Author Archives: Amanda Painter

Depend on a Healthy Environment, Not on What Hurts It

Dear Friend and Reader:

Yellow-billed cuckoos, native to the western U.S., are to be listed as threatened with extinction, enabling the government to protect them, the Center for Biological Diversity announced Oct. 3. Critics have labeled the decision “a blatant abuse of the Endangered Species Act,” due in part to its potential negative effect on the Salt River Project, which provides electricity for millions of Arizona residents.

Yellow-Billed Cuckoo (Coccyzus Americanus) displaying in the Rio Grande Valley, Texas; its status as a threatened species covers portions of 12 western states. Photo by Tom Vezo.

The building of dams for the Salt River Project, along with increased acreage devoted to agriculture and the spread of invasive species, have contributed to the marked decline of the yellow-billed cuckoos ‘ natural wetland habitats. The bird’s population has consequently dropped over several decades.

Steve Spangle, from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Arizona, said the organization was “looking forward to working with all the agencies” to protect the species.

A large part of one newly designated critical habitat was being threatened by the prospect of a mine, suggesting that the species’ new designation may be heading off more ecological harm than usual — though not everyone sees it that way.

Left unmentioned in most discussion of the yellow-billed cuckoo’s new designation and the local waterways is that the Salt River Project was home to one of the first massive domestic uses of Agent Orange herbicides, intended to facilitate water flow into the Salt River. From 1965-1969, the U.S. Forest Service repeatedly sprayed the whole area by helicopter, including rivers, streams and people’s homes, with the same mixture of 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T used in Vietnam. (The New York Times covered residents’ settlement with Dow Chemical in 1981.)

Said toxic chemicals researcher Carol Van Strum in a comment to Planet Waves, “For a truly mind-boggling account of that insanity, see Sue the Bastards! by Billee Shoecraft. The Salt River Project itself is a prime example of how entire populations are led to depend on environmentally destructive, unsustainable projects.”

Fossil Fuel Harvesting Creates Methane Hot Spot

In other news from the Southwest, researchers using satellite data have discovered a small area in the southwestern U.S. where significantly more methane is produced than in the rest of the country. The “hot spot,” reported by NASA Oct. 9, is on the Colorado-New Mexico border, close to the intersection with Arizona and Utah, and covers approximately 2,500 square miles.

The San Juan Generating Station and mine. Photo by San Juan Citizens’ Alliance / EcoFlight under Creative Commons license.

With emissions seeming to reach about 100,000 metric tons of methane per year, the main suspect is a large coalbed methane factory in the San Juan Basin.

Lead study author Eric Kort explained that fracking does not explain the data from 2003-2009, and that the results suggest “emissions from established fossil fuel harvesting techniques are greater than inventoried.”

Widespread Aquifer Poisoning in Central California

Fracking has, however, proven a culprit in the poisoning of California groundwater. State documents obtained by The Center for Biological Diversity reveal widespread contamination of Central California aquifers by almost 3 billion gallons of oil industry wastewater, reported The Center on Oct 6.

The waste, contaminated with fracking fluids and other pollutants, entered through at least nine injection disposal wells used by the oil industry for disposal of waste. Tests conducted by the Central Valley Water Board have shown high levels of toxic arsenic, thallium and nitrates in wells near these waste-disposal operations.

“The fact that high concentrations are showing up in multiple water wells close to wastewater injection sites raises major concerns about the health and safety of nearby residents,” said Timothy Krantz, a professor of environmental studies at the University of Redlands.

Typhoon Rains Elevate Fukushima Radiation Levels

Sticking with the theme of contaminated water a little longer, heavy rains from Typhoon Phanfone, a storm that swept through eastern Japan last week, may have caused a surge in radiation levels at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. The Japan Times reported Oct. 12 that Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) discovered record-high levels of radioactive substances from groundwater samples in three wells that are periodically tested.

Natural-color view of the category 3 Typhoon Phanfone taken by NASA’s Terra satellite on Oct. 3. Near the time of this image, maximum sustained winds were estimated at 204 kilometers (127 miles) per hour, with maximum significant wave height at 13 meters (44 feet).

A TEPCO spokesperson stated that the typhoon may have had an effect, while TEPCO itself claims it does not know why. With another storm heading towards Fukushima this week, water migrations from the plant into the ocean may be possible as well as delays in the cleanup of the crippled plant.

“Operator TEPCO revealed the findings as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his government tried to reassure the international community that the situation at Fukushima is ‘under control,'” according to Yahoo! News.

Some would argue that nothing about the Fukushima situation has been “under control” in more than three years.

Upper Ocean Levels Warmer Than Previously Calculated

Water — so essential for life on Earth — is a barometer for the health of the planet on the macro scale as well as in more localized ecosystems. Climate scientists, keenly focused on ocean temperatures, have found that the effect of global warming on the upper 2000 meters of the world’s oceans is greater than science has previously calculated, according to the Oct. 6 New York Times.
Citing a recent study published by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the Times quoted study leader Paul Durack as saying, “We potentially may have missed a fair amount of heat the ocean has been taking up.”

Interestingly, a study concurrently published by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) indicates that deeper ocean layers have not warmed in proportion. But as JPL researcher Felix Landerer has noted, the warming of the oceans’ top half is “an unequivocal sign our planet is heating up.”

Animals Taking Action: The New Trend?

Given how well humanity has created dire environmental problems, one could hardly blame animals if they finally chose to take matters into their own hands — and a pair of videos that have taken the Internet by storm in the last few days illustrate what that might look like.

In the casual, “can’t we all just get along?” style of negotiation, we have a horse in Cheshire, England, who paid the local police headquarters a visit, captured on CCTV.

A hawk above Cambridge, Massachusetts, gets its point across. Drone operator Christopher Schmidt plans to donate any YouTube ad revenue from this video to the Audubon Society. Video still.

The equine visitor does not seem to have stayed long enough to file a report or press charges against any agricultural wrongdoers, so perhaps he’s just getting to know the neighbors the same way a beat cop might when assigned to a new neighborhood?

Said a Cheshire police spokesman in a statement reported by The Guardian, “At neigh point did the horse pose a risk to security.” If only the horse could say the same of us.

Meanwhile, a hawk above Cambridge, Massachusetts, took a more ‘vigilante justice’ approach when it encountered a recreational drone aircraft known as a quadcopter last week. Cambridgeport resident Christopher Schmidt just wanted to film the changing colors of the trees; the hawk, however, saw it as a direct threat.

“My turning the quadcopter, as you can see in the video, was an attempt to move away from the area that he was circling, since I had seen him in the park earlier,” Schmidt told Boston.com. “As he flew closer, I first thought ‘that will be an interesting shot.'”

The hawk succeeded in clearing his airspace, sending the drone thudding to the ground; neither the bird nor the quadcopter suffered damage.

No word as to whether the hawk will try harder next time.

Yours & truly,

Amanda Painter and the ECO editorial team

You may forward Planet Waves Monsanto Eco to your friends. They can sign up for this free environmental newsletter from Planet Waves. View this edition as a webpage.

Planet Waves Monsanto Eco (ISSN 1933-9135) is published each Tuesday evening in Kingston, New York by Planet Waves, Inc. Publisher: Eric Francis Coppolino. Editor: Amanda Painter. Business Manager: Chelsea Bottinelli. Web Developer: Anatoly Ryzhenko. Research, Writing and Editing: Planet Waves Monsanto Eco is produced by a team consisting of Amy Elliott, Carol van Strum, Len Wallick and Chad Woodward.

Venus Opposite Uranus: Expect the Unexpected

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Oct. 8 was the Aries Full Moon and lunar eclipse, with the Sun in Libra: we are now fully in the zone between eclipses. You may be noticing developments unfolding in your life along the theme of “self in relationship” — and relationships continue to be the focus with this weekend’s major aspect.

Saturday, Oct. 11, Venus in Libra opposes Uranus in Aries. At its most basic, this aspect says “expect surprise developments in relationships.”

Not everyone is conditioned to enjoy relationship surprises; it’s easy to associate the unexpected with the negative, and to forget that serendipity and synchronicity are forms of surprise that tend to open the door to a sense of belonging in the universe (or at least belonging where you are at that moment).

If you can view a break from the norm — however it presents itself this weekend — as an adventure or an opportunity to explore and play in a new way, you’ll be in a good position to put this energy to creative use. That might mean playing with new people; it might mean finally daring to go someplace (literally or metaphorically) with a partner; it could have something to do with finding or creating beauty with someone where you did not expect it. The possibilities are wide open.

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Your Moonshine Horoscopes for the Aries Full Moon and Lunar Eclipse — and the Libra Birthday Reading

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Dear Friend and Reader:

We’re entering the second eclipse season of 2014. Eclipses usually come in pairs (sometimes there are three), and the two weeks between them have a special quality: often a sense of acceleration into a new phase.

Waxing Moon over the Fore River outlet, Portland, Maine on Oct. 5. Photo by Amanda Painter.

The first of this pair is a lunar eclipse of the Aries Full Moon on Wednesday, Oct. 8 at 6:51 am EDT (10:50 UTC). The corresponding solar eclipse will be on Oct. 23.

Len Wallick has interpreted this Full Moon and eclipse for all 12 signs in your Moonshine Horoscopes, published below. If you have a moment, we’d love to hear your feedback on the column.

You may email your comments to editors@planetwaves.net.

Eclipse periods are an especially useful time for setting new patterns for the next six months to a year, which suggests you focus your energy and efforts on what you love and most desire to cultivate going forward — even just briefly, with intention.

Eric discussed more about tomorrow’s Full Moon and lunar eclipse in Monday’s Daily Astrology column, noting that this event activates the Uranus-Pluto square and the cardinal grand cross that characterized the first half of the year. Notice if unfinished business from that period is asking for your attention now.

Planet Waves FM should post to its site around 5:00 pm EDT with more coverage; Eric also introduced the eclipses and the current Mercury retrograde in last week’s broadcast, available at that same link.

If you are a Libra by Sun or rising sign (or know someone who is) Eric has published the Libra birthday reading. This is an hour of astrology in two segments, plus a section of astrology afterthoughts and a tarot reading for your year — and you still have time to purchase the reading for the lowest pre-order rate.

Yours & truly,

Moonshine Horoscopes — Aries Full Moon Edition

Wednesday, Oct. 8 is the Aries Full Moon, exact at 6:51 am EDT (10:51 UTC). (View full chart here.) Len Wallick has interpreted this lunation for each of the 12 Moon signs in their horoscopes below.

To read these horoscopes, it helps to know your Moon sign (where the Moon was at the moment of your birth), which you can find out by entering your birth data into Serennu.com. If you know your birth time, that will ensure accuracy — but often you can still be sure of its sign even if the exact degree is fuzzy. You can also read these horoscopes for your Sun and rising signs for additional insight.
By Len Wallick

Aries (March 20-April 19) — Please consider the virtues of unconventional wisdom and counterintuitive (yet intentional) responses. If any emotional experience of yours provokes something akin to vertigo, look down into it, take it in, examine it — even savor it. Instead of resisting pressure, find a way to yield and be stronger for it. Release any notion about being a force of nature, and let nature show you a thing or two. Get together with others when you feel the need to get yourself together. Seek solitude when you feel the need to show off. Remember, catching the next escalator always requires you to go to the other side.

Taurus (April 19-May 20) — Knowing what works for you is one of your greatest strengths. It’s also important not to lose sight of what doesn’t work for you. That being said, authentically engaging in some genuine, good faith give-and-take might go a long way towards making the world work for you about now. To begin with, be open to possibly having a blind spot or two in how you see yourself. If you can accept criticism from those who know you well, and act on it without losing sleep, you will have found the finest line. After that, allow walking the line to be what makes you, not what breaks you.

Gemini (May 20-June 21) — The more a phrase is repeated, the more meaning it often loses. The term ‘spiritual warrior’ appears to have suffered such a fate. While the term may never recover its original power in public discourse, now is an opportune time to redeem those two words for yourself. Start with an etymological dictionary. Then, put your Internet search engines to use, and perhaps your local library. The path toward becoming an authority on both words — and their combination — just might serve to enhance your personal authority as never before.

Cancer (June 21-July 22) — Would you rather be right? Or would you rather be loved? If you do not have a definite preference, getting clear on that choice might be the best way out of any conundrums you are going through. If, on the other hand, you can state your priority with certainty, the answer will probably reveal who or what you truly serve, and any sacrifices made to do so. Such an inner dialogue could go a long way toward helping you figure out how you got to be who, what and where you are — while also helping you to grasp how what you really want to do or be might have evolved somewhere along the way.

Leo (July 22-Aug. 23) — If you can be your own best friend now, the world will almost certainly be a friendlier place for you. Fortunately, being a supportive benefactor for yourself does not appear to be very complicated at this time. First, friends serve to witness your life and hold space for you to live it. Do that for yourself by uncovering the roots of your most important needs and strongest devotions. Once you have such intimate access, take an inventory of how your daily activities and immediate environment jive with your root motivations. Then begin acting to resolve any discrepancies in your favor.

Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22) — It’s about time to engage with any strange relationship fascinations that have long fascinated you to no end. Engagement means going beyond vicarious validations and aloof affirmations towards total involvement. Granted, that’s a big step. More likely several big steps are involved. To find your way through to a more resonant level of intimate connection while also maintaining (or better, improving) your productivity, make sure each step is to a higher level of functioning before you take it. This is more than a haircut. It’s a farewell to vanity.

Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23) — You could not be blamed for wanting to take the rest of this year off. So ask yourself how it might be possible to afford a break from what’s worn you down, while still being able to carry what this time in your life has placed on your shoulders. Search within for all the responsibilities and duties you are most fiercely proud of, and delegate those attachments to others who have similar affinities but fresher legs. Show what you know. Be an example for others by releasing attachment as proficiently as you accept responsibility.

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22) — Taking care of yourself is more than just a cursory admonition offered by friends who are too busy with their own affairs to express their concerns more deeply. Get a clue from the best wishes of others and grant them for yourself. Don’t worry about added expenses or greater demands on your time. Serendipitously for you, self-care appears to entail making do with less, more than anything else at this stage of your life. Let intelligent and discerning simplification govern your choices and guide your priorities.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 22) — Whenever you find yourself wondering whether life is more than just one thing after another, hold that thought and follow it. Authentically taken, the path should lead you toward somebody who seems to have been down the same road but who is not so busy now — even better, a group of such somebodies. Make time to be with any such person so as to take in how they got from where you are to where they are. If you are lucky enough to stumble upon a collective of similar souls, invest some energy into figuring out what brought them together. It might be the best investment you ever made.

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20) — Allow reluctance to be your guide. Move toward any encouragements you have been resisting, while also giving yourself permission to pull back when the world is too much for you. Yes, you have paid your dues; nobody who really matters would argue with you about that. Simply consider being more open to what reaping accrued dividends might look like. Be especially aware of those who have looked up to you even when you were looking down on yourself, because now is the time to begin showing them (and yourself) how right they were.

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) — If every achievement now only leads to greater challenges, give yourself a pat on the back for having probably done something very right. If you are not encountering difficulties at this time, carefully consider where you might have gone wrong and how to correct your course. For as strange as it may seem, your most prickly skeptics are likely your best allies now, provided you heed them. Furthermore, the most persistently demanding people in your life could be your salvation, provided that serving them also serves the highest good. To take the highest road, steer clear of Easy Street.

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20) — At its most fundamental, chaos is the absence of heat. At its most basic, heat is matter in motion. Even though it might be a big adjustment, your best practices for the rest of this year will involve making heat. Look hot, not because you are self-involved, but because you are self-aware. Feel hot, not by being angry, but by being active. Be hot, with your every first step, and from your very first word. Get moving more as an example for others than for yourself. Don’t worry about being misunderstood, worry about breaking through complacency to the other side where life is lived, where existence is a dynamic and uncertain thing. What the world needs now is heat, and you are just the one to bring it.

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Purging and Patience: Sun-Pluto and Mercury Storm

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By Amanda Painter

If you emerged from last week’s Libra equinox and New Moon feeling as though things are slightly off-kilter, you’re not alone — but don’t blame the Moon or the change of season. Pluto and Mercury are the two planets intensifying in influence as we head into the weekend.

Lights on bicycle wheels; photo by Amanda Painter. Click here for larger version of photo.

Let’s begin with Pluto.

As the Sun has moved into Libra, it’s begun to encounter the Uranus-Pluto square. This is our current era-defining aspect, the one making seven exact contacts between 2012 and 2015 — the astrology shaking up the world as it breaks open old systems and ushers in something new. The Sun will square Pluto first (exact Oct. 4, but has been in effect for days); shortly thereafter, it will oppose Uranus (exact Oct. 7).

Pluto is kind of like the subterranean bulldozer in Capricorn. The Sun represents your ego consciousness, or how you express your Self out in the world.

Squares tend to be an internally felt aspect — something akin to a lever being applied in some facet of your life. You have a choice: take hold of the lever and self-direct your response to any sense of pressure you feel, thereby owning and integrating it; or try to hold your position against the tension building within.

Which option sounds more productive and least wasteful of energy?

Sun in Libra square Pluto in Capricorn puts this dynamic in signs having to do with balance, justice and relationships (Libra) and institutions, structures and the past (Capricorn). Translation: pay attention to how free you feel to express yourself in your relationships, especially those with ‘traditional’ structures.

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A Bigger Picture — Venus and the First Quarter Moon

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Venus entered cardinal Libra yesterday. Tomorrow, the Libra Sun squares the cardinal Capricorn Moon for an aspect known as the lunar first quarter. Today, you are in between, and thus in an excellent position to see a bigger picture.

For you, the big picture will begin with being mindful of (or at least willing to see) your personal connection with all things.

For you are indeed a child of the Universe as evinced by both the current astrology and recent scientific research.

The scientific research in question connects what you already know about the substance that makes up most of your physical body’s volume — water, to a bigger picture.

What you already know about water is that it circulates. It circulates through your body, distributing nutrients and removing toxins.

Water also circulates from your body back into the world. Then, there is the big picture of the world’s water evaporating into the sky, and precipitating back to Earth (sometimes freezing or melting as part of the process).

A recently published study indicates an even bigger picture than Earth’s water cycle. The bigger picture evidently connects you with our entire galaxy, and possibly even the entire universe, through the water your body continuously exchanges with the world.

Astronomer Ilse Cleves, who led the study on probable origins of Earth’s water, concludes that a portion (at least) of the water in your body right now originated as “interstellar water-ice” circulating through our galaxy, predating and surviving the formation of our solar system.

Through its own modality of observation and correlation, astrology will often imply similar connections between cycles in your life and cycles representing bigger things in both the sky and on the zodiac. Now is one of those times.

By entering Libra, Venus invoked the continuum of its own and other objects’ motions through cardinal signs (Aries, Cancer, Libra and Capricorn) over recent years to interact with a bigger picture.

The bigger picture in question is a long series of seven exact cardinal square aspects (90 degrees of separation) from Uranus in Aries to Pluto in Capricorn that started in 2012, not to conclude until next year. Over the last several years you will almost certainly have been able to observe how the continuum represented by Uranus and Pluto repeatedly squaring up (and never truly moving out of orb in between) has correlated with your life.

To paraphrase an observation Eric has repeatedly made here on Planet Waves, the years during which Uranus will repeatedly and continuously square Pluto are defining our era. Beyond that, the fact that both Uranus and Pluto are in cardinal signs correlates with the continuous connection constantly being evinced between events in your personal life and the political events of this time in history.

Tomorrow, the Sun and Moon will reacquaint us with their own big picture from which the bigger picture of Uranus-square-Pluto is derived. That’s because the lunar first quarter provides the template through which astrology interprets all opening square aspects, including the current continuum between Uranus and Pluto.

The Sun and Moon at right angles to each other one week after their New Moon conjunction, and one week before their Full Moon opposition, serves as a template because you can see them plainly.

That’s how, weather permitting, you will see half-lit Luna near its highest point in the sky at sunset tomorrow, in tangible correspondence to the symbolic Sun and Moon simultaneously separated by 90 degrees on the zodiac circle.

By observing both its contrast with the Sun’s position, and the contrast between light and dark on its own countenance, viewing the first quarter Moon often coincides with contrasts inside of you because the Sun and Moon correlate with the complementary constituents of your consciousness.

Appropriately, the Sun represents a form of consciousness with which you and others are familiar because it is readily seen. The Moon, for its part, corresponds to a no-less significant but probably less familiar form of consciousness that is more readily felt.

It is not so much that seeing a first quarter Moon brings on an often concurrent internal tension between the complementary parts of your consciousness. It’s more that the circulation of the luminaries (Sun and Moon) is visual evidence of a bigger picture in which your consciousness plays a part.

That’s how other square aspects, involving objects you can’t easily see (like Uranus and Pluto) are likewise apparent in their correspondences once you have the awareness astrology provides, and correlate that awareness with what you observe of yourself and the world.

In addition to awareness of how aspects between the Sun and Moon form a template for all aspects, astrology provides how each planet (much as with the solar and lunar relationship to consciousness) is an archetype representing and correlating with observable, real-world manifestations.

Additionally, being aware of the energetic field (or ‘sign’) through which the luminaries or any other given object are expressing can serve to make you aware of how the planetary archetypes are circulating in the context of, and effectively emulating, a bigger picture and greater whole.

Corresponding to the your actual experience in the tangible world, when the Sun enters a cardinal sign a new season begins for everybody on Earth all at once. So it is that any other object entering a cardinal field of expression (such as Venus did yesterday) indicates something beginning for everybody all at once according to the nature of that object.

Venusian archetypes (which include values and receptivity) tend to manifest on a personal level. Hence whatever happened for you yesterday that accords with the nature of Venus will probably have served to refresh your personal connection with all things — your starting point for perceiving a bigger picture through your personal experience with tomorrow’s lunar first quarter.

Then, as Venus circulates through Libra towards its own cardinal square with Pluto on Oct. 8 (the same day as a Full Moon and lunar eclipse), and a subsequent cardinal opposition with Uranus on Oct. 11, the bigger picture will probably develop as a larger manifestation of what you see and feel during tomorrow’s first quarter Moon.

Just like the circulation of water in your own body both models and emulates Earth’s water cycle, and beyond that, the circulation of interstellar water-ice in our galaxy (and probably beyond) allows you to glimpse a bigger picture through personal experience precisely because you are a part of it all.

Pretty cool, huh? So get started today by correlating how Venus entering Libra yesterday manifested for you. Then, prepare to observe what contrasts and tensions you see and feel tomorrow. From there, it will simply be a matter of proceeding from what you already know, to as big a picture as you are willing to see.

Offered In Service

Len is available for astrology readings. You can contact him at lenwallick [at] gmail [dot] com.

March of Doom

Sex and Relationships: Tapping My Intuition

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Editor’s Note: This week’s sex-and-relationships guest-post comes from Christina Louise Dietrich. You can read more of her writing at her own blog; we plan to feature her in this slot again, and welcome your comments on this piece. — Amanda

By Christina Louise Dietrich

The last couple of weeks I’ve been having powerfully synchronous experiences with the women in my communities and it’s not coincidence. I’m sensing a convergence of divine feminine energy growing and coalescing not only in the women I speak with, but also inside my own body. It’s actually there that I’m feeling it the most intensely and I gotta say, it’s throwing me for a loop. Shaking me up. Blowing me open.

Christina Louise Dietrich

I knew that was the point when I started seriously investigating Stuff About Women Living Under Patriarchy about 18 months ago. Actually, I think it started four years ago when I gave birth, but I wasn’t really present to what had been seeded by that experience. That a key had been turned deep inside my pelvis. I hadn’t really grokked that the women who prepared me for and were present at Avery’s birth—all of them healers, activists, lovers, and teachers—were helping me set my feet on a path to Self/Goddess discovery.

The thing about getting blown open, shaken up, and grounded down is that all those things require a vast amount of personal surrender and trust. Two things I had literally zero experience with before that 14-inch head opened up my center and really began the process of identity dissolution.

Because there’s nothing like being a new mother to get a taste of surrender.

A little context before proceeding: I was born in 1971 America to an emotionally unprepared mother, raised by a fundamentally Christian family, and was thoroughly indoctrinated by our public schools/religious institutions. I have been thoroughly steeped in patriarchy. As a consequence of that and early-childhood family trauma/violence, by the time I reached my mid 30s and began psychotherapy, I had no idea what the Divine Feminine was. I’d been taught to believe God was a man with a lot of unfair rules and stipulations about achieving, well, anything of real value.

My Divine Feminine had no voice and I sought no female voices to encourage me. In fact, I actively avoided women because I’d never gotten along with them, didn’t trust them, didn’t want to deal with them. They were illogical, manipulative bitches and I had better ways to spend my time.

I had stopped listening to and trusting my intuition around the age of 5 because God and Men told me she wasn’t worth heeding; that she was a liar and a danger to my spiritual safety. I derided witches and crones and healers with a vigor that would have made the patriarchy proud. I laughed at the notion of stones vibrating or plants communicating or people living peacefully. All my therapy to date had been conducted through an inherited lens of dismissing and minimizing feminine power, intuition, feelings, and strength.

I was an excellent student.

So, in the context of that—and with enough exposure to powerful women/witches under my belt I began to think they might be Onto Something—I started by reading Clarissa Pinkola Estés and Riane Eisler. I deepened my commitment to and practice of Holistic Peer Counseling (HPC) and started counseling with more people; women, to be precise. I continued my focused psychotherapy work around my mother and the maternal ancestral patterns I’d been handed unconsciously. Things continued to shift and unfold; snarls were being picked apart, hurtful patterns received the loving attention they needed to integrate, and my ability to stay present with difficult feelings (mine and others’) continued to grow.

And then Shit Got Real.

My husband and I brought HPC into the bedroom after having avoided it on numerous levels for a couple years. Primarily because of my wounds and their armoring. Because of my inability to trust that any man truly wanted to love and see Me. That any man could want to go slowly and carefully and give me the space I needed to feel safe before having sex. That I had actually married that man and he was standing in front of me, begging me to let him in so that he could help give Her (that terrified little girl/woman who felt like a non-consensual whore) the loving attention and care she needed to Be Seen.

I started to feel safe during sex. Like I could ask for what I wanted and it wouldn’t be laughed at or put down as “romance” or “lame cuddling” or “girl stuff” or whatever the patriarchy likes to label things that aren’t penis-centered and hard-hitting. My husband spent time worshiping my body, honoring my courage, and chose to put himself in a position to wait for my consent, my desire, my demands. He showed me that I was worth waiting for, that who I was mattered, that I was a person of value.

I am blessed and he is amazing, and I can’t emphasize enough how critical this stage was for me. How it was required before I could truly begin to listen and heed Her words.

Because once I felt safe, began to build confidence, and increasingly let Her come out during sex, I felt a powerful shift in my pelvis. She demanded that we get fucked harder and harder, and his fucking me unlocked something primal and deep; a wound so old and so buried that it could only be massaged from the inside. Could only be reached by someone wholly committed to tracking it down and pummeling it. The lock that childbirth began to open was blown apart by his loving attention; the strikeplate thrown across the room, the doorjam exploded, the lock mechanism tangled and impotent.

She had awoken and there was no going back. How could I want to go back when, for the first time in my life, I truly believed I was powerful, trustworthy, beautiful, desirable, intelligent, and INTUITIVE. I was grounded in my root chakra and it was AWESOME. Literally and truly awesome.

The difficulty arose when I would leave the house every day to go to work. I work in tech, which as most of you know is a heavily male-dominated culture, and I was having a hard time staying aware of my intuition while swimming in ManTown. (Disclaimer: I love my job and many of my coworkers; they are truly wonderful and socially/politically active. And most of them are still men. Not their fault.) I started to get worried, to feel off balance, to wonder if I could lose my connection to intuition. How was I supposed to balance The Logic and The Woo? How could I stay true to my chosen path?

The answer came from a woman in my HPC community; a woman I consider to be a powerful witch and seer, someone more spiritually aware in the Ways of Women than I. She and a couple other HPC ladies had begun doing yoni steams, which totally triggered and squicked me for some reason. However, something else she offered completely resonated with me almost like I heard a deep GONG in my core.

Yoni eggs.

*Note on the word yoni; I am not a student of Hinduism and so, being sensitive to appropriation, I balked at using the term. However, when reviewing the words we typically apply to the female genitals, none of them felt respectful/beautiful in the way I was coming to consider my genitals/pelvic parts, and they also weren’t sufficiently comprehensive. I didn’t want to address JUST my labia or JUST my vagina; I wanted to address the WHOLE AREA. So, yoni. And pussy. I like pussy.

A yoni egg is, as you might expect, an egg-shaped stone/mineral, usually 1–2 inches long that’s inserted into the vagina and left there for some amount of time that’s determined by the wearer, her Intuition, or her body’s willingness to hold it. There’s a lot of them on Etsy; you can even get them from Amazon.

I have two: a 2-inch model made of mahogany obsidian and a 3-inch model made of selenite. Every material is purported to have its own healing or meditation properties. I phrase it like that to cover my ass and because I’m not psychically sensitive enough to pick up on the vibrations or properties. This is one of those cases where I’m choosing to surrender and trust that regardless of what they’re supposed to do, they are more than ably providing me with what I needed them to do, which is help me focus. If they also increase my sexual power (mahogany obsidian) or mental clarity/psychic ability (selenite), all the better.

*Practical note: Yes, they can slip out into the toilet, especially if you’re bearing down/pooping. The first time I wore it to work, I dropped it in the toilet and it made a very audible CLANK when it hit the porcelain. I hope the other woman in the bathroom was confused and/or titillated. It’s important to get your Order of Operations right or you’re gonna be fishing.

I currently wear the smaller one all the time because doing so provides me with an ongoing psychic and felt connection to my Intuition/root chakra. It helps me stay focused on who I am while moving through the world getting blasted by violent and abusive messages. It’s also giving me something to share with the other powerful and emerging women I interact with; in one particular case, the woman in question had already received the message from a third party that she needed to begin putting crystals in her vagina.

So, like I said at the start, synchronous things are happening. The women are converging and finding our voices and accessing our power. It feels really big and part of me is so excited to be on what feels like a leading edge of discovery and healing; an edge where regular women from everyday places are tapping their Intuition and speaking their truth.

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Christina Louise Dietrich, a technical writer by trade, says of herself: “I write because I am claiming the voice my family and my society tried to silence, the voice that was my divine birthright. I am a woman, a mother, a feminist, a wife. I am compassionate, judgmental, loving, a bully, empathetic, obstinate, caring, rigid, and creative. I’m passionate about systems, beauty, process, experience, trees, interconnections, transitions, logistics, balance, and clarity. I manifest the Amazon, the Androgyne, and the Mother-to-be-Crone.”

Idiot Box: Fantasy Football League

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By Matt Bors