The path of feminine initiation is that of the unfolding Mystery and was core work of the ancient Mystery Schools. There women and men entered into communion with the deepest and most profoundly feminine parts of themselves. Why feminine? Because the soul was known as feminine energy, the mind as the masculine energy. The soul is the inner world. The mind is the outer world.

The experience of the unfolding Mystery is a journey of knowing beyond words... a journey of soul.

There is no organized religion today that comes close to this experience. It is lost to us. The fact that it has been lost to us has been a source of despair that we often don't even recognize as despair. We only feel it as a loss and a deep one. As women, our source is soul at the most instinctual level and its loss can feel like madness. Without it we wander and cry out, "Who am I? Why do I feel so disconnected from self? Am I losing my mind? Am I the mad woman in the attic?"

In fact, losing of one's mind, or more rightly, the closing down of the mind and ego, is exactly what we must do to enter the Mystery. This is not madness but the pathway to the most sublime joy. We don't know exactly what went on at the Mystery School ceremonies millennia ago, but we do know that the experience transcended words.

 

Love After Love

by Derek Walcott

The time will come, when,
with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door,
in your own mirror.
And each will smile at the other’s welcome,
and say, “Sit here, Eat. Relax.”
You will love again this stranger who is your Self.
Give wine. Give bread.
Give back your heart,
to itself,
to this stranger who has loved you
all your life.
whom you ignored for another,
but who knows you by heart.


Next: Inanna: Mystery of the The Descent

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emily@emilyhanlon.com
(914) 962 4432

"Because of this retreat, my relationship to my creativity has opened and deepened. I am now aware how positive and renewing going to the "dark side" can be. I don't believe I will be so afraid. I feel more creativity surging and emerging…"                                                              

                                       ~ Alida Sherman

Email Emily

(914) 962 4432