Medusa's Mirror: Healing the Collective Trauma of the Fallen Priestess
We all have a demon within. An evil twin with a face so ugly that her mere reflection leaves us frozen in fear.
She is the denied one. The ostracized one. The unwanted one. The hideous one. The skeleton one. The one who sabotages our best laid plans. Who destroys the beauty and blessings we have collected for ourselves and drags us down into Her dungeon of eternal Hell.
Many are known to call this character “the saboteur” or “the shadow” that must be cut out, pretended away, blanketed over with an affirmation mantra, resolved through various systems and tools, exorcised and extracted by healers, and certainly NEVER listened to. But for those of us who are of the deep knowing nature, those of us who have crossed the veil between life and death, those of us who have allowed ourselves to be stripped naked by the skeleton Queen, have also come to realize that she is in fact the guardian and protectress of our innermost power and sacred light.
To reclaim our power, we must also reclaim Her. We must ask ourselves and discover for ourselves… how did She, the one who carries the jewels of deep feminine knowing and the red river of passionate power, come to be this demonic beast who destroys us through bringing us into her torturous pain? How did She transform from the exalted one into the fallen one?
Ancient cultures from the Mayans to the Sumerians to the Egyptians to the Greeks, all speak of a time when the queen was stripped of her crown, the Goddess went underground, and the Feminine was desecrated.
I often think to the profoundly poignant finale in the Disney film Moana, when the evil demon Te Ka made of lava destroying the world and all of its abundance, is redeemed through Moana facing the demon, looking her in the eyes, and reflecting back her true nature. If you haven’t seen the film (which by the way you must) the premise of the story is that the God Maui stole the heart of Te Fiti, a shimmering green gem belonging to the Divine Feminine represented through a lush paradise island of beauty and bounty. Ever since, a darkness plagues the Earth. When the darkness threatens to destroy Moana’s homeland, she goes in search of Maui to make right what has been wronged. In the end it is Moana’s ability to re-member the truth of Te Ka that restores Te Fiti. The lava monster is also the divine feminine.
This story is nothing new. It is one we have all lived and will live again and again. It is woven into our earliest creation stories that Gods would attempt to rob the birthing powers of the Goddess to be the creators themselves, and wrecking havoc on the natural order of the world in the process. Before we go deeper, I must clarify that it’s important to not turn this into a war of power between women and men, which is the entire imbalance that has created so much trauma in the first place. This is rather about embracing the feminine principle as the power that animates all things when supported by the masculine principle and of honoring a woman’s body as the temple that grows and births life when seeded and held in love by a man.
It has long been known by some of our earliest ancestors that the womb is the seat of not only a woman’s power, but the power of all creation, that bridges the worlds of spirit and matter. Indeed, our sexuality is the gateway into the garden of our sacred seeds that have the power to heal and regenerate the most desolate wastelands into lush oases. And it is here that our skeleton women, our own Te Ka lava monsters live, and it is up to us to redeem all that we are as sacred and whole and restore our true nature as the fertile abundant birthers of a new world.
this throne of our power, our sexual nature, is where we carry the deepest trauma of being entered without consent and robbed of our own innermost precious treasures. this is what we first have to face.
When many of us begin (consciously or unconsciously) awakening our deep feminine essence, we often first meet with our deepest trauma. And not only our trauma, the trauma of our ancestors, the trauma of our past lives, the trauma of the collective, the trauma of the universal wound of feminine oppression that exists in people of all genders. The trauma of leaving the temple and being cast out of what the world began to consider "holy."
In Greek Mythology this voyage is documented through the story of Medusa, famously known as the gargoyle with serpents for hair who is so ugly her gaze would turn any man to stone. But once upon a time Medusa was the most beautiful priestess in Athena's temple, before she was raped by Poseidon on the temple floors.
Revolutionary trauma healing specialist and creator of Somatic Experiencing, Peter Levine, uses Medusa as a metaphor for healing trauma in all people, and today I'm sharing Her story as a mirror for how we as women heal the trauma of the fallen priestess who lives within every woman and bring her back to life as the powerful Creatrix of Heaven on Earth.
The legend goes that Medusa was a beautiful mortal woman with long flowing curls who frequently captured the attention of many men.
In fact, she was the most coveted priestess in Athena’s temple desired by all of the Gods. However, Athena’s priestesses made a covenant to be virginal and abstinent making a sexual act in the temple absolutely forbidden. Poseidon, the God of sea often associated with bringing chaos and turbulence into the lives of various mortals throughout the ages, is overtaken by his lust for Medusa, and he rapes her on the temple floor in front of Athena.
Outraged, Athena punishes Medusa by transforming her into a gargoyle and turning her beautiful silken black curls into snakes. Medusa became so evil and so ugly that any man who looked into her eyes would turn into stone. That is until one day when Perseus, son of the God Zeus and mortal Danae, is given a death quest by the Polydectes who wishes his demise so that he may he take Danae for himself. As King of Seriphos, Perseus’ homeland, Polydectes orders Perseus to leave and bring back to him the severed head of Medusa.
Being both God and mortal, Perseus is guided and assisted by the Goddesses and the Gods, bestowing him with magical talismans including the winged sandals of Hermes, the bronze shield of Athena (the one who demonized Medusa in the first place), and the sword of Hephaestus. By reflecting Medusa’s image into the shield of Athena, Perseus is able to decapitate Medusa with his sword and fly away with the magical sandals. As Medusa’s head is severed, the winged pegasus emerges out from her body and drops of blood spill onto the ground and become serpents that roam the Earth. Her head becomes a powerful amulet for protection that Athena wears in battle.
Upon hearing this story we may feel a combination of horror, rage, grief, resentment, or even liberation, release, and a sense of coming home.
The story is multi layered and we can unlock many secrets through viewing it from various angles and through multiple lenses. As always, when we dive into the mythological lands of angels and demons, if we are to awaken through them rather than become tangled into their web of drama, we must view the characters and stories with equanimity as both archetypes that play in the herstory of the world and also that play within the depths of our own psyches. The characters enact in the world around us, and they are also all characters within us. These are the magical keys for our transformation.
Let’s begin together with the act of violence, sacrifice, and initiation itself through the raping of Medusa in Athena’s temple and Athena reacting by turning Medusa into a demon. The first time I heard this story what I felt was the deep wound of “slut shaming.” I thought of Hester Prynne and her Scarlet Letter. I thought of Mary Magdalene and her title of “whore.” I thought of all of the women in the modern age who have been blamed for rape, assault, molestation, and sexual harassment due to being overly sexual, dressing provocatively, or being flirtatious. I thought of the ways that women turn against one another and play into the patriarchal game by tearing one another down. Athena being the “figurehead” and matriarch of the temple, born through the head of Zeus and his favored one, and taking on the role of the “warrior” she could be interpreted as a woman acting out the oppression of the patriarchy, demonizing the sensual feminine nature when it has been harmed.
But there is another way to view this part of the story, that I find to be significantly more healing, interesting, and powerful and have yet to hear others speak to. And that is that Athena and Medusa represent two aspects of a woman’s psyche: the vulnerable maiden and the fierce mother. As a Goddess of war we could even liken Athena to Durga Ma or Kali Ma through her being born out of Zeus’ head (Kali being born out of Durga Ma’s third eye). What if, Athena turning Medusa into a demon was in fact Athena’s ruthless love in protecting Medusa from further harm? When we view these two characters as our inner archetypes, it’s incredibly powerful to reflect on the ways that the ruling aspect of our inner psyche will demonize and vilify that which is sacred and also vulnerable to protect that part of the self from further abuse.
I invite you to contemplate on the most tender, vulnerable parts of yourself. On the ways that perhaps you may have shamed or demonized your most radiant light because it was abused or harmed in the past by another.
I know that I have done this to myself. I know that my parental figures did this to me. And I would even stretch so far as to consider if there is an element of our puritanical culture and religions that was adopted to keep the wild feminine nature sacred from those who might cause it harm. Including each and every one of us.
It is no longer a secret that the deep feminine has been hiding until the time when mass consciousness was ready again to embrace Her. Perhaps Athena casting Medusa out of the temple can be viewed as the warrior aspect of the female psyche casting out the wild sexuality of the feminine nature to be hidden in the fearsomeness of feminine rage to keep Her safe until the world could truly honor Her in Her light. In fact, the name Medusa is derived from the Greek verb that means “to guard” or “to protect.” And at the end of the story, Athena takes Medusa’s severed head and uses it as her own protection in future battle (a symbol for these dual aspects of a woman becoming integrated.)
This is certainly not the whole story, and we also need to look to why Medusa was raped in the first place. It is interesting that the onus rests on Medusa for the crime rather than Poseidon. Why does Medusa carry the weight of the shame of the trauma that was inflicted upon Her? Why is Poseidon not called in to take ownership of the harm he has caused? Metaphorically speaking, we might see Poseidon entering the temple, and entering Medusa not only as a literal sexual act, but as the time when the priesthood claimed ownership of the priestess temples and the Goddess went underground. Archetypically I always view sexual acts between Gods and Goddesses or men and women as symbolic for the play of masculine and feminine energy within each of us, and the ways that we have all raped ourselves in a paradigm that places the masculine principle above the feminine.
Whatever reason for Medusa’s rape and then demonization, what we see is a woman once radiant and magnetic to the masculine, now fearsome and repelling.
Why is this powerful? It is powerful because it shows us directly that whatever within us is most vengeful, resentful, rage filled, shadowy, ugly, reactive, or even abusive, holds an essential key to our pure, radiant, innocent essence. Medusa the Priestess and Medusa the Gargoyle are the same being. Just like Lucifer whose name means “morning star” and represented the planet Venus, became the fallen angel and demon of the underworld. Lucifer in this sense is clearly the male version of Sumerian Goddess Inanna, whose voyage to the underworld also follows the path of Venus in the sky.
The demon is the light that has fallen from “grace” either through choosing to descend into the underworld to source more of her own power, as is the case for Isis of Egypt, Ishtar of Babylonia, Lakshmi of India, Aphrodite of Greece, Inanna of Sumeria, and many others OR through being dragged down into descent by forces outside of her, like the famous story of Persephone and Hades.
This knowing is not purely intellectual or academic… it is tremendously practical! By understanding these archetypal patterns that have been woven through storytelling in ancient cultures across the entire world, we can see how we midwife our inner demons and bring the ostracized shadow aspects of ourselves back into the light and into the embrace of our love where they belong.
What if the whole point of our own suffering and traumas in our personal lifetimes is to send us on a voyage of recovering the treasure that was buried and hidden by our ancestors?
And further, to be the fallen stars that descend from the cosmos deep into the matter to remember ourselves as the light that is already imprinted in the bedrock of the Earth? What if all of these mythologies are already woven into and through our bloodlines, ready to be fully liberated and awakened through the light of our consciousness? What if the key to redeeming the “whore” and reclaiming the fallen priestess as the temple Queen is descending down into the cauldron of our own wounding and loving the power that our ancestors only knew how to protect through demonizing?
None of this is intended to diminish or excuse the harm caused by trauma, pain, sexual abuse, the oppression of women, and harm done to our Mother Earth. Rather, it is to empower each of us with the sacred opportunity to remember our magic as priestesses to bring everything back from the dead. Including the most wounded and broken parts of ourselves. We must acknowledge and grieve that for eons women with sensual powers and priestesses have been raped, demonized, and cast out and to heal we have to take the next step forward and choose to be the ones who love that fallen priestess back to her rightful place in the Queendom.
As I mentioned earlier, Peter Levine describes Medusa as the perfect allegory for healing trauma. When we look directly into the source of our fears, which actually contain all of the fears within what Carl Jung called “the collective unconscious”, it can turn us into stone. We may be overwhelmed by what we discover when we open up our own Pandora’s box. This process must be treated with safety, reverence, tenderness, patience, and likely with the support of skilled guides and somatic practices. Perseus is only able to overcome Medusa’s gaze by looking at her reflection indirectly through the golden shield given to him by Athena, the one who turned Medusa into a gargoyle to begin with.
The beautiful metaphor is this: the very part of ourselves that has created an inner demon also has tools and support that will help us liberate that demon.
As much as I have fantasized over the “knight and shining amor” motif myself, I know that the masculine figure who comes to save the day is also a character within me. It is the animus (which I wrote about in much more detail here: Ariadne & the Red Thread: Finding Our Way Through the Labyrinth) that is the kingly aspect of the female psyche that supports a woman in navigating the bridge between her inner and her outer worlds. This “savior” or “messiah” is the Father God within each of us that can hold us in unconditional love as we unravel all of the emotional, physical, psychological, and sexual wounding that we carry.
This may sound like a far cry from Perseus cutting off Medusa’s head! In fact I’ve often read feminist thinkers describe the act as the further harm done to the wounded feminine by the patriarchal masculine. On the surface that may seem to be what is happening. However, when we look deeper, perhaps the symbolism is a woman’s own inner king, a woman’s own animus collecting and cultivating the tools from the divinity within her (represented by the Gods and Goddesses) that will intercept the vicious cycle of the demon within and finally reveal her true nature.
According to Carl Jung, decapitation represents the liberation of the soul out of and from the body. We know that trauma exists within the memory of the body, and when Perseus cuts off Medusa’s head out springs the winged Pegasus. In Waking the Tiger, Peter Levine describes this emergence of the Pegasus as the full vitality of the physical body coming to life again. If Medusa’s head is the amulet for protection that Athena later wears in battle, this is the very layer and mask of protection itself that we must courageously cut off in order for the true self, the true nature to emerge. Then we can wear the mask when it is needed, but we are not married to it or trapped within it.
When Medusa’s Head is severed, droplets of her blood become snakes that roam the Earth.
As the symbol for awakened feminine sexuality, the snakes on Medusa’s head that are originally violent live on in her blood. As her blood is spilled onto the Earth, each drop becomes a serpent, a messenger, a representative of the Goddess Lilith, the wild feminine awakening the world back into the magic of the red thread that is woven into and through our blood forever.
When we free ourselves of our own layers and masks of fear and frozenness that protect us from the vulnerability of our own wounding, not only does our true natural vitality emerge (the Pegasus) but also the remembrance of the sacred lineage of the priestesses turned prostitutes. The memories in our bloodlines that reconnect us with the awakened sensual energy that blossoms all in life.
We can apply this mythology in our own lives as we gaze into the golden shield of our own wisdom and cut away the layers of lies, deception, and distortion again and again. Medusa’s transformation into the ugly gargoyle could be literal, or it could also be metaphorical through distorted perceptions just as menstrual blood itself has not changed but the anti-feminine agendas caused a millennia of women to believe that their blood was cursed when it is in fact the sacrament of Christ once used in rebirth rites.
What are the “Medusas” within you? The lies, the distortions, that have painted what is most precious or most powerful as something ugly and demonic?
We have reached a time in the collective when the truth of all that has been demonized within a woman is coming to light. Our sexuality. Our power. Our red essence. Our whoredom. Our holy womb. Our sacred moon blood. Our pure witchcraft. Our direct innate embodiment of God.
We cannot bypass the generations and lifetimes of wounding and trauma from sexual oppression and violence towards the feminine nature, but we can lovingly meet those spaces within ourselves to reverently reveal the wild vitality that has always been hidden within us. We can be the heroes and heroines that love ourselves so fully and so unconditionally, that the pure essence of our sexual expression becomes safe within us first and foremost.
And perhaps most powerfully of all, we can choose to wear the costume of the demon as the fierce protectress to call upon whenever we need Her.
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About the Author
Camille Willemain is the founder and creatrix of Earth Daughters mystery school, a voice and channel for the Goddess, and has supported millions of people worldwide through her writing, online immersions, and soul awakening retreats. She guides women into fully inhabiting the total range of their divine humanity through movement medicine, feminine embodiment arts, soulful self expression, ceremony, ritual, and sisterhood.
In 2012 she moved to the jungle and began her path with the wild feminine and the mythological feminine mysteries, which has evolved and deepened through her world travel in over 25 countries, trainings and self study in ecopsychology yoga, transcendental shakti dance meditation, rebirthing breathwork, shamanic healing, Gene Keys wisdom, womb awakening, tantra, women’s mysteries, Reiki, soul retrieval, and more.
More on her website camillewillemain.com.