Encountering the Sacred Feminine
“I found god in myself and I loved her, I loved her fiercely”-Ntozake Shange
This time, the temple in the woods was familiar, a place of refuge and peace to come home to. Beneath the skylight piercing the apex of the dome was safety, community, acceptance, and love. I was excited to swim once more in the river of pure, human connection. And yet there was a rumble of trepidation and shame, the heavy precursor to a weekend that would see secrets unveiled and light shed in dark passageways I was terrified to venture into. I was intimately familiar with some of the faces I would encounter while the others were strange, unfamiliar, and, so very dauntingly, female.
Some months ago my first sacred circle was for men. It was an exploration of the compassionate masculine and a revelation of true, honourable, and productive strength. The lies of the past, the bitter story of false and shallow manhood my father had forced down my throat, were washed away in the kind, forgiving, and powerful arms of those men.
This time, I come to the circle seeking absolution in the light of the feminine.
Many of my most shameful and long-hidden secrets revolve in tight orbit around the story of women my father taught me. The story is sinister and corrupt but was all I knew for a very long time.
He taught me many lessons. When I was 13 he would complain to me that his then girlfriend would not preform oral sex on him and have uncensored discussions in my presence about what he wanted to do sexually with her and other women. At 14 he began bringing home pornography to watch in the living room, at times even when were eating dinner.
By the time I was 15 he was bringing women home to have sex with, often in the common areas of the house or in his room with the door to the hallway open such that I would inadvertently walk past and see him. The next morning he would sneer at them, “I”m done with you, you should go now.” After they left he wold wink at me as if were the most suave and debonair gentleman in all the world and as if to say,””that”s how you do it.” He showed me that women were playthings to be used and discarded once they had served their purpose.
All through my teen years he would make lewd and disrespectful comments about women we would see in public or on television. His highest compliment would be if a woman was ”fuckable.” If a woman was rated ”unfuckable” or ”fugly” his sneers of disgust showed them to be less than human in his eyes, a wasted collection of fleshy bits that served no purpose. To him women were objects, a list of attributes and body parts created merely for him to comment on or use for his own pleasure and conquest.
This is how I was taught to perceive women and it was reinforced every day I was with him. As a young boy trying to seek acceptance from his father I soon began making my own ratings of women and he would respond in agreement or sneer at my comment with a insult directed at the woman, me, or both. I started going to construction jobs with him when I was 15 and the stereotypically misogynistic, coarse, and graphically sexual humour one might imagine takes place on such a work site was in no way filtered or reduced because of my presence. Very soon I was trying to be “one of the guys” and keep up with the older men”s humour and never once was I corrected or told that this way of speaking of women was inappropriate or demeaning.
In this environment of toxicity the poison burrowed deeply into me. This pustulant, revolting serpent crawled and coiled through the integral foundations of my relationship with women, constricting the light and life that should have grown there.
This was all the training I received from my father on how to treat and relate to women.
Though I finally found the strength in my early adulthood to reject him and escape from his control, the damage he did to me persists. Over two decades later I still hear him quietly whispering his treacherous lessons, that juice of cursed hebenon, in my ear.
With juice of cursed hebenon in a vial
And in the porches of my ears did pour
The leperous distilment; whose effect
Holds such an enmity with blood of man
That, swift as quicksilver, it courses through
The natural gates and alleys of the body;
And with a sudden vigour it doth posset
And curd, like eager droppings into milk,
The thin and wholesome blood; so did it mine;
And a most instant tetter bark”d about,
Most lazar-like, with vile and loathsome crust
-Ghost (King Hamlet, Hamlet”s Father) spoken to Hamlet [William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act I, scene 5]
Throughout my adult life I slowly learned to recognise the dark story he told me for what it was. It took many years and many painful realisations, none of which came quickly or easily, but I eventually responded to that story not with the blind compliance of a child but with the disgust and contempt of someone who knew himself to be more.
These thoughts, these whispers that reduced women to mere lists of body parts and determined their worth as human beings based on physical criteria became one of my deepest sources of shame. Until I revealed this inner horror to my therapist I had never before discussed these hidden demons to anyone.
I was cut off from connecting with half of the human species. There was a barrier between us that only I could see but was felt by everyone around me. Women have told me I am ”unapproachable” and ”cold,” that I always keep distance between them and me. No matter how much I wanted to engage fully and honestly with a woman, whether romantically, sexually, or platonically, I never could. That invisible, cold distance was ever present.
When I first came to the temple for the gathering of men my fear was different. I was afraid of being perceived as unmanly or not a man at all, but there was a part of that which was familiar. I had never considered myself a real man to begin with and rejection and condemnation were old companions. Traveling here to face women with my shame was entirely different. No woman, or man for that matter, has ever known the depth of my shameful thoughts. The idea of pulling back the curtain to reveal those horrors brought my shame to a full boil.
My truth was that I felt these thoughts made me a bad person, that these shallow, demeaning habits made me a misogynistic lout. I was sure that others would see me as that terrible creature should I ever reveal myself.
Despite the sick knot of shame in my gut I screwed my courage to the sticking place and drove 200 miles to face my fears- to engage with the feminine spirit, lay my soul bare, and abject myself before her in apology and grief.
The most enduring lesson I have learned in my spiritual journey is that ”the only way out is through.” Trauma and pain can”t be healed by ignoring or not attending to them. You have to dive into the deep end, you have to risk feeling again the terror, panic, helplessness, and seemingly bottomless sorrow until it is all expended and eventually turned into strength. When someone has made you powerless to save yourself there is nothing more frightening than surrendering voluntarily to that pain again, but that is what must be done to once more walk freely as the captain of your own soul.
I knew this would be hard. I knew it would be painful. But I arrived preferring this difficult day, the expectation of shame, to living the rest of my life with this unresolved. The only way out is through.
We were nine warriors coming to face our demons, readying our sails for the passage between Scylla and Carybdis in our ships forged of love, compassion, and forgiveness. The men I already knew- A and M had stood with me unflinchingly in battle before. The 6 women were strangers to me but if they had been invited here I knew they were fierce warriors as well. This place is not for the weak, timid, or uninitiated. Only the strong may enter.
After we prepared our bedrolls and began our fast Dr Z opened the circle. We spoke of the hero”s journey and its parallels in both literature and healing. Before the hero can triumph and bring his or her gifts of victory back to the homeland there must be many trials and hopeless moments. The hero must descend into the abyss to encounter darkness and despair before the journey back into the light can begin. All hope abandon, ye who enter here.
Each of us in that circle were on that journey- some at the beginning, some at the end, some having many different journeys, but all of us are looking to the horizon dreaming of the day when we can return home, victorious, to ourselves.
After much discussion and sharing we ventured outside, silently and mindfully walking a labyrinth of stone and moss. The sun, snuggled all morning behind her warm blanket of grey, wooly clouds, took a few moments to peer out, pouring her loving, life-giving energy over us before pulling the blanket back across her face.
Silently still, we separated into the trees, each finding a place of solitude and solace to make our own and return to once the medicine ceremony had begun. Our places prepared, the altars sanctified, we returned to the temple and re-made the circle. We broke our silence with prayers and invocations to the spirits that roam within us- the feral and the tame, the foolish and the wise, the parts of us that understand the truths hidden beneath the stories we tell ourselves.
MDMA: heart medicine, empathogen. It opens a doorway to the true possibilities of a human spirit connecting with another. It washes away the grime and filth of modern society, the preconceptions and the judgements, and leaves our eyes clean, glistening bedewed marigolds on a spring morning, unfettered by the stories of expectation, greed, or jealousy. Through this door you will find the authentic and undiminished beauty of the human soul.
This molecule has been a miracle in my life. When I first encountered it I was ready to end my own life, everything but that last denial of the survival instinct, a final push to drown the mammalian need to draw another breath at all costs, was in place. I saw no hope, no reason, only pain and endless suffering that I needed to end. I swallowed that first pill under that watchful gaze of Dr Z and have never again revisited thoughts of self destruction. This magical combination of carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, and hydrogen gave my life back to me and through more than two years of therapy and hard work and dedication and suffering, it is a life very worth living again.
We each took the medicine within us and waited for it to begin its work. As the time approached Dr Z invited us to return, again in silence, outside to our places of solitude, our altars of communion, to take some moments to be, to exist without encumbrance or expectation, to rejoice in this moment of being alive.
I stood quietly waiting between the trees, wholly unprepared for the surprise the medicine had in store for me. I had thought I had learned its many quirks and felt I was a veteran of this calm before the storm, but it was not so today. Today the storm would blow me to uncharted waters rising in violent green and blue over the railing to drown my tiny vessel.
I felt the familiar tingle in my fingers and brain and senses. A swimmy sensation like the air suddenly became more dense yet somehow also more pliant and smooth. But there was an undefined tension I could not name. It was disquieting, unexpected, and unusual. As I mindfully explored this building tempest I felt it settle into my gut. My hands clenched, my lips pulled back to bare my teeth in a wolf-snarl of warning.
Rage.
It was wildfire. Argent flames, hungry to feed, feverishly seeking a target, frantic tension coursing through every inch of skin, a ball of lightning and superheated magma deep within me growing with every passing moment. It was a need to destroy, to make my power fully known, to take control back from those that would subjugate me. A growl rumbled in my throat, the wounded animal inside me ready to tear the jugular from of my tormentor and spit his pulsing blood contemptuously into his face as I watch the last glimmer of life drain from his eyes.
Rage is the emotion of injustice. It cries out from inside us, screaming “NO!” back at the world that has wronged us. My rage had been suppressed for decades. When it would boil over and come out from its cave it was quickly hidden, contained by fear of hurting others and the fear of being seen expressing a real emotion. Yet over the long years those brief moments of thermonuclear conflagration were the only genuine and honest thing I ever expressed. For so ling it was only through rage that my true self could have a voice.
“Rage is the only emotion that can’t be controlled by shame.”-John Bradshaw, Healing the Shame That Binds You
A scream built inside me, a primal note spanning the octaves of hurt, betrayal, woundedness, injustice, and sorrow. But I would not release it here. The others were not far, each silently making their own connections to themselves and the world around us. Though I feel they would have forgiven me, I would not take this moment from them.
Hurrying inside I found Dr Z. “The rage is coming,” I said. He quickly gathered several items and we went back outside. He placed the pillow wrapped in blankets on the ground and invited me to strike them with my forearms. Hitting with my fist was far more gratifying. As I smashed the pillow I let the rage flow. I hit harder than I have ever hit anything in anger before, wanting to crack the Earth open and form a great chasm to fill with my molten anger.
Rage for decades of pain. Rage for him teaching me to hate myself, blaming myself for his crimes. Rage for all the moments of beauty unappreciated. Rage for all the times I lashed out instead of reached out. Rage for his betrayal. Rage for the young boy who innocently looked to his father for guidance and was given nothing but a steaming bucket of wet, maggot and corn-ridden shit to dine on. Rage for his voice in my head that is so vile I would cut it out with a hot knife if I could. Rage for all the times I pulled away from connecting with others, for the hurt and loneliness, for the lies and the hatred and the perversions he paraded in front of me when I was too young to understand what was happening, for the love I could never feel because of the constricting cage around my heart. Rage for the loss of innocence. Rage for killing the child that I was.
I punched the Earth, watching his smirking, sardonic face crumble into shards beneath each blow and then, after a few moments, peace asserted itself. The medicine took control of the rudder and steered me back into familiar, languid seas. Where moments ago there were swells ready to upend and founder this ship I sailed on suddenly there were mere ripples glinting happily to the horizon and fish leaping for the simple joy of falling back into the water. The warmth and love settled over my heart, a down comforter gently wrapping me in its sweet embrace, and the rage scurried back to its cave to hide in fear until I am ready to gird myself in shining armour once more and call it from its lair, another beast to be slain on my hero”s journey.
Inside the temple the bacchanal of human connection was well underway. There was hugging and snuggling and laughing and dancing. There was truth-telling and the opening of hearts. There was giving and receiving of compassion and love. It was unashamed, pure, and good. I looked around and saw innocence, total acceptance, and joy among the groups and piles of humanity.
For a while I sat with my friend A and our new friend T. We hugged and shared ourselves with each other in safety and freedom. There was no shame in this place, no inhibitions, and absolute respect for each other. We spoke honestly and with great care for each other, free from the shackles we wear in our day to day lives that restrict our movements towards one another”s hearts.
I felt the need to move and so I did. As I settled in with K and M I noticed C swaying luxuriously to a melody playing in the concert hall of her awakened mind. As she danced I called out to her and told how beautiful it was to see her move so happily and free. She bent down to me, eyes bright and gleeful with a hint of mischief, the eyes of a child at play, and exclaimed, “I looooove MDMA,” with such fervor and carefree joy I laughed a great, booming laugh of merriment and elation as she moved off, her rhythm barely interrupted.
K sat slightly above me, rocking slightly to and fro and smiling peacefully as I kneeled before her. The symbolism of this arrangement was clear, I had arrived at my destination. In this moment as I looked up at her she had assumed the role of the sacred feminine and I was the penitent supplicant come to her altar seeking mercy and grace.
I spoke of my pain and my struggle with the voice of my father. I spoke of my hatred for the thoughts born of his voice and my shame at revealing them. I spoke of my desire to purge the hatred from me but without the knowledge how to do so. I had never before told these things to any woman and as I spoke i was speaking not just to her but to every female I had ever known. Though I did not say the words, I was asking her for forgiveness.
She listened and I saw no judgement, no scorn, only compassion and understanding. I saw her wince in pain as I described some of the things that had happened to my younger self, those events that shaped my path forward to this moment of apology and remorse. With every breath the wounded parts of me expected rejection and disgust, but those things never came.
As I spoke I was struck by the realisation that this was the most honest and open I had ever been with any woman in my life. It was an intimacy I had never known before this moment. I revelled in the simple wholesomeness of our connection.
Wholesome. This was a word I had made fun of in the past. ”Wholesome” meant trite, banal, and stupid, another lesson taught to me by my dark tutor who thought only the depraved, hurtful, and sensual held merit. But this was entirely pure and untainted, unlike anything I had ever experienced before. It was honest and true, two people connecting in spiritual communion sharing secrets and truths.
S had come to sit with us. She arrived as the wise advisor, bringing counsel and guidance to the court. With a slight smile and wide open eyes she asked the simplest of questions, “Why don”t you turn toward that voice and thank it for showing you the kind of person you choose to be?”
I stared in dumbfounded surprise, my jaw somewhere below my shoulders. It was the silver lining in the storm cloud, shadow turned to light, so uncomplicated yet so profound. I could never have seen it on my own. My instant reaction was always to reject that voice, to strike it down and hurl it from me as far as I could even though it always came back. It was as constant a cycle as Sisyphus”s eternal torment, his stone refusing to reach the top of the hill. And yet here was the most elementary of solutions.
Despite the simplicity of S”s question it was deep with meaning and import. By thanking the voice for showing me the kind of man I choose to be I accept and own that that voice is not mine, it does not come from me. I free myself from the burden of guilt and self-recrimination. That is not who I am. That is not me. That is freedom.
I had felt shame for these thoughts because they were in my head and so I thought I must take the blame for them. In my work with Dr Z we had talked about blame many times. So many times he reminded me that I was a child, I was not to blame. Things were done to me that I neither wanted nor asked for. With this simple reversal, of turning to the darkness and instead of seeing me in it seeing all the things I choose not to be I can define myself as I choose, not as he tried to define me. We are who we choose to be.
“It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
I sat with this the rest of the evening and through the night. Emotions and old views churning over themselves, remixing and reconstituting this story I tell myself. I had been looking to the shadow as if that was all there was and never looked at the person casting the shadow. I gazed back through the years and decades and saw all the shame and angst and realised, now that I could look into it from the outside in, that this was all the evidence I had ever needed to show me what I truly felt, who I truly was. Had I never questioned these thoughts, had I never found them reprehensible, that would have been proof of my villainy. But I had been rejecting his views my entire life without even realising it. By desiring to not be like him I proved myself to be nothing like him.
The next morning we rose quietly, one by one, each in our own way. I went outside with my camp stove and made coffee in the crisp air. At first only a few small voices could be heard in the trees, but soon the birds had raised a wondrous cacophony of calls and whistles and chirps. A robin scoured the ground for bits of dried grass and sticks to build its nest in the low branches of a fir as I watched, entranced by this tiny marvel of life.
We ate and talked and cleaned and packed, none of us, I think, eager to leave. We circled ourselves once more in the temple to close the weekend and say what had come to us in our inward travels. Dr Z asked us to answer two questions- Who came to this circle? Who is leaving this circle?
When the talking stick came to me I passed until the second round, needing time to collate and process the experience into words. When it came round again, I was ready.
“When I entered this circle I was a victim. I was powerless to control or contain these poisonous thoughts that I hate so much. But I leave strong and with hope, with a new way of perceiving my story that frees me from the shackles of my past and his terrible lessons. ”
As I spoke, much like in the previous circle, the tears flowed unashamedly over my cheeks and again I did not wipe them away. This is me and I am proud of who I am, who I CHOOSE to be, and it”s time I started truly believing in and embodying that person.
To my circle- Thank you all for showing up as you did. Thank you for the safe container in which I could explore these painful wounds. Thank you for your kindness and compassion, your humility and strength, and most of all your courage. The scariest thing a person can ever do is face themselves honestly, and you all did that bravely and powerfully this weekend. Aho.
—
When I returned home after the long drive in the pouring rain, I sat on my couch to be mindful, to reflect on another weekend of self-exploration and discovery. I noticed a sense of longing, of missing something. It was at once very familiar and also unexpected. It was a very specific feeling that I haven”t felt since I was a child.
When I was young, before I began to spend time with my father and he snuffed out the candle of my childhood, my mother would take me out to the family farm where my three cousins and I would play in the woods or the fields for hours and days at a time. There was a sense of belonging and family and community there. There was carefree play and silliness and backyard adventures and laughing and running and hiding and climbing, all the things that being a child is supposed to be about.
As an only child it was lonely when my mother would take us back to our place in the city and for a while, perhaps a day or two, I would feel this empty spot in my chest. I would miss all the fun and wholesome exploits we had at the farm. But since that time I have not felt that particular longing ever again. I have longed for and wanted things since, of course, but not in this particularly recognisable way. Not until the evening after the sacred circle.
It was this same feeling that came to me that evening, and stayed with me into the next day. It is not sad, not unhappy, but a recognition that something good has ended, something worth remembering. As surprised as I was to feel this again I also took great comfort from it. It tells me that I succeeded in my quest, that I had expunged at least some of the darkness and entered an innocent place. While my hero”s journey may not be entirely done I have slain many beasts and conquered many obstacles.
I am on my way home.
