Or wearing a red dress, or playing with feathers and incense and candles.
I mean she can if she wants, but she doesn’t have to.
I spent four years in a tantric community and what they called divine feminine work and women circles there (I love and recommend women circles when they are well held) were from my point of view the most disempowering teachings for women.
Tantra teaches about the masculine and the feminine forces, and because it sounds like gender, there is a lot of confusion around those terms.
To make it short every man and every woman have in them two currents of energy. One the so called feminine is a receptive force, the masculine is more an emissive force. I like to explain them in term of directions. If the energy comes from the outside world to my inside world I am tuning in my feminine. For example: listening, relaxing, feeling….If the energy comes from inside me to the outside world I am tuning in my masculine: speaking, doing stuff… The Taoists call these forces’ yin (fem) and yang (masc) which is less confusing.
There is a continuous dance between both specially in our relationships. Any kind of relationship really; with people, with life, with your business…. You need to rest and you need to take action. You need to give and to receive. You need to hear and to speak. And the list goes on..
The masculine and the feminine give life together; to another being, to a project, to an idea. When it is too unbalanced, life can’t thrive.
In our society today the emphasis is on being busy and productive which is more masculine/yang. There is less and less place for feeling, resting and pleasure which belong more to the feminine/yin.
The result? Burn out! People are depleted and so is nature.
If our intention is to prioritize life over matter, it is an emergency to help the feminine force to rise in all of us. And for the intuitive women craving that connection within, I invite you, when you choose a “Sacred or Divine Feminine” teacher to be careful with what you sign for.
I would encourage you to participate in anything that activates your shakti, your female force. Women groups can be tremendously healing. Any work which puts you again in touch with your body, your pleasure, your intuition will reawaken a sense of aliveness within. I had a big break through once with a group of women. We were practicing with the jade egg, in the jungle, naked, awakening our sexual energy and it felt witchy and super powerful.
I think we all need to reconnect with our wildness, but I would like to call your attention on a few things:
Reclaiming your feminine energy doesn’t have to look a certain way.
If all the kind of “goddess/priestess” activities make you feel alive, do it. If not, your shakti or feminine force is not necessarily blocked. Sacred feminine pratices are not meant to trap you in a different cage, the Divine Feminine cliché. In the tantric community I lived in, they would teach you to be fairy like dressed, super sexual and surrendered which meant more or less polyamorous. Polyamorous in a yoga school where 80% of the population are men you see who it could benefit.
The sacred feminine has a gazillion archetypes
If the Indian Pantheon (and the Egyptian, and the Mayan…) has so many goddesses it is because there are infinite facets of the feminine. Durga for example comes with a lion to fiercely defend what she believes in. Maybe she is more one of your flavors than the spiritual dancing queen.
And more importantly let’s talk about the “soften/open your heart” bs
Here comes the tricky part related to softening, opening your heart, surrendering or being whatever channel of love. This kind of sentence makes me react because it can be such a spiritual bypass and I coached clients who were damaged by this.
If you want to work on your heart, big chances are you will connect to your emotions and let them flow. It can feel raw and vulnerable. Well, it is! And that’s where it is important to work with a guide who gives you a set of tools to support you during this journey.
It is difficult to be in that process and stay safe without inviting the masculine/yang qualities in the dance to create a structure.
Opening your heart is a beautiful concept. But sadly, we live in a world where walking around heart wild open, soft and full of good intentions doesn’t always work. It depends on the context of your everyday life.
Your body is your ally and all the places that feel locked or numb hold a defense mechanism, a painful story or even a trauma. And you don’t want to awaken those places with any shock technique, simply because your nervous system might freak out and enter a stress cycle.
You want to go slowly and be given tools which help you to resource or self soothe. You want to be guided to know where are your boundaries, to be able to express them and to stand your ground.
I call myself a feminine empowerment coach, because most of my clients feel disconnected from one or more aspects of their feminine/shakti energy and want to reclaim it. But very often the reason they disconnect is that their masculine force is not clear enough to hold a safe structure for their feminine to blossom and be fully expressed in its uniqueness. When it is the case we actually work on the inner masculine more.
Some big companies related to fashion, advertising and now cosmetic procedures already played with insecurities and body image to destroy women self-confidence.
Let’s cultivate the unique expression of our divine feminine and our divine masculine away from any “spiritual cliché” that they can dance together harmoniously. One of the quality of the sacred feminine is its capacity for changes. She helps us remembering and feel the power of the cycles, in nature, in our own body, in our own life.
Before my divine masculine paddles strong for my divine feminine to surf a wave, I invite you, dear woman, dear man, to close your eyes, take the time to slow down and deepen your breath, and call your inner feminine. What/who do you see ?