In the Taoist traditions, the feminine is aligned with water and earth. The masculine is fire and air. The four elements dance within each of us, regardless of gender. We have unique combinations and expressions of it all, at different times. Each element has its shadows and light, difficulties and medicines.
Water is often said to be the initiatory expression of the feminine. Here, we learn to feel. Emotions can be powerful waves, pummeling us under. We can feel a victim to the currents and undertows, left gasping for breath underneath an ocean of chaos.
Water also freezes, leaves us feeling cold, distant, aloof, alone. We can feel frigid and tight, unable to feel anything. A reasonable response to that ocean of emotion. If we numb, at least we are spared the torment of being human…at least for a while.
But there’s another way. The way of the water priestess, who merges with the waters within and without. Allows the currents to move through, with courage and grace. Knows that as long as she flows, all is well. She does not fight the ocean waves, but learns to surf. Learns to summon the blood in her body as catalyst for release, death, rebirth, nourishment, beauty, and magic. The water priestess knows that she and the water are one. Knows how to feed herself and the world with its power.
Earth is the matured feminine. Water is allowed to flow as it will, carving new shapes through the landscape of our lives and bodies. Earth surrenders just like water, but with a different kind of strength. An enduring capacity to hold life, nourish, love. Earth is here to stay. And yet, it yields to the eternal evolution of life. Hills turn green, then gold, orange, and red. Dying back into themselves. Sleeping until dawn when the ancient vital fire + air shake them awaken again.
The earth holds the heartbeat of the feminine. True, deep, enduring, ancient. A womb to curl into if you are tired, worn out, confused, or broken. Earth will take her time sewing you back together, better than she found you. It will take time. It will all be worth it.
The earth priestess has learned to listen to this heartbeat, to sing along, to let it shape her, her life, her world. She is the living prayer. Love embodied. Powerful and yielding. Ecstatic and ordinary.
We’re living in a time where the elemental spirits that made us are strangers. We’re starved of sacred nourishment. The womb is a foreign land, even if we are the keeper of one such magical place. Simple ceremonies of water and earth aren’t practiced. And so, we feel a sickness we don’t have words for. Pain we don’t understand the origin of. A disconnection from the magic, medicine, and mystery of earth + water.
The priestess knows the ways back to source. The ways of summoning magic through her body, through water and earth. In Wild Womb Summer Camp, we remember these ways together. Through embodied experience of elemental soul, we slip back into blissful union with the forces that made us. The forces that heal, nourish, love, and make beauty.
Join me for a magical weekend of water + earth rituals, taoist practices to embody and summon water and earth, kundalini breath journeys, sacred play, and more…all along the shores of Lake Superior, deep in the nourishing woods of Wisconsin.
Commune with other creatures willing to weave a new way forth. Not just for yourself, but for the web of love that is our responsibility and destiny to become.
Nicolenardone.com/wildwombsummercamp for details & registration.
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