The Greek God Pan lingers in our consciousness, these strange summer days, as the root of the all too familiar words panic and pandemic. Language carries for us the codes of ancient cultures, just as myths and stories provide us with a map for understanding our human experiences, in a larger archetypal fashion.
Pan is the god of wild nature, as you may well know (or at least recall, vaguely, from high school). Half man and half goat, with a generally jovial disposition, and a love of music and sensual pleasures, he was a delight to the gods from the moment of his birth. However, his presence and appearance were considered far less comforting to humans, both in the ancient Greek culture and since. The wilds of nature, and the god himself, long ago came to be feared and demonized.
However, an interesting, and somewhat less known, nuance of his myth is Pan’s love of naps, and the terrible shout he gives when awoken or otherwise upset. When disturbed, he was said to unleash a horrible cry of anger that would conjure a sense of terror and anxiety in all those who heard it. Even unseen, just being near his terrain, in lonely, wild places, could cause a sudden feeling of unease and agitation, a “panic” with no discernible cause. Along with mirth, Pan is also a god of frenzy, fear, and madness.
Why bring this up, other than for pure intellectual and archetypal satisfaction? There is certainly a lot to be said about our current culture’s disowning of the wild, the death of Pan in the ancient myths, and his reawakening in this time of fear and of the earth’s response to our imbalanced relationship with her, but there is something else as well. Anxiety and despair expand in isolation, becoming evermore powerful in the lonely, wild landscape of disconnection. We are stronger in facing the unknown of our times, and the underworld of fear, when we are in community.
Still, how can we maintain community when we are distancing ourselves for our safety, and the safety of our loved ones? It’s easy to sink into our own shadows, to check out, and to quietly suffer alone. There is no shame in that response to this unprecedented situation, but, as time goes on, without a clear sense of how long we will need to adapt our way of living, it is necessary to find the ways in which we can be, and are, a community. It is time to counter fear and isolation with communitas.
Communitas is the bond, or intimacy, that is developed between people in a shared experience. It especially refers to the shared experience of liminal space, that subtle territory between dreaming and waking, where we meet with our unconscious minds, our deeper intuitive and soul aspects, and where we connect as a collective. The word is often used in a ritual context, describing the process of ceremony or rites of passage, though we can also find communitas in the dark of a theatre, when we are moved by the journey of a performance or story, and certainly in the dark of a shared time of uncertainty and change.
And, maybe, where we are now is a rite of passage too, the twilight at the cusp of a great change of ages. Or, maybe, it’s a time of meeting our underworlds, feeling alone with fear, anger, regret, or loss, as we sit with ourselves in limbo. Either way, or perhaps in both ways at once, we are together in the unknown wilds of its unfolding. We may have temporarily lost the ability to gather in the circle, but we are finding new ways to do so as well. May the start of this blog, for our extended community, be one more place to become stronger in communitas than we feel when we are isolated. Let it be a place to share and make offerings of care and inspiration.
In that spirit, we invite you to drop in and pull a card today, from whatever deck you have and love, or to access your intuitive guidance in some other form. We miss you. We ask this question: What will nurture all of our hearts and give us the resilience we need during these times of change?
Please share the messages that come through you, and your sacred instruments, below.
And check back on August 22nd, for part two of this month’s theme, which will emphasize self care tips, working with chamomile and citrine.
With love, divine light, and communitas,
from the eleventh house
-This blog was written by Melusina Gomez. You can find out more about her work and healing practice at www.metzmecatl.com
