As an
integrative wellness coach who specializes in issues of women—it was not unusual to find myself speaking at a woman's conference. But this one was different. It was being held in the small town of Fairlee, Vermont and the workshop had titles like "Fire in the Temple", The Juiciness of Your Feminine Divinity", "Getting the Shame and Taboo Out of Your Sex Life" and "Rock Your Mojo".
Several workshops had the word "Juicy" in the title. This was a hot, sexy woman's conference. And as I watched the women roll into registration and pick up their Zestra bags, I was struck by how ordinary these women were. They looked like wives, mothers, grandmothers, sisters and daughters.
Most of them were not dressed in sexy new age outfits as I might have expected. In fact most of them were in jeans, with little make up on. They could just have easily have been shopping at Walmart as attending "Zest Fest". Everyone threw the word "Goddess" around. We were all Goddesses— but most of us didn't look very "Goddess" like. Appearances can be deceiving.
The evening opened with a "Red Tent" Ceremony. Red Tent Ceremony has become a movement among women across the country. They are a ritualized gathering of women made popular by ALisa Starkweather. From ALisa's website:
"The intention is that we honor our many differences and also first and foremost learn to create and cultivate a healthy woman-honoring culture. One that recognizes that we as women cycle together in our blood cycles. We struggle and rise together alone or together in our many stories of fertility, infertility, sexual identities, choices, struggles, dreams and friendships. It is an opportunity to tell our stories, share our wisdom, cry and laugh and rest inside a place that we collectively create to honor our place in society. Women are known to enter a Red Tent Temple having never been in one and simply weep that it exists for them. Women who never come to one also share that they are deeply moved even from afar that there is a place in the world held by women for women just for them."
Okay. This might not have exactly been a "Red Tent" as we were not all in our "blood cycles"— some of us haven't seen our menstruation in a while! In "Goddess Speak" we were "Maidens", "Queens" and "Crones" all together. But we started the conference with a ritual gathering that including us walking through a beautiful tented portal meant to portray a vagina that spilled into a sacred circle that was to represented the womb. Around us were various magnificent altars filled with objects of the sacred feminine holding the space of the north, east, south and west. And on the stage were women who drummed and chanted for us. Dorothy, you are not in Kansas anymore!
I had never done a ritual quite like this before. We were asked to stay in our bodies and to keep our gaze to ourselves or our eyes closed. But I couldn't help it. I was interested in the faces of these women — many of whom had even less experience than me with ritual. We were in a place where all women were Goddesses and I wanted to see if they could go there in their own way.
In this circle, they were safe to speak past shame and support other women into their greatness. In this circle, they were able to touch that place within themselves where ecstasy is a birth right.I wanted to bear witness to that.
The facilitators helped the women find their bodies. The drums held the beat. I peeked through soft eyes at these most ordinary of women as they found their ecstasy in their blue jean clad bodies. I watched them begin to move to the drums in a way that many of them may have never moved. Hips swayed, bodies shook and hair went tribal. Some were wild in their sexuality. Others moved in the softest of ways to the beat of the drums. No matter how these women moved, they were lost inside themselves.It was like being a part of some deep feminine mystic meditation as the voices chanted to us about being a woman.
My body felt completely opened. I felt my own erotic energy rise as the chants and the drums rose in the room. I was lost in the colors of the tent and the altars. The pulse of the other women was so strong that it ripped through my body.
And then it hit me. It was fear. My body spasmed in a painful ripple of some kind of painful memory that almost blew me over. It was an ancient fear that was deep in my cells.I knew that I hadn't experienced it in this body, but my body knew of it.
It was the fear of what can happen when women gather to express their power as creator. Not so long ago, we were burned as witches for gathering in sacred feminine ritual. Somehow my body knew that. In other parts of the world— women are still covered and kept separate.
I breathed into the fear trapped in my cells. I told myself that I was safe here in Fairlee, Vermont. No one was going to hurt us. My mind wandered again around the room as more and more women danced in erotic, ecstatic joy at simply being born a woman. I wondered about why through the ages women have been prosecuted for having such gatherings. And then it hit me as I felt the energy rise to a new peak.
We are incredibly powerful. And when there is power like that around, you have two choices—tap into it for creation or bury it. It is interesting to see through the ages how each culture has danced with the power of the feminine. It says so much about who we are as a species.But more than that—I kept going back to this stark feeling of fear in my body that had nothing to do with my actual feelings which were completely full of joy in participating in this ritual. Is this fear on a cell level that is attached to women gathering in rituals of the feminine held in more than my body? Is this why on some deep unconscious level women's groups never really caught on? Are women being stopped by a nameless fear of unknown persecution that is locked in our bodies?
What do you think? And how do we break through?
