HeAling

YONI,

BeAutiful word for vagina. Lingam for the penis in Sanskrit.

In many languages, our Yoni has no name while the penis has a bunch of them. It's like it would be shameful to just talk about it.

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As a little girl, I gave it the name of "nini" which would be the feminine word for the masculine "zizi" in French, if it existed. 

The yoni is called anyway because it is a necessity but with fruit words, vegetables, animals, and it's ok, but our vagina must have a name, not only the scientific one.

So I discovered a few years ago the word YONI, which comes from Sanskrit, one of the oldest language on earth that we know about. And I gladly adopted the term. Along the years my friends and boyfriends adopted it also. It's easier when you can name your yoni without being vulgar or scientific sounding. 

 

The condition of Women is far from being healthy. While it has improved a lot over the last decades, so much still needs to be done. Changes take time but start with actions, creations and conversations. Art is the best vector to change ideas.

 

Womenhood is directly linked to menstruation which is another taboo in our society. Why ? I mean, we are on this earth because our mother did menstruate every month of half her life. I cannot comprehend this denial, this disgust to the point we don't name it. We, women,  are ashamed to talk about it so we name another reason to explain any change in our daily life to others ; and this, every month ! "I have a headache" "I'm sick" "My belly hurts"

The consequence is that men don't understand us and we resent them for not guessing our martyrdom two days a month, as we have to continue daily activities as if nothing was happening in our body. But the fact is that we bleed from inside. It is HUGE. I'm not even talking about the hormonal change which affects our feelings and emotions. We feel confused, emotional, we might cry for no reason to the point where we sometimes laugh about it as we know we're not crying for any reason in particular ! ;) The fun of being a woman haha

We have to give ourselves space to live our menstruations without shame and stop doing as if nothing was happening.

 

We women follow cycles, men do too, the moon does too, the water follows the moon, our menstruations follows the moon, the earth turns around the sun, in a cycle, 4 seasons in a year, ...

We have to remember ancestral knowledge. We have to remember we come from the earth, as other animals, vegetals. We ain't no machine ! We're a living being ; we're part of this Universe which is a powerful mystery.

Through Yoni paintings I paint with my menstrual blood, as a celebration of my body, my womanhood, my capacity to give birth, the power of creation which is in us women, I celebrate our cycles, our sacredness.

Through Yoni Paintings I symbolically give me and every woman the SPACE to BE, without judgement, accepting the reAlity as we are.

I didn't invent this practice, many other women do it also and I join them in this sacred practice, in Sisterhood. Another beautiful word which comes to unify us women, as sisters, not as competitors to fight for a man. This is old thinking. This caused enough harm between us women. We diserve the space to BE in our fullness and only then, Men will feel complete too.

Because we're in a fragile equilibrium you know. For the moment, the imbalance makes both of us weak. Only in a balance men and women will live in harmony, as the YIN YANG symbol.

In the white part, the feminine energy, there's a bit of black, the masculine energy. In the black, we have a white dot, the feminine energy. We have both energies in ourselves.

If the feminine suffers, the masculine suffers too.

Man and women will find their harmony when and only when we both allow ourselves the space to be. It's an individual duty we must undertake.

I'll see you on the path of allowing your wellbeing... For a better World !

Thank you.

CeliA Soto

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