On my birthday I woke up to the cries of nestlings in their tiny homes in the Douglas Fir behind the house and the earthy smell of drying petals. I arranged yellow carnations in glass vases for my altars.
I think of my father who died 19 years ago, minutes before midnight on the day before my thirty-fifth birthday. He was mostly absent from our lives when my sister and I were growing up, but when he did show up he did so in style. His passions were horses, cars and women (in that order). I still remember his favorite car, a light blue Chevrolet Chevelle. It was my father who fed my love for books and reading. But the books that came to mean the most to me were weathered copies of Jane Eyre and King Arthur and His Knights of The Round Table. They had been given to me by a family friend, a woman with striking blue eyes and black hair named after the Goddess of the Hunt, Diana (I loved that she introduced herself this way to me).
"I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being, with an independent will." - Jane Eyre
When he was home, my father would set up the film projector and we would watch movies for hours. There are a few movies from the 70s and early 80s that have left an impression, but none quite as much as Excalibur. Nicol WIliamson played Merlin, Nigel Terry was King Arthur and Helen Mirren was the sorceress (and Arthur’s half-sister), Morgan Le Fay. While visually stunning, I believe what impressed me the most was how the movie followed the Arthurian legends in making clear that there is a connection between the King and the Land.
The king in days of old had the responsibility of holding a sacred vision of unity in all things. If the King was ill, the Land suffered. If the king thrived the Land flourished. The king was supposed to be an embodiment of balance, yin and yang.
The Land is the land; the land is psyche, the psyche is land…
When you are well, then… Goldenrod is well, Chipmunk is well, Creek is well and everything pulsates with health.
But if you hold onto beliefs that pollute your inner waters, poison your mind then the Land, and all your relations, suffer.
“ Place and mind may interpenetrate till the nature of both is altered.”
- Nan Shepherd, The Living Mountain
The Land is the Feminine. You have to wed the Feminine.
In Chartres Cathedral, the great Goddess, Mary by name, sits on the cathedra, the throne of the cathedral. She is Wisdom, crowned with leaves. Enthroned on her knee is the young king, bearing in one hand the orb and raising two fingers of the other in blessing of her and the world. He is the Word made flesh, consciousness sitting in the lap of nature. Without the lap, consciousness is uprooted from its source, assuming a life of its own that can be self-devouring. It is as source that the lap is throne.”
Page 4, Dancing in the flames, Marion Woodman and Elinor Dickson
To be Sovereign you must first know how to govern yourself. You must be in balance. Not overtly yang or yin.
There are other books that have been foundational and that continue to uphold this temple of flesh and mind and spirit.
Bulfinch’s Mythology, Fairy Tales like Beauty & the Beast, Snow White and Rose Red - sisters who lived with their mother in a cottage in the woods, who counted bear and deer as friends and who were kind to an ill-tempered and ungrateful dwarf who hoarded treasures under rocks and in tree roots…ultimately their friendship with a black bear saves them from poverty and misery.
And then there is Sleeping Beauty. This tale of the sleeping princess has been teaching me much these past few years.
A vertical jungle grew of tangled vines and prickly brambles, filled with white blossoms and birds nests. The air was fragrant with raspberries and dewberries. Courageous men had their flesh torn by thorns. Those who persisted died entangled, their flesh fed the ravens and rats. Gleaming white bones clanged and chimed in the wind. Then one day when Sun and Moon were visible in the eastern sky, a prince arrived and the vines fell, the rats scattered and the castle gates opened so that the prince walked through a courtyard in which soldiers, maids, the blacksmith and the cook stirred …
How much longer before we all wake up from the long sleep?
Thank you for being here and for being part of my journey of re-animating myth and remembering the old ways.
I’ll be back tomorrow with words on the The (second) Full Moon in Capricorn.
✮⋆˙ Read my posts on VOCATION in ASTROLOGY here and here.
✮⋆˙ Read my article on The Role of Fire in Vocational Astrology here.
✮⋆˙Book a reading.
Great memories... Excalibur, Bullfinch's mythology, Jane Eyre... wonderful, thanks for reminding me...