Response to Gopi's post @ http://fire-serpent.com/tearoom/index.php/topic,1418.msg6566/topicseen.html#msg6566
It is said to be an essential tantric attainment, to be able to see the Mother Goddess in your mother. I never could. Too many scars, undiagnosed ADD and blaming. They decided I was a bad kid and never looked past it to see I was actually just like mom. Emotion storms and lateness. ADD is genetic.
One morning last November 2014, I was working on updating links to the Matriarchy lesson, looking for YouTube videos. Listened to one while I kept searching, it sounded interesting so when it finished I replayed to watch. Previously I had noted in passing, my mom being shaped like Venus of Willendorf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_of_Willendorf
but it was a comment on her weight, not her divinity.
This time, I really saw it. Struck by it, awed to see the unity, the obvious perfection that my mom would look like the oldest mother Goddess icon of prehistory right down to the curly hair. As I gazed at her shining form she rose up, and I felt all the scars from her lift out of me like she took it with her. Grateful and astonished. She had refused to believe I had PTSD ... let alone that she had anything to do with it.
A few moments later my sister called, to tell me that mom had slipped into a coma and the doctors said it would not be long. I understood my vision, her soul ascending and her parting gift. The rest of the local family were gathered around her bedside. I had been to visit her and said my goodbyes, and repeated a promise I had made to her before: that when her time came to walk through that gate she would not be alone, I would walk with her because I am her strange witchy daughter who can do things like that. I hung up the phone and went looking, and found her in the fields of Lethe, a charismatic and beautiful young woman I had never known. She was nearly 40 when she had me, 4th child.
When I saw her at the hospice, they had given her the anti anxiety medication I had known she needed since I was 8, and she was a different person. At one point as I stood at the foot of the bed she looked at me and said "my twin" and I was surprised. I knew how much alike we were, (frequently to my despair!) but I did not think she saw it. I was even more surprised that night, to find an old photo of her and realize how much alike we looked in our 20's. Dad's nose and teeth, straighter and smaller than moms but the rest is her, twins.
Lethe is part of the greek underworld, though these places are reflected in other cultures. It is a place of peace, beauty and forgetfulness, rolling green hills of flower meadow and blue sky. The flowers in Lethe, never die, never fade because there is no time there. The people too, abide in perfect freshness. The spirits in Lethe have no memory of their life or even of their own name but the place is so peaceful and beautiful the amnesia doesn't trouble them at all. I smiled at the irony of finding her in a place where it was entirely futile to talk about the past.
Sat with her in the flowers, chatting about nothing and getting to know her essential self. At one point I opened a window portal so she could see her dying body in the hospice bed, family gathered around. She looked, the faintest trace of concern passing across her face before Lethe asserted itself and she turned away distracted, hearing her name being called from just out of sight, beyond the next green hill. Those who had gone before. Lethe was just a stopover, a place of waiting while her body shut down. At 90, she had outlived most of her friends and close relatives and there was a big welcoming party waiting for her past the next gate. I slipped deeper into trance, beyond reach of memory.
When I came back to myself, woke again to life and the body's demands I knew the promise was kept. My sister called again a few moments later to tell me mom had passed.
Parents are our first Gods. Our relationship with them is personal and archetypal, and persistent. Even if we go away, we still bring them with us internally, their influence runs deep.
Thank you for sharing this Mystress. I find myself in the same battle, but with my father. As a young man I vowed to never be the same as him only to realize I am the same heavy drinking womanizer unconsciously following in his footsteps at his age. I've surrendered and forgiven as much as I can when conscious of it. Our adult relationship was never strained but throughout my childhood and part of my adult life my rejection of his past has manifested with my shadow showing me more of him in myself. I've always been able to see his positive qualities and admire them and those too have manifested but the shadow part is always the toughest to deal with.
Thank you again for you candor in sharing parts of your personal life.
She is beautiful. Thank you for sharing Mystress <3
Thank you, Mystress, for sharing. It's powerful and uplifting for me.
Such an incredible, beautiful experience. Thank you for sharing it.
Thank you for sharing Mystress, very calming and heart feeling for me, helps me see my mother in a loving forgiving light.