This One Life we all participate in expresses itself in a play of opposites, like that of feminine and masculine. We move through and as both of them, whether we are born male or female. Unfortunately for the last 6000 years the distorted values of the masculine principle have been dominant in our patriarchal culture, whilst the feminine ones have been oppressed. At this time in history we as a culture have come to a crisis and need to re-dress this imbalance. The turning of the tide is not without resistance and yet it feels unstoppable. It’s taking hold of our lives, as many around us can testify. We are experiencing an urgency to value again qualities of the feminine, such as being, creativity, surrender, cyclical nature, sensuality, irrational, intuitive and body-knowing, emotional fluidity and expression.
In the Sumerian myth of Innana, the heroine makes a journey of descent- going down into the underworld to unite with her “dark sister”. The going down and embracing the shadow seems to be the key to the feminine journey, which is two fold. We are called to re-inhabit our body waist down, to reclaim our sexuality, the primeval forces and powers that embedded in our womb and, at the same time, to plunge into the lower regions of our psyche where the raw power awaits in the form of unwanted emotions. Thus the feminine way becomes that of embodiment and love. Radical love, where every aspect of us is seen and welcomed.
I am a woman.
I have been thought that I must look pretty and be nice. I am valued when I display my intelligence and confidence out in the world. I am welcomed in its institutions and organisations as long as I dress appropriately and control myself. I must control my sensitivity and the grief I feel when I experience the abuse of my body’s wisdom and that of the Earth. I must control the rage I feel when I see natural force of life trampled and distorted in the name of rules. I must sanitize my bloody mess, hide all chaos and decay. Control. I must control, so that nothing unexpected happens.
But if I withdraw my power from all the efforts to control and let it flow through my body, I would roar like a lioness. My womb would sprout roots running down my legs, through my feet and into the ground. I would dance on the earth in my knowing of her goodness and the her caring nature. I would delight in visions of snakes, mud and roots swirling together to create an intimacy of dark love. Dark love that caresses and devours, than spits out in a new form. Erotic slowness, sweet and connected, where there is no wrong, only trust and reverence for this sacred Earth.
When she awakens in me, I get intimate with each of my tender shapes and inner structures. I taste, touch and cares every single experience as sacred. I honour the cycle of birth, growth and decay. I allow disorientation and bring love to not-pretty. I see beauty indiscriminately and allow failure, again and again. I expand my heart to include that which has not been included, without end. I embrace endless displays of opposites in existence, trust my intuitive, irrational knowing. I say yes and no without justification. I am all and I don’t park anywhere, endlessly meeting each moment as a lover, each energetic quality as an expression of the divine. I change without warning or reason.
I am here, emerging, returning. I have always been here, just underneath the surface, closer than you know. Listen and I will show you the way. I will sustain you.
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