Healing the Feminine – from extractive to regenerative systems
I had the good fortune of attending a womb healing ceremony led by Pam Ng in San Marcos La Laguna. Throughout the ceremony where we shared affirmations to heal out wombs, and she said something that stayed with me. That we are leaving an extractive patriarchal system and moving into a regenerative feminine system. How could we not. Without it, we die. Nature simply cannot be extracted to the point of exhaustion without consequences.
All over the world, big, crowded cities, covered in asphalt, are simply dying. In those areas, nature was sacrificed for commerce. Today, homeless encampments crowd many areas of these cities. The encampments are growing in size and numbers; the human misery increasing. By contrast, I’ve lived in places where nature is still dominant. For fourteen years I lived in Hawaii, where the abundant plant life breathes vitality into its inhabitants. Now, I’m in San Marcos Pasajcap, also surrounded by nature; where birds, bugs and critters all share a space that I call my home. Here I rise with the sun and go to bed when it sets. Here I take things more slowly and move with more mindfulness.
Living out of synch with nature’s rhythm takes a toll on everyone. In modern life we can stay up and work or play as late as we want, we can be warm in cold places and cold in warm places. We can eat strawberries in December due to artificially controlled environments. We can use chemicals to make ourselves happy because the pace and rhythm of life does not allow us to forge supportive relationships. In modern life we can purchase those parts of someone else’s time/expertise that we need, down to the most intimate and private exchanges which are all for sale. In modern life, holistic family or group relationships are no longer needed, they’ve been dissected into their most useful parts, and commercialized. Of course, this leads to addictions and maladaptive coping patterns with more and more need for mental health services. Just look around. This system is crumbling.
How do we heal from this? We find or create a little habitat that supports human life. We help nature, not just take from her. We help make her whole. From planting a tree or a small house garden, getting our hands in the earth gets us back to the basics. We take the time to rest because we’ve come to the realization that by pushing ourselves past our limits in this fiercely competitive society will only leave us with a big bill we have to pay later. The bill can be a spiritual debt, or a cost for the harm to our physical health.
I lived in suburban New Jersey for many years. There, housing developments were called bedroom communities. It was expected that the residents would simply sleep there, spending their days at their nearby corporate jobs. Many such towns had no sidewalks at all and were named by the animal habitat that was destroyed to build the housing. Fox Run had no foxes. Deer Pass had no deer. Rabbit Hollow, of course, was absent of rabbits.
Getting back to the rhythms of nature gets us back to health. Appreciating the life-giving sun, working with life giving earth, using water the way it was intended, helps us all harmonize. Women especially often have the responsibilities of work, home and children to juggle, with inadequate support, leaving many of them in a state of exhaustion.
To regenerate and renew takes rest and healing. Quiet contemplation that cannot be rushed. When was the last time you took time evaluate your life. Is the pace of it working for you? Have the demands of life been so prioritized that the promptings of your body have been suppressed? This always has consequences.
I learned through my life, that so often, we push now and pay later. If you are sensing that a debt to your own wellbeing has accrued, it is time to pay this by focusing on what has been neglected. As an acupuncturist who has served many groups on retreat, I can tell you that retreats are life changing. Today, I feel that taking time for a yearly retreat would create happier, more focused and balanced humans worldwide.
We’d like to invite you to take this precious time for yourself at our upcoming Women’s Deep Healing a retreat at magical Lake Atitlan, in Guatemala from August 17 to 24th.
Strip mine Image by Martina Janochová from Pixabay
Plant Image by Thọ Vương Hồng from Pixabay
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