Out Of The Woods - My Journey of Womb Awakening

OUT OF THE WOODS - MY JOURNEY OF WOMB AWAKENING

In 2012 my now dear friend Seren & her then fiancé Azra Bertrand came to visit us in our off-grid woodland home, it was just before their wedding, and they romantically "holed up" in my therapy yurt, nestled under the vast pollarded branches of our 500 year old mighty beech tree. It was gorgeous to see Seren again and to witness them both so radiant, happy and in love! 

Two years later Seren asked if I would like to join their relatively new "vessel" as it set sail on its second voyage - "Womb Awakening - 9 moon apprenticeship" exploring the depths of all things womb-related and feminine - a modern day Feminine Mystery/Grail School. I don't even recall the exact invitation or my response, I had no need to "google", to "go away and think about it", or try to fathom how this new commitment could possibly fit in with my already full woodland life - something deep inside was calling me, a call to prayer, a soul's contract...AKA my own "womb-awakening"!

I had spent the last 5 years up to my eye-balls (or rather breast-pads!) in Motherhood, living off-grid in yurts in our 40 acre woodland, not far from Glastonbury UK, with my then partner and our 2 young bubbas. I had wild-birthed both babies and carried them on my back until they were old enough to walk. And although some part of me was deeply fulfilled (I had always wanted to be a mother), I was exhausted,, and back then I often felt overwhelmed and very alone. It felt like I was holding all of the threads...for all of the people...most of the time...

Living off-grid through the seasons, I was undergoing my own apprenticeship under the fierce guide of Mother Nature. As a guardian of the land, I was desperately trying to bring the feminine energies back into balance, to nourish the land with the feminine essence of simple earth-based rituals, prayers, laughter and love. Meanwhile I myself was becoming aware of how disconnected I was from my own Feminine energy and the yin essence. A childhood in a patriarchal family and catholic convent boarding school made sure that I had learned to shove down my feelings, and stay focused on the external stuff, i.e. the doing, achieving and the destination, rather than being present with my feelings, or appreciating the growth and the journey itself. I didn't know how to receive; and although I longed for it, I couldn't open to trust or to deep emotional intimacy in relationship. And so I continued to ignore the soft whisperings of my body, and abandon my needs, filling my life up with doing, desperately trying to avoid facing the trauma and pain buried deep underneath.

We see Motherhood as feminine, but it's actually not, "The Mother" in her archetypal form is pure feminine energy, but I found the role of "Mothering"  in essence to be very masculine (despite being a huge initiation on the journey of embodying my womanhood "codes"). "Mothering" is about doing, giving, serving, putting other's needs before your own, holding the space for others etc. In fact I think the words I used to describe the reality of motherhood back then were "relentless".

Being in my masculine, pushing through, shoving down my feelings was how I had learned to survive. I didn't know how to truly receive, and felt that my role as healer, earth mother and giver was my "Dharma" - all the while I was ignoring the red flags and doing a great number in spiritual bypassing! Living in the woods surrounded by men and the energy of "doing", I struggled to take up space, to have my feminine needs met and to feel heard or honoured in my vital role as a woman and mother - there was a battle playing out between Oberon and Titania (A Midsummer Night's Dream) both inside myself, in my immediate surroundings, and of course in the world at large. I could clearly see the polarisation of the masculine & feminine energies and that the feminine did not have a place at the table, unless she was prepared to fight for it (which I found hard to do without going more into my masculine energy, which mostly got me nowhere!). So I kept right on serving the tribe, loving the man, raising the wildlings and keeping the home fires burning bright...not noticing that the light of the small feminine voice inside me was gently fading away, left out in the cold, unable to even feel the feelings...of her huge grief and disconnect. 

Back then I never sat down...if I did I would have probably wept and helplessly drowned in the whirlpool of tears, struggle, exhaustion, anger and self-pity that was beginning to engulf me!

My 4 year journey in the "Womb Awakening" apprenticeship sometimes felt like being in the boil wash, sometimes it felt like making wishes - whilst my genie was trapped inside a fortressed lamp, laughing at me! Occasionally I managed to get the practices done, but in those early days, mostly not. However, I came to appreciate that simply being in the quantum field of this powerful container was enough to work its magic. 

I had thought that I chose "Womb Awakening", but looking back I realise maybe it chose me, or, to put it more accurately, my womb chose - She chose Herself, chose softness, freedom, sovereignty and radiance. She chose how she wanted to heal, how she wanted to weave the threads of my feminine landscape and ancestral lineage back into wholeness, and create beauty and magic...where there had once been a barren wasteland.

The journey of womb awakening is not linear, it is a spiral journey of unravelling and dissolution. The journey of Womb Awakening holds the threads of the Selkie Tale, of home-coming, of Inanna's descent into the underworld to embrace the shadow and integrate the wholeness…leaving no wound without balm. The frequency of Magdalene is the frequency of Womb Consciousness, and She boldly opens the magical doorway for the Divine Feminine energies to be restored here on Earth, in Sacred Union with the Divine Masculine - so within, so without

As the Womb-Ship grew, and the first drafts of the book "Womb Awakening" were being penned, despite feelings of “imposter syndrome” I started mentoring other students on the apprenticeship and was commissioned by Seren & Azra to create all the sacred crafting videos. In my woodland life my work started to weave with the threads of womb magic, including my 1:1 healing practice, yoga classes and women's wild woodland retreats. The Goddess energy was rising…and the woods, my home, was undergoing a beautiful “greening”

My desire to restore the ancestral templates of the land came to fruition with the long dreamed for creation of a straw-bale roundhouse Goddess Temple in the woods - lovingly known as the "Shakti Lodge". It was built honouring the sacred geometry of the ancient elemental womb medicine wheel, and in reverence to my prayer for sacred union between the masculine and feminine energies. Women and children (and men!) streamed in to the woods to play, rest, dance and connect, and the plant deva's showered their blessings on us in playful delight! The day that the book Womb Awakening birthed into the world we held a live launch party in the Shakti Lodge, with Seren and Azra and music by Earth streaming live via our our generator-powered projector onto a huge screen!

My womb awakening journey initiation peaked in 2017 when I became a "Pele initiated Womb Priestess" (a phrase that previously would have made me laugh and cringe in equal measure!) on Big Island, Hawaii, during our 9 day Womb Awakening Teacher Training retreat. I burned with her lava-blood, and all that did not serve in my life at that time...left. It was the time of the Red Sun.

Around this time, the "ship" of the Womb Awakening apprenticeship gracefully sank back into the ocean. Seren and Azra's incredible legacy lives on in the form of their books Womb Awakening and Magdalene Mysteries - which continue to pollinate their magic around the globe. New shoots have risen and taken root - and the world is now brimming with womb magic, womb priestesses and womb-awakened men, women and children. It has been beautiful to see so many of the original Womb Awakening apprenticeship peers embodying this work and  sharing it with the world.

For me, the teachings and essence of Womb Awakening is a "Wild Feminine" embodiment piece, and this continues to permeate my life and work. I have loved weaving this precious lineage together with the shamanic threads of my own unique frequency and gifts - which largely lie in the seasons and cycles, earth-based rituals and ceremony, sacred crafting, rites of passage, and in the creation of my own modality Quantum Womb Healing.

Now, in the steady mellowing of my post-menopausal Autumn years, the embers of my own Womb Awakening continues to glow bright in my belly and nourish the flames. If you had asked me before Womb Awakening about my soul's mission and journey here on Earth, I would have mischievously (and perhaps rather glibly) replied "I came back to Earth to help, but I'm just passing through - this isn't my home, I'm simply here to help raise the vibration!". My Womb Awakening journey has allowed me to feel thoroughly claimed as a "Daughter of Earth", and integrate the fragmented parts of my feminine soul and psyche, bringing them all fully earth-side. Like many women, I was like the Selkie, I had lost my pelt, and now I have returned home to the "ocean", to my tribe. As Seren recently said "Debs, you ARE the Shakti Lodge!". I have come home to myself and my Womb Awakening journey continues...