The Divine Feminine is Rising
There is a lot of talk of divine feminine these days but it is really illusive to pin down exactly what that means. I feel compelled to give it a bash.
Essentially divine femininity is a force of incredible unconditional love that holds each and every living thing as sacred and integral to the beautiful flow of life (including you). There is nothing unlovable, nothing that is out of her capacity to embrace.
When we translate that into how it feels in a human body, divine femininity is your sacred life force, your likes, your dislikes, your passions, your talents and your intuitive nudges that guide you towards what is aligned for you, and what is not.
We are coming out of a time when she has been suppressed and rejected, and instead we have all had to conform to patriarchal systems that squash us into pre-defined roles about who we are supposed to be. We’ve had to behave like automatons, going through the motions but perhaps not necessarily living to our full human capacity. Certainly not giving ourselves the freedom to explore, to express, to speak our deepest most vulnerable truths (which is where connection intimacy and creativity come from).
For most of us school was one such system. Developed in Victorian times to prepare people to work in industrial factories, we were schooled to be seen and not heard, to fall in line, to regurgitate facts. We were encouraged to sit still and had to mould ourselves to fit.
This is not the way of the divine feminine. The divine feminine looks inside and flows moment to moment with her juicy, playful, joyful energy. A school that honoured the divine feminine would see each student as unique and possessing diverse talents. The school’s task would change from forcing each student into to shape, to helping each student to become lit up by something they were interested in and cared about.
Nature follows harmonious cycles and patterns, but within that, no two flowers, snowflakes, water crystals or trees are exactly the same, just as no two humans are the same.
In India the divine feminine is called Shakti and the divine masculine is Shiva. The divine masculine is depicted as an utterly silent, expansive, still awareness. He watches Shakti, the flow of life, the pulse that makes the plants grow and the earth navigate the sun and the tides come in and out. She dances and he watches.
We have not allowed the expression of this free, playful quality in ourselves. It has not been safe. We would have been shouted at and reprimanded and told to fall in line. As adults we become hardened and brittle, our life force trapped in our bodies as we have repeatedly suppressed ourselves. Always feeling like we are ‘not good enough’ because in a competitive hierarchy, there is always someone better.
As all our systems crumble however, as the internet transforms our cultures and our way of thinking worldwide, as we face the reality that numbing ourselves creates disease and unhappiness, depression and anxiety, new shoots are emerging.
I see the old patriarchal systems as like concrete covered in dust. They’re grey and full of squares and straight lines and linear, rational thinking (which is great and has it’s place btw, just needs to be balanced). The divine feminine is like the shoots of green that come through the pavement. She’s ever moving, ever growing and an entirely unique expression of one small spark of the universe. A drop in the ocean, where every drop is needed. She shines brightly, breathing life into that which is crumbling.
Millenials are more in touch with this. In my class last week a discussion came up about the generational differences that are enormous right now. Life has changed so much for parents and children that the lessons parents imparted about towing the line, getting a nice safe job, getting on the property ladder are not very appealing to younger generations. They look around and, quite fairly, say ‘doesn’t look like this whole thing is working very well’.
In the book From Gutenburg to Zuckenburg by John Naughton, he describes what happened when the printed Gutenburg press was first invented. For the first time, knowledge could not only be written down but widely disseminated. People became more literate, whole countries began to absorb information in new ways and it completely transformed life on earth. Science was born and the Catholic Church lost power as for the first time people could read Bibles at home.
The same thing is happening now. The internet is transforming our reality in ways that we don’t yet understand. The dust is still in the air and will take some time to fully settle. But I can tell you this, the future has a space and a place for the divine feminine in each of us. We see it in the increasing normalisation of ‘other’ around the world – LGBT, different races, different genders. We are beginning to place none above the other. Each has a space and a place. There is still work to be done, but that is where we are going.
We are each called to look inside and be deeply honest about who we are, taking full responsibility for our own happiness and where we want to go.
With shakti as our guide, we know that we are completely and utterly loveable. Our world does not need us to stay small, fall in line, she needs us to shine brightly. Your differences are never something to be ashamed of, they are the most beautiful thing about you.
Though we may feel like our inner nudges go against convention, tug at our consciences because it means flying in the face of societal norms, in fact your inner nudges will lead you to awaken into a sense of your own divine nature. It will lead you to heal your family’s wounds of ‘not good enough’ and come to respect and honour your own talents, passions and intuitions.
To make your time on earth useful, joyful, interesting, varied and most of all, aligned with the harmonious flow of life around us, we must develop the practice of really listening to ourselves and following our inner guidance. Of opening up to who we are and coming to not only love but express every unique, quirky, individual bit. There will never be another you. If you fall in line the world will miss out on the inner radiance that only you could bring.
“A new world is not only possible, she is on her way.”