Celtic, Norse, and Germanic mythologies have a legend of a Bear Goddess. The Bear Goddess is curious to me, because she represents the woman shaman. She goes underneath the surface, builds a winter den, and falls asleep in the fertile dark. As in a shamanic death, she seeks hibernation in underworld darkness, deep into the universe inside, with only a subtle knowing that she will emerge.

Then, in spring, after her long sleep with the stars, wiping the crust of the dark moon from her eyes, she emerges into the clear light of knowing. That which was lost can now be remembered:

The power of the shamanic female.

Woman by their very nature are shamanic. Woman is the original shaman, according to a Chukchee proverb.

The mantra of the sacred feminine could be, “ I amplify in stillness”.

It unfolds open to the unknown. It is about being, not doing. It asks for silence and stillness to hear itself.

The visionary guidance of the oracular and shamanic feminine is as useful now as when Caesar consulted the Oracle of Delphi. They didn’t burn a million witches at the stake because they weren’t powerfully visionary.

Becoming receptive to the shamanic feminine and reclaiming this empowerment means to evolve beyond the ways in which consciousness has been manipulated. It requires a great opening of the heart.

The female body is a temple of magic. She is the temple priestess of her body. She contains a body wisdom connected to the cosmos, and she is the sovereign owner. She knows. She sees. She remembers.

The depth and truth of female gnosis and power has been hidden. One example: belly dancing was traditionally used in ancient cultures to help women during childbirth by tuning into the wisdom of their own bodies. Belly dancing was taken from women and eroticized. In the great lie, her body turned into property, and she lost the birthright of her ancestress’ ancient wisdom.

A new Earth is being born, and she’s already begun, in the same place where everything begins, below the surface. But first, fierce, paradigm shattering truths are needed. Necessary destruction of all systems which harm Earth must be let go, and rebirthed with love.

The priestess and the shaman understand a cosmic truth that under the umbrella of ‘life’ is the birth-death-rebirth continuum. She is a doula of those coming and going beyond the Veil, a keeper of the cosmic flame.

At the very last moment, thousands year old towering structures that held up old realities will topple, crashing down like dust around one single bloom, one green shoot growing fiercely from the rubble of old.

The Goddess will rise, to lead the way from fear to love. She is unsinkable, because she always had the most powerful tool in the universe under her command:

Her heart.