Queen of Swords

I have decided to become a Pirate Queen.

Real life pirates are thieves and murderers, but on the archetypal level to be a Pirate Queen means to embrace freedom, to make one's own rules, to declare one's own sovereignty, to be bold, to joyously disregard convention, and to actively search out adventure.

I have not taken leave from my own real life and I'm not going to burn my bridges unless or until I have firmly arrived on new shores. But I am going to start spicing things up, taking risks so I can reach for rewards, and caring far less about what "they" might think.

This decision emerged, surprisingly, during a conversation with my new spiritual director. Inspired by my recent reading of Mama Gena's School of Womanly Arts (one of the factors in my recent healing), I had made a collage of images of pleasure. When I showed this to AA, she made it part of the altar and asked me to talk about it. Very soon, the conversation started to focus in on the images of piracy, and what they meant to me. Soon I found myself affirming that the best, most satisfying times of my life have occurred when I was somehow "outside the lines," and that true pleasure for me included freedom and not feeling constrained by what "they" thought was best/wisest/most prudent/respectable/etc.

From there, it was a short step to affirming and celebrating my inner Pirate Queen, and that's when the energy started surging -- and it hasn't let up since.

( Just a few of my images of pleasure )

My supervisor and I were walking past the office of a new employee last week and my eye was caught by the dark/vivid colors of the image on his computer desktop. I stopped short and tried to figure out if I was seeing what I thought I was. I wanted to into the office for a closer look, but it didn't feel right. Instead I waited until the new resident walked by my desk and stopped him. "I couldn't help noticing the artwork on your desktop. Is that really a steampunk Wizard of Oz?"

He seemed as startled that someone had correctly identified it as I had been to see it in the first place!

It's an incredible piece. Please do click twice for full size and gorgeous detail.



The artist is Justin Gerard, and the image was posted on his Quick Hide Here blog: http://quickhidehere.blogspot.com/
If you like high quality fantast art I encourage you to check it out.


As an Oz purist, however, I do need to point out that the Scarecrow should not be unconscious. Scarecrows do not breathe and he would not have been affected by the poppies mushrooms.

a_belletrist shared this link to an amazing set of images of dark versions of Disney princesses.

For example:

A friend shared, in a locked post, an entry about a particularly gruesome crucifix that has recently been removed from a church in West Sussex because it scared the children and did not create a welcoming atmosphere.

She also included a link to an image of the crucifix in question. And yes, it's fairly gruesome.

But as I absorbed the image, I was startled when I saw it not through the lenses of my Christian upbringing and symbolism, but through those of my current Underworld practices.

Ereshkigal is not a "death Goddess" -- but she is a Dark Goddess, and she is the Queen of the Great Below, the Land of the Dead. One of the discussions I've been having with myself is that my relationship with Ereshkigal is very positive, and Her image in my mind is usually attractive: and yet many of Her primary depictions in literature are grim and terrifying, reflecting humanity's fear of death and decay. Have I been avoiding dealing with that very real aspect of Her nature?

Seeing this crucifix, I saw an image of Inanna's rotting corpse hanging on the hook in Ereshkigal's throne room, a vivid reminder of the fatal end which no one, not even the Queen of Heaven, could escape -- and yet there is, as in Christianity, a simultaneous faith that death is not the end, that even in the midst of the most gruesome despair, there will be liberation, re-creation, transformation. My work with Ereshkigal is significantly about having the courage and faith to dare the dark places, the fear, the loss and the dis-memberment, and win through to transformation, and help others to do so as well.

"Let her paint on an inch thick, to this end she must come," said Hamlet to Yorick's skull. So must we all. . . and yet we will pass beyond. . .

So where does that leave me in my images of my Queen of the Great Below? I'm not sure. . . but I think I would be wrong to leave images like this out of my iconography.

more animals

Isn't she fierce and beautiful?




Click for larger image

(Her features actually remind me a lot of pathdancer)


by Dave Palumbo
Print available on Etsy
(yes, I've ordered one)

The other guy doesn't seem worried about the color of his outfit.
Maybe it's only dangerous if it's a red shirt, not a red suit.



Source: Irregular Webcomic
http://www.irregularwebcomic.net/2085.html

I'm still feeling physically wrung out, but last night I was told in no uncertain terms that I needed to do something for evening practice. So I got up, took my position standing in my bedroom, and this is what happened. . . .


I stand to do my exercises, begin to the ground into the Underworld. Stop.

I root myself in this earth, I say silently. And then, even more silently, The living earth.

I feel how for all these months I've been grounding into the Underworld, bypassing all the life energy of the planet.

I ground in Earth: consciously, deliberately. Then I put down roots into the Underworld: to Ereshkigal, to Lohain. I reach deep to the source of my heart.

I feel the floor tremble beneath my feet as power answers my call - a truck passing by, or something else?

I reach up to Inanna, Queen of the Morning & Evening Star, Queen of Heaven. I connect with her, am surrounded by starlight.

Ereshkigal below and Inanna above.

I see in my mind the double loop of Ereshkigal-Inanna.

I am The Link.

I raise my right arm to Inanna, reach down with my left to Ereshkigal, let the energies flow -- and then reverse. Then I stand with my arms stretched out to each side.

I am the cross, reaching from Underworld to the Heavens, linking energies and then extending them across the living earth.

Now you understand, Ereshkigal says. And there is rare satisfaction in Her voice.




It is only as I review this entry before posting that the deeper understanding flows through me: this is my priestess work, the linking and mediation of the energies of the Great Above and the Great Below (to use the ancient terms).

There's a lot more to understand and unpack in that concept. But that's it. That's the basic essence of my task. That's what I'm here for.


* Image found online, no artist credit. If anyone knows whose it is, please tell me.