The panther goddess
I come from deep below.
Deep from the inside of the earth where the deepest and darkest creatures move and breathe.
I knew I didn't belong there.
I am a panther. I have to breathe air, not earth.
And I started my journey, I started to move away from where I seemed to come from.
It took me half a lifetime to see the light for the first time.
During my journey through the earth, I felt my body was transforming. I felt a different shape. I couldn't see.
It was all dark. And in that sense, I never saw myself ever the way I was.
Until I reached the light. I saw blue. A bright blue. It was the sky. And I discovered my body.
I saw I wasn't only a panther anymore...
The earth trembled.
And when it did.
I was born.
I think.
It is my first memory.
The first memory was earth. Mother earth.
In her depths I was born.
In that sense it was her who gave me life.
It was me who searched for life.
Who searched and found light. Life. Breath.
Out of the depth.
I digged my way up.
And for now, just to breathe.
What do I read? What do I hear?
The birth of a creature that comes from deep within the earth?
To awaken to a quality that comes from deep within the earth?
These sentences catch my attention:
'I knew I didn't belong here'
'And I started my journey, I started to move away from where I seemed to come from'
'And in that sence, I never saw myself ever the way I was'
'And I discovered my body'
A journey away from where she seemed to come from, away from the known, away from where she knew she didn't belong. On her journey she starts to feel herself in a different way, she transforms. She leaves her old skin behind and in the blue bright light, she discoveres her body. Her new skin.
Was it time for me to leave my old skin? To listen to something that comes from deep within? Deep within myself? An inner voice who can create a new skin, a new way of living life: 'a reminder of who I am at the deepest level': A rebirth?
"Myths are the memory of humankind in a multiple sense. They remind us of who we are at the deepest level and of the relationship between human and the cosmos. They do this in visual, symbolic form. At the same time, they can sometimes give a stunningly accurate account of real events. Most of the time, they connect an inner with an outer reality. If an event occurs in the outer reality, which in terms of image and atmosphere touches on this old knowledge, an old myth can come to life or evoke old emotions, which surface in each individual."
Karen Hamaker-Zondag - Mythologie en werkelijkheid
Could it be that I had outgrown my skin, my way of living? And that in
this journey, there is an awakening. A growth in consciousness.
'The panther goddess' carries aspects of a creation myth. Jungian analyst Marie Louise von Franz writes in her book 'Creation Myths' that one finds creation myths motifs whenever the unconscious is preparing a basically important progress in consciousness:
The psychological development of a human seems to follow the pattern of the physical growth of children, who do not grow continuously but in fits and starts. The growth of consciousness also tends to make sudden jumps forward: there are times where the field of awareness enlarges suddenly to a great extent. Whenever the enlargement of consciousness or the rebluiding of consciousness is very sudden, people speak of getting an 'illumination' or revelation. When it is more continuous, they do not notice it so much and have only an agreeable feeling that they are grwoing, that they are moving in the flow of life and that life is interesting, but they do not have this feeling of sudden illumination or awakening. Whenever the progress of consciousness takes a big jump forward, there are preparatory dreams, generally with creation myth motifs in them
Marie-Louise Von Franz - Creation Myths
The panther follows a knowing: 'I knew that I didn't belong there'.
She follows something that must come from within herself. Is her intuition leading her to growth?
Is she becomming conscious of how the earth, where she was born, is not allowing her to breath and grow? 'I need to breath air, not earth.' She feels she needs to go on a journey towards light, towards the sky to survive. In Shamanism, the sky stands for the father. The panther goes on a journey, away from the depth of the mother, trying the reach the light, trying to connect with the sky, the father. The journey of IMPP is inviting to embody the androgenous. A body where the feminine and the masculine are balanced, are one. Is the panther journeying towards embodying the androgenous? Does she instinctivily know that is the journey towards wholeness? And as well a way for a creative life, manifesting in the outer world the creativity that comes from the inner world? To combine the qualities of the creative feminine from within, with the masculine to manifest in the outer world?
Away from the depth of the feminine, trying to connect with the father, it could also stand for a way of living: living from within. Bringing the inner voice to the outer world. And not the other way around.
My summary of possible awakenings within this creation is:
Awakening to a new consciousness, to intuition, the wisdom of shamanism, the androgenous and wholeness.