Journey with the Dark Mother

June 9th, 2012

After four hours of driving and two ferry rides, two dear friends and I arrive at another friend’s property for a women’s retreat weekend facilitated by a teacher from overseas.  There are 15 women altogether.

Sometimes you must stray from the path in order to find your way.  The clear narrow passage is there.  You must learn to see with your heart...  The words from the Counsel of Trees echo through my mind.

We set up our tents, greet one another, and then gather in an open field which houses a gravel-fire-pit.  Sitting on blankets, leaning again stone walls, the teacher is somewhat nervous, announcing that while she has been teaching yoga for 30 years, this part is new to her as a facilitator.

She is asking us to spirit journey to a power animal.  I choose, for the first time, to contact Ma remotely.  A steady, quick drumming rhythm fills my ears as I close my eyes.  I locate myself at the Sacred Grove in my heart and mind, and then journey in a different way with her.  It is less visceral, and more dream-like in quality.

I ask Main Ma to be my guide and carry me to a place to meet the animal.  Without words, Ma asks me to follow her.  I glide along her roots, through dark earth, along spirals and winding pathways to a cave.  The cave is simple, small, with a crack of light in the roof, and an opening that leads to the outer world.  One part of the cave is dark, and I cannot see into the darkness though I sense something is present there.  I look at the floor of the cave, and follow a trail of Ma to the outside.  There are trees and another grove – different from the Sacred Grove. 

I walk into the entrance of this new grove. Raven sits in one of the trees, and Mole scurries along the ground.  Something in me knows these are allies rather than a power-animal, and so I sit down and wait.  After waiting for some time, I ask Ma if there is anything I need to do. 

Ma replies, "Sit, be quiet, and wait patiently." I wait. And I wait.  There is a clear sense of anticipation, as if something will walk out of the darkness of the cave.  Yet nothing appears.  And I understand, without words, that it is not time for me to work directly with a power-animal.  Ma gives an image of making offerings in the cave, leaving questions I may want to ask, and creating a connection as preparation for this meeting.

"It is simply not time yet," she says.

June 9^th, 2012

We sit under a large spacious shelter, the weather having shifted to damp and drizzling.  The facilitator is requesting we seek the power-animal and ask questions we would like guidance about.  After sifting through some of the messier corners in my mind and heart, a simple question arises:  Please help me to see what I need to know.

I close my eyes, and return to the cave.  When I arrive, the space is not alive with anticipation.  Rather, it feels hollow and empty.  I leave and return, in my dreaming-mind, to the Sacred Grove.   After greeting Guardians, I sit with Ma next to the altar.

Each time I have previously checked-in with the Dark Mother in my heart, Ma has told me it is not yet time to work with her.  I decide to try again.  This time I feel a Yes.  I hesitate.  "Really??!"  I actually feel a bit afraid.  "I don't know if I'm ready."

Dark Ma simply takes my insecurity and puts it back out in front of me.  "Choose your focus and centre," she says.  In front of me are two choices.  The first is a path that is overgrown, and as I contemplate stepping on it I am filled with feelings of neediness and insecurity.  To take this path, I would be choosing a focus of seeking approval, or pseudo-love (both being false-security).  I know this path – it is well-worn and familiar – one that I have walked most of my life, with many difficult lessons along the way.  Yet, no matter how many times I may choose to take it, it will always lead to the same place – suffering and dissatisfaction. 

The second path is open, vibrant, a little intimidating.  I recognize it, though it is less familiar.  It leads to my centre as Mol'farka's apprentice – a path (and focus) of dedication to clear-heart-seeing.

"Either choice is valid," she says. "What do you want to experience?  This is the only choice..." My heart knows what I want; I choose the second.

Dark Ma then takes me by the hand and I feel a little like Alice being pulled into the rabbit-hole.  Distorted and warped images zoom past and through me – uncomfortable and confusing… I do not know if I have made a wise choice to journey with her.

But then we "land," and an image of her as plant appears.  She is toxic yet beautiful.  She is "poison" if the deeper and surface medicines are not honoured and prepared or used properly. She shows me an image of cultivating her – helping her to proliferate through seed.

"You are to be my Ma on this plane," she says.  There is a sense of maternal nurturing being wrapped around her plant-form.

Questions arise in my heart. Why am I supposed to cultivate poison??? But before my mind can fully articulate the words, she grabs me again and we zoom through a series of dizzying distortions.  I feel ill – it is disorienting and frightening.  There is a very thin thread of awareness that I hold onto. 

And then suddenly we stop.

We are in the North, during a moonless night.  A light wind blows through dark silhouettes of trees.  Everything else is very still and quiet.  We have landed in the still and quiet heart.  Without saying it in words, Dark Ma lets me know that here is the place of seeing clearly, even (especially) in the dark.

The pace of drumming changes.  With the journey complete, I leave the circle to make an offering.  I had found a robin feather earlier in the day, and I also have sage.  Stepping into the early evening air, I look around – who could represent Dark Ma for me?  I spot Nettle, and ask her to receive these gifts as offerings to Dark Ma.

Feeling a little disorientated, I enter my tent to contemplate the experience. Still feeling it all very present in my body and energy, the teaching becomes clear.

When my focus is "seeking" love, approval, security, attachment, then I am ingesting and proliferating poison that will send me on "bad trips" and create distorted vision.  The heart is distorted, which is why the vision is distorted.


When my focus is as Mol'farka's apprentice – when I choose the clear, still and quiet heart, then the exact same thing (incident, experience) can be ingested, and it will be medicine.  The heart is clear which is why the vision is clear.  In fact, with this centre and focus, the heart is the deeper medicine.