“I don’t think she realizes how big this is”, They say.
A message I received during a healing session with a 5th generation tantric practitioner.
“They” being my ancestors.
Once again, I found myself thinking I had booked a basic massage for my tired traveling body and got so much more. (Much like the unexpected mud ceremony in Lake Garda)
This journey of traveling nomadically amongst ancestral lands has taken a lot out of me,
and I am starting to see how that has been one of the main objectives.
A clearing. A reset.
Full of plunges into the depths of dynamics and cycles that live within the cells of my body. Into behavioral patterns and beliefs.
Into deep wisdom and gifts.
A culmination of all the inquiries I’ve been pursuing my entire life.
& It has most certainly been bigger than I realized.
As most of you know, I first began this journey by exploring Italy for three months, with no real plan. Just an openness.
& Italy absolutely blasted me open. All of my structures, perceptions, sense of stability, and daily routines were shaken and rattled loose.
To make room for newness.
I was holding on for dear life, gripping and holding but smiling and laughing and shrieking in terror {all at once} as I began to surrender to the deep pleasure and nourishment that was flooding in to support me.
I felt swept up by all the sensory delights filling the air in Italia.
It engulfed me.
There were moments, especially in Sicily, when I was struggling to stay grounded in my body. I felt electric and it was uncomfortable and incredibly exhilarating as I began to touch something so big and true.
I can already look back and chuckle at the ways in which I was trying desperately to remain in control (and reflecting on that as I type this actually helps me in this now moment, as the call to surrender is only deepening).
But surrender is truly what drew me here.
I felt the burning call to come on this journey to connect to my ancestry deeper. Only knowing the first few moves and a few ideas, ultimately guided by the feeling in my bones.
So it’s kind of required that you eventually trust that surrender, right?
It’s true, I didn’t really know what I was getting myself into, but I’m starting to get a taste.
& simultaneously, amidst the unknown, I know the knowing that has been carrying me all along.
I’ve been blasted open and a destined path has grabbed hold.
For a few months now I have been in the UK and this leg of the journey has been about rest and integration. Picking up the pieces and deciding how to rebuild…everything.
I primarily came here to bounce around visa requirements before returning to Italy in the fall, but I also have distant ancestry from these lands and feel it holding me.
Learning of the ancient traditions here (the ones before this land was colonized and then became the colonizer) and feeling the energy of those truths has comforted me deeply.
The biggest and most foundational healing that is unfolding, that I didn’t quite see coming…
but is so clearly obvious now…
Is the healing of my relationship with my body.
Re-orienting to nourishment and to deep trust in my body’s innate intelligence.
I’ve been inching my way towards this for years, but I needed the complete disconnection from all my protection mechanisms (control) to really access the truth underneath.
And it has felt like death.
and rebirth.
This journey has brought me to my knees and back to basics.
As I have shared before, I believe we are constantly dying and being reborn, moving through this cyclical way of being.
Especially as women with our monthly bleed. We have that chance to shed our skin literally and energetically every month.
But I also feel we all have our own personal cycles that life is always inviting us into if we can surrender.
Over the last two months, I feel I have been reborn in a lot of ways.
Last fall and winter I went through a dark & deep death portal.
My time in Italy felt like I was coming back through the birth canal, and now today, I feel like a new baby.
Trying to figure out how to eat, sleep, stand, and orient to the world again.
Questions around nourishment, desire, safety, and more have circled me daily.
Examining how I mother myself as I feel myself becoming more of a woman, crossing a threshold.
What is this body? And how do I fully inhabit it?
I was ushered through this rebirth by…
returning to the motherland.
These lands have pushed me to uncover deeply held subconscious fears, at their root.
Sometimes frantically ripping them out and others times tenderly detangling the roots from what remains planted.
& I am now attempting to put things back together.
Reweaving my thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors back into a place of deep reverence for my body.
And that new, deeper sense of devotion to body reverence
brought me
back to my ancestors.
Full circle.
I realized that even as I am walking these lands, learning family history, studying ancient traditions, and doing deep work with my ancestors, I still felt a part of me resisting them. Fearing them a little.
& while I don’t believe it’s our job to take on every pain and mistake of our ancestors in a co-dependent/martyr way, I do also feel how their stories and experiences are the inheritance we’ve been given so it’s up to us to turn them into gold… Or don’t.
But I choose to get my hands dirty in it.
In the gifts & grief and everything in between.
It hit me that I can maintain boundaries with my ancestors AND accept them fully (much like we do with our alive & in-flesh relatives) without feeling weighed down and limited.
I can maintain an open heart with acceptance. And that frees all of us.
I see and feel now the connection between land, body, and ancestor.
They are interwoven. They are one.
And even with boundaries, my ancestors are already in me, they live in my cells and in my DNA.
My ancestors are my body.
When I resist them, I am resisting connection to my body and to the land.
The resistance and fear show up as dis-ease in my body.
That resistance and fear was also their resistance and fear.
But when I let go of that, little by little, it no longer has control over me and I can relax into my experience and celebrate this journey.
Deeply loving my body and living my life fully… is the greatest way to honor their gifts to me.
Which is my body.
Which is my life.
Living fully in this vessel and drinking in every moment of life as a woman is my greatest offering to all who have come before me.
And I am so thankful.
Realizing this, I had this prayer/mantra come through.
Say it with me if you’d like:
When I forgive my body, I forgive my ancestors
When I accept my body, I accept my ancestors
When I love my body, I love my ancestors
When I honor my body, I honor my ancestors
How is your relationship with your body?
Do you honor your ancestors?
I’d love to hear from you and witness you.
Sending all my love,
Lisa Marie xx
Current Offerings:
~1:1 Support for those navigating death, transition, and loss. You can read more about that offering here. Email me at belovedgateway@gmail.com to schedule an intake call.
~If you are a woman seeking community support, I am offering another Tend & Befriend - Intergenerational Women’s Circle on 9/25/22 @ 2 pm EST via zoom. Note the date and time change to accommodate all time zones. :)
Come to find support and power as we continue to build collective resources as modern women, remembering ancient wisdom.
You can read for more info on the event here and join the zoom meeting here. I am also opening these circles up to be donation based. You can always join no matter what, but if you’d like to donate, the money will go towards my services being offered on a sliding scale, for those in need.
Here is the link to submit a donation.
Always enjoy reading about your growth journey, Lisa Marie.
Answering your questions: Relationship with my body is a cauldron of contradictions. A dedicated organic vegetarian who honors the earth by eating a bioregional based diet. Not a drinker or drugger. EXCEPT: horridly addicted to nicotine. I understand the contradiction and work daily to limit/end the addiction.
I suppose because I was taught, by example and word, to honor the 'grandmothers', I have no issues with my female ancestors. They were strong women and taught me to honor and live the Yin Yang, although they certainly didn't use the term. There are very few of my male ancestors who deserve any of my thought. So be it.
But, I have difficulty with the word definition and concept of surrender. It's basically a battle term. There's no reason ever we need to relinquish a part of ourselves to anyone or anything. We can embrace, commit, go forward into a healthier part of ourselves, diminish the negative but, not give over control to something else.
I certainly don't expect anyone to agree with me on my understanding of the term/concept. Oh my - I've been called very nasty names and have had every logical fallacy in the book thrown at me because of my stand. 😄 No matter, I'm still standing.
Many blessings to all.