F**k it and Play

Today I am choosing to create a fifth element, and it is the element play. Play is an essential aspect of our humanity. There is a sacred need to return to the universal aspect of ourselves that is rooted in pure creation, the universe is always playing.

Play is necessary to remember and imbues within us, the essence of joy. It is a ritual of movement that extracts the wonder, and simplicity of the inner child. Every species knows how to play, from the whales in the ocean, to dolphins, monkeys, dogs, birds, fireflies, and butterflies. Play is an elemental aspect of how we thrive. Forget how to play and we have lost a vital component of our lives.

As I sit in the town of Puerto Jimenez, in Costa Rica polishing off a delicious chocolate croissant and cappuccino for breakfast, I am reflecting back on the wild woman retreat that concluded yesterday.  I’m reflecting on all the women, our stories, the initial hesitations, fears, uncertainties of opening up and being vulnerable. I’m thinking about the desires we all shared, hopes, dreams, and the places that scare us.

These aspects that were unwrapped in one week is so precious to me, as they are the opening where the divine mother can enter and do her work. But most of all, I am reflecting on how our internal composition changed during the times when we played. The joy, the laughter, the brazenness to toss the good girl syndrome out the window and touch down into the untamed side of us. The side of us that awakens creativity.

We had moments where we had to mimic being an animal to represent how we felt in that moment. Opportunities to  create art, dance before our yoga classes, dancing on the beach as we rolled our hips to nothing more than to the joy of the moment, each other, music, and gratitude for life. We can get so caught up in the mundaneness of life, with the news, and the mind f**ckery that goes on in our heads that we forget how truly beautiful life is. In all that war mongering that goes on within us, we forget to play, we forget to toss our heads back with mouths wide open howling like children.

I’ve come to recognize the importance of play in my own life. Playing with my young adult kids, my lover, friends. I need it like a flower needs the sun. It is medicine that keeps me healthy and vibrant. It reorders my cellular composition and attracts the things I truly desire in my life.

If we live by sourness and bitterness, we will attract sourness and bitterness. When we remember that we are always creating our own realities, it opens up an inner portal where we become aware that it is our responsibility to shape our thoughts, feelings, and energy to the desire frequency we want to manifest in our lives. While this doesn’t happen overnight, consistent practice begins to override all lower frequencies we once kept. We can continue to do our shadow work and honor what was done to us did to us and at the same time invite joy, play, and the sweetness of life. We don’t have to choose one or the other but we can walk with both. Life then becomes a dance of this and that, not this or that.

This is the practice of wholeness. Walking with all there is but also not being attached to any of it because life is in constant flux.  This way of living invites us to walk with truth and to choose life. We cannot undo what was done but we can decide and choose what we want for ourselves, what we deserve. Getting in touch with our worth is essential. It becomes the guiding light that shines and illuminates the path ahead. We don’t have know where the destination is but we walk with the mystery and trust that the light is guiding us to someplace where new life is waiting.

Now that I am alone, decompressing from a week of holding space, I feel nothing but happiness, a contentment in my heart. A feeling of being “turned on” for life. This contentment is for the divine mother that guides me to do this work and for the community of women that has touched my heart. They have inspired me to keep going, to continue on the path of the wild woman, to not compromise that side of me. It’s also walking here in this small town and making eye contact with the women. We smile at each other with this unsaid knowing from one woman to the next. A smile and a gaze that says, “I see you!” It doesn’t matter that we come from different backgrounds, speak different languages, we speak the language of woman and that is universal. For the feminine energy is the universe itself, shakti in all her forms.

On this full moon may we set our intention to keep playing. To offer joy to our wounds, to offer the magic that is contained in play to our wombs. This is the way, the medicine that the divine mother offers us. To honor the wounded part of us and to also to discover, explore, and activate the element of joy that will create new life within.

Here’s to all women. Those born this way and those in the trans community choosing to transition to womanhood. We see you and honor you, welcome to the tribe of woman. May we continue to support each other regardless of our stories, station in life, race, and hold each other accountable to the power of play. I love you!