Meditation Musings

(cross-posting, just 'cuz)

I've been working on this meditation for a month, and I think I really got it tonight. I convinced Doug to talk me through it. I'm so much better at guided meditations. I've been trying to identify two energies currently at play - patron deities and the iuno in my life.

I think tonight's meditation answered both of these.

Your patrons are your mother and father on this path. Dona Incendia and Amaranthea didn't exactly reveal that this was what this was about, but Don Draconus sort of let it slip in discussions with Dona Incendia during Mayfest, and I had figured it out before then. Your iuno, for a woman, is that "guardian spirit" in her life. It sort of protects the sacred feminine inside her. Men have one, but it's the genius.

I wrote up a meditation based on the meditation that Dona Incendia used with us on our initial journay down this path -- bringing us to our sacred space, entering our temple, and meeting with beings (might be people, might be spirits, might be animals) and then returning from there.

Tonight's meditation left me weeping.

I went to that temple space. The temple was dark and reflective. It was a beautiful day, and the sunlight glinted off the walls - obsidian? Around the doors was a wave-like design, chisled into the stone. On the doors themselves there was the tunnel I've seen a hundred times in meditations and dreams of late. Within the tunnel was a key.

The doors opened and I walked in. I felt a presence with me. Romeo was laying with me on the bed, and I believe he came with me through to the temple.

But it wasn't just Romeo my lovely familiar furbaby, he was different. I've known there's something special about that cat since forever. He's got old eyes. But there's more. It's like he's a dragon wrapped up in fur. There's pictures I have somewhere where he's peering over laundry I was folding, and it's a dragon's face. The way his ears laid back and his eyes look, it's almost as if it was a dragon peering out from behind rocks where he's made his nest, looking out in part with amusement and part with annoyance to see who is distrupting his nap.

The furbaby who accompanied me to the temple was this being. This cat-dragon. This large panther with white toes on his front paws (which is how I know it's Romeo), with black leathery wings. His snout was a little different - longer and more pronounced, but I would know my baby's eyes anywhere.

He entered with me, and we approached the altar. The same figures were there from the first time, and each time, I've done this meditation. The woman, dressed in gauzy white robes. Looking at her is like looking at one of those holographic images, where you look at it one way and it's a rose, and you tilt the picture and the rose becomes a vampire. She kept changing, from young to old. It didn't seem that she was the "maiden" persay, but somewhere between maiden and mother. There's a book that lists the stages of life, I think they have this as warrior or something, not sure. But she had long dark hair and her expression was very peaceful, very resolved. It was loving, but stern.

The man, dressed all in black gauzy robes. He's taller than the woman, broader. He's quite and does not speak hardly at all. It's as if he prefers to let her do the talking. I suppose that way, when he does speak, it's taken more to heart, more seriously. Again, I didn't see his features, but he exuded definate male energy.

The third man, older, who hung back and apart from the proceedings, yet with the understanding that they went on because he deemed them necessary. He's older, with a beard. Sort of like all those pictures you see of statues of Zeus.

The woman stepped forward first. She annointed me with the pentagram on my forehead and the crescent moon on my left shoulder. When she spoke, it was as if an echo was trying to catch up with the source, and every now and then surpassed it. She said I was trying too hard, and making things too difficult for myself. Yes, this path is not an easy path, but I'm complicating matters and making it harder on myself. They're really much more simple than I'm making them out to be. Her words reminded me of that Indigo Girls song "Least Complicated" - the hardest to learn was the least complicated..She ended with "The answer is in the quite silence of the shadows within."

The man stepped forward next. He annointed me and this time I remembered what it was. It was a key, wrapped in either a half-moon or perhaps the tunnel I've been seeing. He said simply Remember. This will grant you passage.

They stood together and I finally asked them who they were. The woman spoke and said that they were death and rebirth. They are that which was before and that which will continue after. They are the cold embrace of slumber between the worlds.

I think, at this point, I knew who they were. I think, at this point, I realized that they were Umbria and Dis... Proserpina and Pluto. I remembered that I was so intrigued by their names when I first read Grimassi's book. I remembered how the myth of the Descent of the Goddess so touched me, to the point that I wanted to hand myself over to the myth, give up my crown and sceptor and gown and shoes and approach Death. I remembered that no matter how many Treguendas I participated in, no matter how strong those energies became, it was always Shadowfest, their holiday, that resonated in me deep to my core. Yes, I was freed at Lupercus. I danced the bale fires of Beltane. I mourned for the God's sacrifice at Cornucopia, and welcomed the new Sun back at Natale... but it is always Shadowfest that I find most fulfilling. It's Shadowfest that I look forward to all year long, and that I miss as soon as the ritual is over. It's at that point during the year that we know the cold, soft caress of Death, realizing that it's not really an ending, but another step on the path. One more trial. One more test. One more gate to pass through.

At that point, it was as if flood gates were opened within me. I felt so overwhelmed. I felt so much love, yet so much expectation from them. I felt like I belonged.

When they returned to the altar and the third figure came forward, I asked who he was, and if I wasn't supposed to work with Neptune, since I'd been receiving all these lessons from Water over the past year, and that seemed to fit in with what Amaranthea had told me about how patrons worked in your life. The older man said that there was, indeed, much to learn from the water, but that I must not neglect the other worlds. He said that the two others in the temple can guide me on my path deep inside myself.

He returned to the altar with the other two, and they all passed through the mirror. When I went to the altar, there was the arrangement of shells again. This time, there was a key in the center of the semi-circle. I picked it up and it seemed to hum, a humming that reverborated deep into my core.

I left the altar and returned to my regular body.

Doug was amused a bit at the end of the meditation. I suppose it's easy to see that he followed along to see where things were going. I wish that was something I could do. I get glimpses of what other people see, but to see it as clearly as he does... I supposed if I didn't try so hard, it might happen. We talked about what was there, and that I was a little hesitant to believe that it was Umbria and Dis. We discussed many things, and many lives. We talked about balance, and how as bright and light as I am, there's also a darker side that's equally present. How I'm able to work light and dark without too much effort to change between the two. How the moment I read their names, Umbria and Dis, I was obsessed to find out more about them, and frustrated when I couldn't find out as much as I wanted. How everything had to be better than perfect for Shadowfest, when the rest of the time perfect would suffice. How I always came home from that ritual just spent, yet gushing. In each lifetime, I've always walked just on the shadow side of light. Not deep in the darkness, but just enough shadows to know how the other half lives, and to have a respect for it that most people don't.

There's a side of me that was rejecting this idea. I mean, they are Dona Incendia's patrons. A part of me worried that it might seem like I was trying to be more like her, or something.. the words aren't coming out right but there's still that fear. But then, I think, possibly this is what brought me to want to work more with her, that we resonate similarly on several different levels, and that she might be one of the few people who would be able to help me with some of the lessons that are in store for me, as she's worked with Umbria and Dis for some time.

And everytime I waver in my thoughts, it's as if a physical rope is tugging at me, drawing me back, and reminding me that it is not my choise to pick them, but their choice to pick me, and that I must deal with that as I need to, but it will not change matters.

And I feel so overflowing... so loved... so right.

As for the iuno, I've gone through several thoughts on this. My first thought was the Bear. Because I do have a Bear protector. But it's not the same way. My bear protects me physically. My bear would kill anyone who hurt me if I asked him to. But I don't believe the Bear is my iuno. Then I remembered running with the wolves, and my long-held desire to have a wolf companion. But then, that's a companion, not a protector. It was during this meditation that my true protector showed himself to me. My panther dragon. My god, I must make sure to give him more treats!

I've never felt so spent, so emotional at the end of a meditation. It was like flood gates were opened and a thousand insights came all at once.