Chasing Love and Revelation: A Reflection AFTERWORD

INVICTUS
by William Ernest Henley

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be,
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance,
My head is bloody but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.

***

I started writing this piece as a memento to the woman who takes her place as my Dark Lady in my pantheon because the funny thing is, in the book mentioned in the opening to this reflection, the main character sees the Virgin Mary as a Dark Lady. When I first met Melissa, I couldn't think of her as anything else. I see her now as Kali Ma, the Vedic goddess of destruction, time, power, and creation. When I read Chasing Love and Revelations: A Fable About Finding the Heart's True Desire, I was actually shocked at how much it rang true, but I think that is also a point of fables.

For as long as I can remember I've had some reoccurring dreams that play out in front of my awareness while I'm fully conscious of it.  Growing up in the Christian religion, I knew the importance of dreams, but when I had talked with an older gentleman about them when I was around the age of 15 he tried to convince me that, and I'll quote, "Since Christ is coming back there is no more need for dreams and prophecy because there is nothing new to tell.  Your dreams sound evil and are trying to tempt you to sin."

You can imagine how much that can fuck with a young believer's mind.  After that I fought against my dreams, though they never stopped coming.  So I stopped sleeping.  A few of my former friends could tell you how hard I pushed my non-sleeping agenda upon myself.  To the point where I was sleeping 20 minutes every four hours, and I did that for 4 years. I sustained myself on mediation and mental focus. Until February 2010 when I had pushed my body so hard that I had to go to the emergency room because I had shit and puked blood while working in the 3rd SOS. Then my dreams had to find their way back to me.

By the time that I had left the US Military I had given up all pretense of religious faith.  It was vapid and empty, much like the spiritual reflection of our physical society today.  I wasn't necessarily Atheist, or Agnostic, I simply didn't care one way or the other.  That left the dreams that had come lose their significance for me and when they came back they were terrifying and confusing.

My dreams can feel more real than the waking world at times.  And in most of my dreams there has always been a Dark Lady, somebody that I had felt was waiting for me.  That I had to find.  Where I had once dismissed them as idle and unrequited longings that I could never fulfill, the pain of separation keeping me seeking and seeking until I could seek no more,  the moment I saw Melissa I knew. But I didn't know what I knew.  The dreams that I had turned away from, the Goddess of my Nightmares had been made flesh, and the possibilities opened up to the Endless expanses of reality.  

I had spent so much time seeking that I never took the time to figure out what I would do if I ever found.  I had spent so much time believing that I would never be complete so I let the world tear what I had of me apart.  So when I had finally found her, I held on to myself, what was left of myself, as hard as I can.  In order to fight through the dullness of my mind that had been given to me through pain, I grasped my anger in both hands and held it's heat as close to the dying embers of my heart as I could.  When THEY attacked me out of their cowardice, it ignited the flame from a candle to an inferno.  

Being with me that year must have been difficult.  It certainly was difficult to be with myself.  If nothing else it certainly was confusing for me.  I had only trusted that she would be strong enough to endure it while I figured out what to do.  I don't think anyone is that strong, anymore, and her realizing that she wasn't enough hurt her pride and self image.  Enough for her to make some very poor decisions that have hurt both of us.  I'm not exactly sure what went on in her mind, but it was nowhere near the fantasy of enduring for love that I had in mine. 

So this was my farewell, if not to her then it was to the heart that had endured for her.  It was a reminder of what I had gone through in my search for the possibility of her existence, and a sharp reminder of my wounds which drove her away.  Love like this exists, somewhere in the universe, and you can see the lengths that somebody would go, that I have gone, for it. 

I have made many mistakes in my life, and none so regretful as the ones I made with her. Whether that was with giving myself to her or not running away, only the Fates can know. I will, however, not let that stop me from living my life.  And in essence, these writings that I have posted have been used to transmute my grief into the love that I had so much trouble expressing while I had dealt with my own pain.  Now that it has mostly been expressed here, I can put my heart on the alter of Love and sacrifice it completely.  

 To Kali Ma, the Life-Giver, the Preserver and Destroyer. you are the fount of my Love and the tearer of my soul.  In you, my ego has been slain, my consciousness released from my head and into my heart.  In this heart, I give back to you, a sacrifice.  Take it. Destroy it. Scatter it to the four winds so that it's essence my join the world, and maybe find it's way back to me again.  Thank you for the pain, for I would not have realized joy.  Thank you for the grief for I would never have realized the depth of my love.  And thank you for my anger so I could empower my will to hold on when I had felt that I had nothing left.

With the Death of my Heart, we go and visit the gods of my pantheon.