Joy Cometh in the Mourning

For his anger endureth but a moment; in his favour is life: weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning (Psalm 30:5). The last portion of the Psalm was uttered repeatedly by speaker after speaker at last summer's DNC. The morning; however, would undergo a metamorphic shift into mourning the night of November 5th as state after state was called for Trump.

I didn't have the incredible dread, and feeling that a shadow had covered the land like in 2016 - I understood this was the reckoning, the karmic retribution the United States has been heading towards - the path of destruction in the 7th Fire Prophesy of the Anishinaabe people.

It is this time that the light-skinned race will be given a choice between two roads. One road will be green and lush, and very inviting. The other road will be black and charred, and walking it will cut their feet. In the prophecy, the people decide to take neither road, but instead to turn back, to remember and reclaim the wisdom of those who came before them. If they choose the right road, then the Seventh Fire will light the Eighth and final Fire, an eternal fire of peace, love, brotherhood and sisterhood. If the light-skinned race makes the wrong choice of the roads, then the destruction which they brought with them in coming to this country will come back at them and cause much suffering and death to all the Earth's people.

And yet, there is joy in the mourning. HOW? you ask dear reader - it is simply through the allowance of grief, and the clarity that arrives afterward that allowed for the understanding that the Constitution simply was not worth the paper it was written on. Many citizens, fellow veterans even, would align with someone they have come to believe will champion them - will be their Messiah. I have no illusions that they are ready for what they believe this will look like - a championship Super Bowl Ring - sadly the collapse that awaits is a wasteland that techno-feudalism is here to deliver unto them.

But joy cometh in the mourning - the allowance of space to grieve what could have been - then begin to live again in a space of what your future - one that now is completely unknown could look like. This is the place of healing.

As I sit in the circle of 8, I've passed through many waves of grief, as you may have read in Angel of the City, I passed through my fire into ash - many, many times in my life - but there was joy in the mourning - for the privilege to bear witness to myself, my journey and to be able to laugh.

My journey has been a lot like Newt's in Aliens - "She survived longer than that (17 days overdue for the Marines) with no weapons and no training," Ripley states. I had no weapons to protect myself from the abuse of my childhood, and no training to evade my enemy, whether seen or unseen. Yet, like Newt, I persisted.

I didn't have an Ellen Ripley like Newt until I became my own Ellen later in life - that incredible tour de force who will not stop to protect those she loves including little Newt. But there's not just one incredible divine feminine force in this film, in us, so too exists the Alien Queen.

The Alien Queen, a primal being is also a force of nature who will stop at nothing to defend her lineage. The Alien Queen and Ripley are mirrors of the divine feminine - the mother force.

As I began to ponder this, I concluded that the Triple Goddess of Neopaganism and Wicca is simply, how do I put this? A crock of complete shit. The Dark Mother is not a Crone. The Dark Mother is not a passive elder. She is the executioner, the reckoner, the weaver who unravels and remakes. The "crone" euphemism is to soften the dark mother, to make her "wise" instead of terrifying. To tame her, breaking the cycles she deeply understands into clean, digestible stages instead of the wild duality of creation and destruction. To make women fade away instead of burn brighter with age. This is how I see the Alien Queen.

To stand in the circle of 8 as the High Priestess, the initiate, one must recognize ourselves as these three aspects if we're to become the Empress - the child (Newt) and the duality of the Mother (Ripley and the Alien Queen). It is in the witnessing of ourselves and the trauma we've endured that grief can be fully felt and acknowledged and the healing process can begin.

Grief is an interesting thing - it flows with the internal tides of our being. It can either ebb like a babbling brook or destroy us like a tsunami. There is a choice, of course, whether to dance with grief or be overwhelmed by it. The grief of Ripley outliving her daughter was the impetus to save Newt - and Newt's entire life was waiting in the ashes to be renewed. The grief of my childhood, the mourning of the possibilities of a future that neither I, my sister, nor my mother ever got to experience. When my mother passed in 2019, little did I know that through the grief, there would be joy in the mourning.

I flew from Phoenix, Arizona on the first flight out at 5 am the next day after she passed. We flew into the sunrise, and I sat silently in my window seat watching the sun rise over the wing of the aircraft in brilliant shades of pink and yellow. I wept at the miracle of the sun and how I hoped our souls would cross one last time in the clouds to say goodbye. I cried for me, I cried for her, I cried for all of it. There was joy in the mourning, dear reader, for I could bear witness to my healing through the journey that day in the sky. Since her passing, I often think back not so much at the trauma I endured at her hands, but the microcosm of things she did that allowed for the joy to flutter in like a hummingbird.

In the circle of 8, there was my inner Newt (of all ages) being witnessed, cared for, and unconditionally loved. There too was myself as Ripley, the fierce mother who will defend her children to the death. And then, I would need to confront the shadow- the dark mother as myself - my own inner Alien Queen.

I'd downloaded a few fantastic Shadow Self spreads - and there it was - my dark reaction to a trigger - the King of Swords - My Alien Queen. The Circle of 8 initiation space was unavoidable for me - but there was joy in the mourning. An entire wellspring of wisdom and ancestral assistance through this journey of being sovereign with compassion versus tyranny and cruelty. That had been my mother - I was appointed to heal that aspect of myself and in so doing, so many more. To wield a sword of wisdom - much must be learned and healed.

Witnessing that Alien Queen within me and all she represents has been liberating. She was never about power, or influence as Ripley rightly points out "You don't see them fucking each other over for a goddamn percentage." The xenomorph motive was survival and continuance of the hive - yes, insectoid in nature. It's the host portion of their survival that invokes the darker and dreaded aspect we see. The facehugger is a mere portion of their lifecycle; HOWEVER, they need a host - they're parasitic. Parasitism is a form of symbiosis where one organism benefits at the expense of another. Parasites can be found across various species on our planet, exploiting hosts for resources. Who does that remind you of?

This has been the journey of the King of Swords (I am no Aragorn) for me in the Circle of 8, not the apathy, cruelty, or even schadenfreude of others that I thought I potentially thrived on, but the compassion, empathy, and the self-realization of existing as a being of peace, not war. I was at war with me, not externally. I needed to come to this place of understanding in the circle of 8 and mourn what I'd lost and sacrificed along the way - then the joy came. My sacrifices enriched my life, my education, and my discernment. It made me me.

The United States is in the breath before the plunge phase - it's up to each of us to walk our paths of initiation (dare I say, righteousness even?). We are the Messiahs the Alien Queens, the Ripleys we've been waiting for.

I leave you Denis Johnson:

The Andromedans hear your voice like distant amusement park music
converged on by ambulance sirens
and they understand everything.
They're on your side. They forgive you.