I had been laid off. My apartment was full of something I was wildly allergic to, and a vicious injury basically kept me from doing anything more strenuous than sitting up for longer than fifteen minutes at a time, three times a day.



And I was just about to learn that the vision of the goddess that I had had for over a decade was steeped in patriarchal baggage.



"No way, nope, there is no possible…wait."



The longer I thought about it, the more I realized this was right—the vision that we have of he

I had been laid off. My apartment was full of something I was wildly allergic to, and a vicious injury basically kept me from doing anything more strenuous than sitting up for longer than fifteen minutes at a time, three times a day.



And I was just about to learn that the vision of the goddess that I had had for over a decade was steeped in patriarchal baggage.



"No way, nope, there is no possible…wait."



The longer I thought about it, the more I realized this was right—the vision that we have of her has been locked into what man has had for her for years: a virginal maiden, a doting mother, and the wise old crone—and fairly often, a frightening one, to hear men tell of it.



Where was the woman in her goddess?



There is something lacking in this vision of the goddess, but until I this book fell into my hands, I had no idea how to get past that limited view. Lasara Firefox Allen takes that limited view and breaks it into pieces in Jailbreaking The Goddess as she throws you first headlong into the worlds of both feminism and a new world in which the goddess is not threefold, but fivefold, and no longer bound to biology and linearity.



Throughout the book's chapters and exercises, we are introduced to both the faces of the goddess in this new revisioning—Femella, Potens, Creatrix, Sapientia, and Antiqua—as well as famous and notable women and even goddesses who have embodied each of these faces in history both recent and past. But it's not just about the information. While each face of the goddess is explored, a bit of the mental programming around the old vision is broken away, and the energy begins to feel different—not all at once, but gradually. Soon enough I began noticing the difference in the energy, noticing the influences and identifying them in different areas of my life; a project would have the childlike but unfettered feel of Femella in and through it; a sudden discovery would have the lightning strike of Potens all through it; disentangling myself from a difficult situation would have both threads of Antiqua and Sapientia in it.



And for the first time in a long time, She began to feel real to me again.



As a non-binary person of color, this was a very important realization. Far too many interpretations of the Goddess and goddess spirituality take a strange, alienating stance on the transgender and gender-nonconforming, but not this goddess. In fact, a strong point is made on this, as after the examinations of the faces, the work on decolonizing and rewilding begins, with a focus on taking things back from the toxic influences that have had a hold on them for so many years—and yes, this includes the patriarchy (#smashpatriarchy). Exclusion has no place with the Goddess, and here we see that she can welcome and hold all, no matter where they stand in life and what they have to do. To feel welcomed again was phenomenal, a welcome change from what had happened.



In Jailbreaking The Goddess we learn lessons at once profound and occasionally cheeky, while at the same time learning about ourselves and how to potentially change the world around us, and the way that it comes to us is presented in such an organic manner that reading it, you might not realize you've learned something.



If you've been a bit put off with the way the Goddess has been set up to you…it's time to come home.

