Redefining the Path of the Rose
Widening the lense on Venus, the Feminine Mysteries and Embodiment.
The term “feminine embodiment” is a pretty loaded one these days. Conjuring images of instagram influencers and sticky notions of narcissism veiled as self care, I get it. Capitalism and the “Goddess” is a very strange mix.
So let’s dive a little deeper and give this subject the nuance it deserves.
For me, The Path of the Rose is a Feminine current leading into direct experiences of inner and outer union. In my practice this is transmitted primarily through the wisdom bodies of Venus and the Rose but ultimately it is about union, a weaving, a tantra.
I say union because the Feminine aspect of consciousness always leads to the Masculine aspect and they are in constant relationship with each other across all dimensions. Both can play active or receptive roles in different contexts, undulating in spaciousness and contraction and evolving waaaaay beyond the confines of biology or gender.
I realise energetic alchemy can sound quite abstract but in practical terms it’s really just about cultivating capacity for both feeling and witnessing, for being in experiences of both/and which allows for creative transformation to unfold.
This includes our ability to fracture and repair. To give birth, die and be reborn both literally and metaphorically. Yes, that is the regenerative path of the Goddess, the sacred Feminine principal.
Mythic Realms
Having been personally claimed by the initiatory mythos of Venus has been brutal at times. You can watch a podcast interview here where I talk more about that.
I’ve had plenty of underworld journeys swamping around in the shadows of my karmic unconscious. Through devotional ritual, astrology, deity communion, plant medicine ceremonies, somatic practice and a fair dose of old fashioned therapy I have surrendered to these myths being dreamt through me and believe me, when I say I’m still going.
Along the way it seems human relationships have been ground zero for much of my evolution, they mirror everything. The split between male and female, men and woman has been front and centre. With the help of these plants, prayers, people and planets who in many ways are also aspects of myself, I have digested sexual, political, ancestral, physical and mental trauma, releasing that creative energy back into renewed vitality and time and time again, returned to one simple concept.
Love is the medicine.
Love that is the binding force of the universe, that which holds the worlds together. Love that is impossible to name and always waiting just below the surface of things.
Yes, Venus/Inanna/Lilith/Mary Magdalene/The Rose/Ayahuasca these are all allies on the Rose Path, this woven school of union, with it’s particular flavor and frequency. They are all Mythic teachers reflected in human life as real to me as any one of us. Arising as both archetypal and energetic frequencies of intelligence, embodied in situations and stories that infuse the right medicine for my soul into a specific, feminine map.
A map of The Rose Path.
I now invite others to walk with me on that path, through spaces I create rooted in my own embodied experience. These are spaces that support others not to “be like me” but rather to become ever more themselves. The fact they are drawn to this work is enough, I don’t need to convince anyone, for the soul knows what it seeks and the Rose Path calls folk at specific and perfect moments. I’ve witnessed this over and over.
A return to the wholeness at our core, happens by accepting and knowing our unique, evolving self, in all aspects. Loving ourselves into the most terrifying places and likewise cultivating the strength, pleasure and compassion needed to stay present with what is.
This love is what connects us with regenerative, self-arising wisdom and power.
That’s power in, not power over.
When we heal the split within ourselves that wants to insist on duality at all costs, we repair and expand our life force connection massively. From this place of inner union whatever it is we are here to do or be, can evolve authentically in harmonic resonance with the wider world, from the inside out. We start to KNOW what, when and how to be from a wisdom beyond the mind. We become sovereign because we are in a state of radical self-responsibility.
In times of increasingly intense political polarisation, economic transformation and ecological crisis, this work feels like the most practical, grounded, important way for me to nourish true freedom on earth. Away from dogma, bypassing and isolating narratives that simply give more of our sovereignty away, it is my intention to infuse the devotional medicine of the Rose into all I do and let the Goddess take care of the rest.
To keep community alive and nourish a shared vision that is creative, compassionate, wise and truly human. It is the quality of our consciousness that will dictate collective outcomes. This I know to be true and this is my why.
How the body brings it all together.
After almost a decade of shamanic plant medicine training in the Amazon and 5 years as an emerging Astrologer ALL of this comes back together for me, in and through the body.
The somatic channels of our bodies are the sovereign ground of our being and facilitate all our relationships across time and space. Whatever we are available for in any moment, that’s our bandwidth and it lives in the body.
I’ve found that to truly digest, integrate and expand upon the transcendent wisdom states accessed through ritual, ceremony or planetary transits, our body must be included. By increasing our capacity to feel, overall resilience actually increases, but it happens in waves, is non-linear and requires a lot of compassion.
It is also very helpful to be supported in that process.
Understanding the dynamics of the nervous system, the way trauma is stored and resolved in and through our physiology and being practiced at holding space for that, informs everything I do.
I also accept that catharsis, chaos and intensity cannot be eliminated from our experience, I take good care while accepting the wild nature of life.
Sometimes we fly up and away carried on the wings of spirit, ideas, emotions and mythic forces. Other times we dissolve in and down through deeper currents, merging and surrendering to the timeless, to terror and confusion or ecstatic, erotic darkness. Sometimes we are cast by forces beyond us into great suffering or great privilege.
Being human is so fucking wild!
Apparently we were born for this but going it alone is a really hard option and something we haven’t historically done very well.
So that’s why The Path of the Rose exists.
To teach others how to weave in the vast amount of support that’s available to us. To cultivate the inner and outer space to give and receive beyond a narrow human story or limited, programmed reality so we can experience God/dess in and through our bodies, hearts, minds and spirits.
To maintain creative sovereignty in our lives because we have space for love in all its forms. Light, dark and everything in between.
Because it’s my observation that all of us deep down hunger for union, even the “bad guys” actually, especially the bad guys.
So… here we are. If you find value in these threads… hit subscribe below, it’s free.
Also… if you want to connect with this work more deeply HEART ALCHEMY is open for registration now, this is a 40 day and night devotional ritual precisely timed with the Venus Retrograde of 2023. It’s going to be potent… You can find out more - Here.
All my love and blessings… Lara
