The Womb Tomb of the Queen Mother
My love of Asian culture began early. As a child, I cherished the geisha dolls wrapped in richly brocaded kimonos on lacquer stands that my uncle sent me from Japan, and as a teen, was fascinated by my aunt’s awe inspiring tales of her frequent journeys to India where she sat at the feet of revered gurus and saints. My grandmother was so inspired by Asian architecture that she designed a Japanese style house complete with shoji screens and peaked roofs reminiscent of Thailand. I fervently studied Chinese calligraphy, Chinese medicine, and practiced a lifetime of Tibetan Buddhism. I traveled and taught in China, Japan, India, Taiwan, and Hong kong and felt more naturally at home in those countries than my own.
However, in recent years I began to feel that I was ignoring my western ancestry. I had treated it tentatively because as I looked back through the ages, I found myself repelled by the seemingly endless history of of brutal wars and oppression all caught in the fierce grip of patriarchy and spiritual traditions that felt domineering and constricting.
My love of the earth and her land, plants, trees, waters, and astounding landscapes led me to search through thousands of years to find cultures free of the grip of this insidious oppression. I longed for the wisdom of earth-based feminine cultures and finally decided to visit sacred sites of my pre-historic ancestors in the lands they had inhabited.
My first of many pilgrimages to my ancient British, Irish, and Scandinavian roots was a visit to Newgrange, a passage tomb built over 5,200 years ago. Older than Stonehenge and the great pyramids of Giza, it was envisioned and built by unknown ancestors in the rolling green farmland near Dublin, Ireland. My friend and I approached by foot and the first sight was breathtaking; an enormous emerald green mound rose like a great breast from a grassy meadow in the distance. It was lovingly held by a sparkling white quartz wall and surrounded by a ring of ninety-seven massive stones. As we approached the entrance we saw that many were engraved with beautifully rendered triple spirals; ancient goddess symbols probably carved 2500 years before the Celts. The spiral designs rotated clockwise on the way to the center and anti-clockwise away from the center representing the path we journey inward toward source and outward toward life, death, and rebirth.
Led by a guide with a flashlight, we traveled down into the earth through a dark uterine passageway lined with rusty ocher walls, also carved with spirals, until we reached an inner chamber full of bones, offering bowls, and ritual objects. By the time I reached the inner chamber a thrill of recognition rushed through me; I felt utterly, eerily at home. Then through the use of artificial light, we experienced the first rays of the sun beam through a crack just as it has appeared for eons on the dawn of the winter solstice. My breath caught as a golden shaft of light poured through the narrow portal and illuminated the dark womb tomb with a rich golden light. I was astonished by what these ancient ancestors had created with sophisticated scientific knowledge.
For people long ago, it marked a celebration of hope; a return of the light after a frightening period of darkness that had dimmed day by day and honored the miracle of the sun’s return and the promise of a new year’s harvest.
When I walked out of the inner chamber of Newgrange, past its gigantic carved standing stones, I not only felt the remarkable intelligence of my western ancestors but also recalled the vivid presence of Xi Wangmu ,the mythical Queen Mother of ancient China who often represented, before her capture by patriarchy, an inner journey of surrender, death and rebirth.
The journey to the womb tomb of the Great Mother has seemed remarkably relevant to my inner journey. I have, for many years, after many mistakes, taken the time before the solstice to ritually descend into my own darkness and let go, like the leaves in autumn, of whatever hadn’t served me in the previous seasons. I gathered the courage to allow myself to surrender to an unknown future, a challenging ride through light and dark, up and down, happiness and sorrow, confidence and hopelessness.
Although, reminded that in nature, dusk fades into night, dawn breaks into day, and the seasons move from times of relentless growth, to blossoming, to abundance, to letting go, on to the stillness and dark of winter, there have always been times in my life where I’ve come to a transition that has called for surrender far larger than I felt I could handle. Whether it was the end of life as I had known it, an important relationship, a job, a project, a belief system that had no longer served me, or a fantasy, seemingly real, that proved nearly fatal, I felt that my former life had come to an end.
In the past, before I realized that I had a choice, sometimes I decided to skip the descent into the dark unknown and instead drive myself through a whole new round of activity that felt so urgent that I’d make poor decisions far before it was clear who I really was and what I’d learned In my former life. Then, in a flurry, I wasted my life force and felt overwhelmed with indecision, caught in an identity crisis, or consumed by doubt. Then I was sucked back into old habitual patterns and plummeting self worth, all in vain attempts to avoid the terror of self- abandonment and the fearsome abyss of the unknown.
As I learned from my woeful attempts to stay safe rather than surrender to discomfort, another choice occurred that took more courage but proved to be far more interesting. Rather than remaining in the unhealthy relationships, staying with the stressful job that drained my energy, running away when I could have remained, not telling the whole truth, or turning my head in denial over what was staring me in face, I realized that I could surrender to the Queen Mother, garner my courage to remain still in the face of darkness and chaos, trust the process of loss, and hold onto the reins of tension that urged me to do something fast to quell my fears. I could quietly wait for the moment where a spark of my true nature lit up and a small voice said "yes! You are here, don't move yet. Stay awhile and listen.” And I’d listen, and as kindly as I could, tolerate my weaknesses, doubts and fears. I realized I’d grown stronger in the waiting, and felt relief, as I looked back, that I had averted disaster. If I could be still enough to build the potency of wisdom, when the cervix finally opened, I would know, without a doubt that I could jump through a dragon hole and birth a vision I never could have imagined, a true expression of my original nature. Thus I could emerge from the intensity of the womb tomb transformed, fresh, green, fragile, and authentically alive, knowing I had returned to grow a new beginning.
“Womb Tomb of the Great Mother.” By Marlow Brooks
Marlow Brooks is a healer, artist, writer, meditation teacher and long time student of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche and Kobun Chino Roshi. Marlow lives in Boulder, Colorado and conducts workshops worldwide. For the past 21 years she has taught a year-long course, “The Psychology of the Five Elements and Plant Spirit Healing” at Naropa University. Marlow has written 3 books, “Singing Our Hearts Song: A Guide to the Five Elements and Plant Spirit Healing”, “The Way Through”, a book of poetry and painting, and “Words of the Heart.” Her workshops are lively, rejuvenating, and inspiring. Participants can expect to walk away experiencing the deep support of the natural world and it’s elements as well as a fresh perspective on their life’s journey towards their personal health and true calling.
http://marlowbrooks.com
