“Such a deep transformative and transfiguring work! - deep blessings for Sisterhood and Brotherhood to be able to gracefully work on personal and collective level✨🍀❤️the changes are very palpable”
This was what one of the sisters who was present at the Ibiza retreats, Margo and I have been facilitating recently, wrote.
In this post, I would like to share some of the magic and healing we all experienced, from my own perspective.
The beginning of this story is actually not my story; it is Margo’s. She experienced a vision about bringing 111 priestesses to Ibiza on 11/11 to work on the collective healing of women. She would call this the Priestess Intervention.
Priestess
But what’s a priestess, anyway? As a female title, priestess is self-proclaimable, even though there are a number of initiation paths out there. But according to Margo priestess is a verb in the first place: it is acting to the service of the good of all. (Women following her Path of the Priestess are therefore only initiated by life itself instead of being ‘made’ a priestess by someone else.)
Three wounds of the feminine
She decided to make a three-day event out of this special date, that focused on three major wounds of the feminine.
The first one is the sister-wound. This is an age-old wound about not being able to trust other women. It’s about competition and gossip. If I talk about this with women, no matter whether they identify as ‘conscious’ or not, they say they are all too familiar with it. But what’s normal shouldn’t set the norm and a new default is needed. It’s far more inspiring and empowering for a woman to know she has sisters who have her back, instead of having to worry about what they’re talking about behind her back.
The witch-wound is the second one. It’s an old collective (mortal) fear of standing out. Many women experience this, and it’s deeper than just being shy. It’s a kind of anguish when she’s about to be fully seen. A subsequent side-effect of this wound is that it is much harder to step up and shine her light.
project WITCH, ©Goddess Photography
The final wound for these days is the one between the feminine and the masculine. Generally speaking, this world is not safe for women. Not in the West, even less so anywhere else.
There is so much violence by men against women (and girls), sexual or otherwise. Look up the numbers for your country if you like, but trust me, they’re bad.
Even if women themselves didn’t experience any of that violence, there’s still a ton of generational pain in this realm that’s being passed on, and girls are often brought up learning all sorts of precautions not to get raped. In any case, many women don’t feel safe around men.
Enter the men
The initial idea was to have a few solid men who’ve done their work, ceremonially represent the masculine for the last wound, but this soon evolved into a full-fledged parallel men’s retreat, titled Purpose Power Protection.
The idea was to (re)discover/gather inner strength and then put it to use for the greater good. And then to declare who and what can count on our protection - especially referring to the unsafety part between men and women.
In connection
We would visit different places on the island to perform different stages of our work and ceremony. We started off at the Cave of Tanit in the northwest. Tanit is the ancient goddess of the island, for me the representation of its nature, and it felt right to make our presence and intentions known here, while opening our ceremony for the days to come.
Afterwards, we travelled to the west coast, so we could meet the sunset. On the beach of Cala Salada, we performed a series of playful games and exercises meant to deepen our mutual connection.
There and then, the group and its brotherhood was really forming.
The next morning, we created space for ourselves on the beach of Cala Codolar by clearing most of the pebbles. It was here that we did a lot more inner work together. Bodywork, breathwork, emotional work, sacred combat and transformational ceremony. In the latter we would embody our old stories that held us back, feeling them through - because it was time to let them go. We broke free of them and washed the taint from our skins. Now the time for new stories in our lives about ourselves had begun!
We needed the whole day for all the work. Only when the sun started descending towards the sea, we started to make our way up to the Time and Space monument up the rocks.
It’s sometimes dubbed ‘Stonehenge’ and consists of monoliths standing in a circle. Officially it is considered to be a work of art and it was illegally placed by the director of Cirque du Soleil. There are a few stories and speculations about the intentions of the persons who built the place, and yes, some of those stories are pretty dark.
But I believe that like any tool it can be harnessed in any way. That’s why we went there to use it in a good way, in a medicine way, for the good of all. On top of that, the women of the Priestess Intervention had been doing their ceremonies there the day before, so it felt only right if we would contribute to that in our own way as well.
At the ornamental gates, passing the Gate of the Past, we proclaimed our purpose here on earth. Before exiting through the Gate of the Future, we declared what the first concrete step would be that we would take (tomorrow).
I too went through. Between the doors there’s a little square with a mosaic floor. I noticed that on it ‘fuck’ was written all over, along with some classic drawings of penises.
Despite that, for me this moment felt very solemn and sacred. I declared my service to life and beauty by helping people realise their connection, so that they will care for the things they know themselves connected with.
It wasn’t the first time I spoke words like this. But there, at the Square of the Present, it felt profound for me to speak them aloud.
On our way to the big monument, the six of us chose one of the six elements that appealed to us the most. All fell in place there and then. We used this element to bless our brothers and to embody and to represent it at one of the pillars.
As the sun completely sank beneath the horizon, the sky was filled with the most magic palette of colours I think I’ve ever witnessed.
Wild and Sacred Men Cave
After each day of work, we would eat together. We preferred to cook our own meals above being in a restaurant. And we had a pretty nice place to do that: we had a luxurious apartment for ourselves. The view from the balcony was so beautiful, that we often remarked it was almost too beautiful to be considered real.
Union
On the third day, we cleared all charges that had built up between us, before we climbed down to Atlantis. I’m currently not familiar enough with the local lore to be retelling it here, but the place is considered to be one of Ibiza’s most beautiful. Both the descend and the ascend represented parts of our inner journey. Then we readied ourselves to meet the women.
Though there weren’t 111 of them, forty-seven is still a big group, especially in comparison to our band of six brothers. It was impressive to see them in their red dresses, arms interlocked and singing. This grand ceremony had begun!
We went through several stages of healing together, starting with the expression of sacred rage. Not everyone could access that on an individual level. Personally I rather feel love and admiration while facing such women, working on themselves and serving the good of all. But just like we as brothers had to clear charges among ourselves to be able to connect deeper; I think it’s also true for the collective.
In turns both the men and women expressed their rage about the pain that had been caused by the other.
Organically, we moved to using words for sharing our pain to sharing what we would need from the other:
“Tell us what it is you want. Do not have an expectation that you do not communicate, and then be angry when we don’t met your expectation”
“Don’t say yes, when you actually feel no”
“Please accept that we cannot be strong always all the time”
“Don’t be intimidated by our intelligence!”
“Please, keep our daughters, our children safe!”
“When we say no, accept my no!”
And many many more. It wasn’t just the six men advising the forty-seven women and visa-versa, it was a ceremonial exchange between the feminine and the masculine.
In the next round, we exchanged what we appreciate so much in the other.
After a short break, still separate, the men would form the inner circle and the women from the outer circle who wanted or needed this, would in turns come to one of the men for whatever she needed. It could be many things, like to experience how it feels to have a dependable man having her back, feeling what she wanted to attract in a male partner or the opportunity to express farewell to a man who had left her life without saying a proper goodbye…
I cannot describe this togetherness in any other way than magical. Many tears have flown, walls have cracked down and little saplings of hope have started to bloom.
And don’t get me wrong. It’s not only for the women. This kind of healing works both ways. Even for the ones who are not sure how to identify within this binary, who were there with us as well.
Of course no one expected to come home to a completely changed world after the retreat; it’s all work in progress. But it is progressing. Mistakes will probably still be made - in fact one of my brothers promised that he would still make mistakes, acknowledging our human side. But first and foremost he promised change. There can be change, there will be change and we are the change!
Next year, the gate at 11-11 will be open again, and will we be doing this again!
Most of the pictures were made by
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