Climate Change and The Sacred Feminine

If I really, really stop and feel, deep down inside I'm scared. I'm scared we've really messed up. I have that dreadful sinking feeling you get when a long-term relationship ends or when someone you love dies. That feeling of suddenly knowing the truth, the truth that this is the end. That wide, open awakening where denial vanishes like dust after a rainstorm and the crystal clear shock of the truth is revealed. You can feel in your heart and throat and belly that things can never go back to how they were, that it is now absolutely, undeniably too late. Life as you knew it, the comfort, the warm familiarity, is over. My mother earth is dying, or to be more accurate, as the activist Utah Phillips puts it, "The planet isn't dying, it is being killed and those responsible have names and addresses".

I am sitting in a darkened cinema, as the credits roll, having just watched Al Gore's documentary about climate change, 'An Inconvenient Truth'. I need to cry. I love this planet's endless, magnificent beauty and her benevolence. She gives and gives without asking for anything in return. She gives selflessly, trusting implicitly in our caring for her, so that she may keep providing for us in every possible way. She is our Holy Mother, feeding us, clothing us, providing shelter, inspiration and spiritual sustenance…. endless giving, endless service to all living things.

So how did it all come to this? Where did we go so horribly wrong? Is there any hope? Is it too late? I look around at the group of women I am with tonight, one breast feeding her new-born baby and wonder whether that precious child will live to see a planet teetering on the edge of possible recovery or whether she will be struggling to survive in a land wracked with drought, soaring temperatures and rising sea levels.

I step out of the cinema and onto a street filled with cars, and many people doing stuff, buying stuff, and rushing somewhere fast. The bright fluorescent lights of the town's biggest supermarket spill out loud and shiny reflected in the faces of the passers by. Inside, row after row of genetically modified, colour enhanced, processed and preserved 'food' is on offer and probably not one bit of it grown within our local shire.

In the Western world, our steady and now rapidly accelerating departure from living in harmony with our natural rhythms and those of the earth has had dire consequences on the health of the planet and all living things. As women our most ancient and sacred spiritual heritage is deeply connected to these natural rhythms and cycles of the earth and seasons. Our mother earth has provided everything we have ever needed in the way of plant medicines, food and shelter.

The sacred luminous thread, which connects each one of us to our female ancestors and therefore to the wisdom and knowledge of the earth herself, has been broken with this departure and we find ourselves without an anchor, without a truly embodied knowing of ourselves and our place in the great delicate tapestry of life.

For us, our bodies are our source of connection to all that is holy, all that is numinous, eternal and true. This most intimate of relationships is reflected in, sustained and nourished by the bounty and exquisite beauty of our mother earth. The two are inseparable. We are the minerals in the soil and rocks. The oceans and the rivers run through our veins. Every woman's body is an orchestration of divinity with its potential to bring forth new life and experience profound feelings.

In my work with women over the years and in my own life, I have seen time and time again how we have abandoned ourselves, our bodies and our deep instinctive nature in order to fit in, to survive and succeed in a world dominated by 'doing', 'achieving' and making profits at the expense of other human beings and the earth itself. We have been taught to criticise, ignore and even abuse our bodies, leaving them vacant and depleted with disastrous results for all of humanity.

It is no coincidence, that, just as we have been forced to leave our bodies, we have also abandoned the earth by allowing her to be raped and pillaged and her abundant natural resources used for the short-lived gratification of a 'privileged' few. The good news is, we have everything we need to come home to ourselves and each other, to create paradise here on earth!

Every woman reading these words is an incarnation of the Great Mother Goddess herself. Each of us has the power of the sacred feminine at her fingertips, the power to change the consciousness of the planet overnight. Just take a minute to think about that….. change the planet OVERNIGHT! As carers and custodians of our families, we could decide today to buy locally grown produce cultivated with reverence for the soil and respect for the seasons. We could all decide today to share a vegetable garden with a friend or neighbour to help lighten the load. We could today, with the mere dialing of a telephone number, convert to a green energy supplier and proudly show our children photos of the wind turbines that harness enough natural power to allow us to cook delicious, wholesome meals and light up our homes as the sun goes down.

Maybe it's too late to save our planet, maybe it isn't….. but one thing I know for sure, as I drive back home later that night, is that this could be the greatest opportunity in history for love and kindness to shine through. Woman was made to love and it is she who holds the key, the potential to bring peace and harmony to our homes, our relationships, our countries and our precious mother earth.