The Primordial Storm and the Turning of the World

Late in February of this year, something happened in my home that changed my paradigm.

It began with a loud slam upstairs. I was standing in the kitchen when I heard it, a sudden crash from the bathroom on the second floor. The kind of noise that travels through the floorboards. But I didn’t think much of it. We have suction hooks attached to the shower wall that sometimes let go, knocking bottles and brushes onto the floor. It’s loud when it happens, but ordinary enough. So, I kept going about my day.

A couple of hours later, I went upstairs to grab something. I still cannot remember what it was. When I stepped into the bathroom, I noticed something odd. Items from a tall cabinet were scattered across the floor. Not things that typically fall on their own. Things that have stood in their place on top of a high cabinet for months and weeks without disruption. I stood there for a moment, puzzled, but shrugged it off. I picked everything up, reorganized the cabinet, and went back into the hallway.

That’s when I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. I walked into my exercise/meditation room and saw the movement. This is the quietest room in the house, where I do my personal inner work through visualization and meditation. And there, sitting calmly as if it had always belonged there, was a starling. Now here’s the strange part. There was no way for this bird to get inside the house. No open windows. No open doors. No vents that could have served as an entrance. Yet there it was. Just watching me from the other side of the small room.

I stopped for a moment to consider how rare this occurrence was, then did the obvious thing. I opened the window, pulled down the screen, and stepped back to give it space, allowing the small bird to escape. A moment later, I heard the flutter of wings and the soft rush of air as it flew out the window. I then conducted a house-wide search for any open windows, doors, vents, and other openings. I found nothing. Mystery not solved, I thought, but at least the poor bird is free.

Later that day, when my son came home, he asked me why his bedroom lights were on. I could not give him an explanation because I knew they were off. After the starling was released, I conducted a thorough inspection of each room. During this investigation, I remember his room was dark, his string lights were off, and I had to turn on the big light to see.

This is when I began telling him about my experience with the starling. Halfway through the conversation, he stopped, tilted his head, and said, “Mom… did you hear that?” I didn’t. He was closer to the door than I was. He walked downstairs and, with urgency, called me down from the base of the stairs. Another starling—this time flying around the living room and dining room! Of course, my first thought was, “WTF?”

At that point, the logical explanations completely unraveled. There was still no door open. No window. No entry point. And as if that wasn’t strange enough, little things kept happening. My son walked into his room shortly after and said, “Mom… why are my lights on?” We did not turn them on. He also swears he heard a small rustling noise from the side of this bed that he could not recreate.

I am sure many of you out there reading this are about to come out of your skin. You might even be screaming at me, “RUN! GET THE HELL OUT OF THAT HOUSE!”

The rest of you, who are skeptics or perhaps have a different understanding of these kinds of instances, know we were in no danger. Nothing dramatic happened. Nothing threatening. Just… strange. I recognized instantly that these occurrences are messages. Spirit is speaking loudly, and communication is unstable. Frankly, this is my favorite kind of communication. There is no debunking it, no denying it, so listening becomes my only course of action. Sometimes when life becomes strange, it’s worth paying attention, so this is when I perk up and listen.

A Starling Messenger

As soon as I confirmed for myself that this was an obvious message, call me a skeptical believer. I investigated the symbolism of the starling, and the meaning hit hard.

Starlings symbolize unity, adaptability, and communication, often representing the power of community, resilience, and collective action—synchronized movements through massive murmurations. In spiritual contexts, they are seen as messengers, guides between life and death, and symbols of social connection, intuition, and adaptability. After I debunk, I get quiet, then read messages through folk and spiritual context. Much like you might read a Tarot card, I read animals.

In many streams of European folklore, especially those carrying the current of Celtic tradition with the influence of Brigid, the starling has long been recognized as a messenger of change. Not quite an incremental change either. The kind that rearranges things. The kind that wakes people up… stirs the cauldron so to speak.

Starlings are remarkable birds. Anyone who has watched a murmuration of these birds knows this. Hundreds (and sometimes thousands) of birds move together in vast living clouds across the sky, twisting and folding through the air as if the entire flock shares a single mind. There is no commander at its center. No single bird calling the shots. Instead, each one responds to the subtle movements of the others. Together, they create a protective collective, confusing predators and navigating the air through cooperation rather than hierarchy. To me, it is a distinct marker of Matriarchal leadership.

Matriarchal leadership is nurturing, focused on the collective, centered on stewardship, intergenerational care, and community over competition. Key markers include fostering authentic spaces, practicing courageous kindness, sharing knowledge, and balancing fierce protection of the team with compassionate, needs-oriented decision-making.

Starlings are also clever creatures, highly intelligent and famously talented mimics. Starlings can replicate sounds from their environment with startling precision. Human voices, mechanical noises, other birds. They are communicators and storytellers in feathered form, reflecting the world around them back to itself. Because of these traits, the starling's symbolism carries several powerful themes.

First, community and unity. Murmuration demonstrates the strength of collective intelligence. Safety and resilience are created not through isolation, but through cooperation and shared awareness.

Second, communication and voice. Their mimicry connects them with expression, message-bearing, and the transmission of knowledge. When the starling appears in folklore, it often signals that something important is being spoken or needs to be heard.

Third, adaptability and resilience. Starlings are extraordinarily capable of thriving in shifting environments. They move with the changes rather than resisting them, navigating disruption with intelligence and flexibility.

Fourth, spiritual messaging. In several traditions, starlings are regarded as messengers between worlds, carriers of guidance, magick, and transformation, and sometimes as bearers of signals from the unseen.

In Brigid-influenced Celtic lore, they are linked with healing and fertility, qualities associated with the currents of Brigid herself. Roman observers, on the other hand, believed that starlings' movements could reflect the moods of the gods, interpreting their flights as omens of the shifting state of the world. To me, both are valid.

Across these traditions, one theme appears repeatedly: the starling is a herald. A creature that appears when something is about to move. When the atmosphere is changing. When the world, in one way or another, is beginning to rearrange itself. And lately, that message has been everywhere.

The Collective Signal

In the weeks surrounding this strange encounter, conversations across my communities began echoing the same theme.

Tarot readers pulling The Tower repeatedly.

Students telling me their guides were saying things like:

“Prepare.”

“Pay attention.”

“Buckle in.”

Friends sharing dreams about storms, collapsing buildings, or sudden revelations.

Even people who don’t normally pay attention to symbolism were saying the same thing:

Something is shifting. Not just personally, but collectively.

Now it’s easy for the mind to run toward fear when we hear things like that. But transformation has always carried some disruption. And if we look at this moment through the lens of the Divine Feminine, something deeper begins to emerge.

The Primordial Feminine and the Storm of Creation

In my work with the Divine Feminine, I often work with an archetype that appears to facilitate and usher in great shifts. I call her the Primordial. She is older than the Great Mother, who nurtures children and community, older than the Queen, who governs with sovereignty. She is the ocean before the first shoreline formed. She is the volcanic fire beneath the crust of the earth. She is the black fertile soil where decay becomes life—the erupting volcano that surrenders to the pressure beneath the surface. The Primordial Divine Feminine Archetype is an archetype of destruction and creation before structure. She is the intelligence of the universe before it becomes orderly. When she moves, things change in a big way!

Her lessons and cycles have echoed throughout my life in many ways. When she shows up, I know big shifts are about to play out, and I need to buckle up because things are about to get rough. She has made her presence known as old, stagnant relationships dissolved, during an economic crisis, as community groups fell apart, and as my career moved from the corporate sector into the deeply spiritual.

Mythologies around the world speak of primordial goddesses who bring both creation and destruction. But these forces are not opposite; they are partners. Forests burn so new growth can emerge. Rivers flood, allowing new landscapes to form. Storms tear apart stagnant ecosystems, allowing life to reorganize itself. The Primordial Archetype does not dismantle the world out of cruelty. She dismantles what has become too rigid, stagnant, corrupt, or unsustainable. It is an alignment toward authenticity. When structures begin to crack, when systems that seemed permanent begin to reveal their fractures, it often feels exactly like the energy of the Tower card.

Sudden suffocation. Uncomfortable restlessness. Unavoidable realities. We are all waking up to the brutality of our world’s leaders and the sacrifices we have made for their benefit and gluttony. Yet, beneath that upheaval is a deeper intelligence—the intelligence of renewal, personal strength, and possibility.

Living in the Threshold

It is also worth remembering the time of year when the starling appeared. Late February. The threshold between winter and spring, which happens to be the season of the Primordial—a time between life, death, gestation, and rebirth. The earth itself is beginning to shift. Sap rises in the trees. Seeds and bulbs begin to germinate beneath the soil. Light lingers longer in the evening sky as the days lengthen. As temperatures rise, the soil softens.

At this time, we can call on Brigid, the goddess of the Forge, as we learn to surrender and ignite our inner transformation. The Forge teaches us that metal does not become a blade or a tool by remaining solid, rigid, and unchanged. The metal must surrender to the heat and the hammer as it is formed. We, too, must soften before we can be shaped or reshaped. That process can look chaotic from the outside, possibly a little brutal, but it is the necessary stage of creation. Sometimes the world itself must enter the Forge.

When the Storm Passes: The Medicine Woman Appears

In the cycle of the Divine Feminine model I work with, the Primordial (or Ancient Mother) is not the only guide available to us. When upheaval moves through the world, another archetype (one of many) begins to rise quietly in its wake.

Enter The Medicine Woman.

In this case, the Medicine Woman is one of the other Divine Feminine Archetypes I am currently with. She walks through the aftermath of change with steady hands. She gathers herbs growing through disturbed soil. She tends wounds and stops the bleeding. She protects against infection. She listens deeply to what the body, the land, and the spirit within. Where the Primordial disrupts what has become stagnant, the Medicine Woman teaches us how to heal within the new landscape. She reminds us that resilience does not come from resisting change. It comes from learning how to adapt and live wisely through it.

She teaches us to heal ourselves so we can then heal others. This work might look simple: drink nourishing teas and eat a nourishing meal. Go for a walk outside, or ground ourselves in the rhythms of the earth and spend time with people who help us remember our humanity. It can look like deep dives into past trauma with your therapist, long, solitary retreats, and other deeper forms of self-care. Or it can mean you jump into action as you support your community in the best way you can. The Medicine Woman knows that healing begins with the most personal acts of care.

The Mother Who Nurtures the Future

And after healing begins, another archetype steps forward.

Next, we look to The Great Mother.

Where the Primordial Feminine brings the storm and the Medicine Woman tends the wounds, the Great Mother nurtures what comes next. She protects the fragile beginnings of the future: new ideas, new communities, new ways of living together. After disruption, the world does not immediately stabilize; we need to stabilize first, and this can take time and most definitely requires community support. A new evolution must be allowed to gain its footing. New pastures that have been cleared must now be carefully tended.

The Mother reminds us that whatever is being born through this moment (personally or collectively) will need compassion, patience, acceptance, and nourishment. Just like seedlings after a long winter.

The Wisdom of the Starling

Which brings us back to the starling. As I mentioned, these birds are famous for their murmuration, the enormous flocks that twist and turn across the sky like living poetry.

No single bird leads. No rigid structure controls the movement. Each bird responds as a collective. Together, this collective creates something breathtaking and protective. Perhaps that is the deeper lesson of this moment.

When the world shifts, we do not navigate it alone. We can and should move through it together.

Community, deep listening, and care all matter. Just as the starlings adjust their flight to one another, we adjust to the movement of the world around us. Instead of remaining scattered and shattered in the wake of all that is happening, we need to find community and work together to birth a new paradigm.

Trusting the Turning of the Tide

The starling(s) showing up in my house twice in one day were no coincidence. It was a clear message that big changes are coming, and they have the potential to be powerfully positive. In this time (2026), we MUST pay attention and work together.

When animals appear in unexpected places, when tarot cards repeat themselves, when people across different communities begin sensing the same currents of change, it is worth listening. Change can feel unsettling. It can unmoor us from what we thought was stable, but within the deeper rhythm of life, change is often the first movement of renewal.

The Primordial Mother stirs the waters.

The Medicine Woman tends the healing.

The Great Mother nurtures what is growing.

Somewhere above us, the starlings turn in the sky, moving together through the shifting winds.

I see the message as simple. Starlings are teaching us the value of working together to protect and reform the collective.

Reminding us to care for one another and trust that, even in the midst of disruption, life is preparing for the next season of growth. We can allow this new path to be forged, or we can resist.

Hold steady.

Stay rooted.

Listen to the messengers around you.

The Divine Feminine expresses itself through many archetypal energies—creator, healer, warrior, mystic, and more. This short quiz will help you discover which archetype is most ready to awaken within your life right now. Through nine reflective questions, you’ll receive insight into the gifts, shadows, and deeper wisdom this archetype holds for your path.

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