The Golden Book of Wisdom: Ancient Spirituality and Shamanism for Modern Times by Fotoula Adrimi

There comes a moment on the spiritual path, often arriving quietly and unexpectedly, when a woman begins to sense that the life she has been living does not fully belong to her. The roles, expectations, and inherited beliefs that once seemed natural begin to feel like garments that no longer fit. Beneath them, something older and deeper stirs. It is not new knowledge, but an ancient calling.

This call to return to an inner truth has been suppressed in us through centuries of patriarchy, yet it has been carried within us across time. This is a deep exploration that I share throughout The Golden Book of Wisdom – ancient spirituality and shamanism for modern times. In my own journey, this path did not arise as a rejection of the modern world, but as a remembering of something that had always been present. As I share in the book, my early life was marked by intuitive awareness and spiritual connection, which I later suppressed in order to conform to societal expectations. It was only when I returned to spiritual practice through meditation, healing work, and shamanic training, that these gifts reawakened, guiding me back to a path of service and teaching.

At its essence, shamanism is not a belief system but a lived, experiential relationship with spirit, nature, and the unseen worlds. It echoes an ancient role: the healer, the seer, the priestess, the one who walks between the worlds.

In the twenty years I have been practising shamanism professionally, I have come to realise that this movement from disconnection to remembrance, is one that many women recognise. Since 2012 I have been sharing The Priestess of the Moon™ training: a two-year apprenticeship exclusively for women to hold ceremony, rites of passage, and work with the wheel of the year and the moon cycle, reclaiming their inherent mystical power.

Shamanic Healing and the Reclamation of Power

One of the foundational teachings within shamanism is that human beings are born with vital life force, often referred to as personal power. This energy is not abstract; it is the essence of our vitality, our clarity, and our capacity to live in alignment with our truth. Yet, over time, this power can become eroded by society and taken away from us.

In The Golden Book of Wisdom, chapter 1, I explore how this loss of power often occurs through fear, conditioning, and relational dynamics in which we either give our power away or attempt to take power from others. From a shamanic perspective, this is not merely psychological, it is energetic. Parts of the self can also become lost, while foreign energies may become lodged within us, creating imbalance, that may be felt as anxiety, insecurity, and an inability to express our needs and wishes.

Many of us have been conditioned to prioritise harmony over authenticity, to accommodate rather than assert, and to equate self-sacrifice with love. While these patterns may have once served as survival strategies, they often result in a profound disconnection from our own life force.

The Serpent Path: Transformation and Feminine Wisdom

Throughout many ancient traditions, the serpent appears as a symbol of wisdom, healing, and transformation. In Egyptian, Greek, and indigenous cosmologies, it represents the cyclical nature of life: death and rebirth, descent and ascent, dissolution of the old skin and renewal.

In The Golden Book of Wisdom, the journey of the soul is described through this serpent imagery. The first stage is one of shedding; releasing old identities, beliefs, and patterns that no longer serve us. This process is rarely comfortable. It asks us to confront aspects of ourselves that we may have hidden or denied. The new skin that emerges is rarely comfortable either: in order to heal we discover that our vulnerability is our strength.

From a shamanic perspective, this descent is an essential path of our growth. It mirrors the journey into the underworld, where the practitioner encounters the shadow, retrieves lost parts of the soul, and gains wisdom through forgiveness. For women, this descent can be particularly powerful, as it allows us to reclaim aspects of the feminine that have been suppressed such as our intuition, our sovereignty, and our spiritual authority.

Walking Between Worlds: Becoming the Bridge

One of the most significant roles of the shaman is that of the bridge: the one who moves between the physical and spiritual realms, bringing insight, healing, and guidance back to the community. In my own work, guided by spiritual allies such as the ancient Egyptian Goddess Isis and other enlightened beings, I have experienced this bridging as a natural extension of the path. These teachings emphasise direct revelation rather than dogma; the understanding that spiritual truth is not something imposed from outside, but something experienced and embodied.

For contemporary women, reclaiming this role does not require adopting a specific identity or tradition. It begins with listening to intuition, to the physical body, to the subtle guidance that arises in moments of stillness. It is cultivated through practice, through presence, and through a willingness to trust what we perceive beyond the rational mind. In my book I guide you through teachings about life, incarnation, reincarnation, dis-ease, death and healing, and the stages we all go through as we walk our human life. What the book offers you is a choice to walk the path of being human with awareness and intention.

Embodiment, Earth, and the Sacred Feminine

A key aspect of shamanic practice is the relationship with Mother Earth. The cycles of the seasons, the rhythms of the elements, and the natural world all serve as teachers. Women’s bodies mirror these cycles—the waxing and waning of energy through the moon and the moon time in our bodies, the processes of creation and release, the deep wisdom held within the cells.

In The Golden Book of Wisdom, I emphasise that spiritual awakening is not about transcending the body, but about inhabiting it more fully, seeing it as a sacred vessel. Our womb is the very centre of creation, a place of incredible power. This has profound implications for feminist spirituality. To reclaim the body as sacred is to challenge centuries of conditioning that have positioned it as inferior, impure, or secondary to the mind. It is to recognise that the female body is not an obstacle to spiritual growth, but the sacred chalice.

From Personal Healing to Collective Transformation

While the shamanic journey begins with the individual, it does not end there. Shamanic healing is inherently collective and community based. As we restore balance within ourselves, we begin to influence the wider field of consciousness. Our own healing may extend to those before us, our ancestral lineage, and it may even have a positive secondary effect on our family and the descendants.

When a woman reclaims her voice and retrieves her soul, she disrupts patterns of silence.
When she stands in her power, she challenges structures of domination.
When she embodies compassion and awareness, she contributes to a more conscious and equitable world.

An Invitation to Remember

The Golden Book of Wisdom is offered as a companion on this journey: a weaving of ancient spiritual teachings, shamanic practices, and contemporary insights into the human experience. Through its twenty-four chapters of teachings, ceremonies and poems, it guides the reader through a process of shedding, awakening, integration, and expansion.

For women, this path is also a remembering of something ancient: that we are not only part of the story but we are born by our very nature, as co-creators. If this path speaks to you, I wholeheartedly invite you to explore the book:

The Golden Book of Wisdom: Ancient Spirituality and Shamanism for Modern Times is available to purchase in bookshops internationally, either as an ebook or paperback. It can also be purchased here.

BIO: Fotoula Adrimi is a spiritual teacher, shamanic practitioner, and the founder of The Isis School of Holistic Health. Drawing on ancient Egyptian, Greek, and indigenous spiritual traditions, she teaches pathways of healing, awakening, and the embodied wisdom of the Divine feminine.

She is the author of The Golden Book of Wisdom: Ancient Spirituality and Shamanism for Modern Times, as well as Sacred Mysticism of Egypt: the ancient path of HEKA initiation,  continuing her exploration of soul evolution, spiritual practice, and conscious living. Fotoula offers courses, workshops, and retreats internationally. You can explore her work and upcoming events at www.theisisschoolofholistichealth.com, and read her reflections and writings on Substack at fotoulaadrimi.substack.com.