Rise of the Sacred Feminine

Photo - Bill Hertzog

Photo - Bill Hertzog

The rise of the Spirit of the Feminine is now. She is a weaver of visions and dreams known by many names—curandera, medicine woman, shaman, wild woman, and wise woman. The Sacred Feminine is the life-giver breathing life into all her children. She’s the incubator of infinite capacities, restoring the being of Gaia, Pachamama, and all that has been disconnected, abandoned and forgotten. We are held in her loving arms just as we are in the grit and grace of our humanness.

Trust in the waqyay (call) to fulfill the dreams of the ancient ones and awaken humankind in love, light, and beauty. I entered a sacred relationship with the living Earth and the cosmos when I made room for the sacred feminine in my womb, my heart, and received her wisdom into my mesa ground. Now, I dance with her, my feet kissing the earth as I walk in service.

Painting Ikoshy - Life-Giver

Painting Ikoshy - Life-Giver

I pray for guidance from the sacred feminine—Creatrix, Beloved Mother, and Pachamama—while sitting with the dark moon. Benevolent blessings are showered one by one through the infinite faces of the feminine upon Mother Earth and all her children. She enters our hearts whether we are in darkness or light and reaches out with her compassionate hands to take us home to the restoration of our soul.

The sacred feminine is loving and inclusive to all. She is the sacred elements—her body is of the mountains, rivers, oceans, clouds, trees, and animals. We embody her and midwife the medicine of munay (unlimited love) into the world when we resonate with her love. We are not separate from nature, and there are no separations between male and female, human and animal.

The sacred feminine is the holy ground of oneness that unites opposites rather than seeing them as irreconcilable differences in conflict with one another. The spirit of the feminine weaves differences together as holy pairs, as helpmates fashioning a tapestry from the strands of male and female, light and dark, love and indifference, anger and forgiveness. She intertwines disparate elements into a web of wholeness and holiness, so that they may dance harmoniously together in the pukyay kawsay, (game of life).

Ikoshy - Changing Woman

Ikoshy - Changing Woman

I’ve had many visitations from her over the decades. We have a reciprocal relationship, I call to her and she summons me. The sacred feminine came to me as part of an initiation during a dark night of the soul. I was praying for guidance after the upheaval of a painful divorce when she arrived as a mysterious presence filling the room. A gentle breeze wafted over me. I sensed a hand on my shoulder and a tall shining one standing next to me. She guided me to a place not of this world, but behind the veil with the holy mountains and the starry sky canopy above. I did not know her name or that she originated from a Navajo Creation Story. She called herself Changing Woman (Asdzáán Nádleehé), and showed me ways to regenerate myself again and again through the cycles and seasons of my life. I trusted deeply in the visions guiding me, and felt her medicine in my bones. Her presence is always with me. She is behind the veil with the Holy Ones, inspiring each step I take walking in beauty on Mother Earth.

Her reflection can be seen in the face of a child, in a two-legged, four-legged, or a winged one—her spirit is everywhere and in everything. We receive her messages in the wind, her heartbeat in the earth, her fluidity in the movement of the water. She is the primordial water—the mother of us all. Let her spirit illuminate your heart like the first rays of the sacred dawn. Take refuge at her compassionate hearth where glowing fire melts the frozen shadows covering the soul and rises to the ether.

Photo by Aurelien-Designatic

Photo by Aurelien-Designatic

The Pachakuti Mesa Tradition is a universal medicine ground, uniting cross-cultural wisdom ways into our mesa. In the PMT Jaguar aligns in the East with Inti, the medicine of the sun on the masculine side of the mesa. Its element is nina (fire). In the Mayan calendar, Jaguar represents the animal ally for the sacred feminine on the day of I’x and its element is water. The spots on a Jaguar's coat symbolize the heavenly stars to the Mayan culture. This magnificent jungle cat is a protector of all that is sacred on the mama pacha (nature). Jaguar walks the earth and speaks of the great mystery in the stars, bridging the terrestrial and the celestial. Jaguar is an ally in my medicine service that I invite into my heart, my mesa, and my beauty walk. When I call in Jaguar I feel a holy pairing of male and female—androgynous beyond form. They create a unified field of medicine that serves the great work.

The spirit of the feminine awakens the original instructions to live in ayni (sacred reciprocity). We give back through ceremony, through the sacred actions that embody our prayers, feeding that which gives us life. She infuses the cosmovision of the PMT mesa ground and all the holy places we offer rituals, ceremonies, and prayers. Her spirit dances in the wind delivering our prayers in all directions.

She lives in the mythos of the sky and earth creation stories around the planet. Honor her in the many forms through which she’s called: Osun, Hathor, Sekhmet, Isis, Durga, Kali, Coatlicue, Changing Woman, Hahay-i wu-uti (Grandmother Katsina), Palhik Mana (Water Maiden), White Buffalo Calf Woman, Guadalupe, Brigid, Tara, Mother Mary, Black Madonna and Kwan Yin.

There are as many ways to mikhuna (give offerings) to her as there are hearts and hands to send them. I am often called to Una (sacred water element), I talk to her and confide in her. Her reflections bring a courageous truth to what is transforming within me. I look and listen to the messages being reflected when I sit in silence by a stream, river, or ocean. Simple offerings can be given through tears, tobacco, herbs or a libation. When I phukuy (blowing) prayers into the sacred waters she is remembered and fed. When we feed the life-giver we seed the dreams for a beautiful world, for all our relations, and all the children on Pachamama.

Photo - Bill Hertzog

Photo - Bill Hertzog

In beauty before me I walk,

In beauty behind me I walk,

In beauty below me I walk,

In beauty all around me I walk,

It is finished in beauty,

It is finished in beauty,

It is finished in beauty,

It is finished in beauty,

The mountains, I become part of it.

The herbs, the evergreen,

I become part of it.

The morning mists, the clouds,

The gathering waters,

I become a part of it.

The dew drops, the pollen,

I become a part of it.

Walking Thunder - Dine’ Medicine Woman

The trees, plants and grass that grow

upon her are like her hair.

The stones and rocks are like her bones.

The water and natural resources that flow

in her are like her blood.

Until we know her as a living breathing being,

it’s only then that we can honor her.

Belinda P. Eriacho Dine’ and Ashwii Elder

Deborah Sullivan