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Birthing the Dark Feminine
The Spotify playlist was called “Priestess” and the mood of it was if Persephone embraced Queen of the Underworld. Press play.
What about Persephone? Maybe that’s what she should’ve done. Instead of the damsel-in-distress story, what if the story is her just facing the dark and saying, “Fuck, bring it!”
What if no rescue efforts were needed from Demeter, Hecate, and Orpheus? What if she descended, taken into initiation so she could sit in the belly of the shadow, in the black rot of night, in its void, recessed in the dark side of the moon, so she could become this other thing, integrating the innocent bride with the dark mistress. Activating the sacred feminine. Bringing innocence into the dark, and the dark into rebirth.
What if she was meant to die, descend into the underworld so she could awaken the dark queen, fully embodying above and below — the crowning seal for activating the sacred feminine.
What if that is our hero’s journey and our initiation into womanhood?
The playlist switched to Bishopp Briggs “The Way I do.”
I started moving to it, stretching. The stretches moved into a new type of stretch, the deep movements looking like the poses of women in Mughal paintings, something always slightly alien in it, these intentional forms that twist the body into poised…
