Throughout the sands of time, there has always been the temple of the Sacred Feminine. And in that temple, there are five key archetypes a woman must journey through to experience initiation, trials and mastery of her sacred woman maturity and blossom into her fullness.
The five sacred archetypes are the Lover, the Medial Woman, the Amazon, the Mother and the Queen. Any adolescent girl may start her initiation at any given place on the circle. Some girls start their journey as muses and artists, discovering their creativity or sexuality. Other girls have ancient memories of being a healer, priestess, oracle, shaman, seer or medicine woman and want to activate that flame within them. Some girls are very nurturing and love the compassion, harmony and graceful feminine presence of a matriarch. Others begin the adolescent journey with warrior skills – ambition, courage, a strong will as well as independence and purpose.
Each journey around the circle is sacred and each circle once completed takes the woman to her next evolution on the spiral of womanhood. In each woman, one of these archetypes is more dominant and one archetype is dormant or is deeply in shadow. This is the part of us that remains unknown, unloved, or unwanted, and controls our lives until we see her, touch her and commit to healing her.
Lover initiations often involve opening up to sensuality and being in the body. The Scared Lover gives us the gift of beauty and vitality, she is our honey, sweetness and sacred succulence, our magnificent expression of intimacy in our bodies. The shadow of the Lover can involve addictions, abuse and not claiming the deep language of our bodies. The healed Lover wants to share her creative gifts with the world and can experience the highest expressions of love including joy, bliss and ecstasy. The healed Lover has a healthy relationship with herself and brings Divine Creation into the world through her Higher Self. When we activate her sacred nectar, the holy grail of magnetic energy, we awaken shakti and let her liberate us. Life becomes a sensual celebration, a wondrous dance and a joyful orgasm of living deeply and loving fully. Goddesses who can help you heal your inner Lover are Aphrodite, Iseult, Guinivere and Hathor. The Lover can express herself as a muse, artist, musician, poet, dancer, courtesan, enchantress model, painter, and photographer.
Amazon initiations involve speaking our truth, defending boundaries, finding a higher purpose and calling that places us in service to humanity. The shadow side of the Amazon can arise when we cannot defend ourselves and we are easily defeated by people, places and situations. We fall into being a victim, where we react to the world. A healed Amazon is empowered and identifies with being a creator, not a victim. She has shed the more adolescent forms of brattiness and being the center of the world and knows how to negotiate and navigate in the adult world with a set of standards based on truth, honesty, integrity and service. Goddesses who can help you heal your inner Amazon are Artemis, Diana, Boudica, Freya and Dhurga. The Amazon can express herself as an adventurer, activist, warrior, military person, political leader, corporate leader and executive, pilot and crusader.
Medial woman initiations involve discovering our magician powers. We are called to experiment with crystals, healing modalities, sacred dance, ancient rites and esoteric knowledge. Many medial women come from a long line of ancestors who were medial women. The Medial Woman in shadow may hide her true power from fear of punishment, abandonment and exile. She prefers the shadows where she is safe and not in the spotlight. The healing work that often helps her is soul-retrieval, journaling her truth, channeling her Highest Self, identifying with being a powerful woman, womb healing, singing and dancing and expressing her greatest power: her intuition and inner knowing of plants, earth medicine, the moon cycles, the symphony of stars, ancient dance, singing and sound healing. The awakened and healed Medial Woman is a spiritual leader in her community, spreading her message and she is supported in her work. She is cherished and loved for her wisdom. Goddesses who can help you heal your inner Medial Woman are Medusa, Morrigan, Isis, Ixchel, Lilith and Circe. The Medial Woman can express herself as a priestess, shaman, oracle seer, coach, facilitator, reverend, church group leader, psychologist and leader.
Mother initiations happen when we give birth to our children, a deeply cherished project, vision or company. Maternal energy is our birthright and one of the deepest feminine rites of passage a woman can experience. The Mother energy is Empress energy, abundance energy and creation itself. She inspires us to embrace nourishment, as she is the Queen of Nourishment. A Mother in shadow is someone who has a limited view point of her fullness and sees herself only in a mothering role. She does not accept and integrate her inner lover and warrior, medial woman and queen. Shadow mothers are clingy and controlling with a deeply held belief that there is “not enough”. The awakened mother is very open to the flow of love and abundance – her resources, family and bountiful gifts. She is not controlling. She is aligned with creation. Goddesses who can help you heal your inner Mother are Kali, Kuan Yin, Isis and Cybele.
Queen initiations happen when a woman steps into her executive decision making skills and economic power. The Queen’s talents are about mastery of her different archetypes. Having journeyed through the circle multiple times, she has a vision for her life, a plan. She has access to resources, people and money that help her build an empire. She works with the awakened Medial Woman within her to access deep power and intuition to guide her. She activated her Amazon to speak her truth and do what is right in her heart. The mature lover inside her allows her to choose a wise King and the Mother within will teach her to be fierce, compassionate and loving matriarch of her children, family, castle and Queendom. A Shadow Queen can be a tyrant and a bully. Secretly in her inner world, she feels powerless inside so he has to rage and roar to control everyone in her external world. Goddesses who can help you heal your inner Queen are Cybele, Isis, Brigit, Rhiannon and Athena. Women who were not allowed to step into their Queen power were Princess Diana and Princess Grace of Monaco. Women who successfully stepped into their powerful roles as Queens were Cleopatra, Elizabeth I, Queen Zenobia, Queen Hatshepsut and Empress Josephine.
When we come full circle and crown ourselves in the center of our sacred feminine maturity, we become the Queen. The Queen is no longer a sleeping princess, unaware of her powers, skills, resources and talents. She knows who she is, where she belongs and she has a vision guiding her future. From this place of deep feminine power, she can create anything she desires. She is magnetic. People will appear to get the work done for her.
When we as women can embrace that we have multiple dimensions to our soul, we can embrace the rich layers of who we are deep at our core. We discover the Great Mystery through these archetypes, we discover our beauty, power and grace. Most of all we discover, that we are works of art on a human journey of trial, tribulation, refinement and mastery, awakening our true divinity as Goddesses walking a path of beauty and grace here on Earth.
Inspiration and acknowledgements:
Sheila Foster
Temple of The Sacred Feminine
http://www.templeofthesacredfeminine.com/Temple/Home/index.html
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