My Equinox at Midnight

Yesterday on the equinox, under the full Aries moon, I awoke from a nightmare just before midnight. I knew it would come … I took precautions, like bandaids, before I fell asleep.

My fear, anger, and hurt had been coming for me for weeks … ever since that last rejection rolled in, I knew. I had let my life’s work turn into my ego, and it housed my hopes and worthiness like a prison as it sat mostly unread in a file no one could see. Writing it was cathartic, passionate, purposeful. Waiting for it to “become” has been torture.

And I am the torturer. With each rejection, I felt my conditioning spark into a negative self talk smolder. Quiet, at first, and a bit philosophical, like a new understanding of poverty mentality or the sensation of lack. Then it grew louder, and began to feel like grief in my chest. And, still, I fed the fire.

“My book is garbage,” I decided.

A friend shook free these embers, combed them out of me like a healer who sees images of shadows upon the wall of a cave. He said if I refused to do this work, to look at my emotions, they would come for me harder and harder … and I knew. I felt it rise up, there at the cafe, and I knew what I had to do.

But I did not do that.

So I awoke more terrified and tired than I have been in many, many years. And there was still time to do the work, to give it up to winter and allow spring to flow – the Aries moon demanded it of me.

“Get up,” I heard, more like a tug than a whisper.

“I can’t move,” I begged, more like a whisper than a sob. “Please, just let me sleep.”

“Do it now.”

Through the paralysis of near-midnight nightmare fear, I crawled. I lit my altar and kneeled before it. The flames were unsteady and insistent, demanding more of me.

“You don’t remember what it’s like to be down here, to be human,” I began as the tears flowed down my face. I poured out my anger at the goddesses, my mistrust of Spirit, and, ultimately, my grief. “I’m scared,” I said, “that I have failed myself.”

When I begged for their compassion, they demanded more. I had to release, to move through the paralysis. I called instead upon my guides, and saw them at the edge of a clearing under the same moon, waiting. I understood they were there but would not come nearer until the goddesses were finished.

Saraswati showed me the way: a chant.

Despite my exhaustion and the late hour, I reached with eyes closed for the sandalwood mala upon my altar, and began.

“Om mani padme hum,” my voice, lower than usual, thick with emotion, declared. I am worthy, I heard like a lie in my head.

One hundred and eight times I chanted these ancient, healing words. Somewhere in my trance, my voice became clear and the weight in my chest broke up – like a spring river remembering its flow. The tears never stopped.

When I was finished, I opened my eyes to steady flames. They accepted my offering, I knew. But, more than that, I felt movement and strength in places that had grown cold and weak. I felt the light creep in.

With gratitude and that shaken uncertainty of one who has just done a crazy thing out of total hysteria, I stood up and walked back to bed. My guides met me there, took up their vigil