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The most physically inspiring experience that I have had as a Priestess and as a woman has been the reawakening of a conscious relationship with my womb. 

Happy Mother's Day! Start the day with a moment for yourself, a moment of luscious abundance. Connect inside, to the Mother of All Creation: Your Womb. As you go there, consciously come from a place of connection. You will slowly start that amazing sacred sweet energy of womb starting to fill the space. Sweet, yet infinitely powerful. She crumbles walls, she dissolves differences, and - her greatest power: she creates new life.

Not only as babies. As a woman who hasn'rt physically born chlidren, I do have a very fruitful womb. In so many sacred ceremonies I have alloweed her energy to come without, holding a sacred space for new life to be born. 

Before I tell you about a great short film, "Belly Button," let me remind you that my free Womb Wisdom conversation, Connecting with the Sacred Feminine, goes online on Wednesday, April 22.

If you haven't already done so, register for Womb Wisdom at nourishthefeminine.com by Tuesday, April 21 so you receive the email with the link to the conversation. 

Remember, once you register for this free event, you're on your way to receiving two gifts I'm offering, each complementing The Woman's Belly Book: a $5 discount on the Honoring Your Belly instructional DVD and a 20% discount on the full-color illustrated paperback, Rite for Invoking the Sacred Feminine.

Now, to the movies:

Early on in my career as Belly Queen — championing women's bellies as sacred, not shameful — a friend showed me a poem she had written. The piece included the words: "first scar, mother scar."

David Hewitt's gem of a 10-minute film, "Belly Button," offers its own take on that theme. The cast includes Sharon Small and Don Gilet, two of my favorite British actors.

Hewitt describes the story this way: "Six strangers are drawn together at one moment in time, but with different dreams."

Myself, I see the sacred feminine at the crossroads. What's the story you see?

What and where is the Sacred Feminine?

How do we connect with Her?

Why is it important that we connect with Her?

These and other questions are the subject of my recent conversation with Barbara Hanneloré, author of The Moon and You - A Woman's Guide to an Easier Monthly Cycle. You can listen in to our conversation, part of the Womb Wisdom telesummit Barbara is organizing, beginning April 22.

The free Womb Wisdom telesummit brings together 12 women, sharing their expertise on subjects ranging from Fertility Awareness and Pelvic Floor Health to Mandala Meditations and Creativity.

Once you register for this free event, you're on your way to receiving gifts from each of the presenters. I’m offering two gifts, each complementing The Woman's Belly Book: a $5 discount on the Honoring Your Belly instructional DVD and a 20% discount on the full-color illustrated paperback, Rite for Invoking the Sacred Feminine.

Here's the theme of my conversation with Barbara regarding the what, where, how, and why of connecting with the Sacred Feminine: She is in our midst.

The Goddess In Our Midst

The Great Goddess —
      call her as you will:
      Mary, Isis, Kali, Tara,
      Demeter, Eve, Asherah — 
is here among us.

She is tangible, personal, present, earthy, real.

While some gods may be abstract, remote, out of reach,
She is here among us, in substance.

She is in our midst, embodied.
In the matter of our bodies, she is in our midst:

She lives within the center of our bodies
in that place we call the belly.

Our culture shuns the Sacred Feminine
and likewise shames woman's belly.

The devastating consequences of
denying the Sacred Feminine play out

communally —
       in violence, injustice,
       poverty, disease,
       environmental despoilation

and personally —
       in addiction, illness,
       lack of purpose,
       dissatisfaction, discontent.

Whatever we think will save us or heal us
from this devastation,
in essence
what we're seeking is
    reconnection with the Sacred Feminine.

We're craving a way
to reclaim the Sacred Feminine in our lives,

a way to move into
    intimate experience
    and personal knowledge of Her
            as our center of being.

We can reclaim the Sacred Feminine in our lives
by honoring the place where She dwells within us:

our bellies.

We can reconnect with Her
by making pilgrimage
to the temple wherein She dwells,

deepening our awareness
into our bellies with movement, breath, kind regard.

Honoring and energizing our bellies,
we come to know, to be with,

the goddess in our midst.

I learned about The Moon and You: A Woman's Guide to an Easier Monthly Cycle when the author, Barbara Hanneloré, told me she'd selected words from The Woman's Belly Book for her book's page one. I'm honored Barbara chose my invitation — that we women consider our bellies as sheltering "the creative energy kin to the majestic Power of Being informing the universe" — to set the direction for her book.

In a warm and personal voice, Barbara offers practical ways to address, reduce, and perhaps eliminate pre-menstrual and menstrual distress, both emotional and physical. She does so by reframing the monthly cycle as an ally, not an enemy, provoking us to balance our lives in every dimension. She offers us the possibility of understanding and experiencing the menstrual cycle that we embody as kin to the cycle of moon phases and the circling of seasons in nature at large.

Organized in five sections, illustrated with delightful line drawings, the book guides us to:

• explore our connection with these cycles of nature;
• validate and nurture our inner lives with self-awareness and self-care in a variety of expressions;
• nourish our bodies with balancing foods, herbs, and physical practices of many kinds;
• understand the impact of cultural beliefs and values regarding menstruation on our personal experience;
• remember and then re-imagine our first menstruation — menarche — as welcoming us into womanhood in the way we've always wanted.

Each section provides references enabling the reader to investigate topics in greater depth. And each section concludes with an activity that helps the reader to integrate ideas and practices into the details of daily life.

Aside from the pleasure of knowing The Woman's Belly Book has provided inspiration and support for Barbara's The Moon and You, two threads of interest wrap me up and draw me to this book....

[click on "Continue reading" below for more]

MY SACRED BLOOD

My blood
My deep red flowing blood
Flowing in joyous delight
Through the caverns and crevices
Of my life
My good red blood
Racing in anticipation
Of things yet to be revealed
Full of curiosity
Feeling no restraint
Innocent of dangers
Powerful beyond my knowing….yet…..