mythic

But the Tantric sages weren’t content with a generalized vision of energy-as-Shakti. They personalized it in mythic language and in an additional leap of insight, created a science for transforming human energy—by working with the goddess figures of the Hindu pantheon.

TRANSFORMATIVE SYMBOLS We’ve known since Jung’s time that myths and symbols have a lock-and-key relationship to energies in our personal consciousness, as well as in the collective. The ancient spiritual traditions understood very well the power of the imaginal realm. They knew how contemplating an enlightened quality (like compassion) or a divine

The Greek word phantasia, from which we derive the word fantasy, comes from a verb that means “to make visible.” We make subtle energies visible by creating images in the mind. What we don’t always understand is how these images can transform our inner landscape, and then our life.

Though traditional deity practice often uses external ritual, Goddess practice is primarily an activity of intention and imagination. Mystics, like artists, discover truth through imagination. In our ordinary understanding of things, the imagination is considered unreal, made up. “You imagined it,” we say—meaning, “It doesn’t hold up empirically, s

Mythic doesn’t mean unreal. The mythic realm interfaces with our psyche on several different levels. What that means is that the energies of the Goddess will show up through the human beings and animals in your life. They will reveal themselves in the natural world.