…to boldly go where no one has gone before.
~Jean Luc Picard of the Starship Enterprise.

I started reading Wild Feminine, by Tami Lynn Kent, after Leslie Howard recommended it in her recent newsletter. It contained ideas that were totally new to me, and it built on the foundation that I have been cultivating through work on the “root” of the body as described in my blog, mulabloga.

Tami Lynn Kent is a physical therapist who specializes in the pelvic floor, so her book is firmly grounded in physical truths, while also taking readers on a mystical journey into the energies, spirituality, and potential of the “root” of the body in the female pelvis.

One thing that really surprised me at first was the idea of seeing the internal sexual anatomy as resources to help us in life beyond their reproductive powers. I got the sense through reading the book that the ovaries might fuel our expression in life in ways I had not imagined. For example, according to Wild Feminine, the right ovary represents “doing” and the left ovary represents “being”. So if we find ourselves favoring worldly accomplishments (governed by the right ovary), and lacking in intuition we can do things to send more energy or to clarify what is happening in the left ovary. When I read this I thought it was far out, but interesting.

Then I looked into my own situation, and discovered that I had a much clearer sense of the left side of my pelvic bowl, and the right side felt more congested or opaque—harder to feel into. Which really made sense to me because for the last several years I have put just about everything into reclaiming my own inner world and “being” aspect of myself, and in the meantime I have let some of those outer-world things go. In other words: I feel out-of balance with myself, and my physical sense of my body coincided with the interpretation that the book offers.

Wild Feminine also suggests ways to work with ourselves to try to balance our expression, including meditation and massage as well as things to do, like exercising or honing a new skill, which is essential for expression in the world and governed by the right ovary.

The meditation techniques in the book somehow gave me the sense that there is the possibility of steering our expression in life by focusing on the ovaries, almost as if they were engines or thrusters that could guide the symbolic or actual potential of the uterus of nurturing and then releasing new life. Ms. Kent also made it absolutely clear that we can activate these metaphoric potentials, even if the actual ovaries or the uterus has been removed.

I thought of the starship Enterprise from Star Trek probably because the first time I experienced Leslie Howard’s female pelvic floor workshop, when she removed the uterus and ovaries from her model pelvis she mentioned that “this one looks kind of like the starship Enterprise”. I thought that was really funny: I’m a “trekkie”, and I really enjoyed the shows Star Trek and Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Here is one of the models of the Starship Enterprise, from Wikipedia:

And just below is an illustration of the uterus and ovaries from Patient.co.uk that beautifully shows (to my mind) the ovaries at the sides, which could be used to steer like the red parts of the above ship. And I was fascinated that the shape of the space of sacred creation inside the uterus harmonized with the shape of the centerpiece above (which might actually be the “warp-drive”).

One thing I like about the comparison with the above image of the USS Enterprise (rather than a different one) is that the “uterus and ovaries” of my interpretation actually form the support and power for the big round part at the top that holds all of the people. This is symbolically similar to our real relationship to the ovaries and uterus: we are all born of these powerful aspects of the female body. And these parts of ourselves support the future of humanity, helping us to live and grow onward in time, not just as individuals but also as a species. Humanity will continue by the grace of the miracle of our situation fueled by the power of our sexuality, science and sex organs.

In focusing this, I in no way want to diminish the role of men. The testicles of men are analogous to the ovaries in women. They come from the same structures of a developing fetus, and they both inform the process of creation. The ovaries empower the uterus with eggs just as the testicles empower the penis with sperm. And something really interesting about male physiology is the prostate. The fluid secreted by the prostate actually nurtures the sperm, helping it to survive the journey to the uterus. So it’s not too far out to say that the prostate helps to mother the sperm even before it leaves the body of a man.

I just want to honor the creative capacity in all people, as well as the ability to care for what we have made: Happy Mother’s Day!

This YouTube video is called Star Trek: USS Enterprise “Lady”.