Incarnating the Unicorn
I would like to end with an active imagination that
speaks of a new realization of the power in nature which the unicorn
represents. It seems that we can no
longer kill, capture, or even tame the unicorn's transformative powers, as they
did in the Middle Ages. Today, in our
rapidly changing culture and with the development of consciousness in many new
directions, we might consider letting the unicorn teach us its wisdom and show
us how to handle the transformations that are coming our way. This could be the knowledge we need to turn
back the tides of destruction.
I see a beautiful, strong white unicorn,
running in a field, with his mane and tail flowing in the wind. I manage to go up to him and he lets me touch
him. I am amazed that he gives me this
honor. Then he tosses his head and runs
off, only to return again in a moment.
He starts circling around me, running faster and faster, closer and
closer, while I stand there watching him.
As he runs, he kicks up the earth, and it starts encircling me in a
tower of green earth. Yet it is like
transparent green glass to me; I can see through it. Then it turns to the darkness of earth, and
soon I am enclosed in a small earthen tower.
There is one hole left open, and the unicorn comes and looks in at me,
offering comfort. Soon I sit down on the
ground across from the opening and the unicorn, and wait.
After a while, I feel something on
my forehead, and I discover that I have a horn growing out of the center of my
brow. I see it touching the horn that
the unicorn has put through the opening.
Slowly, I feel myself turning into something else; when I look, I see
that I now have the body of a unicorn. I
am a black unicorn. When the
transformation is complete, I stand and slash off the entire top of the tower
with my horn. It falls away. The white unicorn uses his horn to slash
down, ripping away the body of the tower, so that it falls away and I am free
of it.
We touch horns and nuzzle. It feels wonderful in this body! Then he starts off and I know that I must
follow his lead. We race across a grassy
plain, separating and coming together, crisscrossing, playing and exalting in
our movement. We come to a wood and he
leads the way to a stream. I bend to
drink, but I don't know what to do with my horn, it keeps getting in the way of
my drinking! I realize that I have to
learn how to live in this new body. The
white unicorn doesn't have any trouble drinking, and he waits calmly while I
figure out how to do it. Then he leads
the way up a bank and on into the woods to a clearing.
He stops and starts sharpening his
horn against a tree, and I begin to do the same, only I feel badly about
scarring the tree. So I end up rubbing
my horn on the earth itself. But I feel
that this is silly, a mere human perception of right or wrong, and so I finally
go back to sharpening my horn on the tree.
After this preparation, the white unicorn rears up, and I suddenly know
that he is going to teach me how to fight.
I don't take it very seriously until I see that he really is going to
attack me! We rear and lock horns,
baring teeth and using our hooves. I
can't quite figure out how to use my horn - like a rapier in fencing or like a
pike to thrust into something? After a
while, the white unicorn stops and turns to face a giant who suddenly appears,
as if out of the air. The lesson now
continues with the giant. The unicorn
rears up and plunges its horn into the giant's belly, rearing again to strike
in the heart. With swift and clean
strokes he fights, and then the giant vanishes.
Next a serpent appears, crawling on
the path. I immediately think, "He
will stomp on it or kill it with a flick of his horn." (I had become quite
bloodthirsty by this time.) Instead, the
white unicorn bends his horn to the ground, and the serpent twines itself
around it. I see then that it is a
cobra, and am amazed that it submits itself to having the point of the horn
pierce through the top of its 'neck'.
Apparently unhurt, it settles there like a crown, looking out and all
around. The white unicorn looks at me as
another serpent crawls to my feet. I
bend my head down to let this other snake twine itself around my horn. Since I am really a little bit afraid, I
start wondering how it will do this, and if it will come too near my face. But it crawls up to the base of my horn and
winds itself around it, piercing itself, like its sister, on the point and
settling down as if it were the Serpent Crown of the Pharaohs.
At this point, my consciousness
takes over and I start to remember things about serpents. Were they dangerous to unicorns? Didn't both the unicorn and the serpent
belong to the Goddess? I struggle and
finally dismiss all these thoughts from my mind, because I want to experience
something new.
I look around me - there is the
white unicorn, crowned with the serpent of wisdom, and I know that I am just as
beautiful in my blackness. We start off
down the path through the forest and end up at the ocean. Out in the ocean, a giant wave is coming
toward us. As the wave hangs over us,
the white unicorn steps into the water and touches his horn to the waters. As he does this, the wave descends on itself,
flowing back on itself. The unicorn
turns to me and I step into the water, joining him, pushing back and dispersing
the destructive power of the wave. We
run lightly over the water, as the wave is pushed back onto itself and forms
other, smaller waves which sink into the depths and rise up once again. The waters circle around, its power unchanged
yet no longer destructive.
Then I look back to shore and see
that all along the beach there are multitudes of unicorns, black and white ones
standing on shore with their horns pointing into the water, helping to
dissipate the destructiveness. And I am
happy beyond measure to be one of these guardians; to be there on that beach to
meet the great wave.
To
become the unicorn is the only way to experience its power and being. A beast who embodies spirit is a fitting
symbol of the feminine powers of transformation, for it unites our earthy and
heavenly natures. Wild, fierce and
beautiful beyond imagining, the unicorn stands over against the overwhelming
powers of collective consciousness. It
offers us the opportunity to use our creative powers to help transform the
destructiveness of the collective forces at work in our world into the waters
of a new birth.
Go outside
and watch the Moon cycle for at least a month. Don’t forget to dance! What
changes come in your life as the Moon waxes and wanes? Pay attention to your dreams, especially
right before your period. They will tell
you something important about your life.
Track when you dream and see how it relates to the phases of the Moon.
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