There’s a particular kind of image that floods our feeds these days: flowing gowns, bare feet on the sand, a hand lifted toward the setting sun. Captions promise activation, ascension, and alignment — all within a single carousel swipe. Let’s go beyond the hashtag priestess and speak to the rise of the seasoned mystic.
The Audio Take — a fast listen with new angles on the topic HERE.
While I don’t begrudge anyone their beach, candle, or caftan (I love all three), I find myself reflecting on what’s happening beneath the shimmer. We’ve entered an age where spirituality has become an aesthetic — and where the look of transcendence sometimes replaces the long, quiet work of transformation.
The Aesthetic of Awakening
Once upon a time, teachers were apprentices before they were elders. Wisdom was conferred slowly, through devotion, study, and usually a few heartbreaks that stripped the ego bare.
Today, a well-lit selfie and a confident declaration can appear to do the same job. The algorithm rewards beauty and certainty; depth is harder to render in pixels.
But the true path — the path that humbles and refines — rarely photographs well. It’s the midnight conversation with your shadow. The tearful surrender when the universe doesn’t behave. The uncomfortable honesty required to keep showing up as a practitioner, guide, or human being in progress.
That path is not glamorous, but it’s the one that shapes us into mystics rather than marketers.
Of an Age — and a Frequency
I’m “of an age,” as I like to say. Old enough to remember when learning the healing arts meant sitting at the feet of someone who’d already weathered their own dark nights, not just branded them. I’ve spent decades in the helping and healing professions — psychotherapy, coaching, energy work, spiritual direction and with every iteration, I learned from the mentors in the field
Lately, I find myself watching this wave of younger, luminous teachers — the goddesses and priestesses in their twenties, thirties — claiming guru status with admirable confidence. Their radiance is real, but it’s often untested by time.
This isn’t criticism. It’s observation. Every archetype has its season. The maiden awakens possibility; the mother nurtures creation; the crone holds the wisdom of endings and beginnings. The imbalance comes when one season monopolizes the microphone.
When Bypass Becomes Branding
There’s also a quieter ache underneath all this — the rise of what I call bypass branding: a spirituality that leaps to transcendence without tending the wound. Pain is quickly re-labeled as “contrast.” Grief gets spun as “low vibration.”
But true wholeness doesn’t bypass. It integrates. It allows us to sit with the mud until it becomes fertile ground.
And the teachers who can hold that depth — who can companion another soul through disillusionment and still point toward grace — are often the ones who’ve lived a few lifetimes within a single incarnation.
The Archetype That’s Missing
If you scroll long enough, you’ll see the priestess, the goddess, the oracle, the witch.
But the one missing from the algorithmic pantheon is the Crone — the seasoned mystic, the elder guide, the one who no longer needs a spotlight to validate her light.
She doesn’t trend because her wisdom can’t be condensed into soundbites.
She speaks in paragraphs, not reels.
Her teaching is conversation, not conversion.
But make no mistake — people are hungry for her. The seekers who’ve been burned by spiritual performance are aching for teachers who embody wholeness rather than perfection. They crave lived experience. They crave truth told gently, with laugh lines.
Building for Endurance, Not Applause
If you’re reading this and find yourself somewhere between visibility and invisibility — doing deep, consistent work without viral validation — you’re not behind. You’re ahead. You’re building for endurance in an age addicted to applause.
Every post, every podcast, every class you offer plants seeds. They may not sprout on schedule, but roots are forming beneath the surface. Depth work doesn’t announce itself with fireworks. It arrives quietly, like a dawn you suddenly realize has already happened.
The New Frontier
The real evolution of the spiritual landscape isn’t happening on beaches or in perfect light; it’s happening in living rooms, Zoom circles, and whispered confidences. It’s happening where practitioners of all ages come together — therapists, coaches, healers, spiritual directors — to talk about the interior landscape of their work.
It’s happening wherever we choose conversation over competition, mentorship over marketing, and integrity over image.
And maybe, just maybe, it’s happening in you, too.
In Praise of the Seasoned Mystic
The seasoned mystic is not flashy.
She is not optimized for virality.
She is the one who remembers — and reminds others — that becoming whole takes time.
She is of the earth, not the algorithm.
Her presence is her influence. Her steadiness is her reach. Her authenticity is her marketing strategy.
So to all of us of “a certain age,” and all who are simply tired of pretending — keep tending the depth. Keep showing up, even when the metrics don’t mirror your worth. Keep teaching what you know in your bones.
Because when the trends burn out — and they always do — people will come looking for the real thing.
And they’ll find you.
And to the young goddesses and priestesses among us- if you are working with your own older, wiser sage, mystic or mentor, be proud of carrying on the lineage and let others know this is part of your own path as a healer and teacher.
Want to explore your own interior landscape?
