Beauty. Holding A Torch (Protect Your Dreams)

Leonard Shlain (RIP), in his book The Alphabet versus the Goddess, highlights how visual beauty is always the first aspect of the feminine (right-brain) to be stripped by the masculine -- not the healthy masculine -- when a society becomes obsessed with its left-brain talents. Women are covered or shamed for their very sensuality. Art is destroyed. Music is banned. The list goes on. He points to the Spanish Inquisition, Witch hunts, the Greco-Roman reform of their religion to brutally remove the female as the bearers of life and today's main patriarchal religions that have also removed women as bearers of life.

If you're paying attention, today the term "motherhood" offends. Any enjoyment of physical beauty offends -- disguised as offence taken by society's narrow definition of beauty. To attribute femininity largely to women also offends. 

Beauty in the Feminine

I am aglow with the promise of the return of the divine feminine in our world. As mother, the feminine creates and holds space for ALL. Unlike today's society that loves some and not others, true feminine society invites egalitarian governance instead of central control. The return of the divine feminine has intuitively shown up as an invitation to honour a part of myself that I had no name for, before. Feminine is -- not frail, weak or the least bit submissive -- innately and deeply empowered from within, intuitive and a powerful magnet for all that she focuses on. Make no mistake, those who truly know the feminine -- not the shallow, toxic masculine definitions that honour only the maiden phase of feminine development-- but the true feminine, from baby to crone, know its power. It is not in some deceptive art of seduction, even though sultry sensuality is a part of it. It is the ability to fill your own cup with love and thus inevitably, powerfully, even unwittingly (it's that powerful) attract anything you want. If you are feminine in nature, may you embrace it fully. May you not know it in part or through the lens of those who think ill of it -- but in its full and complete essence. 

Beauty is a major part of what feeds the feminine. Look at someone genuinely in awe of something they find beautiful -- a person, a garden, a sunset. There is an unmistakable glow. Any woman in that moment, her glow is more potent. In a feminine woman, that glow almost fills the room. Don't lose that to fit in. You almost feel the energy of that appreciation. I cannot speak for the masculine, here, but "someone" above included men I've observed. We all seem to need beauty. Why would we want to eliminate that light? 

Accusing Beauty

Insecurity. Terms like skinny b***h are derogatory, but I've never seen anyone defend folks attacked that way, the way someone would be if they were labeled f*t. There are quotes everywhere telling girls "don't be pretty, be smart" and "beauty isn't skin deep; it's what's inside that counts". Why not both? Be careful that we don't teach our children to forget their bodies altogether. To live as a human being, to have quality of life while here on earth, means taking care of this vessel. Double standards always swing a destructive pendulum. "If you come after me today and society and the judiciary support you, I will come after you with the same or greater force so that those same entities turn on you too." Stop. Treating your insecurities, your trauma, as if they are other people's responsibility will not make them go away. In fact, that magnifies those insecurities so that you are living with a festering wound. A wound that only you can -- but refuse to -- take care of. More, you're strengthening the roots of that pain in the world, so that it spreads. Hello big C-word. Stop. Go inward. Heal. I only truly saw my own beauty, beyond a glimpse here and there, in my early to mid-30's. The way I was fed finding it had nothing to do with being seen, but literally, with being filled. It is worth it.

Love. Self Love Overflows

Love is the only thing that brings harmony; that stops the pendulum from swinging. If we took the time to go within, to heal ourselves, we wouldn't need to seek approval externally. Yet, and this is important, once we heal and love ourselves as we are, we will only attract those who love and appreciate us as we are. It isn't that the other folks don't exist. They simply disappear from our experience. When we love ourselves, we set healthy boundaries. We get to know and discover what is really beautiful to our unique selves, and we find and appreciate our own beauty -- absolutely, within, but also absolutely physically too. What we love, we take care of. Enjoying being human means having a body, too 

When you find that appreciation for all that you are, you begin to see and honour your individual sovereignty, your right to be and your boundaries. Then, it becomes easier to honour everyone else's as well. In terms of beauty, you will stop comparing and genuine compliments come instead. 

Beauty. Holding a Torch for Those Who've Lost Her

I hold a torch for beauty, for those who need and crave beauty and are starved of it by those they're closest too, or most deeply influence by. Those who feel ashamed to appreciate their own beauty, and those who can't even see their beauty, as a result. Those who force themselves to be in relationships with those they have no chemistry with, for fear of being considered shallow. May we all just stop, step back, honour what we are and truly find beautiful, and step into the joy and flow of that.

Honouring Who You're Attracted To

If it helps, I'll share this -- as my first career was in ecology and environmental science. Rats thrive and meet few diseases because they are able to literally sniff out genetically compatible partners. If they don't like your smell, you won't stand a chance. 

I wonder what we would be capable of if we simply were honest -- not cruel -- about what we want and don't. What we like and don't. [Side note: it is not cruel to say "I'm not attracted to you". It is cruel to call someone ugly. You are not responsible for other people's feelings about your needs and desires or their triggers -- and they are not responsible for yours. ❤️] If we live and let live, it actually means we live this one life as we'd like to, and truly let others do the same in peace. Don't shrivel up and die not enjoying beauty. It is inherently human to be fed, fueled, by beauty. It's why art, movies, books move us. If you can't relate to physical beauty -- your own or others -- start there. What is beauty, and beautiful to you. Embrace ALL innately true aspects of yourself, including your beauty.

In love, light and shadow, embracing all of ourselves.

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Crystal-Marie Sealy MBA Mom 🌺💖🎊