[ convection – sama ]
Every initiatic journey begins with the nigredo. Entering the nigredo implies that we will be transformed. To be transformed we must first feed the fire with an aspect of ourselves.
The mysteries related to re-creating ourselves are the territory of the goddess. In Hindu mythology it is narrated that the goddess Gayatri created herself out of primordial chaos. Gayatri is the consort of the god of creation Brahma, but the source of Brahma’s power is Gayatri herself.
The ancient trackers tell us that it all began with sound. The universe originated from a sharp needle-like buzz (hum!). And from that primal hum sprouted the first word.
–Gayatri, Brahma–
A few days ago, in the middle of a crossroads, I was intercepted by a female figure that distilled nigredo from her mouth. I remained motionless, as if I was in front of a jaguar. Slowly, I began to look over her body, noticing her arms raised to the sky, her legs like robust roots and the glint of the crescent moon that she traced with her womb. I came closer, closer, until I felt her breath against mine. Only then, she told me her name: Tlazolteotl.
–She belongs to the lineage of telluric goddesses within one of the Mexican cosmogonies. Her influence encompasses divination, yarn-weaving-time, fertility, death and many other territories. But about that story is for another day–
Tlazolteotl is a guardian of fire, her mouth is a threshold to the womb of the earth. That is why we find her represented at the door of the Temazcales, a ritual space where we give an aspect of ourselves to the fire.
Both from mythology and science there are multiple stories about the origin of the humming of the earth. I prefer to imagine that this emanation is the product of its perpetual inner combustion.
–The incessant fluttering of a bird of fire–
The poets say that this hum reverberates in everything that lives. It is the axis on which the earth spins on herself. That sound is the access way to the center of the deep imagination, the center is also the beginning, to feel the center again means to rejoin the song of creation.
That is the language of the goddess. The only way to tune in to her language is through our body in movement, with dance we imitate the flames of fire, this is how we remember that we are also in combustion.
Gaia (Gayatri) dances fiercely over herself, in the stillness of her center she guards the hum that sustains the universe. From that imperturbable beginning, we can take some numinous mud with which to create and re-create ourselves incessantly.
Dancing involves using our body as a bridge between the inner world and the outer world. Only through movement we can pass through both dimensions.
