The last sentence or two of my most recent post ("The Lull") reminded me that my Goddess list includes the words, "Pierced to the Core," so this appears to be the day to address this concept. It's interesting, I really haven't read too much written material about (or by) early saints and mystics. I just know from what little I have read that female saints, particularly, reached intense points of ecstasy, and experienced stigmata and other physical woundings in their contemplation of God. These haven't been my experiences -- moments of happiness, joy, even bliss, perhaps, but no ecstasy or physical signs (yet!)
So it is notable that two decades ago, I would have included "pierced to the core" in my list of Goddess words. And why did I speak the other day of waiting for an arrow of Love to pierce my heart? I mean, being such a nonviolent person, these are both rather strange, painful concepts to attribute to the Goddess, and in writing today, perhaps I'm trying to do some reframing.
I think what is going on is an attempt to describe, in metaphor, the clear, powerful, beautiful energy of the Divine (Feminine), and how -- perhaps -- all lesser energies are easily swept aside by it. Maybe a better metaphor might be of a warm butter knife cutting through butter -- yet still, a knife is potentially dangerous! Hmm...this is so interesting and frustrating. Our world of duality seems to express everything in terms of violence, darn it. In recent visualizations, I have heard guides referring to beams of light cutting through to the heart, and ditto with angelic energies. (When these energies are purportedly a figure traditionally thought of as male, I confess I find the whole thing rather uncomfortable and creepy!) In the end, perhaps all of us are simply trying to find some way to express what happens at that moment when all of our defenses, shrouds, onion layers, and excuses are no match for the Love power of the Divine. A pathway opens to the heart, and Love spills over and out.
I'm reminded, too, that this imagery conforms to the old paradigm model that divinity is something up there, out there, outside of us, separate from us. That to connect with this energy requires outside intervention of some sort...either we have to reach out (in prayer, meditation, or whatever), or the Divine figure needs to reach (or bore their way) in. In a metaphor consistent with the truly contrasting vision of the Divine Feminine, our core is "piercing" outward, the pathway is from the heart not towards it; the energy is working completely in the opposite direction. We are simply unblocking the Love channels already deep within us.
So to revise what I said last time, if I am waiting for anything, perhaps it isn't for an arrow of love to pierce through me to the heart, but rather for the amount of Love in my heart to spill over to the point where it has no choice but to spurt out into the world in a new way.
Being a New Age nun requires doing a lot of "re-visioning", doesn't it?!
