The Black Panther

I met the Black Panther during a period that was difficult, because I was experiencing a crushing internal conflict that I didn't know how to deal with.
As I am writing this text now, I am trying to organize everything into comprehensible words. To put it simply, I was in a dark place and I did not want to exist. I write deliberately not to exist, because if I wrote to die it might sound like I planned my death and the way to die, but no, nothing like that.
I just wanted not to be. I would call it an escape.

Everything that followed happened completely spontaneously. I would also like to add that up until then, I had not searched for any information about black panthers, I had not studied information about active or spontaneous imagination. Which, of course, changed after my below experience.

So, I was sick, it was evening, it was dark, it was the time when you go to sleep and I was lying in my bed.
I closed my eyes and completely fell into the great Nothing that flooded me. The Big Nothing was dark, deep and completely empty until the moment... when I felt I was jumping or rather falling into the water. I fell into the dark water and I dived deep.
It was soothing, liberating, and I felt an urge to swim. When I surfaced into the black night, I discovered that I was in a large lake. I decided to dive into the lake and to swim across to the other side. After I found myself on the shore, I got out of the water.
The entire lake was surrounded by a deep forest. Where I stepped ashore was a sandy beach lit by the moon. Suddenly, I saw enchanting emerald eyes emerge from the darkness of the forest.
I wasn't afraid, I felt as alive as one could possibly can.
The creature in front of me took a step towards me and I saw a beautiful huge Black Panther. I can't describe in words how happy I was. It was as if I met again a lost friend who was so dear to me as if he were a piece of me. As if he always belonged to me and now we have met again after a very long time. I hugged him when he approached me and was very touched.. I lay against him and enjoyed the softness of his fur and the security I felt with him. I looked at him and admired his incredible elegance, strength and majesty that radiated from him. His beautiful, shiny fur.
After some time it was time to say goodbye and I promised him that I would come back. I dived into the water again and swam across the lake to the other shore.
On the other bank stood a house lit by a fireplace burning inside. I understood that this is my house, from which I would visit my new - old friend.

As I later understood from the literature and thanks to two years of art therapy training, this type of experience is called spontaneous imagination.

In the book The Healing Power of Imagination, Luise Reddemann writes something that I think clearly describes the process that took place for me. She writes that the therapy of patients affected by trauma and burnout did not succeed in the classical ways, as the therapists, her colleagues and she imagined. The turning point came when they took into account the insight formulated by Hölderlin: "Where there is danger, rescue also grows."

Furthermore, Luise Reddemann writes:
"We learned this from our patients, because they found creative solutions for themselves in situations of their greatest need. They discovered inner guides, fairies, guardian angels, animal figures and others so that they would not feel alone and find solace. Once our patients noticed that we didn't think they were crazy, but that we saw their creative solutions as remarkable and great, they allowed us to participate in these worlds."

To fulfill my promise to go back required me to use active imagination.
Below I will share the stories that I experienced during my adventures with the Black Panther in the dark forest.

In conclusion, I just want to say that after this very powerful experience, I started looking for black panther photos, because I decided to paint my first picture of a totem animal, my guide.
Every time I saw his photo, a rush of emotions that I felt when we first met appeared again. I didn't understand at all where these feelings were coming from me, where they came from. And every time their intensity surprised me. I know it sounds pretty crazy, but I already know it's not crazy.
Of course, I was also looking for information about the life of black panthers and their importance in the life of natural cultures, which I intend to write about more here.

The Queen

As I wrote above, after the first meeting with the Panther, I made a decision and promised him that I would return to him.

Going back required active imagination, which means that I would go back in my imagination to where my last trip had ended.
I set out on my journey in the morning after waking up, when no one was home and could not disturb me. I sat down, closed my eyes and found myself in the house by the lake. No one was there, but me.
I jumped into the water naked and swam across the lake again in the dark. When I stepped onto the shore, where I first met the Panther, a blue translucent tunic wrapped around me, which seemed to be out of this world. It was not made of cloth, but of blue light. Immediately, emerald eyes appeared coming from the dark forest. We greeted each other with the Panther with a hug. My emotions haven't lost a drop of the intensity that flooded me the first time we met. I knew we were going to a dark forest and that I needed to meet someone who lived in the forest. However, I had no idea who they were.
After a short walk, the trees parted and the space in front of us lit up.
Directly across from us sat a queen bathed in golden light on a throne. She wore a white dress embroidered with gold, and a lioness lay on her left hand by the throne. The panther and the lioness greeted each other and lay down with their heads facing each other.
The queen radiated courage, pride, compassion and wisdom. She was waiting for me.
I felt like we had known each other forever. Suddenly she started to speak to me:

"I welcome you. I am very pleased that you found your way to me. My message is the following: A good ruler is one who knows how to rule his life. Only then, when one has mastered themselves, will they be a good and useful ruler to others. To rule others and oneself is not to suppress, oppress, or exercise arbitrariness. My advice to you is this: direct your passion, your fire, which is great and which has the power to destroy, to make your dream come true. Let your fire, your passion help you create. You have great potential and you know it. You suspect and perhaps already know what you have to do. Now you need to direct your will and find the courage to make your dream come true. You have great power, use your compassion too. Stop evaluating everything and direct your attention to creating what you want. Work hard every day, step by step, to fulfill your dream. Then you will become the queen of your life. I'll give you a present, here. " - She pulled out a small ball whose outlines were not fully visible as a huge glow spread out from it:
"I'm going to put this ball in your heart. At the moment when you are overcame by feelings that prevent you from showing your courage and walking on the path of your realization, at the moment when you are overcame by weakness, self-pity, small-mindedness, anger, envy, think of this little orb and let it shine brightly by force. This gift from me is yours alone. Never save someone by giving them a piece of yourself. Always help people by teaching them to find their own gifts. That's your way. Don't tell anyone about our meeting for seven days. God be with you. "

With that we said our goodbyes and walked with Panther back to the lakeshore.
After a long hug, the blue light tunic came off me and I stepped into the water. I got out on the other bank near a wooden house with a burning fireplace, opened the door and entered.

As soon as I opened my eyes, I was surprised at the story that took place in my imagination. I decided to take this trip again and write everything down carefully immediately after returning.

The Dark One

Four days after I met with the Queen, I again visited the house on the shore and swam across the lake.
As soon as I stepped ashore, the translucent tunic of blue light enveloped my body. The panther was already waiting and after a warm welcome we almost ran into the dark forest. The story was calling me... or was it someone who was waiting for me again?
The trees parted in front of us and we ran. Suddenly, a large circular space illuminated by the moon opened in front of us, on which stood a tall, slender, dark castle on a black rock, immersed in almost darkness. The line between light and dark ended just a few steps before the rock. I was afraid, but I knew that the trip to the castle was a must.
When we got closer to the castle, the door opened. Cold everywhere, and silence. No servants, no life.
We ascended the stairs to the first floor and found her sitting on a throne in a huge hall. She was changing before our eyes, the only thing that remained was the black color of her dress. She was everything we know from fairy tales and myths as an old hag, a dark queen, a harpy.
However, I sensed sadness and loneliness from her, which surprised me. She asked me why I was afraid of her:

"I can't hurt you more than your fear of me. Do you know it?"

I calmed down a bit and listened.

"You are strong and courageous, but fear of your strength prevents you from expressing yourself. You're afraid of me, you're afraid of your dark side. You are afraid that you will hurt someone, but you already know from experience that you hurt yourself and others the most when you deny any part of yourself. Look at me, I'm in denial too and what does it look like? I'm so sad and lonely that to remind people that I'm alive I always rage and show them my strength! Who likes it? No one, because I can make such a disaster for each of you that it will take ages for the White Queen to put everything in order, you understand? Ages!"

"Don't reject me. I will be by your side and trust that your wisdom will cause you to call upon me whenever you use your power with respect for all involved. Come see me anytime. You will have the power to do what you want, you just have to stop being afraid - express yourself, speak when necessary, assert your opinion, do what you feel."

"I'll give you a gift. Your fear is hidden in the belly area. Put this gift there. It is a shungite ball that is like a black hole. It will absorb everything you have not digested and at the same time give you strength, calmness and confidence. A golden dust swirls around the orb, which will help heal old wounds and heal your power center.”

I was thankful. I suddenly didn't want to leave, I felt surprisingly safe. But it was time, the panther led me out.
At the edge of the forest I hugged the Panther, swam across the lake and very quickly fell asleep in bed while the fire crackled in the fireplace.

The Savage

I was already on my third journey with my guide. Same ritual every time. Nothing could be skipped or missed.
Close your eyes, find yourself on the shore of a lake in a wooden house with a crackling fireplace inside, swim across the lake, the blue tunic glides over my body, the panther is already waiting.
But I never knew what would happen next. What I would discover in the dark forest remained a mystery and I looked forward to a new adventure every time, to one that I do not invent, to one that challenges me and to one I can be a part of.
We entered the forest, the dense forest, which spread out in front of us. I started to run and I knew that she was there somewhere. She looked down at me, she was at the top of a tree and she was laughing. She was full with fire, beautifully wild, untamed. I wanted to stop her, but she was running away from me, jumping from tree to tree like a monkey. I ran after her, but she just laughed. She was calling me to run up the tree after her. But I couldn't.

"And why cannot you?" she asked me.

"I do not know, I am scared, I have not climbed trees in a long time. When I was little I was afraid. Then suddenly when I was 13 years old I dared to do it and I could not stop. Now I am scared again. Come down."

"No, climb up if you want to talk with me." she replied.

So I climbed the next tree, because it was more passable for me.

The wild woman started to speak to me:

"You forgot your body, your joy. You are full of worries, stress, sometimes even fear of how you will handle it all. You lack lightness, agility, flexibility, detachment and yes, you know it, you lack joy. You've grown up fast and now you're just chasing time. You are exhausted because you owe your body movement and joy and you only give it work. What about your favorite dance? Your carefree joy? Come on!”

She challenged me to a race. We ran through the forest, it was so beautiful. We were hiding from each other. We spent the whole day playing. Towards the end of the day we found a place to sleep, made a fire and lay down on the ground. Just like that, we were not cold. I asked her who she was fooling around with when no one else was around and she told me:

"Well, with animals. It's magical with them, they are often much more playful and funnier than humans. After all, you yourself know how healing their company is. Animals are enough for me, they don't exhaust me like people do. People always want something, take it, chase something. Animals go through life, they are always present. They teach me by observing them, by how they live. They don't need to be convinced and instructed like humans. They are innocent in nature, like children. I'll give you a gift." - She gave me an elephant tusk, with an orange pulsating ball in it: "It is my friend's tusk, there is great power in it, protect it. "

We both fell asleep. I woke up later in the bed, in the house with the fireplace.
My friend had to stay on the other side.

An image from the original text about traveling with a panther showing an elephant tusk with a ball.

The picture on the left was created during art therapy training session, using the technique of washing away paint with water.
The similarity of the images only dawned on me when, years later, I put together my journal entries and paintings. The symbols are just mirror-inverted. This discovery was again exciting for me. We can also find this symbol on the head of the Egyptian Goddess Isis, on my Black Panther painting. The presence of this symbol in all three images was not planned.

The Old Woman

I left the cottage and jumped into the water.
I felt lonely and empty. I knew that there was something inside of me that I had to deal with and I was not enough.
The Panther was waiting for me. I hugged him and I felt great love. I would have remained his victim forever. We entered the forest again. This time, everything was foggy, only vague outlines of the trees were visible. After walking for a while, a hut appeared in front of us, and I somehow had an inkling of who I would meet there.

An old woman came out. "Be welcomed you my dear"

"Hello" I answered.

"What brings you here? " she asked.

"I'm afraid of old age, I've never thought about it like that before, I always looked forward to the chaos that I've been carrying around since I was young, and I knew that it would only come with age. I knew that my brokenness will fade with age. But now the time has come when I would like to stop everything and I know that it is not possible. I am afraid of old age, I look at my wrinkles, my withered skin, graying hair, and I look at the beautiful youth around me and I feel sad."

The old woman answered:

"But you are not sad that your wrinkles are increasing and you are closer to death. You are sad because of how many illusions you lost with age. Wisdom is not for free. You gain wisdom by losing your rose-colored glasses. Yes, you are well aware that you were more fun and cheerful when you acted like a carefree teenager or a naive woman who is dazzled by flattery. It was sweet. Of course, getting sober hurts. You no longer want and will not support a lot of illusions that made your life more bearable. My dear, you may feel that you have lost something, but what you lost was only for a moment and has no value to you anymore. What belongs to you stays and you get something extra. You have gained the ability to reach yourself, you can visit the Queen, the Dark One, the Wild One and me at any time and you know that you will always find support. Inside me. My dear, you feared nothing before, when you were younger and your soul was confused and you sought comfort in advice of older women. The time has come when you will be the comfort to many women. That's the cycle of life. Share with young people what makes you happy. Be with the children and rejoice that you came out of the veil of oblivion safe and alive. "

She hugged me and I fell asleep in her arms. It was as pleasant as a mother's hug. I missed that very, very much.

I woke up in the cabin. I didn't even have time to say goodbye.

What was the gift? The embrace.

Message of the Black Panther, the journey through the Dark Forest - Feminine Moon Archetypes

Exactly 10 years after the first meeting with the Black Panther on the shore of the lake, I was transcribing the whole story from my diary to this page.
I painted the panther long time ago and it has been with me ever since.

But what was really the message of our journey?

It must be said that I started having very vivid dreams around the time the Panther appeared. I met animals in my dreams, with some of them repeatedly. Some encounters were pleasant, some were not. I also met Archetypes, as Jung called symbolic figures that speak to us from our unconscious. I dedicate a special place here on my website to these colorful dreams because they became an essential part of my inner transformation, which was also reflected in external changes.

Shortly after meeting the Panther, I started studying art therapy, and there, too, Panther unexpectedly appeared to me:

However, I would like to go back to my journeys in the dark forest.
I don't need to emphasize that meeting the female characters was a surprise for me. After the first meeting with the Queen, however, I began to have an inkling that this was a contact with female archetypes. I started anticipating all the archetypes I could meet. It was very popular at the time for women to call themselves goddesses or witches. but they did not mean a witch, like the one was in my case.
So, I suspected that I would meet with the archetypes of femininity after the meeting with the first archetype, but I did not know what would happen next in my imagination and who I would actually meet.

This is the magic of active imagination, art therapy and dreams, that you cannot control them, that the unconscious with its messages that it sends to you is stronger and therefore has an enormous value. If I were to manipulate images or dreams and want to control them, it would be pure fantasy, but I would not get the essentials - the medicine hidden in these messages. We all carry our own medicine within us. The images, stories and beings within us can be very similar. However, each of us needs the deeply hidden information to come to us in a unique way. I can resonate with the story that someone else is telling, but I find the greatest treasure in the story that belongs only to me.

Finally there were four women in the dark forest and no goddess or sensual witch anywhere.
Well, I wrote everything down and continued to focus on the processes that were happening around me and in me. I confess that I did not work with the symbols - the gifts given to me by female archetypes for a long time and gradually forgot about everything. Except for my Panther.

But what suddenly happened! After 10 years of putting everything together, rewriting my experiences from my diary, the question suddenly came to me: why four female archetypes and why these four?

I went to sleep without an answer, I could not think of anything. The next day I sat down with my notebook again, to write and suddenly I understood!
Wow, what a discovery! In the same moment, I realized how blind I was. These four archetypes are the archetypes of the feminine cycle! They don't follow exactly as they should, but when I put them together correctly it all makes sense. Perhaps you have also read about the archetypes in the monthly cycle of a woman. I did a few years ago and I found it interesting, but I didn't put everything together with my experiences. And suddenly now I see exactly that it was them who spoke to me on my way through the dark forest.

I would like to start with the girl, the Savage - it's an archetype that awakens in us after menstruation, we start to gain strength and revive after demanding, sometimes literally debilitating days. This archetype also corresponds to the first quarter of our life, when we are young, fresh, unfettered, full of life and still cutely naive. Yes, of course, life can surprise us at any stage, including this one, and unfortunately we can mature prematurely. But we are talking now about the archetype.

Next comes the Queen's turn. It's ovulation time. A woman is in full force, nature arranged it so that she looks beautiful, radiant and full of energy.
My mom and I never talked much about periods. I lived in a family where femininity was not exactly something to be admired and even if one can look very feminine, the behavior and the way they perceived themselves may not correspond to that at all. I would say that with us, female behavior was rather suppressed and male energy focused on performance and goal, intellect without displayed sensitivity always won, which of course had its toll. A lot of women probably felt the same way.
Now, when I write all of these, we can already take these things for granted, a lot is written and talked about femininity. But I was already 38 when my younger colleague and I discovered that when we ovulate, we bloom and men look at us more often than other times, we have beautiful hair and skin, and we are full of life and self-confidence. Yes, it is the season of fertility, the season of the Queen. Of course, my body has experienced these stages all my life, but completely unconsciously.
At the same time, the Queen is the archetype of the fertile period of our life, when a woman gives birth to the children she raises and when her beauty blossoms and she feels full of strength.

After that the Dark One. This archetype corresponds to the premenstrual phase.
For me, this phase has been literally hell since I was 20 years old, when I started to understand myself a little after the birth of my children.
I had PMS which I didn't know, no one talked to me about it, the internet did not exist to me, it's like we lived in the stone age when I am writing about it now. At that time, I visited a woman who professionally took care of the body and mind and practiced yoga, and she advised me to do something to ease my bouts of sadness, frustration and subsequently anger. Today, I would put it simply, it was enough to like myself more, to have more healthy sex life, and the I would not have been an unhappy woman before menstruation, even turning into a hysteric woman at times. After her advice, it got a little better. It's definitely nice when you realize something, you can already take concrete steps to improve it. When you lived in a time when, even at the age of eleven, you thought that babies were born naturally in the stomach, you had no one to talk to about sex, menstruation, lived without relevant literature and the Internet, when everything was taboo and you had to figure everything out yourself, sometimes it was a really painful process.
It is possible that if a woman experiences her femininity and herself in a healthy way without always repressing herself, she becomes a witch instead of a hag.

At the same time, transferred to the stages of a woman's life, the Dark One corresponds to the phase when perimenopause and menopause occur. Even during this period, some women will not notice the change at all and some will suffer through this phase. Fortunately, it's now being talked about and written about a lot more, and there's a lot of advice, tips and techniques that can help.

The last, fourth stage is the Old Woman. It is again the period that we women experience every month throughout our lives.
For me, this phase became painful only during the time, when I had a job that I enjoyed immensely, but I was so focused on my performance that not a day went by without stress and trying to get everything done, so by then my pain-free period was over. Everything culminated after 4 years with such women's problems that only my resignation helped me. The health problems and pain were gone immediately after it, and very quickly, within a month!
In this phase we need peace, our body loses its strength and vitality and we learn to release everything that is needed to cleanse the body and at the same time accept the situation as it is. We are not exactly attractive and full of energy, the hair loses its luster, the body swells into an unrecognizable form.
Peace and warmth and, above all, kindness to ourselves can help. And this is also the last phase of our life, and we women need to cope with it too - a big topic of our time.
Of course, as much as we are aware of our processes, as much as we allow ourselves to be devoted to ourselves, to take care of ourselves, to listen to ourselves, the last two phases can either be very unpleasant or they can be the harvest of the fruit that we cultivate within ourselves.

I ask myself a question: How is it possible that I did not see or recognize my lunar archetypes?
I don't know. At that time, I simply did not have the information, I was not attuned to my monthly cycle, and even after meeting the female archetypes, when in the end I took my body more and more into account, I was still challenged by life and I had well-rooted opinions on how things should be, goals and performance remained in my focus. There was still a lot to improve, in addition to work and study, so that I could move on, feed myself and secure not only myself, but there was still a need to operate and rather suppress some things. Especially to suppress a lot of feelings, there was not much space and time for feelings.

Then came the burnout, almost a collapse, and at that moment I discovered, under the skin of the heroine from an action movie, a woman who yearns for peace and security, for love, and after that to allow herself to flow according to her rhythm, to create, and to share. To create from morning to evening if it leads her to create, to rest when her body asks for it, to enjoy the beauty of nature around her, to care for those closest to her, whether they are people or animals who live with her. Take care of yourself, cook good food full of nutrients, get enough sleep and live without constant stress. I saw a woman who, out of habit, inertia and the feeling that she missed something and now has to work hard to catch up, is running a race against time. Something is still missing because in the past she did something differently than she should have and in the future she sees how she will get it all, but now she doesn't have it and that needs to be fixed. A kind of constant struggle for survival that started very early. Very early on I was fighting dragons and demons often unsupported and I developed the feeling that I had to fight my way through life and that it was all my fault.

Before my final exams (I studied at university while working from the age of forty), I felt like a racehorse that is likely to give up just before the finish line. I was working hard to get my health back. I was gaining strength again and there is the transition...so, a new challenge. However, thanks to all this, in addition to the college degree, I have new experiences, a lot of new techniques and tips that help me heal and get stronger.

And even though there have been times when I have laboriously searched for the meaning of all this effort, what have always amazed me and gave more and more meaning to my journey, was this gift, this ability to open myself to new and new messages that come to me, and that what was given to me helped me to swim across a stormy river.
Some messages I read immediately upon delivery and some waited longer for my understanding. It is just an adventure, just like a trip to the dark forest with my friend. It is like a puzzle and I am putting it together piece by piece. It reminds me of the process of painting a picture, when I have an idea but I do not really know how it will turn out. And even though it looks like I am the one holding the brush, there is also something guiding me and then I stare at the finished work, because there is always something extra in it. Something hidden, some message, some treasure.

And finally... I now understand why there is no sun above the Black Panther's head in the picture, which I originally painted there.
I now understand why it didn't suit me and it led me to repaint the sunny day into night. Instead, the image now shows a moonlit night from which the Egyptian Moon Goddess Isis emerges.
Divine Mother, Goddess of Mysteries, Goddess of Nature.
This was not the intention, at first I did not understand why the Goddess appeared in the moon. Now I know.
It is a symbol of the Panther's journey through the dark forest-my personal feminine journey.