We are experiencing the aftermath of an amazing full moon and heading towards the dark moon. Calling in Lilith during this time proved to be a reckoning. It was a dramatic shift in accountability to myself paired with the moon medicine designed to shine a light on the dark places and spaces where I have forced my true sensual nature to hide. Lilith brought with her a message on body sovereignty that I know I needed (even if I wasn’t fully ready to hear it). As I felt the rush of anger and anguish, the reality of her message took over:

You wish to wage a war on those who are taking away body autonomy, as you should…but when are you going to wage war with the same passion over the disconnect between you and your own body? When are you going to choose not just autonomy but full sovereignty? You want others to give you a freedom of choice when you won’t do the same for yourself…you need to go to the Red Sea and release yourself from the bindings you have allowed to stay in place and forced into the dark.

The Rising Rage

In true Lilith nature, I was caught between full on excitement, denial, and angry. This is that rising rage we might feel when we are called out: we know there is something there that must be investigated but it causes such cognitive dissonance. We want to deny it because we don’t want to believe it to be true about ourselves, but we know that once we examine it and find it to be true that the real work begins.

As a side note (in case anyone was wondering), Lilith doesn’t care how many times you roll your eyes.  And to the person who is supposed to read this (eyes like amber going through the plum color hair phase – her expression, not mine) loosen your grip on maintaining the level-headed passion or you will not be able to create through the bars of a prison you are locking yourself behind.

Repression & Suppression

I began to dive deep into this idea of what I had forced into the dark when it comes to body sovereignty. Surprisingly, I found both suppression and repression in those dark spaces. Suppression is an act of consciously burying or inhibiting an impulse I might have, whether it is because I believe it to be inappropriate/undesirable response to the moment I am in or trying to build my resolve for habit breaking purposes.

It is deliberate.

Repression not so much! Repression is a somewhat unconscious process of dismembering key pieces of information, about myself or moments in time. It made me painfully aware of how hiding and dismembering these pieces of myself, regardless of guilt, shame, or disgust that I may feel or had felt about them at one time, are the pieces that have left me feeling hollow and disconnected. A type of emptiness/melancholy that does not wholly fit or make sense to someone outside looking in.

Why is this even important to know?

It allows curiosity to grow in the place of denial. 

When Fire Rises

Lilith turns the heat up and demands the fire to rise to within us. She forces us to re-member where we have dismembered. To ask the questions. The main one being “Why?”. When we ask ourselves why we have those pieces of ourselves hidden away.

• Why might we feel shameful?
• Why might we feel guilty?
• Why do we care about those outside looking in?
• Why are we not connecting to our desires, our wants, or our needs?

It is an incredible rising fire meeting the air of consciousness from the root of knowingness. It’s painful and it’s glorious. At the same time. It transforms us entirely if we let it and it allows us to re-member within the body with full acceptance. Fully sovereign.

Re-Membering from the Root

Many times, there is an entire disconnect from our bodies and we struggle with getting back in it. We know we have various body parts, but we don’t necessarily feel them. For example, there may be times that we don’t recognize we are cold, that we are thirsty, that we are hungry, or that we are under duress (especially if this is a common state of being – I see you). There are a few poses to try for 5 minutes a day that help to open our root space. Paired with deep breaths, we may be able to better direct our focus toward that space and sensations of the body.

Sacred Words

Perhaps the greatest sovereignty we must own is our pleasure. When you hear or think of these words, I want you to notice the feelings and thoughts that come up for you:

• Sensual
• Erotic
• Pleasure

Did you feel shame or guilt or like you shouldn’t be thinking of things related to those words? I know for a very long time that I did feel like I was going on the naughty list because I correlated those words to sex and somehow sex was not meant for me to enjoy. The thing is, those words and the word ‘sex’ or the act itself can partner up, but they are not the only correlation. The correlation is, however, the basis for how we create, for releasing our creativity into the world, and yes, our sacred sexuality is a part of it. And why would a society want to repress those things into our psyche as ‘shameful’? The only thing I can think of is that it makes us powerful when we accept that such magic is ours to hold, and they cannot take it from us, so instead they villainize it with hopes that it becomes repressed.

Lilith told them to get lost, she does what the f*ck she wants. 

Sensual, Erotic, & Pleasure

Now I think of the word ‘sensual’ as the state of being with my senses or utilizing the senses I have to be deeply in a moment with self. Body oils? Bath teas? A foot rub for myself while I am in the first pose of this article? All sensual things. All perfect. We get back in touch with our senses in a way that will light us up and create connections that we have lost in ourselves. When Lilith told me to go release the bindings holding me back, it made perfect sense as to why she would tell me so. Why autonomy is important today versus sovereignty is not lost on me, it is that same power trying to repress us as those who created the myth of Lilith being Evil; but it is going to take a force larger than us all to overtake it and fight back. It will take this power of connection and creation to become sovereign.

Erotic

Go do some research on ‘erotic’ and ‘Eros’, in fact I highly recommend a book by Deborah Grenn-Scott called Lilith’s Fire: Reclaiming our Sacred Lifeforce. There is this paradigm of love and power and the sacredness of who we are in relation to it within ourselves.

Pleasure

Our pleasure and body connectedness have long been this giant chasm that we have been warned against navigating. Our pleasure, in the deepest sense of fulfillment and passion, is something that becomes more apparent and focused the more we tap into it. Looking for purpose, passion, and magic? Looking for ways to tap into it? Start here. What brings you pleasure? Is it writing? Is it working with clay? Is it mixing paint colors? Is it harvesting from your garden? Is it learning and reading? Is it touch? Is it deep conversation? Is it sex? Is it all of those things? Map out your pleasures in a word map and see how you can expand them into an orgasmic platter of pleasure meant for you.  Here is the most important part of that exercise: pay attention to the ideas and thoughts that open up for you. Write them down. Create a record of it. You are not just full of magic, you are also a scientist of yourself. Create the records.

The Platter of Pleasure

While I have touched on numerous ways to reconnect to the body and to words that have created historically powerful revulsions of our selves by design, I removed (on purpose) the attachment to sex or orgasm. There are two reasons: getting back into our bodies is hard enough without that component that causes distress in some of us, and also because the magic of touch and play through self – orgasm is a very personal ritual that is due its own space. I encourage this play to connect to self. I believe it creates more sovereignty than we are aware of, but it is about creation and creativity, not just procreation. It is Sacred. But for today, let’s just get reacquainted with our bodies.

A Candle & A Key,

Kaycee

More Resources:

Boag, S. (2010). Repression, suppression, and conscious awareness. Psychoanalytic Psychology, 27(2), 164–181. https://doi.org/10.1037/A0019416

Grenn-Scott, D. (2000). Lilith’s fire: Reclaiming our sacred lifeforce. Universal Publishers.

Laubender, C. (2019). Empty Space: Creativity, Femininity, Reparation, Justice. Free Associations: Psychoanalysis and Culture, Media, Groups, Politics. https://doi.org/10.1234/fa.v0i75.260