The healing of the feminine, the healing of the sacred

I’ve wondered before where in my lineage I became disconnected the old ways of being from the cycles of nature. In our ‘evolution’ into modernism we lost our way. 

I have recently been understanding how much this impacted me as a young girl growing into a woman -  that disconnection from the ‘Sacred’ which is nature,  being a loss of connection to the natural wisdom of the feminine. And then just how much that impacted me in terms of sexuality & relationship. 

As a young woman my initiation into womanhood was marked by some ceremonies at the jewish school I attended, an acknowledgements of responsibilities and family celebration. Yet somehow I did not feel like I was truly being shown the ways of connecting to the energy & mystery of the feminine embodiment.

I received pretty basic information about how to take care of my womb as my body began to attune to the moon. But our culture tends towards rational explanations of physiology and barely recognises the power and sensitivity that lies within. Like many young women I didn’t receive much guidance for cultivating those inner forces of nature that began to awaken. 

In its purest form - the energy of the feminine is that of Mother nature who brings creation into existence. It is the sacredness of water that is carried in the wombs of every woman. It is a life force of power and softness.  The sign that we are becoming ready to bear life through our first moon blood is spiritually significant and a huge responsibility. But of course as young ones, we don’t truly understand all this unless our culture truly values this sacred connection we all have to the natural world. 

Most religious structures threw out the older forms of animism and nature ritual that honoured the connection between human body and earth body.
Indigenous cultures still carry this wisdom even within their language. That sense of ‘relationship’ is embedded into human consciousness - where nature or earth is seen as a woman. From Her all life is born. Direct relationship can be seen in the word for earth, literally translated as “My mother” in the Dine langauge.

Initiations that young girls undertake in traditional cultures sometimes involve days of seclusion in nature, ritual and learnings of traditional stories and song. Its a way of understanding not just physical changes taking place but also the spiritual power coming through. The intention is to helping create a very real sense of connection to community & culture. It came with understanding that if the young woman has a strong sense of spiritual connection, the community would prosper and be strong. 
I think what was significantly missing from my own initiation ceremony was this connection to nature…. this sense of truly feeling for myself the power of spirit invoked by my community.  

Now - some friends in Australia, with young girls of age, have brought their own version of an initiation ceremony into their communities, often nature based, usually with an intention to express support and kinship. This is a reclamation of the old ways, even though many of us cannot find our way back to what was lost from our own ancestry. 

My mother herself did not receive a kind initiation into womanhood & earth wisdom. Through my lineage I can see how the women carried generations of pain as they navigated their own sense femininity through times when patriarchy and war was strong. My mother’s generation pushed to excel in careers as women ‘fought’ for greater equality in mainstream society. She worked extremely hard through long hours of work, post graduate study & mothering. I admired her feminine force even though I could see she pushed herself too hard. Yet I was often longing for more depth and wisdom to be shared with me to understand my own belonging. In fact I often felt like I didn’t belong….. 
Growing up in a city culture without that strong sense of community guidance or support from other women, I was influenced by a version of the feminine that was very distorted.  A subversive form of social conditioning was at play through television, magazines and school/peer influences, creating a strange ideal of beauty, a commodification of sexuality and a marked lack of what sacred relationship looked like. The ways of the sacred feminine was not visible, her ways lost in the culture around me. Inevitably my mind & body was confused. 

Recently, just before my birthday, I underwent a deep healing journey where I looked back on my life, especially my younger years as a girl growing into a woman. I realised how little I understood back then about taking care of myself energetically, and how little I understood of the sacredness of my emerging femininity & spiritual power.

In my naivety of youth, my curiosity led me to places that were dangerous. I exposed myself to the confused energy of boys & men, who had no idea themselves how to relate to the sacredness of the feminine. And I was not aware of the ways to protect myself, nor was I confident in my expressions of boundary. All this took place in the context of a culture that did not respect the body of Mother Earth and the body of women. I see how deeply this lack of the sacred connection to the feminine spirit of nature impacted me as a youth.  

And so I was very grateful for the wise support of two powerful men in my life, who helped me understand there was energy to be cleared from my womb space. O, the irony & beauty of having this reflection offered to me by the masculine.  As I undertook that healing journey into my wombspace I saw stories and glimpses of shame, guilt, regret. It was hard, uncomfortable work to move that energy. It was an invitation to reconnect with that vulnerability, beauty, love and innocence that lives within. It required deep trust on my side to be supported by the masculine to do this work in an earth-based way…. working deeply with the elements. It required strength and clarity on my Beloved’s part to be able to hold space for me, and feel the deep pain of the collective wounding of the feminine.

All women have experienced some sense of having her sacred body disrespected. Sometimes it led us to make choices that were unconsciously reinforcing the conditionings of a sick society.  Sometimes we were seeking to heal from a sense of separation and lack of love  - from other mother, or our Mother (that ever-loving energy of mama earth). 

Often we have chosen to hide those things that we are afraid others would judge us for. But we are all here for healing.  Trauma is not simply what happens to us, it’s usually a result of our inability or lack of opportunity to move through it. If any trauma or deep pain is suppressed or hidden, these things can becomes the source of addictive patterns and other coping mechanisms that can lead to illness of body and mind. 

It is so important to bring these things to the light, to clean the mess that we may have created unknowingly, to take responsibility for the choices we made, to humble ourselves to healing…. and not to get stuck in a sense of victimisation or helplessness. The healing of the collective feminine requires a warrior energy…. a reclamation of the sacred in all aspects of life, a commitment to tending to our energy bodies, to attuning to the rhythms of nature that move through us. 

This world is made of both light and darkness. Our energy bodies are luminous & pure in essence, but when we experience shock, trauma or the impact of deep pain - our energy field is affected. If we are not aware of this dance between light and dark, and if our energy bodies are not strong, we leave ourselves vulnerable for those darker energies to root in our spirit. There are many different ways we can strengthen our energetic bodies. Yet many of us did not learn these ways.  

We  often don’t realise the impact of opening up our energy fields when we drink alcohol or use other substances or medicines, especially in ‘unprotected spaces’. These are the places where those darker energies can ‘hook’ into our fields, leading us to make choices that are not aligned with our pure essence. And so that is how many of us have been led away from the light of Spirit, left with a feeling of emptiness or lack of agency. One choice leads to others in the same frequency. 

I speak this from experience. There have been incidences that deeply influenced my mind and body as a woman. For the most part I just tried to forget them… move on & beyond, learn and grow. In same ways that worked, yet there were pieces that remained undigested and stuck. They have shown up in times of aloneness and in the deep reflection of relationship with a Beloved, in other words - all those places were hiding is not possible.

Healing is not a final destination, it is a beautiful process of revealing oneself and coming back to Spirit. It requires an every-day commitment to staying aware to how we look after our energy bodies - by being aware of our thoughts, the places we go, the people we choose to spend time with, the way we express ourselves.
Many older cultures speak of energy in their medicine & spiritual systems. Slowly this older knowledge has been finding its way back to our strange culture that decided Spirit had no place in modern society.
Again, it is time to reclaim the Sacred in every aspect of our lives. 

I write this to hopefully inspire you to do the same. I write this also as a way of expressing how grateful I am for this wild and beautiful life.