No one can take your virginity.

It cannot be stolen, relinquished, nor given away. It cannot be harvested, extracted, removed, tainted, or tarnished. Your virginity is the whole, pristine, quintessential light that dwells within you. And this light can never be broken, harmed, nor destroyed. This light is your soul.

How differently I may have approached my younger years had I known this truth. Had I understood the true definition of virgin, the untainted unprocessed completely pure essence of my being that no boy, man, woman, father, mother, culture, paradigm, religion, belief system, judgement, nor authority could ever take away. And further, had I been bestowed the wisdom of the virgin Goddesses, the radiant maidens running wild and free, and allowed myself that liberation whether within or without a relationship.

A woman’s virginity is in fact her freedom. It is her right to be whole and sovereign within her own being, independent of relationships, motherhood, and the community at large. It is a woman’s foundation for her healthy sense of self.

So… how then did virginity become a trophy for someone to one day steal?

Before “virgin” was an accolade or an insult attached to a woman who had sacrificed her sensual pleasures for the grace of God or the approval of a man, it was associated with the maiden Goddesses who represented a woman’s selfhood. Contrary to the fertility Goddesses, representing the holy hor, the virgin Goddesses did not birth or create, they bloomed, they explored, and they dreamed.

Just as nature cycles through her seasons of Winter, Spring, Summer, and Autumn, so too do all beings move through spirals of death and rebirth, from our childhood to our teenage years to our mothering years to our time of wisdom and old age. Whatever age we may be, we all contain these archetypes and energies within, as they cycle through us within the womb as we bleed each month, and as we journey in and out of relationships, responsibilities, and roles in our lives.

Virgin is the first dew of Spring, the shining light that dawns on the other side of a dark night of the soul, the freshness of new life that is our boon from surviving the fires of transformation, famine, and endings. Virgin is another beginning, where all is possible once again.

To reclaim the true nature of the virgin, we must first reclaim the true nature of life.

Through our patriarchal distortions of a woman’s true nature, our right to be virginal, then fertile, and eventually to deteriorate and die before rebirthing and cycling once again, was robbed from the deep feminine psyche. To reclaim the true nature of the virgin, we must first reclaim the true nature of life. As cyclical, infinite, and renewable. This is the true essence of forgiveness, which is the virgin at her core.

While our time in a small child’s body or with skin as fresh as moonlight may be finite as we mature and age with time, the maiden and her innocence never leaves us. Just as the moon hides herself when she wanes and reveals herself as she waxes, yet she is always the moon, our perception of our virginal selves may shift and flux in various seasons and cycles of our lives, but the truth remains that she is there.

Reclaiming our wholeness, our sovereignty, and our virginal nature requires that we reorient ourselves to these natural ebbs and flows of creation. It is normal, and healthy, to merge with another and move into a cycle of fertility, to explore the inner hor, and to expand beyond the selfhood of the virgin. However, it is also normal, and healthy, to return.

To return within a day when we meet the fresh sunlight of morning and come back into our own center. To return within a season when a relationship ends or we crave the space of solitude. To return from the other side of a long cycle of a dark night of the soul when it’s time to say yes to life once again. To return within an entire life journey, when we are completely reborn.

The initiated virgin vs the uninitiated virgin

As you likely know, there is a huge difference between a virgin with little experience and a virgin who has walked through the fires of sexual initiation, been stripped down to her barest self, plunged down into the underworld, and risen again in her radiance. In addition to “whole” and “free” virgin can also be defined as “inexperienced.” But this “inexperienced” may be interpreted as the one who has not yet been initiated OR as the one who has forgiven all of her initiations to meet life with an open heart once again.

Our fairytales and mythos from various cultures provide profound insights for the initiations we meet on the path of womanhood. Perhaps the most famous is the story of Persephone in Greek mythology, the quintessential maiden prancing through the meadow smelling the first flowers of Spring, when the Earth cracks open and Hades, the dark masculine, the king of the underworld, arrives with his black chariot and drags Persephone down into Hell to become his Queen.

We meet these archetypes internally and also externally. For many women, Hades arrives through our first sexual experiences, sometimes consensual, often not consensual, and usually pressured. Suddenly the veils of youth are stripped from our eyes and we meet with the core wounds of our greatest personal and collective suffering. And yet, this very process of coming face to face with our own inner darkness through the reflection of another, is also the medicine that initiates us into a greater sense of personal power… if we allow it, have the guidance for it, and the resources and tools to survive it. And that’s a BIG distinction.

(More on that in the coming weeks when I write about Persephone and the full depths of her story…)

Rebirthing the Virgin on the Other Side of the Dark Night of the Soul

Our initiations may at times feel like punishments as they bring us deep into our greatest space of victimhood and fear of separation from Source, but they are designed to bring us closer to our personal power. (If you haven’t already, come read our article on the sacred whore, for proper context around the shaming of the red river of consciousness and the power of a woman’s womb.)

Our initiations offer us depth, wisdom, insight, and compassion that enables us to more fully weave our gifts and magic in the world, to guide, support, and midwife others, and to reclaim the blessings that live not only in our virginal nature but also in our mothering nature and our wise woman nature. Our initiations are designed to help us access more of our wholeness.

But it is not always easy. At times our initiations may be so painful, so dark, and so traumatic, that we get stuck there. We close our hearts off to life, we resign ourselves, we shut down, we forget the magic of our youth and we assume that growing older means a loss of play, innocence, and enchantment. Similarly, we may become so allured by the dark nature, the fertile void, and the wild red river of power, that we get stuck there. We diminish the necessity of the virgin and judge her naïveté, associating innocence and purity with illusionment.

In truth, to face every distortion, look every demon in the eye, unearth your own deepest well of repressed power and trauma, let it destroy you down to your bones, and to still, after all of that, choose love, is the fiercest most honorable thing you can ever do. That is the superpower of the virgin at play.

How We stand as Healthy Virgins in a World that Has Forgotten our nature

The key to a healthy virgin is one word: Forgiveness. But true forgiveness is a far cry from the white washed definition many of us may have been taught or even shamed to practice. True forgiveness is the deep knowing of one’s true self, one’s true nature, that nothing can destroy, and allowing that radiance to emanate out even in the darkest space.

True forgiveness rebirths the virgin as our original innocence. It emerges through our willingness to love again. To be hurt again. To open ourselves wide to the wild kiss of life knowing that eventually all things also die. And yet, in our virginal nature we are also invincible, indestructible, in the true essence of the light of the soul that can never die.

When this virginal quality we all possess is anchored, supported, fueled, uplifted, and enlivened by the holy hor, the red river of our power, we become safe to truly love in all of our facets, in all of our shades, in our wholeness, in our total being. This is very different from the shadow virgin who shames rage, passion, and pleasure as “unspiritual” while fearing her own power. This is very different from the shadow virgin who people pleases, self diminishes, and plays nice for approval. This is the woman who has risen up from the ashes and screamed YES to life knowing that it will one day destroy her.

Supporting the Inner Virgin So That She May Thrive

For the Virgin to flourish we need healthy boundaries, proper self mothering, context and guidance for navigating our initiations with empowerment, and time and space to commune with our true essence. The Virgin will be placed into the fire again and again and again for her true immortality to blossom and be revealed. Simply understanding this offers a huge key.

Here are some ways we can support the inner virgin and help her thrive…

Have healthy boundaries. Learn what feels like a “yes” and what feels like a “no” in your body. Listen. Treat yourself with respect.
Choose your safety, your honor, and your self love over your need for approval or to be liked.
Feed and nourish yourself. Give yourself the love and sustenance you may hunger for from another, from society at large, and disentangle yourself from the predators of the world.
Understand the initiatory process. Revive your innate feminine wisdom to bring clarity and truth to the confusing and turbulent times we all experience in various cycles of life.
Mother yourself. Give your inner child the nourishment, the kindness, the attention, the words of affirmation, the loving touch, the support that she needs, so she doesn’t go seeking it elsewhere.
Grieve. Grieve the loss of your innocence. Grieve the heartbreaks and injustices you have endured in this life. Grieve the heartbreaks and injustices of our world. Let your tears wash you clean. Let the waters within you purity and revive you, and let your love inspire you into action.
Commune with your own essence. Play, create, sing, dance, commune with nature, get to know your soul. Reclaim the quintessential light within you by placing it at the forefront of your purpose in being here.
Forgive. Expand beyond the notion that anything is a reason or a justification for your unworthiness of life or of love. Receive the lessons that come through maturity and refinement. Say yes to life once again.
Know that above all else, you’ve got you. Devote yourself again and again to the light of your soul. Watch yourself when you self abandon or betray. Become the safest space for your innocence to dwell, and then the virgin, the Christ, the Goddess within you, can fully reveal her true nature in the world.

To dive in deeper, come receive our free guide Virgin & Whore with rituals, contemplations, meditations, and more for summoning, reviving, and healing through your pure innocent nature in harmony with your instinctual wild passionate self. Receive the guide here.