Longing is the core of mystery.
Longing itself brings the cure.
The only rule is, suffer the pain.
Your desire must be disciplined,
and what you want to happen
in time, sacrificed.
- Rumi, Say I Am You
 What Are Women Really Longing For?
There is a point when the voice of longing becomes distinctly feminine, a siren song from a woman's soul that quickens in her heart, moves her to seek out other women, find a woman therapist or a women's group, or buy some books on women’s spirituality.
She may feel that there is something to remember, something she cannot name but knows she knows deep within her being, something distinctly feminine, found only in dark and secret places. Maria, a 40-year-old woman with a healing practice, described her longing to me as "a real, sweet ache inside, something more than simply wanting to fill an emptiness. Like the ocean, it comes in waves, pulls at me, goes back to the Source, and comes again and again." She said that it has to do with coming Home and remembering. A trip to the sacred sites of Glastonbury, England, awakened something in her that felt familiar, distinctly feminine, and very powerful. She said that she didn't have a frame in which to understand her spiritual experiences until she joined one of our women's groups. She had had a cognitive awareness of women's spirituality, but now she knows, deep in her body, what it is.
Click here for the full text
The Archetypes of Sacred Feminine Initiation
Twenty-five years ago, I began my study of Jungian psychology, archetypes, and the Feminine, and took what I was learning into my women’s groups and workshops. I was inspired by a short article by Toni Wolff, Jung’s mistress, colleague, and inspiration for much of his work. It was called, called "Structural Forms of the Feminine" (1956). In it she described four universal patterns or "archetypes" of feminine experience: the Mother, the Amazon (warrior), the Hetaira (lover and companion to man) and the Medial Woman (mystic/healer). Her view was that all women fit into one of these personality "types" and the other three were more or less in shadow, unknown.
 Click here for the full text and to listen to Invocations of the Sacred Feminine Archetypes.
|
Carry the Fire... and Don’t Get Burned
"You must carry the fire and not get burned," said the small, wizened, African shaman as he placed a glowing red coal in the palm of each of my hands.
These words were spoken to me in a dream in the fall of 1983, nearly a year after I entered Jungian analysis, in deep despair, and with intense longing to experience my creative self, my true, essential Self. My analyst, Jake, called this a "big dream", an initiation dream that not only carried life-changing personal significance, but also contained a message and meaning for others, as well.
Click here for the full text
|
Lakshmi's Gifts
Are you longing to experience the deep Well of Abundance that is your natural state, no matter what conditions are on the outer level? Are you longing to have more energy available for your life, creativity, and the expression of your purpose, your True Calling? This energy could manifest as time, space, money, creativity, juiciness, who-knows-what?
Click here for the full text
Snake Herstory
Who is Snake? For the patriarchy, snake has been associated with Eve, and both have been the symbols of evil and the “Fall of Man.” Eve was identified with the Snake by the “church fathers,” and they both have received the fearful projections of all that isn't known or understood about the Feminine, the Great Mystery, and that which lies beyond the comprehension of the rational, egoic, mind. The snake was one of the most widely used symbols associated with the goddess in many cultures of the Near East, where the Eve mythology had its roots. Ancient maps often depicted great serpents at the outer edges of the oceans, warning men not to dare to sail their ships beyond the known, lest they meet with a terrible serpent and succumb to certain death. It is interesting that ancient men used the same symbol as the symbol for the goddess to depict death, the unknown, and the uncharted.
Click here for the full text
Prayer for the Bone Women
Dark Mother
wash away our names and identities
make us naked and fresh, like newborns
show us the face we had before we were born
purify us burn our guilt
shame and self-hate
awaken compassion in our hearts
for all that we cannot bear
to love within ourselves
reveal yourself
through our blood and bones and woman flesh
restore our wombs and breasts
bodies and souls to health and lightness
challenge us to be warriors
to seek and love and be the naked Truth
dissolve our fear and contempt
of the masculine and of all that is “other”
make us virgin brides
open and ripe
to receive the Divine Beloved
soften us
that we may surrender
to your will for us
take us into your service
to be manifestations of you
your grace and abundance in the world
teach us to die with grace
to rest in the void
to know you as empty tomb
fecund womb
birth us from the Void
Dark Mother
we beseech you
initiate us
take us down to the bones
make us
Bone Women
- Sheila Foster © 2005 |
