When the Guru is Gone: Self-Initiation, Medusa, and the Power You Were Never Meant to Give Away

“Am I willing to lead myself—without a script, without applause, and without needing to be rescued?”

Truth–I never had a guru. While growing up, I didn’t have physical teachers, who could hold my hand and lead me through the wilderness of unknown places. I grew up in the south where anything outside the church was dark and feared. I had plenty of books, which became my teachers. The authors became my friends through their work, and I would talk to them as I read, responding and questioning each passage. I even developed friendships with historical or literary figures, who were people I imagined would have been amazing companions on my spiritual journey. At some point though, I knew that if I kept waiting for a teacher to show up, to anoint and bless me, to give me permission to take the step that my whole soul quivered to take, I would be waiting for-freaking-ever.

So, I lit my own fire. I cast my own circle and wove my own spell. With Scott Cunningham’s book, Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner, I took my first step in learning who I was in this new and wild world. In the fire, in my circle that was just between myself, God, Goddess and Source, I learned that self-initiation isn’t a Plan B. It’s not an apology from the Universe for being incarnated into a place or time absent of human hands to support your soul’s growth. It’s a real rite of passage, and when taken with intentional study and reverence, it can be just as powerfully transformative as being surrounded by thirteen adepts of a sacred order.

Now, there were definitely times that I envied those people who had teachers. In the years that followed my first self-dedication ritual, I would meet others on similar paths. I would meet their teachers and witness their relationship. Yeah, I envied that closeness and connection because doing it alone can be hard. There’s a measure of self-accountability that is required if you’re walking this path with devotion, and I’m not someone who does anything lightly. God bless my Saturn in Capricorn, because it wouldn’t let me play pretty pretend at having ethics while learning magic. I learned real quick that there are always consequences for our actions, particularly when there’s magic involved.

However, I began to wonder if something was wrong with me. That old saying echoed in my head: “When the student is ready, the master appears.” But I was ready. I’d studied. I’d practiced. I’d shown up under moonlight with dirt on my knees and prayer in my bones. Still—no one came.

And for a long time, I felt a bit lost and even abandoned, but then, I realized some of us are born into spiritual solitude so we can forge a relationship with the divine that’s unmediated, unfiltered, and entirely our own–through direct gnosis to the Divine. It no longer surprises me that Hekate is my beloved Goddess. She has stepped forward during these times of radical transformation, as have many other deities. Humanity is beginning to remember itself outside of corrupt institutions that have controlled us all for far too long.

Looking back now, I see why the gods came before the teachers. I wasn’t meant to be shaped by someone else’s authority—I was meant to meet the divine directly, on my own terms. Now, I don’t honestly think I’m fit to be anyone’s student in the sense of being subjected to someone else’s will. The time for control has long passed. I love learning from others, but relationships based on outdated power dynamics and unhealed trauma are of zero interest to me. Frankly, I question too much. I feel things that aren’t in the text. I ask questions that make teachers shift in their seats. It took me years to realize that this wasn’t a flaw–it was devotion, a commitment to walk the path with reverence, so deeply that I refuse to pretend.

I never rejected guidance–I just required the kind that could hold the tension that comes from acknowledging and witnessing complexity without the frantic need to control. Aren’t we all exhausted by crude attempts at controlling what was never meant to be owned? And, honestly, for many of us, this kind of expansive nature doesn’t exist in a person. It is found in the path itself.

I like considering the astrology of the moment whenever I start writing, and I find lots of connection and relevance when I look at myths and stories, which so deeply inform our collective consciousness. Recently, I’ve been meditating on Uranus, the Great Disruptor, and I’ve become aware of the fixed star, Algol–the Demon Star. Algol is at 26 degrees of Taurus natally, and right now, Uranus has been transiting through Taurus. Now, it’s at 27 degrees of Taurus as I write this post. They’ve been energetically active within  the collective and myself. Algol is connected to Medusa, the gorgon slain by Perseus to save Princess Andromeda from a great sea beast. Algol is Medusa’s eye. It was her mighty gaze that turned men into stone.

Before we go any further, we have to acknowledge that many of the myths that we received from ancient times were greatly influenced by patriarchal values, which is often about power over others–power absent the tempering force of higher love. Patriarchal values focus on the heroes that triumph over monsters, about winning and achieving at almost any cost. It’s about control, and it’s also about diminishing the feminine, in all of us–a unhealed shadow from the age of Aries. 

So, let's dig into this myth a little bit. Before she was demonized, Medusa was a devoted priestess of Athena. In that role, she was expected to remain a virgin. But when Poseidon saw her beauty, he took what he wanted—sexually assaulting her in Athena’s own temple. Instead of punishing the god, Athena punished Medusa, transforming her into a so-called monster. Her hair became serpents. Her gaze turned men to stone. She became the embodiment of fear because she had been violated, not broken. In some astrological interpretations, Algol gets a really bad wrap–like literally losing your head, as Medusa ultimately does in the myth.

But let’s reconsider this myth for a moment. Medusa may have some connection to ancient prehistoric roots of snake goddesses in Libya since according to astrologer and mythic scholar, Heather Ensworth, the myth of Medusa appeared around the same time Greece conquered Libya. What if Medusa isn’t the monster at all, but the memory of a power so vast it had to be vilified—used as a plot device, a means to someone else’s glory? What if she represents the part of ourselves that sees too clearly–unapologetic, exiled, sacredly terrifying in its truth? It’s not because Medusa’s inherently monstrous that she terrifies, but rather, it is because she remembers what happens when a woman refuses to make herself palatable in order to survive.

Maybe Medusa isn’t a warning. Maybe she’s a mirror. A reminder of what it costs to see too much—and what it means to survive anyway. I used to think my truth was too much—too sharp, too unsettling, too lonely. Now I understand it was too Algol. I am not the rebel without a cause. I am the cause, and it has been etched into my bones and woven into my soul. I walk with the exiled star, and I serve the sacred that cannot be diluted. So, if that makes me dangerous to those who need their truth wrapped in velvet…

So be it.

I’m not here to be safe. I’m here to be sovereign, and if you’re reading this, so are you. Medusa’s story speaks to all of us because we have all been made outcast at one point or another for living our truth and being unwilling to compromise it for comfort or acceptance. Compromised truth can no longer be the currency that determines our belonging. What type of community are we part of if our membership requires the sacrifice of our deepest truths?

We don’t just talk about Medusa. We remember her. We speak to her.

We say:

“I’m sorry your life was repackaged into a slick cautionary tale rather than wonder.
I’m sorry they called you monstrous, ugly, and wrong when all you did was have the audacity to survive.
I’m sorry they dared not meet your gaze, unable to ask what it was that you saw.
I’m sorry they shattered the mirror of their own self-reflection–and beheaded you, instead.”

So now, we come back to the guru. Many of you may have started your journey with a guru or guide, but now, the guru is gone. Their words no longer satisfy you. When most mainstream spiritual guides and teachers are talking, you can feel a huge disconnect when their words don’t match their energy. It feels hollow now–like you're chasing something, but you can’t name the ghost anymore. It is time you stop cutting your own head off. It is time–to choose, to change, to lead. Class is over.

The wisdom isn’t outside of you anymore. It never was. It’s inside—but it’s asking for a new kind of discipline, which will require you to dig in and start doing your own emotional labor. It’s no small thing to face your own internal landscape. To look—honestly—at your actions, your patterns, and see where they no longer match your values. If you’ve never named those values for yourself, this is where you begin.

It’s good to start taking inventory of your values and beliefs because when we have beloved teachers there is a tendency to blindly accept and take on their thoughts, values and beliefs; however, were those even really correct or true for you? The time for performative spirituality is over. Only real, rooted, devoted and embodied spiritual presence will survive the Age of Aquarius.

The new spiritual leader isn’t the one with the most followers. It’s the one who can teach you to trust your own damn voice. I have had the blessing of befriending amazing women, and they were all on different stages of their own personal journey. What I most often learned was that they were willing to get messy in their own lives, to make mistakes, and to learn and grow without shaming themselves into permanent spirals of freeze, fawning or perfectionism–those nervous system responses we so often mistake for humility. A mentor should hold themselves accountable to the same expectations they would have for you, and in fact, the very best ones are honest about their fuck ups and own the consequences. Medusa wouldn’t have it any other way, and…I’m sorry Medusa. I see you now, and I am not made of stone.

You deserved better than what the stories gave you, and we deserve better than the stories we’ve inherited from our past. We must write new ones that create a more honest and equitable future.

It’s time to start writing new and better stories that allow all of us–our truth, rage, grief, and magic–to have a seat in the circle and be warmed by the fire.

I hear Medusa’s whisper: 

Nothing sacred should be silenced just because it makes someone uncomfortable.

Amen, sister.