She stands beneath the Ginkgo tree

patient and alone.

All pilgrims passeth through the trees

along the journey home.

—Rebecca Mary Roose

(Poem fragment that floated to the surface of my consciousness upon waking one morning. I call it a fragment because I’m certain it was part of a longer poem being ‘narrated’ to me within my dreaming).

Oh, I who long to grow,

I look outside of myself, and the tree

inside me grows.

—Rainer Maria Rilke

Hello dear readers,

Welcome to Part 4 of Symbolika. This month we are exploring the symbol of the Tree, and the myriad motifs often surrounding it.

Last month we explored the symbol of the Sun and how it represents the spinning into multiplicity that occurs within the act of creation—each individual soul or consciousness existing as part of the cosmic whole, like rays of sunlight blending together to form a luminous orb.

The tree is similar in this regard.

Yet richer in complexity.

One little seed can contain within it the potential for an entire forest.

It is an image that holds within it the fertilising force of creation; beginning as a seed in its latent state (the point; masculine principle) held within the fecund soil of the earth (the womb; feminine principle), proceeding to an outward sprouting in opposing directions (the cross) and eventually bursting forth into multiplicity through branches, leaves, fruit, and seeds.

Countless mythologies, cosmologies, fairytales, and world religions have incorporated the wisdom of this profound archetypal image into their teachings. Wherever you look, you will find the tree. From the inverted tree of the Kabbalah to Tree of Knowledge in Genesis, to the Scandinavian myth of Yggdrasil and its Slavic counterpart Drevo Mirovoje—and it is no wonder.

Rooted in darkness and the unseen, we emerge onto the earthly plane and find ourselves reaching for the spiritual heights and illumination of the world ‘above.’ We do this whilst embodying the middle earth in bodily form. We each are like the World Tree standing at the ‘centre,’ in dance with conscious and unconscious forces.

World symbols tell the same story in varying stages; they serve as a cosmological map. The story is almost always one of polarity and balance—from the microcosmic to the macrocosmic. The ancients understood the luminous potency of life; the creative miracle thrumming through all things. The archetypal images brought forth from our mysterious beginnings appear cross-culturally, spanning timelines.

The tree leads us back to the Mother, to greenness, to cyclic renewal.

We need the tree and her wisdom—now, more than ever.

Let’s delve into her roots, my friends, and climb her ever-growing limbs.

Journal Prompt

How am I, as a human being, like the tree?

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Symbolika Part 4: The Tree

The Evergreen Tree

The inspiration behind this series is rooted in the primordial tapestry of symbols preserved within the sicanje tattoo tradition of the Slavic lineage. Within these tattoo motifs, we see the incorporation of the jelica (fir or pine tree) branches with an array of other cosmological symbols: including the kolo and kolovrat (the mathematical encircled point and solar wheel), the kriz (cross), and the sunce (sun) which we have explored earlier in the series.

Last month we explored solar wisdom; solstice traditions and pagan festivities later absorbed by Christianity. Celebrating seasonal renewal on the darkest night of the year, homes would be decorated with evergreen boughs to symbolise eternal life for their steadfastness through winter. Evergreen conifers do not drop their needles, even in the coldest and darkest of times.

Coniferous evergreen trees within Slavic folklore have long been revered for their spiritual potency, being a sacred bridge between worlds. Linked to the underworld and funerary rites, the wood of pine trees was often used to make coffins, they were planted in cemeteries, their branches and needles scattered during funeral processions for their cleansing properties.1

The Aleppo pine is commonly found on the Croatian islands (my ancestral home), and by some mysterious synchronicity, we happen to have one standing in our front yard here in Western Australia. Long before knowing the genus or its spiritual connotations, I felt its protection—a powerful guardian. I once wrote a poem for my daughter where I remark ‘Your delighted cry, rising up / reaching the needles of our great pine / all night-drenched and exhaling.’

On the opposite side of the path leading to our front door is a gum tree. The Nyoongar custodians of the region consider the gum in its many varieties a spiritual bridge between earth and sky—and a symbol of deep resilience, interconnectivity, and healing power.

When we lose our connection with and reverence for nature, we lose nature.

We lose some earthy, green, vital part of ourselves.

Tree symbolism grows far deeper and wider. Her roots extend everywhere, and her crown gleams with sunlight.

Let’s dig a little deeper, so we can climb a little further.

Journal Prompt

Is there a tree that is sacred to you?

What tree did your ancestors revere?

Which trees grow around you?

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The Imaginal Realm

If the world was conceived as an act of creative union between opposing yet harmonious energies, we might then consider creation an act of giving images—or ideas—physical form. This anchoring of ideas within the imaginal realm into the physical is the structuring process of creativity; the cosmological substance of all that exists.

If all things begin with the Logos; the mantramatrika or ‘little mothers’ who give birth via sound-matrix to everything that exists, naturally all of our images proceed from an imaginal realm of archetypes; existing first as thought or vision, and then spoken and spun into physical form.

As conscious beings we are part of this process.

We each co-create with the Great Mother; conceiving, birthing and mothering our myriad creations. The tree is one of the images we as humans access and draw meaning from again and again, producing throughout space and time ‘an abundant flowering and branching of images.’2

So here we have our first stroke of tree symbolism within our forest tapestry: Tree as Imagination. I’d like to make it clear though, that by imagination and imaginal, I do not also mean imaginary. The tree image is real, it is alive, it unfurls from source in physical form, and in the world of dreams, and thus symbolises the harmony of unconscious and conscious forces.

William Blake said, ‘the imaginative image returns by the seed of contemplative thought.’ Here he paints an image of the human psyche—rooted in the unconscious, yet with earthly sensory perception, and the ability to dip into the imaginal realm to receive spiritual insight and vision. Thus, we form a bridge between heaven and earth and are in constant co-creation with the cosmos.

As we will see, this threefold structure of the cosmos plays out in world cosmologies through the image of the ‘tree at the centre’—the World Tree.

Dear valued subscribers, here ends the preview of this essay.

If you would like to become a paying subscriber to read on (and support this in-depth series) here is flow of the essay ~ thank you for being here either way.

The Imaginal Realm: The Archetypal Image and Co-Creation within the Matrix (Mother)

The World Tree: The Tripartite Cosmos, Serpent Imagery, and the Microcosmic Human

Scandinavian Yggdrasil and the Slavic Oak: Comparative World Tree Mythology

Axis Mundi, Stairway to Heaven: The Central Axis in Shamanism

The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil: The Double Tree in Genesis, The Mesopotamian Tree and Serpent, The Three Trees of Islam

The Tree of Sacrifice: Jesus, Attis, and Odin

The Inverted Tree: Kabbalah as Soul Map

The Tree of Life: Birthing Trees, the Placenta, and the Great Mother

Conclusion: Connecting with the Tree

This work takes me weeks worth of weaving! The Symbolika series is your ultimate springboard for discovery, self-inquiry, and imaginative exploration into the potent symbols at play all around us. If you’re not called to read further, you can support Ancient Mother by sharing my work, or clicking the little heart.

Previous essays in the series:

Read more

Dear readers,

The full moon is shining her cool, silver light into my kitchen sink. I am feeling a personal essay coming on. This is something I have felt called to write about for some time. My breastfeeding and weaning journey, the strange and wonderful and sometimes surprising changes I’ve experienced along with it—and the presence of eros in this season.

This article is for all mothers and people who are interested in the vast and wild spectrum that is the experience of the childbearing continuum; for all those fascinated by the labyrinth of matrescence; for any women who anticipate being mothers and breastfeeding one day; and especially, especially, for those few of us, those tiny handful of a few, who breastfeed past the first year.

All the women within my friendship groups and wider social circle choose to breastfeed, and many also often feed past the first year and well into the second and sometimes up to the third or fourth years. I am blessed with many aligned women around me, but I know for some mothers in the west, breastfeeding can actually be a radical act. Thankfully, my journey was easeful because those around me were embracing and accepting and (mostly) in awe of the process.

Our experiences as women and our individual circumstances are as vast as the cosmos, and they’re all valid. I am not negating the experience of mothers who cannot breastfeed or choose to formula feed. But I seek to normalise and celebrate extended breastfeeding through sharing my story. Extended breastfeeding isn’t common in the west—only 10% of women in western countries breastfeed past the age of two, compared to around 60% in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.

Given it is generally uncommon, I haven’t ever come across an article or story outlining the changes a woman may experience whilst weaning after years of breastfeeding. When I wrapped up over 4.5 years of nursing, I genuinely had no idea what to expect. I quite honestly didn’t think much would change apart from maybe my nails and teeth getting stronger as my minerals rebalance. I also thought my breasts would get smaller, and that I would deeply grieve. But the somatic changes for me were so pronounced, they took me by surprise (and sometimes confusion).

Mother: A Poem
O my god, what am I
That you should cling to my breast like a mollusk
Seek me and find me 
Your delight, at the very existence of me!

Tell me what I am
That I should be gifted these toothless grins 
and you clasping my brass earring 
and reaching for my pen while I write this.

My breastfeeding journey

I was blessed with easeful latch, healthy supply, and a comfortable breastfeeding journey with both of my babies. The poem above is one of my favourite ever—scrawled into my journal with my left hand whilst breastfeeding my daughter when she was three months old. I felt like a bosomy goddess leaking heaven’s milk from my breasts, growing life.

I wrote in another poem from those early days about my ‘breasts abundant / with sweet milk that flows.’ Every time I’d make love with my partner, oxytocin would flood my body and my breasts would let down a river of milk; whilst tears would flow in streams down my face. I was so leaky—so divine—in awe of my changing body.

Now I am the Mother Vessel
The softness, the space, the sea—

Breasts abundant 
With sweet milk that flows

At the touch of her mouth,
That gushes forth 

After lovemaking 
With her father.

What is this sacredness, 
This pouring of waters?

We are the enduring
Image—a family now.

Holy, holy, holy
Is our trinity.

- from 'Mother Vessel'

My breastfeeding challenges arrived later on, when I became pregnant with my son. My daughter was only nine months old. I lost my supply. Despite the deep grief of my nursing journey with my firstborn being impacted, the challenge was also a profound gift—because I experienced one of the most generous blessings of my life when my friend dropped bags of her own breastmilk at my door for three entire months. It was the most astonishing thing anyone has ever done for me (and my baby). My daughter received all the additional antibodies and protective goodness from another mama—an alloparent. Eternal gratitude.

Despite losing my supply, I continued to ‘dry’ feed my daughter for comfort and connection throughout my pregnancy. Breastfeeding surpasses the nutritional benefits by providing spiritual and emotional nourishment for the symbiotic dyad. In other words; we both still needed it. It was our anchor; our moment of rest in a time of upheaval. I don’t know how much milk my body was producing; possibly mere droplets or none at all, but we persisted, and of course when my colostrum came in in the third trimester, she would have received the immense benefits of that.

When my son was born, he fed like a dream, and I was determined to tandem feed until my daughter was two. Here lay the most challenging season of my breastfeeding journey: I started to experience aversions—but only when my toddler would feed. Breastfeeding aversions amount to unbearable physical and psychological discomfort—it’s the feeling of being “touched out” at its absolute peak. My body was signalling to me that our journey together was coming to an end. With some mindfulness practices I was able to sporadically continue until she was almost two. It was a bittersweet ending.

I continued to feed my son without a hiccup for almost three years, until around last Christmas/New Year, when it felt like it was “time.” Our weaning process was actually so easeful and playful, gently led by me—he was definitely ready. We were only feeding a couple times a day by then, and I’d gradually decline a feed if I wasn’t feeling like it. I would say “no latching on, just kisses” and he would happily kiss and cuddle my breasts for that closeness and connection, until he eventually stopped asking for milk. At some point we had our last ever feed, which I don’t remember—strange how time spirals away. (Although he sometimes still says with a sigh, “I miss babas” and will lay his little head on my bosom).

I don’t blame him—boobs are amazing.

Mother is the first God a child knows.

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It was all so natural, so easy, so beautiful. The only thing I actually expected to experience when I weaned and my breasts were no longer ripe with the life-giving flow of milk, was grief. Yet it so happened to be the one thing I didn’t experience. How strange and wonderful is this mothering journey—no grief! When in the thick of my breastfeeding years I couldn’t imagine not being a leaky milky big-busted goddess. The thought of the inevitable ending would bring a tear to my eye, and I’d think “no, not yet. So much time yet.”

Yet the time comes when the time comes and it is right, and natural, and so it is. The cycle of life. Any grandmother will tell you. After almost 4.5 years of nourishing life from my breast, and over five years of conceiving and growing life from my body on the path from maiden to mother, the life-flow of mother’s milk ebbed and waned, leaving a riverbed ready for filling with new waters. My body led the way.

*Cue big-bang-style cosmological explosion*

And I transformed yet again.

What I experienced after weaning

The following is what I personally experienced as I emerged out of the postpartum labyrinth and my relationship with my children shifted into a new form, and my relationship with my own body transformed.

The baby days were left in that spiral of my heart; cherished and holy.

A new timeline, and Mother, emerged—and is emerging still. She is emerging and growing as her children emerge and grow. I will begin with the physical transformations, and end with the spiritual.

1. Aphrodite’s expansion: aka ‘weight gain’

Let’s begin with the most noticeable and surprising change. After no longer providing 25% of my daily caloric intake to my toddler through breastmilk, I gained weight. After weaning, my body expanded by eight or ten kilos if new adipose tissue.

Intelligent feminine design.

But for someone who has always maintained a size 8-10AU (S) figure by no effort other than her metabolism, this was a major shift. I don’t generally weigh myself—because I simply couldn’t care a less—but suddenly, my jeans no longer fit. I went up three jean sizes. And it happened in what felt like overnight. I suddenly became a size 12AU (M/L) woman.

And here’s the part you’re not expecting.

I LOVE THIS CHANGE.

I choose to revel in this expansion. I embraced this almost overnight change with curiosity (and excitement to buy a new wardrobe, thank you Taurus rising). Aphrodite has never been more present in my body and in my relationship with my body than in this season of life. Emerging into full motherhood—breaking out of the chrysalis of the postpartum years—I believe is the truest human expression of Aphrodite emerging from the foam of the sea.

I have never in my adult life frothed over ‘slimness.’ I’ve always celebrated curves. My figure is still lovely, I’m just carrying more weight on it. I have a little belly now. I ensure I love and cherish her. I’m not a maiden anymore. I’ve grown and birthed life from the very portal of myself. I feel larger than life. Voluptuous. Like I’ve evolved, again, into a new type of goddess. I was pleasantly surprised that my breasts didn’t shrink, either. They grew larger in motherhood and stayed that way; I never expected that.

Aphrodite weaves her seductive, voluptuous power through mothers and women in their thirties far more than she does with young women in the maiden phase of life. The tides of amniotic waters, birth fluid, sexual wetness, menstrual blood, cervical fluid, colostrum, and breastmilk are the oceans of Aphrodite.

Aphrodite is at peak expression within the ebb and flow of motherhood—so long as you revel in your body. In its fluids and tides and peaks and valleys.

So many women would loathe the sudden weight gain, because we live in a culture that wants us to shrink. I imagine there would even be readers cringing whilst reading my positive take on it; the reframing something that’s generally seen as negative into a welcoming transformation. I know some women who work out so much to get their ‘pre-baby’ figure back (and probably take Ozempic) whose stomachs look concave. I cannot imagine the level of low self-esteem it would take to approach the life-giving temple of your body like that.

I am able to embrace changes in my body with curiosity and joy, because I have done the work to untangle myself from the world.

Embodiment is the secret of seduction—a woman enjoying her Self naturally draws others to her.

2. Swollen lymph nodes

Here is the one that some women might have found alarming. I gradually noticed swollen and tender lymph nodes in the left side of my groin and under my left arm in the months after weaning. It dawned on me slowly, an awareness that was just sort of there, and eventually I find myself wondering about it a lot. Why? Why are my lymph nodes persistently tender? And only on one side of my body?

Instead of rushing off to see a doctor or spiralling into worry, I asked: What is my body communicating with me? What has changed? Is there a spiritual dimension to this symptom expression? I would lay in bed at night, gently massaging the areas, seeking understanding. I only realised this was a part of my new post-weaning body after months of sitting with the unknown and being deep in trust.

With gentle enquiry, I recalled that the left side of the body is generally regarded as the ‘feminine’ or lunar side in yoga and Ayurveda, with the Ida nadi running through it. Then, with a little research, I learned that a tender and sluggish lymph over a period of months is a common and totally normal symptom of a fluctuating lymphatic system post-weaning!

When you stop breastfeeding, your breast tissue goes through a rapid process called involution, where milk-producing cells break down and fluids ebb and flow within your body. This extra fluid and tissue activity can cause the lymph nodes in your armpits and groin to swell and feel tender—because the cell breakdown is being processed by the lymph.

Why had I never heard of this before? I’d love to hear from other women who’ve experienced this. For any future mothers or pregnancies—when approaching your weaning journey, you can support your spleen and lymph with nourishing soups and stews, warming spices, massage, acupuncture, and gentle movement.

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3. The urge for movement

This flows from the former ‘symptom.’ With a newly sluggish lymph, I found myself longing for mindful movement, to stretch and strengthen my body. After years of giving so much of myself to two growing babes, it was suddenly vital I did something just for me.

I’d never been a fitness girlie.

A walk and a swim at the beach (followed by an hour of tanning and lounging with a book) is peak exercise for me. Sure, I was an active new mother, lifting babies onto my hip and pushing prams around for years. But I needed something more. So after months and months of talking about wanting to sign up for reformer pilates, my partner banned me from talking about it and insisted I just do it.

And fuck, it felt good when I did.

To get out of my active mind and into my body. To stretch. To move. To strengthen. To gently push myself. To have time alone to breeeathe. Post-weaning saw me become a pilates princess. I might even start lifting weights, who knows. I used to reject the fitness world, and now it’s my oyster. (We’re allowed to change).

I’m thick and curvy. I’m strong. New me is delighting in new me.

4. My nipples changed their ‘mind’

Ahem. This one is a little personal.

I never as a maiden was turned on by or even remotely interested in nipple stimulation during sex. I’d take it or leave it. Then, as a pregnant and breastfeeding mum, those nips were totally out of bounds and solely for feeding my children—I was too touched out.

Post-weaning?

Well. They have taken on an extra-sensory and rather saucy new life in the bedroom. It was like an overnight change. How intriguing is the somatic body? I’m reminded of Clarissa Pinkola Estes when she talks about how the nipples are like eyes. (I also write about sensor-nipples in the voice of Hecate, in this poem).

My nipples enjoyed feeding my young; now they’re enjoying other things. That’s all I’ll say without needing a paywall.

5. Suddenly noticing my cat again

Anyone who’s become a mother after being a ‘fur mum’ will know the feeling. After having a baby, you still love your pet but… you now have a baby. And that baby comes first. And your fur baby is no longer your substitute child. He’s just your pet. He comes and goes. He’s fed and provided for. He might get the odd pat. But he’s not on your hyper-baby focused radar any more than the houseplant over by the fireplace.

After weaning my son and shaking the cobwebs of the years-long postpartum labyrinth from my eyes, my cat re-entered my field of awareness. All of a sudden, I felt compelled to cuddle him. To bury my face in his fluffy black fur. To look into his glowing green eyes. Closing the portal of breastfeeding opened my energetic and intuitive body up to other beings in my field.

In this case, to our little spirit guardian who guards our family and home. (All cats are spirit guardians. Prove me wrong).

6. Veils parted

As I mentioned somewhere above, through weaning I stepped over the threshold and out of the birth and postpartum labyrinth. I emerged back out into the light. I write about the symbolism of the labyrinth in detail here. The spiritual and reflective quality of being on the otherside of the journey is profound. It has been a coming home to myself. I wrote along this line of realisation and integration in my past essay A Good Mother Bakes Sourdough (and Other Myths).

New motherhood and postpartum is a mushy chrysalis of a time.

You lose and find yourself.

Now that I have completed my return journey, the full tapestry of the path I walked has become clearer in retrospect. I have re-embraced core parts of my maiden self I initially rejected in new motherhood. Parts of my soul.

Stepping over the threshold, I can see the the blind spots I held inside the postpartum phase. The vipers in the grass. The misaligned friendships—yet all of them entering my field for a reason. Each containing a lesson. In the early years of motherhood, I dressed differently to my natural style, stopped wearing makeup, thought I needed to live in the ‘country,’ and had a tendency to consume the performative content of aesthetic momfluencers.

I was more vulnerable and often allowed envious people to harvest my generous, warm energy and hospitality. At times I shrank myself. There was messiness within all the sanctity and raw beauty of the postpartum phase. One might look back and say, what was I thinking! but such are the challenges of the labyrinth.

Coming out into the light, I see it all. The jewels as well as the thorns. Clear sight now protects my emotional openness and tenderness. I know my aligned tribe—the ones who feel like honey.

And I’m all the more stronger for naming it.

I fully, wholeheartedly know the woman that I am now.

She is interwoven with the parts of my maiden I turned my back on in postpartum. Lips neatly painted. Well dressed. Skin glowing with dewy makeup. Basket filled with books and journals. Sexy RnB music in her ears. She is self-assured and she takes no bullshit. And she’s learning, and getting better at, releasing her need to please.

Reflection. Embodiment. Integration.

Motherhood is surrendering to and mastering this trifecta. (I am not a master yet; I am very much learning).

7. My career and spiritual path came into focus

Oooh. Do you have any idea how much I love that my little list of transformations amount to the number seven! Anyone who reads my work will know this symbolic significance. After weaning, my career came fully into focus—and my spiritual path opened like a blooming rose. The two intertwined are my purpose and vocation in life: writing and communing with the divine.

Which ultimately, are one and the same thing. A symbiotic relationship between vessel and muse. Human and God. Woman and her Beloved. In Receiving Woman: Studies in the Psychology and Theology of the Feminine, Ann Belford Ulanov puts forward the idea that symbiosis between mother and the ‘other’ in the form of her child, is the same as symbiosis between a human being and God. She states

The mother-child relationship and religious experience are both inward and personal. In both kinds of experience one discovers areas of human life where barely understood forces or presences are at work. One may respond psychologically and with a sense of religious awe to the intimation of value present at such depth.

With my symbiotic breastfeeding journey drawing to a close, it seems another dimension of my soul opened up. Life is a series of doors opening and closing. One closes, another opens. Motherhood blows a thousand doors open. So began my deepening spirituality and relationship with God. My life became all-awash with great cosmological wonder.

And I’m writing about it.

I have committed myself fully to writing. It is my true north. Something I dreamed about since childhood but could never fully claim; I always looked elsewhere for a ‘career.’ It is more evident than ever now: I don’t write to supplement other endeavours. It is the thing. The gift mapped out in my stars.

I have finally allowed the last tendrils of instagram-hustle-culture to fall away from my proud shoulders. I am surrendering to the slow unfolding of my writing career and building an actual lasting legacy with planning and patience.

Not a container offering that will be forgotten in a month.

A body of work.

God, those words light me up like a match struck in my belly.

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Life is a living, breathing, symbiotic tapestry revealing itself every day, every moment, like a miracle.

I am Mother. I am Writer. I am Lover and Beloved.

I think of that ancient Greek maxim inscribed above the Temple of Apollo at Delphi: Γνῶθι σεαυτόν—Know Thyself.

Breathtakingly, I can now admit that I do.

Thank you for coming along on this journey with me. I hope you enjoyed the unfolding of this spontaneous personal essay.

What was your breastfeeding, weaning, or postpartum journey like? What did you learn about yourself? Did you experience any unique transformations after emerging from the labyrinth of the early childhood years? (Whether you breastfed or not—all mothers experience deep transformation).

I’d love to hear from you in the comments.

Leave a comment

You’ll hear from me in two weeks, under the new moon, in my Symbolika essay exploring the Tree.

Until then,

With love and ancient birthing power

Rebecca Mary

Faithful defender, and the eye of right,
of steeds the ruler, and of life the light:
With founding whip four fiery steeds you guide,
when in the car of day you glorious ride.
Propitious on these mystic labours shine,
and bless thy suppliants with a life divine.

—From the Orphic Hymn to Helios, tr. Thomas Taylor

I find that all my thoughts circle around God like the planets around the sun.

—Carl G. Jung

Please note: this essay is best viewed on the Substack app.

Welcome, dear readers.

The moon has waned to darkness and the time has come again to delve into symbolic study together. The Sun is the third topic of Symbolika, where we journey with seven primordial symbols over seven months, preserved within the sicanje tradition of the Slavic lineage. Together, we explore the cosmological unfolding of each symbol, their cross-cultural resonance, and spiritual dimensions.

This month we are looking at the sun (sunce). Within, we will be exploring the effect of the diurnal cycle of night and day on the human psyche; the sun as fertile force; as promise of rebirth; solar deities and mythology; masculine vs. feminine personifications of the sun; solar-oriented monoliths across the world; and the sun as symbol of non-duality and inner divinity.

The star looms large over us, it is the source of all life on the material plane. Humanity wouldn’t be possible without its glorious, life-giving warmth and luminosity. It is no wonder cultures have revered and celebrated our radiant star since time immemorial. An art that we have lost in modernity—but here we begin our reclamation of the natural human inclination for reverence and wonder.

So buckle up your seats in Helios’ golden chariot, my friends. It’s going to be dazzling ride! My dear friend has lovingly warned me: the sun is quite an all encompassing of an energy to fly into sweet Icarus! I wholly trust you’ll burn through it soon enough (hopefully before it burns your wings).

Well, if we burn, we burn together!

Journal Prompt

Reflect on your relationship with the sun.

For what do you owe the sun gratitude?

What requests may you ask of the sun?

Have you ever expressed irreverence for the sun?

And lastly:

Do you think the sun can perceive your words and intentions?

Symbolika Part 3: The Sun

The Many-Rayed Sun

Within my past two essays in the series, we explored the symbol of the encircled dot as God in the latent and conceiving phase at the beginning of the universe. We examined the intersecting planes of the cross and solar cross/wheel as representing the act of material creation—the feminine and masculine energies that intermingle to form the breath of creative life.

We saw sacred polarity born of unity, proceeding to trinity, and then spinning into multiplicity, giving form and structure to the cosmos.

The motif of the sun, then, may proceed from these progenitor symbols as the many-rayed material manifestation of the divine. Human life, indeed all physical life, cannot exist without the material presence of the sun. The same can be said for any life existing on distant planets, in distant solar systems. Likewise, as spiritual beings we cannot exist without our divine parentage in God. Indeed, all animal, plant, and cellular life sing their own praises to the sun—none would exist without the daily rising and setting of that eternal golden eye in the sky.

It is not remarkable, then, that the sun has been woven into nearly every mythological system throughout human history, and even worshipped as a supreme deity by some cultures.

The sun is the structuring force of life on earth.

Solar motifs appear all over the world and are abundant within Neolithic and Bronze Age cultures. They take on the form of circles, solar wheels, and solar discs with a burst of rays. Within the sicanje tradition, we see a blend of all these symbols—the circle, the encircled cross, and the many-rayed sunburst (sunce), which is distinguishable from the former two. The symbols were interwoven one with the other, tattooed together in complex formations that illustrate a primordial cosmology. Here we will be exploring the symbolic dimensions of the myriad-rayed sun, and the sun’s effect on human consciousness and spirituality.

In the Tarot, the Sun is placed after the Moon in the Major Arcana, described in The Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom as ‘both a joyful release from the test shown in the previous card and a preparation for the death and rebirth of the two cards following’1 (Judgement, and The World). As a symbol the sun often denotes an energising force, joy, enlightenment, and knowledge. The sun is usually beneficent—despite its ability to scorch and burn—but it also points to inevitable transformation in the opposite direction to its rising.

The sun must always set.

But alas, it rises again.

Thus, the sun carries inherent wisdom as symbol of cyclic death and renewal.

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Sun and Moon: Dance of Polarity

The cosmos is formed in a dance of polarity.

A tension of feminine and masculine forces.

This unfolds on earth through the diurnal alternation of dark and light; night and day. At night, the world is cloaked in darkness. Dangers lurk (both real and perceived), we are plunged into the realm of dreams and the chthonic, and watched over by the silver moon, which herself waxes and wanes. It is a sharp contrast to the clean logic of the daylight world. Every morning, rosy-fingered dawn gives rise to the reliable sphere of the sun, dispelling the dream charms and restoring consciousness to a sense of security and rationality.

We can see how the sun is thus a potent symbol of rebirth.

The hemispheres within the human brain follow the same pattern. The brain’s right hemisphere, regarded as ‘feminine,’ we might equate with the night. With the world of dreams and the unseen. It is responsible for instinct, intuition, emotion, insight, whole patterns, meaning-making, and understanding symbol and metaphor. The right brain developed before the left, and the ‘masculine’ or left-brain proceeded from its archetypal, imaginal realm in order to compartmentalise the primordial whole with analysis, logic, written language, achievement-fulfilment, and directed linear-thinking. This mirrors the masculine principle proceeding from the feminine face of God, the primordial ocean, that existed before time but held masculine potential within her like a holy seed.

The day, then, proceeds out of night.

The sun is reborn every morning at dawn, rising into the heavens, and sinking to its earthly grave come dusk. Notice here we have the four elements; fire (the sun), air (into which the sun rises), earth, and water (into which the sun sets, depending on your location). Fire and air are esoterically considered masculine elements, with earth and water being feminine. Fire and air burn through, penetrate, enlighten, and allow flight. Water and earth conceal, encompass, enfold, contain, and compost. Every element, masculine and feminine, interacts in a cycle of death and renewal.

Everything in the cosmos, ultimately, serves life. In Primitive Mythology, Joseph Campbell speaks to the profound effect of the alternation of night and day on the human psyche. He states,

Darkness, then, and weight, the pull of gravity and the dark interior of the earth, of the jungle, or the deep sea, as well as certain extremely poignant fears and delights, must for millennia have constituted a firm syndrome of human experience, in contrast to the luminous flight of the world-awakening solar sphere into and through immeasurable heights. Hence a polarity of light and dark, above and below, guidance and loss of bearings, confidence and fears… must be reckoned as inevitable in the way of a structuring principle of human thought.2

There is an obvious universality to our primal longing for light, given it is our prime organising principle. Psychotherapist Carl Jung understood that our unquenchable yearning for light gives communities meaning and purpose, and that ‘the moment the sun appears is God.’3 On a personal level, the ego gives an individual meaning or purpose—the ego being the “I” with which we perceive the world, the central organising principle of the conscious mind.

Thus, in astrological systems the sun represents the ego self, whilst the moon represents the emotional body. Indeed, within the modern egotistical secularity of the prevailing culture, we often walk the earth like vain little gods, forgetting that physical matter and the ego is but one dimension of a spiritually mysterious and divine universe in which we are the embodiments of an eternal spiritual flame.

Our ego selves emerge from the belly of the mother, reach their zenith at the peak of our life journey, and eventually descend back to the darkness of the earth to be reborn. It is the tending to these thresholds—that of matter and spirit, light and dark, birth and death—that our ancient ancestors executed in masterful reverence, and we are being called back to a shared remembrance of this perpetual and sacred polarity.

Dear valued subscribers, here ends the free portion of this essay.

If you would like to delve into a journey of potent symbolism, meditation, and discussion—we’d love to have you along for the ride. Within, we will be exploring solar mythology, genders attributed to the sun, megaliths, doomsday, black holes, and the sacred inner flame.

I am celebrating the first birthday of Ancient Mother this month! Throughout the remainder of July, I am offering 25% off new subscriptions—please click here to access the discount.

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Previous essays in the series:

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Human consciousness is a microcosm; so any diagram which initiates and directs its movement… is acting as a map.

—Jill Purce, The Mystic Spiral

Hello, dear readers. The moon is growing, and in her coming fullness I have been sitting with the powerful soul map of the labyrinth. In the previous two instalments of my Symbolika series, we’ve been exploring the primordial symbols of the encircled point, and then the cross and solar wheel. Although the labyrinth symbol isn’t part of the planned Symbolika journey, it feels like a natural and perfectly placed symbol to offer as a free essay for you all. The labyrinth motif begins with a point; proceeds to a cross; and then branches out into a winding unicursal pathway that leads both inward and outward.

The labyrinth begins with a point of unity—out of which plunges polarity—and then dances itself into multiplicity in all directions. As we will see, just like the encircled point and the cross, the labyrinth appears spontaneously within the created world. Its circuitous pathways are reflected within our own bodies, and perhaps more importantly in our psyche as the path into the underworld and out of it.

The labyrinth is often confused with the maze, but the two symbols are starkly different in their design and purpose. A maze, deriving from the English word ‘mazen’—meaning to confound or bewilder—may look like a labyrinth on first glance but is multicursal, containing multiple entrances and exits, cul de sacs, and dead ends. A maze stimulates the ‘thinking brain,’ requiring logic and problem-solving to figure your way out. The purpose of a maze is to reach the centre and escape. The purpose of the labyrinth is to reach your centre and return transformed.

A labyrinth follows a singular unicursal pathway into its centre, after which you must turn around and follow the same winding route back out. There is only one entrance, and one exit. The labyrinth asks nothing of you but to surrender to the journey; trusting that with each step you will be led to your destination, and back home. Thus it acts as a powerful meditative tool and analogy for the heroine or hero’s journey. Tracing a labyrinth encourages the brain to move from the active beta state to the calm, meditative and visually rich alpha and theta states, allowing for deeper insight, surrender, and wisdom—serving to assist initiates during rites of passage.

A Brief Historical Overview

The labyrinth is an ancient symbol appearing cross-culturally, with its earliest known depictions occurring during the Neolithic period. These early forms appear as petroglyphs carved into stone, with the oldest known carved into laterite stone in Goa, India, dating to between 3000-2000BC.1 The Neolithic Tomba del Labirinto tomb in Sardinia, which features the earliest known definitive classical seven-circuit labyrinth carving in Europe, dates similarly to 2500BC.

Walking labyrinths of varying ages are found across the earth; the oldest on the Russian Bolshoi Zayatsky Island in the White Sea. On this island stand 13 walking labyrinths made of local stone, dating to the late Bronze Age. The seven-circuit classical labyrinth also interestingly appears as the ‘Man in the Maze’ motif belonging to the Tohono O’odham culture of the Sonoran Desert. Early in their history, the labyrinth spread to the shores of the Mediterranean and Bronze Age Crete, to which it has long been associated with the palace at Knossos and the unfolding mythology of Ariadne, the Labyrinth, and the Minotaur.2

It is likely the Cretans carried the concept of the labyrinth back from Egypt (as we know they engaged in deep trade and cultural exchange there), and would have come into contact with the famed labyrinth in the Egyptian temple precinct of Hawara, built by Amenemhet III of the 12th dynasty (1844-1797BC).3 Although no actual labyrinth has been found at Knossos in Crete, the classical unicursal labyrinth was minted onto the reverse of Cretan coins from 430BC. The motif of the ‘labrys’ or double-headed axe, associated with female deities and the goddess—as well as bull motifs—appear at the Knossos archaeological site.

The unicursal labyrinth motif was later adapted by Rome and often featured in floor mosaics, though it often lost its feminine roundedness and was drawn as a square. Labyrinths continued along their resonant path, appearing across the medieval period, adapted by Christianity and being built into Gothic churches and cathedral floors, like that of the famous Chartres Cathedral labyrinth in France. These labyrinths are often enclosed within a circle, and feature four quadrants around an equilateral cross, with a six-petalled rosette at the centre. The symbolism here is potent, and speaks to a beautiful cosmic order reminiscent of the trinity (which we explore deeply here)—I’ll leave you to ponder the significance of this.

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Death and Rebirth: Labyrinth as Map of Consciousness

When I completed my labyrinth training via the Birthing from Within program, I remember the presenter referring to the labyrinth motif as a ‘universal download.’ The labyrinth—among all primordial geometric symbols—unfurls itself from the cosmic creative order, and as children of creation we access its inherent wisdom from within our consciousness. Creation encompasses all that is; the physical and spiritual dimensions; the macrocosmic and microcosmic; our bodies and souls.

Motifs are woven into the tapestry of creation.

In her book The Mystic Spiral: Journey of the Soul, Jill Purce states, ‘the universe and man’s consciousness consist in a continuum and dynamic whole… archetypal flow and growth of form consists of a forward impulse and turns back on itself.’4 Here, she is describing the forward impulse to the centre of a spiral or labyrinth, and the natural turning back and traversing along the same path. We may consider this an analogy for reincarnation; or even the expansion and envelopment of universes being birthed out of and reabsorbed back into the cosmic womb—like the tantric Kali who births and destroys from her bountiful, all-powerful belly. In The Language of the Goddess, Marija Gimbutas says

The reason for the great number and variety of Old European images lies in the fact that this symbolism is lunar and chthonic, built around the understanding that life on earth is in eternal transformation, in constant rhythmic change between creation and destruction, birth and death.5

The labyrinth can be seen as a map of the soul’s journey from source to source; crossing the threshold into matter, birthed onto the physical plane; winding our way along the unicursal path of human life; and back out again, released into the spiritual plane through physical death. The inward and outward motion or ebb and flow of the labyrinth path is reminiscent of the waxing and waning of the moon,6 carrying celestial wisdom that one must pass through phases of darkness to again reach the light. Jill states, ‘time itself is cyclic, and by the spiral of its returning seasons we review the progress and growth of our own understanding.’ She goes on to explain

Although this process is built into the structure and is inherent in the natural evolution of man, it is one which can be facilitated and hastened with the aid of maps and guides. These maps are the mythological and religious systems which have been evolved by previous travellers, pioneers of the Way.7

The labyrinth is one such map.

Whilst it can represent the soul’s journey, I see it as a potent analogy for the human psyche and consciousness, illustrating the hero’s journey we all must embark on for the sake of our growth and transformation—thus contributing to soul advancement through initiation. The classic unicursal labyrinth follows the stages of the hero’s journey, and it is likely that walking such a labyrinth in our ancient past would have served as a Rite of Passage or threshold ritual—just as it is often utilised today.

First, you stand before the labyrinth in the phase of preparation. Often, a threshold stone would be placed before the mouth of the labyrinth; an obstacle you must consciously manoeuvre around when you begin to set out on your journey.8 Thus, you cross the threshold and begin traversing the winding road of your ordeal, meeting challenge after challenge along the way. Once you reach the centre, you rest momentarily—triumphant. The self that entered the labyrinth has died; you are transformed and now must embark on your return journey back out into the light. Upon returning, a phase of integration and embodiment occurs, where looking back you can see the lessons learned and wisdom gained through your transformation.

By walking or tracing a labyrinth, an individual absorbs a cosmic truth; the only way out is through. Whilst traversing any life challenge or ordeal, all that is asked of you is to ‘keep on keeping on.’ One must breathe; and take it one step at a time. There is only ever one direction, as winding and spiralling as the path may be. It is astoundingly simple, yet deep within the labyrinth one often feels utterly disoriented, and may come up against the ‘7 Gates’ or psychological thresholds within the labyrinth, which we will explore soon in the context of the childbirth journey.

The Cosmic Unfurling Labyrinth

Formations in nature often are both similar in imagery and have identical mathematical descriptions, despite being made and caused by dissimilar phenomena,9 pointing to a higher cosmic order and primordial unity.

We see this in the symbol of the encircled point, which symbolises the universe’s conception—appearing everywhere from the macrocosmic to the microcosmic. From the iris and pupil of our eyes; to the penis tip looking into the eye of the cervix; to the swell of a pregnant belly encircling the navel; through to cellular life and the centre of swirling galaxies.

We likewise see the primordial intersecting planes of the cross reflected in the cardinal directions of space, and within the frame of our bodies with the heart at the centre. Thus we embody the trinity as children of God (the divine polarity that birthed us), with the holy life-creating breath flowing through us and accessible within the abode of wisdom that is our hearts. Recall here the rosette at the centre of the Chartres labyrinth. We examine the trinity in greater depth inside Symbolika.

The labyrinth, then, flowing outward from the point and the cross, represents the psychological and spiritual journey of ordeal, death, rebirth, transformation, expansion, and return that is walked by the soul lifetime after lifetime. The labyrinth is the winding cosmic path that leads us where we must be led, in order to grow—in order to be fully human and fully divine. The labyrinth asks surrender of us. It asks for our trust—and for our courage to love.

It denotes a circuitous cosmic order.

A tapestry that weaves in, and out, in, and out, in, and out.

Labyrinthine Body; Labyrinthine Mind

Kosmos is a Greek word meaning ‘order’ or ‘orderly arrangement,’ adopted by Pythagoras in the 6th century BC to describe the universe as an embodiment of balance and harmony.10 The order inherent in the unicursal labyrinth path is indeed reflected within our own bodies; our brain is a labyrinthine network through which electrical impulses travel, and our heart, circulatory system, inner ear spirals, and kidneys (called renal labyrinths) are likewise all labyrinthine in design.11

Ancient peoples of Crete associated the labyrinth and spiral symbols with the internal organs of the human body as well as the underworld; the inner body being a microcosm of the latter.12 We each begin our life journey within the womb of our mother, whose circuitous, pulsing blood nourishes our growth through the shared placental labyrinth and umbilical cord. We therefore awaken to human consciousness within the maternal womb, lifetime after lifetime, just as we awakened to spiritual consciousness within the primordial womb of the Great Mother at the beginning of time.

We begin life as infants entirely reliant on and in sacred symbiosis with the mother—this is called the Motherbaby dyad. We do not recognise ourselves as seperate, though with time and further windings through the labyrinth as the years pass, we reach our centre and experience individuation. As we continue to wind our way back out again from that centred self, we begin to realise, once again, that everything is interconnected in one orderly whole. In Primitive Mythology: The Masks of God Joseph Cambell says of the labyrinth,

…a constellation of images denoting the plunge and dissolution of consciousness in the darkness of non-being must have been employed intentionally, from an early date, to represent the analogy of threshold rites.13

The brain’s right hemisphere, regarded as the ‘feminine’ side of the brain is responsible for instinct, intuition, emotion, insight, whole patterns, meaning-making, and understanding symbol and metaphor—and developed before the left. The left (masculine) brain proceeded from this archetypal, imaginal realm in order to compartmentalise the primordial whole with analysis, logic, written language, achievement-fulfilment, and directed linear-thinking. This follows the creation mythologies we explore inside Symbolika, where the masculine principle awakens within the primordial womb.

The act of walking or tracing a labyrinth encourages the brain to drop into a theta state by balancing activity between the hemispheres, allowing the logical thinking brain to fade into the background and the intuitive right-brain to remain at the forefront. This makes labyrinth meditation a powerful tool for accessing intuitive and creative depths in preparation for an impending ordeal or journey (like labour and birth), or to retrospectively make sense of and integrate a past journey.

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Labour, Birth, and Postpartum as Labyrinth

Childbirth is the original heroine’s journey, and the labyrinth works as a powerful analogy for the continuum of pregnancy, labour, birth, and postpartum. Whilst medical maps of birth portray linear, measurable pathways beginning with the onset of labour and ending with the emergence of the baby, the winding and meandering pathways of the labyrinth more aptly represent the inner and spiritual journey of childbirth, with the return journey continuing well into postpartum and the years to come.

Women’s bodies exist in spiralling, living, creative symbiotic harmony with their growing baby. We are not machines, and the mechanistic medical model of labour fails women with its outdated pressure to birth within a measured and narrow time framework, otherwise labelling them “failed.” The wisdom of the labyrinth lies in the inevitability of the ‘ordeal’ leading you exactly where you need to go in order to give birth—and it recognises that whilst the birth is the central triumph, the journey does not end there.

In this way, the inner journey of labour is a labyrinth, not a maze. There are no dead-ends or short-cuts. There is only one entrance into such an underworld journey, and the only way out is through. Whilst the labyrinth offers a holistic map for childbirth, it doesn’t however negate the experience of medical birth, because it describes the mother’s inner journey. In this way, exploring the labyrinth after a medical, traumatic, or sabotaged birth that didn’t go to ‘plan’ can actually offer deep healing and integration.

Labour can often feel like a maze due to the twists and turns in the labyrinth, the forwards and backwards motion of the circuitous journey. It can feel disorienting, because from some vantages the labouring mother may feel very close to birth (and it may look close on the labyrinth map!) and at other times she may feel like birth is very far away, when the emergence is actually imminent. For example, at the onset of labour pangs there is often a sense of excitement that her birth is finally happening. After twelve hours of active labour, deep within herself she may feel like birth is literally never going to happen—when in reality her babe may be in her arms within the hour.

Birth as Heroine’s Journey: Preparation, Ordeal, Transformation, and Return

The preparation phase of the ordeal of childbirth is unconscious—according to Pam England, former midwife and author of The Labyrinth of Birth, this phase includes your social conditioning and your whole life leading up to the ordeal. The mother alone will know when she crosses the threshold to begin the journey of labour. This may be with the onset of contractions; with her waters releasing; or even with a dream or intuition that she has entered the portal.

Whilst traversing the winding ordeal of labour toward the centre, it is normal to feel physically and emotionally challenged or surprised by the experience. The heroine is walking through the flames, allowing the depths of her underworld journey to cleanse her of old beliefs and patterns, resulting in the ultimate ego-death. Pam England outlines seven gates or thresholds one may meet within the labyrinth—these include the Gates of Great Doubt, Great Faith, Great Love, Great Determination, Gate of Mother Intuition, Gate of Mercy, and the Gate of Holy Terror and Deep Surrender.14

Often you cannot control the labyrinth, and your prior “vision” of birth may differ from the reality of the experience. The wisdom of the labyrinth asks only for endurance, surrender, trust, and to love yourself all the way through, and back into the light. The centre of the labyrinth is the moment of birth, including the mother meeting her baby and all the way through to the release of the placenta (birth is not complete until the birth of the placenta!) and into the golden hours of bonding and rest.

As with all labyrinths, though, you cannot remain in the centre forever. One must eventually turn around, babe in arms, and walk out of the spiralling passageways into the light, as Mother. This doesn’t take hours or days, though, like the journey of labour. It doesn’t last only for the first 40 days postpartum, either. The return journey can take years. On the journey of return you are met with many challenges and surprises, but you are ready to meet them with the fierce resilience of a woman who has already walked through fire.

I feel like I’ve personally just emerged from my own postpartum return journey after nearly five years of traversing the labyrinth. I had my children only 18 months apart, in wildly different birth experiences (an unplanned c-section followed by an unassisted VBAC at home). Because they were born so close together, my labyrinth journeys were nested one within the other—interconnected. I conceived and birthed my son whilst traversing my return journey with my daughter. After weaning my son at the beginning of this year, I experienced a profound inner shift, and know I’ve emerged fully into the light. Embodied, integrated, powerful, aware of the blind spots I experienced within the underworld, and aware of my soul tapestry with a newfound clarity of vision.

I have come home to myself.

This is the purpose of the labyrinth. To reach your centre; to return home to yourself.

Thank you for reading, dear soul. May this essay be a seed for you to further explore the sacred symbol of the labyrinth. You could draw or build one of your own, or find a walking labyrinth near you by using this labyrinth locator. According to the Labyrinth Society, there are over 6500 walking labyrinths worldwide, across 90 countries.

Labyrinths are easy to draw, and there are many examples online. I was going to record a ‘draw along’ video tutorial, but as I’m fairy pressed for time within the mothering season, I thought instead I’d first put it out there. Would anyone be interested in this? Please let me know!

Have you been on a labyrinth journey? What thresholds did you meet? What wisdom did you gather along the way? I’d love to hear how this symbol resonates for you. Let’s chat in the comments, and don’t forget to click the little heart if you enjoyed reading my work!

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You’ll hear from me next under the new moon, with the third instalment of Symbolika. We will be exploring the symbol of the sun.

With love an ancient birthing power,

Rebecca Mary

References

Campbell, Joseph. Primitive Mythology: Masks of God. Penguin, 1982.

England, Pam. Labyrinth of Birth: Creating a Map, Meditations and Rituals for Your Childbearing Year. Birthing from Within Books, 2010.

Gimbutas, Marija. The Language of the Goddess. Thames and Hudson, London. 1989.

Holloway, April. ‘The Ancient Stone Labyrinths of Bolshoi Zayatsky.’ April 20, 2014. Retreived from: https://www.ancient-origins.net/ancient-places-asia/ancient-stone-labyrinths-bolshoi-zayatsky-001573

Purce, Jill. The Mystic Spiral: Journey of the Soul. Thames and Hudson. 1980.

“… because any description of the Absolute must be limited, we are able to reveal it only by using symbols, which cut directly through all the layers and windings of our consciousness.”

—Jill Purce in The Mystic Spiral: Journey of the Soul

**Please note this article is best viewed on the Substack App**

Dearest readers,

The moon has waned to darkness; a glimmer of light at her edge hints of the illumination to come. Thus, we meet here again on our journey into seven primordial symbols preserved within the sicanje tradition and appearing cross-culturally since ancient times.

Today, we are exploring the wisdom of the cross (kriz in Croatian). A symbol so universal and powerful, I have come to handle it with deep reverence. Here we will consider how the cross is the natural progression from last month’s symbol, the kolo (encircled dot)—which we explored as representing our primordial beginnings in Source and the moment of the universe’s conception.

Today, we are looking at the directional expansion of spiritual and material creation that continues to emanate from our primordial beginning. We will further explore polarity within unity; look at the etymology and history of the cross; uncover the secrets of the Anthropos; examine Mary Magdalene’s gospel and the gnostic wisdom of the cross; and deeply consider (or revitalise) the meaning of the Trinity, using the Aramaic seed sounds spoken by Yeshua during his earthly life.

Here, we are looking at the cross as a cosmic process of creation; as spinning solar wheel; as yoni and lingam; as the ultimate harmony; as trinity; and as human being.

During the research for this essay, my own recalcitrant and fraught relationship to the cross has been healed, and my intention is for you to also experience a sense of expansion and profound renewal around this ancient and protective symbol. This essay was quite the undertaking, so without further ado, let’s begin!

Journal Prompt

Before we begin, take a moment to meditate on your relationship to the symbol of the cross. Write down any feelings, connotations, associations, or opinions you have on the cross. There is no right or wrong. This symbol carries immense weight, and many of us have shadows attached to it.

Allow your deepest thoughts to spill forth.

Then burn the paper.

This is a new beginning.

Symbolika Part 2: The Cross

The Kriz in Sicanje

Let’s begin where Symbolika began: with the symbols of sicanje. You will have likely read my post on the history of the tradition by now, but to briefly reiterate: sicanje is a tattooing practice passed down by primarily women within the Slavic region, pre-dating Christianity and stretching back thousands of years to the Illyrian tribes of the Bronze Age.

The more recent iteration of the tradition—when anthropologists began to take interest in documenting it—occurred during the tail end of the Ottoman Empire, when the Turkish occupied the Balkan lands. Women and mothers would tattoo symbols, including the cross, onto their daughters and each other to offer protection against Turkish kidnapping and as a reminder of their cultural roots and Catholic faith.

The symbols themselves are ancient, and predate Christianity—including the cross. Yet as we will explore within this essay, the esoteric meanings attributed to the cross carry the same potency and memory since the beginning of human symbolic recognition—regardless of religion or culture. Kriz is the memory and living reminder of not only our divine parentage—but our divine existence.

The History and Versions of the Cross

The cross is one of the most ancient and prolific symbols known to humanity, appearing as petroglyphs found in caves since the beginning of the Upper Palaeolithic. Of particular importance is the solar cross or sun wheel—depicted as encircled crosses describing the spokes of a wheel. The symbol dates back to the late Neolithic period of 8000-6000BC and appears across the earth, often developing independently of other cultures. From Siberia to Scandinavia, to ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Americas and the Balkans—you find depictions of the solar cross. During the Bronze Age period, the symbol was carved into stone monuments to track equinoxes and celestial phenomena; as a means of recording Earth’s physical motion through space.

There are a range of different depictions of the cross, from the equilateral Greek cross, to the Egyptian Ankh featuring the feminine sphere and symbolising harmony, and the rotating swastika from South Asia, among many others. What’s most striking is that the cross in its earlier depictions usually points to polarity via the encircled straight lines; the feminine and masculine in dance. This containment of the cross points to its deeper meaning. If the straight lines are representative of the masculine principle organising the material elements of the cosmos into being, the circle provides the space, the receptacle, and the vital energy for the motion of creation; together they form the kolovrat.

The kolovrat (Croatian and Slavic word for spinning wheel) is the combination of circular motion and linear direction, which spins physical existence into being. The kolovrat is never static; it is the symbol for the cosmos and all that is, thus it remains constantly spinning. Everything that exists continually cycles through states of birth, motion, collapse, and return—from the celestial bodies that orbit their stars within spiralling galaxies, right down to the orbit of electrons within the cells of our bodies. The Slavic view of the cosmos was shaped and deeply influenced by the celestial kolovrat, which was considered the source of life, law, and natural phenomena—and pointed to cosmic order and the cyclical nature of time.

Descent into Materiality: The Word Made Flesh

If the kolo symbolises the word, the kriz is the word made flesh. The cross symbolises the outpouring of physical phenomena that burst forth from our divine parentage. The straight intersecting lines of the cross represent the law and order that emerged from the turbid, chaotic waters of the primordial womb. It is the material expression of the original thought, the first word, the emanation that takes place after conception. The intersection of opposites—the vertical and horizontal lines—represent the eternal polarity that spins matter into existence.

In his book Sacred Geometry, mathematician Robert Lawler states,

The circular mandala or sacred diagram is a familiar and pervasive image throughout the history of art. India, Tibet, Islam, and Medieval Europe have produced them in abundance, and most tribal cultures produce them as well, either in the form of paintings or buildings or dances. Such diagrams are often based on the division of the circle into four quarters, and all the parts and elements are interrelated into a unified design. They are most often cosmological, that is, they represent in symbol what is thought to be an essential structure of the universe. For example, the four spatial directions, the four elements, the four seasons, sometimes the twelve signs of the zodiac, various divinities, and often man himself. But what is most consistently striking about this form of diagram is that it expresses the notion of cosmos, that is, of reality conceived of as an organised, unified whole.

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The four-spoked sun wheel or cross represents every season and cycle and law of matter. In addition to Lawler’s description, we often utilise the symbol to describe the four lunar phases, the four phases of the menstrual cycle, the four life phases (for example maiden, mother, matriarch, and crone—or child, adolescent, adult, and elder).

Although this type of cross is referred to as ‘solar’ and often associated with the sun, here we’re examining it as symbolising our physical position within space and the unending cyclic reality of life on the spiritual and physical planes. Within the sicanje tradition the solar disc/sun motif (sunce), which we will explore next month, is drawn in a distinct manner from the kriz motif—and they each hold their own meaning.

The cross encompasses all polarity, and demonstrates the sacred need for opposing forces on the physical plane: night/day, east/west, north/south, wet/dry, warm/cool, left/right, movement/stillness, female/male, feminine/masculine. Thus the world is created on a foundation of opposites; mirroring the Mother and Father who came together at the beginning of time, and whose breath intermingled to spur on the tumbling outward of material reality, birthing all that is through their sacred polarity. Lawler goes on to highlight that multiplication itself is indeed symbolised by a cross, explaining,

When we cross a horizontal with a vertical giving these line-movements equal units of length… a tangible, measurable reality comes into existence as a result of crossing. The symbol can be transferred symbolically to the crossing of any contraries such as crossing male and female which gives birth to an individual being, or the crossing of warp and weft which gives birth to a cloth surface, or the crossing of darkness and light which gives birth to tangible, visible form, or the crossing of matter and spirit which gives birth to life itself.

As we can see, the linear planes of the cross that stretch outward from the indivisible point held within kolo segment (not fragment) spirit-matter with harmonious structural order. Within the kolovrat, each part is in relation to the whole; and everything within the universe is alive and in motion. The cross, then, is the first emanation of sacred geometry, it is the plus of polarity and the multiplication of the multitude.

Dear valued readers

Here ends the free portion of this essay. If you feel called, I invite you to part the veil and continue reading. Each new moon we explore one primordial symbol that builds upon the others into a cohesive tapestry. This is designed as a slow-paced journey to broaden awareness of the symbols surrounding us and nourish your inner spiritual flame. Otherwise, please consider spreading the word by sharing my work or clicking the little heart.

Thank you for reading and being here—whether free or paying—it is a great honour.

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Listen while to you read, or close your eyes and float in her primordial waters…

MOTHER GOD

The cells of her body tremble 
on the precipice of genesis.
She is the creative landscape; 
awash with visionary elements.
From within Her eternal pool 
of blood and ether and water
roiling, swirling ideas await.
Her womb is boundless, primeval.
An ocean of possibility.
Every idea is held there. 
Ambivalent. Possible. 

Waiting to be energised.

His penis is the eye
both emerging from and entering 
Her temple and awakening there.
It looks into the eye of her cervix. 
He is Atum awaking within 
the primordial waters of Naunet.
The woman and man 
look into the cosmos of one another's
eyes as their breath intermingles.
Their shared breath is the Holy Spirit.
She opens and he enters.
A dance of feminine and masculine 
that blesses, and blesses, and blesses
through the harmonious breath of

LIFE.

An explosion of desire; an eruption!
His seed is sent forth within the
chalice of her womb and her idea 
entices his energy in with undulating 
arms: the ovum welcomes the seed.
It penetrates; there is direction,
they merge, they spiral, glorious.
Her idea is brought to life
in an explosion of 

LIGHT.

The zygote emanates, multiplies, 
expands, as She goes about 
her daily rhythms. Sipping tea,
cooking a meal, responding 
to an email. Meanwhile, 
the force of it rocks through her.
It fills her dreams it sings her cells 
it is the first Breath the real Idea 
the original Word, the mantramatrika 
calling forth life. She is All she is Genesis 
she is the Logos she is Creator.

The blastocyst expands, miraculous
it draws closer to the edges of her, 
it implants; it penetrates into Her dark,
nutrient-dense soil, Her fecund soul,
into the revered depths of the 
underworld, of Creation, from 
which the elements draw together
and form the Tree of Life, her 
placenta, which is food,
Grandmother, and root.

She was once One. 
The first and only one
the original matrix the sphere
the web, alone and spiralling
and ripe with potential and 
now she carries another. 

The other awakens within her,
it sprouts hands, it roils it rolls
it kicks it swims it grows and
grows. Together they dance, they
expand, She is transforming in her
expansion, voluptuously and gloriously 
her belly is now a mound, it is the 
mound of Benben sprouting 
its lotus flower, it is the omphalos,
navel of the Earth. Her belly is Kali's
belly, her belly is seed and alphabet,
her belly is temple and wine.

It says: see what I am! 
Bow before my Creation.
I am the fertile marshes
I am the jungle rainfall
I am the scrying pool at Delphi.
I hold the future in my belly
a whole universe in my belly 
an entire ocean in my belly and
oh, there is a wave coming
oh, I am all breath, and oh, I

ROAR.

It is coming. The cleaving 
the splitting the birthing I am
red I am earth I am tidal wave
I am fire I am the big bang I am
the star in her nebulae I am 
the centre I am the Source 
I was an ocean, now I am a 
river, flowing, flowing, pouring
He is coming the sky is 
falling I am moaning I am
tumbling I am singing I am
sighing I am screaming I am
breathing I am smiling I am 

MOTHER.

He emerges from her and 
they look upon one another. 

Oh, I am love. I am grief.
I am a heart beating and I am 
a heart breaking and I am 
a rose trembling in luxurious bloom 
I have opened every petal of myself
I am exuding and dripping love.

The Mother is fragrant. She is soft.
She is a velvet caress. She is warmth. 
She is world. She is universe. She is the 
source of Her child's life She is Goddess. 
She is sun and skin and soul. The triangle 
of her womb, the original temple and 
church exhales as it draws inward,
it rests, it has held the Holy of Holies. 

Other parts of her expand, now.
The mounds of her breast, each a 
pyramid reaching for the cathedral 
ceiling of her child's mouth, nipples
spilling out the water of life.
She is milk. She is Creator. She is 
source of nourishment and life.
Into the rosebud mouth of Her 
creation, her idea conceived, her 
dream made real, she pours life. 
She is food, she is substance, she 
is home, she is world, she is the 
Always Was, the Eternal, Holy

Mother.

—Rebecca Mary Roose

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In cosmologies spanning the earth, the creation of the cosmos is regarded as a harmony of polarities—the dance of feminine and masculine principles. In many of these myths, the masculine principle gestates within and awakens to consciousness inside the cosmic womb. She exists as a formless, primeval abyss, with all potential for creation humming within her. The masculine principle gives form and order to the universe, anchoring the swirling ideas of her imaginal realm into the material—together they create the cosmos.

How does the title ‘Mother God’ land in your body? I know calling the Mother God remains tainted with heresy, for some. Perhaps for many. Something so ingrained within our cultural upbringing—the idea of an old white-bearded man sitting on a golden throne in the sky.

That feeling of heresy clouding around the words Mother + God?

We need to change it.

For our daughters, and for our sons.

God is both Mother and Father. Our divine parentage. Primordial unity. The dance of feminine and masculine. We can refer to God as either and both gender—God has two faces. All beings gestate within the mother, yet this does not create a hierarchy between male and female, or masculine and feminine.

The acceptance that all beings gestate within the Mother simply gives the Mother her all due respect. And by God, she deserves the respect. As women, we carry a microcosm of the primordial and eternal womb that gestated all Creation.

And we ourselves gestate Creation.

I explore this idea through the poem, where a pregnant woman is both divine and human creator, creating in the image of the Great Mother who existed before time. We need the male seed to fertilise creation—yet he himself must also first exist inside the mother. We mirror this cosmic truth through our own process of procreation.

I wrote this poem in response to one of my prompts inside my Symbolika series. The poem (and my reading of it) is not polished or perfect—simply something that flowed from me.

This month, we are exploring the primordial symbol of kolo, meaning ‘circle’ or ‘wheel’ in Croatian—describing the masculine principle (the dot) emerging out of the feminine principle (the sphere). We draw parallels across cosmological myths through a feminine lens, and explore the living presence of kolo within us. We’re looking at deities like Kali, Eurynome, and Sophia and their masculine counterparts—and the cosmic womb, the prima materia, depicted in Vedic, Ancient Egyptian, and Daoist cosmology.

The symbol of the encircled dot represents God; the Logos; the Supreme Deity, and as my poem illustrates; this universal symbol is mirrored in our own biology.

We see it in our eyes; in atoms and their nuclei; in the cervix; the penis tip; the sperm entering the ovum; the implantation of the blastocyst into the uterine wall; the placenta and its umbilical cord; the navel atop the swell of a pregnant belly; the newborn crowning and emerging through the yoni; the bullseye of a nipple on the mound of the breast… all emulating the encircled dot, symbolising the moment of conception that then proceeds to creation. 🧿

If you’d like to receive access to the series and the creative journal prompts & integration practices within, we have only just begun. We will journey with a different archaic symbol each month for seven months.

Lastly, I would like to share with you the Ancient Mother playlist I put together in the early days of growing my publication. It is my gift to you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for being here. (If you have any track recommendations, please do tell!!)

Listen and feel Her power.

If this poem resonated with you, I’d love to hear from you in the comments.

Leave a comment

Have a blessed day, my loves, and remember—you are a portal for creation.

With love and ancient birthing power,

Rebecca Mary

*Please note, this essay is best viewed on the Substack app*

Welcome to Symbolika!

Remembering the First Language

The seed for this series was planted whilst deepening my exploration of sicanje tattoo motifs of the Croatian and Bosnian tradition—symbols inked into the skin of my Slavic female lineage for thousands of years, with roots in the Illyrian tribes that inhabited the western Balkan peninsula from the 10th century BC.

When I first laid my eyes on photographs of these symbols inked onto the skin of women, I knew I was looking at something archaic—motifs with layers of meaning bestowed upon them over time. Symbols that have been utilised cross-culturally since the very bosom of written and artistic communication among humans—they appear everywhere—and attached to each is an unfurling cosmic truth.

If you haven’t yet read my essay Sicanje: Sacred Tattoos and Women’s Identity in Croatia and Bosnia, please do (whenever you have the time) as I cover the history and tradition of sicanje itself. Here, in Symbolika, we will be delving into the various symbols depicted within the tattoo motifs, not through a Slavic lens specifically but as primordial symbols that span culture and time.

We will walk with one ancient symbol each month for seven months, exploring the spiritual and cosmological resonance of each. I have designed this journey to be a steady, resonant unfolding that weaves together each symbol into a rich tapestry, month by month, new moon to new moon.

THE JOURNEY

I. Kolo—The Circle (Origins/Cosmic Birth/The Logos)

II. Kriz—The Cross (Descent into Materiality/The Word Made Flesh/The Trinity)

III. Sunce—The Sun (Redemption/Illumination/The Divine Spark)

IV. Jelica—The Fir Tree (Tree of Life/The World Tree/Axis Mundi)

V. Klas—Ear of Wheat (Human Progress/Cultivation/Custodianship)

VI. Ograda & Narukvica—Fence & Bracelet (Community/Protection/Sacred Boundaries)

VII. Zvijezdica—Stars (Cosmic Potential/Ancient Mysteries/Return)

Suggested tools for your journey: A quiet space, a warm cup of your favourite beverage, a journal, and whatever you like to write and draw with.

The Kolo

The practice of sicanje tattooing across the Balkans is ancient, yet we don’t have much historical documentation detailing it until the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, when anthropologists began to take an interest in the tradition. In its more recent iteration, the tradition was practiced amongst Catholic women to mark Rites of Passage, to offer them protection from the Ottoman Empire, and as a reminder of their faith. British anthropologist Edith Durham was a leading figure in reframing the stylised elements of the motifs as pointing to pagan origins—depicting natural forces with reverence for the natural world.

Today, we will be delving into cross-cultural cosmologies whilst examining the symbol of the encircled dot as representing God and the origins of consciousness. As we can see from sicanje tattoo designs, there are various ways to depict kolo. Kolo in Hrvatski (the Croatian language) translates to ‘circle’ or ‘wheel.’ It is often tattooed containing a cross (kriz), or with rays emanating from it like a solar disc (sunce), which forms a kolovrat—a spinning sun wheel—which we will explore in the next parts of the series.

Today, we are looking at primarily the encircled point—a dot within a sphere.

The kolo is often seen as symbolising the traditional Croatian dance of the same name where participants form a circle, thus representing community connection and the continuous circle of life. Indeed, there are many ways we can make meaning of this symbol, but here in this essay I attempt to take the interpretation to its mystical and primordial root.

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Symbolika Part One: The Encircled Dot

Before we delve into the cosmological meaning of this symbol and the wisdom traditions that emanate forth from it, I invite you to a simple meditation practice. Relax into your chair, turn your screen brightness down, and gaze into the centre point within the circle above.

Sit with the symbol for a few minutes, or however long feels comfortable.

Journal prompt

Write down whatever words come to you whilst meditating on the image above. Don’t ‘think’ about it too much. Simply automatically write whatever comes forth.

In the Beginning

The encircled dot tells a story of chaos and awakening.

Of latency and consciousness.

Of the dance between feminine and masculine.

Of duality within unity.

The symbol itself can be said to represent the ultimate, all-encompassing indivisible substance of reality.

The Divine. The Absolute. God.

The motif symbolises our birth in unity—the awakening of consciousness from a latent state of potentiality. It is regarded as the sacred symbol of consciousness in its un-manifested state from which the universe precedes; the divine nucleus from which all life emanates.

Known as the kolo in Hrvatski—and as the Bindu and Monad in the Vedic and Greek traditions—the symbol appears across cultures, often within mystic visionary art, to describe the Supreme Being and source of All. In his book Sacred Geometry, mathematician Robert Lawler states:

The original unity, represented by a circle, is the real-idea, the thought of God, which the Hindus call bindu or seed, and we call the geometrical point.

From the mystic traditions stretching back into our archaic past, through to modern mathematics and science, humanity regards the beginning of the universe as an explosive becoming or awakening from latent to manifest—and the shape we often conceive of for such a beginning emanates out from a central point held within the receptacle of a sphere.

The sphere is usually regarded as the feminine principle, and the penetrating dot or point as the masculine principle. We will observe that the feminine/masculine aspects of the original unity, the divine polarity that births all that is, appears in many an ancient cosmology, and is mirrored in our own genetic cosmology as creatures of the earth and children of the universe.

Feminine & Masculine as Divine Duality

The circle represents the feminine principle.

The womb; the primeval waters. Boundless space; latency. The chaotic prima materia. This is the original ‘matrix’ (the etymology of matrix is found in the Latin, mater; mother); a cosmic web of potential for creation.

Yet like an ovum awaiting the seed in order to create life, the cosmic womb requires a penetrating life force to awaken and thus animate her fecund void, and give direction to her chaotic energies.

The dot within the circle represents the masculine principle.

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During that season of my life, I was suffering with debilitating obsessive compulsive disorder. Every night before bed I would painstakingly repeat the same routine, which involved straightening out various trinkets in my bedroom—the Bugs Bunny toy that suctioned itself to my four-poster bed, my fairy jewellery boxes, the little glow-in-the-dark statue of Mother Mary crushing the devil with her bare, slender foot. I would move each object millimeter by millimeter, over and over, until I somehow deemed them satisfactorily positioned to turn off my beside lamp.

Then, there was turning off the lamp itself.

Over and over, I would click the lamp on-off-on-off-on-off, with the intention for the light to be extinguished during a good thought. If an intrusive bad thought flew into my mind at the moment of the light blinking out into darkness, I told myself I would have insomnia that night (sometimes I did). So on the lamp would go, and I would repeat this process until my wrist was sore from the repetition, until the good thought persisted in that transitory moment from light to dark, and I could finally lay down my sweet, weary head and sleep.

The compulsions showed up in my daily life, too—straightening the TV remote on the coffee table for a solid five minutes, arriving late for class because I was arranging my text books perfectly in my locker long after the bell had rung and all my peers had rushed off—it was a nightmare. My parents obviously knew about my affliction but this was the 2000s, still a time where mental illness wasn’t overtly spoken about or acknowledged. Despite my attempts to communicate my need for some form of help, I was left alone to deal with my demon.

My parents are Catholic, so naturally we had prayer books and things of the sort around the house, and we attended church every Sunday. I found somewhere a little pamphlet about St Thérèse and her promise to fulfil one’s prayer should you evoke her intercession for nine days. The promise of a rose at the end of the little ritual was especially enticing to me, given my lifelong affinity for the rose (something in my blood, and in my name—my Dutch surname, Roose, means rose), not to mention the promise of this beautiful woman in the spiritual realm performing a miracle in my life and dissolving my OCD.

Every day, my young desperate self would recite the prayer, begging the lady of flowers to answer me, heal me, send me a rose. The week before, I had picked an enormous rose in the churchyard and placed it in a vase in my room, and I noticed a few days later it had disappeared, which seemed strange. I looked around my room for it, but it was gone. When I finished my ninth day of prayer, literally at the moment I said Amen, a lightbulb realisation flew into my mind.

I ran to the vase, peered inside, and there was the rose from the week prior—it had dried, and fallen through the neck of the vase to the rounded bottom. I was filled with equal parts amazement, wonder, and almost-disbelief—the same joyful feeling that still reverberates through my heart when a synchronicity or small miracle unfolds in my life.

I prayed to a saint that promises you a rose. And I received one.

The most important question remains though. Was I healed? Did my OCD go away?

It might seem unbelievable, but the answer is yes. The debilitating affliction that plagued me, that made my daily rhythm increasingly torturous at a tender age, all but dissipated. The nighttime routine stopped. I could run from my locker to class, books a-shambles. Turn off lights without stressing about my thoughts.

I was healed.

It was a profound experience, yet one I don’t often think about, given the OCD never returned. But I have been thinking about it lately. This remarkable overcoming of a ‘mental disorder,’ the memory of it returning to me, petal by petal—something to ponder, to examine and turn over in my hands as one would a delicate, dried rose.

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As I recalled my young self praying for a miracle, I realised it contains a lesson for my current inner drama. I remembered the ease with which my affliction flew from me when I was an absolutely determined young girl with an open heart, evoking something powerful and pure to heal me. I remember my complete rejection of OCD—how fully and unwaveringly I wanted it gone. I know now that the healing, as with all prayer, came from within as much as it did from without. It was a cosmic dance I took part in, as is all prayer. I have been pondering the nature of prayer recently, as I’ve been studying the work of theosophist Annie Besant. I’ve also recently been reading the essays on entities by here on Substack, which have been supporting and shaping my understanding of afflictions, addictions, and the distortion of consciousness people call ‘demons.’

The seed of this essay was planted with a handful of words I strung together in my journal recently: ‘it is essential I write something spontaneous and beautiful.’

I looped that sentence onto the page in a moment of feeling deeply, urgently drawn to my writing—to specifically letting something spill out unplanned, and from the heart. I craved a return to the deep well of creativity that never fails to baptise me with wisdom when I bathe in her dark, cool waters. I craved this because I have been struggling with desire, experiencing a sense of urgency to create for the sake of the ego rather than the soul—brought about by social media—which presents me with another affliction. Like the OCD demon being cast out of me, I long to be free from the need for validation, visibility, and popularity.

It’s been a while since I’ve written a spontaneous personal essay like this one. No plan or map. No research or notes. Just my fingers frantic over the keys. I feel like I’ve been underground for the past months. Yet I have actually been quite productive in my life and work. I have been pouring my free time into the first part of my Symbolika Substack series, which will be released on the coming new moon. Researching and writing for it has been like a mystical journey through the star-sprinkled desert. The seed of the idea came through when I wrote my essay on my Slavic maternal lineage, and since then I’ve been showered in synchronicity, weaving threads of symbol, cosmology, religion, and myth together into something cohesive and illuminating.

The writing of Symbolika is so intertwined with my own spiritual journey, which at the moment feels like I am being simultaneously bound in powerful tendrils of earthly illusion, and cracked open to something pure and silent and eternal. There’s a struggle within me: the desperate need for the dissolution of my yearning for earthly accolades, success, and external validation in my life and work. This doesn’t mean I don’t want to be successful and make a meaningful impact in this world—more that I want to overcome the attachment to the outcome.

I’m on the verge of something akin to what that novena to St Thérèse gifted me all those years ago in my season of inner turmoil.

I’m ready to be showered in roses.

The paragraphs to follow are a vulnerable share, where I attempt to articulate my relationship with social media and what I’ve come to refer to as the visibility entity. In my previous essay, I wrote about the gnostic myth of Sophia (representing sacred feminine wisdom, harmony, wholeness) and the Demiurge (representing ignorance, materiality without spirituality, the forgetting of our origins in God). The theme is showing up for me again here, so I’m running with it.

Just as the petulant and jealous ‘creator’ god wants humanity to worship no god above him, especially not the Great Mother, whom he denies the existence of, and just as he wants humanity to remain ‘entrapped’ in materiality, thus going against the grain of the universe and our natural desire to return to the arms of pure spirit (God), it seems he also wants us to honour no life outside of the digital cyber-scape.

In a past essay titled Instagram as Pandora’s Box, I wrote:

By engaging on a regular basis with intangible voids of noise on the internet, by developing a daily relationship or even addiction to social media apps, you undeniably lose something of life.

You lose time, presence, sleep, your attention span, and moments of intimate connection with the actual, real, physical human beings in your actual, real, physical life. These are facts. My question is, how much are we willing to lose? Where do the benefits of regular social media engagement actually outweigh the detriments?

Another question I’d like to now ask is: who is benefiting? If we are sacrificing our energy, our wellbeing, our mental health, and even our values to a platform—who is benefiting? What entity exists at the top? What is feeding on you?

We are living in a culture that is overtly demanding us be digitally visible, or else risk non-existence. Visibility culture is the product of a thought virus, preying on our desire for belonging. The algorithm enforces it—the constant need to produce, perform, stay relevant, persuade—dare not you rest, or else you may be forgotten. I know this is the demiurge at play—a demon, a false god, a master of illusion and distortion that feeds on us when we step out of alignment with our soul purpose and unique frequency.

This visibility entity screams at us to be BE SEEN! BE SEEN! BE SEEN! Yet being seen for the sake of vanity is problematic. When I take a peek into Instagram and observe myriad entrepreneurs, coaches, healers, and influencers (many of them claiming to be ‘spiritual teachers’) amassing enormous followings by churning out the same homogenised content, the same containers using the same chatGPT-generated marketing language, following the same trends, everyone scrambling for their little piece of popularity pie… I feel repulsed, yet I still have the little voice purring in my ear, telling me to cash in. Look at all of those likes and shares! That could be you. Don’t you want to join the party? Sell me your soul. I resist that voice because doing its bidding would be utterly out of alignment… but how I wish it would just shut up!

When I log in to Instagram, I am often immediately walloped in the gut by a flurry of envy, overwhelm, urgency, and comparison. I feel a fainter version of this when I scroll Notes here on Substack. When I take a step back, I realise those feelings are not mine. I know what my values are; I consciously opt out of giving my precious time and energy to Instagram, meanwhile I’m realistic about how often I can be churning out Notes. I believe I have a certain level of depth—genuine talent and wisdom to offer—that struggles to be contained in a 90 second reel, that algorithms do not support, and the masses do not want to understand. I can also be confusing—one minute I’m writing erotic poems about Persephone’s descent, and the next I’m talking about saints and miracles and Christ. If there is one thing I know about myself as a Sagittarius and 8th house native—I like to explore it all, and I like to go deep.

Thus I walk the path of the heretic (human design 5/1—apparently we have online support groups, guys). I have an innate gift for creation, for shining warmth and light into the darkness, and illuminating the unseen. Only, it is often a small number of people who are willing to open their eyes and receive. Substack has been beautiful for this—there are many here who resonate with my ideas, transmissions, and sometimes rambles (I feel this essay may be one). Despite this, I still rarely feel seen. This is likely deeply tied to my Chiron in Leo placement (sigh), and I know at this moment in my life I am experiencing the poison that doubles as medicine. Sometimes it feels like I’m fighting an uphill battle. In my soul work, in my writing, in everything.

My frequency resonates only with those who are willing to go there, into the desert, into the underworld, into the place where our humanity and spiritual selves intersect. The abode of the heart. My challenge has been in surrender. To staying rooted to my soul purpose. To remaining devoted to my writing—even when no one is watching. To accepting my seasons of inner winter and outer blooming. To balance my human desire for earthy success, with my spiritual desire for soul advancement.

Which leads me to this: yes, social media is demiurgic. Yet in the story of Sophia and the Demiurge (there are parallels there with Kali and Shiva, Eurynome and Ophion, and in myriad other cosmologies, which we’ll explore in Symbolika) the Great Mother infuses the world with her wisdom and harmony, her grief-fuelled love, and her terrible beauty. That’s why earth and humanity are both beautiful and tragic. It’s also why true beauty, connection, and wisdom can indeed pass from soul to soul in the online space, a space that may otherwise be seen as tragic.

There are two sides to the social media coin—but I believe in order to utilise it in a way that is beneficial, we must be constantly working on our ego, constantly aware of our triggers and addictions, and constantly centring our spiritual hygiene, i.e. asking ourselves: Is this action/interaction/thought process/compulsion fulfilling or draining my essence? And if the latter: To whom or what am I giving access to my energy, whom or what is draining me and thus benefiting from this exchange?

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On a more joyous note, I may quickly touch on another topic I’ve been ruminating on—soul family. Soul family has been a theme for me recently, dawning on me like a velvety rose unfurling her sweet fragrance in the desert. I am surrounded by soul family. I don’t just mean in my physical, daily life. I mean in the spirit realm, like my guide Thérèse, spiralling through dimensions to heal through the love of Christ. I also mean across the earth—to women I have met on the internet who carry the same frequency as my own, with similar gifts messages to impart to humanity. Women I may have never met if not for the online space, but have come into my life like gilt mirrors showing me something I recognise. One glance—and something familiar.

That’s Sophia in action—she exists here online, too.1

I can feel each trembling petal on the flower of my life, each soul close in my orbit belonging to a multitudinous tapestry of lifetimes. I know this love is a culmination of crossing paths with one another through many births and deaths on the wheel of life. Yet despite all of this joyful recognition—a heaviness. Something tender. It seems the more beauty that enters my life, the more my festering wounds, negative traits, dysregulation, and shadows make themselves known. I am reminded just how absolutely fragilely human I am, despite also knowing I am an ancient spiritual being with wings to fly.

Humanity is damn humbling.

We all feel the desire for recognition and earthly accolades—even when we know detachment is true mastery. Yet transcending the human is only possible when we have mastered our humanity. The path of return to God doesn’t need to be the straight line seemingly followed by saints and adepts. It is cyclical; it spirals, we are allowed to be human and be humbled. We are allowed to be tempted, to make mistakes, and to try again. The desire to collect trinkets and treasures, to be validated2 by others, to have some form of power and influence—these were all the desires tormenting Jesus when he went into the desert. Satan tempted Jesus to prove his power—and in response Jesus taught us that being powerful and having power (over others) are not the same thing. Be seen. Be validated. Have power. Aquire things. Succeed. These are the trials and tribulations of the human soul.

Right now, I feel like I’m also in the desert.

Let’s talk about Mary Magdalene for a moment.

Mary whom I have a deep affinity with, but have not yet written about here (there is a saturation of Mary Magdalene writing on Substack, which is both beautiful and somehow off-putting all at once). In the Bible, she is referred to in Luke 8:2 as a woman who was liberated from seven demons. We could take these ‘demons’ to mean grotesque and gnarled creatures hovering in the ether around her, or we could take them to mean afflictions; addictions; obsessions; and all-too-human torment.

Mary Magdalene was a woman. A real, human woman. Like our young Thérèse. Like you. Like me.

And this is the crux of her wisdom, her teachings—and the teachings of Christ. They tell us how we are human; but further they teach how we can balance our humanity and our spirituality—which is true mastery. How we can be fully human and fully divine. To become the balanced being—the Anthropos. In The Gospel of Mary Magdalene, a series of four ‘climates’ or distorted states of being are referred to. They are stages of the ego we must transmute in order to achieve gnosis. The first three are described as

1. Darkness and absurdity

2. Craving

3. Refusal of Knowledge

We move up through the climates, beginning with absurdity (nihilism), to craving (desire to possess), to refusal of knowledge (complacency; vanity), and land within the forth climate, which is described as ‘Sevenfold Wrath.’ This wrath contains within it seven ‘demons’ one must be liberated from, passing through each and shrugging them off like cloaks being discarded. These include the afflictions of: darkness, craving, ignorance, lethal jealousy, enslavement to the body, intoxicated wisdom, and guileful wisdom.3

Do you recognise any of these afflictions within yourself?

Surely none of us here are saints, and we are each journeying with and being liberated from various demons. I’m not going to go deep on the gospels in this essay (would anyone be interested in a series devoted specifically to Mary Magdalene and her gospel and legacy?) but to tie this all together, a quote from the Dao De Jing is brought to mind, reflected back to me recently when discussing urgency culture and algorithms with a fellow Substack writer . She quoted “those who know do not speak, those who speak do not know.”4

When I read this quote, I am reminded of the intoxicated and guileful wisdom spoken of in Mary Magdalene’s gospel. In his commentaries on the gospel, theologian Jean-Yves Leloup describes this sevenfold wrath as a climax of ‘possessiveness, pride, and the madness of profane wisdom.’ To link this further back to social media—I see this playing out all the time. Pride? Check. Possessiveness? Check. Creators, writers, spiritual influencers claiming to be the ultimate authority on whatever topic they’re intoxicating themselves with… check. The ego-wars, the polarisation, the trends, the jealousy, the rivalries, the ignorance, the profanity—check, check, check.

It’s a minefield.

So when I feel the urge to create for the sake of the ego, to prove myself, to be validated, to keep up and stay relevant in the algorithm (including here, on Notes), I remember that beautiful quote from the Dao De Jing. Spiritual growth is somewhat invisible—it asks humility of us. It begs for the quiet. Urges us to lay down in the damp soil of our soul with our hands over our heart.

The voice that urges us to prove ourselves? That comes from somewhere else. That is not the voice of God.

I know my being lured by the visibility entity is a challenge I’ve set myself in this lifetime to transmute. Why do I want anything more than the world I’ve been given? I have been blessed in this lifetime with sacred gifts. The dearest soul family surrounding me; children sent straight from heaven that emerged onto the earth through the temple of my own powerful, healthy body; a partner and provider of strong moral character; a passion for learning and expansion; a talent for writing and an innate love of words; a tenderness in my heart that threatens to burst.

So in pondering my experience with St Thérèse, and the demon cast out of me with such gentle ease, I wonder what would happen if I again pray with unwavering openness as a 33 year old woman obsessing over feelings of urgency and overwhelm and ego tied up in something that is so very much the fabric of our times: social media.

Is it time for another novena?

That’s all for now dear ones. If this essay stirred something within you, I would love to hear from you in the comments.

Do you struggle with ego validation whilst navigating social media?

Or do you feel you’re divinely guided, non-attached, and manage to thrive producing short-form content?

Do you see social media being woven into the tapestry of your entire life, or will there be a time you walk away from it all?

What are your thoughts on entities, the casting out of demons, miracles, and The Gospel of Mary Magdalene?

Let’s chat my loves.

Leave a comment

Lastly—for those of you who’ve jumped in on Symbolika, I am so excited to begin this weekend! I will be publishing the foundational first part of the series, on the symbol of the encircled dot (kolo) where we will explore our origins, the dance of feminine and masculine throughout the cosmos, draw parallels across ancient mythologies and cosmologies, and weave a cohesive tapestry exploring the presence of this symbol within ourselves.

If you’re curious about joining, or are seeking more information, read my Invitation to Symbolika and please feel free to reach out! It’s all delivered on Substack in newsletter format to paying subscribers. We will journey new moon to new moon, for seven months.

And lastly lastly—I have a lot of correspondence to catch up on here. If you’re awaiting a message or comment reply, apologies for the delay, I will be responding shortly.

Until next time,

With love and ancient birthing power

Rebecca Mary x

Before philosophy, theology, or psychology—there were symbols.

Self-perpetuating images emanating forth from the cosmos.

Sacred geometry. Swirling and vibrating and creating.

Weaving the cosmos into being. Weaving us into being.

Humanity came to recognise these images—a seed of truth hidden in each.

Like a tapestry flung over our very existence, hinting of our beginnings.

We gave them meaning. Or rather—we came to understand what they represent.

We painted them on cave walls. Carved them in stone. Wove them in cloth.

And tattooed them into our skin.

Dear readers, I have been creating something.

I am delighted to introduce you to Symbolika: a seven-part spiritual journey delving into the archaic symbols preserved within the motifs of the sicanje (Croatian and Slavic) tattoo tradition. Symbols that communicate not only a connection to culture, but harken back to ancient times—possibly to the very origins of consciousness.

When I first discovered the tattoo tradition of my lineage, I was blown away by the symbols themselves. I recognised them instantly as primordial and ancient—appearing in art, rock carvings, fabric motifs, and as religious and mythological concepts across cultures, across the earth, across time. For those who haven’t read it yet, I share an overview of the sicanje tattoo tradition in my post Sicanje: Sacred Tattoos and Women’s Identity in Croatia and Bosnia.

When I began to examine the various motifs utilised in sicanje, an illuminating cosmology emerged—and I invite you to share in my discovery. In Symbolika, we will be delving into symbols and the spiritual traditions emanating forth from them. Each month, we will remember one primordial symbol—exploring its historical roots, psychological resonance, and living presence within us today. Through research, reflection, poetry, and guided journal prompts, each symbol will build upon the other to form a rich tapestry of cosmological wisdom.

It is worth noting that whilst the inspiration for this journey is rooted in my Slavic lineage, the essays themselves will be a symbolic exploration delving into primordial symbols that shaped human consciousness—drawing from various spiritual traditions. It’s not a course in sicanje or Croatian culture.

Sicanje merely carries the seeds; here I water them.

Symbolika: Remembering the First Language

A seven-part journey into the cosmic architecture of the self

THE JOURNEY:

I. Kolo—The Circle (Origin/Cosmic Birth/The Logos)

II. Kriz—The Cross (Descent into Materiality/The Word Made Flesh/The Trinity)

III. Sunce—The Sun (Redemption/Illumination/The Divine Spark)

IV. Jelica—The Fir Tree (Tree of Life/The World Tree/Axis Mundi)

V. Klas—Ear of Wheat (Human Progress/Cultivation/Custodianship)

VI. Ograda/Narukvica—Fence/Bracelet (Community/Protection/Sacred Boundaries)

VII. Zvijezdica—Stars/Star Passageways (Cosmic Potential/Ancient Mysteries/Return)

TOGETHER WE WILL EXPLORE:

• The archaic worldview encoded in symbol

• The relationship between cosmos, psyche, and self

• The common threads that weave through spiritual traditions & mythologies

• The divinity within matter & humanity

• The joyful recognition of what exists within and connects us all

EACH MODULE INCLUDES:

• A deep symbolic exploration & teaching

• Mythological, religious, and cross-cultural parallels

• Reflective journal + art prompts

• Integration + meditation practices

• Presented via written, audio + video content

Participants will also have the opportunity to have their poetry, prose, journal prompts, and art featured in posts throughout the journey—together we will weave the beauty, the mystery, and the magic of our shared experience for the world to witness.

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Symbolika is my gift to anyone who chooses to participate in its weaving. I do not claim to position myself as an authority on cosmic truth—I am a mother and writer walking her own spiritual path, called to share her thoughts, reflections, connections, and discoveries with likeminded souls.

This journey will be released as a gradual, resonant unfolding over the span of seven months.

Seven months. One symbol per month. All delivered on Substack in newsletter format.

This is my first paid tier offering for those who feel the pull to walk alongside me in a closer, deeper way. There will be a chat space for paying subscribers, where we can connect, discuss, dream, and share our reflections and journey with one another. This will continue on as a meeting place for paying subscribers, as Symbolika will be the first of additional paid tier offerings to come.

Moving forward, I will of course continue to publish free essays to my beloved readers and Ancient Mother community—Symbolika and future paid offerings simply add a new layer to my existing body of work and writing practice.

So, if you feel called to come along on my mystical desert caravan travelling into the primordial consciousness of being… I invite you to step in!

Subscribe now

We begin on the New Moon in May.

Message, comment, or email me with any questions you may have. I look forward to seeing some of you inside Symbolika.

With love and ancient birthing power,

Rebecca Mary

That something essential is missing from your life—an unknown something you move through the world perpetually searching for.

I know I have felt this way. Beneath the surface of my emotional landscape has always flowed an undercurrent of yearning—a longing for a fulfilment I cannot name, yet somehow remember.

I suspect many of us experience a similar feeling simmering beneath the surface. And I believe story medicine—Herstory medicine—may be balm for the wound.

The ancient Gnostics believed this longing was not a flaw in the human soul, but a memory. A memory of an ancient story, the story of the divine Sophia, and her descent into matter.

Strangers in a Strange Land

The feeling of alienation is no stranger to the human condition.

The tragic phenomenon of exile is ever-present and relevant today as it has been throughout our current cycle on the great wheel of time—the Iron Age or Kali Yuga—where our spiritual capacity as human beings is subdued, thus manifesting materially in the colonial violence that continues to sweep the Earth like wildfire.

In Gnosticism: New Light on the Ancient Tradition of Inner Knowing, author Stephen A. Hoeller writes of modern history:

Millions upon millions of people were herded from or forced to flee their ancestral homelands to spend their lives in places and among persons who are alien to their race, their traditions, their very souls. Deportations, ethnic cleansings, refugee camps, and enclaves of exiles desperately trying to preserve vestiges of their ancient cultures are familiar and ever-reappearing realities.

This can be understood as the microcosm within the macrocosm.

Recorded in the Coptic texts of the Nag Hammadi library, the gnostic mythology of Sophia as embodiment of Divine Feminine Wisdom exiled from her home within Source, and the return journey following her descent, is a beautiful analogy for our collective tendency toward feelings of unbelonging or lonesomeness, and the outward expression of this alienation on Earth today.

The gnostics recognised that our propensity for both inner and outer exile is deeper than the domino effect of historical events. They believed our exile has a trans-cosmic dimension not originating on the human level, and that as spiritual beings inhabiting earthly bodies we are indeed ‘strangers in a strange land.’ In other words: we belong in the great Elsewhere. And where else would we belong, if not with God, within the fullness of unity, within the light-filled bosom of the All?

The gnostics suggest that our inner alienation is both a challenge and guiding light—that this core wounding can lead us to the medicine. And that the medicine is journeying toward that light and tending the inner flame of divinity, in order to achieve gnosis and become one again with God. This, of course, is the wisdom Jesus Christ and other prophets came to impart to humanity—and likely many female visionaries and emissaries of light—who, of course, were not celebrated by the patriarchal empire but rather dismissed and purposefully erased as much as possible from the historical record.

The Gnostic Myth of Sophia

Before blood ran in the veins of your ancestors; before water gushed from river to sea; before the seven spheres orbited the Sun; before even the Sun.

Before cells multiplied fruitfully; before atoms and their nuclei;

Before cosmos; before matter;

There was the eternal Before.

And within this eternal before, was consciousness.

I Am That I Am.

And within this I Am, also known as the Fullness or Pleroma, existed emanations of consciousness in varied yet unified form, known as the Great Beings.

The youngest of these Great Beings was a feminine manifestation of consciousness known to us now as Sophia (Sophia is her Greek name; in Hebrew she is Chokmah, meaning Wisdom; her ancient Egyptian counterpart was the goddess Isis-Hathor1).

The young Sophia existed with her sisters and brothers in the embrace of God, glorified in the eternal light of the Fullness. Though a moment came to be that Sophia found herself distanced from her divine home.

Sophia sees a light in the distance which she mistakes for God, and she begins to journey towards it. When she is stopped at the Limit (Horos), the realisation dawns on her that she was only travelling towards God’s light reflected back to her in the Abyss.

Sophia then becomes divided.

Her higher self experiences enlightenment, and ascends back to the Fullness to rejoice in the all-giving light of God.

Her lower self remains in alienation.

The lower Sophia, known as Achamoth (an anagram for Chokmah) grieves, rages, and despairs for her original full self. From the dark depths of her grief, she manifests a dense power that eventually forms the building blocks of matter.

Earth, air, fire, and water.

In this process of grief-fuelled creation, she also births a hybrid consciousness—a lion-headed monstrous being that came to be known as the Demiurge, or the ‘Artificer’ of the created world.

The Demiurge then proceeds to create the seven heavenly spheres (planets) and seven gatekeepers (Archons) using his voice, in an imitation of the Fullness. These seven gates act as a ‘prison’ in which humankind remains asleep to the divine spark within. It is these seven spheres (corresponding with the energy centres or chakras) that one must activate in order to transcend the human slumber and awaken to gnosis.

The Artificer is an egoic and vain god.2 The Demiurge believes he alone presides over humanity and the earth, and that there is ‘no other God above him.’ In his ignorance, he himself remains asleep, unaware that above him exists the resplendent and life-giving wisdom of Sophia, his mother and creator.3

The Artificer’s ignorance, however, enables Sophia to insert her own wisdom, beauty, and harmony into the architecture of the cosmos. According to the gnostic tradition, this explains why the earth can contain equal parts suffering and beauty.

When the Artificer creates Adam and Eve, the first humans, he forbids them to eat from the Tree of Knowledge. It is the wise Sophia, disguised as a snake,4 that whispers encouragement into Adam’s ear, convincing him to disobey the jealous god, and eat the forbidden fruit.

Thus we have the human condition and terrain.

Sophia and the Psyche

According to the gnostic myth, human beings are fractals of a divine or supreme consciousness.

Our divine spark exists already within the embrace of God. Our psyche, however, remains entombed in the human body until we transcend the material and awaken to gnosis. Whilst the Demiurge intends to keep us imprisoned in materiality, Sophia breathes joyful wisdom into our hearts, our souls, and throughout the cosmos with the intention to lead us home.

The myth of Sophia and the Demiurge can be applicable to the human psyche; indeed it as an apt analogy of the human condition. From this myth, we understand our consciousness arises within a primordial unity and proceeds into alienation through our material incarnation, where we are bound by the confines of the ego.

Hoeller states,

The lower, psychic nature , with its ego-consciousness is certainly a mental artificer par excellence, imposing its own order on life and reality. We organise our own cosmos (our own reality, as some would have it) and at the same time impose our own flaws on it.

The author goes on to say, ‘yet even in our confused state, we still sense a connection, no matter how tenuous, with a higher transcendental self.’

Indeed, we do.

Carl Jung considered the Gnostic Sophia as a powerful archetype for inner transformation and sacred integration. He saw her as an archetypal representation of the anima—the fallen aspect of the soul seeking reunion with the divine. Her fall into matter was a necessary descent leading to individuation and the integration of the feminine within the psyche. In his Red Book, Jung describes Sophia as the most mature or supreme archetypal anima, ‘the souls interior compass guiding the process of individuation.’5

In this way, Sophia may become a guiding light for us all—our inner compass, if you will. In an age of cultural upheaval giving way to spiritual resurgence, devotion to Sophia as reminder of our inner divinity may be a balm and focal node for many, especially women, who seek to connect with a more balanced emanation of divinity, rather than a patriarchal Godhead.

Sophia can indeed be considered the feminine aspect of God, with the Christos (embodied by Yeshua) God’s masculine aspect; hence forming a divine union. The Gnostics celebrated this inner union through the sacrament of The Bridal Chamber, the sacred marriage (heiros gamos) of opposites within, thus restoring the participant to wholeness.

There is More to the Myth: Sophia’s Return Journey

In the Pistis Sophia, a Gnostic text preserving cosmological teachings of the higher mysteries imparted by the risen Jesus to his disciples, we learn of Sophia’s return journey.

The divine inhabitants of the Fullness are distressed by Sophia’s exile.

Just as she longs to return to her divine home, divinity also longs for her return.

The Great Beings send messengers into the material world, namely the Christos (the spirit of Christ who belongs within the Fullness and later incarnates as Jesus). The Christos appears as a blazing cross6 in the sky, revitalising Sophia and inspiring within her an intense longing to return to her celestial home and her divine counterpart (a masculine emanation, her bridegroom).

Sophia, then, embarks on her return journey, ascending towards the light of the Fullness and traversing the twelve regions she had transgressed on her descent into chaos. She utters poetic repentances or prayers as she passes through the twelve gates, speaking to the Fullness, which is always described as Light.

From the Pistis Sophia, chapter 32:

Let those who would take my power be turned to the Chaos and put to shame, let them be swiftly turned to Darkness… let everyone who seeks after the Light rejoice and be glad!… Thou, then, O Light, Thou art my Saviour… Hasten and save me from this Chaos.

Indeed, may all those who seek to extract from the sacred and life-giving power of the Great Mother be put to shame and swiftly turned to darkness.

And may those of us who live in faithful, grieving, joyful, heart-centred and wisdom-infused anticipation of the Light, rise.

Sophia is pursued by her enemies right up to the very gates of the highest realm. Her pleas become more joyful as she circles higher and higher, closer and closer, fortified by the strength of the Christos and the angels guiding her.

And then, just as suddenly as she found herself distanced from God at the beginning, she suddenly finds herself re-embraced in the arms of the Fullness.

The demons fall away; the chaos subsides.

She is home.

The Demiurgic Nature of Modern Culture

Historically, human beings have endeavoured to achieve communion with the divine aspect of the self, of God, of Being. Yet within our modern context, it’s evident the culture (driven by corrupt empire) does all it can to distract, confuse, and numb us to the divine—even going so far as to extract from our divinity or wholeness (as Sophia describes in her repentances)—thus fragmenting us further.

Whether this fragmentation and distraction be through our social media personas (leading to vanity); our consumption of and comparison with other people’s lives or successes (leading to what Mary Magdalene describes as ‘lethal jealousy’ in her Gospel); the selfish and performative New Age/Western iterations of spirituality (creating a disregard for the collective); pornography creating generations of sad, lonely, and often perverted addicts disconnected from their own sacred and erotic nature; or the use of AI in place of one’s own creativity (disconnecting the masses from the divine well of inspiration always available to us)… it seems like our modern world is, indeed, an Artificer par excellence.

The culture is designed to keep us asleep to our true spiritual nature.

This design could be that of the Demiurge.

Yet, within this design is that secret gem we all covet: Wisdom. Inserted into creation from the bosom of a grieving mother’s heart; a gift from Sophia.

This wisdom is ours to seek and embrace.

Some of the places you won’t find this wisdom: a guru or coach, a container offering, Instagram, influencers, a psychedelic retreat with an energetically predatory Western ‘shaman’, the outer world.

The one place you will find this wisdom: within.

How do we unravel ourselves from our doom-scrolling, numbed-out, exploitative and selfish culture?

You know what you need to do. Only you personally will know, in your heart of hearts, what needs to be released and overcome in order to make the space for the wisdom that so desperately wants to come through to land in your soul.

Personally, I have been seeking conditions that allow for more spaciousness of mind—more time for contemplation and presence. More time to simply be, without the urge to do. Since curbing my social media consumption and breaking up with the vampiric nature of short-form content creation and performing for an algorithm, my life has changed. My spirituality continues to deepen in relation to my declining screen use. The less I expose myself to other’s highlight reels, the more joyfully focused I become on my own path. I have begun to tend to my inner world more than my outer image. I have begun to value privacy and humility in favour of vanity.

If we each remembered our divinity and also recognised that divinity within the Other, we would know there is no other, and the world would be peaceful, and perfect, and free of ignorance, like the true God, the Pleroma.

We would indeed experience what Jesus described as the ‘Kingdom on Earth.’

On page 8 of the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, Jesus speaks to Mary:

1 Attachment to matter

2 gives rise to passion against nature.

3 Thus trouble arises in the whole body;

4 this is why I tell you:

5 ‘Be in harmony…’

6 If you are out of balance,

7 take inspiration from manifestations

8 of your true nature.7

What are, then, the manifestations of our true nature?

I believe here Jesus is referring to the emanations of the Pleroma; the pure sparks of divinity that reside simultaneously deep within us and in the embrace of God. We are like synapses firing in the mind of God. Each of us trying to remember our part in the whole, belonging to an eternal and unfathomable thought process. Sophia is the wisdom inherent in that thought process; she is the golden light enticing us inward to reach the full scope of that thought through divine and harmonious inner union.

Sophianic Myth as Guide

Sophia is the bridge between the psychic and the cosmic; between matter and spirit; between feminine and masculine. The Sophianic archetype is relevant as ever in our modern age; she can be seen as a guiding light nudging us on our respective and collective paths of awakening. And we are indeed standing at the threshold of a great awakening; on the ascending precipice of the Dwapar Yuga and heading towards the coming Bronze Age.

Her story follows the classical four stages of ancient Greek drama: agone (contest), pathos (defeat), threnos (lamentation), and theophania (divine solution; redemption). Hoeller asserts that awareness of our defeat is crucial, that ‘we begin to rise as soon as we realise we have fallen.’ Thus, the lamentations and prayers that Sophia utters to the Light are a vital part of her (and therefore our) redemption. During my research for this essay, I came across a modern collection of prayers addressed to Sophia by chance —talk about synchronicity! I have shared one of these poems below.

The Sophia myth serves as a reminder of our divinity and a balm for our lonesomeness. We are not human beings capable of divine experience; we are spiritual beings having a human experience. If you, like many of us, have ever felt like a ‘stranger in a strange land’ (and our cultural landscape sure is getting stranger than ever) remember Sophia’s journey, and our collective psychological embodiment of her journey.

Recall that a Fullness exists, yearning for our return.

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Prayer to Sophia: Dance of the Universe

From ‘Prayers to Sophia’ by Joyce Rupp

Passionate Presence,

dance your vibrant life within me.

Leap and bound joyfully through me.

I yearn to be centered and alive

so I can join the dance of the universe.

Help me to enter into greater oneness

with each and every part of creation.

Fill me with your enlivening vision

until I fully know that I am a sister

with all that roams, and wings, and swims.

Let your dance come bounding in me

so the trees’ green springs in me,

songbirds singing becomes my singing,

the hum of the stars echoes as my hum,

lapping lake waters wash the shore in me,

and flowers’ blooming tickles my soul.

Dance, Sophia, dance!

Urge my single heartbeat to join

with the ancient and ongoing heartbeat

of all that takes shape in this universe.

I long to dance your dance.

Dear readers, I hope you enjoyed this transmission and exploration of the Sophia archetype, as much as I enjoyed delving into her mythology within the dreamy, starlit depths of Pisces season. There were so many avenues I could have traversed whilst writing (as you can see from the footnotes!) yet I endeavoured for this to remain as a clear introduction to the Sophianic myth.

As ever, I would love to hear your thoughts and reflections, and connect in the comments.

Do you feel something ancient stirring amidst the turmoils of our era?

Have you felt the spirit of Sophia dancing through your own life?

Leave a comment

Until next time friends.

With love and ancient birthing power,

Rebecca Mary

References

Hoeller, Stephan A. Gnosticism: New Light on the Ancient Tradition of Inner Knowing. Theosophical Publishsing House, Illinois, 2002.

Leloup, Jean-Yves. The Gospel of Mary Magdalene: Translation from the Coptic and Commentary by Jean-Yves Leloup. Inner Traditions, Vermont, 2002.

Rupp, Joyce. Prayers to Sophia. Innisfree Press, Philadelphia, 2000.

Walker, Barbara G. The Woman’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets. Harper & Row, San Fransisco, 1983.

Youvan, Douglas C. Sophia and the Soul’s Ascent: Jungian Psychology and the Return of Divine Wisdom. May, 2025. Link to article

HANDS: A Poem

Hands are reaching up through me.
Slender and calloused, 
they are steady in their work. 
Like those of a mother—or a writer.

They do not tremble. 
They are precise. Dextrous, 
coated with damp soil—
they are ancestors, and many.

O benevolent weavers!

Bleeding from their tips, 
they are tree sap. Hardening 
and crusting, they are red earth. 
They toil at the loom and 

do not tire. They are knitting 
together everything. Old 
as the earth, their roots grow 
ever-upwards through me. 

Merrily mining
for the core of me.

On Hands

I wrote this poem a couple of years ago. I had an image arise unbidden of the hands of my maternal lineage—knitting my existence into being, weaving together my fate. Hands in the earth, hands stitching together blood and sinew and bone, hands of strength, an eternal vitality.

I looked down at my own hands and saw theirs.

Thus I knew that I am them.

Lately, I have been thinking a lot about this poem. I wrote it at a time of reclamation, sometime in the year after birthing my son. His birth held such power; an intensity unlike anything I’d known. There was a moment in the throes of labour, bathed in flickering candlelight, myself flickering in the doorway between two worlds, that I heard in my moan the voices of many, many women. Afterwards, my partner confirmed it: my voice was a choir, a cacophony. It was not only my own individual and singular voice—the vibrations sung through my mouth came both from within myself, and from elsewhere.

If my vocal cords exude their moans and my breath exhales their sighs, then my hands do their healing. My hands do their steady work. My hands speak their poems and stories into existence through writing. Their stories are my stories. I write our story.

A Story of Healing

My hands are those of a mother and a writer.

And they are a healer’s hands.

A few years back, my partner was suffering with a persistent pain in his chest. He hadn’t said a word of it to me, it was something he had been irritated with for days—but he keeps such things to himself, as men often do. As he burst through our front door one afternoon, I greeted him with a do you hurt here? (the words rushing through me without any prior contemplation, as if the thought merely passed into my mind and exited through my mouth). We lay on the couch together later that evening. I pressed my hands over his chest, my heart filled with tender love as I envisioned a flow of green healing energy moving through them and into his body, filling every bone and muscle and cell of him.

The pain left him.

Hands, hands… how often do we pay attention to them? How many hours, days, years of our lives have we spent taking these beautiful, functional, powerful appendages for granted? How often do we scroll, scroll… as if they have nothing better to do? I have recently become more mindful of my hands. How am I using them? How often do I bring them together in prayer? Would they rather be writing with pen to paper in a flow of soul-speak instead of limply holding a smart phone? Are they begging for my awareness, to be held aloft and to feel the warmth of my soul energy channelled through them? To be pressed to my heart in ecstatic, breathless tenderness as I contemplate the divine…

What are your own answers to these questions?

Hand Lore

Cross-culturally, hands have long been potent symbols of power, protection, prayer, and destiny, representing the essence of human agency. Described by Aristotle as the ‘tool of tools,’ there is nothing on earth—no creature or instrument or technology—that can replace the formidably divine and resplendent power of the human hand.

Our myths and stories are filled with imagery of the hand and its power. Hands are one of the earliest artistic expressions encountered in the prehistoric record (think of the many ancient cave paintings spanning the earth using the human hand as stencil). In Renaissance art hands were considered ‘the second face,’ so vital were they in conveying emotion, character, status, and even secret meaning through gesture. For the ancient Celts, a king would lose his throne if he lost a hand in battle (especially his right hand, associated with creation and righteousness) as a missing hand suggested his disconnection with the divine, rendering him unfit to rule.

From the renowned Hamsa symbol used to ward off evil (with roots in Mesopotamia and associated with Inanna); to the spiritual energy of the hastas and mudras (Hindu hand gestures used in meditation and dance that connect one with higher states of consciousness); to the Moirai (the Three Fates) of Greek mythology whose deft hands weave and measure out our destiny; to Christ’s Biblical miracles performed with the laying-on of hands—hands appear meaningfully everywhere.

This piece isn’t a critical deep dive though. I am not attempting to exhaustively explore the mythology and folklore of hands spanning culture and religion (perhaps I could attempt this at a later date). This is merely a quiet remembering. A floating-to-the-surface of something that is being forgotten; overlooked. Our hands. This essay is a flow-on effect of my awareness recently being brought to my hands, my contemplation of their subtle elegant nature, and their powerful embodiment of the Creator through active creation.

This essay is my palms, face-up to the sky in openness.

These words are my hands on my heart.

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Hand-Speak

What language do your hands speak?

In addition to Quintilian’s uses for the hand, I can think of many more. Through our hands we bless, consecrate, and honour. Through them, we salute, greet, and welcome. Our hands afford us a language of love. With them we embrace, offer comfort and pleasure, we heal, we pray. It is with our hands we applaud others, and with our hands we guide others.

Our hands have their own language; and often they will speak when words fail.

The connection between hands and language is indeed profound and rooted in evolutionary biology. Our hands are not merely functional appendages that enable us to do, they also enable us to communicate through gesture, in a way that adds richness and enhanced meaning to verbal communication. Our hands are always saying something—even when our voices are not.

So if I may ask, again…

What language do your hands speak?

Do they speak love, do they speak tenderness?

Do they evoke joy and wonder and awe?

Do they heal, bless, create, and caress?

The Hands that Hold Us

All the hands that held me.

I think of all the hands that held their babies so that I can hold mine.

Those of my maternal great Nona Nina, whose touch I carry with me although I cannot bring her image to mind (she returned to Croatia when I was two). The hands of her daughter, my Nana Marija—how often she brings them together fervently in prayer, beads of the Rosary passing through thumb and forefinger, those strong hands that cook lunch for me still—sauerkraut with kranskys (my favourite) and her beloved lasagne with homemade šalša.

I think of the hands of my late Oma, who sewed together my costumes for Book Week (my daughter now has my little red riding hood cape, and a red scarf she knitted me). I think of her hands. How she was denied the right to hold her stillborn twins, the midwives whisking them away never to be seen again. Those young mother hands, no babies to fill them yet, fluttering to her heart in unbearable pain, twisting the hospital bedsheets in a howling grief only a bereaved mother could ever know. I think of her years later, cradling each of her three living sons to her breast, ‘pins between her lips, jazz on the radio’ as I wrote in her Eulogy poem.

I think of the hands of my grandfathers.

Opa—who spent twenty years writing his painful yet spirited childhood story into a brilliant autobiography, his parting gift to us (he would have been so proud of my Substack, and my most avid reader). Those big, strong hands holding his crutches—the hands that helped him walk again after a near-fatal workplace injury paralysed him from the waist down (the doctors called him a miracle man).

Then there were Grandpa’s hands. The house(s) they built. His were the hands of a genius. Hands that would create intricate fountains from blueprints revealed to him in dreams. He could create anything, build anything, fix anything. I remember the feel of his hands a year ago, holding them as he peacefully took his last breath. They retained his warmth for some time after.

I think of how my own Dad’s hands suddenly look like those of a grandpa. When did that happen?

My Mum’s hands—who lovingly held me for those defenceless first years of my life, and hold me still.

My daughter’s ‘little old lady hands’ when she was born—so miniature and wrinkled with the longest, perfectly manicured nails. Like she’d been to the nail salon inside my womb. I took one look at them and knew she’d incarnated straight from a previous life that was long, and well-lived.

I think of the hands of my lover. How I clasped them white-knuckled all the way through labour, how I didn’t let it go, until he placed them steady beneath me to catch our son as he emerged from me.

But in addition to all the hands I have known and held and loved, I think of all those from before. All those hands that reach up through the soil of my soul, the hands that fertilised the flower of my heart, so that it could bloom.

Conduits of the Divine

I’m with our ancestors who believed (knew) that hands are physical conduits for spirit, for the unseen. They can channel the energy and will of our souls through focused intention, via our heart. If you’ve ever practiced heart-brain harmony or coherence (a simple meditation to bring one’s brain waves into synchronicity with the heart’s rhythm) you might have instinctively brought your hand to your heart. You might do it in prayer, or when listening to someone’s story with deep empathy.

I came across a small diagram within a book on the subtle body recently whilst researching for a different essay. The diagram was actually the seed of this essay, and brought to mind the poem I opened with. A very simple picture, but powerful in its simplicity. I have sat with this little image and I have conjured it in my head many times in the past week. To describe the diagram, it simply has a node for: the soul, the heart, and the hands—and connects them all with lines. (I will update this article with the image when I return home, as I am currently out of town).

When I consider my soul, my consciousness, I know it is something bigger than my body and brain. An energy that does not merely exist within me, but is everywhere, all at once. I personally believe the brain is a receiver of the soul. This is why we can also receive ‘thoughts’ from others, intuit or predict the future, or simply know things without prior explanation.

This diagram, then, shows the soul the way I imagine it—sort of floating up there, apart from, but being received by—the body and mind. The heart and hands. The hands are a microcosm of spiritual energy. They channel. They can evoke spontaneous healing. And they work through and in conjunction with the intention of the heart.

I invite you to sit with your palms gently open and bring your awareness to them. The pure essence of spirit will coalesce in your hands. Your palms may become deliciously warm, as if you’re holding two balls of flame. Be with that energy, be with it in your heart. When you are ready, bring your hands to your heart in gratitude of the pure and divine energy that is always at your fingertips, waiting to be remembered.

Prayer for the (Chinese) New Year

My friends, this moment in time is so potent. The past weeks may have felt soul-crushing for some. We have witnessed the final lifting of the veil as the Year of the Snake draws to a close—the dissolution of glamour (the spell, the delusionary charm) that held sway over the masses for so long.

To a mother’s heart, it can often be impossible to find words.

But I will leave you with these, my prayer for the Year of the Horse:

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Your power is real. You are Divine. Remember it every moment.

Your grief and joy can coexist. Feel everything.

Remember your heart, and your hands.

They are the nodes that carry your soul into the material world.

I am wishing a blessed Chinese New Year and eclipse season to all my subscribers and readers. Hold yourself with tenderness.

Until next time.

With love and ancient birthing power,

Rebecca Mary

Can you see her?

Slender hands placing a plump round of sourdough on the counter to cool, prairie dress swishing around her bare ankles as she steps outside, wicker basket in hand as she collects fresh eggs from the chicken coop, small children toddling along behind her in ditsy florals (for the girls) and tan overalls (for the boys). She bends to pick watercress and radishes from the vegetable patch, then rises to admire her flowers, the endless blue sky, her idyllic life.

I know you can.

If you’re anything like me, maybe at some point you wanted to be her. Maybe, in the mush of new motherhood, you thought your life should look just like hers.

You may have also, like me, eventually stopped to ask yourself, wait—but is this what I truly want?

Absorbing influence from your culture is a given—whether living in a Middle Ages village of yore, or a once-upon isolated tribe in the Amazon—but in present day anywhere, the difference is social media. Millennial mothers have been the first generation to walk the initiatory path into motherhood with the accompanying influence of (often hilarious, but sometimes nefarious) social media ‘influencers.’

Present-day mothers are sold curated images of motherhood that tell us if we emulate a similar aesthetic, we will find belonging and identity at a time of major upheaval. If you’re online, it’s inescapable. And with the maiden to mother passage being one of tender vulnerability and deep transformation, the effect of ‘momfluencers’ and curated visions of motherhood cannot possibly leave a new mother untouched.

There are two motherhood myths I’ve found hold immense sway on social media—these being that of the ‘homesteading tradwife’ described above, and also the ‘wild woman myth’ (picture groups of self-anointed ‘priestesses’ bathing naked in the forest). These types of accounts garner followings of tens and even hundreds of thousands, and by simply following along and consuming their content—you’re being subtly influenced, whether consciously aware of it or not.

Dear readers, here I present you with yet another spontaneous and sprawling personal essay. The topic of identity and integration in the early years of mothering has been so present for me lately, especially as I wean my son, wrapping up 4.5 years of breastfeeding and over five years of growing life from my body.

The following is my story of identity collapse in new motherhood, and how I soaked up certain ideals and expectations, only to finally emerge from the postpartum labyrinth, years later, into the light of my authentic self. Who, not surprisingly, holds the same sensuous and velvety essence of my maiden—the woman whom I rejected outright in new motherhood, instead opting for subtle emulations of both the wild woman and tradwife archetypes that were enticingly sold to me online.

Maiden to Mother

Here is a picture of my maiden self:

Silk dress, velvet coat, sheer stockings, leather heels. Red lipstick, bobbed hair, gold earrings. Moleskine journal, fountain pen, and Sylvia Plath’s Ariel tucked into her handbag. Croissant and black coffee for breakfast at the local bistro, then off to her shift at the secondhand bookshop—where her day is spent valuing and selling books, writing reviews, organising shelves, and adding to her ever-growing tottering tower of titles behind the counter to purchase later. Her partner (now the father of her children) works at the tattoo shop around the corner, and pops in mid-morning to bring her a cappuccino. He adds a Bukowski book to the precarious pile.

When she finishes her shift, she meets him in a cosy bar: red wine for her, rye whiskey for him. She writes some frantic and inspired poetry. She desires to be published, to pursue writing, to write a book. They talk, and dream up their life together. They walk hand-in-hand, home to their cottage just out of town—she spends the night dipping her fingers into oil painting. Self portraits in golden tones and cameo pinks, London Grammar in her ears pulling her back to the rush of past travels and youthful endeavours. Life is: Literature. Art. Galleries. Film. Culture. Jet planes. Road trips down south to the wild ocean. It’s where he proposed—on the rocks at Injidup, in the south west of Australia.

Where they had sex once, in broad daylight, beneath a rocky crevasse.

Diamonds and a ruby on her finger—vintage art deco.

She knows who she is. She knows what she loves.

And then. And then.

The desire that drummed the beat of her heart, threaded her veins together in red, the someday that her cells perpetually sang;

The dream she cupped tenderly in her paint-flecked hands—the water she drank from again and again in yearning;

Her biggest, boldest, juiciest biological longing;

She became pregnant.

Her world turned on its side.

And everything fell away.

Ego Death

So began the intense and unrelenting sickness. The 24/7 nausea, pulling me down into the very depths of myself. I write about it here.

The purge.

The sloughing away of everything I was.

My world went dark. I blinked out of existence.

I quit my beloved job at the bookshop. I stopped writing. Left my novels discarded, half-read. I un-enrolled from my art course. Laid my canvases and oil paints to rest. Donated all my silks and velvets to charity. The red lipstick was cast aside; lost in the current of my unbecoming.

My entire identity fell away.

Layer upon layer of her.

Until I was but a husk, a blank canvas, a pinprick of light.

I became but an eye, a consciousness, a beingness—and nothing more.

I was in the underworld.

I was being remade.

If childbirth is a fire walk, I was already severely charred in pregnancy. It wasn’t a slow stripping back for me, I wasn’t discarding my maiden accoutrements step by step along my winding descent into the underworld like Inanna. I was annihilated the moment my body began purging. Every part of myself went up in flames. In this state of unbecoming, what did I look toward? To what life raft could I cling?

The promise to be made anew.

That I would become Mother.

And what would Mother look like?

It’s not so much that I took on values presented by momfluencers—I knew my values. They had been shaped by everything in my life leading up to the precipice of Motherhood, and were indeed strengthened and solidified in motherhood. I knew that I wanted to keep my baby close, to breastfeed extensively, to mother biologically. I knew I wouldn’t utilise pharmaceuticals, mainstream daycare, or the school system. I had no expectation to ‘bounce back’ or return to my previous workplace. I knew that in the face of the dominant culture, I was rebellious, autonomous, and different.

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The homogenisation of Motherhood (on the internet)

There were images of motherhood perpetuated online that seemed to align with my values, and thus became something I envisioned for myself. These were of the homesteading tradwife and the wild forest-dwelling homeschooler.

It was either: the woman in a linen puff-sleeved dress churning her own butter milked from the pink teat of her rescue cow named Daisy, tray of cultured wholemeal cookies in the oven and an array homeschooled kids making, I don’t know… papier-mâché woodland creatures at the enormous oak kitchen table, a window open to their sprawling property bathing them in perpetual sunshine.

Maybe the sound of chickens clucking in the distance?

Something like that.

Or else, it was the spiritual hippie ideal. Maybe a home on a mountain in the forest somewhere living in community with wild mothers that bathe naked in a river beneath a waterfall and step gracefully into their matching Hara the Label outfits post-swim before heading to a women’s circle and then off to support a birth later that night (because they’re all doulas), wicker baskets laden with freshly cut posies of flowers from their own gardens and colourful rebozos and jars of homemade chicken bone broth à la Northern Rivers.

Inevitably, there were self-imposed expectations I absorbed from consuming this type of media, including the notions that: growing your own vegetables, baking your own sourdough, raising chickens, and living ‘on land’ (rural/regional or an acreage) is synonymous with being a ‘stay at home’ or ‘traditional’ mother. The spiritual and anti-establishment woman that I am was also drawn to the earthy, wild woman archetype—my values whispered you belong in their tribe. I also believed that in belonging to this subculture, one must generate income through creating a ‘personal brand,’ becoming a coach or mentor, and wringing yourself dry promoting offerings on Instagram… because, well, what influencer doesn’t?

I realised, though, in the five years of winding my way back out of the birth labyrinth, that a) having a heavy online presence is not easeful—it can actually be constrictive if your entire income is tied to your following/socials and that b) these lifestyles are not actually my ideal, at all.

After failed attempts to grow veggies, a miserable month of being responsible for my neighbour’s chickens over the summer holidays, and over a year of that bag of baker’s flour sitting in my pantry gathering dust… I realised how much extra work homesteading would be. I don’t have a green thumb. I’ve no interest in baking my own bread or cleaning out a chicken coop. I’m artistic but not crafty, I adore immersing myself in nature but also enjoy the culture that city/town life provides; I don’t actually need to strive to create an income via a personal brand (I am already financially resourced); and, mostly importantly, I hate Instagram.

Yet, the only role actually required of me is that of the traditional housewife. The stay at home mum. I know I am deeply privileged to not have the added responsibility of bringing in an income on top of being the primary parent. But, as much as I have longed for the simplicity and contentedness in being ‘just a mother’ doing the ‘most important job in the world’—whether through blissful domesticity or wild mothering in a forest somewhere, I began deeply yearning for my own professional and creative life. I am a mother now, yes, but I began to recall that I am also still… me.

This doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy being a full time mother. I love being with my kids. I am very confident and excited about our decision to homeschool. There is nothing more important in my life than my children and their wellbeing. These are the best days of our lives, that we will one day look back on with a pang. But that doesn’t mean I need to enjoy doing household chores or make my chosen traditional role my entire identity. My version of mothering actually looks quite different to these curated myths.

Do I want to be weaving my own wicker baskets and sewing hand-spun woollen sweaters on top of my day-to-day workload whilst, I don’t know… singing lilting lullabies to a sourdough starter so that it also feels happy and loved?

I realised the answer was no.

(I’d rather spend that time writing.)

So, with every sunset and every dawn that passes on the mothering road, I have come to realise the type of mother that I am.

It’s definitely not the homesteading mother.

And it’s not the wild woman influencer either.

I tried to fit myself into moulds—I cannot hold their shape.

I bubble out. I leak. I burst.

Thank God for that.

The Labyrinth

I’ve heard it generally takes a mother up to five years to find her identity again after giving birth. In my experience this has been wholeheartedly true. A newborn mother is not herself. Though in that mushy newborn phase, we are often somewhat fierce in our newness, in our formlessness seeking form, in our trying-on of new identities. Pregnancy and birth can be seen as a labyrinth that a woman traverses for months, days, and hours to reach the pivotal act, the centre point—the cleaving of two from the One—the emergence of life from the womb. You cannot remain in that centre though. You may be suspended in time during the golden hours after birth—but soon, the newborn mother must begin weaving her way back out of the labyrinth.

The return journey doesn’t take hours, or days, or even months.

The return journey takes years.

In that gooey, vulnerable newness of motherhood, stumbling my way back through the darkness of the labyrinth, I absorbed curated ideals of how motherhood would look. Yet, as I wound my way out and out and out—I found myself casting such ideals aside. And with every expectation I released, I received a fundamental and beloved piece of my true self back—a stub of red lipstick, a poem on paper—passed from the sagacious hands of my Maiden to my Mother.

And it is only now, five years after I underwent the ego death of pregnancy with my firstborn, that I am re-emerging into the light. That I am finding myself again. Not the version of myself I thought I would be as a mother. Not a copy of the influencers and mentors whose content I lapped up. But my actual complex, authentic, and multi-faceted self. In the spiral of release that was the year of the snake (which I wrote about here), I shed layer after layer of patterns and subtle conditioning.

I broke my toxic relationship with Instagram. I re-assessed my doula business, and accepted that I don’t have the capacity to regularly attend births in this season of motherhood (freebirth to birthkeeper pipeline topic for another essay). I began wearing makeup again (hello Glow Time BB cream, old friend), refreshed my wardrobe (a little more cashmere and sophistication alongside the Indigo Luna), re-embraced my guilty pleasure in pop music (my music taste is as vast as the cosmos), and began writing again in earnest.

The past years have been ripe with integration.

My Maiden self reminds me of who I truly am, and my Mother self revels in who I have become.

Lately, I have been striding and joyfully leaping as I draw closer to the light at the mouth of the labyrinth.

The tide is turning. I am emerging.

And oooh it feels good.

The Mother that I Am

I am a Sagittarius mother (sun, moon, north node + vesta). Taurus is on my ascendant meaning my chart is ruled by Venus. Strong Scorpio placements + 8th house stellium. Capricorn stellium in the 9th house.

Think: Beauty. Art. Luxury. Travel. Pleasure.

Combined with: High ideals. Culture. Study. Wisdom. Depth.

I embody: Fluidity within structure.

I seek: Wisdom through lived experience.

It’s hilarious that I ever thought a quiet life in the country could be for me. Such is the intensity of identity upheaval in the maiden to mother passage.

The type of mother I am? She delights in travelling. Taking her children on road trips and adventures, sharing new experiences, lots of time spent at the ocean and river (without posing for curated photos), trips to museums and galleries, socialising, and shared daily rhythms that always involve time spent outside of the home (she basically has to leave the house every day to keep her sanity).

She doesn’t bake her own sourdough, she’d rather pay $12 from her local bakery and save herself days worth of kitchen labour. She does cook her family wholesome, nourishing meals with organic local produce (not grown by her) but if she’s honest, she enjoys eating good food more than she does preparing it. She likes to dine out a lot.

She doesn’t sew, bake, or candle stick make.

She accepts herself in her fullness.

She is both/and.

She attends women’s circles under the dark moon, burns frankincense in her candlelit living room, and listens to Chantress Seba.

She also loves a glass of wine or two, and nice cars, and this Ariana Grande song.

She adores nature immersion—just give her a takeaway coffee and a comfy place to sit with her book instead of secateurs and gardening gloves.

She is heart-centred, devoted to the Ancient Mother and the sacred feminine, but she is not a self-styled Priestess.

She is whatever the opposite of a niche is.

My Vision

I used to dream of ‘a home in the country’ and romanticised the idea of living off the land. It’s the dreamer in me that says the grass is always greener. We soon realised that homeschooling for us will not look like our children running around with matted hair on a farm somewhere unable to read at age eight. (Totally cool if that’s your homeschooling vibe, it’s just not for us). What I need is dynamic movement. Flow, excitement, and culture. Opportunities for my children to explore their interests and talents, to discover hands-on what they love and what they don’t, and have a genuinely well-rounded education for future study and academic prospects. Activities. Tutors. Homeschool programmes. Team work and team sports. Skill development. Travel. Real-world cultural experience. Freedom, and options.

I have a newfound clarity of vision. I know what I’m calling in. And this clarity of vision arrived with remembering who I am.

What’s not included in the vision: documenting our lives on social media, making a ‘personal brand’ out of our children’s upbringing, or starting a coaching business to profit from a lifestyle flex.

More living, less performance.

Herein lies the essence of this essay, I think. The great taproot travelling up from the desire beating in my heart and bursting forth on my keyboard. The message that I’ve attempted to convey here: I want to see more living. Real, authentic living—and less performance. Which also means less consumption of social media; less influencing and being influenced. Which actually means I don’t want to see your life at all (unless I know you personally). I just want us all to live, truly live! without constant, public visual documentation, curation, or validation.

I want us to value privacy again.

Note for new mothers

New mothers, the early days of postpartum are messy, raw, and deeply transformative. You might feel like a blank slate, wiped clean of who you once were, excited to build yourself anew as the Mother (this was me). For others, you may be mourning your maiden self, unsure of how to proceed on this new path. Either way—whilst you cannot ever be the maiden again, she remains within you. She is you. The maiden doesn’t get lost—she transforms. Motherhood adds to her. She is not subtracted from your new identity. The maiden will likely feel worlds away in the early years of mothering. But, as time goes by, as your life and rhythms settle, as you are winding your way out of the depths, you might realise it’s her holding your hand, leading the way.

I don’t think I am the only woman whose mothering, lifestyle aesthetic, and homemaking expectations have been shaped by social media influencers in the early years postpartum, whether negatively or in strange, kind of humorous ways like my assumption that ‘a good mother bakes sourdough.’ In the end, it was my maiden—my inner self—full of vitality, fertile with possibility and zest for life, that led me out into the light of my complexity, back to my spirited and authentic state of being.

Dear readers, I mean no disrespect to anyone who bakes their own bread or grows produce. If this is you, I love that for you. Do you know how much I wished I could be you? I thought there was something deficient in me. Then, one day, I had a lightbulb moment that I am simply and wholeheartedly uninterested in starter cultures, scobys, and homemade preserves—and that is okay.

May 2026 see us find our true selves.

Whatever that looks like.

If this essay resonated with you, I’d love to hear from you in the comments. Identity integration through Matrescence is a potent topic; ripe with myriad and unique experience.

Where are you in your journey through the Labyrinth?

Leave a comment

Until next time, dear ones.

With love and ancient birthing power,

Rebecca Mary

My partner of a decade was a tattooer. A couple of years ago he set his craft of seventeen years aside for new endeavours, but until that point, our relationship was set to the background sounds of blues music and buzzing tattoo machines. I would say when it came to his craft he reached ‘master’ status—I don’t know anyone who was as passionate and skilled as my man, and he knew a great deal about tattoo history—namely history of the craft in Australia and more specifically, our town of Fremantle.

So you could imagine how surprised we both were when we discovered that the people of my bloodline, the Croats (I am a second generation Croatian-Australian) had their own unique tattooing tradition, spanning centuries.

Possibly even millennia.

The practice is called sicanje or bocanje, which translates in English as “to prick” or “to poke.” Laying my eyes for the first time on the black and white images of women with what I knew immediately to be variations of pagan symbols on their hands and forearms, was a revelation. I can pour over the images and symbols for ages, allowing the breath of herstory, of the very essence and symbolic nature of matter and existence, travel down the centuries and lodge in my tender heart. How did I not know about this part of my own cultural history until I was already well into my twenties?

The reason may be that my own grandmother and family are from the islands, and this tradition was not practiced by islanders in recent history. Though my ancestry spreads through much of the Slavic region (I know this from my mother tracing her DNA) with many ancestors concentrated in Bosnia. For years since my little discovery, I have been fascinated with the history and practice of sicanje, and have often played with the idea of getting my own traditional tattoos as a means of connecting with my lineage and culture. Though first, I had to delve into the history of the tradition, and further—the symbols themselves.

In this essay, I will explore the history and practice of sicanje, and give a brief overview of the symbols within the Croatian tattoo repertoire. Later on, in a series of essays that will flow like a modules in a course, or a creative journey, if you will—I will delve further into the ancient origins of the symbols used. This will be my first special offering for paying subscribers only, and I am over the moon with excitement to write this series. Until then, make yourself a cuppa and enjoy learning about this fascinating part of Balkan herstory.

Psst—yes. This tattoo tradition is known to be a woman’s craft, practiced by elder women on primarily young women and girls.

History & Origins of Sicanje

Tattoos covering the hands and forearms became unanimous among Catholic Croat women (and some men) in the central Bosnian regions and in parts of Croatia during the Ottoman Empire, when the area was under occupation by the Turks. The tattoos supposedly became a means of protecting young women and girls from being taken as brides and converted to Islam, and served to remind women of their identity, faith, and roots. They were protective in nature; an example of the ingenuity and power women wield when compelled to protect their kin. It is believe the Turks wouldn’t take a ‘marked woman,’ especially when she was marked with permanent brands of Christian iconography. Whilst the practice was revived during the Turkish occupation, becoming a Rite of Passage for girls as young as seven, the roots of tattooing in the region—and that of the symbols used—predate Christianity.

Croatian archaeologist, historian, and art historian Ćiro Truhelka (1865—1942) who studied prehistory and Roman history, suggested that the origins of sicanje likely came from the Illyrians or even Celtic tribes, and that some of the symbols may be linked to pre-Christian sun worship, like the cult of Mithras. Tattoo needles were found in centuries-old tombs in the region and link the current practice with age-old traditions. The symbols are also found carved into the mysterious stećci, 60 000 monolithic stone monuments scattered throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina and the border parts of Croatia, Montenegro, and Serbia. Before the Christianisation of Croatia and Bosnia (the earliest contact with the Pope was in the 7th century), Croats practised Slavic or Roman paganism.

When examining the symbols used, it is immediately evident that icons like the kolo (the circle or Monad), the sunce (the sun wheel or solar disc), and the kriz (cross) appear geographically across cultures and time. These are archaic symbols, perhaps old as consciousness itself, unfurling themselves from Source, handed down through the ages and adapted again and again by the prevailing culture. In the case of the sicanje practice during the Ottoman Empire, such symbols were repurposed and adopted by Catholic women to represent Christianity, the crucifix, and the son (sun) of God, though many of the symbols and their inherent pagan connection to earth and sky remained—pine needles, ears of corn or wheat, stars and cosmological phenomena.

When the region fell under the Yugoslav regime after the Second World War, the tradition died out. Christianity was oppressed, and the symbols began to pose a risk for the wearer rather than a protective charm. Catholics, Muslims, and people of faith within the region were persecuted, and many Croats fled and immigrated in the 1950s creating a diaspora—including my grandfather, who stole away on his father’s sailboat beneath a dark moon. The diaspora was of course further enforced during the Yugoslav war in the 1990s. Now, it is very rare to see women wearing these traditional tattoos in Bosnia and Croatia; many of them are now great-grandmothers. Though there are a small amount of Croatian tattooers in the diaspora bringing the tradition to life with modern means, for those of us seeking to connect with our cultural lineage, and keep this age-old (truly, ancient) tradition alive.

Protective Magic and Womancraft

The sicanje tattoos were applied to the hands, fingers, forearms, circling the wrist, upper arms, chest, and sometimes even the forehead. Whilst the symbols tattooed were appropriated and deeply valued through the Catholic lens, the ancient nature of them harken back to Slavic protective magic, and even further to archaic times and the root of human consciousness (as seen through the symbol of the Bindu or encircled dot). They are imbued with layers of meaning. The symbols and act of sicanje preserved Croatian identity under occupation, and were drawn on young women and girls (and sometimes boys and men) by women in a ceremony that was empowering, connective, and protective.

The symbols themselves appear feminine in nature; their lines are curved, circular, and honour mother earth’s cycles and seasons—they are both earth-honouring and cosmological. We see bracelets encircling the wrist, and most of the tattoos burst forth from a central solar disc. The distinct straight lines of the cross, the dots within the circles, and the direct lines of a sunburst are masculine in nature, and I personally believe they illustrate the divine dance of the feminine and masculine that perpetually create the universe.

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The Symbols

There are a distinct number of symbols that were prolific in the sicanje repertoire.

Kolo - Circle: Appearing as the Monad (a dot within a circle) and often incorporating other symbols like crosses, twigs, and blades of a mill wheel. Representing genesis; the essence of consciousness; the totality of existence; the circle of life. If referencing the traditional kolo dance (where celebratory dancers gather in a circle) it may represent community and togetherness.

Kriz - Cross: Often appearing within a circle, the cross represents the four cardinal directions, and the physicality of life on earth. The cross, of course, came to represent Christ and his death on the cross, after which he was resurrected to eternal life. The latter symbology would have been the most protective in nature; the symbol of Christianity that reminded women of their faith and identity.

Sunce - Sun: The sun of course incorporates the circle, with sun rays often protruding from the Monad containing the centrepoint (dot). The sun represents the source of life on earth; light and warmth, the movement of the celestial spheres, and later may have honoured the Son of God through Christ.

Jelica - Pine or Fir Tree: Symbolic of life on earth. Fecundity, fertility, growth, rebirth, and the connection of land and sky—rising up, rooted. The jelica may also represent the celestial vault in Slavic mythology; the highest tier of the three-part cosmos; the upper canopy of the World Tree; the axis mundi. The branches of the pine or fir may therefore symbolise the interconnectedness of all.

Klas - Ear of Corn or Wheat: Grain motifs celebrate agriculture and human progress. Sustenance, fertility, bountiful harvest, abundance and good fortune of the community. Variations of the klas pattern appear in tribal tattoos across cultures; depicting a criss-crossing diamond pattern rising up along a vertical line, often with a protrusion of smaller branches, and in the Croat repertoire, usually topped with a sunce (sun).

Ograda - Fence: The ograda motif symbolises protection; community and individual boundaries; and protection of one’s moral values. It appears as a semicircle, with small lines or branches protruding from it, and is often placed around a kolo, sunce, or collection of jelica branches. In this way, I believe is signifies the protection of wisdom; the keeping of wisdom passed down generations.

Zvijezdica - Stars and Star Gates: This is the most intriguing symbol to me, and the one that is most difficult to find information about. There was a curious image I saved on Pinterest describing the motif as zvijezdica prehodnice, meaning ‘star of the passageway,’ but I have not found anything else pertaining to this on the internet. The motif includes dots or zvijezda surrounded by an oval shape, with small branches or grancica (twigs) in a pattern around the outside of the oval.

What do I intuit of this symbol? Whilst the internet tells me almost nothing, I feel something deep within my bones. That the star passage points to an archaic remembrance of inter-dimensional portals—hinting at our oneness with the cosmos; our infinite potential; transcendence of the physical; and the ancient and forgotten mysteries of our human past.

The Initiation Ritual

The sicanje ritual was usually carried out after mass near the feast of St Joseph’s Day, which fell on the 19th of March. Given that this is the beginning of Spring in Europe, the ritual being conducted on the threshold of Spring may harken back to pagan times. During the Turkish occupation, the tattoo tradition was performed as a coming-of-age ceremony on girls from the ages of 12 to 16, though girls as young as six were also known to be tattooed. Some were obliged to be tattooed by their relatives and community, and others expressed their desire to be initiated thus.

The tattoos were inked onto the skin using a needle and a mixture of tree ash (charcoal) mixed with honey and milk—including breastmilk. I once read that usually the breastmilk produced to feed a firstborn male child was preferred. I cannot confirm this was indeed the preferred ingredient, but knowing (and loving) my Croatian elders, it does seem like the sort of superstitious practice they’d perpetuate. Sometimes, if not using tree ash, gunpowder was used in the mix.

After the Sunday service, the elder women of the community would trace (etch) the pattern into the skin of the recipient with a small stick. They’d then use the stick-and-poke method, pressing the ink into the skin in an array of tiny dots, to create the pattern. This would have been a time-consuming practice, and I can only imagine the camaraderie and gossip unravelling among the women and girls as they immortalised the sacred, protective symbols into the skin of their kin. I wonder if the men were around—probably not. I imagine they’d be off fishing, then cooking their catch—like my own grandpa did most Sundays of my upbringing.

A Personal Remembrance

The further I delve into exploring these practices and symbols, the deeper I connect with my ancestral past. I feel that since entering into motherhood five years ago, I stepped through a veiled dimension, and something awakened in the cells of my being. Something that was always there; quiet, dormant, waiting to be sung out of me. Something ancient and pulsing with equal parts fearsome power and joy. Yes, joy! I don’t buy into focusing only on ancestral trauma and ancestral wounds—by God, within my Slavic and Balkan lineage I carry many.

But for every horror, for every oppression of my people passed down in the fervent pulse of our blood, mother to daughter—so too do I carry the beating heart of their wisdom; the exhalation of their oneness with the earth and sky; the delicate softness of a child held at the breast; the resinous smell of pine needles after the rain; the briny sea-saltiness of a cured olive under my tongue; the dipping of the sun into the sparkling Adriatic; the exhilarating swoosh of skirts as I dance the kolo, an echo of laughter alight on the air; the bruising of a stolen kiss on my lips; the burning of ink sinking into skin, and the fierce power of their protection, holding me.

A previous essay on my ancestry:

References

Hoerner, Moriz. Wissenschaftliche Mitteilungen aus Bosnien und der Herzegowina. 1896, Vienna

Maracic, Marija and Karaca, Josipa. 2019. The Sicanje Project, Michael Schwartz Libary. https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/sicanje/

Montbarrey, Jean-Claude. Divination, Magic and Religious Tattoos in Bosnia, Sciences et Voyages no 24 June 1937, trans. Jessica Heaton

Ralica, Iva. 2018, March 4. Traditional Croatian Tattoos, Croatia Week. https://www.croatiaweek.com/traditional-croatian-tattoos/

Note to my subscribers

Dearest friends, thank you for reading, and thank you for your patience with this article! I know it has been almost a month since my last essay. I thought I would hit the ground running with my writing in January, but it hasn’t exactly been so. My mind is swimming with ideas for essays—there is so much waiting to spill out of me. And yet. I have been experiencing a subtle block around sitting down to write—not the act of writing itself—more so of carving out the time. I think perhaps with my nanny being on holiday, and my designated writing sessions being put on hold, I have allowed the days to stretch.

As I mentioned earlier in the essay, I am writing a series delving further into the symbols used within the sicanje tradition as an explorative journey of lineage, symbol, mythology, and consciousness for paying subscribers. I am still developing the structure of this offering, though it will likely be a combination of essay, journal and art prompts, poetry and story, and possibly guided meditation.

If this sounds like something that interests you, I would deeply value your contribution and support in becoming a paying subscriber. I will be slowly introducing a paid tier of essays and more personal, juicier reflections over the year in addition to my free essays and poetry.

Lastly, I’d love to hear from you in the comments. Did you enjoy learning about sicanje? Had you ever heard about this fascinating part of Balkan herstory before? What cultural practices exist within your own lineage? Let’s chat my loves.

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Until next time,

With love and ancient birthing power,

Rebecca Mary

I am sitting here on this balmy December night beneath a Sagittarius New Moon (the same moon I was born under). Incense curls beside the Christmas tree and a gusty wind rustles the leaves in the gum trees, the cool breath of it reaching my face like a sigh. A single candle sputters in the fireplace. The fairy lights all around me twinkle. It is midnight—everyone is asleep. Our 1950s cottage creaks and groans with the wind. And I, fingers tapping away on the keyboard, have a vision of myself with one face looking backward, and the other forward.

Backward and forward.

Endings and beginnings.

All day, I have been pondering the past year, turning my small achievements over in my hands, marvelling that I finally began to take aligned action, to follow my inner compass—as opposed to the outer influences I was once convinced could assist me on my path of becoming.

In retrospect, 2025 was a year of allowing things to fall away, and it was indeed the year of the Snake in the Chinese zodiac—one of yin energy, of turning inwards, of shedding skins. During the past year, layers of self-imposed expectation and urgency peeled away, as I began to deeply listen to my inner authority. With intentional cocooning, I finally saw certain people, templates, and dynamics within my life for what they were. I cut energetic and physical ties with illusions and follies that were siphoning my radiant energy for quite some time.

In 2025, veils of illusion fluttered and were caught up in the wind; carried away to distant horizons and leaving me wide-eyed and ripe with realisation, my mouth breathing out a satisfying “Oh.”

Reflecting on the past 9 year cycle

2 + 0 + 2 + 5 = 9

2025, a number ‘9’ year according to numerology, brings a 9-year cycle to a close. The number 9 represents cycles ending—encompassing the lessons of the preceding numbers and bringing a sense of completion. This past year can be likened (well, at least in my mind) to the menstruation phase of a woman’s cycle. Okay, I really only had that idea in this moment, but seriously—this past year was one of shedding what needed to be released. For me, I have been more inner-focused than any other year in the past decade. Quietly working behind the scenes to pave the way for the coming 9-year cycle. Sitting in the fecund soil from which a flourishing garden will grow.

The seeds are planted. I am seeing their tiny sprouting arms of green poking through the soil.

Reaching for the light.

Throughout our lifetimes we’re in constant evolution; cycles within cycles within cycles. Certainly the past 12 months have held a wealth of growth for me personally, and I think there may be common themes among us as we step through the veils of 2025 and into the doorway of 2026—in numerology a ‘1’ year, and according to the Chinese zodiac, the Year of the Horse.

Shall I share a little of my journey through past nine years with you? Where should I begin, if not the beginning?

2016

2 + 0 + 1 + 6 = 9

Another 9-year. Another precipice paving the way for the cycle that was to come. The cycle that is just now coming to a close.

I began that year with an extended stay with relatives in Holland, bringing to completion a life phase of travelling and searching for my purpose (and my soulmate, as ever). The previous nine year cycle started when I was 14 and was characterised by dating, partying, academic study, and travelling—so in 2016 those threads were being tied in anticipation for the weaving of my future tapestry. I went skiing in Germany and experienced snow for the first time. I spontaneously flew to Malaysia to meet a penpal whom I met on a Good Charlotte Myspace fan page (you read that correctly) when I was 15. Despite the jet-setting, fun, spontaneity, and exuberance of my early twenties, I was filled with the pervasive discontent of being seemingly directionless.

2016 was an absolutely pivotal year, paving the way for the cycle that was to come. It was the year I began writing poetry. The year I entered into the defining long-term partnership of my life thus far—rekindling a relationship with my high school boyfriend from seven years prior, and knowing with a breathless intensity upon meeting him again that our lives were inextricably and cosmically intertwined. We put down roots, purchasing our first property less than two years into our relationship. At the same time Tyler re-entered into my life, I began nannying for two little girls that were 4 and 6 at the time, awakening the maternal archetype within me.

There is a very surreal ‘full circle’ feeling at this current moment in time. On the weekend I went to the senior dance recital of the little girls I once nannied for, who are now 14 and 16. I brought my 4 year old daughter with me, whom I know, in but a blink, will be performing in her own senior dance concert.

2017—2023

Saturn Return in Aquarius December 2020—March 2023

The era of ‘adulthood.’ My partner and I moved through the initiation of pregnancy loss, got engaged, and then during our joint Saturn return in Aquarius (mine in the 10th house and his in the 2nd) we had two children back-to-back in an underworld journey of birth trauma and then freebirth. I became pregnant with my daughter in December 2020 when Saturn moved into Aquarius, and then gave birth to my son at the beginning of March 2023, a few days shy of Saturn moving out of Aquarius and into Pisces.

Kronos, Saturn, Father Time, the Lord of Karma, bestows his gifts by pulling us down into the underworld and spitting us back out all the wiser for it. He enforces stern lessons in duty and responsibility and inspires a (renewed) sense of reality succeeding the years of his return. In every underworld journey, there is a silver lining—and that silver is all the more glimmering in retrospect.

The lessons conveyed during my Saturn return were instigated by trauma, ego death, and rebirth. During those years I became clearer on my values and convictions—of inner authority, personal sovereignty, the sacredness of life, collective liberation, and the ceremonial nature of our Rites of Passage. Through my polar opposite birth experiences, I found my life’s calling for ceremony, story medicine, and activism within the birth realm.

The seeds of my career were planted and sown.

For my partner, his Saturn return was a time of deeply reconsidering our finances, how he provides, and making shifts to open doors to greater abundance. As a tattooer of 15 years with previously no dependents and a partner that always had her own income, he was suddenly a father of two children with a wife in the depths of postpartum and thus plummeted into a great deal of responsibility to provide for us all. Although tattooing brought in a decent income, he did a major pivot and shifted career, launching his own company within the marine industry in 2024, which has been a continuing success (my Aries man isn’t afraid to take a leap into the unknown—and it pays off).

For anyone who doesn’t know, the 10th house governs career, reputation, and life’s calling.

The 2nd governs earning potential, personal resources, and finances.

Both of our Saturn returns activated lessons through the challenges of pregnancy, birth, and stepping into motherhood and fatherhood—but manifested differently, in our respective houses.

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2023—2025

Within the haze of postpartum as a full-time mother of a baby and toddler born 18 months apart, the itch to follow the threads of my calling for birth work was ever-present. I was deeply affected by my daughter’s hospital birth, and my personal commitment to healing and reclaiming myself on every level moved me to inspire others. When I became pregnant with my son I chose to have a wild pregnancy and openly began sharing my journey, perspective, and advocacy for sovereign birth on Instagram. I delved into intensive mentorships and trainings with a birth worker I greatly admired, exploring doula and postpartum care work and developing my offerings. I witnessed my first births—a powerful VBAC and then a beautiful freebirth—as well as holding and witnessing my beloved grandpa through the death portal. These were the fruits of my transformation after the fire walk of my Saturn return.

I was finally embodying and living out threads of my vocation.

2025: The Year of the Snake

Identifying misalignments: social media habits

At the end of 2024 and beginning of 2025, I was convinced that I needed to be heavily present on Instagram and develop a ‘personal brand’ using all of the templates, marketing ploys, and storytelling systems trumpeted by every self-styled coach, guru, and guide. I spent an appalling amount of time fussing over Canva carousels, meticulously editing reels, and writing scattered ideas for captions and ‘content’ in my notes app. I had observed from countless coaches that the aim is to increase visibility, post every day, be consistent, be cringe—and you are promised growth, money, and happiness.

I was following trails of breadcrumbs into the woods without once taking a step back and asking: Why?

Whenever I tried to take the prevailing advice and create in this way, it would feel off. My posts would fall flat. My follower count wasn’t growing. Often I would overthink a post, and not share it at all. I had developed an unhealthy attachment to the platform, an addiction to scrolling and wishing I could have a brand presence like this birth worker or that entrepreneur— I was laying in a coffin of comparison yet desperately wondering: why isn’t this working for me?

Instagram wasn’t working because I was pining for success, instead of embodying it. I was trying to keep up with all the things I was told I should be doing, in order to have the success I wanted. Thankfully, I had the discernment to question the prevailing advice and my ‘stuck cycle’ of listening to it. I realised my relationship with social media had become toxic, leaving me in a cycle of comparison, doubt, and overwhelm. I was putting outer expectations above my inner authority—2025 was the year I finally saw this clearly.

When I began to log out, first for a few days and then for longer swathes of time, I realised it was actually keeping me from taking aligned action within my business creation and vocation. Instead of being in deep presence and communion with the divine, I was faffing around on the vanity platform, achieving naught. I began to take extended periods of time off Instagram, which served to eventually sever my attachment to it. Shedding this pattern was an enormous step on my growth journey toward more healthy and aligned habits.

Identifying misalignments: people

2025 was also a year of allowing some people in my life to fall away. The operative word is some—most of my friends stayed, most are deeply and beautifully aligned—women who are embracing their authenticity, soul path, and success in all forms. I am now more discerning of who I allow into my ‘inner courts,’ so to speak.

The past year was almost shocking in its illumination of misalignments. I could finally see those who weren’t genuine friends—those who were playing a role, using their closeness to my energy, wisdom, and generosity for their own benefit. ‘Friends’ that never loved me. Ouch. When I first had the inkling of this a couple of years ago, I experienced deep pain and confusion. I lost sleep wondering what have I done wrong? I became increasingly aware that their energy was often judgemental, envious, and competitive—rooted in insecurity, not love.

I felt alarm bells in my body when I was around these types, yet I continued to pander, and fawn, and be overly-friendly and ‘pleasing’ within these relationships. I would often shrink, remain silent when I should have spoken up, and allow unspoken resentment (on both sides) to simmer. It took a long time to claim the distance and protection I deserved. The people in question are not evil villains, and they did have some positive qualities and similar values—but they simply were not for me. The cosmic energy of the past year enabled me to fully see this pattern for what it was. Once I was able to name it, I could finally cut energetic ties.

Vibrational release. Exhale. Lessons to take with me.

Finding Substack and looping back to my deepest life calling: writing

So, with the sense of freedom and release from negative patterns, platforms, people, and their hold over me—I began receiving new insights and a growing sense of clarity. My spirituality, intuition, and psychic faculties were deepening, like muscles begging to be strengthened. I was open to receiving more, getting deeper into flow, and following little nudges from the universe.

On a gleaming-dark July night in midwinter, I decided to follow an inner whisper to create a Substack.

And we lived happily every after! The end. 😂

Really though, I did fall head over heels for this platform. It just felt right. For years, I was trying to condense my writing, poetry, and deep, sprawling thought-forms into little coloured squares and captions. Discovering Substack was a revelation. I began writing whatever called to me, with joyful abandon. My first essay was a poetic journey through my miscarriage, a piece of writing that received so much resonance and love in the comments, I knew Substack would be the space where my wisdom and creativity can fully land.

Although writing has been a constant thread through my life—a golden thread stitching my whole life tapestry together, often writing my life into being with razor-sharp foresight—I have held myself back professionally within the writing space for the past 9-year cycle. I began writing poetry in 2016, the same year that laid the groundwork for the cycle that is now coming to a close. I was published early on, in 2017 and then in 2019, but I did not at the time have the diligence or grit to submit regularly to journals.

I was then plummeted into my Saturn return and motherhood journey.

Although I was writing for myself all this time, and have an entire poetry manuscript to show for it, I feel worlds behind in the publication game. Embarrassingly behind. I don’t even know where to begin. So Substack has been a positive door to step through—even if only baby step. But writing to over two thousand people? That is no joke! I am ever-grateful for each and every one of you.

I now have the opportunity of the next cycle—nine years worth of opportunities—to submit, get published, release my poetry book, and start more writing projects. But it doesn’t just happen. Another lesson that has been solidified for me in 2025, is one of diligence and focus.

Focus: Lessons of my South & North Nodes

Focus is something that has been historically lacking for me.

In astrology, my South Node is in Gemini. The South Node represents your innate talents carried through from past lives—your comfort zone; things you have previously mastered. Sometimes you can get “stuck” or stagnant within the realm of your South Node because it is where you have already been. Having mastered Gemini, I am naturally gifted within the realm of writing and communication (my degree was in Communication and Media), although I tend to take in a lot of information which actually overwhelms me with conflicting options, choices, and advice. I tend to be a ‘jack of all trades’ and multi-disciplinary in a way that has held me back from achieving true and exalted success in a chosen field.

Throughout my adult life thus far I have explored many things. In a sort-of chronological order: writing (from childhood, my constant), academia, filmmaking, theatre, screen acting, dancing, photography, nannying, events work, bookselling, oil painting, poetry, herbalism, birth work, volunteering & activism. I have also begun two different masters degrees in writing at two different universities; and there have been moments where I seriously considered studying marine & conservation biology, archaeology, Chinese Medicine, Ayurveda, homeopathy, reflexology, reiki, and flight attending. There are probably more. I’d love to be a cosmologist. Or a historian. I would love to do a PhD and contribute to research in a later phase of life…

Can you see the pattern, though? The discover a new interest and want to make it a career pipeline. Goddamn it, Gemini! I get it! I’m multi-talented and could do literally anything! But alas, I cannot do everything.

This past year, being in my little chrysalis, I have arrived at a point of deeper clarity in terms of my career path. Which means I have had to make peace with all the various directions I could go in, and focus on mastering one. The North Node represents your destiny, pulling you toward the challenges and experiences required for your evolution in this lifetime. My North Node is in Sagittarius—as is my Sun, Moon, and Vesta (inner fire). This explains my life’s constant, searing, often painfully passionate search for the deeper meaning. It is only as 2025 draws to a close that I am feeling the influence of my North Node fully activating, pulling me out of my “stuckness” in Gemini, and it is with the precision of Artemis, letting her arrow fly—that I will launch myself into my future.

Can you guess which path I am making my main focus in 2026?

You guessed it, writing.

Writing—because it is the one thing that flows out of me like a river into the sea.

Writing—because I can write about anything, I can write about any of my multi-million interests, without having to make them my career.

Writing—because through words, we can birth new worlds into existence.

Writing—because my childhood dream was to be a published author.

Writing—because I love writing, and the pleasure I take in writing can be felt.

I’m sure it can be felt.

(Can it be felt?)

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Expanding into 2026: Year of the Horse

I began writing this essay under the new moon, and it is now a beautiful fingernail crescent gracing the sky. We are on a precipice, plummeting toward a future that is ours to co-create. I feel a great deal of benefic energy swirling around myself, my family, and my and my partner’s respective vocational paths. In 2025, we have been tilling the soil. In 2026, we will see the outer, physical manifestation of the groundwork we’ve laid this past year. Whilst the Snake brought yin energy, encouraging a turning inwards with transformative visionary clarity, the Horse will bring yang energy—manifesting in movement, action, and joyful momentum, think of ‘horsepower’—transforming our outer world. In other words, 2026 will likely be very fruitful for those of us who have done the inner work in 2025.

Likewise, in numerology 2026 is a ‘1’ year—one of new beginnings. The start of another 9 year cycle. It is almost literally a doorway. So, we are now standing on the threshold of that doorway—and our willingness, mindset and intention when we step through matters.

Think back to where you were at this exact time, nine years ago. What was ending for you, and what was beginning? What were you calling in, and what were the major life themes of the past nine years for you?

You are now on another precipice.

What are you releasing at this moment in time? What are you calling in for the next nine years to come? Get out your journal, and let the ink flow. We are stepping through cosmic veils. The future is meeting us at the present moment—it is ours to co-create.

Looping backward: A Christmas miracle story

If the future is meeting us at the present moment—then so is the past. My essay was all but finished, when tonight (the moon now half illuminated in the sky) I experienced another little Christmas miracle. Here, I am looping back to the topic of my previous essay, The Light Within: Embracing the Spirit of Christmas—and I am also looping back to my early childhood. To the past, pounding in my heart, asking to be remembered, integrated, and celebrated. The first miracle I shared in a note, which a small handful of you might have seen. It read:

On the street I lived on as a small child, my neighbour a few doors down would create a whimsical Christmas village inside his front windows each December.

We moved out of that house when I was 4 years old, and ever since I have recalled the magic of gazing through the glass in wonder—a precious piece of the past.

When driving around looking at Christmas lights a couple nights ago, I spontaneously decided to drive to my childhood street. To curiously drive past my old home, and see if there were any light displays in the area.

We turned onto the street and saw lights glinting up ahead. As we approached them, I could see it. A miniature village of quaint little houses and sparkly lights—the Christmas village of my early childhood.

The lurch of joy and nostalgia in my gut! It was as if I happened upon baby Jesus himself in the stable, appearing before me in the dark night. The stars twinkled overhead and my heart beat faster in my chest.

I jumped out of the car with my 4 year old daughter and we giddily ran to the window.

Three decades later.

Three DECADES later and my childhood neighbour has been creating this magic all along. Re-discovering this was something akin to a Christmas miracle.

A stream of light stretching from the past to reach me.

Tonight, the plot thickens.

The miracle deepens.

I return with my kids to my childhood street—so that my son (who was asleep in the car the first time) can experience the magical Christmas display. When we get back into the car, I have a strong urge to drive down my late Oma and Opa’s street, which is only three minutes away. To see their house. To just be there, at a time of year that holds such cherished memories for me. As we turn down the bend in the road, I see coloured lights twinkling in the distance. A growing anticipation swells in my heart as we approach.

I cannot believe my eyes—I have to check the house number. 54. Yes. My Oma and Opa’s house, that precious piece of my childhood I haven’t seen in over a decade, is lit up like a beacon in the darkness. Joyfully decked out in dazzling lights, a family of reindeer smiling on the grass, the garden thriving and well-kept, the entire roof (that my Opa once painted ‘dove grey’ but always looked amusingly, mauve) covered in a cascade of lights.

A star at the very point of the roof.

The release of tears I had been subconsciously waiting for all Christmas season was thickly, painfully, and joyfully upon me. My partner stopped the car and we just idled there. Fat droplets fell in my lap, on my dress. I could feel the presence of my Oma and Opa so deeply—they were everywhere. In the heavens. All around me. Laughing with delight at my reaction to their Christmas gift—and I have no doubt, no doubt—that they led me there tonight.

Our past does not leave us. We might feel like we’re charging ahead, into the future and the unknown, but it doesn’t exactly work that way. The past and the future meet us in the present. We walk forward and we harken back. You are allowed to loop back. To intentionally recall fond memories—allowing them to dance before your eyes and bloom again in your body. To fully embrace the swelling love within your heart and the simultaneous pain of its million wailing pieces, shattered with nostalgia.

Oh, how I would love to be a child again.

My daughter is empathic and intuitive. As she quietly witnessed my crying, she said ‘Don’t worry mummy, I wish you could be a baby again, too. And you will be! When you die one day, you’ll become a baby again. That’s just life!’

That is just life. Endings and beginnings. Yet within those endings and beginnings—something constant and eternal. The light of the soul; the rose of the heart.

You are living out your own cosmic tapestry.

When you walk into 2026, calling in your big goals and dreams, recall also the dream of the past. The dream already lived. All that was, and all that is. Remember your inner flame that never perishes, your greatest and eternal asset—cycle after cycle, life after life.

Dearest subscribers, thank you for reading. Thank you for being a valuable part of my writing journey in 2025. I’m proud I took the leap to start this publication. I am so excited to see (and intentionally co-create) what 2026 has to bring. Big, benefic changes are coming. This I know with trusting foresight.

Now I would love to hear from you, dear readers. What defined your past nine years? What did you release in 2025—did you resonate with the Snake energy? And what are you embracing in 2026, Year of the Horse, numerological year of new beginnings?

Let’s chat in the comments!

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Lastly, I am sending streams of golden, gleaming light and warmth across the ether to each and every one of you. Wishing you all a brilliant new year and coming era of authenticity, energetic protection, wealth, health, and abundance in all forms.

With love and ancient birthing power,

Rebecca Mary

Overcoming Grinchiness

I was once a bit of a Grinch.

Not always—just in the first years of having children. In that time of tender transformation I found myself reassessing and cultivating my values as a new mother. Freshly disgusted at the consumerism surrounding the ‘silly season’, the plastic baubles hung upon plastic trees (I’m in Australia, where this is the norm) and the seemingly pointless Secret Santa gifts that inevitably end up in landfill, I found myself resistant to the holiday.

And the obligation—sigh, three different family gatherings on Christmas day alone, who cares if I have a baby, and the following year two babies, each needing their naps—God forbid we skip a single event.

In the past couple of years though, since my kids have grown a little older and I witness with growing pride their expanding awareness, the magic is returning to me. I am gladly transforming from rather ambivalent and grouchy about the holiday season, to fully embracing and revelling in the spirit of Christmas.

I sit here right now in my living room, filled with childlike delight at the twinkly lights, the candles in the fireplace, the maroon tones of my décor, our quaint little tree—how it evokes the very essence of gezelligheid—warm, ambient, oozing cosiness.

My Oma, if she were still with us, would be proud of me. She’d feel right at home. I can imagine her entering my house, slouching off her coat and saying ‘ooh ja, dit is gezellig, Rebecca!’ And I suppose that my Oma and the magical European-ness of my childhood Christmases (despite being in the southern hemisphere) is part of what has inspired me to re-embrace this season, along with the joy and innocence that my children bring.

Meaning-making and mythology

What does Christmas mean to you?

Many of us are abundantly aware that Christmas, and many of the traditions upheld today, like the trimming of the tree, carolling, and feasting, originated in Germanic pagan traditions of Yule/Winter Solstice—celebrating the returning of the light after the darkest and longest night of midwinter.

After growing up to question and then reject the doctrine within which I was raised, there was a moment in time where I’d haughtily wax lyrical about how Jesus wasn’t even born on 25th December, how the church adopted pagan traditions to suit their needs, how it’s not even midwinter here, none of this makes sense! and how many mythological and religious figures predating Christ have nearly identical elements within the stories of their birth, life, and death. In particular Krishna of the Vedic tradition, whose story is almost one and the same with Christ—including his divine conception prophesied by wise men following cosmological phenomena, being a performer of miracles, a caster out of demons, and being hung on a tree before resurrecting and visiting his disciples. He also had a consort, Mary Magdalene’s precursor—Radha, goddess of divine love and the heart.

Krishna predates Christ by 3000 years.

I became a rather arrogant know-it-all of great annoyance to my religious parents come Christmastime, trumpeting all of these illuminating discoveries about the origins and morphing mythologies surrounding midwinter, solar deities throughout history, and the roots of our modern Christmas. Over time, though, I have learned that a big part of living a full and meaningful life involves accepting others. That is—not trying to convince others to change their beliefs, or to prove them wrong. Of being content with one’s own spiritual awareness without imposing it onto others. Christmas isn’t a time to debate the details of Christ’s birth, or to convince people to question the dogma they ardently adhere to. I had to take a step back, chill out, and consider how I can revive my own sense of Christmas spirit through personal meaning-making. For me, and my little family.

Light within darkness

The story and teachings of Christ remain vitally relevant today as they did two thousand years ago. I particularly find solace and deep wisdom within the gnostic gospels, and in the direct translations of Yeshua’s words from Aramaic to English (the book Prayers of the Cosmos floored me). The man had a blazing soul and divine purpose, he was a prophet and a rebel, and his birth story is part of the mythology of our times—however true or not the details are as depicted in the gospels.

Christ is the coming of the light.

He is the solar child, the light that permeates the darkness, heralding the turning of the seasons, and a shift in the consciousness of humankind.

Light within darkness.

Christ was an embodiment of the universal light that resides within all beings. Our separation with the Light (with God, the cosmos) is but an illusion. We are light, we will return to light. This is the wisdom he imparted. This was the deeper meaning of Yuletide, which I suspect meant more to our ancient ancestors than merely the turning of the seasons. This is the meaning of Christmas.

Christ’s story fits an archetypal pattern that has played out over history again and again and again. Those who recorded his story mythologised his existence in a way that is deeply meaningful, thus creating lasting and intended impact (I think Yeshua himself took part in this too). Perhaps Krishna and Christ are the same being, incarnated 3000 years apart. Or perhaps each prophet incarnates to impart similar lessons for the enlightenment of humanity. Perhaps Jesus’ story, like Krishna’s—and like the Egyptian Horus and the Persian Mithras, two other ‘lambs of God’ who had divine births around 25th December, performed miracles and were resurrected—are all part of the human story, and this pattern that seems to repeat is one we should deeply contemplate. Historical accuracy isn’t the most important aspect to pour over—because mythology is so much more than that.

After my bout of questioning everything, resenting the prevailing culture, seeking deeper wisdom, and having a bit of a grinch moment—I have come to understand the deeper meaning of Christmas. I choose to approach the holiday with an open heart, childlike wonder, contemplation of the deeper mysteries, compassion, and patience for others. As ever, my Venusian heart does always re-orient herself toward beauty and joy and the light within the dark.

Revering Birth

On Christmas, the world celebrates birth.

Yet how many of us do not give even a single, fleeting thought to the birth journey and lived experience of the woman who birthed Jesus? Since experiencing my own fire-walk journeys into Motherhood, I like to think about Mary. How did she feel? Had she given birth to previous children? The Bible names Jesus’ brothers; I personally believe she did. It doesn’t matter whether the myth of the young virgin mother is an accurate depiction though, (Mithras and Dionysis, who’s stories parallel with Jesus, were also born of virgins)—and it doesn’t matter if she gave birth in a stable, or elsewhere.

Because all birth is the same, no matter where it occurs.

All birth welcomes the light of a child after the dark night of labour.

Was Mary filled with fear, or trust? I like to imagine the low hum of her voice as she tones over her surges. The rustle of the hay beneath her knees. The hot breath of the donkeys and oxen in the stable, wide-eyed and curious at this animalistic unfolding—the smells, the sounds of birth. I can see the light of Sirius blinking in a gap between the eaves in the thatched roof. The whisper of the palm trees lining the street outside in a gentle night-breeze. Joseph, a grounding presence beside her, hiding the trembling of his own fear and trepidation. Whether fearful or trusting, her baby is coming. Her baby—who will be her whole world. The one who will drink from the fount of her breast and look up into her eyes with the ethereal, tiny face of an angel. The cosmic journey from womb to world clinging to him like a mysterious aura.

Like every baby—everywhere.

Christmas is an opportunity to cultivate reverence for birth for our children—whether you are Christian or not, the mythology of Christ’s birth can be a potent lesson in evoking respect, wonder, and awe around childbirth. As mothers and fathers, it is an invitation to speak to our young children (positively) about their births, cherished memories from your postpartum phases with them, how Mary is not so different to any of us, and how our children can bring as much light into the world as the Christ child did.

After Jesus was born, the Three Kings travelled across lands, following the light of Sirius, to bring the baby exotic gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. I love the mythology and imagery of the magi. I would pour over Jane Ray’s glorious illustrative depictions of them, and the ancient world of Bethlehem, in her book The Story of Christmas as a child. We ourselves exchange gifts on Christmas with loved ones, in the tradition of the three wise men, though there are likewise other traditions like the Roman Saturnalia and Sol Invictus festivals—celebrating the midwinter solstice with (quite raucous and hedonistic) feasting and gift-giving—that have influenced this tradition. Again, the origins are neither here or there. What is the meaning behind your gift-giving? And are the gifts you are giving, indeed, meaningful?

Childhood Christmas—the bosom of wonder & awe

Growing up, Christmas was always magical. I come from a Dutch immigrant family on my Dad’s side, and a Croatian immigrant family on my Mum’s side. So Christmas, for us, was a little more than the typical Aussie Christmas day barbecue complete with prawns, potato salad, swims in the pool, and Secret Santa gifts from Kmart.

The most exciting part of the holiday season for us was Christmas Eve.

We would have a special dinner in our ‘lounge room’ that was only ever used at Christmas. Yes, we had an entire room of our house that was literally reserved for this one holiday. We would wear our best clothes, usually new dresses especially bought for the occasion, and eat our roast turkey and pumpkin with cranberry sauce and sparkling grape juice, as the light was turning dusk-blue outside, the lights of our tree merrily reflecting in the windows, feeling exuberantly joyful.

We’d then go to Oma and Opa’s house for dessert, to see our Dutch cousins, and open presents under their tree. My Oma (whose mother was German) would always have a paper plate for each of us, wrapped in red cellophane and filled with various German sweets, biscuits, nuts, and always a singular, mealy apple that would be immediately discarded upon opening.

Her home was dimly lit, cosy, cottage-like, perfectly Dutch. The feeling of Oma and Opa’s house—the smell of the old Grandfather clock from Holland (its wood infused with a century’s worth of tobacco smoke), the clink of dainty porcelain dishes filled with toffees in gleaming gold wrappers, the taste of kerststol and Pfeffernüsse, the hauntingly beatific sound of the Vienna Boys Choir playing on the stereo… it all lives within me still, so vividly.

There was a feeling of pure magic on Christmas Eve.

After our bellies were full and the gifts were given, we’d walk along the street to look at the decorations and Christmas villages set up in the windows of homes nearby, and an aura of reverence would be upon us—as if we were on the precipice of something genuinely prophetic—like glimpsing Santa’s sleigh in the starry heavens, which we’d all gaze into, pointing out constellations.

On Christmas morning, after a night of barely sleeping and trying to catch a glimpse of old St Nick (I never did, but he always left presents in a curiously unique, shiny red wrapping paper—nothing like what my mum wrapped the rest of the gifts in) we would attend morning mass and then lunch at my Croatian Nanna and Grandpa’s house.

We’d spend hours upon hours of feasting and gifting, and then after a brief pause in the afternoon where everyone would sit in the living room having tea and maybe put the TV on, all the food would come out again in the delightfully chaos-filled orange-and-purple-tiled seventies kitchen to be re-heated for dinner. Following the classic two hour long ethnic goodbye—goodbye at the table, then at the door, then on the driveway, then at the car, then finally after an array of toots and waves and proclamations of ako bog da! we would be on our way home.

Christmas in Australia falls at the very height of summer. Christmas Day itself often sees temperatures of up to 40 degrees celcius. There is perhaps, something within myself and my family, that remembers Christmas in another season, a cellular remembering—a yearning even, for a cooler Christmas, for the turning toward the coming spring and the light, after the darkest night in the North. I see this in my mum especially—her desire to experience a winter Christmas, how she lives both joyfully and vicariously through American B-grade holiday rom-coms all December long.

Being what we are—women of European roots living in what should be an alien world for us, Australia—Christmas is an art of embracing European winter solstice traditions and the sweltering, brilliantly sunny reality of our location.

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The art of a gezellig Christmas season

Now that we have explored what Christmas means to us, it’s time for the practical guide to cultivating the spirit of the season—whatever your personal beliefs, religion, or spirituality—and achieving ultimate gezelligheid.

Step 1. The Playlist

The soundtrack is the foundation.

For me, having a joyful Christmas season begins with the perfect holiday playlist. For years, I would alternate between “Christmas Crooners” and “Classical Christmas” playlists, because the Mariah Carey bangers and ballads are simply not for me… but they still just didn’t quite hit the spot. So last December, I decided to craft my own playlist—and I want to share it with you.

There is just something about hitting play on Bublé’s It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas before opening the storage box with all the baubles and accoutrements for decorating the tree. It is a compilation of what I personally believe to be tasteful Christmas music, featuring popular crooners like Frank Sinatra to sassy singers of old like Eartha Kitt and Blossom Dearie, to classical pieces of music, and songs in French, Arabic, German, Spanish, and Hawaiian (you know the one)—and of course, my Opa and my Dad’s beloved Vienna Boys Choir, among many more.

Step 2. Family Heirlooms and meaningful decor

I’ll firstly admit: my sweet little beloved Christmas tree is plastic. I will have it for a long time. It is very uncommon within Australia to have a real Christmas tree. This being because of our climate, and also there aren’t a great deal of Christmas tree farms around. You can get them if you make the arrangements—but most of us do opt for the artificial tree.

That out of the way, I avoid cheap plastic baubles. Every decoration on our tree is unique—and there are many. We have felt mermaids, fairies, mushrooms, a dolphin, and an astronaut. There are three plush, traditional German lace hearts handmade by my elderly neighbour Maria. There are Polish glass globes commemorating my children’s births, and handmade trees I created with my daughter using air-dry terracotta clay and pieces of jewellery and beads. There is a nativity made of Irish silver. A glass pomegranate, a glass ballet dancer, and a ceramic Nutcracker—all gifts from my Mother. Every year, we add a few more. It is laden and cheerful. There is no colour scheme, and no two decorations are the same, and it just works.

The tree itself is placed in the window on top of a decorative maroon rug that belonged to my Oma. Around the base of the tree is a piece of patterned maroon Batik fabric gifted from a friend in Malaysia. Slung over the armchair is a red and gold Palestinian keffiyeh, honouring the land where Jesus was born and as a constant reminder all of my friends there. On the top of the armchair is a hand-embroidered fabric with candles and fir leaves made by my Oma’s German cousin.

Embroidered stockings hang from the mantle, and within our fireplace is a Christmas altar complete with sculptures of St Nicholas and Amanita Muscaria mushrooms, where we burn candles every night. The altar is surrounded by pine cones (from the Aleppo pine in our front garden, the guardian of our home) with their edges painted white and sprinkled with glitter to resemble snow. Atop the mantle is a very, very old German doll that belonged to my great-Oma, and possibly even was passed down to her from her mother.

Objects and heirlooms can cultivate an aura of reverence and novelty, if they are imbued with meaning and family myth—therefore becoming a special part of your tradition. The heirlooms are an important aspect of this weaving, for me. As is facilitating craft projects with my kids—focusing on hand-made items and natural materials. It’s part of my rejection of consumerist Christmas—and it can be yours too.

Step 3. Ambient lighting

Ambience is everything when it comes to cultivating gezelligheid. Think: amber or warm lighting (not blue light—or worse—multi-coloured) and never, ever should your Christmas lights be flashing or strobing. Dad always recounts my Oma from when he was a child, hilariously complaining about the ‘bloody Aussies’ who lived across the road from them, with their lights blinking ‘on, off! on, off! on, off!’ through the window.

What we want is: Warm. Twinkly. Cosy. Calming. Gentle on the senses.

Evoking reverence and contemplation.

Imitating starlight.

Or firelight.

Of course—bringing actual fire into your space is a necessity. If you’re in the northern hemisphere and it’s cold enough, you have the midwinter privilege of lighting an actual, merry fire in your grate (if you have one). We have a fireplace in our home, but in the heat of a summer Christmas, we fill it with the next best thing: candles.

Flickering candlelight is what would have illuminated the stable and Mary’s first gaze on the face of her child. Christmas is a celebration of light; Christmas is the archetype of light in the darkness. The holiday is centred around light—the ancient pagan tradition of 'burning the Yule log’ to celebrate the returning of the Sun, which was kept burning for 12 days, has given way to our 12 days of Christmas and the tradition of decorating with lights, candles, and fire.

So, let there be light. But let it be ambient!

And for goodness sake—no overhead lighting, no fluorescents. The home should always feel more like a temple and less like a brightly-lit pharmacy.

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Step 4. Storytelling

Storytelling and myth-making is a vital aspect of the Christmas and Yule season. Our ancient ancestors relied on oral transmissions to keep myth and story alive generation after generation—to make meaning of the seasons, the cosmos, and the human experience. Oral traditions gave way to the written word, and we have an abundance of stories to draw from today, and and abundance of our own stories to tell. I like to tell my kids of our cultural heritage, what Christmas was like for me as a child, and I share with them the essence of relatives who have passed—some of their great-grandparents, and the importance of the heirlooms they’ve left to us.

I am still growing our little collection of books—and many of the stories I read to my kids today were mine as a child. I like to focus on positive, gentle midwinter folk tales from around the world like La Befana of Italy and the tale of Poinsettia from Mexico told by Tomie DePaola. DePaola’s Tony’s Bread, about how the panettone was created, was another favourite of mine growing up. We favour nativity stories, classics like The Nutcracker, and volumes that are whimsically and artfully illustrated like those of Jane Ray. We adore Ludwig Bemelmans’ Madeline’s Christmas. A lovely book for young readers about winter solstice is Susan Cooper’s The Shortest Day. When we read, before bed, snuggled by the twinkly lights of the Christmas tree, there is a hushed aura of wonder.

What stories do you tell your children at Christmas? Or if you don’t have children yet, how can you welcome storytelling and myth-making into your own holiday season?

Step 5. Meaningful gift-giving

Gift-giving is about balance for me. I do indeed love having a Christmas tree overflowing with an abundance of packages beneath it. I do take part in the consumerism of the holiday season, it is both somewhat inevitable and a choice that I make—but I do my best to limit my impact on the earth and favour gifts that are special, meaningful, and long-lasting.

In recent years, I have been printing and framing photographs of my children for all the grandparents, and this year I created photo books (which cost a small fortune, but were well worth it). I usually will buy a quality piece of jewellery, like earrings, for my mum. Dad will often get a book, or a bottle of wine or champagne to share at my parent’s Christmas Eve dinner party. Chocolates and gourmet sweets never go astray.

For my children, I do like to have a pile of packages each for them to tear into on Christmas morning. When I purchase plastic toys, I make sure they’re something that will last for years to come and hold value to be passed on later (magnetic tiles, Duplo/Lego, Sylvanian Families, Ravensburger puzzles). I also like to buy them quality clothing from local, ethical labels that I know will last. Oh, and books. There will always, always, be books.

The kids and I will often make little gifts, baubles, or decorations with clay to hand out to relatives, and the kids create handmade “collage” cards, using old Christmas cards from years past (save them for this purpose!) which is a fun way of recycling through craft.

Everything is wrapped in brown paper and tied with ribbons and strings and bows that I save after the gifts are opened, and use again the next year. Sometimes we decorate them with dehydrated orange slices (this looks so beautiful). These are some small ways we lower our impact on mother earth and take part in Christmas gifting in a way that is wholesome and fun.

To Santa Claus, or not to Santa Claus?

We personally do the Santa thing. I grew up leaving the jolly old fellow cookies and milk, and carrots outside for the reindeer, and it was the joy of my childhood. I was a little uncertain when I first had children, but again, I softened into the tradition. I didn’t resent my parents for “lying” to me about Santa being real (does anyone, seriously?) Instead, I am grateful they fostered joy and magic and cradled our childlike innocence in their loving arms. So, my kids are getting scooters this year from Father Christmas. That is what they have asked for, and you better believe he will deliver.

Step 6. Chill the fuck out

Excuse my French, but chilling the fuck out is the hinge on which I swung from grinchy bitch to jingly, jangly Christmas angel.

Mindset it everything.

What are you resenting about Christmas—and can you embrace it?

I used to deeply resent my Christmas Day being dictated to me by my partner’s family, who claim both lunch and dinner on either side (so lunch at my Croatian Nanna’s has to be shoehorned in-between them—gone is the all-day ‘lunch’ I so adored, that constant fixture of my childhood). I used to complain for weeks leading up to Christmas, even months before, about how I want to have a say in how we spend Christmas day, about how I’d love to just be at home relaxing on Christmas night after lunch, not rushing out to another event. But I never complained about my family gatherings—like my mum’s Christmas Eve dinner, because I genuinely love going to that. There is a funny thing with in-laws and obligation. Suddenly, it’s no longer just you, and what you want to do, and your traditions. You have to factor in a whole other sprawling group of people.

I had to embrace Aussie Christmas. (Well, one side of my partner’s is British ‘Aussie’ and the other is Greek). Suddenly, we’re carting our family from one gathering to the next, jumping into swimming pools, buying multiple Secret Santa gifts, and eating prawns and potato salad. It was when the kids reached their toddler phases, and I could see how much they absolutely loved the chaos and excitement of Christmas day and seeing all their cousins on each side, that I began to soften.

Why so much resistance?

Why not embrace it?

So that’s what I did. I even embraced the (what was once loathsome to me) Secret Santa games, where each person buys a mystery gender-neutral gift, draws a number from a hat, and can steal already-opened gifts from one another. Some years I was the weirdo who sat out—but no more. You better believe I march myself off to Kmart and buy the most tasteful and useful-seeming items like a crystal salt lamp or a wooden salad bowl to contribute to the game.

It is what it is.

And do you know what? It’s actually fun.

So if you, like me, experience resentment and resistance around certain familial obligations come the silly season—maybe take a chill pill. You’ll have a better time for it. You might even have a great time.

This is the most important step in embodying gezelligheid. We each have the choice to approach our social interactions with the spirit of conviviality, and an open heart. We each have the choice to embrace our own embodied divinity, to be merry, and savour the light within. Boundaries are important—but so is softening. For me, on this holiday, I choose to soften.

Did I really just write a 22 minute long essay about Christmas?

I’m not sure if my ramblings about how I personally find meaning, and cultivate tradition and gezelligheid during the holiday season will be useful or inspiring or relatable to anyone—but perhaps it will indeed touch someone out there. I’d love to hear from you in the comments!

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My dear readers, remember this…

You have a light within. You are living light. You are a light within the dark.

This is the wisdom of Christ. This is the wisdom of Yule. And yes—you can still celebrate this deeper meaning, even at the height of a southern hemisphere summer!

May you all have a joyful, abundant and gezellig Christmas season.

With heartfelt love and joy, and ancient birthing power

Rebecca Mary

Before beginning the essay, I want to let my readers know that this piece is filled with both the staggering beauty of the human soul, and the unfathomable violence and cruelty being perpetrated against the Palestinian people by Israel. There are depictions of violence difficult to think about, let alone write.

And yet.

I have to write this.

There is a shame simmering beneath my surfaces. I haven’t written enough about Gaza. Of what I know—of my connection to Palestinian families through mutual aid work, of the insight I am afforded through it.

When I one day look back on this time—if I am, say, an eighty year old Rebecca examining her creative life, the voice that was her gift—I would be glad in hindsight that I stepped through my trepidation into the equal parts soft curves and jutting angles of the words that are to follow.

So, here is the poem, and here is the heart, and here is the humanness.

Here are the unfathomable depths of sorrow, here is the truth, here is the fire, here is the rage, and here is the joy and beauty of a friendship rooted in solidarity.

Nour of the Waters نور المياه

You called me your heart,
and it was then that I knew
the love of your people.

The love of your people
is clear as a lake in dawn light,
precious as child’s laughter.

Your love is love 
that rains down, drawing tears 
from the eyes of all it touches.

You soak me in it, Nour
and even in the silence
I feel it.

They bombed the cell towers
I have no way of reaching you 
on the road to Al-Mawasi

I listen to songs about the ocean
but it is your love
that washes over me. 

—Rebecca Mary Roose

A whole year of tears

More than a year. Two years. Seventy-seven years.

It was over a year ago that I wrote this poem. I remember the immense depth of feeling my friend sent across the ether. Her message in Whatsapp, something along the lines of: I am scared, habibti. We are going to the Mawasi area. I don’t know what will happen to us. Think of me.

This poem then spilled forth in my journal. I was falling in love with the immense depth with which Palestinians convey their hearts. The beauty that saturates their words, their expression, and spirit. I could see their steadfastness, the intense will to live, their enduring faith—how they allow glimmers of hope to shift and shimmer like a mirage over water. How an aura of divinity clings to the Palestinian people—perhaps it is their proximity to death, and therefore to God.

I was suspended in the space between being terrified for my friend and a deep well of trust rising within me that she will be safe.

Over a year ago, Nour had already been displaced multiple times, and was fleeing Rafah with her family, the supposed humanitarian “safe zone” in Gaza, before it was obliterated. She has moved from place to place since then, and recently left her rented apartment in the North to go south to Khan Yunis, only to experience a mere handful of days without the sound of bombings, until Israel breached the ceasefire agreement and carpet bombed the region.

Their home was destroyed early on in the genocide. The scope of devastation is unfathomable. Families in Gaza live, if not in makeshift tents, in hollowed-out buildings, whatever remains—a living room, opening up to nothing, a steep drop to the pummelled ground.

Nour’s dreams—grains of sand falling from her hands. Scattered about on the wind.

The sorrow that moves me

What inspired me to begin writing this post? It began one morning with the news. Once again, fire rained from the sky and Israel continued the slaughter of the Palestinian people.

Once again, bombs landed on families sheltering in tents.

I met Nour on Instagram—one of the few beautiful things that app afforded me—connecting with families in Gaza and being part of the formation of the grassroots mutual aid initiative Coffees for Gaza. Nour is a devoted wife and mother of two precious and bright daughters, Malak and Joud. They’re seven and five, and despite all they have endured are still creating beautiful art and exuding the childlike joy that is their birthright.

Nour studied business administration at university and over time has revealed herself to be a talented writer conveying her feelings with a poetic intensity and softness. She has co-authored a book of Palestinian fables titled Under the Olive Moon with award-winning author Maria Isabel Sánchez Vegara (author of the Little People, Big Dreams series) which is being illustrated by the whimsically talented Raahat Kaduji, due for release in October 2026 by Magic Cat Publishing.

All from within her tent.

Writing—whilst displaced, surviving a genocide, uncertain of what the future holds and whether she will live to see her book’s publication. All the while soliciting for donations so she can feed her family, courageously sharing herself and her circumstances with the world on social media.

Then—there is daily task of finding something at the market to cook. At times, when aid is at is most limited due to the blockade, there is little more than flour and rice. Nour and her family have lived for days, at times, on plain boiled pasta. They haven’t enjoyed meat in months.

Meanwhile, zionists destroy aid at the border, raiding the trucks loaded with flour and boxes of food and infant formula, smashing the packages apart on the ground. The internet is filled with videos of this inhumane, insane behaviour. They even hosted a rave at the border.

For the families on the other side of that border, life is a constant fight for survival. A fight for mothers to get enough nourishment to produce breastmilk or access formula to feed their infants. A fight for fathers to shelter their families. A fight for the injured, ill, and disabled to access medical care. A fight for children to get an eduction, to experience any form of childhood at all. A constant and unbearable concern for the wellbeing of one’s children. For their psychological state. For their future.

Soul to soul

I still remember the first time she called me روحي, ya ruhi, my soul.

The feeling of butterflies unfurling their wings in my stomach.

My heart a tender, bursting fruit.

Beams of light streaking across the horizon, illuminating undersea kingdoms.

The revelation of a friendship formed across oceans. It is more than just pixels and electromagnetic radiation. The connection is energetic—falling ill at the same time, thinking of her and then seeing her message pop up on my screen.

She wrote our names in the sand once, on the beach there. Our letters intermingling with the waters of the Mediterranean. Washed away by the salt-laden caress of the sea.

I look at how far Nour has traversed this past year—two years—in the face of a genocide. Looking back on the day she went with her family to the beach, smiling faces like bright candles beaming into the camera, and all that blue sea behind them. Attempting to enjoy a reprieve from the unbearable reality of tent life. They were, of course, already living in apocalyptic conditions then. Now, you couldn’t call it anything less than hell.

A hell-scape filled to the brim with the sweetest of angels.

The scope of devastation is unimaginable, and yet, only days ago they visited the beach again.

Her beautiful girls, dancing by the water’s edge.

Nour, watching the orange glow of the sunset over her beloved sea.

Watching the same sun that sets over every ocean, everywhere.

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My heart is on fire

My heart is on fire. In moments, I am ripped apart by it all—the grief, horror, shame, fear, disbelief, and rage. There is a river of rage inside me that bubbles up to the surface. It seethes under my skin, in my veins, on the tip of my tongue.

Sacred fury.

Horror—at the daily live-streamed sacrilege, the two year long humiliation ritual enacted upon the innocent children of Gaza.

It is not just ‘some war somewhere’.

This is our earth. These are our babies.

I am firmly rooted in my knowing that life is sacred. Babies, children, mothers, fathers, elders, families, bloodlines, the land, the trees, the waters, the bees—are sacred.

The rage beneath my wings is that of the Furies. The Furies have always been a woman’s rage. That feeling of revulsion when something is so far gone from the natural order. The blatant slaying of children. The stealing of land. The erasure of heritage. The glee with which they do it. This is not isolated to Gaza—mother earth and her myriad mothers cry out in anguish, and weep.

You cannot remain in rage, though.

You cannot live there.

Sacred rage has a function—to inspire one to action; to open the heart. It must move through you—one must process the tidal wave of fury, and work with it to enact change—no matter how small a change one can make.

The natural order is collaboration. Mutual aid. Equity. Reverence for life and death. Protection of the innocent. The honouring of lineage and land. The All in the One.

The natural order is rhythmic. Rooted. Cyclical. Feminine.

With mothers and children at the centre.

The natural order is love.

I bear witness

As much as my heart orients toward joy, beauty, abundance—I can’t not bear witness. It is a constant balancing act to protect one’s psyche, to avoid desensitisation, and remain grounded—yet to also bear witness without being crushed or falling into a depression.

I am acutely aware the Palestinian people and those in crisis do not have this luxury and privilege.

It is vital for the human being to draw on the eternal strength of the Mother, of God, and consciously take the time to bear witness. To step into the shoes of another. To viscerally imagine being them in an effort of understanding—to move even but an echo of their suffering through one’s own heart and body, in an act of transmutation.

To allow the tears to prickle your eyes. To scream into your pillow.

How often do you bear witness?

To the mother of the murdered child, cradling their small body blood-soaked body in her arms, remembering how they were just breathing minutes ago, how she dressed them in their little socks and pants and favourite t-shirt only this morning.

To the orphaned boy, a stomach-lurching realisation dawning on him that he’s now solely responsible for his younger siblings, his mama and papa now gone from the world of the living.

To the ravaged and emaciated prisoner, released from torture that he will re-live every waking and sleeping moment for the rest of his life.

To the the seven year old girl starving to death, balding and covered in bedsores, her frail body skin and bone.

To the newborn baby that died of shock in his mothers arms from the sound of a bombing.

To the five year old angel Hind Rajab, who stayed on the phone for three hours to paramedics, terrified and pleading for them to save her, whilst trapped in a car with her dead family members as an Israeli tank approached and killed her, also killing the two paramedics dispatched to rescue her.

We are living in an era of unprecedented cruelty. A time of immense cognitive dissonance. An era of distraction, desensitisation, and extraction—of souls, life force, and the divine creative spark that makes us human.

We are living within an attention economy that will have us doom scroll our way past expressions of human suffering that should bring a person to their knees, to watch a makeup tutorial or an influencer harping on about some must-have product.

Our very ability to be with pain and to allow the time to actually feel something is in constant jeopardy within the heart-numbing hustle-grind-consume-scroll nature of our prevailing culture.

What my eyes have seen

What I have seen is the tip of the iceberg, but it is enough.

I have seen the decomposing babies that were left to die, freezing and feebly wailing into the silence of the empty NICU, desperate for the warm universe of their mother’s breast, until their tiny hearts stopped beating and they each took their last wisp of breath.

I have seen the mass graves, filled with the bodies of adults and infants alike, white bags upon white bags, all lined up in rows.

I have seen the father holding up the headless body of his 18 month old son, who was decapitated by Israel, when they bombed his family’s tent.

I have seen the video of the young man in a wheelchair burning to death, unable to navigate his way to safety.

I have seen the children crushed beneath rubble.

I have seen Israeli military officers drag two little boys through the dirt, before allegedly abducting them. Their mothers dressed them that morning—striped track pants on the smaller one. He could be my own son.

His little feet shuffling in the sand, his small head looking up to the face of his abuser. The image has not left my mind’s eye.

I have seen the photo of the man flattened in the dirt, tank tyre marks decimating his body.

Did you read that correctly? Ran over by a tank.

I have seen the feeble limp body of a foetus, flung out of the watery haven, the watery heaven, the watery universe of her mother’s womb from the force of a bombing.

I have seen the video of Israeli fitness girlies chanting ‘we will burn their village’ while they do their workout routine.

I have seen the Western media refer to Hind Rajab as ‘a woman’—the five year old girl who was murdered by Israel when they shot 335 rounds of bullets at her family’s car.

I have seen the TikTok trend where teenage Israeli’s ‘prank’ their parents saying they want to start fundraisers for the ‘poor kids in Gaza’.

How do we bear witness to such unfathomable horrors without either getting depressed, shutting down, or becoming desensitised?

How do we retain our humanity, our compassion, our divine spark, whilst witnessing such an inconceivable scale of depravity and devastation?

How do we not just scroll past?

We must encourage ourselves to feel the rage, the despair, the horror, the disbelief—before moving these emotions through the body and reorienting oneself to allow in the beauty, the love, the divinity—through connection, solidarity, activism, and prayer.

Bearing witness—allowing these emotions to be present and whole, without suppressing them or turning oneself away—is in itself, a prayer.

And in a culture that is screen-addicted with many unable to focus for more than a few seconds on what is in front of them, it takes conscious witnessing—the discipline to step back and really feel the pain emanating through the world within your heart.

Adapting through love

The human race, like much of nature, thrives on connection and collaboration. There is no escaping globalisation (until another asteroid of deluge-creating proportions slams into the earth and she is given a clean slate) and we must learn, with the immense capacity of love that the human heart can hold—to adapt.

Mere generations ago, our nervous systems only had to deal with what we were immediately exposed to within our communities. Now, we have daily, constant exposure to events unfolding across the entire planet—in HD video. It’s almost impossible to avoid it, yet it’s no wonder why many choose to ignore the suffering of the collective to preserve their own sense of normalcy or wellbeing (or in other words, to stay numb).

Having said that, ignoring polycrisis is not healthy behaviour. Being numb to the suffering of others is not healthy; nor should it be the norm. To witness horrors unlike anything you could ever imagine and then suppress the human urge for compassion and empathy—that sets you up for losing the very essence of what it is to be human.

Humanity then loses touch with The Mother. With the divine She who is the embodied essence of creativity, growth, expansion—love.

When we as a collective lose touch with Her, humanity suffers—mothers and children, and the earth herself, instead of being centred are commodified and desecrated—cast aside, as if the whole damn show doesn’t rest on our very shoulders, within our very bellies, within the milk of our breasts.

Befriending and witnessing Nour, a mother like myself—has been an anchor for my heart, a garden of friendship I can tend to. Through her very existence I see the mother’s light dancing on the waters. Through her, I know the Mother will never die. She is like a flower eternally growing and blooming through the cracks in the rubble.

This is how I personally have adapted to bear witness to unfathomable suffering and tragedy. Through connection, friendship, mutual aid, and solidarity. By moving toward the pain rather than away from it.

Through love.

We adapt through love.

We adapt through love.

Ripples in the water

We cannot help everyone. Though we can make a difference by sending ripples of love through the waters of humanity. This is what I have learned, in going from despairing and burnt-out, doing more than I have capacity for—to making impactful decisions and advocating in ways that do not destroy my wellbeing and therefore my family, my partnership, and my ability to be of service at all.

You cannot be of assistance to anyone when you’re a husk of yourself.

When Audre Lorde said

Caring for myself is not self-indulgence. It is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.

She was speaking to self-care as a radical act of taking care of oneself in order to have the capacity to work towards collective liberation. Self-care is about nourishing oneself physically, emotionally, and spiritually in order to centre the collective. Self-care is NOT about centring oneself above others, self-care is NOT the demonic hyper-individualistic gross misinterpretation promoted by western psychology and wellness gurus, where you disregard the collective to ‘just focus on me.’

Self-care in its true form is collective care. It is that simple concept of putting on your oxygen mask so that you can assist others to do the same.

Processing the polycrisis, and specifically what we are witnessing in Palestine, might feel like too much. Yet there are many actions we can take to affect change. At this point in my essay, I had originally written out a guide for bearing witness to trauma through the lens of the Triple Goddess archetypes; Maiden, Mother, and Crone, and how each of the archetypes manifest in their ‘extreme’ and ‘balanced’ aspects when responding to the immensity of planetary crisis. I removed it from the essay as I felt it was becoming too great a section, and would work better as its own post with more space to flesh out and breathe.

In the meantime—ripples. How to create them? It is not about doing everything and assisting everyone. It’s about small, aligned actions. In relation to Gaza—donating to a family’s fundraiser, supporting a Palestinian clothing or jewellery brand, purchasing Palestinian literature, art, or poetry, attending a rally in your area, writing to your government officials, sharing or advocating on social media, boycotting Israeli brands and companies, and amplifying the voices of Palestinian people.

Some of these are more time-consuming than others—taking action in alignment with your own capacity is vital for making impactful decisions without experiencing overwhelm and burn out. For example, I am a full-time mother of small children—so attending rallies is something I seldom do. What I can personally do is purchase items from Palestinian brands, donate directly to families, and be a creative ally.

There is no competition when it comes to being in solidarity; the smallest action can have bigger ripples than you will ever know. Comparison, shaming each other, and assessing one another’s actions or lack thereof with a fine-toothed comb achieves nothing.

Compassion. Empathy. Loving awareness.

When your intention is infused with these qualities, you are being the change.

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The water-bearer

She is indeed the water-bearer.

Nour.

It is the sign under which she was born—Aquarius. And it is so much water that she bears.

Tears, dreams of crossing oceans, reaching distant horizons, more tears. When I think about what she bears, the vessel she is for her children, the reality of her life, it floors me. Her power, resilience, and faith. Pushed to the limits of what any mother should ever have to endure—yet still creating, still a beacon of living love.

When I speak of Nour, I speak of every mother in Gaza, and furthermore every mother in crisis, across the world. The mothers of Sudan. Congo. Yemen. Syria. Afghanistan. Rohingya. Ukraine. Central America. Mothers in every other corner of the planet, facing violence and persecution.

When I see the video of a mother in Sudan hugging her three babies close to her, traumatised beyond belief as bullets are fired all around her, I know that we hold our babies with the same arms. When she and her three babies, small as my own children, are shot dead moments later—it is at the hands of the same demonic force that dares to kill any mother, any child.

Women each flow into and out of one another in a great river of wisdom and inter-connectedness. The sanctity of a mother’s tears! Each a drop in a great bottomless well of immense depth, immense grief, immense love.

Think of every tear shed by the eyes of mothers, stretching backward and forward in time. The river those tears would create. The ocean. Imagine yourself floating in her, gently held in her buoyancy, caressed by the bottomless love that is her waters.

Think of the surging power of those waters in a storm. The ships she could swallow. Her great tidal waves pounding the shore, reshaping the land. Think of the gentle, persistent caress of her streams, creeks, brooks, and rivulets snaking their way through earth and stone.

Her cleansing baptismal energy.

Woman—you are her.

We are the waters.

Each of us a drop in the ocean of love that flows from our own hearts and washes over the hearts of one another, our souls, our children, the earth.

Pooling in our wombs.

Creating and birthing new life.

When my head spins with the depravity that I am witnessing, I anchor myself in her waters.

The waters of love.

Thank you, dear reader, if you have made it this far.

I have been mulling over this draft for a while. The topic of Palestine is electric, charged—often so polarised. Yet I continue to ask myself, how can it be? I am writing about the murder of children. The destruction of land and heritage. Colonisation. The sacredness of the mother and her babe—of reverence lost and regained.

Speaking out on polarised issues may be nerve-wrecking, but saying nothing will inevitably rot you. So here it is—take from this whatever you will.

I dedicate this to Nour, and to all my beloved friends in Gaza.

If this essay stirred something within you, I’d love to hear from you in the comments.

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If you would like to donate directly to Nour, you can do so here.

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Follow @coffeesforgaza on Instagram to see what we’re getting up to. There are art competitions, auctions, raffles, and all sorts of other exciting things.

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This essay is shared with Nour’s blessing.

With love and ancient birthing power,

Rebecca Mary

I shared in a previous post my own poetic interpretation of Persephone’s travails in the Underworld, imagining for myself the dark, sensual intricacies of her union with Hades in Persephone’s Descent: A Poem.

I followed this with poetic explorations of Demeter and Hecate’s roles in the myth, in what seems to be an unfolding body of work on the Triple Goddess. Here, I am circling back to the Maiden. Her origins, her myth, her changing legacy.

So, without further ado… let’s descend.

Descent of the Archaic Maiden

We have heard it all before. Persephone was abducted, she was raped. Then, Stockholm-syndrome-style as the understanding goes, she eventually accepts her place in the Underworld and reigns there as Queen of Death.

And yet—other interpretations of her myth abound in the collective consciousness. Many of us, particularly women, imagine the love-bond between Persephone and Hades, or what is referred to as the yearning-to-love bond; a tradition of reciprocity, divine union, ‘to recognise and be recognised, to penetrate and be penetrated.’1 A sacred rite remembered within the very cells of our being—an echo of our own yearning.

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Scholars agree that the classical Greek goddess Persephone, daughter of Zeus and Demeter, has origins in an earlier mythological tradition. Her beginnings could range anywhere from Sumer, Mesopotamia, Minoan Crete, or Mycenaean Greece. The exact origin of her mythology is neither here nor there, however—by examining archaic myths and ancient goddess traditions like the Inanna-Ishtar figure of ancient Mesopotamia, we can see that Persephone’s roots hint at a feminine initiation rite of descent—one that belonged to a more matri-focal culture and has since been diluted by patriarchy.

While the old tale of Hades grabbing off Persephone to the Underworld is a fine drama, far older stories from the matria-centered religions, such as those about Ishtar and Inanna, point toward a definite ‘yearning to love’ bond between the Maiden and the King in the Underworld.

—Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Women Who Run with the Wolves

In these archaic traditions, the Maiden is not violently seized and dragged to the Underworld by some dark devil and robbed of her autonomy. She knows that descent is an inevitable and divine rite that every young woman must embark on; an initiation during which she will awaken to the fruits of her own becoming.

Persephone was abducted; Inanna goes willingly.

In fact, she bangs the door down.

Homer’s Persephone

The above quote from the Sumerian account of Inanna’s descent to the Underworld is a far cry from Homer’s depiction of the feeble Persephone, young offshoot of Demeter, being grabbed away to the Underworld with nought more than a resounding shriek.

We can see from these brief quotes alone, that while Persephone is supposedly helpless to her fate, Inanna is self-governing. The latter goddess embarks on her journey to the Netherworld by choice and with persistence, courage and determination. And she speaks—she has a voice. We can feel something of her regality; her embodied divinity; her personality.

These depictions of feminine descent within the archaic Sumerian tradition were likely composed by women—in fact, history’s first known named author was Enheduanna, a Sumerian high priestess who wrote poetry and hymns in cuneiform from 2285−2250 BC, many of which were dedicated to the goddess Inanna. We also know from archeological evidence that the myths, including Inanna’s descent, were acted out in a ritualistic manner by women in that era.

Classic literature on the other hand, tells us very little about the goings-on between Persephone and Hades beneath the earth. Nor do we get much of a sense of the Maiden’s personality. We know next to nothing—we can but glean, and fill in the gaps. Individual men and women may each ponder and give the myth their own interpretation, their own flavour. But nowhere within the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, does it explicitly say: Persephone was raped. Yes, she later marries Hades and reigns as Queen of the Underworld, thus we know their union is consummated, and so the rape is implied. But framing her deflowering by Hades as a violent act has repercussions that trickle down throug history to the present day.

Hades seizes the Maiden, and scholars assume for good reason that the abduction includes rape primarily because the Hymn to Demeter is a literary text from a patriarchal age in which a bride was property passed from her father to the husband. Readers do not know what the Underworld looks or feels like to the young girl… to gods and to readers, the Underworld is a mysterious and inaccessible place.

—Elizabeth Nelson, Embodying Persephone’s Desire: Authentic Movement and Underworld Transformation

I personally find it intriguing that the details of Persephone’s time in the underworld are so murky to the point of being almost non-existent. The Underworld is, of course, our subconscious, it is the ‘other world,’ so perhaps the omission is apt, and necessary for our own inner exploration of the myth. Indeed, the Underworld is a mysterious and ‘inaccessible’ place, and Nelson goes on to argue that in the twenty-first century our inability to comprehend the Underworld has intensified, along with our denial of death and ‘aggressive pursuit of instant transformation.’

The lost art of descent

The divine rite of descent, so vital to each of our our transformation journeys, has been somewhat obliterated in modern culture. Those on the precipice—or in the loamy depths of—a descent, may label themselves (or be considered by the culture) as mentally unwell. So, we medicate. We escape. We addict. We spiral into a state of depression and doom rather than walking the path with courage, knowing that after every ebb, there is a flow. Hence, we abuse our own flowering. We stomp on the buds of what could be our blossoming. Even the current ‘personal brand’ culture encourages the commodification of transformation; the buying and selling of a quick turn around from boring old you to better, new you.

Those of us who have experienced a period of ego death, walking through the fire of our very being to emerge truly transformed, know you cannot sell transformation. You cannot buy it. Nor can you abduct someone into it, dragging them to the underworld for initiation via coercion and force. That’s patriarchy. It still isn’t acceptable in our dominant culture for a young woman to have autonomy; to rightfully claim for herself a place in the Underworld, and then reascend into the daylight, empowered and sovereign.

The cultural differences between the two (Inanna and Persephone) myths suggest that by Greek times, as we well know, the Goddess has largely lost her power. This might explain why the mythic Persephone is more passive and it is Hades who initiates the descent. But if anything, the decline in Goddess power makes it all the more necessary for women, both in Greek times and our own, to descend to reclaim their deepest power.

—Jennifer & Roger Woolger, The Goddess Within: A Guide to the Eternal Myths that Shape Women’s Lives

We were once-upon-a-time guided to the Underworld and initiated into the mysteries of inner wisdom, witnessed by elder women. We once knew how to be with death and we knew that from death arises new life—the life/death/life continuum was honoured as part and parcel of human existence and the cosmos. This was of course the transformative nature of the Eleusinian Mysteries, in which ‘we know that death and loss were central to the mystical transformation that every initiate into the way of Persephone had to undergo.’2 So although our dominant culture interprets Persephone’s union with Hades as rape, and whilst in Greek literature her descent was instigated by abduction, women and men were still actively and willingly ritualising descent at Eleusis at the height of her worship.

The effect of industrial obstetrics on the descending mother

When I think of the dominant culture’s preference to imagine the Persephone/Hades union as a story of ‘coercive consent’ rather than empowerment, I think of childbirth. There could be no better metaphor for Persephone’s rape during her descent to the Underworld than the medical rape and coercive consent that occurs every minute across earth, whilst women traverse the labyrinthine underworld of labour and birth.

Just as women were once initiated into the mysteries, we were once initiated into childbirth, supported by other women. Childbirth is and always has been women’s business. Yet, in past two centuries with the rise of industrial obstetrics, have we seen not only women’s autonomy in childbirth thwarted—but also the practice of traditional, ceremonial midwifery. We now see women on the precipice of their Maiden to Mother journey having her cervix fingered by gloved hands, penetrated with metal hooks and spiral electrodes (along with her baby), forced to lay on her back, strapped to monitors, expected to ‘perform’ like a machine within mechanistic parameters, coerced into myriad harmful interventions, and often sliced open with a scalpel. It’s truly horrifying. I’ve been through it.

Women are hence initiated into the descent of Motherhood by the patriarchy. It is sold to us as progress, as safety. Women often approach their birth wanting a positive ‘natural’ experience but instead are grasped by the rough arm of industrial obstetrics and, shrieking in terror like Persephone, dragged through her labour and birth in a state of relinquished autonomy, emerging from the experience traumatised and severely disempowered.

This, of course, suits big business to the tee—the birthing mother is very profitable, and she remains so if afterwards she becomes trauma-bonded to the system (just as Persephone assumedly becomes trauma-bonded to Hades) outsourcing every decision on her mothering journey to medicine, pharma, and the state. Big business then further profits from bounce-back culture, with social discourse being that women are most desirable in the Maiden phase of life. Hence the multi-billion (maybe trillion?) dollar beauty and cosmetic industries profiting from women desperately attempting to cling to their Maiden self—in both appearance and lifestyle.

Although outsourcing our power and essentially being held captive by a medical team during birth is the status quo—many women, like myself, have gone on to reject this inversion and have reclaimed for ourselves the sovereign power of the archaic goddess—in childbirth, mothering, and life. When I freebirthed my son, I knew I was the very force of creation birthing the universe—embodying the ancient Maiden/Mother by willingly stepping into the unknown and descending through spirals of pain, to birth life into the world and thus be reborn myself.

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The seven gates

As Inanna descends into the Underworld, she must pass through seven gates and relinquish seven of her accoutrements—one at each gate. First, her turban; then, her lapis necklace; then, the twin egg-shaped beads at her breast; her pectoral; her gold ring; her lapis lazuli measuring rod and line; and lastly, her pala dress, the ‘garment of ladyship.’ After this scattering of material adornments, Inanna is subsequently killed, before being brought back to life and reascending to the daylight world as a new women, transformed.

Childbirth, the greatest descent a woman can embark on, is likewise often one of relinquishing garments. First, your mobile phone is all but forgotten; next, your glasses are thrown aside; perhaps your watch or jewellery comes off next; now, your clothes are stripped from your body; then, your bra is removed; next, your underpants; and right as the mother is about to push she’ll throw off the towel draped over her back, squatting naked as the day she herself was born—and birth her baby into the world, along with her new self. It is, of course, more than a material relinquishing. The descending mother is letting go of the ego, the rational mind, the story she has always carried about herself, her identity, the world, before being decimated utterly and reborn.

Industrial obstetrics, of course, cannot profit from the physiological descent of labour, and so it often turns a mother’s underworld journey into a caricature of the underworld: Hell. This can be said of many a descent embarked upon by individuals within a modern context—whatever your loss, darkness, or travail—you better believe some industry or profiteering system will seek to commodify or ‘fix’ the process and hence scupper your chances at true, embodied transformation.

On the topic of childbirth I’ll lastly mention that all childbirth is descent, though sometimes it may not be truly embodied, and the mother may reject her new role in various subtle, psychological, or even overt ways, thus not completing her transformation by failing to return.

Autonomous, often triumphant birth is an embodiment of Inanna’s willing descent.

Controlled, often traumatic birth is an embodiment of Persephone’s abduction story in the cultural consciousness.

Reclaiming the Maiden’s autonomy

Part of Persephone’s myth remains there—in the Underworld. We do not know for sure how things transpired between Persephone and Hades, as I have made clear in this essay. Through the Persephone/Hades polarity we have a lush opportunity to explore our own subconscious; to reclaim what has been lost in our predominant culture, and reframe our own modes and journeys of descent.

To be raped into the underworld is not the only mode of experiencing it. There are many other modes of descent… we are dragged into Hades’ chariot only if we are out in Demeter’s green fields, seductively innocent with playmates among flowers. The world has to open up. When the bottom falls out of it, we feel only the black abyss of despair, but this is not the only way to experience even this mytheme.

—James Hillman, The Dream and the Underworld

I have personally chosen to reclaim for myself a Persephone blossoming with sacred desire, filled with longing to love and be loved, to be held in the arms of a man, to experience union. My Persephone trembles on the precipice with a longing she might not even be able to name—to relinquish her Maiden self, tied so closely to her mother—and transform into the lover, wife, and powerful Queen of the Underworld she was destined to be.

Persephone was entering into the union field with Hades, her King, whose own longing for a Queen and consort can be seen as a tender expression of Eros. Gaia, the Earth Mother, conspired with Hades to grow the alluring, dark narcissus plucked by the maiden and thus opened a chasm in the very bedrock of herself to allow Hades to then pluck his chosen bride from the field. Gaia knew what needed to be done for the flowering of Persephone and the yearning lover in Hades; resulting in a sacred symbiosis of the Underworld, which the Maiden fertilised with her descent.

Perhaps there was a humming in her cells, a quickening before the storm, as she walked over the plains of Nysa.

Perhaps she herself whispered to Gaia, Mother Earth, ‘yawn open and take me to him!’

I will end this essay with an erotic prose poem that flowed into my journal a few nights ago. I was ripe with my own desire, lounging alone in bed, anticipating my man’s arrival from from work. Eros was in the room as I pondered Persephone and Hades in anticipation of this essay, pulling the threads of my research and my own thoughts together… and embodying the Maiden and Queen of the Underworld, myself.

There is so much more I could speak to, particularly the ideas that are to follow in my poem (of the vegetative feminine subconscious—of union and pomegranate seeds and menstrual blood…) but I will have to leave it all for another essay.

Symbiosis of the Underworld: A Prose Poem

Classic literature doesn’t tell us if Hades held Persephone’s trembling, goose-pimpled flesh beneath his dextrous hands as he asked, ‘Do you want this?’

Nor does it tell how at the very touch of his hands and proclamation of his intentions, Persephone felt her clitoris fill with a rush of blood and begin to open, yearning, like a blooming flower.

It does not describe how her big eyes reflected the milky light of the shades, as she looked up into his face and breathed ‘Yes'; or how they fluttered closed in ecstasy as he pressed his hot lips to her neck, stubble grazing skin.

It withholds from the reader that the very ocean of Persephone, the tears falling from her eyes like the revelation of rain to one whom has never known rain, that the saliva oozing from her mouth in a languorous kiss, and the salty sap dripping from her satiated sex—is what fertilised the Underworld.

Perhaps after Hades fed her the six pomegranate seeds, lounging in their earthy bed smelling of loam and sex in post-coital bliss, Persephone then bled six drops of menstrual blood onto the earth of the Underworld in divine reciprocity, and ‘rejoiced at her wondrous vulva.’

The Underworld was there a long time.

Hades gave it order and governance.

Persephone made it lush; vegetative.

Sacred symbiosis.

We need the Underworld; and it needs us.

Without us, it is barren.

And by us, I mean women.

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References

Estés, Clarissa Pinkola. Women Who Run with the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype. New York: Ballantine Books, 1992

Hillman, James. The Dream and the Underworld. Harper & Row, 1979

Nelson, Elizabeth. Embodying Persephone’s Desire: Authentic Movement and Underworld Transformation, Journal of Jungian Scholarly Studies, vol 11. 2016

Shepsut, Asia. Journey of the Priestess: The Priestess Traditions of the Ancient World: A Journey of Spiritual Awakening and Empowerment, London: The Aquarian Press,1993

Woolger, Jennifer Barker and Woolger, Rojer J. The Goddess Within: A Guide to the Eternal Myths that Shape Women’s Lives, New York: Ballantine Books, 1989

Thank you, dear soul, for reading this essay.

I thoroughly enjoyed descending into the misty underworld in my exploration of Persephone and Inanna, and how our culture shapes myth through our own interpretations and assumptions. I could have delved much further into the expression of the Maiden archetype within modern culture, and I had to restrain myself from following too many tangents. Needless to say, these topics are ripe for discussion and further exploration!

If you find my growing body of work valuable, I would like to humbly invite you to become a paying subscriber. I currently do not put my essays behind paywalls, and I pay a nanny in order to have an uninterrupted writing session for Substack each week—so this publication is currently costing me quite a bit of money to produce (but very worth it, of course).

As ever, I would love to hear your thoughts, reflections, and stories in the comments. Please don’t forget to click the little heart!

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It is high time for women to reclaim our right to descend, to traverse the fecund depths of our feminine experience, and to come into full flower. Not by putting up a fight and resisting the process of transformation—but with willingness, and agency.

Until next time,

With love and ancient birthing power,

Rebecca Mary

Rachel bled her first blood, and cried with relief. Adah, Leah, and Zilpah sang the piercing, throaty song that announces births, deaths, and women’s ripening. As the sun set on the new moon when all the women commenced bleeding, they rubbed henna on Rachel’s fingernails and on the soles of her feet. Her eyelids were painted yellow, and they slid every bangle, gem, and jewel that could be found onto her fingers, toes, ankles, and wrists. They covered her head with the finest embroidery and led her into the red tent.

—Anita Diamant, The Red Tent

Menarche as transformation

The arrival of a woman’s first blood is a pivotal moment in her life. With the first ever release of an egg from her ovary, a young girl ripens into a woman. She is now fertile, blooming, fecund with budding potential and the ability to create and gestate human life.

From our very first menstrual cycle, we are released from the shores of childhood and cast adrift on the deep ocean of womanhood. We must answer to the ebb and flow of our hormones, the waxing and waning of the moon, and the changing fluids that pour forth from our wombs—oftentimes, without proper guidance or witnessing. Yet our lives are forever changed. Our energy levels; mood; proclivity for creation; attractiveness; and libido, will, for decades to follow that first splash of red, answer to our menstrual cycle.

Menarche is an integral Rite of Passage for young women, and the way we come to view and experience our bodies in the years succeeding it, and even for the rest of our lives, often hinges on this singular and pivotal event—and especially, hinges on how we are treated by the women and community around us when we begin bleeding.

For many young women, their first bleed is cast aside as a non-event, ‘taboo’ even. A packet of pads mysteriously appears in the bathroom vanity. Or the mother perhaps buys her daughter some supplies and, at best, shows her how to use them. In our modern culture, a young woman’s first bleed is often no cause for celebration. We are taught, generally, that bleeding, and furthermore being female, is an inconvenience—a nuisance to be plugged up, controlled with hormonal pills, and kept hidden from the world. Business as usual.

The modern bleeding woman

With the rise of women joining the workforce in the past century, the monthly bleed has become for many women, something to basically ignore whilst we continue the daily grind alongside our male counterparts. The workday is designed to suit the male hormonal cycle, in which testosterone is highest in the morning and lowest at night. The work week also suits them perfectly as their hormonal cycle remains the same day in, day out.

Females, on the other hand, have a highly variable monthly cycle of fluctuating estrogen and progesterone, where energy rises and peaks with the release of the ovum in the middle of the cycle, and then wanes with menstruation—resulting in low energy and the need for solitude, rest and replenishment. Do companies and employers take this into account? I can almost hear your hoot of laughter. Absolutely not.

Add in the wide use of the hormonal contraceptive pill (with a side effect list to challenge the length of A la recherche du temps perdu); the generally uncelebrated initiation of Menarche; discourse that women’s bodies are inconvenient and flawed; and the general ignorance toward the significantly fluctuating hormones of half the workforce—and you end up with generations of women disconnected from their bodies and intuition, cycle illiterate, lacking fertility awareness, and outsourcing to western medicine for mounting symptoms they don’t understand the root cause of.

Not all women remain in the dark however, when it comes to the power of their bleed. Many are awakening to the opportunity our cycles provide, to truly thrive in our female experience; physically, spiritually, sensually, and creatively. Those of us who know and celebrate our cycles have the duty of sharing our wisdom with the collective and initiating our own daughters with ritual and ceremony into the sacred and life-changing rite of passage that is Menarche.

Magic, mysticism and power

There has always been a mysterious quality—a quiet but immense power—to the bleeding woman, spanning time and culture. Females were undoubtedly once revered for the creative force that moves through us; for our being literal portals for life to incarnate, gestate, and emerge into the material realm.

In archaic times, menstrual blood was used in various applications, secret rites, and rituals. Some African and Native American tribes utilised the life-giving blood to bless their crops for a successful harvest. In Greece, graves were stained red with clay to bear resemblance to mother earth’s womb, from which the dead could be reborn.

Have you ever noticed the way chalices used for religious function today, still take the shape of ovaries and womb? Women are the original church; our wombs, the original tabernacle; our blood, the original wine.

The blood of the Goddess, also called wine, milk, mead and wise blood, appears universally in mythologies; it is drunk as a charm for wisdom, fertility, regeneration, immortality, and healing. The blood of Isis, symbolic as an ambrosia drink, conferred divinity on Pharaohs. According to ancient Taoism, red yin juice, as menstrual blood was called, conferred long life or immortality.

—Rosemary Guiley, The Encyclopaedia of Magic and Alchemy

The idea of menstrual blood bestowing immortality doesn’t seem so far-fetched when you look at its properties. It is filled with stem cells, which have the power to shrink cancer, treat heart disease, rapidly heal skin conditions, and heal autoimmune conditions. Our blood is also antimicrobial, and contains over 1000 biologically active proteins, 385 of which are unique to menstrual blood.

Ancient Celtic rites were often performed by post-menopausal women, due to the belief that as elders they has retained their ‘wisdom blood.’ In medieval folk magic, menstrual blood was believed to be a powerful ingredient in potions and charms, and bleeding women were often seen as powerful, even dangerous, with psychic powers, and closer to the spirit realm.

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Taboo, or not taboo?

Undoubtedly, there have been many-a-superstition about ‘period’ blood throughout history, some of them downright hilarious. Roman author Pliny the Elder claimed that menstruating women could turn wine sour, kill bees, rust iron, turn linen black, and drive away storms, whirlwinds and lightning.

The word taboo derives from the Polynesian word tapu, meaning ‘forbidden, sacred, or awe-inspiring.' If applying this meaning, then yes, I would say that menstruation is just that—tapu. Sacred. Awe-inspiring. It seems our modern selves tend to assume that women have historically been shamed or shunned as ‘unclean’ or ‘impure’ during their monthly bleed, and in some cases this is true, though it appears this was not always the case.

As with anything powerful, mysterious, and tapu, there will be mixed beliefs surrounding the phenomenon. Peggy McCracken speaks to this polarity in her book The Curse of Eve, the Wound of the Hero: Blood, Gender, and Medieval Literature, stating 'the exploration of the value of menstrual blood in medieval culture can be seen as both polluting and healing, as a sign of fertility or as a sign of death, or as a curse and as an ingredient in a love potion.’

Women make up half of the population. So any belief that we are ‘unclean’ or ‘impure’ likely originated with and has been upheld by (some of) the other half of the population and perhaps also a number of women who internalise this belief. Any woman in touch with her divine essence, however, knows deep within herself that her biology is not flawed, that she is the driving force behind creation, and made in the image and likeness of the Goddess.

And our men know it. They know it. Though many would deny it, now and in the past, many know, and many fear us our godlike creative powers—yet many more are willing or even yearning to revere us where our reverence is due. I don’t believe the common man is by default toxic, evil, an oppressor, or any such other nonsense. It is our capitalist systems that oppress and suppress the sacred feminine. These systems are upheld by men and women alike, and work to shape the minds of all with their powers of distraction, extraction, and illusion.

The red tent

Cultures the world over, and some cultures and tribes today, continue the practice of confinement for bleeding women by the use of ‘menstrual huts’ within their communities. As mentioned previously, many jump to conclusions that this is ‘backward’ and a means of shaming women or casting them lower within the social order. In their book Blood Magic: the Anthropology of Menstruation, authors Thomas Buckley and Alma Gottlieb speak to the notion of ‘truisms’ in popular culture arising with the feminist movement, as well as the colonisation and Christianisation of certain geographical areas, that assumed any separation of the sexes is an inherent evil. The authors state:

“The menstrual taboo” as such does not exist. Rather, what is found in close cross-cultural study is a wide range of distinct rules for conduct regarding menstruation that bespeak quite different, even opposite, purposes and meanings. Many menstrual taboos, rather than protecting society from a universally ascribed feminine evil, explicitly protect the perceived creative spirituality of menstruous women from the influence of others in a more neutral state, as well as protecting the latter in turn from the potent, positive spiritual force ascribed to such women… menstrual customs, rather than subordinating women to men fearful of them, provide women with means of ensuring their own autonomy, influence, and social control.

The idea of the ‘menstrual hut’ or ‘red tent’ was popularised by the author Anita Diamant in her bestselling 1997 novel The Red Tent. The novel tells the story of the minor figure Dinah, of the tribe of Jacob in the Hebrew Bible. The novel is a powerful exploration of femininity and the ‘the village’, evoking the ancient practice of taking refuge within a female-only red tent or niddah, during menstruation and birthing. The imagery painted by the opening quote of this essay, taken from pages 30-31 of the book and describing the ritualisation of a young maiden’s first bleed, has inspired women the world over.

The idea of secluding oneself within a communal hut or tent whilst bleeding may seem backward at first, and of course we no longer live within the tribe or village that once was. But there is certainly something to slowing down, recalibrating, turning inward, and being close to other women during menstruation. Any businesswoman presenting a pitch whilst passing a blood clot into her underwear; or any female athlete training for a marathon whilst bleeding; or any retail worker standing on her weary feet at the checkout for her eight hour shift whilst exhausted and cramping; and every busy mother juggling household, children and often also a career along with her bleed, will surely see the appeal of the red tent, if not an actual communal red tent, then at least the idea behind it.

The power of a positive initiation into Menarche

Depending on an individual woman’s career, socioeconomic status, and responsibilities, retreating to her bedroom for five days straight every month during menstruation may not be viable. But we can shift the way we approach our bleeds, prioritise rest, and work with our cycles. As a birth worker functioning within the ceremonial space and journeying with women through Rites of Passage, it is evident to me that there is a link between how we are initiated into Menarche—whether positively or negatively—and how we approach our bodies and cycles, and furthermore how we conceive, gestate, labour, birth, and approach postpartum and motherhood.

A young woman who is celebrated by her mother upon Menarche, and has a strong community of women around her, who lead by example and teach her of the wisdom and beauty inherent within her cycle and her body, will likely step onto the path of womanhood with more self-assuredness, trust, excitement, and surrender, than a girl who is taught (explicitly or from the culture at large) to feel shame, disgust, and fear around her body and blood.

By teaching young women and girls the biological function of their cycles—the flow of hormones, the four phases of the cycle, and how to read their changing cervical discharge for fertility awareness—sets them up for an autonomous and confident path in relation to their bodies, sexuality, and future pregnancies. A woman who is taught to trust and listen to her body’s wisdom will be more likely to surrender to the wisdom and sacred process of pregnancy and birth, rather than outsource every decision to the medical system and its mechanistic approach and prevailing belief that women’s bodies are inherently flawed, and dangerous.

Likewise, a woman who has been taught to pay attention to her energy, to prioritise rest and cultivate healthy boundaries around her bleed time each month—saying no to social interactions that may deplete her, ritualising a warm bath with incense, nourishing her body with nutritive meals and herbal tea—will be the woman who has no problem setting boundaries and claiming her restful and rejuvenating postpartum, rather than hosting guests, getting straight back into housework, being on her feet, and subsequently impacting her healing.

Childbirth is not an isolated experience in a woman’s life, it is the expression of her life story thus far, the culmination of her beliefs, attitudes, and fears at that point of time on her life journey.

—Jane Hardwicke Collings, author of Blood Rites: the Spiritual Practice of Menstruation

The story of my first bleed

My mother didn’t tell me what a period was until I was in year five. I was nine years old, and until then I was kept completely in the dark to the mysterious workings of the female body. My friend started her bleed, and I asked my mum about it. She then explained it all to me in the quintessential fashion of ‘the talk.’ She believed that I didn’t need to worry about such things as a child—fair enough, my mum loved and loves me dearly, I was her daughter and she did things her way. However, the secrecy around menstruation did give it a feeling of being something forbidden, something to keep hidden.

The story of my first bleed is fairly unremarkable. I was in year eight, and of course it arrived at school. A feeble smear of pink discharge on my underwear. I was excited, embarrassed, nervous—and quickly put on one of the pads I carried around with me in my schoolbag. I then proceeded to tell the ‘office ladies’ at administration that I was feeling sick (not that I got my period, that absolutely was to be kept secret in my mind), and asked them to call my mum to collect me. Around the same time that this little series of events was unfolding, a photo of me that my mother kept propped up against the mirror in her bedroom flew to the floor, without even a breath of wind passing through the room.

My mum said she knew at that moment, that I had started my first bleed.

The connection between mother and daughter is profound, and this is of course my favourite and one little mystical part of my otherwise rather boring story. I made her promise not to tell my dad that I’d started bleeding. The thought of him knowing about my secret coming-of-age was unbearably embarrassing—but of course, mum told him, and he gave me a proud, awkward hug. It’s so funny looking back on my tender, twelve year old self. I was mortified.

So that was it—they were happy for me, and provided me with packets of Libra pads and liners each month. I dutifully partook in my high school ‘work week’ each bleed, including the dreaded sport classes. So while my mum didn’t bake a cake, rub my body with massage oils in ceremony, or sing a piercing, throaty song over my bleeding womb, at least I wasn’t made to feel ashamed or fearful of my body. Though it did take me a good few years to stop shoving toxic bleached cotton tampons in my yoni, submerging my aching womb into the cold ocean, and socialising my way through a busy schedule with work, study, and play each bleed.

By my early twenties I’d cultivated fertility awareness and thought I was very health conscious by practicing seed cycling, using a menstrual cup instead of tampons, and utilising the knowledge shared by my TCM practitioner in a bid to heal my cycle and skin, which had become increasingly painful and acne-prone. When I gave up my vegan diet and began eating ancestrally, my hormonal imbalances and acne mysteriously vanished; my bleeds became painless. During my miscarriage at 25, I did away with the menstrual cup, intuitively feeling that stagnant blood shouldn’t be pooling inside my yoni, started wearing organic cotton pads and reusable period underwear, and I haven’t looked back.

Mythopoetic menstruation

With my journey into Motherhood, I began to approach my cycle not only from a health-conscious lens but from a spiritually conscious one. After the initiation of growing life within the womb and birthing my babies, I felt the ebb and flow of my cycle with more intensity than ever before. It is as if carrying and birthing their life force, the presence of their spirits within my field, blew me wide open to the spiritual dimension—the veil thinned and has stayed thin. I am more intuitive and prone to moments of psychic clarity than I ever have been, synchronicities abound, and my moods, creativity and libido shift drastically with my cycle.

I wrote in my previous essay Hecate’s Perspective: Poetry and Myth, about the archetypes associated with each phase of the menstrual cycle; exploring the rage associated with the Mother at the disintegration of her fertility after ovulation, and the deep well of wisdom available to us within the fecund soil of the Crone through menstruation.

Here, I am going to give a brief overview of the four phases of the cycle, and how they connect with the archetypes, seasons, and the moon.

Follicular Phase:

🌓 The Maiden. Persephone. Inner Spring. Waxing moon.

The follicles in the ovary are preparing to release an egg. This is the phase of ideation. Dreams and images are pulled from the field (from the loam of the crone/blood after recent menstruation). Sweetness, hope, excitement, naivety, trembling with anticipation.

Ovulatory Phase:

🌕 The Mother. Demeter. Inner Summer. Full moon.

The ovary has released an egg, which travels through the fallopian tube and floats within the womb; a momentary full moon. This is the phase of fruition. Fertility, attractiveness and energy levels are high. This is the time to birth projects, art, writing, beauty, pitch ideas, and make the sale. Full bloom. Ripe with opportunity to bring ideas and spirit into the physical, with pride and joy.

Luteal Phase:

🌗 The Matriarch. Demeter—after the initiatory loss of her daughter. Inner Autumn. Waning moon.

Death of the egg. This is the phase of infertility. The woman is saying goodbye to the opportunity to create life. Flowers withering on the vine. Looking backward. Phase of grief, rage, searching, ‘clinging on.’ Lower libido—turning inward. Journeying into the Underworld, with inner weariness.

Menstrual Phase:

🌑 The Crone. Hecate. Inner Winter. Dark moon.

The womb releases her blood. This is the phase of fecundity. The field from which everything originates and collapses into. The source; the World Soul; the Soteira. The nutrient-rich loam from which new life can grow. The phase of letting go, and looking forward. Anticipation of new opportunities. But first—Rest. Replenishment. Relaxation. Revivification. Gathering of resources. Thinning of the veil; intuition high. Seeing the big picture with deep wisdom.

Walking the phases of your cycle with the awareness of these inner seasons can be life-changing for a woman. Imagine having this power and knowledge right from Menarche. I am currently in the process of extrapolating on these inner seasons from my own mythos and lens, and creating a beautiful ‘mythopoetic menstrual wheel’ which will be available for free for paying subscribers, and for purchase as a download on my website. I am also writing a series of eBooks (including comprehensive guides to celebrating Menarche, Mother’s Blessing ceremonies, and cultivating a Sacred Postpartum), which will likewise be free for paying subscribers.

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Vision for the future

As a mother, I anticipate initiating my daughter into Menarche in true red tent fashion, with all the pomp and ceremony she truly deserves, surrounded by her elders, grandmothers, and ‘aunties.’ My son is currently two and a half, and my daughter is four. They are being raised in a home where their mother’s cycles are part and parcel of daily life. They see my blood, help me offer it back to the earth, and run to grab me pads when my bleed arrives. Each of them have their placentas buried beneath a fruit tree. In my household, and amongst my community, menstruation is being not only normalised, but being ritualised, celebrated, and honoured.

The ritualisation of Menarche and the transfer of wisdom around the biological and spiritual dimensions of menstruation is vital for creating a more equitable world for females. I want to see a society where young maidens are welcomed into the luxurious folds of the intricately-woven crimson blanket that is womanhood with celebration and ceremony.

The initiation of Menarche has the potential to shift the paradigm from ‘bleeding is a nuisance’ to the true and powerful knowledge that my blood is sacred, and I am divine.

References

Buckley, Thomas and Gottlieb, Alma. Blood Magic: The Anthropology of Menstruation. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988

Diamant, Anita. The Red Tent. New South Wales: Allen & Unwin, 1998

Guiley, Rosemary. The Encyclopedia of Magic and Alchemy. New York: Facts On File, 2006

McCracken, Peggy. The Curse of Eve, the Wound of the Hero: Blood, Gender, and Medieval Literature. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003

Thank you, dear souls, for reading this essay. This is a HUGE topic and my goodness, there was so much more I could have included here. Whilst researching for this article I came upon many folkloric stories, intriguing histories, and anecdotes about menstruation, but at 18 minutes reading time, I simply must wrap up.

If this moved or stirred something within you, I’d love to hear from you in the comments, and don’t forget to click the little heart and share the love.

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If you believe that more people need to hear this wisdom, please spread the word by re-stacking or sharing my publication.

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Until next time

With love and ancient bleeding power,

Rebecca Mary

HECATE'S PERSPECTIVE

Ha! Just look at her, paper doll.
Stripping the plane trees down 
to their branches, stalking
the bereft pine forests with 
her newfound flair for woe.

Demeter, she of the golden grain, 
lady of wee green sproutlings and 
saplings—who knew one could make
such a fuss! Such a scene! Everything 
white, like a Bruegel painting.

I watch her from my black bed. 
My beady eye squints this way and that: 
ah, there she is. Ripping her hair from 
the roots. Tears freezing on her cheeks,  
pleading her case with Helios.

Even his sunny ray cannot penetrate
through the icicles she's flung about.
Her rage, her grief—he's stumped,
like the rest of them. It is I, 
Hecate, with nipples like sensors,

eyes like flaming torches, tender 
heart like oozing, runny honey 
(ha ha, bet you've never heard that one)
who can see straight through her ache
and straight through to the Underworld.

So, I rise from my teeming soils, dust 
the slaters from my eyes, pull the cloak
around my voluptuous smiling vulva,
my thick thighs, snaked and stretched
with varicose veins, totems of a woman

who has spent a great deal of time
struggling, then striving, then walking,
then leading, then enjoying—all manner
of womanly things. And so I, Hecate, 
Guardian of Crossroads, Goddess of Sky 

and Earth, Lady of Light and Dark, 
Grace and Absurdity, Loam and Fruit, 
walk forth on my sturdy, 
muscular, ever-walking foot and, 
torches blaring, light the way. 

—Rebecca Mary Roose

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With this poem, I wrap up my poetic exploration of the mythology of the Triple Goddess: Persephone, the Maiden; Demeter, the Mother; and Hecate, the Crone.

If you are are familiar with Greek mythology, you will know the story of Persephone, who descends into the Underworld. Her mother, Demeter, goddess of the harvest, renders the earth bereft in her grief.

During her journey to reunite with her beloved daughter, it is the Crone goddess, Hecate, who aids Demeter—bearing witness, walking alongside her with flaming torches, leading the way into the Underworld.

We’re going to take a closer look at Hecate today, what she represents, and how the triple goddess is perpetually walking alongside us all.

Who is Hecate?

We often associate Hecate with witchcraft, spirits and sorcery. The vision of Hecate as chthonic dread deity derives from the morphing depictions of the goddess throughout literature and culture.

Many will be familiar with the wicked character of Hecate in Thomas Middleton’s 1616 play The Witches, of which there are various modern depictions; as the leading witch in Shakespeare’s Macbeth; and as patron deity that assists Medea with developing supernatural powers in Euripides renowned play, Medea.

Despite her changing image, the goddess of the crossroads—often associated with the dark magic and sorcery—has deeper and perpetually fecund beginnings as a celestial goddess who bridges the material world with the divine.

Hecate, daughter of Titans Perses and Asteria, appears for the first time in literature in Hesiod’s Theogony (700BCE) where she is described as being bestowed with ‘splendid gifts’ from Zeus, having a share of the earth, sea and starry heavens. She later appears in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter (est. 650BCE) as a benevolent and ‘tender-hearted’ goddess who aids Demeter in her search for Persephone.

Only tender-hearted Hecate, bright-coiffed, the daughter of Persaeus, heard the girl from her cave.

— Homeric Hymn to Demeter

Being the daughter of Titan parents, yet honoured ‘above all’ (Theogony) by the Olympian Zeus, we can see how she became the goddess of liminal spaces—an intermediary between the Titans and the Olympians, and then between the heavens and the earth; connecting the spiritual world with the material.

Ensouling the Cosmos

In her book Hekate Soteira: A Study of Hekate’s Role in the Chaldean Oracles and Related Literature, author Sarah Iles Johnston makes the case that Hecate was originally a primal cosmic goddess, known as the World Soul or Soteira, meaning saviour. According to the Chaldean Oracles, used by Neoplatonist philosophers in the 3rd to the 6th century CE, Hecate was the very force who would ensoul humanity and the cosmos—as in, the one who endows us with soul.

Through this cosmological duty, Hecate was the intermediary between man and God. If we imagine each of the goddesses as archetypes that exist within the universal consciousness and our own psyche, Hecate is the wisdom that illumines, with her flaming torches, the divine spark within each of us. She could otherwise be described as the source of life itself; the fecund soil that enables life to flourish.

It is Hecate who lights the way for Demeter. She bears witness with her patience, wit and wisdom to the transmutation of the mother’s grief into new knowledge, new beginnings, new life, creativity, fertility, and the seasons. Without Hecate, perhaps Demeter would still be staggering around the earth in an endless winter, searching for her daughter.

The Pomegranate Buds: A Personal Story

I have a story to tell you, and it involves my blood, my rage, and a handful of pomegranate buds.

I recently finished my bleed, and it was an intense one. It felt as if Hecate’s flaming torches had not only illumined—but set fire—to every crevice and crevasse of my shadows. During the release of my blood, I pondered the Crone archetype a great deal. In the literal minutes preceding the arrival of my bleed,I was a hot mess of erratic energy. As if I were the eye of a storm, concentric circles of chaos emanating from my very being.

All at once—a painting of a rose that had been innocently hanging on my living room wall for six years, fell smack, bang! onto the hardwood floor. At the same time, my daughter was screaming in defiant refusal to come inside (which I had already asked her to do a handful of times), then I accidentally sent a text intended for my husband to my mother in law moaning about my premenstrual rage, and then, the cherry on the cake: my son opened his palm to reveal a chubby handful of pomegranate buds, which he had gleefully plucked from my thriving pomegranate tree. The tree under which my daughter’s placenta is buried.

The pomegranate buds sent me over the edge.

Tears prickled behind my eyes, my mouth was set agape, contorted into a cathedral of grief. Rage rose up through my body—I was set aflame, hysterical. My son was innocently watching my reaction with his big round eyes. I wanted to scream, I wanted to tear at my hair and beat at my chest; I let a cry escape my throat. Seeing the wasted swell of their orange-red petals—not having yet even opened to the sun—I felt the loss of their potential blooming like a shock to the heart. I felt as if something vital, something beautiful, had been taken from me.

Then, I began to bleed.

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Seeing red, bleeding red, and mourning the sweet, budding red of the pomegranate’s thwarted potential. Why was I so moved, so affected by a handful of pomegranate buds? The truth reared its head like a hideous beast. I knew the pomegranate buds were a metaphor for my own thwarted potential, a deep shadow that has been with me since childhood.

The pomegranate buds, not even yet blossoming, represented every creative endeavour I had self-sabotaged my way out of bringing to fruition. All of the ideas, ripe with potential, that I had nipped in the bud (either unknowingly or intentionally) through lack of determination and grit to see things through. All the beauty I could have birthed into the world, but didn’t. This isn’t to say I haven’t achieved marvellous things or lived a rich life—I have, it is merely a shadow that taunts me, saying you’re a wasted talent, you’ll never amount to anything in this life.

You see, ideation comes easily for me. That is the Maiden. Bursting with a bounty of ideas, trembling on the precipice of myriad breathtaking dreams. It is the Mother that brings the ideas to fruition. The Mother who takes aligned action, who displays grit, and determination, and births the damn thing. In many ways, I am still learning the ways of the Mother on my path of becoming. And the rage? That’s also Demeter. The rage belongs to the Mother—and it is tempered by the wisdom of the Hecate.

To whom does the voice belong, then? The one telling me to ‘follow your ambitions—create the damn thing! Or else be no-one! No-thing!’ That voice is the Crone. She is the wisdom that arises from the depths, holding us accountable. She reminds us that it is within our power to achieve what we want to achieve. Her voice tells us if we transmute our fears into a path—and follow that path with aligned action—it will lead one to a blossoming garden, in which you yourself are the tree, laden with juicy, bulbous fruit.

Demeter as Seed, Hecate as Soil

If Demeter is the seed—fertility, ovulation—the opportunity to create art, bring a vision forth from the quantum field into the material, to conceive of ideas and even human life, then Hecate is the soil—she is fecundity, the loam in which life takes root, the field where concepts and forms and ideas swirl around, waiting to be grasped at and claimed.

Hecate, the old seer who “knows her people” and has about her the smell of humus and the breath of God.

—Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Women Who Run with the Wolves

The pomegranate buds were not only a metaphor for my (perceived) wasted creative potential, but also, on a biological level, grief that I did not call a soul down and conceive life on this cycle (not that we are even trying to at the moment). It is purely biological—Demeter’s grief over her lost daughter brings on our inner winter. The release of blood—rich in nutrients, and the potential of what could have been during the ovulatory force of creation, is now ebbing away.

But this very blood, this very release, also primes us for what could be. During menstruation, our path is illuminated. The cobwebs are swept away from the cornices. We are called to slow down, rest, and gather our resources. Hecate, with her gleaming, knowing eye, leads us out of the liminal Underworld and into the clear light of day. She says ‘Come, woman. You stand at the crossroads. Which path will you take? The universe is your oyster.’

We are each an ecosystem. We are branch, bud, blossom and fruit. We are also the soil—and the root. The quantum field with its multitudinous ideas, images, thought-forms and opportunities swims around us in every moment, waiting for us to simply reach out and grasp something. As women, our menstrual cycle can be the process, the way, the wheel, through which we spin our reality into existence. The regenerative, life-giving wisdom of the womb is a microcosm of the universal womb; the World Soul. Hecate symbolises our innate capacity to bridge the gap between the ether and the physical.

The image of Hecate as wicked witch has come far from her original essence. Her true nature is celestial—an archetypal embodiment of the soul, the World Soul, the Soteira.

The divine light that flickers and flares within you, within me.

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References

Cashford, Jules, trans. The Homeric Hymns. London: Penguin, 2003.

Estés, Clarissa Pinkola. Women Who Run with the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype. New York: Ballantine Books, 1992

Hesiod. Theogony and Works and Days. Testimonia. Edited and translated by Glenn W. Most. Loeb Classical Library. Harvard University Press, 2018.

Johnston, Sarah Iles. Hekate Soteira: A Study of Hekate’s Role in the Chaldean Oracles and Related Literature. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1990

Author’s note

Thank you, dear soul, for reading. I hope this post was illuminating in some way for you. I would love to hear your thoughts and reflections in the comments, and don’t forget to click the little heart if you enjoyed reading—it means a lot to us writers!

I thoroughly enjoyed exploring the myth of Hecate and the triple goddess. You can read my poem Persephone’s Descent, and my poem Demeter’s Journey and exploration of Demeter, here:

My poem, Hecate’s Perspective, was a delight to write. I loved playing with her voice—the Hecate portrayed was one of infinite depth but so very real, capable of that crone-like mirth and snappiness that might come with being so ancient. I drew on Estes’ depiction of the obscene belly goddess Baubo who has nipples for eyes and vulva for mouth in Women Who Run With the Wolves, with my description of her ‘voluptuous smiling vulva’ and ‘nipples like sensors.’ My lines ‘stripping the plane trees down / to their branches’ was a nod to Nan Fry’s line ‘stripping the sycamore / down to a ghost tree’ in her brilliant poem Persephone’s Letters to Demeter (1991).

One last note to my subscribers:

I have done away with Poetry Mondays. I’m still finding my footing here on Substack and I must lean into my intuition. Instead of churning out 1-2 posts per week, I will be focusing on publishing a more in-depth, researched essay/exploration of various myths and their applications to our lives once a week/fortnight—like this one. My posts often begin with a poem or contain poetry throughout. I might also start utilising Notes a little more to share my shorter poems!

I am so grateful for your being here—reading, commenting, reflecting and connecting and I am so excited for where this publication is heading.

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Until next time,

With love and ancient birthing power

Rebecca Mary

Blood memory

The longing has been strong in me for a while now.

Motherhood brought it closer to the surface.

A ripple on the waters.

I have lived out my thirty-two years on the unceded lands of Whadjuk Noongar Boodjar, Western Australia. This country, immense and sacred and achingly beautiful, its coastlines and forests and red deserts, have long been my home.

Though they’re not my only home. And there is a distinct feeling rising within me that another home awaits.

The aquamarine sparkle of the Adriatic Sea. The rush of it, singing in my blood. I can feel the sun-soaked stones of the beaches beneath the tender arch of my foot.

My ancestral home. The Croatian islands.

Crystalline and beckoning. Ready to welcome their daughter with open, salty arms.

Granddaughter of immigrants

My mother’s father, Ante, fled his island home on Vis under a dark moon.

Stealing away in his father’s boat, crossing the waters to Italy. Escaping conscription into the Yugoslav army. The beginning of the journey that would eventually bring him to cross vast oceans, to Australia. He never saw his father again—he passed before his return.

My nana, Marija, lived on the island of Brač. She was introduced to Ante by a relative when he was already in Australia. They fell in love through a series of letters to one another. Despite many (yes, multiple) marriage proposals from hopeful young men on Brač, Marija was determined to have a life outside of Croatia, and emigrated to Australia to meet her beloved, Ante.

The story between my father’s parents, was similar. Both my grandmothers followed the man they loved across oceans. Leaving everything they ever knew—their home, family, community, culture, and language for a new and alien word.

The magnificent, youthful courage of it!

For love. For love. But also for something new, for opportunity. Change. Escape—after the war had unleashed its path of destruction across Europe, leaving its youth determined to cut loose.

My grandpa was not a man of many words. My nana is quite the opposite. They were like two opposing energies, yet magnetic. Deeply in love, and in love still, through realms of matter and spirit. Marija’s stories abound, and she loves to talk. My childhood was spent revelling in the weekly Sunday lunch conversation—over sauerkraut and octopus and fažol and palačinke—attempting to follow my nana’s rapid dialect as she told extravagant stories from her childhood, old wive’s tales from her lands, and all about her dreams, visions, prophecies and astral projections.

Marija is a character.

Strong, funny, fierce, spiritual. A dramatic Leo and Catholic mystic. It is only in recent years, since growing into the woman and mother that I am, that I can truly be on my knees in reverence for my nana. To love her for all that she is, all she represents to me, to our family.

And for her mother.

For my great-grandmother, Nonna Nina—whose husband ended his own life, leaving her widowed with six children and a two month old baby. Marija’s brother was institutionalised after his father’s death, upon the earth-shattering realisation that he now was solely responsible, as the eldest son, for his mother and siblings. He was thirteen.

My nana and her younger sister tried to throw themselves into their father’s grave. They were seven and eight.

After his death, with Nina was submerged in the underworld depths of her grief, friends of the family took her baby daughter to be registered for a birth certificate. Nina wanted her daughter to be named Dragomira, meaning dearest Mira.

The ladies took the liberty of naming her themselves. Tugomira. Sorrowful Mira.

My Nonna Nina, widowed with a newborn, had no option but to quickly find work to provide for her children. We often look to the past generations and envy them of the village. Let me tell you, although Nina lived in a literal village, she had no village. If she needed sugar, her sister, who had a husband providing for her, expected her to pay back the exact amount later on. There was no rallying together in support of a bereaved widow. It was each to their own.

Nonna Nina had to strive.

As a mother, I reflect on the lived experiences of my foremothers and feel what they felt—if even a fraction of it. With immense pride and gratitude I look to my mother, her mother, and her mother before her, and ever backward. To the women who came before me. To the fathers. For the immensity of their pain, and the driving spirit of them. Theirs is the wind beneath our wings, the river that carries us into the future.

I look to the paths they have walked, humbled by the immensity of it.

All so that my children could be.

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Grief in ripples, grief in waves

I was 21 when my paternal grandfather, my Opa, died. A few years later, emerging from the relentless fog of Alzheimers, my beautiful Oma passed. I was 24. I loved them dearly, adored them, and miss them still. Though I didn’t properly grieve for them at the time. As if, in young adulthood, I wasn’t yet able to access the depth of emotion required to truly grieve.

I was sad, but no freight train barrelled into me.

When my Grandpa Ante passed last year, I held vigil over his deathbed with my nana, mother, auntie and uncle. I held his hands. Pressed my lips to his forehead and breathed in the clean soapy scent of him. I murmured my love for him, our patriarch. I listened to his death rattle, I told him you are safe, it’s okay grandpa, you can go. I witnessed him take his last breath, and felt his spirit everywhere. I bore witness to my nana’s raw grief—her guttural cry of anguish, and my mother and her siblings, as they wept.

His death was beautiful. Powerful. Peaceful.

It was just like birth.

Doorways.

Opening and closing.

I let the tears roll down my face. I wrote a Eulogy. I spoke for him, of his life. I allowed the emotion to move through me, and move me. I was no longer the maiden, shying away from death, pushing down the emotion that wanted to rise.

I could fully feel it. I could look it in the eye.

When I think about my nana’s future passing, I sense an even deeper grief curled within my belly, my heart. Waiting to rear its head. Waiting to take me wherever it will take me. Marija is my last remaining grandparent. There are still worlds of her upbringing, her being, her character, that I feel I’m yet to uncover. When I think about life without my nana here in the flesh, it’s like a howling echoes from the future, barrelling through time and space. It smacks me in the chest. It bowls me over.

My howling.

In the oceans of our longing, we sail

Before we buried grandpa, I stood in my living room with my mother, a small fabric pouch held reverently in my hands. It was the cream colour of unbleached cotton, carefully stitched closed, with words lovingly written across it in black biro. The handwriting of my great Nonna Mande. My grandpa’s mum.

The package contained his amniotic sac.

The waters that held him. The waters of my great-grandmother’s womb.

His first home.

Nonna Mande preserved it with salt and sun, after her son was birthed, en caul. It is tradition that the sac must be preserved, kept close, and placed beneath the pillow of the dying, to ease their transition to the afterlife.

His peaceful birth gave way to his peaceful death.

Born within his waters.

And dying with them.

It is said, within Croatian culture, that a child born within their waters carries the mark of the seer. A child between worlds—connected to spirit. Psychic. I know my grandpa was such a child, such a person. Deep. Like the ocean. Like the waters of his emergence, the sea he grew up swimming in, and eventually sailed away through, to another life. Crossing oceans, adrift and yet finding himself home on the water, home in a new world.

Grandpa’s connection to the ocean was felt by everyone that knew and loved him. He called himself an 'old sea cat.’ His connection to sea and land—fishing the Indian ocean to feed us, tending his beloved veggie gardens and fruit trees, making his own wine—was the defining beauty of him. I want some of that. The self-sufficient ease with which he went about in the world.

His life path was set by the ebbs and flows of water, until the end.

As was the wish of his mother, my great-grandmother—we buried him with his amniotic sac. To birth him into the next life.

Doorways.

Opening and closing.

The novel I never wrote am yet to write

Five years ago, in the months preceding my daughter’s conception, I resolved to begin research for a novel that had planted itself like a seed within me. One loosely based on my nana’s poverty-stricken and equally intriguing, myth-soaked upbringing in post-war Brač, Croatia. A book that would be a coming-of-age interweaving of folklore, Christian mysticism and magical realism.

I had recently finished Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend series and was ardently inspired by the aching portrait of feminine friendship, family politics, and the sharp dialogue in her books. At the same time I was also reading authors like Deborah Levy (Hot Milk) and Erica Jong (Sappho’s Leap). A perfect storm of inspiration.

I crammed the pages of my gleaming aquamarine-blue journal with notes and ideas, sitting at my nana’s kitchen table, asking her question after question and revelling in her answers. I wanted more than the Sunday lunch stories, I wanted to hear what nana heard growing up on Brač, to see what she saw, and feel what she felt. And the same for grandpa, on Vis.

The notes contained everything from deep trauma, like my great-great-grandfather being hanged by the Germans for no reason other than being in the wrong place at the wrong time—a hate crime, to cheerful anecdotes like ‘they played bocci with sea urchins!!’ and ‘in spring, picked wildflowers and walked their goats’ and, my personal favourite: ‘kantadora—big moths with dusty wings—if they came inside the home, good omen. Package of clothes would soon arrive from relatives in America.’

When I became pregnant and experienced the ultimate ego death of Hyperemesis Gravidarum, which took me on a nine month long creative hiatus, the novel idea and the notebook were abandoned.

Only to be picked back up, years later.

Looked over by a woman with new eyes, new wisdom, new heart.

A woman who could see what the longing to capture these stories meant for her younger self. She could see it in the poetry she wrote at the time, too, evoking glistening waters and suntanned women—poems of sea and salt and lineage.

She knew she wanted to return home.

Where to from here?

I skim the surface with my words. Everything you have read—echoes and fading dreams. Of my family. My people. Our heritage. What once was. What is.

But what could be?

After my Grandpa passed, Nana took to watching VCR tapes from time spent on holiday in Croatia. They would return for a whole year, every few years, for most of my life. Living between Australia and Croatia.

Only a few months ago, I sat with Nana and marvelled in delight as she and my Grandpa and myriad relatives came alive on screen—joyful, laughing, skin tanned to gold. Backdrops of glistening teal waters behind them, sunsets turning the sea orange, pink, purple, a dream. Eating fish they had caught, sitting in stone courtyards drinking wine beneath grapevines older than everyone alive. My grandpa, grinning as he hugs a baby goat. A cacophony of voices speaking dialect, my nana in her element, showing off for the camera, telling me ‘Rebecca! Rebecca! Hello Rebecca!’

The video was from 1994. She was saying hello to my two year old self, at home in Australia.

I watched it for the first time thirty years later, as a woman with resolve. As a mother, ripe with anticipation—already in the process of organising dual citizenship for herself, and her children.

Migration of the Monarch Butterflies

I recently read a beautiful novel about lineage, folklore and transformation—The Seven Skins of Esther Wilding by . Within this book I learned about the peculiar path that a group of Monarch butterflies take as they migrate south from Canada to Mexico. Whilst travelling, the butterflies make a sudden turn over Lake Superior in North America, flying east for some time before turning south again to reach their destination.

For years, it was a mystery and a marvel to scientists. They couldn’t explain it. Why the sudden turn? Why the extra time and energy spent on an inexplicable detour? It made no sense. Until they made an illuminating discovery.

Over Lake Superior there once stood an ancient mountain.

The butterflies remember. In their cells, handed down. Generation after generation.

Which makes me wonder…

What do we remember?

Over what mountains do we veer?

Dear readers, if you’ve made it this far, thank you. For reading this glimpse of the stories I carry, this mirage of water.

Although I have travelled Europe widely more than once, and walked the cobbled streets of Haarlem from where my paternal grandparents hail, I have not yet stepped my curious, aching feet on the islands of my maternal lineage.

The longing to return to Croatia is strong. We are eligible for citizenship. When I discovered this a few years ago it was a revelation. This isn’t the last of my writings on those salty mythical lands, nor my family’s stories. Nor the elusive novel that is still very much a seed. Which it may remain—or not. I don’t know.

As ever, I would love to connect in the comments. If this stirred you, inspired you—I would love to know. Have you visited your ancestral home?

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Until next time,

With love and ancient birthing power

Rebecca Mary