Into the borderlands

I step outside of my mind and watch the tide go out.  I drop my silky at the shore and begin my wandering.  There is no compass. The borderlands await me.  I feel the marrow of my bones quicken, I shed my skin.  I let go.  The braille of my life becomes ever more indistinct. I feel my way, eyes closed.
The breath deepens, there is nothing to fear.  I know this descent.  From the seen to the unseen, from the topside to the underworld.  The attachments, fine as thread, thin.  I loose my name, my gender, my body, the story of who I am.  It is consumed in the great sacrificial fire.  I am purified, made whole and holy.
As I descend the voices grow distant and faint.  I begin to hear my own heart beating.  In the silence I am absorbed.  The outer world recedes and my senses are heightened.  The feral part of me, instinctive and sure footed emerges.  She was named long ago by spirit… “Sees in the Dark.”  Medicine and talisman she is the embodiment of fearlessness and wisdom.  I trust in her power and knowing, in her ability to navigate the perilous with courage.
As the ground beneath me disappears I hear the words… fear not.  Every part of my mortal self wants to flee. It is fuel for the flames. I have great compassion for this part of myself that feels so transparently vulnerable and transient.  It desperately wants to have an identity that isn’t subject to change, a home that is constant, relationships that endure.  This self becomes microcosmic in the presence of the incorruptible spirit that sustains me.
I walk into the pyre a willing surrender, a sacrament.
There is nothing of intrinsic value that is ever lost in this process of calcination. In fact it is through the burning off of the profane elements within my own psyche that the essence of my Being is further illuminated.  I am transformed in this fire, all that inhibits or limits the expression of my true Self is destroyed.  The afflictions and habits of mind, the attachments, the worn thin identities and egoic ambitions… all is turned to ash.
The forces within me know exactly what I need in order to be distilled and refined.  The outer world responds in correlation by giving me time and space.  I curl into my womb, I inhabit myself.  Licking my charred remains, the salt of tears fallen, I bow.  My beloved I will follow you where ever you go.  I will follow you on this never ending path into the darkest night.  When I am nothing more than ether I will shroud your body and whisper all the languages of your name…
In the borderlands of my death and resurrection, I dance in the rain…
santidevi