Mandala
Too often, our beauty and innate gifts go unnoticed, unappreciated, and unspoken for.
Even more often, we don’t realize the fullness of our own depths, our own brilliance, of our own delicate softness that makes us so precious & worthy of adoration.
We’ve been taught to value things that are other than us. Compounding the distaste we have for our core essence.
Many women have put on masculine masks for so long they have almost merged with the flesh. But not entirely. Their removal takes tenacity, patience & gentle compassion.
To rid ourselves of such masks means that we must challenge the beliefs that have been imposed upon us. Beliefs that tell us to push past resistance, pain…and embrace letting things flow, letting life feel good and not be encumbered by guilt in doing so.
It is our responsibility to question the ideologies that insist we deny the wisdom of our own bodies and our intuition. When we defy their teachings, we reclaim ourselves. We take our bodies back and, in doing so, we reclaim the psychic realms that host our intuitive gifts.
We attempt to warp our bodies. We try to void ourselves of our emotions, not fully understanding that our gifts lie within them. We put on armor to protect our softness from the cruelness of the world. Where nurturing love once was, defensiveness takes its place. Many of us refuse help and even scoff at it. We dare not be seen as vulnerable even if the very fabric of humanity is predicated upon the need for us to need one another.
Extreme independence and self-reliance isolates us. We fear our fears will expose our bare bones and we cover them up with whatever other masks we can get our hands on. We scorn much of that which is innate within us, further distancing ourselves from our true selves. We think these methods protect us but they only impede us from living. To live a life worth living means to reclaim our natural state of Being. It means to stand in the fullness of ourselves regardless of ridicule and rejection we may be met with.
To discard these masks requires a revived reverence for the feminine that has been long lost.
This task requires us to pay careful attention to the intention behind all of our acts. The masks we put on are often confused with useful skills. From independence to lifting weights…anything can be beneficial, depending upon the energy that drives it. That energy is bound to the intention. Is the intention one of malice and spite? Or is it one of empowerment and pushing past boundaries to elevate to a higher level?
The difference is that a mask is something we use to hide whereas the other is a valuable skill that diversifies our capabilities.
“I no longer wish to be strong, I wish to be soft”
Simply put, the energy is different. Whether we do things out of love and self-respect versus trying to prove ourselves or trying to keep others out makes all the difference. This is where karmic repercussions will be doled out.
This is an essential step in our quest to reclaim the feminine. Like excavators in a desert, we dig past our conditioning and gently brush off the dust to find the skeletal framework that lies in all its integrity, in its original form. Once we find it, we see that the bones sparkle. They are smooth and warm and glisten like diamonds in the sun.
I attempted to take women on such an endeavor at a retreat I helped host. This is the type of task that requires a deep excavation and so mine was an abbreviated one.
The specific workshop I held was to unblock the center of the body associated with the feminine. It’s the womb space, the sacral chakra. Whether or not you’ve used yours to generate life matters not, for this space is sacred to all sisters.
To honor these women, I had a Balinese flower mandala to celebrate and embellish their beauty. It was a reflection of their radiance, something I think many women do not fully see.
The Sisterhood
Much has been lost on the sacredness of the feminine. It’s been undermined, taken for granted, and, most damning of all, synonymized with weakness.
Much assault has been done to the feminine. Yet, regardless of injustices done, nothing is irreversible. Nothing is unhealable. Nothing has gone past the point of no return. In actuality, the point of no return is more a matter of will over ability. Will you will yourself to recover what’s been lost or buried?
Or are you one of the brave who never lost it at all?
How do you celebrate the feminine? How do you care for it? Nurture it? Honor and revere it like the sacred divinity it is? How do you take off the masks that once hardened you? How do you soften the jagged edges?
It sometimes takes a guide to understand where to start such an endeavor. And, it’s likely that if there’s a deep-rooted belief of insecurity in one’s feminine nature, that that insecurity permeates far beyond the visible eye and the conscious mind.
Simply put, we need someone to reflect back to us our own truths, to borrow their light to show the way while our own has been extinguished, however long. There is much healing that can only be done with another person.
We need a container for our emotions
A space for our pain to be held
A mirror to see our truths
A sounding board to hear our answer
A light to show us the way
The collective is evolving - will you be part of it? Connect with me to find out how
