is worth a pound of clergy.  ~Spanish Proverb

I thought I might open the window into my process a bit today by sharing with you my recognition that I needed a Mother in my life, and how that led me to the Sacred Feminine.

My biological mother was a physically beautiful, petite, perceptive woman with sharp eyes.  My early memories of her indicate a very young person who didn’t really know quite how to be a mother, as she was just a child herself (she was 18 when I was born).  She did what I suppose she thought she should do; her own relationship with her mother was not an easy one, and so mothering did not come so naturally.  When I try to feel her in my early life, I don’t feel much there.  There are shadows, a presence around a corner or in the other room.  It is as if there was an empty space where she should be. 

I do remember some times when she would sit and color with me, which I enjoyed.  It made me feel closer to her, and I felt the presence of her own inner little girl sitting with me at the table as we chose our crayons.  There was some innocence still in her.  We were equals, two young girls at play. 

But I don’t remember feeling the safety of a loving wise elder, a guiding hand.  I don’t remember feeling loved in the sense of being seen and accepted for who I was.  My mother speaks of loving me in the same breath as cherishing me like a doll that she dressed up in special clothes.

As I came into my 5^th year, I think I started to understand how warped things were in my family; my kindergarten picture shows a jaded and angry exterior.  But I still hoped for her to see me, to love me.  I watched her beauty and wanted to be like her, although I never was.  Her thin, dark allure matched the image that was on the tv and in the magazines.  So this was how to be a woman.

Things got crazier in my house when we moved to a rural house in the country outside of Goldsboro.  I think that’s when the drinking started to get out of hand.  Perhaps there wasn’t much else to do there.  My father would go to work each day, and my mother would put her long tresses in pigtails and work on the garden, deepening her already nut brown skin.  As she tended the squash, cucumbers and tomatoes, my sister and I would play outside with the neighbor girls, chasing their chickens or running in the tobacco field behind the house.  Perhaps the drinking was to fill a loneliness, or to assuage her fears that my father might be sleeping with other women (if my information is correct, this is indeed when he started to dally outside of the marriage).  Whatever the reason, this is when I remember having a conscious sense of losing my mother.

I was 7.  I remember having a vision of her, the sweet if unskilled mother in her pigtails, being seized by some aliens (I must have seen some sci-fi movie on the telly).  Her face is frightened; she is being taken away against her will.  She is then shrunk to the size of a Barbie doll, and flushed down the toilet in my parent’s bathroom.  In her place, an evil alien with a carefully arranged face of my mother steps in to our family.      

This is where I start to feel my mother is my enemy.  She was judging and critical of my body, my thoughts, my mind.  I remember feeling afraid of her barbs, stepping delicately around her anger (until I was much older and able to argue with her).  My parents would drink to excess, almost every if not every night.  When I had to get ready for school in the morning, she would sometimes still be passed out in the bed.  Sometimes this worked out in my favor; once I wore a slinky dress I’d found that was inappropriate for my age (I was 9), but made me feel like those playboy girls in my father’s magazines.  When the bus dropped me off at home that day, she was livid when she saw what I was wearing.  I don’t believe I ever wore that dress again.

Time went on; it became apparent that I was the reason for all of my mother’s anger because it was always me that got the blame.  Not one to step into her own inner wisdom, as she continued to stay with this man who sexually abused me, her and other women, she lashed out at me in her own frustration and despair.  Alternately pulling the “I’m the mother, I don’t owe you an explanation” with crying desperately and asking me for advice (“Licia, You’re so wise), I was a very confused adult child.  Needless to say, all of the surviving I did until I left home to go to school got in the way of cultivating peace within myself, and recognition of my own inner feminine.    

Years of therapy, inner work and education helped me to see that what happened to me as a child was not my fault, that there were familial patterns my mother played out, and for whatever reasons, she did not have the strength that I had to break those cycles and claim her life as her own.  Years before I had children, I decided that I would choose not to have any rather than pass on the sickness that was passed on to me.  Being awake in the face of folks who don’t want to be is a hard choice; there are consequences, such as being rejected and losing folks you very much want to have in your life.  To this day, she cannot go there with me.     

This forced me to look elsewhere for mothering.  Sometimes in the form of women who wanted my power, sometimes in the form of women who just gravitated towards me, sometimes in the form of women who projected their own mother issues onto me.  And I projected my share of mother issues, too.  Some very messy relationships with women ensued over my years.  I realized I didn’t know how to be in healthy relationships with women; my mother was my model, and she was distant, manipulative, angry and unconscious, all with a pretty face.  I did not want to play that out any longer in my life.  Finally, desperate for a mother, I turned inward.

(to be continued)

I’m not a scholar on Christian holy days; I observe spiritual traditions that make sense to me, that have personal meaning to me.  Until yesterday, Epiphany flew by unnoticed. 

The 12^th day of Christmas, Epiphany is the oldest of the Christmas festivals and originally the most important.  It is the day traditionally celebrated in Christian culture as the day the Magi arrived to behold the Christ child.

“The word epiphany comes from the Greek noun epiphaneia, which means “shining forth,” “manifestation,” or “revelation.”  In the ancient Greco-Roman world, an epiphany referred to the appearance of one of the gods to mortals.  Since Hellenistic kings and Roman emperors were considered by many to be gods, the word epiphany was also used as a term for divine majesty.”  (source: http://www.stpaulskingsville.org/epiphany.htm)

Yesterday was a day in which it felt like many veils were lifted between my eyes and the larger spiritual container I live in.  I had so many revelations, and indeed, one very important “manifestation”, that I once again feel affirmed in my belief that there is a larger energy that holds us all, and that if we align with it, magic can happen.

I sat in the morning for my inner guidance time, which I typically create several times per day (and always at night before bed so that I can bring my consciousness to anything pertinent while my body sleeps).  This is my time to be still, listen and feel my connection to the Whole and a larger perspective on my life. My usual pathway of access opened up, and I felt the familiar alignment click into place.  As I awaited the presence of higher consciousness in my mind, I felt a new (yet very old and familiar), somewhat different presence move in from the left of center, supplanting my usual interface with the Divine.

“Who is here?” I asked.  A vast, deep silence, a feeling of gravity, immense power in my belly and sweetness in my heart was the response.  I sat quietly straining to hear with my inner ears, but I couldn’t quite make out the name.  I asked, “Are you here to aid me in my highest good?”  Yes, I was told, and I felt a rush of goodwill pouring through me.  “Are you accountable to the light?”  I asked.  I heard, No, I am accountable to the dark. 

This is when I started squirming; my early Christian preschool indoctrination formed my young, developing mind into a good versus evil bent, and I struggle to this day with unconsciously perceiving light as good and dark as bad, even though I know consciously that this is not true. 

My resonance lies with the yin/yang symbol, in which the darkness and the light are simply two halves of existence that balance one another, and are therefore necessary for the Whole.  It is our small, human minds that place judgments on qualities of energy such as light and dark, calling them names and putting them in little boxes so that we can feel more in control. 

I have also studied the Goddess traditions extensively, and know that darkness, a symbol for the womb, for the void, for the night, for the face of the new moon, has been vilified ever since patriarchy reared its adolescent grab for power on the planet.  I know from hard won experience that anything we demonize warrants a closer look to see what we are projecting onto it.

I heard this Being that had entered my holy space speak that it was accountable to the dark, and took a breath.  “Who are you?” I asked again.

I am the Dark Mother, She answered.

I sat quietly, stunned at the simplicity and precision of this revelation.  I then proceeded to ask several clarifying questions, the first of which were asked to make sure I was safe to be interacting with this powerful yet benevolent energy, and the latter of which resulted from my increasing feelings of bliss and excitement.  Many moments later, I was in tears as accepted Her, and felt myself in the arms of my truest Mother.

Over the course of the day as I opened further to this awareness, my epiphanies ranged from seeing how the Dark Mother had been in my life, (very clearly had I eyes to see Her) for several years, to feelings of being Home.  The work I had begun in 2005 to embody the Divine Feminine was inspired by Her.  Images of the Black Madonna, which I’d written an extensive article about in 2007, flashed through my mind.  The many essays and radio shows and personal experiences of the Sacred Feminine that I’d processed and offered to the world as a road map fell into place. 

As a woman who resonates deeply (as well as recognizes within myself) the Sacred Feminine energies, I have spent time getting to know the several faces of the Goddess.  I remember in 1999 that Mary the Mother was the first face of the feminine I began to interact with as an adult.  She was safe, a clean symbol of goodness and light, and a good start for a woman fearful of her own feminine energy.

As a child, Isis was a frequent companion, but over the years I lost my sense of her.  She came roaring back into my life in 2001, when I got the tap on my shoulder to come out of hiding as a healer, and opened my energy work practice in downtown Asheville NC. 

Then other faces of the Goddess began to emerge in my consciousness.  Astarte, Diana, Hecate, Demeter, Kali, Innana, Brigid, Tara, Cerridwen, Persephone, Sedna, Lilith, Mary Magdalene, Amaterasu, GrandMother Moon, Spider Woman and more.  As each of these treasured and varied Faces of Her visited me, I interacted with their archetype and integrated them into my own awareness, making those aspects within me conscious.  It has been a remarkable journey of awakening. 

However, my names for Her never included the Dark Mother, perhaps because of my subconscious association of dark with evil. 

I had heard of the Dark Mother as a name for the fierce Goddess Kali, She who oversees death and rebirth, and so I had approached the Kali archetype with a large perimeter and a considerable dose of respect. 

I knew the acknowledgement and appreciation of the darkness that comes with shamanic practice, in which the journeying through the various inner worlds must be discerningly and powerfully navigated. 

I had experienced the darkness of entering initiations, and coming through into the light, being reborn. 

And I had experienced the darkness that came with fully exploring the archetypes of some of the previously mentioned faces of the Divine Feminine….darkness in the sense of exploring in unfathomable places in my psyche, such as deep, winding caves and caverns, traversed along with my sister Innana, and at the bottom of the sea, along with my underwater kin, Sedna.  Darkness in the sense of moving through what cannot be seen with the eyes, but must be felt and experienced through the inner worlds, where great treasure is yielded for those who have the courage to undertake the journey.

How magical that on this day of January 6^th, 2010, which I have just now learned is called Epiphany in the Christian tradition, that I would be visited by my own “magi”, or sage, in the manifestation of the Dark Mother, bestowing gifts upon Her child.  Thank you, All That Is.

I saw the movie that is taking the world by storm the other night, and it has taken me several days to have some words to be able to describe my experience.

First let me say that I am not so much a popular movie buff.  I do like some movies that happen to have fallen in the popular range, such as Star Wars and Lord of the Rings…those stories carry that mythical quality that appeals to my Hero’s Journey mentality.  But most of the time, I will not see movies that most others see; I usually find them to be hollow.  I certainly don’t attend first run movies in the theater unless there is some very good reason to see it on the big screen.

Avatar was one such occasion.  A bit of a geek for visuals (I am an artist, after all), I wanted to see the new technology every one is talking about.  Similar to when Star Wars first broke into the movie industry, Avatar is carrying a whole new ability to enter the film as if we are part of it, and this is due in no small part to the new computer and filming technologies used to make the movie.

 It satisfied in that respect, totally.  Avatar was eye candy from the beginning, and so the artist geek in me that totally gets off on the visuals was delighted.  Completely.  Very.

And now that I have acknowledged that, I want to deepen the conversation for a moment to the larger philosophical, ecological, and spiritual implications of the film. 

Other innate aspects of me are my love of universal themes, my love of humanity, my love of the earth, and my innate awareness of my connection with All Creation.  This movie appealed to those aspects, as well.

It interested me that the geek side of me was completely revved up…my geekiness seems to live in my head, at least that is where I feel it.  It is a fascination with the pretty things, the distractions, the amazement at what we can create with our brilliant, curious minds.  But the story, and the larger impact, I felt deep in my being.  My experience was of being stretched like taffy from top of my head to the core of the earth, where I choose to ground my energy to the planet.

And perhaps that was intended on the part of the moviemakers.  So much of the time I see humanity hanging out in our heads (what I call “the Penthouse”), a place up high with a fabulous view, where we don’t have to interact with the messy stuff that lay at our feet (the stuff of being human).  We can hide in the penthouse, being fascinated with our mental constructs, believing we have control of our lives, inventing all kinds of brilliant (if flawed) philosophies and get rich quick schemes, and keeping ourselves “safe” from connecting with each other. 

 I see many using their bodies as a kind of walking prop that carries the penthouse around, not really grounding and connecting with the earth in the deep way we were intended to (and our ancestors used to do).  I have done it, too, and feel I am rescuing myself now from the edge of making that way of life a habit for me.  I have made no secret in the years I have been writing publicly that I feel this is a kind of madness, a sickness that has taken humanity away from our feelings of connection with the earth and with each other, resulting in disastrous consequences.

Seeing Avatar left me with a sense of fullness, but not over the top fullness.  It was a fullness that my entire body, my entire Being could hold.  It was a, “Wow, that was an amazing feat of technology, and hmmmmm, yes, that story is so familiar to my heart and belly, and therefore not a big deal”.  I know for some the story will be a new awareness, and perhaps this is even one reason many are so deeply affected by the film.  Perhaps the use of the new technology to appeal to both hemispheres of our brain, coupled with the deep and ancient nature of the story, was a guarantee that the messages would get through, in one way or another.  For this I am glad.  

An utterly visually beautiful film, an eye popping experience of technology….but what really felt important to ME was how old the story is…to me it is the ages-old tale of how we struggle in ourselves to feel as if we are in control of our own destinies, denying our connection to Source and All Creation, the web of life. 

Do we flail about our whole lives, building walls around us, living in a box of our own creation, resisting the attempts of the universe to break though our self-imposed barriers?  Or do we let the Light in; do we take the risk and surrender to love, opening to the inherent goodness of the universe and allowing ourselves to experience our connection with the All That Is?  And what will be the consequences of those choices?  To me, that is the essential message of this film.

The story in Avatar is as old as the hills….perhaps the most ancient story there is.  I pray that each of us find our way back to the awareness and experience that we are all connected in this Web of Life.  Therein lies our salvation.

 

 

Having come through 2 of the hardest and most growthful years that I can remember, I am seeing things 20/20, of course.  All of the cycles we have been through are making sense.  Here at the wrap-up of the end of 3 seven-year cycles, a shorter 11 year cycle, and even shorter cycles within those larger ones, my animal relations are showing up to show their support, speak their messages and offer their medicine and teachings.

 

It started a few weeks ago when Peter was in California to pick up the RV we’d stored there in March (thinking we would be back).  I awoke early one morning to the sound of a female voice saying “Relations” insistently, and 3 knocks on the wall above my head (the wall is the same my pillows rest on and is an outer wall facing west).  I woke up immediately, knowing there was something special going on.  I wrapped up in my robe and walked outside to the area outside my bedroom.  From that vantage point, I looked to the north and saw 3 pronghorn antelopes clustered together around our well head.  They were all looking at me, as if they had been expecting me.  Now antelope are curious creatures, so they will study you for a bit before moving on (unless you scare them off).  But these three…there was something about the way they stood together there and watched me, as if there were a conversation going on.  I watched them and listened with my heart…there were no words at that point, but a feeling of having been “seen” and “received”.  They began to disperse, and I thanked them for their medicine.  Later, when I sat down in conversation with my inner guidance, I was told that the antelope medicine for me in particular was this:

 

-isolate yourself

-be thick skinned like the antelope-with a thick hide, you can survive in the harshest of conditions and tough times

-don’t be so easily influenced by outside forces

-your psychic awareness is increasing

 

I was interested in this guidance as it pertained easily with our situation here in Del Norte CO.  I set the intention to internalize this “medicine” from my Brothers the 3 bachelor antelope that woke me that morning.  They have subsequently visited many times, hanging around our 40 acres as if to make sure I am getting the message.

 

Then, the following week, early one morning I heard a “screeeeee!!!” outside and ran out to see 3 golden eagles circling over our land. I watched as one of them dive bombed another, screeching….but it all seemed in play, as they flew peacefully off to the north once I watched them for a few minutes, where it appeared that they were joined by a fourth eagle. It is unusual to see eagles flying together, so I took this to be another opportunity to listen for a message.  When I asked my inner guidance what my particular message was from the 3 eagles, I was told:

 

-that eagle is a symbol for divine masculine energy, the will and ability to get things done

-to call on eagle for strength, action, focus, determination and perseverance

-that the lack of energy and confidence I was experiencing would be remedied by the “masculine” energy of eagle

 

I chose to internalize this medicine as well, and found that I reached out and asked 40 women to pray for me for these qualities.  It worked!  My energy took off, and my ability to stay focused rather than confused and lethargic was remarkably different.  I also sought the counsel of a lovely Ute medicine man, who assisted me in bringing insight to an outstanding issue and balancing our land.  His piece of the puzzle proved to be very important.

 

By this time, I became intrigued with the consistent number THREE that was showing up.  I have always loved the number three, and according to numerologists, 3 is my “life path number”.  I did some research and found that the number 3 is associated with:

 

-the Trinity (interpreted in many ways-Body, Mind Spirit/Masculine, Feminine, Divine Union/beginning, middle, end/birth, life, death)

-3-D world, physical manifestation

-movement and ability to overcome duality

-creativity, growth, synthesis

-completion of a cycle

 

My youngest son wondered aloud what the next set of three would be…he intuited that there was a third chapter to the story.  And there was!  As I have been busy watching for the third set of 3, they were right under my nose the whole time.  

 

We experienced owning a hot tub for the first time in our lives here at our home in CO.  Our favorite times to steep in the hot brew are in the dark of night, when the Milky Way is so intense it feels smothering, and the early morning with our tea, when it is a very active time for the birds. 

 

At the edge of the patio, about 30 feet from the hot tub, are two bluebird houses.  They are inhabited by the bluebirds in early spring, who raise their babies then move to the gutters of the house.  Then the summer tenants of swallows move in to raise their young.  We watch with interest as the transition takes place.  There is much squabbling and flitting about, but eventually there is coexistence.

 

But there was something special about it this year.  Perhaps it was because of the forced stillness of my ankle injury, perhaps because it was just the right time….but I noticed the birds behavior with more interest.  The bluebirds alit outside my kitchen window and, head cocked, peered in with a seeming purpose at me while I cooked or washed at the sink.  The swallows circled repeatedly over my head while in the hot tub with equal intentionality, as if they were trying to get my attention.  I noticed, but I was looking for something “more grand” or unusual for the last chapter of three.  Would it be a trio of elk, or a bobcat family, or elegant hawks? 

 

It finally dawned on me today as I walked toward the north on our property; three bluebirds, a mother, father and fledgling child came from behind me from their perch on my house and alit in an olive tree directly in front of me.  I stopped and watched them; I felt an invitation to expansion in my heart.  OH!  I can be a bit thick at times, such an introvert that I am wrapped, fascinated, in my inner thoughts, and will sometimes miss the obvious in the “outer world”.  Suddenly, I saw the 3 swallows that had been flying around my head for days in my mind, replayed the mornings of watching the swallows feed their babies in the houses and the first one emerge victorious, calling out as it flew for its first time, flying gloriously with its parents. 3 bluebirds, 3 swallows.

 

Helllllloooooo… it is these common, “every day” creatures that are the final message of grace for my ending of this cycle in my life.  I sat this morning with my inner guidance after pulling information about these sweet birds, and this is what I was told applied to me:

 

-swallows migrate for thousands of miles to always return home safely and are a symbol of constancy, faith and fidelity

-bluebirds are associated with happiness, rebirth, and prosperity and are a sign of goodness in the future

-bluebirds and swallows both have associations with home, hearth, and love and loyalty to the family

-bluebirds and swallows are both ancient symbols of spring, hope, resurrection and new life

 

And the REAL kicker:

 

-swallows and bluebirds are interchangeably associated as a frequent motif for tattoos on sailors.  It was said that after a journey of 5000 sea miles, a sailor earned a swallow or bluebird tattoo on one side of his chest, and another at the completion of another 5000 or more miles.  They were a harbinger of land being near, of a long journey coming to an end…

 

I am almost in tears as I write this.  The amount of support and love I am being given at this time of completion of this cycle in my life is almost overwhelming.  And it is also affirming of how connected we are if we but allow ourselves to be.  I am so grateful to All of Life, all of my relations, whether winged or two, four and no-legged, for their reflection that I am loved, and that all is well.

I have had the delight recently of being reminded of my connection to the All That Is through the visitations of several of the two and four legged family.  (Wow, when was the last time I said I was DELIGHTED about something?  It has been a long time!)  These visitations are nothing short of miraculous to me, and a wonderful 3-D reminder that I am part of the fabric of All Creation, and that that fabric supports me….all that falls to me is to pay attention.

 

I have been a devotee of symbolism ever since I learned in my AP English classes in high school that there was a name for “something having deeper meaning than what was apparent”.  I have been having conversation with the energy of …everything… ever since I can remember, and could feel that there was wisdom to be gained from listening and acknowledging universal intelligence in its many faces.  But it’s called symbolism?  Wow, what a lark that this was a recognized phenomenon!  I have subsequently studied symbolism for years, delighting (there’s that word again!) in Jungian psychology, mythology, Clarissa Pinkola Estes’ works, and the medicine of animals, plants and all of nature.  I now see everything as a symbol, as a message from the All That Is, as a connection to a deeper meaning that can be interpreted particular to me and my situation.

 

It was with delight (okay I have said it 3 times) that I recently stumbled upon Avia Venefica, a woman after my own heart.  Fiercely devoted to symbolism and an accomplished writer, she publishes 3 lovely blogs that are practical and grounded yet deeply honoring of the spiritual and symbolic connections of All Creation.  Her presence in the world gives me joy and strength; a sister from across the pond, my world has grown and become more “right” because of her clear-eyed wisdom (dare I say she’s delightful?)  I have found some helpful answers lately in her work; I highly recommend her symbolism blog.

 

More to follow about the animals that have come to offer their messages to me in the last weeks.