Where are the women?

Return to the well part 1, Summer of 2024

Dear Beautiful One(s),

For the last few months, I have been hesitating whether to share this very personal story here. An answer didn’t came until I was listening to a podcast of Treacy ‘O Connor in conversation with Catherine Matheson and I realised that there's far too little shared about intense, inner, darkened experiences that tell themselves in images. In (day) dreams, musings, nightmares and visions. These narratives tell of dimensions of life we unconsciously are in touch with, and the healing power of living through them is profound. They are essentially different from illusions over life that we ourselves create and elevate into a truth. And although both can be manifested in life, one will nourish life while the other will consume it.

Unfortunately, the tellings of our imagination are often dismissed as fantasies and fables and are stashed away in a drawer of ‘don't pay attention to them’ causing the stories to fester under the skin. However, they continue to affect us until we open up to the essence of the telling. Only when the message is understood in its essence and lived in all its depths it will no longer be needed. When it is fully known, one can be liberated from it.

I realise that my story is also our story. And although individually there will be many differences from that what we each face, stand for and go through in our own lives, metaphorical narratives can guide us through difficult times, offer insights and make it possible for us to understand each other again. It is a universal language that has been deprived from us. Once we could meet each other in these stories and I hope that we will remember this language so we can find a way to come together again in this earthly reality, to live together respectfully out of a care for all that lives.

You are heartily invited to read the first part of four (maybe less, possibly more) of my story, which may well mark the end of a long process towards a new beginning. It’s my intention to publish montly a part.

Heartily,

Alja

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In 1995, I decided to take my creative talents serious and develop them further. This self-portrait is one of my first oil paintings. Now, thirty years later, I have more insights and can see what and who I was unconsciously painting back then. My primal being, emerging from the hidden depths of the ocean, turning into form.

‘Your heart is the size of an ocean. Go find yourself in its hidden depths.’

Rumi

Summer 2024

The weather is lovely as we drive once again past the statue of Jesus, suffering on a cross . Everywhere along the road you can find them, statues of a dying man, frozen in time. Every village has at least one, Tortured and killed because he loved people and passionately shared his life wisdom with them. Probably meant for worship, they also seem to carry a warning in them.

The next day I wake up early with this image still in my mind, and as I stare out the window, I wonder how it will be for all those young men who walk, cycle, drive past these statues daily. What will this image do to them? Unconsciously, it will certainly have an impact ...? Images are powerful, more powerful than words.

Personally, I have always loved the human Jesus very much, without having any religious perception about him. After all, I was not baptised and do not belong to a church. I loved the man and experienced him through the stories as a vital, sprightly man in the prime of his life. A delightful human being, one of those you love to listen to. When they told me he was crucified for my sins, my first thought was that he really didn't need to do that for me. I would have preferred him to stay alive.

In my view, people have mostly glorified and abused his suffering instead of absorbing his wisdom and celebrating life, with the result that many seem to have become immune to the essential suffering inflicted on man daily in his name. Surely he, who cared for the poor and outcast, would never ... take children hostage, rape women and murder men in the name of love and peace for greater honor and glory of a few!

And while remembering how I experienced Jesus as a child, I see several men appear in my mind's eye. A young Buddha, Mohammed, Hiawatha and a beautiful golden-brown coloured African whose name I do not know ...

I see them as clear as glass. Marveled, I wonder where the one from the fifth continent is and at the same time the question arises within me; where are the women?

Where are the brave women who were with them and shared their life wisdom? In which holy book, which religion can I find them ...? Where are the beloved ones of Jesus*, Buddha, Mohammed, Hiawatha? Where are their female companions ????

The next moment I see, feel, perceive and experience how in the deepest depths of the earth an opening appears from which a darkness arises. For a moment I think there is the woman, the primal woman, as dark as night. The next moment I become aware of a huge thundercloud and I realise that I am standing on a cliff watching a storm brewing. Below me, a raging sea churns.

Doubtful, I wonder what this force of nature has come to tell me.

Silently I ask in my inner-self the question of what I may become aware of. The thundercloud gently answers my question and calmly she says, ‘You hated me.

Astonished, I stare at the cloud. Quietly I feel inside myself where this hatred would reside, I am not aware of it ... Suddenly I throw my arms in the air and, to my own surprise, shout furiously: ‘You killed me!’

To which the thundercloud peacefully replies and says: ‘I saved you.’

The next moment, the sky turns bright blue and the sea calmly ripples beneath me, as if there had never been a storm.

Confused, I am left behind in my bed, wondering what this vision, is telling me.

During my life I have had several experiences in which I was threatened with death, on different levels (physical, emotional, mental, spiritual). After all those years though, I have lived through them and am even grateful for them. Eventually they liberated me from many burdens. This is not the beginning of a process, but ... what is it then?

Realising that all life comes from water, I wonder what on earth life is trying to make clear to me. How did she save me?

Somewhat confused, I take the vision with me in the weeks that follow. Weeks in which global events become increasingly grim, a frozen shoulder shows up in my own life, while I am still hobbling around with a compressed nerve in my foot that is healing very slowly. Step by step :)

Trusting that these are all healing experiences and that the essence of the story will be handed to me by life itself, I continue to face life cheerfully. So many beautiful things reveal themselves too in my Awareness.

To be continued ...

Alja

* Meanwhile, more and more is becoming known about Mary Magdalene, the woman Jesus loved dearly and she him. In 2010, her gospel ‘The gospel of the beloved companion’ was published. It can be bought and ordered through bookstores and on many sites. Here you can read an excerpt from the book

Annine van der Meer, historian, theologian and symbol expert, has written a number of authoritative books on the hidden history of the feminine and women and their forgotten contribution to evolution and civilisation. Her website is www. annine_pansohia.nl Worth a visit for Dutch readers! Some of her books have also been translated into English. More information can be found at https://www.annine-pansophia.nl/boeken/.

And here is a link to the podcast of Treacy ‘O Connor that inspired me to share My Story: “A mystic’s guide to awakening ancestral wisdom with Catherine Matheson” Celtic Soul: Ep 3 Wholeheartedly recommended!