Feast Day of our Lady Guadalupe: Endarkenment to Enlightenment…
We are in the last cycle of the year as the days are getting shorter. The darkness claims the rays of the Sun earlier each day. We are moving deeper into the rich soil/soul of our Earth body, planting seeds of remembrance for all that is has been good true and beautiful in this passing year. We also honor all the has been released in this tumultuous year of 2013, as we dive deeper into the soil of our souls.
May our tears of grief not only for ourselves, but for our people, our ancestors, our world, allow for an awakening, a quickening. May we have the courage to die into who we are becoming. May we allow that deep root of longing that is twisted and at times woven into the long story that is the story of our soul and the soul of the world ground and anchor us to place. Perhaps our service to our ancestors, is to release and break the patterns that bind our true joy. This deep loss that adds to the collective burden of this world. To be willing to grieve for ourselves and our ancestors, opens the gateways, accelerating our journey towards cultivating a greater capacity for light, love and empowerment! We are reborn at Solstice!
It is not surprising that Guadalupe is honored on December 12th. Her feast day marks the end of the past year cycle at the darkest time of the year. We are invited to turn over the compost of the challenges, losses and relationships we are releasing, in order to clear a way for what is to be born in the coming months ahead. Our Lady Guadalupe appeared after the dark past of violation of the Aztec and Mayan people at the hands of the Spanish Conquistadors and the church. She appeared at a time of great darkness and confusion as the bones of nearly 23 million native Mexicans lay rotting in the soil from the Catholic conquest of Mexico. It was Dec 9th 1531 the first time she appeared to Juan Diego, a humble Aztec man. She arose, pregnant from the ruins of the Earth Mother Tonantzin. According to tradition, the Virgin appeared to Juan Diego, a Nahua man on Tepeyac Hill, north of Mexico City, where there was a shrine dedicated to the female Aztec earth deity Tonantzin. To this day, in Nahuatl-speaking communities (in other communities as well), the Virgin continues to be called “Tonantzin” and her appearance is commemorated on December 12 each year.
I invite you to make this potent time of year a soul retrieval. Many of us are pilgrims on this planet. In order to assist humanity in birthing a new order of light into this dark world, we must willingly face our own darkness. We must make a pilgrimage into the darkness within and without, if we are to truly find what we have come to this beautiful, pain-full place this Earth, Terra Gaia to find, to claim and to heal. I believe we are here to reclaim the fragmented parts of our soul. We are on our journey back home to the Great Central Sun in service to the light. We have all known endarkenment. We must embrace the suffering of our own fragile longing heart in order to finally find the true light.
May we have the courage to allow the tsunami of our own grief to wash over and through us again and again until we can find authentic action needed to heal our selves and stop the destruction of this precious world! We must choose to descend, to enter into the darkness at the heart of the world. In this realm of suffering, we must vow to no longer sacrifice the precious, innocent child, the child of our own heart. We must take her home to the warmth and hearth of abiding love. We are here on this planet to learn to love and to rise up from the ashes of a deep shameful history of hurt and violation. We can no longer perpetrate our own suffering on others. No longer can we allow ourselves to rationalize and justify violence, entitlement, inflation, disrespect and greed. Greed has many faces, the worst perhaps is with-holding love from ourselves and one another. Fierce compassion is what is called for as 2013 comes to a close. Fierce compassion for ourselves, for the child of our own heart, for one another and all creature beings. May we no longer tolerate the punishing patriarchal attack on truth telling! The distortion and lies are so interwoven into our psyches that we fail to see it in our own behavior! Power over, instead of deep empowerment that grows from offering our best, our truth to our loved ones and the world without fear of retribution and withdrawal of loving kindness. This is a time, a season of release and gathering the precious jewels of our own soul. May we carefully polish each one and place them on the altar of our own becoming in the Circle, the Wheel of wholeness as we abide at the Center of our sacred hoop.
I have been talking about endarkenment for months and a friend Leslene della-Madre recently shared on Face Book a potent poem she wrote about the dark mother called Endarkenment! I would like to share it now and invite you to light a candle today for our Lady of Guadalupe and all people of the world whose life ways have been violated by fear and genocide. We are rising up as we go deeper into the root of truth at the Center of our own aching love, to fertilize the Tree of Life that grows at the Center of the World. 
Endarkenment by Leslene della-Madre
Dark Mother
Digging deep into her rich, musty moist darkness
Searching for my roots,
I encounter the memory of my ancient grandmothers,
Their hands reaching to clasp mine in remembrance of what once was.
Buried by the lies and layers of heavy domination and violence,
Sitting in sacred cave by liquid fire,
Pouring stars into teacups,
Laughing amongst themselves,
They patiently wait
To see who will come through the mysterious vulva/opening of birth and death, though, both illusions in the great Round, we are beckoned into initiation, dancing with Form and Space.
They look at me, full of life, glistening cosmic eyes of the YoniVerse that know no violence against women and children, no rape of womanheart, womanmind, womanlotus and sacred womanearth…
Hearts full of earthy love, joy and wisdom.
And yet, their diamond tears stream down ancient earth-carved craggy creeks in cheeks
They tell me we have been foolish to think
That fruition only comes from straining to reach the light of the hegod, enlightenment as we have called it…
They say you cannot reach the light without dancing in the dark,
Without curling your pristine delicate roots deep into her immense heart, breast and womb of lush, velvety soil, the very core of your soil/soul.
Endarkenment they call it.
You have forgotten about endarkenment, they say, eyes on fire and hearts nearly bursting with purple, ripe passion…
If you reach for the light without your roots firmly held in Her ground of all being, you will perish, they say, as their hands paint the darkness with sapphire and emerald sparks, gently piercing my heart.
For far too long you have arrogantly assumed that awakening means turning away from my darkness, my mountain womb/cauldron of transformation.
You have taken my name Hel and twisted it into what you call hell-a place of fear, desolation and pain.
Hel speaks….she says “I am the Norse Goddess of regeneration. I take all departed souls unto me, in my sacred earth mountain, and hold and rock them, soothing their fears. I love them into newness, into new life. There is no violence here. I am taking my name back. You can no longer use my name. Hell, as you have named it, is a reversal of all that is good and kind. I am Hel, Mother Goddess of transformation. Do not forget.”
Demeter speaks….she says, “I am the grain Mother, she who gives life and nourishment. My daughter, Persephone heard the call of her grandmother, Hecate, from the inner earthworld to come and learn her secrets of transformation and regeneration, what you call death. Yes, I was sad when she left, for I love her beyond all measure. But Baubo, Goddess of the Wise Crack, came along and made me laugh. But I tell you now with all the passion of a mother SheBear, that nowhere, nowhere is there a raping god named Hades in my story. You have taught your children in your books about raping gods. Why do you do this? Gods who rape their mothers, sisters and daughters? This is abominable. You must stop teaching the children these stories. And retell the story of love between mother and daughter that sustains all life—stories that create beauty. For too long, you have sown seeds of sorrow, hopelessness and despair in your innocent children. If you want peace, as many of you say you do, you must tell new stories that reflect the deeper truth of a time when the Mother Goddess prevailed and all was well. Give your children hope, encouragement and wisdom so that they may grow strong, kind and respectful of all life.
Artemis speaks….I am she who is whole unto herself, owned by no man. I am not well understood, as I have never chosen to marry and I run through the forest with fleet-footed independence. In your time, woman-centered independence is not cherished. Too many of you flock to men as if they are your salvation. They are not. You are your own salvation. And they are theirs. What is it you are looking for, dear sisters, when you paint yourselves, cut your beautiful bodies to make something bigger or smaller, inserting toxic plastic into your lives? For what? To be more loveable? You are already loved, as the flowers in the field are. The rose does not wish to be a daffodil. The oak tree does not wish to be a redwood. What is it you are wishing to be that you are not already?
There are more voices to be heard, but they say another time.
The diamond tears of the ancient ones fall gently into curved womb lap,
And burst into new baby stars
Birthed from their heart transmission streaming through the cosmos
Like a blazing comet.
Someone has listened to them through the layers of heavy dusty sorrow.
Someone has heard them.
They rejoice.
A renewed prayer streams forth from their lips in luminous joyful vibrations stretching out beyond time and space.
The grandmothers of timelessness surround me with ancient volcanic nurturing dark,
Rock me in their arms of plenty, kiss my forehead,
Ruby sparkles tickle my third eye.
I am home, and I feel their gentle pristine female touch and soft womanMother whisperings,
Reminding me that endarkenment is my true awakening.
Earth Dance Circle 