"Yogic siddhis are powers that give yogīs dominion over the usual restrictions of human life on earth, conferring immortality or the capacity to defy the usual limitations of time and space. Female siddhis, in contrast, align the physical body of a woman with the elemental forces and cycles of the earth herself. The gift of the female siddhis is neither to control nor transcend natural forces and cycles, but the ability to embody their powers. The embodied experience of powerful natural cycles enables a conscious surrender to their force. It is this conscious surrender that can enable a woman to come more completely into harmony with the earth herself. The female siddhis are not evidence of dominion over nature’s power, but a direct and embodied experience of that power at work. The female siddhis demonstrate a living connection with the cyclical powers of creation, nurture, sustenance and death. To embrace the power of the female siddhis is to encounter the deep rhythms of these cycles through the experiences of the female body." Uma Dinsmore-Tuli "Yoni Shakti"
This quote from the life changing book, "Yoni Shakti" by Uma Dinsmore-Tuli, clarifies what I mean when I talk about activating our Womb Power. She uses the yogic term siddhi to describe this power and defines it well. I would further like to clarify what I mean by Womb Power and how we can develop it.
My experience of Womb Power is much the same as everyone else's. My spirit was delivered into a developing physical human form within my mother's womb. She carried me inside of her for 9 months while this process took place and then opened herself up to deliver me outside her body when I grew beyond her ability to hold me there and into my own ability to live outside of the womb. This miraculous Womb Power is all to often overlooked, ignored, and even maligned. Many women today barely learn about how the physiology of pregnancy and birth occur before they fall pregnant, let alone the spiritual miracle that is occuring within them. This lack of recognition alone diminishes our experience of this Womb Power greatly.
On top of this lack of recognition we often pile various stresses and strains, like uncertainty and fear about being pregnant in the first place, and worry that we will not be supported adequately through the labor intensive process of gestating, birthing, and rearing a child. These fears and worries are hugely justified within worldwide patriarchal social structures that give no economic value or support to anything vaguely feminine, least of all pregnancy, birth, and child rearing. When a woman is in a state of fear and worry, her ability to nourish a growing child inside of her is greatly diminished.
It is well known that all of our physical and emotional functions are damaged by chronic stress, and the process of conceiving and carrying a pregnancy to term requires all of our systems to be functioning optimally. It can be done at less than optimum but like a plant that will pour all of its juice into its flower, fruit, and seeds, to the detriment of all other aspects of the plant, bearing children in sub-optimum health and well being very quickly becomes problematic. This is evident in the high levels of infertility, birth defects, postpartum depression, infant and maternal mortality, and chronic mystery illnesses that most often afflict women. Not to mention the damaging effects of physical and mentally ill or unstable mothers on the development of the children they bear.
Reflection on the detrimental effects on the entire human species that these womb diminishing social structures and belief systems produce begs the following questions: Why would we do this to ourselves? And how can we re-establish social structures and belief systems that support the full development and nurture of our miraculous Womb Power to create new life?
The first question of Why would be do this to ourselves is one I have reflected upon often. I have only encountered one explanation that seems to make any sense. It is the Cataclysm theory. The theory is that there was a great cataclysm, a meteor hitting the planet, creating the Gulf of Mexico, during early human development. This created a mass trauma response and instigated species wide panic. This theory includes the idea that prior to this meteor impact, the planetary axis was perpendicular to the sun. This made a stable season year round. Food was available in most areas where humans were living all the time. There was no need to plan ahead or hoard resources. When the meteor hit, there was not only suddenly damaging climatic events like intense storms, tidal waves, earth quakes, and the like that may have taken human lives, but suddenly the food sources were not available year round.
We can imagine that these traumas and changes caused a variety of responses in the humans on the planet. Suddenly the Earth, that had previously been a source of constant sustenance, was now a source of life threatening danger and was beginning to withhold that sustenance for months on end in some places. In response to this, the natural adaptive development of logical thinking to create plans for creating sustained nutrition was coupled with the trauma response of fear, distrust of the natural cycles, and the need to dominate those cycles. The need for power over was born. Greed and hoarding was born. Violent acquisition of scarce resources from other humans came into being. As did the need to protect oneself from such violation.
There is much evidence to show that there did exist a time in which we humans lived in relative harmony with nature and each other. "The Chalice and the Blade" by Riane Eisler describes this well. This time was accompanied by the creation of reverential art depicting female human forms and genitalia. It was a time when Womb Power was honored and revered. Mothers and Fathers shared power. Nobody dominated anyone else. According to the Cataclysm theory above, patriarchal approaches of dominion over nature, including the natural processes of conception, gestation, and birth happening within women's bodies, were at one point adaptive but very quickly became violent and are now currently spinning out of control. The wisdom of harmonious shared power, however, is not dead. It arises regularly as an option to return to, but just as many trauma responses behave, the patriarchal collective trauma response still feels necessary to our survival for many still in its thrall, despite that fact that it has so clearly become maladaptive. In fact it is threatening the survival of our species and the livability of our planet.
Here is when the answer to that second question, How can we re-activate life generating Womb Power? comes in. This is why I am so devoted to Womb Centered Healing. Just as our wombs have to power to birth new life in the form of new humans, they also hold the power to birth new approaches to life. We must collectively birth new life generating systems to return to a harmonious relationship with Nature and our bodies. Women have the potential for this harmonious relationship with Nature built into our bodies. Simply by honoring our life generating, creative powers of Menstruation, Orgasm, Birth, Breastfeeding, and Menopause, we re-establish this harmony within our lives and our communities. The more conscious awareness we bring to these intrinsic rhythms and processes, the more we nurture the restoration of harmony and healthy evolution for our species.
The need for this is becoming more and more clear for many people as is evident in the number of feminine mystery schools that are popping up around the world. This Womb Centered Healing Temple is one of them and the practices offered here are in full support of this process of evolution towards harmony we are all engaged in one way or another. Our survival depends on it. I have been studying the healing power of Yoga for several decades and most recently am developing an approach called Womb Trauma Recovery Yoga that helps us to restore and embody our harmonious Womb Power by activating those aspects of that power that are particularly helpful for trauma recovery. These practices help us to first recover from our personal trauma responses that keep us cycling through the same damaging circumstances and responses. As we learn to give our natural emotions and body responses space to deliver their wisdom, discharge, and come to completion, we can learn from what happened in the past and create new circumstances and situations, instead of perpetually looping through the same old thing.
Once we are free of our personal trauma loops, we free up our creative energies to respond to the collective call to action in the face of tragic doom that our species seems to be determined to create for itself and the planet. As we become familiar with the self-destructive nature of trauma response looping, it becomes clear that we are in a collective trauma loop crisis and that those of us familiar with and skilled at facilitating liberation from that looping must take action for the collective. This is the source of inspiration for my offerings here in the Womb Centered Healing Temple. May more and more humans awaken to the power of the womb space in all of us, regardless of gender, to generate new life and learn to revere and live from this power anew.
Sama Morningstar is the founder of the Womb Centered Healing Temple. She will begin teaching weekly online Womb Trauma Recovery Yoga classes on Saturday, February 22nd at 11am Pacific Time. This class is will be available to site members and apprentices who have subscribed to one of the qualifying monthly payment plans listed on the plans page here: https://www.samamorningstar.com/plans-pricing
The Womb Trauma Recovery Yoga plan includes a free 7 day trial period where you can try your first class free of charge.
If you are interested in any of the Apprenticeship options listed on the plans page, please take a moment to learn more about the Bio-Mystical Womb Apprenticeship here:
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