Thank you, Plant Medicine

#thankyouplantmedicine

(Warning: long , physically explicit, and super Woo post!)

I had spent years carrying fear.

I didn’t know it; I didn’t realize how much I was holding fear in my body. I couldn’t feel it; I was cut off from that place, from my own knowing. For years. For decades.

Other people’s fears. About my body. My body as a young girl, first. Then, as a teen, a maiden. And then, my woman’s body. Fear of what I might do. Who I might become. What I might say, do. Destroy. Create. About my wild desires. About who I truly am. About what my body – this body – can express: Life. Blood. Birth. Fury. Ecstasy. Youth. Age. Death. Joy. Defiance. Destruction. Generational healing. Ancient wisdom. Tides. Moon cycles. Vast grief. Limitless pleasure. Supernovas. The entire f*cking Cosmos.

I believed what those borrowed fears told me: that this body is limited. Small. In need of outside intervention – chemical, surgical, societal – for its basic functions. Unpredictable. Needing to be carefully monitored and controlled.

Then, the fears took a form I could no longer ignore. Three years ago, they emerged, although they had been there so much longer. Slowly growing. The MRI showed the physical form: a uterine fibroid. Of course. Lodged in my womb. In the very center of my connection to my life, my power, my expression of this female form: portal to life, to all of the natural cycles around me and in me. This, the place of birthing, divine mystery, eggs, moon, tide, life in all its fluid forms.

I had shut down my connection here, long ago – with hormonal birth control, then through an emergency C-section I desperately did not want, fought against – cutting here, into everything I am. Unwanted pain and penetration into the center of my being, borne out of even more fear that this body did not actually have the knowledge on its own, to transform into the awesome, unfathomable portal that brings new humans into the world.

I was told the fibroid was too big; it could only be removed by surgery. More fear. I was furious. Adamant. I would not be cut again. Not there.

Meanwhile, I was taking HRT: bioidentical hormones. Because of even more borrowed, learned fear: fear of menopause. Fear that – as this culture had taught me since I could remember – that once menopause “happened to me,” once its “symptoms” appeared, I would dry up, shrivel up, never have s*x again, never want to. I would become invisible, instantly old, unwanted. That I would lose everything I hold dear: joyful, easy s*x; orgasmic pleasure; my deep sense of full, juicy vitality; my Beloved (because why would he want me?). My livelihood, my life’s purpose – because who would want a s*x coach who can’t have s*x anymore?

Doctors said that the estrogen from the HRT might be causing the fibroid to grow faster. So even with all the learned fear of menopause, I thought of stopping the hormones, allowing the “unthinkable,” if it meant avoiding surgery. But no – they said it might stop the growth, but nothing would make it smaller. Nothing would make it go away.

I brought all of this, into my first experience with plant medicine. Psychedelics, in a container of pure safety and love, ministered by someone with deep knowledge of the medicine, shamanic practice, journeying. Held by humans who surrounded me with absolute unconditional love. I knew I wanted to release anything that was blocking me, holding me back, keeping me small.

The morning before my session, I looked for anywhere I was still hiding, pretending, still living in fear. I connected with my womb. And: I heard: release the fear.

All the fear.

I did. I realized that I had been even more afraid of menopause, than I was of death. Because I feared I would become the walking dead. I released all of that too. In that moment, I chose to let go of the HRT. Let go of hiding and pretending to be anything, anyone, other than who I was in that moment, in this body, exactly as I am.

Fear of walking death. Fear of death. Fear of menopause. Fear of the fibroid itself, as some unwanted, foreign thing. Instead, loving it as my body’s voice, manifested physically, welcoming it, asking forgiveness, offering acceptance.

Letting go of all fear of how big I am, how beyond, how wild and ancient and animal and cosmic “I” am. Letting go of any beliefs that there are limits in this body. In this being. Being, becoming, unconditional love.

My magical, mystical, so-far-beyond body went into full on rebirthing, in every dimension. Physical, uncontrolled, erotic expression, as well: Voice. LOUD. Animal. Primal. Groaning, screaming. Blood. Lots of it. orgasmic energy, in gigantic steady waves. Fluid. Lubrication. Ejaculate. Amrita. Outrageous amounts of fluid, flowing, cascading from my body. Soaking towels. Spraying, flooding. Forces, energies, so far beyond my physical being, raging through my body, this cosmic conduit. Some wild portal of energy around the base of my spine, my tailbone, wringing unbelievable amounts of energy from within, through, out.

Throughout, I could *feel* the connection to my womb; I could *feel* the direct expression of those fears that were not mine, were never mine – oh, they were terribly huge and powerful, I had had no idea what I had agreed to carry in this body!

After five days, the fibroid was all but gone.

I felt all around for it. Where there had been hardness, protrusion, discomfort in my belly, there was… softness. Yielding. Openness. Just… me.

What was left was the size of half my thumb.

I couldn’t quite believe it, myself. I asked my lover to verify that it was gone: yes. I asked two doctors to feel the place it had been. No question, although they couldn’t explain how it had happened (I could, but I just smiled instead).

Now, a month and a half later, it continues to slowly soften, melting back into my body.

I call it my “Fearbroid,” now, with all affection and love. Instead of that tight, hot mass of holding and fear, I feel… Love. Wholeness. Myself. My own body.

My womb: a vast, soft, ocean, limitless, connected to all things, always.

I feel this whenever I bring my awareness into my body. I do that often, many times a day, in wonder.

Peace. Wonder, at what I can no longer deny: this body is completely magic. What is “physical” and what is “energy” are one and the same. There is no inside, or outside. It’s all flow. It’s all Love.

I’ve had some cycles of hot flashes. I welcome them as the energetic surges they are: as the embodied fire of Kali, burning away all that is no longer needed in this body.

I’m full of life. Juicy. Joyful. Peaceful. Grounded in my body in ways I have not been in all my adult life. FULL of erotic energy and pleasure. Sex has been GREAT! Amazing. Connected to All That Is.

I am in my life now, accepting, loving. No resistance. Looking forward to discovering where this body, in its current incarnation, in this its journey of life after maiden, after mothering, will take me. And so very, very grateful to the medicine, and the beautiful beings who accompanied me, who helped me to rebirth into this life. Into Love Beyond Fear.