DARK GODDESS

I've been sitting with Beyoncé's Grammy performance for days, trying to find my way into language to express the places in me it touched; deep, secret places so powerful I am only just beginning to approach them. I'll begin by saying that for me, Beyoncé's 'Lemonade' film is a masterwork. She is a fierce being of strength and consciousness, who moved so authentically through an archetypal initiation of betrayal by the masculine, that she embodied the fullness of the Goddess herself for all to see. And because it was honest, it contains both the light and darkness of the Feminine Principle, unapologetically. I am literally in awe of her and this work.

As an aside, I believe she was largely passed over for awards for this very reason - this work is simply too real and intense for most. This was perfectly played out for me during the performance; while I was completely agog at what was unfolding on stage, two people I was with - a woman in her seventies and a pre-teen girl - were both expressing their displeasure (and likely deep discomfort) by saying, "Just dance Beyoncé. We like it better when you dance." Meanwhile she's up there laying down primal truth about the Feminine...

"Do you remember your birth? Are you thankful for the hips that cracked and the deep velvet of your mother and her mother.....and her mother?" Everything comes through the feminine; she is the generator and portal through which humans enter time/space in the third dimension. In her cosmic duties as womb, weaver of the golden thread that ties us together, dreamer and keeper of ever new potentialities for human evolution, she is physically beholden to the unseen realms. One eye towards Earth, one eye fixed on Heaven. And Hell. I do not believe in the traditional notions of these; Heaven for me encompasses endless dimensions of pure Love Light, which I know exist because I've been there. Hell is the opposite end of that spectrum, the absence of light, total density. Been there too. And in our creative power here on Earth, we manifest aspects of both in our lives as our lives. The Feminine is perfectly comfortable in both realms. In her highest expression (that we can imagine), she is the Divine Mother, essentially made of that pure Love Light, birthing us, loving us unconditionally, supporting and holding us through anything and everything without judgement. A bottomless heart. In her lowest expression (that we can imagine) she is pissed. She is actually beyond pissed - she is Anger itself, lashing out destructively, with vengeance, with power beyond imagining, burning it all down. We don't like to talk about her that way, I know. And yet.

Black Moon Lilith is a Dark Goddess archetype who represents the feminine shadow. There are many stories about her, one in particular calls her the first woman, pre-Eve. She was so powerful in her creative energy, Adam rejected and banished her. And then he fashioned Eve from his own body, a lesser, controllable energy. "You cut me in half," Beyoncé sings. Lilith embodies our reaction to subjugation - a dense collective burden from lifetimes of rage and despair. When crossed, Lilith fights back - she plots and manipulates, she emasculates, she destroys. In her album 'Lemonade', Beyoncé descends into this Hell, she dances with the Dark Goddess, she accepts both her own and her husband's dark side. She says, "Ok, I got it, life's messy and sticky and sometimes very fucked up." (I'm paraphrasing here.) And then the question becomes "Can I still love?" From the expanded place of holding the whole truth of herself and her beloved, the answer is Yes, which allows her to rise in Love, to embody the Divine Feminine, which can hold everything. A woman's heart is a bottomless ocean. (I think that's from Titanic.) And it's true.

And so we have this beautiful archetypal dance of light and shadow that we are engaged in, every day. How is it going? Are you friends with your darkest places? Do you lash out in anger? Do you seek revenge on the masculine? Do you emasculate? Do you allow yourself to sink to the depths to feel it all? And afterwards with eyes wide open, do you still choose love? Life can expand us this way, particularly the feminine, for this is an essential component of our Earth journey. And when we rise in love, we uplift all women, and create the possibility to collectively come whole to our men, allowing the masculine and feminine to join together in absolute balance. And from that place, as Beyoncé sings it, "You and me could move mountains."