Warrior Goddess
Walking Through the Fire
Thank you so much for recording the Warrior Goddess song! We just used it at a Warrior Goddess gathering; imagine 50 women singing as we walked on fire! It was magical. —HeatherAsh Amara
There was a time when I held my breath—a lot, frightened in anticipation of perceived threats, I would forget to breathe. It wasn’t conscious. Early trauma and abandonment left my nervous system on high alert, and breath-holding became a chronic habit. I felt sad and angry. I didn’t have a language for my bottled-up emotions, which I suppressed by holding my breath.
In the mid-1970s, I discovered East Indian philosophy. I followed a guru for over ten years and meditated on holy breath. It helped, but didn’t break the habit. Then, I pursued a career in midwifery where every firstborn breath reminded me that we are all born in original blessing, not original sin.
I didn’t find a language for my emotions until I left Miami, Florida, where I was born and lived the first 30 years of my life. In the spring of 1985, I moved to San Francisco, married a doctor specializing in Behavioral Medicine, and began practicing Native American spirituality. Wanting a more affordable and supportive spiritual community, we moved to Tucson, Arizona, in 1989. Through prayer and ceremony, I finally felt safe enough to let out the scary feelings inside me: dark emotions, ugly tears, anger, and hurtful words. I learned that what is said carries just as much weight as what is not said. It was messy, and so was the divorce. I wanted more than anything to heal.
I lived in the Sonoran Desert for twelve years, working hard to heal my past. I drew on the land’s yang energy to pursue a career in music as a singer-writer, a mostly male-dominated field. Singing strengthened my lungs after years of childhood asthma. Writing songs helped to free my emotions and feed my soul. Performing allowed me to be witnessed. I found a voice I never knew I had.
Then I moved again, this time to the Smoky Mountains of North Carolina and the Blue Ridge Divide. The cool, moist, yin energy of the land helped me to recover from the burnout I felt after a decade on the road as a musician.
In spring 2012, Star Wolf and her team in Western North Carolina invited me to sing at Isis Cove near Cherokee for the Wise Wolf Women’s Council, a group of women choosing to step up powerfully and globally to challenge old beliefs, welcome a new era, and support each other. As their songstress, I performed my version of Warrior Goddess, a chant for empowerment during this time of global transformation. The song was ahead of its time when Susan Haist wrote it in 1988, and my friend Lisa Thiel recorded it on her 1994 “Journey to the Goddess” CD.
Accompanied by a Native American rattle made for me by Beverly Laughing Eagle, I invited everyone to join in as I shook the Medicine rattle and chanted, “Warrior Goddess, Warrior Goddess, Rise in me, I need your wisdom for this age.”
One woman at the Council was so moved by the song’s power that she insisted I record it. Other women also began asking for a recording of the song, which inspired me to take action. That week, I went into my studio and started laying down tracks. Soon after, two musician friends from Canada, Rama & Aston, called and needed a place to crash for the night. I offered them the studio floor in my small rented home, and they accepted. After hearing my tracks, one night turned into three, and we went to work. They suggested adding a Pacific Northwest tribal chant at the end of Warrior Goddess, which they sang live in the studio. My daughter added background vocals, and the song came together in a magical way.
After I released Warrior Goddess on my CD, “She Loved Horses,” I moved again. This time, I returned to the Southwest and settled in New Mexico, weaving the yin I had gathered in the Appalachian Mountains back into the yang of the high desert.
When Star Wolf heard the recording of Warrior Goddess, she shared it with HeatherAsh Amara, who also lives in New Mexico. Ash is a firewalk instructor and the author of Warrior Goddess Training: Become the Woman You Are Meant to Be. After she listened to the song, I received the following from her in an email:
“Thank you so much for recording the Warrior Goddess song! We just used it at a Warrior Goddess gathering; imagine 50 women singing as we walked on fire! It was magical.”
I invite you to join me and to sing, dance, and listen to the song Warrior Goddess ~
Warrior Goddess, Warrior Goddess, Rise in Me
Warrior Goddess, Warrior Goddess, Rise in Me
I need your wisdom for this age, I need your wisdom for this age
Warrior Goddess, Warrior Goddess, Rise in Me
Warrior Goddess, Warrior Goddess, Rise in Me
Great strength and courage I need. Infinite courage I need.
Warrior Goddess, Warrior Goddess, Rise in Me
Warrior Goddess, Warrior Goddess, Rise in Me
Reveal my spirits vision to me. Open my heart and mind to see - the Warrior Goddess in Me.
Warrior Goddess, Warrior Goddess, Rise in Me
Warrior Goddess, Warrior Goddess, Rise in Me
I need your wisdom for this age, I need your wisdom for this age
We all walk through the fire in one way or another–through abandonment, abuse, betrayals, family secrets, and lies. With so many fires burning, it can feel safer to run away. But if we want to truly know ourselves, or someone else, stepping into the fire becomes necessary. Fear of vulnerability and chronic conflict avoidance are destructive.
I have heard it said that instead of dying by fire, as in angry, explosive arguments, many relationships slowly “die by ice” as emotional distance and resentment build over time. People avoid these necessary, fiery conversations out of fear of rejection or abandonment, trauma and family dynamics, people pleasing tendencies, and lack of communication skills. I have had to work on all of these within myself, including fear of anger itself. It seems to me that people run from difficulty because our modern culture prioritizes immediate emotional comfort and values superficial peace over the lasting peace that results from resolving conflict. My marriage of over 25 years is a testament to the latter.
Now more than ever, we need a language for our emotions. The illusion of digital distance allows us to break up, fire an employee, or quit over text and email. We are losing the ability to handle emotional tension in real-time, making us less able to tolerate discomfort. People have become polarized, angry, and fearful. The emotions are strong, and we’re not talking about them constructively.
Recently, I invited a new friend with shared interests to lunch to get to know her better. During our conversation, a difficult subject arose. When I tried to broach it, she froze. I later received a text from her stating that she didn’t like talking about politics or religion and that it made her feel uncomfortable because her views differed from mine. How could she know what my views were? I certainly didn’t know hers because we never had that conversation. I made up a funny saying about myself, which is “politics is against my religion, and I don’t have a religion.” But still, it hurt my heart. Polarization is making it increasingly hard to communicate, leading people to shut each other out.
As a Warrior Goddess who has been through many battles and much heartache, I reflected on how best to protect and support my nervous system and gather my heart for the work that still lies ahead. This recent interaction, along with many strained relationships over the last few years, has made certain conversations difficult. We must choose our battles wisely.
A Warrior Goddess is a spiritual warrioress who challenges her wounded belief system based on projections, assumptions, and false fears–fears of being judged, not good enough, and ungrounded fears–which create unnecessary suffering and unhappiness. To transform the war-torn emotional battlefield and its subsequent trauma into a landscape that supports the integration of Heart-Mind takes patience, practice, persistence, courage, and commitment. That challenge also requires sobriety, awareness, and clarity that personal freedom is attainable beyond the struggle.
• Sobriety – Clear headed and discerning what is me and what is not me, not under the influence of the “other,” and using common sense. It takes self-control.
• Awareness – Perception without interpretation or opinion and that allows discernment. Self-awareness is the clarity to know who and what you are. It is presence without projection or self-importance. It takes practice.
• Courage – To question and challenge one’s own beliefs, to continue on the path in spite of life’s challenges, disappointments, and failures, and to self-motivate and not be controlled by the opinions of others. It takes discipline.
• Personal Freedom – To love and serve who and what we are called to love and serve, to have the freedom to choose what we want to do when and with whom. It takes courage.
It doesn’t really matter which road we go down ideologically—there is one truth that remains: we all drink the same water and breathe the same air in a closed system called Planet Earth. I thank God, Goddess, All-That-Is, for the music in my life that has allowed me to experience a universal language, a language of the heart. One that calls us to dance, sing, shout, laugh, or cry. I no longer pray for change in the world because the old cliché “the only constant is change” is so true. If I were waiting for the world to change, I would still be holding my breath.
Please enjoy this video of the Wise Wolf Women’s Gathering ~
The women of today are the thoughts of their mothers and grandmothers, embodied and made alive. They are active, capable, determined and bound to win. They have one-thousand generations back of them...Millions of women dead and gone are speaking through us today. –Matilda Joslyn Gage
Recommended Reading:
• Original Blessing by Mathew Fox
• Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most by Bruce Patton, Douglas Stone, and Sheila Heen
• Spirit of the Wolf: Channeling the Transformative Power of Lupine Energy by Linda Star Wolf & her son Casey Piscitelli with a chapter by Thea Summer Deer.
Resources:
Download the song Warrior Goddess from Thea & The GreenMan
Learn more about Star Wolf and her work at: Shamanic Breathwork
Learn more about HeatherAsh Amara and her work at: Warrior Goddess
Paid Subscribers receive the following Premium Content below: Photographic Fine Art Nudes of Warrior Goddesses by Thea Summer Deer and Marion Z. Skydancer.
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