Black Moon (Part Seven): Hail and Farewell, Black

[windinthemaples]

For the last time, I've lit my black pillar candle, the one so cheaply made that it is only a whisper of black coating on an unabashedly white candle. Earlier this month, I knew it to be a metaphor for our embodied existence. It is so much more than that.

I've pulled out my collaged self-portrait, that archetypal image of the Goddess, of air and water and magickal heart. Making it, digging down through all my layers in order to accurately, honestly represent them, I expected to have to overcome shame at what I found. I knew I'd have to just bare it and steel myself for the response from friends and family and myself. Who would still love Me, the dark and the light, the public and the private, the hidden and the obvious together in one complex person? I had no idea.

I am that candle. I dug through the dark parts and you know what I found this month? My Soul. My whole, shining, good, Divine, immortal and evolving Soul. The heart of me is big, it is filled with the infinite possibilities of perfect love, true connection, and the potential for complete healing. I chose this embodied life to learn more, to grow more, and in so doing I pulled on a flawed mantle. I trip up on silly things and skin my knees. I worry about my flyaway hair and let insecurities lock me away from other people. I am human, imperfect, a work-in-progress and that's just the thinnest most inconsequential surface layer. If I dig, I don't get to darker places within myself--I scrape off the daily-life detritus that obscures my soul from view. I am as beautiful, as perfect, as shining and loving as everyone else is in their depths--for we're all bits of radiant godstuff poured into flawed temporary housing.

I have spent so much time worrying about the time I was wasting, anxious that my life didn't meet some arbitrary standards that I had set for it, shameful at how ineffectual and unimportant and invisible I felt. I have been so hounded by the looming sense of my eventual death that I've been paralyzed and self-hating. That's short-sighted one-life thinking.

At my birth, the moon was in Taurus. Physical things make me feel safe. It is a stubburn, fixed sign for me, at odds with the rest of my air and water chart. I feel safest when I've dug in. When I'm anxious, I ground my emotions with food and material accumulation. I abhor change. Well, what greater change can there be than death? New existence, new chance, new set-up. I value it spiritually and intellectually, but my little warm earth body wants to stay just this way, unmoving, forever. Without change, though, the egg never cracks, the seasons never shift, the seed never sprouts, and my soul cannot continue to evolve.

By doing nothing, by vacillating for years, I've been making a daily choice. I can choose, instead, to change and to allow my life to change and evolve along with me.

"It is free will that lets us choose what we eat, our cars, our clothes, our vacations...similarly, we can choose to increase our capacity to love or be compassionate; we can choose to perform the little acts of kindness that bring us internal satisfaction; we can choose generosity over selfishness, respect over prejudice. In every aspect of our lives we can choose to make the loving decision, and by doing so, our souls will evolve." ~Dr. Brian L. Weiss in Same Soul, Many Bodies

I am not on track to cure cancer or govern the nation, become Miss America or a fashion model or do any other exceptional and ambitious and societally applauded life undertakings I may have once dreamed of. That has poisoned my self-esteem for so long, measuring my accomplishments against that impossible yard stick. My soul doesn't need that to be bettered. None of it. My month working with the color Black in the Temple of the Twelve was bookended neatly by volunteer shifts at a neighborhood homeless shelter. Six hour shifts, without break, interviewing families and seniors teetering on the brink of complete financial disaster. I could have done it, tirelessly, for days. Both times, I came home with such a sense of completion and presence and inner satisfaction and divine glow that I felt, quite fully, that I could die a happy woman in those moments. I let my heart lead and I shined and watched others shine around me and I was in an almost otherworldly state of Perfect Love and communion. I was doing what I'd entered this world to do--to Be Love. What more than that could I possibly aspire to? It's all about love and I have that, naturally, in spades.

My gift isn't small after all--it has the biggest potential of all.

"All of your roads will end in death. Not all roads lead to life." ~Cynthea Jones (Diana's Grove Mystery School)

I will love to my best, most fearless ability. I choose to hold a candle in the dark so that others may catch a glimpse of their own divine soul. I trust that change, while not always easy or safe feeling, leads me to greater spiritual evolution and healing. I know that under this very thin veneer of flaws and uncertainty, that I am truly a "whole, shining, good, Divine, immortal and evolving Soul" and I will look for it sparkling in the eyes of those around me.

Lady Black sent me a token. It is a Glamourkin, the image of a castle tower on an utterly black night with light in just one window. The text, clipped from an old book and reassembled, reads "a candle burns, as bright as stars". We are the candles, little embodied bits of godstuff and starshine, immortal and growing and exactly where we are supposed to be on this learning path. Love shines in the darkest of nights and connects us, not only to each other, but to our own immortal, divine cores.

I read the words I collaged together as part of my self-portrait's heart one last time.
We all have a role mothering. Witch, help connect all our broken pieces together.

Hail and Farewell, Black.

Comments

[rubymulligan.livejournal.com]

You are so articulate. I wish I could convey into words a tenth of what I feel. It's hard. I wish I had a USB port into my brain and I could just upload my thoughts. That'd be pretty neat.

I loved reading this, all of your entries, actually, and seeing how your month's journey evolved. So in awe of you, Rachel.

Your token seemed to mesh well with your interactions with Black this month, with your revelations on your black-coated white candle, and how you've been focusing on the light in the darkness, rather than the darkness alone.

I'm almost finished with the second chapter of the book, so tomorrow I'll know what's what. Such a much longer chapter than the first! :D (I'm glad I'm not reading ahead, just for my focus and concentration on the month at hand, but it still feels weird that I'm going to take a year to read this book, lol.)

I tried to call you yesterday, but I just left a message. Call me tomorrow if you want, or I can call you back.

[sugarmaplelife.livejournal.com]

You know, in all the years I've heard that Fleetwood Mac song, I never got that it was called Rhiannon. That was just part of the lyrics I couldn't quite decipher. What a powerful song to have as your song!

When it came time for me to open your token, I wasn't sure what to expect. You'd been so apologetic about it, remember, even offering me the replacement if this one didn't quite deliver. Ha! You know, I really was expecting the blackened popcorn kernel. Well, I opened it and read the words and how eerily they'd echoed everything I'd been realizing and it was like, "How did you know that before I ever figured it out?!". Like, a magic trick slight of hand. I cried like a ninny. :D Thank you for being both witness and participant in so much of my black month work. {{{hugs}}}

I haven't forgotten you, I've just had a crazy couple of days. :) <3

[rubymulligan.livejournal.com]

That was the thing. When I say I didn't pick it, *I* didn't. It was so weird. I had already gotten you this really pretty circle pendant made of black agate. Pretty, yes. Black, yes. Did it mean something, not really. I was just like, "OOOH, she can wear this and Black can... blah blah blah." So, I went to finish getting dressed one morning, choosing my perfume and Glamourkin for the day and as soon as I rifled around in the box this one came out first and it was like DUN DUN DUN!!! when choosing your token wasn't on my mind at all. Why would it be? (I may have even made Ah-Ooga cartoon eyes.) But-- but *I* had already chosen your token! It was done. This was just me, getting ready for work. But alas, I received my gentle reminder that it wasn't I who was to be choosing your token and the real token was chosen right then. Even though you felt that the token was right, and I can tell by the way you talked about it that it was a good ending to the month, and that makes me feel so good, it was so, so awesome to be the one facilitating the choosing, or rather being a vessel for the chooser. I can't wait to do it again and see what happens.

How many people do we have? 7?

And no worries. As you know, I've had many a stretch of crazy couples of days, so I understand. Call me/email/message/whatever me whenever you have free time. I hope everything is okay! ♥

[azhure.livejournal.com]

You are such an inspiration. I can only hope that my month with Lady Black is going to be as rewarding.

[sugarmaplelife.livejournal.com]

With your perception and wisdom and desire, I know you'll learn and teach a lot this month. I look forward to hearing about your experiences, if there are any you're called to share. :) <3 I wish you so much joy and renewal this month!

[wanderlustlover]

This is so deep and beautiful. I found myself smiling and almost tearing up in places. I'm glad you learned so much, so deeply with Lady Black.

Your talk about Taurus always reminds me that I come down to my roots in that way, too. It is my sign, for as much as I come off water and my three Sagittarius placements. The paragraph you wrote about it touched a place in my heart deeply.


Also, your token sounds like it fits in perfectly.

[sugarmaplelife.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I wouldn't be studying the colors if it wasn't for your example and the compelling honesty of your own explorations.

[wanderlustlover]

I honestly never could have expected so much to come of these. I saw what two people had done and were doing before me, and could not even do as they were and had in Korea, but I needed something. And every time I tried for something a door slammed in front of me.

Which led even to fighting this (...because Oh, I told her no, three or or four times, plus international shipping, and because it would break my heart to do this only halfheartedly, and not to be able to build altars or buy things...) and still it landed in my lap, insisting, whispering now, now, now, trust, believe, have faith, take a chance, now, now, now.

Saving my heart, and keeping my soul steeped in magic even far away from home and hands to hold.

And It continues even now, this beautiful little miracle, I never expected, that keeps rippling further and further outward from the center. All of you, and the Token Exchange, and the newest person who started Black this month.



(For a comment that I may lead you back to in six months, this moment. This moment is where I had a post Orange epiphany about Orange and being part and parcel of all the beads, because of this right now and right here. Each one as important and necessary as the next and all required as one to make things to what they are. All of us making the necklace and divinity together. )

[kehleyr.livejournal.com]

You are quite beautiful Rachel! I've enjoyed reading about your experiences with Black... very interesting!

[elfinecstasy.livejournal.com]

Hail and farewell, Lady Black. Go if you must...stay if you will.

:-)

[willow-cabin.livejournal.com]

I am as beautiful, as perfect, as shining and loving as everyone else is in their depths--for we're all bits of radiant godstuff poured into flawed temporary housing.

This is heartbreakingly beautiful and so true. You're an amazing writer, Rachel, so insightful and such an inspiration. ♥

*HUGS*