Hearth of our Soul

"A woman will always be dependent until she holds a purse of her own." - Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Not quite sure why I am starting with this quote today, but there must be a reason.  Let's explore what it is!  It seems to reflect some of my thoughts and questions over the past few days. 

Our bellies are a container for each of us from which we cultivate, generate, create and manifest.  I have an image of a woman stirring a big cauldron that is hanging over a hot fire in a big fireplace in the center of her home.  She is working hard but with ease and grace and she knows that her place is in the hearth.  As I wrote this, the feminist in me came up and said "WHAT?!"  But this is where we belong, in the HEARTH of our own bodies, tending to our souls and cultivating, stirring, manifesting what is WITHIN us to bring forth.  I love the word, HEARTH.  My dear friend Whitney, and business partner, showed me that within HEARTH is heart, art, earth, hear, and ear. Isnt't that wonderful? 


Our bellies are our hearth.  It is where we feel from and can connect with our instincts and our "art".  It is the home of our lower heart, our womb. our incubator of our children, our creative projects, our creativity.  It is the place in our bodies where we are most deeply connected with Earth, our home.  It is how we hear, listen to and honor our creative impulses.  It offers a different kind of hearing.  Our belly is an ear than listens on a non-audible level to the truth of our soul and the truth of our experience.  I am really connecting with our bellies as our hearth.  This is the hearth to which we must attend.  Our place is within our own hearth.


So how does this relate to the quote by Elizabeth Cady Stanton?  


A purse is a container in which we hold our wealth.  We use it to hold our money from which we pay for our purchases.  We use it to hold the money that we earn and receive.  The purse becomes the metaphor for our capacity and willingness to be financially independent.  However, the limitation of this perspective is that our wealth is only financial.  It becomes solely about the monetary and financial wealth, which for me is only one aspect of what our wealth truly is. 


A woman can become financially independent,with money and financial resources, holding her own purse.  But is this really all that a woman wants?  Is holding her own purse really what it's about for a woman?  While it certainly is important and not to be negated, is it the whole picture?  Or is it women just getting stuck in the masculine perspective, and once they've achieved it, wondering it this is what it's really all about.  A woman can certainly manifest like a man, and have the focus be the financial success.  She will have her purse, but is that really all she wants?


My sense is that women know that there is something more they want than to just hold their own purse.  Although, as I type that, wouldn't that be a wonderful place to start?  But I don't think that it is a separate issue.  I don't think that we get to say, "well, when I have financial success and security, then I will discover what is missing and create it."  That's the way we've been trying to do it.  That's still the masculine way of creating.  Wow.  It really is.  When I have my financial security, then I'll take the risk to create something different, to create what I really want to create.  It's the old "if, then" logical and rational way of doing things.  The masculine way.

Women are not hear to manifest like a man.  We are here to create like a woman.  And women know how to create.  We have been doing it for as long as we've been women.  We create from an activated seed in our belly.  We nurture, and hold our unborn child in our wombs until it is time to give birth.  Then we go through the process of birth for this child whom we unconditionally love and accept, even though we have very little, if no idea of who this child will be.  We give birth to the unknown.  We then tend to, take care of, feed, bathe and nurture our child, until it is able to take care of itself.  And we often do that time and time again.  

WE KNOW HOW TO CREATE, MANIFEST, CULTIVATE AND TEND TO OUR CREATIONS.

Those creations that come through us.  They are not actually "our" creations, but they come through us to be birthed and expressed into the world.  I am reminded of the quote by Kahlil Gibran:   

Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. They came through you but not from you and though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

Our bellies are the hearth of our creations.  Our bellies are the heart - that's interesting.  I meant to write "hearth" there and I was interrupted.  Hmmm...our bellies are our heart.  I'm going to let that one ripple within me for a few breaths.

OUR BELLIES ARE THE HEART.  MY BELLY IS my HEART, my EAR, my ART, my EARTH.

It is the sacred space within our bodies that connects us to our soul, our soul's longings, or in Gibran's words, "Life's longing for itself." 

This brings me back to a woman holding her own purse.  Our true purse is not outside of ourselves and something that we hang on our arms for display.  Our true purse, source of our independence, power and passion is our belly, deep within us and not on public display.  The container, the chalice for our wealth then lies in our belly...

For a woman to be truly wealthy, in my view, she must create and manifest from her belly.  She gets to trust the impulses that arise deep from within her, without knowing what they will look like, where they will take her, and who she will become in the process.  We get to create, manifest, generate, cultivate like a woman.  We get to come back to who we truly are, to the heart within our beautiful feminine bodies, and create magnificently.  And in reclaiming ourselves and our hearth, we get to generate true wealth.  No longer will we create an empty experience of success, but we will manifest true wealth in the deepest, richest, most wealthy sense of the word.

Coming full circle:

"A woman will always be dependent until she honors the belly of her own."

or stated more positively,

"A woman is independent when she lives from the hearth of her soul."

Suseya, 
Sahara