An Introduction to (en)WOMBED
An Introduction to (en)WOMBED
a bit about why i am here + what this might become
Thank you for reading (en)WOMBED, a love letter of sorts exploring the ways we can cultivate artful participation and attentive witness to Life by embracing the full spectrum of our humanity and listening to the voice Thomas Merton called the soft voice, the gentle voice, the merciful and feminine. Feel free to share it with whomever you think would benefit from, enjoy, or feel deliciously challenged by these ideas.
dear beautiful reader,
When i sat down to write this, several things happened – my baby woke up for the second time in the middle of her afternoon nap and my husband dropped a heavy bedframe that made the house shake. Our other daughter, G, went outside in the drizzle with only a pair of stockings, a tank top, and wool-lined rain boots, and i had a bit of a freak out that the neighbors will see her and know that i am not a good parent. Fast forward some hair-pulling moments, our baby went back to sleep, G to jumping on the trampoline among the wet dead leaves enjoying her best life, and my husband assured me he had the assembly of our new bed well in hand. I came back to the page determined to complete a thought, maybe several.
Some minutes later (i can still hear the universe affectionately cackling) parts of said bedframe suddenly mysteriously didn’t fit together (!?), because the instructions (read multiple times by us both) suggested a sequence that resulted in a whole section installed backwards. You might wonder if it was user error, and you would be right.
D (said husband) and i both have our minutiae-of-life things we can handle with decent efficiency, however and unfortunately, assembling furniture does not seem to be on either of our list of natural abilities. (We are also too stubborn to call someone when we can DIY it.)
Later, all this makes me belly-laugh. I have lofty ideas about life, a beautiful and at times frustrating, predilection to idealize situations, people, moments. It is my essence, as in an innate capacity of transcendent Being to see what is still invisible, to connect to the potentiality held within each living thing, and sometimes to participate in midwifing it here, earthside.
It is also at times an egoic adaptation that transforms my imaginative capacities into fantasy for the sake of relief or refuge when i perceive the raw materials of R(r)eality which need such creative engagement seemingly starting to break my heart or exhaust my body. This is one of the things i wish to write to you about, the sacred faculty of imagination. The way it is an organ of perception, of true seeing, a bridge between this realm of matter and those of spirit.
how this is coming into being
I laugh too because of the Resistance that ensues as soon as we say yes to something and actually go about doing it. The truth is that this Substack letter has been gestating in me for a year to the day, its call getting clearer and clearer, wilder and wilder, permeating dreams and waking moments, spilling into conversations with strangers and acquaintances, shocking me with its shameless and therapeutic-couch-worthy assertions.
I kept saying no, and for very good reasons. I was in early pregnancy, still reeling from all day sickness, mothering a dynamic six year old, and managing a practice with a full client load. I desired more quiet and rest in my life, clarity about my full-bodied yeses and nos were, time to meditate and walk the earth barefoot, and purposeful tending to my nervous system after some grueling and traumatic seasons.
Yet this call became the nagging guest that overstays and rearranges the furniture, until i began to understand that inspiration works this way-- akin to the stomach-flu-like sensation of falling in love, h(a)unting us for long periods of time, goading and seducing us into the yes. Have you ever felt it? Subtle, yet persistent, the voice of the soul makes itself known. Interestingly, it is through these forces, inspiration met with resistance that a new creation arises.
So, beautiful human, consider this my YES, to creating a space that crystallizes what i am thinking, learning, and living, and the W(w)isdom that is my companion and beloved.
Consider this too an official invitation to adventure together, to human (yes, i like turning nouns into verbs) with softness, fierceness, and that invaluable state, beginner’s mind, which is to let Life move through us and birth that which doesn’t exist yet. This letter is about the process and the conditions that allow this to happen, hence the name, enwombed. More on this next time.
the details
I will be writing a personal essay 3-4 times per month on themes connected to spirituality, creativity, the poetic stance, psychology, quantum mechanics (one of my obsessions, by no means an area of expertise) archetypes, embodiment, imagination, and the nervous system.
The thread running through is the sacred and Divine Feminine, by which i mean many things, but for now the energetic principle beyond gender and biology that births, animates, and nourishes all creation. Awakening and living into the feminine is a birthright of being human, and the integration of the feminine and masculine within and without gives rise to a new creation/consciousness. And we all want that, yes?
I will also be sharing exercises and practices which will help us enflesh and live into these ideas by anchoring into the present and Presence, into our bodies and hearts, and into the connective field that holds and nurtures us.
When you support this publication, you will have access to all these, as well as a monthly (live or recorded) session with me where i respond to and dialogue about what arises in you in connection to these topics. There will also be recorded teachings, as well as discounts for courses, workshops, and ceremonies i offer. And, in the future, a podcast, so you can hear the voices of those with whom i collaborate, play, dream and learn from.
my wish
is that we might commune through the sharing of stories and other creative endeavors, through an experience of witness and kindness, and through learning the skills to regulate our nervous systems and subvert the toxic ways in which this culture of domination thrives on the commodification of our beings. I see this as a gentle work of resistance, and hope that the writings and offerings here will inspire, nourish, and support you into more awakening and juicy aliveness.
Let’s travel together and tell each other stories!
with Love,
Simona Isabella