Ariadne and the Red Thread: Finding Our Way Through the Labyrinth

There is a thread that weaves back through to the very origins of creation, to the very beginning of space and time.

It plunges down into the lava core of the Earth where the dragons of fire and water first began to birth the world into being. It pulses with vitality, with truth, and with an unshakeable knowing of the mysteries of all life.

This is the red thread, the red river, the red stream of consciousness woven into our blood. It is the inseparable connection between us and the roots of all that ever was and will become. Like an umbilical cord that delivers sustenance to the growing fetus from the womb of the mother, this thread connects us to the womb of Source.

When we feel lost, separate, afraid, severed and disconnected from the wild truth of our bodies, our Earth, our humanity, our divinity, and the real, we have simply forgotten that the red thread always waits for her daughters to reclaim the power that will guide each of us home to truth.

The red thread is the secret of feminine intuition, and Man or woman, both or neither, we all carry this feminine intuition inside of us.

It is the voice, the feeling, the sensing, the knowing, that guides us out of the labyrinth and back into the light when we need it the most. The red thread is the only true savior. It is the very pulse and force of evolution itself, of life itself, bursting through all that attempts to stifle life, strengthening our devotion, courage, and resolve to truly live.

In a world with so many temptations, distortions, and persecutions that demonize and delude a woman away from the wild red river of her own feminine intuition, it is a healing for the Earth, Her creatures, and all of humanity to take this red thread by the reigns and follow it home to your very own Source. The only thing that will and can ever truly sustain a human soulful life.

For ancient cultures across the world this journey of soul reclamation was encoded and hidden into the symbol of the labyrinth. Resembling the brain with its many spirals and folds, the labyrinth takes us into the deep psychic underworld where our demons, monsters, angels, and allies reside. This is the cerebellar consciousness that directly connects us with the spiraling energies at the creative center of the womb. And a key to liberating ourselves from the traumas and fears that have plagued our ancestors for eons, is to hold on tight to the red thread, to journey deeper into the psychic underworld of the pulsing womb, and to trust that Goddess waits for you with all of Her love and all of Her power on the other side.

There is a very old story, from thousands of years before the time of Jesus Christ, that offers us a map for how we navigate the terrors of the underworld, end our sacrifices made in fear, and Reclaim this red thread as our own direct connection to source.

I invite you to travel with me now, just for a short while, back into the mythical times of ancient Greece, to the island of Crete, to a small village called Minos, named after King Minos the keeper of the Labyrinth. Feel the soft Earth beneath your feet, the warmth of the Grecian sun on your skin, inhale the scent of fields of wild herbs and sense yourself surrounded by the etheric magic of the Goddess.

Here at the center of the village of Minos, much like in the center of all deep psychic terrain, lives a labyrinth with a Minotaur living inside. This Minotaur, this monster, came to be through the Queen, the wife of King Minos, birthing a half man half beast. With the head of a bull and the body of a man, the Minotaur incites terror upon the village.

To keep this Minotaur from destroying the village and all of its beings, the sweet young daughter of Minos, Ariadne which means “the pure one” or “the holy” becomes the guardian and the keeper of the Labyrinth. To appease the Minotaur, the village must make human sacrifices each year to the labyrinth. Until one day, when everything changes, and a brave hero named Theseus arrives to the village to liberate them from the Minotaur once and for all.

Ariadne immediately falls in love with Theseus for his bravery and devotion and she arms him with her magical talismans: a sword and a spool of red thread.

Knowing that Theseus will not make it out of the labyrinth alive as many men before him fell to their deaths either by being eaten by the Minotaur or by getting lost in the twists and turns of the labyrinth itself, Ariadne offers him the tools that she knows will help him safely through: a sword and a spool of red thread that she holds at the other end. The sword to slay the Minotaur once he reaches the center of the labyrinth, and the red thread to find his way back out on the other side.

With Ariadne’s blessings, he manages to slay the Minotaur and to navigate the maze of the labyrinth itself, liberating the village from future sacrifices and Ariadne from being forever trapped at the labyrinth as its guardian. In sacred celebration, Ariadne and Theseus become wed and flee the island of Crete together.

But the blissful reunion is short lived. Soon after they leave the island, Theseus abandons Ariadne to starve and die alone on the rocky shores of Naxos. Heartbroken and betrayed, Ariadne grieves the loss of her lover and also her old life, her father, her brother the Minotaur, and even the trappings of the labyrinth itself, in her solitude for many nights. One day the God Dionysus, known for his unabashed celebrations and ecstatic pleasure parties of food and wine, discovers her in her despair. Through their divine union, Ariadne becomes an immortal Goddess and they go on to share the spirit of wine for the rest of eternity.

Unwinding the mythos to arrive at the heart of the matter and integrate the deeper knowing…

This story, like all stories, is so much more than a story. It is a living body of wisdom, a transmission of the nature of life and death, filled with secret doorways and mysteries to uncover. I invite you to gaze into the many symbols and mirrors offered and to receive the end of the red thread that it provides, allowing it to gently awaken your own deeper knowing, gifting you with your own sword of fierce truth.

Symbology speaks to the self that is deeper than the intellectual self. It speaks to the knowing self, the sensing self, the ancient self who can feel truth beyond the words. In this sense, all fairytales, mythologies, and stories contain within them a red river that we can discover to guide us ever deeper into our own direct connection with Source.

Together, let’s uncover and navigate our way through the many folds of the labyrinth into the deeper feminine knowing that this story provides. These are invitations and reflections. Trust what resonates, inquire further into what does not. Let the transmission meet you in whatever way your soul desires and requires in this particular chapter, in this particular time.

The Labyrinth: A Gateway to the Underworld

We begin the story with the knowing that there exists a labyrinth, and this labyrinth sits at the center of the village, and in this sense the entire culture is governed by this labyrinth and what it represents. As I mentioned earlier, the ancient structure of the labyrinth is a physical representation of the deep psyche.

Have you yourself ever journeyed through a physical labyrinth? From the moment we step inside, we know that a journey has begun. There is a sense of curiosity that propels us to step deeper into unknown territory, and a longing to unite with whatever waits for us in the center. Often in the beginning, the journey is easy and straightforward, but soon we find ourselves taking what we might consider “wrong turns” doubting and questioning the path we have taken and desiring to turn back. Every heroine’s journey has these twists and turns.

The labyrinth tests our trust and faith in our intuition by seemingly tricking us into self doubt. Typically it is just before we reach the center that the path seems to take us all the way to the beginning. It is common to doubt at this juncture, to turn around, and to prolong the journey down there in the underworld. But the more we learn, the more we come to trust that things in the underground world are rarely what they seem, and to keep going even when it may appear that we are further from the treasure than ever before. As we later learn in the story, there are two magical weapons that help us on this path: the sword (which represents truth) and the red thread (which represents our direct connection with deep feminine knowing, our intuition.) More on that soon.

Ariadne and the Minotaur: The Angel and the Animal

So why does this village center around a labyrinth, and what is truly at the heart of it that we came here to awaken and to learn? The story goes that the labyrinth was built to entrap a Minotaur, a half man half beast birthed by the wife of King Minos and an animal delivered by Poseidon as a sacrifice. Ariadne the sister to this monster, becomes his keeper and his guardian.

Immediately there is a strong similarity between this story and one of the most relevant and potent stories of the reclaiming of feminine power of all time: Inanna’s Descent. In the old Sumerian legend, Inanna descends down into the underworld to reunite with her evil twin sister Ereshkigal who has the head of a lion and the body of a woman, where she is destroyed by the grief and rage of Ereshkigal and eventually heals in wholeness and rises with more power and more love. The underworld self is often depicted with the head of a beast or an animal, representing the inner wild that possesses both our fear and our power. As women many of us may feel separate from our instinctual animalistic primal selves and certainly for a very long time this aspect of our nature has been demonized.

While in the story of Ariadne, the Minotaur is a masculine figure, we can still sense that this character is representative of the shadow self that hides in the center of the deep psyche and in the dark waters of both trauma and power that churn in the deepest recesses of the womb. Ariadne meaning “the pure one” can be seen as the “good side” and the Minotaur can be seen as the “bad side” of one single woman’s inner world. The Minotaur kept in the labyrinth directs us to the demonized aspect of self that is not allowed to be seen or run freely in the village, and Ariadne guarding the labyrinth shows us how the “good self” then must be enslaved to forever guard the psyche lest the monster ever get out and wreck havoc on the entire community. This separation of the dual nature of the feminine and of woman is something we explore deeper in our free guide Virgin and Whore which you can download here.

The Sacrifice: What We Lose By Keeping the Monster Inside

What is the nature of sacrifice? Why does sacrifice occur in the story, in the world, and in our own lives? Who and what do we sacrifice when we keep the half beast, the animal self, the monster self, hidden and encaged in the deep labyrinth of the soul?

In the story of Ariadne and the Labyrinth, there is a sacrifice made through keeping this Minotaur contained within the labyrinth and that sacrifice is life. Each year villagers are offered to the labyrinth to appease the monster. We might see these human sacrifices as facets and fragments of the self, of the soul, that we cut off and kill in order to keep the shadow from killing the entire community within. Sacrifices are always negotiations and compromises made, some are worthwhile others are not. When women sacrifice their intuition, their power, their innate wildness, and their creativity to appease society, the family, or other figures in their lives, it is not a worthwhile sacrifice. It is a killing off of the essential light of divinity within.

A great mystery and secret of the underworld and the shadow self, is that it contains hidden treasure. Our demons and dark archetypes are also the keepers of our greatest resources, gifts, and powers. When we deny them, we also deny ourselves the fruits that they possess. As we see in the story, eventually the sacrifice that is being made, which is human life, cannot continue for the story to progress. Change must be made, and that change comes through the inner savior or hero deciding the face the monster and end the sacrifices once and for all.

Theseus the Hero: The Animus Who Comes to Save the Day

In archetypal psychology we embrace all characters within a story as aspects of our own psyche. We also see these characters play out in the world’s stage and through our relationships and communities, but our understandings of the workings of all aspects of a healthy whole begins within.

The hero in this sense always represents the aspect of the self that knows how to protect that which is sacred. In Jungian psychology this hero self is the animus, often considered the masculine consciousness within a woman that knows how to navigate the inner world and negotiate with the outer world. Much like the knight in shining armor, the animus’ primary goal is to honor and uphold the dignity of the deep feminine soul. In turn, the masculine receives the devotion and adoration of the feminine who has been longing and yearning for this courageous presence to liberate her from the trappings of the current paradigm.

Ariadne’s love for Theseus and Theseus’ courage to slay the Minotaur feed one another in reciprocity. Ariadne’s love fuels Theseus in his endeavor and Theseus’ determination fuels Ariadne in Her love. Reclaiming deep feminine power does not happen independently of the masculine, whether that mean the masculine aspect of oneself or of men in society. In fact, it becomes infinitely easier, deeper, and more fueled by devotional love when the masculine, in the form of a brother, a Beloved, an honorable Father, and especially a woman’s own animus, commits to the healing of the fragmented self even in the face of annihilation. The masculine’s devotion to honoring the womb and discovering Her hidden treasure to return home to the embrace of the Goddess is the hero’s journey to the Holy Grail.

Ariadne, The Red Thread, The Sword: The Resources of the Deep Feminine

And as we know, the masculine cannot do this on his own. It is in fact feminine intuition that is represented by Ariadne’s red thread, the red river of our menstrual blood that connects straight back to the womb of Gaia and carries the wisdom of all of our ancestors, that guides Theseus back out through the labyrinth when he might otherwise get lost in the deep recesses of the underworld. The greatest message here is: follow the red river and it will always bring you home to the invincible love of the deep feminine.

But before he can return, he must complete the mission which is to slay the Minotaur with the other tool gifted to him by Ariadne: the sword of truth. When I envision this part of the story I am immediately brought to the moment when Perseus, another Greek hero in mythology, decapitates the head of Medusa when he is sent by the Goddess Athena also with the sword of truth. Many know about Medusa as the demon gargoyle with snakes for hair whose gaze could turn any man to stone. However, less common is the knowing that Medusa was once the most beautiful priestess of Athena’s temple before Poseidon raped her and Athena turned her into the demon.

Snake has always represented the red river of feminine consciousness, which I wrote in this article all about Lilith and also in this one about Eve. It is a woman’s primordial shakti and sexual power that connects her with the truth of her nature. Interestingly, Ariadne is also known not just as “the pure one” but also as a snake Goddess. Perhaps Ariadne represents the dual faces of the Goddess as both Lilith and Eve. Could the Minotaur in the story in fact be Ariadne’s inner Medusa, who was also created through an initiation delivered to her Mother by Poseidon? How does the sword of truth, that cuts through all illusion, liberate the traumas trapped in the demon self and restore harmony back to the psyche and the deep feminine soul?

Ariadne and Theseus: Reunion of the Queen and King of the Soul

When Theseus emerges on the other side of the labyrinth, his reward is the love and marriage of Ariadne. It is something truly beautiful when a man, or any masculine figure in our lives, is willing to look our demons in the eyes and destroy them through the truth of love that sees their divinity. But on an even deeper and more lasting level, reclaiming our feminine power and the intuitive self that knows its own divinity is a huge invitation for all of us on the path of self sovereignty and radical self love. We must be willing to look our own demons in the eyes and be the hero who liberates them back into the embrace of love.

In a world that has for many many generations and eons demonized the red river of femininity and all that it encompasses: sexuality, wildness, passion, power, creativity, rebirth, these treasures often hide in the shadows that their denial has created. The true divine union and reclamation of the Beloved often begins with meeting these demons and revealing their hidden nature.

Once we do, we access a deep well of overflowing love much like the amrita, the nectar of life, that accompanies orgasmic union. Divine marriage in this sense, is the marriage of the hidden self (the Minotaur) and the guardian self (Ariadne), connected by the red thread and the masculine awareness that travels to the core to discover the truth of who we really are.

The Abandonment: Grieving the Loss of the Old Life

But alas… the homecoming and reunion of the Beloveds is short lived. Theseus abandons Ariadne shortly after they leave Crete, putting her in what might appear to be an even worse situation than the one she was in before. In the comfort of her homeland, perhaps she was not free and liberated in her wild sexual womanhood, and was trapped in the role of the guardian of the labyrinth given to her by father, but she had the comfort of her community and her place in society. Now, she is alone on a deserted island to fend for herself.

Sometimes awakening the red river and following your intuition feels a lot like this. Just when you thought you had defeated the demon and reached the mountaintop, you actually descend into an even deeper Hell than the one you liberated yourself from. Abandoned by the hero and in a sense, abandoned by God, forgotten by love.

This is the time when we are most tested. Did we make the wrong choice? Did we take the wrong turn? How will intuition serve us now? What is truth now? Who can we trust now? Our old lives begin to appear quiet appealing. At least there was something known there, a sense of security there, a sense of safety there. Now it is just us and the wild world at the mercy of the great Mother, the elements, the rocks, and the wind. Perhaps only in this vulnerable humble place is it truly possible to meet and merge with the self that the hero reclaimed. Perhaps it is only in solitude and the doubt of the existence of the love we had just discovered, that we actually realize all that we are.

Rebirth: Marrying the King in a New Form

In her most vulnerable state, alone and nearly dead on the rocky shores of Naxos, heartbroken and abandoned by her lover, the Greek God of ecstasy, wine, and sexuality Dionysus discovers her and makes her his bride. Once again, looking to these male archetypes as aspects of our masculine consciousness on the path of feminine awakening, we can see the power and the maturity of the whole woman taking place.

When we tune in to the frequencies and energies of Dionysus compared with Theseus, the difference is profound. With Theseus we feel the freshness and slight naïveté of a young hero ready to prove himself and his power. With Dionysus we feel the depth and darkness of a wild King who has navigated many of his own descents. These are Ariadne’s mirrors and reflect her own stage of development in reclaiming her own sexual spiritual powers.

In addition to being the God of wine, Dionysus is also the shaman who governs life, death, and rebirth. As the bestower of ecstasy, he weaves the seeming polarities of light and dark, power and love, spirituality and sexuality, sorrow and joy, into new life that is deep, rich, and filled with soul. This is the wild inner king who meets us when we have reached a new phase and stage of selfhood, when we are ready to come even deeper and even closer to the Source of our power. In reclaiming him as our own, we experience a resurrection, where the daughter of King Minos, the “pure one” becomes the snake Goddess and the true keeper of the red thread.

Deeper questions to consider…

What sacrifices have been made to keep your own inner Minotaurs, demons, dark archetypes, shadows, and creature selves fed, appeased, hidden, and contained?

In what sense have you operated within the framework of the “good girl” or “the pure one” and where are you still denying yourself the snake Goddess, and the deeper knowing she holds?

What support, gifts, resources, or guides do you need to accompany you to feel safe to enter the labyrinth and face what needs to be faced and reclaim what wants to be reclaimed?

How does your own inner hero, animus, or knight and shining armor appear in your story? What does he look like, feel like, act like? How would you like for him to show up for you?

What gifts and blessings does your own inner Minotaur wish to offer you? What secret treasure and powers are hiding there for you to remember and integrate?

How does it feel to unite your masculine and feminine archetypes in love? What does divine union mean to you? What is true marriage to you? How do you need to be honored by your masculine to open your feminine?

What twists and turns have your own underworld journeys and descents taken you on? How has your intuition guided you? Are there times when your intuition has seemingly deceived or misguided you?

Have you ever felt abandoned by God, the divine, Source, love, your Self? Have you ever doubted your path and the decisions you made while trusting more than you had ever trusted before?

How have you healed with your intuition and your personal power through doubt confusion, abandonment, and betrayal? How do you self source more truth in very dark times?

Who is the wild king of power and resurrection that compliments, meets, uplifts, and fully aligns with the woman who has reclaimed her wild soul? How does he appear within you and within the world?

What does it feel like to have an unshakeable connection with the pulse of the Earth, with the wild, and a deep inherent trust in your path as the current of evolution that flows within your blood through the thresholds of life and death?