About

The Path

The Radiant Threefold Path — Return+Reclaim+Receive — is a journey of reclamation, inviting you to discover your unique, authentic feminine essence.

The Path invites you to return to the truth of your original self, to reclaim and manifest the highest expression of you, and to receive everything that is meant for you.

The Radiant Threefold Path emerged out of the following truths about the feminine, as it is experienced by women in their everyday lives:

1 She is ridiculed or insulted for being who she is.
2 She is made invisible and unseen through exclusion, disenfranchisement, and dismissal of her ways of being and seeing the world.
3 She is routinely shunned or attacked for claiming her rights or speaking her truth.
4 She is dis-membered — divided in mind, body, and spirit — by means of spoken and unspoken rules about how she should look, how she should spend her time, where she can go, where she is safe, or what she is capable of accomplishing in the world.

Having been ridiculed, made invisible, attacked, and dis-membered, she is remade — but not in her image.

As a nearly unrecognizable version of her Self, she unwittingly and often unknowingly supports the very power structures that keep her fragmented self "in her place," as that place is defined by a system in which she has no meaningful voice.

If you resonate with these truths, you are living an ancient story of the feminine that goes back many centuries. And as disheartening as these truths are, we must begin here with the truth if we desire to be free.

Conception

The Radiant Threefold Path was conceived in the mid-1990s when, on any ordinary morning, I woke up with a faint memory of a cryptic 11-word dream, and an obscure image of a painting in red and blue.

The Tao is revealed as if it were her ancient body.”

That was it, and nothing more. No explanation, no translation, and no real clue about its meaning. But it was clearly a message not to be ignored or forgotten.

The words were iconic, and they stayed with me and lived in me like a koan — a type of sacred riddle particular to Buddhism. Koans are murky statements or completely nonsensical questions like, “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” They are meant to bypass the logical, reasoning mind for the sole purpose of breaking through deluded thinking and waking you up.

Venus of Willendorf, c. 28,000-25,000 B.C.E.

“The Tao” may be translated as the Path or the Way, so I tried to understand what it might mean that a path would be revealed as if it were “her” (whose?) ancient body.

At the time, Venus of Willendorf was the oldest known physical representation of the female form on Earth, so I thought maybe it was related to her. But how?

“The Tao” may be translated as the Path or the Way, so I tried to understand what it might mean that a path would be revealed as if it were “her” (whose?) ancient body.

At the time, Venus of Willendorf was the oldest known physical representation of the female form on Earth, so I thought maybe it was related to her. But how?

Venus of Willendorf, c. 28,000-25,000 B.C.E.

The dream and the inquiry into its meaning silently and quietly gestated inside me for years.

Then, in the summer of 2018, the word became flesh, so-to-speak, when I dreamed another dream — this one of bright green lizards swarming my office. This strange reptilian visitation led me to an exploration of the meaning and symbolism of these prehistoric creatures that date back over 200 million years.

Through this reptilian inquiry, I discovered one of the earliest known creation myths, the Enuma Elish, an ancient Babylonian creation story from the 7th century B.C.E., and met the myth's ill-fated female protagonist — Tiamat.

The first four lines of the Enuma Elish are:

“When in the height heaven was not named,
And the earth beneath did not yet bear a name,
And the primeval Apsû, who begat them,
And chaos, Tiamat, the mother of them both . . . ”¹

Clay tablet fragment of the Enuma Elish from the 7th century BCE (The British Museum, London)

I was particularly struck by this line:

“And chaos, Tiamat, the mother of them both . . . ”¹

Until I read these words I had never heard her name, but her role as Mother in the history of creation myths cannot be overstated.

She began to make appearances in my life, as often happens when one makes a new discovery. She visited me in dreams and she even made a guest appearance in the unlikely title (but curiously significant subtitle), The Bullet Journal Method: Track the Past, Order the Present, Design the Future.

In the creation story — and in traditional commentaries on the Enuma Elish — Tiamat is described as a vengeful, murderous, evil mother bent on killing her offspring after they murdered her husband.

When she rises up to seek justice and avenge her husband's death, she is destroyed, split in two, and dismembered by her son, Marduk. He then takes her severed body and turns it into “a covering for heaven”:

"Then advanced Tiamat and Marduk, the counselor of the gods;
To the fight they came on, to the battle they drew nigh.
The lord spread out his net and caught her,
And the evil wind that was behind him he let loose in her face.
As Tiamat opened her mouth to its full extent,
He drove in the evil wind, while as yet she had not shut her lips.
The terrible winds filled her belly,
And her courage was taken from her, and her mouth she opened wide.
He seized the spear and burst her belly,
He severed her inward parts, he pierced her heart.
He overcame her and cut off her life;
He cast down her body and stood upon it.
When he had slain Tiamat, the leader,
Her might was broken, her host was scattered. . . .

Then the lord rested, gazing upon her dead body,
While he divided the flesh of the . . . , and devised a cunning plan.
He split her up like a flat fish into two halves;
One half of her he stablished as a covering for heaven."

It is unclear from the original text what happened to the other half of Tiamat’s body, but it is clear that her body was used to cover and support the universe.

Rivkah Harris in Gender and Aging in Mesopotamia² describes Tiamat’s fate this way:

The primal mother becomes the raw material for the formation of the universe. The male god decides the form; the goddess contributes the matter, thereby losing her form (and her individuality). (Rivkah, p. 87)

Modern feminist commentaries challenge the traditional characterization of Tiamat as the negative stereotype of womanhood — venomous, evil, and bent on deceiving and destroying. Seen through this negative stereotype, she threatens male control and is therefore intolerable. (Rivkah, p. 86-87)

Seen as a mature, complex woman freed from the veil of the negative stereotype, Tiamat is independent, authoritative, and powerful as she seeks justice for the death of her husband. Like so many women throughout time who have been tested by life and emerged scarred yet stronger, Tiamat is no longer willing to trade submission and conformity for safety and security.

In her story, I saw the path that is available to every woman who desires to know and reclaim her authentic self. The path from darkness and fragmentation, to radiance.

The Invitation

The story of Tiamat is the story of everywoman. The memory of her ancient body is in each of us, now.

As primordial mother, she invites you to become Creatrix — Mother to your Self —liberated from invisibility and servitude, re-membered, healed, and restored.

The Radiant Threefold Path — Return+Reclaim+Receive — is an invitation to return and discover your original self, reclaim the deep knowing and expression of who you are, and to receive, which is your feminine birthright.

When you know who you are and what you desire, name your desires, and open to receiving them, you are whole, abundant, and radiant.

From this place of abundance and radiance, you have the power to offer what is uniquely yours to give. And when you do, you will light up the Universe.

Holding the vision of you — radiantly empowered,

Vicki Tidwell Palmer
Creatrix of The Radiant Threefold Path

Get your copy of the Invitation to The Radiant Threefold Path here

About Vicki

For more than three decades, Vicki has worked with courageous women as they have faced, healed, and overcome deeply personal wounds.

She is most well known for her work with partners moving beyond betrayal, and as a thought leader in the field of personal and relationship boundaries, through her #1 best-selling book Moving Beyond Betrayal and her podcast, Beyond Bitchy: Mastering the Art of Boundaries (2018-2021).

Whether working with survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, human trafficking, or partners moving beyond betrayal, she observed time and again that the path from wounding to wholeness begins with each woman returning to her authentic self, reclaiming her truth, and opening to receive what is meant for her.

The Radiant Threefold Path — Return+Reclaim+Receive — is an organic expansion of Vicki's work with women over the past three decades into the universal theme of the reclamation of the feminine and the empowerment of women.