Dancing With Mystery & The Dark Goddess

The portal is open for the Dark Goddess. She is coming through so strongly now, wanting to express and share her wisdom.

She’s been present throughout this tumultuous year, and now as we pass the autumn equinox into Scorpio season and Samhain, we can no longer ignore her.

We are still in the hangover from the patriarchal paradigm of the past millennia, where the many faces of the feminine were feared, denied, suppressed, and repressed.

The Dark Goddess is probably the hardest aspect of the feminine for us to confront, both individually and collectively.

Hers is the domain of destruction.

Of death.

The unknown, mystery, and chaos.

She works her magic in the liminal, in-between spaces, where the light doesn’t reach, and the winter is the deepest, and it seems impossible there will ever be fresh growth again.

In our modern culture, we no longer have rituals or communion with the Dark Goddess and her wisdom. Progress and productivity, eternal youth, and forward motion rule above all else. We fear and avoid death and the unknown. We hide death away and resist the mysterious unknown with endless distractions.

But the Dark Goddess is demanding our attention this year, on a collective level, and certainly on a personal level for many of us.

The feminine is both the Creatrix and the Destroyer. She is birth, and she is death. She is pleasure and joy, and she is chaos and destruction.

And she does not fear death or destruction as we often do. She invites it. She instigates it. She knows it as a space of magic and potentiality.

>>Every year she creates lush bounty in the spring and summer and then destroys it again in the fall and winter.

>>Every month the moon shines in her fullness and then descends again into darkness.

>>She creates a fertile space for life to grow in the womb, then tears it down again if conception doesn’t happen.

>>Like Kali, she will destroy anything not in true integrity.

But we resist and fear this descent into darkness.

We fear destruction.

We are taught to pretend we aren’t bleeding or needing rest.

We push forward always towards more productivity, sometimes at great expense.

We turn away from our elders because they remind us of our own mortality.

We hide death away – clinicize and pathologize it.

We stay in situations, jobs, or relationships long after they are done so that we don’t have to go through the painful process of tearing them down and rebuilding.

We avoid rocking the boat, speaking up, or setting boundaries because we fear the results.

And… we cannot easily be with the unknown. With the mystery. In the liminal spaces in between death and rebirth.

Choose your own adventure… or not…

This year, in 2020, we have collectively been shoved into the unknown. Into chaos. We didn’t pick this adventure, but here we are.

And outside of the events of this year, the unknown is a space many of my clients are in – perhaps you are there yourself now.

>>Sometimes you choose to dance with the unknown when you step into expansion, as your old ways of being in the world shift.

>>Sometimes an event happens like a job loss, divorce, or death, that thrusts you unwillingly into the unknown.

However you get there, the feeling is the same. There are no reference points for which way is up. The stable ground is shifting beneath your feet. There will be many losses and deaths, both literal and metaphorical. Including the loss and death of identities, sometimes in ways we didn’t choose and can’t control.

How do you react to the unknown?

The unknown is characterized by a loss of control, something that is very uncomfortable for most people. We don’t like not feeling in control. We don’t like “not knowing.” There are a few common reactions to being in this state.

Latching on to things we CAN control, sometimes to self-destructive extents (like controlling our intake of food).

Ignoring the uncomfortable feelings and distracting ourselves with entertainment, food, sex, shopping, etc.

Malaise, apathy or depression manifesting from a sense of overwhelm & giving up.

Frantically trying to “solve” the problem and get yourself out of the unknown/uncertainty.

Do any of these sound familiar?

I invite you to really pause here and take a minute to feel into this question. Maybe even pull out pen and paper and free write whatever comes to mind.

Who and how have you been BE-ing in the midst of the unknown this year?

Reframing the unknown

What if the space of the unknown wasn’t something to be solved and “get out of” and onto the next thing?

What if we could reframe the unknown + the domains of the Dark Goddess as a place of potentiality and possibility?

What if this liminal space of quantum chaos is the only real place where anything truly new can be born?

What if what’s being asked of us is not to rush forward into doing, solving, or fixing, but to simply BE? To marinate in the darkness, like the seed below the earth or the babe in the womb.

The wisdom of the Dark Goddess is to see the unknown as a place of deep magic. And to open our hearts with curiosity. To cook in the cauldron and not be so quick to rush on to the next thing.

What if, instead of resisting and turning away, we turned TOWARDS the mystery?

When everything is fixed, solid, and stable, there is little space for possibility. Everything is already known. When the foundation is shifting, when things are ungrounded, there is great potentiality. There is magic.

Understanding this doesn’t necessarily make it easier to be in the unknown, though!

So how do you dance with the Dark Goddess instead of falling into the usual patterns of resistance, distraction, and rushing forward?

How to Dance with the Dark Goddess + the Unknown

1. Adopt a mindset of curiosity. What’s here, what’s present?

2. See if you can stay longer with the mystery. Sit with the questions; allow them to be there. Stay in the “not knowing” without needing to rush forward to solve and to answer.

3. Make space for the new to emerge. Every death makes space for a rebirth. It’s from the liminal space in between that the new can come through – from the space of the unknown. Where can you release?

4. Engage your creativity, spontaneity, and playfulness. Instead of spending your energy trying to solve, fix, or answer the questions, perhaps you can engage your creative flow, through dance, art, music, pleasure, or play. Connect with the energy of allowing new ideas to come through.

5. Extra self-care + self-regulation. If your system is in a stressful state of anxiety or even panic, you can’t engage the higher parts of your brain and energetic body to notice new possibilities or solutions. What works for you? Is it meditation? Time in nature? Breathwork? Exercise? Journaling? Do what you need to stay regulated, and do it extra during this time.

Feminine Rising

As the feminine rises to move us out of the patriarchal paradigm, many things are coming to the surface.

We are coming face to face with this very challenging aspect of the feminine, the Dark Goddess.

We are being asked to confront her domain of destruction, death, liminal + in-between spaces, chaos, and the unknown.

We are being called forward to dance with her in these spaces – in potentiality, possibility, gestation, and creativity.

What happens when *you* are in the unknown? Do you see any of these patterns playing out in your reactions? Where are you being called to stay longer in “not knowing”? Where is the Dark Goddess calling you forward to dance in the mystery? Let me know in the comments, I would love to hear what comes up for you!