Yoni Speak

What Makes a Woman Alluring and the Power of the New Feminine Mystique

2010-06-26T15:07:00.000-07:00

I love the word 'allure'. The word itself captivates one and I find it holds the energy of its meaning. To be alluring is 1) to temp or entice; 2) the power of attraction, 3) to beguile. It could also mean that one has charisma or even the power to seduce or be seductive. When one is 'alluring' the subject of the allurer is under a “spell” or so it may seem.

Don’t you just love knowing that if you are a woman you have the power to beguile? In fact that is where it all began in the mythical Garden of Eden when the Snake (symbol for sexuality) beguiled Eve to eat the apple of knowledge.

The question I wish to explore here is if this is the old definition of what it means to be alluring then what could the new definition be? For women this is an important question, for ever since the ‘fall’ we women have been trying to apologize for being a woman. I believe that the time has come to reshape, reconfigure and redefine what it means to be a woman who has allure or what I call 'feminine mystique'.

It has been for literally thousands of years that we have been told that it was our ability to entice men that caused the downfall of mankind. Our innate sexuality was too hot and alluring for man to handle. And so the word allure got a bad rap and women were told that to be too sexy, too enticing or seductive was wrong. Only bad girls did that, not good girls. And even though we wanted to please our mothers and fathers we also wanted to explore our bad girl nature.

Over 30 years ago Betty Friedan wrote the book, The Feminine Mystique. It rocked the feminist world and brought awareness to the roles of women, a subject that had never been questioned. Although this book was written decades ago, many of these ideas are still prevalent in our culture today. Betty Friedan’s book exposed the roles of women in the 50’s and 60’s as well as the attitudes that accompanied them, and as such allowed us to bring to light how women were so repressed by the social standards and mores of their day.

The Tantric Woman

In Tantra the woman is always seen as the more dynamic and active partner, especially in love making, for she is the expression of Shakti the Primal Goddess. She represents raw sexuality, uncontrolled emotions. She can be fierce or gentle. She is untamable and is our primal nature, the Wild Woman. This aspect of the feminine has always scared the male population and it has also scared many women. Of course this was not always the case, especially before the demise of the Goddess. But it has been the case for the past five thousand years. And so the time has come for women to embrace this aspect of her feminine nature and to use it with love, wisdom, and reverence and to hold it sacred.

The New Feminine Mystique

The New Feminine Mystique is a new possibility for you as a woman to shift the current way in which you embody and express your sexual power, your sexual allure and your feminine sexual essence. It is a conversation that explores what it means to be a fully-embodied sexually-awake, totally integrated woman. How we as women use our power, the power of our sex and sexual allure is a question whose time has come.

The New Feminine Mystique takes the shame out being an alluring woman and redefines this age-old term. To be a woman who is alluring now can mean to be someone who has kept her passion and erotic nature alive, a woman who is inspired by her vision and who knows how to show herself in the best light. She wears her womanliness proudly and without apology. Her sexuality is appropriately expressed when it is the right time and is not used to manipulate others to get what she wants. She no longer needs to do that in order to survive. She is a woman who is virginal unto herself and knows that she can satisfy herself erotically and does not need a man to do this. Because of this she is not afraid of men and therefore can love them for being men. When a woman no longer needs a man to feel fulfilled she is then free to love them for being who they are.

With this as a guide more and more women can begin to stand tall and feel that being a sexually potent, fully impassioned and alive woman is magnificent and something to be celebrated.

We are faced with many challenges at this time in our history and it has been told by many, including the Dali Lama, that it will be through the women in North America that the world should look for its leadership. If this is true then it is up to women everywhere but most especially here in the U.S. to ask themselves if they are ready to become the women that they have always wanted to be.

For more information regarding The New Feminine Mystique please check out: www.womensmysteries.org/FeminineMystique.html and register for the free intro conference call.

From the Sacred to the Profane

2010-06-06T21:13:00.000-07:00

There was a time when sex and the act of making love was something that was considered sacred. It was an act that was a gift of the Goddess and as such was honored and thought of as a part of life. Both men and women were often initiated into sacred rites by a specially trained man or woman. It was through these rites that a young man or young woman became a responsible adult, someone who was now ready to undertake contributing to the whole community.

As temples were built in honor of the Goddess the responsibility of initiation was given to the temple priestesses. Some women were trained to become Temple Prostitutes, whose main role was to restore men back to wholeness after war and help them to reconnect with their soul and heart. These women would dance the dance of Shakti and be a vessel for the Goddess to come through. The personal self having stepped out of the way, She became a vehicle for the energy of the Goddess to flow through her.

In the temple of love the sacred prostitute’s primary offering to the goddess was her welcoming of the stranger, thought to be the emissary of the gods or perhaps the god incarnate. If she were a maiden, he initiated her into the mysteries of her feminine sexuality under the aegis of the goddess. Holy Whore as "a woman, who, through ritual or psychological development, has come to know the spiritual side of her sexuality, her true Eroticism, and lives this out according to her individual circumstances." (The Sacred Prostitute, Nancy Qualls-Corbett)

The Demise of Sacred Sex

Sex began to become profane with the onset of the Church's gradual annihilation of the role of the goddess and all that she represented. The sacred feminine went from holy to unholy, from sacred to profane and the sacred prostitute was drastically altered. There came a time when the goddess was no longer worshiped; the physical and spiritual aspects of the feminine were declared evil. From this point on women who represented sexuality and the goddess were also condemned by the Church Patriarchs as, “the embodiment of sensuous seduction, the reason for man’s downfall; she was tempted by evil forces and in turn tempted man.”(The Sacred Prostitute) So the act of sex was also condemned and taught that it could only be done for procreation of the species.

Sex then became profane and all natural bodily functions became gross, shameful, and not to be spoken of. As you may know, anything that is forbidden becomes a taboo, and all taboo’s are become desirable. Women are convinced over thousands of years, that having sexual desire is not a feminine quality so that any woman who desired sexual gratification must be unfeminine and a “whore”. The word 'whore' actually comes from the Hebrew root word ‘hor’ meaning dark pit or hole. The Spanish word for whore, puta, derives from the Latin term for a well, but the Latin term for grave, literally "a hole in the earth," is puticuli, meaning womb of rebirth. These terms for whore were not derogatory. The Latin term had its root in the Vedic, an early Sanskrit language, wherein the word puta is defined as pure and holy. The cave, the pit, the hole, and the bottomless black lake were metaphors for the Great Goddess. (Diana Rose Hartmann)

In Kathleen Barry's book, The Prostitution of Sexuality, she says that "sexual exploitation objectifies women by reducing them to sex; sex that incites violence against women and that reduces women to commodities for market exchange. Sexual exploitation is the foundation of women's oppression socially normalized."

I have always considered myself to be a sex positive individual and a rather open-minded woman when it comes to sex practices and all the different ways in which we humans like to "get off" or find our pleasure. As a woman who has been a sex educator and a teacher of sacred sexuality as well as a sexual healer, I have personally experienced what it means to be classified as a "sex worker" by the culture at large.

Today we see the result of these beliefs that have become normalized in our culture. Sex for the most part has become a thriving industry that makes billions of dollars yearly. Who sells these products? Women. It is a woman's body that is the commodity once again, and women, even well-paid women in the sex industry, are unconsciously supporting the system that exploits them and sex. The prostitution of sexuality is in full swing and because it is big business it is unlikely to change.

So what can you do, given that we are living in a world where sex is seen as entertainment rather than a sacred act of love. The following are a few things we can do to help shift sex from the profane back to sacred.

Open to a deeper sense of self and be willing to see the act of sex, whether it be for the sake of pleasure or love, as sacred.
Learn more about sacred sexuality, Tantra and other forms of 'high sex' which have made a comeback and continue to grow in popularity.
Educate your kids about the sacredness of love making and the sex act itself, as well as to encourage young girls to see themselves as valued for all of who they are, not just for their sexiness or beauty.
Take a stand and say 'no' to the sexploitation of teen girls and boys by the media. Join in partnership with other organizations that are in support of stopping this type of exploitation.

These are just a few ideas and I welcome any that you may have. Feel free to send in your ideas and comments.

Awakening Once Again

2010-01-21T13:24:00.000-08:00

Today was the day that I died a good death. A breakthrough sure why not call it that. In the midst of my suffering, the ego that is, the small self that we all feel attached to, I prayed for Grace, for peace and to remember who I Am. In the midst of my releasing the pain I created and create by identifying with the false self, a miracle occurred. The I dissolved into nothingness and the mind stopped. I remember both Eckhart Tolle and Gangaji saying the same thing basically, that when the pain gets to great in the pain body you can say STOP!!!!! And so I did. And my mind stopped and I was able to meet my-SELF once again. In this meeting of my-SELF I saw everything that has been happening in my life, all the drama, as not important, as perfect in it's opportunity to bring me to this place. I saw that what causes the suffering regarding anything that we may do is duality, judging something good or bad, right or wrong. I saw that it was my judging my particular situation as bad that was causing me all the tears and suffering of the pain body. In Truth it was a great blessing in that I am able to see how my judging my actions and those of another creates pain for me. Without the judgment the situation is neither good nor bad. It just is.

So today I have dropped out of the game of duality, for this moment, I am blessed and in deep gratitude for everything that has occurred over the past 5 days in my life. I know that whether I have a job or a career or a new car are not essentially important to my being fulfilled or happy. This does not mean that I don't have a hunger to share more of who I am, more of my gifts with the world and specifically with women. It just means that whether I have these things or not I am still ok, my life is still fulfilling and I can be happy. In my awakening once again to the Truth of who I Am, I remember what is really of value, what is really important and that I can just relax all of my need to have it be different.

We are all living at a time that is very tumultuous and perhaps even exciting. We may be feeling even more the uncertainty of our lives. We may be noticing that we really don't have control over everything that happens to us, in fact the paradox here is that we can only co-create our lives with All That Is, God and Goddess or whatever you choose to call the vast intelligence of the Yoniverse. We shape our lives by where we put our attention, what we think about and what we say or do. In this we are God/Goddess, but we also live in the mystery not knowing what will happen next. So it is a dance to learn how to live from both our knowingness of who we are and our surrendering to the unfolding of the mystery.

This is our challenge for those of us who have chosen the path of awakening. It requires constant vigilance and our complete commitment to serve That Which Is, call it Love, God/Goddess or the Unified Field.

I can only take each moment as it comes, be present to what is before me, and take a deep breath and relax into life. All the pushing, striving and longing to be different or have a different life will only bring you suffering if you do not accept and love all of who you are, and all of what you have created first. Then let it all go, surrender your entire life over to the Still Small Voice the Peace that is you and that you live in.

True Feminine Power

2009-09-04T14:34:00.000-07:00

What does the empowered woman feel like? I know we have used this word empowered quite a bit over the past few years. But for me this word conveys an energy that I like. To feel empowered is for me to feel powerful from within. It truly describes the feminine way of power.

Our essential feminine power comes from our core, our sexual center, our yoni. For men it resides in the hara or dantien, the solar plexis. You see the most potent force that women have is our shakti. Our primal life force, sexual creative energy. This force resides in all of us, but for women it is what in many ways defines us.

It is this primal energy from our sex center, the second chakra, (that point just above the pelvic bone) that enables us to create life, to be both wild and untamable as well as docile, harmonious and calm. Our sexual energy is our true feminine power as it is here that the creation of life begins and the mystery of our body is held.

Our sexual energy entices, allures, fascinates, radiates and attracts both men and women. When a woman is fully emboding her sexual essence, she is her most empowered self. She walks with the grace of one who is confident, centered, serene, present, sensual and fully in her body. She is not afraid of her sexual energy or of the power this energy has over other people. She understands her power and is able to use it wisely, with compassion and integrity.

Since she no longer needs to manipulate or control with her sexual energy or survive on it, she can be authentically herself, her full embodied goddess self. She is proud of her womanliness, her yoni her breasts her hips her belly and all of her curves. She revels in her body and loves all of it no matter what shape it is.

It is from this place that she creates and offers her gifts, and it is from this place that she partners with man. A woman who is fully living in her feminine power is naturally radiant, receptive, yet strong from within herself. This woman lives in you and me and I invite you to discover her.

Please visit my site and become a member of the School of Womyn's Mysteries, http://www.womensmysteries.org .

Who is Baubo?

2009-08-02T19:42:00.000-07:00

Baubo is one of the names of a mythical Greek woman, said to be a servant or wet nurse to the grain goddess Demeter. Baubo exposes her vulva before Demeter, an act called ana-suromai, a Greek verb literally meaning to lifts one's skirts. the effect was to make Demeter laugh during a time when the Grain Goddess was deep in mourning over the loss of her daughter, Persephone.

But Baubo can be seen as a much older symbol for the power and the energy of female sexuality. She can also be viewed as trickster figure, who with her own jokes, magic, and laughter embodies fecundity and fertility. We have no images of a clearly identifiable Baubo, but her various shapes and her memory have persisted in myth and ritual. She was neither goddess nor night demon, though at times she was claimed as such.

For you and me, Baubo can remind us to laugh whenever we become to serious and if picking up our skirts will do the trick then so be it.

Reclaiming the Innocence of Eve

2009-06-09T11:58:00.000-07:00

Recently, in doing research for a book I am writing, I discovered to my horror how the myth of Adam and Eve was changed to fit the Christian Church's political agenda of the times.

Being a woman has never been easy, and especially if you happened to be one in Rome, Greece, or anywhere in the Europe around 400 AD. The body was considered evil, and sex almost forbidden except for the act of procreation. And since women represented temptation to man's contemplation of God, she was seen as the evil temptress. The world was made to believe that woman caused the downfall of the human race.

This is some pretty heavy 'karma' to live down. So women for generations have taken on these beliefs, and men have too, that have caused us to live in a constant state of apology for being a woman.

In my last blog, "Take the Apology Out of Being a Woman", I refer to these facts. But what I wish to speak about here is how we as women can reclaim the innocence that was taken from us. You see we are all innocent in the eyes of the Goddess or God. Spirit does not judge any us. It is only we who judge ourselves. Innocence is a state of mind, a way that one feels about themselves. And it is truly not something that can be taken from us. And yet women allowed their innocence to be taken from them in one fell swoop of the pen and have been paying for it ever since.

This forsaken innocence has been something that we as women have almost forgotten about as we live in a world where sex is a commodity bought and sold to the highest bidder. We see advertisments that use our bodies to sell products and yet we do nothing about it. We too have become numb and in a way compliant regarding the sexualization of our bodies. Women have for so long accepted this as the normal way of life that to think differently about it is often not easy.

Reclaiming our innocence must start with each individual. Each woman must decide for herself that she is innocent, that her body is the temple of the Goddess and that her sex is divine. Her nature is not to serve man but to partner with him to co-create a world where women are seen once again as the emissaries of the divine feminine and men of the divine masculine.

We can choose to do this in a ritual that we do for ourselves or in a group of women, or just by knowing that we are innocent and that we were always innocent. In Truth there is nothing to apologize for or to even reclaim. We were born innocent and pure of heart. Our bodies have always been celebrated and honored and anything other than that was something we allowed ourselves to believe.

So I invite you as a representative of womankind to step forward. Reclaim your sexual innocence, your body's innocence and all of womankind's innocence.

Take the Apology Out of Being a Woman

2009-05-29T21:15:00.000-07:00

Have you ever wondered why women seem to be constantly apologizing for being a woman? I have and what I discovered was, that it is time for women to stop apologizing for being female.

Now you may be asking yourself what does this mean, I never see women apologizing for that. But if you take a moment to think about that statement and what it is really saying, you might find yourself answering this question differently.

Women have been apologizing for thousands of years for having a "yoni", for being sexual, for being powerful, clever, smart, creative, for being a woman with a female body. It is this apology that is actually part of our whole culture, that is inbred in every woman and man whether they are aware of it or not.

Today in our society it look s like women have made huge strides in the world of men. This is true in so far as a few legal wins, being able to vote, and sexual freedoms. But the culture in which we all live, the collective field, still holds the belief that it was a woman that caused the downfall of the human race.

You may be thinking this isn't true, that the idea of 'original sin' really is an old one that no one holds except fundamentalist Christians. But if you take a look at the world as it is today and begin to look a bit deeper at the messages in advertising, movies, music and in many of the sacred religious texts all over the world, you will understand that what I am saying is still a predominant belief.

Women's bodies are exploited as sex objects that are used to buy and sell anything to make money with. The selling of sex whose predominant workers are women, has become a multibillion dollar industry. Kathleen Barry calls this the 'prostitution of sexuality'. The fact that women themselves exploit their own bodies for money and are not aware that by doing so they are supporting the very system that they say they are free from, is in itself proof of the depth of this belief.

The story of Adam and Eve was one that the Christian Patriarchs created from an original Sumarian myth about the Goddess. It was fundamentally changed so that the concept of the Great Mother, the Goddess, was seen as less than God or man. Woman was created to be less than man, from his rib, subserviant to him.

All myths reflect the times in which they were created and it was at this juncture in time that man had most recently discovered his role in procreation. Since it was still unknown that woman needs man's sperm to fertilize her eggs, the most prevelant belief of the day was that it was man who created life and woman who incubated it.

This belief was then reflected in every myth, text, and religious scripture throughout most of the world. Woman was in essence demoted from her role as "Earth Mother, the Great Goddess" to a subserviant role to man. The goddess was now a woman who, because of her ability to allure man, was not to be trusted. The body in general became evil and dirty, but women's bodies specifically were targeted. Because of their sexual allure and women's sexual appetite (based on the myth of Eve) women became a threat to man's peace of mind and his focus on God. Woman reminded man of his instinctual self (the serpent) and because of her sex and body he denied and condemned her for what he rejected within himself.

The world was turned upside down with this shift from honoring of the feminine form, woman and nature, to honoring the masculine as God, who had the ability to give life, to procreate with his seed.

Now whether this was inevitable or not as a part of the evolution of the species is not the point. The point is that as the myth of Adam and Eve was created to reflect the teachings of the Christian Church, woman was forever condemned to apologize for being a woman.

Today we have a choice whether to continue to believe in this myth. As women we can begin to reclaim the innocence of our bodies. By reclaiming our innocence as a sex, we can each begin to stop apologizing for having a female body and for being sexy and sexual. We can stop hiding our bodies behind layers of fat. We can stop over-sexualizing ourselves and flaunting our sexuality by the way we dress. We can stop rejecting our bodies the way they are and seeing our bodies only as something to please men, to fulfill their fantasies of what is sexy.

When we claim the innocence of our bodies back for ourselves we can begin to walk tall, to be true to who we really are, to express our sexuality authentically and to honor our bodies once again as representatives of the Goddess here on Earth.

The Feminine Mystique

2009-05-10T18:29:00.000-07:00

Is it our allure that woos men away by a glance, that holds the promise of something they can only wonder at? Is it in our smile, or perhaps the way we walk and move that captures their attention. Is it in our wit and intelligence that causes such chaos among men? Or is it our beauty, the face and form that could launch a thousand ships?

What is this mystery that men cannot understand or explain, that keeps them fascinated in women?

Women are complex creatures. We barely understand ourselves this mystery that we hold over men, and we are just beginning to explore what this power and mystery is that has caused men to both admire and fear us for thousands of years.

It seems that from the beginning of creation woman has always been an enigma to man, both revered and feared. For thousands of years man first worshiped her form as the Goddess incarnate and honored her as the giver of life. And for the past five thousand years man has tried to control her, exploit her and keep her power at bay. Blaming her for the evils of the world, as in the story of Adam and Eve and Pandora’s Box and demoting her function to that of helpmate and nurturer.

So the question I ask is why would man go to such lengths to prevent womankind taking her rightful place in the world? What is the feminine mystique?

For me the answer to this question lies in first understanding that woman is, in many ways, determined by her biology. Now I know you may be thinking that this sounds too limited, but bear with me. You see, for a woman her biology, her body, has for many thousands of years determined her function and her place in the world.

As stated by Roslind Miles in The Woman's History of the World “The biology of woman holds the key to the story of the human race. The triumph of evolution occurred in the female body, is a critical development that secured the future of the species. This was the biological shift from primate estrus, when the female comes into heat, to full human menstruation. Female menstruation was the evolutionary adaptation that preserved the human species from extinction.”

So we can see that by having the ability to procreate at any time, to be sexual and have desire for sexual union at any time, woman's high status was ensured in the ancient world for some 25,000-50,000 years. It is this primary fact that in itself helped determine her fate in the world. Because of this fact, women held the power to which man habitually deferred. Man saw this ability with awe and not understanding how this was so, women became the representatives of the Goddess on earth and little distinction was made between her sacred and secular power.

The power and mystery of her body was insured. With woman's ability to invoke sexual desire in man, and to withhold it if she decided to do so, she now had a power over man that had previously been unknown. She could, if she desired, use this power to love and give pleasure, or as was later seen after the demise of the Goddess religions, to survive.

With the discovery of the role man played in fathering children, woman's power began to diminish and her role reduced to that of sexual playmate, slave, breeder or helpmate.

The fact that women are sexual and inspire desire and lust in man, is something we have been born with because we are in a woman's body. It is this very thing that man has tried to tame, the wild and uncontrollable primal sexual force that women innately have whether they are aware of it or not. That sacred sanctuary between our legs, the holy temple of delight, the Yoni, Punani or Pussy. This is what is most desired yet has been most feared throughout the history of mankind.

Today we find women everywhere beginning to explore and reclaim once again this innate ancient power of the feminine. And as we do so we also are finding that this power is not only delegated to the bedroom but is also a viable force to be reckoned with in the world.

Now is the time that women everywhere can begin to truly reclaim the innocence of their womanhood, their sex and their bodies. To once again take their rightful place alongside of man as his partner, lover and friend and to begin to create a new world where the feminine is respected and honored and therefore women and girls are respected and honored and where living in partnership is the natural way.

THE POWER OF A WOMAN'S BODY

2009-05-01T18:00:00.000-07:00

Is the power of a woman’s body the power of her sex? If this is true then what happens when a culture or society sexualizes and industrializes sex, and women as sex objects? What you will find is exactly what we have today in America and in the world.

Since the beginning of male domination, some say patriarchy, when women were delegated to second class citizens, the property of men, and all human rights for the most part eliminated, women were forced into using their sex as a means to survive. This may have been because of their economic conditions or because they were given/sold into marriage as breeders for heirs, or because they were made slaves by a conquering nation. Whatever the cause the condition remained the same. Women often felt that the only worth they had, the only weapon of power they held against their captors, was their sex, their body. Thus comes the dismantling of the true power of a woman’s body, and the prostitution of her sex.

Everywhere in our world today we see women’s bodies used as sexual objects to sell cars, beer, underwear, and countless other items. Is this because we deem women to be beautiful and symbolic of what man, considers to be beautiful. No this is because men in the business of selling things deems that women represent sex and sex sells. If women’s bodies and women were not still identified as a means to gratifying men’s desires, wants or needs then could women begin to see themselves and their body as something that was wholly theirs, something private and sacred for them to choose when and with whom they could share it.

Over 5,000 years ago in many egalitarian societies, where the feminine was honored and the images of the Goddess was revered, women’s bodies were sacred. Sex was a sacred act of love between two individuals and was blessed by the Goddess. Women and men for the most part shared equally the responsibilities of creating a sustainable community and lifestyle. Women were seen as partners and as such shared in the governing and education of the people. A woman’s body was seen as part of the great mystery of life connected with the creation of life and thus held in high regard by all.

In these societies women had an innate innocence that came from the fact that they were seen as whole beings who contributed to daily life of the community and that their body was their own to give to whom ever they choose to. Their body was still pure and sex was just another aspect of life shared when one found a partner. The power of a woman’s body was then found in the power of her smile, her eyes, her touch her very presence. Her sensuality and her love was a gift to man, her form was respected.

For women today to reclaim this innocence of body and spirit to once again to understand where their true power lies will require that all women and men everywhere no longer accept the normalization of the exploitation of women’s bodies. This is not a question of sexual freedom but rather a question of sexual health, sexual innocence and of creating a new world where our children can be children and sex is no longer a commodity to be sold to the highest bidder.
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