Lisa Marie Rankin [00:00:05]:

Welcome to The Goddess School Podcast, where Eastern wisdom meets Western mysticism. I'm your host, Lisa Marie Rankine, author, teacher, and Ayurvedic wellness coach, here to help you reclaim your feminine superpowers, and I am so glad you're here. Listen, women are magical. They are intuitive, creative, wise, and magnetic. However, in today's fast paced world, these gifts often get buried under a more masculine way of life. Together, we'll awaken those powers. In each episode, I'll take you through sacred teachings like Ayurveda, shadow work, and the mysteries of archetypes and rituals so you can live with more clarity, synchronicity, and joy in all realms of life, like relationships, health, money, and more. So let's dive in so you can make the most of your one mythic life, the veil is parting.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:00:59]:

Let's begin. Hello, beautiful ones. So I am here today to talk about archetypes And one archetype in particular that I know we all love and many in my community are studying and really resonate with, the wild woman archetype. Now first, what is an archetype? So an archetype is a universal pattern of behavior or energy, and it's autonomous. So we can think of it also as an innate impulse. And you have many archetypes within you. Some that you might be familiar with are the inner child or the inner critic, and then there's the lover, the warrior, the creatrix, the priestess. And we have some archetypes that are really our go to archetypes.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:01:51]:

So for me, I can very much connect with the lover archetype or the creatrix. I am happy to be spending languid mornings in bed with my partner, and I also love creating. I love putting together programs. I love writing. I love doing these podcasts. So these ones are fairly easy for me to embody, and we can think of Aphrodite as the Greek goddess of love, beauty, and war as very much the personification of the lover archetype. Or the creatrix, we could think of the Hindu goddess Saraswati, who is the goddess of knowledge, learning, creativity. So we see that these archetypes are also represented by gods and goddesses.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:02:35]:

And as I mentioned, some of them are fairly easy for us to embody, but then there's ones that are a little bit more challenging for us to embody. As I mentioned, the lover and creatrix, those are really my go to's. But the warrior archetype, not so much. I don't love conflict or confrontation. But, of course, as being a human in this earthly realm, I often have to embody the warrior archetype. And an example of the warrior goddess would be the Hindu goddess Durga. She's the goddess of strength, justice, and protection. Now, the thing is, though, we can call upon these different archetypes when we need them.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:03:18]:

Carl Jung, the famed Swiss psychoanalyst, is really what we know so much about archetypes from. Now, he initially thought that archetypes were part of the brain, but then he later went on to admit that he doesn't really know where archetypes came from, but they were part of all of us, and they were part of the collective unconscious. And we can really see that when we look at different traditions and different religions. So whether we are looking at the Greek pantheon of goddesses and gods or South America or the Orishas of the Yoruba people, we often see a similar cast of characters. We have lovers and mothers and gods of war and goddesses of wisdom. And that is because even though we are separated by geography, culture, religion, tradition, we share a common humanity. So all of these archetypes are within us, and they are also part of the collective unconscious. So even if you have 1 or 2 go twos, you still can build more.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:04:21]:

And I really like to think of that as that sense of individuation, which Carl Jung had talked about. It's about becoming whole. And, you know, midlife is a great time to do this. I always think the first half of life is where we've really honed in on maybe a couple of archetypes. But then we get to around 40 or maybe 50, and we start to wonder, well, is there more? Why do why does something feel off? Why do why does something feel like it's missing? And that's because something is missing, that there's other aspects of you that are waiting to come online and are waiting to be explored. And the thing about archetypes is that if you are interested in exploring or pursuing one, whether it's the lover or the wild woman, which we will be talking more about, that means that's a part of you that wants to come online, that wants to be further developed because there is a resonance. I often get the question from the women in my community, like, are we talking about goddesses or are we talking about archetypes? Now I believe that you should work with goddesses however you want. But to me, they're 1 and the same.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:05:28]:

And that is not to give the goddesses less power because archetypes are very powerful. They're innate impulses. If you've ever said to yourself, like, oh my goodness. I just don't even know what got into me, or I can't believe he just said that. That was so unlike him. It's likely that you or the person that you are referring to have been overcome by an archetype or like an archetypal possession. So archetypes are powerful. When we are connecting with a goddess, whether it is Aphrodite, Saraswati, or Durga, it's like we are calling for these qualities and characteristics to come on within us as well too.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:06:10]:

So both are very powerful. And if you are looking to learn more about goddesses and archetypes, I actually wrote a whole book about them. It's called The Goddess Solution, where I share wisdom from 38 different goddesses across cultures, across traditions, and how we can apply their modern wisdom to our everyday lives, like sex, money, parenting, creativity, divorce, and so much more. So a link for that book is in the show notes. Now archetypes are neither good nor bad. They both have life enhancing and we could also say maybe life detracting qualities. So, for example, if we take the goddess Aphrodite, I know I'm talking a lot about the love goddess today, but we are actually going to pivot in a few moments to talk more about the wild woman archetype. But Aphrodite, goddess of love, sex, and beauty, we can think of her as our ability to experience pleasure, make love, appreciate beauty, and that's all very life enhancing.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:07:11]:

But if we were possessed by Aphrodite and if we had some of her maybe life detracting qualities, we might be overly promiscuous, vain, or manipulative. So it's not that archetypes are good and we want to embody all of them, but, again, they are autonomous. They're patterns of behavior, energies that we see within all of us. And, actually, Carl Jung has this really beautiful quote that he has said or he had written. He said, the world of gods and spirits is truly nothing but the collective unconscious within me. That's a little bit about archetypes. Now, I wanted to talk today about one archetype that comes up again and again in my community. In fact, we do a deep dive of this archetype in my book study, Women Who Run with the Wolves by Doctor.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:08:01]:

Clarissa Pinkola Estes, and this is the wild woman archetype. And I believe that so many women are drawn to this archetype because she's the primal divine feminine. You know, she's connected to her body, nature, sensuality, creativity, intuition. She's also not afraid to set boundaries, say no, and walk her own path or color outside of the lines. She's this, like, fierce archetype of feminine power, but that power that's also nurturing, creative, and sensual. I know that many women, because I work with many women, feel that they've been overly domesticated, or they may have lived for others for most of their lives, whether that's for their family, for their partners, for their children, maybe for their career. And, again, often at that time in midlife, there is a call to come back, to come back to yourself, back to your innate power. And that's when I think the wild woman archetype really starts to beckon 1 as far as, like, how do I expand? How do I come back to myself? How do I feel rooted in my power? And I also think that wild woman archetype is really the woman who knows what turns her on, what lights her up.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:09:19]:

She doesn't have to look around to get a sense of what it is that she should like. She's not trying to keep up with the Joneses or whatever society tells her is what a woman she wants, but she knows deep in her bones. And that's really what the Woman Who Run with the Wolves book is all about. It's all about how we can connect with this primal divine feminine. It's really like our shakti, our life force. And if you are interested in reading this with us, there is a link in the show notes. So I have an ongoing book study. We really have amazing conversations, and I do believe one of the best way to connect with the wild women is to connect with your sisters.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:09:56]:

Right? It's part to heal that sister wound. One of my other favorite authors and tantra teacher, Michaela Bohm, not positive I'm saying her last name correctly, she wrote The Wild Woman's Way, also about the wild woman archetype. She writes that we learn about women from other women. So whenever we are diving deep into the divine feminine and trying to reclaim our feminine power or tap into our feminine essence. It's not a solo journey. We have to do that with other women. So the Women Who Run With the Wolves book study is really a fantastic way to do that. I wanted to give you an example of the wild woman archetype, and you might be familiar with her, but it's the goddess Lilith.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:10:41]:

And Lilith is a dark goddess of feminine power. So let me tell you a little bit about her myth. And by the way, one of the ways that we start to embody an archetype and bring her online is to learn about her, to visualize her, to act as if we are her. So perhaps the story of Lilith will help you out here. So according to Hebrew mythology, Lilith was Adam's first wife before Eve. And she and Adam were created as equals. They were created at the same time. They were both created out of the earth.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:11:17]:

So Lilith was under the impression that they were equal, and they would have they would have all of the same rights and the same responsibilities. But according to the myth, Adam didn't feel that way. He wanted Lilith to be subservient to him. And as the story goes, Adam always wanted to be on top during sex. But just like just like most women, Lilith wanted her turn on top. So rather than be submissive to Adam, Will decided to leave the Garden of Eden and go off on her own. Now can you imagine that? The Garden of Eden, you have everything that you could ever want there. But because that didn't feel true to her, she didn't want to be submissive to Adam.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:12:00]:

She wanted she wanted to live her own life. She wanted to live with authenticity and and live with freedom. She left the Garden of Eden, and she lived wildly, and we could even say maybe a little bit fairly, in the forest. Because she left, she was really demonized. So there was many that believed she was the killer of babies, but others believed that she was actually the savior of stillborn babies bringing them to heaven. So her path wasn't necessarily the easier path, but it was one that was more aligned to what it is that she wanted. Now I hope your path doesn't lead you to living wildly alone, fairly in the forest, and being demonized, but you can see there's that sense. It's, I'm not gonna do what my family, what my partner, what society tells me to do, but I'm gonna do what feels right to me.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:12:47]:

So that's why love has really become this dark goddess of feminine power, and she's really representative of the wild woman. And she represents female sexuality, creativity, and spirituality. So a few of the ways that you can start reconnecting with the wild woman archetype, again, one is just consider the qualities or even just consider. When I say wild woman, like, what does that what does that generate in you? Where do you feel that in your body? And you can spend some time imagining. If you were to fully embody the wild woman, the primal, creative, sensual, intuitive aspect of you, what would you do? What would you wear? Who would you talk to? Where would you go? How would you carry yourself? Really spend some time imagining and visualizing. I often one of my rituals is to take a bath each evening, and I usually have candles and beautiful essential oils. And this is often the time, too, that I often think about the different archetypes that I want to further embody or bring online, whether it's for relationships or with work. And this is just a great opportunity because the more you can start to imagine that, the more we can start to call forth these powers.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:14:04]:

Now, since we are talking about the wild woman archetype and she is very much connected to nature, she's connected to the rhythms of her body, the cycles of the season, the moon, get out in nature more. If you can walk barefoot in the earth, recognize where the moon is in the sky, which phase it is in. If you're still menstruating, see if you can map your menstruation cycle to the moon. It's okay if you can't, but sometimes it's just fun to, to see where you are, when are you bleeding. But really connecting with these rhythms, with this life death life cycle. Now the life death life cycle is also a major theme in women who run with the wolves. That's a theme that we can really consider when connecting with this archetype. What are you holding onto that you may need to let go, that you may need to let die so new things can come online, can come to life? So another way that you can connect with the wild women archetype is to start an herb or flower garden.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:15:03]:

Again, recognizing that you are not a mere individual outside of nature, but you're actually a part of it. And you also have that creative energy where you can also help nature flourish and thrive. You can dance freely and wildly. Dancing is a great way to connect with your body and surround yourself with images, songs, poems, books, films of wild sensual women. That's such a fantastic way that we can start to call those aspects of us online. But then, again, remember that if you are interested in exploring the wild woman archetype more, she's interested in you as well too. And, again, I would love to invite you to read with us in Women Who Run with the Wolves. The link to to learn more about the book study is in the bio.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:15:53]:

I would love to hear from you. What is an archetype that you are looking to bring online? You can archetype that you are looking to bring online? You can send me a note, DM me on Instagram, that's lisamarie.rankin, or tag me. And also let me know, how do you connect with the wild woman archetype? Alright, beautiful ones. That's it for now. And I look forward to connecting with you very soon, and I look forward to seeing you on the next session of The Goddess School podcast. Alright. Be well, beautiful ones. Thanks for tuning in to The Goddess School Podcast.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:16:30]:

I hope today's episode inspired you to reclaim your feminine magic. Now don't forget to subscribe to the show. And if you've enjoyed the podcast, please leave us a review on Apple. If you wanna dive deeper into divine feminine archetypes and reconnect with your power, check out my book, The Goddess Solution. It's packed with ancient goddess wisdom for the modern woman. You can find the book on Amazon, and the link is in the show notes. And if you are ready to embrace these practices alongside a global sisterhood, I invite you to join my Divine Feminine Mystery School, Enlivend. It's a supportive space to embody these teachings with a fantastic community of like minded women.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:17:08]:

You'll find the link in the show notes. Remember, the Goddess isn't a deity outside of you. She's an aspect of your highest self, and you are the Goddess. Until next time, my friend.