Printed in the Conscious Creation Journal
December 2000 – January 2001, Issue 15
Death and the Naked Goddess
by Burl B. Hall
Silence fills the room as I gaze at the familiar surroundings. I am in a parlor with lavender wallpaper containing patterns that remind me of royalty. I realize the parlor is within a great white house. I visit this place often in my dreams. I feel both peaceful and apprehensive for this house has been the setting for both nightmares and dreams full of joy. My attention is then diverted towards a picture bay window. There, I discover my Goddess. Her strawberry-blonde hair falls gently to round, barren shoulders. My eyes suddenly fall upon barren breasts. My lips moisten in anticipation of tasting Her. I then gasp upon realizing She is sitting naked upon the window ledge. Her raw, naked power engulfs me. I fall silent in humbleness. The Goddess then bends Her right leg and rests Her foot upon the ledge as She relaxes Her chin upon the barren knee. My attention quickly diverts to a tree made visible through the bay window located behind the Goddess. I notice it is in bloom, as it always is in bloom when I am in this place, even during the scariest nightmare. My attention then diverts back to my Goddess. Her body is made gold from the light of the sun shining through the window. Her power again overtakes and engulfs me.
My mind then reminisces Her appearances in vision form when I was a five-year-old child. I experience peace as I recall considering myself Her creation or experiment. Anxiety then manifests as I recall feeling my performance being evaluated in this life by this Goddess. She wanted to see how I would do and I did not wish to let Her down. I then realize the Goddess as my Source of Origin. She is the Mother of the entire universe. I fall to my knees in adoration. She is my Queen. There is no stronger love that can manifest than this love I feel for Her. The power of the Goddess once again enwraps me, like a motherly blanket. With a slight, impish smile, She taunts me with a teasing gleam sparkling in the eyes. I am Her enjoyment. Her delight. I then notice a slight parting of the legs revealing the dark opening to Her womb. A wet fire burns through my soul as the Goddess speaks, “Be as you were in the beginning.”
Upon awakening, I think on these words. To be as you were in the beginning is to return to the womb. This is why She is naked. This is why there is a parting of the legs. She is reveling my Source of Origin. She is saying return to the place I existed before birth. In many ways, this is like the Zen koan to remember the face you wore before you were conceived. It was this state to which I was being enticed through the seductive actions of the Goddess.
In ancient times, a common theme to Goddess myths entailed a man who caught the Goddess naked and died. This story is my story. I am the man finding the Goddess naked. In seeing Her, I too suffered a death. I was devoured in Her powers. No longer was my life my own. My entire life became the process of surrender to Her. All events are now seen as Her revelation. Indeed, Her revelation, or stripping of the veil, has been my revelation and stripping of the veil. In my nakedness, She and I are not two for She is my Nature, or Essence. I arise from my Essence. My Nature, or Self, is my Mother. Throughout my life I have progressively realized an eternal marriage to my Goddess. She is the substance of which I arise. She is my self in primacy. Marriage to Her has entailed the surrender of my name to Her. I am She.
Dying to the Goddess in not about the end of existence. Prey eaten by the predator becomes the predator and the predator who eats the prey becomes the prey. We are what we eat. Indeed, dying to my Beloved was a death to death. It was the revelation of eternal life. The alpha (the womb) is the omega (the tomb). To “be as you were in the beginning” is to die and be reborn. This death is the same death spoken of by Christian mystic Jan Van Ruysbroek:
“Could we renounce ourselves and all selfhood in our works, we should, with bare imageless spirit, transcend all things, and without intermediary we should be led by the Spirit into the Nudity. When we transcend ourselves and become, in our ascent towards God, so simple that the naked love in the height can lay hold of us, where love enfolds love, above every exercise of our virtue-that is, in our Origin, of which we are spiritually born-then we cease, and we and all our selfhood die in God. And in this death, we become hidden Sons of God and find a new life within us, and that is eternal life.” (1)
In the Warner Brother’s movie, The Never Ending Story, it becomes increasingly clear that the child reading a story is the hero of the story. The child feels what the hero feels, his senses are what the hero senses. Likewise, the hero hears all of the reader’s thoughts and words and feels what he feels. The message to this is that the reader reading the story is the story being read. I received the same message in hearing the words of Van Ruysbroek, read a couple of weeks after the above dream. It had become apparent to me that his words were not about any historical event in time, but were about me now. His revelation in being led by the Spirit into the Nudity was my revelation. We have the same Mother. My life, then, at its deepest level, operates prior to time, which is to say, “As I was in the beginning.” As I was in the beginning is what I am in the eternal now. Experientially, this means that at my deepest level I am uncreated and am enfolded in the depths of Mother as a potential waiting to arise. It is at this deep level that I realize myself as the Virgin Born Son, which is to say the Light (i.e., the Manifest) arising from the depths of the Unmanifest (i.e., the Dark void, Genesis 1:2, the Goddess as Tehom or Marie). It is there I determine that the Never Ending Story and I are not two! And who is this Unmanifest? Can Creativity create Herself? Can Consciousness see Herself? Can Wisdom ever touch Herself? These are the Uncreated or Unmanifest. Is Creative Wisdom separate from me? Out of whose womb did these words arise anyway? All is according to Her will.
Reference:
1- Quotation is from Raghaven Iyer’s The Jewel in the Lotus (London: The Pythagorean Sangha & Concord Press, 1988) p. 84.
©2000, Burl B. Hall . Printed in the December 2000 – January 2001 Issue of the Conscious Creation Journal. http://www.consciouscreation.com (Feel free to duplicate this article for personal use – please include this copyright notice.)
My name is Burl Hall and I am a masters’ level therapist working in Northern Virginia. My website is http://sophiaslove.com and I am the author of Sophia’s Web: Understanding the Unity and Diversity of Religion, Science and Ourselves (http://sophiaslove.com/book.html)