Eve is always an enjoyable yet controversial topic. The Mother Of All Living has been derided throughout most of Christianity and its history. Of course the Latter-day Saints have a unique perspective.
Meghan Farner takes this discussion further by first building a character of Eve from the Garden of Eden account, then giving context to one's temple experience, and finally, encouraging women everywhere to model that character. She also emphasizes men embracing their masculinity and women embracing their femininity.
This is always a fascinating discussion. No two people agree on the interpretation of Eve's actions and the drama surrounding her.
the nobility and value of a woman her decisions and agency was she beguiled
how does she represent all women as the mother of all living is there such thing
is divine feminism Megan Farner has written a book called consider yourself as Eve and we're going to touch on these
subjects now this episode is brought to you by go and do travel I am the official spokesman for go and do travel
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all right welcome to Quick show my name is Greg Matson and I am your host in this episode we bring on author Megan
farer Megan how are you doing so good thanks for having me Greg good we're gonna talk about your book consider
yourself as Eve I love this topic I love talking about this topic because it's
it's deep it's enriching and it's just a little controversial
that's always a good combination I think yeah yeah but it's it's you know I've I've these discussions sometimes that I
have on on gospel topics it's really interesting how
Theology of different denominations in Christianity or even even even you know
Jewish and and Islam and Etc they all go back to I think the Garden of Eden and
how we interpret it right what is the purpose of this what is everything how what what's happening here it's so
fundamental and yet it seems to me like it's so
misunderstood yeah yeah absolutely I mean every ancient tradition has an Adam and Eve no matter where you are in the
world right so like even India they have an Adam and Eve story and it's it's different than ours and I think that
there's a lot of value in those different perspectives and learning to look at things more symbolically and I
hope that what we talk about today will be just another level that maybe you'll get something from hopefully you will
and if not that's okay I think that there's a lot of different layers to the truth of of this story okay great great
so let's start off with the book here what what what initiated the idea here
what brought you the point of saying okay I need to write about this yeah absolutely so some of your listeners may
know many of you may not know that I have a podcast as well called the latterday disciples podcast um and we've
been going for we're in our fourth year now we started in January of 2022 and um what basically that equates
to is just I've been on a spiritual journey for the last several years ever since I started that podcast and I feel
like my understanding my discipleship um and how I worship in the context of the
Gospel of Jesus Christ has grown in that amount of time and I've learned about things that I never thought that I would
learn about um and the this topic uh is definitely in that category so the book
consider yourself as Eve um it's subtitled a guide to Spiritual Development for women and the men who
love them and the idea behind the book is looking at the temple as a template a
pattern that we can apply to develop spiritually to progress and to ascend
back into the presence of God um and particularly looking at it from the view
of women and understand understanding that there is a unique difference
between men and women between masculine and feminine spirit and that part of our purpose in coming to this world um
should we want to ascend in this way is to embody our masculinity in our
femininity um men obviously have more masculinity women have more femininity
um and I think that this is hinted at in the temple but we miss it because it's so subtle it's just our Paradigm but
when you go into a Temple endowment session women are typically Seated on the left men are typically Seated on the
right and one of the things that I've learned in the last couple of years is that the left side is anciently symbolic
of the feminine a feminine Spirit and the right side is anciently symbolic of the masculine and so what God began to
teach me is that not only do you need to go through this template this pattern right and the temple is symbolically
teaching us what we need to go live outside of the temple but you need to do
it from the perspective of your spirit right again Fe female bodies housing
feminine Spirits masculine men male bodies housing masculine Spirits so this
book is birthed out of just those understandings that came to me throughout the several years of of
starting my podcast and moving in that way um I always you know when I was
little I thought I would write a book but I had no idea what it would be about and if you had asked me I certainly wouldn't have said that it would be this
topic or anything close to it probably um but in April last year I felt god
well God woke me up early in the morning like 3 o'clock in the morning and I just had this outline come to me and God
inviting me and saying I want you to write this book I and and yeah it's kind of
been it's been a fun Journey since then so I want to get to this I because I want to talk about the male the
masculine and The Feminine also because I think that this is so Central you you know we we have a we
have a loss of identity today to some degree right of of of the masculine and The Feminine of man and woman and and
yet it's it seems to be so such an intrical part of not just the obvious
sense of well we're creating families but just such an obvious uh uh intrical part of of how we
experience life and and and having to have the two sides
right making sure that we have both sides and I love the fact that you bring up okay well I'm going to go through the
temple and look at this from a feminine perspective and how might I be experiencing this different from my
husband is as an example right what what what are the differences that are happening here yeah we're separated
there are different things that we do is we go through the uh through the temple but I think it is experienced
differently I mean certainly in your title you know uh consider yourself consider yourself as Eve right MH yeah
it's you know consider yourself as Eve or consider yourself as Adam that's it's
it used to bother me so much because it was it was like this pet peeve of mine that nobody did that when they went
through the temple you know you'd go through but you and you you the way it's portrayed is you kind of see this drama
and you you look at it on the screen usually it was a movie right and so you'd say okay well I'm watching history
MH unfold here instead of listening to what the narrator actually says which is
consider yourself Adam and Eve right and and and now I think they say it six
times supposed to be like no this is you this is you this is your experience yeah
and what you're going through absolutely and I think we have made progress I think that there's a little bit more of an understanding of oh I need to be
putting myself in the shoes of Adam and Eve while we're going through the endowment um but what I talk about my in my book is even taking it a step further
and realize no consider yourself as Eve is a persistent admonition for your
entire life like ideally we are taking the temple and we are embodying it
outside of the temple we are learning to live our own Adam and Eve journey in our
everyday life and the temple is symbolically teaching us what that looks like what are the Milestones what are
the different parts of our own Heroes Journey or our heroin Journey that we are choosing to opt into outside of
Temple walls right and so consider yourself as Eve in the temple yes but also consider yourself as Eve when
you're not in the temple because you are the temple as well like our bodies are meant to become that Temple so it's it's
it's so important and I agree with you I think it's it's something that's been overlooked for a long time but I think that there is an Awakening happening
where are realizing like oh this is actually something I'm being invited to do in my life more
generally yeah okay so let's touch on a few of these things here and I'm just going to kind of go through the flow of
your book here in talking about this but I'm quoting you here you say this is
something that we've seen recent changes on as an example says I've learned that silence is an epithet for her being the
divine feminine or as you say goddess uh in some ancient text but that her current position is better described as
veiled how do you see the correlation between the veil or
being veiled and and The Feminine yeah absolutely great question in the ancient
Hebrew tradition a veil was always used to conceal that which was most precious
the absolute holiest thing was veiled and we see that in accounts in the scripture such as Moses when he descends
from the m after having conversed with the Lord in the flesh right and it talked about how his countenance was so
bright that people couldn't bear it and so he put a veil on and we've lost some
of that understanding I think because in a more modern context and in some
Eastern philosophies and in other places a veil feels very demeaning um and it
has been used I think in the past as and currently even in other Traditions to um
to to show that there is an inequality between men and women and that rubs women the wrong way because that's the
culture that we've grown up in right is this idea of like oh a veil means you need to be hidden but if we step back
and understand the Traditions that we are partaking in in the temple are ancient in their origin we need to look
to the ancient context to understand what we're truly being taught and so women wearing a veil um I think is meant
to be showing us something about women that not the we are less than but actually that we are incredibly holy and
precious and sacred in the sight of God yeah and that's I I believe that
fully I think even when Paul talks about this and he's talking about prayer and everything else there's a certain order
and there is a separation and it's just so hard for us in a modern Western
mind to think differently than what we've learned which is mostly a uh we go
off track here a little bit but mostly a continental philosophy that is saying you know that we use critique right
criticals with a Capital C we're separating everything and looking at a victim and oppressor and and so it's
hard for us because whether we grab on to those types of philosophies or not we're immersed in them in our culture
and so it's it's kind of our natural thought is well yeah we're we're we're
oppressing a woman if we've got a veil on her and if we're in the temple doing this we're oppressing the women and uh
um the temple is ancient it's not modern and Western yeah yeah thank goodness right
because I I think in addition to that you know and we can we can go into the masculine feminine Dynamic um but when
we start to understand that we start to see oh the culture that we've grown up in is very masculine right and that can
be taken to extremes when the masculine is not balanced by a healthy appropriate feminine that can be Tak to extremes and
so is there a possibility that these things can become demeaning yeah there always is right we also have the
opportunity to swing the pendulum too far in the other direction which I think we're also seeing that phenomenon right
now right um and so the challenge with these things first off I think is going to God to learn from God what what do
you think about your daughters how do you treat your daughters what does this mean to you right like what what is
symbolism and start to reprogram our minds that are are taught in this very
linear black and white kind of masculine way right that like a has to equal a equals B and there's no other
possibility whereas the feminine there is a lot more like one one um analogy I
feel like that God gave me is is um we like to look at things as black or white right and that the white is good and the
black is bad but in reality God sees 10,000 colors that we just haven't learned to see yet and so we need to
develop this this balance of masculine thought and feminine thought the way that those work together and marry them
bring them together so that we have a wholeness which is more which is closer to what God has does that make sense
well it's it's what God is yes exactly also right so uh the other thing I was
going to add on the veil is you know I've always looked back and I know I know the veil is you know we read this
in the book of Hebrews and we've heard this from president Nelson and you know the veil is Jesus Christ
but um I I I think that that is only one element of It kind of like the tree and
what I mean by that is that the veil as we look at it is kind of what we have
between God and us and many prophets have actually said that the veil is
physical matter right in in a sense our body is a veil right well who produces the body
who produces the body it's the woman well the woman is producing the veils for all of us right and and yes and so I
think that's also a part of it you can also see in ancient uh art you'll see uh
Mary who is uh with a loom creating the veil to the
temple well she's the mother of Christ she's creating the body you know or or even the the pah right she's got the
body of a full grown man Christ on her lap m the throne actually there right
she's the throne and he's the king and and and he's holding her so the veil really is very symbolic and very
feminine in in I think a very uh profound and and Noble way yeah
absolutely and I think that symbolism in general is feminine in that it can have
so many different true interpretations that can exist for one symbol right so exactly what you're
saying that the veil um kind of a a a black and white mindset we might say oh
well the Veil Just equals Christ right and in if we were to bring in the
feminine we would say well the veil equals Christ it equals our flesh it equals our minds it equals the feminine
like the veil means all of these different things and they're all true and then we can go into exploring okay
in what context is this true for each of these different elements it's very broad it it represents the expansiveness of
God right that like truth is things as they are and as they were and as they will be and that's outside of time and
space and like the dimensions that we understand and symbolism starts to help our minds when we study it to tap into
that more Universal way of thinking that God perfectly understands yeah and of
course that's the way Christ thought right with The Parables same same idea you talk about something you call Divine
feminism explain that to me yes I knew that I knew that that phrase was GNA spark a question yes um this is
a phrase that um is a little bit of my own creation but I think there's some inspiration here too because obviously
there's a million kinds of feminism and to be honest I don't agree necessarily with the philosophies of most of them
but I do believe in the equality of women and so there's an element there that's true right and usually that's how
things are there's a truth and there's tears all around it um in the parable of the wheat and the tears that's what
we're told is that there's wheat and there's tears they're sewn together everywhere and I love to think of that when I think about truth and counterfeit
there's truth and counterfeit and they're all sewn together everywhere um so I wanted a phrase that could
communicate the perspective that I was going to take in writing this book and
divine feminism is the phrase that came to me um and what I mean by that is
basically this is this is a view that um takes our theology very
seriously in that it is looking at the fact that we have a heavenly father and a heavenly mother and what does that
teach us well it teach us it teaches us that men and women are equal and that we are perfect compliments to each other it
teaches us that the masculine and The Feminine have different roles they have different stewardships they have
different areas of expertise how they manifest can be different however both
of them are inextricably connected to one another and both of them are essential to Creation we cannot create
we cannot Ascend unless we have both of these things and they're brought into a holess um different than probably more
the political feminisms that you might hear about Divine feminism is not about
changing the status of men um we honor the Divine masculine that's our heavenly
father that's Jesus Christ we love the Divine masculine and we see the necessity of it again I think that
sometimes when you see um an imbalanced masculine you can react
by going too hard into the feminine side and say oh we don't need the masculine at all and that I I reject that we need
both we need them in perfect equal partnership complimenting each other as they both are serving in their roles um
there and and again this is all kind of pulling on the thread of understanding that our theology is that we are born of
divine parents so that is the view that I take for the whole book and I set that forward in the very beginning just to
help readers understand that this is the context in which everything else is going to be
written yeah and you you know the scripture neither is the man without the woman or the woman without the man it's
it's interesting to think about that in terms of uh well this is
God right I mean going back and having that reflected and saying okay well this
is your teaching you're learning about how you're going to grow together mhm but but I'm I'm out here as god and
goddess right looking at you and saying look neither is the man without the woman or the woman without the man this
is reality this is this is your ultimate station absolutely and that's what
Elohim means right Elohim we've kind of thought sometimes contextually it comes across as like oh that's just Heavenly
father's name but the actual Hebrew word is a plural and it denotes gods of
both genders male and female right and so when we say Elohim we're talking about our Heavenly parents that are a
unit I have a quote from arus no who I believe was a general Authority uh I
don't know if he was a 12 or a 70 I think he was a 12 I think he was I think he was a 12 yeah um but he said what do
you mean uh we should understand that deity consists of man and woman and he says most certainly I do if I believe
anything that God has ever said about himself and anything pertaining to the creation and organization of man upon
the earth I must believe that deity consists of man and woman there can be no God except he is composed of the man
and the woman United and there is not in all the eternities that exist nor ever will be a God in any other way there
never was a God and there never will be in all the eternities except they are made of the two counterparts a man and a
woman the male and the female yeah that's great yeah and
and you know you what makes it even more obviously true is the whole world trying
to tear it apart yeah you know um so you also talk let's get to the building of
the temple here let's go back to the temple we're going to hit it over and over again here but you talk about the temple as a template what is it a
template for yeah such a great question um in my understanding and and again a
lot of this is what I have been taught by the spirit so I don't pretend to be an authority I'm not I'm a nobody so
anything that you hear anything that you read like I invite you all to take it to the Lord yourself and like seek your own
confirmation and tune in to that Light of Christ that you've been given um and and if you think I'm wrong like I'm okay
with that I'm really really comfortable with that um but my understanding and what I have come to understand is the
temple is a template for Spiritual progression so the temple and template
they actually come from the same Latin word templum and it's this idea of a pattern that needs to be applied in
order for a process to take to take effect in the correct order so I talk a
little bit about the ancient the ancient Israelite Tabernacle and Solomon's Temple that they were built with this um
three-part space right and we could look at that as testal terrestrial and
Celestial and when we do that we see that our temples are communicating a similar a similar process right we have
the we have the creation room we have the the Wilderness room and then the terrestrial and then the celestial rooms
in many of our temples not all of them obviously some of them there are some architectural design differences um but
the idea is that we come into the space and we are physically enacting a a drama
and a process symbolically so that we can learn how to
do that in reality in our life and we can talk about some of the the elements
of that um but the idea is that the Temple is designed to show us to teach us as a House of learning how to grow up
in Jesus Christ how to receive a fullness of the Holy Ghost and how to be organized in the pattern that our
Heavenly parents are organized how to become like God that is the pattern the template that the temple is trying to
show us and the invitation is that we make that journey in this life right I
think that one Association of the veil that we've had in the temple for a while is the idea that the veil is death and I
would say that that's actually maybe one of the least helpful interpretations it is an interpretation so we can look at
it that way but everything in the temple it we are invited to participate in in
this life up to an including parting the veil and witnessing Jesus Christ and
everything along the way is meant to be teaching us how it is we can make that
Journey so how would I apply that as an example I mean if I'm looking at that and I'm saying okay well this is you
know again as you say the uh consider yourself as Evas not just while you're in the temple but in your life
day-to-day life how do I apply the template of the temple into my daily life yeah absolutely I think the key is
in the ordinances so in the endowment ceremony we participate in four
ordinances and each of these ordinances is comprised of four elements there's a sign a law a name which is associated
with the law and a token and each of those things are symbolic they're meant
to indicate to us something that we can experience outside of the temple as well right so in my book I talk about the
first ordinance and my understanding of what the lived expression of that
ordinance is which is birth so if you think about the first ordinance in the
temple we participate in it with Adam and Eve when they are leaving the garden
right so they are transitioning from a higher State and they are coming into
this telestial sphere if we if we equated that to ourselves right if we likened that to ourselves that process
of transition that we go through is Birth when we are born which is an
ordinance that is presided over by our mothers and witnessed by our fathers we transition from a higher state into this
telestial sphere and the physical experience of that is the sign of the
ordinance we are born physically the law that I believe is associated with that is the law of obedience we
come into this world ingrained in our bodies and in our spirits that we will
learn the laws of this world to survive and then hopefully as we develop we will
have the opportunity to learn the laws of the spiritual Realms to grow
spiritually as well right and there's a lot of implications and things that go into that but we see this in a newborn
infant right they have these reflexes I have I actually have nephew that's in the process of being born right now
which is really exciting um but when he is born in the next couple of hours hopefully he's going to have these
reflexes that he knows how to curl his toes he knows how to Blink his eyes he knows how how to root around and how to
suck how to find food and so we see elements of the law of obedience he's already he he's he's coming with that
right the token I think is perhaps maybe one of the least understood elements of the ordinance um and it is the most
mysterious um in several ways but the way that I've been coming to understand the token is
that this is a gift of Grace that we are given from God directly and earlier
iterations of the temple I think showed that maybe a little bit more clearly in that you would have Temple workers who
would stand up and go around and administer the token to each individual
it's a little bit challenging maybe because now we we see the representation of it but this the principle still
stands the idea is that the token is something that you receive as a gift directly from God and in the case of our
birth again this first ordinance that we participate in I make the suggestion that the token that we receive at Birth
is the Light of Christ everyone who is born who participates in this first
ordinance comes into the world with the Light of Christ this initial endowment of spirit that is meant to help us learn
how to navigate in this world and from there obviously as we cleave to that
gift we will be led in the direction we need to go so that we can have the gospel and move through baptism and the
following ordinances all right I like that that my my template oh good I'm glad that's
great that's awesome yeah I've got this little thing I call the the four uh phases of the priesthood and so
it's going over those four ordinances right and what's interesting to me is is going through those process because it's
also a progress and it's something I think we do in our daily lives also but it's we're going to run through two ironic and then two
milisic and and you're going from also a physical to to a
spiritual but you're also I think in the very first one I think I I I to me as I
look at the ironic priesthood and this is from what I learned from the temple I think the ironic priesthood
is can also be considered the priesthood of the individual so your idea of being born
and receiving a physical body right and even the Light of Christ
I what I attach to that is agency right I think I think agency is
what we're given which is Choice obedience following the Commandments um
those are all ironic prood uh type of uh manifestations of of
reaching to God right us reaching to God right so it's that yeah I love it that
fits really well thank you well and I I think think and the reason that this is
so important to my book and and this discussion of the feminine versus the masculine is that when you start to
understand what these things are symbolically representing in the temple and their equivalent of when you live it
what it looks like the feminine comes in front and center no one gets born into
this world without a woman including the savior of the world he came through the
veil of a woman a woman's body is another possible representation of the veale right I think it so yeah so when
you do that like it just makes everything really clear and I agree with you I think that the first two ordinances are more the ironic portion
and then the the later two are AR mesic which we learn in the temple and that mesic portion really is higher it's more
Heavenly and as we if if we want to transition to talking about that the feminine is more Heavenly in many ways
compared to masculine Spirit not that women are better than men but that that's the characteristic of feminine
Spirit um you say this also a fullness of intelligence requires our spirits to be inseparably connected to our element
our physical bodies what do you mean by that why what what what I mean that's kind of obvious we know that we our
spirit comes down receives a body we go through death it gets separated and then and then in Resurrection it's brought
back together is there another element you're speaking of here I shouldn't use the term element but
another uh um approach here to this that you're thinking
of yeah I mean this is straight from doctrine of Covenant 93 um so if we want
we can we can pull that up and and look at some of the doctrine in that this is a heavy chapter um I think that there
are a lot of mysteries in this chapter but it it is beautiful and yeah it's in
Doctrine and Covenants 93 um that God says here we can actually
start back a little bit further so Jesus Christ is testifying he's testifying of himself he's defining
himself as the spirit of Truth and then he's going on to say you are also you
are also Spirit um and he says man is Spirit the elements are Eternal and
spirit and element inseparably connected receive a fullness of joy and when separated man cannot receive a fullness
of God a fullness of joy the elements are the Tabernacle of God man is the
Tabernacle of God even the temple and whatever Temple is defiled God shall destroy that Temple so there's a lot
here obviously that we could go into but I think that the idea that I try to communicate in the book um is this
concept that we've we've kind of T talked about a little bit um is that in order to become like God in order to
receive a fullness of joy which I think that um defines the reality of God right is that
they have a fullness of joy um we have to have our bodies and our Spirits connected to one another and obviously
when we hear that I think Resurrection is one of the first things that comes to mind and I think that that's correct I think that resurrection and having a
body and spirit that are physically joined together is a big part of that um
but in addition to that I think that there's a Unity on a spiritual level
where even if our bodies and our Spirits are physically connected such as they are are right now there can still be a
disconnect where maybe I have this female body that I'm living in I'm inhabiting but I'm not really connected
to my femininity I'm not really connected to my feminine Spirit maybe I embody masculinity more than I embody
femininity and that causes a disjoining between my body and spirit that through
my own experience and through my own study I can say literally impacts my ability to understand the nature of God
to understand my own divine nature and to progress in this Temple template of
Spiritual Development okay any thoughts questions about it hopefully yeah being being in harmony
with each other that's uh that's also something we're dealing with in our cultural well and I would I might use
the word at one as well so when we think about atonement usually we think about Christ's atonement right and that's
absolutely appropriate um but what Christ's atonement was was meant to enable
our atonement our becoming at one and the the pro the process through which we
doing that we do that is a process it comes in phases right and it and it ties in to this idea that we are developing
we are progressing we are ascending we're not complete all at once um and so I think that there
is as we go through this process of Spiritual Development we become at one to different degrees we become at one
with the Holy Ghost when we receive the Holy Ghost through baptism of fire we become at one and then through the
sanctification process we learn to become at one our bodies and our Spirits where we there's a joining that is
taking place through that process where our spirits and our bodies are becoming more inseparably connected and the goal
of all of that is that we become at one eventually with Jesus Christ with our Heavenly parents and also as we are
aspiring to become one with our spouse um that's another big aspect of the book right is that not only is it my body and
spirit my masculine and feminine that need to be balanced but I am a part of a partnership and so we each are going
through this individually right in the same way that women follow the women makes it so much harder I know it's so
hard it's so true this is this is a process it's heavy duty stuff becoming
like God it really is yeah well it is also interesting I was I was just going through another interview and and it's
uh so much of the Gospel is about relationship m you know it's
it's it's we can look at the checklists and everything else and the Commandments
but uh so much of it is just about relationship even to the point that Christ is the bridegroom and and the
church and members of the church are are the bride and you know it's a relationship it's a covenantal
relationship that is what we're supposed to focus on yeah I mean it's kind of the first and second great Commandments
right and and we can see that pattern too like love God love yourself is kind
of implied there and love your neighbor become at one with God become at one with yourself become at one with your
neighbor your closest neighbor is your spouse yeah okay all right so let's move in a little bit here to the to the male
and the female or or the masculine and The Feminine here couple things you start off with here is you're talking about women and their stewardship is to
give life right creation um and then you've got men have
the stewardship over providing structure by be by by coming into a covenant relationship with God
uh how do you see those two roles and how do you see them complimenting each other yeah absolutely so when I in the
book I do talk about the feminine stewardship as the stewardship of giving life and when I use that phrase I want
people to hear it in the most broad sense possible sometimes we reduce that and say oh yeah women have babies
obviously that is incredibly important the world would not spin it would not keep spinning if we don't have babies
like that is so Central to who we are it's so uniquely the feminine experience
but we give life in a thousand ways outside of that and that's something I talk about in the book if we look at the
Garden right you can see that the first person Eve gave life to was Adam in a
lot of ways and later in the book I have a chapter on marriage where I talk about how do we enliven our husbands because
so many times it is a righteous wife standing in her feminine power that can
uplift and uphold a man so that he can do his stewardship and then he pulls her it's really that proverb of I lift thee
and thee lift me and we'll Ascend together that's the idea right um and then the masculine stewardship yeah
there's there's some interesting Nuance in this and we can get into it with the garden account um but the idea is that
men are called to come clean from the blood and sins of this generation and as they do that they come into this
Covenant relationship with God which is the priesthood right the priesthood being an order of priests I know that
you've had Todd McLaughlin on the show I think he does a fantastic job of talking about what that means and what it means
to be in the order of the Son of God um that's basically that's basically what I
mean by that I just word it a little bit differently um but yeah both of those are required for one another you can't
have one without the other um again the masculine does provide this kind of external framework and then the feminine
is what comes in and brings it to life uh I want to go through a few of
these other uh attributes you've got a feminine Spirit you've got a masculine
Spirit you've got a uh um a chart I guess of of these things
and I just I'm not going to cover all of them but I want to cover a couple of them here you've got dark hidden veiled
for the feminine and light visible aware for the male MH uh Heavenly nature
mystical Earthly nature tangible that one I wonder about though I mean yeah well and it's hard because
when these things are in unity it's really hard to pick them apart like it's really hard to say where does one end
and the other begin um I I think that I've I've heard it the other way too
especially because we know that like the earth the earth is mother right she's Mother Earth and so there is that
aspect right it is a it is a vessel but it's also what we Orient ourselves
around while we're in mortality so there's this element of Earth that she
carries us but he also is providing a framework by which we live our life
right and so I'm open to some of these things yes yeah I'm open to some of
these things being I I think there's a lot of overlap between some of them um but I think the way that I um denoted
the feminine is really more of like it is the mystical it's the mysterious it's
what we don't understand right is there a man who understands a woman I would love to talk to him yeah good luck right
yeah good luck good luck but you know what that also makes
it it makes it great it makes it intriguing it makes it uhne I like that
about my wife exactly you know I mean I get frustrated sometimes I like that
about my wife I want to understand her better right right got 36 years of being
with her and it's like okay I've you know tip of the iceberg here but uh that's kind of exciting for me as that
Veil gets pulled back you've got here motion of condescension bring spiritual into Physical Realm okay and then motion
of Ascension Elevate physical into spiritual realm um I think this is
interesting because you know one thing when I go to first Nephi
11 I'm a little bit different than and I'm sure you've talked to I know you've talked to and heard Dave Butler talk
about this I I have a little different approach to the tree there um but I I
see primarily the tree as condescension and the tree
is the love of God right and so to me as I look at condescension I see condescension as the
love of God and this is what he did right this
is what he did in the garden this is what he does on the cross um and and of course women are the
ones that help us condescend yeah yeah I think that's
beautiful and I talk about this a little bit in my book but there are some other like ancient Jewish ideas that the tree
of knowledge of Good and Evil and the Tree of Life were actually the same tree or at least you had to go through you
had to go through the tree of knowledge of Good and Evil to get to the tree of life so either one of those I feel like
is interesting and and there are symbolic truths that we can pull out of that um but the idea is that the if if they
were the same tree then the difference was which direction are you going are
you going from the crown of the tree down to the root or are you going from the root of the tree back to the crown of the tree and that motion of going
down the tree was the tree of knowledge of Good and Evil which Eve initiated that descent right and then the motion
of returning up the tree is that Ascension which Jesus Christ enables our
ability to go back up the tree so again I I think that there there's so many beautiful truths that you can look
at just with that one symbol but I don't disagree with you I think there's a lot of different ways to look at it the uh
another one on here which is very interesting you've got uh the feminine as the
compass or the circle and you've got the masculine is the square explain that yeah well in sacred
geometry the square is always associated with the masculine it's meant to be this Foundation it's strong um it is that uh
steady solid structure that you build on and then the compass is the instrument
that draws the circle right and this is Temple symbolism too if you think about your garment over the right breast you
have the mark of the square remember the right is the masculine and over the left you have the mark of the compass which
is the feminine right and so the idea is when you bring these three when you bring these two together you have the
circle encompassing the square we learned that in Jeremiah right a woman will Encompass a man that there's a
beautiful symbol of Eternity and I think this whole process of of progression that just doesn't happen if you only
have one or the other yeah this also leans toward uh at least in part it leans into
the side of mizic yes it does as well so yeah that's that's interesting that's
uh um and and it would be I mean here it would go along with what you're saying that the compass and the circle would be
the Heavenly and the square would be the Earthly four corners of the Earth yeah
four corners of the Earth right um
okay what well do we want to go into this what what is
the you you brought up talking about
um let's touch on this again what what what is the uh what is the importance of
a woman embodying her femininity in a man embodying his masculinity and
why why is it so important I mean you talk about being in tune okay fine but
but what about the man and the woman right yeah why why is it so
important to lean into those things yeah absolutely I mean I think that if we narrowed it down we could say that this
has to to do with your Eternal identity right and and hearkening to who you are
in a sense that is greater than just this temporal testal existence right so
the fact that I came here I'm a woman that tells me something that tells me that my spirit is primarily feminine now
I have masculine in me too all women have to especially if you're a mother or else the whole world would burn down
probably like my children would all be dead by now right but men have femininity too
uh the symbol of the yinyang I think is a really beautiful and useful symbol in this where we have the white space that
is the motion of Ascension and that's the masculine it's what we see it's what's visible it's the sun right and it
has that little black dot of femininity as well and then the counterpart is the dark it's the motion it's descending and
it's that feminine that mystery the Dark Side of the Moon who knows what's there right there is a little bit of masculinity too and when you bring them
both together that is when you have a home so the idea is that my body is showing
me that I have an eternal identity I have a spirit of a certain
nature and if I want to progress in the pattern of Spiritual Development if I want to come closer to my heavenly
parents if I want to become the highest version of myself I have to lean into
that and not only do I need to lean into that for my own spiritual progression but I need to lean into that for the
sake of my marriage and my relationship with my husband as well we can talk a little bit about that polarity um but
that is incredibly important to this right like I love how you talked about that the fact that you don't understand
your life is your your wife is compelling right like that's interesting to you and it is because that is how
masculine and feminine Spirits interact with each other the feminine is magnetic
and so when a woman is embodying that femininity her husband is going to be naturally invited into his masculine
as well and I don't want to make it sound like it's one-sided if a man decides I'm going to embody my masculinity more his wife will likely
embody her femininity more like either partner can fix that polarity um but it
that is so important to creating the kind of relationship where each partner is fulfilled they are balanced they feel
rested they feel capable of doing what they need to be doing there's a truer partnership in that and I think that
this is just an element that we've overlooked for a long time again because it's not tangible because we don't see
it with our physical eyes and that's why it's really useful to step back and and factor in the Eternal right to factor in
the the the much broader infinite view of of why we're here and what what we're
doing here so is this is this more of a solution to to
therapy I mean don't get me wrong I think I think therapy can be useful but I think that this is the root of a lot
of problems in marriage and I can say that because I've experienced it myself
and I can say that because I'm working with other couples I'm a part of a business venture that we are helping
kind of a therapeutic approach but also a gospel centered approach and one that is um factoring in the idea of divine
masculinity and divine femininity and I can tell you that pretty much all of us are illiterate and pretty much everyone
is backwards so we've got women who are standing in their masculinity we've got men who are a feminite and the whole
world is a mess as a part of that and so if you want to look at some of the phenomenons that we've seen culturally
well we've been creating those things spiritually for a much longer Time by men not embracing their masculinity and
women not embracing their femininity how do you get them to do that you have to have individuals decide
that they're done putting up with all the crap that comes when they don't that's really like honestly like I
think that that's what it comes down to is is is there a social program probably not like that could do that but if we
can educate people and say hey a lot of your problems in your marriage are
because you as a woman are being the masculine and so your husband your husband can't so one of the one of the
fascinating things about women and I talk about this in the book is that we can do both jobs we can give life and
also we can come into Covenant with God and help other people do the same men don't have that ability right men can't
give life in the same way that a woman can obviously to children but also like I'm going to decorate my house make it
look cute make it be somewhere that you want to be that makes you feel warm and comfortable while you're there my
husband would live in a studio Suite with a desk and a bed and a mini fridge
and that's it right like there's nothing really homey about that so what's interesting is that women have a really
great opportunity here in that if we can choose and say even though I can play
both roles even though I can be the spiritual leader in my home even though I could be the breadwinner and maybe
make more than my husband is making I'm going to choose to not I'm going to choose to not and instead I am going to
focus on giving life in the ways that I feel inclined to and don't get me wrong I'm not telling all these women I'm not
saying women need to quit their jobs I think what that looks like for every woman is going to be different seek the
inspiration of God right and and what that looks like for you and your family but if you just say I'm going to focus
on embodying my femininity you're going to
contract and your husband will actually have room to expand and I think most good men love
their hus love their wives especially in the church I think they love their wives
I think they want to help and I think they want to be Godly men right and so I
think most men will raise to will rise to that occasion if women learn how to
contract attct and give them the space to step in and let their husbands actually do the masculine role and I say
all this from experience like maybe I should share that too because that sounds like I'm prescribing a lot that
maybe I don't know no preach preach okay okay I will so a little bit about me um
I've I've spent most of my life in masculine energy and I think that some of that is divine like I I do feel like
my calling obviously I have I have a platform on YouTube I have a podcast I
have this book like the things that God has called me to are more visible and therefore more masculine than sometimes
what other women are called to so some of that is purposeful and I don't feel bad about that um but some of it has
just been because I was raised by a really masculine man who I love so much and he taught me that the best thing
that I could do during the day is be productive and that I need to be taking
action and that I can't be lazy by resting and all of these things and those things are not wrong but they can
be imbalanced those are imbalanced in a masculine energy whereas the feminine needs rest the feminine power is in her
presence in the fact that she's there and she's paying attention and she is connected to God in a way that she can
receive the Revelation and help direct her family right um and so I was very
much in the action of doing and and um not so much in the energy of being which
is more feminine and it got to the point in my marriage so my husband and I are
high school sweethearts and I was the primary bread winner for the first eight years of our
marriage I was making six figures at a company and he had been going to school
but then after that he didn't really know what he wanted to do with his life was kind of bouncing around from job to job didn't really have any root set you
know was more likely to just waste a day playing games and how did that make me feel well that made me feel bitter it
made me feel frustrated it made me feel alone it made me feel like I'm doing all this I'm doing all the crap like I'm
taking care of the kids the house the family and I'm taking care of earning money I don't want to take care of
earning money yeah yeah I don't want and and that was different for me too because I always thought that I would that I would be that that I would work
and make money growing up but I got to the point in my marriage where I was like I don't really want to do that anymore like I'd rather focus on these
things I actually feel called by God to do and less in the career space again
maybe that's different for some women and that's fine but that was my story um and so there were a couple of
interesting things that happened it was the beginning of 2023 again I'd been on this spiritual
journey for about a year I'd gone through a spiritual rebirth and I wanted
to be Sanctified and I went to God and I was nervous because I was like oh no this sounds like asking to have hard
things happen to me but I was like God I want to be Sanctified like what do I what do I need to do in order to be
Sanctified and the answer that I got was totally unexpected never would have predicted it in my life life I was told
you need to understand your heavenly mother I'd never thought about heavenly mother I wasn't a feminist like that
wasn't a thing that had called to me before in my life but God told me specifically if you want to be
Sanctified as a woman you have to understand what you're searching to become you have to understand who it is
that you need to emulate um and so I was like okay great like sure I have no idea
where to begin but yeah I'll lean into that and within a week I lost my job
again I had been the primary bread winner my husband was going through the Seminary education process at the time to become a
teacher and so there was not many really flowing in from his side and I made six
figures we just bought a house that same week we bought a house on my income on
the sixf figure income that all of a sudden was gone and looking back I see
so much Divinity I see so much Divinity in it where God said you want to be Sanctified you need to the divine
feminine therefore you need to stop being the masculine in your marriage and
I was also six months pregnant at the time it was a really fun time really stressful and um and so I just leaned
into that and said well I'm not going to work because I have this baby coming anyway I'll look for a job afterwards
had the baby in May in July I was like okay probably need to look at starting to get a job again and God said I don't
want you to go back to work and I said okay well we're going to be homeless but
that's fine um and you know my husband God bless him he's amazing like he's an
amazing man uh he ended up he was hired to be a seminary teacher and he ended up
walking away from that which was a really hard sacrifice for him but he knew that he couldn't provide for our
family with that um and so he found something that he could provide for us for and I'm so grateful for him that was
a really hard sacrifice like he loves the youth and he's so good at teaching that he's so talented um but he knew
like okay my wife has contracted into her femininity I've got to step up I've
got to get into the masculine and I've got to provide for my family and so that's been our journey for the last
couple of years and it hasn't always been easy sometimes it's really scary right like we had to sell our home and
there were all these things that happened um but where my marriage is today I would not trade I I wouldn't
trade for anything I would go through all of it again um because what it did is it right-sided our polarity where now
I can be the feminine in our marriage I can focus on giving life to my children to my husband receiving life myself
that's a first step for women by the way we always get it backwards we think if I just give enough then I'll get time to
receive that's not how it works the motion of femininity is to receive and then give right so like I can do that
better now because my husband is taking care of what he can take care of which is making money providing us a home
taking care of business that way and so it has radically shifted our marriage
our partnership in a positive way I know that we are much closer to the pattern
of our Heavenly parents than we ever were before that's awesome you're going to have people that don't like hearing that
but I well again like I'm not trying to give everyone Revelation I'm just this
is my test of money this is my experience no that's that that's great okay so let's get into love love
everything about that let's get a little bit more into the nitty-gritty here of the garden then
um give me your take on Eve and her
decision yeah this is a big one so I I preface this again we've said some of this throughout the conversation um but
this is just one level of symbolism right if we're looking at the symbolically there's a lot of different
ways that we can look at it and we can get truth from all of those different ways um we need to look at it less
literally I think than sometimes we do um and there is some disparities I'll say that up front the way that I'm
looking at this is different than what's represented in the temple I'm looking at this just purely based on what the
scriptures say I don't think that that negates how the temple presents it I think that the temple is curated for its
audience right yes um and so I'm just looking looking at what the scriptures say about what actually
happened um so we know that they're in this terrestrial place there's a tree
maybe there's two trees maybe it's one tree we're not sure and Adam is created he's formed from the dust of the earth
which sounds to me like telestial material and then he's placed in the garden right and in the garden there is
okay let me back up a second so he's created from the dust of the ground and then he's put in a terrestrial space
okay and that space is Eden sometimes we think that the garden just this Garden
was Eden but I the way that I talk about it is Eden is a whole terrestrial sphere
and in Eden there is a garden and that is the Garden of Eden so he's placed in
this garden and the garden can be thought of like a temple like this is a space where God can descend from a
higher from a Celestial realm and commune with the man Adam in a
terrestrial sphere and the garden is where Eve is
created so right there I think that there's something very significant and beautiful about woman that she was
created in the highest space in this Celestial communion space um within Eden
so but before that I'm I'm getting out of order let me back up you can edit this right sure sure edit it for me
thank you so Adam is formed he's placed in the garden Temple and it is there
before Eve is created that he is given a commandment the Commandment given to
Adam is do not partake of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of Good and Evil and all of that takes place before
Eve is even created we Overlook that I didn't know that for like 30 years of my life until
finally I went and looked at the scriptures and was like oh my goodness Eve wasn't even there she wasn't even there yet when Adam was given that
commandment and if you look at the Genesis account the Moses account the Abraham account they are all consistent
that it was Adam alone who was given that commandment so that has some pretty big implications I I I make the point in
my book that perhaps we can infer that that commandment never actually belonged to Eve that that was only Adam's
commandment and I think that there is um evidence to support that so and even in the Book of Mormon
it's always referred to as Adam's transgression and never EES right so we go on with the story and um Eve is
tempted it says he sought to beg Eve for he knew not the mind of God this is
Satan and um he comes to her and he says yeay hath God said ye shall not eat of
every tree of the garden and this is interesting I want to talk about this and the woman said to the serpent we may
eat of every of the fruit of the Trees of the garden but the fruit of the tree which thou beholdest in the midst of the garden God hath said You shall not eat
of it neither shall you touch it lest you die so in one way maybe that just destroyed my whole Theory right like
maybe that just shows oh God like Eve clearly thinks that she was commanded to
do that yeah and I talk about how there's kind of a a feminine um
experience that we have where women tend to take on
things that don't necessarily belong to us right we take on the burdens of other people and in this case I I present some
thoughts about is it possible that Eve heard that commandment from Adam and assumed it was hers what's
the evidence that we have today of women assuming that masculinity is our law
well it's everywhere right and so I think that there's something to be said that perhaps this is something that she
got from Adam and there are other apocryphal texts and tic texts that do
suggest just that that Adam was the one that told Eve don't protti the fruit of that tree but there is something just
inherently feminine of this idea of adopting something and saying oh that must be my rule even when maybe it's
not so going on um Eve partakes of the fruit of the tree
and I I make the point in this that Eve is attracted to the tree
because she perceives that it can give her wisdom and I know you've had you've had Dave on the show right who Dave
you've had Dave Butler on the show yeah so I'm sure your audience is familiar if they listen to the sck of Joseph as well
that wisdom is a code name for heavenly mother for the divine feminine right and so there's something in Eve that is
attracted to this tree because she sees oh like my feminine spirit is calling to
me like there's something here for me as a woman and I know that we kind of take issue with this idea that Eve knew that
she needed to take of the fruit and I'm not suggesting that she did like I'm not I'm not suggesting that Eve cognitively
logically analytically thought oh yeah I must partake of the fruit of that tree I don't think she did however there is
this real true phenomenon that I think we all experience that is a woman's
intuition that there's something inside of us that doesn't have words that doesn't have logic that often doesn't
make sense and more often than not we shut it down but if we lean into it once in a while
we see that we're correct that we're LED in a certain direction that is protective for us that is protective for
our family and that is moving Us in this Progressive pattern to connect with God
and be more like God and so I think that was the kind of knowing that Eve had
again not logical um but that there was something in her that called to her and said
there's something about that tree that's for me so how does her deception play into this right because even after the
account after partaking of the fruit of the tree um you know God comes to them
and says what happened here and Eve says the serpent begal me and I ate the tree
I I ate of the fruit right and so usually when we think of that we think oh yeah Eve was deceived because she
took the fruit what I would suggest is that taking the fruit was never Eve's
deception it was for her she was the one who was foreordained to initiate mortality she was the mother of all
living even before having children right like that was her role it was exactly
right so if that's the case what was the nature of her deception and I make the argument that
the nature of her deception was that Eve believed she had been authorized to
partake of the fruit from someone who actually had Authority and she hadn't
been so what does that mean um I think that the symbol of a serpent is really interesting and if we go to the
scriptures and look at that usually actually more often the serpent is kot
of of Jesus Christ he is the serpent right and we see that in the account of
the Hebrews in the wilderness Journey where they are bitten by these snakes actual snakes and Moses is told to build
the nushan I know you've talked about this on your show right and the nushan
it's described as a serpent but really it was a seraphim right it was an Angelic figure that maybe had some of
the features of a serpent and if the people look to this they would be saved and it was meant to represent Jesus
Christ right so my theory and what I put forth is that Eve was deceived in that a
serpent appeared to her a seraphim appeared to her who she mistook for Jesus Christ and she believed that she
was being appropriately authorized to partake that fruit when in reality it was a counterfeit it was the adversary
appearing in the form of the Lord and if we look at apocryphal accounts I think that there's some really interesting
support for that we know that that Satan had not yet Lost His glory um in the Scriptures it talks about how Satan can
appear as an angel of Light that he has that capacity and we also know just the nature of sarim which would be a
seraphim exactly and we know that his nature is he has no capacity to create
in and of himself and so he's always counterfeiting it makes sense to me that
um that Satan may have appeared to her and was coming in the form of a
seraphim that looked like Jesus Christ and that in going through this exchange
he tricked her basically into paring of the fruit and she believed that it was an authentic authorized
invitation okay yeah I do think that there is I I I agree with the shapam
thing completely I mean he even says to you know I am the god of this world he
he's impersonating right the whole time so I I I do agree with that but I have a
different take on the beguiling but um you know what's interesting though is that so based on what you're talking
about here in the book Satan doesn't have a counterbalance
I don't talk about that in the book you're right yeah yeah and so it's like it's interesting right there's no
there's no divine feminine for
Satan that is a big topic um I would say that he does not
have a counterpart in the way that our Heavenly parents do or even I would say Jesus Christ does um because the order
of damnation is that of separation so there's not going to be him and a
unified feminine figure however I think that the scriptures greatly support the
idea that there is a false feminine she's called the of Babylon uh I think that maybe that's
more literal than we tend to think um and that's a whole other discussion yeah
yeah that's i' i' I've heard that too but it's interesting that you bring that up in this context because the seraphim
and I think Dave some of Dave's work um hints at this too but the seraphim seemed to be a feature of the feminine
aspect of God in some ways and so Christ appearing in that way is not wrong
because he is the embodiment of the perfect Divine masculine and divine feminine he represents a balance he is
the son of both of his parents um however if Satan were to appear in that
form There is almost this like cross-gender implication of a masculine
who took on what was actually a feminine role um to authorize Eve to take that
fruit the fruit that would bring her wisdom so that's just interesting to
think about yeah yeah that's interesting all right let's uh can we go to the Tree of Life tell me what you think about the
Tree of Life yeah what is it what does it represent is it real is it on its
own um what are your thoughts about that yeah so in the book I I talk about the
tree of life and as one of its symbols um being the female body that that our
bodies as women are actual trees of life so that's what I go into in talking
about in this section um and temples are really interesting as a symbol because
they integrate the masculine and The Feminine they're one of those those symbols like Mother Earth that you're
like is it masculine is it feminine I don't know there's aspects of both right and those things are the most Divine in
a lot of ways um and so there is this aspect of temples where they are um they provide this
structure they help us come into Covenant with God and also they're this Sacred Space right they holding space
womb space and so the idea that I talk about in the section of of being a tree
of life is that women are trees of life that our bodies hold this womb space
they are the structure for our growing babies um there's some archaeological evidence of the Ashera pillar figurines
in ancient Judea that showed women dep that showed a woman um the mother right
the goddess who was depicted as a tree and so I think that's very instructive
for us as women to begin to look at our bodies that way um and I think that that's why the feminine form is so
attacked in so many ways like find a woman who loves her body completely implicitly all the time that's really
challenging we're very attacked in that way um and and I think that there's a lot that goes that goes into that as
well but that that's kind of the main point that I talk about in that section is is learning to see our bodies and and
treating our bodies as if they are Central to our Spiritual Development and
to that of others in that again the Tree of Life represents this upward motion this reens into the presence of God and
so if our body is that and I certainly think that it is um we should be
approaching it and caring for it in a in a very careful way yeah I think it's definitely a
something that goes along with the idea of the feminine with the tree also I think it's uh again I I look at it
actually more as condescension but um but I I see it as condescension
because I see it as as the love of God and and and I and
I think that the love of God is condescension I think for any of to give love to anybody else it's a sense of
bearing their burdens right you're you're condescending Below in that sense you're lifting somebody else above and
and uh and that's what first Nephi 11 kind of covers it goes over condescension twice as it's talking
about the tree and of course you have Mary and then the son right yeah and I I
talk about that later on too that like as mothers all women condescend like we are condescending in order to bring
forth life we are submitting to really hard you know physical mental emotional
spiritual challenges um to do that and and that all ties into the idea of why women are clean from the blood and sins
of this generation that distinction in the temple yeah go over that for me I I
I've heard so many different approaches to this I want to hear what you say about it so in in my book what is up
with us guys here I mean why do we have to work so much harder I don't think it's harder I think
it's I think that it's a different um I think it's a different approach but I think women definitely have it hard too
right I mean and maybe maybe that's something that's worth saying just the condescension to come here and have a
female body is a pretty big condescension like it's hard it's inconvenient in every possible way it's
painful you know like we we sacrifice literally our blood regularly um just
having this body and I think that that's very much on purpose and this transitions into this idea really well
but um the word help meat I think is really misunderstood um the word word Neo that
that as our NE Kino that it comes from that meat part of help meat it means
something that is in your face that is super obvious and with that understand
and and it has so many connotations too of being a risk taker being an adventurer someone who is outside the
box right that I think the feminine is is all of those things and um what's so
interesting is that from that understanding that women are to be help meets to our husbands it means we're
supposed to be an obvious example an obvious example of what and I think the
the answer that I've got for that in part is that women are an obvious example of sacrificing unto death out of
love that is what we do that is what we do with our bodies women are a help meet
in that we are in an obvious example of sacrificing unto death out of
love there is a very deep pattern in that that's what Jesus Christ did right
and that's why that word as our connecto is only ever linked to Eve the feminine she's the ultimate feminine archetype
and Jesus Christ there's a connection there um and so that's what women are called to do is to just be to be what we
are to to work in accordance with our design to align in our femininity and be
that obvious example and when we do that and because we do that we've already agreed to do that hence our being here
in a female body we are pronounced clean from the blood and sins this relates to
the Tower and the principle of a Watchman on a tower so in the scriptures we get this imagery of a Watchman on a
tower and you can relate that to a prophet um but you can also just relate that to the masculine and say that the
masculine stewardship is to be a Watchman on the tower you are to observe
to see Danger from a far off and to make preparations to protect against that
danger right and we see that example spiritually in the scriptures with um
Ezekiel talks about it Jacob talks about it Paul King Benjamin Mormon Moroni it's all over the place Christ obviously
being an ultimate example of that Watchman on the Tower and the idea is that a watchman's
value or his um his yeah his well I don't want to say value because men are
inherently valuable um but his uh responsibility and whether or not
he is successfully doing his stewardship is dependent on him actually being the
Watchman on a tower right like he has to be there and he has to do his job and if he doesn't do his job there are
consequences and Jacob talked about that he said I'm up here calling you to repentance I don't want to be but if I
don't your blood is on me right that's the Watchman principle and that's very masculine in nature so the question that
we can ask is where is the feminine in this analogy and I make the observation
that I believe the feminine is the tower she is the tower that the Watchman
stands on she enables him in his job that enabling power is very feminine the
idea is that the masculine is the leader but he's only able to lead if someone is willing to follow him right and so we
endow men with our presence and by enabling them to do their job the tower
also has connections to the feminine through the being of Mary Magdalene so
magdala um as a city didn't exist at the time of Christ didn't exist till about
400 years later we like to say Mary was from magdala well magdala wasn't there for another 400 years so what did it
mean and magdala means literally Tower and there are apocryphal accounts where
the Lord says Mary you are the tower and people are going to look to you for that and and so the tower and The Feminine
have this intricate connection to each other so what is the the value of a tower the value is that it's there it's
built it's strong that's all it needs to be and so because of us women we came we
condescended into this world we took on a feminine body understanding all well
in some capacity obviously we didn't experience so we didn't understand it in that way but we used we used our agents
we chose to come here anyway and as we embody our femininity as we practice
that power just by being present by being connected to Heaven by being a vessel through which Revelation and life
can flow we are serving it as that Tower we are we are completing our role
therefore we are clean because we are doing our job okay yeah I think uh well and you
help men Ascend in that s right and then men help us yeah we we help each other
um so how about the priesthood where do we find the
priesthood with women how do you see that that uh the priesthood working with
women there's so much talk about this today you've got those that say well they you
know the priesthood is uh you know only given to men some say well well what
about about the women in the temple um how do you you've even got like almost offices that you have in here in the
book about uh uh what you call PRI or Priestess
Hood uh in in the book talk about that yeah this was a really fun chapter
because I I don't feel like I knew any of this beforehand like I think that it kind of came as Revelation to me while I
was writing and so again I say take it to the Lord yourself like
you fill out how this you know what you think about this don't just listen to me I'm not an authority I don't know
anything right um but yeah I mean we've seen this kind of movement in the church with like sort of the ordained women
philosophy and I feel like that just inherently kind of has a flaw to it because the priesthood is masculine like
it is for men it is this outward structure it's visible like it's all it
has all the qualities of masculinity even just being apart for men right even without that if you remove that the idea
of the priesthood structure is masculine and so taking women and putting them under a masculine structure that doesn't
help us right that makes us more masculine again we have to go back to that idea of we came here in a female
body to embrace our femininity and build that connection between body and spirit
so women don't need a priesthood we need the Priestess hood and these two things
together priesthood and pries Hood when they are connected and in unity create
capital P priesthood right that patriarchal order that we are striving for that we know our heavenly father and
our heavenly mother are at the top of that um so as I was going through and studying this um I I did talk in the
book just a little bit about priesthood as an order because again I think sometimes we think priesthood and we
think oh the power and authority of God and as Todd talks about it's that the
priesthood is an order by which we can grow Ascend go through the temple endowment right this pattern of
Spiritual Development as a man and you can you can obtain power and authority
as you work through that process so looking at that I kind of flipped it on its head and said okay if that's the
priesthood what is the Priestess hood and I Define that as the Priestess hood is an order of priestesses it's a
Sisterhood after the order of our heavenly mother and one of the things that I felt while I was writing this is
that women are actually ordained to this order at Birth when we are born through
the instrumentality of our mother as a daughter we are born as a priestess we
are born in the Priestess hood and that kind of hearkens back to some of the things with Eve and and things that we
talked about there um what's really interesting is that in the Bible it
talks about when a baby girl was born they there was a two- week purification
process for the mother as opposed to when a male child was born it was only a week or eight days or something like
that right and some people look at that and they're like oh the sexism and maybe maybe that's a possibility I mean that
that can always come in um but what's really interesting is that later in life when a man was ordained to the
priesthood when he entered the temple in this order of priests he had a two we
purification process so the observation is that men are invited and ordained
after they qualify later in life in the priesthood women are born into it and
that's why the purification was what it was um this comes back again to our stewardship right understanding that men
have to qualify to come into Covenant with God that's their stewardship women our job is to give life and a baby girl
does that as soon as she's born right if you think about your daughters not that Sons don't either you you know you get
the idea but um but the idea is that women come with our Priestess Hood we were given that it was a part of our
endowment um and so what does that mean well it means we have a lot of work to do to figure out what that means um and
how to live that but I I certainly don't think that it's replacing men in the priesthood and I don't think that it looks like um putting yeah yeah
replacing men or putting women under men in the priesthood either I think that these are two separate complimentary
structures that are designed to come together and marriages is probably where that
begins um so are these other you've got like a handmade and wife
and uh bo there was one other virgin
um Queen wife I think you you kind of put these in kind of his offices yeah
yeah um and obviously that's not official language that's just
because it's it's you are looking at some type of an order there right you're you're you're trying to pull something
together that looks like some type of an order and and I'm just interesting if there's
a correlation I mean what what where where how did you follow that yeah for
sure so these were all archetypes that I started to see in the scriptures um you
would notice that when me when women are referred to in the scriptures there's kind of these different brackets that
they fall into and the two things that I looked at were our physical development again this understanding that we're born
into the Priestess Hood so it starts at our birth it's it's our life right it is the life of a woman is part of our
progression in the Priestess Hood um but the other part of it is our Spiritual Development as well and so if if at any
point we get stuck in our Spiritual Development even if we're still developing physically that's kind of the
office that we're in it's really dependent on our growing in that Covenant relationship with God and
ascending through the temple template um so yeah I I found seven scriptural
archetypes that are related to women and each of them built on each
other and it had to do both with your physical age and your Spiritual Development so starting with a virgin um
that term obviously has a strong sexual connotation but in again the ancient
Hebrew context um it just was someone who's pure someone who's original
someone who's complete um and as children we come into this world in that state we come in a state of Innocence um
and it's only through our learning that we that we and our experiences that we are conditioned we're programmed we're
taught we um we have trauma and we experience things that cause unbelief
that kind of gets ingrained into us so we pick those things up over time but if you just look at like that
three-year-old little girl in her Purity and her light and her strength like she is just just now beginning right and so
this office has a lot to do with safety like developing having a sense of safety
so that we can learn how to create so that we can learn how to use this body that we've been given um and
unfortunately there are a lot of women that get stuck in that place because they didn't have safety they didn't have
the kind of environment that would support them physically and spiritually growing and so if that's the case you
kind of have to go back to that place and do a lot of healing a lot of deep healing work even subconscious healing
work before the spiritual progression can really take place um but that's that's the initiating place is that all
women are initiated into the priesthood as virgins as baby girls um handmade is more of that young women you know 10 to
18 sort of phase where um you're learning you're learning a lot you're learning how to ask questions you're
learning how to use the Light of Christ that has been given to you to make decisions you have that agency right um
and learning how to exercise it you still need a lot of guidance but you have a little bit more personal autonomy
in that space um this is also where women learn to serve we learn how to have sisters and friends and um how to
be how to give life to others around us there's a really interesting connection between handmaids and queens that we see
in in the in the um in the scriptures too where there's this mentorship that
can take place with the older women in your life be that your mother your aunt your grandmother um but there's the that
section is really a lot about learning so I use the archetype of abish who is a handmade and she has a vision of her
father right or her father had a vision and told her either way um I think it's possible that she actually had a vision
herself this is a this is a time when there's those spiritual gifts are really coming online those innate things um it
could be either one but she has this Vision she receives this truth she's converted to Jesus Christ right and then
she plays an instrumental role in helping a Queen wife be converted and
raised into her role as well um so that's a that's a really important time a lot of the aspect of that is about
learning how to ask questions and develop that relationship with God directly right um leaning into those
spiritual gifts and then the bride archetype is more where the Spiritual Development really comes into play um I
use Rebecca she's she's a beautiful type of bride wife and mother honestly um but
you know there's this whole um account of the servant of Isaac and Abraham
going out and finding Rebecca and her being so prepared like she was totally prepared to step into this role and
become a bride become a wife to Isaac um and and to perpetuate the Covenant um
she was she was ready for that and so this phase is where we are really transitioning um into that deep Covenant
relationship with Jesus Christ as an individual I would say that this is where you have that spiritual rebirth
and where you're receiving the Holy Ghost and and starting to be guided in that way um with that endowment that
you've received from the Lord um and and that's when things get really tricky um
the age that that can happen is really um I don't know like maybe 20s 30s it
feels like an older woman more um today
but I think even young women can experience that so that's again where the spiritual starts to take precedence
over the physical development um from there you transition to the the archetype of a wife we talk about Zapora
and how Moses like even after the miraculous Deliverance that he was able to provide like he still had so much
self-doubt and so much hesitancy in really um owning his relationship with
God and and that Covenant and Zapora didn't have that like she had this complete confidence in God but also in
her husband right like she wouldn't go and um what's the word that I'm she
wouldn't do what what did she do what's the word she they had a son that wouldn't wasn't circumcised and she's
like what is going on get this done now exactly she went and did it right so she wouldn't have circumcised her son
knowing the implications of what that would mean for her husband's Covenant with the Lord like that was heavy stuff
right she wouldn't have done that if she didn't have confidence in the Lord and also in Moses like she saw him she saw
him when he didn't see himself and she was a part of helping him continue to ascend in his own calling um Emma is
another great example of this of an elect lady who went through so much pain so much heartbreak to raise up her
husband right and to support him in everything that he was called to do in Institute like she was an elect lady and
she was beloved of God because of that um so that's kind of the the wife archetype again we're still in a process
of sanctification at this point as well as that of a mother uh the mother is the next the the next AR archetype kind of
building on that wife rle you are you're having children but you're not just having children you are raising up seed
in the Book of Mormon that always had to do with Covenant right like it wasn't just that you were having babies it was
that you were having babies who could come into Covenant with God and you were teaching them an instrumental in that
process and then from there I go into Queen wife and queen mother and and those are really where you have been
Sanctified where you've received some of the higher blessings like you know with assurity that you will have eternal life
because you've been promised by God and I would say a queen mother is one who knows even more than that who knows the
Lord who knows the Lord intimately because she's experienced him so yeah these were just the archetypes that I
was given and we see them throughout scripture it's always a little bit veiled though because the feminine is veiled so you have to have eyes to see
but um once you see it it's hard to unsee would you say that the women are veiled in the scriptures and that's why
they're not talked about as much is that feminine is well the scriptures are like
the scriptures that we have are very masculine even if you took out the fact that it was men that wrote them and it
was men that it was about like the fact that it's this external record that it's this like tangible thing and there's so
much value in that obviously right like we'd never throw out the scriptures um what I would say is that feminine scripture is the scripture of your body
it's the scripture of your heart it's your intuition and women all have that we've just lost a lot of confidence
about how to use it and when you bring both of those together as men and women there's a lot of power there yeah I just
wonder if that intuition has to do with somehow a a woman's body
can interpret the Light of Christ a little differently right from the get-go
right right because I mean obviously it's not just members of the church it's not women they're just members of the church it's all women everyone you know
that have that and so it's you know it's like there is something there right well and I think that that goes back to Eve
too that she was the mother of all living and that she partake of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of Good and Evil how do we get knowledge of Good and
Evil the Light of Christ so there's something there and I think that Eve was
the vessel that the Lord used to disperse the Light of Christ and so because of that women we are the vessels
too like we bestow the Light of Christ on our children they are endowed with that in our wounds in our wombs and when
they were born they they come out with that so we are we are vessels for that Light of Christ and so it really does
create a very unique connection to the spirit yeah all right Megan farer the
book is consider yourself as Eve a guide to Spiritual Development for women and the men who love them I love the book uh
there's a lot more to it and there's a lot more meat in this where do we find the book you can find it on Amazon um
yeah that that's where it's primarily available right now we we'll put a link in there and then and then where do they find your podcast uh anywhere you listen
to podcast or YouTube just look up Latter Day disciples podcast and yeah hope to see you there Megan thanks so
much for your time really appreciate love the discussion thanks Greg
