Lisa Marie Rankin [00:00:00]:

In today's episode, I'm delighted to be in conversation with Muriel McMahon. She's a Jungian analyst, author, and thought leader. We're talking about her new book, one I know many of you will love, Baba Yaga's Wisdom. In this conversation, we explore a number of timely and yes, somewhat provocative topics, including the importance of reclaiming the crone, how to work consciously with archetypal energies, What it really means to reclaim your sovereignty and who actually holds the key, why it might not be the patriarchy that needs bashing, and where modern feminism may have missed the mark, and so much more. This is truly one of my favorite conversations. Let's dive in. Hello, beautiful listeners, and welcome back to the Goddess School Podcast. Today I am joined by Jungian analyst and author Muriel McMahon, and we are going to discuss her book, Babbi Yagga's wisdom, and I'm sure the conversation will also veer outside of that as well too.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:01:03]:

So thank you, Muriel. Thank you for coming to join us.

Muriel McMahon [00:01:07]:

Well, thank you very much for the invitation. I've dipped into the work that you're doing, and I think that that is essential, and the fact that you're casting the net wide in terms of what encountering these archetypal feminine energies are about. So I, right back at you, I'm pleased to be here. Excellent.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:01:26]:

Thank you. And now many of my women who are listening and who are in my community have read Women Who Run with the Wolves, and that's probably how most of the women have found me, maybe a little bit, a little bit different now. So many of them are familiar to some extent with the Baba Yaga. It's chapter 2 in that epic tome of women's wisdom. And I have just been loving your book, Baba Yaga's Wisdom, which is like a spiritual memoir, but it's also sort of fairy tale, archetypal, Jungian analysis as well. Can you just maybe share what inspired you to write this book and why the Baba Yaga?

Muriel McMahon [00:02:03]:

Okay, let me start with the backstory because the backstory is sometimes more interesting than anything. So I was at a very much at a turning point in my life, and this was around 1994, '95. So we're talking ancient history. And my beloved aunt, who was very much my, my femtor, she said, Muriel, I found a book that I think you'll find fascinating. And it was Women Who Run with the Wolves. And, I found it fascinating. I found it fascinating that someone could take these ancient tales and discuss them in a way that they were relevant to us. And so I was on fire with it.

Muriel McMahon [00:02:42]:

And then when I got the call to train as an analyst, I have a book club that we've been together for decades. And so they said, Mary, we don't understand what you're doing, but could you like kind of stretch us. So what book would you recommend that would help us understand what you are embarking upon? So of course, Women Who Run with the Wolves. 30 years later, they still tease me about that choice because half of the women read the fairy tales and love them. The other half read the commentary and loved it, but very few of them saw how you can look at the two of them together. So that was part of my encounter, and I've got about 3 copies of Women Who Run with the Wolves Wolves, and it's like an archaeological dig. You can see where I was at, at each point because of the highlights in the margin notes. So when I released my book, Baba Yaga's Wisdom, that same beloved aunt says, I think this is Women Who Run with the Witches instead of Women Who Run with the Wolves.

Muriel McMahon [00:03:49]:

And I said, well, maybe it's the same thing. Like maybe what Clarissa Picota Estés did is she introduced us to that wild feminine archetype. And what I'm to do is to show how that wild feminine archetype initiates us into our crone-dom. So here's the point I want to make clear to your listeners. You cannot become the crone until you have crowned the feminine. Crone means crown. And so the movement from the mother archetype to the crone archetype is significant. And many of us don't know how to make that passage.

Muriel McMahon [00:04:32]:

Yet, we have a culture that longs for the wisdom of the wise old woman. And so that's, that's where I'm planting my flag. And that's what I think Baba Yaga or Baba Yaga, it's pronounced both ways. I, I think that that's what this is about. How to embrace that last lap of our lives, not in obscurity,, but in prevalence. Here is who we are and we make no apology and we have something to share.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:05:03]:

Oh my goodness. I just got chills as you were saying that. And I know my listeners will too. So many of my listeners are women in midlife and beyond. And it's something that we've talked a lot about in, in my community about this transition from the crone. And I actually have a few questions to you, even just about that. Like, what does it mean to crown the feminine?

Muriel McMahon [00:05:24]:

Well, think of what it, what does it mean when we place the crown on someone's head? We said you are the authority. You are the one that holds the jewels. You are the one that we reverence. And what we have in our, and I don't even call it a culture in the West. I call it a cultural syndrome. What we have in our cultural syndrome is that the older woman is exiled. She is invisible. She is cast out.

Muriel McMahon [00:05:54]:

So the idea that she should be crowned, you know, that somehow her experience and her wisdom should be revered, that's what I mean about crowning the feminine. It means recognizing that all those irritations, all those obstacles that we've picked up along our path, can we polish them? Until they become the jewels of her crown. And when we put that on, like whether it's a crown or whether it's a mantle, that somehow we straighten our spine and we square our shoulders and we stop apologizing for our experience. We claim our experience and then we move forward with it.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:06:40]:

Yeah. Oh, I, I love that. Now, Muriel, I forgot to mention at the beginning, but I actually, found you in your work, cuz I had enrolled in one of your workshops maybe about 2 or so years ago, the Wild Woman Workshop. And there's something that you said that had always stuck with me, and I'm paraphrasing here so you can correct me, but it's the old woman will be knocking and if you keep avoiding her, she'll just keep knocking louder. And can you talk a little bit about what you meant by that? Because for me, I just turned 50 this this summer. And yes, part of me wants to, you know, wants to move forward into crondom and really kind of sync up the wisdom and be authoritative. And part of me was like, oh, I kind of like the maiden mother phase too. And so I can see myself that, you know, not really fully committing yet to going to the crone.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:07:34]:

I mean, my kids are still home and need me, so can't do that yet anyways. But there I do seem to be in like a liminal space. But I, I feel like I hear your voice in the background saying the more you avoid her, the louder she's going to not.

Muriel McMahon [00:07:49]:

Yeah. Yeah. So I appreciate your honesty around that because I think that that is the experience of most women. You know, they get, they get a glimpse of her or they get a, you know, a whiff of her perfume and it's, it's not yet. You know, the best definition of feminine authority I ever received was from a crone of a woman who was an analyst teacher of mine when I was studying in Zurich. Her name is Josephine Ewetz-Seker. And she said, this is her definition of feminine authority, the timely transgression of the rules in the service of life continuing. And she said that is so different than masculine authority.

Muriel McMahon [00:08:29]:

Masculine authority is about setting the rules and ordering chaos in order to have consensual reality. But she said, make no mistake about it, the feminine has authority and it's not coming out of our animus. It's not coming out of that inward masculine. It's coming out of that timely transgression of the rules in the service of life continuing. So what that means, she said every part of that definition is essential. The timely transgression. So the first time she comes knocking, it might not be time, but you gotta recognize she's knocking and you have to stay attuned. So maybe, you know how Clarissa Pinkota Este talks about how the wolf is tracking you and you catch a glimpse of the eyes through the trees, but you don't encounter her directly.

Muriel McMahon [00:09:28]:

I think the first time, and my indigenous elders would say it happens at the threshold of 50. So start paying attention because she starts to knock, but you also have to stay attuned to what life asks of you right now. If you just go off to some ashram or, or run away from your responsibilities because you want to discover the crone, that is not attunement because the life continuing is you meeting your responsibilities as mother.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:10:06]:

Yeah.

Muriel McMahon [00:10:07]:

As wife, as member of your community, but staying attuned. Something deeper is calling me. Yeah. And when the time is right, I will know because there will be no other choice. And so that's the point. So when she comes knocking, I would say you don't run into the woods looking for her soul fire the first time she comes knocking. Because that just means you're going to spend more time on the floor sorting the seeds. It's like you say, okay, you're calling me.

Muriel McMahon [00:10:42]:

I hear you, but not yet. I need to launch my children. I need to finish this project. I need to, I need to, I need to. And then when the soul fire starts to go out, that's when you know Now I need to answer the summons. Now I need to go to her hut in order to be given my soul fire.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:11:08]:

Oh, I love that so much. And I think that is going to be so helpful for women. And I want to continue to talk about the Baba Yaga, but you just brought up something that I would love to get your opinion on. So I have read Women Who Run with the Wolves or the community of women multiple times, and then In this last time we got a discussion and it really got me thinking and it was about the story of the Selkie woman. And I think many of my listeners know the story, so I, I won't bother recapping, but a lot of, a lot of women will be like, well, I lost my soul skin, you know, when I had children, when I had this. And I started to challenge them and it's like, well, maybe your focus just should've been with your children when you had children. You didn't lose your, your soul skin, but that's, we are in different phases at different times. Cuz sometimes I think in our culture, whether it's women who run with the wolves or kind of self-help therapy, it's always like, you're not doing this right.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:12:02]:

You should be doing this. You're not being authentic enough. And it kind of hit me that like, well, no, I mean, if you have kids, yeah, most of your time's gonna be spent right there. And sometimes we do have to care for elderly people. And it's not to say that that's all of our life force, but it's also appreciating the phases that we're in to like, like you just said.

Muriel McMahon [00:12:22]:

Yeah.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:12:22]:

Do you have any kind of thoughts?

Muriel McMahon [00:12:23]:

Yeah, I do. I mean, I, I think that there is something so tragic about the Selkie story because in the end, when she finds the skin and she returns to her sisters, she leaves her children on the shore. And all they've got is the songs that they hear in their dreams, or they go down and they get a glimpse of her. I wouldn't want that of my children or of my grandchildren. So there is something about recognizing the sacrifice to the future, because that's what you're doing when you bring children in the world. You are saying, I give my life to nurturing the future. And so does that mean it's a sacrifice or a slaughter? And I think that's key because a slaughter means you just live in what I could have been and what I could have done. And I gave up that career on Broadway.

Muriel McMahon [00:13:30]:

And if that is what you are raising your children with, go to Broadway because those children will be carrying your unlived life because there's a bitterness there. But if you say, no, I have by circumstance or by design or by choice I have made a sacrifice and I gave up that career on Broadway in order to bring these children into the world, then that's sacred. That's a sacrifice. So the root of sacrifice is to make sacred. So when you're raising your children and you're going from Little League to dance recital and feeling like you're pulled in a thousand directions, and there's that part of you that's remembering remembering the longing to be on the stage. It's like acknowledge that longing and bring that into the way that you raise your children. And so that little girl you're taking to, to dance recital, maybe you're saying to her, don't live my unlived life. I made a choice and you have different choices.

Muriel McMahon [00:14:44]:

So could I nurture you to become more than what I was? And I think that's the, that's our task as elder women is to lift up the future to be more than what we were because we come from afflicted mothers and grandmothers, right? So it's not to say, okay, I have to put my whole soul path on the shelf because I have this duty and responsibility to my children. No, that's not the right attitude. The right attitude is to say, I made a sacrifice and I will make this sacred by the way I offer myself to my children. And then in that way, whatever was that artistic inspiration in me, whatever that was, maybe I don't have to live it out. Maybe my children can, maybe my grandchildren can, maybe my great-grandchildren can. So I think what that does is it gives a perspective to women that says your life right now has the potential to be sanctified. Like it's not just drudgery, although it feels like that some days. You know, so how do you take that drudgery and you say, I'm going to sanctify it because I believe it's in service to life continuing.

Muriel McMahon [00:16:10]:

Like, The transgression of the rules in service of life continuing. So life continuing is not just your own life. It's not your ego desires. It's not your longing. It's life itself, right? So you've put these seeds into the world, and can you nurture those seeds to grow and become so much more than you could ever imagine you being? That is the task of the mature mother. Approaching her crondom.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:16:42]:

Yeah, that is so empowering. I think that is just going to be so helpful to so many people because it does get us out of this egoic-centric, like, I have to really connect to self and pursue my desires and how I want to individuate, which, yes, that is important. And it is in, as you said, the cycle of continuing in life. And if you have children, then that's That's where the responsibility goes to. And I think that, I think that also takes a lot of pressure off of people too, where they can just be where they are in life and recognize— Beautifully said.

Muriel McMahon [00:17:16]:

I am exactly where I'm supposed to be. Right. And there is something there, you know, and I'm not meaning to disenfranchise women who have chosen not to have children or can't have children, but it is a biological imperative. In the feminine to reproduce. So if you do not have children of your own, then you have to have soul children. You have to have those things you want to put into the world and that you will, in some respects, be planting seeds for shade you will never enjoy. Like, that's the concept. It's like the future is what is following you.

Muriel McMahon [00:17:58]:

So you have to keep cutting trail to show the future the way to be that's greater than the obstacles that you met.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:18:08]:

Yeah. Oh, I'm, you've just given me even like just so much more to think about. So thank you so much.

Muriel McMahon [00:18:13]:

You know, let me tell you a story about, I host these, I called it Old Women Dreaming and they were these dreaming intensives because I noticed quite early in my practice that women over 50 dreamt differently than women under 50. And there is a quality of an old woman's dream, and to call a 50-year-old woman an old woman, just bear with me. But there is a quality to an old woman's dream that is also dreaming for the collective, dreaming for the future, not just dreaming for themselves and their own individuation. So I recognized that. I recognized that phenomenon. So I thought, well, what if I call together old women We do this intensive and we really explore old women's dreams and what are our dreams telling us about what the collective needs, about the way forward. So it was a profoundly beautiful experience. The intensive was planned and I looked at the long-range weather forecast and we were going to be getting rain.

Muriel McMahon [00:19:17]:

And so my nephew was living with us at the time and I said to him, can you build a shelter for me at some, some kind? Because most of the work that we did was actually on the land. And so he said, sure, you know, and I imagined he was going to put up some poles and some tarps and we were going to sit under the tarps. And he said, do you want a reciprocal pole lodge? And I didn't know what that was. So I said, well, what do you need? And he said, what I want to do is I want to build you this lodge where all the poles lean on each other. And that's what holds the structure. And I thought, if that's not perfect for women coming together, I don't know what is. So absolutely, what do you need? And so my husband and my nephew and his father worked on this reciprocal pole lodge for me. And it was, in its end, it was magnificent.

Muriel McMahon [00:20:08]:

But here's the story I want to tell. They had the scaffolding to hold the poles because what you do is when you take away the scaffolding, the logs rest on each other. And so it really is that idea of Who's leaning and who's being leaned on, which I think is a profound metaphor for the company of women. I think we know that sometimes we don't know if we're leaning or being leaned on. So there was this point, it was a, uh, like a Saturday afternoon and the lodge was under construction and the old women and the children were sitting in the shade drinking tea, drinking iced tea, and we watched the men. And so here was this, this young man who was standing on the highest point through the smoke hole, instructing the older men beneath him when to release the scaffolding. And I stopped and I said to the women, that's it. That's what it looks like because all these men were lifting up this young man to be more than they could be.

Muriel McMahon [00:21:32]:

And it was in the service of old women and their dreams. And I said, just take that in. This is a moment. This is a tableau of exactly what we need the masculine to do. And let it serve old women in their dreams because old women will dream the future into being. It's not going to come from our power brokers. It's not going to come from our ideologies. It's going to come from women tending the children, watching the dogs, drinking iced tea, and noticing that moment.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:22:09]:

That, that is amazing.

Muriel McMahon [00:22:10]:

Wow.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:22:10]:

How symbolic. I mean, that is just That's such a beautiful image and just how meaningful as well too.

Muriel McMahon [00:22:20]:

Thank you.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:22:21]:

Thank you so much for that.

Muriel McMahon [00:22:22]:

So when those women gathered together on that intensive retreat, I mean, their dreams, you know, this is going back 15, 20 years ago. And I can see that some of those dreams that were shared were telling us exactly what's needed for these times. Yeah. Because what do we need to know during the end times? Like, this is not the end times, but an end times, right? Like, we're in chaos, we're in dissolution, we're in everything that we know to be true. And the instructions are, we've got two tasks, build an ark and save the seeds. So what is the ark? Ark is podcasts, courses, gatherings of women that hold the instincts and keep them alive. That's what an ark is, right? Two by two, they came in and they survived the flooding. But you're also saving the seeds that when the waters recede and the chaos is over, life will continue.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:23:32]:

Yeah. Oh, thank you. Thank you for that. And actually, I think that's a kind of another good transition of where I also wanted to go. So in this book, you relate Baba Yaga to Christ. And I think that many people would be like, what? I don't even understand that. And you and I talked a little bit before I hit record. And from my experience working with women, it seems very much I can have this, I can have the divine feminine, or I can have Christ, but I can't have both.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:24:04]:

So I was personally delighted delighted to see that you could. But can you tell me a little bit more about that?

Muriel McMahon [00:24:12]:

Okay. And part of the book will tell you my own story because it's also a spiritual memoir. And it will tell you that when I left Baba Yaga's hut with the soul fire in the skull that I had won from doing the tasks of what the crone demanded, that the last thing I expected that I would return to the church of my birthright and that I would return to the Catholic Church. Church. What? No, I got liberated and I left that. It's so patriarchal and there's so many evidence of wounds. And so I left that. But when it took me back, it took me back in a way I didn't expect.

Muriel McMahon [00:24:55]:

And that took me back into what I would call the mystical core of the church, which is the mystical Christ. It's not Jesus of Nazareth. It is and it isn't. It's deeper idea of the cosmic Christ. And when my book was released, I got a, I got an invitation from my priest to come and have a conversation, you know, and it's like, uh oh, what's that going to be? And so I went in and sat down in the parlor and, you know, a little bit of small talk. And then he says, he says to me, oh, just a minute. I want to share something with you. Okay.

Muriel McMahon [00:25:32]:

And he runs upstairs and he comes back down and he said, listen to this. And he plays me this incredible piece of music from a Russian composer, and it is written around approaching the Baba Yaga's hut. And it's haunting and it's dark. And then the second part of the piece is the gates of Kiev when things open up into Alleluia. And I thought, you know, we don't need to discuss my book. He just told me that he gets it. He told me that we're not talking about dogma. We're not talking about this or this.

Muriel McMahon [00:26:15]:

We're talking about where is that undercurrent where the disavowed feminine, which is the Baba Yaga, she's the disavowed, she's been exiled, she's been cast into the forest. What is she doing there that's also aligned with what the mystical Christ is doing in the church. The church itself as an institution is as flawed as any human psyche can be. Yet that doesn't mean that there's not something there. So when I write in the book, I do this part where I have Baba Yaga speak to Christ as an act of imagination. And I remember when I got to, when I, got that sense of this is what I have to do. I thought like, you know, Arthur Brafter's gonna shake him, you know, I better light a candle. Like, how, who do I think I am doing an act of imagination where Baba Yaga speaks to the mystical Christ or the wild Christ? I like to call him also the wild Christ.

Muriel McMahon [00:27:21]:

Well, I like that. But I did that and then I had the wild Christ speak to Baba Yaga. And it was so beautiful because they said, you know, we're not adversaries. We're twins. Baba breaks us down to our very essence, and then Christ gathers us in and reminds us that we're beloved. And so at one point in the act of imagination, Baba says to them, says to the Christ, don't wipe them too clean. And what Christ says is they are welcomed with soot on their face and dirt under their fingernails. So it's that idea of a coniunctio that says what has been disavowed can be welcomed in, welcomed into the ritual or the mystery or the mysticism, not necessarily into the dogma.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:28:19]:

Yeah. And I feel like, 'cause I know I've had so many women in my community who will talk about their Christian upbringing and how it was very patriarchal and very oppressive. So they've basically disavowed it and have kind of gone into the feminine. But I really like when we think of it as kind of the mystical Christianity and even just the Christ consciousness, the archetypal, you know, what we think of as I love the wild Christ too, that they can coexist.

Muriel McMahon [00:28:46]:

Yeah. You know, Martin Shaw, who is a mythologist bar none, he's done a lot of work on, his latest book is called Liturgies of the Wild. And what he is doing in that is really talking about the wild Christ, the druid that was Christ. It's not the Christ of the evangelical churches. It's a, it's a very different energy. And I think that that's the energy that has always been and the energy that is right. And so I would say to those women, I'm not saying you have to go back to a church, but I'm saying open up to that idea of that mystical consciousness. And the best example we have for it of what it can look like is, is what they call the greatest story ever told.

Muriel McMahon [00:29:33]:

Because if he just suffered and died, that would be a pretty good story. But he also rose again. Which says something about that is the death is defeated by a new revelation. Yeah. And I think that that's what we long for and that's what our culture needs. So in terms of the feminine, some would say the feminine has been disavowed by our mainstream religions, right? But, you know, I went to church this morning and it was the, the memorial of Mary. I didn't know that when I went in and the man behind me said we, we need an opening song. And he sang the Ave Maria.

Muriel McMahon [00:30:14]:

And oh my God, it was like, that's what we are gathered under. There's something about the sacred feminine that yes, we know her as Virgin and we know her as Mother. And if I could be so bold as to suggest, maybe we also have to know her as the old woman. And we know that about Mary. We know that Mary died an old woman. But there were no gospels written about that. I'm not suggesting I'm writing the gospel, but I am saying, I think through our imagination, we can let that energy move in us.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:30:49]:

For sure. And I think it's, it's so much needed as well. So thank you for that. I feel like that's a great permission slip for, I think, women who do long to have ties with the religion that they were brought up with, but almost feel that they can't for whatever reason, that yes, you can have both.

Muriel McMahon [00:31:08]:

Yeah. Yeah. You know, I said in a blog recently that there was a mic drop moment from my priest is that I had been 20 years out of the church. And when I returned, I found it very welcoming. I mean, I was introduced to an old man on my way out of the church and, you know, oh, this is Muriel and she's just been, she's new here. And he said, oh, I've been here for 35 years. And I looked him in the eye and I said, thank you. Like, thank you for keeping the pew warm and the lights on so there was somewhere for me to come home to.

Muriel McMahon [00:31:41]:

So what am I coming home to? I'm coming home to that sense of silence and that sense of ritual. So I was speaking to my priest and he said to me, well, why did you leave in the first place? Because you obviously have this like sensibility to the divine or the mystical. And I said, because the church of the '70s and the '80s and maybe even the '90s, it was too easy to walk away from because it was just so much a mirror of the world and it was trying too hard to say, this is the world. Well, I can get that elsewhere. I can get social justice elsewhere. I can get community elsewhere. I can get ritual elsewhere. I can get it in goddess circles and all kinds of things.

Muriel McMahon [00:32:25]:

And so I said, so I got nothing of it. And it was the mic drop moment. He said to me, what makes you think you should get something from it? He said, the etymology of worship is that that is what we deem worthy. So what we give our time and attention to is what we deem worthy. It's not about getting something from it. So if you, if you go into nature because you worthy of your time and attention and something touches you, that's great. If you go into a sanctuary, I've never been one of, I'm not interested in the pulpit. I'm interested in the altar.

Muriel McMahon [00:33:09]:

I'm interested in the ritual. I'm interested in whatever is reenacted in that ceremony. So I think that that's what we have to give people permission to consider.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:33:21]:

It's so funny. So much of you're saying are things that I've been kind of thinking about to some extent, but, and I've been trying to articulate it, but I've even noticed, you know, how it's evolved in my spiritual practice where it's like before it's like, well, what's in it for me? Am I going to feel more enlightened? Am I going to be more at ease? Will I attract better things? And I think that is how spirituality can be sold. I'm quoting in our culture sometimes. But really it's like, how can I be a vessel for divine will? Like, this is what I deem worthy. It's not about what I can get, but it's about like, how can I connect to the divine? And maybe nothing, you know, maybe, you know, it doesn't mean your life is going to get easier. You're going to have more money and everything.

Muriel McMahon [00:34:07]:

Maybe you just learn how to handle the suffering with grace. Yes. Right? Because there is no promise through any religion or any spiritual practice that you're not going to suffer, but what do you do with that suffering? I mean, so let me go a little Jungian on you because that's also my bread and butter. You know that Jung said, if we can make meaning of our suffering, we can endure it. But if it seems meaningless, then we can't endure it. So it's the idea of these goddess figures that many of the, I would say, and I don't mean this disparaging, the New Age leans toward because there is an image of the feminine that calls up something in them that they don't find in Mother Mary or they don't find in Kuan Yin. Like, and so it's like if I, if I explore Hecate or Lilith, Or, you know, Bridget, it, it calls up something in me. So it's like there is an archetypal form that speaks to the archetypal energy of the divine feminine.

Muriel McMahon [00:35:23]:

So whatever form draws you, give your attention to that, but don't make that the thing. There's a wonderful teaching in Buddhism that says, if you meet the Buddha along the road, kill him. Because as soon as you've projected him out there, the task is to kill the projection so that you can own the eminence, right? So I would say whatever goddess image is calling to you, worship it, meaning deem it worthy of your time and attention. But don't make it the god. Don't make it the goddess. Don't make it the archetype. See it as the form that is the silhouette that is speaking to the great divine.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:36:14]:

Yeah. Thank you. So thinking about archetypes, so you, you say it in your book, and I've also heard James Hollis write about it as well too. And I think it's a good distinction about archetypes are these moving forces, because I think sometimes people think of an archetype like, I will dress up as Aphrodite, or I will, you know, do something like the bobby goddess, let my hair go all wild or crazy, but they're actually energies. Like, I know James Hollis talks about them as like being verbs. Is that— yeah, yeah.

Muriel McMahon [00:36:45]:

Well, thank you for that, Lisa, because I think that that is key, right? Because archetypes are energetic fields. And they are unknowable. Yet each age, each culture, each eon puts forth a form of that archetype that the people of that time or that place can relate to. But it is not the thing. It points to the thing. So the idea that, you know, someone asked me in a, in a supervision course, Can the archetypes change? Can the archetypes transform? And I thought it was a very profound question. I thought, no, I think the archetypal forms can change. I think they have to change, but I think the archetype itself is pure energy.

Muriel McMahon [00:37:42]:

And so that, that's what, that's what informs, because if you take like Jean Shinoda Bolden, did a beautiful job, The Archetypes in Women, The Archetypes in Old Women, where she was looking at the goddesses. And so if you take all those goddess forms, can you distill that to what is archetypical in the human female that touches each of those forms, right? So when I, when I teach about archetypes, I teach about what is arch, meaning top, typical. So what do we as human beings typically do when we come into that energy? Right? So to say you can kind of manifest the archetype, I think is an inflation. I think that's where, that's where the archetype comes in and possesses the ego, and that can become incredibly dangerous.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:38:45]:

Yeah. Yes, for sure.

Muriel McMahon [00:38:46]:

Because we need an ego self-axis. So we need an ego strong enough. If someone comes into me for analysis, the first thing I'm going to assess is what was the bloat or the persona that had them come in? They lost a job, they got sick, they got a divorce, whatever. Something of who they thought they were has taken a blow. So they come in and want to heal. They want to You know, somehow understand their suffering and good on them. Then the next task of the analyst is to assess the ego. Do they have a boat big enough to go into the deep waters? Or is their boat so rickety that we basically should paddle around the shore, right? So it's like you have to assess the capacity of the ego to go into the depths.

Muriel McMahon [00:39:34]:

I had someone come in with a dream one time. And the dream was that they were on, they had built this raft tied together with twine and they were out in the deep water. That said to me, let's come into port and get a bigger boat because the desire to be in the deep water, you better have a craft that's strong enough to hold it. So we do need an ego. Contrary to what the Buddhists would tell us, transcend the ego. No, you need an ego, particularly in the West. You need an ego. And then you have to do the shadow work.

Muriel McMahon [00:40:08]:

You have to say, what have I denied in my psyche that I need to kind of onboard in order to come to the fullness of who I am? And then you approach that level of what Jung called the anima or the animus. So that's the organ of perception. And then you come into the self. So if you want to connect with that goddess energy, you have to, you can't just put on the costume and be Aphrodite. You can't just be the part of Aphrodite that is the lover. You can't just find Mars and commune with him. It's like all those levels have to be navigated so you can come into the fullness of the archetypal energy, but it's got an ego to hold it. Yeah.

Muriel McMahon [00:40:59]:

If it's trying to be held by the persona, it's going to look like a costume. If it's trying to be held by the shadow, then you're just going to say, well, I'm just going to like, you know, speak out against the culture, which told me I had to be a virginal mother. Right? And then you get to the energy of the organ of perception that brings you to that, the fullness of the archetype. That seems like a lot. I hope I didn't lose anybody, but.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:41:25]:

I think— No, I don't think you did. I don't think you did. A lot of them, a lot of the women have hair. Listening have done, you know, have explored a lot of archetypal work, but I do think you provided a lot of depth and the distinction between like, it's not like a costume change, right? Like it's not associated with the persona. It does go deeper. And I think that's important to, to understand.

Muriel McMahon [00:41:48]:

And maybe you, maybe you have to put on the costume for a while to feel what it's like. I remember one time when we Jungian puppies, we were so weird. You know, we decided to have a party, a costume party, come as your shadow. And so how much fun would that be, right? We're all training to be Jungian analysts and let's have a come as your shadow. I like it. Lisa, it was so disappointing because you can't see your own shadow. Everybody else can. So I wanted to say to some, oh, you shouldn't have worn that.

Muriel McMahon [00:42:18]:

You should have wore that. Like, you know what I mean? Because you, you, you can't see your own shadow. It's like Marianne Woodman said to me at one point in supervision. Muriel, you know that the shadow is behind you, so you can't see it. Everybody else can, but you can't. You know, so the idea that if you put on the costume of the energy that you feel is moving through you, do it. Read the books, paint the pictures, dress and feel the fullness of that energy. But if you start to make that your persona, then something's off, right? You have to say, I'm trying it on because I want to draw up that energy from the depth.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:43:02]:

Yeah, I like that. And that's definitely even things what I've talked about women. It's like, yeah, if you want to try to invite more love, play around with it. You know, how would the lover dress? You know, how would she pick out her produce at the farmer's market? Like, what would she do?

Muriel McMahon [00:43:16]:

Absolutely. And then give yourself the space to say, what's the shadow of that? Yeah. You know, and, and I mean, here's an important piece and I'm going to write on that. I think I do on a chapter when I talk about the wicked stepsisters that there is in this, and I don't call it a patriarchy. I had someone come in on Friday and they said, I said, so how are you? Where are we going today? And she said, I want to talk about the patriarchy. Okay. What do you want to say about patriarchy? And obviously triggered by the release of the files. And so she was just incensed about the way that women have been oppressed and on and on.

Muriel McMahon [00:43:57]:

So I gave her the space to talk about it because a complex is not resolved until it's lived out to its full. So there has to be the container to hold the emotions of the outrage. And so I gave her that time and then I said to her, can I make a suggestion? I said, what if it's not a patriarchy? Well, I could just see her fight, like, right? I said, what if it's a powerarchy? Because Jung says, where there is love, there is no will to power. And where love is absent, power dominates. So the idea that the powerarchy is what oppresses the vulnerable. Is what oppresses women and children and men. It's the idea of the powerarchy that we, I think we have to get, we have to come into terms with.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:44:53]:

Oh, I like that distinction. And I'm glad you said that because I hear a lot of women also come like, you know, and it always did kind of like, oh, it doesn't sound right. Like we bash the patriarchy, you know, and it's like, I think it's the powerarchy is that we're, we're looking at.

Muriel McMahon [00:45:09]:

Yeah. Yeah. So in this woman's story, when we got to that point that we could talk about it, not as men who have oppressed, but as power that has been oppressive, then to her credit, she could get to that point where, okay, I wanted a piece of that pie. Like she was a corner office in a corporate financial firm. And struggling as a 63-year-old woman, struggling with the parts of her that she has shelved that now want to come into fullness. So do you tear down the patriarchy or do you recognize it as a powerarchy and say, okay, Where is my feminine authority in this? I can walk away. I can speak differently. I could stay relational.

Muriel McMahon [00:46:09]:

And at some point I may walk from this, but I walk from this with my head held high. Yeah. As opposed to somehow feel like I've sacrificed myself on the altar.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:46:23]:

Yeah. Great distinction. And I would love to get your your opinion, your take on it, because I have had a lot of women, you know, really, you know, they'll, they'll come to groups that I have and just, I'm so upset about the patriarchy, I really, you know, this is really— and then when I try to inquire like, well, how specifically has the patriarchy specifically oppressed you, I often won't really get an answer, or it'll be something that a man had said to them once that made them feel bad. Yeah. What would you say, or how would you guide someone to know the distinction between men and all men versus patriarchy versus powerarchy? Because I do feel it gets kind of— it gets kind of fused where somebody has had a man say something that they found derogatory, and then that's kind of the image that they have going forward when they're talking about the patriarchy.

Muriel McMahon [00:47:19]:

Yeah, I mean, this is a very, this is a razor's edge, right? This is the crucible. The best work on this came from one of Jung's students, and Jung was able to do for Erich Neumann what Freud couldn't do for him. That when Jung was finding his own brilliance outside of his mentor, Freud tried to hold him down and say, no, thou shalt not. What Jung was able to do for Erich Neumann is what those fathers did for my nephew and say, "Run with it. Take it." So there was a book written by Erich Neumann in, I think it was written in 1949 and published in 1954. And when he first presented it to other analysts at Eranos, which is, you know, like the inner circle gathers to talk about what's new, The analysts got up and left the room because it was so hot. They just didn't know whether they could take it on. And it's called Depth Psychology and the New Ethic.

Muriel McMahon [00:48:23]:

And what Erich Neumann says in that book is whatever you see out there, oppression, degradation, whatever you see out there, you have to say it's part of the human condition. Because that person, although they feel like a demon, they are a human being. Where is that in me? And so you have to be able to say, what would it take for me to be that despicable? If my children were on the line, maybe I would, right? So you have to be able to find it in yourself. So when someone's railing about the patriarchy, The hard work is to say, and what part of that have you contributed to? And that's the hard place because that feels like you're blaming the victim. It's not blaming the victim. It's just saying the conditions at which you felt to get that piece of the pie would somehow liberate you. That led to the very fact of your oppression. And so to be able to pull that back and say, so what was your nascent sense? Did you want to be a mother or did you want to be a power broker? And I'm going to go out on a limb here.

Muriel McMahon [00:49:52]:

Feminism sold us a lie because they said as women, we could be both. And I think that that is unrealistic. There are those who are called to go out there and their children will be their ideas or their creative productions. And then there are those that are living that through their children. But the lie is that you should be both. And so then you feel so stretched and that you do neither of them fully, right? You feel like you're failing as a mother and you feel like you're failing as an artist. Right? So how to say, okay, what in fact is, is my nascent destiny here? But when we start just saying it's them, it's that, it's out there, then we have to somehow say, let's find it in ourselves.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:50:48]:

And it's more empowering to find it in yourselves. It's just not as easy because it's easier to say it's out there.

Muriel McMahon [00:50:56]:

Absolutely. Absolutely. We had this exercise in Zurich and I invite your listeners to try it. That the analyst that was teaching us asked us to, to think of someone in our personal life that you think, oh, I hope he doesn't come to Thanksgiving dinner, or I hope she isn't there at Christmas. So just conjure up that image. We all have one, right? And then list 5 characteristics of that person that irritates you. And then do the same thing for somebody in your professional life. Who's the subordinate or who's the superior? And then list 5 characteristics.

Muriel McMahon [00:51:33]:

Then do it for someone in the public sphere. Who is the politician or who is the statesperson or who is whatever? And then, so you've got 15 characteristics and maybe some of them are repeating. And then the task was you worked with a partner. So I would give you this list, Lisa, and you would say to me, oh, you're bombastic. You're so full of yourself. You're just so self-centered. And I had to hear that, and I had to hear what part of those 15 characteristics landed as a truth. So it was a way to pull back the projection and say, okay, that's in me to a lesser degree maybe, but it's in me.

Muriel McMahon [00:52:18]:

Then the next part was you had to then turn to your partner and say, I am bombastic when. I am self-serving when, and so what you had to do is you had to claim that peace in you. And what seemed to happen is that, that person became less irritating. Not that you felt this— upspring of compassion for them, but you thought, oh boy, there but for the grace of God go I. Like, it's in me too. So this is something I can do something about. I can't do something about it out there. So if we look at the patriarchy and we look at the ways that we have been oppressed or the ways that we've been threatened or the ways that we've been held down, the work is to say, and where have we internalized that? Yes.

Muriel McMahon [00:53:10]:

Like where do we, like when you've got this artistic idea and you say to yourself, Oh, I can't do it because my kids need me. I can't, like I had a person the other day, she's just on fire with SoulCollage. And she's wanting to have a place on the dining room table that she can just come to it when she has some time. But those oppressive voices in her, it's not coming from her husband or her son. It's coming from her that says, I shouldn't take up too much space. Yeah. Like the dining room table should be where I lay out the meal for my family. And I said, there's like 4 of you.

Muriel McMahon [00:53:51]:

How many people? Like, could you not leave it at one end? Oh, I guess I could. Right? But the oppressive voice was in her, not in her family.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:54:03]:

Yeah. That's such a great point. It's funny. I just did a workshop on Bluebeard talking about the inner predator, about being your own oppressive voice, because another thing that comes up, and then I do want to get back to Baba Yaga, is, you know, I remember I remember talking about the King Arthur tale and sovereignty, and because I hear women saying like, oh, I wish I need more sovereignty. And then when I ask them like, well, where do you not feel empowered to make a choice? Again, and I know there's some women in the world who truly don't have sovereignty, many of the women in West do have a good level. So I was surprised that it kept coming up. But then when we drill down, it's like you said, well, I wanna do this on the table and I feel that I can't. It's There was, there was limits they were putting on themselves.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:54:45]:

Nobody else was doing it. It was almost like they needed their own, like, self-sovereignty, but it wasn't because.

Muriel McMahon [00:54:52]:

It might ask them to claim why that's important. So they sit down with their family at the, at the other end of the table and the 18-year-old son says, Mom, what's that mess over there? And can she not speak with apology, but say, I'm working on, I'm working on some soul collage. This is a way for me to see my inner self. And can she stand to that and have a conversation? Or does she apologize and get shamed and shut it down? And I think sometimes it's, we don't know how or don't know that we can survive the reclamation. And that's, that's a big thing.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:55:37]:

Yeah. So much to think about. So going back to your fantastic book that I will put a link to in the show notes. So Baba Yaga's Wisdom. So why, why Baba Yaga out of all of the different characters and all of the different archetypes? Like what is it about either the story of Vasilisa the Beautiful or just the Baba Yaga in general that is so resonant for you?

Muriel McMahon [00:55:59]:

I've always got a story, Lisa. So the story was I was working with this incredible shaman woman She's done a lot of work with the Four Winds Shamanistic School. And so she, she did a journey. We did a journey. And so in that journey, I went to a place on our land. We have 100 acres of forest. So I went to this place on the land where the mother tree is. And I expected I was going to descend into the roots of the mother tree.

Muriel McMahon [00:56:32]:

But that's not what happened is I was shot up up into the branches, and then I was picked up by an eagle, and I was basically flown all over the land, and then dropped. And the message was so clear. Build a Baba Yaga hut. What? You know, and so then I, I, I would say to my husband, I, I'd wake up some days and I'd say, I got an idea. And he said, oh no. An idea means I have to go to the hardware store. And I said, yeah, probably. I said, I want to build a Baba Yaga hut.

Muriel McMahon [00:57:07]:

And he said, well, what's that? And I said, I don't know, but I think it's a prayer hut. I think it's a, it's, it's a she shed. I think it's something that I can just listen to what's moving through me as I approach my crondom. And so that's what we did is we built a Baba Yaga hut. And building that hut had me amplify her story in more ways than I'd ever known. And so she became the navel of this land. And so it just seemed, it just made sense that that should be the story. And when I studied the story and taught the story, I thought, this is the story for our times.

Muriel McMahon [00:57:51]:

This is the story where the old woman who has been marginalized very much alive. She's not lost her essence, but she has been exiled. And so those of us who have the courage to go toward her, she will put you through the test because she just won't give her wisdom unless it's earned. But when it's earned, you walk with that skull flame, which is your own soul. And when you walk back into the culture, it lets you know what's false and what's real. So that became like my grandson's, my grandson calls it Yabba the Hut or Jabba the Hut. And my neighbor calls it the Yabba Dabba Doo Hut. Like, but it is basically a space that says, here is the energy I want to constellate.

Muriel McMahon [00:58:46]:

Here's the energy that I want to make a home for. So I imagine some of your listeners, they might have their own energy. And it might be Aphrodite or it might be Artemis or it might be, but can you build, and it doesn't have to be a hut in the woods, it can be an altar in your home, but can you build something that says, I honor you. I make a space for you and I will listen to what you have to give me. So I thought I was done with Baba Yaga's wisdom. But I have just discovered there has to be a companion book. So the companion book is going to be speaking of how does a man move from sage, or how does a man move from father to sage? So that's going to be the companion book. So I'm still, I'm working on that.

Muriel McMahon [00:59:35]:

But Baba Yaga's wisdom, I think, gave the expression of that archetypal energy that I think is ripe for our times. You know, I tell in the story about a colleague who we were doing a case presentation on Fridays. We would meet and we'd each present our cases. And at the end of the presentation, I said to her, oh, I understand it's your birthday. Happy birthday. Happy 60th birthday. What are you doing? And the air went out of the room and she came into my office and she was furious. She said, how dare you announce my age publicly? And I said, I'm sorry, I didn't know it was a secret.

Muriel McMahon [01:00:16]:

She said, you are too young to know. Old women become invisible and I'm not willing to become invisible yet. And that, that landed. I was only 45 or something like that, but it landed. Why are old women invisible? Why don't we reverence their wisdom? Them. Why in this, in this culture of disposability, we don't allow for their eternal truths. So that's my, that's my homage. That's my worship to Baba Yaga is that, yeah, yeah, we need her.

Muriel McMahon [01:00:56]:

We need her now more than ever before.

Lisa Marie Rankin [01:00:58]:

For sure. We do. It's interesting. Many women, I think even before they know about Baba Yaga and they'll often talk about like, oh, I just wish I had a little hut in the woods that I can go to to myself. And that to me really does seem like that archetypal energy. Like, why are all these women saying, I wish I had a little hut in the woods and I could have my apothecary and talk to the animals and maybe do my tarot in peace? Like, you know, that sense of wanting to connect with that energy. What would you say to women who are feeling this? Like, What are the tasks that, that they can be expecting? And I know you talk about this a bit in your book, like kind of like the concept in the story of the task. But what about the women who do want to come forth, but maybe they.

Muriel McMahon [01:01:43]:

Just don't even know how? Yeah. Yeah. So I think the first thing is you have to answer the summons when it's become too loud to ignore. You know, so as you said earlier in our talk that, you know, you know, she's knocking. But you're not quite free enough to respond. So I think you have to know when it's time to answer the summons. And that's you go into the forest, you go into the uncertainty, you go into the darkness, and you find a place that can hold that. And so as I say, it doesn't have to build a she-shed or build a hut, but it has to be, maybe it's a meditation hour, maybe it's a sanctuary of worship, maybe it's a company of other women, but you find a place where you can go to where that part of you is met.

Muriel McMahon [01:02:32]:

And then the tasks are where you grow your intuition and your discernment. And it can be in folding the laundry and doing the dishes, or in setting up the spreadsheets, or setting the schedules. Like, those are the mundane tasks that if you do it with a sense of this has purpose, and I am somehow proving myself in my fidelity to these tasks. If you do it with a sense of disdain and, or the sense of the to-do list, if I just get this done, then I get to live. No, the living is in the doing it. Like, what's that wonderful line? I think it's Jack Kornfield. Before enlightenment, chop wood and carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood and carry water.

Muriel McMahon [01:03:22]:

So, so can you stack and unload the dishwasher with a sense that this is teaching me fidelity and this is teaching me discernment and this is something of me deciding what goes where, then in some respects you're doing the work that Baba Yaga demands. And when you then have the courage, because that's the story of Vasilisa, is that she does the tasks. But there is a moment when she turns to Baba Yaga and she says, I need the fire. Why should I give it to you? And she said, because I've asked and because the fire is fallow. And so that's when Baba Yaga says, okay, I'll give you the fire, but are you strong enough to carry it?

Lisa Marie Rankin [01:04:13]:

Yeah.

Muriel McMahon [01:04:13]:

And you have to know that you're strong enough to carry it because the coming back is as laborious as the going toward. Because now you hold your soul fire. Now you hold some sense of your essence. And you're going to walk back into a world that is going to say, oh, you've changed. You used to be so different. I'm not sure I like the new you. And can you claim that soul fire that says, Well, this is who I am and I'm not going to apologize for it. And, but if you, if you carry that soul fire back and you become, you know, there's that wonderful joke.

Muriel McMahon [01:04:55]:

How long does it take to know that somebody is gluten-free or vegan? Like 2 seconds, because they'll tell you, right?

Lisa Marie Rankin [01:05:02]:

Oh, I love that. That's so true.

Muriel McMahon [01:05:05]:

So if you come back with that soul fire and it's got this evangelical zeal, You've not integrated enough. Go back to the hut, right? Like you have to recognize all I have to do is to claim and hold my truth. And that will have an impact on people, but I don't need to push it in their face.

Lisa Marie Rankin [01:05:28]:

So profound, especially in the, in this world where we do feel like we need to push things in every, you know, its face. It's like, can I just embody it? Can I live it? Can it be my truth?

Muriel McMahon [01:05:38]:

Yeah. Yeah. And part of the time in the hut, part of the time of sorting those seeds or sorting the laundry or doing the dishes, part of that is saying, am I still present to myself? Or am I in that idea that, okay, when I get the tasks done, then I can read the books that I want to read or journal the way that I want to. It's like, okay, that might have some value. That might be, you know, your time in the hut. But I think there is also something about, can I bring a quality of presence to the things that seem so mundane?

Lisa Marie Rankin [01:06:19]:

Yeah. And that's the work, right? It's kind of the difference between being in the underworld, kind of that time in the hut where I can kind of go inward, but still bringing up that wisdom for everyday life. Yeah.

Muriel McMahon [01:06:30]:

And it's not, it's not a one-off. Right? It's not like I'm, I mean, I think it was 2 nights ago. I thought, okay, I'm not teaching anything. I don't have to prepare any courses. And I'm, you know, and I'm just gonna finish dinner, do the dishes, and sit down with a cup of tea and just be, right? So I'm sitting here with a cup of tea. There's nothing on my to-do list. And then I noticed that under the couch, the new kitten has torn down the, you know, the part that the interface under the coach, he's torn it down. So the next thing I know, I've got the coach up and I am like pulling off the old and my husband comes in and he says, I thought you had nothing to do tonight.

Muriel McMahon [01:07:17]:

I said, well, yes, but this was, and he's saying like that had to be done now. You know what? I just, all right. Okay. Thank.

Lisa Marie Rankin [01:07:28]:

You. Yeah, again, it's like, do I need to do this? And kind of taking that, um, the.

Muriel McMahon [01:07:35]:

Sovereignty for yourself too.

Lisa Marie Rankin [01:07:36]:

Yeah.

Muriel McMahon [01:07:36]:

Yeah. Yeah. And sovereignty is, it's, it's a huge piece, right? It's that, it's that claiming that sense of yourself, right? And there's, there's nothing like it. You're not going to get it from someone else. You're not going to get it from a task that you do. It's, you're going to get it when you really feel, okay, this is who I am and this is who I'm meant to be. And then it's going to disappear and you're going to get it again. It's going to disappear and you're going to get it again.

Muriel McMahon [01:08:05]:

But every time you lose it, you're going to remember on some, on some level, oh, I've lost it before and I know I can get it again.

Lisa Marie Rankin [01:08:15]:

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, well, thank you so much. I could literally I could talk to you for like the next few hours. There's so— you have so much wisdom and, you know, so many things I would love to, love to get your, your opinion, your perspective on. But I will be, I will be respectful of your time. Anything else you would like to say to our listeners? And again, Baba Yaga's Wisdom, I will put links in the show notes of how people can connect with you. But any place you would like to invite them to go or anything else you'd like to say that we can share?

Muriel McMahon [01:08:47]:

Okay. I will say that I present on a number of platforms. Morbid Anatomy is a platform I present on as well as Jung Academy. So those are wonderful platforms. So just, you know, you maybe you can link your folks to that because even if it's not me, there is like-minded stuff there. I have two books out. One is Baba Yaga's Wisdom and the other is called Toward a Sacred End. They're both on Amazon.

Muriel McMahon [01:09:13]:

And Toward a Sacred End is more about my reconciliation with the Catholic Church. So if anyone felt like either triggered or inspired by the idea that Baba Yaga and the mystical Christ could exist in the same place, then that's a place that you could, you could explore it. I do have a website, so you can go to my website, which is murielmcmahon.com, and I have an upcoming fairy tale intensive. And we're going to be looking at the tales from the Middle East. And there is limited to 8 folks and there's 3 spots left. So if any of your listeners are interested, act quickly.

Lisa Marie Rankin [01:09:56]:

Excellent. Well, I will put all of those links in the show notes. And again, thank you. Thank you so much for your time and your wisdom today.

Muriel McMahon [01:10:03]:

Okay. And, and if you feel compelled that we should have a follow-up conversation, then let's do that.

Lisa Marie Rankin [01:10:08]:

I think we definitely should do that. I would love to.

Muriel McMahon [01:10:11]:

Okay.

Lisa Marie Rankin [01:10:11]:

I would love to do that.

Muriel McMahon [01:10:12]:

Okay. I wish you and your, your listeners well. Thank.

Lisa Marie Rankin [01:10:18]:

You. Thank you for joining me for this episode of the Goddess School Podcast. I hope it sparked your imagination and expanded your vision for what's possible. If you're ready to explore these concepts more deeply, reclaim your personal myth, and live with greater creativity and enchantment, I invite you to join me inside Enlivened, my divine feminine mystery school and sacred community, where we bring these teachings to life through ritual, story, coaching, and of course, real-world action. You can find the link to learn more in the show notes. And remember, the goddess isn't a deity outside of yourself. She's an aspect of your highest self. You are the goddess.

Lisa Marie Rankin [01:11:00]:

Until next time.