D is for Despair

When we descend to the Great Below, that dark place deep within our souls, we encounter ourselves. It is not always pleasant. We find the woman in despair. That woman is like the legendary La Llorona, the "Crying Woman", who weeps for her dead children. We meet this phantom and we long to set her free. It is the Dark Night of the Soul of which St. John of the Cross writes. But it is only in the darkness that she can see the light. It is only when love is absent that she can feel it when it comes. We love the despairing woman and we embrace her. The tears of the crying woman are wiped away and our love saves her. And with us, she ascends to the light.

Lori Gloyd

Leaving Behind

Leave behind my fears? Chase away my nightmares? Light a candle and kill the darkness? Polish up my soul until it becomes a bright shiny soul that is one with the rest of the universe, one with nature?

Here, let me consider that for a moment.

Hmmm...no, I don't think so.

I happen to LIKE my fears and nightmares. They inspire me and in their own special ways have made me less afraid of the world. We work very well together, (Me and My Shadows). So we're a team.

However, if I could leave anything behind it would be this silly need I have for wanting to explain again and again why I tell the stories I do and WHY.

That's what I'm going to surrender, that doubt.

Go ahead take it.

I don't need it.

Anita Marie Moscoso

Sloughing Away

I am appalled each day,
close to whimpering in the night,
at the gap ‘tween what people should be
and what they seem to care about and value.

A high school diploma should mean
a knowledge of third grade math –
ability to pen a cogent paragraph –
and find their home town on a map;
but the only thing they know
is that they have a ‘right’ to higher education
at my expense.

Application for a job and career
should mean an intention to actually work –
and be in your seat on time –
shunning personal calls and Internet diversions;
but the only thing offered
is demands for benefits and auto-raises
not linked to performance.

A statement of organized religious affiliation
should mean you fervently wish
to be measured ‘gainst those standards,
while acting as model/witness to divinity;
but the only thing observed
is a desire to control and meddle in my life,
with no accountability at all.

Sigh! – I could go on …

but I will accept that the problem
is only my expectations –
surly at fault –
and I will let them slough away
and come to expect nothing,
nothing at all.

faucon of Sakin'el

Snake Skins

I surrender my fear. In this place and for this journey fear has no power over me. I won't be a ghost here talking only in whispers. Here I will find my voice strong and clear. One step at a time I will move towards my dreams and leave the nightmares behind.
Melody Adams

Leaving at the Door by Kim Connor
After the Surrender by Barbara Banta
Responsibility by Jan Kricker
Beginning the Journey by Stacey Cole
A Confession of Terror by Lori Gloyd
Shedding the Skin by Verity
Surrendering by Wendy Olson
Sweet Surrender by Eternally Luna
A Story of Surrender by Cuore di Luna
I Am Ready by Carolyn Hartley
Sloughing by Debbie Necessary Gibson
On Sloughing by Lorie Gloyd

D is for Descent into the Under World

In my dreams a
numinous
all seeing
all knowing
raven
watches my descent
into the underworld
to plead for
time.

by Heather Blakey July 10 2006

The Descent of Inanna

According to Mircea Eliade, traditional rituals of descent tend to follow a universal pattern.

1. separation from the family
2. regression to a pre-natal state, the cosmic night
3. death, dismemberment, suffering
4. rebirth
5. killing of another

Until Inanna opened her ear to the Great Below her understanding was limited.

As artists, in order to appreciate and 'know', to transform the imperceptible into meaning, to gain an understanding of what is needed we need to open our ear to the Great Below.

There is no need for us to physically separate from family, die, dismember anyone, or kill anything. Rather it is a metaphoric dismemberment of old patterns, the killing off of old habits, the honest appraisal of our relationships which is what we may choose to undertake in the quest for the holy, creative grail.

When travellers prepared to step through the enchanted doorway to enter the Serpentine Road they were asked to slough a skin and leave something that would be put in a box for safe keeping. Monika Roleff wrote

SSS...Surrender snakeskinlike -
The illusion, delusion,
uber care and consequence of old, -
Oxford English dictionary:
Surrender: (I do) Give up the old,
the useless, the illusion of try and fail, the
over responsible, the ridiculous.
(I do not) hand over, give in to another
person/person's power or control,
especially (not) on demand or under
compulsion. Done.
No vague shadows of the way,
the old, the lie, the compulsion
of the old order/structure
of time. The leaves of those
days are long dry, and
nourish the earth in gratitude for
the crisp green leaf of
renewal. I give gladly
and without suffering,
these things to the earth,
to nourish the wisdom of
loam.

while Gail Kavanagh said

What will you leave at the gate before descending?

D is for Discovery

“Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen
and thinking what nobody has thought.”
~Albert Szent-Györgyi von Nagyrapolt~
By Shiloh Cannon Blackburn