Reclaiming Friday the 13th
/Infamous Friday the 13th… this day has been ingrained into the collective psyche as the most “unlucky” and “evil” day.
Some airplanes still skip row 13 and many hotels, hospitals, and skyscrapers skip the 13th floor, labelling it as "12A" or "14" because of the widespread belief that the number 13 brings bad luck.
Millions of people suffer from triskaidekaphobia, the irrational fear of the number 13, avoiding significant life decisions—like signing contracts, flying, or getting married—on dates involving the number 13.
How did this happen?
Friday the 13th is the day of the Feminine.
In astrology, Friday is the day of the Goddess, named for the powerful Norse Goddess of love, Freya, and her Roman counterpart, Venus. This is the day of the week to celebrate the feminine gifts of creation, relationships, sensuality, beauty, intuition and community.
The number 13 reflects the lunar cycle. Each of the 13 yearly moons pull the waters of our body and hormonal cycle shifting our moods and fertility. The Moon can never be separated from the blood of a women’s body that gives life.
Innocent enough, right?
In indigenous wisdom including Hinduism, Judaism, ancient Egyptian, Mayan, Aztec and Native American spirituality 13 has always been a spiritually powerful and significant number.
Traditions and cultures that still favor some version of lunar time-keeping include Islam, Judaism, Chinese and Tibetan cultures, traditional Buddhist and Hindu cultures, and many varied Indigenous cultures around the world.
Yet, by the late 1800's, parts of Europe has begun to popularize Friday the 13th, the day of the feminine, as associated with “witchcraft.”
Looking back in history we see that the word “witch” was a crafty invention to bolster and secure the growing wealth and political power of the Catholic Church.
The unique and unprecedented mythology of “one male God” was entirely contrary to the indigenous religions known on all continents of planet Earth since the beginning of human religion 100,000 years ago.
In order to accomplish a murderous mass political coup cloaked as “the will of God,” something had to be done….
The modern invention of the word “witch” was the incredible (and morbid) genius at the center of a massively successful rebrand perhaps unparalleled in history - a gargantuan feat of mass hypnosis that would make the Apple marketing team jealous.
“Witch” became a label for powerful, land owning women leaders who were deeply influential in their community as healers, mothers, teachers, oracles. Accusation of witchcraft allowed the political opportunists of the Church to seize women’s land and assets.
This rebrand, like all marketing, depended on shifting the meaning of certain concepts….
This rebrand depended on a demonization of the cycles of Nature
… as women are innately cyclical creatures who have a special relationship with darkness - the dark of the moon, the dark of the womb, the dark of blood shed at menstruation and childbirth to bring life, the generative powers of fertile soil.
The feminine had to be recast as the enemy of orderly human rationality and logic
… as women reflected the fluid, dynamic, sensual and liberating intelligence of the body and Mother Earth.
This rebrand depended upon the proliferation of a new mythical land called “Hell.”
… Ironically, the word Hell originated from the Norse Goddess of Death, Hel. However, far from the torturous Christian concept of “Hell,” this Goddess embodies death as an organic process of karmic healing, a portal to spiritual union with God/Goddess, the pathway to awakening divine love and Truth, a natural step to the renewal and rebirth of Spring after the darkness of Winter.
In the Tarot, the 13th card of the Major Arcana is the often misunderstood Death card. Instead of signifying actual death, the card signals the transformation that comes from releasing limiting ideas of who we are.
The result of this rebrand was a hyper masculine, yang-dominant & solar-oriented culture rooted in fear and judgement , a culture that inevitably fears and disrespects the cyclical intelligence of Earth, of woman, of the soul’s journey of shadow and revelation.
Through this rebrand, we were sold a lie...
Sex is sinful.
Our blood is shameful.
Rest is lazy.
Your feelings are too much.
The Dark Feminine teaches us:
Sex is sacred.
Your blood is powerful.
Rest brings rebirth.
Your feelings are messengers.
The result of these top down marketing efforts resulted in the largest holocaust in history called the Witch Trials.
While the history has been forgotten, it’s wounds fester on in the unconscious psyche of both men and women.
We’ve survived by unconsciously and often consciously shunning our own feminine nature, disconnecting from the universal wisdom of our bodies, unconsciously making ourselves smaller and smaller at treacherous cost to our wellbeing, the health of the Earth and human civilizations.
What else could we have done to live and raise our children, to love our partners, to share our gifts, to survive?
While our ancestors honored and, in fact, worshipped the mysterious darkness of night, winter, the new moon and the mysterious cave of the sacred Womb + Yoni, as the source from which new life arises, we’ve become a people afraid of the dark, encouraged to shy away from all which dwells in the shadows.
Because our mass mythology doesn’t support us to embrace our own shadows for healing, we project our natural darkness onto others. Herein lies the root of all personal and collective violence.
As we reclaim the ancient mythology of the Goddess, the healing power of the dark feminine is where we find a power & wisdom so profound, it threatens the very fabric of the modern world.
So, reclaiming Friday the 13th is kind of a BIG deal.
The comeback of Friday the 13th gets bigger every single year. I’ve witnessed it grow and grow with my own eyes since I began on the path of feminine awakening 16 years ago.
As more women remember their inner power and wisdom, this day is being reclaimed as a call to return to your body, your intuition and feminine magic.
Does any of this trigger you?
The dark Goddess reminds us that our triggers are our gurus. When we are triggered, it’s a sign that our shadow is near - a part of us that we’ve unconsciously sacrificed to feel safe, to be accepted, is calling our attention.
This is the path to remembering our wholeness and holiness.
We cannot reclaim our own feminine gifts and superpowers - our intuition, magic, sensuality, sexuality, our body, our devotion to global community rooted in unity versus separation, without reclaiming the dark, the cycles of the Earth, the moon and our bodies.
How will you ritually reclaim this day for yourself?
I invite you to spend time in nature or dance while listening to the transmission of my “Wake the Witch” playlist by clicking here.
Through our induvidual communion with the moon and our bodies, we honor our indigenous ancestors and all the women persecuted over the past thousand years and still to this day in Europe and around the Globe by reclaiming their reverence for the Goddess in all of her forms and standing for devotion to compassion and the interconnection of humans with all of life.
How you’re holding yourself with compassion around your own triggers during this moment of mass awakening of the feminine on Planet Earth?
Please let us know below.
With the endless love of the Light and the Dark,
Hayley
P.S. Let’s spread the word…. 🙈
