INITIATION

The journey to the Dark Goddess is a natural part of any death transition--any difficult rite of passage that takes us out of our ordinary experiences and places us into a liminal cycle. Death transitions may be those transitions classically seen as negative--such as a serious illness or accident, death of a loved one, job loss or divorce--but even so-called positive transitions such as marriage or the birth of a child carry the weight of endings. Largely we navigate our challenging transitions in isolation, and the dominant cultural narrative is that we should "move on" or "get back to normal".

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Year of the Dark Goddess provides an anchor and a roadmap for navigating the disorientation of life transformations and offers resources for embracing changes as initiations that strengthen us and make clear our purpose and power. The book is modeled on ancient rite-of-passage ceremonies and journeys to the underworld and is structured as a four-phase rite-of-passage process: Preparation, Separation from the Known, Transition-Initiation, and Return-Integration. The book provides readers with practical tools—embodied rituals, writing practice, seasonal self-care and community creation—to ground and empower positive transformations in times of challenging change.

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Readers may use the book as both a linear guide through the initiation year, or a nonlinear tool for structuring their own unique rite-of-passage journey. Readers are invited to create personal challenges, reframe their rite-of-passage through myth work and sacred art, and create a potent and effective rite of passage ceremony to integrate their change.
 
The self-initiation process in Year of the Dark Goddess follows a ceremonial year, each quarter section is structured with the following:

 

• An interactive brief of themes and objectives for the quarter, such as making an altar, writing with the ancestors, creating herbal infusions, and storytelling.

• A seasonal ceremony template appropriate to the rite-of-passage phase.

• A unique retelling of an ancient myth or fairy tale and instructions for deep myth work. These tales contain the formula for how to successfully navigate rites of passage, consciously and unconsciously.

• Journaling prompts for reflection and projection, making visible the initiation journey.

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This book began as a class first offered in 2021-2023. One of my mantras is : offer what you most need to practice, teach what you most need to learn. I needed to integrate my own rite of passage, the death transition of my severe ME/CFS, so I invited my community to join me in creation and integration. Offered both online and in an intimate correspondence cohort, The Dark Goddess Project class at the Wild Soul School became a touchstone for powerful, embodied transformation. Now that work is available in book form, accessible to anyone desiring to claim their change and be empowered by the challenges in their lives.

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We have a whole Dark Goddess community woven through a variety of connective experiences, and you are invited to join us in celebrating the birth of this book through events and experiences, connecting with others on the path through sacred art, myth ritual, and story and creating meaning and purpose through our lived rites of passage together.

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