I rarely get political on here, but I can’t help but want to respond to the recent Santa Barbara shootings and the #YesAllWomen campaign.  Strangely, or not…I was feeling intensely the memories of my own violent experience a few days prior to the shooting.  I have worked through and healed so many layers of it.  I don’t know if that work will ever feel entirely complete, but I was surprised by the resurfacing of these memories as there didn’t seem to be an obvious trigger for it.  I often pick up on the collective energies that are strongly present in my community and beyond.  It reminded me that part of my work in the world is to help heal those ancient and present wounds of and between the feminine and masculine, within myself, within each other.  Then I began to notice the hashtag ‘YesAllWomen’ but it was this one in particular from @Emilyhughes that struck home:

Because every single woman I know has a story about a man feeling entitled to access to her body. Every. Single. One. #YesAllWomen

Because it’s true, and because it breaks my heart.  It breaks my heart.

It breaks my heart as I remember all the times this has happened to me.  From the time when I was walking down the street in NY and felt someone pinch my rear and turned around to find myself staring at a boy who could not have been older than 12, to the old man on the T in Boston who tried to cop a feel, to the time I decided to put on something pretty and go about my day only to return an hour later in tears, to the violent attack that happened to me not quite 8 years ago.

This breaks my heart in such a deep, ancient, cellular soul level, knowing that the wounds on both sides began so very long ago.

In my very first medicine journey part of my intention was to understand my work with the divine feminine.  I had a very long talk with mama Gaia in which she showed me and had me feel every known possible wound a woman could experience in the world and throughout time.  I kept asking her over and over “Why?  Why like this? Why are you showing me this? Why?” The answer I eventually received was “Because you needed to know that you could hold *ALL* of this, all of it, and still see the light in the world.”

And I do.  I know it and I see it.

Please know that I hold a deep love and respect for the masculine, even when I struggle to understand and heal my relationship to it. My questions, for myself and for all of us are: How do we heal this, this ancient wounding between the sexes? When do we begin to heal the ancestral patterns that have been passed down for generations?  How will we choose to speak to our children about this?  How do we initiate our sons and daughters into adulthood with grace, integrity, respect, and empowerment instead of with patterns of fear and shame?  How do we cut through the illusion of our separateness and remember that we are all love?  How will each of us choose to take responsibility?

I am offering to hold space for this healing to happen, for this conversation to begin…. however that happens, in whatever form it takes.

I didn’t know this was going to come out of me today, It feels a bit disjointed and messy but I guess it needed to. It brought up a lot of raw emotion that I’m sure I’ll be processing for awhile.  If you choose to respond to this, please be mindful of your words.  Peace to you all my dears <3