For generations, we have been culturally bereft of embodied female wisdom and language that marries us to the Elemental Pulse of Life. Awareness of this wisdom would naturally allow us to become greater co-creators with the Elemental Forces that comprise Life and Self. The Body of woman and her Cycles contain keys to understanding this Elemental language. Woman is constantly immersed in the energetic Continuum of dissolution and creative reorganization. This Continuum is commonly referred to as the polarity of death and rebirth. Woman is capable of gestating, nurturing and birthing new life. She also menstruates, sloughing off unfertilized egg and tissue, actively partnering the Forces of dissolution to ready for another (re)generative cycle. Later in her life, as she moves into menopause, she enters yet another Threshold of consciousness that deepens her participation within the shape-shifting Continuum of dissolution and creative reorganization. This creative flux and pulse allows woman, in ever deepening measure, to re-conceive herSelf anew. Ultimately, as the stages of woman’s life are entered and embraced, her cyclic nature brings her to her full-blooming and embodied illumination.
This same female wisdom expresses on the bountiful Earth we live and move upon. We are alive in the wildlands of Nature and Cosmos where Chaos is inherent to Natural Order. Humanity lives in constant change where the rhythm of the sun and moon and ever shifting seasonal flux unfurl the dynamic Forces of Life that reveal the Continuum of dissolution (death) and creative reorganization (rebirth). This Elemental Intelligence carries us in its undulating dance to embrace larger awareness and state of being. Yet within humanity, this dynamic Continuum can operate consciously and unconsciously. As stated at the beginning of this article, we have been bereft of Female Wisdom that can relate us to these Elemental Forces. The patriarchal social system that has been in full swing for generations does not seek relationship to this Elemental Pulse or the Natural World and female Reality. Within patriarchal structure, we are taught to be rigid and aloof in the face of Chaos/dissolution. We must have “order†above all. Translated this means control…power over. These methods of control and static holding on give a false sense of equilibrium and security. They undermine instinctual prowess and stunt innovative response, giving rise to maladaptive strategies that snarl and subvert the transformative potential of Chaos and Crisis.
Chaos is intrinsic to female movement, holistic language and flexible body. When I speak of Chaos, I am not speaking of soap-opera dramatics or the addictive movement of perpetuating high intensity states to give a false feeling of being more “alive.†I’m speaking of Chaos as the natural result of dissolution, the breaking down of element, energy and state of being into another evolving form and movement. The growth process is full of Chaos. Chaos is part of the pulsating, intelligent dance that assists elements and consciousness to new configuration and deeper integrated state. It serves to crack through rigid, objectified ideology that keeps us as women skimming the surface and uprooted from our truer Ground. Chaos serves to open us to our Deep Knowing and true Memory where our instinctive, ecstatic knowledge lay.
The transformative Forces of dissolution and creative reorganization hold and channel a creative tension that gives birth to the wondrous expression of our Natural World. Within life, these Forces interpenetrate one another to express synergistically, furthering one another. Our Natural World mirrors our internal psychic forces and their potential. We are the microcosm of the macrocosm. Chaos is intrinsic to Deep Female Ecology and entering relationship to this challenging yet fertile Ground is essential to becoming whole, sexually conscious and creatively empowered. In the language of energy, consciousness and embodiment, Chaos/dissolution is an essential and integral part of evolution. When the creative forces of dissolution (death) and creative reorganization (rebirth) are related to and consciously participated with, they tend to bring forth regeneration and deepen the expression of our rich Nature.
When these Forces operate unconsciously, as they largely do in current patriarchal social structure, the rebirth potential and destructive current (the Forces of dissolution) become antagonistic elements that are radically opposed…good and evil, peace and war. When we are moved from this unconscious level, we are unable to participate with the Wildlands of Creation and the transformative Pulse that seeks to express. We unconsciously wage war and fight for peace. We do not understand appropriate sacrifice for the renewal and rebirth potential. We demand a scapegoat to enact the “death ritual†which is the destructive force operating unconsciously. When we are unconscious within the death/destructive impulse we confusingly use our amazing intelligence to build bombs and attack plans to enact our sabotage. Rather than entering into relationship with and enacting the true sacrifice that is being asked, we literalize and project the destructive impulse onto an external “other,†seeking to control this “other†while evading our own transformation along with missing the deeper message. In the deeper, primal levels of our being, we are seeking some form of rebirth and transformation yet this is not understood how to truly be entered into and partnered with. This eschewed energetic reality exerts within the domain of government, business and personal relationships to keep old patterns and structures intact where their energy becomes increasingly static and morbid. The true sacrifice, the making Sacred, is dying to the old self and its structures, offering our libido to be reformed in the creative impulse of expanding consciousness and shape-shifting evolutionary potential.
A conscious female and male seek to partner and tend what is dying/changing/dissolving and attune to, midwife the new Emergence. They understand the Sacred Marriage of dissolution (death) and creative reorganization (rebirth). They do not demand peace and they do not enact unconscious war…they participate with wholeness. They make themselves available to right relation with the forces of Creation, attending to the needed cycles of dissolution and creative reorganization which comprise the Generative Force. This is attended to through their own bodies (marrying the subtle and dense), their thinking and emotions (relating the unconscious and conscious) and daily interactions (balancing yin yang, active-receptive forces) where dissolution and creative reorganization can be tracked simultaneously. When related to, these transformative elements are understood to be One Force with differing Charge that allows the unfolding of Life as we know it. From this place, true sacrifice is greater understood, invited in and participated with for we are committed to upholding Life and our awakening bioenergetic and creative potential. For me, this is the true meaning of the Crucifixion. Here we deepen to our ever-evolving capacity to Come Into Be-ing. We open our known self to our unknown Self to be penetrated by our Elemental, Cosmic nature that will bring forth our Essence into Space-Time. We slowly learn to discern and yield to Choice Points that allow the intersection of body and soul to greater marry. This is Conscious Embodiment and it is the marriage of Heaven & Earth that opens us to the jewels of our Genius and sacred Calling.
Dissolution & rebirth, constant reforming, this is the silent pulse that moves throughout our living. This is the dance of Nature we are at swirl in every moment. As we are able to consciously open to this Pulse, we align ourselves to our truer human potential. I feel it is vitally important that the death/destructive impulse, the forces of dissolution…the Dark Face of the Goddessing Force…be greater understood and integrated within daily life and society. Here, Female Wisdom is deep Guide.
In reestablishing relationship to the forces of dissolution and creative reorganization, it is woman’s elemental, instinctual nature that will guide her. Female Elemental Presence and Power finds home in the double-edged movement of Chaos and Natural Order. This relationship is founded in organic, evolutionary movement Rooted within ecological Reality. Nature and our monthly cyclical flow is our constant guide. Our dance within Chaos/dissolution moves the spiral from jagged edge to bumpy ride to a rich, wildish dance of ever-growing presence and creative engagement. As we grow in this dance, we come aware of the truer Essence of Chaos/dissolution…that of Labyrinthine movement and spontaneity. In Wickedary, Mary Daly describes Labyrinthine movement as “a complex, rhythmic mode of Journeying that opens us to New Time/Space.†Here, we live in ever-growing spontaneity that unfolds from the intelligence of our Deep Nature.
It is natural to have resistance to Chaos/dissolution. Chaos feels uncomfortable. When known structures begin to break down entering us to unknown territory, it is vulnerable. Yet even our resistance to Chaos can become a conscious movement of gathering the known self to mobilize in resonance to the unknown Self that beckons. Learning to move within the shifting boundaries and Thresholds of our opening is valuable skill and art. This Art is essential in growing deep roots with which to ground. In this way, we continue to unearth, discover and deepen our Self amidst shifting, unfolding circumstance.
When Chaos/dissolution arises in your relationships and life circumstance, honor your feelings of vulnerability in the ways they arise. This may be a sense of helplessness or feelings of sadness, anger, rage, confusion and/or bodily symptoms. Ask to be guided to the true transformation/metamorphosis that is seeking to Emerge for truly it is the unmanifested potential of your Unknown Self that is nudging you to open the door to your Depths and greater movement. Be curious of what wants to die/reform within you and what wants to be born. Seek guidance in remaining true to yourSelf. Feel into what action and receptivity is needed. Give time for repose while also allowing space for spontaneous movement and creative impulse to channel the stirred up energy of change, new possibility and revelation. Chaos is a doorway, a Threshold to the vital lands of your Unknown Self that we as women are often not supported to know or explore. Find your unique movement within this fertile land and Elemental Pulse of Life for to Move is to pray. To Move is to be willing even when you don’t know how, to claim the Sacrament in the now even as all the unknown elements are flying about. To Move is to co-create even if your offering is awkward and unrefined. To Move is to claim the direct contact and expression the body yearns for, to breathe through the holding, to sing through the muteness, to invoke spaces long frozen, collapsed, cut off and denounced from life. To Move is to bring the wild knowing of Female Elemental Nature alive within you. Here, you will slowly learn to dance into your own dissolution and change while simultaneously opening to the creative reorganization that yearns to be realized within you where you will increase intimacy with the Forces of Life and your own Vital Self.
I close with a quote from Women Who Run with Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes. “From the very flesh and blood and from the constant cycles of filling and emptying the red vase in her belly, a woman understands physically, emotionally, and spiritually that zeniths fade and expire, and what is left is reborn in unexpected ways and inspired means, only to fall back to nothing, and yet be reconceived again in full glory.†Woman…this is your bountiful Language and Pulse.
Lizbeth Clay, Artist & Facilitator: claysekhmet@aol.com
Yoni Sculptures & Altars
Wombdalas
Authentic Movement
Improvisational Process
Sacred Sexuality& Conscious Relationship
Deep Female Ecology
Internal Practices
Menstrual & Lunar Mysteries