Queen of the West Sea

Oki-usa and the Black Rock

Apr 09, 2023

The Queen of the West Sea has always lived here. Sovereign of her body, Soul and place, she calls the headland that bends over the ocean her home. Oki-usa, the Queen, strides these landscapes, between the mountains and the sea, between the mists and the waves, listening to the winds: the Abregon and the Zephyr that blow from the west, as well as the Sirocco and the Levante that blow from the east, feeling the tides like stories drawn on her own body.

She is granddaughter of the original giantesses who built the Temple of the Moon, those who carried stones on their heads along Mother Mountain, adjusting them and slowly giving them the form of a womb-tomb, founding the sanctuary that transmutes and converts, where ancient treasures and memories are kept, regenerating life at every moment. As heiress of the giants, the sovereign's body is large, wide and full, the abundant body of a brave and vigorous warrior, a robust and knowledgeable Queen and an intense and delicate woman.

Here on the promontory, nestling between the rocks and the wild water, she honours every solar revolution with her presence, when every evening the golden light spills over the deep blue ocean, making way for the glow of the Moon Goddess, or when, every morning, it rises from the opposite horizon, that of the mountain. At each sunset the Black Crow, who accompanies her, envelops the sun beneath the ocean with its feathered wings of twilight, opening the portal of the darkness of night. At each dawn, the Red Serpent raises the sun with its long body, lifting it into the firmament above the mountains. The ritual takes place daily from the depths of time, with the sagacious Black Crow and the powerful, blood-coloured, huge and voluptuous Red Serpent. Its iridescent scales in reds, browns and ochres shine alongside the Crow's blue and black feathers, making their way through the darkness and reflecting the sunlight. The serpent’s gigantic body slithers voraciously across the ground, while the crow scans the skies with its twilight gaze, the stars reflected endlessly in its black eyes. The temple-portal where they meet, facing the deep, wild and salty ocean, is a passage to the Other World, which opens every time the sun rises or falls, plunging into the ocean or emerging from the mountains, and opening space to the deep mystery of things.

Every day Oki-usa is enveloped by the Red Serpent, feeling its embrace that both imprisons and releases, listening to it and caressing it. The great serpent writhes under her feet, alive, contracting and expanding, revolving the bowels of the earth, in an archaic and primal movement. In all its wild harshness, the Red Serpent guards Life, hissing and dreaming existence, for its wisdom is deep and ancient and its teachings hard but real. In turn, the Black Crow, with its dark night feathers, brings news from other places and devours everything with its penetrating gaze, from the borders of time and the most hidden places; it undertakes to protect Death, awakening the raw sagacity of instinct.

Oki-usa is sovereign of the abyssal wisdom of the wild ground, the untamed land, the primitive soil, the never-ending alchemy of transformation between life and death, the threads that weave and unite, the ends and the beginnings.

In an ancient dance of sovereignty and surrender, she presides over the deepest mysteries of time, preserving the original melody of life that holds the wisdom of perpetual transformation and metamorphosis, giving herself over and being reborn each day and each millennium. Nothing belongs to her, but she is everything. Her position was never permanent, but a flow of intentional bending to the seasonal lights and shadows of the earth, for power is not about control or stability but about bonding and belonging, not about progress - but metamorphosis. Here at this western edge, the Temple of the Moon is where the gateway and refuge of this original wisdom of flow in change and of knowing when to let go, composting, restoring and reclaiming humility is to be found.

Since her last regeneration almost a millennium ago, the Queen has heard new melodies in the rain and in the streams, ever stronger and more present. Each drop contains a part of the song that mysteriously and magically weaves a new melody; whispers of fresh water that offer her verses, songs, stories, and poetry she has never heard before. Her wild, salty heart feels ever more drawn to these seductive murmurs she hears from within.

One night, after the Black Crow has wrapped the sun in the twilight of its wings, as it has always done, a huge storm begins to rise from the ground. Thick, immense clouds charged with winds from the east that, upon passing the Temple of the Moon where Oki-usa is, drop the water they carry all at once, thundering and unleashing a gigantic storm. A curtain of fresh water spills over the whole place, contrasting with the Queen's salty tears, streaming down her face, as, for the first time, she realises her loneliness. During this moonless night she dreams of a long black rock that shares her alcove, a wrinkled and living body-rock that embraces her with longing and sweetness, an ancient rock whose piercing and wise eyes have known her since forever.

Curiosity and fascination build the desire to follow the freshwater course to its origin to see who so enchants it, who so beckons her. Oki-usa hears the music brought by the freshwater ever more clearly, the music coming from within the continent and from within the earth, like a call and an invitation. The Queen does not understand its language, but feels its deep love vibration.

After months of being incited by this invocation, the sovereign decides to conjure the powerful entities that have accompanied her since the dawn of time, the Black Crow and the Red Serpent, telling them that she has decided to follow the freshwater’s melody to its origin. The sunrise and sunset are now in the hands of the Serpent and the Crow. Sensing the Queen's resolve, they bid her farewell, offering her a black feather and a red scale, for if she should need help, she only has to call.

And so Oki-usa departs from the western edge that spills into the ocean, with her bountiful body of brave and vigorous warrior, robust and versed Queen, and intense and delicate woman, on pilgrimage to the hinterland, instinctively following the melody that intensely seduces her. The path is led by her heart, that knows it, through mountains and valleys. Oki-usa follows the streams and creeks until she reaches the river, closer and closer, with the melody and the rocky dreams growing clearer and more intelligible with each step. She can discern a gurgle of wistful poetry emanating from the moving waters, the flow and currents flowing in the opposite direction to her journey. Each night the blackened stone is ever more present in her bed, its inviting touch quickening her heart, ever more urgent, and the mysterious and wise eyes enfolding her in recognition and longing. Despite the distance and the uncertainty, she is reassured that the Serpent and the Crow continue to ensure night and day.

The Queen, who had exchanged the vast ocean horizon for the ripples of inland territory, spends weeks walking and finally arrives at the entrance to a cave, a rock passage into the earth's bowels. The opening fascinates her, entangling her in the fresh water's poetic murmurs, propelling her through the dark tunnel. As if a magnetic pull draws her, she moves forward and is quickly enveloped in darkness, unable to see anything. She gropes her way along, feeling the damp stones, their cold temperature, grainy consistency and firm density. Her hands feel openings in the rock, fissures, cracks that open up to other passages and, suddenly, she has the sensation of being completely lost in a stone maze - she can no longer see the entrance and does not know which way to go. The cracks and fissures release the impermanence of what is, making room for what will be. Tender, abyssal precipices tear the ground. Oki-usa trembles, runs, out of breath. She stumbles and falls, echoing through the cave's naked walls. Protruding rocks, steep, raging ridges exhale, scars open, sides crack. Wind and dust witness the ancient roar. The sharp rock wall cuts deep, opening fractal portals within. The brave warrior inside her is undaunted and pushes her forward, until she feels the ground disappearing beneath her feet.

She pauses cautiously and remembers the scale the Red Serpent had offered her - if she needed help she just had to call out, it had told her. She takes it from her shawl and the scale glows in her hand, bringing a flickering ochre light to the cave. Oki-usa then finds herself on the edge of a stone chasm, hearing the water crashing and flowing below. The water calls to her, cries out to her, summons them to come together, to touch one another again. The bubbling currents down below echo throughout her body, claiming her presence. The roar of that deep water burns into her skin. In an act of madness, the robust Queen hurls herself off the subterranean cliff into the abyssal depths. The fall is lingering, like a slow-motion dance, the cave's dense air cradling her as she falls, supporting her wide body.

The very next moment, she is submerged in the dark and tumultuous waters. Oki-usa is carried by the current, embraced by the water, enveloped by the coldness, entangled by the depth. Though cherished by the water, she struggles to breathe, struggling to find the surface in the whirlpool of living water she finds herself in. But the dark water soaks her movements, making them heavy and broken, leaving her at the mercy of the current. Exhausted, the wise Queen lets herself be carried away; she can only surrender, allowing herself to be submerged. She sinks, feeling the water penetrating her pores, entering through her mouth and nose, irrigating her saline Soul.

From the initial choke, her whole salty body begins to breathe fresh, sweet water, and bewilderment gives way to liberation. Swiftly the force of the water runs into a shallow river bed, where the waters splash and murmur over her body, waking her up with voluptuousness and affection. Oki-usa comes to her senses, startled. A new place, an old landscape, unknown, but still familiar. In the shade of the oak trees in this valley the Queen walks along the river bed, understanding now what the water whispers to her. A song of devotion and love, an evocation of union, a passionate and longing invitation.

Suddenly, the river's running, splashing water stops around her, becoming still like a mirror. In a suspension of time, the salt queen sees, for the first time, her own reflection, something unthinkable in the choppy, roaring ocean waters. In these fresh waters she can see her face, confronting her scars and wrinkles. Her face reveals millennia of existence, in all the grooves and marks it contains, but it also tells a thousand stories and memories of bravery, wisdom, and kindness.

After the pilgrimage to the very depths of herself, exhausted, Oki-usa begins to crumble, feeling she must break free from life itself, surrendering to the ground and regenerating once more. Strangely, she feels the deep embrace of the river and the surrounding rocks - she cannot see them, but she feels their cradling. She is not alone and remembers the longing she feels with every pulse. A whispering breeze in her heart tells her to abandon herself to this entanglement. Instinctively, the old sovereign takes the black feather from her shawl that the Crow had offered her, and the deep night, without moon or stars, falls rapidly over the valley and the riverbed. A dense darkness, collapsing the shadows into a velvety black, descends over her body, and she can finally see the one who has been calling her for so long. An unknown, dark, and profound entity that embraces her with intensity and delicacy. A powerful figure that offers her refuge in his rough stone body, giving her a kiss full of mystery, death and love. An ancient love, as immemorial as the cosmos, blessed by the sun and the moon. Oki-usa recognises herself and finally surrenders with the same intensity and affection in this regenerating love. She now recalls that this love has always existed, for they have known each other forever.