This is my body & I’m not sitting on the sidelines.

I’ve been watching the war on women in the news & can no longer sit on the sidelines.  When I started writing this post to you over a week ago, it hit me how much this affects all of us & the tears started falling. My husband looked over & said, “Honey what’s wrong?” I started bawling.  I cried for the times I was incested, raped & shamed.  I cried for all the times men have judged me, my body & my sexuality.  I cried for all the times I’ve witnessed or heard men judging women & for the times I’ve heard women judge each other. I cried for all the women I know that have been violated or shamed, and all the little girls and all the women out there that feel ashamed, judged, hopeless or afraid in their body.  I needed to cry & feel & listen to my body in order to speak up & take action.  Being vulnerable, sensitive, in touch with my feelings, is my strength, and now from the depth of my intuitive, wild being, I’m fighting.  When I watched this powerful monologue This is my body, which sums up all the ways we are being attacked & all the reasons we need to stand up, I was inspired to speak up & take action.

I’m fighting back by creating sanctuary for myself & women with my “This is my body; Womb Shrine Art Project” & want you to join me.  As women we need to feel safe & loved!  We are in a war & the battlefield are our bodies. We already struggle with self-judgment & shame.  It’s at our core and in our wombs, from which we were born & from which we our desires spring forth. The fear & shame based judgments & assumptions by politicians, shake a women’s security & safety to the core of her body. Most recently Senator Todd Akins said that women can’t get pregnant from rape because, “ if it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.  Meanwhile in the American Journal of Preventative Medicine, Dr. Felicia H. Steart and Dr James Trussel have estimated that there are twenty-five thousand rape-related pregnancies each year in the United States.   Its time for us to come together & create safety for ourselves, to trust our body’s wisdom, free ourselves from shame, and speak our truth confidently, clearly & compassionately, from a place of love.

As a woman survivor of rape, as a mother, as a wild sacred woman, I feel the chains tightening & my body needs me to speak up & take action.  I’m speaking up because women’s bodies are at stake. I’m speaking up because this is more important than whether people like me, or whether it will hurt my brand.  This is is my body and my life I’m talking about!  It took me along time to realize how fucking precious it is.  It took me along time to love it & YES I’LL FIGHT FOR IT & FOR WOMEN.  If we, as women don’t claim our bodies, if we don’t break free from the shame & fear, we risk losing our rights.  I’m not going to settle for surviving and just getting by, I’m not keeping my mouth shut & suffer, I’m a Wild Woman and this is my body.  I’m going to love it & protect it because it’s mine.  I’m in it to live & love my life.

The old me, the me that thought God make a mistake making me a woman, would have fought back with anger & rage & wanted someone to pay, today in my feminine, loving myself body, I know that only love will truly win.  I don’t have to hate or judge to speak up.  I will not be silenced.  I feel the voice of Wild Woman within me & I heed her call.   Enough of fighting each other, enough of struggling in silence, its time for us to come together and womb (create safety in our bodies & lives).  Our traumatized bodies need shelter & sanctuary.  We can’t wait for the government to provide it, we need to wake up & do it for ourselves & each other.  A woman that knows her worth, that feels safe to feel her feelings & speak her truth, is a powerful force.

I just read that 11,000 rape kits of women that had the courage to stand up have been collecting dust in a police warehouse for years & there are thousands more around the country.  Care & protection for rape victims are not a priority for the police department or our government! We need to make our bodies our priority. It’s time to reclaim & love our bodies so we can glean the wisdom, self-confidence, and courage to stand up for ourselves. Let’s stop giving away our power & trust our own bodies wisdom. We need to feel safe in our bodies.

I’m excited to share my wild vision with you and ask you to join me in manifesting the This is my body:Womb Shrine Art Project that I’ve been inspired to create.   I’m joining with my friend, interactive painting artist, Liv Arts to create & consecrate a womb shrine as a sanctuary for women’s feelings, prayers & desires.  This shrine will be a healing symbol of refuge that women can see & touch and interact with.  I’m starting this project with a This is My Body: Chakracize, on Sept 13th guiding women into the sanctuary of their bodies with a blend of meditation, healing, trance, yoga, dance, surrounded by gamelon gongs overlooking the east river.   On Sept 16^th we invite women to join us in creating the womb shrine and smaller individual shrines. We are crafting the womb shrine from wire, plaster, fabric, paint & more.   Then,we will gather on Sept 23^rd to decorate & consecrate them, in honor of International Peace Day & the Fall Equinox.

We are inviting women to help us decorate the shrine with their blessings.  Together we will consecrate it and within we will place our prayers, intentions & desires for healing & peace.   We will be documenting the process and plan to exhibit this work around the country & invite women to interact & seek refuge.  I’ve witnessed the healing transformation that women experience when they feel safe in their body and have access to their inner creative healing resources and am looking forward to the healing we will all receive from this project too.  My hope is that it will bring peace, healing & strength to the women that join us & all the women that this project will touch and inspire.

Join me to feel safe in your own skin. Join me to reclaim your body.  Join me to speak up & be heard.  I am a wild woman. Hear me roar.