The Menstruality Podcast - 182. Worshipping the Menstrual Cycle as a Gateway to the Sacred Feminine (Sarah Jenks)

Episode Date: January 23, 2025

When our guest today, Sarah Jenks was in her 20s, striving to get it all right, and be a good girl, she quickly found herself feeling exhausted, empty and struggling with emotional eating. One day, she stumbled upon sacred feminine ceremony and her life changed. She was inspired to dig into the history of sacred feminine ceremony, where she discovered how it has been branded by the oppressive patriarchy as evil and untrustworthy, and she connected the dots with the way many modern women don’t trust our own magic, and are actually afraid of ourselves and our truth.  Today, she shares the story of how she made it her mission to devote her life to get women into sacred feminine ceremony and weave the sacred feminine back into their everyday life. She now leads a community of over 100,000 women as an ordained priestess, and we explore how Sarah connect with the cyclical intelligence of her menstrual cycle to guide her life, relationships and work. As she shares in our playful, joyful, enriching conversation today; “my menstrual cycle helps me to track my process of becoming more and more myself.” We explore:Why Sarah doesn’t organise her life around her cycle, but rather gives herself radical permission to show up exactly how she is on every cycle day. How she sources energy differently in her inner seasons; from her body in the follicular phase, from her sensuality when she’s ovulating, from her wild, critical energy in her luteal phase, and from the earth and the deep feminine, in her bleed.What Sarah has learned from her study of ancient sacred feminine practices from many different traditions, with the moon and the menstrual cycle. ---Receive our free video training: Love Your Cycle, Discover the Power of Menstrual Cycle Awareness to Revolutionise Your Life - www.redschool.net/love---The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email [e-mail]---Social media:Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.schoolSophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardySarah Jenks: @sarahjenks - https://www.instagram.com/sarahjenks

Welcome to the Menstruality Podcast, where we share inspiring conversations about the power of menstrual cycle awareness and conscious menopause. This podcast is brought to you by Red School, where we're training the menstruality leaders of the future. I'm your host, Sophie Jane Hardy, and I'll be joined often by Red School's founders, Alexandra and Sharni, as well as an inspiring group of pioneers, activists, changemakers and creatives to explore how you can unashamedly claim the power of the menstrual cycle to activate your unique form of leadership for yourself, your community and the world. Hey, welcome back to the podcast. Thank you for being with me today. I feel like I've had so many rich conversations recently. I love all the chats I get to have for this podcast, but recently I feel like they're going next level, including this one with my

guest today, Sarah Jenks. So Sarah tells the story of when she was in her 20s, striving to get it all right, as we often do in that phase of our lives, being a good girl, she quickly found herself feeling exhausted, empty, and struggling with emotional eating. Then one day, she accidentally stumbled upon sacred feminine ceremony, felt shivers running up and down her spine and her life changed forever. She was inspired to dig into the history of sacred feminine ceremony, discovered how it's been branded over the millennia by the oppressive patriarchy as evil and untrustworthy. And she connected the dots with the way many modern women don't trust our own magic and are actually afraid of ourselves and our truth. And in our chat today, she shares the story of how she's made it her mission to devote her life to getting women

into sacred feminine ceremony and weaving the sacred feminine back into their everyday lives. She now leads a community of over 100,000 women as an ordained priestess. And we explore how she works with the cyclical intelligence of her menstrual cycle to guide her work, to guide her relationships, to guide everything in her life. As she shares in this playful and joyful and taboo busting conversation, my menstrual cycle helps me to track my process of becoming more and more myself. So Sarah, it's so great to have you here. Thank you so much for making the time for this. Oh, hi Sophie. Thanks for having me. I'm super excited to be here with you and your people. It's

going to be so great. Yeah, it's an amazing community here. We always start with a cycle check-in, like where are you at in your cycle at the moment? How is it feeling? How is it influencing you? Yeah, I'd be curious to hear from you. Yeah, so I am on day probably 10-ish. So I'm like five days into my follicular phase. I'm feeling amazing, which is so great. You know, I'm definitely a follicular girly. I mean, probably we all are, but I just really thrive in this phase. You know, I've been, I bled with the new moon for most of my life. And I recently switched to bleeding with the full moon, which, and as a priestess and someone

who practices sacred feminine spirituality, that where you are in the moon can be really intense if you're feeling everything that's going on around you. And so it's a lot to have that. So I'm always a little bit happy when it's over and I'm actually coming into sort of a rest phase right now in terms of my work cycle. So it feels actually good to have an extra boost of energy, even in my resting phase. Cause we can so often use our energy to just keep going going going giving it to everybody else instead of using it to talk after ourselves for us exactly yeah yeah gorgeous um I would really I mean I'll share where I'm at first so I'm on day 18

um but we've had a bereavement in my family my um my husband's mother who was 92 she lived a really oh long life but yeah she passed away recently so our whole family's been in a kind of inner winter how grief just plunges you right in yeah I'm so sorry to hear that thank you thank you love so I'm sort of but I'm in my inner summer I'm like day 18 so like and I'm so grateful because I've really needed to bring my love and care and tending to him to the family everyone and so yeah I'm just sort of marveling at the cycles within cycles you know like you mentioned you're entering a rest phase but you're in your follicular it's like yeah yeah and you know what I'm really really keen to speak to you about Sarah is your connection

to the sacred feminine because you're holding pieces here that are so important for all of us to hear and the way you transmit them is so vital and vibrant I'm excited thank you as a first question I'd just love to ask about your calling to educate the world about the sacred feminine and where you're at with that and how it's moving through you right now? Yeah, thanks. That's such a beautiful question. So I always like to start off with explaining how, you know, I'm from a traditional New England family. You know, I grew up like a preppy girl from Boston and I was very success oriented and wanted to do everything right and wanted to be a good girl and the perfect daughter. And I went to the number one liberal arts school in the country. And I went straight into marketing after I went into college. I had a few like hips

and hops with event planning and PR, you know, trying to find my way, but I ended up in marketing and I was always an emotional eater. So starting about the age of 10, I started eating in secret and I just thought that I didn't have willpower, that something was wrong with me. And it wasn't until I was 24, I was working in marketing. And it was, for all intents and purposes, my dream job. I was on the path I thought I always wanted. I was dating a medical student. I had checked off so many boxes. I was living in New York City. And I expected to feel great and happy and fulfilled. But instead, I felt really miserable and exhausted. And I was medicating that with food. And I had this one moment where Dove chocolate, you know, Dove chocolate, those little promises. I wrote actually a lot of those promises

that are still in the foils, like so funny. And I had this moment one time when I was having a particularly hard day and I took a whole bag of promises into the supply closet of my marketing agency. And I ate half a bag of chocolate. And then I threw it out and I went back to my desk. And it was like something had taken over my body. I went back into the closet, fished the chocolate out of the trash, ate the rest of the bag. And in that moment, I said to myself, something is really wrong with me. What is going

on? So I started digging because I didn't understand what was happening with me. And I found the work of Janine Roth. And I discovered for the first time that I was an emotional eater. And I realized that I was filling a void with food. And everyone knows this now, but this is like, you know, 2008 and people weren't talking about emotional eating. So I ended up going to, I thought I was going to go to get my psychology degree because I was a psychology major at Williams. And I ended up going to the Institute for Integrative Nutrition and I became an emotional

eating expert. And I had a really successful online business around emotional eating. Wow. expert and I had a really successful online business around emotional eating. And I was hearing the same thing from women over and over and over again. I have checked all the boxes. I am married. I have healthy kids. I have a beautiful home and I feel empty. I don't feel fulfilled. Like what's up with that? And why do I feel like I can't make decisions for myself? And why do I feel like I'm always needing to seek permission from my parents or my husband? Why do I constantly feel like I'm trying to get everybody's acceptance and love from outside of me? And I was starting to recognize a lot of these patterns in myself as I was becoming

a mother. I was like a raging feminist before I was a mom and very independent, starting my own business and no one could mess with me. And as soon as I became a mom, all of that went away. And it was like watching myself turn into this woman who I did not recognize and I did not understand. And I started going to therapy and I was in therapy for about six months. And I walked in to therapy one day in my therapist's living room home office. And there were these chairs on the floor and I could smell incense in the air. And there were these beautiful paintings of goddesses. And all of a sudden, my entire body erupted in goosebumps and I started to uncontrollably weep. And I just looked at my therapist and I said, what happened here last night? And she was as surprised as I was that I was having this crazy experience. And she said,

oh, well, I'll tell you when you're ready. And from that moment, I wanted in. I wanted in on the secret club. I did not know what was going on. All I knew was that I was having this feeling of remembering something, like remembering home, but I had never seen anything like it in this lifetime. And I started to go on my search for what this magic was. And I started sitting in ceremony, a sacred feminine ceremony with my therapist who happened to be an ordained priestess sort of in hiding at that point. And every time I sat in ceremony, I knew who I was. I knew my path. I didn't feel like I needed permission anymore. I felt love for myself. I didn't feel like I needed acceptance from outside of me. And I started getting really curious about why. Why was that happening inside of the ceremony,

even though I'd been a personal development junkie my entire life? I had been in therapy. I had read all the books and nothing had really helped me feel better, feel more secure, feel like I could live my own life. I was constantly beholden to what my parents wanted me to do, what my husband wanted me to do, what it meant to be a good mom, what it meant to be a good wife, blah, blah, blah, all the things. So I started doing a deep dive, not only around the technologies of ceremony, but like, why did I feel weird being in ceremony? Why was I hiding it from people? And why wasn't anyone doing this modality that was literally changing who I was from my core within like an hour of sitting in a circle? You know what I mean? And so I went and I

dug into the history of sacred feminine ceremony because I grew up Christian and I really wanted to understand why isn't anyone doing this? And through that search, what I came to discover was that when the rise of the oppressive patriarchy came and spread throughout the world in the dark ages, the first thing they did was destroy the sacred feminine temple and rape and torture and murder the priestesses. And so they knew that the best way to control women, to condition women, to brainwash women was to eradicate the sacred feminine, not only in that moment, but then come up with this full-fledged campaign to erase the sacred feminine stories, to erase the goddesses, to erase sacred feminine ritual and traditions and the wisdom of our cycle from our education, from the wisdom that's passed down,

by making every woman terrified of the sacred feminine, by branding it as evil, by branding it as untrustworthy, so that anytime our magic would arise within us after we start our bleed, after we get our menses for the first time, that we actually shut it down in us. We become afraid of ourselves. If they knew that the sacred feminine and removing it was the best way to control women, what would happen if we put it back? And so I've made it my entire purpose to get women into sacred feminine ceremony, to educate them on sacred feminine history, and to have them weave it back into their everyday life. Because just simply by sitting in ceremony, we remember our power, we remember our confidence, we remember that we can source love within. And I have seen women

do unbelievable things that they never thought they were going to be able to do before, just purely by sitting in a sacred feminine ceremony. It's unreal. And heal things that have totally course corrected their lives and taken them off in a completely different direction. Exactly. So much in what you just said. But funnily, the thing that I'm thinking of is how this morning, when my four-year-old wanted to go out and play in the snow, because it snowed here today. Oh my gosh, wow. Yeah. It's so beautiful.

Like the whole world has just been white. Oh. So gorgeous. So great. But he was like, let's build a snowman. And I thought, I want to build a snow goddess. Yes, you do. Yes, you do.

Let's build a snow goddess. That's so great. I'm going to post a photo of it when this goes live. And I did. And as I was carving her shape you know it's like the is it the venus like the venus of dussel willendorf yes there you go willendorf and she was coming into that shape I mean it's just it's just a metaphor so why do we always say snowman you know that's so great I love that like there's so much that when we get on the trail of the sacred feminine,

when we get on the trail of the goddess is so much opens up and becomes possible and gets revealed. And, and then, and then I, I mean, I felt angry for the longest time. Oh yeah. So angry. I mean, I think that anger is such an important emotion because it's really passion. And I was so angry that this deep, incredible wisdom was taken away from us on purpose. I think that a lot of people believe, and I definitely did, that it had just fallen out of fashion or that it never really existed. Well, there's this feeling of it not being cool, right? Well, right.

That's literally the brainwashing, right? So that's the holdover from the burning times. It's definitely, I mean, it's still prophesied that way in a lot of Christian communities. I mean, you should like see the stuff that people write about me on the internet. You know, I mean, it is wild. Like I'll post something that's like a little bit extra witchy. And there's a lot of people that really come at me that it's evil, that it's uncool, like it's still happening. So it's, it's in the water that we're drinking. And the thing I always try to explain to people is that for 97% of the history of humans worshiping a higher power, we worship the sacred feminine. It is just like a foot on a football field of a percentage of time that we have worshipped the sacred masculine only. And so I find that this is why I like to teach the history of the sacred feminine in my

Holy Woman membership, because when we learn about the history, we just realize that it's actually normal and that what's happening right now is abnormal. And I find that when I fully integrated that truth into my system, I definitely got angrier, but I was less bothered by people saying that I was uncool. Yeah. You know, if we're talking about it. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like there's a Eurocentricity thing going on too, as well't there because oh yeah so many all of the indigenous cultures all of them it's a balance it's a balance of recognizing the feminine masculine but it's just these particular cultures of dominance that have but the masculine and the top you know the toxic masculine is taking over absolutely and and it's so important to remember that all that was on purpose you know so it's like the crusades you know the crusades led to

the burning times the burning times led to the enslavement of people which led to colonization in the americas you know which led to this you know know, Christianity was the, um, like excuse people used for control. And it's so important to recognize that it, it really is one system of control that really moved the entire planet. So like something I teach in my course is like, we really show the, the movement of oppression and how it happened over a timeline. And when we look at our history books and when we learned about it in school, we didn't learn it that way.

And we didn't learn that what they were doing was erasing the sacred feminine in the process, that that was actually the thing that they were doing in order to control the masses. Because built into a sacred feminine spiritual practice in a way of looking at the world is individual power and our oppressive systems don't want anyone to feel their own individual power and this is just brings us straight to why the menstruality podcast exists because i mean I've been on this path with you my sister for a while like I don't know 15 years or something yeah that's exactly how long I've been doing this work so it's yeah or maybe since we were born totally but then I discovered I think it was 12 years ago

I discovered menstrual cycle awareness through Alexandra's book Alexandra andarnia the co-founders of red school and i was like oh all right so it's in me okay so there's a path inside me home to this wisdom i don't have to keep looking outside not that there isn't beauty and wonder and you know ceremony all the goodness outside but there is this pathway inside i don't have to make this up my body is showing me the way to be with these energies and this flow and this this changing so so I'd love to ask you Sarah Love about your your cycle how you work with it as a priestess and actually there was a story I read from you about getting your period back after your daughter yeah probably Hazel remind me what I said you said i've got a quote here oh my god you were excited because you felt like you'd been missing an energy yeah and i was just speaking to a to a

mama in our community yesterday about this like she's like oh i i'm just not feeling the energy of the cycle i'm in a totally different thing but you were missing it you were missing part of yourself and when your cycle came back you were like like, oh, okay, I'm back. Can you remember that moment? I do remember that moment. Thank you so much for time traveling me back there. Yeah. You know, having babies was really hard for me. It was a really hard process.

And all of my kids came on their time and not mine is the way that I like to say it. And my first two were really close together. And I was going to wait like two more years to have my third and final child, Hazel, but she just like snuck right in there. And, you know, I'm a Venus and Scorpio. And so I really love being in the death and rebirth cycle. I love having new beginnings all the time. And so that's really how I use my cycle is it really helps me track and be with my progress around becoming more and more myself. So because I spent a really big chunk of my life

trying to be who everybody else wanted me to be, I've devoted the rest of my life to being my soul self and being exactly who I am, regardless of how uncomfortable it makes people around me and regardless of the rules I need to break. And I use my cycle to help me track how closely I am attuning to the nudges of my soul. And so to have this built in like new years every month is just so great for me. And I do a lot of like, okay, the first day I get my period, I really think about everything I'm releasing with the last cycle. It's similar to how we would, you know, manifest with the moon. And I do it with the moon and with my cycle. And it's just this new beginnings. And since I'm tuned in, I can really feel the energetic

differences in my body, you know, between my weeks. And it's just the best, I can really feel the energetic differences in my body, you know, between my weeks. And it's just the best. I just love it. I'd love to look at the different phases and how you experience them, because I feel like it's like getting into the details of how we actually do this in our real lives. You know, and you've got a lot going on. You've got a big world that you're that you're rocking over there thank you with your family too so what does

it look like for you when you get your bleed like do you have a regular cycle do you know when it's coming and how do you plan for it how do you how do you get your rest yeah so what's real so I am I just turned 40 and my cycle is starting to like get a little bit shorter and I didn't love that. So I've been doing a lot of hormone work on myself, like really upping my protein in the morning and eating before I have coffee and just like doing all those things. And it's coming back to, and I have a regular 29 day cycle, which is really convenient with my moon tracking.

Why do you think I post this? I know. And what's, what's real is that I don't organize my life based on my cycle, but I do show up for those things differently based on my cycle. So I really just give myself radical permission to show up how I am. So I just led a three-day retreat and I was bleeding for it. And I have a ton of energy when I'm bleeding. I actually do not need to be in bed. It's just a different source of energy. So when I'm bleeding, I'm really in the dark feminine. I'm super connected to the earth. I get really connected to Lilith. I get super connected to my anger.

I get really connected to my creativity. It's very down and in. And so I'm sourcing my energy from that place. When I'm follicular, I can really source my energy from my body and I'm a little bit more playful, a little bit more up. I can stay up later, you know, when I will use that and dance with it. You know, when I'm ovulatory, I'm super turned on all the time. And so I'm really using that sensual energy to feel what I'm doing. And I'm bringing that everywhere. And I'm thinking about how I dress differently and making sure if Jonathan and I are going on a date, like we're doing something like super fun and yummy and juicy. And then when I'm in my luteal phase, I'm definitely like a bit of a troll myself. Like I'm kind of grumpy. I just let it be here, you know? And if I'm leading a retreat or I'm leading a workshop or I'm showing up for a podcast. Like I'm just in that energy all the way and, you know, being critical and like letting my judgment actually guide where things need to shift, where things need to change, where

I need to be more discerning. And I just have to get super clear on my nose. And it's a great way for me to clean up where I've maybe gotten a little like willy nilly on my boundaries, or I'm overdoing it in some places. I'm just like cutting that stuff with a sword. So that's how I manage my life in accordance with my cycle. I love that because there are a lot of idealized notions around, you need this much rest when you bleed and this is what you must do then. And, you know, it's like another way that the patriarchy is creeping in to this very natural and very unique

process to each of us. Like we have our own relationship. It's our relationship. No one can take it away. Yeah. And it would just be way too stressful for me to try to like schedule my entire life around my cycle so I just schedule things when when it makes sense when I feel like doing it and like I have three kids and you know it's just yeah you know I don't live alone you know so I find that if we just really allow ourselves to show up authentically then that is enough i love the differentiation differentiation you made too around in my in the bleed sourcing your energy from somewhere different from the earth and then when you are follicular ovulatory sourcing it from your body because i think we i think we just naturally draw from ourselves all

the time. But like, I love that you're plugging into something different that can feel you. That's what, that's my experience of my bleed, but I never thought about it that way. And I love it. Yeah. Thanks. I'm so glad. And that's really my job as a priestess is to do that, you know, is to get out of the way and be an open channel and let the divine come through me. And this is what I also teach women how to do in their own personal practice. And this is why the sacred feminine is so important because we need to learn how to source our energy from other places. And we're, you know, our bodies are a metaphor for that too, you know, because if we can create life and it's all about being a receiver and that's a big part of the creation cycle and it's all built in right here. It's all right here. Hey, I'm going to pause this chat with sarah just for a couple of moments to share an invitation

with you if you'd like to explore how you can work with the inner seasons of your menstrual cycle at the next level i'd love to invite you to explore red school's self-paced course cycle power it's been created by the originators of the inner seasons map of the menstrual cycle red school founders alexandra and sharni and it's designed to help you connect to the wisdom of the four phases of your cycle more deeply wherever you're at in your cycle tracking journey whether it's been three months or less or three years or more as As Alexandra and Sharni say, over the past decade through over 10,000 hours of ethnobiographic research with our students, we've unearthed the inner ecology of the menstrual cycle and how to work with it to unlock new levels of health, vitality, creativity, purpose

and power. Now in Cycle Power, we invite you to join us to embody this cyclical intelligence in your life. So you can find out more and register at redschool.net forward slash cycle power. There was another great story I found. I definitely want to ask you, we'll come back to this, but I want to ask you about going for, to the Ritz for high tea with your mom. Oh my gosh. The best. We have to come back to that, but just while I'm in a menstrual, right on my menstrual train, there was a story about you and Kate Northrup, who we've had on the podcast. It was awesome. And, and you were saying, Oh, I need it. I need

some income. Like something was going on in your life and you needed income. Yeah. You said, well, great. Vision in your bleed and all will be revealed. And you did. And you crafted a retreat, basically. And it really sparked things for you. Can you remember that story?

I absolutely do. Yes. So I had just moved to our home that we live in now and that I will die in. And from California, we moved from California to back to New England. And I needed to figure out how to pay our mortgage for the next couple of months because we sort of overextended ourselves when we moved here. And I was in a creative block and I had been learning the lessons that if I forced things and I was just doing it to make money, then it wasn't going to work. And so Kate said, wait till you're bleeding. And what Kate taught me is that it is only when we're bleeding when the right hemisphere and left

hemispheres of our brains actually connect neurologically. And so it helps us to see things clearly. And I also believe metaphorically and spiritually that when we are bleeding, we are the most connected to our wisdom and the wisdom of our ancestors and the wisdom of the cosmos. So when a lot of indigenous cultures, the women would all bleed, usually at the same time, we'd all be synced up, usually to the new moon. Fun fact, these priestesses that held the mysteries of the menstrual cycle were called sinners. Isn't that cool? Because sin is ancient Sumerian for

new moon. I know they really flipped that one on us. So the sinners, when they'd be bleeding on the new moon, they'd all go into the moon lodge together or Red Tent. My temple is named the Moon Lodge. I'm in here right now. And they would just lie about and be open to receive wisdom during this time. So I believe that it is biological, but that it is also magical. And what's so cool about being someone who bleeds is that our biology and our magic are interrelated and have a relationship i just i think it's so cool so i cleared my calendar it's like the one time i actually cleared my calendar when I was bleeding and I just opened up, I emptied out and I just said, goddess, tell me what to do. And when I did that, when I made the space, she just literally downloaded an entire retreat, three days. And I did the retreat and

it paid for my mortgage for an entire year on my house. And thank you, goddess. And it was the best. And so now I do that a lot. If I'm feeling stuck, I just kind of wait because things are not linear when you're a bleeder. Things come in like massive downloads. And so if we learn how to just wait for them, it's just really efficient. Yeah. I've even learned to wait. This is because of being in the early phase of motherhood, but I've even learned to wait for the ones that come back again and again. Oh, that's beautiful.

Where I should put my energy because there's only so much right now. Yeah. Okay. So hang on. This is the third month where I'm getting that thing. Let's focus on that thing. Often the trouble is it makes absolutely no sense. It never makes any sense. I'm really impressed that you wait around. I definitely have like a quicker trigger, which sometimes can get me into trouble. So maybe I will

practice the three, the three cycles. Yeah, man. It seems like it's working for you, lady. Well, yeah, sometimes I'm like, wrong road. Oh, so many, so many places I want to go, but just while you mentioned the Sumerian priestesses, can we do a bit of history for a moment? Cause I'd love to hear more about what you've learned about the priestesses that were with their cycle. Oh yeah, totally. So I think that probably every priestess from every lineage was an expert in her cycle and understood how to use it and work with it. the things that are popping into my head right now. So after Moses led the Jews out of Egypt, the story goes that they spent 40 years in the desert and archaeologists have gone back and have tried to find, you know, evidence of where the, where the ancient Hebrews lived and what they were doing. What they found was a huge temple in the shape of a new moon. And we all have to remember that Moses got the 10 commandments on

Mount Sinai, which is Sin-nai, like the mountain of the new moon or the womb priestesses. So I know. So some historians wonder, and there's a lot of evidence that says that they were actually doing goddess worship during that 40 years in the desert and that the priestesses and Miriam were really leading like really deep work around the womb mysteries. So I think that is super cool. Another thing that another lineage are the well maidens and the well maidens would be the women that literally tended the waters of the, of the springs that would come out of the earth. And they were always, you know, the waters are always connected to our menstrual cycle. And these well-maidens were also known as mare, which is the root word of water maids. So this is where mermaids come from. And oftentimes the mermaids or the well-maidens or the womb priestesses were depicted with fish tails

because a fish is also a symbol of the water. So what's so cool is that if we use a combination of history and language and archeology, there's so much we can relearn about ancient religion and where the sacred feminine actually existed inside of our organized religions right now that have lost a lot of these stories. And so I just encourage people to get in there a little bit and learn about it and, you know, follow your craving and follow the threads and just see where it leads you, because it's just like a great treasure hunt. Yeah. Such an amazing treasure hunt. That's it. I was also thinking of a different analogy, like a jigsaw puzzle, because all it's like, all the pieces are scattered around. Like there's all the different gospels that were

not included as part of the Bible that have been discovered and like the Mary Magdalene and, and how amazing it is. And it's like, there are these little pieces putting together. I feel like an important pathway for me has been to look at the ancient wisdom of my land, because I spent so much of my life unconsciously culturally appropriating in different paths and so a big part of my work now is to go okay back to my roots like beautiful part of the decolonizing work I guess um and speaking of the well maidens I just want to like if people are from these lands that I'm on and are wanting to pick up that thread. We did a great conversation with Sharon Blackie. Oh my gosh. I'm obsessed with her.

Yeah. I mean, I just love every time I speak to her, it blows my little brain and she spoke about the well-maidens in the last conversation. And yeah, it's fascinating to hear a big part of how the power was taken away from women. Yeah. She is so brilliant. Such a fan of her work. I'm thinking Inanna too to the myth of inana like this because that's a sumerian myth and it just is it's full of menstrual cycle wisdom you know it absolutely is and also like how the path of the planet venus perfectly mimics the story of Inanna. And, you know, my,

my favorite part of the Inanna story is all of her jewelry. You know what I mean? Just like that goddess knew how to adorn herself. And I think it's just like such a great, you know, so much of the work that I do in the sacred feminine is about having a permission slip to be a little radical, you know, speaking of radical, I don't talk about this in public, but I'm going to talk

about it on your podcast. So a practice I have, I drink my mood blood. Yes. Have you ever, have you ever drank it? Yes, I have. So I'm in good company. So I have this amazing priestess sister, Carolina, who has a practice. You have to have her on our podcast. I'll connect you guys. Yeah, please. Yeah. She has an amazing practice and she's really done the scientific research around how menstrual blood impacts us when we ingest it. And I use it as a manifesting practice, but it's also like, you know, I mean, it's the source of life. It literally builds human bodies, you know, when you're, when you are impregnated. So the stem cells are unreal and I use it as a super powerful manifestation

tool. So I will do like a real deep dive in terms of what I want. It's usually the things that I could never imagine either getting through if I'm in a super sticky emotional situation or I'm calling in some sort of material thing into my life. And I find that is a super powerful and extra witchy and radical practice. Everyone should try. Permission slip. Give it for all of us yeah we've we've had um an amazing menstrual artist on jasmine alicia carter and she like paints it all over her body and creates these her lineage is tibetan buddhist so she creates

these tankers from her menstrual blood oh my gosh your practice it oh beautiful yeah and the the hate that she receives online you know back to the hate that you shared it's like maybe we can go here because I really wanted to speak to you about following your calling when your calling is quote-unquote weird yeah um and how to source courage really because it takes a lot of courage, even now when you're receiving hate. Yeah, it really does. Yeah, it's intense. You know, and the thing to say is that it can come from anywhere. You know, it's like I receive hate from people on the internet and from close friends and, you know,

people that are supposed to really be there for you. Um, and it's really hard, super, super hard it, you know, following your soul's path in a society that really wants you to follow the path that's going to support everybody else is a revolutionary act and one that will not be met with celebration or a parade. And I think we have to really know what we're signing up for and have our eyes wide open to it because what can often happen for people, I think we're told if you're on the right path, it'll be easy and doors will open for you. But I have really experienced the opposite. Like I know when I have to, you know, the key for me is my relationship with the goddess is really shored up. I am talking to her all the time. You know, I meditate and pray three to four times a day. And that is how I get through because only I can know what's real and

true for me. And I have to be in like such clear and deep integrity all the time with the work, what I'm hearing with myself, because if I'm wobbly and anywhere else in my life, one criticism can totally send me off kilter. You know, so I just have to be so clean with what I'm saying, what I stand for with my shadows, with my projections, so that people can basically project stuff onto me all the time. And I know that I'm doing a good job for me and on my path. And of course, like I have people in my life, like my mentor, Elaine Kalila Dowdy, like my business partner, Kelly Tavares, like Kate Northrup, who I deeply trust, who I know will check me if I'm off. Like, it's not like a selfish, narcissistic, like I'm the only one who knows. Like I have a circle of advisors, you know, who do call me out, thank God.

And I know that if I'm right with myself and I'm right with the people that I trust, it's so much easier for me to move through the, you know, sometimes it's hate and a lot of times it's just being like really misunderstood. Yeah. And that in and of itself, because of our internalized patriarchal conditioning as women and the feelings that we have of literally dying, if we're not in perfect harmony and acceptance of everyone around us, you know, I have to always remember like, oh, if I feel like I'm dying, that's also part of my conditioning. And so I have to keep coming back and back and back and back and back. Yeah. And what brings you back? I mean, you said, you said your relationship with the goddess and your you're in communication all day long

and that is the way isn't it it's like yeah yeah whenever before anything I say hey can you can you do this with me through me you know I'm here I made this at your feet and that yeah that's my way that's beautiful with her but there's but there still are I'm trying to find my way to a question around courage because I just know for myself and so many of us listening it's like we just need some also feeling our own inner protector. You know, there's, there's a lot out there these days around outsourcing the masculine to the men. And I am not into that. I think that we all have an inner masculine. We all have an inner protector. We all have an inner container. And we have to know how to hold ourselves.

And so I really have learned how to do that, how to hold myself and protect myself and have good boundaries and support myself and know what I need and know who I am and know that I am safe with me. And that is emotional, but it's also material. I know that if something happened to Jonathan or I needed to leave, I'm not planning on it, I would be completely fine. I can take care of myself. And so I actually think that that's a lost art that women really need to learn. And that is also a wisdom of the priestesses. Priestesses didn't get married. We took care of ourselves. And so I think that's an important thread of sacred feminine practice is sovereignty. It's not actually just like being a lap kitten.

I feel like there's a whole forest of rage to get through often to get to that place of sovereignty. Like I'm thinking of my journey with the premenstruum over the last 12 years, because I began on this path with just pure holy rage at the moment yeah you know because of abusive experiences because of being in a essentially a yoga cult that was run by toxic figures like Jesus I got I got I really got thanks I really got to experience the toxicity of the system yeah and it hurt me and it and I would say it broke me, but it, it wounded me. And then I, I roared my way back. I'm still going my way back in many ways,

but like, I've lost my thread a little bit, but I feel like there's like this, this rage that we have to move through. And for me, the premenstrual phase of the cycle has been my um pathway to be with that rage like to kind of like transmute catalyze let it let it transform into my own knowing of myself like beautiful been mystical it's been long and messy and mystical to get there yeah it's so important and i think that also having a rage practice is a great way to feel our inner masculine because it's often an emotion that we think is going to break us. And if we can feel all the way and come out the other side, again, this is another wisdom of being in a cycle because rage is its own cycle, just like the menstrual cycle we have

in our body, then we sort of know that we can get through anything. Yeah. Yeah. So what would you say to someone listening who's like, oof, this sounds really good. I want to be in touch with this, but I don't feel I have that sovereignty. Where would you suggest like beginning taking some first steps with yes well i think the first step is to create your own individual relationship with the divine um i have a great free guide called sacred start if you wanted to link to it and it's how to create a 30 minute morning ritual to connect with the divine every day. And I really break it down, not only in how to do the ritual, but how to get your kids to leave you alone and, um, how to talk to your partner about being your bodyguard, you know, from six, six 30 or whenever your time is

going to be. And, um, and so, and if you want to get that on, you can also DM me on Instagram. I think you just DM start. If you DM me start, it'll come up. Is it start or morning? It's morning. Sorry. Try the very first. Start, morning, start. And so that is the very first step.

The other step is to have a community of people who believe in you, who are cheering you on, who are giving you the permission to just let your freak flag fly, to go all the way. Because so many of the people around us are on the path that everybody else wants them to take. And so if you are the only one in your community that is devoted to rocking the boat, you're not going to feel safe because women are wired to be in community. I don't think we need to go against that wiring, but, but first we have to shore ourselves up and like feel our actual community. And that can be, that can start with work inside of your marriage. It can start

with work with one friend. It can start with joining a community like Holy Woman or coming to a ceremony or going to a circle or whatever it is. But knowing that there are people there that you can go to, I think is extremely important and being with other people who are also on this path. And then I think it's to spend a lot less time with the people who make you feel like you have to be someone you're not, at least for a little bit until you can show up with those people and hold being yourself. But it's a workout to be authentic in a group of people who are pretending to be someone they're not. It's a total workout. It's such a workout. And I love that you named that women are, we're wired for connection. So don't go against that, but find, find the, find the,

the created family, find the, find the people around you that, yeah, that you can be with. Yeah. And I don't want to brush over like the really important work to do in your partnership too, because so many of the women I work with do not feel like they can be themselves with their partners. And it's mostly women who are in heterosexual relationships and I think that work is so deeply important for us to do yeah and it's long long work too Aiden and I've been together for years we're still like rutting like goats around this like I there are ways that I'm not showing up with him well I don't know I mean there are ways that I'm not showing up with him. Well, I don't know. I mean, there are ways that I show up in my women's circle. I'm howling. I'm like fully myself,

and I'm not showing up in that way with him. And I would love to, because I think it would actually enrich his life majorly. Um, you know, we'll keep going another eight years and maybe another eight and maybe another eight and we'll see. Do you want some advice around that yes please okay so i used the same thing with jonathan and we renewed our vows two years ago and my vow was to let my freak flag fly in front of him and it is the most vulnerable thing i've ever done. And it is, and riding that edge has been the biggest and most exciting and most fun growth of my life. And so it's my work. I think a lot of women are waiting for their male partner to make them feel comfortable enough to howl in front of them. But actually that this is like part of the integration. We have to hold ourselves

enough and be there for ourselves enough to bring the same wild and crazy to our husbands that we would in our women's circles. I'm taking that. I'm taking that. Let the freak flag fly. It is like jumping off a 300 foot cliff. It's not supposed to feel comfortable, but like jumping off cliffs is the best. And because there's a safety piece, isn't there? It's like sometimes that person is the person

we let ourselves be most bare and intimate with. So it's like there's the kind of the most at risk in a way. Yeah, totally. I love that. Okay. I feel like just before we wrap up I'd love to maybe we can close with this gorgeous story of your mum let's honour your mama and what she did for you she's the best yeah back when you first started your periods you know people listening if you didn't have this kind of experience I feel like we can just kind of borrow from each other here because this feels like the kind of experience that all of us should have had, you know, our own version. So yeah.

Can you tell us about what your mom did when you first got your period? Yeah. My mom was so amazing in this area. You know, she started talking to me about my period really, really early. She really wanted to honor it and do a good job. So she was like always asking me as soon as I to honor it and do a good job. So she was like, always asking me as soon as I got it, it was a big celebration, you know, hug and love and excitement. And, you know, it was a big deal. And she took me to the Ritz for tea

with my best friend and her mom. Um, cause we got it around the same time. And I don't remember, we didn't talk about our period directly, but we talked about becoming a woman and all the things that they loved about becoming a woman. It just goes to show like, there's so many different ways to celebrate and ritualize something. And I just got the message very early on that my body is great, and my body works, and my body is sacred. And even though she didn't use those words, she treated it like that. And that really set me up for a lifetime of having really great boundaries with myself, you know, as a sexual being with, you know, really knowing and loving myself. And it had a really big impact. It was like 1996. You know, no one was celebrating periods back then. That was really the best. She was way ahead of her time. time yeah I love that

the connection between celebrating the monarchy and celebrating your body at that age and clear sexual boundaries that's a really really beautiful connection I've never made before yeah as I was like just let me know if I'm getting this right but as I was reading that about you I thought wow so the seed of ceremony was planted really early. Really early. Beautiful. Like what, how do you think it influenced your calling? Like, I think a lot, you know, I, it's sort of interesting. I go back and forth around were the things in my life influencing who I was becoming or was I like in some sort of cool treasure map all along, you know? So, you know, we went to church every Sunday, which was always a beautiful ceremony. And I like my minister from growing up is one of the most amazing men I've ever met. And he has absolutely influenced why I have

become a spiritual teacher. And I was remembering just little things like for every birthday, my parents would have us give toasts to each other and publicly share what we love about each other. For my 18th birthday, my mom held a circle and surprised me of all of my favorite teachers and all the most influential people in my life. And we just sat in a circle and everyone read something that they loved about me. And it was the most incredible experience of my entire life. And it's just a different feeling when you name something so clearly and you honor it, you know, honoring time and honoring a threshold with a ritual just amplifies it in a way that makes it special and sacred. And so there's just been like, and I also grew up going to summer camp and like everything at summer camp was a ritual, morning meeting and campfire and meals and, you know, all of the stuff. And I loved all of that.

And then of course, you know, I was like, I got a Ouija board when I was eight, you know, all the things I was always making something a ritual, tea parties. But I think it definitely, it's always been a big part of my life. Well, I'm so glad the treasure map has led you to where you are now because you're doing incredible work and I'm so grateful. And thank you so much for everything you've done with us today. Thank you so much,

Sarah. Thank you so much for having me. I love this conversation. Take care. You too. you too thank you so much for listening all the way through to the end today thank you for being part of the community gathered around this conversation i'd love to hear what you think about this episode i'd love to hear if there's anyone you'd love me to chat with any themes you'd love us to explore, you can always email me at

sophie at redschool.net. And if you know someone who you think would enjoy this episode, please, please forward it on to them. All right, then I will be with you next week. And until then, keep living life according to your own brilliant rhythm.