Our Lady is no more, nor less, both different and the same, a chimera which changes with every approach, a ruby filled with innumerable facets, a room full of dancing girls all fitted with veils.
Approaching Babalon: Essays for the Abyss by Georgia van Raalte
“How can a goddess so obviously sexy, sexual, sexed, and sexualised, ever ask for or expect modesty? Doesn’t that defeat the point?” Is the question that briefly flit across my mind when the thought of religious modesty bubbled up from devotional time with Babalon. It wasn’t a question that stuck around for long – Babalon is a Woman of many surprises. After reflection it makes more than a small bit of sense…especially when considering Her inverse as Saturn the destroyer, a cycle ender, a ‘mother’ that destroys everything she creates. Veiling for grief and loss, modesty in the everyday to heighten ritual and devotional nudity, and veiling & modesty as means of control over who can see/Know me are just the tip of the iceberg.
Babalon’s veiling is a means of control over Herself. When she has been ravaged and violated by the eyes of greedy men for decades, treated as an object and cash cow, someone to be summoned and wishes, workings, and gnosis demanded of Her. When She covers Herself in robes and veils spun from dawn and dusk, and sits upon her Abyssal throne further cloaked in shadow, She regains sovereignty over Herself. In this, control over Her image, Babalon becomes once again the only person with the power to reveal Herself. We, of course, already know the opposites held in Her – accepting all and refusing none, and yet also ruthless in her wrath against those who affront Her. Welcoming the reverent and violently rejecting the disrespectful.
Returning to the idea of devotional and religious modesty in Her honour – it can also be understood as a means to reflect the teachings and gnosis found through Her towards an uninitiated world. The knowledge of how powerful allowing yourself to be deeply perceived in ritual nudity while maintaining modesty in the day to day is one consideration. The power of ‘showing it all’ is balanced by the power in direct denial that modesty and veiling offers.
The manner of veiling and modesty will, naturally, be something deeply unique and personal – as it already is in a lot of contexts, cultures, and religions. It will be something I explore slowly and with careful steps to ensure I continue to feel empowered in line with Babalon’s energy and current.
first posted on my patreon