December 5, 2024 • 30 mins
In this thought-provoking episode, we explore why true transformation is so challenging in dominant Western culture. We'll dive into the forgotten art of initiation - a powerful process that goes far beyond simple willpower or "knowing better." Learn why real change requires us to embrace death and uncertainty, and discover how our lack of proper initiation rituals may be keeping us stuck in patterns of reactivity and fear. Whether you're seeking personal growth, spiritual development, or simply wondering why New Year's resolutions never seem to stick, this episode offers fresh insights into the nature of authentic transformation and what it truly takes to evolve as human beings.
“Many people are being dragged toward wholeness in their daily lives, but because they do not understand initiation rites, they cannot make sense of what is happening to them.” — Marion Woodman
we discuss —
- Change is not just about "knowing better"
- Two crucial ingredients of initiation
- Why many people struggle to make sense of their transformational experiences + resist growth
- What the ego’s role is in all of this
- What it means to come of age
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Mentioned in the episode—
🌊4 Water Ways for the Soul is a self-paced mini-course that dives deeply, simply, into the principles that unblock resistance and run gracefully through life’s obstacles. Water invites you to sink deeply into something more real, and more true; and this mini-course is the perfect dose of foundation principles for engaging with the work of the soul. **Learn more and sign up for 4 Water Ways for the Soul here.🌊**
📚 The Pregnant Virgin, book by Marion Woodman
Free Resources —
Learn the 3 main ingredients that have been the bedrock of each quantum and beautiful transformation in my life. Get 3 Keys for the Soul here for FREE. 🗝️
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This podcast is produced by Softer Sounds. ✨
thanks for listening. peace, be well. 🙏
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
mary grace allerdice (00:05):
Grace. My name is Grace, and you're
listening to the homebodyPodcast.
Greetings. Everyone. Welcome in.
Today's episode, I'm going totalk about the process of
initiation, and it's greatdeficit in dominant Western
(00:26):
culture today. And I'll alsopoint out, or bring to the
table, some of the things Iperceive are the effects of this
deficit, namely, our inabilityto become which is an inability
to truly transform in a deep andlife changing way. It also
contributes, I think, to ourlack of embodied understanding
(00:48):
and an overall sense ofdysregulation and or fear that
shows up when we attempt tobecome conscious. CO creators
this episode is publishing rightat the cusp of a new year, and
this time of year, it's a seasonthat we often want to imbue with
(01:10):
a lot of transformationalenergy. Right we make all of our
lists and our goals andresolutions and our plans for
the new year, trying to harnessenough behavior, control and
vision and willpower to reallymake a change, or to steer our
boat towards where we want togo. And as long as those things
(01:31):
aren't too far off course fromwhere we are right now, they can
probably work. No problem.
There's nothing wrong with anyof these things. I do all of
these things. But if we don'tknow how to change on deep
evolutionary soul levels, whichis what initiation does, which
(01:51):
is, you know, this belongs tothe language and the art of
magic and spirit. Well, thewillpower will only get us so
far, and it certainly won't getus anywhere on a deep soul
level, we are very creativebeings as humans, but I notice,
without a language and ritualand understanding of initiation,
(02:15):
we never seem To quite shed theskins of previous selves and
these skins start to collect aslayers of dead, metaphorical
skin. And these layers start toconglomerate and make babies and
create a giant velcro ball thatall of our pain and failure and
(02:40):
disappointment and triggers canlatch onto, and then we try to
overpower this giant velcro ballof pain and dead skin that we
haven't shed. And then we thinkthat tapping into that
overpowering sense of will isstepping into our co creative
(03:01):
power, and it's not becausereally, all we're able to do in
that state is react to our pain,react to the heaviness, be
dysregulated honestly we feelfrom all of the layers of that
dead soul, skin hanging on thatwe haven't shed or we don't know
how To and we're not sure if wewant to. It's a process that we
(03:24):
don't know anymore in dominant,you know, I'm speaking from
dominant North American culture,and therefore it's a process
that we collectively don'ttrust, and so we don't do it.
And all of that is fine, ifthat's where someone is at.
However, let us not confuse thisreactive fear based extreme
(03:45):
willpower behavior control. Letus not confuse that with true
Interstellar, divine human cocreation. They're not the same
this second one, this trueinterstellar co creation is the
true force of transformation,and I would love us to stop
confusing the two, because I seethem get confused pretty often,
(04:09):
especially in the circles ofpersonal development, spiritual
development, self help, etc. Ithink getting skillful with
initiation is getting skillfulwith transformation. And maybe
you've noticed by looking aroundat the world at large or at your
life, we are in a heightenedpace of transformation as a
(04:31):
species. And on this planet,things are changing fast, and
they're changing a lot, and itseems like the beating of the
drum of time. To borrow a symbolset from Hindu mythology, the
beating of the drum of time isgoing quite fast now, and
there's a wave and then a wave,and then a wave, and then
(04:53):
another wave. And the skill ofinitiation, of death, of
transformation, on this deeplevel, these are the skills. Of
not drowning, for not beingoverburdened by the call to
transform. When life is callingus to that, when we have the
skill inside of us, we have thispractice inside of us, when life
(05:13):
around us and within us issaying it's time to change, it
becomes something, even if it'ssomething that's quite powerful.
It's something that we're ableto integrate and move through
without feeling overly dramaticor burdened by it, because we've
really shed and stepped intosomething that is truly us,
(05:36):
which is something that is trulytransformative. I hear all of
the time, especially inpersonal, spiritual development
spaces, change is about knowingbetter so that we can do better.
Have you heard that if we justknow better, we'll do better.
Know better and we'll do better.
Here's the thing, it's not aboutknowing better. Sure, knowing
(05:57):
something can help. Butinformation is not the seed of
change. It's not example. Youcan probably think of 10 things
right now in the next fiveseconds that you regularly do
that you know better about. Ican think of 10. So change is
not about knowing better. So wecan drop our obsession with
(06:21):
trying to get people to knowwhat we know, so we can educate
them into our information hubsin the hopes that they'll agree
with us and become just like us.
Whatever that is, change is notabout knowing better. Change is
engaging chaos. Change isstepping into the unknown and
(06:43):
uncertainty and change is death.
That is why real change actuallydoesn't happen very often,
unless it's forced upon us,because it only really happens
for the brave. It only happensfor people who can dive into the
underworld, not because they'readdicted to feeling bad or sad,
but because they know how tobecome and what it takes. They
(07:06):
know how to ride the wave ofuncertainty when they see that
dragon of chaos coming. Theyknow how to get on it and ride
and they even know how to trustit and ride it with grace, and
sometimes even ride it withecstasy. Initiation is a doorway
into change, and it's a vesselthat can carry us through into
(07:28):
something that is trulydifferent, and it's not
something we have a lot oflanguage or culture for in our
content consumption is Kingmainstream reality. So we're
going to dive into it today andhopefully initiate that culture
and imagination inside of you.
(07:49):
This will be a two part episode,and this is the first sort of
laying the foundation for someof the things I'm going to talk
about, and the second will bemore about how we respond to
initiation, why it's important,and what it looks like when we
don't respond. I wanted to startus with a quote by Mary Ann
Woodman, who is a young andpsycho analyst and writer, and
(08:11):
this is from her book called Thepregnant virgin. Many people are
being dragged toward wholenessin their daily lives, but
because they do not understandinitiation rights, they cannot
make sense of what is happeningto them. They are being
presented with the possibilityof rebirth into a different life
through failures, symptoms,inferiority, feelings and
(08:35):
overwhelming problems, they'rebeing prodded to renounce life
attachments that have becomeredundant, but because they do
not understand, people cling tothe familiar, refuse to make the
necessary sacrifices, resisttheir own growth, unable to give
up their habitual lives, theyare unable to receive new life
(08:57):
unless cultural rituals supportThe leap from one level of
consciousness to another, thereare no containing walls within
which that process can happenwithout an understanding of myth
or religion, without anunderstanding of the
relationship between destructionand creation, death and rebirth.
The individual suffers themysteries of life as meaningless
(09:19):
mayhem alone. End Quote, I'dlove to sit with that for a
minute, because I think there'sa lot of of wisdom and
illustration in that quote, inthat observation from someone
who spent their life and theirentire body of work really
helping people with thetransformation of consciousness.
(09:40):
And I want to back up a bitbefore we dive into some more
specific examples and talk aboutthe two things that I am
personally going to emphasize inthese episodes, initiation is
and can serve a lot of purposes,but the things I'm going to
emphasize are one thatinitiation. Conversation is
death portal.
(10:03):
We tend to have a romantic view,or a fantasy view of this, but
when we're actually confrontedwith death energy in our lives
and what it's asking us to letgo of most of us either
misunderstand it, we run awayfrom it, or we are devoured by
it, or we just learn to livewith that energy close by, and
(10:23):
then we cope all the timebecause we refuse or we don't
know how to engage it moremeaningfully. The second thing
I'm going to emphasize is thatthe process of initiation is
also intended to tether us andto introduce us to the great and
powerful energies, the gods, thearchetypes, the forces that help
(10:46):
us embody what the next stage oftransformation asks of us to
help us embody who we willbecome. So let's talk about the
first one. Let's talk about thedeath portal. And before you're
like, I'm so good at death. Ilove death. I'm dying all the
time. If it doesn't have a lotof charge for you, it's probably
not actual. The death portalreally tends to bring up things
(11:09):
that are high sensation for us,that we could respond to in a
very triggered way. So let'sstay out of the romantic fantasy
view of this, and really talkabout this death portal. And I'm
going to use the example of aninitiation as coming of age in a
lot of ways, because it hasexisted in many different forms
(11:32):
for almost all cultures ofhumanity, where there's a moment
a threshold, where we stepthrough the door from being a
child, and then we move into theaccountability of an adult,
which means the version of uswho was a child, our life as a
child must die. And this deathportal, or this threshold
(11:54):
moment, it's going to be true ofany initiation, getting married,
having a baby, becoming an eldermenopause in order to really get
married, something about who youwere before must now die, so
that you can live into somethingelse. Same with becoming a
parent, the you who wasn't aparent is now going to die so
(12:17):
you can step in the fullness ofwho you are going to be on this
next chapter, and we have evenmore contemporary or could be
initiations that are intended,or could usher us into new
capacities of power, money,success, failure, etc, but we
(12:37):
get culturally again becausewe're ill equipped, because We
don't have this language of thesoul and of myth. We get really
scared when we're at a deathportal, which is sometimes
actual death. And sometimespeople have put off the death
portal so long that that's thefirst place they're encountering
it. And also because as aculture, we've digressed into
(12:58):
total materialism and whollyidentifying with that which is
temporal About Us. I look likethis. I act like this. I'm from
here and there. These are mytraumas. These are my issues.
These are my favorite things.
These are the things that Ihate. This is my favorite
ideology, and they areunderstood and these are treated
as fixed, innate and inseparableparts of our identity, when
(13:19):
actually what is true is thatall of that is a part of your
impermanence. Those are thingsthat the ego likes to cling to,
to define itself, which is theego trying to cling and not go
through the death portal, whichwill keep you small, inevitably,
(13:39):
because the soul wants to growand evolve and the ego doesn't,
so it will begin to feel likeyou're in a suit that's too
small, or in a life that's toosmall. And these things that we
cling to, or that the ego clingsto, these temporary things about
us, these are things that wemust learn to let go of if we're
(14:00):
going to truly initiate andtransform there is an essence to
us that is essential. In mybelief, there's an essence to us
that's eternal. It's transtemporal. There's a part of us
that lives outside of time andspace, and that seed, that
essence is what gets refinedover time. With each death and
(14:21):
rebirth we experience, the moreand more we receive and
participate in the death rebirthof the ego that leaves us less
attached to what's impermanent,and then what we get in exchange
is a brighter, more refined,more luminous, more radiant,
more clear expression of thatwhich is essential about us.
(14:45):
There will be some things of youthat stay and remain through
each death, rebirth, portal ofinitiation. There will be things
of you that you find again oneach side. Of death and rebirth,
but you'll only get to know. Youdon't get to decide what that
is, though. You will only get toknow what that is after you've
(15:06):
gone through the tunnel, afteryou've stepped through the
threshold, and I can hear younow. Oh, I don't know grace that
sounds so dramatic, and also alittle too spiritual. Can I just
want something a lot, and thenthat transforms me and
transforms my life? Sure, yeah,of course. And we'll get more
(15:29):
into this in a future episode.
Sure, you can want something alot. I'm great at that
personally, however, unless thedeath portal is involved, that
want will likely digress intosomething that is Mary escapism
and fantasy, that will thencreate a greater divide and more
(15:53):
separation, rather than becomingsomething that transforms you
into something wider and Wilder,something that closes the gap of
separation, both inside andoutside of you. Death is a key
ingredient to this process, andit's most often an ego. Death,
our ego is the smallest part ofus. It's important, but it is
(16:18):
the smallest part of us. Iusually use the example of the
ego being a car. There is a partof us that is the car right to
be in this incarnation on thisplanet. We need a body. We need
a car to be driving around inthis experience. Beautiful. So
grateful for the car. Thank youfor the car. However, there's
(16:38):
also a part of us that is thedriver of the car in the maker
of the car, potentially, when weget too attached to the car with
it being the color red, or aCorvette, or getting so many
miles per gallon, or has this xspecial kind of tires, we're
actually missing out onconnecting to something much
Wilder and more powerful whenwe're like, Well, I'm a red
(17:00):
Toyota, And this is how manymiles per gallon I get as soon
as any of that changes, youridentity and worthiness is on
the line, and that ironically,makes the Ingo cling to it even
more so. Back to the example ofcoming of age. How many people
do you know who claim to beadults, but are really just
(17:22):
giant 14 year olds with money.
In dominant culture in westernworld being initiated into
adulthood. Well, to say,dominant culture in North
America being initiated intoadulthood has become replaced
with being a teenager, and thenteenagers simply grow up to
become adult teenagers who canvote and drive and make money,
etc, and have kids. But thereare now no values in our culture
(17:48):
or very view, very few embodiedexperiences of it. You know, we
don't really have culture. Wehave consumerism. We have King
consumption. We have a culturethat's modeled on the opposite
of initiation. That's right, youdon't have to change. Just buy
things. Everyone else is wrong,and you're right. You're a red
car. Yes, you are. Here's how wecan make it fit better, maintain
(18:13):
it, make it more concrete, puffit up, sell it, pat it out. Make
something inherently temporaryinto something that never
changes. Here's how we can takesomething inherently temporary
and turn it into something thatnever dies or try to but death
is change, and change is death,and so there is no change. There
(18:35):
is no initiation without itPeriod, end of story. So back to
coming of age. If we weregetting initiated, you know,
we're we are witness in a rightwhere we encounter the death of
our youth, the death of us as achild, and we are witnessed in
(18:56):
the receiving of our adulthoodand the accountability and
responsibility that comes withthat. When we are children, we
are on the receiving end. Whenwe're children, we need endless
help. We need someone to feedus, someone to help us, someone
to watch us. But on the otherend of the rite of passage, the
(19:16):
question becomes, no longer,what was I born to receive, but
what was I born to give? Whatwas I born to give? What were
you born to give? But most of uswere never initiated into that
(19:36):
question, and so we are stuck ina confused dynamic with loads of
responsibility, wondering, whatdo I get? What's in it? For me,
there's an attention starved,hungry child still growing
inside that's wondering, whatabout me? What about me? What do
I get? How will this make mefeel better? How.
(20:00):
Will this make me feel moresecure? How will this make me
more comfortable? How will thismake me feel more permanent? And
every relationship and situationand circumstance, often
unconscious, unconsciously,becomes about what's in it for
me, and any relationship thatisn't oriented around that is
then decided that it's toxic orunsatisfying at the least, and
(20:24):
I'm being hyperbolic with mydescriptions here, in order to
illustrate the energy of this,it can and often does show up in
a more nuanced way, such as aninability to listen and an
ability to be wrong, an extremedistaste for anything that
ruffles the egos feathers ormakes us remotely uncomfortable,
(20:45):
and pretty much every adult I'veworked with and just taking a
look around, we all have a stuckteenager inside, wondering when
they're going to feel better andfinally get what they want from
mommy and daddy, who were alsoprobably Still stuck teenagers
in adult bodies, because theyalso were never initiated into
the world with the grounded andspiritual support, with the
(21:08):
ritualizing into adulthood, andthe misunderstood, stuck
teenager inside has yet to fullyunderstand, has yet to fully
stand under What was I born togive to the world? We think it's
like about shining our lightback to us and how amazing and
great we are. It's about beingsparkly and famous, but I
(21:29):
promise there is something morespecial than that, something
more ecstatic, something moreradiant and more wonderful. But
it's an adult question, and thisbrings me to the second aspect
that I wanted to discuss aboutinitiation, which is through the
death portal, what we meet inthere that brings us out to the
(21:51):
other side is the introduction,the ceremonial, ritualized
connection to the great andpowerful energies that sustain
us and that we are called toembody, both at large as general
humanity, but also in unique andprecise ways according to our
(22:12):
destiny. These great andpowerful energies inform who you
are, your nature, your biology,and are the guides and guardians
of this world, reality and allthat is. And as I said earlier,
through more and moretransformations, that inner,
(22:33):
eternal, luminous part willbecome more radiant and more
cultivated. As we go throughmore and more initiations, we
become more seasoned, we becomemore refined, and our embodiment
becomes more precise, and itprecisely embodies that general
energies and the specific onesthat you are transmitting into
(22:56):
and onto Earth, the more our egobecomes the servant of the soul
instead of the other way around,the more elegant and aligned
your embodiment becomes. Formost of humanity's timeline,
we've been oriented towards theEarth in this way, we've
understood the earth as a formof source, and ourselves as a
(23:19):
form of that as well. And sothere's this value placed on
this direct connection in a verypractice, manifested way of
initiation, and also whichpulled us into a way of living
our lives that we're sensing andmoving with and through the
(23:39):
divine and also through place,through where we are. This could
be an interesting point to checkin with your body and really
check in with yourself. Andnotice, as soon as I start
talking about this, do you startautomatically projecting this
initiatory reality, thisconnection to place, to earth as
(24:00):
a form of divine, as humans alsoas a form of divine. Do you
start projecting this onto othergroups of people that don't
include you? Did youautomatically start thinking
about other times, other places,other people that don't include
you? We all belong to thisearth, and we have all had and
(24:21):
can have an intimate connectionto place, in space and time and
body as a revealing of theDivine. It absolutely does
include you, and so payattention to how you might
unconsciously be opting out ofthis. Let's get back to
tethering to great energies.
When we're children again, we'replugged into specific caregivers
(24:45):
who function as our primarysources of sustenance, approval,
guidance, protection, especiallyyoung children, right? The
parents are sort of these gods.
These are or the caregivers arethe. Sources and givers of
everything that we know, butideally when we come of age and
(25:06):
we step through that deathportal, we are then given or
introduced to the cords thatplug into something greater. The
cords to our parents are cut andwe are plugged instead into the
greater parents of the widerworld, the Great Mother, the
great father, the earth herself.
Our concentric circle of what'savailable to us then becomes
(25:30):
much bigger, because we are thenbigger, and we have access to
something bigger, and we arealso responsible to something
bigger. We are initiated intoreceiving our own guides, our
helping spirits, those who walkwith us, humanity in general,
this planet in general, but alsoyou in particular, from and
through the other world, thegreater worlds, the cosmos, and
(25:53):
this new and wider belongingwill then entrain you into a
much bigger sense ofresponsibility, a much greater
sense of embodiment and sourcethat's bigger than a nuclear
family obligation. It caninclude that for sure, but it's
beyond that, and in initiatingthat leads us through death and
(26:16):
into this great connection wethen see and understand and
belong to the world, to theplace, to the great and powerful
energies that brought us here,of which our biological parents
can be a part. But they are notthe source. They are not source.
So coming of age, we cut thecords we needed as children that
(26:40):
said these people are what weneed to survive and thrive, and
we instead step into the streamof the Mother, the Father, and
all of the allies and energiesthat weave throughout our
existence. And we then learn andwe're accountable to instead
source our belonging, source ourwisdom from this new and greater
(27:02):
stream. And now that we've metand witnessed these great and
powerful energies, then we'reexpected to carry them and hold
them and be in relationship tothem, in our lives, in our
bodies, in our decisions, toseek their wisdom to ask for
their help and live our livesaccording to the vision that we
(27:24):
then receive from that greaterbelonging. And I'm going to
leave you all with that today.
There will be a second part tothis episode releasing in a few
weeks, where I'll talk aboutwhat happens if we don't do
this, what are other ways thatwe can respond? What does that
(27:44):
end up looking like, and, moreimportantly, what happens when
we do do this? And for now, Iwould love for you all to
contemplate and invite in thequestions. What's dying right
now this year, what wants toshed? Can you? Could you what
what support or containers doyou need? What culture do you
(28:06):
need, what stories do you needto help you do that? And the
second question I'd love for youto contemplate is, what great
and powerful energies are youbeing asked to step into? Who
are you being asked to meet, toconnect with or to become
introduced. And you may notknow, but you may have a sense
(28:27):
of what could be waiting for youon the other side, the most
important question is the firstone, what's dying right now?
What's trying to shed? Whataccumulations are we still
holding on to in what ways areyou fixating and clinging to the
ego identities the car and whatways are you clinging to that? I
(28:50):
hope you'll take some time toreally live into these questions
over the next few weeks, as yousit in the space between these
episodes, be sure to check outthe show notes for some of my
current offerings and gifts thatare here to support you and
guide you as you deepen yoursoul work and to help you become
more skillful and embodied withall the ways that your spirit
(29:13):
and magic wants to live throughyou and into this world until
next time. Peace be well.
Thank you so much for listening.
If you enjoyed the episode,please take a few moments to
subscribe to the show leave us areview and share the episode.
(29:35):
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today. Our intro and outro musicwas created by artists Erin
palavic and Jared Kelly. Ourpodcast logo was created by
Elaine Stevenson, and this showis produced by softer sound
(29:56):
studio. Thank you for beinghere. Be well. Peace. You.
Grace. My name is Grace, and you're
listening to the homebodyPodcast.
Greetings. Everyone. Welcome in.
Today's episode, I'm going totalk about the process of
initiation, and it's greatdeficit in dominant Western
(00:26):
culture today. And I'll alsopoint out, or bring to the
table, some of the things Iperceive are the effects of this
deficit, namely, our inabilityto become which is an inability
to truly transform in a deep andlife changing way. It also
contributes, I think, to ourlack of embodied understanding
(00:48):
and an overall sense ofdysregulation and or fear that
shows up when we attempt tobecome conscious. CO creators
this episode is publishing rightat the cusp of a new year, and
this time of year, it's a seasonthat we often want to imbue with
(01:10):
a lot of transformationalenergy. Right we make all of our
lists and our goals andresolutions and our plans for
the new year, trying to harnessenough behavior, control and
vision and willpower to reallymake a change, or to steer our
boat towards where we want togo. And as long as those things
(01:31):
aren't too far off course fromwhere we are right now, they can
probably work. No problem.
There's nothing wrong with anyof these things. I do all of
these things. But if we don'tknow how to change on deep
evolutionary soul levels, whichis what initiation does, which
(01:51):
is, you know, this belongs tothe language and the art of
magic and spirit. Well, thewillpower will only get us so
far, and it certainly won't getus anywhere on a deep soul
level, we are very creativebeings as humans, but I notice,
without a language and ritualand understanding of initiation,
(02:15):
we never seem To quite shed theskins of previous selves and
these skins start to collect aslayers of dead, metaphorical
skin. And these layers start toconglomerate and make babies and
create a giant velcro ball thatall of our pain and failure and
(02:40):
disappointment and triggers canlatch onto, and then we try to
overpower this giant velcro ballof pain and dead skin that we
haven't shed. And then we thinkthat tapping into that
overpowering sense of will isstepping into our co creative
(03:01):
power, and it's not becausereally, all we're able to do in
that state is react to our pain,react to the heaviness, be
dysregulated honestly we feelfrom all of the layers of that
dead soul, skin hanging on thatwe haven't shed or we don't know
how To and we're not sure if wewant to. It's a process that we
(03:24):
don't know anymore in dominant,you know, I'm speaking from
dominant North American culture,and therefore it's a process
that we collectively don'ttrust, and so we don't do it.
And all of that is fine, ifthat's where someone is at.
However, let us not confuse thisreactive fear based extreme
(03:45):
willpower behavior control. Letus not confuse that with true
Interstellar, divine human cocreation. They're not the same
this second one, this trueinterstellar co creation is the
true force of transformation,and I would love us to stop
confusing the two, because I seethem get confused pretty often,
(04:09):
especially in the circles ofpersonal development, spiritual
development, self help, etc. Ithink getting skillful with
initiation is getting skillfulwith transformation. And maybe
you've noticed by looking aroundat the world at large or at your
life, we are in a heightenedpace of transformation as a
(04:31):
species. And on this planet,things are changing fast, and
they're changing a lot, and itseems like the beating of the
drum of time. To borrow a symbolset from Hindu mythology, the
beating of the drum of time isgoing quite fast now, and
there's a wave and then a wave,and then a wave, and then
(04:53):
another wave. And the skill ofinitiation, of death, of
transformation, on this deeplevel, these are the skills. Of
not drowning, for not beingoverburdened by the call to
transform. When life is callingus to that, when we have the
skill inside of us, we have thispractice inside of us, when life
(05:13):
around us and within us issaying it's time to change, it
becomes something, even if it'ssomething that's quite powerful.
It's something that we're ableto integrate and move through
without feeling overly dramaticor burdened by it, because we've
really shed and stepped intosomething that is truly us,
(05:36):
which is something that is trulytransformative. I hear all of
the time, especially inpersonal, spiritual development
spaces, change is about knowingbetter so that we can do better.
Have you heard that if we justknow better, we'll do better.
Know better and we'll do better.
Here's the thing, it's not aboutknowing better. Sure, knowing
(05:57):
something can help. Butinformation is not the seed of
change. It's not example. Youcan probably think of 10 things
right now in the next fiveseconds that you regularly do
that you know better about. Ican think of 10. So change is
not about knowing better. So wecan drop our obsession with
(06:21):
trying to get people to knowwhat we know, so we can educate
them into our information hubsin the hopes that they'll agree
with us and become just like us.
Whatever that is, change is notabout knowing better. Change is
engaging chaos. Change isstepping into the unknown and
(06:43):
uncertainty and change is death.
That is why real change actuallydoesn't happen very often,
unless it's forced upon us,because it only really happens
for the brave. It only happensfor people who can dive into the
underworld, not because they'readdicted to feeling bad or sad,
but because they know how tobecome and what it takes. They
(07:06):
know how to ride the wave ofuncertainty when they see that
dragon of chaos coming. Theyknow how to get on it and ride
and they even know how to trustit and ride it with grace, and
sometimes even ride it withecstasy. Initiation is a doorway
into change, and it's a vesselthat can carry us through into
(07:28):
something that is trulydifferent, and it's not
something we have a lot oflanguage or culture for in our
content consumption is Kingmainstream reality. So we're
going to dive into it today andhopefully initiate that culture
and imagination inside of you.
(07:49):
This will be a two part episode,and this is the first sort of
laying the foundation for someof the things I'm going to talk
about, and the second will bemore about how we respond to
initiation, why it's important,and what it looks like when we
don't respond. I wanted to startus with a quote by Mary Ann
Woodman, who is a young andpsycho analyst and writer, and
(08:11):
this is from her book called Thepregnant virgin. Many people are
being dragged toward wholenessin their daily lives, but
because they do not understandinitiation rights, they cannot
make sense of what is happeningto them. They are being
presented with the possibilityof rebirth into a different life
through failures, symptoms,inferiority, feelings and
(08:35):
overwhelming problems, they'rebeing prodded to renounce life
attachments that have becomeredundant, but because they do
not understand, people cling tothe familiar, refuse to make the
necessary sacrifices, resisttheir own growth, unable to give
up their habitual lives, theyare unable to receive new life
(08:57):
unless cultural rituals supportThe leap from one level of
consciousness to another, thereare no containing walls within
which that process can happenwithout an understanding of myth
or religion, without anunderstanding of the
relationship between destructionand creation, death and rebirth.
The individual suffers themysteries of life as meaningless
(09:19):
mayhem alone. End Quote, I'dlove to sit with that for a
minute, because I think there'sa lot of of wisdom and
illustration in that quote, inthat observation from someone
who spent their life and theirentire body of work really
helping people with thetransformation of consciousness.
(09:40):
And I want to back up a bitbefore we dive into some more
specific examples and talk aboutthe two things that I am
personally going to emphasize inthese episodes, initiation is
and can serve a lot of purposes,but the things I'm going to
emphasize are one thatinitiation. Conversation is
death portal.
(10:03):
We tend to have a romantic view,or a fantasy view of this, but
when we're actually confrontedwith death energy in our lives
and what it's asking us to letgo of most of us either
misunderstand it, we run awayfrom it, or we are devoured by
it, or we just learn to livewith that energy close by, and
(10:23):
then we cope all the timebecause we refuse or we don't
know how to engage it moremeaningfully. The second thing
I'm going to emphasize is thatthe process of initiation is
also intended to tether us andto introduce us to the great and
powerful energies, the gods, thearchetypes, the forces that help
(10:46):
us embody what the next stage oftransformation asks of us to
help us embody who we willbecome. So let's talk about the
first one. Let's talk about thedeath portal. And before you're
like, I'm so good at death. Ilove death. I'm dying all the
time. If it doesn't have a lotof charge for you, it's probably
not actual. The death portalreally tends to bring up things
(11:09):
that are high sensation for us,that we could respond to in a
very triggered way. So let'sstay out of the romantic fantasy
view of this, and really talkabout this death portal. And I'm
going to use the example of aninitiation as coming of age in a
lot of ways, because it hasexisted in many different forms
(11:32):
for almost all cultures ofhumanity, where there's a moment
a threshold, where we stepthrough the door from being a
child, and then we move into theaccountability of an adult,
which means the version of uswho was a child, our life as a
child must die. And this deathportal, or this threshold
(11:54):
moment, it's going to be true ofany initiation, getting married,
having a baby, becoming an eldermenopause in order to really get
married, something about who youwere before must now die, so
that you can live into somethingelse. Same with becoming a
parent, the you who wasn't aparent is now going to die so
(12:17):
you can step in the fullness ofwho you are going to be on this
next chapter, and we have evenmore contemporary or could be
initiations that are intended,or could usher us into new
capacities of power, money,success, failure, etc, but we
(12:37):
get culturally again becausewe're ill equipped, because We
don't have this language of thesoul and of myth. We get really
scared when we're at a deathportal, which is sometimes
actual death. And sometimespeople have put off the death
portal so long that that's thefirst place they're encountering
it. And also because as aculture, we've digressed into
(12:58):
total materialism and whollyidentifying with that which is
temporal About Us. I look likethis. I act like this. I'm from
here and there. These are mytraumas. These are my issues.
These are my favorite things.
These are the things that Ihate. This is my favorite
ideology, and they areunderstood and these are treated
as fixed, innate and inseparableparts of our identity, when
(13:19):
actually what is true is thatall of that is a part of your
impermanence. Those are thingsthat the ego likes to cling to,
to define itself, which is theego trying to cling and not go
through the death portal, whichwill keep you small, inevitably,
(13:39):
because the soul wants to growand evolve and the ego doesn't,
so it will begin to feel likeyou're in a suit that's too
small, or in a life that's toosmall. And these things that we
cling to, or that the ego clingsto, these temporary things about
us, these are things that wemust learn to let go of if we're
(14:00):
going to truly initiate andtransform there is an essence to
us that is essential. In mybelief, there's an essence to us
that's eternal. It's transtemporal. There's a part of us
that lives outside of time andspace, and that seed, that
essence is what gets refinedover time. With each death and
(14:21):
rebirth we experience, the moreand more we receive and
participate in the death rebirthof the ego that leaves us less
attached to what's impermanent,and then what we get in exchange
is a brighter, more refined,more luminous, more radiant,
more clear expression of thatwhich is essential about us.
(14:45):
There will be some things of youthat stay and remain through
each death, rebirth, portal ofinitiation. There will be things
of you that you find again oneach side. Of death and rebirth,
but you'll only get to know. Youdon't get to decide what that
is, though. You will only get toknow what that is after you've
(15:06):
gone through the tunnel, afteryou've stepped through the
threshold, and I can hear younow. Oh, I don't know grace that
sounds so dramatic, and also alittle too spiritual. Can I just
want something a lot, and thenthat transforms me and
transforms my life? Sure, yeah,of course. And we'll get more
(15:29):
into this in a future episode.
Sure, you can want something alot. I'm great at that
personally, however, unless thedeath portal is involved, that
want will likely digress intosomething that is Mary escapism
and fantasy, that will thencreate a greater divide and more
(15:53):
separation, rather than becomingsomething that transforms you
into something wider and Wilder,something that closes the gap of
separation, both inside andoutside of you. Death is a key
ingredient to this process, andit's most often an ego. Death,
our ego is the smallest part ofus. It's important, but it is
(16:18):
the smallest part of us. Iusually use the example of the
ego being a car. There is a partof us that is the car right to
be in this incarnation on thisplanet. We need a body. We need
a car to be driving around inthis experience. Beautiful. So
grateful for the car. Thank youfor the car. However, there's
(16:38):
also a part of us that is thedriver of the car in the maker
of the car, potentially, when weget too attached to the car with
it being the color red, or aCorvette, or getting so many
miles per gallon, or has this xspecial kind of tires, we're
actually missing out onconnecting to something much
Wilder and more powerful whenwe're like, Well, I'm a red
(17:00):
Toyota, And this is how manymiles per gallon I get as soon
as any of that changes, youridentity and worthiness is on
the line, and that ironically,makes the Ingo cling to it even
more so. Back to the example ofcoming of age. How many people
do you know who claim to beadults, but are really just
(17:22):
giant 14 year olds with money.
In dominant culture in westernworld being initiated into
adulthood. Well, to say,dominant culture in North
America being initiated intoadulthood has become replaced
with being a teenager, and thenteenagers simply grow up to
become adult teenagers who canvote and drive and make money,
etc, and have kids. But thereare now no values in our culture
(17:48):
or very view, very few embodiedexperiences of it. You know, we
don't really have culture. Wehave consumerism. We have King
consumption. We have a culturethat's modeled on the opposite
of initiation. That's right, youdon't have to change. Just buy
things. Everyone else is wrong,and you're right. You're a red
car. Yes, you are. Here's how wecan make it fit better, maintain
(18:13):
it, make it more concrete, puffit up, sell it, pat it out. Make
something inherently temporaryinto something that never
changes. Here's how we can takesomething inherently temporary
and turn it into something thatnever dies or try to but death
is change, and change is death,and so there is no change. There
(18:35):
is no initiation without itPeriod, end of story. So back to
coming of age. If we weregetting initiated, you know,
we're we are witness in a rightwhere we encounter the death of
our youth, the death of us as achild, and we are witnessed in
(18:56):
the receiving of our adulthoodand the accountability and
responsibility that comes withthat. When we are children, we
are on the receiving end. Whenwe're children, we need endless
help. We need someone to feedus, someone to help us, someone
to watch us. But on the otherend of the rite of passage, the
(19:16):
question becomes, no longer,what was I born to receive, but
what was I born to give? Whatwas I born to give? What were
you born to give? But most of uswere never initiated into that
(19:36):
question, and so we are stuck ina confused dynamic with loads of
responsibility, wondering, whatdo I get? What's in it? For me,
there's an attention starved,hungry child still growing
inside that's wondering, whatabout me? What about me? What do
I get? How will this make mefeel better? How.
(20:00):
Will this make me feel moresecure? How will this make me
more comfortable? How will thismake me feel more permanent? And
every relationship and situationand circumstance, often
unconscious, unconsciously,becomes about what's in it for
me, and any relationship thatisn't oriented around that is
then decided that it's toxic orunsatisfying at the least, and
(20:24):
I'm being hyperbolic with mydescriptions here, in order to
illustrate the energy of this,it can and often does show up in
a more nuanced way, such as aninability to listen and an
ability to be wrong, an extremedistaste for anything that
ruffles the egos feathers ormakes us remotely uncomfortable,
(20:45):
and pretty much every adult I'veworked with and just taking a
look around, we all have a stuckteenager inside, wondering when
they're going to feel better andfinally get what they want from
mommy and daddy, who were alsoprobably Still stuck teenagers
in adult bodies, because theyalso were never initiated into
the world with the grounded andspiritual support, with the
(21:08):
ritualizing into adulthood, andthe misunderstood, stuck
teenager inside has yet to fullyunderstand, has yet to fully
stand under What was I born togive to the world? We think it's
like about shining our lightback to us and how amazing and
great we are. It's about beingsparkly and famous, but I
(21:29):
promise there is something morespecial than that, something
more ecstatic, something moreradiant and more wonderful. But
it's an adult question, and thisbrings me to the second aspect
that I wanted to discuss aboutinitiation, which is through the
death portal, what we meet inthere that brings us out to the
(21:51):
other side is the introduction,the ceremonial, ritualized
connection to the great andpowerful energies that sustain
us and that we are called toembody, both at large as general
humanity, but also in unique andprecise ways according to our
(22:12):
destiny. These great andpowerful energies inform who you
are, your nature, your biology,and are the guides and guardians
of this world, reality and allthat is. And as I said earlier,
through more and moretransformations, that inner,
(22:33):
eternal, luminous part willbecome more radiant and more
cultivated. As we go throughmore and more initiations, we
become more seasoned, we becomemore refined, and our embodiment
becomes more precise, and itprecisely embodies that general
energies and the specific onesthat you are transmitting into
(22:56):
and onto Earth, the more our egobecomes the servant of the soul
instead of the other way around,the more elegant and aligned
your embodiment becomes. Formost of humanity's timeline,
we've been oriented towards theEarth in this way, we've
understood the earth as a formof source, and ourselves as a
(23:19):
form of that as well. And sothere's this value placed on
this direct connection in a verypractice, manifested way of
initiation, and also whichpulled us into a way of living
our lives that we're sensing andmoving with and through the
(23:39):
divine and also through place,through where we are. This could
be an interesting point to checkin with your body and really
check in with yourself. Andnotice, as soon as I start
talking about this, do you startautomatically projecting this
initiatory reality, thisconnection to place, to earth as
(24:00):
a form of divine, as humans alsoas a form of divine. Do you
start projecting this onto othergroups of people that don't
include you? Did youautomatically start thinking
about other times, other places,other people that don't include
you? We all belong to thisearth, and we have all had and
(24:21):
can have an intimate connectionto place, in space and time and
body as a revealing of theDivine. It absolutely does
include you, and so payattention to how you might
unconsciously be opting out ofthis. Let's get back to
tethering to great energies.
When we're children again, we'replugged into specific caregivers
(24:45):
who function as our primarysources of sustenance, approval,
guidance, protection, especiallyyoung children, right? The
parents are sort of these gods.
These are or the caregivers arethe. Sources and givers of
everything that we know, butideally when we come of age and
(25:06):
we step through that deathportal, we are then given or
introduced to the cords thatplug into something greater. The
cords to our parents are cut andwe are plugged instead into the
greater parents of the widerworld, the Great Mother, the
great father, the earth herself.
Our concentric circle of what'savailable to us then becomes
(25:30):
much bigger, because we are thenbigger, and we have access to
something bigger, and we arealso responsible to something
bigger. We are initiated intoreceiving our own guides, our
helping spirits, those who walkwith us, humanity in general,
this planet in general, but alsoyou in particular, from and
through the other world, thegreater worlds, the cosmos, and
(25:53):
this new and wider belongingwill then entrain you into a
much bigger sense ofresponsibility, a much greater
sense of embodiment and sourcethat's bigger than a nuclear
family obligation. It caninclude that for sure, but it's
beyond that, and in initiatingthat leads us through death and
(26:16):
into this great connection wethen see and understand and
belong to the world, to theplace, to the great and powerful
energies that brought us here,of which our biological parents
can be a part. But they are notthe source. They are not source.
So coming of age, we cut thecords we needed as children that
(26:40):
said these people are what weneed to survive and thrive, and
we instead step into the streamof the Mother, the Father, and
all of the allies and energiesthat weave throughout our
existence. And we then learn andwe're accountable to instead
source our belonging, source ourwisdom from this new and greater
(27:02):
stream. And now that we've metand witnessed these great and
powerful energies, then we'reexpected to carry them and hold
them and be in relationship tothem, in our lives, in our
bodies, in our decisions, toseek their wisdom to ask for
their help and live our livesaccording to the vision that we
(27:24):
then receive from that greaterbelonging. And I'm going to
leave you all with that today.
There will be a second part tothis episode releasing in a few
weeks, where I'll talk aboutwhat happens if we don't do
this, what are other ways thatwe can respond? What does that
(27:44):
end up looking like, and, moreimportantly, what happens when
we do do this? And for now, Iwould love for you all to
contemplate and invite in thequestions. What's dying right
now this year, what wants toshed? Can you? Could you what
what support or containers doyou need? What culture do you
(28:06):
need, what stories do you needto help you do that? And the
second question I'd love for youto contemplate is, what great
and powerful energies are youbeing asked to step into? Who
are you being asked to meet, toconnect with or to become
introduced. And you may notknow, but you may have a sense
(28:27):
of what could be waiting for youon the other side, the most
important question is the firstone, what's dying right now?
What's trying to shed? Whataccumulations are we still
holding on to in what ways areyou fixating and clinging to the
ego identities the car and whatways are you clinging to that? I
(28:50):
hope you'll take some time toreally live into these questions
over the next few weeks, as yousit in the space between these
episodes, be sure to check outthe show notes for some of my
current offerings and gifts thatare here to support you and
guide you as you deepen yoursoul work and to help you become
more skillful and embodied withall the ways that your spirit
(29:13):
and magic wants to live throughyou and into this world until
next time. Peace be well.
Thank you so much for listening.
If you enjoyed the episode,please take a few moments to
subscribe to the show leave us areview and share the episode.
(29:35):
These small tasks help ourindependent podcast. So much. Be
sure to also check out the shownotes below to learn more about
any resources, guests orsponsors that we shared with you
today. Our intro and outro musicwas created by artists Erin
palavic and Jared Kelly. Ourpodcast logo was created by
Elaine Stevenson, and this showis produced by softer sound
(29:56):
studio. Thank you for beinghere. Be well. Peace. You.
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