For the Guardians
An invitation into the Goddess who represents your gateway, and into your apprenticeship as a guide.
The Gateways
Each gateway carries her own field, her own quality of presence. Meet the one that has been entrusted to you.
- Maiden — innocence, emergence, yes
- Lover / Mother — devotion, nourishment, creation
- Crone — wisdom, dissolution, mystery
- Earth / Ancestors — roots, belonging, ground
- Fire / Passion / Sexuality — desire, lifeforce, dharma
- Air / Sacred Word / Soul Lineage — voice, prayer, transmission
- Water — intuition, surrender, dreaming
Let this guide your exploration. Allow the Goddess, and your own lived experience, to shape the gateway in you.
Meditation: in the heart. As above, so below. As within, so without. Who am I?
Written Assignment
Approximately 1500 words, in three parts. An offering of remembrance.
The invitation is to find the personification of the Goddess who lives in your ancestry: the face she has worn in your lineage, the name she has answered to in your blood.
1. The Goddess
Who is she?
2. The Connection
Why her?
What is your relationship to this lineage, and what does it move in you?
How has connecting to the personification of the Goddess in your lineage supported a deeper awareness?
3. The Gateway
How does your assigned gateway live in her, and in you?
Where are you at a threshold in your life right now?
Optional · A Visual or Embodied Form
If your gateway asks to be met in another way, you may bring a visual or embodied form in place of, or alongside, the written assignment: images, dance, or another expression of form. Whatever supports the journey is welcome, as long as the steps still hold. The presentation will be offered at the closing ceremony for the Guardians.
Opening the Circle
To open a circle is to consecrate the threshold. Follow the Guardian keys:
- Centre in the heart
- Consecration: the offering
- Evoking the Goddess of the gateway
You will guide a short meditation to open the circle, inspired by what you wrote.
Begin by guiding through the inner pilgrimage, paying homage to the gateway we are in as we move toward the gateway being evoked. Bring a visualisation, a sensorial presence. The aim is not to guide us through your lineage, but through the qualities of your gateway. Do not evoke the personification of the Goddess in your lineage; rather, evoke her qualities, to keep the field open and neutral for all who walk it.
Structure
- Arriving (2 mins) — gently land in the body. Three breaths into the womb bowl, relaxing into the body on the exhale.
- Centering (7 mins) — awareness in the heart and the womb, a sense of consecration.
- Guided Journey (7 mins) — lead the group through your gateway. Stay within time; if you feel yourself going over, bring yourself back.
- Stillness (1 min) — space to integrate in silence.
Total: 15–20 mins. Keep an eye on the time.
Keep it simple, alive, and clear.
Throughout the Gateway
The weeks of the gateway are a living thread. Tend it gently. You may share:
- A photo or image of the Goddess in your gateway, with a simple and clear reflection. E.g. the Virgin Mary, who inspires devotion and purity.
- One or two reflection questions connected to your gateway, in the 1st and 3rd week as an example. Refer to the ebook.
- Leave space for the guidance to come through the videos offered at each gateway, and for me to be present with you and the group throughout.
- I have tried to demonstrate, through Gateway One, an example of how you can engage with the container: the posts, the images. We can work together.
Let it be minimal and intuitive: an ongoing thread, not an analysis.
Guide Posture
Remember your posture as a guide. Return to the keys of the work as often as you need.
You are in apprenticeship. Stay simple, clear, and embodied in your sharing. Your honesty is itself the medicine.
If questions arise from others in the group, direct them to me, so the message remains coherent and supported.
Walk with reverence. Speak as a prayer. Trust what is moving through you.
Jai Ma.