I awoke the other morning with the knowing that this woman’s body is an altar.
My body is an altar, as are all bodies. As is the Earth.
How might your life be different if you knew this to be true, knew it deep down in the marrow of your bones, deep in the bowl of your belly, deep in the layers of your skin?
How might you wash your face?
How might you brew your tea?
How might you be with yourself? with others? with Life?
How might your sense of Love change?
What would it take for you to know this, throughout the cells of your being?
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365 Altars
365 Altars - cloth and image by Jeanne
An altar is a place you go to reclaim your woman’s intuition. This place says to the busy, rational mind, “Quiet down—let the deeper, wiser woman within you speak!†Over time your view of yourself and your place in the world shifts. The altar becomes a sacred space because you place symbols of your true self on it. As you sit before the altar, these symbols act as mirrors reflecting your deeper self. You see yourself differently while looking in the mirror, and, in time, you find the courage to be this authentic self more frequently in the world. The peace you’ve invested in your altar now radiates back to you. ~ Denise Geddes
“There are so many things I’ve wanted to do, things I’ve longed to investigate, things I’ve wanted to at least try, I can’t help but wonder how my life might be differently now had I silenced those nay-saying Committee of Jeanne members advocating abandonment and moved forward, following the interest, the hobby, the question, the idea without regard to return on investment and such.
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Every day – every single day – I will stop, drop, and honor my deepest sumptuous self in one way or another. Every single day, I will commit one single creative act – maybe more. I’d love to have you join me as and if and when you will.”
Waking up to the knowing of my body as an altar was born directly out of Jeanne’s creation. As I read her deepest desire to honor the sacredness in herself and to offer a way and community in which to do so, I could feel the rekindling of a deep, deep longing to honor Self in this way.
Jeanne is a woman who knows deep things. She sees things others don’t. Her deepest sumptuous self honors women in a way we must come to embody if we are to survive.
The Earth as Altar
Honoring Self is honoring the sacred, the divine, the Life that moves through all of existence.
Remembering the sacred in the body is awakening to the sacredness at the heart in every cell of Life, and when we do it within our own selves, we also do it for the Earth, a glorious being who is needing our love, our reflection, and a remembrance of the sacredness that she is.
There is no separation between your body and the Earth. We’re made of her clay. Our fluid is her fluid. Our breath is her breath. Our sacred substance is her sacred substance.
Find someway to honor your Self, your creativity, your divinity. And, share it with another.
This is Larry Merculieff. He speaks  on indigenous elder wisdom and modern day personal to global challenges.
I feel this is one of the most important videos of this time. It is over fourteen minutes long, and it is worth watching many, many times. From this talk:
“Most men and women, and even many spiritual leaders, have forgotten why women were considered sacred. Because, like a hologram inside of their bodies is the direct and exact sacred condition as the womb in the center of the universe, that is physically manifested in their womb.”
“Women, now, are being called to restore their own center of power, because even with all of this violence that has been done to women for thousands of years, you still hold this sacredness in your bodies…in the womb.”
“There is a sacred vibrational field inside of the woman that we have forgotten to honor that is the place of all the things born. Nothing new can be birthed without woman.”
“There is a way out of this and it is going to be led by women.”
“Without restoring the sacred feminine, nothing new is going to occur in this world. Nothing. We can’t think ourselves out of these problems.”
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Please share with me how this video moves you, as a woman, as a man.
“I have come to believe over and over again that what is most important to me must be spoken, made verbal and shared, even at the risk of having it bruised or misunderstood.†~ Audre Lorde
Hello beautiful!
I wanted to share something exciting with you.
I’m going to be holding a teleclass for Sherold Barr’s Women Heal the World community titled,
“Exploring the Realm of Womanhood & the Rising Sacred Feminine.”
On the call, we’ll explore the rising of the sacred feminine principle and awakening to the sacredness of womanhood. Sound interesting? I hope so. It’s what I feel compelled to speak and share.
I met Sherold online and then spent some time in person with her at the World Domination Summit last June in Portland. Sherold is a dynamic woman doing wonderful healing work in the world. We’ve had some wonderful engaging conversations like this one…
I sense our conversation next Tuesday is going to be the same.
If you can’t make the call, no worries. The teleclass will be recorded and you will receive and MP3 audio recording.
Consider joining Women Heal the World. There is no cost to do so, and you’ll be connected to women around the world who want to Make Peace, not War.
I’d love to have you join us on Tuesday! See you there.
2) Click “JOIN TEAM†or login if you’re already on the team
3) Click “FIND A LOAN†(there are options on the left side to narrow your search)
4) Choose who YOU want to loan $25 to and click “LEND $25“and then click “CHECK OUTâ€
5) You will notice a $3.75 “Optional Donation to Kiva’s Operation Costs.†You may click on “EDIT†and change or remove that amount if you like.
The first few days of November hold deeply meaningful things for me.
November 1st is the date I was due with my first child, Jackie. She came eleven days later, on November 11, but for some reason I always remember the 1st, too, as if the day I was due to deliver also marked the crossing of a threshold.
Perhaps it was because for eight months this date stretched out in front of me as the day I would become a mother. I remember the feeling of this date being etched in my heart before I knew how my heart would break open to the unconditional love I felt when I first held each of my daughters.
The last day of October and first few days of November also mark a time when the veil between life here and life beyond is thin – then enough to feel and sense life on the other side. Life almost seems to have a magical quality to it during these hours and days.
In these days, I feel a strong desire to go inward, to begin the descent into the darker months of late autumn and winter. This desire to go inward sits awkwardly with the warm sunny days we have here in the Bay Area during this same time.
Yesterday, I spent a part of my day co-working with a few fellow coaches and writers. At the suggestion of Tara Mohr, we began to meet one day a month to work together, to enjoy community, and I’ve come to look forward to simply being with these lovely women.
As I sat in Rachel‘s kitchen, the sun shined so brightly into the room that I could have sworn it was late July. While the heat felt like summer, the warm cozy colors of her home deepened the urge I feel to settle indoors, making a warm cozy space in which to write.
Andrea and her son joined us as we took time out from work to eat. I felt so at peace simply being with friends, eating good food and talking about everyday things. I tend to be a loner, and I’ve been consciously trying to spend more time with others.
The way of women is to come together, and for some reason I learned habits that conditioned me to spend so much time alone. I am learning to come together with women. It hasn’t been easy. And, I long for it.
I’ve had the pleasure
of getting to know another woman, a woman I first met at the World Domination Summit in June. We met in an unexpected way. The doors of the hotel elevator opened and lo and behold, Jamie Ridler, who I had only known through social media, stood there right in front of my eyes. I witnessed her divine smile in real time.
Just a few weeks ago, Jamie invited me to be a guest on her podcast series. Let me tell you, speaking with Jamie was one of the most ease-filled times I’ve ever experienced. As you’ll notice on the podcast, our conversation was so fluid and effortless.
In this podcast, Jamie also shares some of her own wisdom. And then, further into the recording, Jamie and I speak of creativity and the Feminine, what it means to be creative as a woman.
I’m excited to share this talk with you. I hope you enjoy it, and I’d love to hear what it sparks for you.
As I settle more deeply into my time here in Hana, I feel the softness of this land bringing out the soft, supple places in my body and heart. My soul responds to the beauty and fragrance of this Frangiapani, collected on my walk this morning. There was no clear sunrise, but rather a cloudy and warm drizzly beginning to this day.
I can feel the pull of this place, a pull that tugs at the core of my body, pulling me down into Her. When I arrived and realized I had been called here, that this place had called me, this pull made itself known.
In some ways, it’s like the pull you feel on your whole body as you stand in a wave being drawn back to the ocean. The pull of the tide is mighty.
This pull feels like it’s pulling me down into this place, whatever this ‘place’ is. I don’t know. Yet I know the feeling as it pulls not only on my body, but on my heart as well.
And, sometimes, She’s not gentle at all. As I exited the surf the other day, a wave with a punch lifted me up and tossed me down without warning. I landed on the side of my head. I felt woozy. I felt disoriented and had to sit to collect myself. I remembered a good healthy respect for nature that I had forgotten.
As I walked the beach this morning, one thing was very clear. No matter how much I try to make up a strong strand of meaning in my life, I could clearly see, there is no meaning…at least not one that I might make up. Oh, yes, I will still try to make it up, ’cause that’s what minds do.
Yet in this place of tropical bird calls and sweet Frangiapani spread out across the ground, I find when I simply be in my body and open my senses to every layer of experience that presents itself, I know no meaning.
In feeling the pull to this place, I know no meaning, but I listen and witness. I am opening. There’s a softness in this opening, a palpable tenderness. I also am aware of my fear of my own power, a power I see all around me, in the waves crashing against the shore and in the volcano on whose base I am sleeping.
The feminine is mysterious. She’s contradiction. She’s unreasonable. And, so am I.
The more alive and awake I become, the more embodied I am, the more I cannot hide: from myself, from life, from the truth. And even though part of me would like to hide, who I really am keeps bringing me closer to this place: awakening to the power of the Feminine, the power of Her, the power of the Mother.
This is where our power lies as women…in our bodies. Bodies tied to the Earth, alive like the Earth, and awake like the Earth.
Being in the Body…
is vulnerable. Very vulnerable.
Being alive is a vulnerable proposition.
Being wholly alive as a woman in a misogynistic culture can feel overwhelming when you’re tuned into the energy that is held in the shadow of the culture.
There is an implicit (and in some places explicit) physical threat to women who speak truth rather than follow the dictates of the culture that would ask us to keep silent. The level of obvious threat is relative to the level of freedom we have in the culture we live in. The level of not-so-obvious threat is not quite so relative to that freedom. Sometimes, in some cultures, even though things look pretty calm on the surface, underneath we feel the unspoken waves of hatred and anger that misogyny breeds.
In this female body, I know I am susceptible to harm, to hurt, to invasion. I know, because I’ve experienced it. I know because many of my friends and other women I’ve met have experienced it. I know, because women all over the world are experiencing it right now.
Many of us have learned to protect our vulnerability in this physical world with a tough exterior. Many of us have learned instead to find ways to be small, to take up little space. In so many ways, we’ve learned to hide this soft, soft place inside so it can’t be hurt, and to protect this body that can be the target of people who take their aggression out on the female form.
Men, too, have beautiful soft places of vulnerability, and this culture has taught them well how not to show them. And in a culture where it is part of the very foundation of the structure for men to hold power over women, how they experience vulnerability is different than how women experience it. Different.
Every woman…
finds a way to stay safe in a culture where she is not safe simply for being her full self. We cut away parts of ourselves. We become silent, stuffing down the words we would say in a heartbeat if we felt we could. We become like men. We even adopt attitudes and beliefs that keep other women down, and that take away our own sovereignty. We trade truth for being wanted. We give up hope of ever knowing ourselves for who we really are. We pretend we can’t hear our own selves crying out.
Even though there are many women who’ve adopted ways of being I don’t agree with, I can see why they’ve adopted them. I don’t have to agree with a woman to understand how vulnerable she feels in this world.
There is upheaval happening on so many levels, both internally and externally; individually and collectively. We’re experiencing destruction and creation, death and re-birth, together. The deeper I drop into my body, the more I feel the upheaval that’s here right now.
In the body,
we are in tune with what is here. In the body, we are fully connected to the Earth and each other.
In the body, we have access to the wild and feral self, the intuitive and instinctive realms where we know things our minds could never understand.
In the body, we come back in tune with our sacred creativity, the primal Yes of creation, the Mystery.
Anat Vaughan-Lee, in a closing reflection titled, “Making the Way for the Feminine” at the 2008 Conference “The Global Peace Initiative for Women” in Jaipur, India, shared these remarks:
The feminine, whether the feminine quality or women themselves, holds the secret of creation, which is the light hidden in matter. This is very important to understand; that if one is to do any real spiritual work at this time of global and ecological crisis, one has to realize that the feminine holds the unique understanding of the sacredness in matter and also how we need to reawaken this aspect in life.
The feminine is both the feminine principle or quality, and also women, all women. It is both important for men to reclaim the feminine within themselves, and for women to remember, and reclaim, who we really are. To quote Anat, again:
Woman has to remember, reclaim who she is and by doing so, reclaim, midwife, the reawakening of the spiritual understanding of life. And I am also reminded of what Mother Teresa said: “We serve life not because it is broken but because it is Holy.”
Just like life, our bodies are sacred.
Embodiment can be remembering, living and serving this sacredness that lies at the heart of womanhood.
It’s an invitation that awaits our reply…
If you missed them, part one and part two will offer more about this invitation.
And, you?
I’d love to know how you experience this sacred creativity within you as a woman.
If you enjoyed this three-part series:
I’m in the process of putting these three posts, and more, into an ebook on embodiment. I invite you to send me stories of your experience, of how you see embodiment in your own life, for inclusion in the book. It is all completely confidential, of course.
Thank you, as always, for your willingness to participate here with me. I learn so much from what you share.
Everyone sees the unseen in proportion to the clarity of his heart, and that depends upon how much he has polished it. ~ Rumi
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Reverb10 Day 10 Prompt:
Wisdom. What was the wisest decision you made this year, and how did it play out?
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My wisest decision this year was to travel to Ireland. My decision to go was based solely on intuition and trust. I trusted something felt, something unseen. Something deep inside called me there.
Jeff wanted to go to Maui. We’d had a very foggy summer and he was ready for warm sun and water. I went there last year and loved it. And, even though the moist land of Hana called to me, Ireland called to me in way I couldn’t analyze or understand. I just knew I had to go, and Jeff willingly agreed.
We saw much of the Republic of Ireland during the two weeks we were there. The land was enchanting. The people were some of the friendliest I have ever encountered in my travels. We saw many sites of the Sacred Feminine and soaked up the Land of the Goddess.
There, in this lush, wild land, the earth welcomed me home.
It is wise land. It felt as if it held a wisdom ripened over thousands of years. It affected me in countless ways – some seen and obvious, and some unseen and mystical.
The land of the Goddess seeped into my cells. That’s the only way I can describe it. Even now, months later, sitting in my home in California, I can feel her in me: the peat of Connemara, the rockiness of the Burren, and the wild heather of Glendalough.
Ireland was a great teacher. She polished my heart and taught me to trust in that which can’t be seen. She taught me to trust in that which is felt and known, yet can’t be explained in any logical way. She taught me to know that her wildness is my wildness, her beauty is my beauty, her sensuality is my sensuality.
Thirty-seven years ago today, 11/11, I held her in my arms for the first time. She came into life, I became a mother. It was a day that changed me forever.
Holding her in my arms for the first time, I knew a love I’d never even comprehended prior to that moment. A love completely unconditional. A love that would deepen over the years as she grew into womanhood, left home, married, became a mother, and handled life’s challenges and graces with such strength and courage.
Sitting here writing this post, I can’t begin to put into words the depth of this love for my daughters, I have two, and their children. It is completely unconditional. While in my day-to-day life I may do things in very conditional ways, not always showing up in the moment in a way that reflects this unconditional love, the limitless depth of the love in my heart is always here.
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Four years ago, I was sitting in an ashram in India. Amma’s ashram. I was sitting in meditation while Amma gave darshan. Long lines of people would show up every day she was at home in her ashram, when she wasn’t touring the world giving hugs. Sitting in her love-filled temple, I was profoundly moved. My eyes came upon an Indian woman and her small child. They were sitting across from me, on the other side of the temple. She was holding him in her arms while he slept. She looked like the Madonna with child. A beautiful light surrounded them, a light not visible with my eyes, but wholly visible with my heart.
In that moment, this memory of the moments I became a mother, and the love that filled my heart for my babies, once again flooded my consciousness. This time, though, it wasn’t inside me, it surrounded me. It held me. It was me, and I was it. This love was so deep, so full, so rich that everything in my awareness was bathed in love.
Sitting here, writing this post, I feel it once again. This love. This universal motherhood consciousness that Amma speaks of. It is in us all. We are all bathed in it. Women and men, whether parents or not, are all universal mothers to all the world’s children.
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Thirty-seven years ago, I was seventeen. I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I was meant to give birth to this child. I knew it in a place within me that was ancient and wise, a place that knows what I am here to do. As a young mother, I drew upon a strength and wisdom that flowed from this ancient place, a fountain of wisdom and love. I drew upon the sacred feminine consciousness within me, within my body, within my heart.
I certainly was far from a perfect mother. Far from it. Yet, something deeper flowed through my imperfect actions. Something unconditional infused my ways of loving conditionally.
This female intelligence, this wisdom, strength and knowing, runs through all women. We know what is right for our souls. We know what is right for our bodies. We know what is right for our children. When we are in touch with this wisdom, we know.
I knew this was right for me, for my soul and the soul of my daughter from some deep place within me. No one else could make this choice but me. It was the right choice for me, and that says nothing about what is right for any other woman.
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So much that has been done through the structure and paradigm of patriarchy has clouded and obscured our female intelligence, our feminine ways of knowing. We’ve been cut off from the sacred feminine. We’ve been led to believe She is not here, that we can’t trust our own knowing and wisdom. She has been kept down in the dark. Yet, don’t let that fool you for a moment. This female intelligence has always been here. She is now rising into the light, up into consciousness.
She is living and breathing inside you right now. Somewhere you know this, even if you can’t quite yet trust Her.
Open to Her. Receive Her. Remember Her in your cells. Let Her bring forth your tears of grief for having lost touch with Her. Let Her bring forth this universal wisdom within you, so that you may shower your own heart and body with Her love. For Her love is your love, Her wisdom is your wisdom, Her ferocity is your ferocity.
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Happy Birthday, beautiful daughter, wise woman.
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And, you?
I’d love to hear about your female intelligence. What you know. What you see. What you feel. We all learn by knowing what another woman knows of her own experience.
