Sacred Feminine in the Center of the Circle

Dear readers,

I had such a beautiful morning and am feeling like sharing a bit of it with you. This has been my year of trying new things - a new Dance your Bliss class, seeing a counsellor bi-weekly ot overcome some writing blocks, attending a drum circle for the first time, and today I got brave and attended a Red Tent circle in Hudson, Quebec.

Run by Aine Sun, a beautiful heart-centered woman, this new Dana Center is a place for women to gather, listen to each other, share their stories and feel welcomed, seen and heard, with a minimum of ritual and ceremony.

Being seen and heard myself this morning, made me feel like a bucket of sunshine had been poured on my heart. I have been in a lot of circles in the past 20 years, lead some, started some, and I always come away from that deep listening space feeling renewed and happy.  It's simple, in a way, that really all we want is to be accepted for who we are, have a short space to express how we feel, and feel the invisible embrace of listening hearts mirroring back to us, I am valuabe, I am loved.

SoulCollage(R) card: Brigid 

On my drive home, I thought back to 1986, when I went back to University here in Montreal to study creative writing and a minor in women's studies. I already thought of myself as a feminist since my teens, bu my thirties I had let that slide a little. I loved the courses on mythology and women's religions around the world, and on women's literature. It began a life-long fascination with writing the feminine, writing about taboo subjects - breastfeeding, sex during pregnancy, the joy of children in their bodies, (although my daughter when she was seven or eight did not appreciate coming across my poem of her vulva dance, dancing with blue chalk all over her two year old body, like a little Goddess), and later a book on the emotional turmoil at menopause.

I have written about the feminine mysteries of menstruation and menopause, published articles and books, taken courses like the one I'm doing online right now called Goddesses of Self-Care, read a ton of books about When God was a Woman, and the 5,000 year period since the goddess has been demonized and relegated to the underworld as a witch or fertility figure. But now, today, I felt the light fill me up from within. I felt this sacred part of me could shine as I danced to some gentle music at the end, mybody was moving in tune with the heart-filled center, the feminine essence.

My struggles to understand both the feminine and the masculine as archetypes, and release myself from wounds and patterns instilled during childhood, have lead me here - to embrace the sacred feminine at the center of my being, as a living energy, not a stone statue, nor a picture on a wall, but inside my flesh and bone, my belly and thighs, my breasts and uterus, my legs and arms and all.

I can dance with my sacred feminine life energy in the center of my body. I share my appreciation, my wounded brokenness, my joy and my wild feminine life force with other women in the circle.

Next thing I'm going to do is take every book I have written, every poem, every class offering on the feminine, and dance around it, to celebrate my creative participation in awakening the goddess within, the sacred feminine energy of life within.

Aho!

Watch me dance!

10 ways to practice Self-Love, on Valentine’s Day or Every Day

As a Scorpio, eldest daughter and born Caretaker (I found this out at www.archetypes.com), I am often great at giving out advice but not so great at doing it myself. This list reminds me how important it is to fill my own well so I can share the love with those around me.

1.      Stop, listen, pay attention: I love the acronym for PAIN. Pay Attention Inside Now. How do you feel? What are you missing right now? Where does something not feel right? Where do you feel awesome? Noticing how you feel is the first step to taking action.

2.      Body Love: Honour the body’s messengers/guidance: those signals are popping up to help you. Don’t put it off. For instance, if you’re tired, take a short nap. If you’re hungry, make yourself a healthy snack or smoothie; if you’re stressed, take a stretch break and breathe. Don’t make excuses; love yourself by listening to the body’s messages.

3.      Loving TLC - Pamper yourself: this is not selfish. You can’t feed the world from an empty well. Need a mental health day? Give yourself permission to lounge and relax, read a book in bed all day. Or if this is difficult, book a massage. Get your hair or nails prettified; buy yourself a bunch of yellow tulips. Mid-February can be pretty bleak, so add some color to your life.

4.      Free to be me Love - Do something silly only you love to do: jump on the bed and giggle, convince a friend, sibling or partner to go sliding with you (even if you hate the cold, get out and play). Make a chocolate fondue and smear chocolate all over your fingers then lick them clean.

5.      Funny Love - Loosen up and laugh more: find a funny movie you haven’t watched in years, make it as corny as you can find, The Three Stooges or Maxwell Smart, something you used to love as a kid that will tickle your funny bone.

6.      Friend Love: call a friend you haven’t spoken to in over a month – we get so busy, we forget that a long talk with a close friend can open the heart; not a text, Facebook message or email – a real heart to heart in person or on the phone, if possible. If they live far away, surprise them with a Skype call.

7.      Creative Love: give yourself a creative break today. I love Sark’s book Succulent Wild Woman - she recommends staying in bed in your jammies and colouring with pens or crayons. Getting your creative flow on is a surefire mood booster. If you haven’t gotten your paints out for a while, set up the easel in the kitchen and make a mess. Do some collage, if you want something simple – all you need is glue, scissors and a few magazines. Get in the Flow; you’ll love yourself for doing it. As Sark says: Live like a full cup of self love, sharing the overflow with the world.

8.      Soulful Love - Pray/write/dialogue with your Soul: Don’t have a soul mate? Your soul or inner voice would love to speak with you. Author Janet Connor of Writing down your Soul, suggests that you just lay it all out in your journal – what you’re feeling, a dilemma you’re in, a challenge facing you – then let your inner voice respond with what is sure to be wise words. I love using this journaling tool to access my inner wisdom.

9.      Full Body Love: look at yourself in the mirror and see past the crow’s feet, the crooked eyebrows and the shadows under your eyes – see past the flaws, don’t curse them. Bless them! Say out loud while gazing into your right eyeball. I love you! I will cherish and love you all the days of my life. To help you with this, put on John Legend’s gorgeous song: All of Me.

'Cause all of me

Loves all of you
Love your curves and all your edges
All your perfect imperfections

10.   Ultimate Self-Love Party: strip naked, in front of a full-length mirror and touch with a loving touch every part of your body that needs some extra attention or love right now. Unhappy with your thighs? Touch them with loving thoughts. Saggy underarms? Touch them with love. Purposefully ignore the self-hate and ride over it with the voice of your Inner Best Friend, and again, sing All of Me: Love your curves and all your edges, all your perfect imperfections… Remember, what you curse falters, and what you bless, flourishes.

Bonus points: a little sexy self-loving can’t hurt – get out your rose smelling almond oil and an inspiring book (Deep Down or 50 Shades of Grey) and play with your partner or your pillow!

Find the time and space to be your own best lover this Valentine’s. Don’t get caught up in the cliché of red roses and chocolate hearts: you deserve to love yourself, today, and every day.

Where Did My Libido Go? Mid-life Women Wonder

extract from The Tao of Turning Fifty, What Every Woman in Her Forties Needs to Know, Little Red Bird Press 2012

Our sense of womanhood is inherently linked to our sexuality. Maybe that’s why some women mourn their youth at menopause. They think they will lose their attractiveness to the opposite sex and there goes their womanhood. However, according to Dr Christiane Northrup, there is evidence that some women experience a reawakening of their libido at mid-life. Scientists say a woman’s sexual peak is probably somewhere in her forties. Then again, some others experience a temporary deadened feeling: where oh where, did my libido go? 

I was one of the ones who momentarily (for a few years!) lost touch with my desire. This was when I still had fairly young children and not sleeping well, on top of being perimenopausal. I think it was largely a matter of fatigue and timing. It turns out I am more easily aroused in the morning than at midnight when I’m half asleep! Talking about things certainly helped, once I became brave enough. My marriage might not have survived if I had not decided to take matters into my own hands (very literally). Two books that helped me understand the difference between women’s and men’s sexuality are John Gray’s Venus and Mars in the Bedroom and Reclaiming Goddess Sexuality by Linda E. Savage, Ph. D.

Now I can give myself permission to enjoy gourmet sex when I need it (meaning a lot of time for foreplay), or allow my husband a quickie occasionally.  I feel more comfortable asking for what I need and less pressured to be available sexually when I don’t feel like it. Think of it this way: you might be letting your partner off the hook. He may also be experiencing a slowing of desire at his male andropause.

A lot has been written about the differences between male and female desire, and I’m not sure we can generalize, but certainly women’s arousal often starts in the head – with being courted, talked to and listened to, which creates a feeling of closeness or intimacy. Dr. Micheal Goodman considers himself an expert on this. He says, “Men’s sexuality is linear: desire leading to arousal leading to erection and sexual intimacy. Women are different; their sexuality is more circular and circuitous (“women need a reason for sex; men just need a place”), and starts with intimacy, not desire.”[1] This inherently makes sense to me.

If it’s painful sex that is slowing you down, don’t wait; get advice from your health care provider. Or try herbal teas or tinctures like oatstraw and nettle which help relubricate the vagina. Certain homeopathic remedies help too. I have found some natural lubricants (Sexy Ganga, made with hemp oil) are more compatible than the artificial ones made of petroleum products (if you wouldn’t put it in your mouth, it doesn’t belong in your vagina). Susun Weed’s New Menopausal Years the Wise Woman Way is a very helpful book in this regard, with lots of herbal remedies for each malady.

Whatever happens, don’t give up on sex just because of a few hormonal changes. A saliva test can help you find out which hormones are lacking (progesterone, estrogen or testosterone). See Dr Christiane Northrup’s book, The Secret Pleasures of Menopause for a thorough discussion of all things sexual.

That being said, consider that a time of sexual abstinence may be called for to honour your own need for rest, and to give you a time to find your wholeness within. Sex is wonderful, when you feel like having sex. Not out of guilt or a habit of pleasing others. Can you stand your ground, be with your own desire or lack of desire? Be patient with yourself and know that your desire is not gone for good. 

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[1] www.drmichaelgoodman.com/ten-best-tips-for-surviving-your-menopause/ (author of Men-opause – a book about menopause for men)

Women's Body Image Below the Belt

According to a recent study done by Dr. Debby Herbenick, a sex health educator at the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction, we women don't like how we look "down there".

Our anxiety about female genitalia and how it looks (and smells) stem from lots of outer sources, as well as our own insecurities. One of the causes according to Dr. Herbenick is the easy accesss to hard-core pornography, where women's vulvas are air-brushed, hairless and all look the same.

Our body image concerns have pushed some women to get cosmetic surgery, get the full Brazilian waxing, and buy grooming products. Others are too afraid to face their gynecologist for an exam, worried about how they look or smell. Some women are reportedly too afraid to even look 'down there' and do a self-examination!

Fear of the vagina has reached all time new proportions, but it's not the men who are afraid. According to the study, men were generally more positive than women. Women are a "lot more critical of all of their body parts" says Dr. Herbeneick in a Globe and Mail article from Sept 30.
http://www.globeandmail.com/

Negative attitudes are also bad for your sex life - women who were positive about their genitalia found it easier to climax - which makes sense.

We could all begin by naming our genitals: vulva and vagina are not dirty words. The mysterious 'down there', as in 'don't touch yourself down there', needs to be mothballed.

TheVagina Monologues helped the word come out of the closet, but there is more work to be done, mostly by parents educating their children, but also by all women. If you haven't done so already, get a mirror and check things out! you may be pleasantly surprised.

Check out this website for yoni cushions, a visual aid to better self-image:
http://www.moontimes.co.uk/yoni-cushions/

image of rose-yoni found at http://goddessthemes.blogspot.com/

nameste,
musemother

Sex drive and menopause

I went on a website yesterday that every woman going through menopause should check out. There's a personal profile you can fill out, find out if your hormones are really out of whack, and find a ton of good articles on all the funky symptoms you've been having.

This is an excerpt from one that pulled me to read it, for shall we say, obvious reasons.

"It’s been said that the brain is the most important sexual organ. Certainly we see in our patients that desire and satisfaction depend as much on emotional and psychological factors as on the purely physical – sometimes more so.

A woman’s sexuality often emerges as an issue in perimenopause. For many of us, our sexual identity is rooted in our sense of attractiveness to men, which is typically based on having a youthful body. As our bodies change at mid-life we may feel undesirable and therefore less interested in sex. Biologists say humans are the only species in which females are sexually aroused by their own pheromones — so “feeling sexy” is necessary to feel desire.

Some women were raised to believe that sexual desire is shameful or inappropriate as they get older. Women who’ve been unassertive about their sexuality in the past may prefer to sacrifice their sex lives rather than become assertive now about what’s required to satisfy their sexual needs. And women without partners may be daunted by the prospect of “dating” again and so just wall themselves up.

Your relationship with your partner may be a vortex of issues. If your needs aren’t being met in the relationship, if the two of you don’t deal with problems openly and constructively, if you aren’t treated with respect and fairness, if your partner is self-absorbed or self-destructive — these common patterns destroy the intimacy and trust that keep sexual desire alive over the long term.

Women ask us why they react so strongly now against behavior their spouse has exhibited for years. The reason is that in menopause women often stop putting the interests of others first, and start paying more attention to themselves — that is, they find their voices. If we don’t, among other things, it will adversely affect our health.

from Womentowomen.com

Explore this site - it's packed full of good information. Adrenal fatigue, progesterone, testosterone, fuzzy thinking, stress and overwhelm, it's all there.

Happy reading,
jenn