Lightning Mothers & Daughters of the Moon
A journey to ancestral spirits in the Upper World of the shamanic North
If you'll recall, in my second post, "I am a North Woman, Part Two," I was led by Little Moose deep into the shamanic North where I encountered my thirteen-year-old self, who had long ago retreated there in response to the patriarchal violence she had encountered in the world beyond the safety of her family culture. She Who Nurtures and Protects, one of the feminine North archetypes, appeared and told me that I must welcome this lost part of myself back into my psyche. She then told me that because I had lacked a ceremonial entrance and acceptance into womanhood during puberty, and the guidance I had so desperately needed about who I am, that I've struggled with accepting my destiny. Finally, she invited me to journey to her during the next blizzard, to correct that omission, and told me that once that had been done, a new way in these matters would open for me.
In the event you missed reading the post in which this occurred, here's a link to it, which I recommend you read before continuing on with this post:
https://scarletkinney.substack.com/p/i-am-a-north-woman-part-two
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Now, after a long wait, the blizzard has finally arrived. It's a wild one, as is often the case when spring begins its annual battle with winter. Spring will in the end prevail, of course, but for now the battle rages, with blinding snow and powerful winds that whip through the branches of the towering spruces and pines in the forest outside.
I'm hesitant to begin this journey, because I fear that it will be emotionally fraught. Nevertheless, I begin making my preparations for doing so. I take up my drum and sing my Mother Light song over and over again, inviting light and energy to rise up from deep within the earth around my home and the medicine wheel, to protect and inspire me as I journey.
My drumbeats thunder through the forest, their vibrations causing showers of ice and snow to fall from the trees, as shafts of brilliant white light shoot up from deep within the earth around my home and the medicine wheel.
I leave the physical body and dance out into the light; into the howling wind; into the power of winter's last effort to assert itself before giving way to the gentler energies of spring. As I dance through the shafts of light and the swirling snow, in what I hope is the direction of the medicine wheel, for I can see nothing, Little Moose appears out of the haze of light and snow, and gently nudges me. I put my arm around his neck, and he leads me to the medicine wheel. He accompanies me as I enter it, and as I make my offerings at each directional stone. When we arrive at the North stone, he tells me he'll wait for me there, but that I must now journey into the North on my own.
I climb up onto the large stone at the medicine wheel's center, which immediately transforms itself into the great Sea Turtle that will carry me into the shamanic North, for I am now in both physical and shamanic realities simultaneously. I settle myself upon her broad back, which is glorious with the many spirals I've painted on it over the years, in thanks for her consistent help and guidance in navigating shamanic reality.
Now we leave the Center of the medicine wheel, which becomes the Medicine Wheel Mandala as we enter fully into shamanic consciousness. Turtle plunges into the first sea we must navigate on our way North, the vast sea of the shamanic Center, from which she holds the entirety of shamanic reality in perfect balance with her unshakable intent and power. The sea is many shades of green that shimmer and change in its mild currents, but its surface is smooth and clear. Turtle swims through it easily, and we quickly arrive at the boundary between that sea and the next vast sea that still separates us from the arctic landscape of the shamanic North.
The shamanic North Sea, however, is not smooth and calm. It's choppy, with slushy areas of melting ice, punctuated with larger chunks of ice dancing in the chop. They're not large enough to be called icebergs, but yet still dangerous enough to navigate around. Suddenly Turtle says, "Hang on!" and dives beneath the sea. Because the laws of physical reality don't apply in shamanic reality, I'm able to breathe beneath the water as Turtle swims ever north, winding her way around pods of whales and groups of seals. The sounds of the whales' communications fill the underwater world through which we journey, as though they're discussing our presence there.
At last Turtle emerges from this half frozen sea, and I see we have arrived at the coast of the shamanic North. I thank her for safely transporting me, and ask her to wait for me. I then climb up the icy footholds on the side of the glacier that meets the sea here. When I arrive at its top, it's not glacier-like at all. A vast snowfield now extends before me into the distance, glittering in the light of the full moon above. I call out for She Who Nurtures and Protects. There is a burst of blinding light, out of which she strides purposefully towards me.
"Come," she says, "we must climb the mountain."
I follow her over the sparkling snowfield to the base of the huge, frozen crystal-like mountain at the heart of this formidable landscape, as northern lights dance through the midnight sky above.
Once we arrive there, she immediately begins climbing the mountain, following a well traveled trail leading to its top, as I follow behind, practically running to keep up with her. By the time we arrive on the mountaintop, not only am I out of breath; I'm also wondering what climbing this mountain has to do with the ceremony I've come here to take part in.
Apparently reading my mind, She Who Nurtures and Protects tells me that we must all climb the mountains in each direction in shamanic reality in order to progress from one level of shamanic consciousness to the next as regards the potentials each direction offers us.
"You've already guessed," she says, again reading my mind, "that the ceremony you seek cannot be done for you in the shamanic South where puberty ceremonies take place, because you're in the late stage of life, and those who should have—should have, but were unable to oversee the puberty ceremony you so needed, are now gone from the earth. Therefore, you must seek them out in the Upper World, where the ceremony appropriate to your stage of life awaits you."
She sings out a powerful tone, her Warrioress tone, which shatters the normally silent atmosphere of the icy world of the shamanic North, the entirety of which we can see in every direction from the height of the mountaintop. After a few moments, a white stallion appears in the heavens above, galloping through the midnight sky towards us. At last he arrives at the top of the mountain.
Turning me to face me, She Who Nurtures and Protects looks into my eyes. "Go now, Little One," she says, our Little Snake Child who became Grizzly woman, and discover what awaits you next," she says.
I climb up onto White Horse's back and he leaps from the mountaintop into the sky, galloping through the air as though we were on solid ground. He moves so fast that it's as though another part of himself follows close behind us, always trying to catch up.
We travel farther and father from the landscape of the shamanic North, which recedes into the distance below us, until at last I can see it no more. I'm more than a little disoriented by the strangeness of our wild ride through thin air, so cling to White Horse's mane. He doesn't seem to mind my doing so, and continues on undeterred.
After a very long time—such a long time that I have begun to feel that there is no reality other than the reality of the mysterious midnight sky through which White Horse gallops, we approach a kind of transparent disturbance in its atmosphere, and I know we're approaching the Teaching Ground of the North Upper World. The atmospheric disturbance slowly takes on the form of what at first appears to be a large, flat cloud, then grows ever more solid until I can see that it's become a large snowfield not unlike those of the North landscape that has disappeared into the dark night far below us.
White Horse gallops on, leaping smoothly from the sky onto the now solid Teaching Ground. He trots confidently over it towards a cluster of snow mounds in the distance, one of which seems to be glowing from within. I know from past journeys to this place that it's within that specific mound that I'll find the ancestral elders who will offer me guidance and ceremony related to my quest. White Horse slows to a walk and stops in front of the glowing mound, which I can now see is some kind of structure built into the earth beneath the surface of the snow field. There is an opening in it, with a very icy path leading steeply down into the structure. I stand before it, and ask permission to enter.
From within comes a waft of fragrant smoke, and a soft steady drumbeat, and I know my request has been granted.
Now I hesitate, because there is no way I can enter this structure without first sliding down that steep, slippery path to its doorway. Being a North woman, I always wish to appear dignified, but as has so often been the case in my life upon the earth, I somehow or other often end up appearing ridiculous, which then sends me into gales of laughter, adding to my embarrassment, which makes me laugh at myself even more. I fear the same is about to occur here in this sacred place. Nevertheless, I step onto the icy descent.
Sure enough, I immediately slip, falling onto my backside. I hurtle down the steep slope and through its opening, landing in a heap on the circular underground hut's icy floor. It's very dark in here, the only light coming from what appears to be a small oil lamp of some kind, within which a single, tiny flame burns. Although I can sense their presence, I can't see those who have allowed me to enter. I can, however, hear them giggling at my unceremonious entrance, and giggling being contagious, I catch its power, erupting into uncontrollable laughter as I always do in such circumstances. Finally we all settle down, and I struggle to my feet.
Now there is a rustling noise. One of the ancestral elders adds something to the oil lamp, and the light, although still dim, is now bright enough that I can see that all the elders in this hut are women, ancestors from both sides of my family. I recognize those I knew during their lives on earth—my mother, my maternal and paternal grandmothers, and my maternal great grandmothers. Although I can't see her, I also sense the presence of Bridget, my several times great-grandmother, who perished in Ireland's County Clare during the great famine of the mid 1800s. They all pick up drums, with which they create a powerful trance-inducing drumbeat that causes the very air within the hut to vibrate.
I can feel myself entering a deep level of shamanic trance. One of the drummers steps forward. It's Mother. We embrace as I dissolve in a puddle of tears, she murmuring comforting words in my ear for some time before saying, as she so often said to me in our time together in physical reality, "Buck up now! There are things that must be done!" This time she adds, "Both in this world and in the one you still inhabit!"
Hearing that familiar admonition, I do "buck up," and give her my full attention.
Mother says to me, "Do you remember that some time ago now, when you sought me out following my departure from the earth, that I told you the secret I could not tell you while I was embodied, as my survival on earth for many incarnations had been threatened due to that secret? I had been so traumatized by fear of persecution that I had made myself unconscious that I even carried the secret and was meant to pass it on to you."
I do remember that encounter, and blush with embarrassment, because I had agreed to carry it forward in this lifetime, but due to my own fears and resistance to walking the path I was called to during my shamanic initiation, I had repressed memory of it myself.
Mother says, "It's not too late. To begin preparing yourself for entering the new level of shamanic consciousness that the secret offers you, however, you must practice the dance I taught you back then, the steps to which you've forgotten."
As she speaks, the shadow of a huge raven moves across the ceiling of the ice hut, as though verifying her words.
Mother then shows me the steps to the dance again, which is the Dance of the Lightning Mothers and the Daughters of the Moon, the secret women's spiritual society to which generations of my female ancestors have belonged. I begin dancing with her. The steps are simple, not graceful or fluid, like the earthly dances she taught me in my youth, and not easy for me to execute at my age, but as soon as I begin dancing them, I can feel a new kind of power rising with my being.
After what seems an eternity to me, Mother, apparently satisfied that I've mastered the steps of the dance, stops dancing, and turns me to face her in much the same way as She Who Nurtures and Protects had done earlier. Looking into my eyes, she says, "You have been a Daughter of the Moon for far too long. The sign that you were to be initiated as a Lighting Mother came a few years ago, when you were struck by lightning, but there was no way for you to know that at that time. Now you must dance your way into the level of consciousness that event foretold by repeatedly doing the steps I've taught you. . . for the second time now. . .for it is as a Lightning Mother than you are to go forward in life from this point on."
I'm overwhelmed by what Mother is telling me, but before I can express that, the ice hut shudders, as though an earthquake were starting, and the ancestresses fade away and disappear. I know I must make haste to return to ordinary consciousness, as the Teaching Ground is about to disintegrate, once more becoming only an atmospheric disturbance in the vast midnight sky. I clumsily scramble on hands and knees back up the hut's entrance slope, and gaining my feet at last, I leap up onto White Horse's back, just in the nick of time, as the Teaching Ground is already fading away. White Horse gallops away into the sky, and we begin the long descent back down to the Middle Level of shamanic reality from which we began our journey to the Upper World.
When we arrive back at the top of the Ice Mountain of the North, She Who Nurtures and Protects is waiting for us. I thank White Horse for his help, offering him a big juicy apple, which he takes, nodding his head as he chomps on it. She Who Nurtures and Protects now leads me quickly back down to the base of the mountain. When we arrive there, she tells me I must complete the journey back from there on my own. I thank her for her help with this issue, and offer her a crystal pendant, which she adds to the medicine pouch she wears around her neck.
I then trudge through the snowfield to the edge of the glacier hidden beneath it, and slip and slide down the footholds of the glacier to its foot, where it meets the White Sea of the North. Turtle is waiting for me there. As soon as I climb up onto her back, she plunges into and beneath the icy sea and swims south, back to the Center of the Medicine Wheel Mandala. Once there, I thank her, and offer her a big bunch of kale, which I've learned from experience that she enjoys very much.
Finally, after thanking Little Moose with a heartfelt hug for watching over me as I journeyed, I walk into the now still forest, for the blizzard has stopped. The world is now white and quiet, sparkling in the moonlight. I walk through its beauty back to the house, where I return to ordinary conscious as my dream body merges with my physical body, the stark images from my journey to the Upper World flooding my consciousness.
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Tomorrow is the first day of spring. But shamanically, the transition from one season to the next does not happen overnight. There is a period of transition that must occur, during which the teachings and experiences of the departing season are reviewed and integrated before we move fully into the teachings and experiences of the new season. Therefore, I’ll be taking a break from weekly posting from now until April 3 to do just that myself, and invite you to use that time to review the winter’s posts from start to finish as well, for the same purpose. If any questions about the North teachings embedded in my North posts arise for you as you read through them sequentially, please feel free to contact me with any questions that may arise as you do so.