The Divine Feminine is My Connection to Being Fully Me
If you are here reading this blog, I am guessing you are a woman or femme. You may be asking yourself as a woman or femme, what does it mean to connect with the feminine? Is it a connection to the female body or is it a connection to feminine energy? It could be both. Let’s take a look into each of these questions and distinguish feminine from female.
Femininity is associated with flamboyant displays of softness, roundness, and other ways to accentuate traditionally female features, e.g. pink dresses, long nails, and makeup. However, these ideals of femininity often change with society, culture, and gender expression. For example, pink was not always associated with women or girls, but with men, and blue was associated with the Virgin Mary and purity. Femaleness or being female is the embodiment of having a female body and the experiences of moving through the world with that body parts that most females possess. Some of that includes having female genitals and menstruation, being able to give birth, breastfeeding, having wide hips and prominent breasts.
I want to make the distinction between feminine and female because one can be very feminine and not female, and one can be female and not express any femininity. They can exist concurrently or be separated all together.
Then there’s the idea of the Divine Feminine, which is often energies, spirituality, and connections derived from great women and goddesses from the past. Some expressions of these are intuition, feeling, nurturing, receptivity, and interconnectedness. These qualities are available to anyone in the human experience, but are traditionally accessed by women and femmes because of patriarchal oppression of these qualities in the societies in which many of us live. Patriarchal societies often associate masculine energy as assertive or forceful, and so the figures that typically express the divine feminine have often overcome masculine power structures with typically receptive behaviors or the ability to hold and transform without the use of obvious force.
Matriarchal societies on the other hand had the full expression of the human experience, without making receptive or assertive energy exclusive, but they were always inclusive. Each individual has a different role, usually based on their anatomy and abilities, but the distinctions don’t usually view gender roles as higher or lower. As an aside, I’d like to mention that woman or women are both inclusive words. They include women and men inside of each word.
With all of this knowledge then, what are some actionable steps for a person to connect to their own femininity? Based on my own practice, I can share five ways anybody, regardless of gender identity, can create their own practice to honor and connect to their divine femininity.
Kundalini Yoga and Yoga (Asana)
Many people have specific rituals, such as Queen Alicia Keys, who does Kundalini yoga. Kundalini yoga believes that each individual possesses a divine energy at the base of the spine. This energy is thought to be the sacred energy of creation that puts us, regardless of sex or gender, in direct contact with the divine. Other people connect with the divine (whatever that means for the particular individual) or even their highest selves using meditation or prayers.
In my personal practice, I use yoga asanas (yoga expressed through body movement) to first open up my physical body to discern what I need and also think about the needs and requests for the well-being of others.
Meditation
Meditation is a broad term that usually includes focusing thoughts on what’s happening inside your body and/or connecting to the spiritual self. Meditation can help you connect to the power of receptive energy by requiring that you sit, rest, and calm your thoughts and constant need for action. You can receive messages from your body by quieting the mind, and you can also set intentions for what you would like the universe to bring to you.
Gardening & Placing Feet on the Ground
Taking up gardening is a great way to connect with the great mother, Earth. Gathering dirt, placing it into mounds where a seed can grow, and placing seeds into the ground with faith is participating in Mother Nature’s mysteries. An extra reward that comes from hanging with Mother Nature is that soil contains microorganisms that by their exposure alone raises serotonin levels that are stress and anxiety reducing.
Continue the Work of Grandmothers, Aunties, Other Prominent Women/Femme Ancestor’s Work
You always hear that life is short and that our life’s work will most likely not be completed by only us. We can step in where our ancestors left off and continue the ideas for change that they wanted to bring about. Whatever that means for you is just enough. For me, my great grandmothers were both medicine women in their communities of origin, and I am continuing their legacy in being an herbalist for my community. For others, it may be continuing the work of Mama Marsha P. Johnson, a trans woman who fought for LGBT civil rights and AIDS advocacy.
Accepting Chaos
Femaleness or the feminine is often connected to chaos or a lack of control. Historically and across many cultures, natural disasters/storms/other unexplained natural phenomena are given women’s names. In our patriarchal societies, lack of control is not valued and there is a constant desire to organize and tame every part of our lives. The female body is also seen as a wild object to be tamed and policed by way of “hygienic standards”, breastfeeding rules, and “socially acceptable” women’s clothing. But what would it look like to embrace the unpredictability of life? What would it be like to even take on chaos? I believe valuing these will not only remove patriarchal values as the only acceptable way to live, but that accepting chaos or the self as-is can be a way to experience the full-spectrum of what it means to be human.
If you haven’t already, I’d like you to check out “I Am Woman” by Emmy Meli. It was an extremely popular song on social media platforms, Instagram and TikTok. Some of the most referenced lyrics of the song are as follows:
“I am woman, I am fearless
I am sexy, I'm divine
I'm unbeatable, I'm creative
Honey, you can get in line
I am feminine, I am masculine
I am anything I want”
What struck me most about these lyrics is that Emmy declares to the world that she is “woman” and she states that she is feminine and masculine. That says she believes herself as the full embodiment of being a human; as having both energies and they are expressed, however, she wants them to be expressed. It’s powerful because despite having both energies, she wants you to know that this full expression makes her - woman.
My hope is that your main takeaway from this piece is that being anything you want and being the full embodiment of who you are, regardless of your gender identification can be accessed through connecting with the divine feminine, because the divine feminine is inclusive of all of us.
I leave you with love and a personal motto:
I am only one, but I am connected to all. I AM WOMAN.
References
Mary and the color blue: https://nmwa.org/blog/nmwa-exhibitions/mary-and-the-colors-of-motherhood/
Femininity and the color pink: https://www.cnn.com/2018/01/12/health/colorscope-pink-boy-girl-gender/index.html
Matriarchal societies: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/apr/01/the-kingdom-of-women-the-tibetan-tribe-where-a-man-is-never-the-boss
Alicia Keys on divine feminine: https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/health-wellness/2021/05/12/alicia-keys-shares-her-meditation-journey-divine-feminine/5023809001/
Kundalini Yoga: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/introduction-to-kundalini-the-yoga-of-awareness_b_6862914
Soil and stress relief: https://www.colorado.edu/today/2019/05/09/natures-original-stress-buster
Hurricanes named as woman: https://womensmediacenter.com/climate/a-secret-sexist-history-why-hurricanes-were-only-named-after-women
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