January 2006 | Features
Connecting with the Feminine Divine
Peace and empowerment through female-centered meditation
By Kyle Roderick
Most popular meditation systems that have stood the test of time were designed with celibate, reclusive Eastern monks in mind. The theory was that meditation would quell their worldly ambitions, sexuality and attachments and guide them to spiritual fulfillment. But what’s a gainfully-employed, sexually-active 21st century soul to do when these ancient practices don’t ring true?
Female-centered meditation offers a revival of the archaic and once-widely-held belief that the proper way to live a balanced life is by engaging with the feminine, creative life force powering the universe. A patchwork of techniques—including breathwork, visualization, yoga and other forms of movement—“empower men and women to connect with, and get energized by, the nurturing, healing, intuitive and receptive feminine principle,” say Marina del Rey meditation teachers Camille Maurine (camillemaurine.com) and Lorin Roche, Ph.D. (lorinroche.com), co-authors of Meditation Secrets for Women (HarperSanFrancisco).
According to Maurine and Roche, one reason why female-centered meditation is gaining adherents is because “about 70 percent of meditators in the US are women, and women often experience monastically-based meditation as emotional and physical deprivation.” One of Roche’s meditation students, for example, a mother of four and a successful businesswoman, recently left a yoga meditation ashram in New York. “She says she was often told, in effect, to sit in her place, never discuss emotions, just surrender to the guru. Any questions or doubts [were perceived as] simply impurities,” Roche explains.
“Call it the Divine Mother, the Virgin Mary, the Hindu goddess Shakti, Gaia or the Goddess, but in these times of war and terrorism, people are hungering to connect with the feminine principle,” says yoga teacher Mark Whitwell (yogaofheart.com), author of Yoga of Heart (Lantern Books). Whitwell, who teaches at Santa Monica’s Power Yoga and at workshops worldwide, stresses, “Female-centered meditations are never taught or practiced to reject men or bash ancient spiritual traditions. Rather, they aim to bring men and women into contact with the Divine Mother and the natural state, which is nurturing.”
In female-centered meditation, it’s also a given that the conscious movement of the breath, or prana, through the body is necessary for living in a nurturing state. “The movement of prana is more than just breathing, it is a healing force,” Whitwell maintains. “A strong inhalation in a relaxed, receptive body embodies the feminine principle in action, for it is strength receiving. The exhalation embodies the male principle.” In other words, when you are attuned to your breath, you are with that which is breathing you, also known as the life force, or the Divine Mother.
LA yoga teacher Gurmukh, who teaches feminine-centered meditations in kundalini yoga classes at Hollywood’s Golden Bridge (www.goldenbridgeyoga.com), agrees, adding, “For millennia, men have been socialized to be competitive and warlike, but more and more of them are realizing that they have a powerful nurturing ability. They can cultivate this in meditation and in their personal and professional relations. In essence, female-centered mediation means steady attention to, and participation with, the sensitive, subtle or feminine aspects of life.”
While many forms of traditional meditation steer the mind from plumbing its intuitive depths, meditation teacher Kathryn Alice, a licensed spiritual practitioner through the Agape community, suggests that meditation on the feminine facilitates intuitive problem solving and self-mastery. “It helps you tune in to that still, small voice that tells you things you wouldn’t know logically, that tells you which way to jump, which is a quality of all great leaders.”
Kyle Roderick lives in Malibu and writes about meditation for Body + Soul, First for Women and Healing Lifestyles & Spas. She practices female-centered meditation whenever she can.
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