The Fierce Feminine – Andrew Harvey

In this first session, Andrew will present our world crisis as a “Kali event” and show that our only hope of thriving and evolving lies in turning to the Fierce Feminine in total trust and total surrender. Drawing on ancient Hindu texts, he will lay out the four stages of Kali’s dance as they are unfolding, and reveal that we are now in the third stage — the severe stage — that demands urgent transformation, expressed in global sacred action.

He’ll also lay out the four major powers of Kali’s healing that are being born in her dance (reconnection, resistance, resilience, and regeneration); share the three laws that govern relationship with the Fierce Feminine (adoration, surrender, and unrelenting shadow work); and outline the six great blessings that will follow in each module, which together birth the Divine Human.

You’ll discover:

• The range, power and majesty of the Fierce Feminine
• The 4 stages of Kali’s dance — and where we are in it
• The 4 major powers of Kali’s healing that are being born out of her savage dance
• The three laws that govern relationship with the Fierce Feminine

The Fierce Feminine blesses us with discernment, a lightning sword of truth that she brings down on all our illusions about ourselves, human nature, the world, and the nature of the divine itself. Such a discernment flays all pretensions and dissolves all human vanity in a bath of black acid. Terrible though this process is, the blessing of unconditional compassion for all others born from it, and the radical joy of unconditional love that flowers from the ashes of the false self provide the fuel of all enlightened activity.

Andrew will illuminate the five forms of shattering and rebirthing discernment the Fierce Feminine gives. First, discernment into the transcendent nature of reality; second, discernment into the limitations and fantasies of the human false self.

Thirdly, discernment into one’s own shadow, the shadow of others, the shadow of history and culture; fourth, discernment into the bankruptcy of all solutions not born from a transformed self; and fifth, discernment into the necessity of putting love and wisdom into radical action.

Guided by Andrew and Caroline Myss, you’ll discover:

• The ferocious and liberating power of discernment
• How to pray for the grace of discernment
• How to pray to be able to bear the price and cost of discernment
• The 5 types of discernment that make you an effective agent of transformation

Suffering is a treasure, for it conceals mercies;
The almond becomes fresh when you peel off the rind.
— Rumi

The blessing of heartbreak is that only heartbreak can dissolve in us the blocks to unconditional love.

Andrew will show how the very thing we are all most terrified of — being shattered by heartbreak at the individual and collective suffering of all beings in a world going insane — turns out through the grace of the Fierce Feminine to be the door into the burning furnace of compassion that fuels sacred action on behalf of all life.

The Fierce Feminine is challenging us to become strong in trust and adoration of her so that we can endure having our hearts slashed open again and again by her knife of reality. What she promises us is that she will pour into our heart’s widening abyss her wine of ecstatic, timeless love, the fuel for the sacredly inspired action that can transform our crisis.

Guided by Andrew and Carolyn Baker, you’ll discover:

• The power of heartbreak as a way to dissolve blocks to unconditional love
• The sacred nature of heartbreak as an initiation into radical compassion
• How to trust and love the Fierce Feminine, constantly opening your heart
• The stages of heartbreak — and how they can be transmuted into radical wisdom and commitment to sacred action

Through the blessing of the Dark Night process, the force of the Fierce Feminine systematically annihilates the false self and births us flayed and exhausted into the self that does not die.

There is no resurrection without crucifixion, and no transfiguration of the human into the Divine Human without a death of all the illusions and concepts of the false self. Seen from this perspective, the Dark Night process is the supreme blessing on the path. Appalling and horrific though it sometimes must be, only through so relentless a surgery could the face of inherent divine consciousness be revealed.

Andrew will reveal the different stages of the blessings of the Dark Night and show how knowing that the Dark Night is a blessing fortifies you to keep yourself alive in chaos and madness, trust in miracles, hope for the future, and take joy in gambling your life away for God.

Guided by Andrew and Mirabai Starr, you’ll discover:

• The meaning and the nature of the Dark Night process
• Why the Dark Night is so essential for the birth of an embodied Divine Humanity
• Why the Dark Night is a blessing although deeply disturbing
• How to negotiate the Dark Night with surrender, grace, love, and joy

The Great Peace that is born after a Dark Night is the peace the Fierce Feminine gives to those she has killed into life. This peace embraces all opposites as the mysterious dance of the fierce one and is the peace beyond understanding that Jesus left as his final gift.

In such a peace, the self knows itself as infinite, both utterly still and endlessly creative. Initiated into this peace through dying into life, the lover of the Fierce Feminine becomes a dancer, grounded in divine peace and aflame with divine passion, strong enough to keep giving everything to serve and to aid the birth of a new humanity.

Andrew will present his vision of the blessing of this peace and offer powerful practices drawn from the Hindu and Sufi traditions that will help you return to this peace and live in it through all circumstances.

Guided by Andrew and Banafsheh Sayyad, you’ll discover:

• How the Dark Night process leads to the open expanse of enlightenment
• The Great Peace in divine awareness
• How this Great Peace can make you compassionate and lucid and strong enough to be able to hold all opposites
• How to “dance your life,” fueled by the dynamic peaceful energy of the Fierce Feminine

The Fierce Feminine blesses those whom she annihilates with the ecstatic power of sacred passion and the nobility of sublime fearlessness. What is born by the grace of the Fierce Feminine out of the ashes of the Dark Night is the Phoenix, the golden one, the fully embodied and fully Divine Human. This new being is fueled by a sacred passion that is grounded in sacred peace, purified by unconditional compassion, and poured out in selfless service and creativity.

Andrew will present his vision of the five great passions that are united in heart, mind, soul, and body through the grace of the Fierce Feminine — the passion for the fierce one, the passion for the creation, the passion for all sentient beings, the passion for sacred relationship, and the passion for sacred activism.

When these five passions start to become active in you, you are forged into a being of humble nobility, expressing profound courtesy towards all beings, and and embodying an unshakable fortitude in the task given you.

Guided by Andrew and Jill Angelo, you’ll discover:

• How the blessings of heartbreak in the Dark Night process can initiate you into your soul’s deepest passion and purpose
• How the Dark Night process splits the atom of the false self and releases the nuclear energy of sacred passion within you
• How along with this sacred passion is born a sublime fearlessness
• How this sacred passion and fearlessness are grounded in divine peace and constantly fed by pure divine energy

Perhaps our greatest fear is awakening to the depth of our crisis and being forced to change our lives to truly be of service. This fear is lethal to our survival — and the Fierce Feminine is annihilating it both by exposing us to our worst terrors and by blessing and empowering us.

Andrew will present his vision of sacred activism — inspired, guided, and refined by the Fierce Feminine. This vision will be a comprehensive vision of action that involves relationship of all kinds, the challenge and meaning of what it is to be a birth agent in our time, and the purpose of being alive at such a terrible and wonderful moment. Kali’s ultimate blessing to us will be revealed as a path of sacred action that is also the destined birthing place of a new, embodied Divine Humanity.

Guided by Andrew and Monica Sharma, you’ll discover:

• The blessing of becoming an agent of love in action
• The joy of owning up to and claiming your own magnificence in her
• A comprehensive vision of service and the practical, contemplative tools to implement it
• How to start and sustain networks of grace in your local community so as to be encouraged and supported in your sacred mission