The Clan Mother Speaks: Our Huntress
Stepping into the Clan Mother Huntress Role
When Vision Mother and Warrior Queen Akhalita first shared the birthing of the Amazonian Arts I felt intrigued as I heard the “rattling of the bones” as she spoke. It excited me, the opportunity to piece together the lost threads and uncover Herstory through studying Warrioress Archetypes.
The Huntress Steps Forward
I jumped at the chance to have my Warrioress reading and did so for my 44th Birthday. I was surprised at how much information Jeanette could tell about me from my birth chart. This reintroduction into astrology was just the beginning of many Beginnings (or re-memberings) that are being ignited along this path. When she shared The Huntress had the most medicine for me I initially felt a bit disappointed. Believing I was the Messenger or Artisan, since these I can see easily expressed in my life. The Huntress felt distant, far too confident and her focus too sharp to resonate with me. A bow and arrow too pointy (and requiring precision and perfection) and fire a way too powerful element to be my ally. The wolf was not a creature that had ever found me in dreams. Though I resonate with the fierce protection and care of the family pack and worship the Moon. I am learning this is often where the medicine lies, where there is that feeling of being too different from the Other. I feel these are little signs that there is work to be done.
The Work Begins
As I began working with her, her medicine began to heal me. Her wolf became my protector in times of need. Her growl my own voice at times, her fierce protection brought me warmth when I felt fearful and under psychic attack. I could see the Huntress had many jewels to offer me, especially the courage to walk my own path, to sing my own song. To fuel my inner flame and be the Way Shower to other Women.
The Fear of Stepping up
When I heard about the Clan Mother roles, I immediately felt called to step up. I wanted to do it as a deep sign of respect to her and the AMA work. However, I let my fear of not being good enough to hold that lineage get in the way. There were many reasons that I found to NOT step up, including the distance from the AMA home and the fact that many challenging events were going on in my life. I felt constrained by Time and Space - how was I ever going to be able to deeply connect with her. The fear of just not being whole enough or connected to my higher Self was the big one though. And I just felt incapable of being able to hold the title itself. Would I connect with Her? I was also afraid of being fully seen in this vulnerable state. Even though my life has been dedicated to exploring what it is to be Me and how I can best contribute my gifts to this life, I still feel like a baby on this path, a beginner and this is where the Fool Tarot card possibly fits. It felt too big to handle, so I decided not to step into the circle. Living in WA I felt the distance was just too great to feel a part of the tribe and really connect with the work and that feeling of not belonging is a painful one.
No More Excuses
When AMA went online and the work became available remotely I ran out of excuses. I started doing the work. All the information is there, the explanation of everything from smudging, to how to come back and feel grounded after a drum journey. I had also started running monthly women’s circles in a Bell Tent on our land and meditating regularly. The Huntress’s Matron Goddess is Artemis and she was known to be a midwife and advocate for women’s rights. It was the women's circles that actually led me to accept the role as I realised the importance of my role in holding sacred space for women and that I could do it and help other women stand in their light. I relate to the Magdalenas and sense I may have a role in the Great Turning for the Mothers and Daughters in my community, even if it is just holding space for them. New Clan mothers were stepping into the circle and were keeping warm by the fire and no other Huntress had stood forward and I could feel the Huntress’s arrow poking me in the back “it is YOU - get brave!” And her invitation is still calling me..
My Earlier Years
I had a little hollow feeling growing up that would not leave me. There was something missing in my life and I knew there had been some lie told. The Fierce Feminine, the deep honouring of Nature, Mary’s side of the story, paganism: these had all been erased to some degree. My parents' love was pure and kind and I am deeply grateful for their introduction to life, but I felt separation more than oneness. I was raised in a family that was agnostic but mostly aligned with Christian views, and while Jesus’s story inspires me, I can now see why it didn’t fully resonate with me. Herstory has mostly remained untold. There was this sense as a girl, that I had been born into a body with an inferior gender. I could sense it was a ‘mans’ world and when my menarche started it seemed to confirm that we were the weaker sex. There was no initiation, no sacredness, no inquiry in the powerful aspects of the Fierce Feminine. Like the ability to Create Life and birth Consciousness(!!), the ability to see light in the dark, our spiralling nature, the way we can see truth, intuit, encourage sensitivity and vulnerability and feel emotions. None of these powerful skills were pointed out to me as positives or even acknowledged at that transformative time. There was no Fierce Feminine in my life, only deep rage and resentment. I was disappointed at what Humanity had visioned in the past to bring us to this current mess. Brownies and Girl Guides was about the only circle or ritual I participated in as a young girl and now looking back even that is a form of patriarchy in my view. I was totally out of balance. I studied environmental science (to protect and work with Nature) and ended up working in a very masculine based field of Agriculture research (not intentional) and then Project Management. I had made it clear I was as good as a man at “wearing the pants” in these fields and also in relationships.
Leaning into my Femininity
Slowly, I leaned into exploring my femininity and what balance felt like. I mapped my dreams, my moon time, the moon and began honouring what it is to be a Woman. A copy of Women who Run with Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estés came to me in my late 20s and I knew there was this wild woman to uncover in myself. I started exploring Mythology further via Robert A Johnson and Joseph Campbell and I am deeply grateful for their wisdom. I got into meditation to listen deeply and experienced sensations and feelings of Oneness through Vipassana. Throughout my life, travels (Japan, Europe, India), various careers and giving birth to a child, I have always made space to explore what it is to be a spiritual being. I stop and listen and often there is just the void in response, a deafening silence and I get glimpses of that hollow feeling but often these days, there is a welling in my heart of deep gratitude and love for Life and a sense of Oneness and Unity. I have an appreciation for the paths I have walked and the pieces of myself I have reclaimed. It is a continual process collecting and picking up the lost pieces and putting myself together again.
Women's Circles
I met a woman at a festival who invited me into her monthly women’s circle and the deep opening of my heart began. This eventually led me to running my own circle in my local community at dark moon for mothers for I was a new mother myself. Sometimes only one or two would turn up. But for me, even though I found holding sacred space nerve wracking, I opened my heart to truly seeing and supporting women and encouraging them to discover the Fierce Feminine and Herstory. We cover many topics including our experience of Menarche and what it means to have the masculine and feminine energy in balance. This has become an ongoing offering to my community now and the flame for this burns strong yet I always feel nervous and takes a lot for me to stay in my womb and be grounded. I take another deep breath with Artemis (Matron Goddess) by my side and it all becomes easier.
Drum Journeying
A drumming session about 3 years ago totally shifted that hollow feeling in me. I traveled to upper and lower realms and so many vivid and wild experiences were gifted to me in that one drumming journey. I will be forever grateful to the woman who invited me to experience this. This year (2021) I made my own hand drum. I attend a monthly Soul Song drumming circle and I am reclaiming the drum and hope to hold drumming sessions so I can return the favour to other women who have not experienced their own drum journey.
Mother of the Huntress Clan
As Mother of the Huntress Clan, it is my desire to work deeply with her and her allies and share my learnings. I will call on my courage and act instinctively. I have in the past forgotten to connect with my womb space, heart and my instinct and instead relied on my mind which my scientific studies and our previous patriarchal culture encouraged. And I appreciate this has got me to where I am today but it is time to listen and have faith in my own intuition. To trust that my wild and crazy heart has the wisdom to lead me where I am meant to be.
The Power of the Huntress is that she is the Goddess of the Hunt. Her arrow flies true and is on target. I am determined to ‘listen’ quietly with the skills of a hunter and choose to live my life from the wisdom that resides in me. I want this connection to be my first point of reference and for it to be honed. By following my own path, I will guide the way for others to do the same. My Matron goddess is Artemis, and my plant ally named after her Artemisia absinthium – is wormwood. I, like Artemis, have always sought sanctuary in Nature. The Nymphs are calling to me and I am deeply committed to hear their whisperings and share their wisdom with you. Wormwood grows in my Garden and I long to hear her wisdom too. There is so much work to be done. So I am here, with the Huntress and I look forward to sharing her medicine as I walk with her on this journey into the unknown.
The AMA is an opportunity to stride a deeper path to what I have been drawn to. It is a deliciously beautiful, rich and bounded way to explore the facets of myself and help me find my Soul Song. I am drawn to rewilding myself and children within my community as well, to express my creativity and share it with the world instead of hiding it. I will fiercely love in the face of whatever appears before me. The AMA is shedding light on the bones and uncovering further truths for me. Even Christianity is making more sense to me after bringing in Mary Magdalene's voice. These are the gifts of this work. Silver threads are added to the tapestry of our story. For this I have deep gratitude for the Grandmothers, Midwives and Mothers (And Fathers and Grandfathers) of the AMA who have woven it all together for us to experience. I bow to the Huntress for I know she is watching over me too and this is just the beginning of the re-membering. I also bow to you sisters and brothers also on this journey.