{Photo credit: Kristi Stout}

There is a path unfolding that from one perspective looks like a maze, but in all actuality is really a completely straightforward one that zigzags to a holy center.

This maze is known as the labyrinth. The path is sure and true. You cannot get lost if ye take heed, yet also at certain bends it might seem confusing because when you suddenly think you’ve almost reached the middle, it swings far away out from the center. However, if you trust your feet and keep walking forward, you will always find the center again.

Take caution though, for it’s easy to forget sometimes which direction you’re moving once you’ve started. So the labyrinth asks that you, in earnest, pay attention, but also enjoy the journey. Who knows what might appear or meet you along the way?

Let me introduce to you my own version of the labyrinth: a series of art in 69 pieces. If you walk with me on this path in parallel, you will be met in the end with something wild, that may very well inspire and motivate you as you journey along your own true path.

Shall we take our first step together?

We begin with the first: Hieros Gamos.

Sacred union. Beloved connection. Unified. United. Whole. Masculine and Feminine expression in pure, raw, primal, form. Sensual. Core magma. Fire that melts down into purity spilling out a stronger extracted substance.

{Photo credit: Kristi Stout}

Within each of us is a longing to belong. Not fit in necessarily, but to belong somewhere with a cause and purpose. A place in a subterranean realm of our consciousness, that is a respite, a place to call home amidst a life that is riddled in chaos, confusion, and that liminal space of rising up from an old-thought paradigm into something more anthropos — fully realized.

Within each of us is expressed both masculine and feminine energies that are enacted through the way we relate to the world, to life, and to lovers and others. A basic example: I am a woman, you are a man. But really these are just physical vessels holding a more microcosmic dance of each of these expressions within us, just as we as individuals are within the one true expression of the Universe that is beyond us.

Our longing to return to this home, to becoming one with it, is this subterranean or primal call that we can’t seem to escape on a core level — ideas such as I am another you and You complete me — is about us being (of) the same body that is really one of part of the whole that is this entire Universe. Energies united in a sensually, entwining display of simply creation — being. Expressing. Loving.

Showing you how beautiful you are through the way my proverbial hands play upon your skin and lips, undulating to the pulse that is the heartbeat of all life.

The more we can beat to the rhythm of our true nature out loud, not hidden, the more this world will restore itself into wholeness… atonement. Then arrives the space to peacefully interrelate and co-habitate with the tapestry of our entire collective body of existence — animalia and cosmos alike, in a great cosmic pulsation — acting as one.

Allowing nature to be nature.

By entering the sacred chamber of our true self, we participate in the ritual of consummating the Divine Masculine and Feminine and begin to recompense this chasm which has split apart our true sacred union.

Known as the hieros gamos, symbolically, spiritually, physically, realistically, taking this divine union of self to heart has the potential to heal and also close the gap in the divisions of things on a larger scale. As we all know, life is so desperately out of balance and it can also show up in our daily, individual lives.

When these two energies act in equality and find atonement, what results is at-one-ment, becoming one body, one force, perhaps the one true God? Unified with what is bigger than us.

Think for a moment the subtle words of Genesis, where it clearly reads: “Made in our image, in our likeness…” Yes, our, in plural. What else could this be if not a reference to masculine and feminine expressions of the Divine, which in all actuality is a higher vibration of what we are? Us in higher octave.

The only reason there is unrest in the world at all is because we have unrest in our true souls and natures as human beings.

In our present epoch, in our world culture/economic/natural climate, we cannot afford to be either/or anymore. It cannot be a man’s world and it cannot be a woman’s world, it must be both, integrated. Our very existence depends on it as a collective humanity. This very pressing truth is expressed simply in the fact that there are men and women at all.

The problem and imbalance is strictly due to the fact that only one has been allowed to express out of control for centuries, and it’s played out now, bringing us to dire circumstances.

If masculine and feminine can be expressed, in equality, I feel we can see beautiful and lasting changes at large. We have this power latent within us, every single one of us.

But we must embrace both within our own individual self. Unifying our physical identity with our own internal masculine and feminine in sacred union. That is to say, the masculine and feminine must combine within me, in my case as a woman, and alchemize with me, to create a powerful force that helps me journey through this life.

An outward example: Mother Nature and Father Sun operate in one act of union to make life happen in perfect, balanced homeostasis.

I can keep going with examples of masculine and feminine expressions in action. But I can tell you now all of us are both these things, whether you are man or woman or trans or gender-neutral. At our core, we are a perfect cocktail of these two expressions acting out, and it can morph and change on a daily basis.

I urge that it is time we recognize and respect these separate yet combined expressions in one another, and enact the sacred union.

This will lead to an acceptance our true nature, uniting it with the expression of our body, which will annihilate our inner tyrant and cleanse our mind — the three then become one in holy matrimony, perfect homeostasis as only masculine and feminine expressions can do when expressed in equality.

Each of us is so sacredly, individually unique and whole, but in combination with others, acting for a common greater good, we become a force of power that is unstoppable in the favor of lasting and beautiful changes.

But you must be yourself expressed. The sooner we can be ourselves, in multitude, without fear, living authentically, and not as we were negatively, in a fear-vibration, programmed to be, the faster what is authentically good in this world can grow in power, becoming a super-power, and this power is what I believe is the real one true love.

We need to support each other in this endeavor — in sacred union.

So now let’s break it down further. Since she hasn’t been allowed much limelight over the past 2000 years, our next step into this labyrinth of my personal expression will be The Sacred Feminine.

“The Great Work that is beginning is the realization of the feminine as the bridge between God and humankind.” ~ Marion Woodman

This is an ongoing series by Kristi Stout.
Tune in weekly for the next chapter in ‘The Labyrinth’.

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Kristi Stout

Kristi L. Stout is an artist, mother, and lover. She considers herself a Renaissance woman, in service of Love in its many forms. It is her belief that inside each of us is our own sacred, Wild nature -- a hidden instinct that is not forgotten as much as it is dormant, like leafless trees in winter. It is the part of us that is connected to all things. A knowing without knowing. The part deep inside that understands darkness is necessary for the moon to simmer silver, and recognizes that even if you’re lost in the middle of nowhere you can always find a sacred somewhere -- like an internal compass pointing true north to your heart center. Her passion project, work in progress, is She Is Wild. You can find more of Kristi’s work here or connect with her on Facebook.

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