​Have you noticed
how women worship with their bodies?
and how others 
are unkind?

Those tears at the feet
of the anointed one…
Bittersweet
mingling 
with rich perfume 
tended with kisses
pouring forth 
from alabaster
in total response
to Beauty

Hair unravelling
damp from caressing
unmindful who’s watching
this private 
act of Love

This woman:
pure in devotion 
absolving all
with a moment
of mystery
Vignette of passion
all but lost 
on those attending
Nothing of sense
for the mind

Did the women 
see it differently
absorbing silently
with their own bodies
her eternal darshan ?

And if you should see 
a woman
moved by guileless ecstasy
confounding 
your customs
and your heart
Will you join her in touching
the Kingdom?
with kisses 
and tears
hair flowing
love dissolving
in kind
-Mataji
​

Demanding that the little him shape up (Open your Heart, Express Yourself) to the full glory of what he is capable. As tantrics have always known, this is the mystical power of the conscious female, the yogini.

And you wonder where the modern day mystics have gone... They are going where mystics are supposed to go. Check out the scriptwriters, the rock bands, the writers, the poets, the artists, the thought leaders. Look at Lady Gaga. ‘It doesn’t matter if you love him, or capital H-im. Baby you were born this way’. Or the quietly witty video for ‘Judas’. Just because she’s exploring the shadow, doesn’t make her dark. It's a journey to the underworld, like the goddess Inanna. This is what women are supposed to do: feel and express without judgement. Feeling involves throwing a harness on darkness, rawness, pain, and pulling it into the light. Transmuting it through art into something less scary and freeing. There’s a great power in saying: This is how I feel. What are you going to do about it? Heal it, accept it or fix it, but don’t argue with it or deny it.

I could go on (and on), but in the meantime, what about the song which inspired this post... True Blue?
Go on, have a listen. I bet you’ve forgotten how childlike, innocent and uplifting this song really is.
​

Girl, you are doing great.
​
It is not easy being female with no rule book, no guidebook. There is no template for an enlightened female except the mother figure who sits calmly and blesses those around her. How will you integrate your shadow, and become a whole being instead of the half you have been for millennia? 
How will you know which bits to choose, and which to let go?
It’s all been repressed, and now it comes out. 
Don’t be hard on yourself.

What does it look like when the woman who has come by the path of Wicca reaches divinity? What when the temple priestess dissolves identity and becomes oneness? The dakini? The warrior woman?
Who is going to tell us what it looks like? 
We think we have achieved some freedom as women but look how few these years are in human history. Our karma is still screaming at us telling us that we won’t live to tell the tale. Think of it all - the stoning, the ducking, the burning, the consignment to mental asylums. Joan of Arc was condemned for the crime of cross-dressing in the end. She was just wearing trousers....
It’s all still there just lurking under the surface as soon as you begin to deviate from the narrow norm. 
Just a generation ago you were meant to suck it up and take Prozac. Sometimes Prozac still seems like the best option for the pain you’re not even supposed to feel, but you do. Because you are not recognised or valued for your feminine brilliance, you are dissuaded from exploring your essence. 

There is no template, no precedent, or very few. This is why we are all in love with Frieda Kahlo, why we are creating a scrapbook of others like her, to learn from.
You are a pioneer. Sometimes it hurts, sometimes you will get labelled. You have to deal with the dual ‘blame’ of not being ok all the time AND breaking the mould. Why do you think you can go your own way when your mental or emotional state is not always well? 

Come back into the rigid constraints we have created for you. 
We care about you. 
We know what is best for you. 
What you feel is nonsense. 

And you silently scream...

Girl, you are doing brilliantly. 
You are still alive. You are still breathing. Are you going to beat yourself up for your self management - your coffee, your wine, your other helpers? You know you’ll let them go when you get a better option. You know the yoga class is good for you, walking barefoot on the grass, the dancing, the talking with a soul healing friend. Open yourself more. Allow yourself to be vulnerable, an open wound. 
This is your work. 
Feeling something is wrong is important work. 
Think of yourself as a barometer of how well humanity is doing. Feel into what feels light. Be the change. 
No prophet is accepted in his own village, is what they say. Maybe ‘prophet’ feels a little heavy for you, but if you are guiding from your space of feminine wisdom - your feeling, give me a better word.

We need to forgive ourselves for not being ok, for hurting, for being sick. Just because we feel it, and the other half denies it, suppresses feelings, does not mean we, they, are well. 
How do we make this less of a burden? If you had a broken leg, how would you treat yourself? If you had the flu? If we are happy to admit on a personal level that we are sick, and that this is not failure, we will open the way to allowing the masculine energy to let go. 
It’s not weak. 
It’s not failure. 
Take his hand. He can let go of some of that control. We can show him how to trust. We can show him the magic with confidence. 
Forgive, forgive, forgive. 
Angry people need forgiveness. For the limitations of form, of time, of ability, for being in dis-ease, for feeling cut off from what is sacred, for not being in love.

Girl, you are doing great. It’s ok to have a bad day. We have to allow ourselves to flow with our emotions - around people, around family, around workmates. Find a way to express them, not pretend that we are not really happening. This is the role of the healer, the shakti. We have to be at peace with the feelings of pain and unease, and also find ways of not being overwhelmed by them. We don’t need to identify. 
Forgive yourself for being sick. You are carrying the burden of many.
​Know when to feel, and when to dive into no-mind and non-judgement. 

And allow yourself to heal. 

I wrote this letter to myself the other day. It was a challenging day - travelling, a 2.30 am start, many hours more than usual in an airport, many miles covered. This is difficult for a sensitive empath.
I am experimenting with more raw posting. If it doesn't feel right, I may not keep it, so if you find this personally useful or encouraging, please leave a comment :)

​I have been taught not to trust ecstasy.
That ecstasy cannot be my teacher.
That ecstasy is in conflict with what is good and moral.
That it is selfish.
That it is lust.
That it is temporary.
That it is unruly and unreliable.
That it is not social.
That it is not compatible with a good life, an ordered life.
I have not been taught that ecstasy is something to aspire to.
If you experience it, fine, but it’s not the be all and end all.
Always limit it.
Only in specific circumstances.
Only in private.

I have been taught to be suspicious of ‘experience’ in spiritual contexts.
‘Charismatic’ always comes with a warning.
Nothing in my spiritual experience taught me that ecstasy was a goal.
There were surely warnings about letting go, being taken in, trusting the wrong teachings, trusting the wrong guru, suspicions of trance like states (samadhi) and being possessed by demons or negative energies.
Some saints experienced it, perhaps, but it was often touch and go whether to burn or beatify.

And as a woman, what is the messaging? Don’t enjoy your sexuality for yourself. Like ever. Or submit to condemnation in some form. The fewer partners the better. Not before marriage. But when with your ‘ok’ partner, make sure you look as if you’re having a good time. You are a failure if not. We don’t let women own sex. They are too often first introduced to sex on the back foot, forced into either a defensive or ‘pleasing’ position, and will spend x amount of years re-discovering it in a way that includes their wisdom. 

Why are we shutting ourselves off from ecstasy with SO much unconscious intention? 
On some level we know that once we’ve experienced true sacred ecstasy, we are finished as a limited being. There is no going back once transcendent states have been experienced. We cannot be controlled and made to dance to another’s tune once we have accessed our inner knowing. Even if we are momentarily swayed, we just know and can reconnect with that sense of communion. We know which ‘rules’ bring us closer to that, and which push us away. Ecstasy comes with a big fat happy warning of too much freedom.
​
No wonder why it is so elusive. 

and some of the best advice I ever had....

I'll admit it. I'm finding it difficult to be 'out there' balancing my inner authenticity with awareness of others' perspectives. I'm one of those perfectionists who hates criticism, but you know, this is exactly why I'm here doing this. It's something I need to get over.

How much of this is gendered? As a woman, speaking with authority is something that must be learned. Do so many women ‘channel’ because it’s easier than owning it as coming from them? A man is more likely to claim it: I AM.

I am getting tired of being too careful. Afraid of getting things wrong. I have absorbed a lot of trauma over the years from spiritual paranoia and fear of getting things wrong. How dasterdly is the punishment or consequence (same difference) for getting stuff wrong in this or that belief system? How do they conflict with each other, agreeing only in how much fear they engender? How about I trust my journey and my impulses and trust the ONE who carries me through it all?
 
​I am sometimes impetuous, trying to unstifle, break down barriers, I try things, I test things over and over from all different angles. I am trying to find the highest version of me. I don’t want to be too cautious. Some of the greatest blessings and truths I stumbled upon by letting my guard down, by breaking rules, by being ‘spiritually incorrect’ but embodying extreme compassion.

To me this is the essence of tantra - taking the profane, the everyday and making it sacred. Using what you need to get yourself to the next stage. To keep the story moving. To own your journey, your process and weave all the threads into a beautiful pattern. If you have not woven these threads, you will simply not have much capacity for ecstasy. You won’t have developed those energy pathways. You will have one or two threads to play with, a couple of notes instead of a symphony.  The key is to remain conscious and compassionate throughout everything you do. To shine the light rather than try to wrestle with demons.

We need to own our shadow bodies. Integrate them fully. Without this, we are only half alive no matter how peaceful we are and how well we have suppressed them. Our shadow bodies contain the key to our greatest potential, our divine selves. We need to allow ourselves to be angry, to break down barriers, to try things out without fear of getting it wrong. We need to look our more primal traits in the eye and accept them as part of ourselves while opening to the highest manifestation of these. We need to accept and honour our desires as things which do not originate from us, but as winds passing through. Take the role of the observer of these and choose whether to act on them without identifying. Do they originate from our most conscious place? Can we invite in a more conscious desire? 

My shadow body is a genius at trying to keep me ‘in my place’. But I am getting smarter. Any time I do anything to push my boundaries to invite more unity, wonder and higher understanding it will scream as I integrate more of myself into operation. I am in a permanent place of discomfort as I open to more of myself.

Tantra Mataji is helping me find my truest alignment. I write some posts and then am led further on, to a higher understanding. I ask myself if I should edit/delete those posts or let them stand as a testament to the journey. So far, I have been doing a bit of both. When I start to feel uneasy about particular pieces of content, I have to ask - am I really testing my ‘now’, the new perspective I have, or am I falling back into self-doubt? How does it look in the perspective that allows all with compassionate understanding, that absolves all?


This is the question that I asked a couple of years ago when I first caught sight of the inner me that was trying to get out. 


Am I going to keep punishing myself
for being my true self
even if it's not perfect
It's mischief
polemical, challenging
it sometimes can't resist a prod
It's passionate or it's not there at all
It feels spitting fury
that blows over to calm
Do I constantly need to worry
what others will think of me
that their reactions will come back at me
that I shouldn't provoke
shouldn't pick a fight
I might be thought cocky
called flirtatious
observed too closely
I can't stand up to that much scrutiny
What's the answer?

It's still a work in progress, although plenty has been made....

But look at the beautiful advice I got straight back afterwards:

Make yourself beautiful
God loves you
is in all
Opposites attract
even unseeing
snaking between you
Babaji admires you
What is wrong with cocky or flirtatious?
None of these will stick on you
Humble is your true flavour
Allow flickers of pride
They will subside
Actions done in love
even if mistaken
will awaken what needs to be awakened
People make fun
it is only ego that is untamed
You should not be ashamed
of taunting it
You are not careful
It is not your way
Blunt speak
raw verse
honesty in all
This is beautiful
Anger suits you
Don't repress it
You are not even tempered
happy-go-lucky
You are free
This is the way it should be
Anger will fade
love will overcome
pain will cease
I love you

-Babaji


I find myself wanting to be more playful, less serious, less careful, more flowing and expressive, and more than anything, more compassionate to myself and others.

Don't sweat it.

Hold on to love and let the rest fall away.

Let's be like children, and let's PLAY.

If anyone is asking
or anyone is listening
and in case I have any say
in the matter:
I choose you
I'm certain -
or else I wouldn't bother
there is enough love around...
I don't know the rules
or if favourites are allowed
but if I can have one
I choose you.
Parvati has spoken
and, if you ask me
she looks like a girl
who knows what she wants
who 
eventually
gets her way
So, for the record
I choose you.
I haven't lived on leaves and air
but feeling the fire
of tapasya 
my substance has become vapour
Meet me on Mount Kailash
and I'll choose you

​On International Women's Day I have a question...

So tell me:


​How many times better
Than you must I be
To be accepted as your equal?
An A-lister, to your B
The only thing you understand
Is my tough love
My mastery
And you wonder why
We are struggling to be free
If I love you
You're suspicious
If I admire you
I can't be serious
If I'm nice
You underestimate me
(Consider it a friendly warning
But don't do that...)
I make it look easy
And instead of virtuosity
You see nothing
I can keep pulling it
Out of the bag
But this is getting boring
And it would be more fun
To ride with you
So I'll ask again
As if to a friend
How many times better
Than you must I be
With my bountiful skills
In my feminine guise
To be considered your equal?

​
I have some more questions....


When female leaders are strong, they attract a lot of criticism.

Or when they are perceived as weak, or just because they're there.

They can be described as being 'masculine', 'ruthless', 'even worse than men' etc etc.

I think we are still finding out what true female leadership looks like. How a woman would lead if truly allowed to follow her own inclinations... 


Is it possible to lead from a place of raw, unpolished vulnerability?
Is it possible to guide from a place of feeling and pain?
To what extent can a woman be sensual?


Which qualities might you 'borrow' from each of these female leaders (below)? Which would you decline on? Are you judging them or loving them? Which other powerful women do you admire?


(Top left clockwise: Baroness Thatcher, Catherine the Great, Queen Elizabeth I, Inanna)

I bit my tongue three times this week.

Owwwww!

So I had to ask the glaring question...Why am I biting my effing tongue?

What am I not saying?

So many parts of our feminine story are missing from the dialogue. The unconditionality, the sensuality, the calling to account.

This is the job of Shakti. Embracing the sheer complexity of all that is, has ever been and will always be.

Tantra is like forgiveness in motion. It exists because we are all IT, and we are all one, and because there was a Hitler, and there was also an Eva Braun. They are both still here in all of us.

Because the role of Shakti is to surrender, to remember, to use her whole self unashamedly, and raise her beloved to a higher place. It's not about rejecting or withholding. It's about kissing and upbraiding in a single breath. Caressing like a lover, and cuffing like a lioness to her cubs. Drawing lines, but going in. This is the power of the feminine.

It's time to get our hands dirty, and call our beloved home...



Why am I biting my precious tongue?
The tongue is an organ of loving
Feel the love flow between us
The pouring, the gushing
The gentle prattling to your sweetheart
You just want to be known
Confiding in me your lifetimes
All of your stories your learnings
I have the other half of these
The wisdom, understandings
I will explain it all, the primal rush
The love play
The way you slay me
How whatever happens
I still go to pieces when you play
The symphony
Between my tongue and my love
The harmonics of good, and god-like
And what is that! and ninja-sweet attainment
I make it ok in you, the god in you
The stuff that makes no sense in you
Come home to me
Why am I biting my precious tongue?
Torturing this love organ
When we are both speaking through it
Giving and receiving
When the chiding and forgiveness come in two
When you finish my sentences, my being
As brother-sister, one-it-y
While you tickle all my love organs
With your ecstasy, our laughter
I have as much to give
As to receive
I am the engine that makes us go
You need to listen to what I say
As part of you
I find the needle in your hay
And know what to do
It’s ok
You slay me
Come home to me
I am not biting my precious tongue

You might be wondering why my writing is on the provocative side. Well the thing is, if you don't poke something, you don't see what it's made of. You won't find what unconscious beliefs are lurking unchallenged. You won't see what words and definitions spring to mind when someone's taken aback. If you cause a reaction, at least you have a starting point - you've seen where you stand. If not, a lot of lip service gets paid and no one makes any progress.

How many faces of the divine feminine are there? We are beginning to rediscover these widely now through timeless archetypes of the 'goddess'. But how many faces of the feminine are actually allowed to be without attracting censure? You will find that when a woman puts her head above the parapet, she will immediately attract one or more 'definitions'. She may initially even like some of these definitions as they sound quite 'cool', but over time she'll find that they are essentially reductive. They are used to categorise and say, 'I don't have to engage with you fully as a serious being'. 'I know what you are - see I've got a name for it'. This occurs everywhere in our culture, you only need to look at the media to see. It's particularly prevalent in spirituality, where there is an unconscious culture of either the path of an 'aesthetic' or 'respectability'. It's very dualistic, which is what enlightenment purports to take you beyond, yet you see beings who really ought to know better still using stereotypes which are of no help to real women.

Ladies, you are allowed to be female in all its guises, but you are also allowed to be not simply female: a whole being. You are allowed to play with many archetypes, and you're allowed to put them down. You are allowed to draw upon your positive male energy as and when required. You're allowed to be a mother, and you're also allowed to be something other.

This is a long-y, but it's not boring.....


This is not my name
And this is not me either
Neither one nor the other
Nor anything in between
You can't catch me like that
With a label, with a small love...
I dared to love and be dauntless
And you called me a goddess
You fell for me also
So you feared I'm a witch
I'm adept in a temple
So perhaps it's a priestess
I have children at home
Now relax - I'm a mother
But here comes the clincher:
I embrace you as lover...
I think you'll find
All sorts of names for me now?
You moved me
You touched me
You fired my divinity
You wanted me
Felt the flame
Of innocent purity
And as it turns out
I'm not brahmacharyi
Your expectations
Are impossibly low
Your responses
Incomprehensibly slow
Is your maya so great
That you can't let go?
If I quote a few scriptures
You can call me a scholar
Then I'll write a few lines
And a mystic will be
How about
You give the lines to me?
I have some words
You can use:
Lioness, leader,
Razor-sharp mind
Gun-toting, sharp shooting
Kind
Generous, loving
Forgiving, chastising
Delivering
Lover of wine
Guru, disciple
Ambivalent everything
Devoted, triumphing
Shy
Total, unwavering
Trusting, surrendered
Brutal
From time to time
Naked and soft
Susceptible to loving
Mover of energy
Divine
I am Shiva and Shakti
Left handed and right
Scales in balance
But by you undefined
As hero and maiden
I'll slay you a dragon
Then chain myself up
And wait while you find me
Don't try to contain me
To own me with words
To you I will not be bound
This is my name
The nameless ONE
So take your angel and your Devi
And your devotee and your nun
And your good wife and your harlot
And unite them into none
Let me be empty
Let me be loving
Let me be free
To respond to the truth
To the love in you
To the joy of infinity
This is ME



(Funny thing is, I don't think I read Shivoham by Adi Shankaracharya until after I'd written this. If you don't know it, here's a link with translation). You know what they say:
​

Just for fun: how many famous femmes can you name check in this poem (there are ten to find in all). 
​
This one is from shakti, in her many forms, to the divine masculine.

I wavered on one of the words when I was writing, but have settled for the less mischievous option here. If you spot it, and want to swap it - make it your own....

There are many aspects of the feminine to embrace, if only as potentialities. Not all of them are pretty, but they can all be awesome. If we repress and deny, we will only make our shadow body more powerful. If we find something we don't find 'acceptable' inside us, what can we do with it? What higher use can we put it to? Who is judging it as 'good' or 'bad' in the first place?  

Fiddle dee dee
So what if I'm bad?
What if
I get goosepimply
All over
Would you come up sometime
And be pleased to see me?
Like a prayer
I'll whisper to you softly
To justify my love for you
Would you meet me on a train
Cross country?
And will you trust this dark, dark horse
Who has a taste for
Bad romance?
Acknowledge me:
Don't make me your
Enemy
I'm better than your wildest dreams
Chinnamasta yoni veda 
I don't have all the answers
But I sing because I have a song
If I drown my sorrows
Please forgive
I love you more
Than
My own skin


​
​