If you know me at all you will also know - pleasure is where I start and pleasure is where I end.

It's the barometer I gauge my life by. It's my daily practice. It is my favourite mantra of all. 

Does this mean I am in pleasure all the time? Of course not!

 But what it does mean, is that pleasure is the anchor of all my practices.

Pleasure in communication. Pleasure in connection. Pleasure in sexuality. Pleasure even when it hurts. It takes a certain type of discipline to to keep falling off the path and then gathering yourself back onto the path of pleasure again. It's actually quite a rigorous thing to do. Luckily for me, my partner (and also my clients) I have the tools to help make it so.

Is something one of my favourite teachers used to say on repeat. Always reminding her students to lean into conflict. And that relationships are, actually, where the power lies.

I'll admit it is the thing I find hardest of all. As a natural introvert there is nothing more I love than a peaceful courtyard with a fountain and flowers and a newly brewed espresso and a writing pad. Or even a inner city crowd where nobody knows me and I can watch and admire the passing fashion display. 

Furthermore, I am also quite often inclined to slay. A bit of a self-confessed warrior woman with more than a little leaning towards the personality type of Kali - you don't get second chances with me often. 

But the truth is that the "feminine" binds. Connecting and interweaving our lives. I believe "she" truly despises isolation. Which is pretty radical considering that almost everything in modern life pushes us towards "her" opposite. From the amount of time we indulge ourselves in digital, to the way we live and work. Loneliness and isolation is on the rise in a massive way. 

The "feminine" finds this  trend disturbing. If you want to take a leaf out of the High Priestess's book then - try to stay connected even when it feels uncomfortable.

Ah now THIS is also a tricky tenet. This one will work you, for sure.

If you knew the amount of women I meet in my coaching circles or 1:1 packages who find receiving an incredibly hard thing to do, I think it would amaze you.

Sadly, it doesn't amaze me anymore - and I have come to understand that this is because, as women, we have been conditioned to not receive at all. Feminism has only amplified this in my opinion - why would we ask, when we can make it happen ourselves?

We tend to be quite au fait with giving though. Gifted, even. We give attention. We give love. We give free advice. We give cuddles. We give our bodies often before we even want to. But when it comes to receiving something? We most often we feel like we might just have to roll over and die instead.

One client of mine described the feeling of even receiving a compliment as like "holding a massive ball of fire." So hot, she had to throw it away and give it to someone else before she got burned.

Here's what I practice instead:

The undeniably "feminine" practice of letting it soak in. 

I think the High Priestess would agree with me here too. I think she would rest and indulge and grow fat with the juice of other people's compliments. I think she would lie back and receive being fed grapes. In a bath of salts and rose petals. I think she would know herself legitimate to her core. And worthy of only the best kind of attention.

In fact, so deep is this practice of receptivity and legitimacy for women, that I think I may have to write a whole other article about it. But for now, let's just say - notice where you block the juice from entering your life. And notice how this could be as simple and as frequent as batting away when someone celebrates you. Or refusing to accept an offer from someone else to pay. Could be anything - just have a look at how you do it personally and take it from there.

The "feminine" path is not an easy one. In fact, I would go so far as to say that it defies pretty much every piece of female social conditioning we ever learned.

This is effectively how "she" has been silenced, however. 

The sad truth is that often this type of policing is done between women too. Mothers are particularly prone to "paying this oppression forward" to their daughters. (Again it is a common theme with clients.)

It stands to reason then, that if you start bringing more of this deeply buried and seemingly dangerous "feminine" principle into your life, that you may start attracting more of this policing from your female counterparts towards you too. Unfortunately, many women find a lot of things about the "feminine" to be literally dangerous to their nervous systems and will try to kill it off - in you - as a result. Sometimes shit gets really bad and gangs are formed and psychic stones are literally hurled through cyber-space. And it hurts.

But it can and must be changed. If your sisters are keeping you down - just look for new ones, right? There are sisters out there who will help shield you. Will help resource you and nourish you. Will hold you to account to your emerging greatness. It's my belief that as women grow in their power, we are literally growing a new field of awareness between us.

And one thing I know deeply - this kind of transformative social and personal work cannot easily be done alone.

Stop competing. Start supporting. Get some wonderful women at your back.

One of the reasons that the "feminine" is so feared is, in my opinion, because we know deep down that if we allow our desires to lead us and form us, that a lot of the current structures we have built in our lives and loves will simply... fall apart.

Because desire is such a powerful force, it literally has the capacity to destroy. This also relates to the water element of the High Priestess of course. As anyone who has witnessed a stormy sea will know - water has a ruthless, destructive quality.

In spite of this, I always teach the women in my coaching practice to anchor to their desires as a practice. It is something that was taught to me - and it has something that has really served me well.

Because desire is the deepest source and we can trust it. Which is obviously quite contradictory to socio and religious cultural norms - where desire is given a bad rap and painted as selfish, sinful and basically the source of all evil to be controlled at all costs.

It's time we disagreed with this idea in my opinion. Preferably en masse. I mean - take a look at where this opinion has got us.

The human heart is a precious tool that can be trusted. A woman's body is an instrument of desire and it can be trusted. 

Desire is the opposite of shame. If you want to get back to your pleasure as a guiding principle for life, then you are going to need to get comfortable in relationship with your desires.

Sovereignty is a loaded term that means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. But this is what it means to me in terms of cultivating the path of the "feminine."

One of the gifts of having good girl conditioning, is that you get to cultivate your second sight. By this I mean - the woman who just knows what a friend is going through on the other side of the world before she hears the news. Or a woman who can walk into the room and read the exact timbre of what is happening there and what is needed to oil the dynamics of the social machine. Good girls are taught to know what is going on, so that they can silently fix it before anyone notices the discrepancy.

It's an amazing gift to carry. But it's also a pain in the ass because hand in hand with this gift often comes the deeply held belief that you are responsible for everything.

Really this is a peculiarly feminine form of codependence. "I understand what is going on here with this person/this situation and so it is on me to make it better."

To me, sovereignty is the capacity to stay open, to be able to feel all the subtleties that are going on for people, and yet to remain separate and distinct from having to change it. To know yourself at once both connected and separate, and to choose which angle to take in communication.

The real beauty of this sovereign way of being is that it is deeply relaxed and rests in pleasure and choice. I mean you could help. Or not. Could serve. Or not. Depends on your mood really. Your desire.

Whatever you decide though, in this place of sovereignty there is no compulsion. You forgive yourself for not being perfect. You also forgive everyone else for not being perfect too. You simply rest in the awareness of what is. And let it be for a goddam minute. 

Another upside of this way of being? Less people try to fuck with you. Like Layla F Saad says - you just emanate. Authority, unshakeable confidence, truth, sensuality. What is not to love about tending to your sovereignty? You think the High Priestess feels responsible for others? You think she is compelled to fix them? I highly doubt it.

There are a lot of people teach "letting go into your feminine" as a way of being. I am not saying they are wrong -  indeed this is what this blog is about. What I am saying though, is that "just letting go" was not how it ever worked (or works) for me. 

And this is why - my inner "masculine" is hot. He serves me. 

So how do I define my inner "masculine" though? 

Well, for me it is the part of me that acts on my desires. It is the part of me that gets intentional and super focussed about getting what I want. It's the one that makes the money come in every month so I don't have to worry about the rent. It's the part of me creates stuff - actually gets me out of bed and putting pen to paper in the morning. Or paintbrush to canvas.

The "feminine" in me would get up and eat chocolate bread and drink red wine every morning for breakfast. She would slash all my paintings before lunch on a whim. In a fit of creative despair. (Don't knock it. Water destroys. It's pure energy. It's the source from which things like paintings come.)

The "masculine" in me on the other hand? He might make sure we have taken some high quality digital photos of the artwork. He might have an Etsy account set up and get to work actually selling that shit through a print on demand service.

Damn I love that I have that part of me. And you want to know why?

I have a hard job going with the flow when I am stressed out.

The "masculine" part of my soul wants to help me relax so I can. I literally cannot let go without "him".

Talking of witchcraft (I mean, were we? Maybe not. Maybe that was just me and my Swiss girlfriend.) But of course how could we not get to magic, as the High Priestess is a superbly witchy card. Which leads me to the importance of your magic when it comes to the "feminine" path. 

So what exactly is magic then? 

Well, magic is simply the understanding that your subconscious mind creates and dictates and enormous amount of your waking reality. And that gaining control over this process in order to create influence in your world and live a life you truly desire, is the process of making the unconscious conscious again. 

So in other words, you actually have a lot more agency over what you create in this life than you might imagine. And you are pretty much creating it on an energetic level every minute of every day. (No you don't personally create racism, sexism etc. You are not personally responsible for the fact that there are children locked in cages in the US of A.) However, as you begin to get down and dirty with the inner, shadowy realms of your psyche (aka the High Priestess all the way), you will begin to have more awareness over the realms for which you are responsible and do create. And that is power because when you can see what you make, you can choose to continue or to do something that will bring different results entirely.

Know that phrase "It happened like magic?" Oft used when something outside appears to coincide with what you really, deeply wanted? And does so without any effort at all? Well, that's what I am talking about. And this kind of superpower is innately "feminine" because it is pretty much invisible. It's shadowy and undefinable. And yet you know it when it comes into being for you. 

The "feminine" path is intensely magical. It literally bathes you in this kind of mystery.

Okay so this is the big one. For me this is where all the other tenets of the "feminine" end up, anyway.

Because it is rare for me to work with a woman in my coaching practice who doesn't desire surrender at her core. Okay, it might terrify her. (Remember how all the best desires are generally terrifying, though?)  However. more often than not, she comes wanting to know how to finally, deliciously let go. And how to do so safely, and pleasurably and in a way that feels good to her. Sometimes that is to let go into climax. Sometimes that is to let go into a life that serves her fully. Sometimes that is to let go into authenticity. Or the wildness of her true nature. 

And the news is all good in my opinion. Because women's innate capacity for pleasurable surrender is hard wired into them, after all. Check out this article HERE where I talk about how the primal part of a woman's brain goes very quiet during orgasm. We know how to let go of our survival response on purely physiological level and, for the most part, we absolutely thrive when we do.

So if this speaks to you, how about you edge into surrender as a practice too.

Ask yourself what you are afraid of. Where you are afraid to go and what you are afraid to do.

Surrender dares you to go there. And to keep opening, and opening and embodying and opening as you do so.

Yum.

That's a life I love to live. That's a game worth playing. That's the High Priestess on steroids.