Medicine

I've been in an on-going conversation with women for the last several years that starts with a question, "what do you do in your daily life that feeds your female soul?" Depending on who I ask this question to it can be like a stick of dynamite thrown into a well. In many circles it's not ok to assume there is a difference between women and men, female and male. Well, since everything I have experienced since I was about four has taught me that not only is there a difference it's of the utmost importance that we re-learn how to celebrate these differences, I simply start from this place of certainty and go from there...and this project is an obvious tribute to what seems so very obvious to me; that the unique qualities that women are born with have necessary medicine for the planet, for humanity. This medicine has been silenced for many centuries, millenia in fact. So, if you're with me so far, the question "what do you do that feeds your female soul?" becomes a matter of life or death. or at least it could, if you allowed yourself to carry the beautiful weight of importance with you. If you allowed that your full thriving is integral to the full thriving of all life on the planet. And I will tell you that when I sit with my female clients I tell them that I am deeply invested in their ability to nourish and nurture themselves because it so profoundly effects their ability to contribute their full female selves to the world.

So here is where I get my own medicine, where I find nourishment for my female soul and I would Love to hear from you about where you get yours. This could blossom into a profound global conversation, a cross-cultural smörgåsbord of options for us each to choose from in our search to nourish that beautiful wild wisdom and voice deep inside each of us who is, perhaps, longing to have her day in the sun, her night in the moon...

Today a dear friend, Ixeeya, came over to offer henna to my body. She is a ceremonialist and ritual dancer, a world traveler. To her these things are life itself. So when she shows up at my house (for any purpose whether it's simply so we can roll around in the grass or run into the hills together) she brings the energy of queen and priestess. She brings ancient energy. She does henna as a ritual art. And she came over to offer me something to take on the two-month trip I'm taking with my boys to visit family and to begin to create a film which asks people the question, "What is beautiful in your life?" We rattled and saged and called in all the guides who might be coming with us on this journey. And as we did this I received a clear message: I needed an arm band on my left arm and a wide band around my right thigh, high up...these two things were the amulets that needed to come with me. So she began.

Getting henna'ed is a beautiful process. Ixeeya is an artist so she does not rush. She is also studying to become a shaman and she lets the spirit world move through her as she creates whatever piece she is painting onto my body. It took her two hours to do half the thigh band. This process was wildly intimate: for half the time she was crouching between my legs to get the portion of the band that runs between my thighs. And it reminded me that this is how sisters must be with each other if we are to be in right relationship with ourselves, our bodies, each other and our male lovers. We must touch each other intimately, lovingly, frequently. Tenderly touching another woman is, in many ways, like making Love to ourselves. You can't fully tell from the picture above, but this band has a snake, a wild pony, a bird of prey, the sun and the plant spirits all intertwined in a collage of beauty. On Sunday she will do the back half of the thigh band, putting the moon directly opposite the sun. She will also do the arm band.

After that I took myself into the hills, on a trail that, at the moment, has wet mossy rocks like ancient daughters of Ma herself looking down on the path, unapologetically gushing water with sandy beds, vividly colored wild flowers and tall grass. I ran and ran, following the path, until I was called to leave the trail. I went straight up the side of the hill until I found myself standing outside what seemed like a sacred place, a place of rock spirits and tree spirits with the setting sun streaming through the wet pine needles and branches. Everywhere I looked I saw life and it beckoned me. I stepped into this circle of high piled rocks, pine trees and wild flowers. There I did yoga. I did sun salutations to the setting sun with wide hip stretches to say "yes" and "thank you". I did tree pose in front of a beautiful young pine whose branches were reaching and stretching in fluid motion up to the sky. As I stood strong on my right leg I felt the power of the thigh band offered by Ixeeya wrapping itself around the sturdiest most muscled part of my leg. I did head stands in front of this tree, feeling the roots of me plunging into the earth to mingle with hers and the spirit of me lengthening my spine, up my legs and shooting out the souls of my feet and my toes toward the sun; a primal surge of electric current that nearly all living beings on this planet experience. After I was done I thanked everything and everyone that was responsible for my full self, I thanked my ability to feel all things (both pain and joy), thanked my ability to Love all things and I walked down the path seeing everything I had passed only an hour before in a new light.

This, for me, is medicine. And it keeps me tapped into the true power of what and who I am. What do you do on a daily basis that feeds your true self? What do you do that speaks to your female soul?

In Memorium

Just a few days ago a true matriarch passed away, (or "went home" as her granddaughter says) after 95 years of service in this world. Iva, who told her story in several installments (because if you live to be 95 it takes a long time to tell you story), was born in Kansas the oldest of five sisters. Iva met and married her husband when she was in her late teens. They had two children; a son and a daughter both of whom died before Iva. Her husband died when he was in his early forties leaving Iva to raise her children and her children's children. Now she has three grandchildren, six great grand children and more than ten great,great grandchildren with more on the way. Iva worked four jobs after her husband died, to make sure she could support everyone who needed (or might ever need) her help. Up until the day she died she was still concerning herself with her social security pension, even attempting to stick around long enough to get the June payment. When her granddaughter said, "it's OK grandma. You can go now. There's more than enough for everyone thanks to you. You can lay it down and go now" Iva seemed to listen, peacefully passing away in the early morning hours as the sun was just beginning to crack through the dusk.

Iva was a lover of women. I'm not referring to her sexual orientation but rather her life orientation. She was devoted to the women in her family. Her home, when I knew her, was a safe haven for women to go, lie down, make a cup of tea, tell their stories, ask for advice, sit at Iva's feet and simply cry...whatever needed to happen Iva's home was the place where you could let it down, speak it. I fell into this matriarchal culture of Iva's home so easily, like a seal slips into water. And there was a tacit expectation that when I walked through that door I was agreeing to engage in Truth Talk...and nothing else.

After Iva's death I was told of a family secret that had, as so many of them do, effected nearly everyone in the family, on some level or another. The family secret was a dark one and it cast its shadow on everyone and everything. After hearing about it I could see why so many things were the way they are...really, once you know the Truth everything tends to make perfect sense. Even if it hurts or makes us enraged, all events from that point on make perfect sense. This is why I Loved to do family therapy...once even just one person has the courage to speak the Truth you experience the 'ah-ha's' falling into place like dominoes. After I was honored with the Truth of this family secret, everything fell into place and I found myself sitting at my altar that night, tears streaming down my face speaking to Iva and all women still alive: Tell the Truth...speak the Truth. Perhaps I will go to my grave asking Muriel's question: "what if one woman told the truth about her life?"

This post is dedicated to the courage of women everywhere to step into the magnitude of our power by speaking our Truth. Surely if there is one religion, if there is one practice worth devoting ourselves to on a daily, hourly, minute-by-minute basis, it is the fearsome and irrevocably powerful act of speaking our Truth. Do it out of Love for the rightfulness of all things. Do it because you know that Love can only flourish in the presence of Truth. Do it because it is the necessary first step in our transition to a world in which all life is sacred.

There is in all things an invisible fecundity,

a dimmed light, a meek namelessness,

a hidden wholeness.

This mysterious Unity, and Integrity,

is Wisdom, the Mother of all, Natura naturans.

Thomas Merton

Silence...

Well, first off I feel I need to apologize for the poor blogging habits I've picked up as I've found myself juggling many things that seem to hold equal priority in my life: women & sisterhood, my two amazing children, a steady income, a personal life, a love life, and perhaps of most importance, my growing need to daily offer myself up to the wild places on this earth in order for me to stay powerful enough to nurture and stay present to all the above mentioned things. All of that seems a fairly poor excuse when you think that all blogging requires is ten minutes to process one of the many miracles and magic that occur in any given day. So, really there is never an excuse to not blog. And I'm determined to (try to) stay on top of it.

Having said that, if you're interested in reading something each day you may be required to tune in to two blogs because as of the 10th of June my two boys (Henry, 13 and Simon, 10) and I will be on the road for two months traveling around the US and Canada on an odyssey of reverence and celebration. We will be asking people, any people, all people, what they feel is beautiful in their lives, inviting them to share the objects/subjects of their awe with us in spoken word on camera, and in the process being reminded of all that is, and has been, so eternally right about this world. It is quite similar to the GCW in many respects. The vision of the GCW was borne out of an observation that women seemed to remember how to celebrate, seemed to remember what was worth celebrating, even in the most dire, unsafe and/or impoverished conditions. This is not to say that men don't have this ability, but I will say that from my own experience this profoundly important task seems to be somewhat a function of the female gender. At least it appears to have become so over the last few millenia.

So, this odyssey will include men's and women's voices. We will ask everyone we have the courage to approach. No doubt we will alter our focus and the wording of our invitation as we embark on and test out our questions on unsuspecting innocents. When Blythe and I were in the borderlands back in February and March it took me a good one and a half weeks to feel as if I knew what I was doing on the trip or knew why I, specifically, had been chosen for this journey. And it took a solid week before I had found the confidence to simply assume that every woman I came across was waiting for an invitation to share her wisdom with the world.

So here we go for round two...a slightly different focus on the surface, but really, not different at all. I still firmly believe that any fundamental and sustainable change arises from a place of perceiving beauty ~ a place of deep wonder and celebration with the world ~ rather than one of fear, hatred or dissatisfaction.

If you'd like to be involved please let us know by emailing us with your thoughts on what is beautiful in your life and why. Send us pictures of the thing in your life that is most beautiful to you (whether animal, vegetable, mineral or...). We will post these offerings to our blog site...which is still underway so you don't get to know the address just yet...but soon, so soon....