Held by Her: A Journey of Self-Compassion and Reclamation

It has been some time since I last wrote. As the final days of 2024 gave way to the beginning of 2025, I found myself in a season of transformation that invited me to listen deeply and allow old patterns to surface for review. These months have been filled with teachings, not all of them easy, but all of them necessary.

What has unfolded has been a profound and humbling journey, not only into my own heart, but into the heart of women’s community. After nearly three decades of holding sacred space for women to heal, to remember the Sacred, and to root in sisterhood, I was guided to acknowledge the shadow that can dwell within these spaces. A kind of light emerged, allowing me to bear witness to deeper truths and to tend to the parts of our communal life that can be unspoken, neglected, or unhealed.

The Unseen Roots of Shame

As I looked more deeply, I came to see how the core wound of shame continues to shape the way many women relate to ourselves and to one another. The challenges I faced this past year were not the source of my suffering, but rather the surface expression, symptoms, of something much older: a belief seeded in childhood for so many of us; that we must earn our place, prove our worth, and carry more than any one person should be asked to hold in order to belong.

This pattern doesn’t live in me alone; it lives in our shared inheritance. And in this recent season, it drove me to take on more, overriding my own knowing. Like many women conditioned to hold everything together, I dismissed the quiet signals of intuition. I clung to roles, responsibilities, and relationships I should have released. I stayed where I should have stepped away. I spoke when I should have paused.

However, something new began to bloom in the wild garden of Her making. A soft light, perhaps the light of the returning sun, rose to meet me, inviting compassion and guiding me to embrace my wisdom and knowing alongside my limitations. They, too, belong. They are part of the path. They are shaping me, as the complexities of our inner world shape us all.

The Quiet Persistence of Patriarchy—Even Here

One of the most sobering truths I’ve had to face is that patriarchal values do not end at the edge of feminist or women’s spiritual spaces. They subtly live on in our habits, our expectations, our relationships with one another.

Even in women’s circles, where we gather in the name of healing, there can be competition, mistrust, and a policing of the feminine. And when these enter sacred space, they break the very bonds we are trying to restore.

This has been hard to name, but it is essential that we do. Not from a place of blame, but from a place of fierce love and the commitment to do better for our own spirit and for each other.

I’ve come to understand that no matter how much one gives, it will not always be received as enough. No one is for everyone, and it is, in fact, a mark of maturity to know who we are for, and to release the rest with grace.

The Sacred Feminine & the Path of Love

In the midst of all of this, I have welcomed an even deeper connection to the Sacred Feminine. Her presence has been steady. And Her message has been clear.

She has shown me I am here to live with devotion, to follow love, to speak truth and to trust in the deeper rhythms of life that don’t conform to external approval.

Her love has helped me remember who I am beneath the striving. And it has helped me soften toward myself, to open and flow with the watery nature of life itself.

I know in my bones that we are all doing our best.

Because of Her, I am more intentionally choosing to walk the path of love. Not as a vague ideal, but as a daily practice. A path that honours boundaries, truth-telling, and rest. A path that doesn’t abandon clarity for the sake of harmony. A path that includes compassion for others, but firstly and unwaveringly for myself.  A path that leads to honouring of the self, of my experience and knowing, of my faith. This path feels holy, abundant and evolutionary.

A Crone in Bloom

I am consciously entering my Crone years with reverence, with joy, and with curiosity. This phase of life is not a closing, but an opening. A time to gather the wisdom earned through living, and to carry it forward with clarity and purpose.

I feel myself softening, expanding, and laughing more easily. I feel the weight of approval lifting and, in its place, a deeper knowing is taking root: I belong. I am wise. I am worthy. Not because I’ve earned it but because I am a sacred part of Her creation…just as you are.

We are all perfection.

And there is still so much more to become. The Crone years are not a retreat from life, but a return to it on my own terms, with my own rhythm. I look forward to sharing what is being born from this place: new offerings, new language, new ways of gathering, rooted in lived experience and sacred joy.

An Invitation

These reflections are still settling. I suspect they will continue to move and mature over time, as all true teachings do. I share them not to offer final answers, but to extend a hand across the mystery.

If these words stir something in you; if they name a truth you’ve quietly held, or a question you’ve been carrying, I welcome your voice in return. Let’s keep having these conversations.

Let’s keep tending this sacred, imperfect, luminous work of becoming — together.

With love and seasoned faith,

Wren

Art by Dasha Bobkova

Grandmother Wisdom:

I stepped into Her waters and was cleansed of all doubt,

all desire for anything to be other than it is,

and any withholding of self-love and compassion.

Her sacred waters nourished

my body, mind and spirit,

revealing a holy flower of splendour opening within me,

the hidden desire to evolve beyond comfort,

and the deep well of wisdom

my grandmothers poured their lives into.

Witnessing Her form, Her power and Her passion awoke

the sweetest soul-love for my imperfect self;

the awkward child reaching for love,

the stumbling girl running for acceptance,

the raging woman screaming to be heard.

Rising from Her waters,

the world shimmering with light,

I knew I am love.

Her tides in my bones,

life and love flowing within me.

"You are the ocean and the moon."

She whispered,

as I made my way home.

Written by Wren 2025