Moon Queen: Scarcity is the myth, Mothering/Love is the truth
Dearest Yogis,
By embarking on a journey (and degree) in “Transformative Leadership” I learned more than I ever imagined I would about THE WAY WE LEARN and about the Nervous System as the substratum of the mind. I got abundantly clear about how this thing called YOGA is changing our bodies, minds and collective psyche forever.
We are becoming better ancestors in the messy, ravishing process of awakening.
In addition to leading yoga classes, I now feel ROOTED in my ability to lead students towards:
experiencing more pleasure, joy and connection as embodied learners,
more enlivening, life-giving rituals, relationships, and collaborations
feeling better in the body and about themselves, and the world they inhabit
Feeling better, leads to doing better - yet, we have a long cultural history of trading our felt-sense of freedom now for some ROI in the future, even in fitness (especially in fitness).
We have forgotten that there are other ways to co-create with the universe, aside from ‘laboring for it’ or ‘disciplining ourselves’ or ‘increasing productivity’. In fact, those ideas are relatively new (circa 14th-15th Century Europe, think feudalism to capitalism/labor economies).
And while I am not trying to glorify the pre-capitalist past, I am certain:
We have been taught to override the body and in that (very purposefully cultured) process we have forgotten what we really are, and how much simple embodied pleasure there is in “relaxed effort”.
Luckily, there is a way to remember...because...
As we feel, we remember.
And when we begin to remember, we feel MORE.
As we feel more, we restore memory of who we were BEFORE the stories we have built about ourselves, our world, our lives.
We touch into our primal, wild awareness - which is its OWN LINEAGE.
As we restore our memory, we feel ourselves spiritually connect through body feedback - via a deep sense of wellness.
And it all starts with feeling.
Feeling the body.
Feeling thoughts hit flesh.
We become trackers across the territory of the body…our unique, body-mind landscapes.
As mother nature herself.
So that is the great news. We know how to return...sometimes we just need a guide, or a friend on the path, to remind us.
How did we forget what we truly are, and build so much stress in the process?
(hang in there: understanding how we inherited non-abundant realities helps us reverse engineer our path home)
Even in our postmodern, post-normal context…
We are laborers (or unpaid laborers), within a “civilized” market economy first, human beings second.
We know this because of our priorities, our investments, our habits; they reveal our vision.
You see, we were - for the most part - taught that everything comes with a price.
That everything is an exchange.
It is a common conception of “futuring” that at this time in history that it is easier for humanity to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism (Fischer, 2010).
For example, thoughts that exist as a result of a market economy (that would be incongruent with many other social kinship systems):
“You get what you give.”
“If I receive, someone will want something in return.”
“No matter how much I give, it is never enough.”
“If I give, they will want more.”
“If I give, I am owed something in return.”
“It is survival of the fittest.”
“I can’t get ahead.”
“If I let my body lead, it will lead to downfall.”
“Laziness/Inaction is a detriment to society.”
“Pleasure implies guilt.”
“Happiness implies poor focus and work ethic.”
“Productivity leads to results, therefore be productive.”
“Work is the priority.”
They don’t all have to apply to you, for one of them to be an unconscious guiding myth.
If you are willing, re-read these and notice any bio-feedback. Any body responses?
These exchange based thoughts make scarcity and lack-consciousness, the undertow of life - because of the SYSTEM we were raised in. Not because of personal pathology.
It makes us scared to really let go, for if we do we will “fall out of the grace of the market”, we will struggle for survival, if we take it all the way we will be - “annihilated”.
Have you ever heard that all fear amounts to the fear of death?
Well, exactly. In a “market economy mindset “ stopping, truly taking a break...means annihilation.
(And for many in poverty this is both a lived experience AND embodied cultural anxiety)
That is what we have to believe to work 60 hr work weeks, and not invest our time in other ways of being alive.
We make life about business, instead of business about life-giving.
Not all humans were taught this.
“We” (as a western influenced global culture) just happen to have grown up within the framework of a capitalist patriarchy.
Meaning, that the “paternal seed” of the male half of humanity determines kinship, paternity and the flow of resources from one generation to the next.
There are other ways, and always have been.
In social kinship cultures, the mothers (who can be both male or female, but historically, overwhelmingly have been female) are the maternal holders of resources from one generation to the next and what makes someone a motherer (Vaughan, 2015) is their unilateral-giving, not their gender or role in relationship. Meaning they kept another human alive in the tender early years of living, and then provided all forms of support as they aged, without being sustained by the receiver.
The children born into social kinship lines belong, practically speaking, to the motherers - as gestation, bonding and birthing are considered social bonds that lead to the biocultural (Eisler, 2013) drive to provide and protect.
In maternal gift-giving societies social kinship ties place the value of bonding, nurturing and mothering at the center of cultures and keep the resources flowing with the motherers - so that the vital leadership of mothering is never left unprotected. In that way the leadership of the next generation through their most formative years is not compromised by issues of compromised survival needs.
In matricentric social structing motherers are at the center, and the culture spirals around their gift-giving sustenance. They are revered and honored as a provider of gifts through language, love, mercy, forgiveness, sustenance, and belonging. And within the culture as a whole these qualities are focused on, nourished and upheld by the spirit ‘mothering and being mothered’.
"In today's world people experience two kinds of poverty: the poverty caused by lack of food, clothing, and shelter; and the poverty caused by lack of love and compassion. Of these two, the second type needs to be considered first - because if we have love and compassion in our hearts, then we will wholeheartedly serve those who suffer from a lack of food, clothing, and shelter".
- Amma (Hugging/Divine Mother Saint of India)
To restore the Divine Mother into the heart and the psyche of the people!!
…that is the mission. In order to do that we need to remember and in order to remember, we need to feel - and so all the work RIGHT HERE in the body…all the somatic practice, the breathwork, the shapes - is all “in disguise”, in a way, it's really a sadhana, a practice of liberation designed to bring us back to belonging, to the mother.
A GIFT of radical self-care:
We all need positive reinforcements. This 20-minute guided intro plus meditation has helped others navigate through the body with clear and helpful self-talk for each geo-region of the endocrine/chakra system. The intention of the meditation is that you leave feeling good in the body-mind, and therefor bring forth that goodness/sweetness into your day. The opposite of scarcity is mothering oneself and the world, aka. LOVE.