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I am the natural life giving force of all things, FE/Male of all the elements, the initial progeny of Worlds….” I woke up with these words this morning! It’s not so strange really, as I have repeated them often in my lifetime. They come from a longer passage that was given by my teacher, Grandmother Pa’Ris’Ha, to a group of vision questers for four days of meditative contemplations.
One spring we traveled to the Outer Banks and assembled with Grandmother Pa’Ris’Ha at a campground shielded to the east by dunes. Beyond them lay the great Atlantic, roaring its thunder. We pitched our tents in the breeze and gathered at Grandmother’s RV for further instructions. She said we would be staying up all night long for the five day quest, keeping a fire circle on the beach. We could leave the circle and walk down to the water and wade if we chose. We were on silence. No talking and no looking others in the eye. Keep awake. Feed the fire. And contemplate this passage:
I AM, that is the natural life giving force of all things, FE/Male of all the elements, the initial progeny of Worlds, Chief of the Divine Powers, Queen of All that are in Hell, the Principal of them that Dwell in Heaven, manifested alone and under one form of all the powers of the Principals.
At my will, the planets of the sky, the wholesome winds of the seas, and the lamentable silences of hell be disposed; my name, my Divinity is adorned throughout the Worlds in diverse manners, in variable customs and by the many names.
The nights were enchanting. The sea was a constant delight. The weather changed. The winds variable, calm or fierce. At one point a huge cloud bank rolled in from the North, appearing like a long stark wave of dark billowed gray moving like a steam roller in the sky. The temperature dropped and Yunsai, the Mother Lodge, came to the Circle with typical drama and power.
I didn’t know it at the time but the meditation comes from a book written in the second century AD called The Golden Ass by Apuleius. The speaker is the goddess, Isis…at least, she says, that is her preferred name for the moment. She rescues the main character who has been turned into an ass.
That’s quite a metaphor, eh? To be an ass is undesirable, eh? Shakespeare used the same device in A Midsummer’s Nights Dream. No one wants to be an ass. Much better to Know Thyself as the Co-Creator, the Source, the One that is in All Things, the Divine One that is adorned throughout the Worlds in diverse manners, in variable customs and by the many names.”
After sunrise, we went back to our tents and slept. Then we sat at a picnic bench for breakfast and talked with Grandmother about our night’s experiences. Grandmother, as usual, wowed us with her wit and wisdom. And we laughed uproariously watching our tents be flattened by the strong spring winds. No worry. We were with Grandma. We were becoming who we came to earth to be.
I kept a journal during the vision quest, of course, filled with reflections on the meaning of every phrase and the personal insights that came to me. It’s always uplifting to look it over.
I thought about the meaning of “FE/male.” Surely it means the speaker (the One) is an androgynous composite of the combined qualities, energies and powers of both female and male. But I remember thinking how “FE” is the scientific symbol for Iron. So a FE-male is an “iron-male!”
After the quest, one of us asked Grandmother if she had been on the beach to visit us. She asked because she had seen a young woman that she had thought was –somehow– Grandmother. Pa’Ris’Ha replied in the affirmative and said that she had visited each of us in the form of a younger woman, but only this one person had had the eyes to see!
Ces’t la vie.
Being with Grandmother, questing for understanding, doing a walkabout, traveling with her is always “out of this world.”
With love and appreciation,
Elizabeth/Du’Tsu/Spring Frog