Initiation and Descent part 1 by Terry Folks

Review: In my first two posts about my recent Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete, I invited you to consider your stage in your current Heroine’s Journey as you followed me.

In my hybrid of Joseph Campbell’s mono-myth with feminist scholar Maureen Murdock’s version, the first six stages of the Heroine’s journey are: Ordinary World, the Call to Adventure, Refusal of the Call, Arrival of Mentors, Crossing the First Threshold, and Encounters with Tests, Allies, and Enemies. These archetypal stages were overlaid with Murdock’s Separation from the Feminine, Identification with the Masculine, Gathering of Allies, Road of Trials, Meeting Ogres and Dragons, Finding the Boon of Success, and Awakening to Feelings of Spiritual Aridity and Death.

Briefly: At home on Vancouver Island, Canada, I was overworked, other-focused, burnt out and overwhelmed with horrific family crises. I was terrified of doing the Goddess Pilgrimage on my own. I finally accepted divine assistance and flew to Crete. I tested positive for COVID on the first day of the pilgrimage.

Stage Seven – Approach to the Inmost Cave – Initiation and Descent to the Goddess

My yearning to connect with the feminine began at 13, reading Gloria Steinem and Ms. Magazine with a flashlight under bed covers. I couldn’t fathom the unfairness of my world. Surely someone had a made a serious mistake. How could you experience so much inequity, abuse, and powerlessness just because you were born female? At 16, I worked with older women to create a Women’s Shelter in northern Alberta where there was great need. My life’s mission at that tender age was to rectify a serious mistake made by the adults. Unfortunately, I gradually fell under the patriarchy spell, succumbed to the promise of reward (success) if I behaved, and developed work addiction. 45 years later, it became urgent that I reconnect with the feminine to save my life.

The first day of the Pilgrimage in Heraklion, I tested positive for COVID and was transported to Hotel Idi, near Zaros, Crete. I entered quarantine under the watchful eye of Mount Ida, a mountain I was destined to know intimately, a mountain I unconsciously named Mother Mountain. Alone, sick and exhausted, I slept for hours, hoping to wake up to a negative COVID test so I could rejoin the official pilgrimage.

Wise reader, you may have predicted what my ‘supreme ordeal’ would entail, the contours of my innermost cave, and what my ‘initiation and descent to the Goddess’ would look like.

I did not awaken to a negative COVID test.

No.

In fact, I would not recover and awaken to a clear negative pathogen test for another eleven days, at the very end of the of the pilgrimage!

Stage Eight – Supreme Ordeal; Urgent Yearning to Reconnect with the Feminine

How would Mother Mountain teach me to be still, to receive, to heal and recover from an unbelievably stressful five years full of traumatic crises, one after the other? She would shepherd me, inviting me to lay down in Her bosom to rage, to cry, to heal, and to finally meet my deepest self in the quiet and stillness under Mount Ida.

I had spent most of my life trying to right a wrong, trying to ‘rescue’ women, trying to insert myself into the lives of others and help them see their own power. It started with my love for my mother, and my desire to help her. Then this need to help morphed into care-taking and codependency, ignoring my own needs, and enjoying the ego strokes that come from putting others’ needs ahead of my own. I thought I had it all figured out when I opened my private practice and starting serving women every day.

I was alone in my quarantine for awhile before four more pilgrims joined me.There were now five women convalescing while the others had moved on to other sites and activities. I was following a CDC regimen where two consecutive clear negatives in a 48 hour time frame were required before I could re-join the larger group. I tested every day, to the point where my childhood nosebleeds returned. Would I be able to join the group today? No? How about now? No? Maybe on Day Five?

The answer was “No. Not yet Terry.”

I was nervous about interacting with my four sister pilgrims. Would we make each other sicker? Could we meet outside, masked several feet apart on the hotel property if we maintained distance? How could I help the others come to terms with being quarantined? Perhaps I could form a healing group.

The four other quarantined pilgrims ‘let’ me lead an Autumnal Equinox ritual. We called in the directions and elements; we invoked Mother Mountain because She would not be ignored; we shared our matrilineal line in the style of Carol Christ, we discussed how the Goddess we were given at the beginning of the pilgrimage was making Herself known.

I say that my avocado sisters ‘let’ me lead that first ritual because I think they recognized I needed to. I eventually realized I wanted to try not leading, not taking over, not rescuing, not being the morale booster, not trying so hard! I fought with myself over relinquishing my default care-taking role. I had never stopped in my life.

I was quite sick so I finally surrendered. I allowed myself to step away from the group when I needed to, to be silent and still on my little portico outside each day, to write, reflect, sleep, rest, and recover. Resting was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done! I apologized for stepping away but my avocado sisters refused my guilt.

My mother never needed me to rescue her.

My sisters never asked me to be the heroine.

I could better share my gifts by becoming whole myself.

Wow.

The photo is me looking out my wee “cottage” window at Hotel Idi in the village of Zaros in the Psiloritis mountains. Thank you avocado sister, Doreen! 

To be continued tomorrow . . .

BIO: Theresa (Terry) Folks, MA, RCC, CCC is a Spiritually Integrated Psychotherapist, educator and author. She serves women in her private practice, SpiritFirst Counselling, in Comox on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. She facilitates Sophia Women’s Wisdom groups, and leads workshops for empowering women. She offers self therapy strategies and spiritual practices on her website and her Author FB page because she believes her life’s mission is to help women empower themselves. She is the author of Counselling Approaches to Spiritual Issues, a Masters Level Curriculum for MA candidates interested in infusing spiritual resources in therapy. Terry is also the author of Another Spring: A Year of Self Therapy & Spiritual Healing Practices. She awaits a publisher who recognizes the value of empowering women with her book. You can access her gifts, meditations, and strategies at  https://www.facebook.com/TerryFolksSpiritFirst/ and here at https://spiritfirstcounselling.ca/blog/