Facing Times of Transition Journal

Issue 4 - Summer 2025

Contents

1. Stonehenge and the Summer Solstice

2. The Eleusinian Mysteries: A Process of Initiation

3. My Healing Crisis Part III

4. Responding to Crisis

5. The Fifth Gate of Grief - The Healing of Ancestral Trauma

6. A New Chapter Begins

Stonehenge and the Summer Solstice

At Midsummer the Sun reaches its zenith in the Heavens. The Summer Solstice is the time of the greatest daylight before the days gradually start to shorten again, as we move towards the Autumn Equinox. The period directly leading up to the longest day is always the time of year when I feel most alive and energised. For me, this certainly feels like a time of great promise, when the seeds that were planted in the Springtime start to bloom and come to fruition. The Sun gives us warmth, light and nourishment. Its life-giving properties inspire a sense of hope, no matter what is going on for each of us personally or in the world at large. I believe that this sense of the Sun’s benevolence is encapsulated by the first line of a verse, which was reputed to have been scratched on a cellar wall in Germany during the time of World War II - ‘I believe in the Sun even when it is not shining.’

Stonehenge in Wiltshire is laid out in such a way that the stones align with the movement of the Sun. Tracking the movements of the Sun played an important role in the lives of people in ancient times and demonstrated the reverence they attached to its life sustaining qualities. At the time of the Summer Solstice the rising Sun can be viewed as it emerges to the left of what is called the Heel Stone, a stone that sits outside the main circle.

The Eleusinian Mysteries: A Process of Initiation

The central focus in this journal has been on the nature of transformative experiences, which lead to healing at the deepest level. These experiences have many aspects in common with the initiatory journey undertaken by participants in the Eleusinian Mysteries. These sacred rites were divided into two parts, the Lesser and the Greater Mysteries. It’s generally believed that the Lesser Mysteries were celebrated in Spring around the time of the Vernal Equinox in the town of Agrae and were dedicated to Persephone. The Greater Mysteries, which took place in Autumn around the time of the Autumn Equinox at Eleusis, were held in Demeter’s honour.

The Eleusinian Mysteries were shrouded in secrecy and as a result it’s not easy to get a clear sense of what transpired during the actual ceremonies. Some historians have described it as essentially a symbolic death/ rebirth process, which brought initiates face to face with death and the revelation of the eternal truths of life.

The Lesser Mysteries

The Lesser Mysteries served as a preparation for those who wished to participate in the Greater Mysteries at Eleusis later in the year. These involved purification rituals to cleanse initiates physically and spiritually before they faced the more profound challenges of the Greater Mysteries. The Lesser Mysteries can be viewed as a liminal phase in the rite of passage experienced by initiates to the Mysteries. The anthropologist, Victor Turner, claimed that the rituals undertaken placed participants in a liminal, in-between state, where they were no longer fully part of their old selves, nor yet fully reborn.

The Greater Mysteries

The Greater Mysteries involved a series of trials which ultimately revealed to initiates the means of liberating their Higher Nature from the bondage of material ignorance. Thus, it was essentially a journey of the soul leading to complete spiritual regeneration. Through facing the terrors of the unknown, initiates to the Mysteries experienced a direct encounter with the sacred. The lifting of the veil between this world and the afterlife enabled initiates to experience a moment of aletheia, an unveiling of truth that would guide them for the rest of their lives. As the nature of many of the rituals practised was closely related to the Myth of Persephone and the changing seasons, the process mirrored the cyclical nature of life itself.

My Healing Crisis - Part III

A Healing Crisis is an experience that has an extremely profound effect upon us at all levels of our being and it may well shape decisions we make regarding the rest of our lives. For each person it will be different. Sometimes what the crisis represents will immediately be apparent, whereas at other times we may have to delve deeper to uncover many intricate layers of meaning. When I reflect upon my own Healing Crisis, which I described in more detail in the previous two issues of this journal, the areas that stand out for me are the nature and meaning of the health issues I experienced, what lessons the crisis was teaching me in relation to navigating the threshold of a new stage in life and how all of this relates to an ongoing thread that runs through my life, which encompasses personal, interpersonal and transpersonal elements.

When we take the time to attune deeply to our bodies and listen to what they may be communicating, it becomes apparent that our bodily symptoms convey symbolic messages. For example, having experienced a bleeding ulcer, with the life literally being drained from my body, the question that arises for me concerns who or what has been draining my life force energy. The stomach is linked to digestion and also nourishment and I’m aware that giving nourishment to others, both professionally and to others within my circle has played an important part in my life. Obviously, in the professional relationships there was a power dynamic involved, so they were not reciprocal relationships in that sense. But, I’ve come to realise that in some of my close relationships I’ve given a lot of nurturing and care over time, which has not always been reciprocated in the way I would have wanted. Although I certainly didn’t give that care just to get it back, I realise that such emotional giving was actually draining and that at some level I resented the seeming lack of real empathy and understanding of my feelings.

In ‘The Healing Power of Illness’ by Thorwald Dethlefsen and Rudiger Dahlke, the point is made that the stomach represents the feminine role and that if we don’t consciously acknowledge our feelings, this function descends to the bodily level. They claim that people who experience stomach problems are unwilling to enter into conflicts and that gastric ulcers are directly related to turning feelings of anger inwards rather than expressing the feelings in a direct and authentic way. If this is the case, the issue of my feelings not being honoured by others in my life may be partly due to the fact that so often I’ve gone to great lengths to hide certain feelings. A key part of the healing for me in all of this is about sharing what is going on in my inner world and this isn’t easy for me when it involves vulnerability or situations involving conflict. Illness is often the messenger which shows us that our life is seriously out of balance in some fundamental way. If we don’t pay attention to early warning signs when they show up, our symptoms tend to become more extreme, so that we are forced to pay attention to the messages life is giving us. In my case, there certainly were warning signs, which I described in some detail in Part I. It wasn’t that I didn’t notice these messages, although perhaps I didn’t give them them as much attention as they merited but I simply didn’t understand what they were trying to convey.

Responding to Crisis

A crisis often occurs when there is intense internal pressure within the psyche for change. But, ultimately it’s how we respond to a crisis that determines whether it leads to stagnation and crystallisation or serves as a turning point for growth and transformation. Although a deep sense of foreboding tends to accompany the onset of a crisis, it’s important to recognise that the crisis occurred for a reason and has something valuable to teach us. When the lessons are truly learnt, it opens up the possibility of approaching life from an entirely new perspective.

The particular point in time at which a crisis occurs conveys important information about what the crisis may represent. It’s not unusual for there to be subtle or sometimes not so subtle signs prior to the onset of the crisis itself. It’s as if something is brewing. Whether we pay attention to these signs and act upon them can often determine how the actual crisis plays out. It’s not just a question of paying attention to the outer events that occurred, but also attending to what was happening at an inner level in the period preceding the crisis.

Points for Reflection

1. What kind of thoughts and emotions were preoccupying you in the period preceding a major life crisis?

2. How did you feel about your life prior to the onset of the crisis?

3. Were any major changes occurring in your outer life circumstances?

4. If so, how were you feeling about these changes?

Sometimes the very things that we class as unimportant and insignificant are the ones that have the most to teach us about the real meaning of a life crisis and what it is asking of us in terms of how we go forward in life. It’s essential not to play down the things that on the surface seem small and unimportant in the greater scheme of things, but to really allow them to speak to us and be guided by their messages.

The greatest challenge we face at times of major crisis is to stay centred and not lose our footing. It is actually during the crisis itself that we develop the capacity to grow and shed those parts of ourselves that we have outgrown and that are no longer enhancing our life. This involves a willingness to hold the tension of conflicting feelings whilst we are in the middle of the crisis, rather than desperately trying to move on from it. When a crisis has been truly meaningful there is simply no question of going back to an old way of life. Rather, the crisis has served as a foundation for rebirth and by working through it we are able to cross the threshold into a new way of life.

What Lessons Can My Healing Crisis Teach Me?

I believe that the timing of my Healing Crisis was central in understanding its deeper purpose in my life. Coming as it did only 4 months after the closing of my Psychotherapy Practice, it was foreshadowing the necessity of acknowledging fundamental changes in my orientation to life and the acceptance of aspects of the aging process related to entering a new phase in life. As well as slowing down and attending to my body and feelings with respect and reverence, I was being called upon to welcome the Crone.

It’s a lifelong journey to heal deep wounds within the psyche, which may have their origin in early life or perhaps even have intergenerational aspects. In ‘The Heroine’s Journey’ Maureen Murdock suggests that having a strong sense of disconnection from the feminine goes way beyond our experience of mothering and goes to the very heart of values within our culture. In her words, ‘We have separated from our feelings and our spiritual natures. We are lonely for deep connection. We yearn for affiliation and community, for the positive, strong nurturing qualities of the feminine that have been missing from this culture.’ In contrast to Joseph Campbell’s model, which is clearly more masculine and outer-oriented, some of the key stages in the Heroine’s Journey are reconnecting with the feminine, healing the mother/daughter split, healing the wounded masculine and coming to a place of balanced integration of the masculine and feminine.

Maureen Murdock makes the point that when we are disconnected from our feminine nature, the psyche moves to restore balance and authenticity. This can be viewed as an inner rite of passage that directs the process of healing and brings us to this place of real integration, as we heal the deep split within ourselves. Upon reflection, one of the most important lessons that my Healing Crisis had to teach me may well be that it’s not about devaluing either the masculine or feminine, but rather of finding a healthy form of synthesis, which enhances the qualities of both.

The Fifth Gate of Grief - Healing Ancestral Trauma

In Francis Weller’s map of the five gates of grief, the fifth and final gate relates to unacknowledged and untended sorrow of those who came before us, born of:

• Lost connection to land, language, imagination, rituals, songs, stories of their/our ancestors

• Sense of homelessness, orphaned between old and new worlds

• Experience of woundedness, loss and abandonment, where grief and shame are intermingled, residing in the psychic history of our lineage

• Collective soul grief of abuses of millions

According to Weller, we carry within our bodies this grief from sorrows experienced by our ancestors and much of it lingers unacknowledged in a layer of silence. Over time this sorrow becomes concentrated, gathering grief unto itself and is carried in our psyches unconsciously as a diminished inheritance. He says that each one of us has grief at each of the five gates and that it is essential for us to welcome our grief, in whatever form it takes. When we do this, grief becomes our common, shared bond, which connects us deeply with all the people we meet in life.

The healing of ancestral trauma is sacred work that often involves facing unacknowledged grief and engaging in deeply reparative work, which is inter-generational in its nature. Often our deepest wounds don’t just relate to our present life, but stretch back over generations. Healing the grief that was never fully grieved by our ancestors, the ones who came before us, may well be a key part of the healing that needs to take place and can offer us many gifts and blessings. This requires a willingness to pierce the veil between the worlds and open up to the wellspring of life that transcends time and stretches back into the past, as well as into the future.

Think about what you know concerning your ancestry. See if you can sense any unprocessed grief that you are holding in your body, which may have been carried over from previous generations. How can you best acknowledge and process this grief in ways that honour your ancestors for the gifts they have bestowed upon you?

A New Chapter Begins

All of my experiences over the past two years have been clearly showing me that a particular phase of life has ended and that it’s time to let it go and step over the threshold into a new way of being. A book that has really resonated powerfully with me in terms of what has been going on at an inner level is ‘Coming to Age: The Croning Years and Late Life Transformation’ by Jane Pretat, a Jungian analyst. She give a very incisive description of the nature of the threshold experience.

When we are undergoing a vestibule experience, we stand between the old and the new, with one door closed behind and the one ahead as yet unopened. We are in Demeter’s doorway, ‘that place under the lintel between two worlds.’

~ Jane Pretat

This place can feel quite precarious, as the status quo no longer holds, but the future is still unknown and uncertain.

One of the important lessons to come out of my Healing Crisis was the realisation that I was being called upon to welcome the Crone. As I’ve reflected deeply upon this, I’ve become increasingly aware that there has been a huge resistance around this, accompanied by a strong desire to recapture a sense of lost youth. But, as Jane Pretat put it, there comes a point when ‘we discover that we have lost our youth and no matter how hard we try we can’t get it back.’ Since this can feel as if we have lost a vital and essential part of ourselves, this loss may need to be grieved before we can move on to a new chapter in life.

Accepting the Crone in all her different aspects necessitates letting go of the illusion that our physical life will go on indefinitely. As we face and come to terms with the realities of aging, and the many losses this entails, including a slowing down of our physical capacities and perhaps a decline in health, we are challenged to acknowledge our mortality and the fleeting nature of our lives.

Whether we acknowledge it or not, our life unfolds in cycles from birth, through childhood, midlife, elderhood and ultimately death. In our elder years our priorities shift and things we valued earlier in life often lose their lustre and no longer seem so important.

When we realise that we are part of a cycle that periodically draws us down into the darkness of unconsciousness and then brings us back again into the light where we can blossom, we start to know ourselves in a new way. Coming to age then becomes an exciting exploration, opening the way to our future in this life and beyond.

~ Jane Pretat

As we engage with the challenges of a late life liminal crisis, we reach a point of realisation that all endings are an integral part of life. Being willing to flow with the changing rhythms of life is what allows a new chapter to unfold. The process of learning to align with life’s natural rhythms is ongoing throughout life. But, during times of major transition, we may sometimes feel quite lost and confused about what life is actually asking of us. These are the times when it’s important to be open and receptive to our intuitive promptings about what the next stage of our journey might look like. Life constantly presents us with subtle clues about the next steps on our path. It’s important to pay attention to any inner guidance in relation to the directions that appear to be opening up for us. This requires patience, humility and a willingness to stay open to what is unfolding and the rightness of its timing.

In the words of Rainer Maria Rilke, ‘Be patient with all that is unresolved in your life. Learn to love the questions themselves, until some distant day, without your knowing, you will have lived into the answers.’

Questions To Ponder

1. Can you recognise any messages that life may be giving you in relation to healing unfinished business from the past?

2. Which specific aspects of your life are currently out of balance and are not serving your highest good?

3. What needs to happen to bring a real sense of equilibrium into your life?

4. What changes do you need to make to fully embrace the transformational potential of pivotal experiences on your life journey?

5. What do you need to do to come to a place of peace, acceptance and surrender as you move into a new phase in life, which for some of us may involve crossing the threshold into elderhood and the final stages of life?

6. What legacy do you want to leave for future generations?

For a New Beginning

In out-of-the-way places of the heart, Where your thoughts never think to wander, The beginning has quietly been forming. Waiting until you were ready to emerge.

For a long time it has watched your desire, Feeling the emptiness growing inside you, Noticing how you willed yourself on, Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.

It watched you play with the seduction of safety. And the gray promises that sameness whispered, Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent, Wondered would you always live like this.

Then the delight, when your courage kindled, And out you stepped onto new ground. Your eyes young again with energy and dream, A path of plenitude opening before you.

Though your destination is not yet clear You can trust the promise of things opening. Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning That is at one with your life’s desire.

Awaken your spirit to adventure, Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk, Soon you will be home in a new rhythm, For your soul senses the world that awaits you.

~ John O’ Donohue

© 2025 Sheena Taylor

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