Love Liberates: Why My Body is My Sweet Land of Liberty
Happy 4th of July!
Today we celebrate freedom and the land of America.
Traditionally we consider the hard-fought battles and the revolution to win our freedom and give thanks for the blessings of this land.
Its time for a new revolution to unite the feminine and masculine and celebrate the most powerful freedom of all—LOVE. We don’t usually celebrate love on this day but we should. Love is the ultimate liberator. Love, not war has the power to free us and unite us. As a Wild Woman reclaiming my freedom to be, love and express myself I declare today a love celebration.
I declare I love this land; my body, and America the land in which she lives.
Growing up I celebrated our independence with the image of men fighting the battle, women supporting men by making our flag, George Washington and John Hancock, signing our declaration. My immigrant parents made their way to Toronto, my father from Berlin and my mother from the Philippines, and immigrated shortly before I was born. I am the first born American in my family. I’m proud to be an American. I also grew up feeling the guilt and shame of our enslavement of African-Americans, appropriation of Hawaii, and decimation of the Native American People. I believed that Fighting = Freedom. I believed that you have to fight and held on to my anger not to be controlled. Don’t tell me what to do! was underneath all of my actions. To top it off I hated being a girl which I associated with being weak and controlled. I was imprisoned by my beliefs and judgements.When I finally realized I was hurting myself by judging and hating myself, I spent years trying to fix and vanquish the anger, guilt and shame. It wasn’t until I began to forgive myself and be loving to myself that I found relief from the pain. I began to allow myself to be loved and found freedom.
Today I celebrate freedom that only love and surrender brings. I celebrate my journey into love, learning to love, listen to and care for myself and my body. The more I surrender to love, the more freedom I experience.
I celebrate being gentle with myself.
I celebrate allowing myself to be just as I am.
I celebrate my imperfections and doing things anyways.
I celebrate my stretch marks as life tattoos
I celebrate trying new things even if I look funny doing it.
I celebrate getting things wrong and trying them again.
I celebrate allowing my body rest when its tired.
I celebrate forgiving myself when I don’t get rest and starting my day over again.
I celebrate that I can start my day over at any time.
I celebrate dancing and jumping around like Tigger because it feels good.
I celebrate the vulnerable little girl in me and the angry teenager that both need lots of love.
Here is a poem from Maya Angelou about Love the liberator!
“We, unaccustomed to courage
exiles from delight
live coiled in shells of loneliness
until love leaves its high holy temple
and comes into our sight
to liberate us into life.
Love arrives
and in its train come ecstasies
old memories of pleasure
ancient histories of pain.
Yet if we are bold,
love strikes away the chains of fear
from our souls.
We are weaned from our timidity
In the flush of love’s light
we dare be brave
And suddenly we see
that love costs all we are
and will ever be.
Yet it is only love
which sets us free.”
― Maya Angelou
and here is a video of her sharing how love liberated her.
May Love free you to live. Join me this next Saturday July 12th for a Be Wild Woman Freedom Full Moon. Click here for more details.
