We all carry archetypes inside us; patterns of instinct and energy that shape how we move through the world. They aren’t costumes we put on, but deeper than that: they’re shadows and lights that live in us, waiting for the moments they’re needed most.
A dark priestess isn't born, she's made. The first true archetype I embodied was The Huntress.
The Huntress isn’t delicate. She’s not here to sit still or play safe. She’s muscle, focus, competition, and fire. She runs toward the wall just to feel the burn in her legs as she scales it. She sharpens her senses and her willpower until they cut sharper than any blade. She craves the fight, not out of anger, but because it proves she’s alive.
At seventeen, I didn’t have the words to call her by name. All I knew was that I wanted to struggle. I wanted to run until my lungs burned, to jump out of airplanes, to sail and shoot and test myself against limits. When a Marine recruiter in dress blues looked me in the eye and asked, “Ever thought about being a Marine?” I didn’t hesitate. “All the time.” It wasn’t the truth, but it was what my Huntress answered.
Boot camp gave her teeth. Long-distance running hurt me, swimming nearly broke me, but then came the rifle range... and my Huntress came alive. Center mass after center mass, she steadied my hands and whispered, see? You belong here.
In Okinawa, she thrived. She worked hard, drank harder, took lovers freely, and pushed herself to outpace the men she thought she idolized. The Huntress was relentless. She could carry weight that would’ve broken others. She lived for the taste of the next challenge. And she was hungry.
But the Huntress also learned pain. A doomed marriage, children, a service interrupted. The Huntress tried to come back fiercer, sharper, determined to prove she was still the best. She did the impossible at times: taking over shops as the lowest rank in the room, using equipment she had no licensing for, earning medals no one believed she deserved. Learning to lead when all she craved was the work. She outfought, outwitted, outlasted.
Still, her hunger had a cost. The Huntress made me strong, but she also made me hard. She taught me to dissociate, to never show weakness, to swallow pain instead of speak it. She carried me through ten years in uniform, and when I finally laid my weapons down, I realized she had left scars as well as gifts.
But I know I owe her everything. She is me, and I am her.
Friends of mine are still struggling on the “outside,” as we all do—fighting to prove something, to be better, smarter, stronger than everyone around them. But as I keep reminding them, they already are. They always were. And as those words leave my lips, I realize there’s still one Huntress who needs the same reminder—the one who lives in me. So I wrote her a letter today, tears of pride and joy stinging my eyes as I did:
Oh, honey... You amaze me daily. I look so fondly back on you... Jesus, you were something to behold. Beautiful and strong? Physical and mental strength? To watch you not only hang with those men but to surpass so many of them, too? You know, babe, those years gave you EVERYTHING you ever needed. They taught you EVERYTHING. Including what not to do. I know you're proud of most of it, and baby, that stuff that still hurts you? You've got to let it go. You did the very best you could, and you did it so well. No one is perfect, but you got pretty damn close, honey. You are 10 feet tall, and I want to thank you for carrying me here to this place, in this beautiful and pristine chariot. For laying down your weapons with such grace because I asked you to. For letting me take over and just...tuck you away. You know it's you that made us, it'll always be you that I fall on when I'm too weak to stand. I love you so much. Thank you. For everything.
The Huntress will always be part of me. She taught me discipline, courage, resilience. She also stood back gracefully and let me decide what I needed to shed, what no longer served me. She was my first archetype, the one who led me into fire so I could forge my way through it. I'll never deny or hide her again.
What archetype are you moving through? Let your priestess make you a talisman to empower whoever it is right now, in this moment in your life. Blessings upon you, beloved.
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