Ancestral Energetic Imprints

IN THE BEGINNING THERE WAS... The Energetic Womb... Let’s

dive in!

Did you know that your grandmother carried you inside her

womb? I know, it blew my mind when I read about it too! A female

fetus is born with all the eggs she will ever have in her lifetime. So when your grandmother was carrying your mother in her womb, you were a teeny tiny egg in your mom's ovaries in which the three of you have been connected for a very long time. It is ancient knowledge that the womb has a physical and energetic body. Science has shown how the womb connects to your ancestors physically. This discovery would seem to suggest and even supports the inner-standing that the womb would also hold energetic ancestral ties and that storing information in your womb is referred to as “energetic imprints” like karma and trauma.

The womb is also known as the golden cauldron. When we practice the ritual work of the cauldron, as discussed in the book “Power Animal Meditation” by Niki Scully, it helps us get in touch with ourselves through an alchemical process that can connect the thread of tribal and ancient lineage rooted in the nature spirits with our power of creativity. When you go into the depths of your womb healing you can use this ritual and many others to harness the assistance of your ancestors to help you re-create the life you desire in harmony with nature and divine your source. 

According to Nicki Scully, in the book “Power Animal Meditation”, the cauldron is an ancient symbol of the cosmic womb, a source of life and wisdom, and has figured prominently in history and mythology. Throughout time and in many diverse cultures, this vessel has stood for the place of continuance: It is the churning, boiling receptacle in which all life is returned, remixed, and regenerated in a perpetual cycle. The cauldron is a metaphor for the alchemical beaker in which transformation and healing occur. We contain this vessel within ourselves in our abdominal region or womb. It is through the symbolism of the cauldron that we are able to transform our perspective to include an awareness of the spirit realm. The caldron is referred to as gold, primarily because of its properties of gold. Gold is the purest substance and it cannot be tarnished. It is associated with the sun, as a physical manifestation of that which has been worshiped as the life-giving force of creation. Gold, in this context, is also a symbol of service. 

The most prevalent surviving myths about the cauldron are related to paganism, an ancient Goddess-worshiping religion in which the womb of the Goddess was a central theme and provided the source for abundance and healing. The crone, the custodian of the cauldron, was in ancient times considered a revered healer, seer, mystic, and wise woman who understood the use of herbs and lived in harmony with nature. This notion has been sadly debased in modern Western culture, for the Crone was turned into an ugly, malefic hag in the linear, patriarchal church/state of the Middle Ages by those who would usurp her wisdom and power. As a result, the idea of a cauldron now often conjures images of a stooped-over old witch, dressed in black with a wart on her chin and a black cat, back arched and hackles raised, walking the edge of a fence as the old crone stirs the bubbling cauldron. This change in imagery has both weakened her position and hidden the true source and magic of nature. One could consider the search for the Holy Grail as the search for the lost cauldron of grace and abundance that vanished when the circle was broken and the priestesses burned at the stake during the inquisition.Various symbolic expressions of the cauldron appear in a variety of cultural contexts. In China, it is known as the T’ing. In the I Ching or Book Of Changes, hexagram 50 is T’ing/The Cauldron, which suggests the idea of nourishment by preparing food (See the I Ching or Book of Changes, translated by C. F. Baynes and R. Wilhelm. Princeton, NJ; Princeton University Press, 1969; p,641). Nothing transforms things so much as the T’ing. The transformation wrought by T’ing is on the one hand the changes produced in food by cooking. On the other hand, in a figurative sense, the revolutionary effects result from the joint work of a prince and a sage. The cauldron means “taking up the new”. 

According to David W. Pattern in “The Secret of the Alphabet'', an Alphabet of Ancient Celtic Wisdom (an as-yet unpublished manuscript), the cauldron of Cerridwen, the Mother of all creation, symbolically contained an herb for each day of the year. Whoever drank of its contents would possess all knowledge. Egyptian, Hindu, and Norse each contain cauldrons symbolizing the female power of cosmic creation. In Egypt, the God Osiris is said to be associated with a heavenly chalice that never runs dry, and the Goddess Nephthys, sister of Isis, wears a vessel upon her head. The Norse God Odin, disguised as a serpent, drank from the Wise Blood in the cauldrons of the Great Mother’s womb to obtain his power. Kali, the Hindu Goddess, is also associated with the cauldron. The God India stole her power by drinking the elixir from her cauldron which is said to have given her the power of shape-shifting. He, like Odin, turned into a bird to carry the blood back to the other Gods of his pantheon, (see Women’s Encyclopedia of Myth and Secrets by Barbara Walker. San Francisco; Harper & Row, 1983; p, 150). 

The most sacred of objects to the indigenous tribe of the North American plains is the sacred pipe. While the stem of the pipe represents the masculine, creative, generative power that transmits the prayer, the bowl symbolizes the feminine, receptive vessel that is the Earth. It is within this vessel, our cauldron, that the alchemy of the pipe ceremony occurs, the transmutation of the herbs or tobacco into the smoke that carries the prayers to the four directions. When the stem and bowl are connected, all things in the universe are connected and functioning in balance. Many Shamanic cultures, especially those of Central Asia and Siberia, define the cauldron as the vessel within which the dismembered body of the initiate is boiled and then later re-membered. Shamans are those who have mastered death through illness, dreams, or visions and have thus come to an experimental understanding of their immortality. Historically, it is the function of the shaman to intercede with the spirit world to effect changes in the physical world, such as healing or changing the weather, in ways that serve their communities. What I have learned and come to innerstand is that we are holders of infinite knowledge, bearers of the gateway to divine creation and eternity. Our wombs are directly connected to the most-high source. Our power has been stripped away from us through false teachings and ingestion of chemicals that have made us so docile that they have succeeded in hiding our own true selves in plain sight.

One thing I have realized is once you're in “ the knowing” there is no “unknowing” or going back.

Want to read more about the power of the womb? Download a copy of my book “Keep it Juicy for Me!" A guide on how to cleanse the energetic and physical womb.