"I learned to give voice to the thunder and lightening within my own body..."-Ana Forrest, Fierce Medicine
I sit here, absolutely and utterly exhausted, watching another storm prepare to rip through the lehigh valley. The first bout of thunder came from within me. I felt the energy gather within my belly ... This is how I feel ... Like a powerful storm. Ready to threaten the life of anything that would dare threaten or harm the life of my children.
I am like an ancient birthing woman. All I can do is rock here, deep in this place. I cry out here. For the love, honouring, nurturing, recognition of the sacredness ..the treasure that exists here, in this body of woman.
Goddess, this is so hard to write. I pray for the focus and determination to face this contamination of life, and speak this for the purpose of healing.
Women. Women. Women. In the past month of my life, I have witnessed a pregnant woman be harassed and bullied by her doctors, fighting to have the birth she desires. Insurance doesn't cover home births. She can't afford the $4,500 for one of the ONLY midwives in about a 3 hour radius of the lehigh valley to attend her. I have watched a woman almost die, poisoned by the medical system, and 1 month into her recovery out of the hospital has had her baby taken away. They say she's "unfit" ---so they have taken her rights to see her child from her.
Back in March I was in a play ...this was so much more. I stood up on stage and read Alice Walker's poem "To stop the violence". I chose this piece because when addressing rape and violence against women we tend to focus on the men. But when we do that we are leaving out a very valuable and juicy piece of the whole picture: The violence that women perpetrate against other women. Do you think that we would have a world where rape existed if women were protecting each other? It's time for women to take responsibility in this space. We are sisters. Let's start acting like it. And then I could start speaking of the way mother's tear their daughter's down and try to live vicariously through their sexuality and youth. (I'll leave that MESS for a later day) All this tearing down of woman ...who is building woman up?
I write and speak a lot about the sacredness and power of woman. But for one second do not think that I would dishonour the sacred power of man. Somehow the penis has singlehandedly (? as it doesn't really have arms, I'm sure a better word can be inserted here) divided women. What do women tend to fight over? Men. That's powerful. Very powerful. Women hate, strangle and trip each other to earn men's affection and approval. It's kind of crazy to watch it, I've participated in it. I understand what's happening. It is so very rare to find a man capable of nurturing, so many of us are physically and emotionally and spiritually starved for the real love of a man. So starved that we would rip each other down to get what we need --hmmm, there must be a better way.
When I was preparing for this play through January and February, rape had sort of consumed my life ...I began to see it everywhere. To hold this, and walk through this took so much, so much strength, patience, energy ...by the beginning of march I hit the ground. I was sleeping in my backyard just to be close to the earth. I said "Mother, please there has to be more, why have you taken me here. To kill me? No ...to teach me." Never had I allowed my heart to become so vulnerable and open to this planet. To live with her. To form relationship with her. To figure out how to turn my life so I could support her. She gave me a dream ...I had these large full length mirrors in my living room in which I was standing in front of, there was me -my reflection, and another me, a higher version of myself --but she was only in the mirror. She glowed this beautiful golden light and she said to me that I must allow myself to be seen. I looked in the mirror and I wasn't wearing pants, I was completely naked from the waist down. So I'm standing there awkwardly trying to pull my shirt down to cover my self but it's not long enough. I look at her and ask "Don't you think this is revealing a little too much?" She laughed! And then I woke up.
And as I just took a break to go sit with the pouring rain I understand where I am supposed to take this.
So I hear this often Karly, why are you doing this? Why do you put yourself through this? Well, to be honest. I can't seem to stop. Tearing through history's lies to discover the truth within my own being. I do this because I want to become a mother, and I do not want to raise a child and birth a child in a sea of unconsciousness. So I had to consciously enter the deepest spaces that make me female and capable of creating life. I do this to cleanse the violence and shame from my body, so that I can heal these spaces, fully feel these spaces, and reclaim them as my own.
I do this because I do not want the layers of trauma and abuse that have run through my family line to touch one hair on my child's head.
I understand that I do this work for everyone. But it is knowing that when I do become pregnant that my child will be conceived consciously, in love. That my child will have a safe space, cleared of ancestral violence and filled with love that keeps me going. I am doing this for the children. Because our children deserve our protection. They deserve to be raised in healthy wombs and healthy relationships. Healthy, conscious wombs birth healthy, conscious children. It is so very simple. (And still I cannot touch on the subject of birth, because snakes will most likely shoot out of my head, and I just do not have the energy to express that violation right now)
So when I explored the depths ...there are many stories, but I scraped the memories of rifle butts being shoved up my vagina off my cervix. Being raped not by men, but by hate, by the absolute disrespect of life. I understand that these underlying patterns remain unconscious until they are made conscious. It takes an incredible amount of time and energy to bring these things to light and face them. But face them WE must.
I do this for the little women, who have little vagina's that deserve to be protected. In a culture that bullies, rapes, exploits and disrespects not only women, but life itself on every level I say it is time for change on a global level.
I understand how this is to be done. I have dedicated the last 4 years of my life to trying to make this happen ...and all the way I have been criticized and beaten down. Every woman I know who is doing this work needs support right now. (and probably as much rest as I do) I've poured everything into this. Fought like hell to protect my bleeding time and create a nurturing space for me to heal, rest and dream. I've even battled women on this field. Women who have said we can either have equality or special treatment, not both. This is not special treatment, and where is equality? Because if someone else is seeing equality I must have missed a chapter ..or seven. I am stronger than most men I meet, not always in physical strength but that is often the case. It takes a real man to admit that a woman who is barely 105 pounds and 5ft4 is stronger than him. I am not a man. I am a woman. My body is different, therefore my needs to care for my body is different and those needs deserve to be honoured and protected. NOT exploited and abused. So when I say I need to sit down and bleed. To pray. To offer my body as a vehicle for spirit to come through me into this world then that is what I need to do. Because when I am present with my bleeding, I am present in my life. When I attune to these cycles of life I am attuned to the cycles of life. (makes sense, no?")
As women, our blood is powerful. It is the blood of life. It has been used as a weapon to harm us for centuries and now we must turn it back into the medicine that it is and use it to heal ourselves, our families and our communities. We have the power to restore life, but that life and that blood needs to be honoured. Because like anything else that is not cared for ...it rots, it's power dies. So when we bring the women together, get them to bleed on the earth together, to care for each other, we heal together ..not only as women but all life heals through us. This is where it begins. So I have a dream where somehow money just gets funneled into this project: Restoring moonlodge in every community. Because women need these spaces. And we need the men to honour us in this space, protect us in this space. It is so valuable. The richness and depth I have discovered within my own body. There is a little myth that there is gold in a woman's blood ...I have spent 4 years sitting on the earth, bleeding ceremoniously and I will tell you I am very close. My womb is the birthplace of creation and for thousands of years I have tolerated this disrespect. I have been made a victim by my own mind. Inducted into slavery. Well, the time is mine. And I choose to write a different story. I'm claiming my own. My own body. My own spirit. My own truth.
I asked myself what it might look like to be a Queen on this Earth. In my opinion it has been thousands of years since we have seen a real queen touch her foot on this planet. A Queen does not sit high on her throne expecting life to serve her. No. A Queen is at the forefront of the battle, fighting alongside people, leading her people. She serves the needs of her people. It is her duty and responsibility. To hold that container. A Queen serves Life.
As for the King ...we have lost a valuable lesson. That all men who were given the power and gift of life was given so through a woman. It is the woman who initiates the man into Kingship. If he claims Kingship without having gone through the necessary initiations, then he is a liar and serving more injustice. If you can't honour that your life and your power came from woman, and comes from woman. Then well, to be blunt you are an asshole who rapes life. And I will never apologize for making that statement because it is the truth.
I watch "men of power" get on microphones and spew their hatred for women, their desire (they even think they have the right, and organize their laws to ensure that right) to control women. These men have children and wives. It is very very sick.
So many women are carrying such deep shame and traumas. I'm just that rare woman who talks about it, because I understand that shame itself is a weapon to silence us, to rob us. Well shame, I'm not going to carry you any longer. I have been raped as a child and as a woman and I have been in terrible pain because of this. My culture would rather shame me. Tell me its my fault and just punishment for being a woman. But you know what, I'm not going to believe that. I'm going to continue to beat these doors down and find the strength and support I need to continue to voice this, and to mend this. Because it won't leave me alone. It is asking to be spoken. It is asking to be healed.
This story is far from being done.
I watch the laws rolling through Congress right now. Stripping women of the rights that our grandmothers laid their lives down so we could have. But then to look at them from the place where I stand, and I tell you women when we are in our power we do not need artificial hormones to control our reproductive cycles. No conscious woman can unconsciously take a baby into her womb. So again I turn to the moonlodge. This is the medicine our world needs. This is where women are finding their power to turn this world upside down --which is really right side up.
I've been a pioneer, a warrior and I take my role as priestess on this earth very seriously. This is my work, this is the child I have nurtured on my heart for many years. Now, as I am being called to turn within because I do not have the strength left to do what I have been doing. With so little support, with no other hands helping me. I am hoping that the seeds I have planted within my community are strong enough to grow on their own. Right now, I feel like a mother who has given all she has to give and has nothing left. So I give to myself now. I'm going underground. Praying for the nourishment and rest I need to replenish my life force. Because this has all been very hard. But I like hard work, it builds character. If my life was easy, I would not be the woman that I am.
So I will close with a prayer, that the hearts of all people be open to receive the Goddess. That they hear the voice and prayer of the earth and respond to her need. I pray that She is no longer mocked, ridiculed, discarded ..rather heralded, just like the Nu' Sun that she brings.
