“All Women Are Goddess”- Andre Van Lysbeth
March 8th saw International Women’s Day. I knew I would be writing some kind of article about the occasion, but nothing seemed to come through in advance of this date for me to write something in time to be published. I let it go, got quiet, meditated on it. The guidance came.
I was grappling with ideas but nothing felt authentic. Yes, I could write many words on the abuse of women around the world, on the agony of young women and girls who are faced with myriad images of ‘perfect’ bodies on social media (of course this is the same for men too, the numbers of males being diagnosed with body dysmorphia and eating disorders are on the rise). I could have written about the need for society to generally treat women with more respect and dare I say, wonderment, to pay us fairly and listen to our voices (thank you metoo movement), however this all felt like too much of a three dimensional sticking plaster on what I believe is a five dimensional spiritual wound.
You see, humanity has become disconnected, severed from our divinity through over a millennium of Patriarchal, hierarchical control and power structures. We have been separated from the ancient Mother-God traditions which saw Earth’s peoples living in reverence and symbiotically with the rhythms of the planet, the seasons, moon phases, the tides, the wheel of the year. All of these cycles are echoed internally by the collective menstrual cycle of we women, our ancestral mothers and all women who came before us. The Witch hunts which ravaged Puritan Britain and the US were a genocide that saw our connection with Mother Earth and her Divine Feminine and Divine Masculine energies, purged off the planet. These crimes were a Patriarchal mission, inside the paradigm of fear, to promote the myth of separation and turn up the heat on anxiety and suspicion between women. Our relationships with ourselves, our women and our men shifted from ones of connection and unity, to ones of secrecy, distrust and resentment. Women were revered in the old times. Women and men revered each other. There was no competition.
In the era that we call pre-history, Women were recognised and celebrated as the vessel for life and birth. Ancient peoples recognised that the mysteries of the universe were held within the womb and yoni (Sanskrit for sacred space) and possessed the magic for producing life. Modern history has seen us forget our magic and the divine energies which reside in us, no matter our gender.
The celebration of women in early human history was not simply down to the sexes being nice to each other, or women being nice to women and men being respectful to men. Although I do like to think of male temple goers in Mesopotamia, politely holding the temple doors open for female attendees! Millenia ago people were in resonance with nature and the rhythms of the Earth, and the connection between humans as an extension of the natural world. Society still held to dear to the Divine Feminine and Divine Masculine energy inside people as our link to the expansiveness of the loving universe creating all people from its source, as expressions of consciousness in many forms. People understood that there was an imprint of the creator inside of them and this and served as a bond which manifested itself as a deep connection between women, sisterhood. As modern women I believe we long for this connection to our sisters, but we are uncomfortable and wary of it, as we would have to confront that we live inside of ego conditioning and falsehood around what it really means to be a woman. Society ran on the loving union between Sacred Feminine and Masculine (super)powers. This may appear rather rose tinted upon processing by our cynicism trained minds, however numerous ancient civilisations were formed around Mother God worship and were “matrifocal, egalitarian, centred around the peaceful worship pf the Earth’s rhythms and the fertility of women’ as the source of life (Dinsmore-Tuli, 2014). The Feminine energy, held predominantly within women, was exalted as magic and transformational. Today we see the Feminine bound up within women who have learned that we can indeed be prized by society but on a set of conditions; the right dress size, the happy home, functioning at 100% every day in a high flying career while also raising children in a marriage, and to sum it up: behave like a lady in the street but a freak in the bed (lyrics from “Yeah” by Usher).
This conditioning to have it all or at least be seen to have it all is not want I want more of as a woman. I would like women to slow down enough to tune in to hear their soul/inner guide/highest self speak to them about what is true and what is really their path. It might not be the path that society has laid out for us for thousands of years, since first teachings of world wide organised religion when the Roman Church started strutting it’s stuff and supressing women. Herein began the message that women are unclean and unfathomable because we bleed, and because we are unfathomable, we are dangerous and so must be suppressed not supported or held in reverence by our men. Quick! Better start a rumour that women need ownership and control, so we can stamp out heir massively intuitive power! The Church seemed to say….
So here we are in 2019 living in a world where fear and separation rule the mainstream narrative. It’s all we see in the headlines. Crimes against women by men are rife. We are also beginning to hear the stories of men who have been abused at the hands of women both emotionally and physically. Humans abusing humans. My own past is in there with the sex crime statistics. Hardly any rape or sexual assault crimes make it to court, those who have been abused are left to explore other avenues where they may find closure, recovery and dare I say, forgiveness for their attacker or abusers. For me this was my spiritual practice; mediation, yoga, chanting, Reiki and the magical strength or my own Divine Feminine energy. My inner Queen. My inner sorceress. It doesn’t matter too much what I call her because this feminine power needs no validation or approval. She is not the conditioned woman that modern society raised, who is encouraged to search for external sources for her validation.
This original Feminine energy which is innate in all of us is what we must look to if we are to heal the wounds of the planet, one of which is the struggle that women have faced since early Christian times when we were indoctrinated to shame our own wisdom and cycles, to turn away from the mysticism of who we are. If the mainstream media are to be believed, we have a lot of fights on our hands; the war on terror, the war on drugs, the war on poverty, the war against fascism, the war on abuse of women, the war on sexism, the war on pollution, the war on knife crime, not to mention the divisive and dangerous concept of Brexit. So many headlines popularising the voice of fear, separation and hate.
There is another way, the way of union, the spiritual way. Each person looks within to heal their own wounds of shame, inadequacy and fear by pausing to hear the voice of divinity within them and take inspired and loving action from that place. The spiritual path is not a quick one, but it’s a kind one in which we get to learn to love ourselves so much that we see every other creature as a connected extension of ourselves. People who practice the active path of love, cannot hurt another. People who are at peace with themselves cannot hurt another. One of my teachers told me once that hurt people, hurt people. Look around. It makes sense.
As women we are the holders of fiercely loving, compassionate, non judgemental, peaceful , intuitive, potent, queenly Divine Feminine energy. Tears falling on to the lap top now! As women we have the power innate in us to lead the world out of suffering by leading ourselves out of our own suffering. As women it is our responsibility to wake up this potent power source within us which has the potential to heal the planet. Some people call it Shakti, some call it Kundalini, some call it Goddess, some call it God, some call it She. At one time, a girl was born and everybody knew she was a queen and not because she was from the right family or lineage (more patriarchy) but because the magic of the Feminine lives in women and our ancestors knew it. Any person suffers when they are disconnected from their soul, the true essence of who they are. Women REALLY suffer with this. It’s why women who don’t tune in to their balanced feminine energy get competitive, gossipy, bitchy, try to rescue people from their problems, get co-dependent, take on too much, burn out, get adrenal fatigue, suffer horrific PMS, develop addictions, need more Laboutins to show they have it together (I love shoes, but I’m using this as an example of needing more of anything to prove oneself as valuable and desirable), why some women feel the need to be able to have it all and all of the time (this model of womanhood has no space of ebb and flow or cycles). Exhausting huh? We cannot live in peace or stand for peace if we are not at peace with the original (divine) femininity within us.
To paraphrase the Dalai Lama, he said something like the world will be saved by women. This doesn’t mean we do not need our men, but that women are the starting point for an entire system overhaul of the crumbling linear, patriarchal and capitalist systems that have held the planet and its people in bondage. The combined energies of Divine Feminine and Divine Masculine are the tonic that humanity and our environment need. The Dalai Lama was not citing women as better than men or more useful, but that we have so much connection to nature and Mother Earth herself, that we are fundamental in the Earth’s healing. Ad so we must heal ourselves first.
As women we must step up and ask for the help we deserve to heal our ancestral wounds (I’m sure tons of us have a bit of persecuted witch in us), so that we can get on with our beautiful work of healing ourselves and the planet. And yes, it can be beautiful. Let’s teach our daughters that they have a whole universe living inside them when we tell them about the menstrual cycle and that they are a human manifestation and conduit of Mother Earth. We can still go on marches, campaign, object and make our voices heard. We can still achieve our pay rises, our justice, our freedom, our respect, our sovereignty over our bodies that that we are so overdue. However, we cannot unlock the door to the lives we want to live while in turmoil with our selves, living detached from our divinity. There are thousands of women around the world who are doing this work. Thousands of sisters stepping forward, unshackling from the conditioning we have been bound and born in to, pressing pause on the busyness tuning in to their Feminine. Sometimes She is quiet, sometimes She is loud like a full-blown Aretha Franklin Goddess living inside me. Let us turn inward, let us hear our Feminine wisdom and take action inspired by the voice of love, and no longer the voice of fear and fight that patriarchal society attempts to impose on us.
For more information on Divine Feminine
Come to one of my Divine Feminine Workshops (see my website www.reikirenge.com or Instagram @reikirengebysarahwheeler )
Check out these books
Rise Sister Rise by Rebecca Campbell
Code Red by Lisa Lister
These will help to scratch the surface of a very deep topic.