On the Trail of the Wild Feminine
Nancy Lankston
I Am
My bones are mountains.
My tears, rushing rivers.
The earth’s crust is my skin.
Trees adorn my head.
The sun, moon, and stars
Are in my eyes.
The ether of the Universe is my breath.
Separateness is an illusion.
I am all things and all things are me.
Keeping Quiet
by Pablo Neruda
Now we will count to twelve
and we will all keep still.This one time upon the earth,
let’s not speak any language,
let’s stop for one second,
and not move our arms so much.It would be a delicious moment,
without hurry, without locomotives,
all of us would be together
in a sudden uneasiness.The fishermen in the cold sea
would do no harm to the whales
and the peasant gathering salt
would look at his torn hands.Those who prepare green wars,
wars of gas, wars of fire,
victories without survivors,
would put on clean clothing
and would walk alongside their brothers
in the shade, without doing a thing.What I want shouldn’t be confused
with final inactivity:
life alone is what matters,
I want nothing to do with death.If we weren’t unanimous
about keeping our lives so much in motion,if we could do nothing for once,
perhaps a great silence would
interrupt this sadness,
this never understanding ourselves
and threatening ourselves with death,
perhaps the earth is teaching us
when everything seems to be dead
and then everything is alive.Now I will count to twelve
and you keep quiet and I’ll go.
There is a sacred ground that is calling to us to heal now; it is the ground of feminine energies that hold and nourish life. This feminine ground can be found in the dirt of mother earth that holds and nourishes a tiny plant seedling, and within the womb of each woman that holds and nourishes a human embryo. Both plant and human require the sacred ground of mother to sprout and grow new life.
I read of a young woman being brutally raped and left for dead on a bus in India. I turn the page and read of Mother Earth being raped and polluted in a search for oil in the tar sands of Canada. And I feel the same energy in both acts; a hatred and a dishonoring of the feminine. It is the male warrior energy run rampant, forgetting the sacredness of the feminine body.
The feminine body has been objectified and mistreated for generations. Both the female womb and the dirt of Mother Earth have been dishonored and defiled again and again. Entire cultures and religions curse and blame the feminine for our human fall from grace. Those that don’t understand the gifts of the feminine have tried to stifle her wisdom and annihilate her power.
We fear what we do not understand. But how can we possibly kill what holds and nurtures each life? If we kill the mother, we kill ourselves. And even when we deny the sacredness of the feminine, the mother quietly continues to perform her sacred magic, holding ground for every new life.
Mother is so quiet, dark, mysterious and yet so nurturing; the feminine gifts look and act nothing like the male energies that are prized today. These feminine gifts are so misunderstood, and yet so necessary to heal this world. The power of the feminine lies within an expansive holding, supporting and nurturing energy that is difficult to pin down; visualize the warm safety of mama’s lap; feel into the quiet stability of the earthy ground and you will be on the right track. Knowing the feminine is best done on a visceral and emotional level.
It takes a quieting of the mind and a wondering heart to grasp the gifts of the feminine energies. Watch a mother with her baby; sense her gentle nurturing and quiet loving presence. Or go outside and sit with Mother Nature; just sit and be still. Breathe, watch and listen to Nature. The wisdom of the feminine whispers in the ripples of the water and the gentle opening of a flower. It is there in the growing tree limbs that arch toward the sky and the roots that burrow into mother’s dirt. Our earth mother holds a quiet space of wisdom, always there beneath the surface of life. She is a mysterious, flowing and constant presence.
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The ground of mother whispers that it is time now to heal the feminine. The mother is quietly, yet insistently calling to us. She is demanding that we remember her gifts and honor her sacredness or perish. It is time to heal our relationship with the mother.
I’ve posted a new Elemental Flow meditation / exercise on Youtube and I wanted to share it with you here. Enjoy:
Today I’m grateful for sun, blue sky, mountains in the distance and snow on the horizon…
Spirit dances with Fire, Air, Earth and Water and somehow the amazing alchemy of Life flows forth Today I’m grateful for the dance of elemental Fire, Air, Earth and Water all around me. What a beautiful dance it is!
There is a tidal flow within you. This tide was the first motion within your tiny baby body as you formed in your mother’s womb; its gentle waves actually helped your physical body to grow. Many Craniosacral Therapists and Osteopaths call this flow the “Breath of Life” because it is so important to human development.
This rhythmic tide flows around and within your brain and spinal column for your entire life. This motion within your cerebrospinal fluid has a profound impact on the performance of nerves throughout your brain and body. Small restrictions in the tissues around your brain and spine can inhibit the flow and block the breath of life. And a restricted flow can cause severe sensory and motor problems such as chronic pain, palsy, loss of sensation or movement, hyperactivity, headaches, insomnia and sucking, chewing or speech difficulties.
CranioSacral Flow has been part of my healing practice for 20 years. I have synthesized many of the teachings of Sutherland, Becker, Sills, Upledger and Milne into my energetic version of CranioSacral Therapy because I believe that helping your nervous system return to its healthy, flowing and juicy state is absolutely key to healing.
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“Nothing in the world is as soft and yielding as water.
Yet for dissolving the hard and inflexible,
nothing can surpass it.
The soft overcomes the hard;
the gentle overcomes the rigid.”
~Lao Tzu in Tao Te Ching
Nancy Lankston
Elemental Flow
How do I stay true to myself as I flow though this world?
“Do I change like a river, widening and deepening, eddying back on myself sometimes, bursting my banks sometimes when there’s too much water, too much life in me, and sometimes dried up from lack of rain?
Will the I that is me grow and widen and deepen?
Or will I stagnate and become an arid riverbed? Will I allow people to dam me up and confine me to wall so that I flow only where they want?
Will I allow them to turn me into a canal to use for they own purposes? Or will I make sure I flow freely, coursing my way through the land and ploughing a valley of my own?”
–Aidan Chambers, This is All
Can I keep flowing and resonating with my joy, my truth, even when surrounded by others who are awash in sorrow or fear or rage? How do I hold my ground and allow the world to be however it is today? I will not do any good to anyone if I drop my light, my joy and resonate with the pain of those around me.
Maybe it isn’t cruel or crass to stay joyful while others in the world suffer. What if our joy is the most potent medicine there is for the wounds of the world?
I want to acknowledge joy as the amazing gift it is. And to keep opening to joy, even in the face of the darkness and pain in the world around me. May I hold my joy sacred and allow it to flow far and wide.
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“But just as the river is always at the door, so is the world always outside.
And it is in the world that we have to live.”
-Lian Hearn