DRAGON FIRE
Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are really princesses who are waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage.
RILKE
Letters to a Young Poet
According to the great mythologist Joseph Campbell, toward the end of every heroine’s journey, she faces a slimy, fire-breathing, badass dragon (or two) that forces her to face her fears and fight for her soul’s truth. Noela Evans tells us, “Challenge is a dragon with a gift in its mouth…. Tame the dragon and the gift is yours.”1 But, let’s be real clear: Dragons can’t be perfumed away with positive affirmations or cleaned up with simple spiritual techniques. Dragons rip open our wounds and make a mess. On Purpose. Yes, dragons are a terrifying but necessary sacred set-up, because they demand courageous action. They test us, with unrelenting fire, to find out if we’ve actually metabolized all the profound realizations we’ve acquired thus far on our soul’s journey. Dragons demand we walk our spiritual talk, sometimes while wearing combat boots.
My original publisher was one of my dragons.
Four months after my Red family re-union, I finally turned in a manuscript to my publisher. Funny thing about expressing your soul’s truth: not everybody likes it. My editor told me my manuscript was too dramatic, too emotional, too self-indulgent (labels pinned on every female memoirist), oddly written (my spaces and capitalization), not to mention strange, difficult to relate to, and therefore completely unhelpful to the reader. She told me that nobody cares about my personal journey since I’m not famous, and therefore this book would never sell. She explained that they, the publisher, contracted me because they thought I was going to “hit it big” in the spirituality arena, but this draft did not reflect their hopes or support their plans for me, at all. My editor then proceeded to cut out almost every vulnerable piece of my book, which felt quite a bit like she was cutting off the limbs of my own body. She finished our awesome meeting by telling me that I didn’t have the literary chops to write a memoir and had forty-five days to write the self-help book they had originally contracted me to write.
(Sounds of gunshots hitting my Red heart.)
My editor’s response was a lot like I had written out every single one of my worst fears about this book and then had her read them out loud to me. This was a big fucking clue that my editor was the perfect projection of my own self-doubt (I’m not talented enough to write without the help of my ex-boyfriend), wounds (my Red feminine experience and expression are unwanted by this world), and worries (by writing my personal story instead of a straight-up self-help book, I was no longer in service to you, my beloved reader, or, gulp, the Divine Feminine).
As I drove away from my publisher’s office, I could barely see straight; my epic sense of failure blacked out my inner vision. But thankfully, I received a miracle (at least for a San Franciscan): a parking space. Right in front of the glorious Grace Cathedral. After I walked through the enormous wood-sculpted doors and practically crawled down the aisle on my hands and knees, I saw something Red out of the corner of my tear-filled eye. I veered left and found myself in front of a stunning modern Greek icon of Mary Magdalene painted in a bright Red robe and pointing to an egg. It was inspired by a popular story in the Eastern Orthodox tradition:
Once upon a new millennium, a powerful spiritual teacher named Mary Magdalene decided to visit the Roman emperor Tiberius to tell him about the risen Christ. For this important meeting, Mary brought a white egg as a symbol of new life, and Christ’s resurrection (she also knew men dug visuals). After Mary shared the good news, Tiberius announced, “A human being can no more rise from the dead than the egg in your hand could turn red.” Mary looked him straight in the eye (I imagine while cocking an eyebrow), raised the egg to her chest (directly in front of her heart), pointed to it, and presto, the white egg turned a deep shade of Red. Needless to say, Tiberius got on board after that sacred showdown. During our interview for my Redvolution film, Nancy Qualls-Corbett declared, “Magdalene brings us all this Red egg, which represents the passion for the potential of new life that is in all of us.”
Passion
For
The
Potential
Of
New
Life
However, I wasn’t feeling very passionate for a new life or a new book draft at that moment. Instead, I folded to the floor in front of M.M., sobbing.
Emily called me that night but couldn’t get a word in edgewise. I waterfalled into the phone:
“What the fuck is the point of writing my soul’s truth if the final product sucks and doesn’t help others?! Everything my editor said about my manuscript is true!!! I can’t even argue with her! I can’t believe I’ve wasted so much of my own and my publisher’s life! And, how the hell am I supposed to write a self-help book in the next forty-five days about how to be a Redvolutionary?! I can only imagine the back cover:
How to lose your career, your fame, your fortune, your soul mate, your purpose, your coolness, and even become celibate!”
After what I had been through — and was still going through — I couldn’t imagine why anyone would willingly want to be a Redvolutionary. As Bill Plotkin admits in Soulcraft: “To uncover the secrets of our souls, we must journey into the unknown, deep into the darkness of our selves and farther into an outer world of many dangers and uncertainties. [Those who do so] understand that no one would casually or gleefully choose such a thing.”2
My agent — the professional liaison between myself and the publisher — called me the morning after my meeting with my editor to discuss our options. She gave it to me straight: I needed to make a final choice — memoir or self-help. My agent informed me, however, that if I chose memoir, I would need to trash the entire manuscript and learn how to actually write a memoir, which could take years. Also, choosing memoir meant I would have to leave my publisher, as they had made it very clear they only wanted a self-help book from me. My agent thought I should stick to the original plan, which is precisely what an agent is supposed to think, because it keeps me in line with my legal contract. Speaking of which, my agent then upped the ante by reminding me that if I didn’t write a self-help book ASAP, not only would I lose the large amount of money coming to me, but I would owe my publisher the advance I had been living off this past year … and my publisher could take me to court. Also, to break my contract would interfere with every future publisher’s consideration of my books. It could “quite possibly” ruin my writing career. (Big gulp.) My agent told me I needed to let them know my decision in a week.
Over the next four days, I couldn’t eat or sleep. I experienced dizzy spells and stomach pains and developed an itchy, burning rash that covered my entire body. In addition, sciatica flared up, making it painful to even walk my dog around the block (the publisher had literally become a pain in my ass). I was a Red-hot mess. I finally went to a naturopathic doctor who, after taking blood, urine, and saliva tests, worriedly told me that my body was past the burn-out phase and was now in the process of shutting down. My doctor urged me to drop everything.
But I couldn’t.
Now might be a good time to share with you one more thing my publishing editor was adamant about: nobody likes to read a book about how hard it was to write that book. I get her point. But I don’t believe in it. Especially when the struggle to write said book mirrors the universal struggle between dragon and heroine, between lower ego and soul, between external world and internal world, between everything false and Her.
The morning after my alarming doctor’s visit, I received an email I’ve never received prior or since: an invitation to take a spiritual-memoir writing class. The email hit me like a sack of warm feathers. I wondered what the difference was between a memoir (which my editor and agent had made very clear I don’t have the talent for writing) and a spiritual memoir. So, I Googled, clicked on the first link (spiritualmemoir.com), and read how spiritual memoirs often include personal stories mixed with spiritual guidance, scholarship and theology mixed with dreams and visions, conversations between the writer and the Divine, and all sorts of other-worldly “freaky shit” and everyday ordinary drama. In other words, spiritual memoirs are mystical mashups between the sacred and the profane, the cosmic and the personal, and are less about literary style and more about soul style. A Red lightbulb turned on. Ah. Fucking. Ha. This is what I’ve been intuitively writing all along. I just had no label for it, until now.
Something else I found out: Spiritual memoirs have a history of being misunderstood by those who favor logos over eros, the D.M. over the D.F., facts over vision, sales over soul, and lines over circles. Carole Lee Flinders states in Enduring Grace:
Visionary writing, particularly by women, has waited a long time to receive the informed and sympathetic reading it deserves. Its emotional intensity, imaginative flights, and erotic imagery have alienated more than a few male medieval scholars, for whom these qualities can seem as symptomatic of hysteria or irrationality as they are of sanctity.3
Once again, we’ve forgotten that God can sound like a Girl. Flinders admits that many female mystics of the past “wrote in that ‘different voice,’ whose inflections are only now being fully grasped. Informality, earthiness, warmth of feeling, a preference for open-ended literary form — these qualities have traditionally baffled and disconcerted men of letters”4 and, apparently, certain publishing editors.
I speak Goddess, not English.
I dunno about you, but personally, I want to learn about the D.F. from someone who dares to speak Her. The good news is it doesn’t take fancy techniques to speak Her. When you connect more consciously with your soul, it will naturally start to affect your human voice. Your soul’s voice isn’t just a voice “from the divine”; it’s also how the Divine communicates through and as you. You mix and match together. Therefore, your soul might not always sound mystically poetic. She might speak some sort of spiritual street slang (“gangsta goddess”) or swear like a sailor or sing like an angel. She might bubble beliefs like a valley girl with a wad of gum in her mouth, or twang truths like a kinky cowgirl riding bareback through the Wild West of reality, or bleep blessings like an “alien” from the fifth dimension, or float ideas like a planetary body that orbits just left of everything you think you know.
This is how She Speaks.
This isn’t the only way the Divine Feminine speaks, but this is a voice that most of us have shut up because we have not been taught to respect or value it. We have been schooled out of it. This is the voice that doesn’t give a shit about being literary or witty or pretty or marketable or “spiritual.” As Teresa of Ávila warns us, “God is your business and language. Whoever wants to speak to you must learn this language; and if he doesn’t, be on your guard that you don’t learn his; it will be hell.”5
Why is it so important to uncover and unleash your soul’s voice? Well, because for women, finding their authentic voice is almost, if not quite, the equivalent to finding their true identity.
Every time you speak your truth,
a Goddess tattoos your name across Her Belly.
Creating space to listen and then express our soul’s voice is one of our most important spiritual practices. Her voice is our lighthouse Home. While there’s no one way or “right” way the Divine Feminine speaks, most of us do know when She is speaking. We can feel it.
FUGGEDABOUTIT
However, for many of us, our desire to express our soul is blocked by fears of what might happen if we actually do so. As upset as I was about my editor’s orders to ditch my soul book, part of me also felt, well, relieved. The thought of actually publishing my “strange” soul book filled me with stomach-heaving, skin-flaming fear.
In The Divine Feminine Fire, Teri Degler informs us that despite how the thirteenth-century mystic Mechthild de Magdeburg paints an image of a Divine Feminine being “who is almost aching to hear us sing out and express ourselves,”6 Mechthild is terrified, because she knows that her writing might not be accepted or liked, could be viewed as heretical, and might even cost her her life. Mechthild writes, “I was warned against writing this book. People said: If one did not watch out, it could be burned.”7 Degler tells us that one reason female mystics of the past finally wrote what needed to be written, despite their internal fears and external threats, was that they realized there would be a price to pay if they didn’t. In fact, several of them became quite ill until they finally started writing what their soul was begging them to write.
Now, I’m not putting myself in the same room as the resplendent female mystics of the past, nor do I think this book is some great mystical text (I’m a slow learner and still in the awkward process of uncensoring my soul), but I am acknowledging that to share our unique voices and stories can be toe-curlingly terrifying when we have a history like we do. Cruel treatment of women who publicly express their truth, especially their spiritual truth, is part of our collective memory, and it affects our present lives and physical bodies in a variety of intense ways. But, facing the dark — past and present — is often a prerequisite for shining our light.
By unleashing our soul, we create energetic pathways for other women to do so as well. I know I could not be expressing what I am in this book if it weren’t for the brave women who have dared to voice their souls before me. In my opinion, it’s not only our mission to do whatever we can to voice our own souls, but it’s also our responsibility to coax the soul voices out of other women. And no matter what comes tumbling out — a fireball or a feather, a peculiar dance or an animalistic moan, a shy smile or slippery tears, “blah bloh boyuu booger” or a personal story mixed with “the freaky shit” — we should nod with respect and say, “Hell yeah, Sista, bring it on. Bring. It. ON!”
Okay, back to my spiritual soap opera.
HANGING ON FOR DEAR LIFE
As I continued to peruse the spiritual-memoir website, my consciousness collected evidence from my past: that last difficult chapter of my college thesis where I felt divinely compelled to share my personal experiences and dreams; my Red journal; the destruction of my computer in graduate school, which, er, “encouraged” me to write my personal story with Kali in that Red paper instead of my academic treatise. I then thought about my cabin-fevered experience, when I had heard what my soul most longed to express in this lifetime: Its love for the divine. After I put together the pieces of my puzzle, my palm found my forehead (Smack!): “Lady! You’ve been guiding me to write Our Love Story as it unfolds for years!” (I told you I was a slow one.)
Despite (or because of) this Redvelation, my mind whirled, desperately trying to find some way to stay with my publisher. Campbell reminds us: “The ultimate dragon is within you, it is your ego clamping you down,”8 and my ego was not gonna give up without a fight. It was hanging on for dear life to this book deal — the only thing left of my previous life and the last remaining vestige of my professional pride. Besides reminding me of my agent’s dire warnings and the fact that the publishing deal provided my only income, my ego cleverly convinced me that my publisher was the only way to get my soul’s voice out into the world. In one of her keynotes, Caroline Myss warns, “God never calls you to something that doesn’t challenge you on the earth level. Why? You have to be tested, you have to be broken, you have to choose which voice you will listen to.”9
(Pause.)
You might be thinking right about now (or way before right now), “Come on, it’s just a stupid publishing deal! I could’ve left without blinking!” And you probably could (or already have), because that’s not your trigger. Something or someone else is. Our dragons look and act differently from each other; my dragon might be your hamster and vice versa. But we’ve all got ’em. You see, it’s not about what the dragon looks like; it’s about what the dragon activates inside of us that makes it so difficult to face.
In other words, this wasn’t just about a book deal.
MY DRAGON’S DRAGON
When my spiritual stress level hit an all-time high, what felt like my dragon’s dragon blazed onto the scene. Maya, who happened to be submitting her book proposal to my publisher at that very time, launched a new website and career slant that looked and sounded uncannily like mine, even using the same Red symbols and Red language … even creating a “Red Lady” blog.
(Deep, shaky inhale.)
When I saw Maya’s new website, it felt like two thousand years’ worth of purpose popped. My heart tore from my chest, and my cells cringed with fear. Attempting to make sense out of these extreme reactions, my mind quickly admonished me: “Sera, you’re simply feeling threatened by her, just like you did in graduate school! It’s time to grow up and out of this one. You certainly don’t own the Red Lady! Maya has every right to share her own experiences and expressions of Red! In fact, that’s what you want women to do — to express their Divine Feminine truth!” I thought of my favorite humorous greeting card by the company Papyrus, depicting a circle of dancing women with a text bubble over each of their heads, reading: “I’m the Goddess” “No, I’m the Goddess” “Get real, ladies, I’M THE GODDESS!” and tried to shake the trauma out of my system with humor.
But despite my attempt at comic relief and my spiritually correct reasoning, my reopened wounds wailed: Maybe Maya deserves to be the one who more publicly voices Red, because she’s more confident, more soulful, more embodied, more fierce, more mystical, and definitely a gifted Writer with a capital “W”; she’s not some stage-frightened, self-doubting, disembodied, untalented writer who loses her soul as often as she loses her keys. Maybe I’m too slow in my Divine Feminine development, and the Red Lady was choosing Maya to be Her personal spokesperson instead of me? Red amped up in graduate school when I met Maya; maybe Red was actually her mission, not mine — after all, we were so close, our mystical wires could have gotten crossed over the years. Maybe I wasn’t a Red One after all, only a wannabe?
For some odd reason the obvious notion that Maya and I could both offer Red publicly didn’t feel “right” for reasons I couldn’t explain at that time, and the seemingly ominous situation made me cling tighter to my publisher.
(Awkward pause.)
Look, the soul path is far from logical or refined, and this unflattering, extraemo part of my journey really isn’t easy to share with you. However, I believe that the more honest we are about the varieties of dragons we host, the more we can identify them when they’re breathing fire down our necks. As Tom Robbins reminds us in Still Life with Woodpecker, “We’re our own dragons as well as our own heroes, and we have to rescue ourselves from ourselves.”10 When a woman recognizes, faces, and integrates a dragon, we all benefit from her valiance and gain that much more ability to recognize, face, and integrate (and sometimes slay) our own. The important thing to remember about dragons is that they guard our buried treasure. When a dragon appears, it means gold is right behind it … if we have the courage to stand our ground and fully meet it.
It was Meeting time …