Part 1 was posted yesterday, you can read it here.
Stage Nine – Reward (Seizing the Sword) – Healing the Mother/Daughter Split
Some contemporary versions of the Heroine’s Journey have the heroine or hero seizing the sword quite dramatically. She takes possession of the treasure ‘sword’ as knowledge, experience, or greater understanding. My reward was more subtle but deeply profound. It took Her awhile to help me understand but eventually I stopped fighting and leaned into Mother Mountain. When I was calmer, when I became still, stopped trying so hard … when I finally surrendered I was able to ask Her why.
Why Mother Mountain? Why COVID? Why now?
Her response was as clear as though She was speaking in my ear:
“It was the only way we could meet each other. Every step you have taken up to now has led you to this sacred moment.”
I wept.
Then I wrote:
The Mountain Mother, Mount Idi (PsiloritIs Mountain range) watched over our little group of Covid quarantined pilgrims under an enormous avocado tree at Hotel Idi in Zaros Crete while the other fifteen pilgrims travelled to sacred Goddess sites around the island.
We were originally called the Covid Sisters, then the Corona Goddesses (pun intended) but we preferred to be called the Avocado Sisterhood. We met daily under the tree for yoga, check in’s, test results, health changes, support for the waves of emotional turbulence, sharing stories from our “other lives” outside this liminal time, and designing a ceremony for Autumnal Equinox.
I see you. Thank you dear Doreen for your wacky spontaneous humor (humor that belies deep wisdom) … I laughed loud from the belly between my crying jags. Thank you oh so respected Faye for unabashedly sharing a lifetime of Goddess knowledge (and chocolate). Thank you Eva for giving us permission to say “That was rude.”
Thank you dear wise old soul – 30 year old Summer – who said one day: “The other pilgrims are travelling widely around Crete, but we’re travelling deeply. I believe John O’Donohue talked about travelling deeply when you stay in one place. That’s how I feel. I’m normally such a busy person, it was easy to imagine myself travelling all over Crete, doing as much as possible. It would have been impossible for me to picture the experience of stillness, slowness, and rest that we have had here.”
Oh, to be that wise at 30! Oh to hear again Summer’s hauntingly beautiful singing once again!
I tested positive for Covid on Saturday, September 16th, the first official day of my Goddess Pilgrimage on Crete and went into quarantine in Zaros, in the PsiloritIs Mountains. I would not test negative until 11 days later on Wednesday, September 27th, when the other pilgrims were just returning to Heraklion for their final few days of wind down before heading home.
I discovered that some pilgrimages have an itinerary, a guide book that require you to travel far and wide, from one destination to another. Other pilgrimages ask you to travel deep … then deeper … and yet ever deeper by staying “… in one place.”
This experience crushed me, brought me to my knees, distilled me down to my very essence. The itinerary was gone, there was no travel guide, the route, erased. The depths of myself where I was taken could not have been mapped out any other way. There was no agenda except self care in this moment …. and then in this moment …. now in this next one. John O’Donohue references self-exile in his writings, and the Celtic paradox of finding the light of meaning in our darkest hours. In one of her pieces, Maureen Murdock explains “The feminine journey is about going down deep into soul healing and reclaiming, while the masculine journey is up and out, to spirit.”
When I was emptied, there She was.
I found Goddess within …
My Avocado Sisters … I thank you for witnessing that this truly happened. At some points during those weeks, I thought, “Surely I have died and this is my next life” or “Ahhhhh … I get it! This is a dream and I am going to wake up any moment now.” But we saw each other.
Thank you for accepting that I had to step away occasionally. You did not judge me for doing so. I wanted to apologize for taking care of myself, but you wouldn’t let me. You invited me back in to the circle every time I was ready. You meant it. I was accepted. I belonged.
Thank you so much for having my back when it was time to “re-surface” from liminal time to so-called “normal” life, after I finally tested negative for Covid. You left ahead of me, prepared the way. I will never forget that welcoming when I returned. I love you. I will never forget you.
Blessed be.Terry, September 2023, Crete, Greece
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/
feminismandreligion.com 
Thank you so much for this series. What I especially appreciate about your experience is that you show how important it can be to have others with you on what might otherwise be a solitary spiritual journey. I think so often we think that if we are going into a retreat, a place away from our usual schedule and expectations of being occupied, we should be alone. But you show that having others doing the same thing – going on a journey only you can but sharing the experience with others while it is happening – can be enlightening and make the experience even more profound.
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You’ve got it Carolyn. I often invite the women I serve to “take their recovery show on the road” so to speak, and to practice their new found transformation while in the company of others. In Morita therapy, you need some time alone first so you don’t become “other focused” again … such an easy role to slip back into. It’s a fine balance.
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Gosh I have to disagree here – there are two ways to be in relationship – one is solitary the other involves others – each way is valuable and each is a very different experience
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Oh I didn’t mean it as an either/or scenario, Sara. I quite enjoy my relationship with myself. I just meant that trying out that maintenance of inner solitude whilst in the company of others can be one way to double check if we have slipped into being overly other focused again.
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