Last week was National Invasive Species Awareness Week.
Perfect timing for Priestess season.
“Invasives” are plants that end up where they’re not supposed to be and take over, choking out native species and threatening sustainable ecosystems.
At Darkwood, I have a few patches of invasives.
I spend a lot of time and effort removing those plants and keeping them at bay, protecting the pristine forest I’m lucky enough to tend and live within.
One day last week I was dealing with the invasives growing at Darkwood, and as I was pulling vines and digging up roots I thought about “purification”.
I pondered the way thoughts, habits, and certain behaviors can also be “invasive”, as in not-native to your being.
For example, when left to my own devices I never feel things like old, fat, lonely, or broke.
I usually feel pretty good about myself — smart, strong, and healthy; grateful to have the life I do.
Peaceful.
Sustainable.
A healthy landscape with natural checks and balances.
But then come the “invasives”.
They creep in through marketing strategies, cultural norms, other people’s opinions, and all manner of patriarchal baloney.
And if I’m not careful, they’ll take root.
If I’m not mindful about these “invasives”, my peaceful inner landscape starts to choke under their twisting tendrils.
Invasives like self-doubt, inadequacy, dependency, comparison, and even shame sneak in and threaten the native landscape of my being.
When this happens, we need purification.
I was at the Asheville Botanical Gardens last night and thought about Priestess purification when I saw this sign:
Priestess wisdom includes “purification” for a few reasons.
First, her season is late winter, when not much is growing above ground; the landscape is stark and sort of “clean”.
And second, The Priestess archetype is the protector of lifeforce, the precious miracle of life and survival.
She’s going to “purify” out anything that may threaten life.
So, when you’re feeling distracted, depleted, confused, and using all of your energy just to hang on, like my young tulip trees and dogwoods under the weight of massive vines, you gotta step back and take a look at what’s messing with you.
The Priestess archetype deals in the realm of survival, yes.
But she intends to pass that baton along so that we’re actually thriving.
If you’re stuck in survival too long, like if suddenly the weather was February for 8 months, thriving becomes less of an option.
If a native landscape is burdened by invasives and in survival mode too long, the likelihood of it ever thriving again decreases.
So, we have this built in mechanism, a wisdom called The Priestess, that stays on the look-out for things threatening survival and our ability to thrive.
Imagine if you could hang a little sign like the one at the botanical gardens on your front door or have it as your outgoing message.
Whenever you get a sense that your psyche, mind, and spirit are burdened by invasives, you close up shop and “purify” until you feel your own native landscape again.
Strong, vibrant, nourished, and thriving.
It’s your birthright to feel your Self, your own native landscape, thrive without invasives.
The Priestess archetype helps us identify the conditions that help us thrive, and the invasive that do not.
And then she helps us get ’em outta there.
So during Priestess season and anytime there’s a Priestess moon, consider a purification practice, a version of the sign at the botanical gardens.
Pause, and feel around for “invasives” that might be depleting you.
Then get rid of them.
But here’s where my metaphor falls apart.
What we would call “invasive plants” are all native somewhere.
They belong to an ecosystem on the planet where they are kept in check by their native landscape.
The oriental bittersweet choking out my trees can rock on in China, where it naturally grows. No hard feelings.
But there’s nowhere on the planet that shame belongs.
There’s no native landscape where hating yourself belongs.
There’s no ecosystem where bad feelings about your body, your partnerships, or your aptitudes belong.
Trust me, The Priestess archetype is alive and well somewhere in your psyche.
And anytime you feel that your native landscape of love, strength, hope, creativity, and a general sense of wellness is threatened, call upon your own wisdom to remove those invasives.
love and landscapes,
xo
kv
