If the body is the battleground, I have no fear. The Earth-shattering, Earth-making, fierce feminine volcanic forces that form deep in the very core of our shared mother and flow up and into and out of my own body are on my side, on our side, on the side of life.
To male bodies, I invite you with this piece to drop into the intimacy of your own origin in the womb, the womb that brought you into form, the womb that sustains every day of your life. Womb healing is a sacred opportunity offered to you, too.
To those who feel disconnected from your bodies, I invite you through this piece to be present with whatever discomfort arises. It is not your fault you feel this way. It is programmed into us to escape our bodies and therefore it is unfamiliar territory for many of us to return. I struggled with this most of my life, too. Your body is safe. It is the systems of violence that have made you feel otherwise, and deprived you of this sacred temple. Breath by breath, your compassionate presence heals your relationship with your body.
I deeply believe that the portal to liberation is through the reclamation of total sovereignty over and responsibility for our bodies, which is why it is the greatest threat to the violent white supremacist Christian-patriarchal systems.
Before we dive in, what is one way your body could be supported as you meet this piece today? Maybe it’s not engaging with this at all, and resting instead. Maybe it is grabbing a snack or finding a place in the sun to co-create this prayer with me. Whatever it is, thank you for honoring you, and giving me and everyone around you permission to do that for ourselves too.
If this space holds you, I warmly invite you to bring in those you love, and together we’ll forge our freedom into being.
With deep love,
Rachel
My body is volcanic. I am a tender of holy fire and sacred blood. My body holds primordial power. Hot magma pools and swells, weighs heavy in the vessel nestled in the core of my being, surges like a storm, flows warm rivers, empties, like an exhale... then the cycle begins again. Over and over my volcano rises and releases.
I harness this enduring potency to make miracle manifest inside me. I choose whether to channel this magma into new land masses – flesh in my flesh, blood in my blood – or to fuel my own life force, to rebirth myself with every moon, to bring new creations forward, forged in the fire at the core of me. I choose when and where and how this power makes worlds.
My body is volcanic. My body makes matter. The etymology of matter is mother. My body matters, my body mothers. Simply by existing in its sovereignty, my body inhales spirit and exhales life.
A volcano brought you into life, opened your mother's body wide and pushed your body through it. A volcano screamed and sobbed and roared along the thin edge of death to make breath and heartbeat and blood and flesh possible.
This volcanic life force links our bodies to Earth body. Everything we are was poured through the volcanic womb of our Earth. Our umbilical cords reached not only our mothers, but primary mother, tethered by that sacred thread that bonds us not only in common humanity but in common aliveness. Each being on the entirety of Earth, every being that ever was or will be, shares this one, singular, ancient, eternal birthplace, mother. We all come back to one.
Only the most mighty force could make life possible and it takes residence within the divine organ we call womb. The womb of Earth makes new land and so do we. It is time now to remember that womb-bearers are the volcanos and this holy power demands dignity and respect. The Earth demands dignity and respect.
The war on our bodies, on Earth's body, is nothing new, but this moment is excruciating because it is an ancestral agony held in our bodies and Earth's body for centuries, activating long lineages of womb-bearers stirring with righteous rage. Trauma compounding trauma compounding trauma. This is Earth trauma and womb trauma: violated, invaded, exploited, objectified, incarcerated, desecrated.
The feminine in all genders is rising in defense of the sanctity of all life. We are here, aligned and attuned with the power of the Earth behind, under, around, through, as us, to channel our volcanic rage into transformation.
The White Christian Patriarchy has trained us into helplessness and hopelessness for centuries, coercing us into looking up for a savior, begging illegitimate authority to rescue us. We have learned not to trust our body's innate wisdom, not to nourish the feminine, not to listen to the Earth in her divine intelligence. The Patriarchy has us terrified, compromising constantly to stay alive.
Patriarchal governance has violently denied the will of the people, all people, for centuries. Patriarchal governance forces birth then ensures our babies lives end in mass murder. When we return to the perpetrator's poisoned well for help, we expect the abuser to change, and then we remain sick and defeated in delusion. We have been governed by a death culture for too long, and it is revealing itself in excruciating clarity for us to release it. We cannot wait for the state to transform itself, we cannot turn to these morally corrupt, spiritually bankrupt systems to save us. It is on us to interrogate and compost these toxic frameworks, to drain every last drop of poison we and our ancestors swallowed to survive it , so we can see with fresh eyes and clear hearts that we have everything we need, we are everything we need.
Our freedom is right here, available to us as an act of remembering and reclaiming our potency, of exercising our agency to exit systems that don't serve us, of our ability to weave webs of trust and care amongst us. The power is with the people. Deep, rooted community networks are where resilience lives. Look around, not up. We don’t need more towers of power, we need each other. It is time to find each other through sacred solidarity, through shared connection to source, and renew ourselves in alignment and attunement with the Great Mother, with the feminine, with the raw, holy, primordial force of life calling so loudly for us to come home.
There is a reality much more vast and exhilarating beyond this fragile and brutal domain. Mutuality is embedded into our DNA. Beneath the so-called USA, beneath empire, beneath colonization, no matter who you are or where you come from, your roots sink to those places where honorable lifeways once thrived, now waiting to be resuscitated, reanimated. It's up to us to heal, to feel, to stop asking our abusers for protection, to go fugitive, to embody our autonomy, and to recognize Earth's liberation is bound up with our own.
A volcano can melt SCOTUS. A volcano can turn the Patriarchy into ash. The volcano holds the mighty alchemical potency - it's right here, it's all around us.
We keep us safe:
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Blood and fire