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Hold the Light: Wisdom from Myth, Legend & Fairytale in Times of Uncertainty & Transformation: 30: The Moon Boat

5/13/2020

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THE MOON BOAT
It is repeatedly recorded that when the moon sent a deluge upon the earth she also provided a means of salvation – a boat that carried her children to a new world where they could live redeemed lives. The boat that she provided was an ark, a crescent moon boat and in this her people were carried to the sun, the place of warmth and light.
 
The arrival of this boat, this crescent shaped vessel of light is of great significance for, says Harding, 'instead of being engulfed by the water’s of the moon, the initiate can embark in her boat and so become one of her company. It is a poetic and religious symbol with which we are very familiar. The salvation being found by taking a new attitude toward the powers of the instinct.’

Esther Harding from Women’s Mysteries
Many years ago, I wrote a book called - The Dark Moon. It was then that I started to use my middle names Anne Maria for anonymity because the book concerned a tragedy that had occurred in our family. I had been working in the field of myth, legend and fairy-tale for many years by then - and as I fell into the abyss, I held on to the tales and to their potentially redemptive symbolism & particularly to that of the moon symbolism and the tales associated with her cycles.
 
Several years before I had the dream described in the previous section on Initiation. Precognitively it somehow seemed to distill & encapsulate the whole dis-orienting & painful experience that lay before me - of dying to my former self - the necessary process we are told - that must occur if transformation is to be achieved.
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At such times we like the ancients before us have only our faith to sustain us yet we are promised that the darkness is itself transformative, for it is within this hidden realm, this dark phase of the moon, this deep underworld which is both tomb and womb, that that the process of regeneration mysteriously takes place; and through it the future is established and given new form.

But it is a dangerous, perilous phase on both a personal and collective level and the outcomes are far from certain. The three nights of darkness when the moon cannot be seen is a symbolic period of time – like the Hundred Years in Sleeping Beauty’s fairy-tale. It will take as much or as little time as it needs. 
    

The arrival of the Moon Boat, when finally it emerges is the first chink of light – of hope - so longed for by the ancients - and appearing at certain latitudes quite literally in the shape of a silvery boat - floating across the night sky.

Muslims all over the world still await its first appearance at the end of Ramadan - for only then can the month of fasting end & their Eid celebrations truly begin.


The Moonboat, like the Ark is a recurring archytypal symbol, protecting Noah & his pairs of animals during the Great Flood of Genesis, and Gilgamesh before him in the ancient Sumerian myth.

On a collective & personal level the Flood represents being overwhelmed by the unconscious - and the ark or moon boat, the means of rescue from such forces. Their arrival also denotes the beginnings of the ability to observe the tumultuous terrain from the safety of one’s vessel - and ideally in the company of one able to help integrate our experiences.

I remember vividly visiting the Valley of the Kings on Luxor's West Bank many years ago and being shown such a painted boat at the entrance to a tomb embarking upon its perilous night sea journey between life and death. Our animated guide drew our attention to the depths surrounding the flimsy vessel and to formidable looking characters all around it.

  Enemies! he cried out to us with great with urgency.
Enemies all around! 


In the Egyptian pantheon it is often Nephthys - the sister goddess of Isis who guides such vessels through these dangerous waters on their way to their afterlife resting places.
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It is a crucial role sometimes played by a therapist in everyday life - or a Shaman in indigenous societies. They themselves create similar safe spaces with secure boundaries – sacred spaces if you like – vessels of a sort – like the Moon boat,  that lifts us up above the deep waters of life’s experience and holds us safe – arriving  when most needed - & allowing us to view the inhospitable terrain in a completely new way.

The ‘boat’ protects us in a ritualistic sense- gives us perspective - sometimes for the first time. We can look back then in safety - we can understand what we didn’t understand before. We can begin to ask questions.

What was it that caused the shadow to fall & overwhelm us so?

And to answer we can look right back to the beginning – to where the tale began. And as our understanding grows, so too metaphorically does the light of the waxing moon - for the cycle turns on and ever on and she becomes fat & full in the night sky and returns once more to the start - as  can we - and from here we can go on – differently - more consciously- more aligned with our souls.

When finally, I awoke from my own dream long ago, I fancied for a moment that I was still lying in that boat. But then I found I was in the comfort of my own bed. The old woman who had come to me was gone, but I knew she had been there.
 
And years later looking back I remembered – even in the midst of falling apart – and though part of me was lost - another part of me was waiting, hoping, praying - yet also knowing that her light would return & she would scoop me up out of the deep, dark depths and carry me home once more.
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Much Love
Anne Maria
x x x

Hold the Light/blog published regularly during the Covid 19 Crisis@ http://www.annemariaclarke.net/blog
https://twitter.com/MariaClarke

The Dark Moon - www.archivepublishing.co.uk
A journey through darkness toward healing and forgiveness
edited by Hazel Marshall

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Hold the Light: Wisdom from Myth, Legend & Fairytale 29:YouTube: Introduction to Hold the Light/blog

5/9/2020

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 The path begins at our bleakest moment. If we are lucky we will hear the call and instead of collapsing we will set off in quest of the first chink of light and onward into the unknown, searching and gathering with each step we take. It will not be easy. This is the quest of heroes & heroines, the brave and courageous … the ones who have gone before and returned with their great stories so that we, through contemplation, might be guided through our own dark night of soul.

Hold the Light/blog - Wisdom from Myth, Legend & Fairytale for Times of Uncertainty & Transformation started 3/18/20 in response to the covid 19 world-wide pandemic.

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Video music ABOVE THE CLOUDS courtesy Turbo Sol
Hold the Light/blog published regularly during the Covid 19 Crisis@ http://www.annemariaclarke.net/blog
https://twitter.com/MariaClarke

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Hold the Light: Wisdom from Myth, Legend & Fairytale: 28 Initiation

5/8/2020

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I think we are moving through a crucial stage of transition between one age & another. We are faced with a huge opportunity for evolutionary advance. Something is trying to come through to us from the Cosmos, something that is asking for our attention & is offering us help.
Ann Baring: Dream of the Cosmos lecture 
The mythological quest, as described by Joseph Campbell has three main parts - departure - initiation - & return. Over these past weeks we have reviewed a great number of tales focusing primarily upon the early stages of such journeys. We have seen how frequently they begin unexpectedly - that often the hero or heroine is reluctant to set forth &/or is held back by fear of the unknown. We have looked at obstacles & trails along the way - at inner & outer foes to be faced, as well as the blessing of friends & magical helpers who mysteriously appear to help, guide & shelter us along our way. And we have seen how the characters grow - often exponentially!
 
In those early weeks of lockdown on planet earth we were perhaps ourselves in shock, mirroring the trajectory of these tales. We longed maybe for things to get back to normal as soon as possible. But now we have grown accustomed to this 'new normal,' even though we may have encountered loss, illness & hardship & our lives are unrecognisable from what they were before.

I remember the quotes from the Hobbit at the outset of Hold the Light - of Bilbo asking Gandalf if he could promise he would come back if he accepted the invitation to the adventure. And Gandalf famously replying that he could promise no such thing - and that even if Bilbo did ever come back - he wouldn’t be the same Hobbit who left.

When young boys were taken from their villages out into the forest in cultures where Rights of Passage Initiatory Rituals were honoured - they returned as men.

Something happened out there, away from the familiarity & safety of home, some major shift in consciousness was brought about, the kind alluded to maybe by Ann Baring at the start. We would not be missing the mark to say that we are experiencing a collective Rights of Passage Initiation right now. And therein lays the great potential.

It is interesting for a moment to play with the idea that our entire culture, in terms of its maturity is not dissimilar to that of an adolescent boy who somehow needs to be temporarily removed, to be
taken out into the forest so to speak, by the wise old shaman of the tribe & put through his paces - in order to bring him to his senses as a potentially responsible grown up.

In myth, legend & fairy-tale there is always such a time, when the potential hero or heroine undergoes experiences which bring about similar shifts in consciousness.

There is a famous story about Jung delving into the depths of his dreams - of going through an ancient door in the floor and down a deep stairwell, only to find another door and another stair, and another door and another stair until finally he came to a place, a great living, pulsating store house of what we might call our common lore, a place of deep knowing shared by the whole of humanity – the place where all dreams come from ...to peoples from all over the earth and across  all periods of time. Here all the wisdom of the ages resides, past, present and future - and is connected in its mystery to the entire creation.

When we too step through the floor, or have the ground pulled out from beneath our feet, we are brought into deeper contact with these aspects of consciousness, aspects that are seeking our attention, seeking integration. It may be incredibly disorienting, painful, terrifying in fact - & it may last a very long time - One Hundred Years maybe, before we find our feet -   but like the boys who return from initiation in the forest, or like Bilbo from his adventure, we will never be the same again - if we manage to come through. We will be different & enriched in very significant ways. Yet it seems the way is through dying to our former selves in a deeply alchemical sense, of letting go of all of our ideas & constructs of who we once were. And from this there is no escape.


Mythologically this unsettling time corresponds to phase of the Dark Moon of Lunar Mythology,  of the Night Sea Journey, the Three Days of Darkness after Christ’s crucifixion, when he descended into the underworld & harrowed hell.
 
Yet always such times – and this is the great promise - though they may seem interminable – always, always, always precede transformation - and in story, the finding of the symbolic treasure. The tales may yet have some way to run - the characters may not yet be fully out of the woods so to speak - and yet the pivotal point has been reached, the turning point, the beginning of the return journey! Hallelujah! 

This is the path of heroines & heroes, the brave & the courageous who have gone before. The symbolism is akin to that of the initiatory rituals of the ancient mystery schools and of the Christian sacraments - immersion into water at Baptism, the shaving of hair upon taking holy orders – the sacrament of reconciliation at death's door  - outward signs denoting spiritual evolution –
- transitions from one phase of maturity to another. But always - it is what is happening on the inside – the inner reality that counts.

Over the next months I want to pick up on the stories left purposefully undone in the first parts of this series - stories like that of Inanna in the depths of Underworld, the Wounded Kings & Wasteland of The Grail Quest, Dante in his Inferno, Isis searching, searching for Osiris, Demeter for Persephone, the Sleeping Beauty & her court surrounded by its hedge of impenetrable thorn. All are stories that reveal the mechanics of initiation & transformation. I want to introduce new, additional, yet related symbols & tales too like The Fall of Eve, The Moon Boat, the rise of the Solar Myth, the forgotten Goddesses, the Divine Feminine, the Sacred Alchemical Wedding & Divine Child! Phew!

But for now, I would like to end with a dream I had before a particularly life changing transition of my own, a tragedy from which I eventually emerged & began to heal. The unconscious has a way of preparing the ground for us it seems - like the tales, providing a framework to hold on to - when 
our world's fall apart - and our rational minds fail utterly to apprehend the significance of the moment.

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Edvard Munch 1896 Oslo Museum
Long ago I left my home. I heard a calling from deep within the ocean. I ran to the shoreline and waded into the sea. At first I felt the sand beneath my feet - but it soon disappeared, and I was carried along by strong currents far from the shore. And I looked back and saw my home – and the lights flickering at the window & I knew my husband and children were sleeping there – unaware that I had gone.
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Then the currents began to swirl & I was pulled down, down, down. And I began changing, rapidly losing my form. And I knew I could never ever return. And I became a fish with shiny scales – but even this strange form soon began to change and I was nothing save a grain of sand - then even this dissolved and was one with the salty sea.
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I do not know how long I remained this way, nor how long it had taken to become so. What I can say is that eventually I began to regain form – first as a grain of sand, then as a fish with shiny scales as before – then a woman, naked and alone.

High above me there came a light & I pulled myself up toward it and eventually emerged from the ocean. In the distance I saw a boat of shining white light with an old, old woman, with long plaited hair sitting on board. And the boat as it drew near seemed as if it were the crescent moon and I believed it to be so. The old woman then reached out and hoisted me out of the water – and I knew she would take me home.

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Much Love
Anne Maria
x x x

Hold the Light/blog published regularly during the Crisis@ http://www.annemariaclarke.net/blog
https://twitter.com/MariaClarke
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Hold the Light: Wisdom from Myth, Legend & Fairytale: 27: Lead us not into Temptation

5/1/2020

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One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.
J.R.R Tolkien: Lord of the Rings

The first book of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy – ends with the breaking of the Fellowship & with them all going off in different directions. What began as a strong, determined group faulters before it has hardly begun. Gandalf, Pippin, Merry, Legolas & Gimli set off with Boromir & Aragorn whilst Frodo steals away with only his faithful Sam beside him – resolved to carry the Ring alone to Mordor. Not far down the road there will be further separations too as well we know. So how had it come to this, after the great strength & unity expressed at the Council of Elrond in Rivendell? How does any group, once strong & bonded begin so to unravel?
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Tolkien gives simple yet profound insight into such questions. The wise stay back from temptation - the over bold rush forward - as we see with Boromir from the very start - only the innocent may safely forge ahead and even then at great cost and risk to themselves.
“You will meet many foes, some open, and some disguised; and you may find friends along your way when you least look for it.”
Elrond to the Fellowship at Rivendell

 
“You will meet many foes, some open, and some disguised; and you may find friends along your way when you least look for it.”
Elrond to the Fellowship at Rivendell

Like the Ring itself, that for the most part appears completely benign - used
for years by Bilbo in the Hobbit as a party trick, radically changes its nature at the start of Lord of the Rings. Little sign until then of its sinister power - although the hints were always there, especially in the character of Gollum of course. Yet in the Lord of the Rings we see straightaway what we are dealing with, for when Gandalf throws it on the fire at Bag End - the eerily mysterious inscription - is immediately visible -  and the party trinket is unmasked as the deadliest of foes.

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We learn early on that Gandalf refuses to take it up - this is partly because his status as wizard & guide - sets him somewhat outside the drama, like Virgil in Dante's Divina Comedia. Elrond too & the elves of Rivendell keep their distance. Galadriel is offered it freely by Frodo when the company reach Lothlórien  - & she takes it for a moment. She herself is a Ring Bearer you see, like Elrond. Both know that their Rings will diminish in power if Frodo succeeds in his quest & then all the elves will have to depart Middle Earth & return to the West.

So there is a moment of severe temptation. A moment of imagining a different outcome - where she might be the one to wield the mighty power and thus remain in Middle Earth.     
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In place of a Dark Lord you will set up a Queen.
   ….and there issued a great light that illumined her alone and left all else dark. She stood before Frodo seeming now tall beyond measurement, and beautiful beyond enduring, terrible and worshipful. Then the light faded, and suddenly she laughed again, and lo! she was shrunken: a slender elf-woman, clad in simple white, whose gentle voice was soft and sad.
      'I pass the test', she said.
'I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.'

Of the lesser characters we see straightaway – before ever the fellowship depart Rivendell that Boromir is tempted. He wants to use for good. To defend his lands & peoples who have long since lived in the shadow of Mordor. He cannot understand why the others cannot see this. To him it is a madness to destroy so powerful a weapon. He does not hear the warnings of the Elders & later along the road, he secretly approaches Frodo to get him to see sense. Boromir speaks gently at first but is soon overtaken by the same passion that gripped him at Rivendell & he tries to overpower Frodo take the Ring for himself.
And Frodo knows for sure then that he must go alone. 
 
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Yet others of the company remain true throughout including Aragorn, Legolas & Gimli, who is more aware than most of the dangers of pressing ahead too recklessly with one's ventures, for his peoples' have grave experience - when out of greed for glittering gems  - they delved too deep into the mountain  & awakened the terrible Balrog from deep beneath the earth.

It was in within such caves that that Bilbo first found the Ring, momentarily mislaid by Gollum, who resided there in the shadows. He too had once been a Hobbit & in his character Tolkien shows us most starkly, the trajectory of those souls who kid themselves they can wield the Ring.

As soon as he sees it, like all the rest, he is lost - & like the orcs who had long ago been Elves,little by little lost himself - his warmth  & finally his soul. In the end Sméagol is hardly a Hobbit at all - but more as we might imagine a heroin or crack addict might be or an alcoholic in the last days of addition. He has become Gollum and as such is almost beyond the reach of redemption.

 Interestingly, Peter Jackson prepared a scene, not included in the final edit of Lord of the Rings film- where we would have been shown what Frodo might have become had he fallen further into the grip of & allure of the Ring.

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No one is immune from temptation, not even Sam – who suffers momentary delusions of grandeur when he briefly carries the Ring in Mordor  – yet thankfully his vanity stretches only as far as imagining himself as the creator of wonderous gardens.

There is a fine line isn’t there between confidence & self-actualisation on the one hand & inflation or hubris, as the Greeks might say on the other. It is an ever-present danger – this balancing act between reaching our potential as the heroes & heroines of our own lives - & letting our successes go to our heads. Those of us that stand too far back from the line as it were, are what we might call weak. Then others will surely step over us filling the vacuum, claiming space & power that could or should have been ours.

Yet if we step across that line - even if only fractionally - we are likewise  lost – but in an entirely different way. The fallen kings of the Two Towers exemplify this dynamic perfectly - one too weak, the other over bold. They are worthy of study in their own right & we will touch upon their tales in a later chapter - but for now it is enough to note that the shape of our world's reflect our choices - good & bad & on a moment to moment basis.  

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And in the end even Frodo, even this dear, simple soul of the Shire falls & fails at the last hurdle - in the very last moment of the Quest - as well we all might do. Who knows what the final outcome might have been if Gollum had not shown himself then & seized the ring from Frodo - biting it off his finger in the process & finally bringing him to his senses. But it was much too late - & for a moment Gollum is tragically & wildly triumphant - but then he loses his footing - & clutching his precious - stumbles, falls & is swallowed up by Mordor's flames.

Sam then comes forth to the brink to claim his friend & together they flee the crumbling mountain.

Yet though Frodo faltered at the very  last - still the quest is achieved & by & by - the Eagles (whom we have met before) & who are always somehow mysteriously in the wings of Tolkien's tales - swoop down with Gandalf to rescue & carry them back to Rivendell.

Why does Tolkien write it in this way? 
Why does the hero fail - & yet succeed - but differently than we might expect? And what is it in Tolkien's philosophy that creates such an ending - and is it ultimately satisfactory?

That we are all flawed is a given - heroes & heroines maybe - yet mortal too and yet it is the very fact of our mortality that renders our heroism - in so far as we may achieve it - given the severity of temptation that only a God like Christ might endure & come through - all the more miraculous! And this is what Tolkien celebrates. For let us be in no doubt - when Frodo reaches the edge of the Cracks of Doom, he is as close as any mortal can be to the power of darkness & all that this implies - & mortal folk can only go so far. It is what distinguishes them from gods.

Tolkien's ending  too allows Gollum to live out his obsession to the end & in so doing show us all where such additions lead - as well as adding an unexpected twist in allowing this saddest & most tragic of creatures to ultimately destroy the Ring & set them all free.

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Tolkien has provided us all with cautionary tales - he has shown what might become of us - & the many ways we might fall & the cost to ourselves & to our  fellows.

Yet without Frodo & Sam & all the other flawed creatures who risked life & limb to bring about the destruction - the ending could never have been achieved. Like them - we may fail at the last. We may not achieve our final goal & yet this in itself does not undue our legacy, it does not diminish us utterly. No, it only reminds us we are human - & returns us to humility - & this in part - is the point of the journey!

Much love
Anne Maria
x x x

Hold the Light/blog
www.annemariaclarke.net/blog

https://twitter.com/MariaClarke
Tolkien's Legendarium Transpersonal Weekend @ Rock Bank UK has been postponed
Provisional Bookings
www.rockbank.co.uk
hazel@rockbank.co.uk 

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    Anne Maria Clarke is a storyteller, writer, & teacher of myths, legends & fairy - stories.

    https://twitter.com/MariaClarke
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