Disclaimer for the guys who read this: This has nothing to do with gender. We all contain both masculine and feminine energy. It’s about balancing both energies within ourselves, so we feel harmonious.
Over the summer, I read several books. I highly recommend Mary Magdalene Revealed by Meggan Watterson and Our Cosmic Origin by Ishmael Perez. Very different books but the overlap regarding the biblical stories was uncanny. I also suggest reading (or watching) New York Times bestseller The Red Tent by Anita Diamant. It’s the story of Jacob & Leah’s daughter Dinah who is also the sister of Joseph. Dinah is a minor character in the Bible (as are most women who have been left out of biblical history), but Diamant beautifully develops her character around the tent where women go to menstruate, give birth, and celebrate the life cycle with their mothers, sisters, aunts, and grandmothers.
The mystery schools call this the Rose Lineage. It is the manifestation of the feminine essence, the divine Mother, and the feminine counterpart of the Christ structure. Many temples in Lemuria and Atlantis were dedicated to the divine Mother which holds the feminine Christ Consciousness and is connected to the womb and sacral chakra. Connected to the planet Venus and Sirius, it is often represented by Sophia, Goddess Isis, Hathor, Inanna-Ishtar, Mother Mary, and Mary Magdalene.
Watterson talks about the worth of women that has been systemically devalued for over 2,000 years. I introduced this in my August 2020 blog, The Wounded Feminine. In the Bible, it begins with Peter (Mary 6:1-2) and his disbelief that Jesus shared secret teachings with her and not the other disciples. Andrew agrees (Mary 10:1) saying Mary’s teachings are “strange.” They could not believe that “a woman would be worthy of such secret teachings.” Here begins the betrayal and questions the worth of the female and the feminine. I love how Watterson explains that Mary “realizes now the disciples are not able to receive…because their whole world order and idea of power would have to shift in order to receive it.” It’s long past time to correct this ancient misrepresentation.
This to me, is so much about the heart center, the Anahata chakra. Its job is to give and receive. It’s the union of masculine (strength) & feminine (receptivity), yin & yang, sun & moon, ha (solar) & tha (lunar), inhale & exhale. Our muscles also work in pairs – antagonist & synergist. Even our cells divide in pairs. In fact, we literally blossomed from the first heart cells by about day 16. The Hridaya (the Source heart) is the origin of all opposites. Hri and da, mean giving & receiving, expressing how the heart is the place of both. All of us are held within an energetic web of opposites - positive & negative, pleasure & pain, love & fear. You can’t have one without the other. This is the same as when we place our hands in Anjali mudra. All opposites are part of the whole, creating perfect balance. The universe operates upon the principles of yin & yang, complimentary energetic forces that, when taken as a whole, represent the boundless, infinite Oneness. Everything in our lives is an opportunity to create a harmonious relationship. If you like this imagery, it’s from my Union of Opposites” Meditation (#12).
Being “left brained” is encouraged by our society - strong, logical, rational, verbal. While the “right brain” - heart, emotional, receptive, compassionate - is overlooked. The receptive energy of the feminine has been hidden in society, just as the strengths of women have been kept subordinate to the masculine. We live in a society that does not support emotional awareness. The right hemisphere is the seat of insight, connected with psychic power, whereas the left is the seat of intelligence, giving us an overview of the world. Shiva, light. Shakti, love. A symbolic sacred marriage. The place where head meets heart…as above, so below. Genuine spiritual practice IS participation in the union of opposites.
“There is no hierarchy to the spiritual world. We are all equal. And we’re all equally trying, in our own crazy ways, to love ourselves enough to see the good that’s right here with us.” ~ Meggan Watterson
A new frequency of feminine embodiment is calling us to heighten our senses and sensuality through connection to the beauty of life, nature, and our partnerships. It’s time to pay attention to our deeper potential of tenderness, sweetness, and to nurture our connection to Earth & Source.
Shaman Puma Fredy Quispe Singona says we are living in the era of the Goddess – the Sacred Feminine, Mother Earth, Grandmother Moon, Nature, the Stars, and self-love. Connecting to these forces opens up our power to experience a fertile life.
Shiva-Shakti, Jesus-Mary, YHVH-Shekhinah Archetypes
The Sacred Feminine has gone missing from the prominent place she deserves in our culture and cosmos. Now is the perfect time to address the longtime imbalances in our masculine-dominated societies (Shiva), turning the tables on practices that have depleted and scarred the Earth, disempowered women, and incited tensions throughout the collective.
The exploration of the feminine archetypes (Shakti) allows us to envision our own personal Goddess/Priestess and awaken their qualities within ourselves: compassion, joy, freedom, courage, empathy, integrity, strength, power, creation, and wisdom. It’s long overdue to rejoice in the empowerment of the Goddess and step into our own sacred Divine Feminine.
According to Aletheia, “The Divine Feminine is an energy that we ALL possess, no matter where we are on the gender spectrum (or lack thereof). It is known by many names such as shakti, yin, and lunar energy, and is often connected symbolically with the moon, Gaia (Mother Earth), and water.”
“Both the Divine Feminine and Divine Masculine arise mutually, and in their most natural state, work together effortlessly and harmoniously. This original state of being can be observed as being represented in ancient symbols like the yin yang.”
The problem is when these qualities become imbalanced, and the shadow side becomes dominant. We all have a dark side we need to recognize. The toxic masculine is preoccupied with power, while the shadow feminine plays the victim. However, no one has pure divine feminine or divine masculine shadow qualities. It’s an ancient dance of victim & persecutor. What both have failed to learn is that true power comes from within. We need to honor both sides and awaken both qualities equally.
Union of Opposites
Although Shaman’s Tea Yoga Nidra & 7 Directions are class favorites, “Union of Opposites” is one of my favorite meditations. Watterson asks “What’s the union of opposites? Think of every binary that comes to mind: male and female, light and dark, human and divine, life and death. The union of opposites comes when you’ve reached a state of consciousness that allows you to integrate them both. The ego seeks to divide and separate. Only the ego can identify the opposites. Only the soul knows the union of them both.”
Watterson adds that Mary Magdalene is both “fully human and fully divine. She is a flaming ego, and an eternal soul of love.” Emphasize the AND! What Ishmael Perez calls duality polarity. What I call Unity Consciousness. It’s when your mind and heart are truly open. It represents a quantum leap in the evolution of our Consciousness. Unity Consciousness will happen when we dismantle these old, outdated mindsets that create extreme polarity which have kept us in servitude to a system of suppression. The challenge is to transcend this dualistic thinking.
Have you heard about the Petrine Privilege? It’s based on the Roman Catholic doctrine that Saint Peter (and his successors) was bestowed the “keys of the Kingdom” by Christ “for all time”. This led to a male succession of papal power and “religious” authority. And that’s how the feminine continued to be wounded. Mary’s gospel was destroyed and Pope Gregory’s homily 33 demonized her as a prostitute. Christianity’s exclusion of women is the beginning of shaming the feminine. (Shame is 20, the LOWEST vibration, on the Scale of Consciousness.)
In 2006, Pope Benedict XVI reminded a crowd that all who call themselves Christians should acknowledge the Roman pontiff as the singular head of the Christian world. According to Dr. Douglas Winnail, “Benedict’s notion of papal primacy is one of religion’s longest-running deceptions.” He continues, “Attempts to twist this verse into a statement of Peter's exclusive authority are simply not biblical. This is why the Roman claim for power based on Peter's supposed primacy has never been accepted by the Eastern Orthodox churches, and why it was rejected by the Protestant reformers.” (Read Civilization Past & Present by Thomas Wallbank, p. 133.) “Scripture and history both show that the early Church did not recognize the Roman theory of Petrine primacy. Rather, it was ambitious Roman bishops who developed the doctrine to gain power over other bishops and their churches.”
Rather than real demons, consider that maybe the biblical stories are more metaphors or parables. Maybe it’s meant to be more poetic than “gospel”. I joke that I consider the bible “more like guidelines” as the quote goes in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.” The real demon here is the ego and the stories we’ve been told. This betrayal is ancient. We’ve been brainwashed with fear, made to feel small, and subjected to the victim mentality.
Shiva’s Cosmic Dance
In Christianity, the snake symbolizes evil or the Devil/Satan. In Hinduism, the divine snake represents eternity as well as materiality, life as well as death, and time as well as timelessness. Here’s that duality again! Metaphorically the snake is like a rope of attachment (desires and ego) which keeps one bound to their karma. Many deities wear these sacred threads as a reminder to keep their body, speech/breath, and mind pure. In The Cosmic Dancer, I mentioned how the blue-skinned, dreadlocked, scantily clothed Lord Shiva as his avatar Nataraja, wears a snake around his neck and dances upon a dwarf (ignorance). This Dance of Bliss, or Doomsday Dance, symbolizes the cosmic cycle of Samsara – creation, destruction, preservation, salvation, and illusion. When we dance with divine devotion and surrender to ego, no evil can touch us.
Mary’s gospel is clear that the power of the ego is about a power OVER but the power of the heart, is about the power WITHIN. We have forgotten this.
Receptivity, softness, and intuition are feminine qualities. They speak from the heart. However, so many of us live in our heads. Yogi master Krishnamacharya said to leave your head (ego) at home. He meant our yoga practice should be breath and heart centered. Too many have a hard time listening to their gut instincts, their intuition.
There are many beautiful expressions of the divine feminine. The mother archetype can be seen in her many forms as Aphrodite, Artemis, Athena, Baubo, Brigid, Calamity Jane, Carrera, Cerridwen, Cleopatra, Danu, Demeter, Diana, Durga, Enheduanna, Ewa, Freya, Gaia, Gwendolen, Hecate, Hera, Hestia, Imogen, Indra, Isis, Itzpapalotl, Joan of Arc, Juno, Kali, Kannon, Lakshmi, Lilith, Lozen, Madonna, Maia, Mary Magdalen, Mama Killa, Mama Occlo, Miao Shan, Minerva, Medusa, Methis, Morana, Mother Mary, Mulan, Nefertiti, Nephthys, Pachamama, Parvati, Perpetua, Persephone, Pocahontas, Prithivi, Quan Yin, Rhea, Sacajawea, Sarah-La-Kali, Saraswati, Sekhmet, Selene/Luna, Shekhinah, Sofia, Thecla, Uzume, Venus, Vesta, Xena. There are also many ascended masters who reflect a healthy balance of Shiva-Shakti, God-Goddess energy. What does your divine feminine look like? Where on the scale do you fall emotionally, spiritually, and physically? Ask your heart, “where am I divided?
Love is not an emotion, it’s truth!
Aletheia offers these questions to understand how you’ve been programmed to feel about feminine energy:
What has society taught you about femininity as a male, female, or non-binary?
How did your mother model her femininity and what did she teach you (whether directly or indirectly)?
What negative core beliefs might you have developed surrounding femininity?
What habits and behaviors do you bring into the world that indirectly or directly oppress the Divine Feminine?
Because of the lengthy trial of Joan of Arc, we have the transcripts about her life. At 13, she cut her hair because of a vision she had of archangel Michael. She wasn’t on trial for war crimes, cross-dressing, or as a witch. She was burned at the stake because she listened to the voice inside her heart, her soul chamber.
The rise of the divine feminine is about reconnecting to the sacred womb, Yoni (an abstract representation of Shakti which is this month’s picture), and the physical lineage of Mothers that came before. The feminine is part of the whole. It’s part of BEING human. We possess both qualities of masculine & feminine, light & dark, consciousness & unconsciousness, homosapien (human) & homoluminescent (angelic). In our dualistic world, we forget that we are intimately interconnected. We are fractal light, infinity sparks, of divine Source.
One of my favorite quotes is from Courtney A. Walsh:
Dear Human: You’ve got it all wrong.
You didn’t come here to master unconditional love. That is where you came from and where you’ll return. You came here to learn personal love. Universal love. Messy love. Sweaty love. Crazy love. Broken love. Whole love. Infused with divinity. Lived through the grace of stumbling. Demonstrated through the beauty of…messing up. Often. You didn’t come here to be perfect. You already are. You came here to be gorgeously human. Flawed and fabulous. And then to rise again into remembering.
While putting this musing together, I accidentally stumbled upon a mysterious poem. It was discovered among the gnostic manuscripts at Nag Hammadi in 1945, called the Thunder Perfect Mind. It speaks in the voice of the feminine divine power but unites all opposites – strength & fear, shameless & ashamed, rich & poor, royalty & slaves, holy ones & whores, sons & daughters, citizens & aliens. It is a bit long for this musing, but it is absolutely beautiful and worth the read! Finding it was pure gift from God/Goddess. So, please enjoy this translation from George W. MacRae.
In I AM Woman, Emmy Meli sings “I am woman, I am fearless. I am sexy, I’m divine. I am feminine, I am masculine. I am anything I want”. India.Arie reminds us that “I am not the things my family did. I am not the voices in my head. I am not the pieces of the brokenness inside. I AM light, I am light.” All this is true. The mantra Sat Nam means “I AM truth.” This simple sound activates the chakras as it celebrates the truth and beauty of every soul.
Everything exists in and with each other. We have forgotten that we are not separate from IT. Because we are IT. IT is good. IT is not male or female, above or below us, some aspirational place to get to, but God/Goddess is WITHIN us. Rather than call it God, Mary Magdalene calls it the Good. It reminds me of the Netflex show The Good Place where due to an error, self-absorbed Eleanor Shellstrop (played by Kristen Bell) is surprised when she arrives at the “Good Place” after her death. She quickly realizes that there’s been a mistake, so she tries to become a better person.
There is a current battle between good & evil, dark & light, masculine & feminine, political corruption, and an earthly battle for physical & spiritual freedom. So much that has been hidden (Pluto, the underworld) is coming to light. There is much work being asked of us to heal the Mother wound. These old wounds must be healed and our wombs – both physical and spiritual - must be cleansed and held sacred to bring in the divine love energies. Many are giving birth to new energetic ways, new beliefs, new frequencies, and new ways of being. You are the conduit for these new energies through the opening and attunement of the heart. I invite you to place your left hand on your heart. Take a deep breath and anchor yourself into love. Now place your right on your womb, take another deep breath and remember this divine lineage. Opening, softening, feeling, healing, and forgiving. It’s time to step into an integrated embodiment, the perfect time to balance the masculine & feminine qualities in us, and dive deep into that inner shadow work, shedding what no longer serves you the way a snake sheds its skin. So, strip away those stories, expose your I AM Soul. Stop holding back your light. Let it out. Set it free!
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