Christine R. Page: The Heart of the Great Mother

(Global Heart | Esther Haasnoot) Discover the “The heart of the Great Mother“. Become the master of your own life by stepping in your full potential.

The heart of the Great Mother mysteries

We can become our own hero’s as we attempt to open portals into the Great Mother’s mysteries and see beyond the illusions and shadows and know ourselves fully as the brilliant and eternal light beings that we truly are. The crowning glory of the hero occurs when his dreams manifest into reality and, as a self-actualized being, he becomes sovereign of his own life. And yes indeed, that would be an experience of Heaven on Earth. 

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Profound wisdom and ancient mystery. A must-read if you attempt to walk the Hero’s journey to open portals into the Great Mother’s mysteries. The Heart of the Great Mother is a valuable guide for everybody who wants to become the master of his own life by stepping in their full potential. – Esther Haasnoot, Initiator Global Heart

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An Interview with Christine R. Page about her new book: The heart of the Great Mother

Esther Haasnoot: In the ancient creation myths the Great Mother gives birth to herself which created the Triple Goddess, you wrote. What are the archetypal faces of the feminine and in which way is each face essential in the expression of the divine power of the Great Mother?

Christine R. Page: Throughout history, the feminine has been seen as a trinity of three faces; the Virgin, Mother & Crone. The Virgin represents creative inspiration, the Mother creative nurturing and the Crone creative transformation. Three is the number of the feminine. It represents the 3 phases essential for creative expression emerging from the Great Mother’s place of mystery; the dark unknown. This is why many women wake at 3.00 am and may even be inspired to write as wisdom flows through them, this time being the dead of night.

So if 3 is the number of creative expression why are there 4 seasons & 4 phases of the moon? This came from the patriarchy where 4 is the number of structure while 3 is the number of flow. 

If we return to the feminine trinity, we see there are 3 phases of a woman’s menstrual cycle aligning to the 3 phases of the moon.

It begins with the Crone in charge: clearing, releasing, transforming the past; this correlates to the menstrual period or 3 days of the dark moon (the 3 days around the new moon.) This is the most powerful time for all women. 

At the end of the period or dark moon, the Virgin takes over and develops the newly birthed ideas & dreams; we’re excited & creatively inspired during this time until either ovulation or the full moon. 

After this time, it’s the Mother turn; she nurtures and feeds the fertilized dream as it confidently becomes a reality in the world, like a child having the confidence to start school. 

Finally, about a week before the dark moon or period, the Crone reappears & we become more introspective as we review what can we celebrate from this month and what hasn’t worked? What have we learned about ourselves and what will we release during the dark moon or period? The whole cycle begins again.

Esther Haasnoot: If we wish to know the oneness of eternal life – unity or Christ consciousness –  we must first embody all three aspects of the Triple Goddess. What do you mean by that? 

Christine R. Page: The idea of a cyclical trinity is perhaps easy to understand if we look at it from the point of view of lunar or solar cycles. But there is another shape that represents a trinity found in many sacred buildings as well as in our physical body. It is known as the Vesica Piscis where the circumference of one circle passes through the center of another creating between then a third shape, an almond shaped opening.

This inner shape formed is known to represent eternity or unity or Christ consciousness. Such consciousness was present in the world before Jesus walked this Earth although he re-enforced the power of the Vesica Piscis saying: where two or more are gathered together there am I among them. This shape is reflected in the vulva, the vocal cords, the eyes and even mirrored as the doorway into Gothic churches. 

What is fascinating about this representation of the Triple Goddess are the unknown forces that create the perfect conditions to prevent either the circles falling in on each other or pushing each other apart. This is the power of love.

The two circles represent the Virgin and Crone: the Virgin represents attraction, inspiration & growth of life. The Crone represents rejection, expiration or the dissolution of life leading to death. The Mother energy nurtures both the Virgin and Crone. Together, as the Triple Goddess, they create the perfect form leading to immortality or unity consciousness. 

When we can lovingly accept into our hearts (Mother energy) the parts of ourselves that both attract (Virgin) and reject life (Crone) often known as the light and dark, we stand in the almond shaped middle and experience unity or eternal consciousness. 

For those who find it difficult to accept the more destructive parts of our humanness, I suggest we just compare spring/ summer (Virgin-light) with autumn/ winter (Crone-dark). We all know that life would not exist without these polarities.

Esther Haasnoot: Which are the principal forces that are essential for the process of alchemy and enlightenment symbolized in the Trinity?

Christine R. Page: Very simple answer love! Love is the power of connection. Our life’s purpose is very simple: our soul wishes to express itself fully on this Earth. If we see ourselves as a flower, the soul is located in the center, with all aspects of the self (subpersonalities) expressed by the surrounding petals. Enlightenment is the state achieved when all the petals are open & functioning. Alchemy is the process that gets us there: taking the base consciousness of a closed petal until it is fully opened in golden splendor. 

Why do I say love is the principal force because our soul’s love never fails us: it is dedicated to its full creative expression and will attract into our lives events and people who will help us know ourselves fully; to open our petals. 

How is the Trinity involved? Our soul speaks to us through the intuition to open the petals:  intuitive attraction (Virgin) intuitive nurturing (Mother) and intuitive destruction (Crone). Why destruction? The Crone’s intuition says: I love you so much, I will not let you be less than you are & will happily destroy anything that gets in the way.  

Esther Haasnoot: Do you see this as a modern translation of a portion of the Emerald Tablet summarizing how to produce the philosopher’s stone or elixir of life in order to achieve immortality? 

Christine R. Page: Yes, I’ve been fascinated by the Emerald tablet for a long time as its teachings are found in so many religions and philosophies. I’m humbled to think that the teachings in the book offer a modern translation of how to become a fully realized or enlightened individual. I offer steps we can all take in our modern lives to experience the same enlightenment as our mystical ancestors. I am convinced the elixir of life or the Philosopher’s stone is the bliss state of enlightenment, where we exist in the eternal wholeness of unity consciousness.  

Esther Haasnoot: Can you tell something about alchemical transformation. As creation equates to cycles of birth, growth, nurturance, celebration, dissolution, death and rebirth, each cycle spiraling toward the center without an end; immortality. 

Christine R. Page: Alchemy is seen as taking base metal and transforming it into gold. In terms of consciousness, we are taking our own base consciousness (ignorance) and turning it into the golden state of enlightenment. As the Greeks said: We know ourselves. Such knowing is not based on intellect. It is a creative process that passes through all the stages of alchemy described in your question. Give birth to an idea, develop it, express it in the world, celebrate its existence, feed yourself with its fruits of wisdom and then let the old creation die, feeding the Great Mother with seeds of creation for the new birth. As I like to say: You have to turn an idea into matter, before you realise it doesn’t matter. 

This process is very similar to the opening of the petals of our flower expressing Heaven on Earth.  

There are, of course, many potential hiccups along the way which we all face every time we begin a creative process. We may fail to acknowledge the ‘idea’ presented to us by our soul: we don’t follow through on our intuitive urges. We don’t allow the time required to nurture our dream, so it fails to develop. Once in bloom, we move on to the next project without celebrating what we have achieved. We then fail to see that the creative idea was not only for the world but for our own growth, so we do not nurture ourselves with the fruits of our endeavors. Finally, we over-identify with our creations, never releasing the seeds of creation back into the realms of the Great Mother.

Our biggest challenges are ego over-identification with our creations, which means there is stagnation in our soul’s growth AND failure to take ownership of the ideas we did create that we don’t like. We abandon such creations, project them into the world and then go to war against them. 

One last point: in many spiritual communities we are obsessed with linear or hierarchical progression, seeing it as a mark of spiritual evolution. Such standards of excellence are maintained by patriarchal dogma. The Great Mother is cyclical or spiral around a central point: the center of my flower. The only purpose of a petal is to allow us to take the creative journey away from the center and then back again so we can feed the center with the essence of our experience. Our aim is to strengthen our center by our experiences. Immortality is not a goal at the end of a path. It is an awareness of who we have always and will always be: Immortal 

Esther Haasnoot: Can you call the learning of mastery of one’s power, an “Hero’s journey,” as it is a voyage of self-discovery and enlightenment, and does that relate to the twelve astrological steps that mystics have been taken in their search for eternal life?

Christine R. Page: Yes it is definitely a hero’s journey as outlined in so many mythologies and follows the 12 astrological signs, as the masculine uses the creative vessel and energies of the Great Mother to fulfill its destiny. 

Through this journey (our own journey) we meet different aspects of the masculine as we progress around the spiral which eventually leads to enlightenment. 

Once again the phases of the masculine can be seen in the cycle the Earth takes to rotate on its own axis (a day), the moon takes to go around the Earth (a month)  or the earth takes to orbit the sun (a year). We relate the astrological signs to a year but the masculine passes through the same stages during a month and even day. 

In other words, the boy child is born from the seed planted in the Great Mother at the end of the last cycle. He develops into the adventuring hero, and then into the reigning king which is mirrored by the middle of the day, the month (full moon) or year (summer solstice). But this is just half of his journey, for now, he must become introspective as the lover, wise as the sage and die to the past as the magician after planting his seed back into the Great Mother’s womb. This reflects the dead of night, new moon and the winter solstice.

Esther Haasnoot: All heroes have one thing in common: they are destined to make a journey that is both physical and spiritual in the quest for personal fulfillment. Do you think there are stages of evolution and dissolution, and is there a link between the experience of the “Dark Night of the soul”? 

Christine R. Page: It can be difficult for us to find the right words for the cyclical or spiral process into enlightenment: to let the fullness of who we are be known present in the light with no parts of the self hidden in the shadows. This world of duality provides the perfect conditions for creative transformation: where these two opposing forces meet, is known in quantum physics as the edge of chaos. The place of greatest creative growth. So rather than using the words evolution and dissolution, we could call the hero’s journey one of cycles of inspiration and expiration which continuously spiral until infinity is reached. 

As to the dark night of the soul, this is one of the most important processes in the hero’s journey and probably one of the least understood. At the time this occurs, our hero has become king. He has achieved success in the outer world. This is the goal for many people but is not the goal for our soul. To receive soul fulfillment we must turn within, enter our inner world or the underworld and embrace all aspects of the self that are waiting for us in the shadows. For each part of the self carries energy or power and until we embrace all parts we will not be empowered or enlightened.

We cannot plan a dark night of the soul and even if it may be forced upon us by a crisis such as the death of a loved one, the true dark nights occur out of the blue when we have everything we want in the outer world but feel dead inside. That is the call of the soul to come home by entering our own inner world.

Esther Haasnoot: The Indo-European cultures developed a zodiac of twelve signs or constellations of stars through which the sun appears. It is clear that the ancient people had a far greater understanding of our relationships, not only with Mother Earth, but with the cosmic forces. Can you tell us more about that? 

Christine R. Page: Long before the Indo-Europeans, humanity had a deep relationship with the cosmos which is natural as the one thing they looked at every day and night was the sky. They spent time watching how the night sky changed with the seasons, how the position of the sun changed in relation to the horizon, the different phases of the moon and the fact that the planets seemed to move at different speeds in relation to the backdrop of the stars. We know from ancient artifacts, petroglyphs and sacred sites that our ancestors could not only predict the timing of eclipses with great accuracy & knew of the importance of solstices & equinoxes  but even understood the precession of the equinoxes, the slow 26,000 year wobble of the earth on its axis.   

Around 3000 years ago, the mariners divided the sky behind the moving planets into the twelve astrological signs we know today, each constellation of stars consisting of 30 degrees. 

Many civilizations believed that their purpose was to bring Heaven onto Earth with many sacred sites are mapped out according to the stars above. Rituals took place during major astronomical events to mirror this magical relationship between heaven and earth. Indeed. many of the teachings of the indigenous people, speak of the fact that they came from the stars or Milky Way and it is to here they will return when they die. 

Prior to 1500 BCE, the Divine Source (be it God or the Great Mother) did not live in heaven but resided in every living thing. When the separation occurred with the coming patriarchy & the building of hierarchy, the mass of humanity became separated from the Divine Source and heaven became unobtainable to mere mortals & hell or the inner/other world, as a place to be feared.

Esther Haasnoot: What is the Moon’s impact on our psyche? Does each moon phase represents a different phase of the hero’s journey toward spiritual enlightenment? 

Christine R. Page: Yes, the moon is our greatest reflective partner, showing every one of us, that life is cyclical and that no one phase of the cycle nor one aspect of the hero’s journey is bad or wrong, Each of us was born during a different moon phase so its fascinating to see what this means to our life’s purpose. This, plus the understanding of the meaning of the moon nodes on our lives, is outlined in the book. 

Another way of looking at the moon and its phases is the beautiful loving dance between the feminine darkness of the moon and the masculine light of the moon. We can become so fixated by the light of the moon, that we fail to acknowledge the dark aspect of the moon because it is unlit by the sun’s rays. But it is possible to see the light and dark together when the new moon is a few days old. 

This is the sorry that is told. In the beginning, during the dark moon phase around the new moon, the mother moon is pregnant with the new light. She gives birth to the light (her son) who grows at her expense, he becomes larger and she diminishes. This phase symbolizes the son leaving home to become the hero. At the full moon, all we see is light as the hero celebrates his successes as king. The next stage of his journey is for him to embrace the wisdom, learnt from his adventures and successes, and feed them to the Mother, so he (the light) grows smaller as the darkness (the mother) expands again, until he plants his seed in her and dies: return to the 3 dark moon days. On the third day, the son is reborn as a new lunar child and the cycle repeats itself.