The Body of Love, and Fires of Liberation. {poetry}
A permission slip to myself and all the other trauma survivors on the spiritual path:
It’s okay to still be angry.
Be enraged,
let your blood boil,
scream (silently or out loud),
allow your body to tremor and shake.
Let the anger rock you
and find a safe place, and let yourself go there.
To release fully and then receive.
Speak the truth of your body,
that you are tired,
disappointed, heartbroken,
and grieving.
You don’t have to be past this, over this, or transcend this.
These parts of you are beautiful, sacred, and have something to say.
You can write scriptures with this fire and pain.
Unleash the hallowed reckoning of your truth.
Because what your body has to say is holy.
Your anger is sacred.
Your voice and all the voices alive in you hold a truth that needs to be spoken.
So let it out.
Sometimes love looks like rage.
And why wouldn’t it, when love in the forms of the body and sex,
are defiled by rape, abuse, and assault?
How could the Divine not be enraged by this?
How could the expression of love as fire not emerge in the face of this?
The fire you feel is sacred, let it burn so that this can be purged.
This is why Kali danced, this is why we return to the fire to be transformed.
Remember, love, you are a child of god,
your body a temple and vessel. Most sacred and ordinary.
This flesh a gift, and the only thing that truly belongs to us in this lifetime.
So to be treated or touched in any other way than the hallowed ground that you’re on is to debase love and the Divine.
And this is why you have boundaries.
To instill reverence and respect into those who touch upon your body
and all those sacred spaces.
And maybe today, exploring and learning your boundaries looks like rage.
Maybe it’s not all pretty and cleaned up and distinguished.
Maybe it’s still raw, pulsing, and wild.
This is beautiful too.
This has value.
This is worthy of your attention.
This is holy.
Simply because it is alive and true within you.
So stay here for a few more breaths, my love.
Let yourself be witnessed in this.
Allow the flames of anger to dance through you and lick you clean.
Claim your boundaries and let them set you free,
to walk in this world with trust and safety.
Take this permission slip and run with it.
Pass it on to your sisters and brothers
who have forgotten too,
that all parts of them are welcome.
Breathe easy, knowing all of you is loved.
You were born to be fully human in this lifetime,
To feel and experience all being human means.
And through knowing this (and loving this),
my prayer is that all of you may be free.
Liberation does not look like transcendence
Freedom does not look like not feeling or being one thing
It is in the shaming, othering, and disowning parts of ourselves that we suffer
And love, the kind that shows us true boundaries and radical acceptance,
is the thing that sets us free.
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Caity Flanagan is a modern-day medicine woman, shamanic healer, somatic life coach, holistic herbalist, writer, poet, and doula for birth from the body and soul. She currently lives in the jungles of Costa Rica, in deep devotion to tending to the body, healing through the elements, and birthing the words and work of her soul. When Caity is not in the embrace of the jungle, she travels throughout the US and world to bring medicine teachings on plant medicine, trauma-informed somatic healing and life coaching, tantric meditation, and what it is to be both human and divine. Caity is the creator of The Wild Calling, a 9-month mystery school and deep initiation into the Divine Feminine. Caity also runs a somatic coaching intensive called Embodiment, and a collective womb-healing circle called The Sacred Cycles Journey. Through her private somatic coaching practice and worldwide retreats, Caity works with individuals ready for deep transformation through the medicine of the Earth and their souls. Caity’s clients are those who are hungry to alchemize and make art from their trauma, to birth the stories of their souls, and those who are seeking to create lives of deep service and devotion to Spirit. To learn more about her work, you can visit her personal website.
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