She Hobbled Before She Flew

Dearest Sovereigns:I have a confession to make.I recently wrote a book about sovereignty and the sacred feminine. It’s about women who know their worth and stand in it without apology.And then I published it and retreated.Not dramatically. Not in any way anyone would notice. I retreated into the next book, into recording my audio book, into the sacred creative cave where I feel safe and unseen. I told myself it was holy work.And it was, but it was also hiding.There is a particular kind of shrinking that looks like devotion. It wears the robes of discipline and creativity. It says I am doing the work while quietly closing the door on visibility and being seen.I know this pattern because I have written about it. And still, I lived it.The Owl ArrivesThen she appeared.It was the darkest of nights. The moon was new and a sliver in the black sky. We came home and there she was, standing on the pavement in front of our house, caught in the light, casting a shadow three times her size behind her.Small. Brown and speckled. Blinking at me with that ancient, unbothered gaze owls carry like a birthright.And she was hobbling.Not broken beyond recovery but clearly not whole. Something had brought her to the ground when she was built for the sky.She watched me and I watched her.And then she flew into the darkness of the backyard, up to the top of the bat house, where she settled into the high place and did not move.I stood in the driveway far longer than made sense, feeling something I could not yet name.The Feminine Hero’s JourneyI just started reading The Sophia Code, and the owl’s arrival felt less like coincidence and more like curriculum.Sophia is the divine feminine template of descent and rising. She does not bypass the wound. She does not ascend from pristine, unbroken wholeness. She falls and hobbles in the light where anyone might see her struggling.And then she flies.This is the feminine hero’s journey, and it looks nothing like the masculine arc we have been handed as the only template for transformation. The masculine hero conquers in a clean, linear climb.The feminine hero descends first and is undone. She sits on the pavement in the harsh light and lets herself be seen in her wounding. And from that place, she rises.Not despite the vulnerability but because of it.The ShadowThe owl did not perform wholeness for me.She showed up exactly as she was, wound and all, and cast an enormous shadow anyway. Three times her body, dark and dramatic against the pavement. A small, injured creature throwing a silhouette that looked like she could fill the sky.We spend so much of our lives trying to minimize our shadow and be healed enough before we dare to be seen. We believe we must arrive at wholeness before we are allowed to take up space.The owl did not get that message.She stood in the light, hobbled and present and entirely herself, and her shadow declared something the rest of her body was still healing into.The InvitationI am recording my audio book now, reading my own words aloud every day. Something unexpected is happening. I am being re-initiated into my own material.And I believe what I wrote.Women have forgotten their sacred sovereignty and I wrote my book to remind them. The feminine hero’s journey is real and sacred and profoundly misunderstood. When a woman learns to stand in her wounding and fly anyway is not just healing herself - she is changing the trajectory of every woman who witnesses her.My invitation to you is to not to have it all together or wait until you are healed and ready and certain.The invitation is to hobble in the light.To let yourself be seen exactly where you are, wound and shadow and all, and trust that your shadow is already declaring what your body is still healing into.Sovereignty is not the absence of struggle. It is the willingness to be seen inside the struggle, and to fly anyway.The high place is real and you were built for the sky.The ChoiceI will not pretend my wounding is gone.There are still mornings when the pull toward safety feels more compelling than the call toward visibility. There are many moments when the creative cave feels holier than the driveway where anyone might see me hobbling in the light.But I watched a small brown owl stand wounded and visible on my pavement in the dark and cast a shadow three times her size.And then she flew anyway.Not because she was healed or the risk disappeared or the vulnerability felt comfortable or the timing was finally perfect. She flew because she was built for the sky and staying on the ground was no longer a choice she was willing to make.I am choosing to fly.Not from a place of wholeness I have not yet fully claimed. Not with all the fear resolved or all the doubt silenced. But with the book in my hands and the truth in my body and the knowing that the women waiting for this work cannot afford for me to stay on the ground.The wound is real and the shadow is behind me, because the high place is where I belong.To your sacred sovereignty,KathrynP.S. Sovereign Women: Love is a Revolutionary Choice is available now. If this piece found you at your own threshold, it was written for you. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit empoweredway.substack.com