Persephone, Ogboinba, Cybele, Oya: or, What Samhain can do for you, pt II

(If you missed Pt I, you'll want to start here.)

And fell for the longest time.

Persephone. Ogboinba. Cybele. Oya.

With the exception of Oya, who wasn't drawn, but jumped out of the deck, not a single one of those goddesses was mine. 

Persephone was where it began. I sat back, curious to see how she had been interpreted:

Persephone, the Maiden. Find ways to use your innocence as your strength.She is for innocence, and you had yours taken from you much earlier than it should have been, and I think she is here to point out that you need to explore your relationship with that. But there's something else here, something about how you've felt towards that self, maybe? I'm not sure, but I get this feeling that she's here to point to an anger, or even something darker, that you feel to the part of yourself that is vulnerable.

So easy. It would have been so easy to pull back from that, tell her she was wrong whilst acknowledging that 'Yes, I do need to tap into my innocence and vulnerability to be stronger as per Brene Brown, blah blah. Thank you for this, but I might be just a bit angry about it all, but really, I'm just fine.' *Good Mother Demeter airy handwave*

But to do that would have been to continue the lie, to deny the tidal wave of feeling emerging, to make the choice to continue my parents' work and remain disconnected from others. The time had come to make a different choice and speak the truth. But as it always is when I lose myself in writing, I'm never sure what that truth is till I read it back:

Fuck. YES... I am SO angry. Yes, you're right. I've hated Persephone since I was a child, because she pranced around picking flowers doing girly shit FEELING SAFE and HA! LOOK WHAT HAPPENED TO HER, SEE, YOU STUPID NAIVE BITCH???? And then she tried to trick her way out OF WHAT SHE DESERVED BECAUSE SHE WAS TOO STUPID TO KEEP AN EYE OUT. As far as I was concerned, she was weak. I wanted NO part of her in Jean Shinoda Bolen's book, NONE. SHE was weak. *I* was not. Fucking Kore.

And that's how I've felt about my vulnerability: not just ANGRY at it, but repelled by it. At some level, part of me thinks that vulnerable child got exactly what she deserved because she wasn't looking. Like Persephone.

I typed out the full comment, not fully aware of what I was saying till I sat back and read it. Again. And again. 

Horrified. Shaken. But finally knowing the truth: 

I'd always blamed Persephone for her rape, because of her innocence, her freedom from care (which I equated with irresponsibility) and her lack of vigilance. And in the same way, I blamed the child I'd been, her vulnerability and lack of vigilance, for her parents' emotional abuse and her uncle's sexual abuse.

MY. MY PARENTS. MY UNCLE.

And yet, I'd rip the throat out of anyone who dared suggest that a child was in any way at fault for any abuse that befell them; that a woman was at fault for being raped. But somehow, it was ok to blame the child I was for not being stronger, more vigilant, for not acting.

I'm just starting to cope with that. As I continued in my comment, 'Jesus, Mary and Joseph, I knew it was bad, but.'

And in the moment I realised what I'd done, I finally understood the truth about innocence, which I'd conflated with naivete and wilful ignorance:

[W]hat strikes me about innocence is that it is a NATURAL state. Like Cybele's wildness. And in my rage at my NATURAL innocence, twisting it into a reason for being abused, I cut myself off from my NATURE as a whole. That's why I don't know who I am outside this identity of helper; what my gifts are; what my intuition says for ME; why I'm not in touch with my wild side, as it were - why it's only the responsible, CONTROLLED side that shows.There's so much in my nature I'm not even aware of, such primal, passionate, wild side - Cybele, who Persephone really needs to grow into, not her more controlled mother (hence no Demeter in this reading, because she is very much part of my persona, and this reading is about who I REALLY am underneath it all, the parts I don't know).

In my vulnerability, my innocence, is my wildness - and my way. As Clarissa Pinkola-Estes put it, 'The wild has a vast integrity to it.' And that is what I have cut myself off from - and why I find it so hard to move.

It is why I have never found this - which I desire more than anything - because to have that intimacy - emotionally, spiritually and sexually - one needs to be able to truly surrender, to truly let go - to become vulnerable and trust. To be wild, natural. And I can't. I'm not easily held, even - perhaps most especially - in the deepest pain and despair. 

But perhaps yesterday made a start. Time will tell. 

Persephone and Cybele, anchoring the reading because they were the overarching theme: innocence, nature, wild, integrity. 

As my friend pointed out, we ALL start from the Kore. For me to deny the Kore, yet accept Persephone, Queen of Hades and conveyor of the dead, is to deny my process, my wholeness, and in the end, myself.

That should have been enough, might have been, but Ogboinba appeared in the reading. I had a hunch she would, and she has always been the one I'd rather not see. The short version of her story is that though her powers grew and she became the most sought-after healer and prophetess, she could not have children, and travelled seven kingdoms to seek a way to become able to bear a child and become a mother.

The warning against discontent is too close to the bone, as is the desire for children - both of these make her an apparently easy read when she shows up for me. 

But as I fell into that literal reading, I felt an intense resistance. This wasn't right, and I knew it wasn't just avoidance. I sat with it for a while, asking Ogboinba what she wanted to say here. When the answer came, it shifted the ground under my feet, which will never be the same again:

I could see that [about the child], but I thought, 'Yeah, we know that about me. But this isn't quite about that.'

And then I realised - in this case, the child Ogboinba is looking for is ME. Me as a child who grew up in a happy family; me the undamaged child, the child who was allowed to BE a child. In essence, she is me, travelling over the world again and again, searching for that halcyon childhood I wanted so desperately, the only way I ever believed that I would find out who I was. Searching for the safety, the love, the time to become who I was, to have that group, those people who loved me unconditionally, in whom I could rest.

In my hands were all these gifts born in the crucible of my family - the ability to see, the ability to heal, the ability to know, the incredible strength, problem-solving, the empathy, the ability to use anger as a tool - my arms were overflowing with gifts.

But *I* wanted home. I was FURIOUS at having these gifts; furious that I would HAVE TO USE THEM, be a COMMODITY to the DIVINE, like I was a COMMODITY to my parents. I KNEW, when I asked you last night, that Ogboinba was going to show up; I knew it.

And when I read what you wrote about Ogboinba, this RAGE filled me; this UTTER FURY worthy of Oya. I thought, 'HOW DARE YOU. HOW DARE YOU DEMAND OF ME WHEN YOU GAVE ME *NOTHING*. NO PLACE TO REST, NO PLACE TO BE LOVED, NO SANCTUARY. HOW. FUCKING. DARE. YOU. I REFUSE. YOU *OWE* ME. WHY? WHY SHOULD I PUT MYSELF OUT FOR YOU?

"I WOULD HAVE GIVEN BACK EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THESE GIFTS TO BE LOVED. TO FIND MY BESHERT AND BE MARRIED AND RAISE CHILDREN AND HAVE A QUIET LIFE. EVERY SINGLE ONE. BUT YOU GIVE ME NOTHING AND HAVE THE NERVE TO DEMAND SO FUCKING MUCH. I HATE YOU. I DON'T WANT THIS AND I WILL NOT USE IT OF MY OWN ACCORD. YOU WANT ME TO USE IT, YOU'LL HAVE TO FUCKING PULL IT OUT OF ME."

THAT, for me, is the essence of Ogboinba here. I want what I can never, ever get back; what I can never ever be. I hold all this given me, all that I've made out of it, but I want to be able to be that laughing little girl; that girl who walked into adulthood certain of love. That girl who grew up playing with fashion, clubbing, experimenting, loving college and forming lifelong friendships even through the angst. And I haven't seen that I've gotten so much, but not in the way I wanted.

Finally, finally, years after I should have done, I did what I tell everyone else they should do. I told G-d the truth, no holds barred - everything that was in my heart, everything raw and wild, not pre-processed and analysed in a neat little 'Yes, I know I'm upset about this, and this is why, so it's ok' package. It wasn't okay. It still ISN'T ok. It may NEVER be ok.

But you know what? That's ok.

Because as all that was ripped out - my solar plexus STILL feels sore - and released, something else took its place.

Connection. I finally FELT G-d. And I finally felt ME.

I did one more long overdue thing: I wept. I wept for the little girl I was, the one I wanted to be, the woman I'd wanted to become, the woman I am. 

At long last, I was home.

Sometimes I wish I could cry in public

I can cry in the dark at movies. I can cry in an empty church - the Oxford Oratory's Lady Chapel has seen its fair share of my tears, as has the Oxford night when I've been walking home.

Today, though, I nearly cried in Nando's in the middle of dinner.

My Namibian/Saffa friend and I met up for a proper catchup for the first time in AGES. I met her by our couch when she emerged from my ex-housemate's room after a long weekend. The moment our eyes met, we knew we'd be friends for life. I'm in touch with her far more than I am with him.

We talked about all that had happened since our last meeting - we laughed, gasped in disbelief, vented. We had moved on to the stuff that separates acquaintances from friends when she said something that made me fight for composure:

"You know, Saturday night, [ex-housemate] had left and I was all alone and I couldn't sleep. I was really missing him, feeling completely alone and couldn't stop crying."

"You should have rung me!"

"No, wait. I picked up my phone and looked at it, thinking, 'Who can I call? Who cares about me? Who can I talk to?' Then I suddenly thought, 'I can call Irim.' Yours was the first name that came into my head. And my heart felt so happy knowing I could call you that I didn't have to, and I just went straight to sleep."

I was so completely choked up, trying not to cry in public, I'm not sure I gave a coherent answer. I don't think I told her that I had actually been *awake* at 3am Saturday night, restless and unsettled.

Later in the conversation, she said, very naturally, "You're my sister."

As you are mine, heartsis.

A whispered prayer to All That Is from this panentheist:

Thank you for all my blessings - for those that are obvious and those that seem like obstacles, for love, friendship, and everything that comes my way. For making me incarnate so I can love Your creation through gazing on it, holding it tenderly, listening to it closely, tasting it, inhaling deeply.

But today, thank you for reassuring me that despite my crap mass attendance and poor attention to all things religiously orthodox, I must be living at least a sliver of a life that You would approve of. If just one person feels that they can ring me from a dark place at the dark time of 3am, I must be doing something right.

Not much. But something.

Blessed be

Recently, I've been doing a lot of spiritual reading and trying to put it into practice. My Grandfather's blessings by Rachel Naomi Remen is one of the most powerful books I've ever read and will certainly be one that I will go back to again and again. In it, she talks about blessing life and allowing ourselves to be blessed by it.

Today, I finally understood that by heart.

My housemate went out with her boyfriend, asking if I would be staying in, as the cats were out and about. As I was just planning to faff about, I answered in the affirmative. She responded by asking me to get them back in if I changed my mind.

About an hour later, I felt a bit restless and decided to nip down to the shops about 15 minutes walk from us. The cats were in, so I shut the back door and headed out.

Just as I crossed the little street before the shops started, I stepped under a tree shedding its blossoms - a 'blossom storm', as I've always thought of it. An elderly gentleman in a hat stopped me, and looking up at the tree, said in a rich, Eastern European accent:

"You know, in Japan, when the cherry blossoms touch someone, they bless them." Then he looked directly at me and putting his hand out towards me, said, "And so, I bless you."

Heartfelt, freely and spontaneously given, it was one of the most powerful blessings I had ever received. A barrier I had erected against life and its flow through me gave way.

I looked back at him, the words "And I, you," caught in my throat. Instead, I simply said what I could - a heartfelt "Thank you." And I blessed him in my heart.

How he knew that cherry blossoms were my dearest delight of a Washington spring, that I needed to be able to receive, that I most needed the unconditional love and safety that a blessing offers, I will never know. And I don't need to.

I suspect it's that he allows life to flow through him - and life knows.

And so, overflowing with the love and gratitude from having been blessed, I pass it on.

Blessed be.