The Call of the Dark Feminine

The month leading to Samhain, I had this dream. In the swirling amber sands of an unrelenting desert, she appeared: The Queen of the Desert. Not the kind of queen draped in soft elegance. She was fierce—sharp, agile, indestructible. A mistress of war. The sandstorm raged around her, amber sand clouds swirling with chaos, she moved with precision, embodying power that transcended fear. When I woke up, I knew that this was not merely a dream- she was calling me, a call to a part of the world and a part of myself that I had yet to know.

As the nights stretched longer in the northern hemisphere, her voice grew louder, echoing in the dark clouds drifting over the full moon from my bedroom window. I couldn’t ignore her. She wasn’t just any queen; she was the dark feminine—raw, unapologetic, untamed. She wanted me to find her, and I had no choice but to follow.

I wrote to an arts residency in Tissardmine, a remote desert town at the edge of the Sahara. When they accepted my application, I knew the hands of the dark feminine was shaping this fate. The moment I arrived in the Sahara and stepped onto her sands, I felt it—her presence beneath my feet. I felt her pull me down at the arch of my soles, sinking into the contours of her body, sculpted by wind and time.

The Dune of the Warrior Queen

Each morning, I walked before sunrise to her dune. Thirty minutes of silence, just me and the desert, until I reached it—the dune of the Warrior Queen. I drew my name in Amazigh characters on the sand, forming a sigil, using it as a key as I recite my prayer:

“Oh Warrior Queen of the Desert, I am Syren and I have arrived, as you called for me in my dream. Thank you for leading me to this place of transformation. I do not know the path ahead, nor do I understand all that is unfolding, but I kneel here on your eternal sands with an open heart, asking you to show me the way.”

This ritual was necessary for I wasn’t just walking on her land; I was entering Her Underworld.

I called on Inanna, Goddess of transformation and descent, to hold my hand here, to help me shed the parts of myself that no longer served me —those old stories, those endless narratives that tied me down, those old identities, those roles that I clung to for safety. No longer the girlfriend. No longer the wife. No longer the daughter, the sister, the best friend, the aunt. No longer the codependent, no longer the victim, the persecuter, the rescuer, the people-pleaser. The world I knew had to crumble because hers—the vastness of her desert, her stars, her crescent moon ruled by Venus, her sculpting winds that blew from the land of the ancestors, her fiery ball of fire that rose at dawn—was far more compelling.

This ritual was necessary for I wasn’t just walking on her land; I was entering Her Underworld.

The 21 days in her desert underworld was not easy. She demanded patience. Silence. Surrender. “Stay,” she said, on days when I wanted to run. There were times when peace settled over me, when the vast stillness of her desert felt like a balm. But there were days when fear crept in.. Scarcity. The sister wound. The witch wound. The mother wound. All of them began to press on me, heavy and unrelenting. I felt their weight in the silence of the dunes, in the mental struggles I couldn’t escape.

Her winds that blew from the north whispered words of encouragement, “The messages you are meant to hear are in the metaphors of this land. Learn them. Follow the drums. Find the women. Trust your senses. Do it with love. Love is the highest frequency.”

Even when the desert’s truths began to hurt—when I saw the stark poverty of her people, the weight of their struggles, the pain of the women, the stench of patriarchy in the fabric of society—I stayed. Confronting it all left me feeling helpless, disoriented. Why had she called me here if there was nothing I could do? I wanted to turn away, to escape the helplessness I felt, but she wouldn’t let me. “Stay,” she whispered. “Resist the fight or flight instinct. Let this break you open.”

“You are the one you’ve been waiting for.”

And then came the morning everything shifted. I walked to her sands in anger, disillusioned. I felt betrayed. “Why did you bring me here?” I shouted back into the northern wind. “This isn’t my world. I’m just an observer. What do you want from me?”

I knelt in the sand and drew my sigil on the sand again, my hands moving in frustrated circles. That’s when it happened. A stone pushed up from beneath the sand, as if summoned by my touch. It was shaped like a heart.

For a moment, I just stared. Was it my hands that unearthed it? Or was it her? Either way, I knew—it was a gift. An offering. And with the heart shaped stone came her message: “You are the one you’ve been waiting for.”

I closed my eyes, holding this heart in my hand, and felt the earth tremble beneath me. A whirlwind of sand carried something ancient—a memory, a code. I saw them then: the Desert Warrior Queens rising behind me, beautiful and magnificent sensual giants with indigo veils and bejeweled hair, their presence fierce and unshakable. Their eyes which were painted with the ink of dark olives pierced through my soul. Their lips blushed with the essence of poppy seed whispered messages in the wind, a language I didn’t fully understand but felt in my bones. They carried the weight of centuries, of battles fought in silence, of resilience etched into the sands. And then, the knowing came: I was one of them. I always had been. A golden crown forged in the desert’s heat, descended above my head. In that moment, I was crowned with the remembrance of my own lineage, woven deep into the fabric of their indestructible warrior strength.

In her place, the desert carved out someone new. Someone who could stand in her truth, who could speak with the resilience of the Warrior Queens.

This was my initiation, and the mission was clear. I was their voice. I was here to speak the truths they could no longer utter, to carry their stories into the world. This was not about me; it was about them, about us. The dark feminine was rising, and I was her messenger.

That day, everything I thought I knew shattered into a million pieces. The roles I’d clung to—the safety nets of identity—were gone. To descend this underworld, I had to show up stripped away of all that was false, to meet myself in my most raw and powerful form. The old version of me had to die.

And I let her.

In her place, the desert carved out someone new. Someone who could stand in her truth, who could speak with the resilience of the Warrior Queens. Someone who understood that to carry their legacy meant not only to fight for justice but to do so with love. To resist bitterness. To meet even the hardest truths with a fierce, open heart.

“I belong to her,” I whispered to the desert. “And this is our time.”

On my last night at Tissardmine, under her magnificent full moon, I felt her final embrace. Her winds howled around me, lifting the veil from my eyes. The sand, the stars, the endless horizon—they weren’t just her dominion; they were my own. She had given me the keys to her underworld, and in doing so, she had handed me the crown.

“I belong to her,” I whispered to the desert. “And this is our time.”