FIERCE FEMININE RISING

As we all know, humanity has been stopped in its tracks by the corona virus, which Christine reminds us is etymologically related to the Crow, symbolising death - just yesterday afternoon we saw two wending through the trees on our walk with horses, then only today I saw the first two swallows flying outside my window: death and rebirth, with trees blossoming all around, a time to withdraw and reflect. These two books both contain an incredibly powerful message for our time, the message of the Fierce Feminine, the Dark Mother, a collective upwelling of universal outrage and sacred rage at the way we are treating the planet and each other. You will probably have seen the various videos featuring a message from the virus telling us to consider the essentials and expressing the Earth's relief at a slowing down of our frenetic activity (though we are still adding 220,000 people a day to the world population). Christine expresses this as the Dark Goddess calling "time" for all of us now: 'she is not interested in our bargaining tactics, excuses, or entreaties, especially those linked to our small ego's desire not to upset the status quo. It is time to move on…whether we are ready to or not.' (p. 63)

Anaiya is a neighbour, and not long before the outbreak escalated, we had a special dinner with another neighbour, Veronica Goodchild and her husband. I was reading her book at the time. It plunges the reader in at the deep end with the energy of Savage Grace demanding us to stand up and speak out in her name. The book embodies a potent and resonant energy of transmission that directly pierces the heart and galvanises us to participate in a massive global clean-up. As she puts it: 'Change is coming. Balance shall prevail.' And all this before we knew exactly what was coming and how the Dark Agenda or Matrix Control System will try to engineer the situation for its own advantage: 'This includes the corrupt governments, the war-making industries, the over-producing, mind-numbing, addiction-feeding heartlessness of our modern day society, as well as the covert influences of anti-awakening that seem to be taking advantage of our digital technology to spread their virus.' (p. xiv, and do watch the film Thrive if you do not already know it) She continues that the Fierce Feminine 'is rising within us to initiate the full-on realisation of how vulnerable and fragile the whole human race and a great deal of nature are at this extremely dangerous moment in history' - prophetic words indeed that call for our personal deep commitment to sacred activism at all levels.

The four parts of Anaiya's introduce the Fierce Feminine and how to ignite it, how to take back our power, speaking up and speaking out, and piercing the veils of reality. Each chapter is followed by what she calls an example of 'sorrows of the world' including the Yulin dog meat festival, pig and dairy farming, death of the oceans, canned hunting for white lions, starving polar bears, nuclear weapons, overpopulation and overproduction, and examples of acts of evil, culminating in an archetypal original rape sequence involving priests and priestesses with the poignant question: why did you do it? With the response: why did you let me? Then readers are invited to pause for reflection, bear witness to the sobriety of the situation, move on without answers, trusting the process and 'remembering that this is an initiation.' We are brought face-to-face with real horrors that are going on daily but which we tend to ignore so as to remain complacently within our comfort zones. She quotes Andrew Harvey in an arresting moment: 'what's more frightening? Being numb with apathy as you sip yet another glass of Chardonnay as the last tree on the planet burns to the ground, or allowing your veins to be filled with the fire of Kali, protesting with your "No!" and wakefulness during the destruction of your planet and your possible extinction?' (p. 69) In addition, there are powerful transmissions of exercises and meditations that can be downloaded for direct practice.

If we do not collectively take back our power, then the Matrix Control System will continue rolling out its agenda including 5G, total surveillance and control while we meekly and conveniently continue behaving like timid sheep. Anaiya gives a great deal of practical guidance about how we can individually play our part in this awakening process involving a dark night of the soul and healing our wounds but also standing our ground with integrity and taking responsibility: she asks a series of searching questions about our values, attitudes and behaviour (p. 116). This does not just involve thinking, but feeling into our answers while fully taking on board the sorrows of the world, in themselves enough to generate massive sacred rage that then needs to be grounded and used for constructive purposes: including speaking truth to power, whatever the personal cost. Part of this process can also occur within the crucible of our deep intimate relationships as a means of healing, awakening and transforming our shadows. This leads to real freedom and the refusal to give the 'death machine the power it needs to fulfil its enslavement of us.'

Christine's book is in many ways complementary and with a larger historical background addressing spiritual initiation, creativity and rebirth within a cyclical process of spirit moving into matter and back to spirit: birth, growth, nurturance, celebration, dissolution, death and rebirth. In the first chapter, a mentor tells her that 'together we can birth the world that encompasses the principles of cooperation and oneness through the acceptance of diversity, ensuring right relationship with all lifeforms who share this planet.' (p. 10) The first part introduces the Triple Goddess with its three archetypes of Virgin, Mother and Crone, citing many examples from different cultures. For current purposes, the Crone archetype is the most immediately relevant, representing like Kali both the tomb and womb of regeneration embodied in Christine's own transformative experience as a vulture goddess: 'I clean the bones of every animal, freeing each from its earthly attachment so its spirit can return to the source and be reborn.' The voice continues poignantly: 'Only those who fear death or have forgotten the regenerative cycles can see us as ugly pests. Others welcome us with open arms.' (p. 64)

Christine gives a lucid explanation of the Triple Goddess as the One Thing giving rise to her masculine counterpart as the One Mind where feminine force comes together with masculine focus to give rise to intention. The feminine force shakes us up, while the masculine can bring order out of chaos. She then explains the hero myth mapped onto the zodiac and its relationship with sacred numbers before describing the archetypal alchemical transformation represented in the Emerald Tablet. The second part discusses the rhythms of the moon and enables readers to find their natal lunar phase, in my case representing distillation and transformation. She also shows major sacred sites are linked to the creative cycles of life, with temples acting as intermediary vessels between heaven and earth.

The third part takes the reader on the journey of evolution and dissolution through the zodiac, with guidance along the way, for instance with respect to meeting our mirrors and integrating their message. At the apex, the energetic process reverses and descent begins, also representing putrefaction and fermentation. This is an acknowledgement of decay and death which we now face as a species, and which we are invited to embrace and transform. Here there is no shortcut; we have to take ownership of these shadow aspects and personalities in the fire of purification in order to reach the centre. The sage represents the distillation of life wisdom whose role is to 'question our deepest intentions and beliefs until only the truth remains' and we step into true authority. In a discussion of the miraculous heart, it is encouraging to read that healthy cells can entrain sick cells back to health, 'causing both to beat in harmony' and reminding us to be healing rather than just giving healing: resonating with and transmitting the frequency of Divine Love.

As we are embraced by the Great Mother in these two transformative books, we are reminded that we all emerge from the One, to which we also return - unfolding then refolding, as Walter Russell put it. The core message is to wake up, to reconnect with the Source, with Life on Earth and with each other to bring about the birth of a new and more unified world that fundamentally respects freedom and diversity rather than attempting to impose digital slavery and social uniformity.