Sacred Feminine Energy: Reconnect with Your Divine Power with Julie Dean Richards

What if everything you've been told about feminine power is wrong?

In a world that tells women to "be like men" to succeed, attorney-turned-feminine wisdom teacher Julie Dean Richards reveals why embracing your cyclical, intuitive, and receptive nature is actually your greatest superpower.

Discover why the divine feminine has been deliberately suppressed, how sacred rage can transform your life, and why your personal "heroine's journey" looks nothing like the masculine hero's path you've been conditioned to follow.

If you're a high-achieving woman feeling burned out, disconnected from your body, or constantly competing instead of collaborating, this episode will fundamentally shift how you view feminine power. Julie shares practical tools for embodiment, the hidden meanings behind 60+ sacred feminine symbols, and how to work WITH your natural cycles instead of against them.

This isn't about adding more self-care to your to-do list—it's about remembering who you really are.

Key Takeaways

 Your worth isn't tied to your productivity - The feminine thrives in being, not just doing.

 Sacred rage is medicine - Anger, when properly channeled, becomes transformative healing energy

Competition is programming - The feminine naturally collaborates, like trees sharing resources through root systems

Julie Dean Richards is an intuitive astrologer, herbalist, doula, and founder of Feminine Alchemist School. After working as a research consultant then practicing as an attorney, Julie discovered her true calling in helping women reclaim their sacred feminine power. She guides women through their personal heroine's journey using astrology, embodiment practices, and ancient feminine wisdom. 

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Chapters

• 0:48 Introducing the Divine Feminine Journey
• 8:41 From Research to Awakening
• 18:36 Understanding the Divine Feminine
• 28:03 Sacred Rage and Emotional Release
• 36:03 The Heroine's Journey Explained
• 47:20 Sacred Feminine Symbols in Daily Life

Transcript

Rose: 0:00

Whether you're feeling overwhelmed by career demands, seeking to understand ancient feminine symbols and their relevance today, or simply curious about what the divine feminine actually means. Beyond the buzzwords, this conversation offers valuable insights you can immediately apply to your daily life. So get ready to discover how moon cycles can inform your work schedule, how herbs can support your feminine essence and how understanding your personal heroine's journey can transform how you navigate challenges. This isn't about adding self-care to your to-do list. It's about fundamentally shifting how you experience your feminine power in a modern world, ready to unlock your most vibrant, authentic self. Your journey to radiant wellness starts now. Welcome to Chat Off the Mat.

Rose: 0:50

I'm your host, Rose Wippich, and I'm here to guide you on an extraordinary journey of feminine healing, energy, work and total well-being. Get ready to be inspired by authentic conversations with leading women practitioners, wellness experts and holistic healers who understand your unique journey. Subscribe to Chat Off the Mat, wherever you get your podcasts, and let's create magic together. Today, I'm thrilled to welcome a true Renaissance woman of holistic feminine wisdom. She's an intuitive astrologer who reads the language of the stars, a knowledgeable herbalist who harnesses nature's healing power, a compassionate doula who guided countless women through the sacred threshold of birth and a dedicated advocate for the divine feminine in all its forms. In our fast-paced, productivity-obsessed world, many women find themselves disconnected from their deeper feminine wisdom, leading to burnout, health challenges and a sense that something essential is missing from their lives. Our guest, Julie Dean Richards, has devoted her life to helping women reclaim their sacred feminine power through practical rituals, herbal support and an understanding of their unique heroine's journey. Welcome, Julie.

Julie: 2:07

Thank you so much. I'm so excited to be here.

Rose: 2:10

I'm excited that you're here as well. I didn't mention in the intro what career you came from, but maybe you want to kind of integrate that into your own personal narrative.

Julie: 2:20

Oh sure, yeah, so I'm actually an attorney. I'm still a licensed attorney, but before I was an attorney and I think where my story really starts is when I worked in research. So I actually, right out of college, my major was in this communications piece but my real love was the research piece and that was kind of like my minor or my emphasis. And so I got swooped up by a big tech company right out of college to be a consultant on, you know, big research projects for high touch clients like Harvard, Yale, Stanford, google, like you name it. I've worked with them and you know what I would do with the logistics part of the research. And people would come and say we have this study we want to do. I would help them go through and say, okay, we need to change the study this way, this is how we can do it. And they would say is it possible for us to get this many participants in Bangladesh and how can we do that? And I would figure out all the logistics of how to do the study and everything like that. And it was during that process I really started to kind of question my own reality and become more open-minded, because I was raised by a nurse and like a super, like totally normal Western family. You never would have guessed where I would end up today.

Julie: 3:46

And it was during that process I started to see something that I think all of us know, but like that the world is ruled by money, you know. But for me it was like this big wake-up call, like oh, these studies that I'm consulting on, the data is getting switched, and there's these pieces and this is not the research that they taught me in school and like this is not how we're supposed to be doing research. And I found out that it wasn't just like my company or whatever, it's just the research industry. You know there's so much that we take for granted as like we're just like, oh, it's this great study out of Harvard. And it's like, actually, you know that data isn't what you think it is.

Julie: 4:28

You know that came from a place you don't know where it actually came from, and so for me it became this like ethical issue and I tried so hard to stay in it and you know, be helpful, and of course, everybody has explanations for why it works the way that it does, but I finally there was actually a completely fraudulent study that happened and I was, and it ended up being published. Like I, it was not my project, it was a friend of mine's project but I knew that the data had been faked and so finally I said I'm totally out of here, like I can't do this anymore. This is not for me.

Julie: 5:07

But that experience really made me start to question my own reality. Like what do I believe? What are actually my beliefs? Like, what do I think about this? And so I started doing my own research and I started unraveling my own belief system and things like that, and so I became more open-minded. And that open-mindedness allowed me to enter into the world of things like astrology and the sacred feminine. And you know, of course it's drop by drop. You know, it doesn't happen all at once.

Rose: 5:37

Yes, you're right.

Julie: 5:38

Yeah, it's just, it's drop by drop, and so I had met a woman. I went on this herbalist retreat and I met this woman at this herbalist retreat and she was like you've got to meet my niece. And it turns out her niece is like a big time astrologer and I didn't know that. And we met up and she asked me the fateful question what time were you born? When were you born? Right? And she started telling me things about my life she couldn't have possibly known. And we just hit it off and became such good friends and that really I couldn't stop researching.

Julie: 6:15

From that time I had to know everything about it. I still was going to law school because that was still my path. You know that experience with that fraudulent study really pushed me to want to go into law and learn about it and so I was already an astrologer when I started at law school. But it's just really moved from there and my experience in law school was actually what pushed me even more into the sacred feminine and realizing, oh my goodness, women need this so much. We need to open up our inner divinity.

Julie: 6:47

So, because I found out, when I was in law school, I was pregnant with my daughter, with my third child, totally unexpectedly, and I was like, oh my gosh, I can't bring my baby girl into this world, you know, and I had already been studying the sacred feminine a little bit, but then it really opened up everything and I think this was because, you know, I was in this very masculine environment like law. There's like there's no more masculine environment than law school, right, like it's just the most masculine environment you can have. And so it really pushed me the opposite way, that like I had this life growing inside of me and doing this such a feminine process and being with that, and so the sacred feminine helped me to balance that and to learn so much more and I just realized, you know, this is what I need to do with my life. Wow.

Rose: 7:40

So that's my story. That's an amazing story. Wow, I love it. Oh, such a journey to to get to where you are today and to embrace it and to understand early on in your life that, hey, you know, I I can still be a lawyer, but I still have this other passion and learn, and learning astrology is not easy either, because I've loved astrology like most of my life, but for me it's been. I understand a lot of it, but to take it and explain it the way an astrologer does, I couldn't do that. But let's talk about the divine feminine. How would you define the divine feminine and how does it differ from cultural stereotypes about femininity?

Julie: 8:23

Oh yeah, totally. Cultural stereotypes about feminine femininity? Oh yeah, totally. So you know, for some people, that the divine, when they hear the word divine feminine, this is like such a buzzword right now. People are talking about it all the time and people have different definitions, and this is that's why sometimes I like to use sacred feminine as another alternative to divine feminine, and not that I don't love that word, I love the divine feminine. But for some people, there are cultures, right, and people who worship a goddess, right, an actual divine feminine deity who is a goddess.

Julie: 8:53

But most of what we're which I think is amazing, and I also personally have this as part of my beliefs and things like that but when we're talking about the divine feminine, it's about the fact that inside of you, right, inside of every woman, there is a divine part of you, this sacred feminine part. There is a goddess living inside of you, right? You have an inner goddess in you and of course, both men and women, they both have masculine and feminine in them. Of course, I'm concentrating on women because that's who I work with the most, and so, yeah, of course men also have this sacred feminine piece of them.

Julie: 9:31

But for women it's really important because I think most of the time this is not always true for all people, but most of the time for women we're about 90-10 when it comes to this. We've got this feminine piece and how this differs. So for people who are freaking out right now, how could you say that about femininity and how could you stereotype? The divine feminine is so different than our stereotype. When we think about femininity, we think about a 1950s world in most cases, right Like women pregnant barefoot in the kitchen. You know.

Rose: 10:10

In a cocktail dress or in a nice dress. You know all dolled up.

Julie: 10:14

Yes, yes, yes, totally, and that's the whole thing is like no, that is not femininity. Femininity is not like your ability to cook and clean, like femininity is not just your ability to create or raise children. Femininity is not being meek and submissive, like that is not the sacred feminine. That is not femininity. Those are societal expectations that we've created and roles that we've created based on our society and the culture that we live in. The sacred feminine is very we learn about her. So this is going to be very different than most people are used to. So I want to take the yin yang symbol, because I think it's such a beautiful epitaph of this.

Julie: 10:58

But when you think about the yin and the yang, for people who don't know, the yin yang kind of looks like two fish swimming around each other. That's what it's supposed to be and there's a white side and a black side and each one has a dot on it. That's the opposite color. So the white has a black dot and the black has a white dot, and these represent the masculine and the feminine. And most people would be like, well, isn't the feminine the white fish? And it's like no, no, no, the feminine is actually the black fish. It's the black part of that, the yang side or the yin side of things.

Julie: 11:30

And so the feminine if we think about these two colors, white and black well, white is going to be more associated with daytime, brightness, light outside right, and then the dark piece is going to be more associated with the moon, darkness, softness, creation. And so the sacred feminine is a lot more about this womb space, right, if we think about like a womb or, in ancient times, like one of the symbols of the divine feminine is the cave, which is like such a great symbol for that, because it's dark, it's wet, it's warm. It's the void where anything is possible. Right, everything is possible in this space, and we have conditioned ourselves to be so afraid of that space. You know, we're like, oh, the sun is good and the nighttime is bad, and like the dark. You know, but black is a color for darkness and evil and white is a color for goodness, and that's just not the way that it works. You know that is not the truth.

Julie: 12:25

The truth is that both have value and both need each other, and that's the point of the yin yang symbol. You have to have both right. And even in a sunny day, you still have shade and you need shade during that sunny day, right, and that is like that black part of the white yang symbol. And even during the night, you need light, and that's the stars and the moon, and they all play a part together and they're all working together, right.

Julie: 12:49

And so I want women to understand you are this creative space where anything is possible, right, ever shifting, but constant growing and learning all the time and making you know you make everything happen. You are the veil, right, like you weave time and space together, right, not just with your body, with your soul, with your heart. And I think people are really scared of that because they've never heard it that way before. But it's so, so important for us to understand that, because in our modern society we've made it so only that white part is good, like we have made it so only the day is good, only summer is good. Oh, winter is so bad, it's terrible. The nighttime is bad, it's ugly. And we've told women over and over again to be successful, you must be like a man, you have to be like summertime. You got to be on all the time. You got to be shining all the time. You got to be like big and bold and bright all the time Not emotional.

Julie: 13:53

Yeah, you can't be emotional. Burn off all your emotions, right. Instead of being like, no, you're actually like the moon and you can work in your own tides. Right, like you can pull those tides and you can shift and change every single day. And you can do that in this softer way that brings everything to you, cause that's the part of the feminine. The feminine is the cave, because she receives everything, she gets everything into herself. She not only does she create, right, Like she is like the honeybee. She takes in this dust and she makes this beautiful honey out of it. Right, taking in this pollen and receiving, receiving and then making magic out of that. And that is truly the divine feminine.

Rose: 15:11

That is awesome. I love the way you explained that it was. I was just so captivated by the way you were explaining everything and I love that you use the yin yang symbol, because I use it a lot in my practice as a yoga and Qigong instructor. I use it a lot in my practice as a yoga and Qigong instructor and, yeah, it's like embodying this beautiful receptive quality that we forget that we have, and you know, being a part of this male society where we always have to compete, even against other women, it's really not supportive, no, no. And it's really wonderful that you're doing the work to help women reconnect with the sacred divine feminine and that we need to embrace it and not forget it and to create the environment. We have the power to create the environment and move towards more of a society where we're working together and collaborating, versus competing against each other and inviting more of that yin quality. I love that.

Julie: 16:06

Totally and like women, you know, especially, but the divine feminine in general. I mean, I know we'll probably talk more about symbols later, but I wanted to bring up the tree, because it's one we see all the time. We talk about the tree of life and you can see it in necklaces and jewelry. Well, that's a symbol of the divine feminine and people don't realize that. And at first, you know, scientists thought that trees competed right in the forest. They were competing for light, they were competing for resources, they were competing for water, because that's our assumption, right? Our assumption is, like animals compete, they compete for food and resources, but trees don't compete like that. Trees actually collaborate.

Julie: 16:44

Now we know, right, trees are connected through the root system and through myocillium pathways in the ground. They communicate with each other, they talk to each other, they give each other resources and they collaborate. They don't compete, they help each other, they communicate with each other and they all help each other grow. They will keep what looks like a stump alive for hundreds of years. Actually, now we know, they'll give resources to it because they love it. Right, like they are a collaborating community. And that tree stump gives its wisdom back, it communicates to the other trees, and it helps them get away from danger and it gives. So that's the society that the divine feminine could create. Is this collaborative society where we work together instead of always, always having to compete with each other.

Rose: 17:31

I love that that is so true. And I love also how you talk about trees. How might one recognize when they're disconnected from their sacred feminine energy?

Julie: 17:42

Yeah, this is a great one, because I think most women are going to be like oh, I am really disconnected, right, but you can't receive meaning like you won't let people do things for you, right, you have to do it yourself. You know you have a really hard time asking for help. You have a really hard time, you know, with this idea of rest. You know, if you can't rest, if you're go, go, go all the time, if you feel like you must be doing to be worthwhile I think this is a huge one that most women have is if your worth is inherently connected to what you do, then you're disconnected from your divine feminine, because it is not about doing, it is about being. And if you hate your body, that's another big disconnection from the divine feminine, because embodiment is a huge part of tapping into that sacred feminine place. And if you are judging other women, you know backbiting, talking, feeling like you have to compete, you have to get on the top of the food chain and even if you are afraid to be seen, that's a really big one of being disconnected to the divine feminine is being afraid to be your true self, your authentic self, and being afraid to be seen by other people for who you truly are. So I would say those are the really really big one. But particularly looking at, where do you get your worth from? Is your worth? The checklist, and finishing the checklist Is that where your worth is from.

Julie: 19:11

Is your worth from being better than other people in any way? Is your worth? You know why. Why are you saying what you're saying about other women, or even men? Like, where's that coming from? Is it coming from a place of competition? Right, cause we can look at someone and it's really easy to to look at these qualities and say like, oh well, she hasn't made cause she's so skinny and pretty, and, like, you know, make these excuses and put stuff on other women or someone who is, you know, hates on powerful women. You know, you might want to look at yourself and maybe you're disconnected because the feminine is not afraid of other people being powerful. Right, it knows that we're all just as powerful as each other. We don't need to compete. But yeah, that checklist and again that body piece, is really important to look at. Do you hate your body?

Rose: 19:58

That's a big thing? Yeah, no, that's important because your body changes all the time. And having children changes your body. Surgeries change your body. I know voice is really important. Women are afraid to be heard and expression, self-expression, is important as well. Totally lot of the illnesses that women have, whether it's breast cancer or ovarian cancer, any of those cancers or anything associated with the female anatomy, is because we repress our own authenticity or that sacred femininity.

Julie: 20:35

Totally, totally, and that and sex is such a big one to look out to like. Are you disconnected, can you? How is intimacy for you? Because if you're having a big struggle in the intimacy department, then you might be disconnected from that sacred feminine Right. And especially if you're afraid to look at your lady parts, if those are, you know, scary to you, if it's scary for you to have full expression in your sexuality, that's something really to to look out there, because, again, the feminine is receiving right. And so if you're blocking yourself, especially in intimacy, if you can't orgasm, if you're having a really hard time, then there's a piece of you that's not able to relax. There's part of you that's disconnected from that divine feminine piece as well.

Rose: 21:19

That's really important. I'm glad you mentioned that Because I think nowadays, well, that's really important. I'm glad you mentioned that because I think nowadays women have more access to help in that area, where years ago it was more of a taboo of a discussion women to talk, even with their doctors. I think their doctors didn't even talk about that and probably may not today. But we have authority over our own bodies and if you want to experience pleasure in any way, just you know, understand how you are, how you feel, how how you're not feeling, and to embrace that sensuality, I think that's super important.

Julie: 21:55

Oh, totally, totally. And how are your emotions around it? Are you scared of it? Are you scared of yourself? Are you afraid? Are you even letting yourself have emotions in general, even outside of intimacy? Where are you scared to express your emotions and you know? Or is your default emotion only anger?

Julie: 22:18

I think we, in our society, anger is acceptable because it's more masculine, it's more fiery, it's more you know you're protecting yourself, you're, you are protecting yourself with that anger You're lashing out. The anger is truly a secondary emotion, right? What's underneath that anger? Usually it's sadness, abandonment, hopelessness. Right, that's what's under the anger. But we are, we're okay expressing anger because anger makes you look strong and big. Right, like I'm so strong, I'm so big. And not to say that the divine feminine cannot rage yes, she can. We talk about sacred rage, a ton in the work I do. Rage is so important. It's important for women to feel rage. But lots of times what I will see in a lot of women who have really masculinized themselves is they will turn to anger over everything. They're too afraid to cry, they're too afraid to let any kind of emotion out. But if it is anger, it's okay, because then they're strong, if they feel like they can be angry and they're not getting to those root emotions underneath. They're trying to hide everything underneath that fiery anger, because that's more acceptable.

Rose: 23:28

Yeah, it makes sense. And also I feel that if you repress a lot, you get to a point where you're numb and you can't cry.

Rose: 23:38

And you can't express even anger or you're not allowed to. Yeah, totally walking around, not knowing what you're feeling, how you're feeling, what's going on and, oh my gosh, sacred rage. Talk a little bit about that, because I haven't heard of anyone that I've known talk about working with women with about sacred rage. How do you, how do you uncover that like what women have, and how do you work with that with women?

Julie: 24:10

Yeah, so I love to look at let's look at like another symbol, cause it can teach us a lot about this the ocean, right. So the ocean, you know it can be very nourishing and deep, and like who doesn't love a day at the beach? And like being with the ocean and she's got low tides and high tides, but the ocean can also rage, right Like, the ocean can create hurricanes and it can wash over cities and wash out surfers and divers and boats and drag boats to the bottom of the ocean. Right, like, no one wants to mess with the ocean because, you know, even though she is beautiful and nourishing, she's also the most powerful force on earth. Right, water is the most powerful and sometimes, you know, she doesn't always look that way, because she looks soft and she looks sweet and we drink water, but then all of a sudden, she's beating up against these cliffs, right, and she's the one who wears down these cliffs more and more and makes sand out of the rock and does all of those beautiful things. So, as women, this is like such a great view of the divine feminine within us. Right, we are all like the ocean. We we can have emotion and we can have flow, we can have intuition. But that rage portion, right, there's not a day, probably, that the ocean doesn't rage somewhere. You know, there's always some storm. She's so big. There's always some storm on the ocean, and so it's really important for women to be able to tap into that rage, and not now.

Julie: 25:38

I want to talk about this distinction between sacred rage and what I would call something like indignance. And you know, there there is like petty anger, right? This anger that we we get for things like you know, we're mad about whatever, stubbing our toe or doing something wrong or whatever. And then there's sacred rage, and sacred rage is this rage of you know, something dear to you you know has been taken away, or it's this feeling of enough is enough, right, I'm here to protect my own, I'm here to you know, make something. Right, you know, you come to the end of your rope, and I'll give you an example of this.

Julie: 26:24

Like, every woman has sacred rage, and that rage can build up over time, because anger is this emotion, and especially sacred rage is really about this emotion of I deserve to exist, I deserve to have my needs met, right, I deserve to be here and I deserve to be listened to. That's what sacred rage is really really deeply about. It can also be about generational stuff that has come up over the generations and generations of women being suppressed or whatever it is in your line that is happening. But that sacred rage is really important for the taking charge of like no, I deserve to exist. You know, I deserve to be here and I'm allowed to take up space, I'm allowed to have my emotions.

Julie: 27:11

And so when we talk about, you know, sacred rage, we want to separate it from violence, because the scary thing about rage and part of the reason, you know, over hundreds of years, women have been told you're not allowed to be angry. You know, just be nice, just be nice, be nice to everybody, just be nice. You know, sit back, relax, don't tell anyone they've done anything wrong, right, like, just, you're not allowed to be angry. And it's important to break through that. And the reason that we've often been told, you know, you can't be angry is because we're. And the reason we're scared of anger is because of the violence aspect, because we have all seen what violence can do to people and what anger can do to people. It can kill people, it can hurt, hurt people, maim people.

Julie: 28:02

But when we talk about sacred rage, we separate it from violence, because sacred rage doesn't have to be violent against anyone else. Right, like we do not. To perform and help ourselves, let go of this rage, we don't have to be violent and some ways that we can do that and make it a safe space. And that's why it's sacred. Right, it's sacred because you're setting up a container for yourself to have this happen. Just like a temple is sacred, like sacred things happen inside a temple. Right, sacred things happen in a special designated space.

Julie: 28:32

And that's the first step with sacred rage is we need a special designated space that can be a car, like just in your car, can be a great place to just scream and scream and scream and yell. You know by yourself that can be out in the middle of the woods, you know that, where you can like throw some, you can throw rocks into a lake. That can be whatever space you want. It can be your backyard, it can be your garage, whatever you want it to be. And there are places that they have now like rage rooms where you can smash stuff with a baseball bat.

Rose: 29:01

Right, you know what I use? My shamanic drum. Yes, yes, that's perfect. I used it the other day just for a minute. It felt so good.

Julie: 29:10

Yes, rhythm is so important to the feminine. Rhythm, and drums particularly, can be so healing. And so what we want to do when we want to have sacred rage is we want to set apart a space for it, a locked door, wherever you want to be, and then we want to allow ourselves to let go in that space. So a great thing that people do sometimes is take a stick and hit it against the ground, or hit it against rocks or trees. Like I said, you can throw big stones into a lake or a river. If you want to set up something in your garage where you can smash something with a tarp underneath it, whatever you want to do, if you want to pound on a drum, you can do that. But just setting apart your time to allow yourself to be angry. And sometimes we have to do this on the fly, right, because that anger can just boil and boil up and suddenly fly out. And so maybe just like tucking yourself into a closet real quick, or like screaming into a pillow, but allowing yourself to really not just be angry, because there's a difference. Right, you can be angry and you can snap at your kids all day long, right. Or snap at your husband, yell at someone and say whatever you want to say. But actual rage involves a lot of that physicality, letting yourself get physical, because we are very scared of being physical. And so one time what I did which was really helpful for people, which might be really out of people's comfort zone, but it's so, it's.

Julie: 30:40

I recommend, highly recommend this practice is I locked my door. Right, this was me all alone in my bedroom, door locked, window shut, and I let myself take on the persona of a dragon, which can be really helpful. Like taking on a persona a Jaguar or some kind of animal can really help you if you're having a hard time letting out rage and you imagine yourself as this dragon. And I did, and I allowed myself to like hit my pillows around and like tear things up with my teeth and, you know, like let myself claw and scrape and scream. You know, and that was so at the end of that it was so healing for me I literally laid back on my bed and just laughed.

Julie: 31:22

I like laughed, laughed and laughed, you know, for a full belly laugh, because that's what happens is, once you have worked through the rage and let it out, then it alchemizes into something beautiful, right, it alchemizes into laughter and joy. It alchemizes into letting go in peace. It alchemizes into tears, you know, and letting yourself cry what's underneath that rage and letting it go. And so just I do recommend, if you are having a hard time tapping in, think about some kind of archetype, persona, animal that's really easy to imagine getting angry and being that thing and letting yourself be that thing, because your own rage will come up as you do that. It just needs space to come up. But your own rage will come up and it can become this beautiful alchemized thing. We don't need to be afraid of it, we just need to alchemize it into something beautiful, which it is.

Rose: 32:15

I love that. So I'm so glad you shared that, and I also am glad that you laughed, because a lot of people think, oh, we're gonna cry afterwards. But laughter is an amazing emotion that just shows that you've just peeled off all those tough layers right. And dragon is a great analogy, because I know in Qigong we have dragon movements that are big and expansive and you're throwing and you're picking up and you're letting go and it's like really shifting that energy inside and outside. So, oh, I love that Amazing, it's great. Yes, and please be in a safe space. I mean, if anyone is going to be anywhere, just maybe even tell people that you're going into your safe dragon lair and you're going to let go of some stuff for a bit. Yes, yes.

Julie: 33:04

Container is step number one. Yeah, very important.

Rose: 33:09

So you talk about the heroine's journey a lot. Can you talk?

Julie: 33:12

about that. Oh yes, ah, I love the heroine's journey, so people have. You know, we've been popularized by Joseph Campbell. So Joseph Campbell popularized this idea of the hero's journey, which most people have probably heard of, which includes, like having a mentor, you know, leaving the real world, getting a mentor, doing all these tasks that you do, achievement, achievement, achievement, and then ultimately, you know, you get the girl.

Julie: 33:37

The heroine's journey, or the hero's journey, is very much just for a contrast. The hero's journey is really what we see in most, you know, tv series, we see it in most movies and also it's what we see in video games. A lot is like, you know, you defeat level after level after level and then you beat the big boss at the end and you win. You know, and it's been popularized so much. But you know, when Joseph Campbell popularized this, there was a a group of women who asked him what about the heroine's journey? And he said oh well, you know, women, they don't need a journey, they don't need a heroine's journey because they're the place that everybody's trying to get to. And I always like to say, well, sorry, joe, there may be some truth in this idea that, you know, the divine feminine is what the masculine is trying to get to. That's true, right, the masculine wants to get to that feminine. But there is actually a journey for women and it is just as archetypal as the journey for men, the hero's journey. And the way that Campbell did this was he took old myths, he took the structures of stories and studied them all out and saw okay, this is the format that happens over and over again. Well, what we have done and we're not the only people to have done this Obviously we're standing on the shoulders of giants as well, but we have looked through so many myths and gone back in the archetypes to find the heroine's journey. What is the archetypal heroine's journey, the journey for women? It's very different, as you can imagine, than the hero's journey. So the heroine's journey has four parts to it. The first part is this awakening piece. Sometimes this is called an initiation. Oftentimes it's like this awakening, and I would love to take you through this, you know, with some stories that we have heard, and I'll do one that is more familiar to people in our modern context. So let's think about Alice in Wonderland. Okay, in the form of this heroine's journey, Alice's awakening, or initiation, is seeing the white rabbit right. So Alice sees this white rabbit and she starts following it. She knows she needs to follow the white rabbit.

Julie: 35:49

And in our initiation phase, for women, oftentimes what happens in this awakening is the world is not what you think that it was. You wake up to this idea okay, the world is not what I thought it was, what I believed. There's some piece that isn't true, something's not working for me, and this can happen through an event, sometimes, lots of times, for women, because we're so burned out. This often happens with the health event, right, we're like oh no, I'm hypothyroid now, what am I going to do? You know, we have cancer, whatever it is. Oftentimes it's a physical event for women. Other times the awakening is I've done everything in the hero's journey, right, like I've done everything the masculine way, and I still feel empty. Why am I empty and where is this emptiness coming from? And so those are often the paths. Other ones are, like I said, like my awakening piece right was the world is not what I thought it was. Oh my gosh, we're running this fraudulent study. Holy cow, I've got to like go into the rabbit hole, right Like I have to follow this down.

Julie: 36:51

Now, often in the initiation phase, there is this piece where you'll have guides or people tell you to don't go down that rabbit hole. Okay, like, don't go down, don't do that, don't go astray, be careful. You know, like, be careful, don't go into this stuff, don't do this alternative whatever. And you'll have warning people who will tell you that. But something in you just says no, I need to go down this rabbit hole, right, like I've got to go down. And in the heroine's journey it's very much a descent to ascend. So you must descend to ascend, just like Alice. She's a great example because she actually tumbles in through a hole, she goes down right. And so that is the second step.

Julie: 37:32

Is this descent phase? And in the descent phase we meet our shadow pieces. And when I say shadow pieces, you've probably talked about this before. Everyone's talking about shadow work. But we meet the pieces of ourselves that we have isolated and that we've tried to get rid of, and stuff in a corner right. We meet these pieces of ourselves that we've hated and we start to peel back the layers of ourselves that aren't true to us. The descent phase is very much this part of like. Okay, is this true or is it not Like? I don't think this is true, let's peel it away. I don't think this is true, let's peel it away. It's very much like finding more and more information about yourself. Okay, what? What is the shadow piece of me doing? What do I need? What's actually coming up so that that descent phase is really like okay, we're peeling back all these layers, we're peeling, peeling, peeling. We're going down, down, down, down. We're learning more and more and more and more, and then we hit the bottom Right.

Julie: 38:25

And this can be a really hard part for people because, as it's called a descent like, some people feel really depressed, right At this, because the world is not what you thought. You're having to face demons. You're having to say, oh, some of the things I thought were true were not true. You have to come to grips with reality in a totally different way. And so some women this is part of the reason we created the Heroine's Journey, and what I do is because some people will get stuck in this phase, right, like, they get stuck, they get really sad, and we don't want people to get stuck in this phase and eventually it all comes through, right, like I think, eventually people get to the other side, but this phase can feel hard, like really hard and difficult, and so we want to help people know there's more to the story, right, you don't end down at the bottom of the rabbit hole, you don't.

Julie: 39:27

What does Alice do next? She goes through the door into Wonderland right. And when you're in Wonderland right, everything's kind of topsy-turvy and there's odd things, and she's on a search. She's trying to find the white rabbit and she's got some guides, she's got the Cheshire Cat, she's got the Mad Hatter and all these people pushing and the caterpillar, whatever you find down there. And so this third part is called the search phase. So we're searching, and in ancient times, oftentimes this search phase was categorized or epitomized by a labyrinth that you go down into the cave and then you hit the labyrinth and you have to search in the labyrinth.

Julie: 40:02

Now, this part is very intuitive, right, because it's in the dark, it's different, it's emotional, it's searching for yourself, and in this place, this is where you get to decide your fate. You could decide who you are and you decide which way you're going to go, right, you decide am I going to turn left? Am I going to turn right? Okay, there's a stone wall here. I need to go the other way. And this is really the part where you're trying things on, right, I'm trying things on, I'm trying something new, I'm putting these on, I'm going to try this new diet or this new workout or whatever. It is right.

Julie: 40:32

And it's the search where you're looking for you. Now You're trying to find your whole, worthy, authentic self, because she's down here, right, like, the key to your wholeness is in this search place. You just got to find her and, like I said before, like with Alice in Wonderland, often this part has some guides to it. So you'll get mentors, you'll get people who come into your life, who push you, and sometimes guides don't look the way we think like with the Mad Hatter, right, like who would take advice from a Mad Hatter, but like, sometimes we get that person who doesn't you wouldn't think would be a good guide, but they give you a good piece of information and maybe they're not your true guide, but they help push you in the right direction, right, and so, eventually, once you've done this search, what does Alice find? She finds the white rabbit. Finally, she goes to the castle. She's got the white rabbit in her sights and so in this search phase, you get the key to your wholeness, which leads you to the last phase, which is the ascent phase. You get to ascend back upward to the light of day, and so you've got the key to your wholeness.

Julie: 41:30

The ascent phase is all about integration. How do you integrate all of the pieces of you together? And the ascent phase often also has to do with becoming more of a teacher, helping other people. You become a mentor to other people. And every woman, like everyone going through this, you know that's why so many people they go on their health journey and then they're like I got to teach this right, like I got to help other people right. That's always people's journey is like oh, I went through all this stuff and like it worked so well for me and I found my wholeness, and now I've got to teach you. And that is that ascent phase. Let's integrate it, let's ascend, let's integrate all of our pieces. Now there's one more place to this, because I could say and then you live happily ever after you ascended right, like you're ascended.

Julie: 42:09

But for the heroine's journey that's not the way it works, right. The masculine journey is very linear. It's point A to point B. The heroine's journey is not like that. It's always a spiral. So you got to go on the journey over and over and over again. We're always journeying, we're always spiraling right, descend to ascend, and if you've ever seen a spiral and we're like, look at a top when it spins and spins, you can see how somehow it's constantly going inward and upward at the same time. Right, it's constantly going inward and upward, inward and upward. And that is the heroine's journey inward and upward, in this perfect spiral which eventually allows you to ascend all the way up.

Rose: 42:48

I love this Beautiful yes, and as you're talking, I thought about that that you will go up and you'll come back. You go in and come out in that labyrinth and it's beautiful. That's amazing. I love that. Thank you for explaining that.

Julie: 43:03

Yeah, yeah, we're very cyclical, right. We live in cycles because we're like the moon. We are of course, this journey is cyclical. It's cycles and you get to decide each cycle right, what you're going to change and how you're going to ascend.

Rose: 43:22

And I think some of the work you do to help women move through through parts when they can be stuck because we can get stuck and we can get stuck in that sadness or we can get stuck in a loop or we can go down a road that maybe we don't need to go down and we need to just be guided. That's why there's so many women. Like you said, we've gone through some of these parts of awakening and now we're coming through to help others and I love that. I want to talk a little bit about sacred feminine symbols because I know you're very passionate about that. When we talked, you said you're in search for are there other symbols, and how women can use these symbols in, maybe, their daily life or when they're looking to find some of this ascension.

Julie: 44:10

Yes, totally Okay. So I've been, like I told you, I've been on this journey. I really I wanted to find as many feminine symbols as I could, because I think, as women, we have this idea that there aren't really feminine symbols, right Like we don't, we don't associate symbols with ourselves. But so far I've been, you know, scouring different countries and different cultures, and I found more than 60 feminine symbols. Wow, yeah, I think I'm up to 65 now. So they're out there, they're everywhere. Once you have the eyes to see them, they're everywhere. What's my favorite? I don't know if I have a favorite, but I, uh, right now I feel very close to the Jaguar, actually, as a feminine symbol. I've been really, uh, working with that energy a lot, but, uh, and I've been trying on, I felt like, you know, if I'm going to help women find these symbols, I've got to learn how to embody them, Like, I need to have experiences with each of them, and that's what I've been trying to do, is deeply have experiences with these symbols. So let me explain a few. I'll tell you some of them. We can go through a few quickly and, if you want to touch more in depth, because I love to do this to open people's minds so that they can see, like, oh, this is so much bigger than I thought that it could be, you know. And then I would love to talk about like, why are symbols important, right? How can you use them? Why do we use them? And so some symbols you know, you're going to be familiar with. So here are some people probably might be familiar with it and they'd be like oh, this makes sense for symbolizing women in the feminine right. We've talked about the tree, the moon, water. Of course those are very classic feminine symbols. There's also I mentioned the honeybee earlier. That's a divine feminine symbol. It's also, I would say, a classic divine feminine symbol.

Julie: 46:04

But let's get into some that maybe are scarier for people and might be surprising. So the serpent, which I think is popular, right, if people are like why am I seeing snakes everywhere? It's because it's a divine feminine symbol. And as we go through these kind of like we talked in the beginning with the yin and the yang because we have demonized the divine feminine, some of these symbols might make you uncomfortable when we talk about them and they might be. Things like snakes are scary, right. Like, don't snakes represent the devil? Actually, no Long before they represented the devil, they actually represented eternal life. Right, we always have the snake shedding its skin, always growing, always changing. Right, it flows. The way that it moves flows just like water flows, right, so the snake has so many beautiful things, but now we've demonized it as evil when it's really truly not so.

Julie: 46:57

There's the serpent, the spider is another one, and again, it's probably one that people are like why are we talking about spiders? How could that be Like? Why are you? You know, this is an awful bug, you know.

Julie: 47:09

But the spider, right, she weaves her web. She weaves her web, she lets things come to her. She's associated with mother spider in shamanic cultures. Right, that she weaved the earth, the idea that the goddess weaved the earth and weaves time and space. And what do women do? We weave time and space right With our bodies, and so does a spider. She weaves right With her body, she takes things in and she makes this beautiful web that's so gorgeous, the patterns on it. So that's another one to think about.

Julie: 47:42

And while we're talking about weaving, obviously veils are going to be associated with the feminine and you're going to have looms and things like that will also be associated. Some other ones that are pretty typical is the pomegranate. You want to think about Persephone? She eats a pomegranate that red the seeds, the fertility piece, right is really tied to this. But let's talk about some that, like, maybe are more rare, like the jaguar that we talked about. I bet most people didn't know that the jaguar was not, now, yeah, symbol. Um, the orca is another divine feminine symbol and you that one makes more sense to people, I think, sometimes because they they're matriarchal society, or Orcas are the grandmothers. They're one of only three species that has a grandmother and it's orcas. Elephants and people were the only ones that have grandmothers, and elephants, coincidentally, are also a divine feminine symbol. I can see that, yes, and elephants I don't know if you knew this. Did you know that elephants worship the moon? No, I did not.

Rose: 48:41

Yes, they have every full moon.

Julie: 48:43

They have like these actual ceremonies that are documented and they make like a special circle and they take branches and they wave at the moon and they have like a whole ritual that they perform every month to the moon, which is really beautiful, oh I love that.

Rose: 48:58

I have to look into that more.

Julie: 48:59

Yes, yes, orcas do the same thing. Orcas dance for the moon. They have like a special full moon swim that they do, so that's something really cool to like look into.

Rose: 49:11

Yeah, and I think if women are drawn to some symbol, whatever that is, I feel it's what they need, whether it's masculine or feminine.

Rose: 49:20

Right, so if you're drawn to something or if you see repeated. So I see a fox. So here's a symbol. Lately in my backyard, like right near my window at the same time in the morning, walks by this fox. He comes, you know she. It's a she because she's looking for food, I think. And I'm like, oh my gosh, and so I looked it up, is a fox related to divine feminine energy? And it absolutely is. And I needed to hear that or see that symbol for something I'm going through. I'm like that is a beautiful symbol for me. So I've been seeing the fox a lot lately.

Rose: 49:56

So if you see, something that is coming up for you. Look it up and see what it means.

Julie: 50:02

Yeah, foxes are magical, like I love that you're seeing the fox. I love the fox, yeah me too.

Rose: 50:08

I love it. They're so beautiful. I just wish you would pause for a moment so I could just have this nonverbal communication with it, or something you know. That's beautiful. I really love this. I want to wrap up a little bit, so if you want to talk about what your offerings are, how you help women, what you have, you and um, the floor is yours. So tell, tell everyone out there what, what you have to offer yeah, can I tell people why symbols are important?

Julie: 50:35

oh, yes, of course yeah yeah, so the reason we use symbols and there are tons more these are just like a sampling. But the reason that we use symbols and there are tons more these are just like a sampling. But the reason that we use symbols is because symbols are very tangible. We can relate to them right, when I say the word pomegranate or spider, like you know what that is and you can see it and experience it and understand right its qualities. And that's part of the reason. And so when I talk about embodying symbols, we use the nature of that symbol to help us in our own physical path, our bodies and the meaning. And of course, symbols have layers and layers and layers of meaning and that's why they're such a good tool to work with, because you can dig into them more and more and they always have more to teach you. So that's part of the reason these divine feminine symbols are so important, because they help teach us what the divine feminine is and how to embody it in our own bodies, right In our own lives.

Julie: 51:25

But as far as the work that I do, I have a school called Feminine Alchemist and you can go to femininealchemistcom. That mist part. Alchemist is spelled M-Y-S-T like mystical, and we have a school for women who want to learn right all about the divine feminine, embody it. We teach sacred embodiment, which is like what we talked about, that sacred rage portion. We actually have created the heroine's journey, and so we take women step by step on the heroine's journey, help them through that.

Julie: 52:03

We do guided meditations, tasks, rituals. We take women through and teach them about the symbols. We teach women about astrology, we teach them about human design and energetics, and so those are like the three big pillars that we teach as sacred embodiment, astrology and energetics, and we really help women get to know who they are and awaken the divine feminine within themselves. So that's what we do. We do retreats, we take women on the heroine's journey and I personally do astrology and human design readings, which you can find me at astrological attorney on Instagram. Astrological attorney and astrologicalattorney. com is how you can get in touch with me personally.

Rose: 52:47

Yes, I'll put all the links in the show notes. I really want to have you back at some point to talk more about astrology and human design, because we didn't have a chance to do that. There's so much here that you spoke about that resonates with me and I'm sure will resonate with so many people. It's just really a gift that you have and that you're sharing with everyone, and I'm so glad that your path led you to here, because you're just magical and I really mean that. So thank you, thank you for sharing your time and your space here. So many times when you were talking, I just felt like my whole body, like I could really sense what you were saying in my own body, and it just was really enlightening for me. So I wanted to share that with you.

Julie: 53:33

So thank you, thank you so much. I love to do it and thank you for having this beautiful platform and for all that you do. I just feel so grateful to be connected to you, thank you.

Rose: 53:45

Thank you, julie, and I do want to have you back one day. And thank you and everyone out there, please check Julie out. She's amazing and I know you know that from everything that she talked about today, so thank you. Thank you for joining me on Chat Off The Mat. If you're ready to transform your energy and step into your fullest potential, I'd love to work with you. As an energy alchemist, I help women release blocked energy and reclaim their vibrant essence. Visit rosewipichcom to explore working together and discover free resources for your journey. Love today's episode. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, leave a rating and share your biggest takeaway with me on Instagram at Rose Wippich. Remember wellness warriors. Your energy is precious. Nurture it wisely.