Books!

"I had, and have, no tolerance for those individuals-- especially psychiatrists and psychologists-- who oppose using medications for psychiatric illnesses; those clinicians who somehow draw a distinction between the suffering and treatability of "medical illnesses" such as Hodgkins disease or breast cancer, and psychiatric illnesses such as depression, manic-depression, or schizophrenia. I believe, without a doubt, that manic-depressive illness is a medical illness; I also believe that, with rare exception, it is malpractice to treat it without medication." --Kay Redfield Jamison, from "An Unquiet Mind"


"In Eastern philosophy black is understood to represent the formless state of matter, as pure energy, which is called emptiness. Devotions to the Black Mother in Eastern traditions involve meditations that cut away the delusion of dualism, which is the root cause of all suffering-- the mistaken belief that sees an independently arising self as separate from others. Wisdom lies in the realization that all that exists is unified as part of the same primal matter, and there is no difference between self and others. Life is in a constant state of flux, arising out of itself as infinite numbers of forms and falling back into itself as emptiness, the formless energy. The black, empty void is the primordial foundation of all manifested forms, the ground of potentiality for everything that exists... The wisdom of Black Mother Night, spanning Greek, Eastern, and Egyptian traditions, is that the preexisting nature of all life is a universally connected matrix of living energy whose first expression is as love. When we are ignorant of her truth, we experience a fear of the void and become involved in outer activity to escape the emptiness that terrifies us. We see this fear in those who cannot bear to have empty space or time in their lives or who have a fear of being alone.

"And so, first of all, we call forth Nyx [The Goddess of the Night] to reclaim our awareness that our original essential nature arises out of formless potentiality embodied by the night."

--Demetra George, from Mysteries of the Dark Moon: The Healing Power of the Dark Goddess.

I'm wearing my Kali pendant today!