Initiation (Scriba De Femina)
Ashes ride upon salted winds. From maiden’s eyes, what is born is a mastering of the gesticulation used to summon those in dark waters. Symbols drawn in taupe sands that are absorbed by the hands of the sea. Letters of homecoming to where love lies its head - a notion that commands the coastal strokes upon land. Unto this stratum of pleasure, I have been reborn. Upon arrival, I am caressed by stretches of unfamiliar ocean. With the goddess’s bevel knife and mallet, I have been cracked open. A crustacean like shell backing has been separated from me, revealing soft, pink tenderness. The skin of a newborn. Birthing cries emanate as oceanic, operatic. This is the beginning of my initiation. And I am before the sea on my knees.
The spirit of the sea appears before me, inches away from me as if it were customary to touch lips. She is a woman like I am a woman. Through our connected gaze, we became nostalgic of one another. In that moment, we shared a heartbeat and a rise and fall of breath. Our embrace feels familiar. As our arms rest on each other’s hips, we lean backward slightly, opening our chests to a dark moon. Two petals of the same flower. The dark mother breathes life force into us until we are overflowing. Our senses become heightened as we enact the symbolic movements of heaven and earth.
Scriba de femina; the ocean forms poems upon its crests. She writes of women as I write of women. Beaches changing texture to symbolize emotion. Pillowy and overflowing, transitioning to jagged rock in a hundred paces. And back again. So is the prophecy of woman: to allow the natural undulation of the inner tide. The moon’s commandment is ecstasy livened by the rolling of the spine. Heaven appears to me now as the facial structure of the sea. Beached eels begin their lives underneath the feet of tiny children. Sea birds carry flowers in their beaks and drop them into the open hands of the deep.
She parts before me. Pillars rise from her floor, forming a path. They are lit with violet flames. Moon burns. As I enter, it’s as if I submerge stems of an Earth colored body into infinite, clear pools. Selene awakens, one eye opening at a time, and joins me down the path. She is full – moon flower thorns emerge from her breast. Calcium rich nodules and spikes appear down her spine like pacific purple clams. Su Piel. The seashell Queen, the mother moon. She is the belief in alchemy’s nucleus. Patterned and shining silver. Opalescent in the waxing light. She bares unborn gifts between benevolent thighs. You meet her at the edge of the sea where her footprints are left in foam, and you leave her sufficiently watered. The walls of parted water stand towering above us. Visions of spring green meadows and lilies of the valley show themselves through the rolling, watery structures as I advance. My essence and birthplace recognized with every footstep and projected as the inward flashes found in dreams.
At the end of the path lies a crescent shaped pool made entirely out of aquamarine. I am stripped bare and as I submerge myself in this pool, I hear songs of Old. The moon above me sings of the three phases of woman. She calls me Earth Child or Moonstar as I float below her on my back, glowing a ghostly white. My belly swells in sync with her. I am shown palaces made of pulverized seashell that are now weathered by time. Homes that once contained familial, passionate footwork on French tile floors. Beds filled with cash and mementos of Guadalupe. I begin to sweat pearls. “Moonstar,” she begins. “We have met here before.”
I see priestesses as points of light in darkness. Women as the carriers of life and death. I hear a hypnotic, slower tempo gracefully reaching over the horizon. A ship called Desire passes beneath the moon’s eye. Shadowy black, reminiscent of the dark evenings tide. The undercurrent is an invisible predator. But underneath this ship’s silent glide, it is exposed in its entirety and glows gold. The ship docks on a beach heavily populated with abalone shards. As the ship touches land, the shards turn to lie flat, creating a haunting duo-chrome tiled floor. Aphrodite emerges and is suddenly floating beside me in the aquamarine pool. Her pheromones are known by all creatures. In the watery walls they appear as if behind glass, in their longing and unrest.
In the hidden areas of this heavenly tropic, I am immune to the songs of the siren. I pray for silence as they invoke the great purge with their serenade. My heart strings are strummed and echo to the darkest corners of the ocean. I am heard where there is no oxygen. A swan song before death. Then, I am purified before queens. Purging body and soul in complete frenzy. I am bled and drained of life; left an empty vessel without eyes, floating aimlessly at sea. My internal spaces are cleared with blasts of pearlescent white. I hear an omnipresent message pulsate through the greys of limbo: “Remember yourself now, Moonstar. As flesh remembers flood.” I am pulled underwater. Drowned. Exalted.
There is a harbor that shines a light onto the darkest sea. Its sunlight graces my mind. I awake at dawn on the beach, surrounded by countless begging dogs. My skin is plump as if it is slightly filled with water. I wear the origins of my magic as red colored cotton draped over my form. The wayward curls upon my head that present themselves as primal abundance seem to have a life of their own. I am alive in a way that is foreign. I create black opals with my gaze. Transfiguring the dancing sea anemones of my heart into tumbled, fiery earth. I see lilies of the valley growing from coral reefs and small remnants of barnacles on my flesh.
“Scriba de femina,” I hear in the ocean’s breath. The sea birds then come with flowers in their beaks and drop them into my open hands.
