Initiation part two - The Wasteland
Campbell goes on," for many is the head of the Hydra; one head cut off, two more appear- unless the right caustic is applied to the mutilated stump. The original departure into the land of trials represented only the beginning of the long and really perilous path of initiatory conquests and moments of illumination. Dragons have now to be slain and surprising barriers passed-again, again, and again. Meanwhile there will be a multitude of preliminary victories, unretainable ecstasies, and momentary glimpses of the wonderful land." Many of us take three steps forward and two steps back. What does it take to stop from regressing? What is the right unguent? What is the dwarf's name? The instant diets, the bottom of the bottle, or the endless hours burning the midnight oil; does it stop the many heads of the Hydra from resurfacing?
We go from hardship to hardship. We travel from tedium to boredom and back again. On the way we make stops off at the inns of depression and aggression. We drink their draught before we go on once more. We get glimpses of future bliss, of what can be; but we fall back into the thought of what is and what never shall be. It is always in our own reach, but we block ourselves from them. If we can only get out of our own way...
"At their word, the word which tortures the spirit, the sick women was turned to a corpse, the corpse was hung from a stake." S.N Kramer translation of Sumerian Mythology
Can you face your own shadow. Can you sew it back onto your heel? Can you come to terms with the god or goddess in yourself in its two aspects? When you face your own Darth Vader in the cave, will you swipe its head off or invite it to tea? The unknown knight in the forest, do you share a bottle of wine with him or stab him in the side? Can you face the error of your ways and embrace them? Can you transform a liars tongue into a playwright's imagination? But who shall help you on your way? Of course Kali Ma.....
Here we face the Goddess in its terrible form. Kali with dagger in one hand and the other telling you to fear not steps on poor souls as she wears the skulls around her neck of your past outdated personas and lives. She is like the maggot who eats the dead flesh off your wounds leaving the new tissue clean. She is also the wicked stepmother who pushes your limits and forces you to use your voice and actions to save your own life from her abuses. She sets up the trials and ordeals that block your future growth that every youth must conquer on their own. Can you put yourself on terms to understand that the witches of the four directions is only one woman. That woman being the universal mother. In her terrible face she is the one that calls the youth to action.
For in life sometimes we get mothers who do not prepare us for our futures. We can have the absent, unattainable mother, against who aggressive fantasies are directed, and from whom a counter aggression is feared; the hampering, forbidding, punishing mother; the mother who would hold to herself the growing child trying to push away; and finally the desired but forbidden mother whose prescience is a lure to dangerous desire (castration complex)- exists the hidden land of the adult's infant recollection and is sometimes even the greater force in their ego. These mother's hold their child on the thresholds that the mother will not pass through herself. But once the children goes into the forest, the parents give them up. The children leave behind trails of bread crumbs to find their way back, but our animal instincts have the birds eat them from behind. Once the skeleton's are out of the closet and you cross the threshold that you can not turn back from. You either stagnate and die on your journey or you see it to its end.
The wicked witch character is the side of our own mothers who have blocked us from our instincts, self soothing, and faith in our own voices. Their joy and comfort is conditional and unreliable. They feed us their poison that fattens us up. They feed us their own voice and actions and squeeze our thumbs to see if we are ready for the oven. It is the Turkish delight of the White Witch. It tastes good to the eye and mouth but sets heavy in the stomach. Hansel and Gretel become the hero when they refuse the food. Pinochio turns into the ass when he eats all the sweats. Many women feel disconnected from their bodies because of their mothers lack of grounding in her own skin. These women create destructive anima's in men that lead them into disastrous relationships. But since these women teach their children their misbehavior is normal, abusive becomes normal for these men. Here the extreme personification of their mother comes across in the fairy tale or dream to force the youth to stand up for its life. Before then the youth turns away all healthy women because they are foreign to him. There is an old phrase that if you must boil a frog to raise the temperature slowly so it will not jump out before its goose is cooked. The wicked witch raises the temperature to force the ego to let go for the self to save itself.
The good witch or fairy Godmother is precocious as well. As the old man guides. "You do not come when I call and you show up when not asked.." Yells Uther in Excalibur to Merlin. Like the Good side of your mother, it is unpredictable and fleeting; but still is there neverless. Besides her shortcomings, she is still helpful. If Spider Woman is the mother of the Twin War Heros, where has she been all their life. In the stories where healthy mother's are present, there is only one witch or mother. Like your body and its million cells, you do not notice them when they are healthy. Health means whole. Only when you eat too much do you think of your stomach. The Twin War Heros are the youths traveling through the initiation to become a whole. It is similar to Osiris and his brother Set who chops him in pieces twice. Set is avoiding his need for change.
Once defeating, or integrating , the bad witch and following the good witches guidance may the youth find his true love when his anima is reshaped into a healthy love. But until the youth faces the evil witch he will deny his true love. Parzival does not return to Condwiramurs for many years. Much like Ulysses who stays too long on the island of the Lotus eaters. The youth must give his own justification to his own voice and ask the mother to stop the harm she is causing. He might find guidance in another woman who is healthy in his life; say a motherly or teacher like figure. Someone who can give the youth the comfort, joy, justification, and reassurance the mother is not able to do.
Woman are the totality of what is known, men are the knowing of the knowledge. The man that can take her in her totality, good and bad, is the one who will become the king in the fairy tale. The twin Goddess in the Taming of the Shrew, The twelve princesses who dance in the fairy world, the many damsels in the Grail tale that set her suitor out to face destruction against the aggressive knights belieging her; they set challenges to overcome the hero before she gives in. But with a healthy anima, the youth knows which heart is savage and which one is Merci. For the Merci heart will only withhold the porticulous long enough for the hero to enter her castle. The other will only dash him against the rocks after all his efforts. She remains what shall never be. The princess is always freed before the hero slays the dragon. Leia is Freed before Luke confronts Darth Vader.
In other stories the lover to be is hideous in shape or is disguised as a dirty maid. Cinderella and Catskin are of this motif. For one labor in the service of the three horrible women is what must be escaped, for the other slaving in the kitchen is her rescue. Catskin was born from a hollow tree, a tree that could not teach her anything. Either her mother was dead of body or spirit to be able to teach her. So she goes to a foreign land where other women teach her in the kitchen. She sleeps under the stairs where her subconscious works on her own growth. She came to this kitchen not knowing who she was or where she came from. Much like the Twin War Gods. Here in the kitchen she learns her name where she came from and where she is going. In three dances she wears three dresses, one of the stars, one of the moon, and one of of the stars. At the dance she courts the king who represents her higher ego. It is the reconciliation of her negative animus with its healthy side. This healthy male side will balance of her feminine side, much like the healthy anima for a man will. This man will give her a new foundation as when the prince in the Cinderella story does when he places the slipper on her foot. The nutshell the dresses come from represent the shell of our own skull to get to the concepts of ego death of the moon dress, soul rebirth of the sun dress, and the return of the boon in the star dress.Herman haller had to fall in love with his instinctual, desirable nature and kill it to become whole.
It is also the hag at the well in the story of Nial the son of Eochaid. His four brothers refused the water that she offered that would save their life. All that was required was a kiss. But her ugliness prevented them from doing so. Not Nial, he offered her a kiss and even a hug. For she then became the most beautiful woman any one ever set eyes upon and lived to tell of it. She was Royal Rule of Tara, the kingdom of his father, it was him of the five who was going to inherit the land. But as she was ugly at first, rule had to come from fierce battles, fierce conflicts, and fierce tribulations and trials; but the future rule will be beautiful as she had become. Such is it as you go forth on your journey to your self. I go from myself to myself Odin said hanging on the tree learning the runes. He was learning the journey to be king of ones own ego. You and the land are one. What ails the one ails the other. What heals the one heals the other. The War Gods become one.
But to meet the goddess that is in two aspects, one must bring a gentle heart devoid of animal desire, revulsion, or fear. Only the heart made aware, gentle sympathy, can win the boon of love. This is the forgiveness of your mothers faults with the respect to your own voice and action. It is to teach her. Only after this confrontation shall you receive the boon of love from her and another woman and daughter truly. This is to cure the festering wound of the Fisher King and the wasteland you had found yourself in.
Once in possession of the bride, the hero realizes him and the father are equal. This is the coming to the sixth chakra. But along the way he finds women who represent the desires of his unhealthy mother's state that tempt him to stop his journey, to accept the mother as she is. The sirens call the sailor off the sea of the unconsciousness into the rocks of fear and desire. These are the women who let you down in the same way your mother has all her life. They tell you that you are fine and need not change. For you to change means they must go on their own journey. Here he might find the little child who is his own father who has not faced his own mother yet. This is the uncle who has killed the father and sleeps with Hamlet's mother. Then comes the guilt of Oedipus who has killed his father to sleep with his own mother. When you heal your mother, you have touched her some place your father could not, for he could not do it for his own mother. So you must help him kill himself so he can come face to face with his own mother. You will give him rebirth. For "Luke I am your Father."
