inside eden

𝐇𝐮𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐥𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐬 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧 𝐠𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭 𝐦𝐲𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐢𝐞𝐬

They are the sacred tales of our beginnings and endings that hold within them archetypal melodies, the cords of culture that infuse civilisations. Myths are the maps of meaning for our human experience and whether we consent to it or not humanity exists within these ancient narratives. The time however arises when we inevitably must dust off the cobwebs and rewrite a new story of Genesis to encase ourselves within.

𝐋𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐡

For any of those who know me you will know that my love of Lilith is ever pervasive;

I have loved you since the beginning and your chamber of carcasses abandoned by this world.

The offcuts and outcasts,

you took them in.

Lilith.

Your fierceness has always found refuge inside the chambers of my own heart.

I have stood in the face of oppression and control with your fire in my eyes hissing

Not on my watch!

Lilith entered my life as an archetypal force on the cusp of my maidenhood, a feminine roar demanding the liberation of my besieged primal power. Her story downloaded into my cellular memory as rage, grief and the great gifts of matter, eros and the human body. Throughout my twenties, her testimony became the gaze upon which I viewed the world, this sight anchored inside my bones, base and womb blood.

There are varying narratives to the story of Lilith but the most recognised mythology is her presence in the creation story and the garden of Eden. Lilith was said to be Adam's first wife who was cast out for her refusal to lie beneath him (in lovemaking), to submit to his patriarchal will and subjugation. Eve replaced Lilith as Adam's wife, complying with submission and Lilith transformed into the serpent that tempted Eve with the forbidden fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which consequently exiled the newlyweds (and humanity) from Eden, from innocence into sin.

The lament of Lilith that echoes still is the oppression of sexuality, the body and the power of kundalini, the serpent energies. The outcasting of the wild, primal expressions that ultimately split the feminine into light and dark

Eve and Lilith

Mother and Whore

Wife and Temptress

Lilith found sanctuary on the gnarly fringes of the Kingdom typecast as the succubus, temptress, and angry witch.

AND she is angry, raging in fact at the denial of her gifts to humanity and the continued domination over what she holds as sacred.

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐧𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐬

Through my embodied journey with Lilith, I learned that in order to heal my own suffering from patriarchal energies, I had to release parts of my identity that were connected to her. For years I was in a constant battle with an invisible hand of authority and control, simmering rage beneath the surface ready to fire in the face of any potential dominator. I mistrusted men, the masculine and found refuge in female bodies, in the lineage of Witch. I had to break up with Lilith in order to free myself from a wound that never healed and to find the seat of my power between both worlds of the masculine and feminine and then beyond. Her fight to be recognised, her rage at outer powers and endless grief of what was cast out and denied has separated her from love and the longing to return to it.

𝐒𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐡𝐨 𝐧𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐠𝐞𝐭𝐬

The archetypal energy of the dark feminine (Lilith) expresses in all bodies, all genders and one of its shadows is punishment by withholding forgiveness when hurt. This plays out as a slow-building resentment over time that reinforces the narrative of her victimhood and clamps around the potential for healing and the return to love. I have experienced the grip of this shadow and the archetypal energies that arise on the threshold of forgiveness that murmur subtle warnings of mistrust, betrayal and abuse. I confess at times I found utter delight in my refusal to submit to any collapse of harm into innocence. I colluded with the narrative of my own suffering and the eternal punisher that forever holds the past to account and it felt so fucking good. Until it didn't

Until the separation from love that held my reality in place became just as painful as the fight to validate my wounding.

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐩𝐚𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡𝐲

I will never forget the disbelief of discovering my own internal dominator; uncovering Adam on the inside. The voice that shamed my wild one, undermined my power and held me outside the kingdom of my own belonging. The voice that subjugated my feminine into dieting, into sex and into a model of beauty that concealed my gnarly and' unacceptable parts'. Underneath my feminine identity was the very masculine I had fought against on the outside and the only path I saw forward was to somehow find love for this aspect within me. To collapse my own internal polarity into innocence, to anchor my belonging inside this union and take back my external projections onto outside powers, including those I parked with men. Uncovering this part of the puzzle for me collapsed my worldview of gender; I could no longer digest a feminine narrative that did not include my own patriarch, nor place my identity within the feminine side of the ring. I was the whole ring.

𝐆𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐜𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧

For me, one of the most heartbreaking divisions within humanity is gender and the layering of universal principles (feminine/masculine) onto bodies (man/woman). The feminine is not a woman, it is a principle of life animated within every living thing including male bodies. The feminine is one aspect of a dual system of energy (the other being masculine) that offers a unique and particular quality of expression through humanity and all cosmos (as does the masculine).

The identification of women with 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒇𝒆𝒎𝒊𝒏𝒊𝒏𝒆 and men with 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒎𝒂𝒔𝒄𝒖𝒍𝒊𝒏𝒆 is another form of betrayal, a further casting out of the Kingdom an aspect of our divine expression. Gender conditioning throughout the history of civilisation has solidified this connection and we have blindly accepted a reductionist account of humanity without question.

In some esoteric teachings, it is said early humans were hermaphroditic through a unified gender before we separated. Research from the University of Pittsburgh could finally provide evidence of the first stages of the evolution of separate sexes, a theory that holds that males and females developed from hermaphroditic ancestors.

I truly believe humanity is at an initiatory point in its evolution of dissolving identification with the outer forms of gender in order to embody the aspects of our dual nature. To gaze upon the fringes of our own inner Kingdoms and uncover the aspects that we have cast out, to see them in each other.

To embrace the oppressed feminine inside male bodies, inside all bodies. To forgive the patriarchal domination that lives inside female bodies, inside all bodies. To extract the universal principles of 𝒇𝒆𝒎𝒊𝒏𝒊𝒏𝒆 and 𝒎𝒂𝒔𝒄𝒖𝒍𝒊𝒏𝒆 from their human enmeshment with gender and to rewrite the mythologies that compound this division.

𝐔𝐩𝐝𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐲𝐭𝐡

Each time one human takes a step closer to love, closer to the innocence that is at the core of every one of us, we are weaving new myths.

We are opening the gates to Eden, we are waking up from the amnesia of our appointed sins.

We have the power to update the mythologies that we live within and this reshaping starts with each individual, on the inside. It begins through the very personal container of our own human experience.

It is time for us to update the myths that harbour the wounds of the 𝒎𝒂𝒔𝒄𝒖𝒍𝒊𝒏𝒆 and 𝒇𝒆𝒎𝒊𝒏𝒊𝒏𝒆 divide and our exile from Eden.

𝐋𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐡

I want you to know that you were always loved.

That your suffering is felt and received.

You can come home now, through the forest edge, over the vast plains and into the cobbled streets of the Kingdom.

It is time to forgive.

Forgiving does not invalidate your experience or the harm caused

and the healing may still continue to unfold

but it does bring you to love,

your only home.

Lilith it is time to direct your rage towards the liberation of the feminine in everything, within all bodies.

To reach to your sisters inside male bodies

and also see their suffering.

I long for you to remember the innocence of life

the Eden inside you

and to take this knowing deep into your dark blood stained womb

a gift of your eternal belonging