Mesopotamian terracotta plaque known as the Burney Relief or the Queen of the Night relief, 1800-1750 BCE, in the British Museum, London. Some scholars believe the figure depicted is Lilith. Image via Wikipedia Commons.

This morning at the AROHO Retreat I’m giving a short presentation called “Exploring the Feminine.” During my talk I’ll show some images of the divine feminine from Hallie Austen Iglehart’s beautiful book, Heart of the Goddess. After my talk, I’m offering a guided meditation and some writing prompts.

In the inclusive spirit of AROHO, I’m pleased to share part of my presentation here. Enjoy!

Meditate on the Feminine

Take a few deep breaths and check in with yourself, check in with your body, consider how you feel right now…

Take a few moments to connect with your feminine energy…

Your body is rooted in the feminine. An umbilical line runs from you to your mother and your mother’s mother and to her mother and grandmother all the way back to the beginning of time. Your first home was your mother’s womb. Your delivery into this world came through her body. When you come to the end of your life your body will return to Mother Earth. This is the way of all of nature. Your body mirrors earth’s body…

Your body hosts and expresses your spirit, your mind, your creative energy, your life force…. Make yourself at home in your body. Make yourself at home in the feminine.

Consider the beauty in you … the strongest parts of you … the most tender places in you … the cycles of nature at work in you … your amazing voice … Step into your most powerful images and dreams … Dream of a renewed sense of yourself—you are a poised, perceptive, sacred, free, self-defined, creative, individual woman—becoming yourself beautifully.

Write

Take a few moments to respond to each of the following prompts. You could treat this as a listing exercise—quickly jot down everything that comes to mind as you consider the prompt—and use items on your list as prompts to inspire deeper exploration. Or if one prompt particularly draws you in, give yourself some time right now to explore it.

• What keeps you rooted?
• What makes you strong?
• How are you changing?
• What do you love?
• What can you let go of?
• What will you embrace?
• How have you surprised yourself?
• Where do you find delight?
• What does the feminine mean to you?

To continue this exploration, you could work with these questions to describe your unfolding.

You could write a story, essay, or poem about the girl you used to be and the woman you are now becoming.

When writing about how you are changing, you might try writing with Pele.

When writing about love and compassion, you might try writing with Kwan Yin.

When writing about how you surprise yourself, you might try writing with Grandmother Spider.

How has this exercise worked for you?