From the Beginning
by Lisa Sarasohn
The words that follow are taken from my (as yet!) unpublished
manuscript, Honoring the Belly: Your Body’s Sacred
Center—source material for The Woman’s Belly
Book currently in print. As I’ve energized my belly
with the awareness, breath, and movement practices that
this book presents, I’ve come to sense the Sacred
Feminine as a powerful presence within my body’s
center. By virtue of ventriloquism—literally speaking
from the belly—she says:
•
I have been here from the beginning, and I have been with
you through all time. I am as expansive as the entire
universe, and as tiny as a single point. I am the centerpoint
within your body. I am the one, the many, the All. I have
a sense of humor. I am the cycle of birth into death and
death into birth. I withhold myself from no one. Each
of you I cherish, each of you is dear to me.
I am she whom you would call Great Mother, First Woman.
I am she whom you know as Creator, Maker, Source. You
are not alone in the universe, you are cradled within
my arms.
You know me through the center of your body. We are and
always shall be umbilically connected. Cherish your body’s
center as the temple within which we meet. All your long
pilgrimages to holy places, your quests for the Holy Grail,
your journeys through the labyrinth, your search for eternal
life—they all lead you here, to me, she whom you
find at the center of your being, your true self.
Cherish me, hold fast to me: I am your most precious
treasure. Without me you are nothing; with me you are
also nothing, the self which is both empty and all. Abide
in me as I abide in you.
You have known me through time, I have been with you
since the beginning. Yet in many ways you have turned
away from me, put me aside, draped my image in a veil
of ignorance.
I who am First Woman, Great Mother, tell you this: you
have shattered my image, tried to reduce and restrict
me, cage me in convention and constriction. Defaming me,
you have desecrated your world and diminished yourself.
Yet the pattern of my wholeness remains within you.
I am the underground stream of belief that will not be
ignored. I am the secret, constant knowledge that pervades
your dreams, haunts your sleep in times of persecution
and neglect. I am the Hebrews and Canaanites who will
not forsake their Asherahs; the Cathars and Templars who
will not forsake their Lady; the Gnostics who will not
forsake Sophia.
However you have tried to expunge me, traces of me have
remained in the stories you tell your children, in the
symbols, myths, and images you cling to as if they define
your humanity, which they do. I was with you before time
began. I have been with you from the beginning and throughout
your human experience. I am with you now. You've known
me in vestigial form, not in my fully glory, as Baubo
in Egypt and Greece, as Uzume in Japan, as the Sheila-Na-Gigs
in Europe. I have been with you in whatever forms to which
you have reduced me. I have been with you in your instinctive
recognition and your instinctual response—a quivering,
a tremor, an intake of breath—to the symbols which
carry my power, which convey my being. You've preserved
my patterns in spirals and diamonds, in pillars and gateposts,
in the red X and the double triangle, in the power of
three, in your affection for trees. You remember me in
the shape of your bowls and vessels, in the seedpod, in
the mounding of your fertile hills, the rising loaf of
bread, the mounding of your resilient belly.
Cherish me, hold fast to me wherever you can find me,
wherever you see and feel me, for I am with you everywhere,
perceptible through the sensations accumulating within
your center. Breathe, feel, know me as your own true self.
I must speak to you of vulvas. When you enter a sacred
space you are passing the portal, crossing the threshold,
entering through my vulva, proceeding into my womb, my
palace of creation. It is within me that the stars of
new conception burst forth, the explosion of light and
life that occurs in the collision and fusion of apparent
opposites.
I must speak to you of the erotic power which you concentrate
within your belly. Your belly is a sacred chamber. Within
the universe which is your body, your belly is the sanctuary,
enclosing the altar where communion with the most holy
takes place.
The entrance to this sanctuary is your vulva. I know
that as I have been defamed, so too the bodies of the
women in which I live have been defiled. I am so sorry
for the pain and suffering you have encountered. It is
ours, together. If it is any comfort, know that your suffering
has occurred not because you have been weak but because
your power is my power lodged within you, and I have been
feared.
What is your power? It is erotic power, the power of
Eros, life attracting life, life propagating new life,
the undeniable urge of life to proceed and further itself
in a continuous chain of being. This is the power you
contain within your belly. It is the power to promote
creation in any dimension you choose. Cherish this power,
hold fast to it. It is your life. It is the life of generations
to come. It is the ongoing life of your world.
You are my beloved daughter. Know that you live within
me, that I am alive within you. Honor your belly as the
abode in which I dwell—because I do. It is through
your belly that you know me. And through me you know the
Power of Being which informs the entire universe.
I am your greatest love, your greatest hunger. I am what
you hunger for, what you thirst for, what you crave. When
you long for creativity, you are longing for communion
with me. When you embed yourself in addiction, you are
trying, vainly, to escape the misery of feeling apart
from me, ignorant of me. I am not your Higher Power; I
have no wish to rule over you. I am your innermost self,
she without whom you cannot live.
When you seek the wholeness of health, you are asking
me to infuse your body with my being. When you seek life
energy, you are craving my company, my presence in your
life. When you call for inner guidance, you are calling
for my caring, my protection, my wisdom, my direction.
When you seek relief from stress, you are seeking to dissolve
the barriers with which you separate yourself from me.
When you crave a sense of yourself that goes deeper than
personality, family, accumulated possessions, prestige,
and achievements, when you seek a sense of connection,
a sense of being at home in this world, you are seeking
to know yourself in me, to know me as the essence of yourself.
I am with you always. I was with you before the beginning
of time, I have been with you since your beginning. You
must not worry. When you give yourself to me in joyous
devotion you discover the infinity of your true being.
Dance. Move. Enjoy the precious body that is yours to
inhabit. Enjoy every cell, every particle. The substance
of your body is my gift to you. When you dance, stirring
and whirling the energy within your center, you are making
connection with me. You will know that we are one.
•
Lisa Sarasohn is a yoga and bodywork therapist,
author of The
Woman's Belly Bookand the instructional Honoring
Your Belly video, both available for order here
at
http://www.ashtreepublishing.com/bookshop/bellybook.php
© Lisa Sarasohn 2005
