I thought I’d meet a beautiful woman at the gate adorned in glimmering gold robes with long blonde hair blowing in the wind. Skin perfect and glistening. Divine love emanating from her sweet open face. Kind. Maternal. Graceful. Good.

So, you can imagine my SHOCK when I met the gatekeeper. Neither beautiful nor good, this woman was everything women are told is unacceptable, forbidden, and rotten and then some. She wore no golden robes, no robes at all! Her labia hung between her legs and blood dripped down from them into the Earth. Her skin was deep and dark like the night sky and she had only one eye and one breast, surrounded by flames and corpses. Ferocious, erotic, wrathful, full.

She was the opposite of good (which if you are a woman you know is not bad, but whole).

I watched in delightful horror as she danced, cackled, and howled then turned right at me and, I swear, winked at me with her one eye. Then she spoke.

“I am glad you made it, dear one. I know it has been a long journey. My question for you is – will you accept me as I am?”

I thought long and hard. I thought about how she’s been shamed, reviled, called the devil, and banished by humanity because they are afraid. I thought about how I myself had banished these parts on my sad quest to be good, and how I had broken my own heart along the way. I thought there must be a reason why this woman is the gatekeeper, so I looked harder and was surprised to see endless innocence and compassion. Tenderness. Unfathomable love. That’s when I knew she was simply misunderstood, longing to be accepted by those who find her. After all, this was all she asked of me.

I thought about her honesty and power and thought maybe accepting her is the key to bringing healing and wholeness to my forsaken land. I didn’t answer until I felt it burble up from the depths and fill my bones with fire.

“YES”

“All of me?”

“Yes”

“AAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLL?!?!?!?!?!?!?”

“… yes.”

“Then you can see clearly now.”

And just like that she shared with me all of her secrets and opened the gate to a new land, yet exactly the same. A land that was hardly good and perfect, but just like Her, exquisitely real, pristinely undivided, and unimaginably sacred. Home.