“When winter comes to a woman’s soul, she withdraws into her inner self, her deepest spaces. She refuses all connection, refutes all arguments that she should engage in the world. She may say she is resting, but she is more than resting: She is creating a new universe within herself, examining and breaking old patterns, destroying what should not be revived, feeding in secret what needs to thrive.
Winter women are those who bring into the next cycle what should be saved. They are the deep conservators of knowledge and power. Not for nothing did ancient peoples honour the grandmother. In her calm deliberateness, she winters over our truth, she freezes out false-heartedness.
Look into her eyes, this winter woman. In their gray spaciousness you can see the future. Look out of your own winter eyes. You too can see the future.”
If you want to give birth to your true self, you are going to have to dig deep down into that body of yours and let your soul howl. Sometimes you have to take a leap of faith and trust that if you turn off your head, your feet will take you where you need to go.
“All the eggs a woman will ever carry form in her ovaries while she is a four-month-old fetus in the womb of her mother. This means our cellular life as an egg begins in the womb of our grandmother. Each of us spent five months in our grandmother’s womb, and she in turn formed in the womb of her grandmother. We vibrate to the rhythm of our mother’s blood before she herself is born, and this pulse is the thread of blood that runs all the way back through the grandmothers to the first mother.”
“The place where you feel your truth, that is Shakti. That is her speaking… moving you. That is where you can find her.
That’s where she is so close.
And in times of crisis or
when things are challenging in this way,
It is so easy to put that connection aside.
…In times like this, you are growing.
Think about yourself as a new sprout in you.
And you have to find ways to take care of it.
You need to finds ways to
feel your feet and feel the Earth.
Find ways to connect in small ways.”
Let your hair down feel the life in your breath embrace your animal body laze in the sun ground in the moist earth flow with the rivers run with the wind. Get to know your inner wildness the internal springs, caves, nocturnal beasts and invertebrates the forgotten place where you hide your wild self the creature of instinct and intuition. Be wild. Let yourself go where your heart wanders when you sleep dream about flying high and diving deep and finally realizing who you really are.
Yesterday I danced in the kitchen and felt JOY. Earlier this week, I watched a funny movie and felt JOY moving through me as I belly laughed again and again. Last Saturday I got sweaty hiking up a mountain and felt JOY. And who could forget the sex that left me breathless with JOY?
I think I’ve had it all wrong about JOY. For years I believed that JOY was an emotion that lives in the heart. If you had asked me what JOY was a month ago, I would have said something about JOY being a loving emotion of the heart. But now I’m beginning to think JOY is a full body emotion. JOY is embodied.
Why are little kids so JOYful? They live in their bodies! Little kids don’t think their way through life, they jiggle and wiggle and dance through life. Life is a full body experience for little kids. Why are many adults so serious and JOY-less? I’m guessing it has a lot to do with thinking their way through every experience. By adulthood, body has become secondary to brain and life loses a lot of its JOY.
When I manage to get out of my head and allow myself to experience life through every sensation in my body, JOY spontaneously bubbles up inside of me. JOY fills me.
Hmm, even the language we use to describe JOY is body centered; we are JOYful = our body is full of JOY. We don’t feel JOY so much as fill with it!
Life is a full body sport. So, now I am on a mission: I want to embody JOY as often as possible. To feel myself fill with JOY every day. My body already knows how to do this. I simply need to get my head out of the way and allow my body to do what comes naturally.
If you pass me on the street next week, I hope I’m wiggling and jiggling with JOY.
Every part of MamaEarth is alive and has a spirit; each blade of grass, pine tree, fox, flower, stone and drop of water is infused and flowing with spiritual essence and consciousness. Our Earth is a pulsing, flowing sacred system. And we are completely interwoven and interdependent with every other form of life in this system. All of life is interconnected; the idea that human beings are separate from other life forms is simply an illusion.
Stone Memories
Our human actions have a huge effect on our Earth Mother. The history of human life is physically and energetically imprinted into the elements of Mama Earth. Her elemental structures hold our human stories of war and violence, love and connection, loss and pain; our Mother stores our history within her water, soil and stones. Like a great elemental library, the sacred body of Gaia “remembers” the entire history of life on this planet.
“Human history is a Gaian dream.” ~Terence McKenna
Although humans may have long forgotten the stories, MamaEarth continues to hold the history of all those who lived here before us. These traumatic imprints were created through human neglect and ignorance, and they can continue to haunt us for generations. When a piece of land holds a story of human aggression, loss, disconnection, trauma or suffering, those energies continue to impact the animals and people who live, work and interact with that place years later.
Healing Mama Earth
Without some form of balancing or clearing process, a traumatic event may continue to negatively impact the land and the people who live on the land years later. MotherEarth can stay ‘stuck’ in a state of imbalance for generations. But each of us can help our mother release old traumas and heal.
Whenever we consciously treat our Earth Mama with the love and respect she deserves, we actually help her restore balance and heal. And we heal our own relationship with this beautiful blue planet in the process.
Carl Sagan once asked, “Who speaks for planet Earth?” I believe it is time for each of us to speak out for Mama Earth.
“There are a thousand ways to kneel and kiss the earth.” ~Rumi
