A Visit to the Temple
Oct. 10th, 2007 06:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
qosYesterday evening I was restless: tired but not sleepy, not interested in reading, not finding anything engaging. As I drifted around the house, it suddenly occured to me that I should settle down and do an inner journey. For the past few months those experiences have been primarily in response to instructions or lessons in my priestess training, and last night I felt a desire to be more spontaneous.
I'd hardly formed the realization when an image of Inanna at the entrance to her temple entered my mind. It took a few minutes for me to do my mundane preparations: ask for quiet and undisturbed time, use the bathroom, light the candles, but the image persisted. I can't remember another time when a call to have an encounter was so distinct.
I lit the candles in my bedroom, and realized that She wanted frankincense -- so I went downstairs to the get the oil. I annointed myself, my Magdalene figure (impulsive, but Magdalene connects with sacred sexuality and grieving), and my Inanna pendant, then sprinkled some oil in the bowl of the candle on the deity altar. I got up on my bed, closed my eyes, and a few moments later I could easily perceive myself with the goddess, going into her temple.
The first thing I did was ask her about the workshop I'm planning to attend, and she said that it was time for me to embrace this part of my practice again, and that I also had been right when I'd had the sense that I would need to be prepared to be the dominant partner in at least some of the exercises with M. But she reframed it from a priestess standpoint, in a way that struck home, to my gut, as never before: the scene as ritual, the top as priest/ess, taking the bottom on spiritual journey. She invoked the darkness of Ereshkigal, the peg on which she (Inanna) hung as a flogging cross, her initiate needing to be able to both surrender (a lesson of The Descent) and control.
"How do I do it?" I asked. "Will you teach me?" (I've experimented with topping, with M, and while I can enjoy it, it's not the most natural place for me.)
"It's like tarot," she replied. "You have to trust yourself and let the energy flow through you, be open to spirit. Don't worry about making mistakes."
My protests about the vulnerability of the bottom were met with gentle reminders of how I had handled mistakes by those who had topped me, reminding me that such mistakes usually were easily forgiveable, if they occur in a space of love.
She also told me that LM could help me, and I felt his wolfish smile and anticipation in my mind -- but he couldn't enter the temple and be present because he's not an initiate.
"What about getting closer to LM?" I asked. "How do I do that?"
She pointed out that I've almost never used my journeying skills to interact with him, but kept trying to sense his presence with me or hear him in my head.
*headdesk I should use my primary esoteric skill in this key area?? What a great idea!
*headdesk
At some point I asked Inanna if I had presided over sexual rituals before, and she told me that almost all of the spiritual things I've learned in this life are things I've known before.
"Why did I forget, or have it blocked?"
"You wanted it that way," she replied. "You were tired of it, tired of the responsibility." And I suddenly looked back over the history of my life, in which I've held (and desired) so little responsibility, despite my gifts and my leadership talent, even lacking the desire to have and care for a child. Instead, I've been surrounded by highly responsible figures who were more than willing to take care of me and shelter me.
"But you've begun to find that empty," she observed. And she's right.
She also reassured me that there was no bias against me for taking some time off. "There are others to carry the load too. You were not irreplacable." The last was said kindly.
The one thing that is new, she told me, is my work to connect with LM on a spiritual level, that I've never tried to have a relationship like this before.
When it was over, I felt very, very, sleepy, and it was an effort to take out my journal and record the encounter -- but the lit candles all around my room were a reminder that I had to get up. (A few weeks ago I fell asleep during a journey and all the candles burned down and out -- fortunately with no harm done.) I ended with a prayer of gratitude for my life and a petition to be able to spend the years ahead in service.
I'd hardly formed the realization when an image of Inanna at the entrance to her temple entered my mind. It took a few minutes for me to do my mundane preparations: ask for quiet and undisturbed time, use the bathroom, light the candles, but the image persisted. I can't remember another time when a call to have an encounter was so distinct.
I lit the candles in my bedroom, and realized that She wanted frankincense -- so I went downstairs to the get the oil. I annointed myself, my Magdalene figure (impulsive, but Magdalene connects with sacred sexuality and grieving), and my Inanna pendant, then sprinkled some oil in the bowl of the candle on the deity altar. I got up on my bed, closed my eyes, and a few moments later I could easily perceive myself with the goddess, going into her temple.
The first thing I did was ask her about the workshop I'm planning to attend, and she said that it was time for me to embrace this part of my practice again, and that I also had been right when I'd had the sense that I would need to be prepared to be the dominant partner in at least some of the exercises with M. But she reframed it from a priestess standpoint, in a way that struck home, to my gut, as never before: the scene as ritual, the top as priest/ess, taking the bottom on spiritual journey. She invoked the darkness of Ereshkigal, the peg on which she (Inanna) hung as a flogging cross, her initiate needing to be able to both surrender (a lesson of The Descent) and control.
"How do I do it?" I asked. "Will you teach me?" (I've experimented with topping, with M, and while I can enjoy it, it's not the most natural place for me.)
"It's like tarot," she replied. "You have to trust yourself and let the energy flow through you, be open to spirit. Don't worry about making mistakes."
My protests about the vulnerability of the bottom were met with gentle reminders of how I had handled mistakes by those who had topped me, reminding me that such mistakes usually were easily forgiveable, if they occur in a space of love.
She also told me that LM could help me, and I felt his wolfish smile and anticipation in my mind -- but he couldn't enter the temple and be present because he's not an initiate.
"What about getting closer to LM?" I asked. "How do I do that?"
She pointed out that I've almost never used my journeying skills to interact with him, but kept trying to sense his presence with me or hear him in my head.
*headdesk I should use my primary esoteric skill in this key area?? What a great idea!
*headdesk
At some point I asked Inanna if I had presided over sexual rituals before, and she told me that almost all of the spiritual things I've learned in this life are things I've known before.
"Why did I forget, or have it blocked?"
"You wanted it that way," she replied. "You were tired of it, tired of the responsibility." And I suddenly looked back over the history of my life, in which I've held (and desired) so little responsibility, despite my gifts and my leadership talent, even lacking the desire to have and care for a child. Instead, I've been surrounded by highly responsible figures who were more than willing to take care of me and shelter me.
"But you've begun to find that empty," she observed. And she's right.
She also reassured me that there was no bias against me for taking some time off. "There are others to carry the load too. You were not irreplacable." The last was said kindly.
The one thing that is new, she told me, is my work to connect with LM on a spiritual level, that I've never tried to have a relationship like this before.
When it was over, I felt very, very, sleepy, and it was an effort to take out my journal and record the encounter -- but the lit candles all around my room were a reminder that I had to get up. (A few weeks ago I fell asleep during a journey and all the candles burned down and out -- fortunately with no harm done.) I ended with a prayer of gratitude for my life and a petition to be able to spend the years ahead in service.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2007-10-11 01:37 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-10-11 02:32 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-10-11 06:41 pm (UTC)I ordered this from Amazon this morning.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-10-13 12:39 am (UTC)Thanks again for the recommendation! This is something I'd seen before, but for some reason hadn't gotten around to getting for myself.