The Goddess is rising. Women everywhere are heeding the sacred inner call to recover and reclaim our sacred feminine gifts. And awakening divine beauty, sensuality, receptivity, and creativity is essential to our flourishing as women.
There is, however, an aspect of the Goddess that is just as vital for us to honor: The Dark Goddess.
She owns the bold, mysterious and fearless aspects of ourselves, represented by goddesses like Persephone, Hecate, and Kali. Like us women, the Goddess is a lot more complex, multidimensional and multifaceted: She gracefully and unapologetically embodies both light and dark, and invites us to do the same.
Her wisdom teaches us that only through facing and embracing all of ourselves can we truly find our way back to wholeness, freedom and full feminine empowerment.
In fact, the goddesses who are unafraid to face the shadows of the unknown are the very ones with the power to fiercely take us through our greatest transformations. In my experience, working with these goddesses both personally and professionally always leads to the greatest breakthroughs after the harshest breakdowns.
As we invoke the Goddess in all her aspects to heal, bless and uplift our lives, here is how embracing the Dark Goddesses can empower us during trying times:
Delve into the Underworld with Persephone
Dividing half the year between her earth-goddess mother Demeter during spring and summer, and guiding souls in the afterlife during fall and winter as wife of Hades and queen of the underworld, Greek goddess Persephone effortlessly navigates light and dark in perfect balance. She reminds us that no matter how bountiful or barren, there is grace to be found in all seasons and times.
When we descend into a period of winter in our lives, she invites us to be unafraid to delve into the darkest recesses of our unconscious selves, our own inner “underworld.”
She shows us that no matter how harshly we are forced into facing the unknown (most tales tell of her abduction, rape and forced marriage with Hades before her rise to beloved wife and queen), that we can transcend victimhood and become victorious.
To draw on Persephone’s grace and resilience in our lives, we must allow ourselves to face the deepest depths of our pains and fears, for the greatest healing happens when we are willing to experience our feelings at full force. As we embrace all lost ghosts within, we are then blessed with the ability to guide them back to the light. We set ourselves free to ascend into a new season and start again, as Persephone does each spring.
Find Your Sacred Path with Hecate
Pre-Hellenistic goddess Hecate carries her lit torch to guide us through dark and mysterious places, inviting us to uncover our own inner magic, power, and light to illuminate our paths.
This three-headed goddess helps us harness the lesson of the past, the opportunity in the present, and the best choice for our future. Even as she is queen of the dark, guardian of crossroads, traveler between realms, keeper of spells and sacred mysteries and protectress of women and witches, her name actually means “the luminous and shining one.”
Hecate shows us that by gaining fearless dominion over all that is dark and hidden, we are illuminated by ultimate truth. We access the inner wisdom, power, and clarity to navigate tricky and treacherous roads, and can glide forward on the best possible path as gracefully and masterfully as she does.
Destroy the Old and Create Anew with Kali
While Persephone and Hecate are goddesses we can invoke during dark times, Hindu goddess Kali’s signature style is to blast into our lives whether or not we are ready for her. In fact, it’s usually when we are at our most comfortable and complacent that she tornadoes into our life to turn everything upside down.
She shakes us to our very core, that we may realize the frail and faulty foundation we were standing on. And then, as we mourn the ashes left by her destruction of the old, she lovingly forces us to create anew.
Springing from the center of warrior-mother goddess Durga’s forehead to obliterate an undefeatable demon, Kali is the fierce focus and will required to defeat our most self-sabotaging patterns and our own unyielding demons.
It’s the part of us that says a rage-fueled ENOUGH! to disempowering patterns after all our patience has been tested. It’s the courage we get that feels almost out-of-body when we take an abrupt, firm stand for ourselves and finally quit the toxic job, leave that unhealthy relationship or free ourselves of an addiction.
Kali is the part of us that will push us beyond our limits, right into our darkest fears, and then show us that instead of falling and crashing, we had the power to fly and flourish all along.
It takes courage and tenacity to embrace Kali, Persephone, and Hecate when it’s so much more fun to play with the soft, sensual and sweet side of the sacred feminine. Yet, during our dark nights of the soul, there is no greater ally than the Dark Goddess Herself to guide us back to light. That is why we must seek to acknowledge and integrate all aspects of the Goddess if we are to live from our full feminine power.
Awaken Your Inner Hecate to Illuminate Your Past, Present and Future with Syma’s online Hecate Circle/Course.
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