​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
​

Concerning the tree on Jesus Green, the early morning HIIT class (evidence of which in the photo - that was a few weeks ago, it is pitch black now), The Guru, and the juicy mystery...

In the tree again
I found myself
the strong old guru
with loosened bark
where my hand had gripped
in search of treasure
Golden He entered
my every cell
and I in turn
fell blended into wood
blissing at my master
watching this merging
of him in me
and me in all
soaking up and soaking in
dripping with aliveness
and roaring in rage
that I can’t contain this
only be opened
extinguished
by his exquisite purpose
this sparkling gold
in all of my cells
and the trunk of this soft being
sinking me into oneness
And why did I rage
restless with questions:
the future
the meaning...
It is hope that is killing
he said to me later
But the answer
the answer
is there between
the golden sparkles
between my cells
within the unraveling
this longing
this power
this becoming
which knows everything.
Can we slaughter the mind
on the girth of the tree
nail our poison
resistance
to being this free?
I am loving this
Guru, this learning
I am loving this unity of existence
Take me back to the tree
push me further
melt me inwards
and stay


​

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. 

​Two and a half weeks into what I'm calling my personal retreat. Fasting, simplifying, streamlining, grounding, forgiving.

The healing is intense.

We are letting go of violence and drama at a core level, embodying ahimsa. We are acknowledging the 'we' that we have remembered we are. We are finding peace and presence at a much deeper level, surrendering to what is. We are finding that we are ok.

New and interesting questions are surfacing...



What does the woman in me want?
What do the women in me desire?
Standing by the side of the lake
looking out: 
I am complete
I am enough
I am compassion
I am peaceful 
I am exploring myself
as woman
I am not looking at you
though you are pretty
- you will not distract me
There is too much violent 
activity
in you
You are too worldly
I am in love 
with me

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