Love, a dark revolution. Dark Eros. These wild energies which threaten to fully dismember my entire life… my safe and mastered roles… my personas.
When my current Lover showed up in my life 11 years ago, the tsunami of energy that hit and consumed me was something I was not prepared for. I was in the depth of my self exploration in the wilds of my psyche when he appeared. At that point I had resigned myself to a life of being a dominant woman without being ‘met’ in love. I felt like an Initiatrix of Love through my body. So many people I love hold wounds in their own. Deep dark wounds which need to be wooed out and loved. I saw myself as a priestess of the Dark Eros Temple with a role only few understand. A Psychological Priestess of Love.
I had never met a man that could meet my ferocity as a lover or my deep profound relationship to my psyche. At this point in my life, I would NOT compromise. I didn’t need to have a man. I had already lived the relationship of mother/wife betrayer of my soul. And yet I yearned for a lover as passionate as I.
In the midst of my depth work, he came. Only moments after my encounter on the authentic movement floor when I had cried out like a wolf howling for her mate… who can meet me in my passion? my ferocity in love?!
When he came, my whole world was ripped open. The energy pouring through my body took me into areas of my wild psyche I had never been before. My WILD passionate Imagination! Full bodied shamanic warriors crashing to the forest floor in their impassioned embrace.
What was unleashed in those early years was the full force of the energies of the dark gods… Eros, Dionysus, Aphrodite. NONE of those gods care one wit for the mundanity of life. For good reason. Life chained to uninspired mundanity had destroyed their altars and shoved them into the underworld.
The Revolution of Love. One of the most powerful revolutions I had ever experienced, alongside motherhood and my personal journey into my own dark psyche. The task set before me was to integrate these wild ecstatic RICH potent transformational energies INTO my life… to change me and it forever… while keeping intact my other relationships and responsibilities as a mother, teacher, and friend.
These are the mysteries held in the myth of Dionysus, the god of love and ecstasy, and his Maenads, the women who were his devotees. When he came through their worlds, they left their looms and their families to dance in wild ecstatic rites in the forest. If anyone attempted to stop them, they would literally dismember them. When the revelry was over, the women would return to their looms, husbands and children. This was seen as ‘part of life’. The energies of ecstasy were seen as a very true need and part of ourselves which balanced our more civilized controlled selves as reflected in the gods Apollo and Athena. The Greeks understood psychology on a much deeper level than we do today.
The myth of Psyche & Eros is the profound story of Psyche, the human soul, falling in love with Eros, the deliverer of the force of Love. At first they are young in their love and attempt to hide it from the eyes of humans AND the gods, particularly, Eros’ mother, Aphrodite. But Love will not allow itself to be cloistered or owned. It is an archetypal force that can rip us apart if we do not understand its Tao. It is here to initiate, awaken and mature us. Eventually it will break free and require us to integrate the rest of our lives and who we are separate from our lover. This myth is one of the most powerful in understanding our deep human nature conjoined with an archetypal force and how that dance changes both. Yes, we DO influence the archetypal energies. We grow, and so does it.
I will be telling the myth of Psyche and Eros later this week and highlighting my painting which ensued from my work with this myth. The piece above was inspired by it.
Revolution of Love. In India, the god of Love is not a tiny little chubby cherub… but a giant wild strong god of Passion and Eros who changes lives forever.
Love, the Initiator. Love, the Revolutionary.