@drrune's post here is a great beginning for this week's wrap up of the Sacred Feminine challenge (which we're hosting for another week!). The Sacred Feminine is not 'either/or' - but part of everyone:

regardless of our gender identity, our sexuality, our race or creed, we are also both male and female. The essence of these two energies permeates all of our being from top to bottom, from surface to core. This is a truth that applies even to stars and galaxies, undeniable and profound.Therefore, although I am a man, the Sacred Feminine is in me too. It rules my emotions and my empathy, it is the power of my intuition, the way I deal with my feelings, my inner calm, my capacity to embrace and nurture.

His call - AND his wow wow post formatting - MUST be read - go give it some LOVE!

@plantstoplanks channelled her EARTH mother this week in this post. Whilst she doesn't want to be a 'real' mama, by growing food she becomes a plant mama:

Gardening really does bring out the latent maternal side in my personality. Yes, I adore my time as an auntie to the burgeoning feminine entities I get to call my nieces, but there is something more motherly in growing fruits and vegetables totally from seed. Even though we don't always have luck with every seed sprouting and making it to full maturity, we do really enjoy starting with that small speck of life. Sprouting the seed, watering the seedling and trying to nourish the soil in which we eventually plant our little ones.

@freemotherearth wrote a stunning post about her rejection of society's version of the 'feminine' and what we're expected to 'be':

Makeup, fancy clothes, shaving, hair dying ~ these are things that I may have dabbled in under 20 years of age, but in general they never caught my interest. This would prove later to be a pivotal point in my journey to embracing Sacred Feminine in the United States. All of these things were widely accepted to be required for beauty, yet the young punk lady with a mohawk and hairy legs (me) screamed at this establishment illusion! I was divided for a long time in myself on these points, because the Divine in me knew better, but the human in me was more fragile than I would admit.

I absolutely loved reading her journey, and appreciated her advice so much:

Remember exactly that : we are each on our own journey. With nearly 8 billion people on the planet at once, it’s hard to remember that none of us have the same path, but we don’t! While we can use our own experiences to gauge where another’s journey might be heading, we only have control or a right to control our own journey. Offer your experience, offer your insight, offer your love, offer your support for healthy choices ~ but remember to not take it personal if your offer is rejected. Just as you must decide for yourself, so much each of us.

In this post @danielapevs writes about her relationship with the sacred feminine with her two friends (both in real life and on Hive) @neyxirncn and @vic

She writes that:

We are all born with a womb, we all have the same gift to create just like the Earth, our nature, our sacred feminine is rooted to the Earth and the acceptance, understanding and practice of this can only bring all the good.

Like many woman, her body has been 'taboo'- her spirituality, her sexuality, her menstruation.

Through her involvement with meditation, mantra and moon circles, she has learnt to embrace and heal her

'body and my ailments in other ways, I dance with my own waters and I feel the power emanating from my womb into the world. I have cut through those fears that kept women from my past, I have planted the first seed for my tree to grow, for this love, my creativity has grown like a mountain. The Sacred Feminine is in everyone, because we are all part of this earth and this nature, because we all connect, because we all perceive, we all love. I raise my arms to the sky and I say to myself: How great is this divinity. Thank you, wise woman, full woman, woman full of life, woman you beget, woman you build.'

@artemislives concludes her argument a plea for the union of the sexes:

We shall KNOW that we are evolving as a species when it is our MEN who initiate sacred feminine circles and the WOMEN who celebrate that and meet joyfully to discuss their powerful Sun selves. Or perhaps they will laugh together and find their own quiet union inside instead, and re-channel their collective energy towards ecology, better education and a fairer world where everyone eats and has a place to shelter and fresh water to drink.

This desire for union is also called for by @indigoocean in this post, as she acknowledges the state the world is in as too far in a masculine state - that feminine energy is needed to redress it. Not to replace, mind - just to balance, though a 'hard pivot' might be needed to do so:

What I'm seeing needed most is the embrace of the feminine. That is within both men and women. Both have been trained to reject things like vulnerability, connection, value for nurturing, and simple joyful being without accomplishing the acquisition of more, more, more. A sense of enoughness and satisfaction, of peace. Of loving all our children equally. More power over others. More extraction, from the planet and from each other. More possession of things. Even more creation of things. More status in endless hierarchies of make believe value. These are the insatiable desires fundamentally causing all the woes we're going through right now. If we continue putting these ideas as central to our value system and way of life, we will continue to burn ourselves alive, however slowly. If we can recenter the feminine value system, we can begin the process of healing this world and our cultures so badly need. Only once we relearn and re-integrate the feminine in its purity can we also re-establish the healthy interplay between masculine and feminine in balance. That respectful interplay of opposites in balance is actually what the world needs to sustainably support our thriving. But right now we are so far in one direction that balance requires a pretty hard pivot in the opposite direction.

She makes a beautiful suggestion on what we can all do to lean into this possibility:

So this is my invitation to you to spend some time this next week making an effort to dive into a more feminine experience of life in some way. It may be dancing alone in your backyard. It may be making a flower arrangement. It may be taking a bath with flowers or scented oils in the water. Or perhaps it's about how you'll relate to others, perhaps offering a foot massage without asking for anything in return. Or allowing someone to give you a foot massage without thinking you now need to offer something in return. Giving/receiving without any expectation of anything in return as payment. Flowing love for the joy of simply watching someone blossom in the light of your love or allowing yourself to blossom in the light of someone else's love for you.

@drrune wasn't the only man to write on the sacred feminine this week. Remember, the feminine and masculine energies exist in all of us! @fenngen wrote a letter from the sacred feminine part of himself to the sacred masculine in this post. 'She' writes:

I know deep in your heart you understand how important balance is and I have faith in your will to be a part of finding it. I know of the burden you carry, how you were trained by society to be strong and ruthless, how you were shamed because of your tears, shattering your emotions for a lifetime. I am willing to be patient, but be patient as well because I am recovering from thousands of years of abusive behaviour and it’s not easy to forget my own pains. Every lifetime we spend on this quest of healing our broken relationship is important. We’ll get there, trusting the process.

May we all find the sacred feminine in our lives this week! And you can write about it, if you are so called - many people have requested another week for this challenge, so @neyxirncn and I are super happy to encourage that. She's also facilitating a sacred woman's circle on the 8th - would love to see some of you there! Details pinned in @naturalmedicine via @lotusshares or contact one of us for more details.

Winners this week are set as beneficiary - congratulations @danielapevs, @freemotherearth, @drrune and @indigocean. All entries will be considered for HIVE prizes next week.

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