I smell the decay on me. Rotten pieces of my soul ready to be purged. Ready to die with each drop of blood.
A few months ago I decided that I had been so focused on the Dark Feminine I was overstepping key components of the Light Feminine. I saw shadows of the Light Feminine within myself, I was closed off and afraid of truly softening to romance, I was (secretly) anxious about my dating relationship, and I could feel patterns of self sabotage start to creep up. I'm not sure how it exactly happened, but for a time I became more focused on being open, trusting, and having patience. I thought I was making a mature choice, stepping out of old patterns and belief systems. I thought I could hold the frequency of trust, that I could rise above an anxious, disorganized attachment style.
The Eclipse Portal
I'm a Taurus, and the Eclipse Portal April/May 2022 was on my birthday. It was truly the best. I had deep heart, yoni, and womb opening experiences. I traveled to another realm of consciousness during orgasms. All my horoscopes predicted the October/November Taurus and Scorpio Eclipse Portal would bring up past relationship patterns that did not serve me. That I would repeat them and needed to let them go.
Tests. Triggers.
The first test happened first on a late October night and I failed. My fears about being too much created distance between me and a wonderful man. I went home when I could've curled up next to someone warm. Test two: my dog got sick the next night and for three days I woke up every hour with a pull, a knowing he was getting sicker. For the first time ever we didn't talk all day. I felt alone with a sick pup.
Enter: Abandonment Wound
The first trigger came wrapped in a memory. Distance created by too much booze and a headache. I remembered all the times my ex-best friend chose parties, drinks, and hungover Chinese food over spending time together. I was triggered AF. But I knew, deep down, the memory bothered me more than the present.
I wanted to make love on Halloween night. I wanted to feel the veils at their thinnest and receive the wisdom of the universe through pleasure and connection.
At 1am on October 31st, my precious little dog threw up blood. The fourth day of vomiting. The fourth day of no sleep. I raced through red lights and held this little creature so close. We spent the night in the ER. My late Luteal Phase emotional brain ignored as I oriented myself to life saving solutions. Just as I had thirteen years before when my childhood dog threw up blood in the middle of the night. Another memory triggered. Another pattern repeated.
How long was your Inner Child innocent? How long did she get to depend on others for safety?
The emergency vet didn't have walls. I sat in a chair holding onto my puppy while his anti-nausea and IV fluids took hold. They drained fluid from a cat's lungs right in front of me. I saw a dog come in with a deep surgical wound. We went home and I shared my experience. At 5am we were cuddled in bed safe and sound.
Light Feminine Shadows: Self-Conscious & Unspoken Expectations
I never wanted people to know I truly cared. I never felt brave enough to say "I want this to just be you and me." I had this idea that if a man truly wanted to be with me he would stop dating other women naturally. I wouldn't have to tell him that was what I desired. I took a step. I asked the man I'm dating if he was still seeing other people. He said no. He asked if I had any other questions. I said no. I cried. I'm keeping too much inside. I have no idea how to speak it out into the world.
Survival Mechanism: Hyper Awareness
I took my dog into my man's guest bathroom in the middle of the night to give him his medication. There was a condom wrapper in the trashcan. A condom I knew was from his bedside table stash. A condom I knew I would not have used. I've seen condoms that weren't from me in many guys' trashcans. I always joked about it. Pretended like it didn't bother me because I was the "chill girl". This time my spot was an accident. But really, I have this bad habit of looking in the trash. It started when I was ten and I was TERRIFIED of periods. I'd try so hard not to see what people threw away, and yet I always ended up seeing blood in a tissue. For sixteen years my fear of what lies hidden in the garbage forces me to look.
This time I stared and stared. I crawled back into his bed and sat there crying.
Something shadowy with red eyes holding my reins.
My darkness had been quiet for far too long. She came out cloaked in manipulation and attention-seeking fury.
Dark Feminine Shadows
I told him something weird happened but I wouldn't tell him what it was. I was short with him all day. I said I didn't want to let it fester for too long but I had to tell him in person. I wanted to control how it happened. I didn't realize how manipulative I sounded.
I descend.
I started to bleed.
I felt it like a puke-green monster with rotten teeth. A deep nausea settled into my gut. A knowing that I had done something wrong. It was the feeling I get when someone doesn't want to be with me anymore. I fessed up. I apologized for being manipulative. He explained that the condom was from a friend that spent the night with a girl.
I let myself soften into trust again. I took a shaking step into something I still don't understand.
Will you be there when I come back from the Underworld?
I took better care of myself for the rest of my bleed. Lavender baths. Lots and lots of journaling. Time spent on the earth. I let myself rest all night.
On the day of the Full Moon Eclipse I sat outside under the tree I give my moon blood to. I wrote until my mind was quiet. My dog and I listened to the songs of the crows. Two crows circled above me as I pulled the Dhumavati card from an oracle deck. She travels with two crows. The Goddess of disappointment and letting go. Dhumavati is a Crone. Her name literally means the inauspicious one.
Who is my Shadow Self? The thing I don't want to look at even though it's a core part of who I am?
As I sat there amongst the crows and the dead leaves I realized that I can't dress my abandonment wound in lingerie and seduce someone into wanting me forever. My anxiety can't wear a crown and masquerade as a Queen. And even when I shimmer on the outside, the crows still flock to my decaying heart.
Don't you know my world is mostly blood and rain? Mountain mists and starry nights, owls hooting overhead, the moon a pale disk in the sky.
My darkness is what makes me embody the Light Feminine. My darkness is what makes me innocent and kind. It's what makes me able to hold people and support them when they are sad. It's what fills me with compassion.
It's why I'll NEVER be the chill girl or the girl who doesn't care.
I am a woman.
I bleed. I cry. I laugh, I dance.
And I care so deeply.
As deep as the earth.
I care all the way down to my bones and my chromosomes.
As I wrote this in my journal that final day of my bleed, the sun came out from behind the clouds and bathed my dark soul in light.
The surrender to trust, to love, the opening of the heart, and the awakening of the Light Feminine cannot come by bypassing triggers or shadows. It comes by going into them. My November bleed and the Eclipse Season was a new initiation of a knowing I thought I already embodied. It was a trip down into the deep underworld of the triggers and wounds of which I'm most ashamed. Anxiety. Abandonment. Feeling like I’m not enough. It taught me that my darkness is truly the home of my light. It was a journey to the hellish parts of myself and back into the beauty once more. While I'm sure there will be many more trips to the underworld in my life, I do know this November blood was a rebirth into more love, acceptance, understanding, and gratitude.
It's this balance of Light and Dark, you see?
I collected my blood and poured it off a bridge into a rushing waterfall. As I watched the drops of my blood fall into the water I knew that it was a true letting go. A true rebirth.
But even when the moon looks full and radiant, half of her is still in darkness, just like me.
Explore your own Light and Dark and learn how to hold yourself as your journey to the Underworld of your Womb with Womb Healing Sessions or Womb Yoga.