REST YOURSELF IN THE FERTILE DEPTHS OF THE DARK FEMININE THIS WINTER TIME

 Join Miriam Ropschitz on a 7-week journey through the fertile darkness of the underworld, passing through 7 gates of initiation, guided by 7 dark goddesses.

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DFM + 1-1 Session

PRICES DOUBLE ON DECEMBER 14

The FEMININE IS DARK

dark feminine medicine is a journey of reclaiming the wild, raw parts of your womanhood you were told to exile in order to belong.

The Feminine has a special relationship with darkness: the dark of the moon; the dark of the womb, the life-giving, generative powers of the fertile soil. 

Our ancestors worshipped a primary dark feminine deity. And yet we have been entrained to disconnect from our own darkness at great cost to our wellbeing, our eros & our creative lives.

Our culture is yang-dominant & solar-oriented. We are a people afraid of the dark. Encouraged to shy away from all which dwells in the shadows.

Why? Because the dark feminine is where we women find a power & wisdom so profound, it threatens the fabric of the modern world. 

THIS is an invitation to own all that you are...

To embrace the raw power of your sexuality and menstrual cycle. To compost limiting beliefs that have kept you holding back your magick from the world. 

While the world around us drops into winter, we'll descend to the underworld to find the treasures that only the Dark Feminine knows. 

We were sold a lie... They told us: Sex is sinful. Our blood is shameful. Rest is lazy. Your feelings are too much.

The Dark Feminine teaches us: Sex is sacred. Your blood is powerful. Rest brings rebirth. Your feelings are messengers. Her wisdom leads us back to the women we were born to be... sacred, sexual, wild and free.

At Gate One, we work with Sumerian Goddess Inanna, learning how her heroine's journey of descent into the underworld can teach us to descend willingly into our own darkness to gather the treasures of the great below. What triggers you? Which parts of yourself do you find hard to face? How can we bring our disowned – or shadow – parts back up to the world of the living?

Our embodiment practice explores descent by descending to our own bodily underworld – the land of the lower body: the guts, the anus, the womb, the pussy – through breath, sound and movement, to bring us into healthy relationship with the lower body, creating a foundation of grounding, self-holding and nourishment for the weeks ahead.

Gate One

inanna

Initiation: The Descent

Cast out of Eden for refusing sexual submission, Lillith is the embodiment of unadulterated wild sexual energy. Here we examine our own relationship to our sexuality and ask how Lillith can illuminate repression and free us from shame we've inherited from cultural conditioning. Learn to reclaim your sacred sexuality by developing your own self-pleasure practice through sensual ritual.

Embodiment Practice: Sacred Breast Massage & Pleasure Ritual. We indulge our senses with a luxurious pleasure ritual including breast massage, sensual breathwork and gentle movement.

GATE TWO

Lilith

Initiation: Wild Eros

The Scottish crone goddess of winter and weather is as old as time. She predates even the Celtic mythology she now sits at the heart of. We can translate her name as 'veiled one'. She often wears a grey cloak and carries a staff. You may find her accompanied by her wolf familiar. She is said to turn the weather and bring the winter. At Gate 3, the Cailleach reminds us of the more-than-human dark feminine, especially the chaos of wild weather patterns. We imbibe her wisdom as turn inward to tend to our own internal world during the dark season.

Embodiment Practice: Wild & Wise. This week we take our practice out into the cold and explore the world around us as the organic extension of our own bodily form.

gate three

CAILLEACH

Initiation: Own Your Magick

At Gate Four, Divine Mother Kali leads us with her sword of truth through a journey into the void. As a culture we fear the formless, infinite dark of the void. But the void has much to teach us. We learn about the menstrual phase as the manifestation of the void in a woman's life; how this is a time of falling into the spaciousness of our monthly symbolic death. Learn how menstruation can be a shamanic portal to deepen your spiritual gifts. Receive practices and techniques to prepare for your bleeding time and attune with the menstrual energies of the month.

Embodiment Practice:  Compost Yourself: a deep rest practice.

*Gate Four is a rest week where your weekly call is pre-recorded & there are no guest teachers or recommended reading to do.

gate four

MA KALI

Initiation: The Void

Cerridwen is the Welsh goddess of sorcery and witchcraft. At Gate Five, we call on her to support us in uncovering our inner Witch – the one whose magick and mystical gifts we were taught to hide, but no longer can. Her power supports us to come out of the mystical closet and own our feminine magick. This week we'll be exploring the ways in which the Witch Wounds may be showing up in our lives and preventing us from living fully and sharing our creative and healing powers with the world. 

Embodiment Practice: Nighttime Potion Ritual. This week you'll be working with a special herb or plant with non-stimulating and dream-enhancing properties. You'll be co-creating a sleep potion with your plant ally to drink and add to a bath or footbath before bedtime. 

GATE five

CERRIDWEN

Initiation: Feminine Magick

Hekate is an ancient goddess, predating the Greek Olympian pantheon. Known as goddess of the crossroads, protector of birth and mothers and guardian of dogs and wolves, she is a witchcraft goddess loved around the world. She is a triple goddess. Each aspect representing the three forms of the feminine life cycle: maiden, mother and crone. At Gate Six we look to Hekate to support us in birthing our creative gifts into the world. Women are the channel. We bring the formless into form and this extends way beyond the birthing of babies. How is your relationship to your creative channel? Hekate shows us that, in order for us to bring our magick through, we have to be in deep relationship to our bodies and the beyond.

Embodiment Practice: The Sacred Gates. An exploration of three sacred gates of womanhood: Throat (voice); Womb (cauldron); and Cervix (dark goddess).

gate six

HEKATE

Initiation: Creative Birthing

The Black Madonna can be found at sites all over Europe and the Middle East. There are many stories about how a Black-skinned Mother Mary came to be a European icon. In these stories we can trace the ways the Black Madonna is both the archetype of Mother Mary and the primordial ancient original mother known as Mitochondrial Eve. She leads us back to the ancient earth mother goddesses, back to our hearts. She holds the grief and loss and love of a broken world in her breast. She calls us back to our humanity & tenderises us in the crucible of her broken-heartedness. She is the patron of all who dwell at the edges. 

Embodiment Practice: Mother Mysticism. An exploration of the heart as the gateway into the mystery.

Gate seven

THE BLACK MADONNA

Initiation: Mother Wisdom

drinking the nectar of the sacred dark is a vital way of life for awakening women.

REBIRTH YOURSELF THROUGH THE WOMB OF THE DARK GODDESS.

Call Schedule 

Your underworld Guide 

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