Part One: The Damsel and The Maiden

Pain body, Ego, Consciousness as Maiden, Mother, Crone

1. Celestial Embers by Emile Corsi, 2. Pinterest nik3la_

The first step on my quest for understanding was to encounter myself in all my forms and through Eckhart Tolle’s wonderful teachings I grasped the Pain Body, Ego and Consciousness concept whereby each of these versions of the self are present within each human manifestation.

Although at this point on my path I had started to release stagnant energy from my body through breathwork and had received my first visions (which I will discuss later) during these powerful sessions with my beloved friend Roisin (find her here!) , it was not until I read Tolle upon Roisin’s recommendation and understood consciousness, that I truly left the ordinary behind and took root in my non-ordinary form. Without judgement, I have found that many spiritual workshops/gatherings I have attended along this journey have lacked the foundational knowledge of these self forms and consciousness and without it, pain body or ego ultimately spoil the fruits of good intentions. I therefore believe this knowledge is vital to begin with and Today I will discuss the first facet of the Trilogy, Pain Body.

Pain represents the first of three faces we possess. Three versions of ourselves we go between based on our outer experience at any given moment until we master our inner world consciousness. Considering these explanations as one dimensional and the shadow side interpretation of the facets of the Triple Goddess Archetype. I, upon her invitation, borrow her symbolism as a guide to clarity in conveying this vital concept.

So, let us focus first on the Maiden. In terms of connection to our own 3D experience the Maiden is our inner child, our untouched naivety, our pureness, our innocence, our wonder, our beauty, perfectly open with curiosity before the experience of suffering begins to affect our ability to shine. William Blake so perfectly conveyed the corruption of this Maiden energy in his 1794 combined version of Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience as he juxtaposed the same poems in each book, the former through the lens of the natural and magical world of childhood and the latter through the tired eyes of an adult world full of disillusion and repression.

Infant Joy (from Songs of Innocence by William Blake)

I have no name

I am but two days old.—

What shall I call thee?

I happy am

Joy is my name,—

Sweet joy befall thee!

Pretty joy!

Sweet joy but two days old.

Sweet joy I call thee:

Thou dost smile.

I sing the while

Sweet joy befall thee.

Infant Sorrow (from Songs of Experience by William Blake)

My Mother Groand! my father wept.

Into the dangerous world I leapt:

Helpless, naked, piping loud:

Like a fiend hid in a cloud.

Struggling in my fathers hands:

Striving against my swaddling bands:

Bound and weary I thought best

To sulk upon my mothers breast.

The symbolism of conditioning of the innocent in these poems and the resulting repression is stark, starting from as young as two days old, we are subdued by the unconscious belief systems of our unknowing parents and eventually to an ever greater extent by the world at large that we engage with until we do not remember our true Maiden essence.

Suffering can come in many forms and at many levels as it represents all experiences on Earth that cause you pain. Anything that hurts you from birth feeds your pain, which becomes an entity of its own existing within you as a shadow of the Maiden, let’s call her the Damsel in Distress otherwise known as the victim. Aside from the patriarchal system’s active encouragement of this role in females, we also face ourselves in trying to dismantle this entity as each perceived negative experience breeds a belief and a subsequent reaction that we will employ again and again, inevitably manifesting more of the same, pain. The Damsel can sleep for years but once triggered and fed with pain, she can take hold and you may live through her lens for hours, days, weeks or even years dependent on your ability to recognise her, love and nurture her and let her know it is safe enough to go back to sleep. Some live solely through her in a cycle of pain and being its victim, disempowered and disillusioned for the entirety of their incarnation on Earth.

This is the first cycle we must break on our path to enlightenment and one we will break together. Despite, the sometimes treacherous lower vibrational frequencies associated with states of pain, it is not “bad”. As with everything on Earth there is duality and all energies and experiences have a positive virtue to teach us, acting always as a portal to a higher frequency available for us to access.

What do you do if you’re in your Damsel energy and coiled up in pain physically or emotionally or both? Firstly, simple as it may seem, you need to allow yourself to feel the emotions that are coming up, fully and freely but crucially, without story. This is vital because so many of us have been conditioned to ask “why” we are in pain and once you begin with the why, you focus on the story of how you got to this emotion instead of dropping into the body and allowing yourself to FEEL it as oppose to THINK about it.

Let’s envisage the ending of a relationship as an example. A very difficult experience that can bring up so much hurt. You are home alone, devastated by the ending of the relationship and your mind instantly begins to go into the “why”. “I can’t believe this happened, what went wrong, I thought this, they said that” etc. Often the story develops into victimisation of the self particularly but not exclusively if you were wronged by the other party. “I will never get over this, I can’t go on, I can’t believe they did that to me, I was so good to them etc” The issue, is that we are spending so much time on the mental explanations of the pain that the emotion itself, though it is akin to a tsunami internally, is not actually getting processed, acknowledged and released. This leads to trapped emotions within the body which can eventually cause chronic pain, illness and fatigue so often referred to as dis-ease.

So, what to do instead? Close your eyes, take three deep breaths and imagine a giant light switch on a wall in front of you that controls your mind, walk up to the switch and using two hands if necessary, turn that baby OFF. No thoughts, no stories, nothingness. Now, place your hands on your heart and see an orb of light removing itself from your brain, descending the back of your neck, travelling from the base of your skull down your spine and stopping at your heart. Feel the light filling your entire chest cavity glowing a brilliant golden white. It may feel warm or cold, comforting or uncomfortable but focus on your heart. You want your focus to be inside your body. Slowly feel into each part of the body, pausing on every area and sending a deep inhale of breath into it, feeling the energy swirl there before sighing an exhale to release any stagnant energy it may have dislodged. Notice the sensations inside your body. Starting with each toe of the right foot, do you notice any physical discomfort, or something else? An energy of aliveness? Don’t judge what comes up, just notice it. Move to the top of the foot, the sole of the foot, the whole foot. The shin of the right leg, the calf, the knee, the back of the knee, the thigh, the whole right leg… You can continue this around the entire body as many times as you like to ground yourself into your vessel and only FEEL what the emotion is.

You may focus on an area and burst into tears, you may simply relax the nervous system and drop down into peace. You may keep thinking about everything but this exercise and if this is the case, without self judgment, simply accept that this indicates a need to gently keep trying until the light switch works.

The second step in loving and nurturing your Damsel is to self soothe. This is such an incredibly important part of the feminine experience and one that is habitually overlooked due to the societal demands placed on us and the subsequent roles we fall into. We connect here with the primal truth of our womb space and the menstrual as well as seasonal cycle as a clear guide for self-care. I will delve deeper into this in another chapter but for now, know that the divine feminine energy is one of perfect chaos designed to rest/be and receive as oppose to the masculine energy of order, action and doing. To obtain wisdom, inspiration and healing from our guides we must be in solitude, still and silent both externally and mentally. In this instance we are preparing ourselves for healing and I invite you to ask yourself, what makes me feel safe? Picture yourself as a child, what did you love to do or what did you wish you could do but never got to? What place or memory conjures comfort? There are many phases to this step, at your lowest vibrational point you will not have the energy to attempt some things that you may tap into further along the journey, start simple. At the beginning of my own Damsel journey, I was so raw the most I could think of was a warm cup of tea, a cosy blanket, a movie or sleep and that is perfect.

As I progressed and continued to acknowledge the heavy emotions that sat within me, I started asking myself every day, sometimes hourly “What can I do in this moment to raise my vibration just a fraction?” I reccommend asking yourself this question as often as you feel the need as I promise you will began to receive the wisdom needed to help you. Think of it like a thought that pops into your head “do this” and you wonder, where did that come from? Or a random fact that you dismay “I didn’t know that?” This is the beginning of your discourse with the divine.

Through one of my most difficult periods of grief I was guided to take Epsom salt and lavender baths as often as possible and every time I did, I could not believe the difference in my energy from when I climbed in to when I climbed out. I started to play a 10-minute meditation on YouTube eventually progressing to an hour of silent bliss while in the bath and this became an incredible practice that led to so much more. I highly recommend these baths for heartbreak and grief!

You might start with tea, progress to baths and eventually tapping into your inner child you will start to create! This is the phase of nourishment of the Damsel. Crochet, art, cooking, music, writing, horse riding, the list is endless and it doesn’t have to be a masterpiece. I became fixated on macrame and filled my house with plant hangers and wall hangings diversifying into Herbalism and delighting my inner child with mixing potions from soap to candles to medicine. You might tap into something from childhood you loved or longed for or perhaps you’ll be drawn to something completely new but this is the phase of nourish and release and oh! It is beautiful!

Inextricably linked with the love, nurture and nourishment above as well as fundamental to the journey in a multitude of other ways is the importance of connecting with the land and its animals. The Earth is the first woman. Wise, emotional, abundant, fertile, she is our collective Mother and as the Damsel we are the wounded child in desperate need of relationship with our land Mother. It is crucial to get out into nature and experience her presence, her love. Walk in forests or parks, visit empty beaches, lie in the grass, hug the trees, climb, swim, explore. The intention here is not about fitness though this may be welcomed later on. For now, it is all about connection. Mother Gaia speaks to us in so many ways. She will send a butterfly or a bee from an ancestor, she will shed her leaves in autumn to remind us to re-evaluate and return inwards, for another cycle of deepening our spiritual practice over winter. Every season reflects the way we should live, every plant holds wisdom and medicine to guide us. Every ocean, river and lake possess the sacred power to cleanse and renew us. Every forest holds ancient knowledge available to us, if. We. Just. Listen. To connect, go barefoot where possible, use your senses - touch, taste, smell, see, hear and sense what is all around you. You will be in awe of her power and her softness. Try sitting still and silent in her embrace often and remember, no thoughts just feeling.

One morning, when attending a shamanic practitioner’s course in Dunderry Park I awoke early to the sound of tapping. I was groggy and lay there for an hour wondering what it was. Eventually, my roommate woke too, an angelic presence so connected she sensed immediately and chatted to me as she slowly backed towards the window, with a whoosh of the heavy curtain she revealed a baby bird. Jumping from the window ledge to bang his beak off the window and falling back down to repeat. This little one had been knocking for an hour and a half to get through! My roommate’s late grandfather had come through to me the night before to speak to her about his wife and ask her to contact her grandmother. The next morning the bird woke us instilling haste and as my roommate called her grandmother, she learnt she had become sick overnight and was in hospital. This is the power of spirit and Mother Nature. If you learn to love and serve them with a conscious soul and an open heart that is listening, they will support and guide you all the days of your Earthly life.

And so we conclude the first part of this series in the exploration of our triple self. Know now, this is an ever repeating dance of stepping in and out between Maiden and Damsel and there is no right or wrong, no backwards step. Every moment of embodiment of the Damsel teaches us something new. Through getting to know your Damsel, learning to love and nurture her, you will remember and strengthen your inner Maiden, shed conditioning and forevermore return to dancing the dance of life with all the wonders and awe of a child, together, let us rewrite Ophelia. <3

Photo by Ava Wilson, zu5jhybu4ru7pm on Pinterest

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