Your own map

The womb, the vulva, the clitoris, the inner and outer lips
your pleasure map
the water, the blood
an endless landscape of wonder, senses, connections
life and death and rebirth

and no one ever gave us the map
they gave us the brochure
glossy, certain
which parts to tighten
which parts to hide

The way women are sold optimisation, fixes to what their bodies naturally do, fascinates me. Not in an "aww, look what we've been able to do" way. More of a "wow, now that's sophisticated. I almost missed it and drooled right over it."

There is no harm in scrolling for liposuction (as Silvija recently said in our conversation on the YINtentions podcast) or in finding the latest pelvic tightening practice. What surprises me is how rarely we notice where we are doing it from. Is it an enhancement to meet a standard I am being sold, one that promises to fill an inner gap? Or an enrichment to a life I am already loving and living as I desire?

Enhance your look, upgrade your erotic fantasies, stimulate your sex drive, be less this and more of that. Then your intimacy will be hot, tantric, wet, mind-blowing.

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I've been remembering a little girl who knew the difference.

Growing up in post-Soviet Poland meant that I had my dresses tailor-made, from the scraps left over from my mom's dresses. I had less than a handful. They were for celebrations and weekly Mass. I loved wearing them.

Somewhere along the way, wanting what delighted me began to feel wrong. Almost morally suspicious. As though choosing beauty meant I wasn't serious enough. Good enough. Conscious enough. Attention seeking. Unwanted repercussion.

Later I spent seven years studying what culture does to a body before that body gets to speak and once its quieted so it can't be heard.

For years I judged that little girl. Now I see how I misunderstood her. What if she simply knew that my desires mattered?

Clarissa Pinkola Estés writes of a girl whose first red shoes were "handmade and pieced from scraps", and of the way back to them: "we can return to the handmade life, the wholly mindful life, re-make our own shoes, walk our walk, talk our own talk."

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So, ladies.

I have no desire to tell you what to do. Most times when someone does that to me, I do the opposite!! :D

But what I want to share with you is the experience and feeling of creating our own bodily map. Where you mark your landmarks, waterfalls, sights worth knowing. Create the layer that is erotic, with desire, with highs, with arousal. Create the layer that is healing, with stories, with learnings, with scars.

Can you get curious about your own body's cracks, nooks and dark places? Can you wander through them, exploring, tasting, fascinated by your uniqueness?

Only as far as feels safe today. Some places can wait.

There is no manual. Let curiosity about your body guide the way.

A first step onto your map, free. Sensing the taste and smell invites you to drop into your body, your sensations, into the story within. Come back to it again and again.
Receive the free practice →

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In Womb Shakti each woman draws this map over eight weeks, her Womb Mandala, a personal image of her relationship with her body, her pleasure, her womb. It stays with her. We begin on Wednesday 21 October.

Tell me, what is one landmark on your map? A place in your body where pleasure lives, or used to. Keep it for yourself, on paper, or send it to me. I would love to see a corner of your map.

with curiosity and warmth,

Happening in the Yin Rhythms Spiral

🌹 Womb Shakti 🇬🇧 - Fall in love with yourself and your body again. Through movement, breath and touch in a circle of women. Eight weeks, Wednesdays 18:30 - 20:30 CET, 21 October - 9 December. 989 CHF. And the full Rhythmic Movements library is yours for all of December.
▸ Join the circle

🌹 Łono Shakti 🇵🇱 - Pokochaj na nowo siebie i swoje ciało. Ruchem, oddechem i dotykiem, w kręgu kobiet. Wtorki 18:30 - 20:30 CET, 20 października - 8 grudnia, online. 1639 zł. Przez cały grudzień pełna biblioteka Rhythmic Movements.
▸ Łono Shakti

🌀 Rhythmic Movements - Seven rhythms of movement, breath and touch, filmed for you to come back to again and again. The library opens 1 November; founding places 199 CHF until 31 October.
▸ Come into the library

🕯️ Samhain - a free celebration of the season's wisdom, Monday 2 November, 19:00 - 20:30 CET, online. The threshold into the dark half of the year. We move with the intelligence of the season and nourish ourselves through community.
▸ Save your place

🎙️ YINtentions - Ep. 13 with Ruby May, My Nervous System needs Pleasure. Seven years of charting one cycle, and then the map was gone: what a woman does when the territory she was walking disappears.
▸ Listen anywhere

📬 Field Notes - every letter, in one place.
▸ Read the archive