The Temple of the Body

Lifelong Healing


We all know now that when the patriarchy thundered through Europe with the fiery death-dealing machinery of the inquisition, the Goddess was attacked. She, who had arisen again through Mary Magdalene and was ready to rise in everyone, was attacked where She resided -- in the human body, and mostly in the female human body.

The formal machinery of the inquisition lasted from the twelfth through the early nineteenth century, and its cultural and psychological legacy continues today. To protect those who held her form in the feminine lines of our bodies, the Goddess hid her vibration so well that even we – whose cells were her chalices – did not know where she went.

Some said she was hidden in the moon.

Others claimed she was hidden in the land, in the wild cry of the hawk, in the deep, silent presence of a pine grove, or in the sudden rainstorm, for they experienced her there.

Like many, without knowing for whom I searched, I found the Goddess, lost her, and found her again many times and in many places during my life.

Most recently I found Her hidden


in a coming-of-age conversation my guardian aunt had with me fifty years ago.

“Your body is a temple. It is the dwelling place of God,” my aunt told me. “And sex is beautiful when God is present in the bonds of marriage. But sex is awful, ugly, and sinful without God’s blessing. You’ll get pregnant and shame yourself and your family and your child. And you’ll go to hell for it, and don’t you believe you won’t suffer these dire consequences. Because you will.”

It was 1959. I was eleven.

God was a great big white man who called the shots from on high, so I did not tell my guardian aunt that my older brother and I had been having sex from the time I was seven. Or before then that my father, her brother, had abused me as a baby, as I later learned, he had abused her, too.

I listened to her speech, hid my shame from her, and lived and breathed and acted like a virgin. I knew she would disown me if she knew my secret, and I would be homeless in the land of the fathers, who clearly could do what they pleased.

I believe now that the ritual coming-of-age talk, though usurped by the patriarchy and twisted to serve it, held the barely audible whispers of the Divine Feminine. Across the decades, those whispers tutored my unconscious about my divine nature and warned me that I would be misused by men, empowered and degraded by the patriarchy.


Here’s how the "talk" informed me of my nature and warned me of this misuse:

“Your body is a temple. It is the dwelling place of God,” my aunt told me. “And sex is beautiful when God is present in the bonds of marriage."

Our women’s bodies are natural receivers as well as transformers. That’s how we are built. We receive higher vibrations or lower vibrations and transmute the lower energies into higher ones and the higher into lower through our chakras to keep the balance between body, mind, and spirit. And that’s what natural or constructed temples do. This transformer effect is always operating. During sex, this effect is heightened.

"But sex is awful, ugly, and sinful without God’s blessing."

The patriarchy captures our women’s bodies while it conditions our hearts to be open constantly to men. In a patriarchy, we women often receive and transform the lower vibrations for our fathers, brothers, nephews, or rulers.

And abused, hyper-vigilant women, like me, often keep our awareness focused on men’s more destructive vibrations to clear them and thereby, protect us from abuse. Because we are always monitoring our situations to see if we are safe and using our energies to clear or appease our abusers, we have little left to live authentic creative lives.

"And you’ll go to hell for it. . . "

Conditioned by the patriarchy, we clear men who come into our presence. Unless we know what we are doing, we take on their negative energies.

Sometimes we also use the transforming power of our presence to clear destructive vibrations on a social or political level where our actions are seen as “service.” If this work is unconscious, it is dangerous to us women. For we not only clear the negative, we also take on the imbalances unless we know how to discharge them.

". . .and don’t you believe you won’t suffer these dire consequences. Because you will."

This process debilitates and destroys our bodies, causing sickness. Taking on this negative energy creates a personal hell because it cuts us off from our true selves, our souls.

Here’s what I have come to understand about my Body-the-Temple:

• The Divine Feminine, the Goddess, is in every cell of our feminine bodies (and in the cells of loving men).
• The Divine Feminine balances the body, balances the being, so that each of us can live harmoniously in the world with all other beings.
• She balances us vibrationally through our energy centers, the chakras.
• She balances us “chemically” through our endocrine system, for each endocrine gland is governed by one of the body’s chakras.
• When we are balanced, we are in harmony with the Divine within us, and our very presence can balance others.
• Sometimes we do this unconsciously.
• Other times, we knowingly say or do the things to balance or offset the negative energy of those we encounter.


Vibrationally speaking, here’s what happens during sex:



• Our vibrational energy increases as our chakras are stimulated during sex.
• These centers or vortexes open and turn more energetically and connect with those of our partner.
• A woman’s body is a receptor. As the partner, who has the intention to penetrate, enters it physically, he also enters it energetically through the chakras. Gender doesn’t dictate this. Intention does.

Here’s what I have learned about how my woman’s body, my Body-as-Temple, functions on the vibrational level during intercourse, a time when the transformer effect is heightened. I learned this by using a pendulum before and after intercourse.

• I used the pendulum to map the direction and openness of my chakras and my partner’s chakras before intercourse.
• As a Healing Touch practitioner and aromatherapist, I knew how to balance my chakras and did this regularly. So, not surprisingly, my chakras showed a balanced pattern: they moved clockwise, had medium spin, and equal diameters of about 3 inches.
• Some of my partner’s chakras moved clockwise; some moved counterclockwise; some were still. Some were 3 inches in diameter; some were only one inch in diameter. I wrote down the pattern.
• After intercourse, I used my pendulum again and mapped the chakras.
• My partner’s chakras were open and balanced, mirroring my pre-sex balanced pattern.
• My chakras mirrored his pre-sex chakra unbalanced pattern!


I had taken on his imbalances and balanced him. I believe this is how my woman’s body was created to function. But I also believe that in a culture where the Divine Feminine is honored in the male and female, that all men would learn to balance themselves without using our bodies to do it. Even now, our individual partners can learn to balance themselves if they are loving and conscious.

But this transformer effect is always present, even around strangers. It is simply heightened during sex. So, in this culture women’s bodies are always at risk of being used – consciously or unconsciously, physically or vibrationally -- by others to clear and balance themselves.

What, then, can we women do to re-balance our bodies, so we don’t hold the negative energies of others?




• I return to the Mother through nature, and she re-balances me.
• I engage in healing modalities like Reiki and Healing Touch, among others, to rebalance myself.
• I find aromatherapy – especially sandalwood, cedarwood, or myrrh – rebalances me by activating my limbic system and producing the balancing feminine hormone ocytocin.
• Most recently, I re-imagine the coming-of-age “talk” as an artifact of a ritual prayer that once opened women to the Divine Feminine within our cells and let its original power speak to my soul.

Here’s my inner recovered text of what I believe was an original ritual initiation prayer:

My body is a temple. It is the dwelling place of Goddess. I am in sacred union with the Goddess who is present in each of my cells, and anyone who comes into my presence will experience her power. From this sacred union will come offspring that will be blessings to all others and me because they come from the Divine temple that I am and that protects and balances me. Always.