text:
What is SoulCollage®?
Stephanie Anderson Ladd
I Am the Fool
September 10, 2016 Stephanie
I am the Fool, just like in the tarot deck, the one who is ready to step off into the unknown, to begin a new journey. I'd love for you to put on your fool's cap and join me. I have been studying and playing with the tarot for a while and decided to dive in and work with the archetypes in a different way -- by creating my own archetypal images of the major arcana using SoulCollage®. I have created an online course that will last for 22 weeks, starting on January 8, that will allow us to make a different SoulCollage® card each week as we start at 0, the Fool, and progress through the Major Arcana until we end at 21, The World, where we will no doubt have learned a lot about ourselves and changed a little in the process.
If you don't know what SoulCollage® is, go here for more information: What Is SoulCollage? If you are interested in learning more about the tarot, haven't tried SoulCollage®, and would like to try your hand at creating your own Major Arcana cards, this would be an easy and fun way to dive in -- like The Fool, stepping off the precipice.
Some of the first SoulCollage® cards I made were recognizable to me as archetypes from the tarot such as The High Priestess, The Empress, The Magician, The Lovers, and Death. They just came through instinctively, but since making these early cards, other iterations have wanted to come forward. Lately, I have been playing with some of the symbols found on classical tarot decks such as Rider-Waite-Smith, and intuitively finding my own meaningful symbols to add.
When beginning the tarot journey, it's a good idea to get familiar with the 22 cards in the Major Arcana -- the archetypes that symbolize life's journey from the Fool or beginner to the integrated human represented by The World Dancer. As you gaze at the 22 cards, ask yourself: Which card resonates with me the most? Which card most intrigues me and which am I most repelled by?
The Fool has always made me happy, even excited. Oh, good, I am about to start a journey! Oh yeah, I am reminded, I don't know anything about this new adventure, and I get to learn. This archetype says that it is okay to not know, to make mistakes, to take risks, as I'm doing with this course. I have been leading e-courses on goddess archetypes -- scaling the heights and plumbing the depths of the divine feminine for the past few years, and I felt ready to make a detour. When I turned 60 this year I felt something inside of me shift and I took a pause from my usual and expected course. In fact I stopped doing what I thought I should do and just let myself be. The Fool came back to me as a starting point.
I made this first Fool card when I started my journey with the goddess archetypes about 5 years ago. I called her The Crone Fool because here I was in my mid-50s embarking on a creative journey that I knew not where it would lead, but I knew it was where my soul needed to go. The prancing, youngish-oldish woman on the top of the mountain danced on a whimsical, colorful background that my daughter created when she was 10 years old. I gave my Fool wings that have the word magic on them. She's wearing a crown, signifying her queenly status and divine inspiration; yet she is playful and joyful, unconcerned about what she should be doing or how she should be acting at her age. That resonated with me. The white dog symbolized purity and instinctual nature, the loyalty of the imaginative realm, once engaged. She is in movement, as the Fool is usually depicted -- active, and on her way. One of the things I started doing at this same time in my life, is going on pilgrimage with other women to other parts of the world to encounter the sacred feminine soul and spirit of the land in Greece, England, and this year, Ireland. While on pilgrimage we are The Fool, traveling light with our knapsack, containing both inner and outer tools needed for such a trip, ready to foray into the Unknown, learning about people and places, and encountering the Self in liminal space and time.
As a therapist I am struck by how often people reveal their biggest fear is when they face the unknown and are about to try something new, because inherent in that fear is the possibility of looking foolish, of making mistakes and being judged for them. There is a little inner smile that I wear when I hear about these fears, for they are universal and certainly ones I have experienced as well, but so often signaling the call to adventure. This is the first stage of the hero's or heroine's journey as Joseph Campbell delineated. It requires that we don't know. It requires that we enter the mystery. It requires that we start something or start over. For only then can we ever hope to know ourselves, to grow and change, to experience life in its full range of musicality--the high and low notes and everything in between. It requires that we make mistakes, that we fall down, that we see ourselves from that position, ignominious as it may be. It requires that we relinquish our pride for a moment and laugh at ourselves. It requires that we stop caring what others may think. It requires that we return to beginner's mind, and in a sense, throw caution to the wind and take a leap of faith. It is one of my favorite cards.
I made another card as I began this new journey, this time with an androgynous figure -- containing wholeness, both masculine and feminine qualities -- against a background of yellow, symbolic of the sun, of unlimited potential, divine intelligence, a spiritual journey. It seems apparent that this youngster is going to grow and change, that he/she is spontaneously walking forward toward consciousness, with mountains to climb and a willingness to step off the cliff, the little dog of instinctual nature nipping at his heels, eagerly urging him on. The youth is looking up, not down at the path or lack thereof, inspired by the warmth and shining rays of the sun. He is holding a rose, symbolic of the heart and the unfolding Self.
The Fool is the Number 0, the one who contains wholeness within the seed, the one who will come full circle, the one who is all and nothing, the beginning and the end, the one who is the mandala, the cipher, the eye of God. For it is true that within every wise man is a fool and within every fool, a wise man. We are the one and the many and life lies before us if we will but begin.
So here we go! Hop on your cosmic chariot and join me in the New Year of 2017 as we learn about the tarot and it's symbolism, history, alchemical and mystical-religious origins, explore 22 different tarot decks, and most importantly create archetypes and reflections of our own soul, as we advance on the journey towards wholeness.
Go here to register: From Fool to World Dancer: The 22-Week SoulCollage® Journey
From The River's Edge: Life Lessons, Dreams and Reflections
March 29, 2015 Stephanie
I've been in hibernation and am only beginning to yawn and stretch and come out of my cave. I'm moving slowly, feeling my way. I made the decision in late fall to stop what I had been doing for the past four years, which included birthing a goddess workbook and leading goddess e-courses. I sensed that a cycle was coming to a close. It was not just this creative cycle that I felt needed to come to completion, it was also a life cycle that I felt winding down. I have been moving through my second Saturn Return, which occurs every 29-30 years, when Saturn, whom we could think of as Father Time, himself, comes back around (in our natal chart) to see how we're doing. It is a time to review and take stock of who we are and where we've been and where we want to go next.
And for me, the time had come to just Be, not Do. I want to write a book about the 13 goddesses I have been exploring and teaching, but first I needed to empty out. It was not so easy to quiet the nagging voices that wanted me to be productive and get this accomplished or that taken care of. But I stopped pushing and prodding, I stopped creating urgency and unease with To-Do lists. I let myself be the hollow bone for spirit to flow through.
I began asking myself "What do I want to do?" rather than telling myself what I should do. And many times the answer was Do Nothing or Do What Spirit Calls You To Do Today, which might mean taking a walk, cooking a nourishing meal, reading by the fire, dancing, and sometimes it was creating a SoulCollage® card. I knew that this intuitive process I have been doing for a dozen years now would help me work with the energies surrounding me and discover what was rumbling beneath the surface.
I began pulling a card from my deck every day, a practice I had stopped doing for awhile. If you're not familiar with SoulCollage, in essence you are creating a deck of cards, much like your own personal tarot or oracle deck, by collaging found images that reflects You in your many parts, like a multi-faceted diamond.
Two cards popped up for me more than once while I was in my dreamy, quiet, state of rest. They are cards from the Committee Suit, which represents our various personality parts, sometimes known as sub-personalities, as well as the many roles we play in life. My first instinct was to ignore them as they did not reflect where I was now and I didn't even want to go there, but I realized they were trying to get my attention and there was something I needed to see about where I had been.
The first card, shown below, is The One Who Perseveres. This card represents the struggle, the will to go on even when it's hard, the obstacles to overcome, and the difficult balancing act of work and life. I made this card some years ago and now I saw it with new eyes. While it illustrates the feminine warrior in me persevering through various challenges in life, it also shows a woman in the foreground seated in a peaceful, meditative pose. Mother Mary is there, too, hidden in the dark stones, suggesting a blessing within such striving, a peace to come. That time has come for me. One of the things I have learned to do in creating a workbook and 3 years of courses on the divine feminine is to not make it harder than it needs to be. I think when we start out we often do things the hard way, striving more than we need to, often giving more than is called for. Over time, I eased up and found ways to work smarter, not harder.
The second card is The Overwhelmed One. She is always running, trying to catch up, and feels there is too much to do and not enough time. She lives in her head and feels disconnected from her body. This time when the card showed up I realized how I have been doing so much on my own without help, feeling weighed down. I recognized how good it feels to release my burdens, to have beginner's mind again, and to ask for what I need and give it to myself.
A new understanding came from looking at the card this time--that I wanted to collaborate more so that I am not trying to do it all by myself, which can feel isolating and exhausting. Last fall I felt inspired to initiate a regional SoulCollage facilitators group in the Carolinas, but this time I asked a friend and colleague, Glenda Cedarleaf, to co-create it with me. We had fun putting our heads together and bringing it to fruition. And out of that collaboration a weekend retreat we're calling A River Runs Through Us began to take form, which we will co-facilitate in the fall in New Bern, North Carolina, on the Neuse River.
And this brings me to the theme of the river and a Big Dream I had recently. Big dreams are the memorable ones that get your attention, that have a sense of the numinous, in which a supernatural entity, event, or divine presence appears and often signifies a turning point in life. In my case, it was an evolutionary dream from the recurring ones I have had of being in a river, swimming with the current, aware that there are beings in the water with me, usually beneath the surface. I am frequently scanning the shore, getting my bearings, checking my progress, but swimming on.
In my early dreams I was afraid of the creatures in the water with me, increasingly aware they were crocodiles, but over time and with active imagination work (encountering the beings and dialoging with them on a conscious level), I knew Mother Crocodile to be a protector, a guardian of my root chakra, who would buoy me if needed, and help me not only survive but thrive in the river of life.
In the latest dream, I found myself on the river's edge this time, as if having finally made it to shore, and there was no sense of striving and surviving. There were three women: The Triple Goddess that was me--maiden, wading in the shallow waters, mother, floating out further in the river, and me, the crone now, standing on the river's edge--both observer and participant. Something sacred was happening on the right bank: a mother lion made of shimmering golden light was giving birth.
We were all three watching in excitement and awe. And soon the luminous newborn lion swam out into the river, growing bigger as he came towards us. I let the mother goddess in the water know that it was coming up on her right. She looked over her shoulder at it, smiling, unafraid. Now it's on your left, I told her, as it passed by behind her, and she looked there to see it swim on into the river of life, gracing us with its illuminated presence.
Then I, standing on the shore, was face to face with the lion-headed goddess, Sekhmet, who has a woman's body. She, too, was radiant and surrounded by light as she looked into my eyes. I knew it to be an initiation into a new chapter of my life as Sekhmet is the crone aspect of the Egyptian triple goddess.
She placed a shining crown on my head and spoke these words:
"You are where you need to be. You have reached the river bank and you can rest here. You can return to the river when you need to and be in the flow whenever you want. It is a choice now. This is your baptism into Cronedom."
In crone, life, retreat, Sekhmet, SoulCollage, triple goddess, triple goddess Tags A River Runs Through Us retreat, Sekhmet, SoulCollage
The Priestess of Memory
July 7, 2014 Stephanie
There has never been a timewhen you and I have not existed... There will never be a time when we will cease to be
~ from the BHAGAVAD GITA
This morning as I took a meditative walk on a beautiful, mild, summer day with my old dog, Maggie, I thought about the cycles of the seasons, of life, death and rebirth. I felt the awesome power of life being experienced in a single moment, deep in my bones, which is not surprising given that we're in the month ruled by Cancer, archetype of the Great Mother. This is a time when we are often more aware of emotions washing over us like ocean waves, flowing in, baptizing us, and then just as surely flowing back out to sea. There is no need to do anything other than notice and accept the inevitable tides.
I have come to see I am in the autumn of my life and I am beginning to accept that I must slow down and take pause, experience more of the present moment and less frantic hurrying to the next. It hasn't been an easy surrender, and I am not sure I am even there yet, as I still have things to do. But there is a subtle shift taking place within me, a shift of perception, a need to turn the prism lens and see things differently, to allow new ways of being to take hold.
The ritual of taking a morning walk begins with Maggie, our black lab, dancing around me eagerly when she sees me putting on my shoes. I don't dare say out loud that we're going for a walk or she will bark incessantly, unable to suppress her excitement. I am aware of the time I spend with her now as I know that at 11 years old, she doesn't have many years left with us. Yet she still has plenty of puppy energy even though her chin has turned white with age. (I am starting to see the similarities between us.) She has become more protective of me lately and follows me around the house, always close at hand, usually napping contentedly, while I cook or read or work at the computer. When I leave, she curls up on the rug by the door to await my return. Thoughts of Maggie's presence in my life and the gratitude I feel for her companionship shift as I walk with her down our shady street to thoughts of my mother and father.
Yesterday, my husband, Rob, and I rode our bikes the half-hour trek on country roads to the Honeysuckle Tea House for a Sunday sup. When we walked into the peaceful, open-air teahouse, the medley Somewhere Over the Rainbow/What a Wonderful World by Israel Kamakawiwo'Ole was playing. This song is one I have designated as my dad's song as he loved the song, What a Wonderful World. Rob and I exchanged a smile and my eyes welled up with tears. It is a song that is reflective of my dad's optimistic and appreciative view of life. I feel fortunate that I had a father who would say to me, "Life is beautiful. Every time you hear a bird sing, remember that." He told me that my grandfather opened his eyes as he lay dying and spoke his last words, assuring him "It's beautiful."
My thoughts of my mom have been more and more about the gifts she gave me even though I spent much of my adult life focused on what I didn't get from her and longed for. My life's journey, and indeed, my soul's purpose, I believe, has been to heal the mother wound that was passed down, through her and through my grandmother that originated who knows how many generations back. I feel that wound is healed now and I feel deep forgiveness for her unintentional emotional abandonment as she did not know what to do with her own feelings of loss, nor did her mother, and so it went back through time.
The gifts my mother gave me were of a fertile and active imagination and the need to seek a deeper spiritual understanding of the world. As I walked this morning, I remembered how she comforted me at night when I had restless thoughts of spirits in my bedroom and feverish dreams of other worlds. She rubbed my back and taught me a prayer that began, "Father Mother God loving me..." These were the seeds of the divine feminine taking root in my psyche that would later provide the soothing balm to the ancient mother wound. I believe the reparative work she helped facilitate healed back generations of women in my family and forward to my daughter and for generations to come.
I see now that it didn't begin with me. She was trying to heal, too, and so was my grandmother, but they had fewer resources, opportunities, and support systems. It may have been an evolutionary process: They tried to find answers in the best way they knew how and passed on what wisdom they could. Perhaps it was left for me to pick up the threads and weave them together in such a way that a tapestry was formed of interconnected lives in which boundaries of time and space are but an illusion. And perhaps there will be dangling threads for my daughter to pick up and sew as well. Perhaps these are my gifts to her, and so it goes...
"Your soul is the priestess of memory, selecting, sifting, and ultimately gathering your vanishing days toward presence." - John O'Donohue, Anam Cara
In divine feminine, father, Great Mother, mother, Mother Goddess, New Moon Goddess Mystery School
Of Goddesses & Heroines
May 28, 2014 Stephanie
Vasalisa the Brave
As most of you know, I am a goddess devotee and love nothing more than exploring the archetypal qualities of the goddesses from every culture and corner of the world. Why? Because in our patriarchal society, we are lacking models of the divine feminine and because it helps us understand ourselves as women when we look at the stories and attributes of the various goddesses throughout time. I probably don't have to tell you that we women are complex creatures and carry a lot of magic and mystery within our very bodies and souls. For example, we carry the archetypal qualities of birth, death, regeneration, transformation, receptivity, nurturance, wisdom and love. And getting to know and understand the myriad goddess archetypes, each with their own singular set of attributes and patterns of behavior, we begin to comprehend the multi-dimensional nature of the feminine and what it means to be spiritual beings on a human path as much as human beings on a spiritual path.
It all started for me with a love of stories, particularly myths, folk and fairy tales, which began, as for most of us, in early childhood. I eventually started realizing that the fairy tales derived from the ancient myths. For example, the Russian fairy tale, "Vasilisa, the Brave," about a little girl who goes into the forest to meet the witch, Baba Yaga, who gives her three tasks to perform to earn her stripes bears many similarities to the Greek myth of "Psyche and Cupid." The mortal girl Psyche must win the right to become a goddess and marry the god of love by performing three tasks set by Cupid's mother, Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty. And Snow White could sub for Psyche and Aphrodite for the wicked Queen who is jealous of Snow White's beauty. Reading these tales of mischief-making and derring-do thrilled and enthralled me. Here were brave girls performing acts of courage and heroism using their wits and cunning. The ancient myths provided examples of women of wisdom and power who often challenged other women and goddesses to rise to the occasion of their full being, to use the unique gifts bestowed upon them, and to lead with confidence once they had met the challenges before them.
Aphrodite & Psyche
I have discovered the joy of getting to know the particular stories and qualities of the goddesses, which has led me to teaching other women through my Goddess Temple e-courses how to use these archetypes to better understand themselves as mortal women and to see the goddess within. I have shelves of books about goddesses and one of my favorite and oft-used, go-to references is the Encyclopedia of Goddesses & Heroines by Patricia Monaghan, Ph.D, which was first published in 1981 and has gone through several editions. So imagine my delight when I was asked to review the latest revised edition, published by New World Library, released this year.
It has a beautiful cover image by Tracy Cunningham of a red-haired maiden in the mode of John Waterhouse, which deliciously invites you to open the pages and behold the array of goddesses to be found around the world. In a helpful departure from the original edition, over 1,000 goddesses are categorized by continents and countries, and alphabetized within each geographical section. Each section contains an Introduction, which gives you an overview of that particular culture and its history of goddess worship, beginning with the African pantheon, followed by Eastern Mediterranean, Asia and Oceania, Europe, and the Americas.
The European pantheon is the most prolific and detailed, covering The Baltic, The Celtic World, Finno-Ugric Cultures, Greece, Rome, Scandinavia, Southeastern Europe, and the Slavic Peoples. The Asia and Oceania section is next in size with six sub-categories including China and Korea, Circumpolar North, India, Southeast Asia and Indonesia, Japan and The Pacific Islands and Australia. These are even further divided into sections such as "Hindu and Buddhist Pantheon of India, Nepal and Tibet."
In this book you will find well-known and beloved goddesses as well as little-known and obscure goddesses, such as Vac, the Hindu Goddess of eloquence and abundance and inventor of the Sanskrit language. We learn that she is a form of Sarasvati, the more familiar Hindu goddess of the sacred arts and sciences, who is usually depicted holding the book of knowledge, a musical instrument called the veena, and a rosary.
As described in the Introduction to the book, goddesses come in many forms and represent many different aspects of the feminine. For example, "Goddesses can appear as young nymphs, self-reliant workers, aged sages. They can be athletes or huntresses, dancers or acrobats, herbalists or midwives. We find goddesses as teachers, inventors, bartenders, potters, surfers, magicians, warriors and queens. Virtually any social role women have played or are capable of playing appears in a goddess myth." That's what I love about this compendium. You really get to see the full gamut of human expression and behavior embodied in these supernatural archetypes. Some goddesses are summarized in a paragraph while others are given a page or more, depending upon the breadth of knowledge and available record of these feminine deities.
There is an extensive index in the back of the book that helps you locate individual goddesses by name as well as categories of goddesses, such as fire goddesses, grain goddesses, household goddesses, mermaids, etc. The bibliography is replete with primary textual, as well as oral, and other sources of the legend and lore provided in the book. This edition makes cross-referencing easy as goddess's names, whenever mentioned even within the context of another goddess's description, are in bold print. I find this encyclopedia to be much more user-friendly and easy to access than the previous one.
Patricia Monaghan, who died in 2012, was a feminist scholar, poet and author, who wrote over 20 books on goddess and earth-centered spirituality, as well as books that explored her Irish roots and extensive knowledge of Celtic mythology. There are few reference books on goddesses around the world, and Patricia Monaghan's Encyclopedia of Goddesses and Heroines is a must-have resource for lovers of goddesses, their history and lore, as well as for those who seek to understand and write about feminine spirituality and archetypes.
Click here to take a self-study course on 4 goddesses, Brigid, Inanna, Artemis/Diana, and Cerridwyn, in the New Moon Goddess Mystery School.
Tags goddesses, heroines, book review, Vasalisa
Inanna, Goddess of Love and Sacred Sexuality
April 9, 2014 Stephanie
Inanna by Lisa Hunt
The New Moon in Taurus will be arriving at 2:14 a.m. on April 29 (EDT) about the same time as the solar eclipse, 2:04 a.m. (EDT), signaling a powerful time of initiation into the mysteries of sacred sexuality and feminine empowerment. The perfect time to start our personal work with Inanna in my 2014 New Moon Goddess Mystery School. Taurus's ruling planet is Venus and the planet's journey across the sky and enigmatic appearance as both the morning star and evening star is the basis of the Goddess Inanna's story of traveling to the Underworld and back.
If you don't know, Inanna is an ancient, Sumerian goddess who predated Aphrodite/Venus as the Goddess of Love. So Inanna is the original source of the embodiment of love and beauty and the innate life-giving power of the feminine.
Also known as "Queen of Heaven and Earth," Inanna was a unifying force of opposites. She was a goddess of love and war, sexuality and sacredness, earth and sky, hill and valley, light and dark, life and death. She was seen as both woman/priestess/queen as well as divine goddess. The poems and hymns that were written about her, some of the very first written documents existent, inscribed on clay tablets in cuneiform, dating from 2500 BC, tell of a great love story between her and the shepherd, Dumuzi, who became king. We will explore this story and how they came together as lovers, performed the heiros gamos, or sacred marriage, which wedded man and goddess (or the human and divine) and assured fertility across the land for both people and the vegetation that sustained them.
inanna and dumuzi
Inanna personified the heirodule or holy servant, sometimes known as the sacred prostitute. This is a term that seems like an oxymoron to us now, but in ancient goddess-loving times the sacred and the sexual were not separate, they were one--whole and holy. As part of this upcoming e-course on Inanna, we will be exploring our own sacred sexuality and what it means to let go and love--ourselves or another.
Click here to listen to a 10-minute audio talk on: The Sacred Prostitute
When Inanna heeded the call to go down to the Underworld to meet her sister, Erishkigal, the Dark Goddess, she did so against everyone's advice. After all, no one had ever returned from the Underworld. But Inanna was determined, and so she went down, dressed in full queenly regalia and let go of each precious item as she descended the 7 levels until she stood naked before her sister, her own dark mirror.
Inanna, SoulCollage® card
Her journey is one of letting go, of releasing the things that define us in the outer world, but which have little to do with who we are on an inner level -- as spiritual beings on a human journey. And when she rises from the Underworld, Inanna, transformed, reclaims her power in a new way. We will learn how to make our own Underworld journey with conscious intention, how to let go of ego trappings, and and how to transform our wounds and reclaim our True Self.
This letting go could also be applied to the journey into ourselves and our own sacred sexuality and the experience of the ultimate letting go, the cosmic release -- orgasm. This course explores all aspects of the divine feminine as Inanna exemplifies the spiritual and the human sides of being a woman. So, join us for this enlightening and empowering journey to meet the Goddess Inanna, where we will learn to meet ourselves as sexual, instinctual, creative, transformative, powerful feminine beings.
"The Spirit of the Valley never dies; This is called the dark feminine. The doorway into the dark feminine Is called the root of heaven and earth. It is there within us all the while; Draw upon it as you will, it never runs dry." ~ Tao Te Ching
Click here to enroll in this self-study course: 2014 New Moon Goddess Mystery School
Venus von Willendorf
How might it help us to work with goddess archetypes?
The myriad goddesses that were once revered by peace-loving people who worked together in agrarian societies provide mirrors of womanhood and femininity in a patriarchal world that tends to define women using decidedly masculine standards. This is done by either stereotyping, pigeonholing, or putting women in their place i.e., in a less equal status since the patriarchy places such a high value on hierarchy and competition.
By understanding and working with feminine archetypes of the goddesses that are found in every culture and corner of the world, we are able to explore the many and varied aspects that make women singular and distinct from men at the same time that we are able to celebrate our shared humanity. By exploring the qualities and attributes that the goddesses carried, we can learn much about ourselves and how to integrate these various aspects -- both human and divine -- as modern women. The goddess archetypes are useful models of feminine power and divinity that can help us with our own personal growth and individuation here on planet Earth in the 21st century.
Tags Inanna, goddess, love, sexuality
New Year's Journey: A Gift For You
January 19, 2014 Stephanie
Jana, Goddess of the New Year, SoulCollage® card
I invite you to take a journey with me as we stand at the crossroads of past, present and future. January, named after the Goddess, Jana, who is seen with two faces looking backwards and forwards, refers to the doorway of the New Year. It is the perfect time to review the past, take stock of the present, and look ahead to the future.
future-past-present
I recently facilitated a Vision Board Playshop and I'm sharing the worksheet and guided journey with you here. As part of this meditation, you will review the year past, become aware of who and where you are now, and envision the New Year rolling out before you, including selection of a word of the year. I recommend printing out the PDF of the work sheet, which you can download here: WORKSHEET
Then listen to my guided meditation, designed to allow you to fill out your worksheet as you go. Click here to download MP3: GUIDED JOURNEY
Next, create a vision board, a poster collaged with images and words, based on your discoveries to set your intentions for the New Year.
Vision boards are easy to do. All you need is a collection of words and images culled from magazines, cards, and other ephemera that inspire or reflect you and your dreams, scissors, glue and poster board (I like foam core for its sturdiness). I think it's always good to include at least one photo of yourself since it is your vision. Any other fun embellishments you want to use like paint, glitter, and bling are fair game. I like to buy stick-on letters to form words I can't find and want to add to my board.
My 2014 Vision Board - Can you guess what is my word for the year?
I hope your New Year's vision includes journeying with me and a group of magical women from around the world for my 2014 New Moon Goddess Mystery School (Note: this is now a self-study course that you can take anytime.) It is designed to be an enriching and inspiring e-course for women who want to learn more about the mysteries and lore of goddess archetypes and what they can teach us about our own feminine mind, body, soul and spirit. This course will be delivered to your email box four times a year and you can join in the conversation if you wish by joining our secret Facebook group (although this is not required).
We start our work with the Celtic Goddess Brigid on the Aquarius New Moon on January 30, 2014. Among other things, she is an oracular goddess who was able to intuit things to come. This is the ideal time to ask questions, draw oracle cards or use other divination tools, and seek answers. Who is your goddess guide of the year? What animal will be your ally this year? Discovering these guides and helpers is a great way to fortify yourself as you step through the doorway into the Unknown of the New Year.
Brigid has many surprises in store and is waiting for you to meet her. You can join us to learn about one goddess or all four goddesses as we circle around the Wheel of the Year, meeting a new goddess on a new moon in each of the four seasons. Click here to learn more and to register: 2014 NEW MOON GODDESS MYSTERY SCHOOL
In Brigid, Jana, journey, New Year, vision board
Candlemaking & The Goddess Brigid
December 8, 2013 Stephanie
In preparation for the holiday season, Brigid's Day on February 2, and the launch of the 2014 New Moon Goddess Mystery School, here is a video I made with Kate Stockman about how to make rolled beeswax candles. Creating candles is a great way to set your intentions for the New Year, and they make for beautiful and thoughtful gifts.
You can meet and work with the Celtic Triple Goddess, Brigid, whose official day is February 2, the same as the cross-quarter day, Imbolc and Candlemas by taking the New Moon Goddess Mystery School self-study course. Watch the video for more information about what this goddess is about and join the Goddess Temple to be a part of it and learn the mysteries of Brigid, Inanna, Artemis and Cerridwyn on four new moons in each of the four seasons of the New Year. This is now available as a self-study course: New Moon Goddess Mystery School
Download your pdf about bee and honey lore here: Beeswax Candle Making Playshop
Go here to find the resource links for ordering candlemaking supplies (at bottom of page) as well as essential oils and herbs: Resources
In Brigid, candlemaking Tags Imbolc
How to Work With Goddess Archetypes & Manifest Your Dreams
November 16, 2013 Stephanie
I am often asked: How do you work with a goddess archetype? and How might it help to work with a goddess? So I'm offering three steps to help you align yourself with the divine feminine and bring forth your innermost dreams and desires. Is it inner peace you want? prosperity? a relationship? to find your soul's purpose? Or maybe you need healing or help with a problem? Perhaps you would like to manifest a new job or a new home... Anything your heart desires can be yours when you tune in and create an opening for Spirit to come through and for magic and miracles to happen.
Working with goddess archetypes allows us to see a bigger vision for ourselves and it helps us feel nurtured, loved and cared for. By seeing goddesses as reflections of ourselves, we are connecting with our own inner divinity. The Goddess, the Sacred Feminine, the deity of a loving Mother being reflected back to us is missing from the patriarchal power structure and most religions, and it's time we reclaimed Her.
The Mirror of Venus by Edward Burne-Jones
I have found in my personal life as well as in my business as a therapist, writer and teacher, the more I have embraced the goddess and worked with the powerful archetypes that abound in every culture and corner of the world, the more I have felt free and nurtured to do my soulwork and shine.
Working with goddess archetypes is something you can easily do for yourself on a daily basis. You are essentially tuning in to your inner guide, therapist, teacher or, Goddess--your higher Self, the Wise Woman, the part of you that really does know what's best for you and wants what's best for you. She's the Good Mother, who would do anything to help her daughter see that she is worthwhile, that her thoughts and feelings matter. The Good Mother supports and encourages her daughter to keep going and follow her heart, to take leaps and put herself out there. This is the kind of mother who's got our back, she's rooting for us, she trusts in our ability to accomplish our dreams, and she loves us unconditionally.
Madonna of the Lillies by William-Adolphe Bouguereau
Choosing to work with the archetype of the Great Mother is especially important for those of us who have a mother wound, meaning we were wounded in our relationship with our personal mother who may not have known how to nurture us or give us what we needed, and who may have even harmed us through neglect, abandonment or abuse. We can create a new mother-daughter relationship on an inner level by aligning with a goddess archetype that we resonate with.
Demeter and Persephone
There are three steps to working with goddess archetypes that I find to be the most practical and empowering:
Step 1: Find a goddess archetype you resonate with and want to work with. There are hundreds of goddesses in every culture and corner of the world. You may have grown up knowing about one or two that you feel you already have a relationship with and want to work with more closely. For many in our western culture, this is Mary, the mother of Jesus, who stands in for the ancient goddesses of old. I do believe Mary is a miracle worker and those who align with her and put their trust in her often receive abundance, healing, and good fortune that they never knew before.
Kali-breastfeeding
Part of the fun of working with goddess archetypes, at least for me, is exploring their different natures and attributes and seeing who I resonate with and need help from at a particular point in time. You may find an obscure goddess that you want to explore and research. There's usually a good reason why you are drawn to one goddess or another that has to do with your own soul's yearning. Trust this process and allow whatever goddess comes to be with you for a while and see what she has to offer. It's much like finding a mentor. I have gotten to know a number of archetypes in the past 10 years or so of serious study and relationship with the Divine Feminine and I am always eager to meet a new goddess when the time is right. If you explore my blog, you will find descriptions of many of these goddesses.
Diana of the Hunt by John Byam Shaw
You want to look for a goddess that carries the archetypal energy that you are looking to manifest or align with. For example, if you want to bring in more money, you might choose to work with Lakshmi, the Hindu goddess of abundance and good fortune. If it's love you want, you could work with Aphrodite, also known as Venus, or one (or both) of the Two Marys (the Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalen). For peace of mind and healing, you might choose Mary or Quan Yin or Tara. If you are embarking on a creative endeavor or wanting to embrace a more creative lifestyle, you could choose to work with any of the mother goddesses. These are the goddesses of fertility and creativity, such as Aphrodite, Brigid, Demeter, Yemaya, Bona Dea, Anu, Saraswati, and Spider Woman or Grandmother Spider.
When I was working on my soulwork book, In the Lap of the Goddess, Connecting With the Divine Feminine, I learned about creative flow by working with the West African mermaid goddess, Yemaya. I had never tried to write and self-publish my own book, so I felt nervous and unsure of myself initially. Yemaya became my goddess guide, and she was also featured in the book as a Creator goddess. However, I found that as much as she inspired me to tap into my Creatrix self, I first needed to destroy some old thoughts and beliefs that were getting in the way--you know, those two naysayers, Fear and Doubt?
Kali, Fire Element, SoulCollage® card
So I called in Kali. She's the Hindu goddess of destruction, and despite her frightening appearance, she is a compassionate mother goddess who helps us slay the demons like fear and doubt and feelings of not being enough. My work with Kali helped me burn up the obstacles that were getting in the way, so that watery, creative Yemaya could flow through me like a river.
Yemaya, SoulCollage® card
Step 2: Bring Her to life. You can start by finding or creating images of the goddess you choose to work with. As I put together my workbook I surrounded myself with images of Yemaya. I created a mermaid wall, made a Yemaya paper doll, and created SoulCollage® cards of Her. She was by my side as I worked, literally next to my computer so I could see her and be inspired by her fertile, ever-flowing, creative energy. I made Her presence known. I highly recommend creating an image of Her by collaging, drawing, painting or sculpting Her because then you are truly fashioning Her from your own hands and heart.
Another way to get to know Her is through shamanic journeying or guided journeys. There are free guided journeys to meet five goddesses on my website here. You can get to know the goddess you align with through meditation and prayer, and by opening up to messages from her by asking questions and sitting quietly to receive divine inspiration and direction. You can also do this through active imagination exercises such as creating a dialogue with Her in your journal. Write down a question and wait for the answer. Try writing Her answer with your non-dominant hand so you are more likely to bypass the logical, left brain and tap into your intuitive, right brain wisdom. Let it flow through you.
Yemaya 2, SoulCollage card
When I got stuck or wasn't sure what to do next while creating my workbook, I would turn the problem over to my creative helper, Yemaya. I asked for help, and you know what? It always worked. She always came through. Yemaya was my midwife in birthing that project, which led to my creating e-courses and workshops. One thing flowed into another.
Yemaya, Water Element, SoulCollage® card
When I turned over the need to know and do everything a certain way and allowed new ways and answers to come, to flow through me, it happened. I was constantly amazed that when I felt blocked or discouraged, if I just sat with it, journaled with it, asked for help, it came. The divine inspiration happened because I was aligned with Her and I trusted Her to see me though the creative process. I Let go, and Let Goddess. And as the creative juices flowed, so did sacred abundance.
Step 3: Create an altar to Her. This is a powerful tool because you are setting up a place to honor Her and a place to go and connect with Her. This is where you can get clear about your heart's desire. If it's abundance you want, be specific about what kind and how much you need, while at the same time staying open to surprise and how it might show up. Envision yourself already attaining it. Put these requests, dreams and desires into a container on your altar such as a dream box or wish jar.
Make your altar a beautiful reflection of Her and You. Include gems, crystals, stones, herbs, plants, flowers, feathers, candles, totems, elements of earth, water, fire, air, figurines and anything that feels symbolic of the goddess and the divine feminine abundance you are wanting to create for yourself. This is also a place to put the images or creations you have lovingly made of Her.
Sit at this altar everyday, even if only for 5 minutes. Offer a prayer, ask for help, express gratitude, write in your journal, draw oracle cards, and stay open to Her presence. By the way, this altar could be on your desk, on a shelf, a table, or outdoors in nature. It can be makeshift and portable if necessary. Make it work for you.
Yet another way to work with goddess archetypes is to take my e-courses, now available as self-study courses. The New Moon Goddess Mystery School features four goddesses: Brigid, Inanna, Artemis, and Cerridwyn, over four new moons during the four seasons. To learn more and to register, click HERE.
In addition, there are 10 goddesses which you can learn about through my self-study e-courses available HERE and HERE.
I don't know if you've figured it out yet, but by honoring a goddess in these ways, you are honoring the goddess in you.
May the Goddess bless you and help you bring about your fondest dreams and desires.
"I found god in myself and I loved her, I loved her fiercely." - Ntozake Shange
2014NMGMSbutton
In altar, Aphrodite, Artemis, Brigid, create, divine feminine, goddess, Goddess Temple e-course, Great Mother, Kali, Mary, sacred feminine, SoulCollage®, spiritual, Yemaya
Priestess Pilgrimage
October 19, 2013 Stephanie
It has been too long since I posted here. I find that when I am holding space for my Goddess Temple e-courses, which I did over three moons this summer, and traveling to faraway places, it is not easy for me to gather my thoughts and emotions in writing as I need contemplative time.
My friend, Susan Wells, a magical potter who has been channeling Mother Mary as she works her alchemy with clay, posted a new offering of a "Contemplative Cup," and I knew I had to have one. Sure enough, drinking my new favorite tea, Iron Goddess of Mercy (She is Quan Yin, another form of Mary) in this wood-fired vessel has helped me ground into my being. I am starting to make sense of the many images and ideas, forms and feelings, that have been bubbling in the cauldron in both my waking and dreaming state. So please, pour a cuppa tea and join me in my reminiscing...
At the end of my New Moon Goddess Mystery School in early October, I jetted off to England on a two-week journey with 11 sisters. As with my Goddess Pilgrimage last year to Greece, once I had arrived, I crossed the threshold into liminal space. A sense of timelessness set in, where past, present and future meet at the crossroads. This is the Crone Goddess Hecate's hangout, where I seem to find myself again and again at this stage of my life.
It seemed no accident that these particular women were also meeting at the crossroads at this particular time to walk upon the soil of our ancestors and to revisit the sacred sites of England we knew in our sense memory. As I had felt on last year's pilgrimage, I had been here before as a priestess and I am returning to remember, to be the hollow bone for spirit to flow through, to move through the spiral dance of life on the body of the Great Mother. For that is the job of the priestess: To act as mediator between the human and the divine, to hold sacred space, and to be a vessel of transformation for herself and for others.
The journey began with a reunion with my dear friend, Sarah Jane, in London and a visit to the British Museum, where we beheld these goddesses, all sacred to me. Meeting them in the whirlwind of the first three days in London was an initiation of sorts. They seemed to give us their blessings for the journey ahead...
Sekhmet, fierce Egyptian protector Goddess & Golden Tara (one of 21 Taras), Tibetan Bodhisattva who enables us to manifest and fulfill our life's purpose
Aphrodite (Venus), Mother Goddess of Love and Beauty
Nine of us (two would meet up with us along the way) set out for the standing stones, first Stonehenge and then Avebury, on our way to Glastonbury. Stonehenge is stunning, but it felt removed, as it has become more like a museum now. When I first visited these stones in 1976, there were no ropes or barriers and I could lean my back again the sarsens and watch the sun came up through a stone gateway. Now they are protected and must be viewed from afar. Still, I can easily imagine how these magnificent stones once provided an outdoor arena, of sorts, where people gathered millennia ago, performing rituals of celebration, worship, or perhaps burial. It is clearly a monument to the earth and sky, the sun and moon, and the great wheel of the seasons.
From there we traveled to Avebury, the largest group of existent standing stones (actually comprising three stone circles) that surround the quaint village of that name. These we could walk amongst, touch, sit on, and feel their warmth, the subtle vibration of lifetimes lived here. The day was spent ambling around the village, stopping in a grove of beech trees whose roots were exposed in a dazzling display of interconnectedness.
Late in the afternoon, we gathered on the top of West Kennet Barrow, a long mound that housed a tomb. We sat on top of it in a circle, sharing our stories and what brought us to this point. Then we formed a line and entered the tomb, circling underground, offering prayers and songs of gratitude to the ancestors who whispered their thanks to the priestesses who honored their all-but-forgotten labors.
From Avebury we traveled to Glastonbury, the heart of our pilgrimage, where we stayed at the Chalice Well Inn for four days. The Inn is like a small monastery with a beautiful well-tended garden where the Chalice Well is nestled, fed by an iron-rich, red spring, that produces a delicious, iron-oxidized water, that I believe had a healing effect on me. On the first night there, we circled around the chalice well and offered blessings and prayers for the healing of our Mother Earth, to the wounded feminine and masculine, and to the energy of the Well Maidens who once guarded the waters and provided sustenance from a golden cup to wayfarers who happened upon them. These Goddesses of the Wells were considered sacred and the kings and knights of old Britton were bound to protect them in a chivalric manner for thousands of years until one day the tradition was broken by a king named Amangon. He and his men raped some of the maidens and took the golden chalice, symbol of the divine feminine. The maidens disappeared, the kingdom became a wasteland, and thus the search for the Holy Grail began.
We learned that there were two springs here, the red and the white, that once joined and flowed together, but that have since been divided. Their source was the tor, the hill that overlooks Glastonbury. The tor is an unusual geological formation, a rain-fed aquifer that formed a type of underground vessel like the alembic of alchemy. In the bottom of the alembic, the heavier shale and limestone holds the iron-saturated water of the red spring. The top of the alembic contains the calcium-rich waters of the white spring, whose flow fluctuates much more unpredictably than the steady surge of the deeper red spring. Both flow in the same direction towards the Chalice Well, but the white spring has been diverted by man so that it no longer joins the red spring.
Nigredo, Albedo, Rubedo Stages of Alchemy
As Nicholas Mann and Philippa Glasson describe it in The Red & White Springs of Avalon, "The Red and White Springs, emerging out of their never-failing, world-mountain source, added to the potency of the extraordinary, otherworldly landscape [of Avalon]. The great mysteries of life and death, of the divine masculine and feminine, of queenship and kingship, the nature of goddess and god, and of the journey between this world and the next--are all evoked by the striking polarity of the two springs. Through them, the pilgrim can connect with powerful initiatory symbols: the Philosopher's Stone, the Holy Grail, the Cauldrons of Plenty and of Rebirth, and Excalibur, the Sword of Sovereignty. Most importantly of all, the Entrance to the Otherworld was said to be located on this 'Fortunate Isle,' the mysterious 'Isle of Glass' that became known as Avalon."
Could it be that the duality that we have known since the end of the goddess-loving times and the beginning of the patriarchy will be resolved when the two springs run together again? In alchemy, from the black nigredo of the earth comes the white albedo of the water, which, when mixed with the red rubedo of fire creates an interplay that results in the sacred marriage of the divine feminine and masculine, the magnum opus that is the Philosopher's Stone, the Holy Grail, or the Divine Child. As Mann and Glasson put it, "By hastening the release of human consciousness from identification with dualism, and by learning to transmit radiant streams of the elixir-like energy of love-wisdom from the portal opened by the opus, the alchemized soul learns to connect with and honor all beings."
The beautiful wrought-iron lid of the Chalice Well contains rich symbolism of these two worlds meeting in the form of the vesica piscis, two overlapping circles that form a mandorla, or almond-shaped yoni in the center. This is the vulva or birth opening of creation, where opposites unite, and which is, in itself, a portal to the Otherworld that Avalon represents.
From the Chalice garden, the tor can be seen rising up from what once was an inland sea, known as Ynys Witrin or the "Isle of Glass," thought to have been the center of the mystical Isle of Avalon.
We struck out in the early morning, shrouded in mist, able to see only a few feet in front of us as we climbed higher into the clouds, seemingly compelled by an invisible force urging us onward.
It was easy to see how this nemeton could be perceived as the axis mundi, or world axis, which connected the above and below, and from which the cosmos revolved. As Mann and Glasson describe it, "The implicit invitation to the Avalonian pilgrim [is] to be guided by this sacred geography towards a profound understanding of the place of humans within the cosmos. When these natural and man-made features are considered in their entirety, they reveal that the Isle of Avalon possesses an extraordinary genius loci, a spirit of place where the veil between the worlds, between the solar, the terrestrial and the daemonic realms, dissolves; a place where the anima mundi or world soul, connects with the life of the individual soul to provide healing and initiation."
After our magical time here amid much tears and laughter, a smaller group of us continued on to the wild coast of Cornwall, a region I have longed to see since I first read the gothic fiction of Daphne DuMaurier as a young girl. We stopped in the picturesque town of Boscastle to visit the Museum of Witchcraft, where my favorite exhibit was a dark mirror that seemed to hold an infinity of dark reflections. What stories could it tell, I wondered. Could this have been the mirror that the evil queen in Snow White used to ask, "Mirror, Mirror, on the wall, Who's the fairest of them all?"
And then on to Tintagel Castle on the high cliffs above the Celtic Sea. This is where King Arthur was said to have been born. And Merlin's Cave beneath it, where priestesses gathered and looked out to the sea on one side and the sand on the other, glimpsing fairy lights and rainbows about us. Was that the chuckling of Merlin we heard or the lapping of the sea upon the stones?
And finally, one last magical day in St. Nectan's Glen, a place where fairies and spirits abound, and where I sensed the presence of my mother, who met me in the realm of the imagination and encouraged me to believe in things unseen, and my father, who also stoked the fires of my imagination and taught me playfulness.
The seven of us priestesses who were left were like little girls playing in the forest on the last day of our journey. We reluctantly said good-bye to this ancient land and spirit and stepped back across the threshold toward home.
I'm ready for another cuppa tea. How about you?
Much love and gratitude to my priestess sisters, Pixie Campbell, Sarah Jane Owen, Christine Mason Miller, Clarity Beaumont, Jennette Nielsen, Latisha Guthrie, Erin Faith Allen and Poppy, Lisa Wright, Katariina Agnes Fagering, and Sara Eliason.
In divine feminine, England, Glastonbury, goddess, goddess pilgrimage, Goddess Temple e-course, Great Mother, pilgrimage, priestess
What do The Two Marys, Sekhmet and Guinevere Have in Common?
Until I started creating my latest e-course, The New Moon Goddess Mystery School, I might have thought these four goddesses had very little in common. I chose them (or they chose me) because of the New Moons occurring this summer: July 8th in Cancer, the watery, feeling sign of the Great Mother, suggested The Two Marys (The Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalen), archetypes and spiritual guides I am familiar with, who teach us about nurturing ourselves. August 6th in fiery Leo, the sign of the Amazon Queen, suggested the great lion-headed Egyptian goddess, Sekhmet, who teaches us about anger and passion. September 5th, earthy Virgo, the sign of the priestess/queen led me to Guinevere (or Gwynhwyfar in the Welsh spelling), who teaches us about the queen aspect missing from the triple goddess of maiden, mother, crone, and about the sacred marriage between the inner feminine and masculine, also known in the mystery schools as the hieros gamos.
The more I have explored and delved into the mysteries of these four archetypes from different times and cultures the more I have been blown away by what they share. Here are some similarities and overlap that I have discovered that you will learn more about in the Mystery School course over the next 3 moons:
Three_crowns_emblem
They are all queens: The Virgin Mary is known as the Queen of Heaven and is often depicted sitting on her sky throne, the moon under her feet; as the wife of Jesus Christ, would-be King of Israel, Mary Magdalen would have been Queen through the sacred marriage, which in apocryphal lore, was arranged to unite two royal families and end the Roman rule of Jerusalem; Sekhmet is both a goddess and queen, shown on her throne, holding a sceptor and an ankh, ruling over two warring regions of Egypt that eventually made peace; Guinevere was the queen to King Arthur, who brought peace for some time to the warring tribes of Britannia.
They are all virgin goddesses: To be a virgin goddess, in the sense of the ancient mysteries, has nothing to do with sexual abstinence. It speaks to a goddess who is whole or sovereign unto Herself. While these goddesses may be related to masculine counterparts as consort, husband, or son, they have their own power and divinity, separate from them and do not derive their power from them.
triple-goddess
Together they make a triple goddess: Guinevere is most often associated with the maiden of spring and rebirth; The Two Marys are both creator mother goddesses; and Sekhmet is most often associated with the crone and the destructive aspect.
Each one has triple goddess aspects: Mary Magdalen is the mother; her daughter, Sarah, is the maiden, and the Virgin Mary is the grandmother/crone; in the Egyptian tripartite goddess, Bastet, the playful cat goddess is the maiden, Hathor, the pleasure-loving cow goddess is the creative mother, and Sekhmet is the destroyer crone; Guinevere is the maiden of Beltane, the mother of Brittania who unites her people at the round table, and the crone who eventually brings the round table to an end.
Each goddess has twin aspects: The Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalene are often seen as two aspects of the one Mary: one divine, the other human; Sekhmet and Hathor are often seen as two sides of the same coin: one destroyer, the other creator; there was said to be a True Guinevere and a False Guinevere, not to mention Guinevere's dark other half, Morgaine. When we put these goddesses' two halves together they make a whole, multi-dimensional woman/goddess with light and shadow, human and divine, birth and death features.
hierosgamosimage
Each of these goddesses had a sacred marriage: The Virgin Mary could be said to have had a sacred marriage to God or the Holy Spirit, although not in any worldly sense; Mary Magdalen had a sacred marriage with Jesus (both Marys are referred to as the Bride of Christ); Sekhmet with Ptah; and Guinevere with Arthur. The hieros gamos wedded man and woman with god and goddess in a holy rite that was widely practiced in the temples of the old world, as part of the ancient mysteries to bring about the sacred union. This not only united the feminine and masculine, but the human and divine, and the goddess to the land and its people (providing protection and fertility).
Each goddess has an association to the lion, an animal that denotes royalty: Jesus was known as the lion of Judah, one of the first tribes of Israel; the lion is a symbol of solar energy, connecting Jesus as the son (sun) of God; Sekhmet was the solar goddess of Egypt with her lioness head and female body; Guinevere was known as the "Lady of Lyonesse," where she was born, which was also the site of the final battle between Arthur and Mordred.
These are just a few of the commonalities I found between these goddesses and which you will discover, and much more too, when you take The New Moon Goddess Mystery School course now available for self-study. These are self-paced courses so you can start them any time and do them whenever it's convenient for you. You can also opt to take one, two, or all three New Moon courses.
new_moon_goddess_4x3
I hope you will join us as we explore the mysteries of these feminine archetypes and learn how they have meaning for us today.
In Guinevere, marriage, Mary, Mary Magdalen, queen, Sekhmet, triple goddess, virgin Tags New Moon, Guinevere, Sekhmet, Mary Magdalene, Mary, goddesses, hieros gamos, triple goddess
New Moon Goddess Mystery School
May 8, 2013 Stephanie
Temple of Vestal Virgins by Holscher
What does it mean to be a priestess?
Tarot_HighPriestess
You are invited to join the Goddess Temple as a priestess, but what does it mean to be a priestess? In the tarot, The High Priestess is the number 2 card (the number of all life), right behind the Magician. She is the yin to his yang, and reigns over the rituals of women's mysteries. She is Spirit brought down to earth. Her three-pronged headdress evokes the Triple Goddess and points to the past, present and future. The moon is at her feet, where water flows, symbolic of her feminine power and dominion. The pomegranates surrounding her symbolize the fertile womb of creativity, openness, receptivity. She sits between the two pillars of Solomon's Temple. One represents severity and the other mercy. She is the mediator between the two, the golden mean. The priestess holds the potential for the spiritually developed Self.
In the book, Spiritual Tarot, the High Priestess speaks her truth: "I am the eternal keeper of ancient wisdom. Mine is the quest for knowledge. I show the balance of dark and light in this world, as well as the harmony between the spiritual and mundane.. I am not merely an observer; I radiate the energy of experience... As the divine feminine, I stir deeper feelings of personal and universal love than you have ever known. As a result, you are free to be receptive and active in your relationships... I am your memory, the storehouse of all your successes, failures, dreams and fantasies. I am your dream guide. I inspire through mediation. Use me to translate your experience into personal wisdom... My presence encourages you to become discriminating in your choices and to become conscious of the difference between the image you have of yourself and who you really are."
Are you ready to learn the mysteries of these goddesses and step into your priestess power? Join us in the Goddess Temple. This is Summer School for the Soul.
Priestess of Bacchus by John Collier
In divine feminine, goddess, Goddess Temple e-course, New Moon Goddess Mystery School, priestess Tags Guinevere, Mary, Mary Magdalene, Sekhmet
What Women Most Desire
Happy Beltane! And on this happy day when men and women in days of yore leapt over the sacred fire and met in the fields and meadows to frolic and couple in revelry to ensure fertility across the land, we may ponder what makes a sacred marriage... For this is the time of divine union between the solar masculine and the earthy feminine. A time to embody one of the great truths the alchemists, priestesses, shamans and initiates to the mysteries know: as above, so below, as within, so without.
As you find balance between your own inner masculine and feminine, you attract this partnership in the outer world. As the inner masculine -- the active, thinking, doing part -- learns to serve the inner feminine -- the receptive, feeling, being part, integration and harmony find expression. But you have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find your prince, they say. And sometimes you have to kiss a hag before you find your queen.
Let me tell you one of my favorite stories, the Arthurian legend of the Wedding of Sir Gawain, that speaks to the task of the knight and the lady, and what trust and serving a higher purpose bring to relationship.
This story begins with the battle-weary King Arthur on a hunt, separated from his men, astride his horse alone in the forest. For a moment he stops, his memory taking him to another time and place where the smell of death and the sound of men dying on the killing fields is very much with him.
And then, through the mists, he becomes aware of a visage that makes his blood run cold. A knight twice his size, bedecked in black from his head to toe, a mantle of black cormorant feathers rippling across his broad shoulders, rides forth on a large, black steed. Before Arthur realizes that his sword, Excalibur, is not at his side and he has but a dagger to defend himself, the knight is upon him, his cold, steely blade pressed against the young king's neck.
"The crown is mine," Arthur hears the black knight intone, "unless you can answer a simple question."
"What is it?" Arthur asks, feeling a trickle of blood from the blade cut ever so slightly into his skin.
"Tell me what it is that a woman wants most," the black knight growls. "You have three days to solve the riddle, and if you answer correctly the kingdom remains yours; if not, it is mine."
KnightsofroundtableCrane
That evening at court, the knights of the round table and the ladies of the court, indeed, even Queen Guinevere, buzz with excitement and consternation, puzzling over the black knight's challenge and offering up their own answers.
"A queen wants a good king, a noble husband and partner," Guinevere says, "like you."
guineverecrowned
Others offer up their opinions: A family, a home, wealth, good humor, honesty, a knight in shining armor -- the usual. But Arthur knows it isn't enough. He queries Merlin, who only answers that he must solve the puzzle or pay the price. His men ride furiously to supplicate the wise men and women of the land while Arthur rides out into the forest alone, wondering if his days are numbered, if the battles he has fought have been for nought.
And as he rides deeper and deeper into the forest he comes upon a crossroads and halts, stopped by a horrifying sight and a putrefying stench -- what appears to be a heap of filthy rags writhing and moving like a bag of snakes.
There arises from the pile a loathesome creature, the ugliest crone he has ever laid eyes on, her face pockmarked and warty, her eyes bloodshot and rheumy, her nose crooked and running, and her teeth -- what few she has -- blackened and broken. She farts and belches in greeting as she stands before him, cackling and scratching at her sores, her one good eye looking him up and down.
She thrusts a gnarled finger at him and points, beckoning him closer. Arthur feels compelled to dismount and approach the old woman, although he draws his sword, wary of her intentions. She laughs, a gutteral, hacking grunt that sounds more like death than mirth.
"I have the answer you seek," she tells him, "and I will give it to you for a price."
"What is your price?" he asks.
"That I may marry a knight of your court."
And so accepting the bargain, Arthur rides forth to the castle of the black knight and answers the question the crone whispered to him, and the kingdom remains sovereign under the reign of Arthur and Guinevere.
Yet Arthur has to go back to his round table and tell the knights of the quest and of the hag's bounty. All is quiet. No one steps forward to exact the price as they each contemplate the fate of marrying such a wretched being, until the youngest knight, Sir Gawain, Arthur's nephew, stands. Everyone tries to talk him out of it and implore him not to go through with it. Even Arthur is ready to renege on his promise rather than see his nephew make such a choice.
But on the first of May the wedding day arrives, and Sir Gawain meets his bride -- the loathesome, stinking hag -- at the altar, and they exchange vows.
No one can watch Gawain walk back down the aisle with the hag on his arm. Few words are spoken and there is little joy at the wedding feast that follows. Those in attendance avert their eyes as the couple make their way to the wedding chamber where they will spend their first night together as man and wife.
As she sits on the bed and turns to face him he stands staring at the countenance of the shriveled old woman before him. And he realizes for the first time that she is a human being who has no doubt been through a great deal of pain and suffering. As he looks deeply into her eyes, he feels a wave of compassion flow through him.
She smiles. "You are a true and gallant knight," she says, standing up to meet him. Though he wants to pull away, he does not move, and her lips press against his. He stumbles backwards seeing the woman before him -- a beautiful maiden, her lips parted, her breasts heaving in their queenly robes.
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"Who are you?" he stammers in amazement.
"I am your queen. But I cannot remain like this always. You must choose: You may have me as you see me now at night and as the hag by day, who others will see and judge. Or you may have me as you see me now and for others to see by day and as the withered crone by night. What do you choose, My Lord?"
Sir Gawain, cognizant of the impossibility of such a choice tells her, "I cannot choose, My Lady. You must decide."
And with that she smiles the sweetest of smiles and takes his hand. "Thank you," she says, "You have broken the spell by giving me what a woman wants most."
"And what is that?" Sir Gawain asks, aware that it is the very same riddle King Arthur had learned the answer to that had saved the kingdom.
"Her own way," the Lady tells him, "A woman most desires being sovereign unto herself."
And so it is that every knight and king gains his full power through marriage to the lady or queen who represents the sovereignty of the land and of her own body and soul. In the service of true equality and sacred right relationship, a woman must remain sovereign to herself and not to any man.
LaBelleDameSansMerci
In Beltane, crone, Guinevere, hag, King Arthur, marriage, sacred feminine, sacred masculine, Sir Gawain, sovereignty
Time of the Maiden: A Bouquet of Spring Goddesses & Their Messages
It's been a slow awakening for me this spring. I really did hunker down in my bear's den for some deep, much-needed rest this winter. I had to wrestle with my inner taskmaster and guilt-tripper who kept pushing and nagging me to do more with my time. What about that book proposal you wanted to write? Get on it, Sister!
And I had to answer, "In due time. I am not ready. I'm still hibernating and gestating, so leave me alone." I needed to paint and play and was able to pull together a couple of low-key workshops -- or playshops as I call them -- to remind me of what I really want to do: Breathe. Play. Enjoy. Connect. Rest. Just Be.
As the great wheel turns and Mother Earth begins to green and blossom, the sleepy mama bear in me is struggling to open her eyes and face the world and the things she wants to accomplish this year, while another part of me is rising joyfully to meet the thawing warmth of spring.
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As the wheel turns, so do we all sense the turning and churning of transformation within us. The maiden is being reborn. It doesn't matter how old you are in real time, the crone of winter, who has slept and rested and stirred her bubbling cauldron in the cave all winter long, now gives way to the maiden.
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You do know that the maiden and the crone inhabit the same body, don't you? Just as surely as the moon changes from new, to full, to dark, a woman moves through the phases of maiden, mother and crone.
Sometimes the maiden awakens and rises slowly from the matrix making her way to the world above in measured steps, and at other times she springs forth all in a rush, throwing off the crone's snowy mantle, fairly bursting at the seams to frolic in the warming upper world.
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Do you feel the sap rising? The energy surging up from the depths? The bubbling of creative juices? The stirrings of longing? The push to arrive like a newborn babe from the darkness of the womb into the glistening light of the world above? It is the maiden within, the renewed feminine, awakening, ready to sing her anthem of rebirth.
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The maidens are many, celebrated throughout the world as the promise of youth, the fool who ventures out into the brave, new world caring not a whit if she stumbles and falls, for she will just get up, dust herself off, and continue on her journey, reinventing herself as she goes...
she is the wild child who cavorts and plays in the woods, discovering who she is as an artist, writer, dancer or other creatrix...
she is the unselfconscious girl who dances with boundless enthusiasm and energy wherever her feet lead her...
she is the curious student filled with wonder and the need to learn more about the world and what makes it go round...
she is the lusty lass who is unashamed of her body and ready to test her powers as a sexual being...
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She resides within every woman, no matter her age, waiting to break free and have her day. Here are a few maiden goddesses with messages for you:
Meet the Springtime Goddesses...
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There is Persephone, the Greek goddess whose maiden self is known as the Kore. She spends half her days in the underworld with the crone, Hecate (for really they are one and the same--the maiden within the crone within the maiden), and the other half with her mother, Demeter, the goddess of grain and growth. Persephone learns to turn her sorrow into strength and becomes a queen in the underworld. When she rises each spring, she is transformed--the maiden once again, bringing warmth, beauty, light, and serendipity with her.
Persephone's message:Give yourself time to wake up to the inner stirrings bubbling beneath the surface. Pay attention to your dreams and write them down. Plant seeds of ideas and watch and water them, taking time to smell the flowers as you cultivate your dreams and desires.
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Meet Flora, the Roman goddess of the flowers, patroness of prostitutes (and secret patroness of Rome) whose feminine body was considered the sacred vessel of life, just as the flower is the sex organ of a plant. Women's naked bodies were honored in ancient Rome at the Floralia, a celebration that took place from April 28 to May 3, when all of Rome came out to play.
Flora's message:Honor your body by doing something that feels delicious or nurturing to it. Get a message. Learn to belly dance. Take perfumed bubble baths. Anoint yourself with a fragrant body oil. Wear something sexy and then take it off for your lover. Declare your love for your holy body temple.
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There is Ostara, or Eoster, the Germanic maiden of April who lent her name to the Easter holiday we celebrate. Easter comes from the word estrus, the time when animals are most fertile and open to conceiving. The tradition of painting eggs began as a way to honor her renewing fertility and the bountiful colors of spring.
Ostara's message:Come out of your shell and try something new that you've always wanted to do but never allowed yourself. Wear bright colors and let yourself shine.
Maia is the May goddess of both Greek and Roman tradition, who was celebrated on the first of May or May Day, now given over to Mother Mary. She was considered a fire goddess who stoked the fires of passion and warmed the earth with her solar heat. In Greece she was also known as "Wise One," or Grandmother, and acted as midwife to women giving birth.
Maia's message:Pay attention to the fire in your belly. What wants to be birthed this year? Take care to nurture it and fan the flames regularly so that it ignites and burns brightly and doesn't peter out.
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Butterfly Maiden is a Native American goddess who is one of the Hopi kachinas. She is honored for her transformative ability, her fragile beauty, and her importance in flying from flower to flower to help the plant people pollinate and thrive.
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Butterfly Maiden's message:Look for beauty everywhere around you, within and without. When you see something that you want to judge harshly, look for the beauty in it and transform your thoughts, gaining new perspective.
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Freya (considered by some to be the same as Frigg) is the Scandinavian goddess of fertility, the one who presided over life, which she celebrated through her unabashed sexuality, and death, presiding over the underworld much like Persephone. She was a magical maiden who rode through the sky in a cat-drawn chariot.
Freya's message:Wake up to your sexual nature and desires. Don't let yourself stagnate. Treat lovemaking as a playful experience whether alone or with your partner.
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Renpet, an Egyptian maiden, symbolized by the palm sprouting from her head, represents time and the eternal nature of the earth's cycles, the return of spring and new growth each year.
Renpet's message:Get your hands in the dirt.Plant a garden or flower bed. Keep fresh flowers on your table to remind you of the fragile beauty of each day, each hour, and each moment.
Enjoy spring and the maiden within!
Note: All images are credited except for the first one, which I would be happy to credit, if anyone knows who the artist is of this stunning illustration. The ones not captioned are SoulCollage® images I have created.
In Butterfly Maiden, Flora, Maia, Ostara, Persephone, Renpet, spring, wheel of the year
Woman and the Owl
February 21, 2013 Stephanie
Over at the Woman and the Owl project, I was recently interviewed by Dr. Jessamine Dana, whose project is to cultivate and support women as spiritual leaders in all walks of life. I had the honor of being interviewed for her project, which you can watch here. We have both been drawn to the owl as kindred spirit and totem animal to women and our intuitive process. The owl has long been associated with the goddess, witches, wisdom, magic and the supernatural. To me the owl represents my inner voice, the place I go to within to hear answers. I wait and listen, often needing to let go of what I thought I knew or what I thought I was supposed to do, so that magic can happen.
As Jessamine Dana puts it, "The relationship between the woman and the owl is the complex connection and attraction between ourselves and our potential, between who we are and who we might become, and between the internal and the part of us that flies forward, exploring what the world might hold. The Project, is the work of going again and again into that place of mystery, of the unknown, of the Divine, from whence much of the spiritual feminine comes. It is the work of renewing our commitment to ourselves, our communities, our students, to be brave, to step forward, and to be us."
Aho.
In divine feminine, goddess, leadership, owl, spiritual, woman and the owl Tags owl, woman and the owl
A Goddess Pilgrimage: Magical Santorini - Part 4
"To Journey without being changed is to be a nomad.To change without journeying is to be a chameleon. To journey and be transformed by the journey is to be a pilgrim."
- Mark Nepo
It was 3 months ago that I returned to the United States from my 3 week goddess pilgrimage to Greece. It has taken me that long to assimilate it all, to let it seep into my skin, settle in my bones, and animate my dreams...
The last stop of the trip, after leaving Crete and the wonderful journey there to meet the Minoan goddesses with 19 sister pilgrims, was 3 days in Santorini. I didn't know much about Santorini except that I was told it was breathtakingly beautiful. My friend and traveling companion, Diane Marshall, and I were pretty beat from the two-week pilgrimage, jokingly referred to as "goddess bootcamp." It takes a lot out of you to traverse an island, climb mountain tops, descend into caves, dance, sing, create altars and rituals, and navigate a different culture, language, and people in a group of 20. Diane and I made a few last minute changes to our itinerary so we could enjoy a full 3 days of resting in Santorini, and we were so glad we did.
We took a boat the 70 miles from Crete to Santorini and arrived at a small semi-circular island whose towering cliffs jutted out from the sea like a giant cake. The white buildings that covered the tops of the cliffs looked like drizzled icing. It wasn't until we went up the steep roads to our hotel, the Volcano View, and collapsed in chairs on the cliffside patio that we gasped in amazement at the beauty of our surroundings.
I knew Santorini was on a caldera, or cauldron, formed by the collapse of land following a volcanic eruption, but I now saw that this little slip of an island was actually one part of the circular edge of the volcano. There were a few other smaller islands that peeked up from the sea across from it which I now realized formed the other edge of the volcanic ring.
Wow! It hit me that we were perched on the rim of a volcano that had last erupted in 1450 BCE, and was now surrounded by water. We had heard much about this volcanic eruption on Crete because it was one of the factors that contributed to the demise of the rich, goddess-loving Minoan culture. We were to learn more about its effects here, at its epicenter, when this land was known as Thera and thought by some to have been the lost continent of Atlantis.
Diane and I spent the first day relaxing at the beautiful hotel that overlooked the sea and took in the calming blue and white of the sea, sky, clouds, cliffs and white-washed churches with blue-painted domes. All of Santorini seemed to be blue and white, colors that seemed to both calm us and cleanse us of our weariness.
We learned that there are more than 250 churches on the little island which takes no more than an hour and a half to traverse lengthwise. Here, the Virgin Mary was venerated and considered to be a guardian goddess of the island, comprised mostly of Greek Orthodox and some Catholics. We were to learn that some of these churches were built on sites that were once sacred to the goddesses of old, including Hecate, Artemis, and Isis, the latter due to the shared cultures of the Greeks and Egyptians during ancient times. Mary has had to stand in for the goddesses that were once revered in Her many forms.
The second day there, we rented a car and set out to explore the island. We were eager to visit the ruins of Akrotiri, a Minoan town that flourished until the volcano blew in 1450 BCE, changing the course of civilization in this area. When the volcano erupted, it covered the town in a thick layer of volcanic ash, much like Pompeii, preserving a portion of the town and many of the artifacts of life during that time, as if placed in a time capsule. It is one of the few excavations we visited that was enclosed to prevent further damage from the elements. As we entered, we saw two and three-story buildings that opened onto small squares, remnants of doors and windows, stone-paved roads, sophisticated sewer systems, furniture, utensils and earthenware jars lined up in basement storage rooms. It left one with the feeling that life was suddenly interrupted, although it is speculated that the people who lived there probably had time to evacuate as many earthquakes presaged the volcano's eruption.
In the midst of this gray, ashen ghost town, some buildings exhibited beautifully-painted frescoes on the walls. One in particular thrilled me as it showed what women of the time looked like, how they dressed and wore their hair. I especially loved the painting of the young priestess who seemed to be in motion and the life-sized female figures portrayed in the "House of Women" who seemed so vibrant.
From there, we wandered from black volcanic beaches to white pumice beaches to red lava stone beaches until we found the old settlement of Thera, perched on a hillside. I read about the tiny church halfway up the hill that was built on the site of an ancient temple of the goddess, and wanted to see it. Once again, as Jean Shinoda Bolen points out in Crossing to Avalon, one way of "usurping goddess sites was by building chapels or cathedrals in honor of Mary on them. As a feminine expression of divinity, Mary is archetypally the mother goddess. In all but name, this is how she is worshipped... For regardless of discriminating points made by theologians, the man or woman who prays to Mary is speaking to the same compassionate goddess whose names were, among others, Demeter, Isis, Tara, or Kuan Yin, goddesses who, like Mary, understood suffering.... When Mary chapels are built on goddess sites, they are, in effect, reconsecrated and renamed, places where it can be said that the Goddess continues to be honored."
After a full day of exploring, we made our way to the north tip of the island to the town of Oia where we were told the sunsets were spectacular. There, we sat on a rooftop patio and sipped wine and watched the sun go down along with throngs of others lined along the walls of the cliffside city.
The third day was spent just walking up and down the cobblestone streets of the quaint town of Fira, relaxing, shopping, always eating magnificent food and taking in the beauty around us.
It was hard to leave this magical isle. We wanted the days of keeping our gaze on the deep blue sea, sipping wine, and letting the warm wind blow through our hair until the sun dropped beneath the horizon to never end. But as all good things must, this journey, too, came to a glorious end in Santorini.
The pilgrimage to Greece to encounter the goddess was one that will always be a part of me, and that did indeed, transform me as I felt the presence of the goddess both within and without. For She is there. Wherever you seek Her, you will find Her. And I came to know, as did Morgaine, the last priestess of the goddess in The Mists of Avalon, who followed a young girl into a chapel at the end of the story "...even if they think otherwise... these women know the power of the Immortal. Exile her as they may, she will prevail. The Goddess will never withdraw herself from mankind."
In Artemis, Crete, goddess, goddess pilgrimage, Greece, Hecate, Isis, Mary, Mists of Avalon, priestess, Santorini Tags Hecate
A Goddess Pilgrimage: Crete - Part 3
December 30, 2012 Stephanie
As Carol Christ, our fearless leader, explained to us that first night in Crete, a pilgrimage is more than just a journey to a sacred place, it is a journey between states -- physical, mental, emotional and spiritual. In a way, when you are on a pilgrimage you are without a country. In starting a pilgrimage, you cross a threshold into a liminal state, where you often experience a sense of timelessness, if not another place in time. Pilgrims are on their own personal odyssey as well as on a collective odyssey with other seekers. In their book, The Archetype of Pilgrimage: Outer Action with Inner Meaning, Wallace and Jean Clift describe the various reasons for embarking on a pilgrimage: to answer a call to adventure (one of the first stages Joseph Campbell described in "The Hero's Journey"); to experience a place of power; to hope and ask for healing or a miracle; to express a love of God (or Goddess); to find or reclaim lost pieces of ourselves; to give thanks; to ask for forgiveness; to leave the routine of ordinary life and experience something new or numinous; and to prepare for death. On this last point, it would seem we are always preparing for death, albeit often unconsciously, and going on a pilgrimage can feel like one of those things you need to do before you die. In many respects, all of these reasons compelled me to go on Carol Christ's Goddess Pilgrimage, a 2-week sojourn she has been leading in the spring and fall for 20 years.
The night before we left Athens for Crete, I put on some music (Gabrielle Roth's CD, Luna) and danced on the rooftop of our hotel, where I had a stunning view of the Acropolis, awash in golden light. I was celebrating the initiation I had experienced at Delphi and preparing myself for our morning sight-seeing at the Acropolis, afternoon releasing ceremony at Eleusis, and evening flight to Crete the following day. Dancing in the moonlight I felt the energy of the priestess. I was integrating the mysteries I had already experienced and initiating myself for those to come.
The next night, we landed in Crete and met our sister travelers on the rooftop of our hotel in Heraklion under a full moon. There were 20 of us, including Carol and two sets of mother and daughter travelers. I knew my mother was a part of this journey in spirit, and felt her presence strongly at times as I continued to both grieve and celebrate our life together. My sister pilgrims and I shared a little about ourselves and why we were there, starting with the affirmation, which would become a familiar refrain, "I am whole, I am here, I am... " and say our name.
"I am whole, I am here, I am Stephanie." And so began the pilgrimage on the beautiful island of Crete, where the ancient, yet advanced, Minoan civilization honored the goddess of earth, sea and sky.
The first stop was the palace or sacred center of Knossos, built around 2,000 BCE on sacred grounds where people had lived and worshipped since Neolithic times (6,000 BCE and before). We silently walked in procession through these ruins, some of which were partially reconstructed by the archeologist, Arthur Evans, in the early 1900s. This was where the snake goddesses, which I was thrilled to see in the Heraklion Museum, were found.
The palace of Knossos is where the King-Priest Minos and Queen-Priestess Pasiphae were thought to have lived, as well as the half-man/half-beast minotaur, in the center of the labyrinth. Some surmise that the myth of Theseus slaying the minotaur with the help of the princess/goddess, Ariadne, whom he later abandoned, represents the end of the worship of the goddess and the beginning of the patriarchy on Crete and throughout Greece, as Theseus was a warrior king from Athens.
What was most likely enacted here before the patriarchy was the hieros gamos, or sacred marriage between the priest and priestess who wore masks of the bull and cow, representing the joining of the sacred masculine and the sacred feminine, or the sun and the moon. This celebratory pageant, attended by all members of the community, included the connubium, or consummation rite, and ended with the coronation of the king and queen in the center of the labyrinth. The mural depicting the "ladies of the court" were likely priestesses, dancers who led the procession and circled around the royal couple. The bull was sacrificed as part of the marriage feast to ensure fertility across the land. These rites were once widely celebrated at the sacred centers of the Minoans, for they were an egalitarian society in which the goddess was honored as the ubiquitous, life-giving force that She was.
We were to visit many other sacred centers of Minoan culture throughout the two week pilgrimage. We would weave in and out of the stone passageways and crumbled foundations, imagining what it would have been like to live in these village centers where the people practiced sacred rituals as part of their everyday life. Virtually all of these sites had stone altars, many in the form of kernos stones, giant table-like slabs, with bowls carved into them for the placement of offerings.
Many of these sites had lustral baths, large cisterns or small rooms filled with water in which people passed and cleansed themselves before taking part in sacred ceremonies. There were storerooms with giant pithos jars that were used to hold the olive oil and wine. Many of these centers were built over and over again after maurauding invaders set fire to them or earthquakes ravaged them. At times, we would feel the veil was thin between present time and days of yore, and we could feel, if not hear, the priestesses dancing and singing or sense the panicked state of those who fled from impending danger.
This introduction to Minoan culture was followed by a much anticipated visit to the Paliani Convent, an old convent (from about 668 CE) and the sacred myrtle tree that is said to be over 1000 years old. Sue Monk Kidd described her visit there (while she was on Carol's pilgrimage) in her book, Traveling With Pomegranates, and the granting of her wish to write a novel after being a non-fiction writer for many years. The Secret Life of Bees, which featured the black Madonna as a prominent character, would be her first book of fiction. I looked forward to visiting this sacred tree as I have always loved the spirit of trees, and this one was magnificent.
The story goes that after the Turkish invasion in 1821, the convent was destroyed, but an icon of the Virgin Mary was found in the tree. The nuns moved it into the church, but the next day it was found back in the tree. As many times as they tried to take it in, She made her way back to the Tree of Life. And so she has remained there, now entirely encompassed by the arms of the great tree (a smaller replica hangs on the branches for all to see).
Here, we said prayers, asked for healing, and tied a ribbon on the tree in remembrance. We each took a small piece of the myrtle tree from fallen twigs, wrapped the same color ribbon around it, and brought it home with us. One member of our group shared that she had experienced an instantaneous healing of a problem she had been having for months. The nuns who lived there were sweet and welcoming, and we felt Mary's presence.
The highlights of the pilgrimage for me were the rituals we performed at altars we created in various settings, from a Tholos, or rock tomb on the top of a hill, where we all took part in a ritual to honor our ancestors, to ones we performed in some of the caves we visited, which very much felt like being in the womb of the Great Mother, to those we built on mountaintops with panoramic views of Crete and the surrounding seas. We each bought a Minoan snake goddess to represent us on the altars. We would bring liquids for libations to pour onto them, including clear spring water, wine, and honey, as well as seeds, stones and talismans we wanted to bless.
Our arduous climb down into the depths of the first cave, Skoteino, which means "dark," was a profound experience for me. As we entered the cave, I heard a fluttering of wings and a white dove, symbol of Aphrodite, flew out. She is an ancient mother goddess I have felt a strong connection to so I felt this was a sign of her presence.
We created a beautiful altar and releasing ceremony, where I was able to not only let go of the hurt between my mother and me, but lifetimes of pain in my motherline that freed us all. We then descended two more levels and ten of us made our way down into Her womb. There we extinguished our lights and sat in complete darkness, meditating. I felt such peace and connection to the divine as I sat upon the moist, red Mother Earth and envisioned being held in her great lap. In each of the five caves we visited we sang songs to Her, the walls reverberating with the sound of twenty women's voices, as if we were in a cathedral. And, so we were -- the cathedral of the divine feminine.
In these two intense weeks of travel, we got to experience the beauty of Crete, from beaches to mountains, caves, gorges, lakes, and plains. We sang songs to the goddess on the bus as we zig-zagged across Crete. We rode donkeys to the cave of Zeus. We sat in the roots of a 2,000 year old tree that all 20 of us together could just wrap our arms around. We wandered the streets of many a town in search of treasures and adventure.
We got to know the people who lived there, simply but happily close to the earth and her bounty, and those who ran small inns and tavernas.
We feasted on many gorgeous meals of fresh vegetables, fruits, the most delicious homemade yogurt, feta, bread, local honey, and olives of every variety that most taverna owners harvested from their own orchards after the tourist season ended. And always the raki, the distilled wine aperitif that was served with every meal. Yamas!
It was always a treat to pluck a ripe pomegranate from the trees that flourished there.
We met women who were hand crafters in the old tradition of weaving on looms, creating intricate embroidery, and lace-making. We learned of the hidden motifs of the goddess, the tree of life, the snake, and other symbols of the feminine divine that have been woven into fabrics and piece-work for centuries. While Greece is very much a patriarchal country, which was evident in the roles we saw played out, archetypes of the goddess are still evident in many weavings.
We danced traditional Balkan and Greek dances under the leadership of Laura Shannon, who leads women's ritual dances around the world and whom we were privileged to have with us.
We savored our days off in beautiful locales like the small mountain resort, Zaros, the picturesque fishing village of Mochlos (I want to go back to both of those dreamy places one day) and the small coastal city, Agios Nikolaos, where I behld the goddess in the sunrise.
The weather was warm and clear as was the sea we swam in more days than not. There is nothing like eating and drinking at a seaside taverna and then plunging into the warm waters that lap at the shore. At Mochlos, we could swim to a small island and explore the ruins of a sacred center of the Minoan culture that was once attached to the land.
This pilgrimage to the goddess of ancient Minoan culture was a journey that has continued to play out in my dreams and memories. It all started with a dream I had last year of standing on a Grecian cliff and noticing some undiscovered temple stones beneath my feet and realizing that I had found one of Aphrodite's forgotten temples by the sea. To me, this symbolizes the rising of the goddess and the shift of consciousness that is slowly taking place that will include once again an embrace of the divine feminine. For all of us who shared this pilgrimage we truly came to know She is there for all who seek Her.
Be sure and read Parts 1 and 2 and the conclusion of my journey to magical Santorini in Part 4.
If you wish to explore the goddesses on your own, I offer e-courses that you can learn more about by going here: New Moon Goddess Mystery School and here: Goddess Temple e-courses
If you are interested in taking the goddess pilgrimage to Crete with Carol Christ in the spring or fall, you can find out more by clicking here: Ariadne Institute
In Crete, goddess, goddess pilgrimage, Greece, Minoan, Myth
A Goddess Pilgrimage: The Eleusinian Mysteries - Part 2
One of the things I knew I wanted to do on my trip to Greece was to take time to release feelings I still carried about my mother's death on June 12th of this year. Because of all that I had going on in my life at the time, I didn't fully grieve her passing. I felt relief that she was freed from suffering a 14-year mental and physical decline due to dementia, culminating in a broken hip and having to spend the last eight months of her life in a nursing home, confused and alone. In many ways, I had been grieving the loss of my mother for years, so I was prepared for her to go when she at last died at age 94. But this mother-daughter relationship is a deep and primal one, and regardless of the nature of the relationship, a mother's death generally marks a profound passage in a daughter's life. And so, for me, two questions seemed to be nagging at me: How do I grieve my mother's death? and How do I honor her?
My relationship to my mom is a complex story, as is the myth of Demeter and Persephone, which I have written about here and here. I have come to believe that some of my healing work with my mother entails past lives and karmic ties that I felt needed to be severed once and for all. So I felt compelled to visit Eleusis, a town 14 miles outside of Athens, which is now called Elefsina and is known as an oil refinery town, situated on the Bay of Eleusis. Because of its inelegant surroundings, there are not many visitors anymore. It is not on the list of tourist destinations, and in fact, our wonderful and accommodating travel agent in Greece, tried to dissuade us from going there, saying there was nothing to see. Of course, that depends on what you're looking for.
My friend and traveling companion, Diane Marshall, agreed with me that it was important for us to go there for we both had some work to do with our own mother-daughter story even though it was going to be inconvenient to get there in the little time we had left on the mainland. Something was telling us to go despite the obstacles and naysayers, and as often happens when you are clear about your intention, things fell into place. A lovely man named Nikos was sent by the travel agent to take us there for 2 hours on our way to the airport, where we would depart for Crete that evening.
During the taxi ride there, we caught glimpses of the old road, the Sacred Way, which was used thousands of years ago by the pilgrims who annually made the trek to Eleusis from Athens. They went in a procession, cleansing themselves along the way at a well, stopping to pray and offer sacrifices at altars and shrines, led by the high priestess of Demeter carrying a casket of sacred objects for the initiation rites. This happened in September, the same month we were visiting the sanctuary. The Eleusinian Mysteries were enacted for over a thousand years and many people, from kings and queens to commoners, chosen as initiates, took part in them. We don't know exactly what happened during the 9-day ritual at the Eleusinian Sanctuary, but we do know some things: that to be able to participate you had to swear an oath of secrecy and that when participants completed the rites, they no longer feared death.
Eleusis is the place where the Demeter-Persephone story was played out as part of the mystery school and figures in the myth, itself. It is the story of life, death and rebirth. It is the story of the matrilineal and matriarchal culture being supplanted by the patrilineal and patriarchal culture. It is the story, seldom told, of the primacy of the mother-daughter relationship, which in a matriarchal culture would have been deemed as important as the story of the father and son (of God), which took its place.
Demeter was the name of the Greek Mother Goddess, some say another name for Gaia, the earth goddess, who was known and celebrated in earlier Minoan Crete before she came to Greece. She was the goddess of the grain, which represented life in ancient times, for people were dependent on the earth, its growing seasons, and the food that came from Her and sustained all life. The earth was seen as feminine for she was like a great, round, pregnant belly where life grew in the fertile darkness until it was ready to burst forth into the world, and then eventually die, as all living things do. And miraculously, it seemed, every spring there was rebirth as new life came forth from the seeds that grew in the darkness, in a continuous circle of renewal. So the earth became synonymous with the Great Mother, who was responsible for life, death and rebirth. And in olden times this cycle was sacred and celebrated, as was the goddess. Offerings were made to the Great Mother to keep her bounty plentiful and so that people could express their gratitude for her abundance.
The story of Demeter and Persephone can be understood on many levels, but on one level it is simply the story of the earth mother, Demeter, giving birth to the seedling grain, Persephone, who is snatched away by Hades (death) and taken into the Underworld for a time (germination, growth), only to be brought back into the world above by the power of the Mother, the giver of life (rebirth). On another level, it is the story of the daughter leaving her mother and becoming her own person and the grief that the mother feels when her little girl goes off into the world to carry on this cycle as a goddess in her own right.
Both Diane and I were mothers in the middle of this motherline ourselves. My mother had just died and my daughter will be graduating high school and going off to college next year. This year, my friend, Diane, had to put her mother in a memory care facility and her grown daughter moved away to another state. When we got to Eleusis we were both immediately drawn into the energy of the setting and entered a liminal state. We could feel the power of what was enacted in this sanctuary, once hidden behind high walls. We walked around, taking in the place where temples to Demeter, Artemis, and Hecate once stood.
In the myth, after Persephone is abducted, Demeter searches for her for 9 days, grieving mightily. In her anger, she stops nurturing the crops and a famine occurs. She finds herself in Eleusis, where she attempts to bestow immortality on the king's son (alluding to the new, coming patriarchal story), but is thwarted by the queen who thinks she is trying to harm him by passing him through the fire (of eternal life). Demeter then reveals herself as the goddess and commands that a temple be built there in her honor.
Her temple is the site where the final enactment of the mysteries took place in the dark of night. It is believed that during the final 2 days of the initiation, after fasting for several days and taking part in an enactment of the myth, the celebrants drank kykeon, fermented barley water that likely had hallucinogenic properties (ergot from barley is known to have these effects). During this ritual, the initiates' eyes were opened to new ways of understanding by beholding the epiphany of the goddess as Earth Mother, the rising of Persephone, and the reunion of mother and child.
Diane and I were drawn to the cave that represented the entrance to the Underworld, where Persephone was abducted and where she later rose. This was near the ruins of the Temple of Hecate, the goddess who heard Persephone's cries and alerted Demeter as to her whereabouts and the Plutonian, an underground sanctuary dedicated to Pluto or Hades, where initiates may have spent some time in the darkness.
Diane used her pendulum to find the site that had the most concentrated energy and it was on a primitive altar stone where we built our own altar. I placed photos of my mother and me as well as a medicine bag which contained shells representing her bones and hearts with our names on them that I had created for this purpose. Diane and I together created a ceremony of thanks to our mothers and daughters as well as a releasing. For me, it was a time to let the tears flow onto the Mother herself, the earth that held us, provided for us, and to which we will one day return.
Earlier this year I took a shamanic journey in which I saw what had happened between my mother and me in a past life, which I believe bound us in a way that I knew needed to be dissolved. In this journey I saw that I was her mother at a time when women were in mortal danger for practicing healing arts that many called witchcraft and thought were the devil's doings. I was a healer, a medicine woman of those times, and my mother was my daughter who mistakenly betrayed me, letting the powers that be know what I did to help others, and I was killed. I saw that my mother was an innocent who was horrified at what she had inadvertantly done and carried that guilt over many lifetimes. It explained a lot about our relationship during this lifetime. Why I always felt like her mother, why things always seemed to overwhelm her and I would be in charge, why she was interested in metaphysical healing and chose a religion (Christian Science) founded by a woman healer (prayers were addressed to "Father-Mother God"), and lastly, an answer to the puzzling riddle of why my mother never could understand what I did for a living even though I would explain it to her over and over. This refrain continued through two distinct careers I had in my life in which my mother would often say, "Now tell me again what it is you do for a living. Explain it to me," and I would until I became infuriated that it never seemed to sink in.
At Eleusis, I symbolically cut the cord that tethered us in this karmic way. Synchronistically, two months before my mother died, I found a letter she wrote to me 25 years ago that I had forgotten about in which she asked me for forgiveness, explaining how difficult it was for her to be a mother given her own emotional abandonment by her mother. Upon reading this letter years later, I knew that the forgiveness she sought went back many lifetimes. I knew I needed to call her although I wasn't sure she would be able to comprehend what I wanted to say. At that time, my mother was in the hospital and had been taken off the hideous, sedative drugs they gave her at the nursing home, and a window of clarity and opportunity opened. I told her I forgave her and would always love her and that we could release any hurt and pain we had carried between us in this lifetime and in past lives. She thanked me and told me how good it was to hear those words from me. I asked her to forgive me, too, for my anger at her and any pain I had caused her as her daughter. She told me there was nothing to forgive and that even though she didn't at all times know how to show it, she had always loved me.
Those two hours spent at Eleusis, at the very site where an ancient ritual of mother and daughter love and loss was played out for over a thousand years, were healing and transformative for me. I am quite sure I was there, too, in a past life, and perhaps my mother was, as well. For we have in common that we have been seekers of the greater meaning and understanding of the mystery of life, we both sought creative ways to explore our soul's purpose, and we both found a spiritual path that embraced the divine feminine. I can better honor my mother for the life and gifts she gave to me, which are so much clearer to me now that the veil of pain has been lifted.
If you are interested in exploring the myth of Persephone and Demeter and how to work with these powerful archetypes, you may enjoy my Triple Goddess e-course that explores the maiden-mother-crone through the Greek goddesses Persephone-Demeter-Hecate.
In death, Demeter, Eleusinian Mysteries, Eleusis, goddess, goddess pilgrimage, Great Mother, Greece, life
A Goddess Pilgrimage: Initiation at Delphi - Part 1
November 8, 2012 Stephanie
I came to Greece to go on a two-week goddess pilgrimage to Crete, with a few days added on either end to explore mainland Greece and Santorini. The journey truly began for me that moment when I crossed into liminal time and space at the Sanctuary of Athena Pronaia at Delphi.
Liminality, from the Latin word līmen, meaning "threshold," has been defined as "the quality of ambiguity or disorientation that occurs in the middle stage of rituals, when participants no longer hold their pre-ritual status but have not yet begun the transition to the status they will hold when the ritual is complete." (Wikipedia). Websters defines it as "of or relating to a sensory threshold."
My friend, Diane Marshall, and I had arrived in Athens the day before we went to Delphi, just as a general strike of workers was called and all public transportation, tourist destinations, and museums were shut down. We wandered around Athens that first day, somewhat jet-lagged, but excited to take in this sprawling world capital city. "Just stay away from the parliamentary buildings," we were told, "and you'll be fine." And where we roamed, through the famous plaka, the old, historical "Neighborhood of the Gods" at the foot of the Acropolis, there were no signs of protests or unrest. In fact, it was a little quieter than usual due to the strike and people staying home from work, which made it easier to acclimate to our surroundings.
We took in the agora, the ruins of the old Roman marketplace, which once had homes and shops lining the Sacred Way that led to the Acropolis, where magnificent buildings, including the Parthenon and Temple to Athena, once stood as a fortress overlooking the city. We could not go up to the Acropolis on this day, so we walked and walked and enjoyed eating the healthy and delicious Mediterranean cuisine at the open-air cafes, or tavernas, grounding ourselves as much as possible on our first day in a country neither of us had been to before.
On our second day, we were happy to leave the energy of the city and head to the mountains, to Delphi, a couple of hours from Athens. I was excited to see Delphi as I was fascinated by what I knew of the oracles at Delphi, priestesses who prophesied for people who made the pilgrimage there to seek their counsel. Since we were on a tour with only a couple of hours to spend at Delphi, we were taken to the more recently erected Sanctuary of Apollo (6th c. BCE) built on the slopes of Mount Parnassus.
In ancient times when the goddess reigned and the Mycenaeans, an early agrarian, peace-loving people who worshiped Her, inhabited the area (1500 to 1100 BCE), the first prophetess, Herophile, sat on top of a rock, known as the Sibyl Rock, and prophesied next to the omphalos, or navel of the earth mother, Gaia. Leaders and people from near and far came to hear the gifted oracle's prophesies, which included the foretelling of the Trojan War. But then about 1000 BCE, the Dorians overtook the Mycenaean villages that included a sacred spring and cave with vapors emanating from deep below that were said to have trance-inducing properties. These invaders brought their god, Apollo, with them and instated him there.
The story goes that Apollo had to fight and kill the giant python, the offspring of Gaia, that guarded the sacred Castalian Spring so that he could establish his own temple and oracle. This would presage the end of the worship of the Great Mother earth goddess, and the beginning of a patriarchal culture represented by the Hellenic gods and goddesses, some of whom were preempted and reconstructed from the attributes ascribed to the ancient mother. But these new gods and goddesses behaved much more like humans, acting out qualities of both light and shadow, such as love, generosity, wisdom as well as jealousy, narcissism, and vengefulness.
Symbolically, the male god killing the snake, a primordial symbol of the goddess, made a fitting myth for the beginning of the cult of Apollo, also establishing his might and power over the region. Apollo is said to have arrived riding on the backs of dolphins which became his priests in the temple. Some myths say he made the sailors who brought him his priests. These priests became intermediaries to the new oracle, a priestess known as the Pythia, a woman chosen for her deep, intuitive abilities. She sat upon a tall tripod in an underground chamber inside the temple, chewing on laurel leaves, and breathing in the hallucinogenic and noxious fumes that emanated from the underground fissures as she prophesied. (The priestess had to be replaced every so often as this was a dangerous and often deadly calling, owing to the poisonous fumes. One can't help but consider that enclosing her in a chamber is what made this job fatal, whereas before the patriarchy took over, she was on a rock in the open air where she would not be in danger.)
While it was interesting to contemplate this story and see these temples, I felt called to go down to Athena's temple across the road and down into a ravine below Apollo's temple. On the way, I passed the Castalian spring, the same water source that has flowed down from the mountains since ancient times. In the past, those who came to the oracle for guidance, would anoint and purify themselves at the spring. I stopped and drank from the spring and used it as holy water, touching it to my pulse points, third eye, and heart. I walked down the road towards the temple of the goddess I had blogged about last month, thinking about her qualities as protector and patroness of Athens, where I had just been. I thought about her earlier origins, where she was not seen as a warrior goddess, but as a patroness of arts and crafts, particularly weaving. She, too, had been co-opted by the patriarchy.
As I started down the path leading to her temple, I noticed that a tourist group was boarding their bus, leaving the place empty. I was delighted to be going down to her temple by myself so that I could perform a ritual. I pulled from my medicine bag a beautiful, blue, double-lobed celestite stone that a friend and sister from my Goddess temple e-course had gifted me. I had brought it as my talisman for the trip. Its properties help you feel harmonious and peaceful under times of stress, and as I knew traveling in a foreign country can bring its own kind of stress, I wanted to have it as a calming touchstone. It was also said to open one to new experiences and connection with the divine.
As I approached the remaining foundation stones of Athena's temple, I felt the stone grow warm in my hands and decided to set it down and charge it in the bright sunlight that beat down on the dark stones. I circled the temple wondering if I should leave the stone as an offering to Athena. I was torn since I wanted it for my protection and yet, it was a beautiful offering to this goddess who I felt was initiating me into this world of ancient and modern Greece.
I stood on the temple stones where many hundreds of years ago, priestesses had walked. I imagined what it must have been like when there were temple walls, altars, and sacred rites going on here. I held the celestite in one hand and asked Athena for protection on my travels, openness to new experiences and people, and to the mystery that I knew was unfolding. Then it seemed as if the gem leaped from my hand. I heard it hit the hard floor and I saw half of it roll away and fall into a crevice in the middle of the temple. The other half of the gem lay at my feet. I picked it up and held it in wonderment. Athena had answered my question with such an obvious solution. She would take one half and I would take the other with me, and so we would be joined in divine sisterhood.
I slowly walked out of this sacred sanctuary changed, enlivened, moved. I had crossed the threshold into a feeling I would carry with me over the next 3 weeks in Greece and even back home with me. It has taken a month for me to start feeling back on the ground of my country, home, family and work. Now I am in the process of integration, of deep rest and the need for more sleep, for any crossing into liminal time and space changes you, maybe even shatters you, in some way. This kind of dismembering is good and necessary for transformation. I would say there is no going back: you are changed on some level by crossing such a threshold, through ritual that brings about a shift in consciousness, by experiencing life in a different culture, setting, and even time. For my journey felt like one that embraced many lifetimes. I had a sense that I was able to move thought the past, to have glimpses of what life was like hundreds of years ago -- a remembering -- and at the same time be present to what was happening in this lifetime in a rather fluid, dreamy way. This was the initiation of my pilgrimage that in many ways, I am still on, and will always be on.
Stay tuned for future installments: Part 2, The Mother-Daughter Story, where I recount my healing journey to Eleusis, the place where the Eleusinian mysteries and the story of Demeter and Persephone played out for thousands of years; followed by Part 3, Goddess Boot Camp, the 2-week, life-changing odyssey on the island of Crete with 20 sister pilgrims; and Part 4, Santorini Magic.
In Athena, Delphi, Gaia, goddess, goddess pilgrimage, Greece, priestess
Don't Mess With Athena
August 25, 2012 Stephanie
As I will be in Athens in just a little over one month where I will begin a goddess pilgrimage, I have been exploring the stories of Athena, patron of the city. She almost didn't get that job as she and Poseidon were both in contention for that honor. When the people voted, it was split down the middle because the women voted for the goddess while the men voted for the god; however there was one more woman than there were men, and she cast the deciding vote. It is also said that the Olympian gods gave it to Athena because she planted the first olive tree on the Acropolis. Apparently the men of the newly named city of Athens were so angry that She won that they decreed that women of the city would give up their citizenship, no longer be able to vote, and their children would no longer go by their mother's last name as had been the tradition, but would take their father's instead.
This, my friends, was the beginning of the patriarchy, when the stories got changed. It would almost seem that Athena was made a token female deity (disguised as a man) so that the men in power could strip women of their rights. However she may have been used, she was thereafter cast in the role of masculine warrior goddess who, the patriarchal story went, was born from the head of Zeus, top Olympian dog and her father. They now proclaimed her a virgin goddess, devoid of sexuality, and in her newly cast androgyny made her "all for the father," aligning her with the patriarchy against the rights of women and the motherline.
Before I go on to talk about the earlier origins of Athena -- an entirely different story, which always interests me more -- the heady times when women ruled more peacefully before men took over -- it may be worth pondering for a moment the similarities between what happened then and what is going on now, right here in River City, that is the United States of America. Does it not seem as if we are in danger of slipping back to a more rigid patriarchal structure what with the conservative Republicans (Paul Ryan and Troy Akin to name two) trying to take away hard-fought women's rights on abortion, equal pay, and reproductive freedom, as well as the rights of LGBTs to enjoy the same constitutional freedom as everyone else? We may need Athena's warrior prowess and ability to protect us now more than ever.
But getting back to her pre-patriarchal beginnings... Athena is also known as Pallas Athena, which appears to refer to her role as a warrior who went into battle to fight the good fight when necessary. She was a prudent warrior and strategist, being the goddess of wisdom, so as an archetypal figure for women, she is the one who does not shrink from bullies and who will not only go into battle herself, but will do everything she can to help others win, especially when the odds are stacked against them. She may have gotten the name Pallas Athena from killing her father, a giant named Pallas, who tried to rape her. She then took his skin, tanned it, and made it into her aegis or shield and appropriated his wings for her own feet. We'll talk about how the image of Medusa's head ended up on her aegis in a moment.
But one other interesting story of note is that Athena is often depicted with a large snake either coiled around her or at her feet. The snake is an ancient symbol of the goddess, often thought to symbolize the transformational aspects of birth, death and rebirth that is at the heart of all goddess mythology, and indeed the story of woman. The snake was an animal that could travel underground and above ground, in both worlds, and could shed its skin, the ultimate transformation from the old into the new. But on a very practical level, snakes in those days were helpful creatures who were often kept near the stores of grain almost like watch dogs to kill and eat the vermin that threatened the food supply. It is also said that the snake may have been Athena's child with Hephaestus, the lame smith god (and cuckolded husband of Aphrodite) who also tried to rape Athena, but failed. However, his ejaculate fell to the ground and instead impregnated Gaia, the earth mother goddess, and from her a serpent boy named Erichthonius, was born, whom Athena, in a sense, adopted, and who seems to have followed her around like a little puppy dog.
As to the snake-headed goddess, Medusa, whom Athena wears on her breast and shield, some say that Medusa is Athena's sister and helped her ward off evil and intimidate her enemies with her monstrous gaze. Some legends say Medusa was once a stunningly beautiful Amazon warrior with luxurious, thick, black hair. However, she made the mistake of defiling Athena's temple by making love to Athena's rival, Poseidon, there. Athena had her servant kill Medusa by cutting off her head and her hair was turned into snakes. And the more familiar myth has Perseus cutting off the head of Medusa with the help of Athena, who was angry at her for messing around in her temple (although her anger about this seems positively patriarchal).
Another story suggests that the priestesses in the temples of old wore helmets and masks adorned with snakes, the symbol of transformation, and that it was not Medusa's head on her shield but a representation of the priestess who was the mortal emissary of the goddess. Some say that Medusa is but the shadow side of Athena and the two are one and the same. The message is: Don't mess with Athena. You might be turned to stone.
However, before Athena became the warrior goddess of the Athens city-state, her primary role in the matriarchal culture appears to have been much more benign. She was a goddess of the home, family, and community at large, as well as patron of handicrafts, particularly weaving. In the patriarchal worldview this protector of the family tribe was given big cajones and put in charge of the political state and given the same status as Ares, god of war. At her heart, though, we may see Athena as a fierce protector of women, children and family, whose wise counsel is to be sought in times of conflict, as one who will stand up to abusers and tyrants.
She is often seen as holding a sword, which I like to think of as the sword of truth, which must be held high whenever we are confronted by foes who would take away our power. As long as we stand in the truth, demand nothing less than our right to equality, and don't give away our power, we will prevail. Hear that, Romney, Ryan, Akin, and all other preservers of the patriarchy? We've got Athena, goddess of wisdom, truth and justice, at our side. We're ready to fight the good fight.
In Athena, Goddess Temple e-course, Medusa, warrior
Psyche's Journey and the Creative Process
In my Goddess Temple e-course to meet the Alchemical Goddesses, you take a similar journey as Psyche, the woman who became a goddess. If you want to know Who is Psyche? you can read about her here. I am fascinated by this story because there are so many ways to understand it. One way to look at Psyche's journey is the one presented by Jungian analyst Robert Johnson in his book, She, as symbolic of feminine psychology, the way we women tend to operate and face challenges as distinct from masculine psychology (which he defines in the book, He).
Another way is to look at Psyche's journey as symbolic of the creative process. Each time we take on a creative project or endeavor, whether it's starting a business, writing a story, committing paintbrush to canvas, starting a new course of study, or any number of ways we enter the creative realm, we are faced with obstacles and challenges, fears and doubts, breakthroughs, growth, and jubilation.
The first obstacle might be characterized as the terror of beginning. It often feels overwhelming to look at the journey ahead and all that we need to accomplish to bring our creation to fruition when we are at the starting point. Where and how do we begin? The blank canvas, the blank page -- facing the unknown -- can be daunting.
The first of Psyche's tasks is sorting a huge pile of seeds. The task of sorting is a good way into the creative process. Whether it's words on a page that have to be organized, paint colors and media that have to be decided on, classes that have to be selected, or choosing the steps needed to make a business a success, we are needing to sort through ideas, words, concepts, materials.
Sometimes we need to organize our office or studio and clear out the clutter, and as we do so, sort through the wheat and the chaff in our head, before we feel prepared to embark on the creative journey. A jumble of words and ideas will need to be sorted into coherent sentences, some edited out. The colors and image chosen for a painting may get painted over as a new image and colors emerge that we like better. So many decisions need to be made as we start the process of bringing our creations to life, decisions that may be changed a hundred times as we sort through what matters most.
Psyche's seed-sorting task speaks to this aspect of beginning the creative process. It is a winnowing of ideas, of discerning what's important and vital to our vision, and what's not.
Psyche despairs about doing this seemingly impossible task, but she is able to do it with the help of the ants. Ants represent patience, taking one step at a time, moving one kernel at a time, until the job gets done. So as we begin to create, it's important to step into the mess or chaos of not knowing and begin with one thing. And then another, and another, whittling away until the vision starts to take form and we're in it!
The second task Psyche has to accomplish is to obtain a bit of golden fleece from a fierce and potentially deadly ram in a field. She can't see how to do this and almost gives up in despair until she hears the reeds whisper to her a way. All she has to do is wait for the right time, when the rams are on the other side of the field, and pluck some fleece from the bushes! That's like one of those moments when you say to yourself, "Why didn't I think of that? Of course!" This is when we discover that there is an easier way to do something than we had thought or than we have been doing. And we start to do it that way now because we have learned a more efficient and clever way to do something, but we had to do it a different way or sit with the dilemma for a while first.
This often happens in the creative process when we're stuck. We're frustrated and don't know how we're going to proceed or how to solve a problem and we may think about giving up because it's just too hard! This is when we need to pause, wait, and listen. Just when Psyche was about to give up, the inner voice whispered an answer. If we can learn to wait for it and listen, many times we will find the solution.
Sometimes we need to sit on something, sleep on it, or otherwise take a break and come back to it with new eyes. By biding her time, Psyche was able to get the prize in a way that did not require that much effort. We forget sometimes that the easiest way may be the best way. We may realize that we're making something harder than it needs to be. This is the lesson of the second task: Stopping to see what our choices are and letting the answer come to us. If we can hang in there and not give up, and stay open and ready to receive, the answer invariably arrives. It may come from our own inner knowing, from a dream, or it may come from an outside source, a synchronistic event. This is a matter of trust.
The third task involved Psyche being sent to the River Styx, the boundary between the Earth and the Underworld, where dead souls pass over, and which is guarded by all manner of monsters and beasts. She is to fill a goblet with water from the dark river and bring it to Aphrodite. Again, Psyche is ready to give up, knowing that she cannot approach the river under these circumstances. She is helped by an eagle, who carries the cup to the water, fills it, and brings it back to her. The eagle was summoned by Eros who asked Zeus to intercede and send the eagle. This points to the need for helpers, support, and the ability to gain perspective.
There comes a time in most creative endeavors when we must ask for help, feedback, or support. Again, we may be trying to do things the hard way, all alone, and feel that we are working in a vacuum. Like the eagle, we need to be able to fly overhead and look down on our situation and ask: What help do I need? Who or what can assist me and help me overcome these obstacles and accomplish my goal?
We also want to be careful of the trap of stubbornly insisting upon doing things our way, on our own, with no help. The creative process needs to be fluid and active, like the river, and we need to consider all of our resources and tools and not be closed to outside help, however it may come. The intervention of the masculine forces in the myth, suggests marshaling that part of our psyche that can logically figure out what needs to be done, swoop in, and do it without letting fear stop us. The feminine is the allowing, receiving, and being open to intuitive wisdom and guidance. The gift of overview, the eagle eye, can help us see what needs to be done more clearly.
The fourth task Psyche is faced with is to go down into the Underworld and obtain a box of beauty from Persephone, who rules there. She is not supposed to open the box, but we already know Psyche is a curious woman, who couldn't resist looking upon the face of her lover. So, of course, like most of us would be inclined to do, she peeked into the box. And then something came over her that caused her to fall into a deep sleep and near-death. Fortunately, Eros (again, the masculine part of our own psyche that knows when it's time to act) flew in and revived her.
We could see this as Psyche being a bit too passive, overwhlemed and immobilized by ideas and things to be done, not to mention the myriad obstacles before her, that she can't quite get up the motivation and energy to meet the task and complete it. She gets off-course by looking into the box even though she has been advised not to. This symbolizes the things that distract us and pull us off our path, procrastination, or things that we know are destructive to our creative process, but we do them anyway in an unconscious act of self-sabotage.
It is often at the end point or near the end of a creative project, that we want to give up and are tempted to abandon it, leaving it by the wayside, incomplete and unfinished. It is the masculine component of our psyche that helps us to wake up, activate, organize, and get the job done. We may need to step back and reconnoiter, and call in our inner warrior to help us move past these last barriers to accomplishing our dreams.
Thus reunited and joined as Psyche and Eros in divine union, we reach the pinnacle of the creative process when our inner feminine (thoughts, ideas, imagination, inspiration) and masculine (acting, doing, accomplishing, manifesting) are working together harmoniously and are able to give birth to new life. The wedding of Psyche and Eros represents living out our creative potential and the divine child they give birth to is our own creative dream brought to life.
In Aphrodite, create, goddess, Myth, Psyche
© Stephanie Anderson Ladd