Photo by Bruno van der Kraan
I stand in my office staring at a wall full of pictures and quotes. They are supposed to inspire me and drive that inner flame and spark of fire and creativity. But yet, all I feel is nothing....Empty.
The contagions of an empath collectively absorbing the sadness of everything and nothing. This numbness was making me edgy. Nothing satisfied. Everything was intense. Emotions started to swell. A foreign concept to a double air sign who's used to taking on everyone else's feelings and processing them through long nights of intellectual ping pong.
Me - feelings.....No way.
Whilst I was born a natural diplomat, these foreign affairs I didn't think I had signed up for?
My candle was burning low, my flame was small....the light was fading into the dark.
It was time to enter the cave.....
It's now the Winter Solstice. The Earth's longest night.......
Along with a perfectly timed Solar Eclipse. The Moon blocks out the Sun.
The Feminine blocks out the Masculine. The darkest of the dark......
So I get ready to enter the cave.....
No candle, no lights, only the darkness bubbling forth from my Soul, begging to be purged into infinity. My mind a swirl of emotions of grief, sadness, loss and of love. Fighting and resistance. But I guess the most powerful emotion I wanted to experience was Hope. A sense of Destiny perhaps? I knew in my Heart I needed to find my Courage and enter the cave. Dark, alone and ready to confront the shadowy faces of my demons.....
Entering the cave was the easy part. I called up and booked a tour as close to the Eclipse time as possible. If I was going to do darkness, I was going to go as far into the cave as I could muster. Underground or Underworld? The Plutonic forces were lulling me deep. Beckoning to come and see what was lurking in the shadows. Beneath the murky waters of separation.
The days leading up to the cave were the hardest. Every problem, thought, feeling and unprocessed emotions lingered, fleeted and reared its head. What am I doing? Where am I going? What has my Life become? Who am I without being a Mum? The four walls of the world.....Where is the Journey going? What direction is my compass set? What the hell is Covid??? That was only the beginning.....That didn't even include the suitcases of baggage and armour I needed to unpack, too heavy to carry anymore....I was exhausted.
My Armour is tempered. Hammered, well tried, tested and true. My sword is razor sharp, at the ready, for yet another battle, prepared by my mind to guard my Heart and Soul in the name of Justice and Protection. Too afraid to take it off in case someone pierced me again with the arrows of abandonment and rejection. Creating gashes of fear, wounds of loss, scars of half healed angry independence, and an iron will of defiance. The Armour was repaired. But always heavier than before. Two failed marriages, a Life full of new beginnings and uncertainty and the mighty weight of responsibilities. My Armour had became the mirrored reflections of everything I carried. All of the smoke and the mirrors. Illusion and delusion. The bullshit factor. There was not much light within the dark anymore....
Amongst all of my blaming of the men who had abandoned me, I began to see the little girl inside who had looked up at the strongest masculine she had ever seen and through rose coloured glasses had adored her first hero. Her dad.....
And step by little step as Life happened along the way those rose coloured glasses got foggy, fell off and cracked under the strain of Truth. Eventually becoming a dirty shade of jaded. These then became the lens of her Life. It was never their fault....
I understood then that my burdens had become my shame and I needed to let it all go. Easier said than done. For all the guidance I have given others in times of their own healing I now had to swallow my pride and take my own advice!
It's time to enter the cave.....
Such an interesting concept trying to get down the stairs, in between the tiny chasms leading to the caves, in a full body suit of Armour. I realised that my Armour had to come off. I had to enter unencumbered. Naked of sorts....Well save for my sword mind. I didn't say I wouldn't go unarmed. Seriously....who knew which one of my demons wanted to kill me?....I suspect, it's the Fear one!
The Journey into the abyss could not have been more invigorating. Little did I know that the cave had it's own magic beckoning me to come and discover. Deep under stalagmites and stalactites, where crystals, fresh water droplets, underground rivers and flecks of gold. If you called out in the darkness in the Cathedral Cave, it would reverberate back to you, transferring your fears in the darkness into a musical of the deepest voices of Mother Earth.
What I hadn't noticed as I journeyed further into the opening of the Underworld was that it wasn't actually dark at all. And that whilst I was being sheltered by the recesses of the Earth, I was actually now on a different Journey than the one that I had begun.
I was asked by the tour guide to sing twinkle twinkle little star....haha. That was funny, nobody wants to hear me sing. But in that darkness, where no one could see me or feel my shame. I sang. And little by little.... as I looked around I could see the lights...Mother Earth had reminded me that she too had a light in the darkness.....Glowworms!!! Or as I like to call it....Hope!
In that moment the time had come that I had to face. It was time to lay down my sword. At the soles of the Mother. This was a time for peace-keeping. I didn't realise that I didn't always have to fight.....So I lay down my sword and while the tour guide wasn't looking I also made an offering to the Dark Mother. The womb that we are all born of. Gifts of rose quartz and smokey quartz mark this occasion of Pilgrimage in this life time. Along with prayers of gratitude for the lessons, releasing of burdens and for shining her light in my dark.
Ascending the stairs back up to the car park is a moment in time I will never forget.
As if in reply to the offerings and thanksgiving, Mother Nature too, shared her magic. The eclipse was forming over the setting sun behind the hill. I knew I wouldn't see the actual eclipse itself, but as I stood under the sunset alongside another Wise Mother, for company, we witnessed the light shine brighter and brighter as rays of sun cast themselves over the hills and valleys. There was not a breathe of wind. Not a sound. No animals. Just stillness. A shift was occurring. Change......
And as if this wasn't enough proof that Life is beautiful, out of nowhere came a murder of Crows. For as far as we could see, swarming around and around our heads. A cacophony of noise and chaos. Sitting in the trees whispering to us ancient knowledge through the canopies. We kept turning looking up, watching and hearing them flap their wings.....vibrating their intentions through the cosmos. I like to call this.... the butterfly effect!...... In ancient legends, Crows are an old symbol of death, transformation, magic and the mysteries of the Underworld. The voices of all of those who came before us. As the Crows left we had Kookaburras laughing and singing out loud, reminding us of the old Shamanic ways of not taking the World so seriously.....Then...to add to the mayhem, the Goats started staring at us from behind the fence. Bleating in symphony with another realm. A gentle nudge from the primeval masculine that we were being protected and watched over. A Divine sign from the Universe.
The Cosmic Choir saying to me....if you are Brave enough to look around you in the dark Abbey....there's magic in the air!
The biggest lessons I have learned to date, without the filters of rose coloured glasses is this.....
......the only constant is change!
......out of the chaos comes perfection!
......and there is ALWAYS light in the darkness!
Oh!.... and Fortune favours the Bold!!!!!
My candle is lit.....let the change begin!
May Peace be with you!
Namaste xxx
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