Reunion - Bringing the Divine Child Home
A few days ago, I hired Dr. Melissa Bird to read my cards.
Before we began, I told her exactly what I needed: "Call me the fuck out."
I delight in doing shadow work, and I know from experience you need people you trust to tell you the hard truths you might not want to admit. You need guides who will delve into the dark with you and help you see what’s lurking in corners you’ve been avoiding. I love being that for people. And I knew I needed Melissa to be that for me.
And, oh boyyy, she delivered.
The first card she drew was the Nightingale, reversed—a song bird with her voice shut down.
I’ve been holding my own voice back. Still. Even after all this purification work, all this house cleaning, after all this recognition of inherited patterns—I’m still clamping down on my truth in key moments of my life.
My throat actually caught when she said it. I raised my hands to cover my neck.
My body knew before my mind could catch up.
All our cleaning supplies are piled on top of this table in the middle of our old game/art room. It’s so strange to see it almost as empty as when we first got the keys.
The Pattern I Didn’t Want to See
Just like my father overpromised and underdelivered, I've made space throughout my life for relationships, jobs, and projects that swore they’d build me up or provide me something that would sustain me (eventually).
But eventually never came in any of these cases. The moment someone else had a bad reaction to my boundaries, I’d soften in the past. I backed off. I’d make myself smaller so they could stay comfortable. I relaxed my boundaries and let myself be bowled over.
At the end of the day though? Only WE are responsible for our boundaries.
I’ve over functioned in a majority of relationships—family bonds, friendships, professional collaborations, and romantic partnerships.
As someone who highly values harmony, I found myself continually in a loop of picking up the slack dropped by others because it was easier or made less waves than asking them to pick it back up themselves. I wanted to make it at least look like peace even if I raged inside.
Not that I am explosive. I’m far from it. I am confident in who I am now and how I show up, if nothing else. I don’t cower from my truth when confronted with it.
I still struggle today with overextending or containing myself, then pretending I’m okay with it.
In the past, though, if someone made a decision that might impact me negatively without boundaries, instead of speaking my truth clearly, I’d process it internally. I’d do the emotional labor for both of us. I’d protect their feelings while swallowing my own.
Sometimes, I get scared I won’t protect myself again. I wobble a bit.
But now, I do my best to express myself honestly as quickly as possible without being reactive or resentful.
I still take a bit longer than I might like to share my truth sometimes. And so there are still vestiges of this in some areas of my life.
I realize my codependent patterns aren’t cute. No ones’ are.
But they are a legacy I’m releasing more each day—and one we get to collectively release together.
My reading with Dr. Bird reading highlighted to me how I’ve kept my voice clamped in different places, and how that’s hindering my full creativity and power.
The message for how to break this pattern was pretty clear, though: Sing. Write. Dance. Allow music to heal your deepest wounds. Rise from the pain and make space for the emotional maturity, healing, and compassionate community that’s ready to meet me.
I need to grieve the loss of myself in the past and the time spent away from my own goals—especially pursuing my writing and prioritizing relationships and communities that actually enjoy me as I am.
By trying to live in my parents’ shadow and do better than they did, by following societal rules, and by protecting other people’s feelings, I only lost myself. I became a scared child instead of the Divine Child.
But I get to reclaim every part of me, and I’ve already reclaimed so many.
Here I am with a copy of my latest novel—The Wind Sings Sorrow—feeling genuinely happy for following the fullness of my dreams of being a speculative fiction author despite years of being told it wasn’t the responsible thing to do with my life.
When the Divine Child Finally Spoke
When Dr. Bird delivered those messages, I felt my own inner Mabon stirring—cranky, restless, and done with being quiet.
The Divine Child within me wasn’t reuniting peacefully with some serene Divine Mother energy. She was pissed. She wanted to know why we’d been dimming our light, why we’d been processing other people’s pain instead of expressing our own, and why we kept taking on penance for actions that weren’t ours.
My Divine Child wanted to know why we weren’t having FUN!
Our inner reunions with lost parts of Self aren’t neat or tidy. The meeting of our Divine Child and Mother is messy and ongoing, requiring us to sift through layers of old stories.
I’m still in it. Still integrating. Still learning what it means to let the Divine Child speak without immediately trying to make her more palatable for everyone else.
Part of this reunification comes with me starting to use my voice differently—especially when it comes to speaking my boundaries fully, immediately, and compassionately even when I know someone won’t like them. It involves letting my throat open instead of catching. When it does try to clamp shut, I can use that bodily communication to help me remember.
Jhenah Telyndru writes in The Mythic Moons of Avalon:
“At this time of turmoil, we are called to reassess our priorities and…the wisdom of the mothers is returning. By learning to honor the emotional self, striving to heed our instincts, seeking to take personal responsibility for our lives, building a sense of trust in the village, consciously forging bonds of community, and embracing a sense of living in respectful balance with the Earth, we help to facilitate that most beautiful of reunions: The Divine Mother, in joy, once more holds her Divine Child…and we become a humanity that is whole once more.”
This is the ultimate form of integration—that which each of us can do only our part of.
When the Divine Mother finally holds the Divine Child it is not some fantasy of perfect healing. Instead we find the reunion in the real, lived mess of becoming whole while still processing, still grieving, and still learning day by day.
Each day, we all have the opportunity to take responsibility for our lives. We have the choice to find those we can consciously live with so we all may thrive.
What I’m Actually Releasing
Through all these weeks of scrubbing Park House, I thought I was just purifying the internalized ableism, overwork, and impossible standards.
But the ultimate pattern is I’ve been dimming my voice to keep others comfortable.
I notice this pattern come up every time I participate in The Ultimate Blog Challenge, too, because I know I’m sharing my work with a wider audience who may or may not agree with anything I have to say. I get a little nervous that I’ll offend someone so I start to think about playing it “safer.”
Dimming my voice ultimately serves no one though. Speaking my truth has the capacity to empower.
My father obscured his truth and hid his voice in his own way. He overpromised because he wanted to be the hero, provider, and husband who fixed everything. He never learned to say, “I can’t do that” or “I need help.”
He never learned to speak his truth when it might disappoint someone.
And I inherited that silence along with the $23,000.
I am working to untether the pattern everywhere—In relationships where I process someone else’s actions and my emotions internally rather than naming how they impact me.
In professional spaces where I soften my message so others don’t have to face discomfort.
In creative work where I second-guess my voice before I’ve even let it out.
But I know my truth is my rock-steady power.
Not the truth that makes everyone else comfortable.
The truth that comes from deep in my belly, rises through my throat, and speaks even when my voice catches.
I was taught to accept when people overpromised and underdelivered without complaint. I was told to dim my truth to protect others from disappointment or shame.
But I’m done with that inheritance.
And to the Divine Child in all of us—the part that's been silenced, dimmed, made small for other people’s comfort—You are allowed to speak.
Even when your voice shakes. Even when others won’t like what you have to say. Even when speaking your truth means someone else has to feel their own discomfort instead of you carrying it for them.
Your voice is your power. Your truth is your medicine. Your refusal to keep dimming yourself is what breaks the generational pattern.
This blog series certainly does not come from a place of “I've arrived and healed everything.” I’ve released it from the middle of the mess, amidst the integration that’s still happening with a throat that’s still learning to stay open.
Park House will be on the market soon. The cobwebs are cleared, the baseboards scrubbed, and most of the walls painted. But more importantly, I’m learning what it means to let my voice out without immediately softening it.
The reunion of Divine Mother and Divine Child is an ongoing practice of choosing, again and again, to honor the emotional self.
Messy. Imperfect. Mine.
Where is Your Greatest Joy and Truest Purpose?
My greatest joys take place when I’m writing. My greatest purpose is joy.
Not productivity. Not proving my worth. Not processing other people’s pain or taking on penance for their actions.
Joy.
What is possible when we stop processing other people's discomfort and start expressing our own truth?
What’s possible when we stop dimming my voice to keep relationships comfortable and start honoring our boundaries even when others don't like them?
What about when we stop trying to live out our parents'/authority’s dreams and start pursuing our own?
Everything.
Everything becomes possible.
Not perfect. Not neat. Not without continued integration and mess and learning.
But possible.
The Moon of Purification asked me what I was holding onto that I was ready to release—what impossible standards I was trying to meet.
And finally, after writing about it for six full days, I know: I'm releasing the belief that my voice needs permission, my truth needs to be softened, and my boundaries need to protect others’ comfort more than my own integrity.
My throat caught when Dr. Bird named it. My body knew.
And now my voice is learning to stay pure and open.
The Divine Child is home. And she has a lot to say.
What I know is I want to own my writing, my joy, and my own authentic expression, even when I’m scared.
All My Love,
Safrianna Lughna, LCPC, MS
The Queer-Spirit Guide & Shadow Dancer
This concludes the 6-part series on the Moon of Purification. May you find your own voice in the mess of becoming whole.
Your Voice Doesn't Need Permission—But It Does Need Witnesses
If this blog stirred something in you—if you felt your throat catch, the recognition of inherited silence, or the Divine Child demanding to finally speak—then you're ready for what's next.
Between the Veils: 8 Days of Revolutionary Awakening isn't about ascending above your messy human experience or mastering some perfect spiritual practice.
Fuck that.
This is about reconnecting to YOUR ancestral wisdom, not the appropriated version Instagram sells you.
October 27-November 3, join me and Dr. Melissa Bird (yes, the same tarot reader who called me the fuck out) as we create the elixir that tastes like heaven on Earth to YOU—not the ipecac being spooned as spirituality.
This is for the spiritual misfits who:
Are DONE dimming their truth to keep others comfortable
Know their healing and collective liberation are inseparable
Want ancestral connection, not spiritual bypassing
Are ready to stop taking the bad medicine and create their own
We're not here to tell you there's one right way. We're here for the ADVENTURE until we're dead, and your Divine Child deserves to have some damn FUN along the way.
6 Free live streams on YouTube OR register for $47:
Lifetime replays at whatever-am works for your actual human life
Exclusive ritual on Zoom (Nov 2)
Daily reflection prompts
Personalized oracle card pull
Sacred pause meditation
Your ancestors didn't stay silent so you could keep mastering someone else's practice. They're waiting between the veils to be heard.
The revolution isn't always fists in the air. Sometimes it's reconnecting to your spirit so you can navigate what's coming from a grounded center. This is how we survive. This is how we THRIVE.
[Learn More and Register for 8 Days of Revolutionary Awakening!]
