Enter the Duende

Dear Heather,
It is after midnight. My cell is flooded with beautiful white light from the full moon and I finally have come to terms with my duende. I am anxious to finally put this to rest and return to my home in Lemuria. This experience has required intense meditation and taken my mind to places I had no desire to go. Not only were many painful but I also had no desire to share them. How will I ever finish this? I think I know.

But I am getting ahead of myself. First of all duende is understood by many as a dark force. When I was first diagnosed with MS I felt like a predator had entered my body and I had to kill it. It is natural, now, to consider that exterior force as duende. I no longer believe this. I can not rationalize the happenings on this plane being invaded by some sinister exterior source, and in the case of my MS, being personally directed to Jane. . I now believe it is like the bumper sticker I saw the other day that said: "Shit happens". I live in an environment of toxins. As a child I ran along the road watching a low flying plane spraying a field with DDT. The only dark shadows were present in my own environment, not some evil force sent from the unknown.

Ok, duende did not invade me from the exterior but it still needs definition in my beliefs and I think I have arrived at a conclusion. To me duende is an extreme duality; from the depths of emotional truthful pain to the accomplishment of something better then the ordinary. It is only accomplished by letting go of our social adaptations and touching the core of honesty. This time of my life is a perfect time to wrestle with this. This is a time when I have had to deal with 5 important deaths within my family, from my mother, my husband and the latest being my 21 year old grandson. I am not going to write about this but I mention it because the duende helped me to see a situation we are unable to understand with truthful emotions rather then the coping words we tend to cling to. Instead I have searched my writings and art work for what I consider a feat of duende; something that contained and was built upon a dark shadow, but also contained only truth, and once finished had reached beyond my abilities at that time. I am going to enter this into the writings of the Abbey this morning, and tomorrow add "THE MIDNIGHT DANCE", an oil painting and short essay that I feel may have accomplished this.

Then I am going to pack up my things and go back to my house in Lemuria. I came in wounded and I leave with a thankful heart that this sanctuary was created. Love to all the marvelous writers within these walls.

CroneJane