With each life season there is a rite of passage or initiation that marks the end of one season, and the beginning of the next. It is a time of transformation, the woman transforms from one way of being to another, never to return again to her previous life season. What happens during and around this transition, whether by conscious creation or by default, sets the theme for a woman’s experience of her self in her new role in her next life season.
- Jane Hardwicke Collings, “The Four-Phase Feminine Way”
Dear Wise Women,
Last week marked a significant and memorable benchmark in the history of our wise women circles. Since I first began facilitating women’s circles, I have dreamed of creating a space where each and every woman felt safe enough to vulnerably share her wounds and to celebrate her joys surrounding menstruation, childbirth, menopause and aging.
In our modern society, these topics are rarely spoken of openly and honestly and yet such sharing is essential if we are to heal the feminine and the masculine wounds and bring back the sacred balance of light and dark. This IS the feminine way.
This week, I wish to delve a little deeper into the archetype of the four phases or seasons of a women’s life…the larger cycle within the smaller cycles of the four seasons of the year, four phases of the moon, and four phases of the menstrual cycle. Understanding these four phases is critical, as is the understanding that, though we embody the phase we are in (according to our age), we also naturally move through all four phases each month and each year through the changing of the seasons, the moon and and our own cycle (if we are still menstruating). Awareness of the energies of each phase activates a deeper connection to Source and calls us into greater alignment.
I also wish to discuss what it looks like when these energies are imbalanced/not honoured. The safe container we have created within our wise women circles enables us to begin to peer into the shadows of our personal and our collective lives. Though shadow work sounds scary, it need not be so. Just like a flashlight shines a beam into the dark corner of a room and reveals what is there (and in doing so releases our fear), shadow work shines the light of love and compassion into the parts of our lives that we have kept buried and releases them so that we may be free to be our true and divine selves.
The shadow is not darkness…it is a representation of the imbalance of darkness. In having the courage to bring light into these corners of our lives we allow the divine dark and divine light to dance again.
“Shadow work is the highest form of light work you will do.”
- Carl Jung
Carl Jung, a 20th-century Swiss psychologist, spent his life studying the human personality and mind. Among his numerous developments in psychoanalysis was the idea of the “shadow self.”
The “shadow self” is the parts of ourselves that have been pushed down to the unconscious — the parts that we’re insecure about, ashamed of, or frustrated with and therefore repress.
The concept of the shadow self is based on the notion that we figuratively bury those pieces of personality that we fear would not be welcomed, accepted, or loved by others; therefore, we keep them in the “shadows.” In short, our shadow selves are the versions of ourselves that we do not show society.
So what is shadow work? This is the practice of loving what is, and setting the shame and judgements free, so that we can be our true selves.
YOUR INNER COUNCIL + THE FOUR STAGES OF WOMANHOOD
- by Rebecca Campbell (credit for text and images shown below go to Rebecca Campbell)
The Maiden, the Mother, the Wild Woman, and the Crone signify the four main stages that women journey through over both the duration of our lives and every month through our menstrual cycle.
As women we have access to each of these archetypes of womanhood (I call them our Inner Council of Wise Women) and are able to call upon them for guidance, strength, courage, advice, wisdom, clarity and support.
As we move through each of these archetypes we are being invited to reclaim all aspects of who we are as a woman. To surrender to what is blooming and rising in us as well as what is falling away.
1. THE MAIDEN (menarche to approx age 25)
At some point in a woman’s life, she just gets tired of being ashamed all the time. After that, she is free to become whoever she truly is.
- Elizabeth Gilbert
The Maiden is young, enthusiastic, strong, independent, determined, excitable, hopeful, courageous, energized, boundless, and positive. Full of ideas and excited about the future, what she lacks in years, she makes up in enthusiasm and zest for life. The Maiden is the Virgin, the innocent part of us that sees potential in everything. She is a woman one-in-herself. She sees the magic in everything.
This is the time for coming up with lots of ideas, playing and dreaming about what could be without restriction. Write your dreams, make your plans, the sky is the limit.
Shadow Maiden: Naive, self-centered, impressionable, inexperienced, lacking confidence, too many ideas, spends lots of time in thought, good at starting things but lacks drive to finish them, full of hope and big ideas but easily discouraged as they are not fully grounded yet; a tendency to overcommit, she says yes because she gets overexcited or doesn’t want to miss out.
Corresponding phase of menstrual cycle: Pre-Ovulation
Corresponding moon phase: Waxing Moon
Corresponding Season: Spring (full of possibility)
Corresponding Element: Air
2. THE MOTHER (approx age 25-50)
"We don't have to have answers for our children; we just have to be brave enough to trek into the woods and ask tough questions with them."
—Glennon Doyle, "Untamed"
The Mother is the fertile part of us, the part of us that births things into the world for real. She is compassionate, protective, nurturing, devotional, understanding, encouraging, and big-hearted. She is loving and nurturing, but also committed to doing whatever it takes to get the job done. She is able to take the energy and enthusiasm of the Maiden and turn it into focused action. Able to birth both life and creations into the world. Manifesting thought and concept into form.
This is the ideal time to commit to what is rising in you and go about making it happen for real.
Shadow Mother: Overprotective, smothering, martyrdom, forgetting to look after self, controlling, codependence, abandoning, exhaustion, doesn’t know when to stop, making others feel guilty for not needing her.
Corresponding phase of menstrual cycle: Ovulation
Corresponding moon phase: Full Moon
Corresponding Season: Summer (everything is fertile)
Corresponding Element: Fire
3. THE WISE, WILD WOMAN, QUEEN, MAGA (approx age 50-70)
The Maga woman is needed as a strong conscience for the community and society. She can “hear and tell the truth without shame or blame” and “stand in strength, while staying in heart”.
- Jane Hardwicke Collings, “The Four-Phase Feminine Way”
The Wise, Wild Woman is uninhibited and wise. She has journeyed through Maidenhood and Motherhood, knows who she is and isn’t afraid to show it. Also known as the Medicine Woman or the Healer, she is in touch with and recognized for her inner medicine and magic. She knows her worth, is guided by her intuition and calls upon it regularly.
There is a certain ruthlessness about her because she can see through what is important and what isn’t. You can’t pull the wool over her eyes, she knows her power and she demands your respect. If you push her or do not respect her she will react and it might not be pretty. She’s fierce. She’s not afraid of what people think. She’s not afraid to do what it takes to get what she wants.
This is the best place to let things go, to refine, perfect, and refocus. Dance, sing, or do whatever you can to express and transmute your feelings into passion. It’s a great time to de-clutter your life, negotiate fiercely, protect your boundaries, and create powerful and authentic work.
Shadow Maga: Ruthless, angry, jealous, vindictive, impatient, blunt, end justifies the means.
Corresponding phase of menstrual cycle: Post-Ovulation
Corresponding moon phase: Waning Moon
Corresponding Season: Autumn (things are falling away)
Corresponding Element: Water
4. THE CRONE (approx age 70 - death)
The Grandmothers of times past were the ones who held the final say on matters such as war. If this were still the case, the world might be a different place today.
- Jane Hardwicke Collings, “The Four-Phase Feminine Way”
In ancient societies the Crone was highly revered, however today she is often not given the reverence she deserves. She is the wisdom keeper, the one who has the ultimate perspective and has nothing left to prove. She is able to see with absolute clarity and advise in a selfless way, as she has no ulterior motives. She has a certain patience about her, having been through it all herself, and no longer cares what people think.
The Crone is the part of us that is most potent in her wisdom. Is able to see through all inauthenticity and patterns from afar. While the Maiden has an innocent purity about her, the Crone has a certain purity as well.
She is closest to Source and in surrender to Life.
Shadow Crone: Brutal, hermit, unforgiving, judgmental, bitter, jaded, lonely, self-pitying, defeated.
Corresponding phase of menstrual cycle: Menstruation
Corresponding moon phase: New Moon
Corresponding Season: Winter
Corresponding Element: Earth
We dare not talk of the darkness for fear it will infect us.
We dare not talk of the fire, for fear it will destroy us.
And so we live in the half-light,
Like our mothers before us.
Come to the fire,
Feel it warm your skin.
Come to the fire,
Feel it burn in your belly,
Shine out through your eyes.
Come dance in the fire,
Let it fuel your prayers.
― Lucy H. Pearce, “Burning Woman”