Dark Moon Rising: call me Kali, Lilith, Sheela, Zanele, Ishtar

It's so powerful, the unfolding spiral way of this life. 

My daughter & Kali in Mauritius 2015

For instance, the book that sat on my bedside table for ages, that I suddenly took up hungrily...it spoke exactly to my current deepening interest in Buddhism. 

Peter Matthiessen's The Snow Leopard is a journey well worth undertaking.

I finished another memoir about Tibet while walking in the mountains of Bainskloof a couple of weeks ago. Six months prior I spent 10 days walking out the tremendous strain of the hard Lockdown here in South Africa. Now we were reunited with these mystical mountains during the Spring celebration of every fynbos in flower. The air a heady mix of fragrances and cleansing mists. Truly a delicious homecoming. 

 

Matthiessen's quest in the Himalayas takes place hot on the heels of tremendous grief and a life of spiritual seeking. Thank you Peter. I followed eagerly in your footsteps. I can't remember the last time I devoured and delighted in a book this much. I found myself re-reading passages. Closing the book to breathe, gasp in fact at the acknowledgement of my own discoveries writ there. It all happened to him when I was a small child. Now at midlife I find myself remembering who I am and what it's all about. 

It's like waking from a dream. The fog of maternal devotion and exhaustion begins to lift in the cold shower of my children's teen hormones. Two years since my last period and the menopausal sea change has become my personal new normal, just as the world negotiates its post-COVID "new normal." I discover a deeper connection with my sexuality. 

I've never had casual sex - it's always been a profoundly spiritual excursion within and in between. A soul commingling with another. 

Now I taste the Divine in that most lay practice (pun intended). 

Tenzin Palmo shows an image akin to this when asked if she has a memento from her 12 years solitary meditation in a cave in the Himalayas:

An unusual choice perhaps, considering she's a celibate nun. However, in the deepest of meditations, particularly through the Tantra of esoteric Buddhism and Hinduism, sex is a spiritual practice which can help us transcend.

Today by chance I stumbled upon the Sheela na gigs that pepper holy places throughout Europe. This uncompromising crone shows it like it is. The gateway to the Absolute. Historians do not understand these figures. Churchgoers are often somewhat gobsmacked by them. Theories abound. Gustave Courbet's "Origin of the World" comes to mind.

On reading the following passage about the Goddess Kali in The Snow Leopard I was reminded of my own Goddess Kali name, bequeathed to me while I was at Sivananda Ashram in Kerala. All the other women at the Ashram were given sweet Goddess of Music and Beauty names -- Saraswati, Lakshmi, Parvati. I on the other hand was dubbed Chamundi, a name for the terrifying black murderess.

"At this time of year, people pay homage to Durga, a dread demoness of ancient origin, who emerged again in the first centuries AD as the black Kali, the dreadful female aspect of Lord Shiva and embodiment of all horrors of the mortal mind.... Kali signifies 'black female' or 'dark woman'.... Fierce Kali the Black, the female aspect of Time and Death, and the Devourer of All Things, is the consort of the Hindu god of the Himalaya, Great Shiva the Re-Creator and Destroyer; her black image, with its necklace of human skulls...."

Zanele Muholi's current exhibit at our local art gallery Norval Foundation is entitled 

"And Then You See Yourself."

Her powerful self-portraits and the mandalas she created from her menstrual blood give voice to this howl, this chasm of dark energy, that has been quashed for too long. 

“Bona, Charlottesville” (2015) by Zanele Muholi

 

What I'm touching on is the unspeakable essence of our feminine power, which is the power of existence itself. 

Creation. 

The I Am. 

Perhaps we sold out because we thought that being innocuous subservient eye candy would keep us safe? As the patriarchal order struggles to maintain control in a world waking up, it is essential for each of us to claim our power. To sup on our own darkness. To own it, celebrate it, and above all to stop eschewing the darkness. The People-pleasing Good Girl has to go if we have any hope of self-actualizing.

I happened upon mention of the Black Moon Lilith in an astrological write up I was reading this morning. Lilith was the first wife of Adam, the one that still exists in mythology but not in sanctioned versions of the Torah and Bible. She wasn't taken from the First Man's rib, but from the Dust like him. She refused to be beneath him, both literally and figuratively, and so she was cast out. And while we all know what happened to Eve, she who was tempted by the serpent, ate of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, she who got us cast out of the Garden of Eden and into this world of toil. She who gave birth to Cain and Abel and with them the first murder. (For more on our lineage here's a fascinating genetic accounting for our family of mankind.)

But what of Lilith? 

So often demonised, she rides the night -- free!  

For if there's one thing the patriarchy cannot abide it's a Free Woman.

Queen of the Night Ishtar/Lilith/Ereshkigal

 

Let us learn how to liberate ourselves from the expectations (of ourselves and one another) of what it is to be a good woman/wife/mother/daughter/sister/friend. Let us lift each other up and support the essential work of being true to what we need to do in this short time allotted us. 

In the light of this full moon that has the Black Moon Lilith energy to help us confront the Shadow and shake up the status quo (yes, even more!), let us have the courage to do the alchemy required. 

“A witch is a woman who emerges from deep within herself. She is a woman who has honestly explored her light and learned to celebrate her darkness." ~ Dasha Elliot