I used to think I had way more masculine energy than feminine energy.

 

I was the no label, jeans and t-shirt wearing, mountain climbing, adventurous outdoor chick. I was definitely not a girly girl.

Even growing up in a pretty liberal, hippy, idealist community where everything goes, I still absorbed these cultural norms we associate with masculine and feminine.

Because I had a hard time seeing myself in the mainstream feminine ideal, I decided that my alternative was that I was just a more masculine person than feminine one.

 

I just wasn’t aware that the particular flavour of my own feminine expression is less of that etherial goddess, and more of the earthy fire wrath of Pele.

 

The High Priestess

Bless the tarot.

When I started to get to know the High Priestess I immediately identified.

This is the feminine I could really get behind.

The High Priestess is not about being pretty nor appearing pleasing to others, or in other words, what I had been taught were feminine ideals. No, she represented something entirely different.

Pele, The High Priestess, Inanna, Ishtar, she embodies all that is dark, all that is subconscious, all that is life – including death.

She represents the underworld, our sensual nature. She represents nature itself – both the calm, clear, glassy water, and the hurricane that causes mass destruction.

 

For the first time, I could feel a resonance beyond the watered down, sanitized version of “feminine” I had been exposed to.

You see, all of these parts of the feminine are lost parts and pieces, not just to me personally, but to us, humanity, as a collective.

We don’t like to think about death, let alone commune and meditate with the goddess of the underworld.

That’s too close for comfort.

That might challenge our ego.

And challenge our egoic self, she does.

 

Several years ago, when I first came to Mexico, I had my own ego shattering experience.

The masculine shell that I had built, the one I thought was just my “nature”, my “personality”, my “expression of truth” was actually just a defense mechanism.

Ouch.

Self identity crumbling to the ground is not music to anyone’s ears, let alone when it’s your own ego you hear falling apart.

I thought I had done a lot of personal work.

I thought I knew myself.

I thought I knew what the feminine was.

 

When something isn’t true, eventually, like cracks in an enormous dam, the real truth begins to erode our walls, and the lies and our ego can’t hold anymore.

Part of me knew that being connected, in intimacy and community is essential to my wellbeing, but the part of me, my egoic self, the part that was trying to protect me from getting hurt believed otherwise.

My egoic self thought that if I could just be this “strong, independent woman” who doesn’t need anything from anyone, I could protect myself from the pain of heartbreak, of being lied to, manipulated – from being hurt.

This of course is part of humanity I was trying to protect myself from.

I realize now, that I was just separating myself from fully participating in life itself.

 

The myth of the strong independent woman is just that – it’s bullshit.

The truth is that no one regardless of gender or anything else did anything worth doing alone.

 

Something else happened that first trip to Mexico besides eroding my sense of who I thought I was.

Permission.

Something about latin culture to this day I appreciate is it is a place where there is more room for the whole feminine.

 

Those places and flavours – Pele, volcanoes, fire, storms, waves, sweat, blood, breath – they were no longer taboos, but a welcome and natural part of life.

I found myself with space to be.

I found myself in permission to be all of the parts of me that were told they were unwelcome in this world.

My inner Drama Queen emerged.

 

Finally, some of my deep inner practices had a place and context outside of my inner being. They could be seen and welcomed without offending or shocking anyone.

I had permission to explore the context of whole feminine.

 

It’s actually kind of hilarious really because whole feminine is so many things. There is an element of wanting to be pleasing to others and then also not giving a shit as you burn the whole town down. They are both true. They are both feminine.

She is both the most tender and soft, and the warrior goddess ready to destroy you with her sharp teeth and claws.

She is both the hunter and the hunted.

 

The High Priestess walked into my tarot spread today along with The Chariot and The Tower. Some powerful shit and shifts are in process right now and I must deepen into Her to ride the wave. She is the one inside of me – my intuition, my higher self.

She is telling me that rest and inward is needed right now so I can listen more clearly, more deeply – I need to listen so that I can be clear in my direction, clear in my intentions, and surrender to the process that is my life unfolding before me.

 

 

In previous posts, I’ve talked about deconstructing my business in February of 2021, and surrendering to the unfolding that has been working its way through my being over the last few years – very much embodied feminine working her magic and deep intelligence through me. Things must fall apart. It’s part of creation. It’s essential to understand what is truly true and what is simply ego disguised as protection, security, and stability.

Nothing is stable unless it can be fluid, flow, transform. Nothing is secure unless it follows natural law.

Nothing is sacred nor protected unless it is naked and pure truth.

Everything else is just our lessons, our experiences, the layers of what it is to be alive here on this earth.

 

There is something emerging from the chaos – more on that to be revealed in the near future.

But for now, I sit in the potency of my inner High Priestess as she takes the reins in surrender, leading the way.

She is the Chariot and the Tower.

She is everything.