Bringing Back Indigenous and Feminine Wisdom

In Original Love, I tell the story of the Seventh Fire Prophecy that I first heard from the Anishinaabe elder William Commanda. Commanda said there will come a time when a people will emerge on the earth that will retrace their steps to recover the wisdom that has been left by the side of the trail.

Two important ways of knowing that have been forgotten or marginalized by the mainstream are Indigenous and feminine wisdom. Both are incredibly valuable if we are to survive the mounting ecological challenges we now face. These wholistic ways of knowing are beginning to return to consciousness, if a bit under the radar. It is not a coincidence that the 1970s saw the emergence of both Women’s Studies and Native American Studies programs in higher education.

Why is women’s knowledge so important to life and love? This is a pivotal question addressed in Original Love, which begins this way:

Imagine floating in a warm pool without a care in the world, being fed without moving a muscle. An endless supply of liquid nutrients just comes to you; where it comes from you do not know. There is no struggle, no need to hunt or forage. Nourishment is everywhere. Your eyes are not yet open but you feel deep, abiding peace. More than peace. Love. Original Love. There is love within you, surrounding you, enfolding you. Warm love, sweet love, pure love. All is love. All is interconnected. All is whole. There is no other. There is no mother—at least not one you recognize—because there is no separation. There is only oneness. An undivided, complete oneness.

This is not only a human uterine experience I am describing. This is how it was for all the earliest organisms on Earth. Mother Earth was once a fluid, welling mass, a primordial blend of living microscopic creatures. These tiny organisms had consciousness, but it was a consciousness tied to a greater whole. They were cells within a planetary body; their individual simplicity belied a greater complexity.

I began the book this way to point out the radical interconnection between Mother Earth and our own bodies, and to acknowledge the time when all of Mother Earth’s creatures experienced a feeling of radical oneness with the Mother. Originally, there was no separation. Even today, we humans recreate the same experience when we are born. Moreover, the human embryo retains the memory of all that went before. That is why we are born in a watery womb and progress through stages of evolution, from a tiny speck to tadpole, fish, and lastly mammal.

Motherly love is the first love we experience when we enter this world. Women are the life-givers and primary nurturers in life. Since everyone acknowledges this is so, why does the Western world typically not associate all of creation with the feminine, when most ancient stories do make that connection? Spider Woman, a (ubiquitous) creation story that is most associated with Laguna Pueblo in New Mexico, resonates deeply with me. Spider Woman is the creator of the entire cosmos. Importantly, she is not a deity that stands outside of creation and gives life, like the classic Michaelangelo image of God giving life through touching his finger to man that graces the Sistine Chapel. No, Spider Woman weaves creation from her own belly. There is no separation, just like there is no separation inside the womb. Spider silk is a very strong but flexible substance. It is reminiscent of the strong but flexible umbilical cord that attaches us to our own mother. The feminine creation from Spider Woman’s belly is pleasing, a very different feeling from the violent explosion of the Big Bang, the predominant origin story of modern science.

The first two parts of Original Love—Love and Wholeness and Separation from the Whole—are primarily from the feminine perspective. I begin with the immersive love we once experienced with all of Creation—then take us through the coevolution of love, humanity, and consciousness, tracking along with how we have separated ourselves from all of nature. Our separation from the whole has left a hole in our heart that we continually seek to overcome through ceremonies and stories that help us remember how we once were united with all. It is only in our own minds that we have separated from nature. We can never truly separate from nature because we are nature; we are the light, air, water, and earth. Once we realize this, our consciousness will change, assuring that we will again embrace our connection with the natural world one day. The second half of the book explores the many ways in which we are slowly realizing the necessity of reconnecting with the whole, and why we must embrace feminine and Indigenous wisdom to guide us home.