Blog — woman4

 

Welcome Woman ~ how is the garden you’re tending? Here are the moving postures we’ve visited thus far. Next class we will review all of them so please take note if you have any questions arise as you practice this week ~

~ old nun greets the moon
~ wise nun strokes braids
~ circulating ball of qi (huiyin to ming men, knees to twin peaks, feet to jade pillow, then reverse)
~ nourishing the breasts
~ rebirthing creation qi at the womb (unapologetically wide)
~ circulating the essence – first at ovaries, then kidneys, then circles at huiyin, then breasts, then face, then brain

Another invitation for this week is to reflect on the Mother archetype. Here are some questions to float in your bodymind as you deepen with practice:

~ if you connect with the mother archetype, where are you focusing mother energy at the moment?
~ are there ways you can more fully nourish your inner mother?
~ are there humans/role models around you to look to for mothering wisdom?
~ what is the nature of your dynamic in caring for self/caring for others?
~ are there ways you can invite more balance? 

(We can draw from the wisdom of the group in this last question… like from Maddy, asking for help and delegating, from Lesley, being ok with being perceived as uncaring when focusing one’s energy, from Sara, acknowledging the self-perpetuating nature of creative energy. I’m paraphrasing just some of your beautiful sharings here – so many useful nuggets to learn from each others’ navigations).

“Cut brambles long enough,
Sprout after sprout,
And the lotus will bloom
Of its own accord:
Already waiting in the clearing,
The single image of light.
The day you see this,
That day you will become it.”

~ Sun Bu’Er

Frida Kahlo. The Love Embrace of the Universe, the Earth (Mexico), Diego, Me and Señor Xólotl 1949.

“Rather than disengaging from the mother, we are seeking a wild and wise mother. We are not, cannot be, separate from her. Our relationship to this soulful mother is meant to turn and turn, and to change and change, and it is a paradox. This mother is a school we are born into, a school we are students in, a school we are teachers at, all at the same time, and for the rest of our lives. Whether we have children or not, whether we nourish the garden, the sciences, or the thunderworld of poetics, we always brush against the wild mother on our way to anywhere else. And this is as it should be.”

~ Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés p.194 “Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype”