E72: Reclaiming the Divine Feminine with Nathalie Cordell

There's two angles, actually.

One of them, I think, is around this calling for meaning.

So almost the...

this this two path in life and you know not all of us are lucky enough to actually go through this midlife crisis which really is an awakening in my view because to me it means that the first part of our life is where we we grow to become independent you know we are We are in a human body.

We need, you know, we need food and water and shelter to survive.

So, you know, we have to grow and become independent, leave our parents home, all of that.

And that's when we individualize.

And for me, midlife is when we've gone too far down that path of just materialistic growth and kind of living this other part of us.

which is the spiritual side, which I'm sure your listeners, if they've been listening to the podcast, will be familiar with, we start to get this calling for deeper meaning because we've ticked all the other boxes of survival and suddenly there's this feeling of, what is this all for? I've ticked all the boxes.

I'm here, but what's next? I want more.

I'm not sure what that is.

So that's a crisis of meaning to me.

And usually it's around midlife because that's when we've ticked all the boxes of getting a job, getting a career, maybe having a family, all the things that we're being told we're supposed to do in life.

And then suddenly there's this quest for more.

I think there's another element which I want to mention because it's part of the book and part of what I believe in for women specifically, it's to do with the divine feminine and the archetypes of, if I can see you smiling, which to me, there's sort of three phases in a woman's life and the divine feminine, which are maiden, mother and crone.

And in our culture, in our society, you can already see, you know, which ones are accepted as women, you know, yes, being young, being the maiden, being young and beautiful, that's very accepted.

Being a mother, you know, having the ability to mother children, whether we have them or not, you know, that's okay, we have a role.

But around midlife, if you think about it, that's when we start to lose both.

We're no longer young and, well, beautiful, yes, but we have to admit that the youth is behind us.

And I think around the menopause, when we suddenly, again, whether we have children or not, there's a physical, it's like a rite of passage that we go through where physically we are no longer able to birth children.

And in society, it's almost like, well, if I can't be either of those things, where's my place? Now, the archetype is the one of the crone.

And I talk a lot about that in the book, because to me, that's where actually wisdom and power comes from.

But in our society, she's been vilified.

She'll be she's been exiled and just no one wants to say, oh, yeah, I want to be the crone.

I mean, it's now used more as a. in spiritual circle as the archetype of the crone to me is a positive one, but many people have very negative images of the old wrinkly woman.

There's two angles, actually.

One of them, I think, is around this calling for meaning.

So almost the...

this this two path in life and you know not all of us are lucky enough to actually go through this midlife crisis which really is an awakening in my view because to me it means that the first part of our life is where we we grow to become independent you know we are We are in a human body.

We need, you know, we need food and water and shelter to survive.

So, you know, we have to grow and become independent, leave our parents home, all of that.

And that's when we individualize.

And for me, midlife is when we've gone too far down that path of just materialistic growth and kind of living this other part of us.

which is the spiritual side, which I'm sure your listeners, if they've been listening to the podcast, will be familiar with, we start to get this calling for deeper meaning because we've ticked all the other boxes of survival and suddenly there's this feeling of, what is this all for? I've ticked all the boxes.

I'm here, but what's next? I want more.

I'm not sure what that is.

So that's a crisis of meaning to me.

And usually it's around midlife because that's when we've ticked all the boxes of getting a job, getting a career, maybe having a family, all the things that we're being told we're supposed to do in life.

And then suddenly there's this quest for more.

I think there's another element which I want to mention because it's part of the book and part of what I believe in for women specifically, it's to do with the divine feminine and the archetypes of, if I can see you smiling, which to me, there's sort of three phases in a woman's life and the divine feminine, which are maiden, mother and crone.

And in our culture, in our society, you can already see, you know, which ones are accepted as women, you know, yes, being young, being the maiden, being young and beautiful, that's very accepted.

Being a mother, you know, having the ability to mother children, whether we have them or not, you know, that's okay, we have a role.

But around midlife, if you think about it, that's when we start to lose both.

We're no longer young and, well, beautiful, yes, but we have to admit that the youth is behind us.

And I think around the menopause, when we suddenly, again, whether we have children or not, there's a physical, it's like a rite of passage that we go through where physically we are no longer able to birth children.

And in society, it's almost like, well, if I can't be either of those things, where's my place? Now, the archetype is the one of the crone.

And I talk a lot about that in the book, because to me, that's where actually wisdom and power comes from.

But in our society, she's been vilified.

She'll be she's been exiled and just no one wants to say, oh, yeah, I want to be the crone.

I mean, it's now used more as a. in spiritual circle as the archetype of the crone to me is a positive one, but many people have very negative images of the old wrinkly woman.