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?