Once you feel relaxed and present, allow your consciousness to venture inside your body. Feel the temperature of your skin. Now, going inside your skin, notice the flesh, bones, and blood that are your body. Notice your heart beating, and your blood circulating.
Keep breathing, and notice your fingers, hands, toes, feet, and head. Keep breathing deeply, and slowly allow your consciousness to move inward toward the center of your body, through your arms, legs, neck, your thighs and chest, your sex and your belly.
Continue to breathe deeply, and then slowly, gently, allow your attention to focus on your womb. Notice that this is your temple, too. This is your inner sanctum. Here, you are child and mother. You are Goddess holding the power of creation and choice within you, Potential and Will. This space is yours. This space is.
Continue breathing, and sit with whatever emotions surface. Hold them with reverence and openness, and then release them as you see fit. Sigh, laugh, cry, smile. Notice how everything moves, how it all works. Notice the flow of hormones, so amazing, that engage with every thought and feeling you experience, and interface with the world around you in such subtle and miraculous ways.
The New Eugenics—Margaret Sanger, Planned Parenthood, Poverty, and Forced Sterilization:
Margaret Sanger was responsible for much of what we have in place in the way of planned parenthood options. She founded the first Planned Parenthood organization, and deserves hero status for that.
However, there is a hidden side to the Sanger story, which has to do with her involvement in the Eugenics movement. While Sanger was not racist, she did believe in controlling birthrates, by force if necessary, of “undesirable” elements of society.
—Source: http://www.plannedparenthood.org/pp2/portal/files/portal/medicalinfo/birthcontrol/bio-margaret-sanger.xml.
Breathe, and allow yourself to become aware of the rhythm of your body. Notice how your uterus and ovaries comprise a system that interacts with the larger system of your body. This amazing system has an integrated relationship with your brain, your heart, your gut. More than just a tool for procreation, this system is an integral part of emotion, thought, sexuality.
Breathe deeply. Allow this breath to fill your core. Allow yourself to feel awe at the full awareness of what it means to have a womb. Now, claim this space. Claim the potential and the responsibility that sits at the center of woman. Claim the pain and the joy of it. Dedicate yourself to your right to decide what is best for you. Claim the power to heal the wounds, and the power to direct the energy that is cradled in this sacred sanctum.
Taste the power of your monthly blood. Feel the power of your right to decide to breed or not to breed. Allow yourself the enduring right to laugh when you want to laugh, and cry when you want to cry.
Breathe, and claim your womb as worthy, equal to your heart and your brain. As you claim the power of this amazing organ and the system, you claim the ability to wield that power wisely.
Allow yourself to feel gratitude for the gifts of choice and of awareness of choice. Allow yourself to feel gratitude for power and the awareness of power. Allow yourself to love this powerful place that defines the edges of being woman.
Keep breathing deeply, and slowly follow your breath back to consciousness. Allow your attention to move back out through flesh and bone, bringing you gently back to the space you’re sitting in. When you are ready, slowly open your eyes, and journal or draw the story of this experience.
Onward and Inward!
Okay, you Sexy Witch, go to the proper section in part 2 and find your ritual. Oh, and by the way, congrats! You are more than halfway though your process of initiation.
[contents]
1. Erwin J. Haeberle, “Sex and Psychiatry,” The Sex Atlas (New York, 1981), http://www2.rz.hu-berlin.de/sexology/GESUND/ARCHIV/SDEV05.HTM#N27.
2. “Witch Hunts,” World History at KMLA, http://www.zum.de/whkmla/period/absolut/witchhunt.html.
3. Ask Yahoo!, http://ask.yahoo.com/ask/20030430.html.
4. The Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0180&query=section%3D%23705&layout=&loc=Tim.%2091b.
5. Jeffrey L. Geller and Maxine Harris, Women of the Asylum: Voices from Behind the Walls, 1840–1945 (New York: Anchor Books, 1994).
6. Dr. Stanley West, Hysterectomy Hoax (New York: Doubleday, 1994), http://www.rense.com/health3/hyster.htm.
7. Carol Groneman, Nymphomania: A History (New York: W. W. Norton, 2000).
8. Carol Tavris, The Mismeasure of Woman (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992).
9. Ibid, pp. 99–100.
10. Bonnie S. Fisher, Francis T. Cullen, and Michael G. Turner, The Sexual Victimization of College Women (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Dept. of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, National Institute of Justice, 2000).
11. ACLU Sports Hall of Shame, http://www.nostatusquo.com/ACLU/SportsHallofShame/SportsList2.html.
12. “Shari’ah Law, Adultery and Rape,” International Society for Human Rights, http://www.ishr.org/activities/campaigns/stoning/adultery.htm.
13. “What Is Female Genital Mutilation?” Amnesty International, http://www.amnesty.org/ailib/intcam/femgen/fgm1.htm#a1.
14. Guy Pieters, M.D., and Albert B. Lowenfels, M.D., F.A.C.S., “Infibulation in the Horn of Africa,” New York State Journal of Medicine 77, no. 6 (April 1977): 729–31, http://www.cirp.org/pages/female/pieters1/.
15. Okumephuna Chinwe Celestine, “FGM: An Insult on the Dignity of Women,” The Female Genital Cutting Education and Networking Project, http://www.fgmnetwork.org/countries/nigeria.htm.
16. TheFreeDictionary.com, http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/masturbation.
17. Online Etymology Dictionary, http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=masturbation.
18. Ibid.
19. Cynthia M. Farquhar, M.D., F.A.N.Z.C.O.G., and Claudia A. Steiner, M.D., M.P.H., “Hysterectomy Rates in the United States: 1990–1997,” Obstetrics and Gynecology 99 (2002): 229–34, http://www.ahcpr.gov/news/press/pr2002/hysterpr.htm.
20. Debra Zelnio, “The Changing Face of Medicine,” MomMD, http://www.mommd.com/changingfacehealthcare.shtml.
21. Ibid.
22. Briefing on Women in Medicine,” Royal College of Physicians of London, http://www.rcplondon.ac.uk/college/statements/briefing_womenmed.asp.
23. “Badakhshan Medical College, Faizabad,” Indiana University, http://www.indiana.edu/~afghan/badakhshan_medical_college/Background%20&%20Description%20of%20Badakhshan%20Medical%20College.pdf.
chapter five
Coming to Our Senses
★ Daily Practice: Invoking Gratitude, page 85.
★ Daily Practices, Plural: Your Assignment, Should You Choose to Accept It . . . , page 87.
Sensing Our Power
In this chapter, you will begin rebuilding your worldview. You are done with the deconstruction, done with the limitations that may previously have disallowed you ownership of how and who you are in the world.
Now we get to create the world we choose to live and love in, with the awareness that we have choice and wisdom. We have moved through some blocks, and now have the freedom and tools to design and create a new template to build our lives upon.
I Sing the Body Electric
by Walt Whitman
. . . Womanhood, and all that is a woman—and the man that comes from woman,
The womb, the teats, nipples, breast-milk, tears, laughter, weeping, love-looks, love-perturbations and risings,
The voice, articulation, language, whispering, shouting aloud,
Food, drink, pulse, digestion, sweat, sleep, walking, swimming,
Poise on the hips, leaping, reclining, embracing, arm-curving and tightening,
The continual changes of the flex of the mouth, and around the eyes . . .
O I say, these are not the parts and poems of the Body only
, but of the Soul,
O I say now these are the Soul!
In the remaining chapters of Sexy Witch, we will have the opportunity to integrate the work that we have done in the previous chapters in ways that work for each of us. We will have opportunities to envision and commit to ongoing practices that create a healthy and resourceful matrix for our lives.
As a starting point for this new creation of our worlds, we will begin with the senses. Even reduced to a metaphor, the senses are a vital representational language. How we see is a metaphor for how we think, perceive, and put our worlds together. In the process of seeing, our eyes take in images, discard much of the data, and then leave it up to our brains to “fill in the blanks,” so to speak.1 In this way, seeing, like our other processes of perception, is subjective. We see, but we assume more of the image than we might think.
What if we could become aware of this process in our daily lives? What if we could notice where we are making these assumptions and leaps in logic, where we are filling in the unknown, unseen, unheard with our own shades and shapes? What will the world be like once we are aware of our powers of perception? What will it be like when we can truly receive the senses we experience, and take an interactive role in the process? What will it be like when we can listen to our whole bodies, and then with our whole bodies? What will it be like when we can allow ourselves to respond appropriately to signals from our nervous systems and limbic systems, instead of overriding or ignoring our needs and desires?
This is also the potential starting point for a whole new love affair with our bodies and our beings. How we work is nothing short of miraculous, and the inherent wisdom in the processes of perception, growth, and evolution is an ode to the place where we all come from. Following the path back to the single cell that was the starting point for all that we have become is a story imbued with mystery and magick.
This chapter, “Coming to Our Senses,” is about creating a stronger relationship with our bodies, taking responsibility for our perceptions, and enjoying the experience of being present. It is about enjoying sensation, perception, and sensuality.
You are entering into new territory in your magickal journey. You are about to create a whole new world—one that makes sense!
Sensationale!
Our senses are a portal to discovery. Hearing, smell, sight, touch, and taste and our “extra” senses are the ways that we engage with the world that surrounds us. They are also keys to memories buried deep in the folds of our brain matter. Is it not true that sometimes you smell a scent on the breeze, and are transported to a long-forgotten memory? You hear a song on the radio, and are instantaneously awash with emotions from your eighth-grade dance or the first time you met a certain someone. You see an interesting shade of orange, and all of a sudden feel your hands in the pulp and seed of a pumpkin, cleaning it for carving. You taste a creamy sweetness, and feel some intense emotion, though you’re not sure where it originates.
The heart is, in fact, a highly complex, self-
organized information processing center with its own functional “brain” that communicates with and influences the cranial brain via the nervous system, hormonal system, and other pathways. These influences profoundly affect brain function and most of the body’s major organs, and ultimately determine the quality of life.
—Source: Science of
the Heart: Exploring the Role of the Heart in Human Performance, by Rollin McCraty, Mike Atkinson, and Dana Tomasino. HeartMath Research Center, Institute of HeartMath, Boulder Creek, CA, 2001, http://heartmath.
org./research/science-of-the-heart.
• • •
Precognition:
The ability to sense something, or know that an event will occur, before it happens.
Our senses are constantly active, bringing us to the moment we are in, and sometimes simultaneously creating a portal to memories, distinct or indistinct. Our senses are a device of communication with the worlds, both inner and outer, present and past, concrete and perceived, “real” and imagined.
Coming to our senses means becoming aware. It also means owning our experience of reality, and deciding for ourselves what that means. It means getting in touch with how it all feels, looks, smells, tastes, and sounds. It means taking our experience of this momentary, fleeting, fidgeting reality, and owning it. Absorbing it. Ingesting it. Digesting it. It means staying present in our bodies/minds/spirits, and knowing exactly how that feels. It means claiming our experience of life. Of our bodies. Of the world.
Coming to our senses means being sensually, ecstatically even, aware and engaged with the world around us. It means being grounded in our bodies, having our feet stable and firm beneath us. It means connecting with the world that we create with every moment of conscious action.
The Heart of the Matter
Science is finally coming to the defense of those of us who are “feelers.” If you have uttered the words, “It just doesn’t feel right,” or “My gut says . . .,” then you may be a feeler. Science has begun studying the links between the heart, the gut, and the brain. And it has been found that there is neurological activity in the heart—making the heart almost like an independent brain. The heart and brain are constantly communicating. But the brain does not control the heart, and more than just the heart controls the brain. Either they work together, or they work at odds.2
The Seat of Extrasensory Perception?
While some edge-walkers in the scientific community have given the phenomenon of precognition some attention, overwhelmingly the scientific world is known for being skeptical of that which cannot be seen and formulaically proven. However, there are researchers looking at the power of prayer, and at the measurable communicative power of the heart. It is possible that we have a very real “sixth sense” based in a sort of physical communication that originates in our hearts. This amazing, wise, and muscular organ has a measurable magnetic pull, sends out electrical impulses, and controls sometimes subtle—yet comprehensive—signals such as the pulse.3 These signals are received by every cell in our bodies, and each cell responds accordingly.
It is becoming apparent that not only do our bodies pick up on these signals, but that other bodies around us do as well.4 We are communicating to and with our whole bodies, whether we are aware of it or not. Our bodies are also receptors of these communications from other bodies. Have you ever felt your anxiety level rise, and then realized you were in proximity to someone who was feeling anxious? Or felt pulled to turn your head, and locked eyes with some hottie staring you down?
Communication Is a Physical Process
Depending on the study cited, nonverbal communication accounts for anywhere from 74 to 99 percent of face-to-face communication. The category of nonverbal communication includes everything but the actual words said: tone and speed of voice, body language, facial expressions, involuntary actions or reactions such as flushing and shaking, chemical signals, and more. Some nonverbal communication is considered innate, or genetic, and other cues are assumed to be learned behaviors.
Awareness of nonverbal communication is utilized extensively in sales and marketing training as well as in some of the helping professions. However, awareness and mastery of nonverbal elements of communication are tools that will help any of us both receive and send out signals more accurately.
As each of us gains an awareness of these subtle elements of communication, we will be able to understand the worlds around and within us more easily. And the more acuity we develop in understanding these forces of communication, the more easily we will present ourselves in ways that are congruous to who we are, and who we are becoming.
Becoming Grateful
One of the most empowering things being learned about our hearts and how they should be treated is that gratitude is a key element to having a healthy heart. And I’m not speaking in metaphor, friends—this is for real! Science has proven that g
ratitude contributes to the health of your heart, and to your overall sense of joy and well-being.5
Gratitude can be a gift that gives twice. When we are truly thankful to others for the gifts they give us—support, help, a smile, or a shoulder to lean on at the right moment—we improve their day, and we improve our health. It’s a true win-win situation!
The sticky wicket? We Gen-Xers and beyond are notorious for thinking that nihilism is cute and funny. Well, against the odds (and my cynicism), I started my family on a practice of gratitude about a year ago. Now at least once a day I get to voice my thanks for the little things, and to hear my partner and kids tell me about the good things that happened in their days. I will admit that the concept of gratitude is still a challenging one at times, but the more I learn about the gifts that the practice of gratitude offers, the more I realize the challenge is a worthy and fulfilling one.
So, at risk of offending your stylishly bleak sensibilities, here we go . . .
★ Daily Practice: Invoking Gratitude
There are many ways to practice gratitude. In my family, we practice gratitude at our dining room table during dinner. You may find that you like to practice gratitude first thing in the morning, or before or after yoga, or before bed, or whenever you feel sad or annoyed.
For now, we are going to practice gratitude in writing. Choose your favorite time of day for this practice, and then every day this week write down three to five things you are grateful for. These things don’t have to be monumental, deep, or virtuous. You don’t have to come up with grand gratitude themes. Sometimes it’s the little stuff that really makes us feel good. Your journal may read like this:
Sexy Witch Page 10