Goddess Baubo & Belly Love
Let’s talk about Baubo the Belly Goddess!
Baubo is a Greek Goddess who represents the archetype of the Sacred Fool. She is the bawdy, jesting, wild woman whose swinging hips shake up our very world. She dangles her breasts in front of our faces, loosening narrow vision and re-wilding humdrum view. We cannot call her untamed, for her existence itself transcends the dual realm of such comparative concepts. She is sexual liberation meets inner child play. She is the silliness that society has been told to ‘Shh’ and she is earth quaking laughter in response to such nature-defiant demands.
She dances in the Red River of the feminine that our culture has so tirelessly suppressed. The Red River is the wild play of primal expression, dirt, sex, blood. The Red River does not give a fxck about being ‘cute’. It is dance so soulful it stomps craters in the ground. It is a lion’s roar mixed with a bolt of lightning, a tsunami erupting while a volcano explodes. And there, splashing in the thick of its redness, you can find Baubo- a loudly laughing conductor of ripples and waves. She embodies such silliness that her breath alone mock’s the rationalizing mind. She exists through every woman taking joy in her jiggling belly. She is alive in every little girl who celebrates her tummy as a glorious makeshift drum.
This Red River is the very blood running through our veins. And in ourselves, we can find Baubo- dancing the dance of PLAY! In ancient Greek mythology, it is said that her wild sensual movements and shameless belly flaunting once saved our entire world…
The Myth Of Baubo:
Demeter was in deep grief after her daughter Persephone was taken by Hades, the God of the underworld. Demeter, the fertility Goddess responsible for making everything flourish and grow, was more than devastated. She searched and searched for her daughter to no avail. In brokenness, she gave up and cursed the world with infertility and death to all life. The world darkened as once-blooming flowers began to decay. In this hopelessness, she slumped to the ground, defeated…
“As she leaned her aching body against the cool stone of the well, along came a woman or rather a sort of woman. And this woman danced up to Demeter wiggling her hips in a sexual way, shaking her breasts in her little dance. And when Demeter saw her she could not help but smile just a little, the dancing female was very magical indeed for she had no head whatsoever and her nipples were her eyes and her vulva was her mouth. It was through this lovely mouth that she began to regale Demeter with some nice juicy jokes. Demeter began to smile and then chuckled and then gave a full belly laugh. Together the two women laughed, the little belly goddess Baubo and the powerful mother earth goddess Demeter. It was just this laughing that drew Demeter out of her depression and gave her the energy to continue her search for her daughter, which with the help of Baubo and the crone Hekate and the sun, was ultimately successful. Persephone was restored to her mother- the world, the land, and the bellies of women thrived again.” -EXCERPT FROM “WOMAN WHO RUN WITH THE WOLVES” BY CLARISSA PINKOLA ESTES
Claiming Belly Love
What if this myth was the kind of magic we saw in the media, rather than 5000 ads per day preaching: Lose Weight & Be Happy!
In today’s world, roughly 650 billion dollars is earned in the global weight loss industry per year. That is a crap-ton of profit made by convincing us that our bodies are problems to be solved, commodified, & maintained. Companies attempt to blind us to the beauty that is our naturalness, literally profiting off of low self-esteem & objectification — Moulding our minds to believe that worth lies in appearance, and that appearance depends on product X. This is a robbery of our time, money, and most importantly, the knowing of worth that is our birthright.
I grieve for those constructed capitalist values and wholeheartedly lean into hope-filled Shift. I am devoted to unlearning falsehoods. More & more, I wish to embody the knowing that We Are Magic. To demonstrate body-based gratitude and embrace my own Baubo, celebrating my belly, breasts, body hair, & all that nature has designed me to be.
Embodying Baubo
I am calling for a collective celebration of Baubo. I am calling for the recognition of this belly Goddess in the curves of women everywhere. Size does not matter, for this magic comes from the inside out. This wild abandon, this knowing that our every breath is a transmission of the Goddess herself, cannot be learned through a mirror or a scale. We must find the rhythm in our hearts first to re-member the innate enchantment of our spirit’s song. Then, we can rejoice as something much larger than ourselves begins to move through us, leaving our hips shaking as we laugh in infinite glee.
It is HIGH time that we reclaim this Goddess of DELIGHT, Dance enormously, orgasm loudly, walk proudly, sing boldly. Know your self-celebration as a gift of permission-giving nourishment for all. Let your sisters see you shine, let your brothers watch with awe. How powerful to know our fullness, as Buabo sparkles through us, sensual and wild. Recognize the world as your playground and know that your body is the pinnacle of such joy. Let your hips dance side to side, as your movements shatter Body Shame once internalized. Shake your belly up and down, as you release once digested media messages. Severance through laughter to whatever suggests you are anything less than entirely Whole.
Dance the dance of Baubo, for our world so needs your foolish spark.
With Gratitude & Infinite Heart,
Marlee Liss
Visit MarleeLiss.com/Blog to read more! Featuring woven words of heart by this author, storyteller, retreat facilitator, and divine feminine empoweress.