transforming Hollow Maiden to Awakening Muse

Musing

A Destiny of Her Own

2a

How close she came to being dominated by the maiden-mother or girl-woman who trades her beauty and worth for five minutes air time. Dismissive of other women, including that feminine force within, she focuses on the masculine and sees him not as he is but as she wants him to be. She can’t quite trust her knowing that his beard is a little too blue.

So her lack of discrimination keeps her cut off from this knowing, cut off from her instincts as she dances along a choreographed stage, a pretty ballerina marionette, hungry for her lover’s gaze and then convincing herself that the gaze is enough.

The waters within seem so far away. Instead she swims in pools bought and paid for by the services of the muse. She convinces herself that she holds the power because he desires her. She fails to realize that all that power depends on his definition of beauty, not hers.

And so these girl-women marry, have children, become mothers, lovers, workers and wives and wonder at the loss of blood. What happened to the woman, a ‘virgin unto herself’ with a voice dependent on no one excepting her depth for resonance?

We catch a whiff of her on the sea breeze. Perhaps momentary hits of drugs, drink and raw ecstasy allow her to pretend to be hip and free. Ah, this difficult maiden who is as vulnerable as she is cruel, her fish tail, her garment of instinct, long since lost as she uses the wiles she has to cultivate the world out there for love, security, validation and approval.

Can we become open and honest enough to be sensitive to her scent, her feel so that we may ‘see’ her and bring her home to be contained, guided, loved fair and foul, accepted and nourished?

This we must have the courage to do, as without her, there can be no being in oneself to experience essence. To feel vitality, nakedly exposed as our heart is touched and in this way the world may whisper its joy, fleeting, ephemeral and yet breathtakingly real. This rare window of beauty is the way that God speaks if we could only open ourselves to hear.

Now, the disciplined practice begins. The silencing of the mind so that the heart may speak; rituals that remind the body in time and space of something magical, passionate and eternal; reflection that refines and matures the intellect; and learning, always learning – endless beginner. Life becomes a mystery, her living a prayer and celebration. No longer any man’s obliging poppet or puppet, she discovers a woman with an angel twin, a destiny all of her own!

original text sb