I seem to write regularly about crossing thresholds, walking through portals, liminal spaces, etc. I guess my life is more dotted with these experiences than most people's, or at least more consciously/intentionally dotted with them. It's part of the mystic path, perhaps, the shamanic reality, always entering new states of consciousness. But this threshold of "68", particularly the last month or so, has been really, really, intense. The "place" I am in today feels literally like a new landscape from where I was even at the beginning of the year.
Here's what I think has happened. After circling around near this major portal for years, I finally walked through it -- the portal into a completely Goddess-centered reality. I've made a commitment to Her, and to representing Her values (and higher, conflict-free values) as I understand them, more consciously and deliberately than ever before. And by taking that step into the new landscape, it feels like a door has closed behind me, almost literally. I know in my heart that for the rest of this lifetime at least, I will not be able to reference/reverence most of the constructs in place, even in a sometimes pathetic effort to try to keep going. It never worked well for me, it was never "who I was", and frankly, it isn't what the Goddess needs from me now, at this important transitional moment.
Take Easter. I was on the city bus on Saturday, Easter Eve, and two people were talking with great enthusiasm about the church services they were going to attend on Sunday. It seemed to me that their happiness went way beyond anticipating singing some wonderful, celebratory hymns. I mean, just from their voices, I could tell that the risen Christ symbolized something very important to them personally, the victory of life over death. I realized that never in my whole life has there been joy for me in the Easter celebration -- only joy in the singing of beautiful music.
In this current moment, around the edges (and I didn't attend services anywhere), all I could hear was duality -- life vs. death, good vs. evil, battles done and battles won. All I could see was the violence of a holy man being nailed to a cross, and somehow that action being reverenced throughout history by being re-lived and re-lived over and over again. And as much as I know that the "victory" is the resurrection (not the crucifixion), even that doesn't feel like winning to me. I don't want "victory" in my life anymore anyway, as it is a duality concept. The Jesus I would like to have known is the real person, the real mystic, walking this earth path as we do, learning, stumbling, and growing.
I don't think that even if I had had the opportunity this year, I would have been able to tolerate services at my favorite English cathedral. While it is too early to tell whether the door has completely closed on that relationship, so central to my life thus far, I feel so different this morning that nothing would surprise me.
It's actually quite terrifying. Now, to imagine a door locking behind me is, in itself, too duality-based...I don't think the new territory is that black and white. This spiritual path is one of freedom and harmony, and there may be moments when I'll circle back into old "landscapes" or ways of being if I need to pick up an old thread. But do I feel like I am essentially in a different place, that I have crossed over a major threshold? Yes.
