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 called 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.
We know our bodies are made up of the same stuff as Mother Earth. However, I began to feel that our bodies are not just a physical manifestation of the elements on earth, but also an energetic manifestation of Mother Earth.
As I continued on my journey, I began to notice how I was magnetized to certain places and repelled by others. There were places where I felt safe and places where I felt unsafe. When I began to follow my 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 within us, we are simultaneously honouring the spirit infused within life that is communicating to us in unspoken ways. As we reclaim and awaken the parts of ourselves that have been dormant or repressed, we are simultaneously activating the forgotten energies 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 remembered both within me and on the land. I was activating an energy within me that was simultaneously being activated on the land; we were energetically mirroring one another.
When I think back to the women’s circles where we put pressed flowers on each other's bodies, the combination of our words, our touch and the flowers were changing the energy of our bodies and, in some mysterious way, changing the energy of the land we were on too.
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. 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.
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 on 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 over generations.
I had come to this ceremony because the land was an energetic match for me, and I wanted to provide a window for me to see deeper into myself.
I looked into the canyon and knew that the garbage had accumulated over time and that I couldn’t clean it up 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 were still wounds that I carried within me.
When I think about my experience with the canyon, I think about how we can simultaneously be broken and whole at the same time. Seren Bertrand, spiritual visionary and author, shares how our wombs are like sacred bowls that have been shattered into a million pieces from the atrocities that have happened to women over thousands of years. I like to think that this may be the case, but that we still have all of the pieces within us, we still have the whole bowl. I think a major part of our healing comes from accepting the duality of living on Earth, which comes with knowing that we can be both broken and whole, have darkness and lightness, and it is these dualities that make up 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.
I feel like not all the garbage can be cleaned up in this lifetime, and so sometimes we just need to plant flowers, or place flowers on each others bodies, all the while speaking prayers of love, believing that this brings healing to ourselves, each other and to Mother Earth.
With love,
Laurel
(Translator of the Earth)