Tag Archives: feminine power

A woman in her power

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What does a woman in her power look like?

She is a rare creature indeed.

We women are neither taught, nor encouraged to stand in our power in our culture. Or if we do, then it is to stand in a masculine defintion of power – high grades, high powered job, high earning, physical strength…

I know what she doesn’t look like, I experience that often enough – self-doubt, burn out, apologising all the time, self sabotage, negative self talk, playing small. And I see this in so many women around me.

It seems my path to be fortunate enough to talk regularly to women who stand in their power. Whether by email or phone, I am in regular contact with wise women. And for that I am truly blessed, and grateful that my “work” nourishes me so much on every level.

Some of the women whom I have been lucky enough to connect with over the past year are

  • Ina May Gaskin (midwife and best selling author)
  • Lynn Andrews (best selling author and shaman)
  • Susun Weed (wise woman herbalist and author)
  • Pam England (midwife and best selling author of Birthing from Within)
  • Jane Hardwicke Collings (shamanic midwife and celebrant of women’s mysteries)
  • Glennie Kindred (artist and author)
  • Mara Friedman (artist)
  • Lori at Tiny Buddha (writer)
  • Amanda at Kind over Matter (writer and designer)
  • ALisa Starkweather (founder of the Red Tent Temple Movement)

And a few whom I have studied under thanks to the wonder of the internet

  • Leonie Dawson (founder of the Goddess Circle)
  • Shiloh Sophia McCloud (artist)
  • Flora Bowley (artist – Bloom True)

As one who only semi-inhabits her power, but is on the path to fully standing in it, it is a gift and an education of depth beyond words to see how these women who embody mastery and mystery are in the world. What they look like, what they sound like, how they act and speak. And it occurred to me that despite their working in different fields, coming from different backgrounds, being of different ages and callings, there were certain factors that united them.

Inanna

Inanna – sculpture by Phillipa Bowers, available from Starchild.co.uk

A woman in her own power:

  • Glows, she vibrates light and energy
  • Seems bigger, brighter than most other beings
  • Honours her creative urges
  • Knows her limits and her boundaries and defines them clearly but lovingly.
  • Knows her yes and her no, and uses them both the same, with love, without guilt
  • Sets her priorities according to her heart and not others expectations
  • Balances giving and receiving
  • Gives of herself and her knowledge generously
  • Knows how to recharge her energy
  • Lives a full life – full of friends, love, celebration, beauty, joy and magnificence
  • Walks the earth with glory in her heart, drinking in the beauty and magic of it all
  • Knows the dark places, has ventured there and come out with a deeper knowing and appreciation for all of life
  • Is always open to new ideas and gifts from the universe
  • Follows her intuition
  • Owns what she knows and is humble about what she doesn’t
  • Speaks in a clear, unhurried way – knowing that she has space and time to unfold and is under no pressure – unless she is full of enthusiasm – when she just bubbles over
  • Knows she makes mistakes and does not feel the need to hide them, but rather shares them with love as lessons
  • Serves those she loves with a full heart.
  • Opens herself fully to abundance
  • Is youthful in her energy and enthusiasm, yet wise and old in heart and head
  • Makes no apology for her own existence.
  • Knows her own value, and celebrates that with others.
  • Her work is prolific, expressive, deep, life changing, soulful

 

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Woman-Song at Full Moon: Power

I feel the woman power rising. Can you?

Women putting on their glory clothes. Painting their faces, adorning their bodies in gleeful anticipation. The time is now, they feel it, they smell it, they sense it… the time they have been waiting for.

Hands join around the sacred fire. Faces flushed in the flickering light. The ceremonial drums form a communal heartbeat.

Women are finding their voices. Can you hear them being raised – from a barely audible hum to a beautiful song. A song of love, loss and beauty, a song that our mothers and grandmothers, and their mothers mothers sang so quietly in their hearts just to survive. #Now we can share it. Now we are able to sing it aloud.

Songs of creativity, of joy, of freedom, of love. Songs of possibility.

As we begin to embrace our bodies, embodying the feminine, we begin to dance, swaying our hips, circling our hands.

Full moon is rising. She speaks of power. Feminine power. Will you sing with her of your dreams, your visions?

Join with thousands of women around the world at Wilde Tribe for a beautiful women’s ceremony tonight 

For a wonderful link a detailed article on the meaning behind this month’s full moon, see the April forecast at The Power Path.com

 This month you will get to look at all things related to power. All of your old patterns, belief systems, reactions, experiences, trust or mistrust, resistance, desire, access; all of it is up for observation, recapitulation, clearing, re-defining, clarifying and re-negotiating. This is the opportunity to free yourself from your old beliefs about power and the old paradigm in which those beliefs live. You will be able to look at your self-imposed limitations, hopefully clear them, and make some bids for power this month that will move you into your next level of expansion and evolution.

Everything this month will be powerful. From events to reactions and personal experiences, everything is potentiated with a greater energy and vitality. For many of you this will come as an exciting and welcome opportunity for moving ahead with your dreams and goals. For some of you this may be a difficult time of resistance and feeling overwhelmed, especially if you are not used to handling large amounts of energy. 


 

TO THE POWER OF YOU: A transformational workshop for everywoman

TO THE POWER OF YOU

A transformational workshop for everywoman

Sunday 15th April, 10.30am-4.30pm
Dervish, 50, Cornmarket Street, Cork City

We as Women are on the edge of a choice:

Do we step into a part of ourselves that we may have never explored, but which we know is strong & powerful & ever present?

Or

Do we continue to support a story which is not sustainable, to live lives which exhaust & undermine us?

What risks do we take to step into our full power? What do we have to lose?

This day-long workshop invites women of all ages & backgrounds to locate & connect with their own inner power. We will create a safe space for you to explore your power.

Through a variety of gentle, creative & reflective practices.

Working with masculine & feminine energies, you will emerge with a greater sense of your own strength to express your needs & claim what is yours.

€60 (€45 concession).

No previous experience necessary. Booking essential – limited places.
For further information, or to book your place please email trebreathnach@gmail.com or call 086 3583136.

Facilitators:
Tracy Evans is a creative facilitator, writer and performer. She runs arts-based workshops with a wide range of communities in Wales. She is currently working on a year-long project for women, which aims to explore themes of isolation and separation for mothers around Wales. She is a keen community activist and supporter of women’s voices.

Lucy Pearce is a facilitator of creativity and woman-craft. She has led women’s yoga, women’s circles, drama and creativity classes for over ten years. A freelance writer she has recently published her first book: ‘Moon Time: A Guide to Celebrating Your Menstrual Cycle’. For more on her woman-craft: http://www.thehappywomb.com

Celebrating V-Day

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Today is V- Day.

Valentines Day. Perhaps you have been the recipient of hearts and flowers? Have you ever thought about why hearts and flowers?

What might you have that is pink or red with petals? What else is heart shaped – uh-huh!

“The shape we call a heart – whose symmetry resembles the vulva far more than the asymmetry of the organ that shares its name – is probably a residual female genital symbol. It was reduced from power to romance by centuries of male dominance.” Gloria Steinem, foreword to The Vagina Monologues

Yup. Valentines Day is a commercialised celebration of the vagina! Look again, at every shop and mall, festoned with beautiful, blossoming, life giving yonis!

This is a reason why today has been annointed V-Day – to mark a global movement to end violence against women and girls.

Started by Eve Ensler, author of The Vagina Monologues. Women around the world perform these moving monologues, celebrating all aspects of being a vagina owner, and donate their proceeds to the V-Day movement.

Our women’s group did a private reading of the monologues about a year ago – it is one of our treasured highlights – it pushed many members to face fears about reading aloud, of saying the word “vagina” aloud, of facing traumatic memories…. we wept together at points… but most of all we laughed a lot.

Have you read, seen, or performed the Monologues? It is my ambition to perform them next year for the 15th anniversary. For more on V-day check out http://www.vday.org . The Monologues are available in my A-store, along with lots of other inspiring women’s books.

Becoming a woman

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I remember the first time someone called me a woman.

It was my first boyfriend. I was 16.

He was being polite. But I knew I wasn’t.

Sure I had the woman’s body, but I was a girl inside.

I had my first child at 25. I still felt a girl inside. Though the act of birth put me in touch with my woman power in the moment.

Two more babies. Two more touchings of the woman power. But still I felt a girl. At 29 and mama to three. I would think that the neighbours must think I was their older sister 😉

It is only in the past few months I have felt a woman, become a woman, stretched into my woman-skin, inhabited my woman self.

How did it happen? Why did it happen?

I realised that it had happened, in retrospect. I felt like I filled my body fully – my large breasts and swaying hips. I fit my skirts and mama heart. I fit my moods. And I had learned to stake my claim on my own life.

To say: this is what I need. And I DO need it. And it is important. With clarity, with love, with courage, I took my own power in my own two hands and claimed it. I cut the ties I needed to cut, which for years I had trembled to touch, in fear that the world would come tumbling down. I stretched the limits of my reality and possibility. I I marked out the plot on this earth that is mine, and claimed it for my soul. Then flew my flag from the turret to signal to the other women out there that I am here, in the mother-land.

Greetings dear sisters.

When did you become a woman? How did you know you were? What did it take?