The Art of Conscious Femininity

The Feminine is the opening to all possibilities, is feeling, valuing relationships and cherishing love. The lunar crescent, the universal symbol of feminine energy, the oriental Taoist yin, appears for example in the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe in Mexico, at the Virgin's feet. For me, in times of profound civilizational transformation, which I believe we now live in, we need new narratives to revitalize culture, society, to give hope to new visions, solutions and ways of being humankind. These narratives – as we learn from the past - come in the wisdom and inspiration of poetry, mysticism, myths and fairy tales, in the arts, in music, in archetypal images that have the power to move the collective unconscious. They have the power to illuminate our way and help us create this new individual and collective history, where new values and references can be born of the compound of old and outmoded forms and paradigms. This image of the Virgin of Guadalupe, which bears similarities to the image of the Virgin I encountered in Piazza Signoria at the entrance to the Gucci Museum in Florence, is for me an archetypal image that refers to the next Age, to a feminine rooted in the body, who looks at and witnesses with love, with presence, who moves through life with confidence in her healed masculine energy/dimension. That is, the archetype of a feminine (a way of living, feeling life and being which is beyond gender, is a psychic energy) that decides from the integrated feeling function - at the base, at the feet of the Virgin, is the lunar crescent, the basis of our decisions and of our way of living, rooted in feminine values. Does my body say: “This or that” makes sense to me? Does it not? Do my validated emotions, embraced by my totality, teach me the next correct step and action? Or do I continue to be anesthetized with work, soulless routines, sedatives, food, etc? The conscious feminine implies vigilance, understanding the essence of presence, not regressing to numbness, which dulls the emotions with which we cannot cope. And it totally changes our lives. Opening to our vulnerability contained in the embrace of our wholeness can be scary, but it opens a veil between us and life, awakens an expanded breath, reveals an authenticity that changes, blesses and enlightens our lives forever!

One of the important conditions for a conscious feminine is to be good witnesses of ourselves. If we were not seen, witnessed in our growth, by our parents first, we cannot develop our inner witness, this proprioception, this ability to see ourselves, to contain ourselves, becoming highly compromised our ability to feel and really love. What to do? Repair, heal the wounds with therapists, mentors, priests and priestesses; learn to receive and be loved by friends ... people who really see us, listen to us, give us sincere feedback, and mirror us so much. Our magnificent body has its own wisdom, an instinctive intelligence, an intuition to which we must listen, validate, and let these impregnate our choices as fertile, regenerating, catalysing humus. Then, we can pacify ourselves with our body, consciously inhabit it and love it in its entirety: animal, human, divine.

I have long found out that positive affirmations only, don’t work. We have to go beyond the merely cognitive process and enter the body – the body also needs “to know” also needs to individuate. Traveling from head to body, can involve a great deal of courage: developing a strong neck, the bridge between the head and the body, able to convey our authentic words. We have to rescue our authentic voice, learn to breathe well, unlock the authentic movement of our body which is the map of the unconscious. Trying to affirm and live only "the positive" is an equivocal and dangerous fallacy, which does not teach us how to deal with the shadow, whose memory, wounds, traumas, as well as capacities, are embodied in our “matter”. We all need to be seen and heard, it's a universal need. While we are alive, we need witnesses of our existence. But if it has not happened to us, we cannot give it to the other. When there is a crisis in life, when we no longer know who we are anymore, we are being pruned, layer by layer, shaken (sometimes) intensely and in these moments, it is fundamental to have someone who is our witness, preferably without projecting their own stories/dramas on us. We are all story tellers and story makers, which are our interpretations of reality, which we often project onto others. In the above-mentioned life crisis, when we are being cooked, skinned from old skins, it is of the utmost importance for this process to unfold in the best way and produce true rebirth, that we bear witness to this movement.

Whoever has not been seen or witnessed, because she/he has greater difficulty in seeing her/himself and witnessing inwardly, will be more at the mercy of the projections of others. She/he will have a harder time seeing and listening to others. For us to have “the truth”, said one poet, “there has to be two people: one who speaks, and another who listens”. The practice of the external witness is also a beautiful art, which develops the witness inside our own conscience. To be good witnesses, we have to inhabit our body, and that is to feel that whatever it is that it holds.

This is your body, your greatest gift, pregnant with wisdom you do not hear, grief you thought was forgotten, and joy you have never known.

(Marion Woodman)

It is practicing the art of extreme self-care - because it is very easy to get out of the connection with our centre, get out of the TAO, with excess much work, too much Internet, stimulus, etc. This is the art of Conscious Feminine.