What is it that women most desire?
When King Arthur’s life depends upon discovering the answer, Sir Gawain is drawn into a mysterious bargain that will test the meaning of honor, love, and choice.
I will not tell you how the story ends here. Dame Ragnell deserves to unfold in her own time.
But beneath Arthur’s question lies something deeper.
Women do not all want the same thing. One may desire security, another adventure, another love, children, peace, or a life entirely of her own making.
Sovereignty is the freedom beneath every one of those answers.
It is the freedom to know what we feel, recognize what we want, trust what we know, and choose for ourselves.
Dame Ragnell also gives us an image of true chivalry. The healed masculine does not decide what the feminine should want or become. He listens to her knowing, protects the space in which she can choose, and recognizes that her life and body were never his to possess.
In the second half of this episode, I turn toward what happens when that sovereignty is violently taken away.
As I recorded, a civil lawsuit filed by a former Cornell student had brought national attention to allegations that she was drugged and sexually assaulted by members of a fraternity. The complaint alleges that while she was incapacitated, her body was advertised to other men as though it belonged to them.
The allegations have not been proven in court, and some of the accused men have denied them. But the story described in the complaint reveals the brutal logic beneath rape:
Your body is not your own.
Your voice does not matter.
Your ability to choose can be taken from you.
Someone else’s desire has more authority than your humanity.
This is not only a cultural crisis. It is a spiritual one.
The Handless Maiden, Perceval, and Dame Ragnell show us what happens when the feminine is silenced and the masculine is taught to equate strength with conquest.
Patriarchy offers men a devil’s bargain: power in the outer world at the cost of their emotional and spiritual lives.
That does not excuse the violence men commit. Every man remains responsible for what he chooses to do. But if we want to prevent the harm rather than respond after another woman has been violated, we must reach the wound beneath it.
These stories do more than reveal that wound. They show us a path out.
The maiden must awaken. Her voice must be returned. Her living hands must grow.
The knight must remove his armor. He must learn to feel, listen, and ask before he acts.
And within each of us, the thinking mind must stop trying to rule the soul and begin honoring the sovereignty that has always been hers.
Listen to Episode 13, The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnell: A Story of Sovereignty and True Chivalry, wherever you listen to podcasts.
Content note: This episode discusses rape and sexual violence.
Mentioned in this episode:
- How Gawain’s response to Perceval introduces a masculine strength that knows how to pause, observe, and approach through relationship
- The question at the heart of Dame Ragnell’s story: What do women most desire?
- Why no single desire can speak for every woman
- How sovereignty is not one more thing women desire, but the freedom beneath every answer
- The difference between deciding what another person should want and returning the choice to the hands where it belongs
- Why Arthur cannot offer Gawain’s future without first receiving his consent
- How Gawain must exercise his own sovereignty before he can honor Ragnell’s
- The difference between true chivalry and masculine sacrifice
- What a healed masculine looks like when it listens to, protects, and honors the sovereignty of the feminine
- How women’s feelings, desires, bodies, and health are still discussed and controlled without their voices being heard
- The recent sexual assault allegations involving a former Cornell student and members of a fraternity
- Why rape is the most brutal denial of sovereignty
- How the domination of women is connected to the silencing of feeling and vulnerability within men
- Why what we learn to dominate within ourselves, we may learn to dominate around us
- What Perceval reveals about a masculine shaped by conquest, rules, emotional suppression, and acting without asking
- How the wounded masculine harms women while also creating profound suffering within men
- What men’s suicide rates may reveal about the emotional and spiritual cost of the way men have been taught to be men
- The devil’s bargain at the heart of patriarchy: power in the outer world at the cost of the inner life
- Why understanding the original wound does not excuse violence or remove personal responsibility
- Why accountability, laws, and consequences matter, but cannot heal the wound that makes domination possible
- The limits of teaching women to armor themselves while failing to address what creates violence in men
- How The Handless Maiden, Perceval, and Dame Ragnell reveal different expressions of the same inner wound
- Why the thinking mind was never meant to rule the soul, but to listen to her and help bring her knowing into form
- What it means for the soul herself to have been cast as the hag within us
- Why Ragnell’s transformation does not make her worthy, but reveals what had been hidden beneath the form imposed upon her
- And the question Dame Ragnell leaves with us: What would change if your thinking mind stopped trying to rule your soul and began honoring the sovereignty that has always been hers?
If you or someone you know has experienced sexual violence, support is available through the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 800-656-HOPE (4673) or RAINN.org.
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The full episode transcript is below.
Hi, friends.
Welcome to *Know Thy Soul*, where we explore the stories, symbols, and truths that guide us home to ourselves, to God, and to the wisdom within.
At the end of Perceval’s story, we briefly met another knight named Gawain.
While others approached Perceval with force, Gawain paused. He observed. And he approached through relationship.
In that brief moment, he showed us a different kind of masculine strength, one that knows how to tend and befriend.
Today, Gawain moves to the center of a story of his own.
Our story begins with King Arthur alone in a forest, facing a question no sword can answer:
What is it that women most desire?
This is story titled The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnell.
So get comfortable. Take a walk if you’d like. Pour yourself a cup of tea.
And let’s spend a little more time together in Camelot.
Long ago, in the days of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, Arthur faced a challenge no sword could solve.
Arthur was a good king. A just king, admired throughout the land. His court was filled with brave knights, wise counselors, and all the splendor one might expect from Camelot.
But as stories often remind us, the greatest challenges rarely arrive when we are prepared for them.
One day, while hunting deep within the forest, Arthur became separated from his companions. The farther he rode, the quieter the woods became.
The sounds of the hunt faded. The barking hounds disappeared into the distance. Even the birds seemed to fall silent.
Before long, Arthur realized he was alone.
And then he saw him.
A great knight stood in the clearing ahead, massive, armed, and immovable. This was no ordinary traveler. His presence seemed to fill the forest itself.
Arthur’s hand moved instinctively toward his sword. But before he could draw it, the knight raised a hand.
“King Arthur,” he said. “I have been waiting for you.”
Arthur was courageous, honorable, and skilled in battle. But he was not foolish.
One look at the stranger told him what he needed to know. This was not a fight he could win.
The great knight stepped forward.
“You have trespassed upon my lands,” he said. “By all rights, I should take your life.”
Arthur remained silent in the saddle.
“But I will offer you a bargain. I will spare your life, but one year from today, you must return to this place. And when you return, you must answer a single question.”
With little choice before him, Arthur agreed.
The knight smiled, but it was not a comforting smile.
Then he asked, “What is it that women most desire?”
Arthur blinked. Of all the questions he had expected to hear, this was not one of them.
It was not a challenge of strength, courage, warfare, or strategy. It was only a question.
But it was a question that could not be answered through force. A question that would require him to listen.
What do women most desire?
“Return in one year and bring me the answer,” the knight said. “If your answer is correct, you may live. If it is not…”
The knight let the silence finish the sentence.
Then, as suddenly as he had appeared, he turned and disappeared into the trees.
Arthur remained alone in the clearing.
One year. A single question. And his life, along with the fate of his kingdom, resting upon the answer.
What do women most desire?
It sounded simple enough. But Arthur would soon discover that finding an answer was not the same as finding the truth.
**The Search**
Arthur returned to Camelot troubled. Of all the battles he had fought, this one felt strangely different.
A dragon could be slain. An enemy could be defeated. A kingdom could be defended.
But how does one conquer a question?
When Arthur arrived at court, he gathered his knights and told them everything. The giant knight. The bargain. The deadline.
And the question.
What do women most desire?
Immediately, the answers began to pour forth.
Some said women desired beauty. Others said wealth or admiration. Still others said pleasure, security, or power.
The more Arthur listened, the less certain he became. Every answer seemed to contain some truth, and yet none felt complete.
Still, he had a year. And so Arthur set out across the kingdom in search of wisdom.
He traveled from village to village and castle to castle. He searched in great halls and humble cottages.
He asked queens and maidens. Widows and wives. Noblewomen and peasants alike.
And each woman gave him a different answer.
One said women desired beautiful clothing. Another said flattery. Another said a faithful husband, while another answered freedom.
Some desired children. Others desired adventure. Some longed for riches, while others wanted nothing more than peace.
Every answer revealed something true. Yet no single answer seemed able to contain them all.
As the months passed, Arthur’s list of answers grew longer, but his certainty began to fade.
How could one answer speak for every woman? How could a single truth contain so many different lives?
The year slowly slipped away. Summer became autumn, and autumn became winter.
Before long, the day of Arthur’s return drew near. Still, he had no answer. No certainty. No peace.
At last, with only days remaining, Arthur rode out alone once more.
His heart was heavy. His life depended upon finding the right answer, and his kingdom depended upon his return.
He had traveled across the land. He had asked everyone he could think to ask. He had gathered more answers than he could count, but not one he trusted with his life.
And it was then, with time running out and every possibility nearly exhausted, that Arthur encountered the one woman who would change everything.
**The Lady in the Forest**
With only days remaining before he was due to meet the great knight again, Arthur rode alone across a desolate stretch of wilderness. The sky hung gray above him, and the wind moved restlessly through the trees.
His thoughts kept circling the same impossible question.
What do women most desire?
Arthur had spent an entire year traveling, listening, and gathering answers. Yet he still had no answer he trusted with his life.
As Arthur rode across the moor, he noticed a woman approaching on horseback.
She wore brilliant scarlet and rode a magnificent horse adorned with gold and precious stones.
But as she drew nearer, Arthur realized he had never seen anyone quite like her. Her face was red, and her eyes were large and clouded. Yellowed teeth protruded over her lips, and her hair fell around her shoulders in tangled clumps. Her body seemed to have been twisted into an almost unnatural form.
Yet she carried herself not as someone ashamed, but as a woman who knew precisely who she was.
Her appearance startled him. Arthur tried not to stare, but he found himself looking anyway.
And as so often happens in old stories, the person easiest to overlook was the one carrying the wisdom everyone else needed.
The woman looked directly at him.
“King Arthur,” she said. “You seem troubled.”
Arthur hesitated. He had no idea how she knew his name, but then again, strange things happen in forests. Especially in old stories.
He tried to dismiss her concern, but she continued to watch him. There was something in her gaze that made him suspect she already knew why he was there.
Finally, Arthur sighed.
“I am searching for the answer to a question.”
“A question about women,” she replied.
Arthur’s eyes widened. Now he was certain this was no ordinary encounter.
“My name is Dame Ragnell,” she said. “And perhaps I can help you.”
For the first time in many months, Arthur felt a flicker of hope.
“You know the answer?”
“I do.”
After a year of searching, Arthur could hardly believe that here, in the middle of nowhere, sat a woman who claimed to know the answer that could save his life.
“What is it?” he asked.
Ragnell laughed.
“Not so fast. If I give you the answer, you must promise me something in return.”
Arthur’s hope quickly gave way to dread.
“What do you want?”
Ragnell met his gaze.
“I want Sir Gawain to marry me.”
Arthur stared at her in disbelief. He had expected her to ask for gold, land, jewels, or perhaps a place within his court.
Instead, she had asked for Gawain, the noblest knight in Camelot.
“I cannot promise you Gawain’s hand,” Arthur said. “His future does not belong to me.”
“Then ask him,” Ragnell replied. “If he freely agrees to marry me, return here, and I will give you the answer that will save your life.”
Arthur knew what an enormous request he would be carrying back to Camelot. But with his life hanging in the balance, he agreed to place the choice before Gawain.
*Gawain’s Choice*
Arthur returned to Camelot carrying both hope and dread.
Dame Ragnell claimed to know the answer that could save his life. But she would reveal it only if Gawain freely agreed to marry her.
Among all the Knights of the Round Table, few were more admired than Gawain. He was known throughout the kingdom for his courage, loyalty, and generosity.
Now Arthur had to ask him to surrender the future he may have imagined for himself.
When Arthur arrived at court, he gathered his closest companions and told them everything. He told them about the great knight, the question he had been given, and his year-long search for the answer.
Then he told them about Dame Ragnell and the condition she had placed upon her help.
The hall fell silent.
Arthur lowered his head.
“She says she knows the answer that will save my life. But in return, she has asked to marry you.”
The hall erupted. Some of the knights laughed in disbelief, while others protested that another solution would have to be found.
Through it all, Gawain remained silent.
He listened as Arthur described the woman he had encountered in the forest and the bargain she had offered.
When Arthur finished, Gawain stepped forward.
“You cannot give my hand in marriage,” he said. “But I can offer it.”
The room fell quiet.
“I will marry her.”
Arthur stared at him.
“You have not seen her.”
“No,” Gawain replied. “But even if she were as fearsome as a fiend, or as foul as Beelzebub himself, I would marry her to save your life.”
Arthur searched his face.
“You are certain?”
“The choice is mine,” Gawain said. “And I have made it.”
Arthur returned to the forest and found Dame Ragnell waiting for him.
“Gawain has agreed,” he told her. “He has freely chosen to marry you.”
Ragnell smiled.
“Then I will give you the answer that will save your life.”
She looked directly at Arthur.
“What women most desire is sovereignty. The freedom to choose for themselves, to govern their own lives, and to determine their own fate.”
Arthur sat speechless.
The answer seemed strangely simple, yet somehow deeper than all the others. He had heard answers about beauty, wealth, love, power, and security, but sovereignty was the freedom beneath them all.
It was not one more thing a woman might desire.
It was the freedom to decide for herself what she desired.
Arthur thanked Dame Ragnell and rode deeper into the forest to meet the great knight once again.
This time, he carried the answer.
On the appointed day, Arthur returned to the clearing where the great knight was waiting for him.
“What is it that women most desire?” the knight demanded.
Arthur looked him in the eye.
“Sovereignty. The freedom to choose for themselves and determine the course of their own lives.”
The knight’s expression darkened, but he could not deny that Arthur had answered correctly. Bound by his word, he lowered his weapon and allowed Arthur to leave.
Arthur returned safely to Camelot, and preparations for the wedding began.
Word spread quickly throughout the kingdom. Sir Gawain was going to marry the mysterious woman from the forest whose appearance had startled even the king.
Some whispered that she looked less like a woman than a creature sent from hell. Others laughed at Gawain’s decision or questioned whether he had lost his senses.
Gawain paid little attention to any of them. He had heard the truth, made his choice freely, and did not waver.
Soon the day of the wedding arrived, and all of Camelot gathered to see what would happen next.
**The Wedding Feast**
Queen Guinevere offered to arrange a quiet ceremony early in the morning, before the court had gathered.
But Ragnell refused.
She had not come to Camelot to be hidden away as though she were something shameful. She would be married openly, before the entire court, and afterward she would take her place beside Gawain in the great hall.
This was her wedding day, and she would not allow anyone else’s discomfort to diminish it.
On the day of the wedding, the great hall of Camelot was filled to overflowing with kings, knights, nobles, and servants. People had traveled from across the kingdom to witness the marriage.
Some had come to celebrate, but many had come simply out of curiosity. Rumors about Ragnell’s appearance had spread throughout the land, and everyone wanted to see the mysterious woman Sir Gawain had agreed to marry.
When the doors opened and Dame Ragnell entered, the room fell silent.
She was dressed in richly woven scarlet, and she carried herself proudly as she crossed the hall. Her fine clothing did nothing to soften the features that had startled Arthur in the forest, but Ragnell did not lower her eyes or shrink from the room.
Some stared openly. Others quickly looked away. Whispers followed her through the hall.
Gawain rose from his place and crossed the hall to meet her. He bowed, offered her his hand, and smiled.
“Welcome, my lady.”
Then he walked beside her through the crowded hall.
When the ceremony began, Gawain spoke his vows without faltering, and Ragnell spoke hers. Before all of Camelot, they were married.
The feast that followed was strained. The guests watched the newly married couple more closely than they watched their own plates.
Some exchanged glances across the tables, while others hid their laughter behind their cups. Ragnell seemed to feel every eye upon her, but she did not shrink from the room.
Gawain remained beside her. He spoke with her, listened to her, and treated her as his chosen bride.
Before a court waiting for him to show embarrassment or regret, Gawain showed neither.
As evening fell, the celebration slowly came to an end. The guests departed, the musicians packed away their instruments, and the fires in the great hall burned low.
At last, Gawain and Ragnell left the hall together and retired to their chamber.
**The Choice**
Later that evening, Gawain entered the bedchamber and found the same woman he had married only hours before.
For the first time that day, they were completely alone.
Ragnell looked at him.
“Sir Gawain, you have married me and treated me with honor before the court. Will you show me that same tenderness now? Will you kiss your wife?”
Gawain did not turn away.
“My lady,” he said, “I will do more than offer you a reluctant kiss. You are my wife, and I will treat you as such.”
He turned toward her.
And then he stopped.
Sitting before him was a woman he did not recognize. Her features had changed completely, and the face that had inspired so much ridicule throughout Camelot was gone. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen in his life.
For a moment, Gawain could only stare.
The woman smiled.
“Do not be alarmed,” she said. “I am the same woman you married this morning.”
Then Ragnell told him the truth.
Years before, she had been placed under a powerful enchantment. By day, she was forced to appear as Gawain had seen her at the wedding. At night, the enchantment loosened its hold and her appearance changed. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.
Gawain’s willingness to marry Ragnell and honor her as his wife had weakened the spell, allowing him to see her beauty. But the enchantment had not been completely broken.
One final choice remained.
Ragnell looked at him carefully.
“Would you rather I appear beautiful during the day, for all the court to see, and ugly at night, when we are alone?”
“Or would you rather I appear ugly during the day and beautiful at night?”
Gawain considered both possibilities.
If Ragnell appeared as she did now during the day, the court would admire her and praise him, but the enchantment would return each night when they were alone.
If she took this form only at night, Gawain alone would see her transformed, while each day she would once again face the stares and ridicule of the court.
It seemed like an impossible choice.
Gawain was quiet for a long moment. Then, instead of answering, he looked at his wife.
“My lady, how could I possibly know which life would be better for you?” he asked. “Only you know what you truly desire.”
He smiled.
“The choice is yours.”
Silence filled the room.
Ragnell studied his face as though she could hardly believe what she had heard. Then she smiled.
In that instant, the enchantment broke.
When morning came and sunlight filled the room, Ragnell did not change. The spell that had controlled her for so long had finally lost its power.
The poem tells us that Gawain and Ragnell had only five years together. When she died, Gawain mourned her for the rest of his life. Though he would marry again, it was said that he never loved another woman as he had loved Dame Ragnell.
And that, my friends, is the story of Sir Gawain and his bride, Dame Ragnell.
(deep Breath)
Arthur spent an entire year trying to discover what women most desire.
But Gawain ultimately answered the question with four simple words:
“The choice is yours.”
The enchantment was not broken because Gawain made the correct choice. It was broken because he understood that the choice was never his to make.
And isn’t that a far cry from the way so much of our world still operates?
I had originally planned to end the episode here and simply allow the story to remain with you.
But given the allegations that have come to light this week, I cannot ignore how directly this story speaks to the world around us.
We see women’s bodies and health debated in rooms where women’s voices are missing.
We see it closer to home whenever a woman names what she feels or wants, only to have someone else tell her what she really feels or what she ought to want instead.
And we see its most brutal expression whenever a woman says no, is unable to consent, or has her ability to choose taken from her, and a man continues anyway.
As I record this, our country is confronting the allegations of a former Cornell student who says she was drugged, raped, and assaulted by seven fraternity members.
According to her lawsuit, she was incapacitated while men continued entering the room.
The fraternity had 57 active members that semester. One of them sent a message to a group chat for the fraternity’s active members, advertising her body as freely available to anyone upstairs.
Her body.
Spoken of as though it belonged to them.
Several men responded to the message with enthusiasm. And according to the lawsuit, at least five additional fraternity members came upstairs and joined in the alleged abuse.
We do not yet know how many others saw the message as the night unfolded. But the responses that have become public reveal a culture in which a woman’s body could be advertised to a group of men, and the answer was not alarm.
It was celebration.
But the woman at the center of the Cornell case is far from alone.
Hundreds of millions of women around the world have experienced physical or sexual violence.
Rape is the most brutal denial of sovereignty. It says your body is not your own. Your voice does not matter. Your ability to choose can be taken from you. Someone else’s desire has more authority than your humanity.
This is not only a political or cultural crisis. It is a spiritual one.
Because there is another part of this that we rarely talk about.
When men are taught to distrust the feminine within themselves, to suppress feeling, conquer vulnerability, and confuse masculinity with domination, that wound does not remain inside them, as we have seen in the stories of both Perceval and the Handless Maiden.
It enters their relationships. Their religions. Their institutions.
It becomes violence against women, against other men, against other faiths, and against the earth itself.
What we learn to dominate within ourselves, we learn to dominate around us.
Before a man can strip a woman of her humanity, he must first silence the part of himself capable of recognizing it.
In the language of fairy tales, he locks his inner maiden in a tower. He places her under a spell. He takes away her voice. He cuts off her hands, and then convinces her that silver ones are all she should ever need.
Perceval shows us that the wounded masculine does not only wound the people around him.
It also suffers within the man himself.
Perceval harmed women because he had been taught to act without feeling, to follow rules without questioning them, and to assume that he already knew what others needed.
He had been taught that life was about conquest.
There were enemies to defeat, challenges to overcome, instructions to follow, and victories to win.
He knew how to defeat another knight in battle and rescue kingdoms in distress.
But he did not know how to pause before another person, listen to what they were experiencing, and ask what they needed.
He understood conquest, but he did not understand relationship.
And that was because he had first been taught to conquer everything within himself. His grief. His tenderness. His fear. His need for connection. His capacity to feel the suffering of another person.
What he conquered within himself did not disappear.
It became the wound he carried into the world.
But he did not walk away from that harm untouched.
Perceval became haunted by what he had done and by the person he had become. At times, he said that he wanted to die.
Men are suffering deeply. But many have been taught not to feel that suffering, name it, or ask for help.
The pain does not disappear.
Sometimes it turns inward as shame, despair, addiction, or self-destruction.
Sometimes it turns outward as domination, cruelty, and violence.
Sometimes it moves in both directions.
We can see an echo of this in the lives of men today. Men die by suicide at nearly four times the rate of women in this country. If patriarchy were truly serving men, we would not see so many of them dying at their own hands.
That does not prove that every man is living Perceval’s story. But it does tell us that the way we have taught men to be men is not only failing women.
It is failing men too.
When a boy is taught that feeling is weakness, vulnerability is shameful, and asking for help makes him less of a man, his suffering has nowhere to go.
A man I know once joked that he did not have an emotional or spiritual life. He thought he was being sarcastic. But sarcasm has a way of bringing the truth to light.
He had learned to live almost entirely in the outer world. And he was hardly alone.
The game may give men power over women, but it demands their inner lives in return.
That is the devil’s bargain at the heart of patriarchy. And it is the same bargain that begins The Handless Maiden.
A system built upon domination wounds everyone it touches.
The healing of the feminine is not only necessary for the liberation and safety of women.
It may also save the lives of men.
This does not excuse the violence men commit
Every man remains responsible for what he chooses to do.
But it reveals the stinger beneath the wound. And if we want to heal the wound, rather than continue responding to it after it has harmed another woman, that stinger has to be removed.
We have tried telling men not to rape us.
We have taught women how to armor themselves, to watch their drinks, guard their bodies, travel in groups, carry their keys between their fingers, and remain constantly aware of the danger around them.
And still, the violence continues, because we have not yet reached the wound beneath it.
Accountability matters. Laws matter. Consequences matter.
But none of them, on their own, can heal the original separation that makes domination possible.
The work is not only to tell men not to rape women. It is to raise and heal men who do not need to dominate in order to feel powerful. Men who have not been taught to fear feeling, despise vulnerability, or silence the feminine within themselves.
Because a man who remains connected to his own capacity to feel can recognize the humanity of the woman before him.
The way a man treats women often reveals the condition of the king within him.
A wounded king seeks power through conquest. He treats a woman as something to take, something to subjugate, and something to use as proof of his power.
Then he turns that conquest into a story he can tell other men.
A healed king has nothing to prove through a woman’s body. He recognizes that her sovereignty was never his to give or take away. He honors it. He protects it. And he returns the choice to the hands where it has always belonged.
These stories do more than reveal the wound. They show us the path out of it.
The maiden awakens, she reclaims her voice and she grows her hands back.
The knight must choose to remove his armor. He must weep. He must take responsibility for what he has broken and repair what he can. And if the cycle is to end, he must learn to feel, to listen, and to ask before he acts.
That does not erase responsibility for the harm already done.
It shows us how we might stop creating the conditions that allow the harm to continue.
And it offers us a path toward a more balanced world.
Dame Ragnelle shows us another relationship.
The feminine is free to feel, know, and choose for herself. The masculine does not try to define, silence, or control her. He listens to her knowing. He protects the space in which she can choose. And he helps bring her knowing into form.
We are being asked to create that same relationship within ourselves.
Not to reject the thinking mind, but to change its role.
The mind was never meant to rule the soul. It was meant to listen to her, protect what she knows, and help carry that knowing into the world.
Because the way we order our inner world becomes the way we order the world around us.
If our religious traditions had taught us from the beginning that the soul is our direct connection to God, and that the feminine is sacred and sovereign, the domination of women could never have been mistaken for sacred order.
A man who truly honors the feminine within himself will honor not only the woman before him, but all women and, ultimately, all of humanity.
He does not tell her what she feels. He does not decide what she should want. He does not treat her body as something he is entitled to possess.
And he never mistakes her silence or incapacity for a choice.
Gawain’s words are more than an act of courtesy.
They mark the difference between love and possession and between relationship and domination.
“The choice is yours.”
Before we leave, I want to leave you with this:
What if the soul herself has been cast as the hag within us?
Too emotional.
Too instinctive.
Too irrational.
Too unruly to be trusted.
We have been taught to silence her, control her, and turn away from her.
Yet the part of ourselves we have learned to distrust may be the greatest blessing God has placed within us, our direct connection to the sacred.
Ragnelle’s transformation does not make her worthy.
It reveals what had been hidden beneath the form imposed upon her.
So where have you learned to see your own soul as something dangerous, shameful, or unworthy?
And what would change, within you and around you, if your thinking mind stopped trying to rule her and began honoring the sovereignty that has always been hers?
This is a story we will continue to unpack as we explore sovereignty and the relationship between the feminine and masculine, both within ourselves and in the world we create together.
Until next time, my friends,
May you know thy soul.
It already knows the way.
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