"In a dark night,
With anxious love inflamed,
O happy lot!
Forth unobserved I went,
My house now being at rest.

"In darkness and in safety,
By the secret ladder, disguised,
Oh happy lot!
In darkness and concealment,
My house now being at rest.

"In that happy night,
In secret, seen of none,
Seeing nought myself
Without other light or guide
Save that which in my heart was burning.

"That light guided me
More surely than the noonday sun
To the place where He was waiting for me,
Whom I knew well,
And where none appeared.

"O, guiding night;
O, night more lovely than the dawn;
O, night that hast united
The lover with His beloved,
And changed her into her love.

"On my flowery bosom,
Kept whole for Him alone,
There He reposed and slept;
And I caressed Him, and the waving
Of the cedars fanned Him.

"As I scattered His hair in the breeze
That blew from the turret,
He struck me on the neck
With His gentle hand,
And all sensation left me.

"I continued in oblivion lost,
My head was resting on my love;
Lost to all things and myself,
And, amid the lilies forgotten,
Threw all my cares away."

"The Dark Night of the Soul"
----St. John of the Cross

The Crucifixion

Dramatic Dialogue

The tension of opposites,
the vessel shakes and
quakes, -
There is no room for struggling
in these confines,
change, morph,
did you ever note
the uncommonsense
of compromise?
Sleep, you, and
surrender -
critic become wise.

(copyright Imogen Crest 2006.)

N is for Nigredo

Since the earliest times, Alchemists have been interested in applying their Hermetic wisdom towards the perfecting of the body and soul of man -- the quest for Gold being left to the “puffers.”  For the Alchemist, the first stage of the “Great Work” is the Nigredo, the stage of Blackness, disintegration, chaos, where the material (metal, the soul of Man, or what have you) is reduced to the “prima materia” or formless original stuff, before it can proceed to the second stage, the Albedo (whiteness), where the material may be unified once again.  The Alchemical process is circular, alternating between solve and coagula on its path towards perfection.

The Blackness

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

As a part of an Active Imagination dialogue with the murderous self that would kill your true creative self. You might begin with the question “What is your problem with me?”

A Dynamic Dark Duo

When I first saw that our next stop on the Journey was to visit our Murderous Self…I wept tears of joy, kissed my computer monitor and prepared to spend happy, fulfilled hours doing what I love to do best.

What’s that?

Well, I take reality and give it a little twist.

My stories have been called, strange, odd, unhealthy and abnormal (all of which I take as compliments) but in my own defense I have never made one dark deed up.

I haven’t dreamed up new ways to do in my fellow human beings and like any good old fashioned tale of the Macabre (Or Fairy Tale) I make sure the villain gets it but good in the end.

Of course I really don’t see Werewolves and Ghosts and a woman who buried people alive as the “ Monsters” but that’s …what shall I call it?

Oh yes, “ Chef’s Privilege”

I’m all about the underdog.

My goal is to write my own version of “ The Grapes of Wrath” which will probably feature the struggles of a family of Head Hunters trying to survive in a world that doesn’t understand their culture, religion or dietary habits.

Ha, Ha, laugh now read it later.

Cause it’s a darn fine idea.

So where do these ideas come from? It’s my Murderous Self that brings these little oddities to me.

And don’t think I’m not grateful for that!

My Creative self would be nothing and I mean NOTHING without that Black Heart you could call my Murderous Self.

My Murderous Self HAS looked into the face of death and hatred and bigotry, she survived a brutal assault by a group of racists teenagers over 25 years ago and it was my Murderous Self, the unflinching part of me who took it all in and can now write about monsters because I’ve seen them…Hell, I even know where some of them live.

My Murderous Self digs these memories up and drags them from their graves and says to my Creative Self… on a very consistent basis “ Hey, Anita…I have this great idea…”

And my Creative Self takes a look and says, “ You’re one sick pup Marie.”

When I see them working together it’s a laugh… I mean it’s cute in a two-headed calf in a jar kind of way. They work together just like Jekyll & Hyde, Burke and Hare, as well as Dr Frankenstein and Igor…

Now there’s Anita Marie

What a team!