Galadriel and the 7 Initiations to Feminine Sovereignty
This is a mythopoetic reflection for those called to embody wisdom that does not dominate, beauty that does not seek approval, and power that is sourced from surrender, not striving.
This is for the flames that do not burn, the mirrors that do not distort, and the human sanctuaries that do not flee the world.
A Note From Rachel:
I made this in collaboration with ChatGPT after falling into a rabbit hole about the story of Galadriel—the Lord of the Rings character who’s basically been living rent-free in my unconscious since I first saw The Fellowship of the Ring.
There’s always been something about her presence. Her radiance. Like she holds a kind of power that doesn’t need to prove itself.
The deeper I went into her arc, the more I saw the familiar story of the fool:
Leaving the safety of the known.
Getting caught in the pull of ambition.
Being tempted by power.
And choosing grace instead.
Ever since I was a little girl, I felt the resonance of Galadriel’s choice not to take the Ring of Power. That moment always stuck with me. And over the years, it’s become a kind of compass, guiding me through my own becoming.
Now, I feel called to share the deeper journey woven into her story because it speaks directly to the feminine polarity that lives within all of us.
When I use the words “she” or “her,” I’m not speaking to gender, but to the feminine essence that exists within every soul.
So I stripped away the fantasy and lore, and simply followed the thread of her path.
What I found felt ancient, and deeply familiar.
If this series resonates with you, thank you for all that you’re carrying right now. And know that you are also free to set it down, and tend to your inner sanctuary.
Love,
Me + ChatGPT
7 Initiations of the Sovereign Feminine
GATE 1: The Exile
The Call to Leave the Garden
Every soul begins with a yearning. A desire not to be ruled, but to know through experience. The call of the sovereign feminine is not one of submission to tradition—it is a call to remember who she is beyond the walls of safety. She doesn’t leave because she hates what came before—she leaves because something deeper is calling her forward.
Essence: Rebellion as sacred. Leaving comfort to seek inner truth.
Ego Traps:
Romanticizing the rebellion
Leaving as an act of defiance, not discernment
Burning bridges to prove independence
The High Road: Leave consciously. Let longing guide you, not pride or reaction. Walk away not to escape, but to return to yourself.
My Personal Reflection on Gate 1
For me, this showed up as rejecting the place I came from. Telling stories about being the victim of a sister wound. Convincing myself my pain was about my location, my upbringing, my family.
Judging my parents for not being perfect.
Basically I was an immature brat with a story that my liberation lived somewhere else.
And honestly, I don’t judge that version of me. That storytelling gave me the fuel I needed to leave home and begin searching. And my search brought me real wisdom. Real experiences. I’m grateful.
But looking back, it’s clear: how you leave sets the tone for where you go. I left with a victim mindset, and I carried that mindset everywhere I went.
So if you’re feeling the call to go, here’s what I’d say: You don’t need to tell a painful story to justify your becoming.
You can follow your soul’s longing without making anyone the villain. You can leave with love.
GATE 2: The Crossing
The Wilderness Between Worlds
Once she leaves, she finds herself in the wilderness. Between identities. Between lives. Here, the soul is stripped bare. The world no longer recognizes her, and she barely recognizes herself. This is not punishment—it is purification.
Essence: Initiation through disorientation. Endurance as refinement.
Ego Traps:
Victimhood: “Why is this happening to me?”
Performing growth to bypass the pain
Trying to rush the process to ‘get back to feeling normal’
The High Road: Let yourself be undone. This is the holy unraveling. Walk slowly. Let the dark night shape you without losing your softness. What is barren outside is making you fertile within.
My Personal Reflection on Gate 2
This was the void. The in-between who I was and who I was going to be.
I remember trying to be a personal development coach at 22, not because I had wisdom, but because I couldn’t sit with the emptiness.
This period was full of me indulging in dark fantasies. I numbed with every substance I could get my hands on.
I spiraled. I flirted with death.
And I had no framework for what was happening.
I didn’t know that my soul was in initiation, I just thought I was broken.
If I could go back and speak to myself in that place, I’d say:
Literally nothing is wrong. You’re in-between. Everything you once believed is now up for questioning, nothing is certain, and that is perfect. It’s painful, yes. But it’s sacred.
The suffering deepens when we judge it.
The darkness stretches out when we resist it. The more we tell stories about it the more it reinforces the very identity we are trying to dissolve.
So let this period soften you, let the sorrow carve deep rivers of compassion that will flow through you and turn you into a servant to God everywhere you go.
The darkness is not here to punish you.
It’s here to prepare you.
GATE 3: The Sanctuary
Becoming a Safe Place
After the unraveling, she begins to rebuild—not a life of performance, but a life of presence. She no longer seeks to control her surroundings. She becomes the still point in the chaos. She becomes sanctuary.
Essence: Sacred stillness. Cultivation over control.
Ego Traps:
Obsessing over external peace as a way to avoid internal discomfort
Mistaking numbness or withdrawal for “healing”
Performing peace to maintain an image of being “evolved”
The High Road: Tend to the soil of your being. You are the container now. Peace isn’t curated. It’s embodied.
My Personal Reflection on Gate 3
I spent years trying to fix and heal other people when I didn’t yet know how to be with myself.
I tried to force the titles of coach, guide and healer long before I had the inner peace to back them up.
I also had this pattern of sharing every insight the moment it came to me.
If something landed that felt true, I’d post it, teach it, speak it—immediately.
I didn’t yet know how to let wisdom settle in me.
I didn’t know how to become a student of what I received.
I thought having insight meant I was ready to lead.
I thought being needed meant I was whole.
Now I know:
Sanctuary isn’t something you create for others.
It’s something you become through how you treat yourself.
These days, when something sacred moves through me, I sit with it.
I don’t rush to crystallize it.
I listen. I live it. I let it shape me first.
Because there’s nothing wrong with wanting to help.
But I can’t give what I haven’t learned to hold.
GATE 4: The Mirror
Seeing Without Grasping
Now she sees clearly. Patterns, projections, dynamics. With vision comes temptation—to fix, to control, to instruct. But the sovereign feminine knows that seeing is sacred. And silence is sometimes the greatest wisdom.
Essence: Discernment. Vision held with grace.
Ego Traps:
Using insight to judge or separate
Fixating on other people’s paths
Confusing intuition with control
The High Road: Be the mirror, not the manipulator. Let clarity expand compassion, not authority.
My Personal Reflection on Gate 4
Eventually, the pain of not knowing who I was anymore—and not quite being able to serve in the way my soul was craving—gave way to clarity.
Real clarity.
I started seeing things I couldn’t unsee.
Patterns in people. Patterns in systems.
The suffering beneath the surface. The collective unconscious. The shadow realm.
And I could also see humanity’s potential—so clearly it hurt.
The beauty. The possible futures. The freedom that felt just out of reach.
And while my sight is absolutely sacred, it also gave me a kind of innocent arrogance.
Like maybe I knew what was best for others.
Like maybe I was meant to guide the way because I could see the way.
I confused perception with wisdom.
Insight with authority.
My sight was expanding faster than my humility and so I believed, quietly, unconsciously, that seeing someone’s pattern meant I was above it.
And I used that belief as a way to feel safe, or powerful, or useful.
Especially when I didn’t feel rooted in myself.
I gave advice no one asked for.
I made assumptions.
I spoke as if I was channeling Truth (with a capital T) when really, I was still mid-integration.
The quote that unraveled that whole illusion for me was:
“You’re not done integrating a pattern until you have compassion for those still living it.”
Since then, I’ve been practicing a different way of holding my sight.
Letting insight land before I speak.
Asking if it’s mine to share.
And staying open to the fact that I might not know what’s best for anyone but me.
Because the point of sight isn’t control.
It’s compassion.
And I’m not here to be above anyone.
I’m here to walk with my brothers and sisters. To walk with myself, even when I don’t know the way.
And maybe the deeper wisdom isn’t in always knowing what’s true, but in learning how to stay rooted in your own sovereignty even when the path ahead is unclear. To form a kind of romance with the unknown.
To let mystery be the mirror, too.
GATE 5: The Refusal
The Choice to Turn Away From False Power
Here she stands before the crown, the ring, the title, the temptation. She could grasp it. Rule with it. But she doesn’t. Power that demands to be taken is not true power—it is bait.
Essence: Restraint. Sovereignty through refusal.
Ego Traps:
Proving worth by dominance or visibility
Grasping at leadership roles before embodying the wisdom
Taking up space to feel valuable
The High Road: Resist the shortcut. Refuse the power that would cost your integrity. Let your "no" be holy. Let restraint be your roar.
My Personal Reflection on Gate 5
This gate shows up every time someone projects their pain onto me. Every time I get criticized, rejected, misunderstood.
My ego licks its lips as I feel the pull to defend, to attack, to dominate. To prove I’m right. To say the perfect thing that annihilates. To remind them who they’re dealing with.
But that pull has gotten softer with time. And every time I choose not to react from that place, something deeper wins.
Every time I refuse to meet pain with pain, love wins. Every time I’m handed power and I share it instead of hoarding it, love wins.
But I’ll be real with you. There’s grief in letting go of that old idea of power. The part of me that wanted to be on top, to be praised, to be the one who finally got her moment...she still whispers sometimes.
This gate has asked me to let that fantasy die. The one that says power means being admired, or feared, or in control.
And in its place, I’ve had to learn something slower. Something truer.
That love is the real power. Not being liked. Not being followed. Not being “right.” Just love.
And love isn’t flashy. It’s steady. Quiet. Sometimes invisible.
It’s not about proving anything. It’s about choosing who I want to be, even when I could take the crown and run.
That’s what this gate is for me. Not the moment I became powerful. But the moment I realized I didn’t need to prove I already was.
Every time I turn away from the kind of power the empire taught me to chase, I grow stronger in the kind of power God has been teaching me to carry all along.
GATE 6: The Diminishing
The Death of the Identity
This is the moment of fading—not into nothingness, but into truth. She lets go of the role, the name, the performance. She no longer needs to be seen to feel real. She dissolves into what is eternal.
Essence: Ego death. Letting go of false forms.
Ego Traps:
Clinging to identity out of fear of being irrelevant
Equating visibility with value
Confusing fading with failure
The High Road: Surrender what is no longer aligned. Let the death of who you were make space for who you are.
My Personal Reflection on Gate 6
I’ve let go of more identities than I can count. Roles I thought defined me. Names I thought I needed.
But it hasn’t always been graceful. There have been seasons of falling in and out of resonance with people I once felt tethered to. Friends. Mentors. Lovers. Even family.
And every time I chose to honor that shift, I had to let go of some version of myself. The version that was built in the reflection of their love or their approval. The version that made sense in a certain city, or a certain season of life.
It’s painful. To admit you’ve outgrown something. To walk away from identities shaped by age, nationality, community, location, relationships—even if they were never fully true to begin with.
There is something strangely addictive about dying into God. Something exhilarating about surrendering everything you thought made you special.
But it is also terrifying. Because you have no idea what comes after.
And for a while, there is just space. Stillness. Nothing to grasp. No role to hide behind. No certainty to cling to.
But eventually, something softer starts to take shape. Not a new identity, but a deeper presence. Not performance, but essence. Not who you thought you should be, but who you actually are.
Every time I let go, what remains feels more real than anything I left behind.
The fear of becoming no one is really just the fear of meeting who you truly are. I promise you are totally worth meeting.
GATE 7: The Illumination
Becoming the Light
She no longer needs to shine. She simply is. There is no striving left. No proving. Her presence is a transmission. She is not the torchbearer—she is the torch.
Essence: Embodiment. Quiet radiance. Wholeness without effort.
Ego Traps:
Seeking recognition for the light
Teaching what hasn’t been lived
Performing presence instead of inhabiting it
The High Road: Be it. Don’t announce it. Your light isn’t for display—it’s for guidance.
My Personal Reflection on Gate 7
This one is hard to put into words because I’m still in it. Not in some big dramatic way, just in that quiet, slow becoming that doesn’t always give you language. It’s personal. It’s internal. It’s not flashy. But it’s real.
I used to think power came from how I was seen. How I was received. What people thought of me.
Now I know where my power actually comes from. And I know who I answer to.
Not people. Not platforms. Not perception. But God.
And the still, clear voice that speaks in silence.
My relationship with the outside world is shifting. All the noise. The striving. The comparing. It doesn’t pull me like it used to.
Now I care more about what’s happening in the vertical. What’s happening between me and the earth beneath me. Between me and the heavens above. That current running through my spine. The peace in my heart. The spaciousness of my mind. That’s my alignment now.
The victories are quiet. They look like catching myself in a victim story and choosing to come back to presence. They look like softening a judgment before it leaves my lips. They look like choosing not to separate. Not to defend. Not to disappear.
This gate is tender. It doesn’t announce itself. But it changes everything.
Because when the light lives in you, you don’t have to prove anything. You just walk different. You just breathe different. You just are.
And that’s enough.