Lisa Marie Rankin:

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:

Let's begin. I'm very excited about today's guest. Today, we will be joined by Lisa Marchiano. She is an author, podcaster, and a Jungian analyst. We're gonna talk about her new book, The Vital Spark. And in this book, she shares these outlaw energies that, for many of us women, we are not used to embodying, like shrewdness, disagreeability, authority, and ruthlessness. And she's gonna talk about how, when we can tap into these energies, we have an opportunity to create the life we really want. So let's begin.

Lisa Marie Rankin:

Hello, beautiful women. So I am here today, and I'm very excited for our guests with Lisa Marchiano. She is an author, a podcaster. She is a fantastic podcast, This Union Life, which you'll find everything in the show notes, and she's a Jungian analyst. And as you know, we do a lot of work with Jung's concepts here, so couldn't be more thrilled to have her on and to talk about her new book, The Vital Spark, which I have been diving into, listening to in the car, reading in my free time, and we are also going to be reading it in Enlivened, my divine feminine mystery school. So welcome, Lisa. Thank you for being here.

Lisa Marchiano:

Thanks. Thanks for having me.

Lisa Marie Rankin:

Yeah. So I would love to just jump right into your book a little bit if you Mhmm. If that sounds good for you. So I'm loving this, and I love how you start off with the goddess Lilith. So a lot of the women in my community, we do a lot of work with Lilith, and I think he's just such a beautiful archetype of this feminine power. And what I love about your book so much is that I think often when we're thinking of feminine power and feminine qualities, we're thinking of receptivity, nurturing, beauty, sensuality, creativity, all wonderful things, of course, but it's only half the picture. So I would love to hear maybe your synopsis of the book and also why you felt it was so important to bring these other outlaw energies that you talk about.

Lisa Marchiano:

Mhmm. Well, I think that any book like this is partly confessional. Right? I mean, I think I've definitely had my own experience with these qualities, and you sort of asked me to summarize the book. And the funny thing is that I I'd written most of this book, and I was like, oh, it's due in 2 weeks, and I don't really know what it's about yet. And then I and Lilith actually helped me figure out what it was about, and that there is kind of a thesis statement. If you remember 7th grade English class and having to write an essay, there is actually a thesis statement in the book. I think that toward the end of the first page, I see something like there are qualities like nurturance, kindness, empathy that help us get and stay connected to others. And then there are qualities like fierceness, assertiveness, desire that help us get and stay connected to ourselves.

Lisa Marchiano:

Both are important, but it's often easier for various reasons for women to invest in the former and not pay too much attention to the latter. So the book is really about those latter qualities. What would I refer to as outlaw energies? And I came up with a list of them, which is not in any way authoritative or exhaustive. It was just sort of a list that that I came up with of these qualities, and I think that Lilith does a pretty good job of embodying them as an image.

Lisa Marie Rankin:

Yeah. Thank you. I actually I'd wanna just share the outlaw energies as well too just so people have

Lisa Marchiano:

a Oh, yeah.

Lisa Marie Rankin:

A sense of what what it is that we're talking about. You're right about disagreeableness, shrewdness, the trickster, desire, sexuality, rage, authority, and ruthlessness. And I know for a few of them, like, with me, disagreeableness, shrewdness, ruthlessness, it almost has this very polarizing effect, like, oh, I'm gonna be disagreeable or ruthless or shrewd. I think we have that image of that old shrew in our minds when we're talking about that. But I love how you talk about how these are definitely essential at different times so we can align back to self.

Lisa Marchiano:

Right. I've had some people say, I told my book group about your book, and we were gonna read it. And people were like, oh, I don't wanna read that. And I've had people say, I think there's an angry review on Amazon about it. So you're right. It's sort of polarizing. I've given public talks on the book, and people say, well, I agree with everything you're saying, but I could never be ruthless or I could never be a trickster or whatever. And I I think it does make us uncomfortable.

Lisa Marchiano:

But but just to clarify, talking about capacities. I'm talking about the capacity to be a trickster. I'm talking about the capacity to be ruthless, which I think of as being able to do something that that is in the interest of growth that might make someone uncom else uncomfortable or inconvenienced. Of course, a word that occurs throughout the text is discernment because, yeah, you could become ruthless and then be ruthless just because you were being selfish or greedy or sadistic. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about developing the quality so that you can use it as a tool so that you become the fullest version of yourself in the world.

Lisa Marie Rankin:

Yeah. And you use some great examples. I love how you use, like, the modern day examples, like the devil wears Prada and things that women can really relate to, that it's a matter of discernment. It's not that we're just going to full on go ruthless in every area of our lives. So that's not what it's about. But it also reminds me, I believe Jung has said, I'd rather be whole than good. And I think sometimes if we're on a spiritual path or personal development, we think that we're trying to get to a level of perfection, like, where nothing everything is going to go right, and I'm just gonna approach everything with a sense of equanimity. But that's not what it's about.

Lisa Marie Rankin:

Right? It's about reclaiming. It's about becoming whole and having access to these

Lisa Marchiano:

Because you can't get rid of them. You can't get rid of them. So if you don't develop a relationship with them, they're gonna come out sideways. So the person who says, I'm good. I'm I'm good. I'm spiritual. I could never be ruthless. You better believe that they're mean girling someone in their yoga class or something.

Lisa Marchiano:

It's interesting because one time I gave a public talk about the book and and a woman came up to me at the end and she said, I really need to talk to you. I'm a yoga teacher. And I was like, oh. Right? Because the yoga community I know many yoga teachers. I love yoga. I mean, yoga is great, but it can be one of those communities. And there are many of them, by the way, where there's such a value placed on those light qualities that the dark qualities, it looks like we've shoved them aside, but, really, we've just given them license to kind of come out and get at us another way.

Lisa Marie Rankin:

And that's such a great point. And I think in your book, you talk a lot about, like, the passive aggressive behavior or and yeah. I can see that. One of the things that I wanted to ask you too, so a lot of these qualities, do you think it gets easier for women to start embody as they get older, as they start to approach the prone phase?

Lisa Marchiano:

And if so, why? Well, that's interesting. First of all, it's a good opportunity for me to say that I think that many women have trouble embodying outlaw qualities, but not all. I happen to really like disagreeable women, and I am not naturally a disagreeable person. That's I'm referring to, like, the big five personality type test. I don't test high in disagreeableness. I'm a little bit more like a people pleaser. But I have a lot of female friends who are disagreeable because I just appreciate them, and they can be hard. So I I don't wanna say that every woman has struggles with this.

Lisa Marchiano:

I I know plenty of women in my personal life and in my practice. Like, I don't have a problem getting angry. So I just think it's many of us, a majority, but I'm not prepared to say that for sure. I think it probably for those of us that struggle with it, I think it does get easier as we get older. First of all, we kind of have life experience that we've learned from, like, what happens if we don't. And we've gone through experiences like mothering, which can sometimes make it easier to do things like really find your fierceness. At least it did that for me. And also it frankly, it probably helps to, like, lose the estrogen.

Lisa Marchiano:

I'm not a scientist, but I think some of this is really hormonally mediated, which is interesting. Maybe somebody will look at that.

Lisa Marie Rankin:

Oh, so interesting you said that. That was actually kind of a hypothesis that I was having as well too, and I don't know if I was gonna bring it up, but it's interesting that you had said that as well because it seems like that would make a lot of sense Mhmm. As well, especially when all of our energy isn't going to nurturing, that it actually frees up a little more space where we have the capacity to to tap into other aspects of ourselves.

Lisa Marchiano:

There's a psychiatrist named Alan Chinnen, and he has written some really beautiful books on fairy tales. And he makes the point maybe it's been made elsewhere too, but I came across this idea in his writings that fairy tales kind of midlife and later fairy tales feature many women doing male things, like old like older female heroines being very masculine and older male heroes being more feminine. And you do see that. Right? I mean, I definitely saw that, like, my dad is much gentler and open. And it's like, as men age, they tend to get softer. And as women age, we tend to get maybe a little harder. And it's a wonderful thing because it fits into Jung's idea of the anima and the animus. And the idea that we all have the contrasexual within us, and part of becoming more whole is developing those contrasexual qualities.

Lisa Marchiano:

So are those outlaw qualities more masculine? I don't know that I'd wanna call them because I think they're feminine versions of those, like with Lilith. But that even as we age and we become Crohn's, we might become a little more masculine. Maybe we get some chin hairs. And that that that might be part of becoming whole.

Lisa Marie Rankin:

Yeah. That's a really great point. And, yeah, I can definitely see that with some of the older people in my life as well too. So that's really interesting. And, yeah, it's interesting you just brought the anima animus in, and for those who are not familiar with that concept, would you mind just explaining that?

Lisa Marchiano:

Boy, it is a really tricky concept. So young found that he was talking to an inner woman, and she had a very distinct kind of personality. This isn't his imagination, but she had a really distinct personality, and she seemed to have very distinct ideas about who he should be. And he got really interested in what this was and hypothesized that every man has an inner woman and every woman has an inner man. And he chose the name Anima to describe the kind of inner woman of a man. And they must describe the inner man of a woman. Now the problem with this, it's a super interesting idea. It is a very valuable idea when you're doing things like looking at dreams or fairy tales.

Lisa Marchiano:

It seems to really have explanatory value, which is kinda what matters to me. It kind of works. But it's very difficult to take it too far without running into, like, what I think of as sex role stereotypes. So we're talking, first of all, about kind of when we talk about the masculine and the feminine, in some sense, we're talking about psychological principles and everyone can inhabit all of those. Right? It's not defined by your biological sex. But if you start saying things like, well, women are receptive. Well, yes. I mean, we are.

Lisa Marchiano:

And is that leaning into the proscriptive? And if I'm not particularly receptive, does that make me less feminine? It starts to sit a little uncomfortably because it sounds a little regressive, and yet there's something about it that works. And so I find I can't jettison the concept altogether, although I use it sort of gingerly because it it does sort of invoke these regressive stereotypes.

Lisa Marie Rankin:

Yeah. That's interesting that you say that. I mean, from what I understand that the anima and anima, so it works very well for me. And I know that some people have a problem because of the gender stereotypes. I'm one to believe that a woman's physiology does affect her psychology and spirituality because we can give birth. We have a completely different chemical structure. So it makes really a lot of sense to actually combine it with the biology to me. Yes.

Lisa Marie Rankin:

Although, I understand how, for some people that may be off putting, but to me, I feel like there is our physiology as a man or woman very much affects how we work.

Lisa Marchiano:

Thank you. Mike McGree.

Lisa Marie Rankin:

Good. It's nice to yeah. It's nice to kind of maybe just point out at some of these more obvious things. Yes. Yes. Great. One thing too that I would love to get your thoughts on. So you talk about Lilith and how she leaves Adam in the Garden of Eden, and she's really this great beautiful stereotype, not stereotype, archetype of independence.

Lisa Marie Rankin:

And then we talk about, like, Eve as kind of being a little bit more submissive. I always see Eve a little differently. I mean, I feel like she defied God. Yeah. She was kinda like I just kinda picture him saying, like, come on, Adam. We gotta wake up. We can't stay here in this walled garden. Like, I almost picture Adam, like, playing video games or something.

Lisa Marie Rankin:

She's like, you know, there's more here. And I would love, is that just me? Or I I think Eve's kinda the original priestess. Like, we're gonna we need to expand.

Lisa Marchiano:

I really like that because that is sort of the defining moment if you wanna say culturally, psychologically as a species is this sort of this the dawn of consciousness and that it comes out of a defiant act by ease. I think I really I like it. I like it.

Lisa Marie Rankin:

Yeah. Okay. I just didn't know if I was, you know,

Lisa Marchiano:

that Yeah.

Lisa Marie Rankin:

Crazy for interpreting that way. But, yeah, I I don't know. I feel like she defied God. What more do we want? She's saying, Adam, let's wake up here, hun.

Lisa Marchiano:

Right. You know? Right.

Lisa Marie Rankin:

Yeah. Great. So I really loved in one of the chapters, you were talking about your music teacher that you had, I believe, in college. And

Lisa Marchiano:

you said

Lisa Marie Rankin:

he was really witty and charming, and all the other male students would always be visiting him, and you never really felt comfortable. And then you went to go ask him for a recommendation for a fellowship. And he responded just by saying, like, I barely know you. Like, you don't know anyone else. Yeah.

Lisa Marchiano:

And I

Lisa Marie Rankin:

had to tell you, Lisa, I am not, like, a terribly emotional person, but, like, that for some triggered something where I started to get tears in my eyes. Because I feel like you tapped into something that so many women, I believe, likely, like, am I gonna be remembered? Like, am I does does this person value me? Was I worthy? Can you share just a little bit about that experience? Because I think it's really relatable to a lot of women. In fact, I think it's probably a big fear that prevents women from doing things.

Lisa Marchiano:

So this was this professor in the music department, and he taught these great courses, 1 on Mozart and 1 on Beethoven. And I loved these classes. They were so great. And they were, like, smaller classes. They had, like, maybe 20 people in them. So I went to a fairly large university, so there were some big lecture classes, but this was not one of those. And I'd gotten an a in both of them, and in one of them, he read sections of my paper aloud because he was like, this was such an excellent paper. So I kind of assumed he knew who I was and thought well of me, but he was very, like, gregarious and funny and always said, oh, yeah.

Lisa Marchiano:

Come by my office anytime. But I really I just could never wrap my head around how I would do that. Like, what I was like I would like try to picture. Would I just, like, walk in and sit down and say, hey. How is it going, professor so and so? I felt like I had to have, like, a reason to go. So, like, I couldn't even find a pretext. Like, gosh, I really love the 6th symphony. I just couldn't come up with something.

Lisa Marchiano:

So I never went. I didn't have a question. I couldn't see like, I didn't know I felt like I had to have, like, a an admission ticket, and I didn't know how to get one. But I would walk past his office and there were it would always be full of, like, 3 or 4 guys sitting, like, just kinda yucking it up with him. And I don't know what they were talking about, but he really obviously was enjoying them, and they were enjoying him. And I was like, how do I do that? But I just it was really pretty intimidating. First of all, I wasn't gonna go in when it was the professor and 4 other undergraduate males. I mean, I would have been like, they all would have looked at me, like, what are you doing here? And I wouldn't I just didn't know how to get in the game.

Lisa Marchiano:

You know, like, when you're a little kid and they're jumping rope and you have to get in the jump rope, it's like, you have to skip in. I couldn't figure out how to skip in. So when I went to him though, I thought, well, you know, he this professor, I may have taken 3 classes with him. I've looked at my transcript since I wrote the book, and I was like, oh, I think I also took music theory. So I thought, like, this guy would know me, and he was just he I was it was humiliating. He was like, I don't know you. What have you been doing here? What have you been doing with your time? I wouldn't know what to say. I mean, it was pretty brutal.

Lisa Marchiano:

And I understand what he means, but it was so devastating. And the the thing is that I hung on to that moment because I think it is there's a not universality to it, but it's very common. There was this study at some point that men begin college less confident than women and leave more confident. And the women start off more confident and leave less confident. And I think there's something about our expectations as women that, for example, 21 or however old I was at that point, I was really still, like, I had done well in high school because I did the assignments, and I got good grades and I sort of did what the teacher wanted me to do. Right? And I thought that was the formula. I was gonna be a good student. I think somehow men got the memo that you were supposed to be a little more a little less compliant.

Lisa Marchiano:

So I'll tell you another story. This happened to my best friend in college who was not agreeable. So my friend Sally is great, but she's not agreeable. So she was taking a French class. This is happening almost at the same time. We're we're rooming together. We're roommates. She's in a French class.

Lisa Marchiano:

The professor says, here's the assignment. You have to do this, this, this, and this. And Sally goes off and has a stroke of genius. She's not gonna do the the assignment as the professor assigned it. She has an creative idea. She's gonna do something totally different. So she comes in with the assignment, and she says to him, I didn't do it like you asked. Instead, I did this.

Lisa Marchiano:

He goes, I won't read it. I won't read it. She stamps her foot. She takes the paper. She shoves in his face, and she said, which means read it. And she really insisted, and he read it and gave her an a. And Sally had more of these outlaw energies. She had a little bit more of whatever the secret sauce that men had figured out that I'm just gonna walk into the professor's office, and he's just gonna be, like, happy to see me.

Lisa Marchiano:

I don't have to, like, seek permission like a supplicant. I can say you should read my paper. And it it's like Sally came by that for whatever wonderful reason when she was really young, and it's, like, taken me a few decades.

Lisa Marie Rankin:

Yeah. Me too. Yeah. Yeah. So interesting. My daughter is a senior in high school this year. I feel like I'm gonna have to give her this information as she goes to college next year.

Lisa Marchiano:

Yeah.

Lisa Marie Rankin:

Do you believe these qualities can be developed, or do you believe they're more innate? So So if someone wanted to start, like, saying, like, oh, I wanna start approaching my career with a little more shrewdness because I've kind of reached a plateau, and I don't seem to be growing, or I need to be more aggressive. How would one go about developing after being a people pleaser or nurturer for most

Lisa Marchiano:

of their lives? I think they can be developed. I think that the biggest barrier to developing them is often being able to tolerate the discomfort. So, for example, me doing something that makes another person uncomfortable or angry is, like, excruciating for me. I mean, it's better now, but it's still hard. But what I had to push past was, like, this is really uncomfortable. It doesn't mean it's wrong. So, I mean, one could either do some sort of deeper psychological work where it's really kind of development of the whole personality, or if you had a really good business coach, I think that person could help too. But I do think it helps to think about it from a depth psychological perspective because it has to do with our kind of initiation.

Lisa Marchiano:

It has to do with our innate qualities, like who we most essentially are and our tendencies and welcoming in all of us.

Lisa Marie Rankin:

Yeah. And I think that can be hard for people. I love what you said though, like, to tolerate discomfort. Because I think sometimes when people feel discomfort, oh, that must be wrong. I shouldn't go there. I'm you know, I shouldn't be doing that, where life is actually a series of uncomfortable events and building our capacity to hold them, which I think is probably more even a somatic experience Yes. Is really important.

Lisa Marchiano:

Yes. Yeah. I think when it feels uncomfortable, we take a meaning from that that, like, it's bad. It's like, it might not be bad. It might just be uncomfortable. And you could sit with that.

Lisa Marie Rankin:

Yes.

Lisa Marchiano:

And like you said, it is really embodied. Yeah. Because it feels awful in your body.

Lisa Marie Rankin:

Right. So it's almost like get your nervous system is saying back off. But I think one of the things we need to learn to do is like, oh, no, I can hold this. I can be uncomfortable for a little while. I can move through it. So on the discomfort subject, when you talk about Lilith, so she leaves the Garden of Eden. She has to go live out wildly, thoroughly in the forest. She didn't really get what she wanted.

Lisa Marie Rankin:

Adam was like, no, this isn't working. So sometimes we can have these energies and we're actually not gonna get what we want out of it. Whether it's the relationship with a career, it might not work out that well. Some women might might be like, why should I do that then? Maybe I should be it's good enough. And that's what I hear a lot from the women I work with and some of my clients. Well, things aren't that bad. They're good enough. So what would you say is the benefit of kind of staying true to self and risk alienating others if you're not gonna get the desired result?

Lisa Marchiano:

Well, I guess, first of all, I think about these qualities as any of these qualities, like being a people pleaser, being charming, being assertive, being ruthless. Like, they're all like tools or like arrows in your quiver. And you can when you reach a certain point of consciousness, not some higher state, but just an ability to reflect in the moment on because usually we just react. Right? But if you insert a little pause between something happening and when you're gonna react, you might be able to say, okay. Which one of these do I need? Like, this is probably not the right time to pull out the sledgehammer. For example, did some work with women at a big corporation where the corporate culture is pretty male dominated. And they were telling me these were younger women, kind of junior executives, and they were telling me about the difficulties, even just getting listened to by the male upper mux. And, like, marching into his office and being Lilith, it's probably not gonna go very well.

Lisa Marchiano:

So at that point, you might need to trade on the fact that you're young and attractive and that maybe use a little trickster energy or figure out that he really likes antique cars and then learn a ton about antique cars. And that's also a little trickstery. But in other words, it's not an invitation to develop these outlaw energies and then just go shoot off at the hip, shooting yourself in the foot. Like, the goal really is to be true to yourself, but be able to use these capacities to get what you want. And I mean, when I'm right when I'm thinking and writing about that, I'm not thinking like manipulate other people so that I get my desires. I'm more thinking about, look, this is really important to me. This is right. This is what wants to come through me into the world, as Shim Hala says.

Lisa Marchiano:

And if I don't stick up for myself, it's not gonna come out. And then I won't have had that important experience of just like sharing my gifts with the world or whatever it is. So I don't think it's a good idea to not care about what happens. Sometimes you cannot care about what happens, but as a general rule, this is really about adaptation. And I think the more tools we have, the better adapted we are. And if we use all these tools sort of ethically, we can use them to make the world a better place because we can share our best self with it.

Lisa Marie Rankin:

Oh, I love that. That's a great distinction. Thank you. And I think just to kind of maybe summarize or paraphrase, you're saying, like, as we expand our conscious, our toolbox actually grows, and we have more in which to pull from so that we can bring our gifts to the world, so we can go after our desires.

Lisa Marchiano:

Yes.

Lisa Marie Rankin:

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I love that.

Lisa Marchiano:

Mhmm.

Lisa Marie Rankin:

One more question. So you talk about rage as one of the energies that you cover in your book. And I know for me, anger has been a more challenging one to tap into. When something happens, I usually first thing I think about is what could I have done differently? It's almost hard for me to get angry at another person. I think it's like, okay. How could I have approached this differently? And I think a lot of women are like that. So I I actually have a 2 part question. How do you distinguish the difference between anger and rage? Because I feel that they are different, but I would love to hear how you distinguish that.

Lisa Marie Rankin:

And why is it so hard for women, many women, not all, to tap into this quality?

Lisa Marchiano:

1st, I'll tell you a story. I was friendly with a woman who for a little while had taken testosterone as part of the gender transition, but then she had stopped. And she was talking about what it was like, and she said when I was on testosterone, I never felt guilty for being angry. And I was like, oh, what? Oh my god. What would that be like? But it does speak to the hypothesis that there might be a part of it that's hormonally mediated. It's like you see men get angry, and they're like, that doesn't seem to bother them. And, again, some women also. But I'm always like, it's so torturous to be angry.

Lisa Marchiano:

Yeah.

Lisa Marie Rankin:

That's how I find it. Yeah. And I snap it at, like, one of my children, and I'm, like, texting immediate. Like, I'm so sorry that sounded short.

Lisa Marchiano:

Right. Right. So it's super interesting. I'll need some scientists to shed more light on it, but there's something there, I think. Anyway, I think that probably the difference between rage and anger is mostly a question of degree, but I think that rage is really that experience of being absolutely overtaken. Your vision blurs and your body just reacts. And for momentarily, it's like your ego is not even there. You're just burning really hot.

Lisa Marie Rankin:

Great. It

Lisa Marchiano:

feels out of control.

Lisa Marie Rankin:

So is rage the energy that we want or is it more anger? Or I guess it's.

Lisa Marchiano:

There's that quote that I just love in the beginning of that chapter. And so if you don't mind, I'm going to just really quickly find it because I think this is obviously a super kind of ambivalent experience, and it can definitely be destructive. There's no question. But it's also so life giving. So this is a quote. It's from Marian Woodman. She says, it is important to recognize the difference between personal anger and intimate relationships and transpersonal rage that erupts from an archetypal level, the level at which the goddess enters. When the, that differentiation takes place and the rage is appropriately released, the goddess can turn her other face.

Lisa Marchiano:

Then the soul can take up residence in its vastly enlarged home and go about its own creative life.

Lisa Marie Rankin:

Oh, that's a beautiful quote.

Lisa Marchiano:

So yeah. Yeah. And I I think that that really captures something for me that that rage humming up from the body like that. It does have a kind of archetypal or even transpersonal element to it. And that if we can give it some room, and it's dangerous, but if we can give it some room, it doesn't enlarge us.

Lisa Marie Rankin:

Yeah. No. It's it's interesting. I talk a lot about anger with my community, not so much rage. So I definitely wanna think about that a little bit more as well.

Lisa Marchiano:

My first book is called motherhood. And interestingly, there's also a chapter on rage in that book. So if you'd be like Oh,

Lisa Marie Rankin:

I can't wait to read that one.

Lisa Marchiano:

Trying to tell us something. But but I mean, rage is such a huge part of most people's parenting experience. But I deal with it. I use a different fairy tale, but both the way that rage can be so destructive in terms of if we take it out on our kids, but also there's something in it of the goddess. And if we deal with it appropriately, it's life giving. But we have to treat it carefully. I mean, the the fairy tale that I use in motherhood about it's very interesting in that way.

Lisa Marie Rankin:

Oh, great. Oh, I definitely wanna check out that book as well too.

Lisa Marchiano:

Yeah.

Lisa Marie Rankin:

It was interesting. Yesterday, I was doing a goddess circle on the Baba Yaga. And generally, when I do this, I talk more about the spirituality of aging and approaching how we can approach and navigate becoming a crone. I think because your book was so much on my mind, we ended up talking a lot about the outlaw energies as well and how the Bubba guy really, really Yeah. Characterizes that. And that led to my earlier question about, do you think that these are easier when you become a crone? Yes.

Lisa Marchiano:

But I

Lisa Marie Rankin:

would love to get your thoughts too. I feel like in our culture, it really values youth to an extreme. As women, I wanna stay young forever. And I know this has definitely been part of my journey of, like, oh, I you know, I'm 49. I have to start embracing the crone. But when easier said than done sometimes. But I also have the hypothesis that this wanting to stay young at all cost is also preventing us from expanding and tapping into more of what is available to us, as you were saying, like that toolbox. And do you have a thought on that where a culture is like, you must stay young, you must be fertile and pretty forever, how that might stunt us from a psychological sense?

Lisa Marchiano:

Sure. Because, I mean, part of what goes along with being pretty and young is a sense of being, like, that you're going to be compliant, that you're gonna dig your you're gonna try to be I'm I'm what the word I think I'm trying to avoid is fuckable. I don't know if you read You can say that. Hags by oh, god. I can't think of her name right now. It came out recently. It's great if you haven't read.

Lisa Marie Rankin:

Haggitude, Sharon Black? Nope.

Lisa Marchiano:

Nope. It's hags. It came out around the same time as as Hagitude. Now it's not about mythology. It's about the generational tension between older women and younger women and the way that younger women really wanna separate themselves from older women. I don't wanna have anything to do with you. It's it's just, oh, I can't Victoria. I can't think of her name.

Lisa Marchiano:

But she kinda makes this point that, like, if you're in the fuckable category, you're gonna be pleasing to men. You're interested in being pleasing to men. And if you're in the unfuckable category, you don't give any fucks because you don't care what men think. So there's something about that. There's something about, like, when you're trying to please men, men and being there are some older women who are stunningly attractive. I just I love that. I love I love I'm always just captivated when I see a stunningly attractive older woman, but they're not pretty, if you know what I mean.

Lisa Marie Rankin:

Yes. I do. And I'm the same when I see it come up on Instagram or Facebook. I'm like, oh, this is gorgeous.

Lisa Marchiano:

But you don't get the feeling that she's trying to catch the guy's eye. And that is one of the nice things about having gray hair is that I I'm, like, not in that category anymore, and it's so freeing. Yeah. No one's looking at me like that, and it's great.

Lisa Marie Rankin:

No. That's one of the things that I've been trying to do with both, well, myself and my community is just change the narrative on aging, where it's not something that we're trying to avoid, but looking at it as an opportunity that we get access to, yes, like more of these energies. Well, I think that's most of my questions. Is there anything that you want to either share about the book? Or I know you have so many amazing offerings like Dream School, Youngian Life podcast, but anything else that you would like to talk about regarding the book or share where people can find you?

Lisa Marchiano:

Sure. My website is lisamarchiano.com. I have an online fairytale group for women called Spinning Straw, and you can find that at spinning straw.com or link it links from my website. I run occasional retreats for women if they're fairy tale dream and yoga retreats. And the next one's going to be in August in Tuscany. So that's also on my website. And, also, myself and my podcast cohost have a book that's releasing on November 12th called dream wise, unlocking the meaning of your dreams. And it's all about how you can work with your dreams.

Lisa Marchiano:

We didn't really touch on dreams today, but dreams, of course, are very important. So

Lisa Marie Rankin:

Yeah. Oh, fantastic. That's like a maybe another one we'll be reading with my community. And all of those links will be in the show notes for those of you listening. Well and I just wanna thank you so much for coming on and sharing your wisdom and having these deep conversations. And I know the women in my community are really going to love it.

Lisa Marchiano:

Thank you.

Lisa Marie Rankin:

Yeah. Thank you. Thanks for tuning in to The Goddess School Podcast. 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.

Lisa Marie Rankin:

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. 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.