Fear is Not the Goal

I get down on my knees a lot for my gods and spirits. (And you should read that in all the ways you can, just so you know.)

When I began working with the Ophelia, it was all fear and all stress all the time. I remember asking what she wanted from me, that she was putting me through so much. What did she want, that she was dragging me so low.  Why was she carving holes into my body and soul – I knelt and begged and pleaded.

And then she came to me like the ocean, like the River, and I fell into her arms. I didn’t fear her in that moment. She comes to me now more often as the River, wild and dangerous but the threat of drowning lessened. She comes to me as quiet, cold water. She comes to me as a stunning woman in blue with dark eyes that see through me. She has woven cloaks of feather and black and stood thousands of feet taller than me, but she comes now to me no taller than my mortal mother. Her hands are healing. Her voice breaks the dam of stifled emotions, and I can hold onto her slippery algae hands as I sob.

I know understand the purpose of some of my experiences, when I was being dragged through mud and deep water and emotional trauma. I am certainly a better devotee having experienced that.

I’m also not so afraid. I certainly have points that will set me off – in her deep ocean manifestations, the Ophelia brings with her the slither of deep creatures that sends me hyperventilating – but even that is subdued. She can surely hurt me, god that she is, and she can change her form and attitude towards me as she wills.

But the goal is not fear. Even with the Dierne, who bares the name Fear*, the goal is fear before the fall, fear before the thrill, fear before something so, so much greater.

I don’t get on my knees because of fear. I get down on them because of trust.