Sophia's Children

7/20/11 Jeannie Zandi & Living as Love on the Feminine Mojo Show

Join us for a conversation on Living as Love, calling the Wild Feminine, and traveling those Dark Nights of the Soul on the Feminine Mojo Show at 2:30 p.m. EDT.

Jeannie Zandi is a writer, poet, mother, and revolutionary of the Heart who has traversed her own Dark Night of the Soul, delving deeply and emerging with a renewed awareness of the Feminine and what it means to "drop your Mind" and live as Love.

I connected with Jeannie's writings in mid-2008, through a series of synchronicities, and recognized a kindred spirit and Wise Woman in her voice, energy, and message.

You can 'listen live', call in with questions, or listen to the archived show at your convenience.

Blessings,

Jamie

 

Oh, those Feminine archetypes!

I've been quiet these past weeks -- again -- sensing into the energies whirling about, and listening deeply and watching closely for messages and insights from the Feminine (world and earth soul).

As our ancestors once knew, everything speaks if we know how to watch and listen. It's an art we forgot, and we're remembering.

Here's a bit of what's percolating, and the archetype-energies of the Feminine vying for Voice, understanding, and renewal:

Vesta - the quintessential 'Keeper of the Flame', who finds her counterparts in Hestia and Brighid. This is a key role we're being asked to remember.

The flame of the Feminine that has been kept for ages, that was purposely (and literally) extinguished (but was kept secretly by kindred-spirit Flame Keepers), and is now burning again.

This is an interesting symbol and story to reflect and vision on -- how are we called to tend it, and to embody it as we go through our world?

Aphrodite-Venus - particularly Dark Aphrodite, this Goddess of Love's lesser known aspect -- like the Dark Madonna, etc. -- whose cauldron of initiation was not the temple or the cave (though I'm sure those were still powerful symbols), but in relationship itself!

This is a powerful archetype, and understanding it can transform our understanding of relationships ... and make us alchemists for the true potential of relationships.

Aphrodite-Venus is also about our own deep respect for our own value and inherent worth, and thus our capacity to stand in that and respect it deeply (and call it out to play) in others, too.

Juno-Hera - After hearing five women (not related to one another) ask, "How could a woman do that to another woman?", I started asking into it and Juno-Hera appeared.

There are no doubt other archetypes of the Feminine that would answer this question, but Juno-Hera offers some answers!

Juno-Hera is the quintessential 'devoted wife/partner' who finds her purpose in being the devoted wife/partner, at least as personified in the Greek-Roman mythology.

But Juno-Hera was married (conquered) to Jupiter-Zeus, and his philandering nature and other escapades invited a whole different side of Juno-Hera out to play!

This is what the women's question -- above -- pertains to. I'll bet you'll recognize it in the Juno-Hera story. It's one big facet of healing the wounded Feminine that we've seen, experienced, and perhaps internalized.

As I've shared before -- and this is at the root of my own passion for rediscovering, reclaiming, and reinterpreting the 'myths' -- these stories, symbols, and archetypes live us in their 'shadow form' until we understand them and begin living their higher potential.

We'll be exploring these stories and energies of the Feminine in the Feminine Mojo Mystery School -- the 'Inner Arts' academy of the Feminine Mojo V-School. If you're not already a member, join us!

Lots of Love (and continued incubation!),

Jamie

Image Credits: Photo of Vesta, Vatican Museum, Rome, by Lisanne Marshall;  a statue of Diana-Artemis at Ephesus; Hera statue in Greece, photo from Dov's Blog.

The Life That's Waiting for You

“You must give up the life you planned in order to have the life that is waiting for you.”

~ Joseph Campbell

 

Sound familiar? Yeah, it's pretty familiar to me, too.

We're taught to plan. A lot. Everything. As if we can control it all down to the last bitty bit.

And we learn that our little belief in uber-control is a tad delusional, and kind of exhausting anyway.

There are other witticisms on this theme, too: "If you want to make God laugh, tell her your plans." Or "Life is what happens while you're making other plans."

"You must give up the life you planned in order to have the life that is waiting for you," is attributed to the fab-inspiring maverick-mythologist, Joseph Campbell.

Campbell knew what he was talking about. He shared one story of how he'd made several thousand dollars before the market crash that preceded the Great Depression -- that was a lot of mool back then -- and then didn't make another cent for five years.

He probably had a few plans, too, and I'd bet that the crashed economy and five-year mool-drought wasn't one of them. That probably sounds pretty familiar to a whole lot of people right now.

This is why being familiar with the myths and archetypes -- and knowing that they're living us until we live them -- is a renewed and growing passion of mine (thanks, Heroine's Journey, forest, and Dark Night ... more on those below).

For Campbell, his Great Depression experience and others along the way were formative. Not desirable, but formative. As they are for us.

If we want to live an authentic life -- our authentic life -- we have to give up the life we planned, because chances are excellent that whatever we planned oh-so-carefully (yeah, been there, too) is pretty much a rehash of someone else's plan.

But the plans (and related beliefs) are familiar to us; they're comforting because we've been marinated and stewed and aged in them from the time we were tots.

"The Plan" is designed, often, to win us acceptance, a collection of groovy status symbols, an elevated place in the herd, and important things like Love.

It comes with a set of masks, that we wear so that we can be 'on plan'. One or two of them might be authentic.

But then something unexpected happens and we find ourselves very much 'off plan'.

Four-Wheelin' ... Off Plan

The Hero's and Heroine's Journey is a response to that little, nagging, pecking call that comes from somewhere deep within us -- something packed securely away somewhere, in some little cell or a dark little locked box stowed in the heart. Something in us that is wild and allergic to The Plan.

To answer the call -- the invitation -- we must do as the Knights of the Roundtable and so many other Journeyers did: find that dark, unknown, overgrown, not-path into a forest we've never traveled. That is, after all, where the wild things live.

Sometimes we enter that forest, or the Underworld, intentionally, through a wacky, 'wtf' dive into the Unknown. And sometimes we're sucked right in, kicking and screaming. I've done both, more than once. You, too?

That off-the-plan journey, and that forest, are the metaphors -- a few of them -- in the myths about giving up the life we planned, so we can enter into the adventure of living the life that's actually ours. Our authentic, unique life.

Campbell also reminds us that if we can see a path (that would be 'the plan', with its steps), it's someone else's. Our own path is revealed step by step.

Makes you a little nuts thinking about it, doesn't it? Going awol on The Plan and diving into the Great Unplanned?

Yep, the inner control freak feels way too out of control with that one. It's enough to give our proper, rule-and-plan-following selves a good case of the hives and some actual hyperventilation.

That explains the metaphors and symbols in the myths that guide us: the dark forest, night sea journey, Dark Night of the Soul, Hero/ine's Journey, replete with the terror of not-knowing, of adventuring, exploring, and experiencing sans Big Plan.

Yet many of us know from experience that the best-laid plans can crumble in the blink of an eye, so The Big Plan is really a sort of false security. That's one of the pearls of the Dark Night of the Soul.

It's strange to think that the only real security might actually be in our ability to surf and open to the adventure of the unknown and to discovering new landscapes. It's evolutionary, compared to the plan-and-control strategies we're taught.

My Aquarius-Uranian nature loves that; my Aquarius-Saturnine nature, not so much. They're in an ongoing dialogue on this one, mediated by my adventuring Venus and TLC'ing Cancer North Node. (There are those key archetypes again.)

But seriously, think about it: Isn't that when we feel most alive, the most joyful, and the most creative -- when we're exploring, not sure what might come next (and we really never know, anyway), experiencing something new rather than following that one, short, well-tread path to the little chunk of stale cheese left within our cage?

It's worth exploring, and the food's a whole lot better. ;)

I've shared other recent musings on Following Your Bliss, and on Transition, Transformation & The Hero's Journey (& other things) in my The Wake-Up Juice newsletter and in the blogs.

Love,

Jamie

Image Credits: Rafail Sergeevich-Levitsky, Bridge in the Woods; Gillis van Coninxloo, Forest-Landscape, 1598; Underwater cave, TripAdvisor.com