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Anna Runkle's avatar

I will raise my hand to say, my entire body of work is all in the service of helping women out of the moral and social chaos in which we were all raised. I work pretty much endlessly, producing books, YouTube channel, podcast, courses, webinars, live workshops -- serving as a relationship advice "columnist" (I responding to 100+ letters on YouTube each year), and leading 1-2 hour Zoom Q&As every week.

Before I jumped online, I worked to change the patient experience in women's healthcare, and in my "spare time," sponsored at least 300 women over 25 years in 12-step recovery. About 20% of my audience is male, btw. I'm not a doctor or therapist; I teach by my own example of rising from a nearly wrecked life, and back this up with all I can learn by reading.

My "brand" is tough love for healing from the way past trauma has hurt your life (and moral chaos IS trauma, btw --it's also the cause of trauma, and shits out trauma -- the expert don't talk about this).

My content is about getting your shit together, especially around relationships, laying off so much *talking* about what happened and waking up to what you can do from where you are, to change your life.

At just 1M or so subscribers globally, I'm not in the league of Jordan Peterson. I like and respect him, and I'm aligned with him in that I'm teaching ancient principles about how to live (and like him, people punch back at me). He's rocketed way past his original training. But what I like better about what I do is that my credibility has been granted to me, not by governing or teaching bodies, nor is it guided by any approved canon. When you're a scrappy misfit woman who grew up poor in a home full of addicts, your advantages generally come from your own gifts and ingenuity, your own hard knocks, and the folk wisdom absorbed from brilliant souls who have walked the path before you and with you. I'll never be "doctor" anyone. But I have the great joy of serving and witnessing the healing of thousands of good souls who are rising up to share *their *gifts with the world.

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Madeline McCormick's avatar

I was just thinking about this at Mass today. My church is a beautiful cathedral covered in images. One is Mary standing on the serpent's head. I've heard much about this image by various thinkers, but when I was in California I heard a lot of women saying the serpent represents the feminine energy and this image of Mary was created by the patriarchal church father's need to kill the goddess and keep women controlled. Today, as I gazed upon her I thought, perhaps that's true but it was for the good of all. The serpent energy of tantra is sexuality unleashed. A woman's sexuality is so powerful it creates new life. A miracle of regeneration. The pre-christian ancients called sex magic the raising of the serpents. However, a woman who is not in control of this force causes great destruction. She must also kill the children of her womb or chemically modify her sexuality in order to be completely free in her sex magic. She is in constant mateform, having to perform to get men to have sex with her. Her entire existence is to seek sex. That is ho culture. It is chaos, undirected, and harms all of us. It won't end until we as women put it in it's place. Crush the serpent under our feet by disciplining ourselves. The image of Mary stomping the serpent 's head is the image of a woman in control of herself and her power, using it instead to serve the world. It's powerful not subjugation.

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