Picture this. It was session four of The Womanly Arts Experience weekend. 950 women had been together for two full days, each of them delving deeply into all of what it means to be a woman. Together, we were celebrating our magnificence, plugging into our radiance, plunging into our darkness, and reveling in our power.
And dancing our asses off.

Damn it was fun.
And deeply, profoundly joyous. Sacred.
No matter how many times I’ve experienced it.

Witnessing and experiencing a group of women who, perhaps for the very first time, are enjoying the wild wooley outrageous holy hotness of Womanhood is as magical as a living, breathing sunrise. There is nothing like it, when women come back to Life.

There is nothing like being in the presence of lit up women.

As women, we are taught from the earliest age to stuff it. Put a lid on it. Stop being so emotional, stop being so sexual, stop being so crazy, so loud, so much.
Too much.
And here we were, women from 43 states and 11 countries with a big hot pink permission slip to do, be, feel and experience every single messy drop of our truth, together.
Here we were, in a totally different place and space after two days of being waaaay too much, dancing way too much, crying way too much, laughing way too much, in sisterhood with one another.

And the very essence of what powered it all was decidedly simple and deliciously complex, all at the same time: Every move that we each took in that room was because of Pussy.
If you’ve read my book, Pussy: A Reclamation, you know what I mean by that. If you haven’t yet, stay with me.

Pussy is turn-on.

When a woman connects with Pussy, the part of her that knows how to access raw creative power, she is connecting with the part of herself that is divine. She is connecting to Goddess. She is connecting to Source. She is remembering herself. And that connection is what we experience as “turn-on”, as feeling and being lit up. And sensing physically, intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually, an alignment: a yes.

And there is nothing strictly sexual about it.
(That what’s between a woman’s legs is primarily for intercourse is a heteronormative mythology; and that what’s between a woman’s legs is crude, that even the words for it are crude, is a cultural lie.)
Turning women on is not about sex. It’s about truth. And freedom. And embodied emotions. And pleasure. And power.
Real true deep feminine power.
In a whole new way.

When you can feel the whole full yes in your body — or, put another way, when you own your pussy — your confidence is unshakeable. You trust yourself.

You know what you want. You know what you don’t. You have clarity. You have self-understanding. You have your own answers, always.

Let me give you an example of what I mean.
For those of you who have not experienced The Experience live with me, one of the most special aspects of the event are the musical entrances that are designed and choreographed specifically for each session. Our performers rehearse these entrances for weeks, sometimes months. So, a last minute change is not a simple thing, as you can imagine. And that is what was needed because, unexpectedly, the performance we had planned wasn’t possible.

There we were facing the final session of the course, with nothing. No prospects.
Well, nothing except a room filled with 950 empowered, turned on women, who had been cut loose from everything designed to keep them small and insignificant.

I had an idea for a kind of pop quiz, as it were.

Just before the session started, I grabbed the mic and explained the situation. And said that I knew within these walls were incredible, amazing, talented women. And I asked if there might be someone in the audience who would do the entrance for us. And that the first pussy to hit the stage would be the one I would choose to usher in our final session.

There was a moment — just a moment — of hesitation, and then, suddenly, hurling herself from front row and onto the stage was a woman named Queen Ilise.
She sprang up, all six feet of her, took the mic and sang us in.
A cappella.
The song she chose was one that she had written, called ‘Greatness’. Which could not have been more perfect for the moment, for the event.

Pussy is so extraordinary.
She can hurtle a woman over her hesitation.
Push a woman to leap way beyond what she might imagine was possible for herself.
Embody a truth that she knows is hers, despite her resistances.
Line up circumstances for us, such that we are in exactly the right place at the right time.
If we connect with her.
If we listen to her.
If we say yes to her.

Say yes, sisters.

Love,

Regena Thomashauer, aka “Mama Gena”
The School of Womanly Arts

Regena is a feminist icon, a teacher, a speaker, a mother, a best-selling author, and creatrix and CEO of The School of Womanly Arts.

p.s. We found out Queen Ilise’s first album will be released in Spring 2019. You can listen to its first single, Sometimes, now on Spotify here, or check it out on Youtube here.