The Lament of 13 Moons has Begun... before I thought I was ready!
The way I thought it would go was thus: I would start by going out on a Quest at the full moon, a solo pilgrimage from which I would return with insights, visions, deeper inquiry, form of ceremony, meditations on the first Rite of Passage "Conception", I would then write that up and share it primarily with the people who have signed up to join me on the webinars. Then we will meet for the webinars on the sunday before New Moon and go through the inquiry process, leaving me and the participants free to do whatever ceremony feels called for on the night of the New Moon itself.
I travelled down to Hereford last Friday to lead a days workshop on death and loss on Saturday. Just as we finished lamenting the snow started to come down thick and fast, the assembled group dispersed quickly keen to get home. I remained and shared a sauna with the couple hosting me before taking to my bed and upon waking realised I was snowed in. So I stayed.
The journey down to Hereford was not snowy, in fact it was a sublimely clear blue skied kind of cold that made me gasp my ecstasies out loud at each turn. My sat nav took me a most bizarre back roads route that didn't make any logical sense except I was repeatedly blown away by the silhouette of a fine tree or the low swoop of a buzzard. My shoulders ached from the vigilant driving, single track lanes and the low glare of the winter light. About an hour from my destination, just as the sun was setting, I saw a roadsign that made me reel with recognition. I was passing right by Llangunllo in Radnorshire, the ancestral home of my mothers paternal forebears.
Too late that dusky friday evening to visit I thought to drive back through on my return. Over the weekend, the conversations were deep and wide but repeatedly the San Pedro spirit of Grandfather was talked about and I could feel the grandfathers closing in as I listened. There was a quality of transmission in the experience. The woundedness of the male in both my parents ancestral lines has historically been something I have drawn a line under and said "no more ancestral healing for you", especially when I relinquished the patrilineal name I was given at birth in favour of Derwen. And most pressingly it seemed very relevant to the space before Conception, the static through which we pass in order to take Form.
The only way I had the time to visit Llangunllo was if I was to be snowed in until Monday and I was. So I cautiously and very slowly made my way along the countrylanes splattered by silt and salt, the verges still snow locked and endless acres of flooding either side, many roads closed and the driving experience fraught. I made it to Llangunllo though, and immediately spotted my great uncles names on the war memorial. As I drove into the village past the site of the Battle of Bryn Glas / Pilleth and along the River Lugg a huge fine rainbow ended itself in front of my moving car, the rainbow moving along with me.
Next to the war memorial in what used to be a bus stop is a community book share. Not even hiding but in plain sight, right in front of me as I entered, was the Tao Te Ching. My mothers favourite book and guiding philosophy. We read from it for her funeral. I opened the Tao Te Ching and the following verse was on the random page:
XXVIII "Know the male, but keep to the role of the female, and be a ravine to the Empire. If you are a ravine to the Empire, then the constant virtue will not desert you, and you will once again return to being a babe. Know the white, but keep to the role of the black and be a model to the Empire. If you are a model to the Empire then the constant virtue will not be wanting and you will return to the Infinite. Know Honour. But keep to the role of the disgraced and be a valley to the Empire. Then the constant virtue will be sufficient and you will return to being the uncarved block. When the uncarved block shatters it becomes vessels. The sage makes use of these and becomes lord over the officials. Hence the greatest cutting, does not sever."
If you read that passage with the eye that is considering the space before Conception then it speaks directly to the Yin or yielding that is required to receive the wisdom of the Formless state. What does it mean to be a ravine, a model and a valley? What does it mean to return to the uncarved block? What does it mean that the greatest cutting does not sever?
To me the ravine is the place of hiding, or a place where you cannot be seen, if I am the ravine to empire then I am unreachable, untouchable and unseeable by the empire. The empire, to me, represents the System, the established systems of power, the corrupted hierarchies. I have been a ravine, I haven't been active in my dismantling of the systems of oppression, I have been biding my time, I have been preparing myself and others, I have been meditating on what is needed, I have put energies into the books that share what is needed for the revolution. The ravine is full of the Resistance.
To become a model for the empire implies stepping out of hiding and being seen. Speaking up and out and leading from the front. It speaks to me of providing alternative routes and ways to be, of holding up mirrors to what is not working but providing new ways to operate. Then to become the valley is somewhere between the model and the ravine - the ravine being closed by its treacherous nature and steep sides. The valley for the empire is the Gracious Way. Not one of shame or destruction but a place to rest.
To return to the uncarved block is precisely the energy that I encounter when I travel back to the point before conception. The infinite potential in the formless state, just ready to be brought forward by the Mysterious Creator, that shapes and informs our Being. To return to that place is to be No Thing and No Body but to be merged with all things and all bodies. It is to dance on the edge of the Void.
The greatest cutting does not sever, suggests to me that although we take form at conception our separateness is only ever an illusion and the thread of connection to the Infinite and Unmanifest is always there. There is always, at our core, a seed of the Void within us and our enduring and eternal nature cannot be eradicated or lost.
Y'all will have your own interpretations on this I am sure. For me it is sufficient to tell me that my Lament of 13 Moons has already started, that the spirit of the Grandfathers is with me, that the ancestors, my mothers philosophy and essence and the ancient wisdoms are aligned. The rainbows, the buzzards and the synchronicities all add up to a great affirmation of being on the right path.
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