As I contemplate Babynut's 6th birthday, I feel called to celebrate not only Babynut, but all women and their magical ability to create and nurture life and to give birth. This is the Power of Yin; of nurturing and holding life. It is the power of Shakti, the Feminine Principle.
Here is what Sharon McErlane*, author of Our Love is Our Power has to say about the primal energy of Woman: “Women embody not the yang-based power that is nearly worshipped in our world, but real power. Woman as the container, the wheel, the Mother ship, She who HOLDS. These ideas are foreign in our culture, foreign in our world. For thousands of years woman has been treated as the 'second sex' the 'also ran' of the human family, told to 'stand behind' men and know her place. Woman as shakti, the Feminine Principle, the elemental power of the universe, is not something our culture understands."
To all of the women who read this article, I say, embrace in your power. Visualize yourself as the vessel that you are. Sit in meditation and imagine yourself holding all that you love - your children, your spouse, your family, your friends. Now expand your vessel, your holding, to include the place where you live, all the animals and plants and people in your town, even the people or animals you don't like. Just hold them.
As you get comfortable with this exercise, you can expand your holding to include more and more of the Earth and all that dwell in and upon it. There is no limit to your holding. You are one with the Great Mother.
When a woman holds and contains, she is coming from the foundation of her power, the Power of Yin. Yin is the complementary universal force to Yang, which goes out into the world and is active and strong. But Yang cannot exist without Yin, and for much too long, women have been unaware of their power.
If a woman tries to imitate the Yang way men are powerful in the world, she will be a shadow of her real self. To be powerful, to be the mother that you are, you must learn how to hold, to be a vessel of love and strength and light.
I created Babynut as a way to hold all babies in the womb or newly born, all women pregnant, giving birth or caring for newborns. I believe that the time a child is in the womb and the first few years after birth is the most important time in that child's life. How babies are held in the womb and then birthed and held as they grow strong enough to walk on their own will determine how safe they feel in the world, how much they feel loved and nurtured, and in turn are able to love and nurture themselves and others.
*To learn more about Sharon McErlane and the wisdom of the Grandmothers, click here.
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