Tuesday, July 8, 2014

The Third Gate


A cherished and trusted friend created and facilitated a ritual for me recently.  The intent was for me to experience fear and struggle and pain and to discover my responses, my limits, and to push me as far as I chose to be pushed.  It was a physical ordeal designed to accomplish a spiritual goal.

My friend believed that such an experiment would help me to achieve a state where I might find a part of me that I needed to connect with.  I trusted this friend to know how to push me, and to be willing and capable of doing so, and of safeguarding me should I become unwilling to back down.

It takes a lot of courage to push someone in that way, even more when you care for them.  It is difficult to put someone we care for in pain.  It takes a lot of trust that they are strong enough to cope with the results. 

I am grateful for my friend’s trust and for their courage, and for the ritual and for the profound discovery that resulted. 

A a result of the ordeal, I passed through three Gates, thresh-holds to depths of self.  I became connected to deeper and deeper levels within myself.  

The first Gate was a state of mind, of thoughts and words and a physical “high”.  It was also a psychic high, my “head-blindness” faded until I could “see” in ways that I have not before, I could feel, hear and smell in ways I have not before.

The second Gate was a state of emotion, of fear and submission and sexual arousal, of energy and need and instinct to survive.

The third Gate was a state of Power.  This was the state that I had hoped to reach. This was the place that I needed to be pushed to.  It is a place of strength and will, of aggression and fire and the warrior spirit within me. 

When I had reached that place, words were inaccessible; emotion was irrelevant, only power existed.

Returning to the place where words are possible required me to pass through the place of emotion again.  First was what my friend interpreted as “wrath”, then hysterical laughter, then wracking sobs, then a feeling of exhausted euphoria. 

After thanking my Patrons, my Ancestors and my Spirit Allies that I had invoked to protect and guard the space and whom I had entreated to push me and my friend until I had reached the place I needed to, I put the structures of myself back into a functional order. 

I did that by putting the space in order, then deconstructing the wards and the energetic fortress that I had built to create sacred and protected space and to keep out anything that might interfere with our work, as well as to keep in all the energy raised so that it would go unnoticed by anyone outside. 

I am still processing the magick but, I know that I will not be the same.  I also know that now that I have found that place, I need to master that power.  Power without purpose means nothing.  To use it, I must master it, to master it, I must access it, and to access it, I needed to find it.  Now begins the work of practice and finding the principles of honor that apply to its use. 

Truth be told, I have been afraid of my power.  I have been afraid that I will not know how to use it wisely and honorably.  That because it resides in a place where my compassion does not, to use it would result in everyone around me ending up “dead and bloody”. 

I understand now that I have what I need to make sure that does not happen.  There is a reason that my place of power must be accessed through the place where my compassion lives.  There is also a reason that I needed to struggle through the pain in order to find it. 

I will be continuing to explore my responses to pain and my limits, the things that it teaches me and the role that it plays in my sexual identity.  But this experience alone was worth more to me than I might have imagined.

I give thanks for the courage, trust, will, and inspired magick of my friend.  And to my Gods, Ancestors and Spirit Allies for knowing my strength and their relentless demands that I finally start living up to it.  I give thanks.

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