Lucy H. Pearce

The deep Feminine, the mystery of consciousness, She who is life, is longing for our transformation as much as we are. She holds back, allowing us free reign to choose, nudging us occasionally with synchronicities, illness, births and deaths_ But when we make space for Her, she rushes into all the gaps, engulfing us with her desire for life and expression. This is what She longs for, this is what we are for: experiencing the Feminine through ourselves. We simply need to slow down, and find where to put our conscious attention. And it is this, this willingness to look again, this willingness to put consciousness onto our places of unconscious, to express what we have always avoided, which starts the process of unblocking, so that She may flow through.

Who is She? She is your power, your Feminine source. Big Mama. The Goddess. The Great Mystery. The web-weaver. The life force. The first time, the twentieth time you may not recognize her. Or pretend not to hear. As she fills your body with ripples of terror and delight.But when she calls you will know you__e been called. Then it is up to you to decide if you will answer.

Catching creativity is like catching butterflies _ fast-flying, bright-colored sparks darting here and there, it requires quick wits, good eyes and desire to net them. And once you have them, you need to act fast. An idea, like a butterfly doesn__ last long: it is ephemeral. It is here, and now it is gone _ so quick, grab your laptop, your pen and paper, your Dictaphone, your sketch pad, whatever your mode of expression or recording, swoop and catch.

Together we are learning to move from raw emotion and frozen muscles into a flow which emerges deep from within. We are learning to dance our prayers, bleed our words onto the page, laugh our images onto canvas, build our dreams in the world _ to transmute and transmit the energy of the Feminine through our bodies and out into the world.

This is the crux of being a Creative Mother. It is more than how many jumpers you have knitted, or having an exhibition in a fancy gallery, or a bookshelf of your own books. It is about the act of living authentically whilst honoring your mother self and creative self. About saying yes to life, every part of your life, and finding how to weave them all together.

There is a juiciness to creativity, a succulence that comes up from within, a sensuality which both produces and is soothed by the act and product of creativity. Creativity is pleasing to us on a deep level. Be it the feel of clay in our hands, the colors that make us feel alive as we knit or sew, the meaning that we find in the words that we write, the energizing feel of movement as we dance and the music moves through our bodies. Taking part in creativity helps us to be more fully alive on every level, it asks that we engage with life in a visceral, and interactive way.

The creative journey is not a trek through the wilderness, but actually a clearly defined path, which though not visible to our outside eyes, can be felt with our inner senses.

Those in the System, would like us to share their belief that all the changes [we are witnessing] are not connected: they are simply anomalies, isolated symptoms to be treated or preferably ignored, before the all-powerful Western capitalist patriarchal model goes on to ever greater heights and grander ejaculations. Most are numb to it, caught in fear, denial or resistance.But we, Burning Woman, know this process intimately. Amongst Burning Women and Men, there is a fierce, quiet knowing that these are both the death pangs of the old, and the birthing pangs of the new.

If we are to be women in power, then it must be power on very different terms. we have to find a new source of energy. New structures of power. Ones that don__ deplete us or our environment. We need to run our lives on sustainable energy.

Often we can get caught in our own struggles, our own small stories, that we forget our place in the larger story arc _ the way that our actions, our choices, our achievements can and will blaze trails for that who come after us, so that they do not have to spend their time and energy re-fighting the same battles.For sure we walk a spiral path, but for generations of women the spirals were so tightly packed that it seemed they were going round in circles _ let us blaze trails so that the path we walk takes in wider and wider sweeps of human experience.Trail blazing is what we do when we find ourselves in the wilderness, with no path to guide us but our own intuitive understanding of nature and our destination. At times we must walk through the night, guided only by the stars. We know when to sit and rest, to shelter from storms, when to gather water, and what on the trail will sustain us and what will do us harm. We are courageous and cautious in equal measure, but we are driven forward, not only by our own desire to reach our destination, but also by the desire to leave a viable way for others who follow. Trail blazing is an art-form. It is how we find paths through what before was wilderness. We push aside braches, or cut them back, we tramp down nettles and long grasses, ford rivers and streams, through the inner and outer landscapes.

Burning Woman is a powerful image. A role model. A metaphor. A warning. A source of power. She is Feminine power incarnate.

Breaking our silence is powerful. Whether it comes as a whisper or a squeak at first, allow that sense of spaciousness, of opening, allow yourself to trust the bottomlessness, and lean into the dark roar which will light up every cell.Though it may start softly, we build in confidence and skills, we realise we do not need to wait for permission before we open our mouths. We do not need to wait for others to make space for us, we can take it. We do not need to read from others_ scripts or style ourselves in weak comparison. We do not need to look to another__ authority because we have our own. Down in our cores. We have waited so long for permission to know that it was our time, our turn on stage. That time is now. Our voices are being heard into being. They are needed.

When we have the courage to claim space for ourselves. When we risk creativity. When we relish our sensuality. When we honor our lives and their experiences as valuable. When we create from a female body, expressing ourselves in a woman__ voice, using a woman__ language. We begin to bloom.

The message of love or beauty or hope needs to be said by a hundred thousand different voices, written by a hundred thousand different pens, at a hundred thousand different times in history, different places in the world, different sectors of society, in different genres and registers, simply to be heard by the billions of ears and hearts that lie waiting for a truth which fires their soul, answers their question, speaks to their heart.

Standing in the ring of fire, the eye of the storm, the vortex of pain and pressure is simultaneously the most vulnerable and most powerful place to be. Here we embody paradox. We stand our ground and surrender completely. Here we know the full power of the Feminine.

We often fear that the Revolution needed is too big for what we can give.Too much change is required inside, outside.And we are too small.But all that is required is that you step into the truth of your life. And speak it, write it, paint it, dance it.That you shine your light on your truth, for the world to see.And as hundreds, then thousands, then millions do this _ each sparking the courage of yet more _ Suddenly we have a world alight with truth.

We are weaving her-story into reality.Unweaving the limiting his-stories.Creating our-story.Reaching beyond religion and patriarchy and capitalism and so-called democracy.Into new ways of being and seeing.We are the bridge between worldsWe are the ones we have been waiting for.

At her first bleeding a woman meets her power. During her bleeding years she practices it. At menopause she becomes it. Traditional Native American saying