Hierophant
When I was 12, I watched the movie The Doors for the first time and had my first dalliance with planned rebellion. I grew up on MTV and what we sweetly refer to now as terrestrial radio. I was given a balanced diet of classic rock and whatever was on the top 40 at the time. The formula for making popular music seemed pretty straight forward, even to my impressionable preteen mind. I had never encountered a frontman with a gospel before.
Jim infused blues with guttural wails and danced around the stage like he was summoning demons for a witch’s sabbath. I had no context for why I was drawn to this ritual mayhem, but his brand of rock and roll lit up all the pleasure centers in my brain like a pinball machine. I devoured all the albums (Absolutely Live is the best, hands down), read every book by every casual acquaintance who was ever sanctified by his personal gravity. My tiny teenage living space was a virtual shrine to the man. Jim offered a mentorship into the occult. Which isn’t to say all things satanic, witchy, goth, or unholy. He was the first person that lifted the veil for me.
The name- The Doors was taken from a William Blake quote- “If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is: infinite.” It would take me 30 more years to have an inkling of what that meant.
Jim was not my only hierophant, he only popped my cherry. He sent me on a lifelong mission of collecting gurus like charms for my spiritual bracelet. I went on to share my adoration with sages from all over time and space. Buddha for the stillness, Dogen for the discipline, Alan Watts for the cosmic wink, Oscar Wilde for the beauty, Nietzche for the fire, Rumi for the longing, Blavatsky for the wild unknown.
So here I am, a middle-aged woman in the Bible Belt trying to smuggle transformation into people’s homes through wax and wick. Trying to lift veils with one flame at a time. We were meant to remember something before ourselves, before we knew we were a “self”. My motley crew of shamans guided my feet to a path of unbecoming via rebellion, stillness, staring into the abyss until it stares back at you.
In the end, all I really learned from my teachers was this: carry the damn torch. Even if all you’ve got is a candle and the nerve to light it.
