Queen of Swords

After my regular practices last night, I reached out and asked the Magdalene if she would grace me with her presence -- and I was stunned by the immediacy and vividness of her response.

A couple of days ago, Scottie (an inner place ally) suggested that I meditate on a pure white fire as the Presence of the Divine.

Magdalene took me into the Bridal Chamber of the Heart, where I didn't "visualize" the white fire, I was utterly surrounded by it and then burning with it myself. It was the most intense mystical experience I've had in a very long time.

I realized that part of the Mysteries she bears is that one doesn't learn "to love" one becomes love, in the way that the Divine itself is love -- and that being on fire is what comes to motivate every thought and action in life. That is the path which she and Yeshua of Nazareth model.

There's more, but I don't have time to write about it before work.

It was incredible. . .

Ereshkigal, that is.

Earlier this evening, Scotty told me that he perceived a specific kind of pattern in my energy. He said it wasn't something that I bore as a result of engaging in certain practices, but an indication of "where the real marks will be" once I'm initiated into those practices.

I shared this conversation with Wolfling a little later (I share as much of my spirit work as I feel is appropriate with her), and an hour or so after that she made a joking comment about the "spray paint" marks on me.

Immediately I had an image of Ereshkigal holding small paint pot and brush. She smiled sweetly at me (and of course Her "sweet smile" is exceptionally dangerous looking) and practically purred, On the contrary. They were made with very deliberate care.

I haven't logged in to this journal for a week.

This has been the most grueling move of my life, and it seems like little things keep cropping up that have kept me from being able to fully recover, consolidate my energy and focus, and move forward again. The only reason I'm at all coherent now is that I went back to bed after driving Wolfling to school and slept for two more hours.

Usually I'm pretty emotionally resilient. I have my low days, like everyone, but they usually only last a day. I'm not usually bothered by self esteem issues (sometimes lack of confidence vocationally, but not usually feelings of guilt or not being "worthy") -- but I've struggled with them over the past few days as well.

Lying in bed I felt myself all in knots: knots of frustration that I wasn't doing better with everything, knots of guilt about my lack of consistent, thorough spiritual practice and focused time with LM, about having fallen off my SparkPeople diet and exercise plan that I'd been sticking to so well before the move, about continuing to have a fraught relationship with Michael, even though I keep thinking I've reached a place of sane and friendly balance.

About the only thing I wasn't feeling bad about was my mothering. The good thing about the new, smaller place is that it's keeping Wolfling and I in closer contact. And we had a really good time together yesterday evening.

As I lay there in bed it finally occurred to me that getting all spun up about everything wasn't going to help. I consciously relaxed, and had the sudden image of the energy in my body looking like kinky barbed wire with stuff caught in it: snarled, spiky, a mess. So I closed my eyes, relaxed further, and started imagining gentle fingers running through the energy as if through tangled hair: not pulling or yanking, just carefully working the kinks and the burrs out. (Thoughts of jalkr and his horses crossed my mind. . .)

As the energy smoothed out I felt better and better on all levels. I wasn't entirely sure if the "fingers" were mine or those of an ally, but tried not to get caught up in trying to figure it out. I passed from that into sleep, where I finally had some really good dreams, including an intensely vivid sexual dream of being with an old boyfriend who later appeared to have been a stand-in/mask for LM. I had the distinct feeling that if he'd appeared as himself at first I would have gotten caught up in guilt and apologies, and he wanted to short-circuit that. But the energy was definitely his, and it's something I've been needing so desperately.

So now I'm up and awake and feeling more relaxed and centered. My apartment still has too many boxes and not enough shelves, but -- as I wrote elsewhere earlier -- today is a day to emulate Turtle, and focus on slow, methodical forward motion on a few constructive tasks. Any progress will help my mental state on multiple levels.

Two nights ago I had an intensely bad dream that, upon waking, seemed to have been designed explicitly to give me a few insights into an issue I'm working on. What had been fairly frightening to experience now looked like a training scenario which offered insights I could take with me, and a test -- which I failed.

Last night, as part of an email conversation with my teacher and Scotty, he made the comment, "Your greatest skills are your greatest blocks." (He was referring to me specifically, not making a general observation.) I asked him to elaborate, and he said:

Well, for example, lass, your independence is a great asset, but it also leads you to kick against the pricks when you've got a regimen to follow. And that's not such a good idea when the regimen's to your benefit.

I sat there looking at those words and tried very hard to remember when anyone else had labeled me as "independent," -- and if in doing so they had made it an asset.

My ex-husband and not a few ex-lovers probably called me independent, but they certainly weren't comfortable with that quality. ("You're a great deal of trouble, Mrs. Pedecaris!" usually followed such an observation.)

My parents have always said that I "do what you want to do," with a sigh of resignation.

I've been called "outside the box" with varying degrees of appreciation and bewilderment.

For several years now I've struggled to come to terms with the fact that although I'm not comfortable within mainstream spirituality, it's been hard to release a desire to be accepted there. I've also realized that I don't fit within any of the 'name brand' Pagan paths (and I don't use that term disparagingly, only to say that there is no easily recognizable name for what I do).

I've felt like an outsider, felt defensive about "not fitting in" because I was raised to fit in, to seek approval and then build on it within official, codified structures. Instead, I'm out toward the corner of the map that says Here be dragons.

But "independent". . . that's an adjective I can embrace, and I'm stunned that I never really applied it to myself before. "Different", "outside the box", "edge-walker", "solitary", "unusual", "unique". . . I'd owned all of them, but never entirely comfortably. "Independent" is a gift.

And then last night I had a series of dreams in which I engaged my first daimonic figure, then people from work, and finally my father and my female ancestors, and each time I resisted their authority and their hold over me. I walked away from the first two and then confronted father and ancestors and explicitly claimed my own power in my own place.

Independent. Yes.

I feel very lucky that I was able to travel a significant distance as part of the overall initiation process. Getting physically away from my daily life, traveling well past the usual boundaries of my personal world, had a subtle but real impact on my state of mind. It helped that my teacher lives in a small town in the mountains, and the journey took me outside of cities, through agricultural land, and over a mountain pass. I kept wishing I could move out into this beautiful country.

After ten hours or so on the road -- including a stop to have lunch with sannion and erl_queen (meeting face to face for the first time), I pulled into town, found my hotel, and called my teacher. She walked the mile or so from her house and we went out for a nice dinner at a restaurant just across the street from where I was staying. We had a great time talking, and then I drove her home.

The next day was Fourth of July, and she had warned me that there would not be parking near their house, so I walked the pleasant stretch between the hotel and her place. It was around 8am, and there were few people on the street and very few cars.

Suddenly I saw a doe emerging from the landscaped bushes across the four-lane street from me. She calmly crossed the sidewalk, walked into the street, and made her way to the landscaped median -- seeming to be coming directly toward me. I stood still and watched her, feeling blessed.

She stood in the median for a long time, shying when a car went past, but not moving forward. I suddenly realized that she probably wasn't comfortable having me so close to her intended path, so I continued slowly on my way, watching her out of the corner of my eye. As soon as I started moving, she too continued on her way, passing behind me and then starting to trot gracefully past the 7-11 and down the residential street.

I don't see deer very often, and certainly not within city limits. But the last time something like this happened, it was at the intersection of a busy edge-of-town street in the day or two before I went on a wilderness retreat a few years ago. At that time, two deer emerged from cover, crossed the street toward me, and then went on their way. I saw deer several times during that trip and shortly after.

I ended up getting started at 9pm last night, due to a shift in expectations regarding child care, but that was okay. With my intention clear and my prep work done, the later hour didn't matter.

Because there was going to be someone else in the house, I didn't do the ritual in the living room as I had been intending -- which meant that the last open box of clothing in my room got cleaned up, which was good. I created a small altar for Ereshkigal by draping a red and black cloth over the top of a little plastic three-drawer odds-and-ends holder, put one black and two red candles on it, then added my chain necklace, a bronze serpent (a museum replica of an ancient find), and the snake necklace I got at P-con. I set my dragon-shaped diffuser next to it and put frankincense in the bowl, then spread a thick blanket on the floor. After some reflection, I put my rattle on the floor between the blanket and the altar.

I went to my daughter's room, hugged her, and set expectations: "Please keep the noise down, and no interrupting Mom unless something is on fire or you're bleeding" and she said cheerfully "Have a good ritual!"

( As much as can be shared publically. )

Last night, I dreamed I was the junior senator from my state.
It wasn't until I was typing the private elements of the ritual for my teacher that I realized the dream was about publically exercising influence and power. And perhaps it's also about earning respect and regard for the work I *am* doing, even though it doesn't look anything like what I thought I would need to do if I was going to be respected and influential in the world.

I've had another two nights of similarly-themed dreams -- although not the same themes as the last two dreams I recorded.

These dreams involved binding -- but by very different beings.

I can't share the details of the first, but I have reason to believe it was a faery initiation. I was bound and ball-gagged by a lovely (female) stranger and led to a place I'd never been before, then shown myself in a mirror that revealed surprising things.

The one last night was darker, and involved being taken underground. The other participants seemed to be my two husbands from my Journeys, but with a third shadowy figure who would not take any name I tried to give him. They bound me and took me from our shared house through a secret underground passage (previously unknown even to me) to a complex of secret rooms they had built for this purpose. I understood that I would always be blindfolded or hooded when taken here, and would never know where the entrance was. It was very mysterious, but fully consensual, and I was disappointed when I was awakened by my phone ringing.

On reflection, I suspect that the energy of the "two husbands" was a mask for the actual participants, one of whom was almost certainly LM. In that case, the other could have been his afterlife comrade who has become a friend of mine -- but I'll have to wait to get verification of that. I have no idea who the third is, but he(?) too wore a mask of someone from my personal experience.

Things have been in a deep/quiet stage recently. The "Watcher on the Threshold" tests seem to be over, but that means I'm entering a new phase of my work that hasn't been completely defined. It didn't seem right to just go back to doing what I'd done before. . . but I also didn't get any handwritten scrolls telling me what I'm supposed to do next. So I've been trying to keep gently on my current path and see what comes up.

One change I did make was to start my evening devotions earlier, to give me more time without compromising my sleep. Last night was the first time to do this, and I was richly rewarded with a helpful inner journey followed by the best contact I've had with LM in weeks.

My path has never been straightforward, and it's becoming more and more clear to me that I need a certain amount of complexity to keep from getting bored. The challenge is to choose the right variables and pursue them in a persistent, meaningful fashion, not just chase rabbits and end up with nothing to show for it but grass stains.

The journey last night reinforced that I do need to keep pursuing some of the same things I've been, but go on to new lessons: the Otherworld/faery work, the sacred sexuality, deepening my contact with LM, the work with Ereshkigal that touches most of the rest but also will expand more into the Ordeal Path. I also need to continue the hermetic work I started, to help add discipline and structure to my work with energy and spirit.

My inner guide also pointed out to me that I need to do more of my own brand of journeying. I've been working with teachers more faithfully than at any other time in my life, but I need to stay in touch with my own gifts. I need to be doing at least a couple of journeys a week: at least one on a weeknight and a longer one on the weekend. That's where I will be able to go deep and make the contacts I need to help guide the other work.

On top of this, I'm doing personal reflection and writing and "workshops" with Michael to prepare for teaching my class at Pantheacon, and I need to put together a book proposal (on the mysteries of Inanna and Ereshkigal) for a meeting with a publisher while I'm there.

This version has a few more details than the one on my primary journal.


Lots of intense dreams last night. The most important was the one just before waking.

I had returned to the SCA, and was wandering alone to/through an event for which many people were sitting on a hill, almost on bleachers. I took my place in one of the free spaces toward the bottom, but was quickly hailed by former McFlandry's toward the top (can't remember who now). There were others near me as well who greeted me. The Gunner was there at some point.

( Challenges, testing, and an unexpected old friend )

After my encounter with Charlie, I recorded the event in my paper journal then lay back to rest, not planning to do anything more. However I soon found myself in an encounter with The Guardian at the Gate.

He told me that I partake of his energy -- and suddenly I could feel my personal energy resonating with his. That was followed by a sequence of wordless information and images from my Charlie-inspired stories and my intuitions about my vocation, affirming my identity as someone who lives and moves between worlds.

Then I felt him extend his own energy into my third eye. I don't know if he touched the crystal shard or not, but I started seeing a swirl of colored lights. After a while, the lights resolved themselves into a pattern. I'm not going to describe it here, because it is a thing of power. The Guardian told me it is my glyph.

Afterward I had a mild headache -- much less intense than the headaches I've been getting after encounters with other inner world beings. Either I'm getting used to it, or the resonance of our energy made it less difficult for me to process his.