Stolen Springs

UNTAMED - my new group program- is the journey of women through the Underworld (or how I've called it, Stolen Springs), The Search for the Self, and the Medicine back to wholeness.

But let's start with the beginning, discussing Stolen Springs.

This patriarchal culture is obsessed with the maiden archetype. So much so that it makes maidens out of kids, before it is really our time to be so.
Normalizes the s/x/ualization of kids, still arguing that it is evolutionary natural "because humans used to live less" - In which case, now that humanity has a life expectancy of 80+ it no longer makes sense- also, of course, women would have lived less, they had children when they were still developing teenagers! And one after the other...

Birth is already a journey to the threshold of life and death, and they were taken to that threshold repeatedly for years before their bodies fully developed. - this pisses me off so much, can you tell?

Patriarchy loves the archetype of the maiden because she serves him well.
She's young, desirable, free-spirited, virginal, she is s/x/ually available and a cute trophy to own.
In other words, they steal our spring for their benefit.
Persephone and Hades all over again.

This week we'll talk about stolen springs.

Our youth and life in the service of patriarchy and where that leads us: the Underworld.

The difference between the path of Persephone and Inanna is that Persephone was taken against her will, Inanna (and Isis) chose their journeys.

Part II
The obsession of patriarchy with the Maiden.

Maidens (especially younger ones) can be groomed, used, and manipulated.
Maidens want to be picked - because that's how women learned to survive.
That's our ancestral survival mechanism.

It goes back to the origins of patriarchy, where it was about gaining power over women. It had nothing to do with nature, and everything to do with control (land, and power).

According to Merlin Stone, in her book "when god was a woman", when patriarchal tribes took over by force, over matriarchal spaces, where women had land, political power, and a Goddess who looked like us, they did so by force (and this is in the Bible, the destruction of the Sacred forests of the Goddess and her followers).

They imposed their daddy god by force,
murdering those who wouldn't submit, and taking the younger women they'd find pretty enough, giving them some days to mourn the loss of their family and then sleeping with them. They could choose to stay and become a wife to the conqueror or to be cast away (because they, oh so generously, wouldn't kill a woman they had been with).

It was never about the submissive nature of women, but about a political move.
Those were Stolen Springs.
These women had to convert, betray their own and be allies to this new system: patriarchy. It was about their survival.
And we keep seeing that over and over again.

I still see that every day.
Girls groomed by older men and by culture, to be chosen, to be able to survive.

Even in Female Empowerment and Coaching spaces, the Maiden is celebrated, and the wise crones or mothers are feared.

Part III
I am sure you know a woman who's gone through this, maybe even yourself.

I could fill this space with stories about Stolen Springs, and will definitely share mine and my lineage's in the book I'm writing.

Women who have been groomed and seduced by men who used and abused their innocence, beauty and their enormous desire to love and be loved.

Men who are predatorial, and women who promote and encourage this scenario.

It is a story that is repeated once and again. It is the tale of Persephone, whose name in Greek, Proserpina, means "the Original Snake" title shared by the great celestial Goddesses around the world.

It is the story of how the most sacred and holy is misused for selfish profit, it is belittled and passed through the mud.

Just like it happens to Tantra, where abusers use the need of women to heal and use it to sleep with them promising healing and initiations.

It is also the story of patriarchal capitalism and what we do the Earth.

The way women are treated is the way humanity treats the Earth.

That is the curse of Stolen Springs.
That is what we are here to change.

Who did this to you?

When Persephone - our youth, innocence, flourishing selves- disappeared, Demeter, the Holy Mother, looked for her erratically in despair, until Hecate, Guardian of wisdom and magic, came to her and said:

"Dear sister, you are not asking the right questions. The question is Who did this?"

Patriarchy. Patriarchy did this to Her. Patriarchy did this to us. Our culture. - The culture of death, as Clarissa Pinkola Estess describes it.

Patriarchal religions and cultures cannot survive on their own, they are unsustainable, and regardless of whatever we were taught, they are not universal and they are not natural.

The Sacred Mother cannot be neglected for much longer and her worship cannot be kept in lowercase.

The Sacred feminine needs to raise.

The way of the Goddess is the way of embodiment, of living in this reality, with pleasure, connected to nature, to the life force.
It is not a path of dissociation into another dimension. But a path of creating Heaven in this Earth.
Her cult is one of dance, sexuality, love, and nurturance to all living creatures.

This whole metaphor, rescuing Persephone is about recovering our Core essence.
That is what becoming untamed is about: Taking back our lives.

Stolen Springs is nothing more than our disconnection from our bodies, from our life force, from our pleasure, joy, and bliss.

This disconnection or disembodiment happened because of culture, patriarchy, and trauma (either transgenerational or personal).

Stolen Springs is our life force being drained from us in service of outside forces. Trying constantly to please others, over-giving, overachieving, and getting stuck in the rat race of patriarchal capitalism.

Stolen Springs is we feel we have lost ourselves along the way.

But there is a way to out.
There is a way to reclaim our lives, our voices, and our pleasure.

It is through Sacred Pleasure. Through Baubo (Goddess of the Womb, laughter, and pleasure).

The Sacred journey of women starts with our visit to the Underworld.

We lose ourselves, patriarchy steals our spring.

We risk staying in the Underworld for way too long, like Innana's sister, who had been hanging there like dead meat for ages. How many women have been forgotten in their darkness, until they completely forget who they are?

That's why we need sisters, to help us find ourselves.

We need to reconnect to our core essence and the way to do it is through pleasure, through finding back our joy our life force.

Next time we will discuss the search for the self.