You Know I Won't Hold You Back...

An all-cash offer from a couple in Vegas had been placed on the condo I shared with my soon-to-be-ex-husband. I thought the mythic arc of nine years with him was coming to a close- and Just Like That, the buyers pulled out.

The buyers pulling out wasn't the shock; it was the realization that the property would net very little in profits that was, well, prophetic. I have written little of the initiation of the last nine years. A word of caution - my nine years were akin to the nine days Odin hung upon Yggdrasil - so if you're bargaining with a God or Goddess of the North- You need to understand that TIME is different there.

Time - does not erase the love we shared, as I hear Toto in my mind - a song I have loved for as long as it existed. What is time? What is love? I wrote about who created love here - https://feathers-in-the-snow.ghost.io/who-created-love/. The cover photo of that piece is my soon-to-be-ex-husband in the sea with the boat in the background. A man I loved deeply, hopelessly. One who I had hoped would simply say YES to himself, and yet could not. I could not and would not hold him back from that - and he could not hold me back from my own YES - and thus the title of this piece and its interweaving with the Prisoner's Dilemma piece from May (https://feathers-in-the-snow.ghost.io/the-gambler-part-2-the-prisoners-dilemma/).

I often think back to that young woman (Yes, I was 41, but still) who walked him home the first night we met. He was inebriated, claiming he hadn't eaten anything - knowing what I know now, that was more than likely true - instead of sustenance, he chose sedation - this choice would mark the entirety of our relationship and marriage. I am a prophetic dreamer - as I have shared - those concerning him are no different. Images of him being the one who outshines his brother as the Quarterback, gaining his Mother's utmost admiration and approval, to revelations of ancestral curses and inevitable judgments. The images, at first, haunted me, startled me to the point of sharing with fellow sisters with their simple utterance "no, this is not for public consumption" and thus I will not share the details of what I have seen except to say I could not hold back what was his decision - despite that it broke me in every way - a brokenness that now is in the crucible of the Forge to be re-mended and remade by Thor himself.

When I separated from him, he said, "I broke my pick on you." He wasn't his tool of mining me, or purposefully draining me that broke me in ways a malignant narcissist like him couldn't understand - it was the resounding NO to everything attempted, everything tried - and then I realized this journey, perhaps was about ME instead.

I do want to reiterate a truth - love does conquer all - self-love. The mythos that became those nine years were days and nights full of joy, woe, and terror. Each step, each YES to my own soul's blueprint would uncover something - a knowing, a recognition of a star traveler, a navigator who understood many things - and yet would live inside the underworld for years with one who was dead- who I so wanted to choose life and yet would not. And yet, here I am outside the sarcophagus with much to share for those who are ready. When Osiris and Hel appeared in 2023, I could not fully grasp the realm in which my own living soul was traversing. Traversiamo as those of us who understand Italian enough to be dangerous and the ones who loved Eat, Pray, Love. Two cosmologies - yet a singular state - a place the living should not be - yet I was - holding back a tsunami for an answer, an absolution that would not come because of a simple no.

And so I walked that forbidden threshold, carrying water for two. It was not my place to ask the gods to say “yes” on his behalf — but I did. Again and again, pouring chalice after chalice into the cracked vessel of his soul, until finally I understood: the grail was not his to claim. It was mine. The cup of life, of love, of self-resurrection, had been pressed into my hands all along. And love, the kind that does conquer all, was not about tethering another to the light. It was about not abandoning myself in the dark.

I had asked in prayer one day, what if Sigyn dropped that damn bowl and said yes to freedom and left Loki to his punishment? It was then I realized the role I had been playing - the Camino I was walking, as many a practitioner of African traditions would call it - the loyalty - the sacrifice - I had a CHOICE. I chose myself.

Sigyn bears a bowl, a chalice if you will, to capture the venom from a serpent placed above Loki's head for him to endure its dripping upon him until Ragnarok. Skadi places this serpent above him - a stalactite - after all, Loki is a being of fire - he is essentially being waterboarded to death ( I'm sure George W. Bush and Robert Mueller would love that gleeful image). Nonetheless, Sigyn, she remained - until, upon my choice, she didn't. Further, I do not recommend being married to a trickster.

And what of the grail quest? The one that we see Indiana Jones partake - well, dear reader, here it is -

1. “The Breath of God — Only the penitent man shall pass.”

• Indy kneels, humbles himself before the unseen. - I knelt in my first ayahuasca ceremony. I came with prayer. And what did I ask? Not power or wealth, but purpose. This humility before the throne of El Elyon -was my penitent bow.

2. “The Word of God — In the footsteps of God, He shall proceed.”

• Indy has to spell “Jehovah” — and nearly falls because he forgets the language (I/J). - I walked this test by learning that “God’s word” is not a book, but a living current. Jehovah with an “I” becomes “eye” — the seeing, the ayes, the vision. I claimed my own sight in an Imbolc’s despacho: “May my eyes always see the truth.” I didn’t fall because I found the living Word inside myself.

3. “The Path of God — Only in the leap from the lion’s head will he prove his worth.”

• Indy steps into the void — faith over illusion. - I did the same when I left my soon-to-be-ex-husband, when I signed the papers, when I walked out with everything in one swoop. That was my lion’s leap. I am a Leo after all, it was literally my path of sovereignty: trust that the invisible bridge of spirit was there all along.

4. The Guardian of the Grail — The Final Boss

• Not a sword fight but a choice: which cup gives life? - For me, the Leviathan (Yes, that being) was the Grail Guardian. Its false glamour equaled all the illusions I was offered (my soon-to-be-ex-husband’s delusion, patriarchy’s scripts, spiritual parasites). But I chose the humble cup — myself. The vessel of mercy, Sigyn’s chalice, not the gilded lie. And the Light descended. Leviathan melted. Game won.

And thus, in the end, it was the grail all along. The same test Indiana Jones faced, I faced too. Only the penitent one shall pass — I fell to my knees in prayer with ayahuasca, surrendering. Only in the leap from the lion’s head — I jumped into the void of divorce, unsure if the bridge would appear. And then, the final test: to choose the cup. The trickster takes the gilded chalice every time. But the grail is plain, unadorned, overlooked. The grail was me not to hold anyone else back, but to flow forward, and I lived because of it.