Have you ever felt something bubble up from deep within your gut - be it wrath, or grief, or fear - and force it down, like bile? Just so you can present yourself as the pretty, “I’m fine”, independent woman? So as to not show yourself as overly emotional or sensitive? 

You are not alone. 

Say hello to your shadow, your dark. 

The labeled “dark feminine” encompasses embodying all these feelings that have been shamed, shunned, and shoved aside.

Anger, for example, is an emotion that is there to protect you; to say “this situation is not okay, and I am not okay with it”. And yet, this is an emotion we all have ignored, rationalized, and justified away, something we stopped ourselves from feeling in the moment for the greater good, for peace. But whose peace - your own, or someone else’s? 

Most times, anger is the surface emotion; dive deeper, and you may find it is rooted in another emotion - like grief. Sadness that the world is as it is; that you are treated this way and you have been treated this way for years; that you are not Seen and accepted by people you thought were your family, your community. But it is not “okay” to be sad about these things; we are told, “this is how it is, so deal with it.” 

Anything we do not express freely is sent into our shadow, our dark, where it stagnates, festers, until it bubbles up.

But by working with these shadow aspects and traversing our Underworlds, we can reclaim these emotions, and thus, find our power. 

This shadow of ours can talk to us, if we are open to her whispers; she invites us to look deeper at our Selves, our patterns, our underlying self-limiting beliefs, our emotions - to confront them with the strength inherent in our soul, to embrace them with love. 

You were forged in holy fire, goddess, and the world has tried to make you forget that. 

With practice, we can express these emotions from a conscious space, instead of an unconscious bubbling over. We can sail the waters of our deeper selves, and not drown when we feel overwhelmed. We can bloom in the dark; we can flow with our grief; we can scream in rage; we can demand our desires. 

When you need a reminder of the inherent power of You, meditate upon these Dark and Divine Feminines:

Persephone - the underestimated rose; the traveler of the dark to blossom. 

As you begin this journey into your dark, call upon the Greek Goddess Persephone as your guide, so you may descend to bloom. 

following 

a trail of flowers; 

a whisper; 

a specter; 

be guided to the Goddess

of life and darkness. 

Known also as Kore (κόρη = maiden), Persephone was the daughter of Zeus and Demeter, the Goddess of the Harvest. Abducted by a love-stricken God of the Underworld, Persephone then spends half the year with her husband, Hades, in the Underworld - and the other half on the surface with her mother. 

She is both Goddess of Spring and of the Underworld, straddling the dichotomies of light and dark with ease and grace. She is one of the few Greek deities who freely traverses between the two worlds, a reminder that everything that lives, dies; and that in death, there is life. 

Persephone asks: Where have you sacrificed your dark to stretch to the light? Where have you dwelled overlong in the dark, forgetting your light? 

Appeal to Persephone as you begin your descent:

Persephone, Goddess of the light and of the dark,

Guide me as I journey into your realm,

Heart bared forward, 

Trusting in the path before me; 

I dive into the depths of my soil to rise, rise, 

In strength and in glory; 

Just as the rose is loved for its beauty and its thorns; 

So, too, will I embrace my beauty and my thorns; 

For one cannot exist without the other; 

The light and the dark, 

The rose and the thorn, 

The life and the death.  

Nephthys - the hidden grief; mistress of transitions and edges. 

As the goddess always in-between, relegated to the edges, the sidelines; it is easy to overlook the Egyptian Goddess Nephthys and her power. 

existing 

in the breath between:

shaking sobs 

and laughter

the Goddess gifts me release 

from ancient grievings. 

Nephthys was the sister overlooked, as her siblings - Isis, Osiris, and Set - were far more famous and dramatic in their stories. She was the middle child, caught between their fights; when Set killed Osiris, she joined Isis in mourning and resurrecting their brother; when Set refused to give her a child, she disguised herself as Isis and seduced Osiris, giving birth to Anubis.

If you thought your relationship with your family was complicated - just look at Nephthys’ grace in navigating the varying strong personalities of her siblings.  

Despite being a main player in her siblings’ dramas, she exists quietly on the side. She is a constant reminder of grief, of endings, of the restoring power of tears. Of the kindness required when letting something go. 

Nephthys asks: Have you let your tears water the new harvest, or have you allowed it to break your banks, causing destruction? 

Appeal to Nephthys when approaching an end and a beginning; 

Nephthys, Goddess of transitions and mourning, 

Assist me as I release these rivers of grief;

These overwhelming waters that threaten to pull me under. 

Guide my heart along these currents 

And see the beauty of the letting go, 

The release; 

Creating space for the new life aching to be born within me. 

 Just as the river floods once a year, making space for new growth; 

So, too, will I embrace my floods; 

For one cannot exist without the other; 

The grief and the joy, 

The ending and the beginning, 

The destruction and the growth. 

Medusa - the smothered anger; the monster we all face. 

Used, abused, feared, and revulsed; Medusa is the monster that stares at us in the mirror, petrifying us in place. 

frozen still 

rage building within 

aching heart 

and shattered 

the Monster demands her due 

at whatever cost. 

Whether depicted as one of the three Gorgon sisters, cursed with serpent hair and with a paralysing gaze - or a priestess, raped in the safety of her temple, and cursed for the sin - Medusa is the epitome of shrieking, feminine rage. 

She is the ugly underbelly of festering wrath, the wound that never closed, the bubbling within your gut that aches to be released. That feeling of being stuck in place when you cannot freely express the feelings within you, so you bottle it in - until it explodes in all its monstrous glory. 

Medusa asks: What makes you furious? Why haven’t you expressed your fury? 

Appeal to Medusa when needing to express your wrath: 

Medusa, Monster feared and awful, 

Let me channel your piercing gaze, 

Your fearless expression of self; 

May I find bravery in your embrace, 

May I find the power in my voice, 

May I find the sacred in the rage; 

Just as the fire burns away all impurities, leaving the bones; 

So, too, I burn away all that no longer serves me; 

For one cannot exist without the other; 

Authenticity and anger, 

Fire and power, 

My voice and my expression. 

Lilith - the buried desires; the woman the world forgot. 

Everyone knows of Eve, but what of Lilith, the first wife, the woman who was “too much”? 

this bruised skin 

her heart on her sleeve; 

loved and lost 

found again

the Woman seeks to be touched 

as something holy. 

Lilith represents the soft places where you feel shunned, ashamed, and ridiculed in your life - and what softer space is there but your heart? Your desire to be held, to be vulnerable - to trust and to love - are the most natural things to you, as a woman, as a divine being of love. But we live in a world where hurt people hurt people; but also a world where hurt people heal people. Are you the healing, or the hurting? 

Your sexuality, your heart, your desire, are all sacred things; and Lilith demands you treat them as such. You are not “too much” for aching to be loved at your depths - and your heights. You are not “too much” for demanding more from your lovers, for demanding the worship due to you, goddess. 

You are worth the world and the heavens and everything in-between.   

Lilith asks: Why do you doubt your desires? Why do you deny your desperation to be loved, as you are? 

Appeal to Lilith when desiring a deeper love: 

Lilith, Woman fierce and unapologetic 

In your moods and emotions 

Confident in what you desire, 

And brazen in going after it; 

Vulnerability comes from a place of love, 

Of a need to be Seen; 

Without shame, fear, or ridicule; 

Just Love. 

So, too, I claim all my desires; 

For one cannot exist without the other; 

Desire and depth, 

Sex and vulnerability,

Love and divinity. 

These goddesses are the mysterious, the mystical, and the magical that lives within You at all times. 

For you are divine, and with each step taken towards reclaiming your dark, your shadow, your depths - you reclaim your power. 

So traverse the darkness with trust; 

Let your grief water your beginnings; 

Rage, rage, so you can remember your voice again; 

And always, always - 

Demand all you desire, for you deserve it.

 

Written for Terra Luna Sol by: