I attended Sara Avant Stover’s Women’s Yoga Teacher Training in Tulum, Mexico. I’ve attended trainings before, I am a certified yoga instructor already.
This one called to me, in that way that Joseph Campbell refers to as the call of the soul, when it is time to leave behind the comfort of an old way of life and venture out to grow in wisdom, leave our nest, battle dragons and face our inner shadows.
I leapt in courage with a strong commitment to up the ante in my life.
I trusted that if I invested more money and more time into something that spoke to me, that the rewards and benefits would be larger than any of the past.
With little knowledge of what I would experience, I took the steps, one foot after the other, to get myself to the edge of the Caribbean sea in a foreign land and entered circle with women from around the world. The Czech Republic, Kosovo, Columbia, Australia, Canada, Denmark and more.
Together, we began the process of sewing up a sacred tapestry woven with strands of sharing, revealing and deep bonding that expand beyond this time and space, but somehow heal back through the wounds of our grandmothers and forward through the hearts of our children, physical and not.
I realized how important it is to honor our sacred, divine, feminine vessels of womanhood, as a practice.
We must rip open the taboos that keep us from naming our sex, embodying our ovaries, and deeply breathing into our Yoni’s.
She is me, we, all of us women, and we have been brutally harmed in our histories and it is time to clear the path, claim our rights and be held in sacred honor.
I was born very sexual. I loved to be naked and run around and take off my clothes.
The story goes that I would take off my pants when I was very young and with a huge smile on my face, I would touch myself in front of family and friends.
My mother would gasp in horror and immediately stop me.
My father would argue to let me be.
I grew up feeling deep shame about my sex.
I never touched myself in a sexual way again, for many years.
I didn’t know my body.
I didn’t occupy her fully, for she was dirty. Something to hide.
In my twenties, I was diagnosed with stage three, pre-cancerous cells on my cervix.
I had to have three procedures in which they cut off a portion of my cervix.
I harbored deep sadness, regret and judgment about my sexuality, my choices and how I had become so “cut off” from Her.
Enter Sara Avant Stover, and her book, The Way of the Happy Woman. She too had a pre-cancer diagnosis and she wrote about it in her book.
She teaches women to reclaim health, happiness and vitality via listening to our deep intuition, which comes from our womb, and makes the connection between the patriarchal, activity oriented and driven world, and our being cut of from our femininity.
With her help, I realized that it was okay to reclaim my womanhood and pull the shadowy dark parts out of hiding and bring them into the light.
I now know it is time to tell my stories, share my truths, connect with other women and heal the deepest parts of me.
I am passionate about sex education and honoring the rite of passage of maturation with honest information and deep reverence. The time of the say little, “here use this pad and get on with it, it can be like nothing happened” is over.
It’s time to teach our children well about their bodies, their sexuality, and the natural rhythms of life and nature.
Let’s honor the seasons: fall, winter, spring and summer, and that we each go through those phases too, sometimes not with the seasons.
Let’s begin to listen deeply to our wise one within and heed the call to slow and nurture.
Let’s look to nature’s wisdom and sync with Her.
During this training I learned incredible yoga for all the phases of a woman’s life.
I connected to my womb and received a very healing Maya abdominal massage from a gifted healer in the land that created the technique.
I invite you to get Sara’s book if you haven’t yet, and to follow her via her newsletter or website.
Learning to connect in sisterhood with the women in our lives and to honor our feminine cycles over the push of the masculine-driven world is what this time is about.
We are here to wake up and reclaim what it is to embody the Goddess.
Call upon her. Offer up to her feet. Speak to Mother Mary, Quan Yin, or whomever speaks to you.
Know her power. Invite her in.
Breathe life into your womb and honor your cycles.
Sync with the moon. Howl from your yoni. 🙂
Claim your sex, your right to embody your wise femininity, develop yourself and your energies with yonieggs.co. Know where you are in your cycle, and if you don’t bleed anymore, intimately know the cycles of the moon.
Let’s heal the shame of our past and do what it takes to deeply embody our wombs.
Let’s find our feminine voices and teach others what it is to be empowered.
If you are interested in learning more about what cycle you are in, I offer intuitive Clairvoyant readings in Boulder, or over the phone. We can look at where you are in your life, which season, and when the time is ripe for you to slow, listen, plant seeds, or birth projects.
Deva says
absolutely beautiful Rachel! Thank you for sharing your deep wisdom and experience.
All Love, Deva