The Divine Feminine
The Divine Feminine is experiencing a re-emergence, a rebirth into the collective consciousness. For centuries she has been downplayed, demeaned, removed from her place of honor and reverence by the dominant patriarchal culture. We are now in a time when the Divine Feminine is the subject of much interest and many conversations—and she is beginning to receive the veneration and devotion she deserves.
The Divine Feminine represents the supreme level of feminine expression and manifestation in the universe. She comprises the best of the feminine in all its measure. Women subjugated to male thinking and ideals can lack examples and models to nurture their inherent connection to the divine. Considering the stellar qualities of positive, "divine" archetypes women find models of thinking and behavior that nurtures spiritual and psychological advancement.
As multi-faceted, spiritually-embodied beings, we each have a complex psychological and emotional constitution that produces one's inner health and outer reality. Each one of us, male and female, carries within our psyche both Divine Masculine and Divine Feminine archetype energies. From these archetypes come our conscious thoughts, plans, desires, goals and agendas. These archetype energies intertwine and cooperate to produce a uniquely personal expression and experience of life. Sexuality is just one expression in which this confluence of energies distinctly manifests. A female gendered body does not mean that only feminine energy is present. Gender (genitals, body) and archetypal energetic composition of the psyche are independent of each other.
Developing a harmonious relationship of inner masculine and feminine is our evolutionary challenge and process of spiritual advancement. It is through the integration and harmonization of inner masculine and feminine that we reach higher, integrated, holistic consciousness. For Men: it is advantageous to contemplate and integrate the “feminine” archetype qualities listed here into their inner feminine —or “anima.” By developing healthy, integrated aspects of the divine masculine and feminine within the psyche real progress can be made in gender reconciliation and establishing an egalitarian society.
Goddess, Queen, Priestess, Warrioress, Lover, Wise Woman
The Divine Feminine comprises a group of archetypal energies that drive and inspire one’s consciousness and felt sense of being. SHE is “anima,” the spark of inspiration, catalyst of change, siren of desire. There are many "feminine" archetypes present in the psyche—six have been chosen to represent those with the strongest influence on conducive psychological functioning and one's psycho-spiritual evolution. By regular conscious feeding of these archetypal energies—weaker aspects are nurtured to fullness.
A Suggested Practice:
Those seeking to discover and nurture their expression of the Divine Feminine will want to:
- Contemplate what the "fullness" of each expression means to you.
- Contemplate how these currently show up in your life. Look for areas and ways you are already embodying #1.
Don't look for the places you are deficient or lack in the fullness of the archetype. Only look for what you ARE doing.
As you acknowledge and accept what you are already doing, you will notice more places where you already are, or are beginning to, embody the fullness of the archetype. Its like seeing in a dark room, after some time your sight "adjusts," or expands, and you see more of what was already there. As you contemplate each archetype, you will notice more and more areas where it already exists in your awareness and behavior. This is due to radiation of the archetype energy spreading out in a "blossoming" or unfolding effect within the psyche and happens whenever archetype energy is accessed and stimulated. Contemplation also strengthens the awareness. Two things are accomplished—you see what is already there, reinforcing what is presently integrated, and you strengthen what is beginning to emerge in your awareness, behavior and ability.
Any aspects of the archetype that seem "new" can be integrated by imagining what it would feel like to think or behave in this new way and see what shifts of thinking and behaving that produces. As you do, look for circumstances or opportunities that could be positively affected by adopting these higher concepts, principles and motivations and seek to enable their presence.
Goddess The Goddess is the spark of life, the inspirational, dynamic, flowing energy of creation and evolution. She is the primordial first cause, originator, progenitor -Creatrix. Her wisdom is unfathomable, intuitive, untraceable and ever-evolving. Representing the mystery of the unknown and unknowable she ignites Eros, desire and vital force seeking new experience, new associations, new possibilities, new connection out of stagnating, old, technologies and processes.
A woman in the fullness of her Goddess archetype feels like this: She emanates dynamic energy, flowing, ever changing with boundless intuitive wisdom and creativity. Her presence is inspiring and causes one to feel renewed—stimulated and revitalized. She is "immanence" (divine presence) personified, spiritually balanced, transcendently driven, and emanates love to all without distinction or prejudice. While she is the originator of ideas and solutions she seeks collaboration and consensus in their outworking and manifestation. |
Queen (Mother) It is the Queen who brings order and blessing, benevolence, fertility, balance, compassion, fairness and unconditional love. While the Goddess archetype is the Creatrix -inspiring vision and imagination, the Queen births these into being and actively looks to their growth and prospering. The Queen archetype is the domain of material manifestation, family, “kingdom” (sphere of life influence), also material wealth and abundance. A woman expressing the fullness of the Queen archetype feels like this:
She is concerned with the well-being and happiness of her “household,” and all in her domain of benevolent loving care. |
Priestess A woman in the fullness of the Priestess archetype feels like this: She is the master of her spiritual and material realities showing a confidence of bearing that knows how to call forth from spiritual storehouses what is needed to transmute, transduce, and transform energies that would overtake or topple other women not in this fullness. She is thoughtful and reflective having depth to her presence and intellect. She knows how to detach from inner and outer storms and how to connect deep inner truths and resources with her grounded experience of life. She sees a higher possibility and attunes to its resonance. She is not easily influenced by faddish impulses and brings power and confidence to difficult situations requiring change or shifting -with grace and insight. |
Warrioress Warrioress qualities are: decisiveness and clarity of thought, selfless service, genuine humility, strength of experiential “knowing,” courage to do what is “right” even when it is a personal challenge to do so, maintaining and supporting established systems and forms without rigidity, loyal to a greater good beyond personal gain. She is selfless and maintains a warm, compassionate, appreciative and generous connection to whom she serves. She fights “the good fight” in favor of benefiting the greater good and making life more fulfilling for everyone. A woman in the fullness of her Warrioress feels like this: She “knows herself” and finds her place in collaborative projects, finding fulfillment and contentment participating without ambition and competition. The woman in the fullness of the Warrioress makes you feel “safe” while not being oppressed by her support. She is decisive, easily responding from the heart without Ego-personality selfishness. |
Lover The Lover archetype has been contorted into a selfish and dense expression that lacks breadth or spirit. Yet the Lover is the meeting and combining of sex and spirit, Eros, the universal urge to bond and unite. Woman naturally, organically, comprise the alchemy that infuses spirit into flesh with desire—prompting sensual engagement and erotic expression. While most commonly expressed in romantic and sexual form, the Lover archetype also contains a much fuller, divine, expression. The Lover archetype in its fullness is the primal energy of passion, exquisite engagement with life and ecstatic being: an alive and vivid world view. The domain of the Lover archetype are the primal urges of being: sex, food, well-being, procreation—and is manifested in creative adaptation and initiatory experience. The Lover is the epitome of Sensual. She exudes sensuality in her mood, look, walk, bearing, and engagement. She is intimately interested in all forms of sensory contact, experiencing the world in all its splendor. She is the archetype of play and healthy erotic embodiment without shame. A woman in the fullness of the Lover archetype feels like this: She is sensual. She is open and invites you to touch—her mind, body and soul. She relishes connection with others, specifically the connecting aspect—beyond Ego’s fulfillment needs. She appreciates beauty in all its forms, seeing and feeling beauty in herself, realizing her intrinsic connection and possession of such. She is “in her body” animating it with vital energy through dance, or yoga, or movement. She brings, eros and sensuality and a “joy of life” to any engagement or conversation. |
Wise Woman The Wise Woman brings an aspect of advocating “right action,” dharma. She is the expression of the Ego in service to, and “right-relationship” with, the higher Self’s power. The Wise Woman observes, tracks, scans, monitors data from all sources (within and without) and channels wisdom leading to “right action.” The Wise Woman archetype in her fullness feels like this: The Wise Woman’s importance of contribution comes to the fore during crisis and intense need. Through the uniquely formed conduit that the Wise Woman embodies, wisdom and “right action” become clear. With the Wise Woman’s contribution we feel confident and assured that our path is the “right” one for us, we respond to life with a calm easefulness that transitions crisis and change with grace and wisdom. |
The Goddess connects one to a constantly elevating transcendent flow of possibility and newness. She inspires one’s soul to new heights of expression and connection with life in its magnitude and fullness. SHE resonates transpersonal, harmonious love for everyone and all beings. The Goddess archetype is the domain of spirituality, mystical experience and intuition. 
She is a nurturing, stabilizing and calming influence in all circumstances and supports the highest good and soul aligned fulfillment of those in her “household.”
Her demeanor is “seasoned” and carries wisdom with it, not adolescent, fickle impulsiveness. She is compassionate, benevolent, deeply caring, expansively loving, evenhanded, calm, persistent, caring, present, and rejoices in the success and happiness of those who enjoy her care and selfless loving.
