Picture the above. There's not much else to do in the moment, so you gracefully drape your softest blanket out on the living room floor, toss a few pretty stones and plants in the mix, grab your favorite chocolate from the pantry, refill your coffee. Fill the diffuser with rose oil and let the steam rise as you grab a book, lay down, and snuggle up.
This is my favorite feminine practice at the moment. Softness, sweetness, sensation.
If this sounds a little strange, I get it. I thought it was strange only a few months ago. Who has the time, right? And even if we did have the time, we likely wouldn't spend it on making ourselves comfortable, would we? If we had the time, we'd get done the tasks on our never-ending to-do list. We'd make ourselves busy. We'd maybe sit on the couch and catch up on a show or scroll through Instagram or Reddit to fill that time until the next task calls. If you've been here for awhile, you know that I typically love to stay busy - I wouldn't be caught dead laying on the floor for comfort, just because. No way.
But I've been learning about the Divine Feminine, the Divine Masculine, and polarity between the two (thanks @madelynmoon 🌸). I've been learning that being "feminine" goes so far beyond wearing makeup and dresses, staying quiet and cute and unproblematic. In fact, it's actually the exact opposite. Maddy's podcast, Mind Body Musings, has been at the forefront of my learning what it truly means to be in your feminine (and in your masculine - everyone's got both - I'll get to that in a bit): She is movement, fluidity, emotion, sensation. She is the river, while He is the ground containing it. She is loud, unpredictable, ever-in-motion, while He is still. So when we as women actually sit with ourselves to let this energy flow, however it may need to, we are settling into our Divine Feminine. When we roll around on the floor, dance, cry, throw a temper tantrum, we are with Her. When we feel every sensation within and without our bodies and relish in them, we are with Her.
I'm so glad I learned this, because now I want to be in my feminine. The way I always understood Her sounded so dull. Who would want to live like that? Femininity is not what we've been taught - the quiet, pretty girl standing to the side and smiling at everyone who passes by without saying a word. It actually looks more like your friend who may have drank a little too much and is now dancing wildly right at the foot of the DJ, or crying to strangers in the bathroom, or screaming out the sun roof on the ride home. When we stifle Her, when we teach Her to be quiet and pretty and agreeable, She dies a little within us. Every time we are told to be quiet, told to act like a lady, or questioned why we do certain things that are not "ladylike," She gets weaker. She gets harder to remember. I think to another example from a book I just finished: Untamed by Glennon Doyle. In the first few pages, she recalls a family trip to the zoo where they watched a cheetah who had been trained for years to chase a dirty stuffed toy on the back of a Jeep in front of an audience. That was her one moment where she was allowed to be "wild." The rest of the time, she sulked in a small enclosure. Doyle's daughter asked why the cheetah looked sad. Doyle knew the cheetah remembered where she came from.
We're the same. Not just women, all of us. We remember - a special kind of remembering, one that lives in our bones - that we were once wild, too. We were allowed to behave according to our bodies in that moment. We did not have to hide. We were not expected to hide. There now lives the expectation of the typical woman and man: the woman is the same quiet, pretty one who never speaks; the man is strong and intimidating and meant to be heard; when he speaks, you listen. And it's funny what society has taught us all these years, because just as the Divine Feminine is found in movement and sound, the Divine Masculine is found in stillness and quiet. When he is unburdened, allowed to be with himself in silence, he is with Him. The feminine brings the noise, the chaos, the emotion, and the masculine holds it all with a sureness. He balances it with logic, with a knowing, with a plan. I don't know about you, but I sure as hell didn't learn this in school or in church.
She is music, art, poetry, spirit, the abstract. He is science, history, the secular, the facts.
It's no secret that we live in a masculine-dominant society. The patriarchy, the "man's world," whatever you want to call it. And this may be an unpopular opinion, but it makes sense to me as to why that is (or maybe it's my conditioning). Logic makes sense. Logic and science and the secular can be seen. Humans naturally prefer what they can see because it's safe, it's real, for sure, so we go with it. The problem, however, lies in the fact that because we prefer what can be seen, we discard and ignore what cannot. We don't have time for guessing games. We can't waste our breath or our energy believing in something that may or may not be real. We cannot afford to imagine. So the mystical feminine, the art, the spirit, becomes inferior. I'm convinced that this is how we fell into the toxicity of a hyper-masculine society. It's not that we prefer what can be seen, it's that we have largely dismissed what must be felt.
This is why God gets such a bad rep. This is why people who believe in astrology or past lives are laughed at, called crazy, called stupid. This is why emotional intelligence has no place in modern education. This is why people don't get help.
It is not the man's fault. It is the societal training that we have ALL undergone for hundreds (thousands?) of years that has us convinced that man (logic, science, fact) is superior to woman (emotion, spirit, abstract), when in fact, they need each other. They balance each other. One cannot survive without the other, and they all greatly suffer when one is highly regarded and the other is disregarded. That is toxic.
When they're in balance? That's polarity. And that's sacred.
So anyway, back to my soft blanket on the floor. After finishing Untamed, I picked up Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype. This one is hefty and heavily-worded, so it's going to take me a while to get through...I'm a slow reader. That said, I'm really excited to dive into these stories which promise to bring me back to my roots of the wild, Divine Feminine which truly lives in all of us. I believe that in order to bring balance back to our society, everyone must reach inside for Her, everyone must discover pieces of Her and glue them back together, make Her whole again. Maybe it's through reading stories like these. Maybe it's through having a writhing dance party slash temper tantrum when you're alone, or letting yourself cry when it needs to happen. This goes for men, enby's, genderqueer, trans folk, everyone. The feminine and the masculine are nothing more than poles that live inside all of us and all around us. Everyone can access them. Everyone can determine their individual balances. Everyone can identify as, or with, both.
When we allow ourselves to do so, fully and freely, we heal. And so it is.
Acknowledgements + Resources:
Mind Body Musings (I HIGHLY recommend her episodes on The Divine Feminine, The Divine Masculine, Polarity, and episode 218 with Gemma Danielle: https://open.spotify.com/show/1QRkDbXYd5SXZm3b95iT56?si=eRGATnTDTeeHPru6J2xC3w&dl_branch=1
Zura Health Podcast - Letting Go & Cultivating an Embodied Sense of Safety w/ Tami Sasson: https://open.spotify.com/episode/40F2ExuQdXXdXUiMDUE712?si=dXGiQjyYTIqzKSg6KuR4sw&dl_branch=1
Tami Sasson: https://www.instagram.com/tamisasson_/