Card 3 · Femessence Series · 2020
Wisdom
Age 34 · Caucasian background · Vaginal birth: No
She came to this process from the same place many of the women who followed her began — from disconnection, from avoidance, from a body she had been taught to manage rather than inhabit. What had been taboo became a creative centre. What had been managed became a source of guidance. What had been hidden became, slowly, something sacred.
“I now understand that this is the creative and intuitive centre. A sacred place that I will be tapping into daily for guidance.”
I hated my vulva. I didn’t even know what it looked like to hate in the first place. I found it ugly and taboo — I never looked at it and always disconnected from any relationship with that part of my body. This to me was normal behaviour.
Through this artistic process of actually looking at my vulva, and seeing it made into art, along with it being compared to others, I now understand that this is the creative and intuitive centre. A sacred place that I will be tapping into daily for guidance.
A shame that my learnt cultural experience around bleeding and my womb and the way it looked was for a man’s pleasure and an “inconvenience” if it were not available or “right”. I was not taught as a young adult to listen to my body and honour my cycles.
This process has allowed me to move closer to deeper self acceptance. Looking at my vulva compared to others eliminated my own criticism about what it’s meant to look like. I realised I am as unique as everyone else — there is no “right” way to look or feel. Everyone is completely different and stunningly beautiful in their own right. Mesmerising.
It’s mine to use and be. I realise the power and magic that it holds. Women and men are created to create — and this space assists us to create what we truly desire.
Wisdom is card three because it doesn’t arrive first. It comes after arrival, after the first steps of looking. It is what is already there, waiting, when you finally turn toward yourself.
This portrait is part of the Femessence Women’s Celebration Series — a body of work by artist and arts therapist Caris Pepper honouring the sacred feminine through vulva portrait art. Each portrait in this series is becoming a card in the Femessence Vulva Portrait Oracle deck, coming 2027.
