Goddess Sabbath

(Winter Alter by Linda Cohen)

Friday January 21, 2011, Wintry Goddess Sabbath - 9:06am

White fleece of last night’s snow dissolves too quickly under a desolate gray Sabbath-mornings’ struggling sun. I see from my window, across the courtyard drop, the rooftops melting slush. Still in bed, journaling, iPoding out rare Bach sonatas, Rachael Podger, satiating my winter temple with violin-airs I embrace in every waking cell. Golden Votives of red current and patchouli, thick with potent healing oils, burn as offerings to the goddess.

I’ve chosen our February goddess, or She has chosen me. Parvati. Omnipotent consort of Shiva The Great Destroyer who levels all that is stagnant too long and washes reality clean to create the new… as time and non-time move through universal cycles of creation, preservation and destruction/purification. Parvati as Prashnaparamita, Ultimate Reality, where is seeded the impulse of Creation Itself/ Manifestation. Parvati as supreme consort, faithful wife, goddess of love, mother of Ganesha, Elephant Lord of (overcoming) Obstacles. What will I learn of the Daughter of the Himalayas and her cosmic family? Parvati - white as the snow-topped peak of mystic Mount Meru, heart center of the universe. Her pink/gold virgin silk full-skirts, 24 karat gold dresses and exquisite feminine spiritual adornments? She abides with her husband Shiva on Mt. Meru, where, together they save the world by making selfless Tantric love, in perfect union, in ecstasy divine, purely and lovingly exchanging male and female cosmic energies, yoni and lingam, in bliss! in ultimate balance. From the Beginning. She is the art of being a woman – manifest. She is ever with me on my own spiritual journey, as liberator and inspiration. She is as the white/powder-pink snow of the high Himalayas breath, She is gold. Cerise. Cherry. Opal white. O mystical goddess/empress, an expression of both Great Mother Kali and Durga, The Warrior Goddess, also consorts of Shiva.

Holy cow. Currently, I’m in a huge and hard-to-navigate cleansing cycle, for which, of course, I take full responsibility (2010 so glad you’ve taken leave), with all manner of healing crises and necessary upgrades to install, new programs. Poor digestion, fuzzy eyesight, off balance sleep cycles, myriad aches and pains (clearings and makings-way for new higher frequency) – and the dreaded just-before-wake-up noxious (but revelatory) dreams.

Dream: I am being tested along with many others including my daughter Joanna, who appears eminently more prepared than I. I am not prepared and growing more and more frantic trying to get my peas in a queue. Not enough paper. The print on the test’s too small for me to read. I am actually trying to cheat off Joanna. It’s a three-hour test but I have no watch; there are no clocks on the wall. All I see of the test is, “WHAT ARE THE LEGAL RIGHTS OF THE FATHER?"

Confused. Is this a trick question? I do not know the answer to this one of thirty test questions. I try to ask Jo who does her best to share her answer with me but the Gestapo-proctors notice our exchange and are on us like hungry demons in for the kill. Now, increasingly things are going whacky in my nightmare/dream. Mostly there is not enough light for me to see the questions nor write the answers. My pen doesn’t work. I’m panicking and begging anyone for more light, a pen that works, blank paper. Then I misplace the test all together! Shattered.

In one blessed moment of calm, I decide to let the entire test-process go for the moment, believing deep inside, I will have this test finished correctly and handed-in, as always, by the time the three-hour test-bell rings. I leave the “school” (appearing in my dream as my junior high school in North Miami nearly 50 years ago) to go off seeking a cafe for a much-needed caffeine fix. Naturally, I get lost, with a horrid sense of direction, always. A car offers me a ride so I get in. But where are they going? They, the men, don’t talk to me. They just drive. Now I am hysterically screaming, “I’m in the middle of a test.” They stop the car, waved down by a fellow student of mine, also taking a break from The Test. He insists they let me go… where they proceed to throw me out of the car to the ground. They speed off. I’m on the edge of nowhere; every direction looks darkly the same. Dream ends. Fellow student gone. I struggle to consciousness. Having slept too long.

Thankfully, it’s Friday. Freya’s day. The Goddess’ Sabbath which I have always honored, not knowing why until reading Moon Magic by Dion Fortune. Freya’s day, as it ever was, IS, and shall be, honoring the Goddess. I am still very much working with and praying to The Black Madonna to help me shake free of addictive behavior, knee-jerk reactions and toxic energy patterns on all levels. Also to shed light on, accept, and integrate my shadow. And mostly for the miracles She may bestow on us who believe, prayers for intercession.

No booze in January, except Saturday nights. Using Gypsy Goddess Black Madonna Sacred Spark Oil (see Facebook). So far, so good - but for the intestinal yeast that remains. Major Janice Zwail colonic on full moon Thursday. Diet change must be! I pray. Cooked leafy greens (fiber and minerals) and proteins, less supplements and fake “good” food (Amy’s frozen everything). Food thing’s been badly off since my mother’s summer illness. Quality grains quinoa and millet, sea veggies, fresh ocean fish, free range bird. Spectrum organic coconut oil, inside and out. Quality probiotics. A cleansing mineralizing morning hit of Emergen C with MSM. My intention, day by day, is to be healthy and open to what this new world/energy (of 2011) beckons. To upgrade for vitality and light-heartedness. Compassion. Recommitting to the glorious and scary step-by-step unlayering of veils. The step-up to the plate interior and exterior goddess work/play. Let go… the mean-spirits! of me.

A quote I came upon last night, in Dion Fortune’s Moon Magic, about the difference between being together with the right woman/man and the woman/man who will never be right, “He knew he could have given an intensity of love that the light-hearted thing (his wife) would never even know what to do with.” That explains a lot about the quality of love/sex/initiatory evolution. Magnetically drawn - to and fro - as universal frequency changes up. Aquarius now rules the Age.

Focusing on cleansing essences at night: Liard Hot Springs; the Alaskan Glaciers; Dalton’s New Medicinal Herb flower essences; gems of Brazilian Quartz, and Celestite to clear upper chakras. Aspiring to take less essences for greater healing progress and clarity. By day: Pretty Face; Explorer’s Gentian; Gold, Star Ruby (be here now); Rock Water; and the Alaskan environment essence Northern Lights for that feeling of amazement. And it is. NOW. Amazing. I'm also using a Perelandra set, Nature Program, where I am divining essences with my pendulum. Today I used, Sobopla - Balances and stabilizes the triangle created by the relationship and interaction between the soul, its physical body and the planet upon which the body resides. As a result, the soul, body and planet become one strong, fully functioning triangular unit. Sobopla also balances and stabilizes the physical seating of the body/soul unit to the planet.

~~~I AM A HOLY BEING. I AM A LIVING GODDESS ~~~
I AM WAKING UP TO A HIGHER POTENTIAL.
MORE ME. MORE ME & YOU. MORE ME &
ALL. ONE.
ALL I WANT AND NEED COMES TO ME
EASILY AND NATURALLY.
I AM FILLED WITH RADIANT CREATIVE
ENERGY AND BEAUTY.
I AM FLOWING AND FLOWERING IN THE GARDEN.

Snow Day

(photo by L Cohen, highline, Chealsea, New York City 2010)

January 12, 2011 10:52am Snow Day Morning Pages

The beefed-up snow storms’s past; wasn’t much of a winter wonderland Like the last one. I always love it when The Snow Priestess visits, so pure and newly fresh. Like a new start. I love winter. The speed in me craves the stillness. Quiet.
It’s such a magical gift to be able to take care of myself (I remember praying for this - doing push-ups before work at 7am karate class on West 23rd Street, my hair wet and frizzy wild from running out into the icy winter mornings, then off to work at 9, the ubiquitous bran muffin, the long boring day, then night school for nutrition at 7, nails badly in need of a manicure and no time or moolah for regular facials or colonics or massages, no time for deep breathing on the run. No time nor enuf patience for my two incredible children as they sped past my speeding. Now. My prayers are answered. I am able to do morning rituals for mind/body/Spirit most days, I belong to a great gym, study with a deep-souled yoga teacher and a wild and mystical Egyptian belly dance instructor. And of course, there’s my family. Me and my family. Precious. Given.
I feel I’m changing. Slowly and nearly imperceptivity, yet I am. More equanimity, more emotionally spacious with regard to attachments and the way I “think” things “should” be (in my favor). Having taken many cleansing flower essences and gem elixirs etc. for the past few months (Sagebrush, Liard Hot Springs, Golden Seal, Lousewort, Brazilian Quartz) I am experiencing the releases on many levels and need to be clear that I INITIATED THIS CHANGE FOR THE GOOD; be conscious of what I’m creating and where I’m headed (inside, of course). I am less angry and less willing to just react to what irks me, more meditating on the flow, less knee-jerky, maybe a bit less jerk? More willing to extract the bigger picture from the shorts. My stomach - “gut”- is going crazy loosening and releasing the stagnant astral energy which is clogging my pipes along with the arteries of Spirit. I know I am barely in the chrysalis stage of this current transformative cycle and have worlds of difference to embrace and integrate (much much more open - hopin’ - for light-filled perspectives with the gloom and doom half-life ing it in smoky dust trails fading behind me).
The healing crisis, “cold”, semi-automatic flu/cleansing - for me nearly always starts in my hara (seat of power), gut, between the second and fourth chakras where I “hold”. It’s where I store and layer the shit, old and new disappointments, failed expectations, low self-esteem, “I can’ts”, along with self criticism, fears ranging from where is my “partner”/helpmate - to health challenges in my family. For some, symptoms begin in the chest (grief? asthma-like conditions born of trauma somewhere along the lifestream) where Yerba Santa and Grief Relief are good essences; for some the migraine signals the clearing to come, where the gem elixir celestite helps along with essences for balancing the crown chakra and the entire spinal column and energy system; for some, the throat, when in detriment…has become the “seat” of unexpressed emotions and creativity, and always “stuffing it”. For me, it’s the digestive (or indigestive) tract, very Virgo, very full-spectrum indigestion on all levels where Chamomile, Crab Apple and Chalice Well flower essences soothe and clear.
I haven’t been drinking at all except for Saturday nights - which I provided for (as made ok) in my January goal of no drinking. I hope this will lead to being more mindful in this area for good. Also, much less tv and filler reading. More targeted for study and skill. More action oriented. Proactive and yet most acutely aware of the non-actions I must abide in order to grow and heal, of which there are many. No pushing others towards my way, no manipulations, no jumping the gun, back stabbing, judging (trying), blaming…allowing, more space for unfoldment, with Star Ruby and Northern Lights my essence choices. I adore and use unsparingly the environmental essences, capturing a moment of sacred, often wild and transformative, elemental time/occurrence in Nature.
So much cleansing! Not sure I was prepared. But signs are signs. And taking responsibility works. Good friends have been MIA for months, top students taking their leave, courses disappearing, what seemed once important dims. I have a “stomach” ache and am coming at healing on many fronts: Oscillococcimun, bee propolis, Echinacea and Gold Seal, juicing, Emergen C, Chlorella, herbal teas, clear blessed water by the barrel, massage, extra B complex and zinc, tons of probiotics, heavy doses of great music and art, and of course all my essences and elixirs and prayers to Guru Rinpoche. Staying on top of my life as much as I am able, the nuts and bolts. The ineffable love of - and - for my family. A belief Obama will make a positive difference in the universe.
I feel a new Shambhala on the other side of the steep cliff. Perhaps one hundred miles straight up the rocky Himalayas, or a dazzling light-year from here. Or in the very next moment. I’m beginning to feel a new dawn, inside. And The Word is Good. And the Word is Goddess.
1. I am filled with gratitude for my precious, exciting, loving life.
2. I am filled with radiant creative energy and beauty.
3. All is well in my world.
4. All I want and need comes easily and naturally to me.
5. I am with the right man for me.

The Snow Priestess

The Full Moon Lunar Elcipse Begins
12/21/10 by linda cohen

January 7th O Holy Friday 10:18am the Moon is in Aquarius
Morning Pages – Feeling The Snow Priestess in my own StarLily ~~~

A light snow appears to be rising up
From the Earth’s heartbeat (an illusionist’s dream)
As it mixes and dances with those gravity-correct
Snowflakes, shape-shifting, tiny lace
Angelic, symmetrical visages of new winter’s wear.
It’s always mysterious with uncertain outcome?
When the Ice-Princess shakes up Heaven’s Crystal ball and voila!
Infinite expressions of snow-angels
Begin to pirouette in the sacred geometry of Nature’s mystical fashion –
Seemingly random but inherent with purpose as each flake dovetails
With its neighbors and the whole mix keeps remixing.
Icy breezes of this morn cast their elemental whips Here
There – painting a pure ocean-white blank canvas
With their vibrant playful leaps and spins,
O Patterns of the Goddess.
In the silver-blue northeast Sabbath
Morning the snow now looks –
Like frantic little sea-bubbles with no control
Over their exquisite graceful ballerina bodies,
Blown with a hearty loving laugh
Off the smiling confident lips of The Snow Queen –
Gazing emerald-eyed into Her limitless Celestite
Pale-blue crystal ball.
I am burning
Honey-toned beeswax candles, O holy golden light,
Imbibing Shankar ragas from my pink butterfly I pod
Through the pours of my sesame-oiled winter lizard skin, and
Thinking…of a perfect day’s outfit for a snow storm’s ride
Up to Bee’s hive.
Still to “do”… present day’s sacred Tarot.
Already sipped flower essences with delicious virtue-rich gem elixirs….
Himalayan Lily, Star Ruby, Celestite
Madujore Mallow – with a cleansing nip of Golden Seal.
(from my bed, The Argo (about to take leave) I see my
Drying lavender roses, hanging upside-down
On a six-foot bronze medieval Spanish candelabra
My mother gave me -
From which many prayer candles have done their bid….
Delivered on prayers and hopes and ever dreams.
In my gentle-pink temple bedroom of rose and raspberry –
Crowned by The Virgin of Guadeloupe tapestry
Upon my Pharaoh-sized queen’s bed.-
Sipping warm Mixed-Winter Blend java from Whole Foods -
Still potent with aromatic fresh-shaved cinnamon garnish.
Up, up. Away and off!
To Be with the abandonment of our Priestess’ snow’s delight –
To Be a snowflake with ivory sea-horse wings
Fluttering beyond time and man’s reason
For The Great Goddess… knowing …
Tomorrow’s “Next to Normal”