Diaries

The subject of diaries came up in my reading this weekend. In the "Diaries of a Young Poet,"one of Rilke's first loves, Lou Andreas-Salome, kept a diary and encouraged Rikle to do the same. "Her own mental regime included keeping a diary, as an incentive to formulate impressions and remembrances accurately and as a way of communicating with a soul mate during and after a temporary separation," (Diaries, p. ix).

The idea of keeping a journal to record your daily musings for someone else, especially a loved one, struck me as being revolutionary. We seem to go to extremes in this culture. Sharing much, almost too much, on the internet or through Twitter but sharing very little in person OR filling diaries with thoughts and musings intended for the writer alone.

For Rilke, it was the diary he kept for Lou that helped shape him as a poet and which sharpened his power of observation.

From his Florence Diary, 25 April 1898:

FROM our winter-shaped terrain
I've been cast far out, into spring;
as I hesitate at its edge
the new land lays itself lustrously
into my wavering hands.

And I take the beautiful gift,
want to mold it quietly,
unfold all its colors
and hold it, full of shyness,
up toward YOU.

I CAN only keep silent and gaze...
Could I once also sound?
And the hours are women
who spoil me with all kinds of
blue, shimmering delight.

Shall I tell you of my crowded days
or of my place of sleep?
My desires run riot
and out of all paintings
the angels follow me.

To share words with another is powerful. To share them with someone you love, who informs your writing, is a true blessing.

Jungian Eye

I had an interesting dream a week ago in which I was in a 1950s style apartment with faded yellow cotton curtains (the kind your grandmother dutifully washed over decades to get that tactile softness). I appear to be going back to school for a degree but I'm not entirely sure which one. I notice that the campus is filled with women and this makes me wonder if I'm back on a women's campus somewhere. In the apartment, I notice my grandmother in a chair (I'm seeing her from behind) and I see that she's slumped over. I wonder...is she dead? alive? sleeping? dreaming? I'm uncertain as I approach her.

As I move towards her, I realize that I'm learning about something called the "Jungian Eye"--some omniscient presence--and I think to myself, "Hm. Someone could really re-read "The Great Gatsby" from a Jungian perspective."

The dream switches (more of the above theme) and when I finally wake up, I am compelled to search out this book from my youth.

***

I've kept a dream journal for about 10 years now and I'm always surprised and delighted when something new pops up. AND, I'm always *extremely* delighted when I experience a moment of synchronicity. In my reading of the "Descent" (see previous blog entry on this), I came across the following passage which made me pause:

"This cool, objective eye is one basis--perhaps the left brain aspect--of feminine evaluation. It does not get deceived by responsible performance or willed achievement, but finds the ineluctable facts in process, the panoply of emotional vectors that give each moment life, and that pass as others crowd into the present, leaving the individual at the mercy of time and processes over which one has little control, but in which one may find a grounding if one can reverence change itself and find one's own way to move with it. Such vision is transpersonal and a power that can protect--so Athena, gorgopis (bright-eyed) and owl-eyed, wore the Gorgon's eyes on her shield; so Inanna later embodied the "eyes of death" (Descent, p. 34.)

I find it all very interesting, especially since the dreams which have followed this one are all very relational and teaching oriented. And even more interesting that as I glance at the ring I bought myself in Greece last year (imprinted with Athena's owl), I see that one of the characters in "The Great Gatsby" is called "Owl-Eyes."

Okay, universe. I'll bite.

Descending

Sleeping Lady, Museum of Archaeology, Valletta, Malta

It feels right to turn inward these days and to descend into myself and into realms where the goddess stalks. As mentioned in an earlier post, I've been reflecting and meditating these past few weeks on the Queen of Cups card and its message. It's palpable. And in all my wondering and musing, a dear friend of mine sent me Descent to the Goddess, which encourages the exploration of the self's caverns...encourages the descent into darkness and into the loamy soil of self where there are fragments with no voice.

The Sumerian queen Inanna, it is said, "set her heart from highest heaven on earth's deepest ground...abandoned heaven, abandoned earth--to the Netherworld she descended" (Descent, p. 9).

When I was in Malta, one of the most fascinating and spiritually rich things I did was to visit the Hypogeum of Hal-Saflieni and descend into pits thousands of years old. There are many speculations as to its construction and purpose -- a sanctuary? necropolis? temple? Whatever the reasons, it was deeply moving and I think everyone in my group was stirred by the possibilities.

Later, I accompanied my friends to Valletta to tour the National Museum of Archaeology and visit the Sleeping Lady -- a prehistoric sculpture found within the Hypogeum and shown above. She is one of the most exquisite sculptures I have ever beheld and we wondered at her pose and marveled at her tiny hands and feet. I think the Lady must also be dreaming but of what? And what was it about this period of time (3300-3000 BCE) in which so many worshipped the goddess and worshiped the earth that bore her?

How did women become so removed from the earth and its cycles? How did I?

Ashes to ashes

tracy chapman on the radio,
she's crooning in that husky voice
my cabbie loves.

he tells me so --
in french.

there's a half iced moon cookie in the sky.
if it were to fall into my lap,
i think i'd laugh.

it's winter and all is wild.

my fingers tap my leg
and i sing with her
about that revolution she's talking 'bout.

we walk the razor's edge.
it's lunacy, some say.

but what does it matter
when we all fall down?

2010's Whispered Message -- The Queen of Cups

Queen of Cups, The Mythic Tarot Cards
"I am a radiant loveable being."

In continuing with last year's tradition, I meditated and let a new tarot card choose me for this year's journey. Last year, the Sun Card walked with me. This year, it is to be the Queen of Cups.

From what I have gathered, the Queen of Cups is an inward card, encouraging deep reflection and gentle loving of self. Last year's roaming with the Sun created a year of...well...roaming the earth, especially its sunnier locales. It was exhilarating. It was also a blur of a year. Whew!

Meditating on the Queen of Cups card, I see the goddess enthroned. She holds a golden chalice/cup with her right hand and a golden apple with her left. Her cerulean dress sinks into the water as if she is an aquatic creature living in two worlds -- the earthly realm which is of form and the aquatic which is without form. The ocean sits behind her, as do verdant, lush fields. Two golden snakes curl around the throne's armrests and curve towards her. She is smiling. The sky is blue and clear of any disturbances. The quality of image crackles with clarity.

The Queen of Cups appears to indicate a woman who is a dreamer. She is highly intuitive, creative and psychic. A nurturer. A mother. She absorbs the energies around her and reflects them back to others, unchanged. A revealer. She is emotional. The Queen of Cups is linked to the unconscious and moon realms but not to the degree of the High Priestess.

According to The Mythic Tarot guidebook, the Queen of Cups is represented in the deck by Helen of Troy -- a woman of enigma who inspires a range of emotions:

"The Queen of Cups is elusive as a character, yet she stirs up trouble wherever she goes, activating the depths in others and inaugurating action and conflict without doing anything at all...When the Queen of Cups appears in the spread, it is time for the individual to encounter the deep, unknowable, paradoxical world of feeling in himself or herself."

I have to admit that I'm not surprised this card has presented itself to me as this year's guide. Lately, my unconscious has been stirring up the dream world and I find that I'm being introduced to new guides--both teachers and animals--on a weekly basis. My inner Jungian says that something within the unconscious seeks the conscious light but I'm not sure what it is just yet.

What I do know is that I had to giggle when I saw two snakes in the card. Within the past few weeks, I have had at least two dreams in which snakes (at least two) have appeared to me. In those dreams, I am directly across from these snakes and we are eye to eye. We stare at each other...cock our heads...size each other up. There is no other action. In one dream, the snakes are as large as dragons. In the second dream, they were as small as worms.

Snakes are not one of my typical animal messengers but I am intrigued and wonder if their appearance is not a call to move with Kundalini energy this year.

Laughing, I just randomly opened my copy of Joseph Campbell's "Reflections on the Art of Living" to p. 110 which states:

"[Kundalini]...the figure of coiled female serpent--a serpent goddess not of "gross" but of "subtle" substance--which is to be thought of as residing in a torpid, slumbering state in a subtle center, the first of the seven, near the base of the spine: the aim of yoga then being to rouse this serpent, lift her head, and bring her up a subtle nerve or channel of the spine to the so-called "thousand-petaled lotus" (sahasrara) at the crown of the head...She, rising from the lowest to the highest lotus center, will pass through and wake the five between, and with each waking the psychology and personality of the practioner will be altogether and fundamentally transformed."

Hm. Well, it certainly promises not to be a boring year! Buckle up, methinks.