"The heroine is one who has remembered, reclaimed, and reconnected with her unfettered red thread. She has been initiated into the spirit of the depths by her dark sister and walks with newfound embodied authority into the upper world."
— Carly Mountain, Descent and Rising
I have challenged myself to go live on Instagram for 40 consecutive days.
On my first live—very unpolished, very real—my dearest sister Danielle from Caccio e Pepe asked me: why 40 days?
I am so grateful she asked. Because the answer to that question is everything.
The answer is rooted in the Inanna myth—and in a book that has held me through some of the hardest terrain of my life. It's called Descent and Rising by Carly Mountain. This book was gifted to me by my beloved sister Virginia Blue—a woman you will be hearing much more from soon. If you are a woman who has ever felt broken by something you couldn't name, I want you to know this book exists.
Carly Mountain is a psychotherapist and women's initiatory guide who uses the ancient Sumerian myth of the goddess Inanna as a blueprint for what she calls the heroine's journey—the core initiation of the feminine. Not the hero's journey, which is outward and conquering. This one goes down.
"The heroine's journey is an erotic, mystical initiation that revivifies our place in the shape of things. The fodder of our descents provides the compost from which the richest fruits of our lives can grow—if only we can turn toward our pain and let it work in us."
Carly maps not only the descent but the rising—and connects it all to a process of female psycho-spiritual growth that has been disregarded, dismissed, and buried by patriarchal culture.
The 40 days of showing up live is an initiation. A challenge to get over myself. To share my vulnerability, to allow myself to be seen exactly as I am—stripped down, unrehearsed— and to let every projection and fantasy about who I'm supposed to be crumble in real time. It is also how I am planting the seeds of a new world and a new offering. I hope you will read on. And I hope you will join me on this path toward building a matriarchy.
—
We are being presented with a moment. The very sacred moment that happens in ceremony where chaos is introduced so that healing and change can occur.
The chaos in the world—war, genocide, rape, mass murder, the open dismantling of everything we fought to protect, Donald Trump as a living breathing poo particle of everything that is rotting—this is the catalyst. Without it we would still be asleep. It is shaking the snow globe so violently that everything that settled at the bottom—every denied truth, every exiled part, every thing labeled too dark or too much or not real—is now floating in plain sight.
And what it stirs in us—the sacred rage, the grief, the old traumas and pain rising to the surface—that is not a problem to manage. That is Ereshkigal finally being heard. Those are the parts of ourselves that have been exiled the longest, the parts that patriarchy and white supremacy and capitalism needed us to keep quiet so the machine could keep running.
Those parts are not here to destroy us. They are here to be witnessed. Honored. Heard. Integrated into our fullness as human beings. They are the very fuel that will propel us forward into the change this world is aching for.
The only way out is through.
—
The matriarchy is not a plan. It is a surrender. A trust. A vision we are dreaming forward together without knowing exactly what it looks like yet—and that not-knowing is not a flaw. It is the whole point.
It cannot be built from scarcity or from the old approach of forcing and grinding and having it all figured out before you begin. It gets built the way Inanna rebuilt herself. By going all the way down first. By doing your own descent so you can show up to your communities from a real, grounded, embodied place. By learning to witness others in their fullness because you have allowed yourself to be witnessed in yours.
Men are welcome here—the conscious, curious, courageous ones showing up in genuine service. That is beautiful and I want that.
But we are not waiting for permission. We are not waiting to be rescued. We are spiritual warriors doing this in real time. In every space we occupy. In every role we inhabit. Showing up in our purpose, fully, without apology.
The sisterhood is not preparation for living in purpose. The sisterhood is living in purpose.
—
The Founding Members Hub is where we do this together.
I call it the Hub because I identify as a hub. Like a spider at the center of a web, I am a connector. I want this to be the place where the most brilliant, generous, alive women I know have a platform and a spotlight. I am a hype woman at my core—it is genuinely one of my favorite things to do on this earth, to see what someone is building and say, oh my god, you have to know about this person, you have to hear what she has to say, you have to experience what she makes. I want to do that inside a real, living, breathing community. I want us to be the ones telling each other where the good is. Where the truth is. Where the real love is.
Not an algorithm. Us.
When you join you get:
- Seasonal Ceremonies on Zoom - a place for us all to witness one another in prayer and feel connected and part of the collective.
- Godseye Weaving Circles - I will teach you how to make a Godseye and we sit together, weave, vision, listen to a Godseye playlist. It is a moving weaving meditation and color therapy and a way to make beauty together.
- Personal Shares From Me - not just newsletters. Real things. What I'm moving through, what's breaking open. What feels helpful to share to move our collective prayer forward.
- Voice Memo Access on WhatsApp - bring your prayers and questions. I will meet you there, voice to voice.
- Guest Teachers and Healers - the brilliant women and men in my orbit coming in to share their gifts with you directly.
And your favorite Godseye product at your door every month—you choose: Body Oil, Face Oil, Florida Water, Incense, Perfumes, Perfume Oils, Spirit Mist—made with love, made with my hands, showing up in yours.
The founding window closes May 18th.
—
I come here humbly and vulnerably. Knowing I won't be perfect or always get it right. Knowing this is a beginning and not an arrival. I am offering myself in service exactly as I am—a real person with a big prayer for more connection, more freedom, more health and happiness for all of us. I come with a lot of experience and I am genuinely excited to discover what more there is for me to learn inside this. I cannot wait to watch this grow and show us what it wants to become through our collaboration and togetherness.
If this is calling you, please come. I want you here. I have been waiting for this community to find itself and I believe you are a part of it.
And please share this with the women in your life who are ready.
Send this to them. Tell them there is a place being built for exactly who they are.
We build this web one thread at a time.
JOIN THE FOUNDING MEMBERS HUB
I love you,
Natalie
Godseye Oils | Santa Rosa, California
