My husband and son went through a brief phase with an app that let you to pit two impossibly different creatures together in an imaginary battle to see who comes out on top.  Think microscopic seahorses versus T rexes, a chicken versus a Mexican Jumping bean.  Listening to snippets of the recent presidential debate I felt like I was experiencing one of those match ups.

So it only makes sense that this week’s gene key (39) moves from the shadow of provocation, a fast and fierce and violent energy that is terrified of being trapped, or losing your individual freedom to act so it provokes massive outward violence.

Provocation moves from being senseless fear-motivated , and violence-creating energy into the Gift of Dynamism, which is the pure life force of creativity, alive and embodied, for good in the world.  This energy moves to the Siddhi of Liberation and calls people to wake up from where they have given away their freedom, truth and love of life.

Trump embodies this shadow, perfectly. His fear is of being trapped or having his freedom limited and he is provoking violence on every level, stimulating the crumbling of regimes.  These regimes were intended to be self reflective, living cultures (democracy!) but have rigamorticized into commodity driven hierarchies, withered, dishonest and greed-fueled like a vampire that stays alive by drinking the blood of its victims.  He epitomizes the ship he’s burning down.   

But, as our friend Rumi says:

ours is not a caravan of despair,

even if you have broken your vows

a thousand times,

come, yet again, come.”

How do we get off the caravan of despair?

Do our individual shadow work that we may be warriors for love.

Shadow work is a way of finding where you actually are on the map - bringing gentle attention to where you are expressing shadowy stuff is a way to get your footing.  So, let’s say you keep sabotaging some part of your life, and the drama around you affirms this, but you have a story that you’re all perfect here so why is the outer reality not reflecting that perfection?

Those areas of outer craziness reflect where we are in shadow but can’t admit it or don’t want to because it’s real vulnerable and ego crunching to get in there and work through where you’ve been wrong and hurt others.  But that honesty allows you to reconvene with truth, and it also begins to transmute the shadow and help you release into Gift.  Being honest and starting to work with a shadow lands you on your map, then as you rise, you look up to where your true life is calling you.  In the case of the 39, when we look up we find a Persephone, the most warrior goddess bitch I have ever known.

39 is one of only 2 warrior keys in the whole 64 matrix. Persephone has both as her two major keys.  As a young child Persephone was so provocative and sometimes violent it could be a bit frightening. I worried who she would become with so much raw power and ferocity. As she grew and became a mother she began to work with her fears, understanding that unchecked, unloved, unexamined and untransmuted fears were the source of our greatest weakness.  They create the fertile ground for violence to spread like a wild fire.

Every fear you leave to fester, unmet, unloved and untransmuted by you is one you will be controlled by, it’s the exact place where your life force will drain and you will become susceptible to outer drama that will further destabilize you.

More than that, it’s those fears, the bulk, unaddressed fears of mass consciousness that are fueling the outer dumpster fire we are currently experiencing.  Every fear you dare to meet, open into, brave acknowledging, learn how to work with, allow, accept and embrace is one less drop of fuel for the cultural fire, it’s removing your portion of the gasoline from this fire, and, it’s going to inspire others to deal with their own.  And! It releases the energy of dynamism back into your life. It takes a lot of energy to hold those shadows at bay.  That raw energy of dynamism is a raw powerful fuel. When you see a young child going endlessly, they are expressing this unfettered energy in their innocence.

I used to be controlled by the parts of myself that I hadn’t met and loved because they would rise up in sneaky ways. I would self sabotage or start crazy dramatic cycles in the world. Provoking drama and pain to deflect what I couldn’t deal with.  But the truth is, opening our hearts to our shadow patterns can be really relieving.  And if we are ever going to manifest an outer reality and a beautiful, living culture of synergistic governance, we have to embark on the journey of wholeness in our micro cultures.

As Persephone has transmuted her fears and worked with her shadows she’s started to liberate her innate dynamism, this raw power to liberate people. She’s started a women’s group that calls out love and creates a safe space for people to transmit and love open their fears. She’s become the fierce, love-warrior mother to her two kids and by this I mean, when they are scared and expressing their own fears she is able to stay stable and meet those fears with love instead of fueling them with her own unconscious fuel. She’s helping them to become kids who are not raised in shame, but in love. She’s transmuting ancestral curses like it’s her job instead of passing the buck on.

Instead of contributing to the fear dumpster fire, she’s investing that dynamic energy into creation, raising little love warriors, and building a self sustaining little homestead on a creek in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

And, because she’s done so much work, she’s very freaking powerful.  To this day, Persephone is still the one person in the Universe who can stop me.  I don’t say this lightly, many many people have tried, but it is only this warrior quality in her that has the power to hold me when I am confused or trying to force an outer fix I haven’t yet found or earned on the inner realms.  Time and time again she’s held a wall for me to crash against so that I do not bring the violence of my unprocessed shadows into the world.

This is how we put out the dumpster fires of violence in the outer world. 

This is the way of the love warrior.

P.s. if you want a practical and soft (and free) way to begin to transmute and meet your shadows the gene keys has a small self guided course. It can be a gentle ally.