It Begins with a Call - Part 3

As I have said, this is a story without an end, at least for now. The teacher warns me to reject easy resolutions and happily ever after endings.  It is not a story like that (once again, you don’t just get the flower-picking girl).  I apologize for not providing that, for don’t we all want it?  Wrapped up in a neat little package with a bow on top?  We want – I want – the heroine’s journey that resolves with a return, bringing wisdom and gifts back to the community.  I do not know if I will return.  I don’t say this to be melodramatic; I say it because I need to hear myself say it.  I need to admit it, accept it, endure it, maybe even say yes to it.

           

Persephone tells me that She herself is at peace now in the land of the dead, that She can fully hold and offer this gift.  She says, “Gifting is everything.  What is in this box will change you.  You will have to die again, and if you are lucky, love will bring you back to life as it did for Psyche. This is a gift concerning memory, ancestral and personal.  You must open the box.”

           

“Not yet!”  I cannot bear to open it now.  The teacher has also told me,

“Go down, go down, go down.”  Yes, her, too.  I resist.  I will hold the box, but I’m not ready to open it.  Psyche did and it killed her.

           

And so, the call.  Here is what it was, at least this time.  I had a dream unlike any dream I’d ever had.  In the dream, I am discussing with another person the healing properties of a plant, perhaps marijuana.  I am given a symbol and some words.  The symbol is the hub of a wheel-like form, with spokes radiating out.  The edge of it is not round, but instead more segmented.  The words went something like this: Fix the hub of the wheel and healing will radiate to the whole structure through the spokes. 

           

In addition to the dream, I harbored a question rooted in longing:  How do I maintain a deep and true connection to Spirit?

           

I took this question and this dream south, to the teacher. 

           

Smoke from the Santa Barbara fires filled the air, obscuring the ground, as my plane landed in Burbank.  June in Topanga.  A few days later, another fire in the canyon almost caused us to have to evacuate.  Solstice arrived at 3:30 PM and 112 degrees.  We did ritual then in the courtyard, in the heat of that day, the times, our personal and collective heartbreak, and our commitments.

           

After I returned to the bay area, fire found another home - in the back of my head.  I became aware of another goddess, Kali Ma, who had planted her foot firmly on my neck. I felt and indulged the headache.  I went for cures and healing.  Kali, foot pressed firmly in place, screamed, “You cannot shove everything into the dark recesses of your mind.  The repressed returns.  I come with a vengeance.  You cannot avoid the dark.  You cannot avoid me!”

Go down, go down, go down.

All of this experience – the fires, the headache, the underworld dissolution – all of it was in the context of fixing the hub of the wheel.  What is and must be repaired is connection to Spirit.  I called the teacher.  She asked, “What is your Zeusian headache bringing to bear?”