Caring for Mother Earth and our relationship with her is central to embracing the divine feminine. In Indigenous tradition, we honor our sacred relationship with our Mother Earth, we know that we are not separate from her, and that if we do not tend to her and our sacred relationship, that we will be on our way to imbalance and disharmony in the world. For instance, we have been taught to вЂњgroundвЂќ with Mother Earth to center ourselves without learning how we can give offerings to Mother Earth to give back to her. In this current reality, we have been taught to perpetuate exploitive ways. extracting when we engage with others and with Mother Earth. an authoritative, hierarchical relationship through institutions.Д®mbracing our Divine Feminine means nurturing relationships vs. linear time, and 3) to honor a sacred intuitive relationship with Spirit vs. extractive ways, 2) to honor cyclical time vs. Three main ways that we can begin to embrace the divine feminine energy to begin to shift out of harmful ways are 1) to engage in reciprocal ways vs. In this collusion with the system of the colonial capitalist patriarchy, we may also end up perpetuating collective illness as it is these systems that create unwellness in our current world.ДЄnd so to shift out of this current colonial reality, we must decolonize or dismantle these colonial oppressive systems and ways of being, thinking, and relating, and instead reconnect to sacred Indigenous ways.

We end up perpetuating harmful ways of being, of relating, of doing our work, and we perhaps unconsciously end up colluding with systems that create inequity. While we may not necessarily agree with this destructive use of masculine energy, those of us that have lived and been raised in the Western (colonial) world, learn it and become indoctrinated into this way of being, without our awareness and consent. This is in drastic contrast to the human system of patriarchy, the way that masculine energy has been used to control, dominate, and exploit humans and the land. In other words, the strength she embodies is not for destruction but for LIFE. She is also fierce, a protector of sacred creation and seeks balance for life to flourish. Our Mother is nurturing, loving, emergent, and exists in cycles. Amongst many Indigenous peoples, including the QвЂ™ero Inca nation, it is believed that the times of harmony and balance would be brought back and led by the matriarchs, those that helped us remember and taught us all to reconnect to feminine spiritual energy.Дivine feminine energy encompasses many qualities, but one of the simplest ways to think about the divine feminine is to look to our Mother Earth. To truly shift out of this destructive cycle, we need humans embracing their divine feminine energy and taking the lead from the matriarchs. While some of this energy was helpful, most of it was destructive and it has made up the last 500-year colonial cycle that we are beginning to shift away from. Divine Feminine energy is important and needs to be amplified because masculine energies have most recently dominated the world. Though at this point in time, feminine energy is in need.

When we as humans, embrace these spiritual energies within us, we can experience wellness and can contribute to the wellness and balance in the world around us. It is important to see these spiritual energies not as human colonial binaries, but as energies that are meant to co-exist to support life. Thus, it is important to view feminine and masculine as energies and wisdom that are available to all of us, if we can tap into and nurture them.

We view feminine and masculine, not merely at the human level of gender, but beyond it, as spiritual energies that we all must encompass to be in harmony and balance with self and all of creation. In many Indigenous traditions, and specifically the QвЂ™ero lineage that I am honored to work with, medicine people describe spiritual energy in the form of feminine and masculine.

What is the divine feminine energy