This is 3/8 guest posts by Sair Gryphon chronicling her reflections on experiencing The Dark Goddess Spiral transformational journey.
DARK GODDESS RISING
Session 3 we explored the second/sacral chakra and the archetype/goddess #Persephone.
TLDR VERSION
Persephone is an innocent young thing ripening into her sexuality. Hades, god of the underworld rapes her and imprisons her in his hellish kingdom as his wife. Somehow Persephone (mysteriously, powerfully) manages to integrate and transform this trauma to power and takes up her place as queen of hell, showing mercy to the dead. She and Hades share a loving and faithful marriage (unlike most of the fucked up and faithless deities of the Greek/Roman+ pantheons). She also arranges with Hades so that she can return to the earth every Springtime, and when she does her mother, the goddess Demeter, turns winter (which results from her grieving her absent daughter) to the joyful transformations of Spring.
Persephone helps us transform rape (and all that it stands for) into new life and power. 
WANT MORE?
CLEARING OLD SHIT
The ‘root clear’ process was around:
*Rape (whoa!) – the wound
*Pleasure – the shadow
*Innocence – the challenge
*Satisfaction – the gift
Clearing involves ‘good’ things as well as ‘bad’ ones. We can have many twisty stories restricting our pleasure, and tainting our innocence.
WHAT ELSE DO WE DO?
As well as a clearing process, the Dark Goddess Spiral works with an astrological medicine wheel. Each week we work with the goddess archetype to move the old energy/trauma that’s come up in the clearing through our systems, and release into newness.
We do this through a shaking meditation by Osho (shaking off and letting go of the old), and then a chakra breathe (using a special breathing technique to move energy up and out through each chakra). We use well-chosen music to support this.
I find both these processes unexpectedly powerful. They turn off the mind, and get me into my body. My mind does resist (by saying they’re stupid etc), but so far I’ve been able to let that go, and relax into the unfolding. I often feel body sensations, energy releasing, see old memories, gain insights, or have emotional releases during these.
We then do a voice dialogue with the Goddess, where we embody her, and someone asks the goddess questions that pertain to us. IE “Persephone (in Sair), how have you shown up in Sair’s life in the past?”
This has been POWERful for me. Listening back to the recordings later, I can hear how the wisdom of the goddesses is often more than I consciously knew before although it mysteriously lived within me. I’m following their homework each week to help integrate the clearing’s changes. Persephone’s homework included ‘innocent masturbation, fully enjoying my pleasure and not trying to orgasm’. Hmm, now that’s homework I can get behind. 
The most important part of our homework each week is to breathe into anything that comes up: body sensations, emotions, memories etc. To breathe them in and ‘receive’. To breathe them out and ‘release’ what’s ready to go. More than anything else, that makes this work. I see it’s just another way of training us to be present with Life, with ourselves, with the moment of is-ness.
We also do homework of ‘self-celebration. This means making sure to notice any changes (even if they are tiny, which they may well be. This clearing aims to be a gentle process that helps things shift and dissipate like ‘steam’ as opposed to a huge intense flow of ‘water’. Although it’s fine if the water-flow is what happens). Self-celebration supports more changes happening, and continued dedication to showing up.
INSIGHT AROUND RAPE
I realise my life has been powerfully influenced by #rape. There is a lot of rape and sexual abuse hidden in the cobwebs of my family history. There’s also a kind of ’emotional rape’ that I’ve historically signed up for, where I put myself into situations that are more self-hating than self-loving, and keep myself there long after the expiration date (because it feels natural to feel that level of pain, and masochistically pleasurable).
I’m grateful to be clearing this, admitting it to myself, and learning how to feel these big pains from the past in a much more clean way (as opposed to wallowing in them or distracting from them). Although it’s sometimes SO painful to be with some of this in my emotions/body, it also feels relieving. And when I feel the pain finally ‘turn the key and slide out the lock’, oh my goddess!
It feels WHOA. I feel a lot free-er inside. I gain access to strange new abilities and parts of me, that I don’t recognise.
I re-discover peace.
Until session 4.
[Image sourced at https://
