From Single Woman Free to Soul Merged:

The Missing Rite of Passage into Deep Partnership

There’s so much talk and support about a woman becoming a mother, a woman becoming empowered, a woman becoming free…But what about the massive transition from being a woman single, on her own, wild, and woven tightly to her creative and spiritual life and then transitioning into partnership where the heart and body doors open to welcome another into its sacred lands?

Is there an assumption this movement of leaving a solo life to this precious prize of partnership will be easy to accept? Smooth and celebratory, exciting, and uplifting? Because every film and show and pop song depicts the constant yearning for merging with another, the ache for love- so it must be blissful when it comes? 

But what of the private moments between she and god/goddess/divine, and she and life, and she and her art that now are witnessed and inhabited by another being?

Where are the funerals and rites of passage for how a woman loses so much of her internal world as it becomes shared in union? Yes, of course she gains so much. Yes, yes, that too. But let’s not jump over the loss: the space in her thoughts, dreams, body, and soul. 

Are weddings the only rites of passage we have, and yet they do not include the loss, they skip a whole chapter? I am speaking of something different here.

Where is the hand to hold as you walk from a life of spiritual and creative practice that was just yours, to one that is shared?

Accepting the heavenly devotion to be with someone who can hold all of you, your big and full opposite, as it can be a relief to have them so close, the sting of loneliness is forgotten, companionship and camaraderie and laughter and affection fill you, a new divine land of union awaits…

And then accepting that some days it is foreign and strange.

There were days where your bed and bathroom and heart were just yours, you sang and danced and no one watched - in the most private of rituals with life…your forehead pressed to the earth in prayer, in moments of grief, wordless moments between you and your deepest being, magic and spells and prayers and rituals that were just yours…

And then that space is now shared psychically and sometimes physically, and you savor the days you get it, but now it is evolving. You’re now used to being quiet in your morning song or dance or weeping, tucking the strangest and darkest and wildest thoughts down into your depths, and so you wonder if those ways are even, you anymore…

When you sit with other women in deep partnership do you hear their honest cries of losing the precious space within their creative and wild inner and outer lives? Or surface complaints about the opposite sex or general praises of “I’ve met my person!” as if they’ve won a prize?

What of the loss and grief?

The great change?

The spiritual transformation?

All the work to call in the love, but what of the work it will take to watch parts of your soul go through a massive metamorphosis that feels like the death of who you once were?

The gain of partnership gets a lot of airtime:

“I’ve met my partner!”

“I’ve called him in!”

“I’m living in deep devotion!”

But not the soul cries of…

“I’ve lost this time I had alone with god and my insides and thoughts and dreams and prayers.”

“My mornings were when the creative soul spoke to me but now there is another human close and my ideas flee as we cuddle and kiss.”

“My body is now entered by another; it is a shared space on many days.”

“I loved who I was so much, but she is now changing, and it is frightening.”

And if there is no ceremony for women who once owned their mystical innards and creative thoughts, mornings, and musings, and are now merging in deep partnership with another, then let us make one.

For those of us unafraid to tread this bridge of spiritual practice and initiation of creative soul solo to two souls together- not afraid to accept partnership- but unwilling to pretend our way through it, forgoing the grief or truth of the beauty of the moments of deep truth we live with ourselves and the gorgeous inner garden of spirit and soul we have cleaned and cleared and cultivated…. the deep transformation of self that has no map. 

And the change to sharing much of that garden with another…inviting someone into the mystical temple of my body, heart, and soul…

Which have always been *mine* and divine.

Now learning to share bits and pieces, and learning to keep some things very private, sacred, untouched, because there are places and moments no one can reach. Places you can move into deep within, that will always be just yours…

And the wisdom to discern the difference: when to shore up the private spots, and when to reveal the places that are begging for witnessing…when to surrender the small self to big devotion, and when to stay close to the tiny flower of soul budding inside you.

Having the courage to be honest with each other so we don’t face it alone, to whisper truths about the parts of the soul that hurt, the beauty of merging and the loss, and laugh and cry and hold each other as we transform. 

To not smooth over the transitions but allow the descent and the initiation of sacred union to share its fruits, and also do the beautiful grief filled work of stripping and peeling away old selves and revealing new soul caverns and snowy peaks in our being.

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