In a sacred releasing session this past week, I spent an hour in the physical experience of what I know as ecstatic union with Light. There are many images, knowings, downloads, re-configurations and shifts that happen in such an experience. It began with the thrumming of Shakti in my body that allows me to release completely into the arms of the Mother. As the light intensifies, layers of consciousness part and Truth is revealed in whatever form one can accept in that moment.
The experience is of ‘home’. Home vibration, home resonance. Home. I last experienced this vibration with this intensity on Kauai, over the new year of 2010, in the physical presence of Dr. Baskaran Pillai (also known as Dattatriya Siva Baba). It brought tears of recognition, of welcome and of deep, deep remembrance. A yearning of the heart that releases as it keens its longing into forever.
This time, the vibration was Sourced from within Divine Flow Herself ~ as it is always, has always been, and yet ~ as deities and memories, past lives and metaphoric mystical symbols flowed through me, as I became the Light in many of Her forms ~ the re-membering took form. Many forms, actually, yet one in particular had a teaching long awaited.
The image of a black panther (black jaguar perhaps) blue-black in color, slightly larger than my physical body, appeared at the left of my inner sight. Ears laid back, relaxed, yet keenly alert to spring, She roared as lions roar, as the solar feminine roars her ferocity, in honor of the Divine. As I listened, receiving, another image formed to the ‘front, right’ of my inner vision. A snow-white cub, with riveting stellar blue eyes. White lion? “Snow leopard,” I heard in response. The blue-black of the panther’s etheric body mirrored in the eyes of this magnificent embodiment of innocence and authenticity. “Power in its infancy”. Innocent and pure.
I felt tears of reverence and awe making their silent passage down my cheeks and onto the pillow. Held within the Darshan. Transmission from the Divine to the Divine, and I, the witness only. As I watched, the cub took more and more physical form, soft fur on the ears becoming visible, spots changing to pure whiteness and to spots again... the mountains of Tibet forming behind it. I wanted to hold it to my heart, while having the feeling of doing so, of the mature Goddess-Panther holding the image of this little one within her heartspace with a level of cherishing barely recalled.
Much later, after this experience, knowing that whatever was taught or embodying would make itself known in Her own time, I took to the books. Panther – (according to Ted Andrews) “Reclaming”. “Reclaim... what has been lost or broken will be replaced by something more beneficial. A symbol of mastery over dimensions in which others cannot survive.” Black Panther – per Jamie Sams – “Embracing the Unknown”. Yes. The unknown. Ecstasy without its dualistic counterpart.
The dualistic form of ecstasy carries within it the underbelly of ‘agony’, or trauma and pain. When ‘ecstasy’ carries the seeds or memories of agony, it is not truly ecstatic consciousness. Nor is the new-age delirium popularly known as ‘blissed-out’. I have been watching this particular phenomenon for a lifetime. The addictive nature of altered states is obvious, and quite daunting. How is ‘altered’ by substance addiction, addition to the shakti, or the earth’s power places true ecstasy? Is it? What is ecstatic union with nature? With the divine? What is the truth of ecstatic embodiment, as some of us hold it in reverence, long-forgotten, yet somehow always remembered? What is truth? What is the heart’s answer?
I asked again, what the transcendent embodiment of non-dual ecstasy truly is, how that can be experienced in form. Can it? And can it be maintained? Can that space be truly embraced and walked with practical feet? I have seen it done, experienced this Presence, I walk around in it most of the time, and yet, well, I get called ‘woo-woo’ a lot. Or dysfunctional. Or whatever. This experience was part of the answer, part of the truth. Fierce authenticity, completely in alignment with authentic innocence. I remain a bit gobsmacked at the wonder of it. My mind does not understand these images in a way that feels complete, nor perhaps will it ever. I am quite content with that.
In the releasing of both the ‘pretended’ ecstasy, the ‘high’, and the deeply internalized agony of embodiment, as it was held in my heart, true ecstasy was remembered within me. Ferocity and innocence, solar and lunar light, ‘power’ as the force that it truly and simply ‘IS’. The reclamation of ecstasy; ecstatic union with the Divine, in this physical form. Grounded ‘walkable’ euphoria with no hint of the constriction we know as duality.
The images of our inner vision have so much to teach us! My tears remain – as does my gratitude.
I was first taught processes for transcending dualistic structures by Leslie Temple-Thurston of Corelight (@ corelight.org). The sacred releasing experience (of which the above is only a small fragment) was facilitated by Taj Ali, a practitioner of sacred release work, here in Santa Fe.
May Ecstasy reclaim you ~ Happy Full Moon!! (27 May )
With unending love and gratitude,
Nalini (Mary)
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