I notice there is a different quality to my meditative experiences as I deepen in my pleasure practice and attune more and more to my feminine essence.I notice that my inner feminine being experiences expansions of consciousness differently than my inner masculine.
Expansion within my masculine being feels like an upward and outward opening, like the movement of reaching my arms up to the sky and circling them out. My inner feminine experiences expansion as a sinking down and in, like falling backwards into bottomless blackness.
This backward falling does not feel scary. It feels somewhat luxurious, like falling through black liquid satin. There is also a feeling of sinking deep inside my body, touching the furthest back walls of all of my organs, cells and tissues. Like the infinite blackness, these walls continue to expand.
And there is a different quality to the peace I experience in my meditations as my feminine essence. It is a more alive, potent peace, that is both full and empty. There is both movement and stillness, like freefalling backwards while being completely held.
And non-surrender is impossible when you’re falling backwards and there’s nothing to grab onto. I find my mind more easily and deeply rests in the dark rather than in the light.
Though patriarchal religion has tried to brainwash us into believing that this darkness is evil and dangerous, my actual experience of this subterranean spaciousness (after releasing my initial fear of it ) is a feeling of deep trustworthiness.
This darkness is not the opposite of light, but its sovereign and equal counterpart. It is the Source of Life, which reigns beside the Source of Light. It is the Void of Creation, of infinite possibilities, from which all life is born.
And personally I find the subconscious landscapes to be so much more rich, multi-dimensional and palpable than those of the superconscious spirit realms. And the allies from the under worlds are more embodied, which allow me to have more physical and emotional relationships with them, and more easily integrate my experiences with them not only in my mind, but in my heart, my body and in my daily life.
Two such allies came to me the other morning in a waking dream. I was falling into the blackness when suddenly I landed on my belly, with my arms and legs wrapped around the back of a tiger. On top of my back was my four year old daughter (who is now twenty three, but in the meditation she was four). And the tiger was lying on the back of a great black wolf.
The wolf was carrying us along a mountain path. It was dusk and a mist rolled through the mountain range, breaking off in swirls that looked like dancing ghosts. I reached back for my daughter with one hand to make sure she was still with me, and clutched to the tiger’s back with the other, as I watched all of the nocturnal animals coming out for the night hunt. All around us cougars and mountain lions were pouncing on deer, owls and hawks were swooping down to catch mice, rabbits were running from coyotes and bobcats.
I felt in awe and gratitude to be having such an up close experience with the natural world at night-on the back of a tiger and a wolf none the less! I could also feel my fear of being so vulnerable. Though I felt the protection of the tiger and the wolf, I didn’t feel completely safe. Though they had carried us this far, they could easily abandon us for their own hunt, or worse, we could be their food.
With that thought, I heard a train in the distance. The train stopped a few hundred feet up the mountain side, close enough for us to reach it if we hurried. I grabbed my daughter, jumped off the tiger’s back and ran for the train. The whistle blew just as the two of us climbed on board. I felt both overwhelmed and relieved to be with people again, who were dressed in clothes and having conversations.
One woman handed me her blue scarf and I thanked her. I wasn’t sure why she gave it to me until I looked down and realized I didn’t have any clothes on. I turned bright red and quickly wrapped the scarf around me, which was just big enough to cover my breasts and the fur between my upper highs. But in tying the scarf, I let go of my daughter’s hand and she jumped off the train, which was slowly rolling forward.
“Elizabeth!” I cried out, leaping after her. “Get away from the tracks!”
“Stop the train!” a woman shouted, as I grabbed my daughter’s hand and we rolled down the mountainside, away from the tracks.
I held us tight as my heart thumped inside my chest and the train gained momentum until it was out of sight.
When I looked for the tiger and the wolf, they had disappeared. It was just the ominous mountains, the darkening sky, my daughter and I and the night hunt.
Waves of terror and awe flooded my body. How would I keep us safe?
When I opened my eyes, though I couldn’t see them, I knew the tiger and the black wolf were still watching over me and my 4 year old essence self, represented by my daughter.
I can feel their presence now as I write about them, calling me into the wilderness of my Being, towards the next unknown of my life, to release my fear and freefall into the Void of infinite possibilities.
All this before my morning cup of chocolate yerba matte.
