'Mind over what matters'

Juukan Gorge in 2013, left, and in 2020

Did you hear about the 46 000 year old cave in the Pilbara, Western Australia. It was blown up by a mining company with the go ahead by the government. This was a sacred site full of story, wisdom and the spirit of generations of life lived and shared.

The people of this place, The Traditional Owners did not give permission for this to happen. They said no. These people are known as the oldest culture in the world.

You may be wondering why I am sharing this here as part of Sacred She Wisdom. Don’t I talk about vaginas, the body and the feminine. Yes and this has everything to do with it. Breech of consent. Breech of boundary. Disrespect for sacred space. Disrespect for the land, the female body. Dismissal of the voice, the right and the word of those protectors and caretakers of innocence.

Female bodies grow up in a world where they see the Earth taken from without asking. Animals run out of their homes from clearing, hunted for trophies, experimented on and exploited. Cultures that have lived closest to the Earth dismissed and treated as inferior. The wild grossly bulldozed for gain of money and mineral.

Women are designed to nurture, to connect in heart, to care, to be empathic. Qualities needed to bring a soul into the world and shepherd them once they arrive. And also to keep us, humanity in integrity, to keep us in balance, to keep us accountable.

The female body is an intelligent organism. Sensitive, perceptive, alive. How safe we feel in our bodies, to take up our space, to speak and express ourselves freely and to stand in our authority is influenced by the way the world treats the Earth and Nature. In the West we call the Earth Mother not Father. We call nature Mother not Father. Though like Yin and Yang these hold both principles, the majority of the expression is named female.

So for a female body to witness acts of needless destruction, overriding of consent and respect to these greater female bodies around them, a story builds like tarter on teeth and is worn within cells and skin about how safe and respected a female body is in this world.

This creates body tension. That I get to see all the time in my work with the pelvic bowl. A woman braces herself, tenses, constricts, armours as if in threat and need for self protection. Varying on the sensitivity and subtlety of the woman and with her own ancestral and soul story ones female body can be blocked from receiving the serpentine dance of life of the feminine spirit. This affects her energy levels, her sex life, her ability to navigate relationships, her boundaries, her digestive capacity and her sense of purpose.

The cave in the Pilbra reminds me of other caves. The cave of the skull, the cave of the pelvic bowl, the cave of the heart and the cave of the womb. All Sacred places. We, the Traditional land owners of these bodies.

When we look at it like this it brings a deeper conversation to an underlying corruption that says our voices, our intuition, our hearts are less of value than the head.

This story has been repeated over thousands of years. It is a system that does not marry the head with the body. A ‘system of heads’ devalues intuition, instinct and practices an over confident righteous, overriding, mocking and fear mongering anything in its way of its desire. A culture without heart and body intelligence, makes good judgement extremely limited. A culture that is head and Left brain dominant creates a womanhood missing her connection to feminine presence.

Many people especially young people feel collapsed with what is happening to the Earth and in the world. I felt this powerlessness as a child and teen, my voice most often shut down saying I did not understand, wait until I grow up or that I was just a do gooder, too much heart, over caring. But the voice of a child is closest to Mother and so in most cases will be of most sense.

I now tell that girl within that she cares just right. That she is wise and she has a strong voice and I listen to her voice. Don’t hush the child of the heart. As Jason Moikeha Asar puts it “When children are awake they are our teachers. When children are asleep they are learning and remembering who they are so they can teach us”.

As feminine presence grows in the world, we will connect more to our hearts, our bodies and the sacredness of Mother. Blowing up Sacred cave systems, pushing things through for money without consulting the environment and the caretakers will be more unlikely to happen.

World systems and culture are at the cusp of a shift. We are disorganising old thinking and reorganising into a new system of thinking. It is a process humanity is undergoing individually and collectively where we have the opportunity to evolve into humane humans. It is not something that will happen in 6 - 12 months it will take perhaps a thousand years and more.

Our powerful role right now is to bring the head, heart and body into felt connection. To practice awareness and stay with it. Sensing, witnessing how we feel in our bodies through out the daily experience. Connecting with communities that support our own uncovering of the feminine within and provide safe spaces for inquiry. Women can tend to feel like they need to be more helpful, to do more and this overdrive can create fatigue, overwhelm and collapse. We need to make space for connection, joy and pleasure.

How to look after this sacred land (body) and these sacred caves within?

The first call is to your own nervous system, asking yourself what are the real needs right now. Remember we live in an overdoing culture. Simplicity, sincerity and taking small mouthfuls to digest can be the best medicine. Trying to do lots of self practice because it is what you think you need without listening to your body can be taxing and overstimulating to your system. Knowing your own capacity is an art that takes practice because it requires listening to the body intelligence rather than the ‘mind over body’ trend most of us have been raised in.

The Sacred Cave that was blown up is very symbolic of how we override our own body intelligence, not listening to the voice of our inner wisdom and denying our feelings and emotions. It speaks of a culture that is not kind to and receiving of the feminine. This Women Kind Culture we are creating happens through the presence we show ourselves and nurturing the connection to our sacredness and the wisdom inside.

Love, wisdom and strength to you

Simone