@Maria kefalogianni Thank you so much. I love to feel you in your hammock, soft, letting your words sing out of you… thank you for joining in sisterhood.
Reading this I felt like I had found a ‘sister’. I resonate with so much. Menopause initiated me into a journey that was though pleasure to reclaim feminine energy and on the other side to live life birthing beauty though creativity. I needed to return to the Earth and beautiful feminine Places that mothered me in ways that allowed thriving rather then simple surviving. Its a journey of ever widening spirals. So blessed to find other women🙏
Hello Bernadette, Thank you so much for adding your voice to this conversation. Yes to reclaiming and birthing creativity. I hope you find strong sisterhood here. I appreciate your deep awareness.
“I am emerging from menopause with creative magic and medicine—what has been with me all along.” I love this, Prajna! So much magic and creativity bubbling here.
Hi Prajna, of course you are right, there is no place for female pleasure in any organized religion - quite the opposite. Sex eduction in school is practically non existent, and what little there is focuses on procreation (which requires a man's orgasm - thank goodness that's taken care of so easily). It's up to young women to figure it out for themselves, which is a little easier with the internet. It's a case of female elders who don't have experience with their own erotic energy, let alone wisdom to pass down. As younger women take control of their own sexuality, there is a huge backlash which has stripped away our reproductive rights. It's always one step forward and ten back. I've just about given up on men.
I feel fortunate like many women and probably yourself (from the bit I know of you) that their is great delight into sinking into internal pleasure. Since I stopped trying, it happens by itself—unexpectedly. For me, it is an indication that old shame has washed through and I can own all of who I am. Wow-it took along time to get here baby. I get the one step forward, then back, some learning and some not...
Incidentally-& perhaps I have just been so out of touch with Irish history, but today I was reading Padraig O’Tuama & he referenced “The Magdalene Laundries.”🤯😭😡 (Do you know about them? I did not so I looked them up.)
Quite disturbing to say the least. I am Irish-both sides. Was raised Catholic🙃 & couldn’t help but think how dastardly, heinous & inhumane people are in the name of ‘virtue,’ ‘morality,’ piety;’ how organized religion has been so destructive to soo many; how- if living in Ireland, I myself would’ve been sent to one of these ‘laundries.’ I could go on & on- the devil guised in robes & veils for sure.
I couldn’t help but see the timeliness in stumbling upon this now given your newsletter & it’s tackling the subject of abuse of power over the feminine; the labeling of feminine desire, sexuality, etc. turned into something that should bring about shame & punishment.
Just wow, Colleen, are we twin souls or what? The commonalities are blowing my mind sideways, I have to reread, did I read the right? Catholic, all Irish, a former spiritual something, Buffalo, trauma...
In graduate School I was so fed up. I did my thesis on the Abuse of Authoritative Power — I had an amazing women as a guidance counselor. She and another professor were ahead of their tie and made the whole thing with it. Like a John Bradshaw guy. They played Ma and pa in my sacred dramas to act out insanity. Then, I was blindsided by a priest, and left to cloister myself, it was so shocking. He got a slap in the write and a transfer, I almost died. So much here.
I have not read Padraig O’Tuama & he referenced “The Magdalene Laundries.”🤯😭😡 I wil look this up. It is on my list. Sounds like a good Friday night fright show.
I can't wait until we get to have a good long chat — I'm still figuring out how to be on Substack efficiently. Urgh
🤯🤯🤯 I had forgotten you had Buffalo ties!!! Yes. Soooo Much in common.
Your experience in grad school sounds sickening. I am so sorry.
Prepare yourself for the ML’s. Trigger warning for sure. Soul wounding.
Be well resourced before and after you read.
Padraig O’Tuama is other worldly in his mix of raw talent, sensitivity & the way he looks where others turn away. He sees it all and write in a way that feels spiritual in the truest sense rather than the man made perversion. Not sure if any of this makes sense . I’m scrambling to get to an apt. Think you will love him. Talk soon. Xoxox
I think your excellent essay(s) about female erotica, the shame and the anger that is of course both the cause and the result of what we were not supposed to be, or to want to be, would strike a louder chord if I were a good deal younger. I think in my own way I left all this shit behind in my forties and fifties when I began to write and could not only deal with the anger I had lived with, but use it for my own purposes. Writing gave me a power I had never had, and it has saved me so many different ways--as it is saving you and others who read you and learn. What I love about this essay, and all your work--is the desire for celebration--not just to be and do what satisfies, but to fucking celebrate our womanhood, to feel thankful and joyous that we are who and what we are. I love your passion, and the comments generated by your piece show that the issues are all too alive today and your words resonate and you have the skills and understanding and power to change lives. I'm certainly going to read this a few more times, there is so much to be gathered here.
Thank you so much for this comment and for joining the conversation. I love hearing from women of all different ages and backgrounds. Each time I learn so much. I love that you love to celebrate your womanhood. We need to do more of that.
I know it’s a multi layered essay with so many topics in it.
I especially like the parts about where your feet are and where you wish them to be. That's always a challenge for me.
I also wanted to point you towards Joan Chan, MD, a Canadian doc and life coach who calls herself a pleasure activist. She has a lot of really good stuff, and I will include a link to one thing here: https://www.joanchanmd.com/podcast/pleasure-part-1
I feel confident you will enjoy much of her work.
I am also going to trial thinking of going to the gym (which I procrastinate ferociously about) as connecting with my deep feminine because it very much is.
The shame of female erotica as a means of protecting the patriarchy is something I’ve really woken up to in this 5th decade of my life. (Last year my daughter and I went to Salem & learned a ton about the witch trials- 🤯another tragedy in the name of extinguishing female power that is so atrocious!)
I am so grateful for finally seeing the Divine Desires of the feminine as Life affirming; life creating! No more room for shame in the story. No apologies.
Whether we choose to birth children or not, we are the Portal of creation itself. The divine female is magic, connection, abundance overflowing. I see female pleasure itself as a portal to the divine & am my favorite self when in the space of feminine magic.✨
Seeped in Catholicism, I was indoctrinated to aspire to be holy, a “good girl,” devout. I was a Eucharistic minister, a Lector, wrote for the church newspaper; and yet-
mixed messages & confusion
within & around me. (*much story here as my Daddy was the black sheep in a family where 3 of his brothers were sent off to be priests and both of his sisters remained home with their mama, unmarried or partnered until the day she died at 97).
Everywhere were contradictions that revealed the lies and incongruences.
Our bodies feel lies & it makes them weaker. Truth fosters strength.
For a myriad of reasons-I got pregnant at 18, became a mama at 19 & spent many years shrouded in shame.
For what I now ask myself?
My female capacity to bear, carry & birth life?
Or rather, was it the way they twist & make perverse any & all erotic desires of females?
Offer only dichotomy where we are either The Virgin herself or a slut-
no space to be a soul housed in feminine form with the same human desires as males or non-binary souls.
I believe as Audre Lorde that-
“The erotic is a resource within each of us that lies in a deeply female and spiritual plane, firmly rooted in the power of our unexpressed or unrecognized feelings….” Audre Lorde
And like you Prajna-
“Writing has become my healing…a practice devoted to cultivating ways to anoint and celebrate…(my) feminine consciousness.” Yes!!!🥰
While not familiar with Sadhana specifically,
I also adore this notion of:
“an open invitation to include all the things that spark curiosity, creativity, and the capacity to feel and write it all—the blood, sweat, and tears—at a pace that allows time for digestion, assimilation, and integration.”
✨This is the way to alchemy, to healing.
I am still trying to teach myself- in a way that sticks- that the only approval I need is my own; that I am the one I’ve been waiting for all my life.
I do my best to offer myself compassion and grace when I forget; when I abandon myself.
And although I still visit barren lands,
I spend much less time in these spaces now.
I Love Ritual.
I have some I do daily and others weekly or monthly.
My rituals include daily woods walks, yoga & meditation; journaling & writing, (sometimes wearing a velvet cape or a dress that makes me feel sensual & alive). I try to do these every day.
I also frequently use essential oils, & body oils-spend time tending my physical self-at home & with scheduled sessions for massages or facials; acupuncture etc.
I frequently pull Tarot, read physical books, listen to music to express varied emotions, dance, grow herbs, smell flowers, light candles, paint, hang fairy lights, take drives in the country, spend time in the mountains, etc.
✨I stand with you in sisterhood supporting Alchemy, ‘messy middles,’ & all the ‘sweetest tenderest aches’ that proceed feminine energy & birth beauty.
Awww dear sister, this is absolutely incredible. Thank you so much for taking the time to share all of this.
Your words are like a transmission, and I feel yourself as grounded and boundary in a really good way.
I love the rituals who give yourself like wearing a dress to feel sensual, bathing in nature, leaning into mystical spaces… and writing your stories. Virgin or slut - glad you know a wide deep landscape to cherish you.
Thank you so much for reading Sandra. It seems the breaking through is ongoing - cycles, returns, more is discovered, each time more joy, and capacity to love all that is. This fierce love that is a beacon for the shadows that linger and so many trun away from. Our power is sitting and waiting ... Yes, yes, yes.
Thank you for this beauty, Prajna. I will return to it a few more times to soak in it. I have for so very long ignored myself in service to others, and I am undoing those old habits that served no one--especially me. I am listening to myself and my body again. Thank you for helping me along the way. XO
Gorgeous Prajna! I so relate to the sheepdoms! So many years spent trying to be someone other than myself, believing I could achieve or arrive at some summit of worthiness and approval I’d been taught I had to earn. That’s a big fat NOPE today. I finally arrived at a big enough failure I could stop improving myself and just be true to who and what I was made to be.
Hi Kelly, I thought you would as we both finally landed in true recovery. Now we are in a collective recovery and our stories matter. Thank you for reading and sharing mine. Sending love.
Ummmmm…. WOW. This is deep and delicious. Thank you for sharing your heart and thoughts on such powerful subjects so eloquently. This is a lot to unpack in one sitting. I feel like I could come back to dissect and reread it a few times in order to wrap my head around it all. Definitely going to share it as I think it’s super beneficial for everyone to hear.
Hi Lori, Thank you for your words "Thank you for sharing your heart and thoughts on such powerful subjects so eloquently." This means a ton to me and all of us at this collective crisis. Sending love. Thx for sharing.
One of the greatest hurdles we women have to face (and overcome) is shame, especially around sexuality and erotic pleasure. I just wrote about shame (not in the context of sexuality, but in general) on my own channel; go have a peek and tell me what you think. Healed shame = dignity. It's worth the process.
"...that sweet tender ache that doesn’t go away until our feminine energy is nourished and gives birth to beauty." Oh, Prajna -- this longing. This sense of divine discontent pierces my heart and constantly reminds me of a higher calling to make beauty.
Every morning, I light a candle on my desk, and whisper my prayer written decades before:
"I light the light of Divinity, of the One Power, the One Presence, the One love that is law -- that the qualities of this Divine may guide, light and inform my path this day."
I live a constant cycle of remembering and forgetting, of celebrating and weeping, making beauty and making messes, living in focus and living in chaos. The wild inner life is just as tangled as the brambles and vines that grow along the fence line.
Your words have the feeling tone of that now famous line from a Rumi poem: "Let the beauty we love, be what we do. There are a hundred ways to kneel and kiss the ground."
Thank you for another thoughtful and evocative essay. Big hugs.
“remembering and forgetting, of celebrating and weeping, making beauty and making messes, living in focus and living in chaos.” So beautifully expressed.
"Let the beauty we love, be what we do. There are a hundred ways to kneel and kiss the ground." I Adore this quote.
I admit this is a lot for me to absorb at once so I will read it again. However, I did find some of what I could grasp relatable. I’ve not been a “feminist” by nature yet I know that women have a strength compared to none. Created as a mysterious follower instead of an equal being to males. I’ve stood my ground most of my adult life fighting for the power I know exists within me. Bringing it out often caused me distress but I could never relent. When I was young there was once a discovery of my erotic nature by another girl’s matched curiosity. A secret if you will yet also an unforgotten exquisite internal feeling of my own sexuality spirit. It’s uncanny how we both experienced early menopause without our consent. I was 43 and it wasn’t supposed to happen. I had been growing unbeknownst to myself a dermoid tumor all of those years. It ate up my feminine gifts like a monster chopping cartoon only it wasn’t funny. The parts leftover were supposed to keep enlightened only that assessment was incorrect and incurable. So I went through menopause for a very long time years and years as a matter of fact. Finally I had only my inner thoughts of what was missing to sustain me in an imaginative realm which led me to places I felt shouldn’t be but was anyway. That is when I knew my erotic nature was converted to my spirited soul awakening. The betrayal of my physical self still bewilders me often both practically and internally. Yet I continue to follow a path I placed myself upon looking for a place that I can settle in without selfishness. So this essay felt like I found an area behind a waterfall where I wasn’t hiding but could see through the water out into nature itself. Somehow as much as I am bewildered by it I am touched by the power of it. Thank you for gifting it Prajna. ❤️🌼
Such beautiful writing
I felt the words beat my inner drum
Resonance
Catharsis
Seen and heard
From one woman to another .
I wrote yesterday a poem embodying the goddess …
I so long to sit and pour my soul into words ,3 kids make it hard and my soul grieves and cries
Yet ,somehow , my kitchen has become my satsang
I feel Eros dancing in my living room resting in my hammock : a union with the beloved Un captured with words
Yet words are given
I love your writing sister
@Maria kefalogianni Thank you so much. I love to feel you in your hammock, soft, letting your words sing out of you… thank you for joining in sisterhood.
Reading this I felt like I had found a ‘sister’. I resonate with so much. Menopause initiated me into a journey that was though pleasure to reclaim feminine energy and on the other side to live life birthing beauty though creativity. I needed to return to the Earth and beautiful feminine Places that mothered me in ways that allowed thriving rather then simple surviving. Its a journey of ever widening spirals. So blessed to find other women🙏
Hello Bernadette, Thank you so much for adding your voice to this conversation. Yes to reclaiming and birthing creativity. I hope you find strong sisterhood here. I appreciate your deep awareness.
“I am emerging from menopause with creative magic and medicine—what has been with me all along.” I love this, Prajna! So much magic and creativity bubbling here.
Dear Holly, I am so happy to hear this — yes bubbling away from a woman's perspective. Yes.
Hi Prajna, of course you are right, there is no place for female pleasure in any organized religion - quite the opposite. Sex eduction in school is practically non existent, and what little there is focuses on procreation (which requires a man's orgasm - thank goodness that's taken care of so easily). It's up to young women to figure it out for themselves, which is a little easier with the internet. It's a case of female elders who don't have experience with their own erotic energy, let alone wisdom to pass down. As younger women take control of their own sexuality, there is a huge backlash which has stripped away our reproductive rights. It's always one step forward and ten back. I've just about given up on men.
Hi Amy, Beautifully said, and valid.
I feel fortunate like many women and probably yourself (from the bit I know of you) that their is great delight into sinking into internal pleasure. Since I stopped trying, it happens by itself—unexpectedly. For me, it is an indication that old shame has washed through and I can own all of who I am. Wow-it took along time to get here baby. I get the one step forward, then back, some learning and some not...
Thank you for stopping by
Incidentally-& perhaps I have just been so out of touch with Irish history, but today I was reading Padraig O’Tuama & he referenced “The Magdalene Laundries.”🤯😭😡 (Do you know about them? I did not so I looked them up.)
Quite disturbing to say the least. I am Irish-both sides. Was raised Catholic🙃 & couldn’t help but think how dastardly, heinous & inhumane people are in the name of ‘virtue,’ ‘morality,’ piety;’ how organized religion has been so destructive to soo many; how- if living in Ireland, I myself would’ve been sent to one of these ‘laundries.’ I could go on & on- the devil guised in robes & veils for sure.
I couldn’t help but see the timeliness in stumbling upon this now given your newsletter & it’s tackling the subject of abuse of power over the feminine; the labeling of feminine desire, sexuality, etc. turned into something that should bring about shame & punishment.
Just wow, Colleen, are we twin souls or what? The commonalities are blowing my mind sideways, I have to reread, did I read the right? Catholic, all Irish, a former spiritual something, Buffalo, trauma...
In graduate School I was so fed up. I did my thesis on the Abuse of Authoritative Power — I had an amazing women as a guidance counselor. She and another professor were ahead of their tie and made the whole thing with it. Like a John Bradshaw guy. They played Ma and pa in my sacred dramas to act out insanity. Then, I was blindsided by a priest, and left to cloister myself, it was so shocking. He got a slap in the write and a transfer, I almost died. So much here.
I have not read Padraig O’Tuama & he referenced “The Magdalene Laundries.”🤯😭😡 I wil look this up. It is on my list. Sounds like a good Friday night fright show.
I can't wait until we get to have a good long chat — I'm still figuring out how to be on Substack efficiently. Urgh
I love this conversation. Thank you.
🤯🤯🤯 I had forgotten you had Buffalo ties!!! Yes. Soooo Much in common.
Your experience in grad school sounds sickening. I am so sorry.
Prepare yourself for the ML’s. Trigger warning for sure. Soul wounding.
Be well resourced before and after you read.
Padraig O’Tuama is other worldly in his mix of raw talent, sensitivity & the way he looks where others turn away. He sees it all and write in a way that feels spiritual in the truest sense rather than the man made perversion. Not sure if any of this makes sense . I’m scrambling to get to an apt. Think you will love him. Talk soon. Xoxox
I think your excellent essay(s) about female erotica, the shame and the anger that is of course both the cause and the result of what we were not supposed to be, or to want to be, would strike a louder chord if I were a good deal younger. I think in my own way I left all this shit behind in my forties and fifties when I began to write and could not only deal with the anger I had lived with, but use it for my own purposes. Writing gave me a power I had never had, and it has saved me so many different ways--as it is saving you and others who read you and learn. What I love about this essay, and all your work--is the desire for celebration--not just to be and do what satisfies, but to fucking celebrate our womanhood, to feel thankful and joyous that we are who and what we are. I love your passion, and the comments generated by your piece show that the issues are all too alive today and your words resonate and you have the skills and understanding and power to change lives. I'm certainly going to read this a few more times, there is so much to be gathered here.
Dear Abby,
Thank you so much for this comment and for joining the conversation. I love hearing from women of all different ages and backgrounds. Each time I learn so much. I love that you love to celebrate your womanhood. We need to do more of that.
I know it’s a multi layered essay with so many topics in it.
Love you❤️💚🧡
I especially like the parts about where your feet are and where you wish them to be. That's always a challenge for me.
I also wanted to point you towards Joan Chan, MD, a Canadian doc and life coach who calls herself a pleasure activist. She has a lot of really good stuff, and I will include a link to one thing here: https://www.joanchanmd.com/podcast/pleasure-part-1
I feel confident you will enjoy much of her work.
I am also going to trial thinking of going to the gym (which I procrastinate ferociously about) as connecting with my deep feminine because it very much is.
Awww Mary, this is so good of you.
Thank you for this reference, I will have a look.
When I do 'limpias' with people on retreat this is the first thing we look at — the feet.
So much in the feet.
Another story.
Go do that thing!
Thank you again for your comment.
So much juiciness & wisdom here Prajna🤯
The shame of female erotica as a means of protecting the patriarchy is something I’ve really woken up to in this 5th decade of my life. (Last year my daughter and I went to Salem & learned a ton about the witch trials- 🤯another tragedy in the name of extinguishing female power that is so atrocious!)
I am so grateful for finally seeing the Divine Desires of the feminine as Life affirming; life creating! No more room for shame in the story. No apologies.
Whether we choose to birth children or not, we are the Portal of creation itself. The divine female is magic, connection, abundance overflowing. I see female pleasure itself as a portal to the divine & am my favorite self when in the space of feminine magic.✨
Seeped in Catholicism, I was indoctrinated to aspire to be holy, a “good girl,” devout. I was a Eucharistic minister, a Lector, wrote for the church newspaper; and yet-
mixed messages & confusion
within & around me. (*much story here as my Daddy was the black sheep in a family where 3 of his brothers were sent off to be priests and both of his sisters remained home with their mama, unmarried or partnered until the day she died at 97).
Everywhere were contradictions that revealed the lies and incongruences.
Our bodies feel lies & it makes them weaker. Truth fosters strength.
For a myriad of reasons-I got pregnant at 18, became a mama at 19 & spent many years shrouded in shame.
For what I now ask myself?
My female capacity to bear, carry & birth life?
Or rather, was it the way they twist & make perverse any & all erotic desires of females?
Offer only dichotomy where we are either The Virgin herself or a slut-
no space to be a soul housed in feminine form with the same human desires as males or non-binary souls.
I believe as Audre Lorde that-
“The erotic is a resource within each of us that lies in a deeply female and spiritual plane, firmly rooted in the power of our unexpressed or unrecognized feelings….” Audre Lorde
And like you Prajna-
“Writing has become my healing…a practice devoted to cultivating ways to anoint and celebrate…(my) feminine consciousness.” Yes!!!🥰
While not familiar with Sadhana specifically,
I also adore this notion of:
“an open invitation to include all the things that spark curiosity, creativity, and the capacity to feel and write it all—the blood, sweat, and tears—at a pace that allows time for digestion, assimilation, and integration.”
✨This is the way to alchemy, to healing.
I am still trying to teach myself- in a way that sticks- that the only approval I need is my own; that I am the one I’ve been waiting for all my life.
I do my best to offer myself compassion and grace when I forget; when I abandon myself.
And although I still visit barren lands,
I spend much less time in these spaces now.
I Love Ritual.
I have some I do daily and others weekly or monthly.
My rituals include daily woods walks, yoga & meditation; journaling & writing, (sometimes wearing a velvet cape or a dress that makes me feel sensual & alive). I try to do these every day.
I also frequently use essential oils, & body oils-spend time tending my physical self-at home & with scheduled sessions for massages or facials; acupuncture etc.
I frequently pull Tarot, read physical books, listen to music to express varied emotions, dance, grow herbs, smell flowers, light candles, paint, hang fairy lights, take drives in the country, spend time in the mountains, etc.
✨I stand with you in sisterhood supporting Alchemy, ‘messy middles,’ & all the ‘sweetest tenderest aches’ that proceed feminine energy & birth beauty.
And Audre Lorde …
Awww dear sister, this is absolutely incredible. Thank you so much for taking the time to share all of this.
Your words are like a transmission, and I feel yourself as grounded and boundary in a really good way.
I love the rituals who give yourself like wearing a dress to feel sensual, bathing in nature, leaning into mystical spaces… and writing your stories. Virgin or slut - glad you know a wide deep landscape to cherish you.
I loved reading your response thank you so much.
I love the feeling of sisterhood on Substack.
Yes!
✨♥️✨Thank You & same!!!!
Prajna, I am so glad you have broken through and can inspire other women to connect with their deepest feminine self.
Thank you so much for reading Sandra. It seems the breaking through is ongoing - cycles, returns, more is discovered, each time more joy, and capacity to love all that is. This fierce love that is a beacon for the shadows that linger and so many trun away from. Our power is sitting and waiting ... Yes, yes, yes.
Thank you for this beauty, Prajna. I will return to it a few more times to soak in it. I have for so very long ignored myself in service to others, and I am undoing those old habits that served no one--especially me. I am listening to myself and my body again. Thank you for helping me along the way. XO
Hello Katrina,
Thank you for reading responding and remembering how critical self-care is. I see your posts of such love.
All we do is turn that love energy inside
We need to Pace ourselves as the critics can storm in with nonsense
I am so glad you are here and meeting you on important matters.
I’m touched by your kind words.
🔜🌹🌻🦋💜
Rather now!
😉
Gorgeous Prajna! I so relate to the sheepdoms! So many years spent trying to be someone other than myself, believing I could achieve or arrive at some summit of worthiness and approval I’d been taught I had to earn. That’s a big fat NOPE today. I finally arrived at a big enough failure I could stop improving myself and just be true to who and what I was made to be.
Hi Kelly, I thought you would as we both finally landed in true recovery. Now we are in a collective recovery and our stories matter. Thank you for reading and sharing mine. Sending love.
Yes! Together we are a force! 💃🏻You offer so much and I’m glad to know you.
We can be angels for each other
🪽lovely
🦋
Ummmmm…. WOW. This is deep and delicious. Thank you for sharing your heart and thoughts on such powerful subjects so eloquently. This is a lot to unpack in one sitting. I feel like I could come back to dissect and reread it a few times in order to wrap my head around it all. Definitely going to share it as I think it’s super beneficial for everyone to hear.
Thank you, I love the word delicious for this. Sending love and appreciation.
Hi Lori, Thank you for your words "Thank you for sharing your heart and thoughts on such powerful subjects so eloquently." This means a ton to me and all of us at this collective crisis. Sending love. Thx for sharing.
One of the greatest hurdles we women have to face (and overcome) is shame, especially around sexuality and erotic pleasure. I just wrote about shame (not in the context of sexuality, but in general) on my own channel; go have a peek and tell me what you think. Healed shame = dignity. It's worth the process.
Absolutely. Healed shame equals dignity.
Thank you so much, Nancy
I am so glad you resonate with this. I actually already knew that.
Sending you love
Soooo much to unpack here! I'm stunned. Will restack and start a conversation.
Nancy, I love your words and that you resonate
🌻😉♥️
Such depth and to connect more in this conservation!
"...that sweet tender ache that doesn’t go away until our feminine energy is nourished and gives birth to beauty." Oh, Prajna -- this longing. This sense of divine discontent pierces my heart and constantly reminds me of a higher calling to make beauty.
Every morning, I light a candle on my desk, and whisper my prayer written decades before:
"I light the light of Divinity, of the One Power, the One Presence, the One love that is law -- that the qualities of this Divine may guide, light and inform my path this day."
I live a constant cycle of remembering and forgetting, of celebrating and weeping, making beauty and making messes, living in focus and living in chaos. The wild inner life is just as tangled as the brambles and vines that grow along the fence line.
Your words have the feeling tone of that now famous line from a Rumi poem: "Let the beauty we love, be what we do. There are a hundred ways to kneel and kiss the ground."
Thank you for another thoughtful and evocative essay. Big hugs.
This whole comment is just Gorgeous. ✨
I see you in your cycle of
“remembering and forgetting, of celebrating and weeping, making beauty and making messes, living in focus and living in chaos.” So beautifully expressed.
"Let the beauty we love, be what we do. There are a hundred ways to kneel and kiss the ground." I Adore this quote.
Yes to all of this, the tension of opposites that live us, and Rumi reminding us all the ways to kiss the ground.
Thank you as always.
Hi Karen
Wonderful to read this first thing in the morning
I really get the paradox that you speak about. What a beautiful ritual that you have.
Thank you so much for reading and getting me. I appreciate you.
Hugs back to you
P
I meant @stephanie it was a late night! 🤣
I admit this is a lot for me to absorb at once so I will read it again. However, I did find some of what I could grasp relatable. I’ve not been a “feminist” by nature yet I know that women have a strength compared to none. Created as a mysterious follower instead of an equal being to males. I’ve stood my ground most of my adult life fighting for the power I know exists within me. Bringing it out often caused me distress but I could never relent. When I was young there was once a discovery of my erotic nature by another girl’s matched curiosity. A secret if you will yet also an unforgotten exquisite internal feeling of my own sexuality spirit. It’s uncanny how we both experienced early menopause without our consent. I was 43 and it wasn’t supposed to happen. I had been growing unbeknownst to myself a dermoid tumor all of those years. It ate up my feminine gifts like a monster chopping cartoon only it wasn’t funny. The parts leftover were supposed to keep enlightened only that assessment was incorrect and incurable. So I went through menopause for a very long time years and years as a matter of fact. Finally I had only my inner thoughts of what was missing to sustain me in an imaginative realm which led me to places I felt shouldn’t be but was anyway. That is when I knew my erotic nature was converted to my spirited soul awakening. The betrayal of my physical self still bewilders me often both practically and internally. Yet I continue to follow a path I placed myself upon looking for a place that I can settle in without selfishness. So this essay felt like I found an area behind a waterfall where I wasn’t hiding but could see through the water out into nature itself. Somehow as much as I am bewildered by it I am touched by the power of it. Thank you for gifting it Prajna. ❤️🌼
Behind a waterfall where I was t hiding but could see beyond to nature
Exquisite
Thank you 🙏
Kathy, this is a beautiful reflection. Wow just wow. Thank you so much my fried and for sharing. sending love, P
I do that with my girls all the time
I even call them Suki who is our former dog
Now we have Woody
On a clear day wide awake
Still happens
💜💜🤣
Sometimes my mom would call my sister by my name and me, by my sister's name -- late nights can get to us all. Biggest of hugs.
Hey Stephanie, I can't wait to meet you. Thank you!