The Festival of the Returning Goddess

In 10 days we will come to the end of a remarkable and terrifying 26,000 year long journey which has taken humanity to the heights of creative power and the depths of spiritual despair. Humanity's period of separation from The Goddess will come to a definitive close on Winter Solstice 2012. This is not to say there will be an immediate change or a sudden end to suffering, all it means is that a period of intense learning has been completed and we will now begin our journey back into the Light, here on planet earth.

Many people believe our suffering is a sign that human beings are 'bad' or have made some kind of terrible mistake but we have simply been experiencing the growing pains that come with a developmental stage. Mother Earth is a physical expression of the Divine Feminine and Humanity carries the spark of the Divine Masculine Spirit which seeks to expand, grow and to understand itself as as something separate. Therefore, Humanity is essentially the 'boy child' of the Earth Goddess. (In Biblical terms Mary represents the Mother Goddess and Jesus her human son who must leave her behind so he can Ascend to 'Heaven' and be with his Father God.)

Every boy must break his attachment with the feminine in order to develop into a mature, autonomous man. Boys go through a bewildering and often painful period of separation from their mother (and from girls) in order to define their masculinity. During this period they often differentiate themselves from all things feminine in order to feel more rooted in their masculinity. Separation from the feminine is also marked by power struggles and hierarchical initiation rites which take place between boys as they struggle to define their masculine power amongst peers.

During these years of separation, boys are free to develop their masculine identity, power and their autonomous 'otherness'. Once this process of differentiation is complete, the Divine Feminine pulls them back with intense sexual urges that call them like a siren song. Having successfully broken free from The Mother aspect of the feminine, the masculine then seeks to reunite with the feminine through sexual union with The Maiden aspect of The Goddess. During Humanity's separation, men were trying to leave the Mother but not yet mature enough to join with the Consort aspect of the Divine Feminine as equals. This meant that men's sexual relationships with women were often conflicted and dominated by the mother/ whore complex. (Men who are attracted to other men either identify primarily with the masculine principle and search for 'femininity' in other men or they identify with the feminine principle, even though they are incarnated in a masculine body. The converse is true for women who are attracted to other women.)

Humanity is ready to let go of the power struggle against the feminine because we have successfully defined our 'masculinity'. Humanity has come of age; it has developed its autonomous power and formed an identity which is quite separate from the Mother Goddess. In the last 100 years humanity reached its ultimate 'masculine' power by becoming capable of destroying Earth and being able to leave by going into space. This is akin to a boy reaching the stage where he knows he can physically overcome his once all powerful mother and when he knows he must leave home and find his own way. When he reaches this point, he knows he has left his boyhood behind and become a man. (Check out Space Odyssey 2001 for an wonderfully insightful film about this human/masculine plight.)

The process of separation has been a collective experience that we have all been equally involved in. It is important to acknowledge that every human soul has incarnated on both sides of this power imbalance which means at some point in our journey we have all experienced being both abusers and victims. For any genuine healing to take place, we must eventually develop compassion and forgiveness for our collective suffering. Ultimately, it is the willingness to come out of denial, heal and forgive that will lead us all to an evolved Higher Consciousness. Jesus was able to forgive those who betrayed, oppressed, tortured and murdered him because he understood that his oppressors were spiritual children who did not understand what they were doing.

Masculinity is not innately 'bad', but left unchecked by the balancing feminine counterpart, it will ultimately become destructive. At some point the masculine needs to consciously channel the power it has attained through separation back into the feminine so that balance can be restored. Both feminine and masculine powers are required for a peaceful world based on equality and for this to be made possible, women will need to step into their power and men will need to welcome 'feminine' leadership qualities in women and within themselves. It doesn't mean things should turn into an inverted Patriarchy where women are 'in charge', it is simply that men will have to humbly step down from their pedestal and women will have to rise up to meet them in the middle.

We can go no further in our separation from the Mother Goddess or the Divine Feminine. The process of separation is like an elastic band that eventually stretches to capacity and now it must be released or it will snap. Humanity has reached this 'breaking point' and the next Great Year will be about our path of Return. In many ways we are in a very precarious position and many aspects of our current existence will 'snap' or be lost. However, anything we have created that no longer serves us needs to break so we can be released and begin our journey of return. This 'break down' phase is also part of the plan and is not to be feared because ultimately it will bring new growth.

During the period of separation, The Goddess has taken on the Crone aspect of the Divine Feminine and submerged Herself into darkness. We have been lost to her and She has been lost to us. But as we begin to come back down to Earth, Her inner light is rising up to meet us. The fire festival Imbolc at the beginning of February brings with it the first signs that the Light is returning and the Goddess is stirring beneath the harsh winter landscape. Imbolc 2013 welcomes the Returning Goddess who will bring Light and warmth to us all – not just after this year's winter, but after a winter that has lasted many thousands of years and has caused much human suffering.  

I will be celebrating this auspicous date as the 'Festival of the Returning Goddess' over the whole weekend of the 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd of February and I really hope you will join me... 

Freja ♥

The Doorway to the New Age

On the 21^st of December 2012, the door will finally close on the last 26,000 years of human experience, the last Great Year. '2012' marks a collective shift of consciousness which is the natural result of the process of spiritual learning we have gone through during this long period. By 'spiritual learning' I mean the lessons, the struggles and the development of consciousness that has arisen directly out of our painful separation from Source. I say 'Source' because if I say 'God', it has certain connotations which can be misleading, because the 'god' we have been separating from is the feminine aspect, The Goddess – the mother from which we all came.

Although this Great Year has culminated in the most unimaginable suffering, the process we have been through has all been part of evolution of Humanity. Even though mind boggling atrocities continue to be committed by one human being against another every second of every day, a deep and lasting change in human consciousness has already occurred.

This can be hard to believe because as we begin to notice and talk about these abuses, they appear to be increasing. Actually they are not, we are just more aware of them and of the dire consequences they cause. One only has to think back to the time of the Roman Empire, Henry the VIII, or even the beginning of last Century to see that life in the West is nowhere near as brutal or (overtly) oppressive. We are coming out of denial about these abuses and the truth we have to face up to is deeply shocking and painful. The process of coming out of denial always feels worse because it was the denial that was protecting us from the pain.

One also only has to go back 100 years to also see that the human spirit is waking up to these abuses of power and collectively we are beginning to do something about it. Of course we still have a very long way to go to change our conditioned beliefs about power and to clear up the mess, but change is happening and that change is accelerating at an unprecedented speed. (We may think things are going slowly because we who are alive today have only ever known rapid change. But actually the last 300 years have seen more social and technological advancement than the entire previous 26,000 period. Comparatively, things are changing at lightening speed.)

So, you may well be wondering, what has all this got to do with the Goddess? Well, the answer to this is very simple. Around 26,000 years ago humanity began the journey of separation from the Great Mother so that we could develop consciousness. (In Biblical terms this separation from The Goddess was The Fall from Eden.) Just as a child must separate from it's mother to develop into an autonomous conscious adult, humanity has had to separate from the Great Mother that gave form to us all.

Human childhood involves a far more difficult task than simply learning how to physically survive. From a young age, children begin the incredibly complex struggle to define the Self, to discover personal power and to develop conscious awareness. During the last 26,000 years, Humanity as a whole has been going through this painful process of growing up and of developing consciousness. For that process to have been able to take place, the separation from the Great Mother and all the power struggles were absolutely necessary.

At the end of 2012, this process of separation will come to an end because we have gone as far as we needed to go. As soon as Humanity became capable of destroying our Earth Mother and to leave Her by going into space, we ceased to be children. That is not to say we have reached full adult maturity, (far from it!) but we have come of age. This means we are ready for the next stage in our development which involves learning the responsible use of our power and how to form equal unions with 'the other'. We are not about to return to the prehistoric Mother Goddess days, we are returning to Her as evolved beings who have completed a process of self actualisation. As we return to the Goddess, we seek to re-unite with Her as conscious, empowered adults.

In the next stage of our spiritual development will learn how to re-balance all the polarities that were created by The Separation, without losing the gifts of individuality and diversity. We will discover how to balance woman with man, masculine with feminine and Earth with Heaven. We will re-learn how to dig spiritual roots deep into the Earth so we can gain strength from Her as we continue reaching for the stars. We will begin to understand that opposites are just two sides of the same coin and that we have all lived out both sides on a soul level. We will learn how to relate to 'the other' as an equal and how to conduct conscious, liberated sexual relationhsips. 

But for all of this to become possible, we must first reawaken the Divine Feminine which had to be supressed for The Separation to occur. We must seek ways to incorporate Her into every aspect of our personal and collective lives. Once the door to the Old Way is closed on Winter Solstice 2012, we will be completely free to open the door to the Returning Goddess. However, the new door will not open to Her on the 21^st December nor on the day after because we must pause to reflect and purify ourselves during the winter before we begin moving forward in the spring. The door to the New Age, the new Great Year and the Returning Goddess will open as the 'baton of light' is passed to the Goddess Brigit at the first signs of spring. This happens on Imbolc 2013 which next year falls on the 3^rd of February.

Now that will be a day that is worth celebrating!

Freja ♥