February 22, 2024: Sobek
An interesting encounter with my sensei, the Woman in White, this morning…right after another unusual encounter.
The initial scene took a while to unfold and for me to understand it. I was aware of aquamarine waters, green-blue. The climate was warm and the environment was swampy. The water was neither fresh nor completely saline but brackish. A tropical world of shallow waters and swamps, swarming with predators. The predators ranged from fish to amphibians to reptiles. The creatures represented many different eras of Earth’s development, some ancient and others contemporary. There was a fecundity about the place as if drifting eggs and sperm filled the water along with bacteria. It was beautiful and deadly and kind of gross. This was not a place that I would feel comfortable in if I were there in my human body.
Gradually, the scene resolved and I became aware of a creature with the head like a monitor lizard. His body was anthropomorphic, though. The scene sharpened further and his head was more like a crocodile’s but his snout wasn’t as long and tapering as most crocodiles. A serenity emanated from within him and I knew that he wasn’t a human soul pretending to be something it wasn’t. No, this was a higher being, one might even say he was a god. I bowed to him and he seemed to think this was funny.
“I called you because I’m ready,” he said.
“For what?” Although the truth is that I already knew. Why else would he call me?
“To cross over. My time has come.”
I regarded him carefully, reading him. His serenity and conviction were unwavering. “You realize that once I take you into the Absolute, you will change forever, right?”
He nodded. “As I said, I’m ready.”
He reached out his clawed hand and took mine. We moved forward and the curtain of Reality parted. We entered blackness, although we weren’t quite in the Absolute yet.
The creature’s body had changed and he was no longer naked but clothed in the regal garments of ancient Egypt. His head was more crocodilian and I recognized him from hieroglyphs but I haven’t Googled him yet so I don’t know exactly which god he is. (Ok, just did: Sobek. God of fertility and protection among many other things. Interesting.)
We were in a temple buried deep underground. The earth walls rose around us and there were giant columns. In the distance, the orange light of a fire guttered. We walked towards it, the crocodile god’s hand still in mine. As we approached, I recognized it as a holy fire and in the center was complete and utter blackness: The Absolute.
We walked into the fire and thus into the eye of the Absolute. Instantly, everything was liquified. Liquid night, depthless black. It’s like passing out while awake. Everything dissolves into nothingness that is paradoxically everything. Intense.
When we move through it, I see that the god had transformed into an egg. Not a chicken’s egg with a shell but more like a fish or amphibian egg. A soft, squishy, transparent, gelatinous egg. Inside is a whole universe of purple and gold dancing lights. I hold the egg reverently in the palm of my hand as I emerge out of the blackness, walking toward a faint, white glow ahead. It’s the glow of the Crossroads.
When I emerge with the egg, the Woman in White is waiting. “What have you brought me today?” she asks, laughing. I hold out the egg and she accepts it, taking it in her hand and then clasping her fingers together, effectively crushing it. She throws the remains into the air, smiling.
I’m horrified that she destroyed it but she informs me, “He wasn’t dead, right? The other souls you’ve brought me have been dead. He was merely ready to become embodied once again and as such didn’t need me to lead him anywhere.” She gestured up into the air where the glowing purple and gold ‘glitter’ remnants of the egg are drifting skyward, twirling around in a double helix, the double helix of DNA. The sky above is vast night, punctuated by shimmering stars. I understand the stars are not simply stars but the stuff of creation itself.
As I’m staring upward, the Woman gets frisky and slaps me on the bare butt. I jump and realize that the mood between us has become playfully sexual. “The look on your face!” she crows, laughing. “Oh, that was priceless!” She laughs harder. “You looked so pained and like you wanted to slap me!”
At first I’m not too amused but I slowly come around and start to laugh at myself. “You tricked me,” I say, sulking. “That wasn’t fair. I thought you’d destroyed him!”
“Ha! As if that were possible!” She stops and looks closer at me. I realize that her body is that of a young woman. Her skin is pearlescent and her lips are ruby red. She is wearing a robe that reveals her smooth, sensuous body beneath it. Her gaze becomes almost predatory. “You’re awfully cute,” she murmurs, moving closer. “Let’s play around.”
I’m naked - I always am when I meet souls. I feel like that’s part of the deal. They see all of me, nothing hidden, nothing between us. The Woman in White is different, though. I’ve never seen her naked before, or partially naked at least. I realize I find her attractive. There is an erotic charge in the air.
“You look like a gawky teenage boy,” she says, laughing merrily. “But a really cute one.” She reaches out and takes my face in her hands and kisses me. I respond. It’s mostly chaste, although she uses some tongue.
I’m confused and embarrassed. This is my teacher! We’ve never been intimate in this way before.
She reads my thoughts, commenting, “Relax. There’s a time and place for everything. We can be like this with each other from time to time. Everything in balance. It doesn’t really change anything. I’m still your teacher. You’re still my student.”
She lies down on the snowy ground. The Crossroads, normally so sterile and desolate, is quite beautiful. The trees are covered in new-fallen snow. Everything feels fresh, alive. She pats the ground next to her, inviting me to join her. We lie entwined together, fingers and lips exploring each other’s bodies. She lets me caress her everywhere and she caresses me in return. It’s both erotic and restrained at the same time. We don’t have sex. This is more innocent than that. But there is definitely a charge.
As I stare at her, she shifts from youth to maturity to old age, retaining her beauty throughout. Sometimes, she even become male. I realize my body is changing, too, although the oldest it gets is a mature man.
“You haven’t experienced old age yet in your human lifetimes,” she explains. “Soon, though, you will. It’s important.”
She kissed me again, this time on the cheek, and we lie there, nestled in each other’s arms, our bodies pressed together. It’s tender and sweet and feels like a deepening of the intimacy and trust between us. I guess it was time for this. It makes sense.
***
I’ve been thinking about this encounter and it struck me that my erotic encounter with the Woman in White was right after meeting Sobek, the Egyptian god of fertility among other things. I wrote about the humid fecundity of the realm where I found him so it makes sense. Also, tons of large predators. One thing I read about Sobek was that he was sometimes referred to as the god who fucked while devouring. He was a crocodile after all.
Interestingly, Sobek himself struck me as noble, refined, intelligent and wise. There was a restraint about him as well as an inner silence. He seemed prepared and focused. Ready. He was ready to become incarnate again. There wasn’t anything scary or predatory about him and he certainly didn’t seem licentious. I can’t help but wonder where he has incarnated and when was it? It could be now but time is loopy in the Imaginal and he be ‘anywhen’ - I may never know.
It’s also interesting to me that a god needed my help to traverse the Absolute. (We didn’t actually traverse anything as you know but one way of experiencing the encounter is crossing the Absolute so he could be reborn. Why couldn’t he simply traverse the void on his own? Maybe everyone needs to be accompanied by someone, even if you are a god? Or maybe there are beings with certain abilities or roles and one of my roles is to traverse the Absolute? Maybe someday I’ll understand?
I also am realizing how much I have grown to love the Woman in White. I think I fell in love with her that first time I met her. It’s weird for me, a gay man, to have such feelings for a woman. Honestly, I’ve never felt like this for a woman before. It’s not the same kind of feeling that I have for Griffin or for the other men I’ve loved, it’s actually more expansive. I know she is more of a teacher than anything else and I’m fine with that. But I have feelings for her beyond those I have for other teachers. I guess it’s because of the intimacy of our encounters. We come together in a powerful and vulnerable way that is unique. How could I not fall in love with her? Further, I know she also loves me; i.e., it’s not one-sided.
Sure, I am still a newbie and she is far, far beyond me. I don’t even know what she is! Still, she has stepped forward and taken me on as a student and has been an excellent teacher. And I know she has grown to care for me just as I have for her. It’s surprising and touching.
***
