Читать книгу The Holy Wild - Danielle Dulsky - Страница 15
ОглавлениеOur magick is our declaration, a practiced and enacted affirmation about the changes we wish to make in our lives and to our worlds. Magick is unique and personalized alchemy, and one woman’s relationship with it will most certainly not match that of even her closest Sister-Witch. All aspects of the deep self inform our magick, with the scars of our roots, the gifts of our grandmothers, our particular position in the cosmic web, and our unique soul mandates serving to ground our Craft as a living, breathing reflection of who we are and where we would like to go from here.
In this final chapter in the Book of Earth, I offer you Earth Magick in the form of spellcraft for manifestation — that is, opportunities for raising energies in order to nourish a desired outcome — and pathworking experiences, or guided meditations for tapping into the fertile wellspring that is the unconscious mind in order to commune with guides and Goddess energies. Our spellwork is our wild message to the universe, an energetic conveyance of our right to invoke what we desire and purge what does not belong. Our pathworking, our communion with our ancestors and those ghostly guides that will orient us in just the right direction, serves to set us back on course along the Red Road, if we only listen to their direction. If our verses tell a story and our ritual marks what has been and what is now, our magick both honors and shapes the yet-to-come.
THE LILITH MANDALA: A MAGICK SPELL FOR WELCOMING WHAT COMES
Materials: Journal, writing utensil, large piece of paper or canvas (18" × 24" is best), art supplies
This spell requires reflection, my love. Very often, our manifestation magick falls short, fizzling even before the circle is cast, because we are seeking to invoke some great thing that, in our marrow, we do not believe is truly ours. We can invoke only what is for us, shifting and moving energies with our words and our ways to bring to us what we know we deserve, what we believe is ours to hold in our hands, and what will drive the changes we wish to see in the greater global community.
Deciding what is truly ours requires assessment, and our inner Crones know the skill of taking inventory quite well. Begin with your story. In the teaching tale, Lilith glimpses her new wild home when she tastes the forbidden fruit: Every time the gritty marrow of the fruit touched her tongue, she caught a glimpse of her destiny. With every hearty swallow, she saw the rainbow shades of her liberated life. Through this rebellion, she is able to see the garden for what it is, a colorless place where she was not allowed to know too much or be too much, where she was forced to wake each morning and pretend to be someone she had not been for a long while, a smaller version of herself that was only a pale reflection of the regal majesty she had become.
The Priestess of the Wild Earth takes to the Red Road understanding what her home will not be; it will not be a cage, it will not force her to pretend, and it will most certainly not be boring. As she wanders along the road toward home, she encounters a number of souls who will support her on her path. These wayward lovers and bright-eyed friends will help her remember the feeling of the snake’s scales on her skin, the way the apple’s juice ran down her neck, should she become distracted by the day-to-day and forget the place from which she rose up, free and wild, rootless but reaching.
She spends her time on the Red Road of liberation taking stock of her past. She considers those youthful days before the garden took her, before the underworld began to feel confining, and she traces her patterns of disconnection and relationship, abundance and scarcity, and fruition and void. She harvests a deep knowing, an in-the-bones understanding, of who she truly is during her most joyous moments. She lets the dead parts shrivel and fall off as she walks, and she surrenders to nature’s storm with her whole body and soul.
Part 1. Tracing the Feeling Mind
Consider your entire life, my love, to be an epic myth consisting of an unknown number of chapters. You are the heroine, and up until this very moment you have lived the first ten of these chapters. Title these ten chapters accordingly now, writing in your journal as if you were both historian and prophet. You are living the end of the tenth chapter in this moment, but the latter chapters are the yet-to-come. Go back into the lived chapters now and make note of moments of bhava, or feeling mind; these are moments when your spirit, mind, and body were all yoked together, vibrating with the universal frequency. These are moments not of great epiphany or ecstasy but rather of feeling very much in the flow with life’s design. In these moments, you were the truest version of yourself you could possibly be.
Common activities associated with feeling-mind moments include dance, creation in its myriad forms, gardening or connecting to the Earth, sexual union, and, for some, teaching or being in meaningful communion with others. Everyone’s required conditions for experiencing this feeling-mind sensation are different, but these moments are invaluable clues to your soul’s purpose. Once you understand these pivotal moments in your life chapters, trace the patterns within them and make note of common themes. Do you have a consistent reflection of sacred solitude in these moments? What elements from nature are emphasized? Tracking your feeling mind is a majestic act of self-study, and the darker times when, perhaps, there were entire life chapters without this in-the-flow sensation are just as telling as the joyous moments of ease and wonder. See if you can track five patterns in these moments of flow, these moments of grace and at-oneness.
Not forcing yourself to speculate on any other details about the yet-to-come, ask yourself this: What is the title of the eleventh chapter, if it starts in this moment? You do not need to be specific; a simple word will suffice. What chapter begins now and ends on some unknown, mysterious night in the future?
On your blank page or canvas, draw a circle at the center and write the title of your eleventh chapter inside it. If you feel so inclined, feel free to make this central circle symbolize the “forbidden fruit,” giving it an apple shape, a red color, or another telling design element that speaks “passion” to you. Create five leaves or petals of similar size radiating around the circle. In these shapes, write your five patterns, coloring them a shade of green or another hue that symbolizes “homecoming,” “the wilds,” or “ground” to you. You might leave this drawing on your altar or in a wild sanctuary in your home until you have time to move on to part 2, or, if you have the time now, continue to root-scar exploration.
Part 2. Root Scars and Genuine Currencies
The root chakra is unique to every wild woman; it is an energetic, primal space wherein all beliefs about body, sustenance, home, finances, and survival reside. The root chakra’s health is inextricably bound to a woman’s felt sense of self-worth, her ability to stand on her own two feet and claim her right to take up space. The soul-wound of feminine spiritual oppression resides at the root as a resonating fear that may be small-voiced but persistent, and reflection on the liberation journey necessarily gives a nod to the fundamental role played by self-worth in the decision to escape from the garden.
Your sense of self-value, Priestess, is sourced directly from your soul-deep currencies. Just as money is nothing more than stored energy, you have a specific hierarchy of values that informs your self-esteem and, by extension, your spiritual agency. Common values wild women often share are creative expression, adventure, family, freedom, magick, and sustainability, though the range of values embodied by a Priestess is infinite, for she is the cosmic source of all things. Know that no woman will prioritize her values in the same way, though, with those from individualistic cultures having value systems that likely differ radically from those from collectivist cultures.
In reflecting specifically on a woman’s Red Road journey, however, it is not what these values are that is as important as how authentically you believe you have the right to these deep currencies. For example, if I truly value freedom but pack my schedule to the brim so often that I am precluded from having any time to myself, any opportunities for travel, or anything else that makes me feel genuinely free, then there may be a root-chakral defect blocking my right to have what I crave most. Similarly, if I truly value groundedness and security but am constantly leaking my funds and succumbing to an unfruitful wanderlust, then I am engaging in a certain and sure self-sabotage.
Ask yourself what you value most. Ask your deep self to speak about the nature of your longing during your quietest moments, and then ask yourself whether you truly believe you have the right to satisfy those cravings. Dig down underneath the power leakages and misguided investments to make visible the gaps between what you have and what you hold dear.
Priestess, your truest values are tattooed on your bones. They incarnated into your body along with your soul’s purpose, and they are clues to the role you play in this grand cosmic design.
The catalyst for your liberation was, and indeed always remains, a felt experience of the discrepancy between what you value most, what you get on your knees and pray for, and what you have. First, though, my love, first, you recognize your right to have what you value. There is a moment when the wild woman howls to the moon: No. No, this is not good enough. I deserve better, and I want more.
Ask yourself what you truly value, and see if you can trace seven core currencies you hold as your own. They might be time spent in nature, meaningful family connection, creative work, participation in social justice groups, environmental activism, movement alchemy, hedonism, or sensual nourishment. You know it is one of your core currencies if, when you lack this thing, you have a lower sense of self-worth, an embodied longing for that particular fulfillment only this currency could provide. Mind you, you do not feel that longing because you believe you should; you feel it because your soul thrives on, is fueled by, those truest values of yours.
Once you have identified those seven currencies, create seven serpentine loops around and between the five-petal layer of your drawing from part 1. There is no correct way to do this, and the artist can never betray her own art. However you create these snakelike curves or spirals, know it is perfect, and write your currency words here, inside these shapes. Choose a color that symbolizes “abundance” or “wealth” for this part of the design, and then draw a large, organically circular border around the entire work; color this border red to symbolize the Red Road. You may leave this drawing on your altar until you have time to return, or move on if you have the time and will.
Part 3. Opening to the Eleventh Chapter
Now, Priestess, knowing what it is you truly value, write a single pivotal scene in your eleventh chapter, the next chapter that you titled at the center of your artwork. Write this scene as if you were remembering a future full of feeling-mind moments. This is not a fluffy exercise in the Law of Attraction; it is a thorough examination of what is already yours and a written invocation to celebrate your own homecoming. Witches want proof their magick has merit, my love, and your lived experience is all the evidence you need.
Envision that key scene where you are truly living out your purpose, even if that purpose does not seem particularly productive by conventional definitions of success or achievement. Pay special attention, Priestess, to your moments of bhava and your values — both reflected in your work of art — and handcraft this scene precisely as you want to live it. Describe your feelings in this chapter in as much sensory detail as possible, and describe what your wild home looks like, whether it is a physical space or metaphorical way of being in the world. What conditions can you create in your life now that will support your feeling-mind experience, that purely present state during which you are both whole unto yourself and connected to all things? Most important, ask yourself this: What gaps exist between me now and the me who is living that eleventh-chapter scene?
Let these words be positive rather than negative. For instance, is the heroine who is living out the eleventh chapter more fearless? Joyous? Autonomous? Financially stable? The words that come to mind now should be akin to what you are looking to invoke. Once you have five to ten words that are also desires, inscribe these around the serpentine shapes, inside the red border of the circle. Use whatever colors feel right. Add any other symbols or sigils you work with, images from dreams that seem pertinent, or design elements that will complete your work of art, your Lilith mandala. Every word here should make you feel powerful, compel you toward sovereignty, and offer you a felt sense of selfhood and high worth. If you have time to move on to the fourth and final part of the spell, do so now and with a strong will and open heart.
Part 4. Mandala Blessing: Spoken Root Prayer for the Primitive Soul
During this final part of the spell, you will seal your magick and bless your art. To begin, ask yourself this: Do I believe I have the right to be here, on this Earth? Do you believe that the ancestral inheritance of wisdom you have coming to you, running in your very blood, is your birthright? Deep-seated beliefs about your right to have what you want are buried in the red, raw space of Muladhara, or the root chakra. The spinal cord is one of the first structures to form in the womb, with the root chakra’s physical location situated at the base of the spine and pelvic floor. Here in this round, red house, we contain the beliefs we learn as babes about how much safety and security we deserve, primal messages received from innumerable sources, including but not limited to the birth experience, the level of nurturing received from our primary caregivers, any physical traumas, dark fears and tempting desires from the collective unconscious, and memories from lives long gone. The feminine soul-wound sits here, compromising the very foundation of the chakral system until it is recognized for the beastly medicine that it is.
This healing practice is a body prayer to your self-worth. Claim your right to have with your whole body. Know yourself as Queen. Refuse to accept the spiritual limits set upon you and infuse your garnet roots with a deeper understanding of who you are and what you, as the Goddess embodied, deserve.
Stand with your mandala at your feet, and cast a circle, if it is in your practice to do so, calling to all four directions, above, and below, and allow yourself to be the center point of all things right now, in this moment. Lift your pelvic floor up toward your heart by engaging the root muscles. Sink your consciousness low and pull your thinking mind down, down, and down further still until you can visualize your root chakra. Take notice of how the energy is moving, the colors that emanate from that space, and the size of this energetic wellspring. Keep your awareness anchored there at your root, and whisper aloud these prompting phrases, letting the root energy complete them with just a single word, long, verbose answers that seem endless, or any expressions in between. The root speaks in its own language, so listen without blocking any visions that come.
I have the right to...
I know for sure that home is...
What I value most in the world is...
I am soft skin around hard bones, and I feel...
These prompts are merely suggestions for giving the root chakra an opportunity to speak. Feel free to write your own introductory words, and tap into your root consciousness as needed. You, as the Priestess of the Wild Earth, house aches sourced not only from the loss of the divine feminine but also from the ailing planet, and giving the root a chance to speak is a step toward healing not only you but the very ills of this world. Raise energy in this way, speaking the red language of the root and tapping into the deepest and most primal part of your feminine soul.
Allow every word that ascends from the root and spills from your lips to bless the artwork at your feet, to empower you, and to affirm that you have the right to be here on this Earth. You have the right to hold in your hands what is most truly and genuinely yours, and you have the right, an ancestral birthright, to claim the life your soul designed for you before you were born into this body.
Stay here for as long as you have, and, when ready, place hands firmly on the ground, sending your particular medicine down deep into the bones of the Earth herself. Breathe from the lowest places in your body, and feel a kinship with your bloodlines. In this moment, you belong nowhere else but right here. Open the circle, if you had cast that boundary, offering gratitude to your guides and unseen cosmic energies for supporting you, and place your artwork somewhere precious, somewhere holy.
And so it is.
PATHWORKING IN THE UNDERWORLD: MEETING THE GODDESS BELOW
Building a respectful relationship with the Dark Goddesses, these Priestesses of the Underworld who share our wounds, means considering where and how their stories are your stories. The Goddess is not to be used, appropriated, or owned. She is to be met and met well, with a necessary reverence and wholeheart understanding that she is, after all, the embodiment of feminine power.
In this pathworking experience, I invite you to meet the Goddess of the Underworld as she shows herself to you, to envision her as you read these words, and to consider the lessons she has for you today. Know that were you to envision her tomorrow, she might show up for you much differently than she does at this moment. The messages you receive during pathworking experiences are those you are meant to receive in the moment rather than finite lessons that cannot be revisited. Sit comfortably, breathe, and open yourself to what comes.
Delve deeply into your wild psyche, my love, and envision these scenes while you read, very slowly, giving your psyche time to catch up with your reading. Imagine this journey with your eyes open and your will strong:
Begin by descending a dark spiral staircase, your bare feet falling on cold stones and your way illuminated only by the single gently hissing, flickering torch you carry. On the walls you see ancient symbols you do not know and words in a language you do not speak, but there is something of the primal feminine about this place. Falling on your ears now are joyous cackles, guttural sobbing, enraged screaming, and lighthearted love songs — all manner of human emotion — floating up from below. You are not afraid, even as the stairs end and bright firelight glows from the temple space before you.
Here, holy hellfire stretches in long flames from a pit at the room’s center, a blaze you sense has been burning since the dawn of time. You are not alone here in this fire temple, with women of all ages, from all times and all cultures, moving about the space, some eyeing you with suspicion and others with great knowing compassion. These are the Keepers of the Earth-Fires, and from among these holy Priestesses steps the Goddess of the Underworld. You recognize her as their leader, for she radiates a particular intensity. She has been to hell and back many times over, and she is no flower-crowned Maiden of spring.
Her skin is scarred, her hair is singed, and yet she remains unruined.
“There is only one way out of here,” the Goddess tells you.
You look over your shoulder to find the staircase’s entrance completely sealed with stone. You straighten your spine and hold your breath, waiting for her to gift you with her wisdom.
“You must leap into the flames and trust you will not burn. You must risk all you have in the name of your soul’s truth.” The Goddess waves her hand to the crowd of women surrounding you. “Many of these women have lived in this underworld for long years, whole lifetimes spent too afraid of letting their old selves die so their more soulful selves can be reborn. How long will you stay, Priestess?”
The heat of the fire is overwhelming. Sweat runs in salty rivulets into your eyes as you approach the flaming gate, but you are surefooted and committed to your liberation. You can see how you might stay, not only out of trepidation but because the sisterhood bond is strong here. These fallen women were willingly staying in their depths because here, in this particular hell, they have found a kinship of the wounded, a coven of the scarred.
“Well? How long will you join us here?”
You answer her, as only you can. What do you say to the Goddess of the Underworld?
You might have longed to stay in your younger years, but your wise woman’s psyche knows you have work to do on the topside world. The Goddess grins crookedly and nods in solidarity, approving of your bravehearted resolve. You look to her, clench your fists, and leap into the flames, vowing to let the fire be a crucible of hot and holy transformation, to transmute your rage and grief into empathy and gratitude. You are not sure how long you journey, for you remember little of the ascent, but you wake with newborn eyes open to a wilder world.
“I am returned,” you say aloud. “I am returned more real than I have ever been.”
And so it is.
BODY PRAYER OF THE SHADOW: A MOVING-MAGICK PRACTICE OF INTEGRATION
Materials: Music (optional)
Like the myth of Persephone-Kore, Inanna’s tale of descent is really a story of integration, as the Goddess must face her own dark side, fusing together parts of herself that had been fragmented in order to meaningfully heal. This body prayer can be done alone or in a circle of sisters; it is a moving ritual and living healer’s spell through which you dance yourself open, confront your shadow, then return from the underworld a more whole version of yourself.
Ideally in a closed, dimly lit space or out in nature at night, begin by moving in a slow rhythm either to live drums or recorded music. You might find your shadow song and play it loudly or tune in to the rhythm of your heartbeat and move in time with your life’s pulse. Consider the rhythm a resonance of the feminine divine that opens a holy gateway to the deepest parts of your soul. Even if you are with your sisters, dance for no one but you. This is your ritual of descent and return, and your body remembers the way. Move with lupine intelligence. Close your eyes if you must to keep your attention inward. Begin to feel that your shadow is ascending through your body, climbing your bones and moving into your heart space. Your shadow is everything you would swear you are not, everything you detest in other women; it reflects the most wounded parts of your soul, struck down and buried during childhood in the name of social acceptance.
Dance your shadow dance now, my love. How does your shadow move? What does it want? Descend into the muck of those parts of your psyche you labeled as bad when you were young and dig through them with your bare hands. Did you decide that your vulnerability was a fault and now you detest weakness and entitlement? Did you decide your right to rest was an illusion and now you detest laziness? Did you consider your natural childhood naïveté to be a downfall, so now your shadow is ignorance? Who is the shadow creature that lives within? Find her and dance wildly with her, for she has been caged for far too long.
When you feel the time is right, begin to integrate your shadow now by giving her permission to stay in the light, to fuse to your body and soul. Know that true shadow integration is a long and challenging process of many hard-won psychic battles, sudden and painful epiphanies, and angry resistance. This ritual is a symbolic action. Like the earth element, it is a place from which to begin. Dance the dance of integration until you can dance no longer, then rest a more organically soulful version of yourself. You are a Priestess of the Wild Earth, and you now find yourself on new ground.
And so it is.
PATHWORKING AND FORGIVING THE MAIDEN: RETURN TO THE UNDERWORLD-GARDEN
As you read these words, my love, hear the gravelly voice of a wise hooded Crone echoing from within your very bones. She is leading you through this meditation, walking with you as you honor your time in the underworld-garden as integral to your personal growth, a pivotal chapter in your story. Know forgiveness as a space maker, with any anger or resentment you feel toward yourself for spending time in the garden consuming valuable energy within your heart and soul. Know the forgiveness you direct toward yourself as vital medicine for the ailing feminine, and know the path as perfect, just as it is. Return to the garden now, Priestess, and let the old one hold your hand while you walk.
“Come with me, Maiden,” she beckons, holding out her paper-skinned hand. “We must return to the place you rebelled against, so long ago.”
In your mind’s eye, you can see the landscape of your most recent garden, a place you knew to be safe for a time, where the masks you wore matched those of others and your wildness would have been shunned were you to show it too soon.
Go into your underworld-garden now, your Eden. Walk with your protectress, who will shield you with all the willful steadfastness of a wolf-mother. She is with you, and you are safe. There is no one else here. You can see the garden so clearly now, and you can feel it with all your senses. What colors are in this place? What sounds do you hear?
Give yourself some time to move around the garden freely, exploring the places you knew so well. Perhaps let your fingers begin to graze things you were not permitted to touch when you were there in your younger years. Imagine yourself breaking the rules of this place. Dance wildly, or proclaim your true name. Repeat these vows in your garden, as often as you like, as if they were a righteous mantra: See me as I am. Hear me as I am. Know me as I am. Love me as I am.
Now, bewitch this garden-hell from the inside out. Imagine now that the garden begins to change slightly, with the whole scene dimming as if the lights were being turned down. The garden becomes washed in gray light and, whatever the precise nature of your garden, even if it is an indoor space, let your Crone guide lead you to the Tree of Knowledge. Somewhere in your darkened garden, a bright, dewy tree now grows, and your wise woman will help you seek it out.
“I know the way, Priestess,” she tells you, holding your hand as you move through the familiar space searching for something you have most certainly never seen in your garden before this moment.
When you find the tree, you will know it as the most beauteous, maternal, growing gift you have ever encountered. Though the garden is cast in a dull light, this tree is illuminated by the pink-gold of the abundant feminine. The leaves are vibrant, so emerald green that they seem to glow, and the bark on the thick trunk is knotted with age. The branches are bejeweled by fruit so flawless that their skin is tattooed with the ancient symbols of God-Goddess-Mystery.
This tree is a symbol of your holy awakening, my love. Its colors are the shades of your liberation, and its image is how your psyche has chosen to show you your own wild nature in this moment. Approach this tree now, Priestess, but move slowly. Trace the bark with your fingertips and inhale the heady scent of the forbidden fruit. When you feel ready, reach up and pick the most lustrous piece of sinful lusciousness you can find. Let your tongue run along its edges; then sink your teeth deep into the juicy grit of the Holy Wild.
Imagine you leave nothing. Devour it all. With every bite, imagine that the dark garden surrounding the tree becomes less tangible, disintegrating into thick, hot black smoke that hangs in the air around you. When you feel full and fed, inhale deeply and pull this black hot smoke into your lungs, exhaling with force and seeing it surround you once again. Now, inhale again, pulling the smoke inside your blessed body, but this time, dear one, you exhale a gray fog, cooler and less dense than the smoke you breathed in. Inhale this gray fog now and exhale a white cool mist. Inhale this white mist, exhaling pure diamond light.
Stay with this image now, Priestess, for you have transmuted your memories of the garden. Inhale the diamond-white light and exhale the diamond-white light, sinking into this rhythmic mantra. On the inhale, think the words I am, and on the exhale, think forgiven.
With every breath, absolve yourself of any guilt, any residual shame you harbor from your time spent here. You are guiltless grace. You can do no wrong, for you are the limitless, cosmic, infinite wonder that is the wild feminine. Let all become light now, my love. The Tree of Knowledge and your wise guide dissolve into the brilliance emanating from your being. Change your mantra now and repeat these words, inhaling I am and exhaling wild.
I am wild. You are wild. We are wild. She is wild.
And so it is.
EARTH REFLECTION AND FINAL PRAYER: EMBRACING THE BETWEEN TIMES
