How I’m feeling about the latest Supreme Court ruling on abortion:
Here We Go Again
The Journey
“One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice —
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voice behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do —
determined to save
the only life that you could save.”
~Mary Oliver
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Image: Portal by Nancy L
My Body
“I am not your cornfield,
not your uranium mine, not your calf
for fattening, not your cow for milking.
You may not use me as your factory.
Priests and legislators do not hold
shares in my womb or my mind.
This is my body. If I give it to you
I want it back.
My life is a non-negotiable demand.”
~Marge Piercy,
‘Right to Life’ excerpt
♾
Image: Venus by Susan
Seddon Boulet
Becoming Elder
“…To a woman of the Celtic nations, to become Elder is above all to become Cailleach: to represent the integrity and health of the wild places and creatures of this world.
To become Elder is to become strong – strong as the white old bones of the earth, strong enough to endure the long, lonely vigil to the end of the world.
To become Elder is to hold the power, stay the course.
Above all, to become Elder is to become the bean feasa, the Wise Woman: the one who knows the secrets and speaks the languages of the land, who speaks with the moral authority of the Otherworld, who weaves the dreaming of the world.”
~Sharon Blackie
www.sharonblackie.net
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I have a new goal.
Image by Carolyn Hillyer
It’s Your Life. Own it.
“She never smoothed her wild edges.
She never stopped writing new chapters.
She fell.
She rose.
She danced.
She unraveled.
She let go.
She evolved.
She was a tangled mess.
She was strong.
She was fierce.
She was brave.
She was a badass.
The ocean was her therapy.
Grace was her religion.
She lived like there was a fire in her veins. e.
Forgiveness was her freedom.
She lived like there would never be enough time.
She lived like there was fire in her veins.
She lived.”
~Katie Yackley Moore
Goddess Reclaimed
I realized that in spite of the very helpful healing work I had done in the past, that as a woman, the modern Western and even ancient spiritual techniques that served me before fell short of fully addressing my physical, mental, emotional, energetic, and spiritual nature as a woman. And how could they, for they were created by (and generally made for) men?
For example, while the Vedic and Buddhist meditation techniques I learned helped me observe my pain from a place of detachment, they guided me away from delving into my pain—to feel and own it. The Goddesses, however, showed me that as a woman, it was vital for me to fully feel my pain before I could heal it. Another revelation was when I realized that instead of just talking about my feelings to process them, that unleashing them through physical movement, sound, or sacred ceremony profoundly elevated my experience of release.
And so it wasn’t until I re-discovered the buried ancient mysteries and wisdom teachings of the Goddesses that I was able to truly heal and flourish on every level as a woman. At first, embracing the Goddesses of the underworld led me to uncover the deep-seated lack of self-love, self-worth, and self-value that was mirrored back to me in my outer patterns.”
-Syma Kharal, Goddess Reclaimed:
13 Initiations to Unleash Your Sacred Feminine Power
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image: Mother Goddess
by Nancy Lankston
Change Ourselves, Change the World
“The world which men have made isn’t working. Something needs to change. To change the world, we women need first to change ourselves – and then we need to change the stories we tell about who we are. The stories we’ve been living by for the past few centuries – the stories of male superiority, of progress and growth and domination – don’t serve women and they certainly don’t serve the planet.
Stories matter, you see.”
~Sharon Blackie
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Photo by Benjamin Lossius