The center.
The center.
The center.
What is the center? Where is the center? The core. The root. The tap root. The deepest, still, most central, and most powerful place within us. The place where our bodies and our souls meet, and where our sexuality and spirituality join.
Wait. What if the abdominal muscles that create and hold the pelvic bowl - the abdominus recti, the obliques and the transverse muscles, are not the core?
They are not the core. They are the container. They are the muscles that create and hold the bowl, the container.
The core is the core.
So what lies at the core of my body, my being? What is the core?
What is the part of a woman's body that lies hidden within our bodies, creates an opening and a portal to our womb and deep mysterious interior?
Any guesses?
What is hidden in plain sight?
The vagina.
Oh. My. Goddess. It's the vagina!
My vagina. Your vagina.
Not your womb. Not your transverse or other abdominal muscles.
The vagina. My vagina.
Right here - in me - all the time. It channeled my blood when it flowed. It birthed my babies. It receives my man when we make love.
But somehow other than that, I forget it's there.
I stopped bleeding nearly four years ago, so the monthly rituals of taking care of myself and the bleeding and in the process, connecting with my vagina have disappeared too. And sad to admit, I really don't pleasure myself frequently at all. Too busy. Too tired. Not feeling it. Not feeling much libido these days.
Even more, I carry this strange attitude that even though it's MY vagina, somehow it's not for me to touch it, feel around, or be intimate with it. That's my husband's domain. My lover is the one who gets to touch it, know it, be familiar with it.
For me, it's "down there."
I can't see it, unless I look at with a mirror. I only touch it - I mean go up inside and really touch my vagina when I make a conscientious effort to do so. It's so internal, hidden, and tucked away.
I guess I avoid my vagina. And it's not like my vagina is demanding to be touched. It's pretty numb. Tired. And yes, weak. Not strong at all. I can barely stop a flow of pee once it gets started. It even feels like my vagina is getting old.
Four births and four increasingly large babies - 6 pounds 2 ounces all the way up to 9 pounds 10 ounces and one baby with a 15" head. My vagina got stretched.
Kegels. Did them throughout all of my pregnancies and somewhat afterwards, but they never felt like they did anything...really.
I just remembered that I used to have vaginal orgasms, some time ago. I don't remember the last time I had one.
Oh. My. Goddess.
The core of my body and my being is my vagina, and it is NOT STRONG. My vagina, the core of my core, is numb, tired, weak, untoned, stretched out, old and simply, not strong.
I have been looking in all the wrong places for my core, my root. It's been here all along, hidden in plain sight. All of a sudden, it is so frickin' obvious that I can't believe that I never saw it before and wasn't even aware of it.
Thoughts, insights, awareness after awareness, are tumbling out of me!
...If my vagina is the core of my core, and if my vagina is not strong, it cannot hold my strength, and I cannot be and feel strong, no matter what I do.
...If, however, my vagina is strong, it can hold, support and build my strength, and it can wake up, feel, engage, be supple, alive, vibrant, sexual, powerful!!!!
...What if my strength - physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual strength, lies at its core in the strength of my vagina?
...What if it were that simple? That obvious? That crazily, cosmically, ridiculously hidden in f&*@^g plain sight root of the roots, core of the core, way for me to reconnect with my strength, power, passion and sexuality and yes, even my spirituality?
...What if?
...What if becoming awake to my true center - my vagina, and actually strengthening it is the key to my deep, inner strength, beauty and purpose, and that this awareness and connection to my vagina as my core and my root is the coming home to myself that I have been longing for, searching for, walking for?
...What if it were within me all the time?