The Cocoon (or, How Initiation Works) Part 5: The Fourth Meeting - EARTH
“When love beckons to you, follow him,
Though his ways are hard and steep.
And when his wings enfold you, yield to him,
Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.
And when he speaks to you, believe in him,
Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden.
For even as love crowns you, so shall he crucify you.
Even as he is for your growth, so is he for your pruning.
Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,
So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.”
For Rachel, who entered into glory this week - after walking into the heart of this mystery over and over again, with unrivaled courage, unflinching surrender, and with the power of Love that is stronger than death.
Rest in power, sweet friend.
Four points on a compass.
Four elements in this world I call home.
Four gospels in the tradition I still love and hold dear.
Four horseriders of the apocalypse.
Four points of connection from which to build a sure foundation.
The fourth meeting in this journey of initiation I have been surrendered to since time out of mind, and also since only a few months ago, delivers me at blessed last to the final meeting. The meeting of earth.
I am no longer afraid of the heights or the depths or the fire, and have walked into the experiential truth that no power on heaven or earth is strong enough to separate me from the grip of Divine whose love holds me fast in death and rebirth. As I have now participated willingly in this annihilation, it is my time to rest, be placed deep into the earth where life is sometimes buried to rest awhile in quiet, sacramental darkness, before becoming life again.
And so:
As exhaustion takes over I feel my weight and heft sink deeply into the earth and realise that the same cord of energy, the unconditional love that kept me safely perched atop a mountain in the middle of the night runs all the way from the stars, through my body, down to the heart of the mountain where the dragon is curled around its own fire-belly, into the depths where the octopus floats and even further, into the heart of the earth. I find this grounding cord as it connects to my body and feel its security, like an anchor, an umbilical cord.
A reminder that I am made of dirt and water and the breath of God and that my body will one day return to dirt and water and I will just be the breath of God. I need no motif to understand my connection to earth, as I have always felt at home there. I have always pressed my body into the naked ground whenever I was sick or afraid or sad. I have spent many happy nights sleeping on my back under the stars, feeling twigs and pine needles under my fingertips as I drift off. I have dug into soil to plant veggies and played with earthworms and marveled at its temperature, its richness and beauty. I have tenderly fingered around the prints left behind in the mud by cougars and bears to determine how close they may be to my camp, and have respected the way that power impresses itself into earth and leaves an energetic imprint in its memory. I have long felt grounded by rivers and mud and trees and grass. They were my first belonging.
And they are my last homecoming.
These motifs of earth, mountain, dragon and octopus become my initiation companions, portals to Divine wisdom held in sacred imagination and creation. These are the beautiful parts of the cocoon, the imaginal discs that anchor me against the wildness and ferocity of my own becoming.
Truth be told, there is more than just beauty though. There are tears in this place, enough to fill an ocean. There is darkness, keening to the rhythm of the sunrise, arms wrapped around my own bent middle lest my soul split from my wrecked and ravaged skin. There is the knowing of profound absence, of separation, of death-of-self and anything that ever tethered me to who I thought I was, who I wanted to be. There is the loss of the warm regard of beloved others, others who had been on a pedestal and who now regard me with a mix of pity, bewilderment, horror and judgement. Who have withdrawn their approval and love after weighing me in their scales and finding me wanting. There is not yet the understanding that I am just reflecting back to them the dimensions of their own soul which they have exiled from their own imagination.
There is no perspective, inside the brutality of the cocoon
“Then there is the relentlessness of it, the never knowing when it will end; this dark night of the soul which St John of the Cross taught me about. If it will end. Or if maybe I am just a person now who hunts for places to hide and howl and keen like a wild animal. This is how it feels to be liquefied like human - caterpillar goop and I want it to stop but it won’t, it can’t.”
Photo by Marta Pawlik on Unsplash
An amazing thing happens in this part of the journey. I find that my own cosmic cocoon is transparent to a certain number of close friends and companions. They can see it because they know it; they have also been initiated by the cocoon and so it holds no terror for them, to see me undergoing it. They are the Mystery-Holders for this part of my initiation and the astonishing and scandalous grace of it all is that I get to have them by my side through the whole thing.
They slide me cups of tea and cold beers and know which is needed when, and feed my children and make up a bed in the spare room. They light the welcome fire and lay out a towel in the bathroom next to the tub they filled for me. They sit cross legged across from me and help me master my own ragged breathing as I screw up my courage to stay with the brutality of the cocoon, and not walk away, no matter how tempting that may be. They sign documents with me, remind me that I am not alone, field my late-night phone calls without question and never fail to remind me how beloved I am. They unpack every dish, every cup into my new kitchen cupboards, assemble furniture, make the small decisions I am too tired to handle. They hand me bowls of hot food they made themselves, and send me funny memes and tell me the truth. They remind me about the things I have forgotten about myself, about pain and beauty and sovereignty and wholeness.
They midwife my dark night of the soul through to its glorious completion. And they do it without flinching.
They do not turn away from my suffering or grief. They stand steady as trees and hold me against it.
They become external locus points, holding the imaginal discs of my own becoming when I cannot hold onto them myself and I sink into despair and exhaustion.
They embody Divine mercy, abundance, love, grace and goodness.
They are my memory-holders, way-showers, light-bearers.
I wrote this for them.