The Mother Tree, our aging bodies and the wild beauty of staying visible

For days the words for this post wouldn’t come together. I wanted to write to you about the metaphor of a garden—a space where we can return to our natural wildness, where we tend to our own sensuality like a sacred bloom. A garden that is uniquely mine, uniquely yours, like a fingerprint, like the soft unfolding petals of our sex. A place where desire breathes, where our bodies, no matter their shape or season, are worthy of pleasure

I wanted to write about the erotic. 

But the words were blurry and wouldn’t congeal. Once they become more real I will write them for you.

Recent conversations with other women had me thinking about our relationship to our bodies.

We are so critical of ourselves. Too fat here, too dimply there, not firm enough, too old.

Some have gone through illness that left scars that make it difficult for them to find love for their body. There is shame about their appearance. Sometimes disgust looking into the mirror. And everything contracts at the thought of having to disrobe in front of someone else. 

Our bodies, the sacred homes we live in, change with time. They soften, wrinkle, and bear witness to the lives we have lived. 

And yet, we can still pulse with aliveness. We can still feel radiant, sensual, and deeply desired—not just by others, but by ourselves.

I’m reminded of a beautiful old sequoia tree I met during a training session in California. They called her the Mother Tree. She stood with grace—her bark gnarled and cracked with time, one bare branch reaching like the elegant arm of an older dancer. In her crown, birds built their nests, and all around her, new sequoia sprouts rose out of the fertile soil. She was both wild and wise, strong and soft, ancient and full of new life. No one ever called her ugly. No one told her she was past her prime. She was celebrated, revered, seen. Untamed and alive.

And then I read about a woman my age—who, after a mastectomy, chose to take up Burlesque. She danced alongside women much younger than her. And when she bared her chest, she was met not with judgment, but with love. And celebration. A deep, electric witnessing. She stood, for all to see, and she was radiant.

I’ve been in a training where we all disrobed. And the most beautiful women were those society would consider the most flawed by our outlandish standards. 

I’m not saying we all need to dance naked under a spotlight—though imagine the freedom in that! 

What I am saying is that we can age without shrinking, without apologizing for the space we take up. We can be seen in all our glorious imperfections. We can stand, like the Mother Tree, rooted and expansive, showing the women beside us that they, too, can embrace their bodies and their pleasure for as long as they desire.

It takes courage to want. To say yes to our own pleasure, our own beauty, our own unruly aliveness. But why not? Why not unfurl, like the petals of a flower, and let the world see us bloom?

More for our bodies soon! I’m working on a guided practice for loving the body you’re in.

But until then - a quiet rebellion

How will you choose to not shrink today? 

Will you stand taller? 

Speak a desire out loud? 

Let yourself be touched—by your own hands, by the warmth of the sun, by the gaze of someone who sees your beauty? 

Whatever it is, let it be a quiet rebellion against the idea that aging should make us invisible!

If you feel called to share, please do so in the comment section below.

With love and pleasure!

Theres