Stage Twelve – Return with the Elixir – Surfacing/ReEntry – Personal Symbols
How would I share my newfound knowledge with my community, tribe, clan, sisterhood or family upon my return? From my vision quest on Crete, there will be much to share over time, but I will start with these three pieces as my Heroine’s return gifts to you.
The heroine needs time and space to surface, and to gently manage re-entry.
Why? When you have immersed yourself in the matriarchal culture (Ariadnian or Minoan), in the peaceful personal rightness of this culture that existed 3000 to 5000 years ago, it is very difficult to suddenly be plopped back into the patriarchy we live in, in 2023. It’s startling for body, mind and spirit. I offer the teaching of self compassion as you adjust to reality. My leave-taking from the bosom of Mount Ida and from Her gentle ministrations during my convalescence was paradoxically heart-wrenching.
I also offer this teaching: Try to stay in Spirit First position even when Ego tries to drag you into competition, drama, lack, fear, and comparisons.
When I am in my usual default Spirit First position, the incredible gifts of my Covid quarantine on Crete are obvious, priceless, and free because the only requirement is my consciousness. Since I have been back in Canada on my beloved Vancouver Island, surfacing, recovering from a long bout of Covid, EGO tries to get my attention. The hostile forces I faced as I began my journey home first from the bosom of Mother Mountain in Zaros to Heraklion to Athens to Montreal to Vancouver and home to Vancouver Island took a different shape.
Suddenly Ego made its way into my private quiet Spirit First psyche.
Ego said … your experience was bad karma; you are being punished; you must feel sorry for yourself. Ego says, “Oh you poor thing! Look what happened to you! Nothing ever works out for you! You dreamed of and saved for this Pilgrimage for 15 years and look what happened! It was snatched from you because of Covid! You tested positive the first day of the Pilgrimage and only tested negative at the end of it! Poor you!“
Notice how Ego talks in exclamation points? Ego loves DRAMA, especially a victim narrative that feeds itself. Ego tries to squelch my consciousness, to make me forget the greatest gift of my Covid quarantine:
A deep still silent powerful inner knowledge of a divine feminine force who is both immanent and transcendent, and cares for me every minute of every day. No question.
My last offering to my community from my Inner Pilgrimage or vision quest on Crete is actually a soul work assignment. I ask that each of you create your own symbols for your own healing journeys, then please help us all create new symbols for the healing of the planet.
Here’s a personal example:
Early in my quarantine, I shared a photo of my key to my room at Hotel Idi. The key tag was a heavy duty brass piece in the shape of a labrys … the age old symbol of the female triangle and the Divine feminine.
Guess what? As I prepared to leave Zaros and Mother Mountain on that final day, generous and beautiful Evi (owner of Hotel Idi) presented me with my very own Labrys as a parting gift. I was so moved I was speechless. This gorgeous labrys now sits on my altar. It is heavy, solid, beautiful, and the perfect reminder to me that I am enveloped by a deep powerful internal feminine force who is both immanent and transcendent, both within me, and permeating everything. Together with Mother Mountain, these two concrete talismans represent my marriage to myself; my integration – the ultimate gift of my Goddess Pilgrimage.
I followed Carol Christ’s example of checking my own intuition regarding the symbolism of the labrys. The labrys is often thought of as the double axe. This never felt right, and indeed, the labrys was never depicted as a weapon, and never in the hands of boys or men. Only women or goddesses are depicted with the labrys. When Carol checked with her own intuition, she was offered ‘bird wings’. “Their appearance during a ritual in Ariadnian Crete was understood as the hierophany of the Goddess – think of the Holy Spirit descending as a dove” (Carol Christ 1945-2021).
When I checked with my intuition around the labrys, I was given the word ‘sanctuary‘. Indeed, my time at Zaros, under the watchful loving care of Mount Idi will always and forever be the epitome of sanctuary in my memory. I have also had the image of Mother Mountain from Zaros transferred to a large canvas. It hangs above my altar and every time I look at Her, I am infused with solid, grounding, earth energy. I love Her.
Choose your own symbols from your lived experience. Imbue them with the energy you need for your own healing. Remember … if we are going to save this beautiful planet, our Mother Home, we will also need to change the bigger, grander, more influential symbols world wide. This change in symbolism is vital, essential for saving the planet. Recall that Carol also taught us: “Symbol systems cannot simply be rejected; they must be replaced. Where there is no replacement, the mind will revert to familiar structures at times of crisis, bafflement, or defeat“
So this is my last offering from my journey: We stop seeing the planet as merely utilitarian, meant to be exploited.
We replace our perception and all of our symbology with this:
We see Her, our planet, our Mother Home, as the incredible giver of abundance and life that we also perceive when we honor women who carry life and give birth. We understand that the Earth teaches us all we need to know about the natural cycle of birth, death, and rebirth. Women and women’s cycles teach us the same if we are open to Her teachings. How we treat women is how we treat the planet, and how we treat our planet is how we treat women.
When I know with certainty that any female anywhere on the planet can feel safe walking down any road, path, or street – I will know our work here is done. Let’s forever and henceforth be Women honoring … Earth honoring.
I have returned from my Heroine’s Journey. I offer these gifts to you.
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 https://spiritfirstcounselling.ca/blog/
www.spiritfirstcounselling.ca
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If others could all learn what you did – namely that the earth teaches us all we need to know – we would have a chance to survive…. I really do have a problem calling Earth Mother – only Indigenous peoples have earned that right – what I am afraid of is that as westerners calling earth mother is tapping into the sacrificial aspect of mothering – gigs give give until you are cut down/discarded
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I respect what you are saying Sara, but my own Indigenous teachers have encouraged me to use this language as their hope is that if we change our language, we can change reality. I am honored to be gifted with their permission. My personal and cultural intention is definitely not to tap into the sacrificial aspect of mothering. Indeed, my intention is the opposite … to honor and revere Her. As a follower of Earth Based Spirituality myself, I recognize my privilege and I understand that, as Robin Kimmerer suggests in her brilliant book Braiding Sweetgrass, “each of us comes from people who were once Indigenous.” I am deeply grateful.
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Oh gosh, I am aware that YOU are not suggesting the sacrificial nature of Mother Earth but that as westerners we co opt this really destructive terminology to keep on taking without realizing it without awareness – and Kimmerer makes this point over and over – what we do need to do is to synthesize the western tradition with the Indigenous tradition – this is what Kimmerer is doing – I too have Indigenous roots BUT I did not walk the trail of Tears or Death and I grew into my respectful and loving relationship with Nature as a child without teachers besides Nature herself just as you are doing as an adult with ‘teachers’….
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Here’s to synthesis!! Here’s to gradual, yet sure and steady, awakening!
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Thank you so much for sharing your journey to Crete and to the sanctuary of the labrys. I almost feel as if I had been along with you! I love the request you have made of us, to find our own symbol. After I thought a moment and couldn’t come up with anything I looked up and saw a beautiful, blooming amaryllis a friend gave me and I think that will be my symbol this winter – unfolding, a gift of grace, beauty for beauty’s sake as well as for its place in the ecosystem, unexpected. And I love your statement that only when all women are safe will our work be done – this gives us something to work towards, to a guiding light as we make decisions, a vision of a better world. These posts have been delightful and I hope to hear more of your spiritual quest on FAR!
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Isn’t it wonderful that when we give ourselves permission, we can use our lived experience for meaning making? Your amaryllis is astonishing … more beautiful than it technically needs to be … and inspiring such grace as you yourself possess Carolyn. Thank you.
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