I Am All Women Everywhere

It has been a whole month since I have blogged here. I just returned from a networking event and had a very interesting discussion about women, women's power, and what women really have in common. My friend said that she wrote this poem one evening called, "I Am all Women Everywhere." This made me think about what really brings women together.

In my other blog, www.yonispeak.blogspot.com I generally tend to write about these types of topics. But tonight I feel that since sisterhood is the topic, understanding what really brings all women together, that is our biology, is really important. Yes, the fact that we have a yoni, womb, vagina, can bleed and give birth, have breasts that produce milk, etc. is what unites us as women and not what tears us apart.

In this world of youth and beauty it is hard to see our commonalities in a positive light. Most women and young girls are taught at an early age to compare themselves to other girls or women their age, to be critical about their body and to feel competitive with other women or girls. This is an unfortunate by product of living in a culture where women's bodies are commodities to be admired and yes sold to the highest bidder, or the cutest guy or the most glamourous job.

True sisterhood goes beyond what meets the eye. Our bodies should unite us, bring us closer together as they once did in days when we sat together in the Red Tent to menstruate and held council as wise women rather than tear us apart. In those times our bodies brought us closer together because we menstruated at the same time and because our bodies were attuned to the cycles of the moon. Many women gave birth within a few days of each other and yes many women had their first rites together. In these cultures women's bodies bonded them together and supported their connection as sisters.

So what has happened to create so much separation and mistrust between women? Why have our bodies become the weapon that keeps us apart rather than the very thing that can that brings us back to each other? The old adage divide and conquor was not lost upon women. To regain our trust and to reconnect once again with the deepest part of ourselves as women we need to remember the lifetimes when we sat together, prayed together and wept together, united because we had the same bodies. That is our fundamental connection that can never be denied. It is because of this that our sisters stories could be your stories, her troubles your troubles, her loves your loves her challenges your challenges, her fears your fears.

I ask you as my sister, my temple sister to sit with me as you read these words and feel my spirit as your spirit, feel our connection even though I do not know your name. I am a woman and my body is your body, there is no distinction between race, color, height, size or shape that will ever truly separate us, for our sex unites us in ways that only a woman could know, I am you and you are me, I am all women everwhere.

Competition Between Women

The question of how do women create new ways of being with each other is an on going one. For me it is putting my women friends first in my life, that is to say, I continue to see my friends as equally as valuable as my primary male partner, if I have one.

It is unfortunate that our culture has fostered the competition between women and that women themselves often find it hard to trust other women especially when it comes to men. It seems that what really causes us to react to these types of situations is our primal need factor. This primal urge to be protected by a man, to be provided for, is often what is running the show even though we may not be aware of it. We have been accepting this need and acting it out for so long, that is has become our norm and so we just accept that this is how women are.

But does this have to be the way it is? No I believe it doesn't. We are more than just our primal instinctual urges. Maybe it was a necessity to have a man provide and take care of us thousands of years ago, but today we know that women are very capable of taking care of themselves. That choosing a mate is not solely based on needing food, shelter and protection. And yet many women still beleive that this is so and operate from that prime directive. So where do we go from here?

The idea that women can truly release and no longer choose to be run by the need to compete with other women for a man, or to keep him is an idea whose time has come. I believe that by choosing to be a true sister, a temple sister to another woman we are choosing to create a new paradigm. Of course we have to practice being a temple sister first with our close friends. We have to embody the qualities that supports that consciousness. You can actually see some of the qualties to embody and practice at: http://www.womensmysteries.org/TempleSisters.html .

In many cultures and societies women have always known that part of their power lies within their relationships with other women. What is new is that now is the time to really let go of the old programming of distrust. I know that for myself, and I am someone who truly loves and appreicates my women friends, that somewhere deep inside is a feeling that someone prettier, younger or whatever is not to be entirely trusted. Most of the time this isn't an issue, but I know that this feeling is there and if I have this feeling then other women do too.

The new paradigm I speak of is a movement that starts from within ourselves first and so the work must be done on a personal level. From this place of healing ourselves we then reach out to other women, we can behave differently, we can respond and be with whatever situation arises in a more conscious and loving way. We can learn to treat each other the way we wish to be treated.

There is no quick fix to creating a new way of being with women. Each of us must first committ to being the kind of woman/sister we want others to be for us. To end competition between us over a man we must first be willing to acknowledge that these feelings exist and secondly confront our fears and deal with them. We must also be aware that this is a very old pattern that has been held in place by the prevailing male dominant values that exist. And so our healing can only take place when we are willing to break free of these patterns and step into something new.

I invite all of you to go to: http://www.womensmysteries.org/ and sign-up for the free membership as a Temple Sister and become apart of this new movement.

Trusting Each Other as Women

The question I have been pondering for many years is how do we learn to trust other women in a culture that has for the most part encouraged women to be competitive with each other.

I found that it took me many years to trust my girlfriends, especially when it came to boys, as my mother told me over and over again that I couldn't trust my girlfriends around my boyfriends. I heard it so many times that I began to create situations that would reinforce this message. I would feel very insecure when I would introduce a guy I liked to one of my girlfriends.

What helped me to overcome this belief and begin to trust women more was a friend of mine that demonstrated to me, that I could trust her around my boyfriends. She embodied what being a 'temple sister' was before I even knew what that meant. I would often feel that when she was present all the guys would notice her and forget about me, but this was really just my own negative self talk speaking. She never gave me cause to doubt her friendship and always reminded me that being a sister to me was a sacred thing that she would not betray. I felt so committed to healing this within myself that I continued to work on this area, but it has been partly because of her friendship that I was able to finally trust another woman. We are still friends today after 30+ years and we still have that bond of sisterhood between us.

I have been fortunate to have been connected to a community of women who feel like sisters, temple sisters so to speak and who treat each other with love, respect and trust. It is true that I am living in an area, Northern California, where the women in my community are very open-minded and sex positive. We tend to gather in groups and celebrate each other as women, playing and just hanging out with each other. What this has given to me is an opportunity to experience a type of sisterhood that I have never had. Even though I don't see these women often there is still a sense of connection at this level.

Some of us even try to model how to deal with jealousy and competition between us over a man. We at least are willing to talk about it openly without alot of negativity or blame if we can. We are not perfect and we are all still learning and growing but having been a part of this type of sisterhood definitely has allowed me to feel more trusting toward women.

I found that there is an unspoken understanding between us a code of behavior which many women adopt between friends, especially where it concerns men.All of this has helped me personally to become the kind of woman and sister/friend that I wish to have. I need to be the example in order myself first. Then I can call these women into my life with more ease.

You too can become a true sister, a temple sister with commitment and practice. Just begin to open yourself first to any wounding you may have had and be willing to let it go now. I have a few exercises you can do on my website Womensmysteries.org/TempleSisters if you need some suggestions on how to heal this area in your life.

If you are a woman who is longing to have deeply lasting and truly loving connections with other women, connections without competition, fear, distrust or jealousy than I invite you to come and join the Temple Sisterhood.

Learning How to Be a Temple Sister

We often teach the things we are learning ourselves. And so I had my own learning experience yesterday with a temple sister of mine.

So I will back track here for a minute. A few weeks ago I was at a festival and was introduced by this sister to a man she had connected with. I did not at that time pick-up her interest in him as she has predominently been with women. This man and I seemed to have a connection, when we danced there was a spark that got ignited and alot of chemistry. For me, having not experienced anything like that for a very long time I went with it. I hung out with him intermittently during the day, and later he came back to my house with me.

I thought nothing of this as he felt more like an occassional lover/playmate and really nothing more. So last night when I saw my dear friend again, she told me how she had spent time with him during these past few weeks exploring the possibility of having a deeper relationship with him. She also shared how she was feeling very hurt by my actions, my insensitvity regarding my behavior the day I met him.

So here is it was in my face. I acted unconsciously in an earlier situation and my sister, dear friend was hurt by my actions. What was I to do? How could I let her know that I was truly sorry for causing her any pain and to let her know that her relationship was far more important to me that being with this guy.

I felt upset as well by my actions and so I spoke from my heart and told her my truth and then I apologized to her and took full responsibility for my actions. I realized that this man was not that important to me, and told her so, and let her know that if she decided to pursue him as partner I would gladly drop out. I told her that her friendship meant more to me than being with this guy. She accepted my apology and we hugged and that was that.

But this incident did ask me to look deeper into myself, to see if there was anything else operating that I was in denial about my actions. I realized that being a true Temple Sister, requires that I be ruthlessly honest with myself and that I may make mistakes, go unconscious and do something I will even regret, but that I am always responsible for those actions. I realized that I want to be the kind of woman that truly does honor and trust her women friends and will act accordingly if one of them was interested in a man I too wanted to be with or vice a versa.

I have to walk my talk as they say. Being a woman that can be trusted by other women, a woman who honors the feelings of other women and who values her women friends as much as she does her man. I want to be the kind of woman that really lives in sisterhood with other women.

Being a true Temple Sister isn't always easy, as it is a committment to yourself first and then to your women friends and to all women everywhere. You decide that women are important to women. It can be as simple as that.

This I see is the new paradigm that is being called for, and that I am creating by being willing to live in this way with my women friends, and I invite you to do the same.













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How to be a Temple Sister to Women

Even though the words 'temple sister' may be a new one for some women we have all heard the term 'being a sister', and being a temple sister is really not that different. In my previous blog, I mentioned what a temple sister was but here I wish to offer you some ways to build a temple sister connection with any woman and to go a bit deeper into why women compete with each other over men.

It took me some years to really be able to trust other women, and I can say honestly, that I only trust the women who understand what it means to be a true sister. My mother used tell me never to let my girlfriends meet my boyfriends because they would try to steal them away. So I grew to really believe this and as the law of attraction states, what you focus on expands, and I guess you can guess what happened.

Yes, most of the time, my girlfriends did indeed walk off with my boyfriend or the man I liked. The message was loud and clear, you can't trust women when it comes to men. So I began to wonder why this was so and to try to change this belief.

As I matured I began to get involved with women who seemed to be redefining their relationships with other women. I began to meet a whole new genre of women, who, like myself, wanted to heal the distrust and competition among women. They began forming a kind of sisterhood where there was an unspoken etiquette established among them. Things like if you dated someone and then stopped and one of your sisters wanted to date him, she would ask you if you were okay with that. Women were respecting each other and beginning to give their relationships with women some priority over those with men, or at least equal value.

These women began practicing truly honoring each other and bonding by accepting that being a woman was difficult enough in a "man's" world, without being competitive with each other. So we began to change our beliefs around trusting women, began to be willing to be different and to love ourselves enough to love other women too.

This world has had it set-up for women to compete for a man's attention. We are seemingly all driven by our basic need to be protected and provided for and this automatic drive definitely contributes to the feeling of needing to do anything to get a man and then to keep him. But is this really all there is? I say ‘no’ it is not.

Through my experiences with women who truly honor their women friends as sisters, women who would never intentionally hurt or betray for any reason another woman, women who actually value their friendships with women as much as their relationship with their partner, women who care about what their sisters feel and who don't feel the need to compete with them over a man, we are creating a new way of being with women.

So what is a being a temple sister?

Well, in my earlier blog I spoke to our ancient roots that came from the goddess temples over 5,000 years ago. These bonds of having shared a deep connection to the Goddess, of being in a woman's body that is in itself one of the primary reasons we are all linked as sisters, is how we can feel our deep connection with all women everywhere not only with a few intimate friends.

If you wish to change your beliefs regarding your level of trust with women, if you wish to really have true sisters, temple sisters, then I suggest a few things you can begin with.

• Start with first writing down in you journal, or just a notebook, all the beliefs you have held onto regarding women, especially regarding women and men. This may take awhile but really take the time to probe inside and go deep. You may surprise yourself as to what you have ingested about women.

• Write about not so wonderful experiences you have had with your girlfriends or other women. Like the time you were betrayed or your friend broke a date with you to be with a guy. All those things even if they were years ago. Just write them all out.

• Write about how you betrayed someone or did not live up to being a true friend to a woman or girl friend. Tell the truth about yourself and be relentless as you really want to purge yourself of all of this baggage.

• Then find a good friend and share all of this with them. Make this a little ceremony if you wish. Read it all to them and have them just be a witness to your process. They are not to make any comments, just listen and bear witness to your letting go of all the beliefs and stories about women that are no longer serving you.

• Then rip out your pages and burn them as you both watch and really say as you are doing this, “I release, let go and forgive myself and any person who has caused me harm or who I have harmed.” You can make this as powerful for yourself as you desire. Remember our thoughts and words are a vibration that goes out into the yoni-verse and will return in kind, so really let this go.

• Next, take some fresh paper and begin to write out your new beliefs. Write all the new ideas that you wish to hold in your mind about women, how you would like to create your new relationship with women. What does it feel like? Describe the way it will be when you have them, or how they will be even better than they are now.

• List the qualities you want to embrace for yourself and the kind of relationships you wish to have.

• List all the ways you are a sister to women, all the great things you have done, the ways you are a great friend and what you can offer to other women.

• Write about what being a temple sister means to you and how you would like to share that idea with other women. Become the temple sister you wish all women to be. (If you wish to email some of these to me, I will be happy to post them on my School of Womyn’s Mysteries web site. Email to me at, luminessa@womensmysteries.org)
  
  Now lastly, share this with the same friend and create a beautiful ceremony for you to step into this new way of being. Even with her right there, if you want to, tell her how you will be a temple sister to her, recognizing that as you do so you are doing these things with all women everywhere.
  
  

What is a temple sister?

For thousands of years women have been gathering in sacred circles to recognize the bond that unites them. It is this bond that goes deeper than women being friends or even being a “sister” that I am addressing.

Being in a woman's body is the bond that unites all women everywhere. It is because of our sex, having a "yoni", that we are deeply connected and bonded. The “yoni” and the symbol that represents this aspect of our bodies’, is one of the most ancient symbols for feminine power.

Throughout the many civilizations of Goddess based cultures, this symbol of feminine power has been used. There have been cults developed about the power of the “yoni” in Ancient India, and the flow of the “elixir of life” or amrita.

It is through our reclaiming our erotic innocence, and the innocence of our body that we reclaim the innocence of all women everywhere and step into our sisterhood and our authentic feminine power. It is through this portal which is the doorway into a woman’s full feminine power which we have denied or partially embodied that we as women unite in our Temple Sisterhood.

There is nothing you have to do to become a part of this sisterhood other than making a conscious decision that this bond between women is one that transcends the collective belief about women and their bodies. This bond rather than seeding more competition, jealousy and fear between women can unite us.

Some of the Qualities of a Temple Sister

• She recognizes that because she has a woman’s body she is connected, bonded with all women everywhere.


• She is a woman who is vibrantly alive and radiating her love.


• She is dedicated to speaking the TRUTH in order to serve and reveal any illusion.


• She knows who she is, and lives from this center point.


• She loves, respects and honors herself and therefore loves, respects and honors other women.


• She sees the priestess in all women.


• She knows her mind but follows her heart.


• She understands the power of her sex, has reclaimed her erotic innocence and fully expresses her sexuality authentically.


• She lives in innocence and celebrates being a woman.


• She loves her body no matter what shape, size, and age she is, and treats it as a Temple.


• She is in her full glory and power as a woman.

She Is You!

Join the Temple Sisterhood Now! Go to: http://www.womensmysteries.org/