Language as mystery, language as a labyrinth
This week I reflect on the meaning of a message I received in a dream in Colombia as I begin to land back in Sussex.
It was about 7 am on a hillside in Colombia in the pueblo of Villa de Leyva. I'd been up all night in ceremony making my rattle, the symbolic union of the sacred feminine and masculine after walking both the feminine labyrinth and masculine spiral. It was no easy birth, as I wrote in last week's letter. I was so wired and tired when I crawled into bed, hoping to sleep for at least a few hours. But I found myself wandering, lost in the labyrinth of a language I did not [yet] understand. I felt panicked and had to find my way out. The only way out was to wake up.
I opened my eyes. All the tears of my heart and the release of three intense days of ceremony working so deeply on our relationship with the masculine and feminine, both inner and outer, wept themselves into the ground.
Lost in a language I did not yet understand. I am still walking with this dream message as its meaning begins to reveal itself.
This weekend was International Women's Day, and sorting through old papers, I discovered a set of newspaper cuttings from December 2014, when I was using the language of performance as a form of protest. That's a language I do understand—a language that can be powerful, visceral, transformative.
In this instance, it was a protest against government censorship that sought to suppress female and LGBTQ+ expressions of sexuality. We enacted a mass face-sitting, a ‘Queening.’ The male paparazzi, like a baying pack of hyenas, pushed and shoved their lenses into our faces. The resulting images went globally viral and are still sitting in the archives of the internet if you look for them.
I performed in the language of feminine power. The Kali/ Inanna/Freya warrior goddess spirit rose up inside me.
In a world where women are still claiming and fighting for our right to be heard, to be taken seriously, we stand. The new enlightened masculinity sees and hears us—but how, as women, do we see, hear, and honour the sacred masculinity within us and without? We can remain stuck in our righteous anger, born from centuries of patriarchal oppression, which is still trying to hold its grip of power. But it will fail. It must.
A patriarchal society is not one of balance.
But how do we meet—the feminine and the masculine—in that place of balance, that place in the centre of the heart?
Walking with the masculine spiral in an ancient Andean sacred site, we met the crocodile of the deep waters. The owner of the house on the land right next to the site. His jaws opened in the dark as I was taking a wild wee, and he shouted so angrily in a language I did not understand. But I did understand his emotion. We did not fight the crocodile but stood to face him, in a centred calmness and he melted away, back into the darkness from where he had sprung.
Yesterday (Sunday 9 March) was another crocodile day. I joined the three-hour sound journey workshop with Anthar Kharena (our teacher and guide in the Andes) to honour the day of the crocodile.
When confronted by the crocodile, what do we do?
Do we leap into the fight, which is ultimately a fight to the death? Do we turn and flee in fear, with the crocodile hunting us down? Or do we turn to face the crocodile from the centre of our peaceful heart, until he calms down and submerges again into the deep waters? The language of the crocodile taught me this:
How do we trust the path of the heart when everything—including our mind—tries to sabotage and stop us?
How do we navigate the deep waters of mystery, knowing that unseen forces (represented by the crocodile) lurk beneath?
The crocodile is the guardian of the unknown. It represents fear, resistance, and the primal forces that test our courage. It lurks in our unconscious, in the deep waters of transformation. It asks: Are you willing to trust in your chosen path, even when you can’t see the outcome?
The crocodile is both the obstacle and the teacher. If you fear it, you stay on the shore. If you face it, you cross into the great mystery.
The language of the labyrinth for me is learning to trust the path of the heart. What is our heart telling us? Even if our mind and everyone around us thinks we're crazy, do we still trust and follow the path of our heart? It's terrifying. It’s a rollercoaster of the soul to learn to trust this language of the heart. Especially when, after a lifetime of betrayals and disappointments, we may have learned it feels safer to close our hearts to the great mystery and its gifts. But this is not living a truly conscious life, this is not the path to freedom. Of course, freedom is not without responsibility, but are we paying attention? Are we showing up for ourselves and others?
Are we taking responsibility for what our heart is telling us, for what we know at a soul level to be true?
How do we honour and be true to ourselves? It is all about learning to trust the language of the heart.
The mind seeks control. The heart seeks trust.
The mind says, “What if I get hurt along the way?”
The heart says, “What if I fly?”
The mind fears the unknown.
The heart knows it is already safe within the unknown waters of the great mystery.
Acknowledge the crocodile, but don’t let it rule you. Fear exists, but don't let it be our guide—our heart is. Feel the fear and do it anyway! Learning to trust isn’t about eliminating fear—it’s about walking with it, hand in hand. Let the deep waters hold you and do not fear what may lurk beneath. You have the power to face it, head-on from the peaceful centre of your heart.
How might we uncover a new language - the language of the earth, of the waters, of the winds, of the fire, of the universe, and of divine love expressed through nature? What letters and sounds surround us that contain powerful and healing vibrations?
These are questions prompted by another workshop at the weekend that I attended with Norse wisdom and rune teacher Andreas Kornevall on “Letters as Spirits- Rune Magia”.
How can we form a new language from the signs and symbols that surround us every day? In nature, in the bark of a tree, in the veins of a leaf, in the symbols etched into the public bench or the cracks in the pavement, in the places we inhabit in the urban landscape or the wild?
This is where I find the art of asemic writing and of creating sigils and bind runes exciting, full of potential and possibility. Asemic writing is the language of mystery itself—written but unreadable, a script that has no fixed meaning, yet speaks to something beyond the rational mind. It is language freed from the need for comprehension, a direct expression of the soul, of the unsayable.
I find the art of asemic writing, of creating sigils and bind runes, to be an opening—a way to bring form to the invisible currents that guide us.
When we were in the Andes, we worked with the sound of letters, with our drum and rattle, as a way of giving and receiving healing in a short one-to-one exchange. Each letter has a sound. Each rune has a chant. Each stroke of an asemic script carries an intention.
Runes become sigils.
Sigils hold vibrations.
Vibrations create sound.
Sound reshapes reality.
Asemic writing is not just a form of expression—it is a path through the labyrinth. A way to map the uncharted, to communicate with the unseen. Perhaps it is the closest thing we have to the language of the heart—a language felt rather than understood.
The spider is said to have given birth to the letters of language through the weave of her web.
In the Andes, in Anthar’s sound vision journey, I met the great Spider of the Universe in my vision. She gave me the red silk thread. A thread to weave something new. A thread between worlds. The thread of a language yet to be written.
Here is my automatic, felt writing script from Asemic writing workshop that says:
The clouds are passing by,
The mountains move me
Where the eagle flies
I end this week by sharing the poem Andreas read in honour of International Women’s Day.
We should not need a separate day of celebration. Every day should be a celebration of both the feminine and the masculine. But we are still walking towards balance. We are still meeting the crocodile along the way.
I am sure that if we read the crocodile some poetry of the heart, it would sink back into the deep waters of mystery from which it sprang.
Orphic Hymn to Aphrodite
Heavenly, smiling Aphrodite, praised in many hymns,
sea-born, revered goddess of generation, you like the nightlong revel
and you, the couple lovers at night, O scheming mother of Necessity.
Everything comes from you; you have yoked the world,
and you control all three realms. You give birth to all,
to everything in heaven, upon the fruitful earth
and in the depths of the sea, O venerable companion of Bacchos.
You delight in festivities, O bridelike mother of the Erotes,
O Persuasion whose joy is in the bed of love, secretive, giver of grace,
visible and invisible, lovely-tressed daughter of a noble father,
bridal feast companion of the gods, sceptered she-wolf,
beloved and man-loving giver of birth and of life,
with your maddening love-charms you yoke mortals
and the many races of beasts to unbridled passion.
Come, O goddess born in Cyprus, whether you are on Olympos,
O queen, exulting in the beauty of your face,
or you wander in Syria, country of fine frankincense,
or, yet, driving your golden chariot in the plain,
you lord it over Egypt’s fertile river bed.
Come, whether you ride your swan-drawn chariot over the sea’s billows,
joying in the creatures of the deep as they dance in circles,
or you delight in the company of the dark-faced nymphs on land,
(as, light-footed, they frisk over the sandy beaches).
Come, lady, even if you are in Cyprus that cherishes you,
where fair maidens and chaste nymphs throughout the year
sing of you, O blessed one, and of immortal, pure Adonis.
Come, O beautiful and comely goddess;
I summon you with holy words and pious soul.
Translation by A. Athanassakis
Do you ever feel lost in a language you do not yet understand?
Have you had experiences where meaning revealed itself over time?
Do you explore asemic writing, sigils, or intuitive forms of expression?
Drop a comment below —I’d love to know what languages beyond words speak to you.
And if this resonates with you, feel free to share it with others walking their own labyrinth.
From the centre of my heart to yours,
Serena xxx