From my essay in Daughters of the Goddess, an anthology on women's spiritual work in America:
Women’s Mysteries and the Female Shamanic Group
...I would like to delineate what I mean by women’s mysteries. Women's mysteries are based in the female blood cycle of birth, menses, lactation ('converting blood into milk'), menopause and death (cessation of blood circulation). It is my experience that women’s mysteries arise not only out of the blood cycle, but also out of the particular capacity women have to function collectively. The female shamanic group generates a power vortex that enables a woman to access deeper levels of what I call feminine knowledge, (holistic ways of functioning and perceiving) than she might alone. In the collective force field of the circle, a woman strengthens her courage to break patriarchal taboos against female power.
Patriarchal monotheism having created a broken spiritual lineage for women, we are essentially without elders. The elders we turn to at Woman Mysteries are those who gather around our circles from the spirit plane. Their presence is palpable to me and to many of the women who participate in our ritual circles. They are the Grandmothers, Shamanesses, Tribal Women, Priestesses, Medicine Women, Curanderas, Yoginis and Dakinis --spirit women in the other dimensions who are worthy to be trusted as guides in our spiritual development, worthy to be called Ancestors. They need us to create the future; we need them to awaken our ancient knowledge and power. Together we make the eternal round, a ‘ouroborous of knowledge’, the snake swallowing its own tail, linking a past so distant it is the future, a future so evolved it is unified with the most ancient past -- Source. Together we create the Ancient Future Sisterhood. [...]
Working spontaneously and intuitively frees the vast intelligence of the Deeper Collective Mind. The work becomes potent, transformative, shamanic. As women surrender to their BodyKnowing, they behave, move and sound in ways they never imagined they could. Such attract the presence of the spirit women of the Ancient Future Sisterhood. Many times I have ‘heard’ tribes of women chanting around us. When we let these spirit women vocalize through us, the sound electrifies the dancer into an intensified freedom of movement; everyone present is catapulted into a new level of power. One such Goddess Circle can dramatically catalyze a woman’s personal healing and growth. Over months of such work a woman builds a profound respect and trust in her innate shamanic powers.
Excerpt from: Vajra Ma's chapter In Daughters of the Goddess: Studies in Identity, Healing and Empowerment, (ed. Wendy Griffin, Alta Mira Press, 1999)
