Reclaiming Our Dark Goddess.
For years I had this nagging fear, this felt sense of the darkness that brewed within me. A bottomless pit of despair. A torrent of grief. Rage that lay in wait like a dormant volcano.
I longed for the sweet relief of release.
I created fantasies around it, wishing for the straw to break the camel’s back so that I could let go of my tight gripping.
And yet, I was terrified. I feared that what was within me, once unleashed, would swallow me whole. Take down anyone who was within striking distance.
What’s worse is that I thought I was alone in feeling this way, which only served to deepen the fear that there was something wrong with me.
That this darkness was not normal and needed to be kept under wraps and tightly controlled at all costs.
It seeped out every now and again in highly dysfunctional ways and I would be reminded of how it was not wanted. It wasn’t pretty or acceptable.
It was grief that had no home, rage that hadn’t found its place.
And it was stuck. Buried deep within my body where I tried to keep it contained.
Over the years of studying the path of the Divine Feminine, I have come to realize that I am not alone. I am not alone in the darkness. I am not alone with my yearnings for wholeness. I am not alone in my deepest and smallest fear that there is something terribly wrong with me.
Instead, I see now that this was the calling of the Dark Feminine. She who has been repressed and holds all that which we do not want to see.
She was inviting me to her. To look her straight in the eye. To not only feel her pain, but dive into it and not leave my body.
Of course her eye was my own, and the pain that she asked me to dive into was mine as well.
In order to unearth my own feelings, and with them, my feminine power, I had to come face to face with the pain that I had tried to push down. Starve away. Control to the point of oblivion. Numb out.
I had to face how many times I had betrayed my own soul. I had to hear and listen to those cries. Shed the tears. Bear witness to myself. Descend and dance with the darkness.
The feminine path to wholeness isn’t neat and pretty and clean and perfect. It’s not a straight line. It is not up and out of the body into bliss and transcendence.
It is crooked and gnarled. Down and in. Into the densest parts of our bodies, into the dark and fertile ground of Mama Earth.
It asks of us to dig and dig. Dig until our fingers are raw and there is dirt caked in under our nails. Dig till we have unearthed the truth of ourselves, the bones of the matter.
And by singing over those bones, by crying and dancing and wailing and raging over those bones, we slowly bring them back to life. Out of the shadows and into the world. Reclaiming the depths of our darkness as part of our sacred gift.
The gift of feeling deeply. The gifts of intuition and instinct. The gift of bodily knowing.
And with that, we can stop running. We can stop distracting or numbing ourselves, for we are no longer afraid of seeing the truth.
Of seeing ourselves in our totality. Giving both the darkness and the light reverence.
Finally giving our wholeness a safe haven, a home.
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Linda Katz is a writer, artist, Wild Feminine Life Coach and founder of Singing Bird Coaching. For the last several years, Linda has been on a journey of unearthing her own feminine soul, and now she helps guide others on their paths of becoming. By reclaiming the connection with your body, tapping into your true soul desires, and sharing your voice from a place of fullness, you will unleash your own Sovereign Feminine, your inner Queen. You can connect with Linda via her website, Facebook, or Instagram.
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