Journey to Dub - the Initiation

 

November 13, 2002

I had almost given up my struggle with making significant changes in my life since my last meeting with Evangeline things have just plodded on with not change, no direction and not closure.  I know that I must deal with the problem that keeps me from focusing but I haven't found either the path or the will.

Threading my fingers together toward me palm I make the sign of Dub.  I need to do this now while my resolve seems strong - this is the separation, the change the stars have talked about, the one that I must help along. My dress is unchanged from my last visit, a navy so dark it's only in the shimmer of light that the blue underlying blue is seen.  Again I wear no emblems or badges of rank and position, but strangely this time it feels absolutely right.  It occurs to me that I might have been wrong before - the plan was to give Vivienne to the black because only the ladies of the North wind could shield and ultimately severe our connection but tonight I'm almost willing to take the black myself. I need only give up my ego and my ambition and it is mine for the asking.  Without the power I've lost I can't really accomplish anything so what do I have to sacrifice?  

The journey of a heart beat seems to take forever and I find myself simply someplace in between the there and the here, my starting point and my destination.  It is if my eyes are closed and I can't open them.  I have reached the point of stasis, of perfect stillness and in this moment of darkness I understand that the only path is surrender.  Not the surrender of death - rather it is the surrender of the 8 of swords.  The understanding that I have given up and accepted the blindfold and the ropes that hang on my arms.  In this moment I teeter - will I be rescued?  Can I save myself or will I simply withdraw into the shadow side of the black and find I have slipped unknowingly into the land of Liath?

Since time has no meaning in this state, either a second or a lifetime later I feel a furry head brush against my hands and pull on the rope.  I reach up to remove the blind fold but hear a warning in my head that I must not do that, that what I need to see can only be seen by the inner eye.

Are there some things that can not be spoken of?  Are there some secrets that can't be shared except among the initiated?  If I write of this journey will others read it and find in it a source of power that they aren't ready for or is the black flame something that can be found only by those who walk their own path and that no words from me will hasten or quicken their steps.

Let me say only then that the black flame beats at the heart of Dub, and that the black frame is the source of ALL.  On my journey into the flame I met Tiamat, the Nwyvre, the kundalini, and now understand that things are entwined more tightly than I ever imagined.  I also met the order of the black knights. All I can say about them is that the word order has two meanings.

So what knowledge do I hold now that I lacked in the past?  I think it is too early yet to speak of things with certainty.  I hope much of the fear is gone and that having been chosen I can rise to the occasion and do what needs to be done.  As far as Vivienne, I know what I think has happened but as with any adventure story there might be a plot twist waiting around the corner that I don't know about.  What I think happened was that when I walked into the heart of the black flame I was once more made whole.  That Vivienne is gone because she is once more apart of me.  I hope and pray that's true.