standing your ground
Image by Niek Verlaan

In this chapter, we’re going to explore the unearthed potential that lurks in our hidden depths and develop the courage to bring it up, out, and into our communities.

I believe each and every one of us involved in this radical wave of awakening has within their grasp an edgy, innovative, and powerful gift for the world. Not as some kind of branding or marketing exercise that explodes upon our Facebook feeds as the latest “must-have” item but as a true and genuine enlightening experience that produces real and lasting change.

To take this journey as deep and wide as we’re able to, we’re going to have to turn ourselves inside out and live from that truth. First, we must search for this sacred gift, and the way we do that is to start asking some uncomfortable and awkward questions in ever-increasing depth.

The First Question Is: Are We Free?

Are we physically free and able to move, travel, connect, network, share, speak, give, and receive? Or is there some kind of petty tyrant—­internal or external—that attempts to prevent our gathering and connecting with others? If there is, we need to address this properly.

We must be sure to examine our own internal mechanisms. Do we hold ourselves back from sharing and gathering? Do we shy away from connecting with others? Do we leave it to other people to dream up ideas, organize a gathering, attend the gathering, and then implement those ideas into action? Are we sitting on the fence in some way, watching others get involved and wishing we were part of it?


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A Threat To The Dark Agenda

One of the greatest threats to the Dark Agenda is the gathering of people, coming together with a shared passion and then brought into a heightened state of wakefulness. This high-level inspiration and elevation is highly feared and not encouraged in any way by the everyday invisible laws of society.

Sometimes I wonder whether man-made substances are brought into our cultures on purpose, to make sure we don’t figure out how to reach those states by ourselves. Because if we do, we won’t work for a low wage, we won’t commute in dirty fuel-driven transportation into the toxic haze of urban sprawl, and we won’t go home to square boxes that cramp our spirit and break down our creativity and intimacy.

No, instead we will be outdoors, sitting by fires, playing and creating in our fervent, green, tangled crazy natural home, where we are no longer “safe,” but dancing.

“Is anything attempting to hold me back in any way?

In this day and age, there cannot be an inner or outer perpetrator that controls our freedom to gather, share, and participate. We must examine our relationships in deep and honest ways, including the relationship we have with ourselves. We must check in and ask, “Is anything attempting to hold me back in any way? Am I, or is someone/thing, keeping what I currently offer in the safe confines of popularity, ‘brandability,’ and financial security?”

Now is not the time for safe and credible creativity. Now is the time for new, edgy, and innovative ideas and experiments and creative, spiritual initiations that provide authentic and lasting growth. We must stop appealing to the popularity vote and take that extra step into vast unknown parts of ourselves, asking “What more can I give?” which also answers the more egoic focused question of “What more can I receive?”

Let us stop branding ourselves on Instagram and Facebook like some kind of product placement that thrives on appearance. Please let us stop typing up posts that get the most “likes” and go viral because they are glamorous, sexy, or outrageous in some way. Let us stop prostituting ourselves for an invisible world that doesn’t actually exist and relies upon our addictive and narcissistic nature to not only survive but thrive.

The reason I’m writing this is because I have done this myself. I didn’t realize it consciously of course, but I was making myself into a brand! I was becoming a perfect patriarchy puppet. A pleasing, loving, fence-sitter that was popular, sellable, and safe.

Getting The Courage To Show Up

It was thanks to Andrew Harvey, and the time I spent with him and Linda Tucker at the Global White Lion Protection Trust in South Africa, that began to change all of this for me. He backed the group of us there into a tight and restricted corner, asking us horribly uncomfortable questions, such as “Why do you think you have received mystical experiences? What are you doing during this time as the world burns in agony because of your incessant greed and entitlement?”

And then, the final bludgeon, “What’s more frightening? Being numb with apathy as you sip yet another glass of chardonnay as the last tree on the planet burns to the ground, or allowing your veins to be filled with the fire of Kali, protesting with your ‘No!’ and wakefulness during the destruction of your planet and your possible extinction?”

Gulp.

After tremendous waves of shock, disgust, and desolation I eventually shook my head in disbelief and decided then and there that I desperately needed to get the courage to show up in ways that at first terrified me and then later inspired me.

So on that electrifying note, let’s use our online presence to write the kinds of things that will genuinely assist others and encourage ourselves to be more outspoken and authentic. Let’s encourage one another’s honest, beauty, and transparency. Let’s bring joy and catalyzing possibility to our posts.

Our Sacred Gift and the Three Frightening Guardians

Now, let’s return to our sacred gift. In essence, its discovery is a win-win situation, even if it does not initially appear to be that way. To access it, we will be stretched beyond our comfort zones. Surrounding this sacred gift, otherwise known as an evolutionary game changer, will be three frightening guardians whose job it is to keep us from discovering our sacred gift, our sacred technology if you will.

These three guardians will attempt to sway us in an entirely different direction by appealing to our vanity, fear, and cowardice. Only the brave of heart will refuse to listen or run away from their terrible threats and appearances.

If they strike at our vanity, we will crumble as we imagine all the judgmental things people could say about us, and how unpopular we could become. We will worry about not being liked or celebrated as we usually are, and so we might back down and turn away—never to be seen again.

Should these three guardians strike at our fear, we will be paralyzed at all the awful things that could happen to us, like being hunted or persecuted for doing or saying the wrong thing, and thereby venture no further.

Or if they strike at our cowardice we will feel unworthy and unable to challenge their alleged superiority and stay like we’ve always been—impotent, weak, and malleable.

Seeing and Hearing The Deepest Mystical Part Of Ourselves

However, should we continue past these three, choosing to see and hear the deepest mystical part of ourselves, and decide to go into our communities no longer holding anything back—what would that look like? This is the question that now needs answering.

The Fierce Feminine is not deterred by danger or pain. She is not put off by other people’s opinions. She is not prepared to water down, dilute, or appease anyone or anything for Her presence to reach those that it must and bring about the balance that is so desperately needed.

Standing Our Ground On The Path Of Sacred Activism

There are many of us on the path of sacred activism, acting on behalf of the Fierce Feminine, who will, at certain times, be challenged to a greater call of duty. Standing our ground has nothing to do with being stubborn, nothing to do with being stupid, and nothing to do with being naïve. Standing our ground is when we take a firm stance as a sovereign being who is free and will not allow anyone to breach our boundaries and tamper with our Light, or the Light of others.

Standing our ground is not easy, but it is necessary. It requires a certain fortitude internally as well as externally. We must be prepared to be bombarded by the forces of anti-awakening; doubt, dread, despair, disillusionment, and questioning whether we ought to back down will arise.

In these moments we must be awake to what’s happening by declaring to that which attempts to ensnare us, “I am a sovereign being. I am free. I am one with my True Creator. I am not afraid of you anymore. I am protecting my Light.”

It is then that we will feel a change of atmosphere within, and a lightness will be seen and felt. From there, we can send this glorious peace into the epicenter of the swirling dark fog (both inner and outer).

Remember, beloved friends, standing our ground is not about being defiant or aggressive but about being firm and fearlessly truthful. We can rest in the great knowledge that we are taking this stance for more than just ourselves; we are doing it for each other and our Earth.

Are We Cowards?

Fear. There’s something honest about it. It’s a shutdown. It’s a no. We’re simply unable to move forward in these moments of fear. It’s a true paralysis, a real situation. Whereas cowardice is a choice to not act when we know we can.

A coward knows they can reach for a certain action, knows they have the firepower (or compassion) to say what needs to be said, knows they could contribute to a situation that is clearly, obviously crying out for assistance—and instead walks away. I know this because I have been a coward. And I suspect many of us are or have been cowards in this lifetime.

Cowardice asks the question: “Is it safe?” Expediency asks the question: “Is it politic?” Vanity asks the question: “Is it popular?” But conscience asks the question: “Is it right?” And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but one must take it because one’s conscience tells one what is right. -- Martin Luther King, Jr.

A coward is someone who runs away or abandons their responsibilities or obligations during times of danger, distress, pain, or fear of the unknown. A coward is someone whose concern is only for themselves.

Cowardice is a sickness, and it’s rife among humans. I feel it’s positively encouraged by the Dark Agenda to be a coward. I feel we are fed a program of cowardice-making propaganda. Examples of this include the following:

“Don’t do this, or you’ll get arrested.”

“Don’t do this, or you’ll get sent to jail.”

“Don’t do this, or you’ll have your car, home, job, child, land taken away.”

“Don’t do this, or we’ll send the bailiffs, police, lawyers.”

“Don’t do this, or daddy (i.e., the system) is going to scold you.”

“Don’t do this, or mommy (i.e., the earth via natural disaster) will be angry.”

And so we back down, become small, and hope to God no one punishes us.

Rejecting The Cowardice Propaganda Program

We must stop this. We must stop being cowards and start being courageous. Courage doesn’t mean we are fearless. It means we move forward despite, and maybe because of, our fear. We do it anyway. We take that giant leap, we respond to the call of duty and we act, speak up, go out on a limb, and claim our ability to do something that may frighten us, but we do it for all.

We toss our concerns of being judged or ostracized or upsetting people’s feelings as far away from us as we can. Because if it’s a real situation, a real Fierce Feminine call to duty, if people and animals are getting hurt, land is being poisoned, or a pipeline is planned to go through sacred lands, then hurting other people’s feelings is completely unimportant.

The ones sitting on the fence will be the first to judge. Those who gossip are never empowered; it’s always the ones who are afraid of threatening the status quo who lash out. You may become ostracized, slandered, blamed, and shamed but remember, these are the impotent cries of the cowards. The ones who know they can act and still decide not to.

We must reach for our courage. Let’s reject the cowardice propaganda program and with a full, brave heart celebrate our daily acts of courage.

©2020 by Anaiya Sophia. All Rights Reserved.
Excerpted with permission from the book: Fierce Feminine Rising.
Publisher: Destiny Books, a divn. of Inner Traditions Intl..

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Fierce Feminine Rising: Heal from Predatory Relationships and Recenter Your Personal Power
by Anaiya Sophia

Fierce Feminine Rising: Heal from Predatory Relationships and Recenter Your Personal Power by Anaiya SophiaA guide for embodying the courage of the Fierce Feminine, or Dark Mother, to heal yourself and the world at large. After millennia of suppression, the Fierce Feminine is making a dramatic resurgence to express our universal outrage. She is rising collectively now, and many women--and men--are feeling a welling up of sacred rage inside, a calling to set things right in our own lives and seek justice for those who can’t defend themselves.

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About the Author

Anaiya SophiaAnaiya Sophia is a mystic, author and initiator of Sacred Marriage. She is a wellspring of both wisdom and experience and is known for her role in birthing New Paradigm Relationships, Divine Sexuality and the Awakening of the Sacred Body. Her books include Open your Heart with Kundalini Yoga, Pilgrimage of Love, Womb Wisdom, Sacred Sexual Union, The Rose Knight, and Sacred Relationships: The Practice of Intimate Erotic Love. Visit her website at: https://anaiyasophia.com/

Video/Conversation with Anaiya Sophia: What Is Emotional Intimacy?
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