Death Mother
Death – “Alchemical Initiation into Wisdom”
“She dances wildly with Death and Births the alchemy of deep wisdom”
When we dance with the Feminine – we are constantly confronted with the Death Mother. This Dark Mother is an alchemical energy that seeks to bring the force of Her Nature into our lives for change to occur, and for deeper wisdom to manifest through us.
Never have we been so confronted with the Death Mother as we have in this last year. She is everywhere – calling us to a deep attunement to the rhythms of Life and to the ever present opportunity for rebirth and renewal.
We have been taught to fear death to wildly resist its presence in our lives. Oftentimes we miss its gifts, these opportunities to grow through a deep pruning of what has been before. We complain, we fight, we distract ourselves endlessly hoping, just hoping that its dark presence will go away and we can go “back to normal” often times burying and denying the opportunity for new life, that is begging to come into being/form.
“I find the happiest wild women are those who relish the opportunity to let entire phases of their lives die out, like flowers withering under the first frost.”
Danielle Dulsky
When I speak of Death here, I am not merely speaking of physical death, although this too is an opportunity for renewal and regeneration, I am including here the psychological deaths that are really the jewels in the mud of our lives, the ones that bring us to our knees, the situations we face that cry out for change, for the release of our neurotic attachments and illusions. This is I believe the death we most fear – the death inherent in the alchemy of change and the rearranging of our carefully constructed comfortable static lives.
“I am a daughter of some ancient Black Madonna
who brings new life through shaking our bones.
Even the chaos of a storm has a logic.
A tornado turns to a secret clockwork, that comes from the Creators hand.
You, simple woman, cannot see what is:
coming in the midst of the storm.
Just lay low and take shelter and then when
the calm comes
walk into the light.
Open your eyes in amazement at what the dust was covering from your sight before the storm came.
Rebirth is a shedding of your illusions.”
Psalm Isadora
In the feminine motifs – there is the imagery of the Maiden, the Mother and the Crone. All three of these aspects are initiating points in the cycle of our lives. The Crone particularly is a Death Mother, teaching us of the transience, the effervescence of life, she is the Wisdom holder, gathering the seeds of our many life lessons and preparing us for a new cycle, a new birth into deeper love, wisdom and truth. She initiates us into Bone Wisdom – the bare naked truth of our Being. She is ancient, has been around for a very long time and knows “the way” and will allow no less than the sacred engagement with the flow and cycles of our lives.
In Tantra – the initiate is often instructed to meditate in the cremation grounds so that this death wisdom is deeply integrated into the body. Oftentimes we are instructed to “die before we die”. Kali, the Baba Yaga, Calleich, Ceridwen, The Norns, the Morrigan, Hekate, Sekhmet are among the Crone Goddesses who invite us into newer ways of beings, encouraging us to allow the old to die so that new life, new vision, new possibility can come into being through the alchemy of death.
“The Crone Mother – offering the Pomegranate, symbol of Fertility and New Life”
Die to all that has gone before. Let go of the limited, the small, the cramped spaces of your mind. Rest in the velvet black darkness of the Mother’s embrace. Who are you now? Dissolve into the infinity of Her deep and abiding Love and Support. Be still and know.
She Invites you to:
The Teachings of the Scarlet Sutra is dedicated to the Red Goddess Lalita, Sophia, Mary Magdalene, the 64 Yoginis and The Red Priestesses from all Traditions throughout the Ages.
Copyright
Prem Moodaley
Easter 2021
Resources:
Danielle Dulsky: Woman Most Wild: Three Keys to Liberating the Witch Within 2017