“To be sure, I am a forest and a night of dark trees.
But he who is not afraid of my darkness
Will find banks full of roses under my cypresses.”
– Friedrich Nietzsche
This is an account of remembrance and re-memberance. It is an account of surrender. In this moment I give my hand over to the Spirit within me. I submit a clear and conscientious channel.
For the past few months, I have undergone an initiation. I have expanded in spiritual gifts and the mastery of ancient knowledge and lost practices. My life has been uprooted and my ego stripped. Those who are familiar with the calling will recognise these as essential elements of the journey.
During this time, I have been submitted to divine catastrophe as I watched my existence collapse before me. My life and identity were taken apart in the most devastating ways. All rights to myself were held in cosmic abeyance and I was forced to watch it all crumble. I was apprehended, such that all attempts to save my construct were futile.
Again, those who are familiar with it will know that such is this journey. One is set apart and forced to a position from which to consider keenly one’s nothingness. One receives revelation, and one is presented with a choice.
In my own experience; I lost material possessions, relationships, opportunities, health and sanity – telltale signs that the choice to heed the call is in fact no choice at all. I underwent my experience in isolation, struggling daily through self-initiation. I was broken repeatedly, my physical and astral vessels driven to points of delirium and crisis.
Many times I begged for mercy – shwele Bawo! – and found that only I could grant it. I pleaded for relief, for even the slightest semblance of the life I had known. Every plea brought the yoke heavier on my neck. Every tear I cried for relief pierced me more decisively and made the thrashing more relentless. I was brought to my knees, and to that breath that separates us from eternity.
I was trained. I was guided. I surrendered my mind, my body, and my will. I learned to read, to seek, to heal, and to channel. I learned discipline and devotion.
I write this at the cusp of the breaking of the water as I rise to its surface. I am not my own. I am initiated. I am practicing. I am consecrated. I am submitted.
– Lele
Lele Muthali 