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I’d been feeling adrift earlier this year. It felt like my body was being pulled along by an ocean current, moving by the force of an invisible thread that I could not make sense of. Lost is the word that comes to mind. But I didn’t know it, not consciously at least. I had a felt sense of it. Could grasp it somatically; a subtle thread within. But I couldn’t form the words on my tongue. All I knew was that something was missing, a deeper pulse of aliveness wanting to break through, but couldn’t.
It’s become clear to me over the last few weeks what that missing piece has been. There has been a deep, undeniable, almost ravenous-like call within me to return back to the feminine. Even as I write these words, a part of me cringes. Maybe hearing this shocks you, I admit, it may seem counter-intuitive given the nature of my work (hello, feminine embodiment). Allow me to explain.
I abandoned speaking about the feminine from my work a little under a year ago. Yes, I have an entire workshop devoted to this and yes I still weave the wisdom into everything I do, but I couldn’t bear to be associated with the word anymore. Maybe you’ve seen it online too. The Instagram ‘gurus’ and TikTok famous ‘coaches’ manipulating the truth of the feminine, the goddess, into something weak and subservient. Twisting the truth into something a little more religious and patriarchal.
This “feminine” is not in service of your internal power, but in service of the continuation of a patriarchal system that actively harms all who participates. Endless reels and posts dedicated to women, preaching how you too can let your man lead you, how you too can live completely from your feminine energy and have the world come to you. These ‘teachers’ were preaching that women should abandon their ambitions, alongside their intellect, to fawn to the masculine.
I saw the distortion of her true nature and I couldn’t bear to be associated with it any longer. I could not handle having my mission conflated with theirs. And so I turned my back and walked away from them, from her, and from me. I do not wish for women to abandon their power, I wish for women to claim it.
In every embodied flow practice I’ve moved through over the last few weeks, there has been a deep, powerful, cosmic, feminine presence around me. Again, I cringe to write this. But it is true. I have had visions of women, barefoot on the grass, holding hands in silence walking forward. These women are strong. These women are connected to the earth, themselves, and each other. I can feel their power in my body. It is a force that moves me to tears, even now.
The feminine is not, and has never been, about subservience. This is gendered messaging influenced by Christianity. The feminine is not about people pleasing behaviours or embodying the good girl. The feminine is so much more than a few synonyms of the same thing; small. The feminine is the depth of feeling, the chaos, the cyclical, the rhythmic, the emotional, the unconscious, and the sensual. To define her is to restrict her. The feminine is felt from within the landscape of your body.
The feminine is my lifeline. Every night I pray at her alter. When I left her calm embrace, abandoned the goddess for something less cringe, I forgot that through her was the only way I knew how to breathe. The feminine lives in every layer of skin that I have. Women’s blood, milk, and tears wove the fabrication of who I am today. How could I have abandoned this? How could something so beautiful ever be wrong? This raw, powerful thread that runs through my body like electricity. Here, I am home. In her arms, it all makes sense.
I thought my faith was obsolete. I thought my faith had to be justified and not just felt. But I feel her. I feel her in every layer of my skin; my true north and the beating heart of my life force. It feels good to allow this part of me to return home.
As a young girl I was taught to pray to something outside of me. A man, obviously, dressed in all white who would tell me if I was worthy of salvation. What a vicious lie. What a distortion of the truth of who I was, of who you are. I see the creator in the wisdom of my favourite flower. I see the creator in my lover’s laugh. I feel the creator in my body as I breathe. Can’t you feel the stirrings of something deeper, more connected, in your body right now?
My faith isn’t outside of me. My faith is felt. My faith is in the feminine. My faith belongs to me.
Wow!! This is so powerful and a full embodied YES. This is my holy scripture!! ✨✨