Shapeshifting
“Wisdom is knowing that I am nothing,
Love is knowing that I am everything, and between the two my life moves.”
Bodies enlivened by the sacred feminine energy in all its divine polarity, generative fluidity and receptive, intuitive wisdom, have always had the right, the power and the mandate to shapeshift.
Even I, as alienated as I was from my own feminine wisdom for the best part of 40 years, was offered the incarnational experience of this mystery on three occasions. As my babes grew in the hidden place inside my own skin, the mysterious portal between the spirit world and the bracing density of the third dimension, my body bloomed in response to their life, to give them comfort, nourishment and safety to unfurl in all their quiet grace. Of course I did not see it like that then, aching and exhausted and bewildered and sick. Waddling around with a laundry basket, and later a toddler, hoisted onto one hip.
A gift is often not recognized as such in the moment. I did not know how to listen to my body’s own wisdom then.
I have been learning.
Mythology is replete with stories of goddesses and mortals alike, who called on their divine right to shapeshift, often to escape something shameful or violent or in response to unbearable grief. This shamanistic wisdom predates written histories by a long shot, practiced and understood by wise ones inside every civilization that has ever walked the earth. Great literary works like the Iliad and the Epic of Gilgamesh feature shapeshifting, as does much of Roman, Greek, Geltic, Norse, Indian, African and Asian folklore and mythology. Many of the fairy tales told to children feature shapeshifting. One of my recent favourites is the charming Pixar animated story, Brave, where Merida’s mother, Queen Elinor (and later the three mischievous princes) are all turned into bears by magic wrought by standing stones. In the Hebrew bible, Lot’s wife turns into a pillar of salt, as she turns to bear witness to the horror and destruction being wrought on her home. My soul-sister Nika Hiraeth wrote this hauntingly beautiful re-membering of this myth, for The Cooperative’s website. (Side-bar for readers who identify themselves as Christians, The Cooperative is a gold-mine of thoughtful, relevant and brilliantly researched public theology, cannot recommend highly enough.) When Nika and I sat, as has become our custom, under the evening stars by my fire-pit on a recent autumn night and talked about the Lot’s wife piece she had been working on that day, we were wondering out loud together about the literary device used to keep the agency behind her transformation deliberately obscured. Casual readers would assume that her salt-shapeshifting petrification was wrought by YHWH, as punishment. But the text will not allow that reading. Could it be that Lot’s wife invoked her own people’s power shamanic knowledge and deliberately shapeshifted in that moment in deep participatory annihilation as she bore witness to the destruction of her home?
Involuntary shapeshifting has long been conflated with divine punishment. But voluntary shapeshifting, well, that is another story altogether. It can be an emancipatory rebellion, an act of defiant liberation. An escape. Voluntary shapeshifting is always preceded by a catalytic event in which the person awakens to their own divine agency, enters deeply into the mystery of the ‘three in one’, and co-creates with Divine, their new iteration. Shapeshifting is a radical act of free-will, usually creative and generative and by its very nature thrusts the person into a whole new world where new possibilities emerge that were just not on the table before.
Male-ish types carry feminine energy too, did you know that? This divine energy signature is available to all of us (which is what the myths are reminding us of) who are willing to operate inside of the sacred feminine polarity, even if it is not the primary mode of being. I sometimes wonder if this is why the Christ chose to incarnate inside of a male-identified body, in order to leave a breadcrumb trail that this kind of divine power is not only the province of the women-folk…but more about that in a moment.
Shapeshifting as a modality for expression, carries the deeply mysterious energy signature allowing the one who has suffered at the hands of another to transmute the violence inside their own energy field and instead of trauma-looping, transcending it and re-visioning the suffering as an initiation. This is another mystery beautifully told by the cross of Christ, and embodied in the archetype of Pluto / Hades, god of the underworld. Remember the part where Jesus appears to Mary in the body of the gardener? The incarnation, crucifixion and resurrection of the Christ are all instances of Divine / human shapeshifting. Its woven right into the fabric of even the most basic of Christian theological frameworks.
“I took some time over the last few months to participate in another co-creative shapeshifting season, which is why I disappeared from the public eye for a while. Shapeshifting is best done in private, slowly, instinctually.”
I did wonder if I might not re-emerge in this public arena, as content as I am in the hidden place. I have become achingly conscious of the fact that as we move into energy-based systems of being as a collective, and of the complete saturation of data, information, content and learning, that we can become quickly exhausted and overwhelmed by the sheer volume of resources available to us now. I’m not even remotely interested in adding to the cacophony of voices already out here saying brilliant and beautiful things. Also there is the small fact that I am deeply in love with silence and solitude.
But it was in silence and solitude as I sat with Divine over the last few months as I slowly received the instruction and the blueprint for this next iteration of being that I knew I was being called to return and to keep writing, keep speaking, keep showing up. I know that I know that I know that someday, I will be allowed to permanently retreat into hermit mode and finally move into that cabin in the woods that I’ve been dreaming about since I was a girl. I will light my fire and smoke my pipe on the deck and read and plant and tend to my body and my dwelling and the earth in deep harmony…but that time has not yet come.
And so here I am, again. Hello. How have you been, my dears?
“One of the new facets of this new season I’ve been delivered into is going to include some work that I will publish on re-construction.”
There is a very important series of conversations being had right now in the public square, ones which I have observed with deep interest and lots of compassion and empathy. Droves of people all over the world are leaving institutional religion behind, and starting to wrestle with and heal from the wounds they sustained from violent and narcissistic theologies, capitalism-driven church models, controlling and abusive authority systems. More and more ex-Christians are undertaking serious deconstruction work, and this is timely, important and beautiful. We are in a ‘scales falling from our eyes’ season as a collective, we have woken up and we can’t go back to sleep. I said this over and over again in many of my previous pieces.
There is absolutely no need for me to jump into these conversations, and support people to have them, because there are already numerous excellent places on the internet and in real life where people who need a safe container for this work can find it. If this is you and you have not yet found some excellent content on and support for deconstruction, I highly recommend the work of Phil Drysdale, Glennon Doyle, Elizabeth Gilbert, Kevin Miguel Garcia and Jo Luehmann for starters. There is a fantastic Facebook group called Exvangelical where you can go and meet with other people, virtually and maybe IRL, to talk this through.
The conversation I am here to have, the reason I returned from my period of quiet shapeshifting to show back up in the world, is that there is also a piece of work that some of us are ready for, and it is the re-construction.
So many people, from all walks of life (not just Christianity) have shed their old skins, walked away from toxic belief systems, family systems, relationship systems, employment systems and are asking “what now?” Some are happy to live in a place I once described as ‘the void’ , others have soul contracts which require them to stay stuck in hatred and bitterness and envy toward the church / their parents / the patriarchy / the matriarchy and are, as such, unable to conceptualize or move toward something lifegiving. Hatred is deeply energizing and supportive in many ways, and I do not blame or judge these people for staying here. My wise therapist once said to me that we do what we are doing until we are done doing it. Only then are we ready to do a new thing. Some folks who are deconstructing find so much energy and companionship and belonging inside the deconstruction community that they don’t want to leave. That is fine too. These people are not asking ‘what now?’ They are sighing with relief and sleeping in on Sundays and living their best lives. Go them. Amazing. I’m a fan. Honestly, we all need to do what we need to do. I realise the cross-section of people I’m going to be serving here is going to be slim, but it is a specific group and I know enough of you in real life to know that it is worth me coming back from my shapeshifting-sabbatical to write to you…
What I would love to do, in this next iteration of ‘the work’, with the energy that I have to bring to this space, will be to open up a space where we can wonder aloud together about how we might enter into the sacred life, into deep spiritual union - with self, with the earth and with others - without the containers and labels we once used to hold our meaning-making frameworks. I deconstructed a while ago, and have been slowly re-constructing for some time now. I have been somewhat closeted about this process, only alluding to it in my previous pieces, so I think its time to unfold that a little bit.
One of my favourite teachers, Fr Richard Rohr, one said that ‘God comes to us disguised as our life.’ I have certainly found this to be true. Over time, I have learned to trust the rhythm of my life, understanding that it is held together by a force far more powerful than I ever imagined, a force which I will call interchangeably Spirit / Source / Universe / Divine. I have been immeasurably supported by the writings of the Beguine mystics, by Teresa of Avila and St John of the Cross, by the Desert Fathers and Mothers, the Gnostic gospels, the gospel of Mary Magdalene and other mystical texts. Since I was already trained in Divinity, inside the Christian tradition with all of its attendant empire overlay, the Spirit instructed me to go back to the time before empire crept in, before Irenaeus, and so I did. I read about the Cathars, dove deeper than I had before into the Essenes and other ancient gnostic communities. I took a course delivered by a Harvard Divinity School professor on the roots of Gnostic theologies, and experienced that as a profound homecoming. I have also dabbled in the intersection of quantum sciences, and been fascinated by some of the new developments in the studies of consciousness which are opening up fields to play in which are exciting, enlivening and producing incredible fruit not only in my life, but in the life of countless others around the world.
To be clear, if you read my work as someone who knew me in one of my previous versions, please understand I shapeshifted out of that modality about 3 iterations ago. I’m no longer interested in using the Bible as a reference point, for those who might require that in their philosophy or worldview construction. The Bible is still very dear to me and I do use it, but not in any way like I used to. It has become both more sacred to me, and also less central. Which is, I think, how it was originally intended to be used. So if you want to come at me with ‘the bible is clear…’, please understand, this writing is not for you. Again, I am now writing exclusively for those who have deconstructed, and are on the other side wondering ‘what could be next’. Those are my people.
However, many of my nearest and dearest people are pastors, ministers, clergy, theological educators, leaders, writers and biblical scholars. And so, my first piece in this new series is going to be a bit of a field guide for ministry folks on how to support the people in your communities who are deconstructing (and why you should support them for this important work.) I am not in reaction-formation against the church. I think faith communities are vital and important and play a critical role in the world. I also think they can do better than they have been, and so many are. There are so many beautiful places to belong and be seen and held and known, which is all we really ever need from healthy spirituality: to see and be seen, to know and be known, to love and be loved.
So many people can’t have that inside a church anymore, and that is perfectly good and fine and normal and healthy too. Because that is the case, and because I have returned to support these folks, I will not be using churchy language anymore. I was trying to hold on to some of it in my previous writing, mostly to avoid triggering people. But the truth is, that the energetic and spiritual nuance needed to support the evolution of the re-constructing ones, or the ones who are pursuing the path of awakening and ascension, which is how I plan to speak about it, needs attuned language. Language capable of bringing together spirituality and science, mystery and inner knowing, language which is reflective of this convoluted, fractal, multi-dimensional reality we are co-creating together. My old language was too dense, so in this latest shapeshifting adventure that Spirit and I have been on together, I’ve received a few “upgrades”.
My hope is that they support you.
You must always use your own intuition when engaging with this work. I invite you to take and use what is useful and meaningful to you, and leave the rest behind. If it doesn’t fit, or feels scary or confronting, again, leave it behind. Anything I write is supposed to be here to support your own deepest intuitive knowing, to give it scope and shape and language and form. If it is doing that for you, then fantastic. If it confuses or enrages or scares you, again, I am not the writer for you anymore.
Go gently, beloveds.
Until next time.