Right now the internet is FULL of articles about dark femininity, dark feminine traits, and how to embrace your own dark feminine energy. But how do you know if the info you’re reading is legit?
One of the very first articles I just pulled up on dark feminine energy said this: Dark feminine energy is the “shadow” side of the divine feminine.
WRONG.
It isn’t. It really isn’t! Yet this idea that the dark feminine is the shadow is prevalent right now. And it’s not only really, really harmful, but actually further suppresses and distorts the raw, fierce, and wild feminine power that most women are seeking to liberate and embody.
So if you’re ready to peel back those layers of patriarchal programming and shake off the shackles of “nice girl” conditioning, read on…
What is dark feminine energy?
Contrary to what some may believe, dark feminine energy is not your shadow side. It’s not the wounded feminine, or something bad, negative or evil.
And, contrary to what some people may say, the dark feminine isn’t “half” of the divine feminine. There’s this idea that the “light and dark side” of the feminine are polar opposites – separate, incompatible, and at odds with each other.
Again, NO! This kind of thinking and teaching about “light and dark aspects” only serve to further fragment women, to create (or reinforce) the split inside our very cores.
Dark feminine energy is a potent force, a stream of creative, destructive, life-giving and life-taking spiritual energy. It’s hard to describe in words, and best experienced through the body. It’s a feeling, a knowing, a connection with the pulse of life itself.
Dark feminine energy is –
- Creation
- Passion
- Power
- Chaos
- Fury
- Fearlessness
- Strength
- Devotion
- Sex
- Transformation
- Regeneration
- Magic
- Destruction
- Death
- The void
- The liminal
- The unknown and the unknowable
Need to read up on dark feminine traits?
Read this post next – 20 Essential Dark Feminine Traits
What’s an example of the dark feminine?
The dark feminine can be found in how all of these things – these ideas, states, expressions, and impulses – manifest through life.
You may experience dark feminine energy inside your dreams or when you have sex. Or maybe for you, the dark feminine resides in a deep dark tangle of forest, a vast, barren moorland, or a breathtaking thunderstorm.
Maybe you access dark feminine energy in moments of anger or rage, when you feel the edge of power, plus taboo rising up through your heart and throat?
Or maybe she emerges through one of the many dark feminine archetypes, as a character, energy type, or identity?
Regardless of the details, she’s here.
The dark feminine is a powerful force that can help you access a deeper, more primal, and essential quality of life.
Something beyond the quality of life allowed us, by our modern, man-made systems and civilizations.
The only way to know this divine feminine energy is to meet it, imbibe it, take it into your body, and see how it wants to move you. That’s what this article is all about – how you can tap into this potent force, and let it transform you from the inside out.
How to Tap into Dark Feminine Energy
If you want to access your dark feminine energy, there are many ways to do so. Here are 13 ways to tap into your dark feminine energy… (yep, the number of the Goddess!) Yet there’s no one way to do this. The dark feminine woman has many different guises – so the goal is to find yours, not adopt one that someone else gives you.
For that reason, these methods to embrace dark feminine energy are suggestions. They are starting points, openings, portals to walk through, to find YOUR path.
1. Work with the Dark Goddess
One of the BEST ways to start shaking off the “light feminine energy” most women are conditioned into maintaining, is to start working with the dark Goddess.
From Innana to Lilith, Hecate to Kali, you will really ignite your connection to your own dark feminine energy by forming a relationship with one (or more) of the many dark Goddesses.
This work is powerful, and not for the faint-hearted. But there is NO better guide and ally in the work of the dark feminine, than the dark Goddess herself.
Read this post next: 13 Dark Goddesses you Need to Meet
2. Slow down and rest
Rest is a sacred act.
Our “go-go-go” culture tells us that to rest is to fail. But slowing down the pace is an act of reclamation.
Rest is when the regenerative power of the dark Goddess really comes into play.
If you really want to delve deeper into the mysteries of the dark, then reclaim your time, your energy, and your attention.
3. Learn to LOVE your menstrual cycle
All women are cyclical beings.
Our menstrual cycles are a mirror of the cyclic nature of life – of the seasons, the Moon cycle, and the cycles of growth and creation that manifest through all of nature’s wonders.
It’s a powerful thing! Yet for a lot of women, instead of harnessing the power within menstruation, they’ve been taught to feel shame, embarrassment, annoyance, or simple dislike for their period.
Yet your bleeding time holds the same quality of dark feminine energy that we’ve been talking about – the transformative, regenerative power inherent in the rebirth cycle.
Getting to know – and fully embrace – your own cycle of menstruation is an intimate way to get to know how dark feminine energy flows through you. And it’s also an act of resistance. A reclamation of sacred femininity and the power we hold.
Also read: Your Sacred Blood: White and Red Moon Cycles
4. Explore the blood mysteries
Let’s take this a step further – what’s your relationship with your menstrual blood?
How do you greet your flow?
What do you do with the red nectar your body produces each month?
Most women are taught that their monthly moon blood is a waste product, and something dirty to throw away. But your blood has incredible regenerative, healing, and protective qualities!
Many ancient cultures practiced blood rites, and many indigenous people still do.
Working with your menstrual blood is a potent and intimate act. Here are a few ways to connect to yours –
- Dilute with water and use on your garden or house plants
- Use it as a healing elixir on wounds (yes, this works)
- Spiritually charge it for magical purposes including ceremony
- Scatter on the boundary to your home or property as protection (an exceptionally powerful practice – be prepared)
- Make art with it
- Re-imbibe it (again, this is an extremely potent medicine)
And if this feels totally taboo to you, then ask yourself why.
Read this post next: A Guide to Menstrual Rituals: 13 Ways to Honour Your Sacred Blood
5. Work with the Dark Moon
The dark Moon phase occurs two to three days before the New Moon, when old Grandmother Moon is invisible in the sky. It’s a potent time in the sacred cycle of the Moon and one that’s often overlooked.
Ancient cultures revered the Moon as a manifestation of the Goddess. So the dark Moon phase is, of course, the domain of the Dark Goddess.
Working with the dark Moon phase is a really wonderful way to tap into dark feminine traits and energy. At this phase, she is alive, available, and for those in the know, wildly seductive!
Create space to get in touch with your inner world. Release any ideas or concepts of what it is to be a “feminine woman” and drop into the void.
Dark Moon is the perfect time for deep personal inquiry and healing work, like –
- Shadow work
- Journalling
- Divination
- Shamanic journeywork
- Rituals of release
6. Do your shadow work
Remember – the dark feminine isn’t shadow.
Yet when you embark on the journey into your own personal underworld, the dark feminine will serve as a guide and ally as you explore your shadow aspect.
Working with the shadow requires deep healing, full acceptance and self-love, and radical transformation.
It’s a journey to create wholeness and healing.
Dark femininity is the animating force that transmutes shadow into gold.
To regenerate pieces of a fragmented soul into something extraordinary is pure dark feminine magic.
Methods to accessing the shadow self include:
- Self inquiry
- Writing with journal prompts
- Somatic experiencing
- Inner child work
7. Get in the garden!
Dark Feminine energy lives deep in the rich black soil, the earth beneath your feet.
As well as the emotional, spiritual, and energetic realms, she exists in the decay and compost of matter, the depths of the natural world. She is the fertile void and potential or soil, pregnant with a thousand creations.
Something quite extraordinary happens when you literally place your hands into the body of Mother Earth. Forget gardening gloves – when you are physically connecting the soil, letting it touch your skin, you are meeting the divine mother.
8. Explore your sexuality
Another potent way to tap into your dark feminine side is to explore your sexual desires. Take time to understand what turns you on and what makes you feel good. Explore sensation, pleasure, and even pain…
Sex is sacred. Your sexual energy is a sacred force that makes you deeply connected to life itself. Yet over many generations of abuse, women have been conditioned to feel shame around it.
Experiment with engaging in intimate acts that make you feel powerful and in control. This may include exploring your fantasies, experimenting with different positions and techniques, and communicating your desires with your partner.
Building capacity for sexual energy is a great way to invite more of the essence of dark femininity into your life.
It’s a constant evolution, so remember to continually check in with yourself. Make sure you are honoring your true self at all times.
You may also like: 10 Ways to Activate Your Inner Siren
9. Embrace transformation
The dark feminine is the QUEEN of transformation.
So much is shifting and changing in the world right now, and it can feel really destabilizing. Yet if you can embrace the change, and ride the waves of uncertainty then you will create space for the dark feminine to enter in.
She lives in the liminal spaces, the betwixt and between.
Practice being okay with not knowing. Practice releasing control. Practice trust.
10. Get angry
The angry woman is a great taboo within our society.
She is anti-feminine, and should be ashamed of herself, right? She’s ugly, out of control, and the polar opposite of ‘femininity’.
But the repressed emotions that often lead to outbursts of anger are different from the sacred rage that is one of the fuels of the dark feminine. But it’s not about allowing yourself to lose control, or lashing out at others.
Learning to cultivate a healthy relationship with your rage, and recognizing the emotional intelligence it really holds, is a potent way to practice self-love, creat boundaries, and get back into contact with pure life force energy.
To find out more, I recommend the work of Mystic poet Maya Luna.
11. Look at your own conditioning around femininity
Write down a list of what you think femininity is. Then ask yourself if each thing is true. If it is, why? Who told you so? Where did that belief come from?
As women, we’ve spent our entire lives receiving messages about how to be feminine, feel feminine, and look feminine. But for many of us, these societal expectations actually go against our true nature!
So in order to fit in and not get cast out by society, we learned to reject these parts of ourselves. Yet by rejecting these “unfeminine” traits and qualities in ourselves, and adopting what society, our families, our friends, and our cultures have told us is feminine, we actually pushed the dark feminine away.
It’s really important to look at your beliefs around femininity, the feminine, and what it is to authentically feel feminine. Without being honest about this, you could be unconsciously rejecting the dark side of the feminine.
Also check out: 50 BEST prompts for healing feminine energy
12. Connect to the feminine archetypes
Divine feminine energy manifests through many different archetypes.
Maiden, mother, and crone are the most well-known, corresponding with the three phases of the Moon – waxing, full moon, and waning.
The archetype of the crone (or wise woman) embodies many darker qualities of the divine feminine – she is ancient, fearsome, untamed, and wise. Connecting to her can be a significant key to unlocking the essence of the dark side of the feminine.
Many many also associate dark feminine energy with the archetype of the wild woman, or huntress (whilst others find the wild woman triggering and hard to handle).
There’s currently a huge femininity movement around this wild, untamed energy.
Want to work with the female archetype?
Take a look at some of these articles –
13. Explore esoterica
Are you drawn to astrology, divination, magic and mysteries? Enamoured by sigils and spellwork? Intrigued by the witchier side of life?
Even though the mainstream doesn’t tend to accept this work or give it any value, many women are still fascinated by the unseen realms.
Yet we’ve learned to hide our interest. Or worse, gaslight ourselves into believing we’re not really a part of life we want to explore.
It’s been this way for centuries, and for many people today, this pattern of non-acceptance is rooted in the European witch hunts of the middle ages. So the sense that practicing anything occult is dangerous is a very real and deep-seated fear. It’s a huge part of the witch wound, and it’s one of the ways feminine power is still stunted.
Yet exploring esoterica (and other things you may think are ‘witchy’ practices), are not only potent acts of self-realization, but they’re also the kinds of spiritual activity that were banned and suppressed along with the divine feminine.
We can (and must) each do the work to release our deep fear around the more esoteric practices, and magical side of life. It’s a fear that no longer serves humanity, and holds us back collectively and personally.
Read this post next: What is the Witch Archetype?
(and a bonus… ) 14. Heal the sisterhood wound
Many women have a desperate need for healthy relationships with other like-minded women, yet we are blighted by a deep fracture – the sisterhood wound.
This is a deep feminine wound that goes back centuries.
Rather than seeing other women as friends and allies, we’ve been conditioned to do the opposite – to judge, criticize, and gossip about them. We see them as competition, a threat to our own thriving and even survival. Maybe one day there was a grain of truth in this, but not now. We need each other.
Work hard to embrace the females in your life! Love them, cherish them, celebrate their wins, and dedicate spare time to building healthy, generous relationships with them.
What does the dark feminine have to do with the shadow self?
The shadow self is the part of you that you keep hidden from the world. It’s the part of you that you’ve learned not to to show, the part that you don’t even want to acknowledge exists. But the truth is, your shadow self is an essential part of who you are, and it’s necessary to embrace it to reach wholeness in this life.
Many writers and teachers will still tell you that dark feminine energy is the “shadow” side of the divine feminine. Yet this is untrue. Darkness and shadow are not the same.
So what is the connection between the dark feminine and the shadow?
The dark feminine is a force, and essence, an essential energetic frequency that can offer us the capacity, strength, resilience, and conditions to do our shadow work.
AND… It’s not unlikely that some of your own dark feminine traits actually exist in your shadow, as distorted forms of themselves. So it may be important for you, to do your shadow work in order to unleash both light and dark aspects of your feminine power.
Meeting the dark masculine…
Masculine energy is often associated with traits such as strength, leadership, and logic. It’s the energy that drives action, decision-making, and containment. Yet our culture has created a huge imbalance and distortion of the sacred masculine, and instead, dominance, control and cruelty rule.
Yet this isn’t dark masculinity – Just as the dark femme isn’t shadow, nor is the dark masculine.
The dark masculine is characterized by traits such as assertiveness, courage, and responsibility. It is the energy that allows individuals to take charge and make things happen in a positive, rooted and integral way.
Spending time with such a man, or men who embody their dark masculine energy can be a potent way to activate the dark feminine traits latent within the inner self.
What does dark feminine energy feel like?
So how do you know when it’s “working”?! How can you be sure that you’re tapping into the dark feminine, and not unleashing your shadow, or simply expressing more patriarchal expectations of femininity?
It’s simple, you know you’re tapping into dark feminine energy when you feel that deep, rich true connection to the divine. When you feel it in your body (and not as an out-of-body, “ascension” type connection).
Dark feminine energy feels like trust, depth, magic and the confidence that comes when you know you are held in the dark womb of the Goddess.
It’s something you need to discover and experience for yourself – words can’t quite describe it. But it’s HERE, in the moment. You only need to open up and let her in.
Now dive deeper into the feminine with one of these related articles…
