Answering the call of the Mother

Tonight, longer a time ago than the last time I posted a blog, I returned, this time with my daughter, to the womb of our Mother, Gaia.

 

It’s called a Temazcal. A Mesoamerican sweat lodge, if you will. We did it Mujer-Mexica stylee…women only.

Oh man, what beauty lies within!

This is not your regular spa sauna. Although each wonderful woman that entered tonight came out exuding so much of the beauty they already had within. Glowing cheeks! Radiant skin! Beautiful, heartfelt smiles!

To give you an idea of the magic that happens under a new moon, in a Sacred Circle of Women whose fire is tended to by two men called Agilas del Fuego/Fire Eagles (without duality there is no reality!)...we enter a dark cloth-covered dome set on the soil made with a natural material such as bamboo, clay bricks etc. Inside thatched mats lay, and in the middle: a whole in the ground.

There are four doors: one facing North, the other South, East, and then West. 

The two men tend the fire that heat the volcanic rock that will later be placed in the center of the dome. But first…before entering with bowed heads and hearts, we acknowledge the 7 Cardinal Directions.
Seven because aside from North, South, East and West, there is also Up - to the Stars, our sun, the source of Life; Down - to the Earth’s core, her heart (remember? Earth is a living being!), and then the Center - of Life, the Origin of all Creation.

We pray…using tobacco, the plant the Indigenous and Knowing People use to offer their prayers to the Source, by mixing it's smoke with one’s breath, or throwing it in the Fire.

 

Before we finally enter, we bow before the door, head on the ground, and hands & feet on the floor, to humbly ask for permission to re-enter the Womb of Gaia with and for All Our Relations. Mitakuye Oyasin, so say the Lakota Sioux. We ask for all those we ever loved, all we’ve ever come across, all we are praying for - because we are all One.

This is the Temazcal.

The stones heated by the fire, the first and foremost element, represent the knowledge of the stars. Out of the Fire came the impulse To Be - this is how the stars were born, later planets, the Earth, the ground upon which we stand on.
Next Water flowed and then Life flourished…plants, animals, humans…and so we bring in the medicine - dried herbs (I think I smelled coconut? salvia?), and our tools - a pairs of deer horns for the curanderas to move the hot rocks, an animal-skin drum and a pair of rattles made of gourds - to use while we sing and chant along.

The Temazcal represents the womb of our Mother Gaia. Here we pray, sing, chant, laugh, cry, open our hearts and offer our all, to remember what it is like to still be part Her. The darkness inside reminds us of that peaceful state when we slumbered in the womb of our own biological mothers. Water is poured over the fiery-red stones, which evaporates so fast so that smoke rises and embraces you whole…the heat within this hearth heals.

This is what happens within this Sacred Sauna.

Ananta did great! She sat still, sang, sweat and slept in her first ever Temazcal. She only completed one puerta (door), we exited by the second. Even so, I’m so proud of my little Warrior (Guerrera)! It is my hope that she will grow up to honor and continue taking part of such sacred ceremonies regardless of how technologically advanced the world becomes when she is older. (Actually, the more "modern" society becomes, the more is there a need for these practices to be honored.)
 

Because not only do we women (men too) have the medicine inside us to heal ourselves and the entire planet - we are also the warriors that fight for what is right in our own lives. We are those that fight for Mother Earth’s life. Who you are is the embodiment of the beautiful Goddess within...this is calling of the Divine Feminine…that tonight I heard in the Temazcal, and am now shouting out to you, Wo-Man.

Hear Her song and Let Your Light shine.

(I haven’t felt so beautifully connected in a while…thank you One & All!)

I’m ecstatic to have found this Voice. BLISS!