Creatively Coco

Feminine Fundamentals

Coco Oya CiennaRey

Surrendering to life – an encounter with a Wild-Heart.

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What a wild ride the past few months on the planet have been. So much coming up to be seen and transformed into something new. There is no doubt that whichever angle you look at the current circumstances we are shifting through a collective initiation and life will never be the same again. We are midwifing ourselves into a new world and shifting through a mass death, disintegration rebirthing and being process.

I’ve been wanting to write a blog on surrender for a while and last night I wrote out the bones with good intentions to finish it the next day. Yet, if I have learned anything from the past month’s, its that life flows in unexpected ways, in its own good time. Little did I know that the bones of the story were winging their way to me in the form of a divinely guided encounter.

Today, as I took a break from writing, I decided to go for a walk to the woods which is a 10-minute car drive away to get clear on my message on Surrender. On my way back the fuel light came on my car so, I took a detour to fill her up.

Whilst pumping fuel a young man, at the entrance of the fuel station, caught my eye. He was obviously homeless and was asking another customer for pocket change. There was something about the way he was asking that made me take note, I couldn’t take my eyes off him. His eyes locked with mine, my mind began to race. I needed to get back home to finish up work. I didn’t have time to stop and talk or time to look for change, or so I thought. In my head I told myself don’t pay attention to him; you’re wasting time. Yet as I approached him, I felt compelled to stop and talk, it was like the magnetism between us could not be brushed aside. The presence of this guy had me stumped.

Him: change, change; do you have change

Me: I know I have less than a pound in my purse and I’m happy for you to have it

As I handed him the change he spoke some more.

Him: change, change, it’s all about change. Hmm, there’s a message in that, maybe it’s time for great change. Sometimes we need to surrender deeper into change if we want a different life.  

I was so taken aback because those were the very words, I had been pondering on my walk a short while ago. I relayed this to him and that small exchange turned onto a 45-minute conversation that cracked my heart wide open. He humbled me with his articulation and lyrical insights. His presence was captivating. We spoke of life and God and awakening. We spoke of our shared experience of being close to death and how life had given us another chance to have the light of life shine upon us.

We spoke of rebirth; we spoke of love and relationships and how we as humans have lost the art of conversation and communicating from the heart. He spoke to me about how life was always leading us back to love. So passionately he expressed his vision of how we are all like wild horses and source (God) want to take the reins of our life and steer us closer to love.  This guy melted my heart in a way that was indescribable. Every word penetrated me in a way a great zen master would. His clear understanding of universal flow opened my heart to a whole new level of love.  In the moments of our exchange time stood still, our souls connecting, no distance between us, no judgments, no shame, just love.

I asked him why he took drugs and why he was on the streets. his reply:

I slipped through the net and society treats Wildhearts like me with little or no compassion.

Through our shared understanding and experiencing childhood trauma, I understood exactly what he meant; and my heart went out to him. I overflowed with love for this wounded warrior soul; this Wild-Heart, whose story was mine to bear witness too. His refection of divine wisdom held so much truth, forgiveness, and humility – I could see the whole world in his eyes. In those precious moments, in the field created between us, we ignited our collective humanity. We held in our hands each other’s hearts and all the complexities of being human.

Through our exchange, I truly understood what it means to surrender to life and how our judgment of another can close our hearts to the possible ways LOVE may want to enter us. We each have a unique path and he was defiantly my guide for the day. That day I saw beyond Nigel’s human embodiment. I had an encounter with an angel for real.

As the conversation was drawing to a close, I told him I was heading home to cry a river of tears, that his words had been my medicine and I wanted to offer him a gift. He reciprocated his gratitude for conversing in flow with him, and said ‘we had drifted into space and time where anything is possible when soul meets soul.’ Before I left, I went to the cash machine to draw out some money to gift him. As I handed it over, he said ‘money is only a current it’s the same as all life, it is meant to flow, always let it flow’, and thanked me. He asked if I had a pen, he wanted me to write down his name. I wasn’t sure why so I took out my phone and wrote it in the notes there.

Nigel Sands

He said ‘look at it closely and you’ll see a different name hidden inside‘. As I took a closer look the word ANGEL jumped out. And with that, the tears started rolling. He then stood up and we said our goodbyes; and just like that, he vanished around the corner into nowhere. This extraordinary young man, the embodiment of source in that very moment, was the answers to questions I had been asking the night before about life and my place in it. Sometimes life sends us messages in the most unexpected ways, through the most unexpected people.  What the encounter with this young man taught me is that some of us are here to break the rules and norms of society to breakdown the system and some of us are here to voice what we replace it with- compassion and love.

I came home and cried deep old tears, tears that had been waiting to be released for eons. Tears about for the ills of this world; and tears for all the joys too. Tears that allowed me to enter into a whole new understanding of life, God, and surrender.  This morning, that single exchange is still moving through me. It is clearing all that is not love from my core and totally rewriting my notion of our human existence.

We are being called to that which ignites us; to what is common ground in our hearts. That common ground is love and the shared longing we have for a better world. We are in the throngs of embracing the unknown. We are being called to surrender to something far greater than we perceive ourselves to be.  We are letting go of control and the need to know all the steps ahead of time. We are learning that life is Art in motions and we are not meant to have it all figured out. In fact, we are art in the making and as such life can feel messy as f**k as we build bridges between our inner and outer worlds.

We, as a collective are unraveling from years of oppression and suppression and awakening to the truth of who we are. Current world circumstances have given us the opportunity to dive into the deeper meaning of life.  

During these times can we accept ourselves just as we are, hold ourselves tenderly, with compassion and allow ourselves to just be in all of our messiness and all of our radiance at the same time. If we truly look into the depths of our lives, we see we are in constant conversation with the greater mystery of it all, if we choose to listen.  

Surrender is a process, it is not a one-time thing. It comes in layers as we let go of attachment and yield into a deep-rooted trust. Trust that can only come from a connecting into our soul and unique rhythm, moving to the beat of our own drum. When we hold nonjudgment for being who we are, we begin to know that ultimately, we are people growing as individuals, allowing and honouring one another difference.

Surrender happens naturally when we remain open to life. We can be out for a walk and see the blue of the sky and for a moment we relax into just being. Or we are with family and friends and that sense of connection helps us lean into the present moment. Or, as in my case, we can have an unexpected encounter that shows us in real-time what true surrender is. When Nigel showed up in my life, I was having doubt around being swept up and away by life’s current; he was the medicine I needed to let me know otherwise. Our gateway into surrender can happen in a myriad of ways. When we relax into life, we soften and create space for cleansing emotions to arise we allow life to carry us forward into new possibilities. We can also recognise where our pushback and resistance to surrender may lie. The choice then becomes whether to grasp at life or to surrender into it. 

When we SURRENDER:  

  • We begin to soften and open in the body to allow life to flow through. Be open to being receptive to life and what it wants to show you.
  • We learn patience. Usually, we are fixated on how plans should unfold and become impatient. Life happens in its own divine timing. Yet, as our awareness of divine right timing grows, we realise we have a hand in co-creating how the arc of life will flow.
  • We begin to drop the need for endless details. We let go of the rigidity of how things should look or feel. By letting go of expectations we enter into the realm of unlimited possibilities and life shows us untold ways of being.
  • We enter into divine trust. We wait. We allow.  We breathe. We begin to see that life is here to support us and we give thanks for all that life presents to us
  • We begin to let intuition take over from the mind and know sometimes there is no planning or thinking our way through a situation. when we allow the mind to stop trying to figure it all out, we realise that this life is all about returning to the unknown and it is then that we hit surrender.

We are creating ourselves anew in each moment. When we surrender to life, we become both the giver and the receiver. We get to see that our personal needs and that of the collective are one of the same, and that need is LOVE.  We can then send it back out into the world as an offering to the bigger evolving story of humanity for the greater good of all.

How will you allow surrender into your life today? How will you let love lead the way?

Creatively yours – Coco x

The creative process – a path to finding my voice

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BEING MOTHER – nine gateways of Motherhood

Back in February of this year, I was asked to take apart in a collaboration between ‘The Institute of Miniature Arts‘ and ‘The Creative Mothers Project‘, both based in the North of England. The invitation was to respond to the broad topic of motherhood – whether that was aspects of pregnancy, mental health, cultural reflections; in any way we interpreted. Little did I know then that this exploration would be the catalyst to my deeper exploration with my connection with Nature and a deeper communion with Mother Earth. The more pieces I created the deeper I connected with my truth and the directives I would later follow from Mother Earth herself. These directives have now become the ‘Feminine Fundamental’ Pillars’ – the foundations upon which my work is based and inform me on a daily basis how to live in harmony with life itself.

This collection of pieces was an exploration of the archetype of ‘Mother’. The aim was to broaden the perspective outside the mainstream definition of Motherhood.  The questions I asked myself was ‘Why was motherhood, back in the day, defined by academic men?’ and ‘How did Motherhood become relegated to one person, when in the past, it was what a whole village once would have done for one another?’ Women’s bodies have long been a battleground for men with power in our society.  The notion of motherhood has been romanticised and domesticated and relegated to the back room.  These pieces are a response in reclaiming the sanctity of ‘Being Mother.’

Loss of the identified self – who am I – In the west, it is not the norm for women to be taught about the intricate workings of their bodies. Motherhood is a rite of passage, a transition from ‘Maiden’ to ‘Mother’. It is a transition that once begun opens us to new ways of being. In the process, as we embrace or resist this transformation, we can lose our sense of identity due to the honoring nature of this ‘rite of passage’ being ignored by our societal understanding.

Nesting – a natural phenomenon – That darkness of the womb, a place of birthing life and ideas reconnects us to our primal nature.  We often become disconnected due to disembodied thinking from living in the mind. Often, unless we are menstruating or giving birth, we pay little attention to the darkness and stillness of the womb space? It is a place of golden radiance, a place to nestle into and connect to our natural way of being. As we enter the gateway of Motherhood there is a natural nesting process that takes place as we prepare to birth our souls longing.

Flow with life-force

The primordial mother essence, the ocean, the sea. I asked the ocean ‘how have lost my way?’ She replied – ‘Emulate me my dear – I am the mother of your creative flow’. Hear me in the rocks as I crash upon them, see my still waters – feel my depth – you are as vast as the ocean. Inspired by indigenous cultural painting this mini creation symbolises the flow of all life. Everything comes from the principle of creation – the womb.

Message in a bottle -Viva la vulva – Free the vulva

There can be no denying that somewhere along our history there has been a discrediting of the feminine. For all too long, the sanctity of women has been misrepresented. Our bodies handed over to medical models and Our creative powers minimised. Massive mistrust of the womb power, the realm of Motherhood, was seen as something to be dominated and controlled. It is time for a full reclamation of our womanly arts, to feel what it is to take in life, to be connected to its primal forces.

The Cosmic Mother

Reclaiming our sensuality and creative womb energy helps us remember our full-body intelligence, our inner knowing. Our physical feminine parts are not outwardly visible like the visible parts of the male anatomy. They can be seen as a metaphor for the mystery of the feminine that can only be truly known by turning inwards and becoming tuned in and turned on by the subtleties that lie within the stillness of the form between our thighs. We become wounded when we have severance from Gaia, from the earth and its Creative Matrix energy.   

There she lies.  – The ‘Sacred Whore’ -the magic between our thighs.  

Culturally we have lived with a deep level of shaming of the female body. No more so than that which pertains to our sensual and birthing capabilities. Words that were once used to hold ‘women’ in high esteem now turned against them; used to discredit their true nature and higher status and that which makes them whole. In ancient times the word whore, derived from all that was holy – a term translated as ‘she who makes thing whole’. It was assigned to the women who used their gifts to heal the ills of their towns and villages through the wisdom of their womb bodies.

Flow with life-force

The primordial mother essence, the ocean, the sea. I asked the ocean ‘how have lost my way?’ She replied – ‘Emulate me my dear – I am the mother of your creative flow’. Hear me in the rocks as I crash upon them, see my still waters – feel my depth – you are as vast as the ocean. Inspired by indigenous cultural painting this mini creation symbolises the flow of all life. Everything comes from the principle of creation – the womb.

Book of life and promise – Words of wisdom

Considered to be inherited by our mother’s blood, our ancestral coding is imprinted in our bodies like the words on ancient pages, passed down through the mother line.  Our voices connected through lifetimes from womb to womb. We are the wisdom keepers of the earth. Our ‘Mother’ story is not just in the history of our bodies but in the ecological biology imprinted on the land. If we think of the land alone-it is fertile and rich and full of stories and minerals and recourses -it’s like the true abundance of the mother and it is not scarcity.

Up on a pedestal

Women have the ability to carry life the most sacred thing of all. Yet this ability has been demeaned and stripped of its reverence and become little more than a shadow of its magnificence. It is time for reclamation. It is time to bring back the sacredness of our ‘vul-vanic’ gateway. The womb is the gateway that if listened to we feel the pulse of the earth and it plugs us back into the forces of creation through the body. The vulva is a gateway between realms.

The whole of this exploration was a call to from the Great Mother to come home to my body – to come home to my truth and begin the journey of being in service to her calling.

With Love

Creatively Coco xxxx