In the fall of 2008, as I left Arizona for good I wended my way to Moab and took a writing workshop with Amy Irvine. (A review of her book, Trespass: Living at the Edge of the Promised Land, which I read afterwards in Las Vegas.)
Funny as I write this in this new blog titled psychopomp dedicated to the Pluto and Uranus archetypes that I google Amy of late. And this is what I find:
“In ancient indigenous traditions, there was a vast spectrum of mother archetypes. The Rainbow Mother represents the quintessential mother we all know and adore—even if we didn’t have one to raise us. She is the bottomless well of sacrifice and unconditional love. She bakes bread and happily tends to the home while the children play between the folds of her skirts. She is the one, the only one, to exemplify the maternal in this culture. This makes the Rainbow Mother disproportionately influential—and as wonderful as she is—without the others to balance her—she can be a dangerous thing.”
“The others?” I ask.
“Well, first off, she needs the masculine for balance—the father. There is also a spectrum of maternal archetypes to complement her energy—and at the end of that spectrum there’s the Crazy Tooth Mama. She is sometimes dark and unsettled, often unavailable. She must retreat, delve deep—for she has important work she has been called to do there.”
“But my daughter…” He interrupted me.
“Your daughter chose you, knowing full well what you were. You are infuriating her, and causing great duress, by trying to pretend to be something you are not.”
I google. I find Kali, the black Hindu goddess of destruction. And Tara, the Buddhist goddess of compassion. There is the Corn Mother, who in Native American tradition brings on the harvest, but in eastern European mythology, kills it. I begin to see the symmetry—how for every benevolent archetype there is a wrathful one. They correspond with the “good” in us, and with what psychoanalysts have referred to as the repressed “shadow self.” The goal in many spiritual or psychological traditions is to bring the two sides into consciousness—and therefore into balance. By doing so, many believe, we will no longer project our shadows—our fear and loathing—into the world. This allows others, to achieve their own restoration. Some believe the effect can heal the entire cosmos." - Terra Firma, by Amy Irvine McHarg
Some believe the effect can heal the entire cosmos. Yes, of course. (I'd say more on that later, which would be silly as that is the topic and theme of the entire blog.)
What I can recall that struck me that Amy said.... a kernel about memoir writing--personal writing--I remember without my notebook (somewhere in storage in an attic in New Orleans), and it had to do with offering our Ego up for sacrifice.
I spend too much time coddling the Ego, and looking 'good' for others' sake and the sake of polite codependent society. Or perhaps to appear to be an expert (why, when in my book, an expert is just someone that has ceased their explorations to rest on their laurels)? Because of a long-held belief that being deemed an expert is more lucrative than continuing expeditions?
Why the facade?
Coiffed and cloistered, I notice the world growing more isolated and cold to the touch, like a steel blade.
Someone I know online (we've yet to meet) wrote to me the other day. He wrote again today. He's plagued by dreams of snakes. Symbolically, they are a message about self-deception.
Illusions we maintain.
The first email following their dream sharing was about Martha Beck as a guest on Oprah's Lifeclass. I would have easily ignored it. The subject line "7 Lies We Tell Ourselves." Lies?! I had to click.
"Lesson 4: The Truth Shall Set You Free
Oprah remembers her controversial 1997 interview with Ellen DeGeneres, which at the time brought Oprah the most hate mail she'd ever received. She also discusses a bedrock belief: Anyone pretending to be something that they're not will never become all that they were meant to be."
The question Oprah and Martha asked on the show (with listeners calling in):
- What secret are you sick of keeping?
- When are you going to free yourself by telling it?
I was blessed to the catch the show live, and it's still available if you go there and scroll over to the video captioned: Oprah's Lifeclass Webcast--The Truth (it also has a picture of Martha, short brown hair and white floral jacket).
It was relevant enough I watched it twice.
All these horrible (or precious) things don't define me.
Nothing can even grasp at the ineffable quintessence of what I am.
So here goes.... the threshold of this blog...
Opening with a snippet from Open Books by Sherman Alexie in his book, One Stick Song. (I saw Alexie speak at the delightful book shop, The King's English, around 1998, reading from Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven.)
The promiscuous poets fill the shelves
with their thin volumes, the selected
and collected lovers, the beautiful lies
occupying a line or stanza
or even the whole poem. I am
reminded of R, the poet's son,
who smiled when I told him
how much I loved his daddy's poems
especially the epic one about love and the canyon
and the sunset, all of it
coming together as he held the hands of his wife and son
as they all stood at the edge
of their lives, a mile above the river flowing, no, raging
between red rock walls.
Ha, said the poet's son. I remember
my mother and I sat in the car
and watched my father pace back
and forth outside the ranger's station
at the canyon. Hell, we never
even got close to the actual
canyon. My father was all pissed off
because my mom hated the outdoors.
He gave us both the silent treatment
when we drove back to the motel.
Later on, my mother and I went out
for hamburgers while my father sat in the room
and wrote that goddamn poem.
Yes, yes, yes, let us now celebrate
fathers and sons, mothers and daughters
for we are all of those things.
Please, please, please, let us now celebrate
poets and liars, liars and poets
for we are both of those things.
*Kali is the feminine archetype of Pluto. Crazy Tooth Mama works as a moniker too.
ART CREDITS: Illustration, A caiman prepares to devour a false coral snake by Maria Sibylla Merian (born 1646).
Definitely an explorer:
Maria wrote at the age of 13, "I collected all the caterpillars I could find in order to study their metamorphosis. I therefore withdrew from society and devoted myself to these investigations."
