The Flame Bearer is only as large as she is small. You remember this saying? It means no one is ever worthy to do what she is called to do.  No one is ever significant enough.  The mission is always larger than the one who goes out on the mission.  The Flame Bearer is made up of the same clay that makes every woman.  She is a Flame Bearer only because she knows, in the clay lives the spirit of The Mother.  If Chochma waited for one woman who was more worthy than another, how would The Mother do her work in this world? 
                                               -  Kim Chernin, The Flame Bearers

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Who Walks the Path of Sacred Feminine Initiation?

Women everywhere are feeling drawn to return to the ancient feminine ways, yearning to re-member what we once knew and practiced openly.  Through Sacred Feminine initiation, we drop the old patriarchal stories about who and what we are, and we open to live life from the deepest Feminine Source—in service to our own spiritual awakening and for the healing and awakening of our families, communities, and the planet. 

Numerous women over the last twenty-four years, aged 18 to 82, have come to participate in the groups.  Now I am getting emails from women all over the world, asking how to begin this journey or how they can participate in this Temple’s work.

The form has evolved and changed many times and continues to evolve.  Over time, in addition to psychotherapists and body workers, the groups have included healers, psychotherapists, body workers, belly dancers, yoga teachers, writers, artists, singers, ministers, police officers, community leaders, government employees, bankers, business executives, bankers, school teachers, college professors, lawyers, meditation teachers, physicians, nurses, pregnant women, young mothers, grandmothers, crones and wild women.

Women in all phases of the spiritual journey with different spiritual backgrounds are called to the path of the Sacred Feminine, including those just beginning to explore themselves, as well as women who have done many years of inner work and are ready for the deepest work.  No matter where we are or what we have done up until now, we are always at the beginning.   

The women who follow this path have the support and strength of an ancient lineage of women who were devoted to the Great Goddess.  Across time and cultures, these were the wise women, priestesses, healers, artists, shamans, storytellers, and grandmothers who protected and passed on spiritual secrets and practiced feminine ways of living, knowing, worshiping, and healing.  These were the women, our ancestors, who always knew Her and kept Her fire alive deep within their hearts and bodies, despite several hundred years of the Burning Times and over three thousand years of suppression by the patriarchy.

When patriarchy became dominant, the lineage of the Mother went underground, and like the moon in its dark phase, gathered energy for its emergence in us and through us now, for these times of planetary initiation and paradigm shift.

While there are numerous artifacts showing us that these ancient women had sacred temples all over the world, there is only speculation about their initiatory experiences and rituals.  They took their secrets with them, and modern women are now being given the keys to unlock those secrets.  Our ancestors are here, in the field of consciousness, offering the ancient wisdom and their support to us.  We can invoke them to help and strengthen us.  The information is in the field and within us, stored as collective memory, encoded in our subtle energy bodies, our DNA and cellular structures.

If you consider past lives, tribal memory, the collective unconscious, or morphogenetic fields, it will make sense to you that what was known to the ancient women who worshiped the Goddess is coming forth now through us.  It is not uncommon for women going through initiation to uncover these ancient memories.

On the surface we look like moms, therapists, teachers, athletes, physicians, mothers, artists, musicians, farmers, health care workers, government employees, students, businesswomen, writers, lawyers, ministers, and grannies.  In our depths, we are all (r)evolutionaries for the Divine Feminine, some of whom are working out in the world, under cover.  Feminine initiation is both revolutionary and evolutionary.

The women who have been walking this path with me are connected to many religious traditions: Christian, Catholic, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, Sufi, Native American, etc.  Love of, and devotion to the Divine Feminine, the Goddess, doesn't mean you have to give up what is meaningful to you from those traditions.  In fact, this path can take you deeper into your own tradition to the Great Mystery, to which all religions are pointing.
                                                           - SF