Thoughts brought on by my Yoni Altar

This will be a very personal blog post today and for many it may be uncomfortable and if so, I do not mind if you don't read all the way through. I was invited to a new Facebook group dedicated to the awareness of the Yoni Altar and a reclaiming of Women's Sexuality. I was acquainted with the Yoni Altar when I was editing Lizbeth Clay's book, Woman Re-Membering. She did not have the money to pay me to edit (I had never done this before and was honored to be asked to do so) and so she would make me things around the Goddess and one of them was the Yoni Altar.

Lizbeth writes on the back of her creation: "The Yoni Altar honors woman's potent and vulnerable Depths, and is a creative Act of Reclaiming what has been objectified and made fetish within patriarchal societal structure. The Yoni represents Female Creative Power and has long been a symbol for woman's menstrual and birthing mysteries, sacred sexuality and those of menopause."

Yoni is the Sanskirt word for Vagina! It has been around for a very very long time and is just now finding HerSelf in the public eye again. But of course, it is seen a pornographic by those who want to dismiss the power of the Sacred Feminine! Lizbeth finished by saying, "It is time to reclaim these primal forces that are our inherent power and creative pulse and awaken to our instinctive, ecstatic knowing!"

Many know my story or at least parts of it, but for some reason this week I have been revisiting where I have been, seeing that 60 years of age is looming ahead of me. My ex husband of 30 years was a sex addict. Oh he will never admit it even tho' he had a counselor tell him so as did his son, daughter and wife! His addiction was pornography and then acting it out with me. Oh some say, he wasn't an addict as he didn't "stray" outside the home. Sorry, but watching porn, looking at pornographic pictures, having over 1000 videos and books and DVD's in our home constituted addiction. I was living with thousands of prostitutes!

We married when I was 20 and very naive. From the beginning he would have to look at magazines before we were intimate saying I didn't know how to turn him on and so he needed this first. As a young very impressionable girl learning how to be a sexual woman this tore me to the core and so I did everything he told me to do and more. And it wasn't usually pleasant at all. But I wanted to make him happy you see and I certainly didn't have an experience before I met him, so I was ripe for the brainwashing!

And so here I am a Crone and turning 60 in August. And my Yoni is dried up! I had a total hysterectomy when I was 40 years old. The doctor who had been my OBGYN for 15 years diagnosed me with Fibroid Tumors and said I needed to have my Uterus removed. I had had both my children and so didn't need this "bother" any longer. I agreed as I had learned to hate my Uterus...I had heavy periods and bad cramps and when I got married, my periods were very inconvenient to my husband as was my PMS! We had terrible fights during that time and even when I was having my worse pain during the first few days, I was expected to Service Him! I hated every thing to do with this part of being a woman and would have agreed to having the Uterus removed without anesthesia if that was the only way to get rid of this organ that made me uniquely female but in my eyes had turned against me!

{on a side note: it was years after the divorce when I was reading Louise Hay's book You Can Heal Yourself that I discovered that my Uterus was trying so hard to tell me what was terribly wrong in this relationship. She states that "Female Problems including Fibroid Tumors are a Denial of Self, Rejecting femininity, Rejection of the feminine principle, Nursing a hurt from a partner, A blow to the feminine ego! }

And so I was remembering that appointment with the OBGYN the day we discussed my options to try and stop the incessant bleeding. My husband was there too. I am so glad that I was journaling at that time because often time creates another story out of an original one, but not this time. So there we sat; me, the doctor and my husband. The doc explained the surgery to remove the Uterus and then asked if I wanted to keep my Ovaries. Without missing a beat, the male doc looked at my husband and said, "you know if we take them out then the PMS goes away and you will be home free: no periods to deal with and no PMS drama." NO SHIT!!!! This is exactly what was said and not to me but between the two men in the room. My husband said with a big grin: "Go for it! Take it all!" And it happened.

Oh I must say I was excited to not have to deal with periods any more but what I wasn't ready for was being thrown into early Menopause! I had hot flashes, and vaginal dryness, etc and so the doc put me on Estrogen to combat these symptoms and it did help a lot! But it didn't fix the misogynistic attitude of my husband. The porn got worse and so did the emotional and sexual abuse, etc. And after 30 years I had enough and left!

There is so much here for me to learn and to pass on to my daughter and other women. My Uterus was trying so hard to show me what was wrong! She wanted me to know that I was in a place that was not of the Goddess! And finally She cried and cried and cried blood from this Womb that housed my two children and each month should have been a reminder to me of the gift I as Sacred Woman had been given!

It has been 20 years now since my Ovaries and Uterus were removed and I had to come off the medication due to cancer possiblities and even tho' I tried many natural hormonal remedies, the vagina dried up, the Labia thinned out and and this place which once was full of juicy richness is no longer a welcome home.

But Goddess is so very good. She has taught me that unlike the message being driven into my soul by this man I chose to marry and live with for 30 years, my "woman parts" are not my identity! They do not make me who I am: Sacred Feminine Being created in Her Image! Nope....even tho' my body has changed, my Self has only Grown and Developed where I now claim the Goddess that I am. The Creative Power that Lizbeth talked about is fully mine to claim and I do!

Some days it makes me sad that I was not stronger about what I really wanted. It makes me sad that as Enlightened as I thought I was, I did not recognize the signs of misogyny in my own home and in my OBGYN's office! I did not have my Sacred Feminine Voice at that time. And maybe that is how it was suppose to be. A lesson I had to learn on this side of the Veil!

And some days I am still haunted by the idea that I am not a "good catch" for a man because my vagina is no longer welcoming. Those tapes so ingrained in my very soul show themselves at times when I am alone and lonely!

But those times are few and far between thank Goddess and I rejoice that the Creative Juices that are inherent in being Woman are still available to me! I hold them as Sacred Gifts! And I pause an honor the Uterus and Ovaries that once were nestled in my body! They served me well but I know that without them I am no less and much more!

Blessed be!