Part Two of A Journey to an Ice Cavern in the Shamanic Below
In my last post, we were left with this startling information, shared by The Grey, a member of Black Dream Wolf's pack:
"This out-of-balance, disintegrating, fiery cross you've been shown is an image describing the result of the archetypal Masculine's attempt, many thousands of years ago, to escape conscious awareness of the realities of life on earth, and so to escape the requirements of living in harmony with them. Everything that is now occurring on the surface of the planet is the result of this vain attempt to escape reality."
Now I must gather my courage and return to the ice cavern deep in the Lower World, in the Below of the shamanic North, to continue receiving the guidance waiting for me there.
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I make my usual preparations for entering shamanic reality, then leave the physical body and move into the white, crystalline atmosphere outside my home. I make my way to my forest medicine wheel, marveling at the silent beauty of the frigid shamanic North into which I’m walking. As before, Black Dream Wolf and his entire pack emerge from the blizzard raging in the forest surrounding the medicine wheel, already anticipating my intent to return to the Ice Cavern in the Below of the shamanic North.
Now the female wolf I've come to know as The White emerges from the storm. She turns and howls into the wind and spiraling snow, then trots towards me, growing larger as she approaches. I understand that for this journey, she'll be transporting me safely down into the frozen depths of the ice cavern in the hidden world far below us. I quickly climb up onto her sturdy back, and as with The Grey in the prior journey into the Below, I have the powerful sense that we have mysteriously become part of one another.
The White immediately leaps into the ice tunnel beyond the North stone on the medicine wheel, and the entire pack follows. They all trot calmly down the frighteningly steep incline of the tunnel, as I lean back as far as I can on The White's back to prevent myself from sliding forward and plunging headlong into the tunnel on my own. To distract myself from our dizzying descent, I focus on the ethereal beauty of the tunnel's ice walls, their colors shimmering and shifting from turquoise to pale blue and back again. I can hear, and almost see, small waterfalls and rivulets within the mass of ice through which the tunnel descends. Like the cavern far below, the tunnel appears to be somehow lit from within.
At last we arrive once more in the deep cavern, and as before, the members of the Wolf pack take on the forms of indigenous Arctic people in Wolf regalia. They then seat themselves on the bench that curves around the base of the cave. I take the same seat as before. As I do so, the cave immediately trembles and darkens, its walls shifting and growing rough in response to the movement. The the ice floor of the cavern begins to melt as before, and I feel the same fear of drowning in this deep, hidden place that I felt during my first journey into it.
Now The White trots over to me, and stands beside me. Our individual spirits once more seeming to merge in some mysterious way, she howls again, startling me with the intensity of her voice. As the mournful sound of her howling echoes throughout the cave, bouncing from wall to ceiling to floor, flashes and streaks of fire appear around her, reminding me that below the cavern's melting floor lies the fiery cross I was shown previously.
After a while, apparently believing she has gotten my full attention, The White speaks.
"Regarding your next question about what can be done to correct the imbalance that has resulted in the contemporary patriarchal misogyny that you're addressing in your shamanic work," she says, "there are many ways to mitigate the situation and help heal the archetypal Masculine.
In the world above, there already exists profound awareness of the need to heal the archetypal Feminine and its embodied expressions—women—from the wounds inflicted upon it by the Masculine in is frantic flight from reality. Many efforts have been made on political and social fronts in that regard. But the issues that can be thus addressed are but symptoms of the dysfunction, not its cause. The cause is the damaged, frightened, and increasingly insane archetypal Masculine. And archetypal causes must be addressed at archetypal levels.
"This imbalance has also caused an evolutionary failure in your species, due to the cultural dominance of patriarchal impulses and the resultant freedom to act on them unchecked by feminine wisdom. In its denial of the physical realities of life on earth, the wounded patriarchal archetype has veered ever farther away from the actual human condition. It now seeks artificial means through which it can perhaps become the designer and creator of life itself, and the controlling factor in human culture and interactions. It has thus begun the process of casting aside once and for all the need for the Feminine—in its manifestation as physical women—to bring life from Potentials for Becoming into Being. Bringing life into physical form through the bodies of living women is one of the primary functions of the Feminine, and the basis of feminine Wisdom, which comes later.
"As a result, in its extreme manifestations, unchecked patriarchal desires to control matter have, for example, resulted in the invention of cloning, and perhaps even worse, in the creation of human-like avatars. Engaging in such actions, patriarchy seeks to completely divorce itself from the evolutionary mechanisms that once served to encourage your species to live in harmony with the cycles and seasons of the earth itself, thus ensuring its survival.
"The patriarchal desire to act upon matter in any way it can conceive of, unchecked by the rational guidance of Feminine wisdom, has even inspired some to look for other planets to flee to once they have destroyed Earth. Patriarchy inspires and supports such behavior, rather than turning its considerable power and skill to restoring harmony between your species and the natural cycles of Earth. In so doing, it encourages and enables those it has infected to distance themselves ever further from their relationship to the physicality of life on earth and from women, without whose guidance they very quickly go terribly, horribly awry."
Now the cavern trembles again, and the same symbol of the wounded Masculine archetype that I was shown in my previous journey rises from within the now fragmented, tumbling sphere, charred and smoldering.
As this is taking place, The White speaks again. "Remember, my child," she says, "that the ultimate healing must be of the suffering Masculine archetype. Unfortunately, this is too great an issue to be taken on directly, or in its entirety, at this time," she says, "but countless small efforts by those individual women who understand this issue, as we've just described it, can begin to heal the archetypal Masculine.
"As you know, much preparation must go into any healing effort before it's actually undertaken, and one of the most important parts of such preparation is looking within, to discern and then deal with any dysfunctions and imbalances that may prevent one from cleanly carrying out the healing. Thus, those women who wish to participate in this healing must begin the process of healing at the soul level, if they are to contribute meaningfully to the overwhelming task of restoring balance to your unbalanced world.
"This is the first, and absolutely essential step that must be taken, for no woman can heal anything unless she has healed the wounds inflicted upon her soul by patriarchy and has, through simple practice, aligned herself with the archetypal Feminine as it presents itself in each of the four directions within shamanic reality. Because the situation is critical, first aid of a shamanic nature is needed."
I'm feeling rather overwhelmed by all of this, because as usual, this guidance is not at all what I expected to discover when I began this journey. Yet what I'm being told is a very direct answer to my questions. It's something I can do; a positive action that I can take to help women create the necessary feminine power to be able to successfully take on the work of healing the damaged archetypal Masculine, the actual cause of the imbalance.
As The White concludes her speech, the cavern floor is gradually refreezing. The image of the flaming, tumbling, disintegrating cross, and the trapped, wounded Masculine, has receded into the depths of the ice, and the indigenous people attired in Wolf regalia have resumed their animal spirit forms. Now silence falls upon the cavern, except for the distant sound of trickling water and the howl of wolves from somewhere beyond the cavern walls.
I ask if there is anything else I need to know at this time. The White says, "No, not at this time. Integrating what we've revealed to you, and beginning the process of sharing shamanic first aid practices with other women, is more than enough for you to take on at this time."
As she speaks, the mysterious light within the cavern begins to grow dim, and she says it's time to return. Once more I climb up onto her back, and she trots easily up the steep slope of the ice tunnel, the pack following behind in single file. At last all of us emerge safely back into the swirling blizzard that is still raging at the medicine wheel.
I thank The White, Black Dream Wolf, and the others for their help and guidance, and offer them each nuggets of red coral, which are strung on threads that I can knot into their fur. They seem pleased with this.
At the last, while I'm knotting his bit of coral into Black Dream Wolf's fur, he says to me, "Do you now understand why I was limping? I was giving you a hint about what you were about to discover—the wound from which all males suffer."
I'm in tears now, because for the first time in my life, empathy for males impacted by patriarchy has replaced my anger about having to deal with the symptoms resulting from their behavior.
I hug Black Dream Wolf, and he licks my face. I bid him and his pack a final goodbye, and hike through the blizzard back to the house, then return to the physical body. I must now set about the task of sharing feminist shamanic first aid practices with other women.