At the School of Goddess Shamanism, we believe the return of the Goddess from Her long exile requires a fundamental paradigm shift. The system of Patriarchy is a hierarchical structure that asserts power OVER. The way of the Goddess is circular and embodies power WITH and THROUGH. The structure of our 6 month program is a spiraling path that begins and ends at the same point on the circle, yet deeper within the spiral of mystery. 

Our starting point and ending point is the Great Mother. We conceive of the Goddess as Divinity Made Manifest. We see Her sacred, indwelling presence in all of Creation. Our entry into this cycle begins in our first month by connecting to Mama Gaia Herself- she who birthed us, nourishes us, offers us the sustenance of this green Earth which is Her body, and welcomes us back home to Her at the end of our days. We open into deep communion with nature and practices of reciprocity to tap into the power and support available from the ground beneath our feet.

From this macro experience of the Goddess, we begin to narrow our focus to explore different facets of the Divine Feminine as they relate to the energies of Maiden, Mother and Crone. 

In our second month, we travel to the Upper World to connect with the Maiden, who carries the qualities of curiosity and burgeoning sovereignty. We learn the skills of devotional tending to the temple of our body and of this Earth. We heal this facet of ourselves that has experienced so much wounding in our contemporary society. We free the aspect of ourselves that is virgin in the most ancient sense of the word – beholden to no one; free to follow Her most innate desire. _

In the third month, we invoke Mother Goddess as she expresses through the Middle World – she who generates and nurtures her own creations. We tap into the Mother within us as we give birth to our unique soul gifts and cultivate the resources to foster our offerings, nourishing our family and community. 

Having been bolstered by those aspects of Goddess most easily recognized and revered by the Western mind, we prepare to drop deeper. The fourth month we turn towards descent. We prepare for an encounter with the raw, wild and transformative power of the depths. We enact the ritual descent of Inanna from Sumerian myth to meet our own Dark Sister and uncover the shadow parts of ourselves we have cast off and locked away. 

The personal descent opens the way for us to journey to the Lower World in our fifth month to encounter the Dark Goddess and the Crone. As we embrace the interplay between creation and destruction, we claim our fullness. We honor the decomposition that provides fertile ground for new growth.

Having journeyed around the spiral, in the sixth month we return to the Cosmic Great Mother with an expanded capacity to recognize her multidimensional nature. We tap into a particular manifestation of Her energy that is most resonant for each of us to carry and express. 

In this final turn, we take the healing gifts we’ve received from the prior six months. We claim the power we’ve generated to serve this world in these changing times. We access and embody the unique expression of the Goddess that each of us is, and stand in our power to share the medicine that is ours to offer.