Hi there beautiful people!

It’s been a while. And here I am right before you with everything that I am. My full power, my full body as you can see. 

I hope I don’t chock you. Maybe I want to chock a bit 😉 but most of all I want to inspire. I call this project A Dance for Gaia 2. Number 2 since I did the same, got painted and photographed back in 2017, when my body looked completely different. I was slim and young back then. Now my body is carrying the signs of a lot of experience.

I feel a bit vulnerable showing myself like this, but I’m inspired by all the amazing women sharing their bodies in the body positivity movement. I do however feel that this project is not really body positivity. Not that I have anything against it! On the contrary, I think it has done something incredibly important by challenging the idea that only certain bodies are beautiful, worthy or desirable.

But for me, this goes somewhere else. I call it Shamanic Body Liberation.
It is not about learning to love your body because it looks good.
It is about remembering that your body was never the problem.
It is about experiencing the body as sacred.
As nature.
As the place where Spirit lives.

I painted my entire body with symbols, colours and patterns. I wanted to transform the body from something that is looked at into something that is felt. From an object to a landscape. From something to judge into something to honour.

For me, the painted body becomes a kind of ritual.

The marks are not there to hide anything. They are there to reveal something.

A body can be soft.
A body can be large.
A body can age.
A body can carry scars, stories, grief, pleasure, strength and wisdom.

And none of this makes it less sacred.

I was born in Sweden in the 1970s, and there is also something deeply personal in this project for me. I grew up in a culture where nakedness could be quite natural – connected to swimming, saunas, summer, nature and a certain sense of bodily freedom. I want to reclaim some of that freedom, but through my own spiritual language.

Not as sexuality. Not as exhibitionism. Not as an attempt to prove that my body is beautiful.

But as a declaration:

I belong in this body.

I belong in nature. I belong IN the world.

I don’t have to become smaller to become more powerful.

I don’t have to transcend my body to become spiritual.

My body is where I experience this life.
My body is where I breathe, dance, feel, grieve, laugh, love and connect.
My body is where Spirit meets the Earth.

That is what Shamanic Body Liberation means to me.

I would love your feedback! Please feel welcome to comment and tell me what you think and feel about this. 

This week I will show this project to the world. Follow me on Instagram for more! And have a beautiful day!