Woman

All posts tagged Woman

The Whole World Paused This Morning

Published August 18, 2023 by tindertender

Do you know why? Because an 8 year old’s tank was empty.

The boys had already started their school day at their desks and I was preparing to leave for work when I noticed my littlest standing in the bathroom wiping his face.

I paused at the door and asked if he was okay. He looked up with tears silently dripping and shook his head. When I questioned if something happened, again he shook his head.

So I sat on the side of the tub and pulled him in my lap. I told him sometimes our heart tanks feel empty and need to be refilled.

He cried into my chest and I held tight.
I asked if he could feel my love filling him up?
A nod, and tears stopped…

I waited a minute…

‘Has it reached your toes yet?’
He shook his head no…

‘Okay man. We will take as long as you need. Work doesn’t matter right now. School isn’t important either. This right here, is the most important thing today, okay? Filling you back to the top. Is that good?’
nods

One more minute…
‘Is your heart full of mamas love now?’
‘Yeah…’
looks in his eyes I see it shining in there, you’re full to the top, and you’re smiling!

Y’all. You may not be 8- you may be 28, 38, 48 or whatever- but ALL of us run on empty just like he did. His weekend was so busy and so full and his little soul was just dry!!!

We all have to pause, and take a moment to refill with the good things. Scripture, prayer, sunshine, worship, song, laughter, friends, hugs. Refill your empty, or you’ll find those emotions (tears, anger, snappy words) overflowing with no reason why.

Take a moment. Refill. It’s the most important part of your day!

Holy Blood

Published July 14, 2023 by tindertender

Blood mysteries teach that menstrual blood and birthing blood are holy blood, power blood, healing blood. The blood mysteries teach us to remember that life and healing come from and return to woman, to the wise woman, to the woman who bleeds and does not die.

Blood mysteries reveal that menstrual (moontime) blood and birth blood are so holy, so full of potential, so full of the void, that they are to be used only to heal, to heal by nourishing. Holy woman-blood is nourishing blood, blood of love, blood of abundance, blood that heals the earth.

Blood mysteries recall the immense power of the bleeding woman. Power enough to share in great nourishing give-away from mother to matrix, give-away of nourisher to nourisher. When we bleed into the ground (in reality or fantasy) our power regrounds as our blood flows through the personal root chakra and into the earth.

Bleeding into the ground, bleeding freely, we know ourselves as women, as nourishers of life, as givers of nourishment to the plants, givers of holy nourishment: our moontime blood.

I am woman giving away nourishment to ensure this planet’s life. With my moontime power, my blood, with my birthing power, my blood, I feed the earth who feeds us all. Every month I remember: I am woman. I am earth. I am life. I am nourishment. I am change.

I am woman, confronted with my changes: hormonal harmonics stirring moon time visions . . .
I am woman. I know life, death, pain, and health in my marrow, in my womb. I know the narrow space between life and death, the bloody place of birth, the bloody mess of nourishing life, the bloody flow of letting life go. I am woman. My blood is power. Peaceful power. Peaceful blood.

My blood is holy nourishment. My blood nourishes the growing fetus. My blood becomes milk to nourish the young child. My blood flows into the ground as holy nourishment for the Great Mother, Gaia, Mother Earth.

~ Susan Weed

Art: Oda Iselin Sønderland
@odaiselin

Blind Date with My Body

Published June 4, 2023 by tindertender

Every morning I have a blind date with my body.
And as I do,
a million questions run through my head.

Who is this person sitting across from
me in the mirror?
Am I my own soulmate?
Are the dreams in my heart and my thoughts in my head perfect strangers?

How can I open my heart to this imperfect human who is staring back at me?
How can I learn to love their wrinkles?
How can I build a future with this person?

And every morning during my blind date
with my own image I remember the secret
to any great relationship …
Is to let them see you as you really are.

So,
how do I see myself?
As a piece of cosmic art or as half-shattered bowl?
Maybe it’s both things at the same time.

My love,
In order to feel at home in your skin you must learn to be yourself,
with yourself.
And to see the beauty in yourself when you look at yourself.

All first dates are awkward,
so be patient with yourself as you get to know the person in the mirror.

Don’t let them slip through your fingers
because …
they are the love of your life.

  • John Roedel

Artist: Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg

What Is A Woman?

Published June 2, 2023 by tindertender

Crone Goddesses

Published May 24, 2023 by tindertender

By: @theavalonians

Celtic older women were revered as the ‘wisdom keepers’. Over time they were called the ‘Crone’ which derived from the word ‘Crown’ meaning they were illuminated ‘shining ones’. The church feared these wise women, murdering & relegating them to the role of the ‘evil ugly hag’.

A small list of some of the crone goddesses from different cultures.

Ala (Nigerian) – The spirits of the dead find peace in her womb.

Ama No Uzumi (Japanese) – A Shinto ancestral Goddess of longevity, protection and psychic abilities.

Asase Yaa (West African) – She represents the womb of the earth from whom we are all birthed and will return to at our death.

Annis (Celtic) – Depicted as a frightening old woman, keeper of wisdom and old ways.

Badb (Irish) – The shape shifting warrior Goddess who symbolises the cycles of life and death, wisdom and inspiration. 

Baubo (Greek) – This Bawdy Goddess uses female sexuality and laughter to raise a smile from Demeter.

Baba Yaga (Russian) – In Slavic mythology she is the wild old woman; the witch; and mistress of magic.

Cerridwen (Celtic) – The Keeper of the Cauldron. She represents the wisdom of old age.

The Panniculus

Published May 14, 2023 by tindertender

I was today years old when I learnt that the part of the body we affectionately refer to as a pouch has a proper scientific name.

Ladies and gentleman, introducing the panniculus, “an apron of skin and fat that sags below the navel, particularly after pregnancy or weight loss”.

While I won’t be adding panniculus to my baby names list, I do think we should show it a little more love. Because despite what you might see on social media, having a pouch, or a panniculus on a Sunday, is entirely natural and normal. And to prove it, I refer you to the drawing attached.

This piece of art was created in 23,000 BCE, on the walls of a cave in what we now call France. Opinions vary as to whether it represents a woman in childbirth, or an appreciative ode to the female form, but either way her pouch is clearly visible, and she was important enough and interesting enough and beautiful enough to commit to rock for eternity.

It can be hard to feel good about our bodies after pregnancy and birth, and there’s no denying that we have been forever changed by the experience inside and out, but it’s even harder when we try to live up to unattainable and constantly shifting beauty standards.

That’s why this piece of art brings me such joy, the figure is undeniably and unashamedly female, lumps and bumps and all. And if a woman 25,000 years ago, whose life was undoubtedly much harder than mine, can handle this jelly, then so can I.

https://www.facebook.com/TheNaturalParentMagazine?mibextid=LQQJ4d

What Does It Feel Like To Be Old?

Published May 10, 2023 by tindertender

The other day, a young person asked me: What did it feel like to be old?

I was very surprised by the question, since I did not consider myself old. When he saw my reaction, he was immediately embarrassed, but I explained that it was an interesting question. And after reflection, I concluded that getting old is a gift.

Sometimes I am surprised at the person who lives in my mirror. But I don’t worry about those things for long. I wouldn’t trade everything I have for a few less gray hairs and a flat stomach. I don’t scold myself for not making the bed, or for eating a few extra “little things.” I am within my rights to be a little messy, to be extravagant, and to spend hours staring at my flowers.

I have seen some dear friends leave this world, before they had enjoyed the freedom that comes with growing old.

Who cares if I choose to read or play on the computer until 4 in the morning and then sleep until who knows what time?

I will dance with me to the rhythm of the 50’s and 60’s. And if later I want to cry for some lost love…I will!

I’ll walk down the beach in a swimsuit that stretches over my plump body and dive into the waves letting myself go, despite the pitying looks of the bikini-wearers. They’ll get old too, if they’re lucky…

It is true that through the years my heart has ached for the loss of a loved one, for the pain of a child, or for seeing a pet die. But it is suffering that gives us strength and makes us grow. An unbroken heart is sterile and will never know the happiness of being imperfect.

I am proud to have lived long enough for my hair to turn gray and to retain the smile of my youth, before the deep furrows appeared on my face.

Now, to answer the question honestly, I can say: I like being old, because old age makes me wiser, freer!

I know I’m not going to live forever, but while I’m here, I’m going to live by my own laws, those of my heart.

I’m not going to regret what wasn’t, nor worry about what will be.

The time that remains, I will simply love life as I did until today, the rest I leave to God.

~ Author Unknown

Phot credit: Unknown at this time.

She Is Beautiful

Published May 2, 2023 by tindertender

When she was a little girl they told her she was beautiful but it had no meaning in her world of bicycles and pigtails and adventures in make-believe.

Later, she hoped she was beautiful as boys started taking notice of her friends and phones rang for Saturday night dates.

She felt beautiful on her wedding day, hopeful with her new life partner by her side but, later, when her children called her beautiful, she was often exhausted, her hair messily tied back, no make up, wide in the waist where it used to be narrow; she just couldn’t take it in.

Over the years, as she tried, in fits and starts, to look beautiful, she found other things to take priority, like bills and meals, as she and her life partner worked hard to make a family, to make ends meet, to make children into adult, to make a life.

Now, she sat.
Alone.
Her children grown,
her partner flown,
and she couldn’t remember the last time she was called beautiful.

But she was.
It was in every line on her face, in the strength of her arthritic hands, the ampleness that had a million hugs imprinted on its very skin, and in the jiggly thighs and thickened ankles that had run her race for her.

She had lived her life with a loving and generous heart, had wrapped her arms around so many to give them comfort and peace.

Her ears had heard both terrible news and lovely songs, and her eyes had brimmed with, oh, so many tears.

They were now bright even as they dimmed.

She had lived and she was.

And because she was, she was made beautiful.

~ Suzanne Reynolds, © 2019

Photo credit: Nina Djerff
Model: Marit Rannveig Haslestad

A Rose Is Still A Rose

Published April 13, 2023 by tindertender

“A rose by any other name is still a rose.”