The Dark Feminine Archetype: The Light and Shadow

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Milena (00:58): Hello everyone, and welcome to the Venusian Womb podcast. We are so grateful to have you join us for this conversation, which will push a few buttons. It's going to trigger a few of you, maybe, but it's going to be a very real raw.

And a messy episode as we tap into the dark feminine energy, which is perfect for Scorpio season. The veil is thin. And this is an archetype that is running rampant in our collective right now. So let's get into it. I will be tapping into the light expression of dark feminine energy. So in the light expression, we're talking power.

We're talking radical acceptance and honesty with who the fuck you are and who you came to be. This is an energy that is in full expression, is untamed, that is messy for the sake of being for the sake of being her fullest essence of self. And this is also an energy that, for many, will feel intimidating, may feel uncomfortable. It may feel like too much, but it's also a reflection of all of them and whether they are in their full expression or not.

And this is why this archetype, and just dark feminine in her power, in her fullness, in her radiance, she knows herself. She's not playing small. She's not trying to make you feel comfortable. She doesn't actually think about you because she's not even caring about how she's being perceived. And there is a confidence that comes in the embodiment of that energy, that is a power that no one can take from you.

Milena (02:56):  Because she doesn't allow any judgments, any perceptions to penetrate her aura. And this is one of those archetypes that we can call in, especially when we're feeling defeated, feeling disappointed, moving through shadows in life, feeling triggered, wounds coming up, attachment patterns are being highlighted in relationships.

And those moments when life brings you down to your knees and you feel completely disempowered and hopeless, this is where you'll meet her.

Meaghan (03:33): Hmm. I'm going to be so radically freaking honest right now. I had to dissociate while you spoke about the light so that I could stay connected to the dark. Ooh, there's already shame in sharing her darkness, the dark side of the dark femme. But we're gonna go there. The dark femme, her shadow side is manipulative. It's secret. It's mysterious. It's deceitful. It's fucking angry. It's vengeful.

She will hurt just for the sake of hurting. Because she's hurt, but she doesn't care. She will take advantage. She will seduce.

She is angry, and her anger is chaotic. It's unapologetic, like in the light, but destructive. And she's willing to burn the whole freaking world down along with herself with it.

Just because she can. Just because why not? Because someone pissed her off? Because someone hurt her? Because someone took advantage of her? Fuck it all. The dark femme doesn't give a flipping fine fuck.

Meaghan (05:02): And she is very dysregulated. I can feel as I'm feeling into it how dysregulated my body is. How I can't tell if I want to break down and cry. If I want to scream at the fucking top of my lungs. That I just want to keep swearing because I'm so angry and I don't know how else to get this anger point without actually screaming into this microphone right now.

That have to take deep breaths. have to keep consciously reminding myself right, you're on a chair, Meaghan you're you're recording a podcast right now. Don't get too unhinged. But also this is the dark femme. She's unhinged.

She's uncomfortable.

She's not fun to be around. She doesn't make you feel bubbly and giggly, which is such a mirror for me because that's who I am at my core. The dark femme is uncomfortable for those witnessing her and for herself sometimes too, because she's pushing herself to edges that she's never gone before. And she has choice to make along the way. Ooh, am I gonna react from this space or am I gonna start responding?

And that's where the alchemy of the light comes in when you start alchemizing all of this that comes up in the shadow of the dark femme to the light.

She's a beast.

Milena (06:23): We are riding the edge of contrast right now in this moment. And that's the thing is that there is a fine line. There is a really fine line between the dark feminine energy expressed in her light versus when she's expressed in her shadow. When her soul is leading.

Her soul, her soul that knows beyond the ego, beyond these stories of pain, beyond these stories of they did this to me. They took advantage of me. This is unfair. It doesn't mean that those stories aren't truth because they are. They fucking are. And that's where the rage comes in because she's rageful for what is right. For something that was done to her that is not, that's wrong.

That's hurtful. That's harmful. That disrespected her. That made her feel weak. That siphoned her power. That siphoned her energy. That tried to control her.

And when we're able to go beyond these stories that live within the ego, that live within this is personal, this is happening to me.

And that light, that little piercing light that can come through in that darkness and destruction and chaos. It is accessible when we allow ourselves to meet our soul within this archetype. To go beyond the ego, beyond the stories, beyond the pain body. And really just allowing, allowing all of this darkness to be here, to be loved, to be allowed in the light of my awareness, in the light of my love.

Because this too is allowed. And this too is part of me.

And this too is not too much. It's exactly what is. And that's where the radical honesty comes in. Of let yourself get messy. Let yourself get messy for the sake of witnessing the mess. Witnessing what's inside of you. Because when you don't allow yourself to see the mess, you are projecting, spilling, and spewing this mess onto everyone. That God forbid, pushes your button. Gave you a dirty look. Deceived you.

And the dark feminine in her light, in her power, she doesn't even lift her finger for the sake of teaching someone a lesson. Because she knows when to pick and choose her battles, it doesn't mean she won't. Because when she needs to, when she needs to put up a boundary, when she needs to defend herself, she will. She won't even think about it. She won't even consider you.

She'll say what needs to be said and speak from a place of truth. It's not coming from this place of "I'm going to hurt you in the same ways that you hurt me." It's not coming from the place of I'm going to project or react with the same energy that you gave me. Because she knows she's better than that.

She transmutes it.

And when she needs to engage, she responds from a place of truth.

Meaghan (10:14): There's deep accountability that she takes in her light. She will own the mess she made in her shadow. She will radically be honest with herself in the way she's been hurting herself, in the way she's hurt the ones around her. And she will own it, and she will take accountability for it. But when she's in her shadow. Let's just say it's not in her conscious awareness at all. She'll run, she'll hide, or she'll just keep making messes. As Milena said, it's gonna spew, it's gonna flow, it's I don't know what word you used, but she's not aware. The harm she's causing. And again, she's in pain because of injustice, injustices, unfairness, rage, generational anger and rage.

And I do feel. It's important to talk about the relationship to the masculine because I believe deeply that our relationship to the masculine as a collective is what provokes our dark femme in many ways, especially the shadow side.

I'm gonna invite everyone to take a deep breath.

We live in a society that tells us as women to stay small but also speak up. Be sure you're pretty, but not too pretty. We are constantly being fed contradictions of how we are meant to be. Act, behave, speak. It's infuriating. It makes no sense. It's provoking.

It's dysregulating. I'm feeling very dysregulated as we're recording this episode. It's like I have to keep coming back to my train of thought because I, with this energy, how I personally love the tantrum. I want to scream right now. Like I am literally holding myself back from screaming.

And that's frustrating in and of itself because it wouldn't be socially acceptable for me to scream on this podcast right now. After all, I do want to be mindful of y'all who are tuning in, and I don't want to burst your eardrums. But there's this containment with the dark femme that we're continuously dancing around, walking this edge of like, can I expand here? No, no, no, I need to contract a little bit more. But I really do want to be expressed in this way, but that's not appropriate. Don't do that. You're going to step on too many people's toes.

That's gonna make people too uncomfortable. Ooh, how dare you?

Milena (13:35): How dare you have the audacity?

Meaghan (13:37): And coming back to the masculine. I don't even know if I want to go on that tangent. It feels important, but I don't even know if it's as important as the point I'm wanting to make right now, and I've already lost my train of thought. Wow, when I tell you the shadow, and this is an exact representation of the dark femme in her shadow, because she's not gonna do things that make sense. It's not logical, it's not rational, it's emotional. It's driven by pure chaos of...

Milena (14:16): There is something that's coming through for me, though, in terms of relating to this very masculine, dominant world, which is the ways that the feminine is sexualized.

Meaghan (14:27): Yes, thanks. That's where I was going to go. Take it away.

Milena (14:30): It's the way that this sexual energy is siphoned because it makes money, because it's seductive, because it's tempting, because it captivates your attention. And by captivating your attention, it's getting your energy. And this is everywhere in our society here in North America. Women being sexualized. For the sake of making a profit.

Meaghan (15:02): Not just women, children.

Milena (15:04): Children. And that's where the infuriation comes in, because there is this loss of innocence. There is this loss of connection to our sexuality for ourselves, for our own pleasure, for our own witnessing, and not for anyone or anything else unless I choose it.

Meaghan (15:38): That's something about the dark femme that makes people so uncomfortable. She's an unapologetically sexually expressed woman for herself, not for anyone else around her. I mean, maybe she wants to give a little show sometimes, of her own free will. But she naturally embodies her sexual energy, her sensual energy.

Her eroticism, that aliveness that pulses through her. And that makes people so uncomfortable. Why? Because there's power there. There's a power that is condemned, considered taboo, and forbidden.

And it's so frustrating when the type of society we typically live in right now perceives power as domination, as control, as manipulation through force. But the dark femme, she does that through her magnetism, through her energy, through her expression.

And that's scary as fuck to some.

Milena (16:53): She is the most radical permission slip that you will ever witness. And that, that discomfort that that provokes of witnessing her in her fullest untamed expression, that's the medicine. That's what's showing you the ways in which you were not yet free. And I hate to say it like that, but that's truth.

Meaghan (17:09): Hmm. And I will. And I want to reflect a question to anyone listening to this, specifically women. If you were to just think about a woman in your life that triggers you. And really sit with what about this woman triggers you? What is this illuminating within you? What parts of this woman are being expressed that maybe parts of yourself are longing to be expressed to? What about her, her expression, her essence, what she does, how she talks makes you uncomfortable? Because that is telling you more about yourself than it is about her. What part of that is illuminating something within you?

Because that is the alchemy of the shadow of the dark femme to the light.

Milena (18:17): It's interesting because when we feel into the trigger being triggered by another woman's expression, and I mean, I've definitely experienced this, experiences all the time, especially when I'm going out, and I'm going into spaces that are calling in these magnetic, these sensually sexually embodied women. And these are the spaces that I desire to be in.

Why? Because in witnessing them, I'm also able to feel permission from them to actually see, feel, and experience the edges of my own expression around women who are doing the same, around women who have maybe pushed them in certain ways that I haven't.

And at the same time, in these experiences and in these spaces of being confronted by a woman in her power, competitiveness can also come into play. Because then sometimes when it's triggering insecurity in us, that's what's causing this power dynamic that starts to play out, where I am no longer inspired by you, but I want to be better than you.

I wanna be the best!

Meaghan (19:44): The jealousy, which again, none of these emotions are bad. They're really just feelings and emotions or compasses pointing us towards more of what we truly want to embody and be.

Milena (19:45): The jealousy, the envy. And that's exactly what they're expressing through being present. It's that desire. I want to be like that. And it's really, it's really, again, like I said, this dark and this light expression of the dark feminine energy, it's a fine line. It's a fine line of order and chaos in finding balance, being able to welcome in the shadow and also integrate it.

So that we're not acting from the shadow. We're not acting from this place of needing to prove, of needing to perform, of needing to hold power over, of competing with. It's just, this is what it is, and I'm going to allow myself to be with the fullness of these emotions, of the triggers, of the shadow, and meet it, and also take a moment to anchor in it. Because I guarantee you that if you are immediately trying to respond,

It's not gonna come from a very grounded place, especially if this territory, this archetype, has been unfamiliar for you. And I mean, even now, I've been exploring with the dark feminine energy and there's still edges that I haven't gotten to. And I'm meeting every single moment.

Meaghan (21:20):  Yeah, she's like, and that's I want to give an example of like walking this fine line of feeling into that dark femme energy between the chaos and the order, I guess we could say. And thinking of the archetype of the good girl, the people pleaser, that being and doing everything right, not stepping on anyone's toes, shrinking yourself, staying small, not being too much. As you're like sifting

Between these spaces of bringing empowerment and just bringing to your consciousness and your awareness, like noticing when are you people pleasing? Because as much as I don't people please as close to as much as I did in the past, I still do. And that's not me and my dark femme when I am. But the dark femme helps see when the good girl pops in. And she calls her in. She calls her in with so much honesty: "Wait a minute, Girly-Pop." Didn't you wanna say no? Didn't you want to say no? Fuckin' thank you. Why'd you say yes? And the honesty it takes to meet yourself in those moments as you're saying, and it doesn't mean you have to say no. You might say yes, but to be really freakin' honest with yourself, you're right, girl. That's not what I wanna do. That doesn't feel good. I am trying to please this person right now, not because I don't want to be uncomfortable. The dark femme is uncomfortable. You are going to be uncomfortable in the dark femme.

A lot of the time, because she's constantly pushing you to be in integrity with yourself, to be the version of yourself that brings your shadow into wholeness, to face what makes you feel rejected, what makes you feel humiliated, what makes you feel abandoned, not enough. And that's not comfy. That's not fun to do. But in doing so, there's a reclamation of your sovereignty, of your power that nobody can take from you.

Not a single person, because when you know your shadow. You can't be called out on your shadow. She's part of you. You love her. You acknowledge her. You know she comes out to play dirty sometimes and you could notice then. You could meet her and be like, "Oh, whoa, girl... whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I see you. I hear you!" Let's maybe think about doing what you want to do right now. I understand why you want to do it. It's valid, but let's maybe try something different.

Milena (24:08): Just want to take a moment and say thank you so much, Meaghan, for all of the moments that I've been this close, been this close to being destructive as fuck and sending the message that I wanted to send and reacting and spewing the same energy that I've been given. And Meaghan's been like, Milena, Milena?

I hear you. And she'll sit. She'll sit in the energy with me. She'll meet the rage. Bless your soul. She'll meet the fucking humiliation. She'll meet the shame. And then it's just, okay, you know what? The best advice I've been given, thank you, is to sleep on it.

Sleep on it. And in the moment, I am like 99.9 % convinced that this is exactly what I need to do. To give people a taste of their medicine. To give people a taste of their fucking medicine. To teach them a lesson. To say the things that need to be said. To confront them with the truth.

Meaghan (25:32): And the dark femme in her shadow can't stand when people have these perceptions of her that are inaccurate, that are not true, pour salt in her wounds. But when she's integrated, when she's in the light, she doesn't care because she knows her truth, because she knows her character, because whatever everybody else is whispering and saying about her, let them.

Milena (26:02): Let them because she's not proving anything. She's not performing. She doesn't care. She knows who she is, and she knows her people will come to her to ask her. She knows her people won't talk behind her back. They're going to call her in, "Hey girl, I heard this, let's talk about it."

And I want to say that... With great power comes great responsibility.

And she will, she will liberate you and empower you in a way that any other archetype will not, because she'll bring you into that darkness, into the unseen, into the unconscious, into the ways that you're playing small, to the ways that you've given your power away. And when you do meet that power, when you can really like embody this archetype, how are you using it?

How are you using that power? How are you engaging with the world from this place of power? And this is something that requires a whole lot of discernment when you're trying to express this archetype in her light. For one, is that situation worth giving her the power over?

If it's to teach the lesson, if it's to say the thing that needs to be said, if it's to defend or stand up for a situation that she feels is unjust, is it worth engaging with it? Or is it just one of those things that's just, let it go?

Meaghan (27:41): Engagement. I want you to say that one more time. Is it worth engaging with?

Everybody, write that down in your notes immediately. Is this situation, this person, this TikTok comment, or this Instagram comment worth engaging with? Is it worth putting your energy into that? If yes, by all means, go for it, queen. But be freaking honest with yourself. That's where the self-honesty comes in.

Milena (28:13): Are you doing it to control how people perceive you? Are you doing it to control or manipulate a situation? Or are you doing it because it is a truth that needs to be expressed? Discernment. Two notes. Is it worth engaging with? Is it worth giving your power away to? Because a woman who's in her power, she knows when it's worth it. She knows when to hold on to that power and hold on to that precious energy and direct it to her. Be better.

Don't be bitter, be better. That is the greatest fucking medicine that a woman in her power can give to anyone. Sometimes it's really the don't engage, let it go, let them learn the lesson, or let them learn whatever is there for them to learn in that experience and move on. Because she also, she has standards. She has standards of how she's being treated.

Meaghan (29:11): There's something coming through pretty strong for me right now that I want to speak to. It might not be coherent in any way, or form, but this is very dark femme related.

We are women, we as women, we experience our feelings, our emotions intensely. And we are taught or told to diminish them, to speak more logically or speak, don't speak from emotion.

But emotion is what provokes the emotions that arise from what happens to us is what calls us into our power or calls us into our rage or calls us into our manipulation or it's part of it. And if we keep telling women to speak more regulated or do all these things in the proper freaking way, are you really letting a woman be a woman?

It's very frustrating when I think of it. Obviously, I'm not saying if you're angry to yell at someone, to yell at them at the top of your lungs or to be mean, be aggressive. Still, I don't think it's productive or right for us to tell them not to speak from their emotions or to let their feelings be present as they speak. Because if you're uncomfortable with someone's emotions, by what they're speaking from,

You're taking it so personally. You're absorbing their emotion into you, onto you.

You're not creating space for the expression of the human in front of you, for the realness of what that person is moving through or going through, or how whatever's happened has truly impacted them. You're making them walk on eggshells, keep themselves small. And by learning to hold these feelings, these emotions within your own

Let me give an example. Every freaking episode we start to record one of these podcast episodes, I am not having it. I am in a mood. I am angry. I am frustrated. It's just not making sense to me. And Milena doesn't take it personally. She sits there and she holds me in it.

We're not meant to just hold people in the light, the love, the excitement. We're meant to be holding each other through it all. So when we tell a woman to, you're too much, there's too much emotion now, I can't hear you when you're speaking from emotion. We're quite literally repressing or telling her to play small, to be small, to be digestible. And that doesn't feel right.

Milena (32:13): So, I think it's no coincidence that while we're filming the dark feminine archetype talking about destruction and chaos, I plug my computer in while recording, and it just crashes out. It literally restarted and closed all my pages.

What a beautiful reflection of this energy. I wanted to add this point of pain, the discomfort and how that is the actual doorway to be able to really embody change in the human experience, it is the way that we are evolutionarily built, like we are literally built to adapt to extreme conditions and adversity to survive, to preserve our species. And it's this primitive part of being human that really comes into play when we find ourselves in moments of extreme discomfort, of deep pain.

Of, "I can't possibly live another moment like this." And this is how we feel in our bodies energetically: there is a very strong dissonance in the ways we are showing up in our world and in our lives for ourselves. And pain is one of these energies, one of these emotions that, if we have choice, we will choose not to feel it every time. I can almost guarantee that.

Also, I especially like living in a society where we are pretty comfortable. We're used to having things very accessible, at the tip of our fingers; we can get almost anything we want. And so...

Meaghan (34:00): Facts.

Milena (34:21): It's a very confronting emotion. It's not one that we experience very often, unless we are continuously, consciously putting ourselves in these pockets, in these little pockets of contained discomfort. And that starts to build our resilience so that when life happens, because it will and it's inevitable, when we are confronted with pain or discomfort, we are able to meet it. We're able to stay.

We're not avoiding it. We're not running away. We're not folding and just allowing it to like sweep us in, this nothingness and this, can't do anything in this hopelessness. And the dark feminine, she, she will meet you. She'll meet you in your pain. She'll meet you in your discomfort and she'll stay. And she'll call you to stay with yourself. And that when you allow yourself to fully, truly feel that.

And it's going to be uncomfortable, but it's going to be so worth it because that energy will transform you in ways that you could have never imagined that you would be transformed. And it's one of those things where it's like, you can't go back. You can't go back when you allow yourself to be transformed by this energy to really let it move you in whatever ways it's calling you into change in your life.

That is going to build a level of self-trust and resilience and confidence that no other thing will. And so this is really an invitation to meet the discomfort, to meet the pain in moments, to meet the, oh my God, I don't know how I'm going to get through this. Like, I don't know how I'm going to, I don't know how to exist. I don't know how to be like to meet that, to meet all of that. And to just allow yourself to breathe through it. To move it.

Meaghan (36:25): I want to feed off of that and read me as if anyone has listened to our "What is Venusian Womb" the first episode of this podcast. This all started with our journey with the feminine archetypes. And I would like to read part of something we wrote down two years ago.

"She alchemizes rage into passion. She alchemizes shame into love. She alchemizes chaos into peace. She alchemizes insecurities into self-confidence. She alchemizes all that doesn't serve to her benefit, knowing that any darkness that may unfold from within herself is her fuel to the eternal flame within to shine even brighter, embodying more light, more love."

So on that note, I don't have much more to say about the dark femme, unless Milena has something else she'd like to add.

Milena (37:28): I do want to say that meeting the dark femme and journeying with her, connecting with her, embodying her...

Honestly, the entire purpose of it is expansion. That's the word that I would use is expansion. Expanding your heart and the love that you are able to nurture for yourself to meet all parts of yourself, expanding your capacity to meet all parts of another in their full spectrum, in their dark, in their light.

Milena (38:12): And that love is a love that welcomes you in. It's a love that allows you to exist. It's a love that will be truthful. And that truth may be confronting, but it won't judge you.

And this is a very edgy, uncomfortable archetype to work with. And like we spoke about, it can be very destructive, can be very harmful.

And that may be expressed in moments that are a messy part of this that come through. And it's really just allowing, allowing, allowing this archetype to embody to unfold in the ways that she does and bringing it back to that expansion, that expansion of your expression, that expansion of the love that you hold for the fullness, the fullness in the world for the light for the dark. And to bring more light through your expression, to bring more light through your power, to bring more light through your embodiment. This is the entire purpose of how we can really alchemize ourselves and our lives and our human experience in a way that serves ourselves and also everyone around us.

And this is really calling everyone in to have discernment with the ways that this archetype is expressing in your life. To have radical honesty and to adjust, to adjust the ways that you may be directing this energy. If you're noticing that it's expressing more in the shadow in the control and the power.

And it's not to shame it or make it wrong. It's just to become aware and to redirect.

So those are my final notes. just some, again, the notes, the things that are notes. Is it worth engaging with? Do we engage? Yes or no? Two, sleep on it. Sleep on it. Even if it's just 24 hours, please sleep on it. And three, how are we using our power? Are we using it?

Meaghan (40:19): Hmm. Disengage! Disengage! Sleep on it.

Milena (40:45): For good or are we using it to harm because it can do both, and that is really going to call you into a whole lot of integrity.

And on that note...

Meaghan (40:59):  Thank you. Thank you for journeying with us in the dark,femme, for listening, and for setting aside time to tune in. We invite you to tune in again next Friday for the next episode, check out our website, and read the blog post there. We also have the episode transcripts.

And I'd also like to start planting the seed for the invitation to join our Womb Circle, which we'll host on November 16th from 2.30 to 5 p.m. It's going to be an online women's circle, journeying through whatever theme is most alive at that time. We haven't created the circle yet because we would like it to be more intentional about what is coming up closer to the date. But we would love to have as many of you who feel called to join us in that sacred gathering.

So thank you, and we'll see you next time.