Earth our Body
Three years ago, I ran a women’s circle series in Canmore, AB, to honour the cyclical nature of the Goddesses that we are as women. In one of the sessions, I brought in pressed flowers because I thought, What would be more Goddess-like than to cover each other's bodies in pressed flowers? Am I right?! When I brought out the flowers, I felt the call to gather around one woman at a time and, with her permission, place flowers on her body. We began by closing our eyes and connecting to the woman in the centre. Then, following our intuition, we placed pressed flowers on her body, sealing them on with affirmations, prayers and eyelash glue! The experience for all the women involved was profound, powerful and deeply sacred. I would go on to practice this ceremony with different women in different settings, each time feeling that deep healing was unfolding.
I felt that each time, we were healing parts of each other and parts of Mother Earth in a way that I couldn’t quite understand at the time.
Our bodies’ cells are made up by the food that we eat, the water that we drink and the air that we breathe. However, as I continued on with my spiritual journey, I began to feel so deeply that our bodies are a manifestation of the greater body of Mother Earth, not only on a physical level but an energetic one as well.
It began to make sense as to why I felt that when we healed, Mother Earth healed too.
As I continued on my journey, I began to notice how I was magnetized to certain places and repelled by others. When I began to follow this instinct and go to the places I felt drawn to, magical things began to unfold.
When I was living on a piece of land that backed onto a forest just outside of Golden, BC, I was drawn to a few of the bowing birches within the forest. I would go to them, intuitively take off all my clothes, and dance naked underneath them. I called them my Goddess Trees. A few years later, I would go on to read an article that would say how the bowing birch was known to the Druids as the tree of the Goddess. My mouth dropped open when I read this, because what I felt intuitively was affirmed back to me.
When we honour the intuitive knowing or spirit within us, we are simultaneously honouring the spirit infused within the land. As we reclaim and awaken the parts of ourselves that have been dormant or repressed, we are simultaneously activating the forgotten energy and spirits on the land. Together, we and the land are remembering our interconnected and reflective relationship with one another. As I danced under the Goddess trees, the Goddess was being awakened both within me and on the land.
A few weeks ago, I listened to an interview with wild landscape architect, Mary Reynolds. In the interview, she said, “When we own a piece of land, that land is looking for the same kind of healing that we are looking for.” We and the land are an energetic match, mirroring for one another what we both need. I have found that this doesn’t only apply to where we live, but to any place we travel to or occupy. If we are willing to listen, the land provides a window for us to see deeper into ourselves.
Late last fall, I had committed to a womb healing process for a full lunar cycle. The day after I finished, I went to a ceremony which corresponded with the final new moon of the year and the winter solstice. After the ceremony finished, I was called to leave the circle and wander into the woods. I immediately noticed that there was a canyon close by. As I walked towards the canyon, I noticed how a deep and wide dry riverbank led into the canyon. I saw how the rocks had been carved away by the seasonal water flow, and knew that in the rainy season, the canyon would be filled with water by a powerful river.
When I approached the edge of the canyon, I took in the wild beauty of the enormous trees and the lush growth emerging from the canyon floor. Flowers bloomed in the canopy, and birds played hide-and-seek amongst the foliage. It was wild and beautiful, and I wanted to stay there.
I sat down on a rock that overlooked the canyon and looked below. As my eyes traced the canyon floor, I began to notice garbage that intermingled with the wildness. There were enormous tires, a washing machine and endless amounts of plastic and cans that peeked out in various places. My heart sank. I thought, Why does something so wild and sacred have to be so contaminated? And a whisper in the wind immediately responded. It told me that the canyon was a reflection of my own womb. I was guided to this place to understand how my own womb was both untamed and wild, and at the same time had been contaminated by garbage, accumulated from the wounds of an unconscious culture.
I looked below and knew that the garbage had accumulated over time and that I couldn’t clean up the canyon on my own. It would take time and many hands. In that moment, the land had called me there to simply show me how I had, in so many ways, reclaimed my wildness, but that there was still garbage within me, some that had been inherited over generations.
When I think about my experience with the canyon, I think about how we can get trapped in the illusion that because some parts of us are broken, that we somehow are not whole. However, I think a major part of our healing comes from accepting the duality of living on Earth, which comes with light and darkness that together make up the whole of who we are.
Sometimes the most healing thing we can do for ourselves and Mother Earth is to take stock of the wild beauty that already exists within and outside of us. It is not about ignoring the darkness, but rather choosing to honour the light.
In a time where things are moving so fast, and we feel that the work never ends, the most powerful way to heal our wombs and the womb canyons of Mother Earth is to honour our cyclical nature, making time for rest and regeneration, and in doing so, we allow Mother Earth to return to heal too.
With love,
Laurel
(Translator of the Earth)