The Trailblazer Talks
Kathy Scott, founder of The Trailblazery and Moon Medicine Academy
“My friends, do not lose heart. We were made for these times. One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul. Soul on deck shines like gold in dark times. When a great ship is in harbour and moored, it is safe, there can be no doubt. But that is not what great ships are built for.”
Many moons ago I discovered these wise words from Clarissa Pinkola Estés (Jungian psychoanalyst, poet and author of Women who run with the Wolves). This moment stopped me in my tracks and inspired me to take a road less travelled. It felt like a clarion call that I had to respond to in order to reclaim the parts of me that were lost – my intuition, my power and my sovereignty.
So I set about answering the call – albeit kicking and screaming – until it eventually led me to connect with my soul’s purpose. I now know that when these kinds of calls come along you are being invited on a Rite of Passage. If you refuse, life will become unbearable, and if you accept nothing will ever be the same again.
We read about these initiations in myths and fairytales but we are not always encouraged to stand up and show our souls.
It definitely wasn’t encouraged in 1980s Ireland when I was a young girl. We had inherited a country where historically a woman’s place was in the home or maybe out dancing at crossroads. It was a confusing time to come of age. The Angelus was followed by news of moving statues and dead babies. Feminist icons were thin on the ground until Madonna burst onto our MTV screens with fingerless gloves and loads of attitude.
I grew up feeling either too much or not enough so I learned how to be whatever other people wanted me to be. I survived 80’s Tipp but remained a very reluctant feminist until I eventually found inspiring role models and allies to guide me on my path. I was slowly able to liberate my ‘wild woman’ in the company of other women who knew the way home.
When I look back now to join the dots I can track the breakthrough moments that have shaped my journey as a woman. Sometimes they are the rock bottom moments that bring you to your knees what Elizabeth Gilbert calls the ‘bathroom floor moments’. Other times they are serendipitous flashes of insight that Oprah calls the ‘aha moment’. These moments mark a distinct before and after part of your life. It turns out that they are often hidden signposts to a better life that has been waiting patiently for you all along.
Another one of those moments for me was the discovery of a book called The Heroine’s Journey by Maureen Murdock. The book appeared as I was in a deep process of questioning everything about my experience as a woman in a world built mostly by and for men. I felt lost in the patriarchal culture I had inherited that didn't seem to value the power of the feminine. I hoped that someone might come to save me. I didn’t know that it was my own inner heroine who would step up to the plate.
At The Trailblazery, I initiated and led many cultural projects rooted in activism and storytelling so I was aware of Joseph Campbell and The Hero’s Journey. This narrative map is like a secret code that lies at the epicentre of all the great stories that have shaped our worldviews – the hero sets out into the world on a quest, conquers and come pack to claim his prize.
True trailblazer Maureen Murdock showed me a different way. The Heroine’s Journey is a woman’s mythic quest to heal the deep wounding of her feminine nature on a personal, cultural and spiritual level. I instinctively knew Maureen was onto something because I could see my own life mirrored in it.
Women face many trials and tribulations on the pilgrimage from girlhood through womanhood: menarche, motherhood, and menopause to name a few. These rites of passage are often shrouded in shame and secrecy, leaving women doubting their personal power and self-worth.
The Heroine’s Journey is an inner process of discovery that starts with a yearning for something more. Something is missing, so we embark on a quest, a dive down into ourselves to face truth and transformation. The hero’s journey is linear while the heroine’s journey is cyclical.
My own heroine’s journey began in my late 30s. I realised that because our patriarchal society places so much value on masculine directive energy and I had internalized that, and neglected my magnetic feminine power. Women (and men) have subconsciously been conditioned to follow a linear masculine model of existence. Push hard, drive, perform, achieve, and hide emotions at all cost. And then we find ourselves feeling disconnected from our bodies, exhausted, and unsure about our soul’s callings.
The heroine’s journey connects us back to our bodies, back to our senses, back to Earth, back to our creative life force and eventually back to our soul.
The hero’s journey focuses on external struggle, and the heroine’s journey focuses on internal struggle, but together they have a lot to offer each other as a map to empowerment.
This was a map I wanted to navigate my life by.
Over the years as a teacher, mentor and facilitator I have witnessed hundreds of women from all walks of life report feelings of disconnection, loss and abandonment. I listened to their stories and sensed a palpable hunger for community, sovereignty and agency.
I knew that I had to share all of the teachings, resources and practices I had been gifted in my heroine’s journey. I felt called to create a place where women could rise and lift each other up along the way.
So, in the wake of #WakingtheFeminists #MeToo and #Repeal, I initiated Moon Medicine as a community for women’s empowerment in Ireland. In 2019 we launched the Moon Medicine Academy a global year-long online training programme for women.
In a nutshell, Moon Medicine Academy is a Mystery School, Business School and School of Life. We gather a global community of women together every month to explore how to be the change we want to see in the world.
This heroine’s journey is a deep dive of discovery. We come together to reclaim our sovereignty through a variety of practices within a supportive community of like-hearted women. We designed the Moon Medicine Academy for women everywhere - artists, activists, householders, entrepreneurs, visionaries, trailblazers, healers, coaches, teachers, sisters, mothers and daughters. The training generates practical outcomes that empower women to gain clarity on their vision for the future, take skilful action and create expansive wellbeing, confidence and success in all areas of their lives.
We launched our first programme in 2020 and hosted a community of brilliant women from all corners of the world. We gathered to learn and share in the circle, just as women have done since time immemorial. Together we weathered a global pandemic and emerged stronger because of the transformative power of collective sisterhood.
We have learned that we were made for these times and that when women come together to lift each other up something extraordinary happens.
You have probably felt the weight of the past year deep in your soul. What we have collectively experienced and witnessed, over the past twelve months has broken our hearts, but can it break us open?
We are on a threshold. In a liminal space - the time is ripe to ask:
Where do I go from here?
What makes me feel most alive?
Who am I being called to be?
What is my soul’s calling?
My heroine’s journey was a long road home. My hope is that the programme we have created at Moon Medicine Academy will support women to midwife a bright future for generations to come.
Kathy Scott, March 2021
If you would like to enrol, all Heyday readers are gifted a special price of €599 annual payment or €59 monthly payment. This is a saving of €100 on the official annual membership price, and €10 on the monthly price.
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