Articles by Julie

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever does.” Margaret Mead

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I’m not sure where this post is going to go, but I trust it will take us somewhere.

Two days ago,  I wrote about Voice and the many things that can support a woman in owning and speaking her truth. Many of you responded so positively to that post. It was truly a joy to read your comments and to notice the sense of coming together that occurred.

For me, the great joy of writing the post was noticing how I am one of many in the stream of women’s voices that are yearning to be spoken and heard. There was a sense of how one builds upon another, how where one woman’s words end, another’s begin. I wrote my post, then Jeanne wrote her post based on mine, then I wrote another based on hers. Suddenly a new woman appeared in the stream. Renae left me a wonderful comment, noting how she found my blog:

“a few weeks ago – from someone else’s site – and right now I don’t even remember who.  Brené’s work has played a part in me beginning to find my voice. The connections are simply stunning to me.”

Connections. One follows another, which follows another. This is the currency of the Internet.

I followed Renae’s link and discovered her blog and a new post, one in which she mentioned my post and the impact it had on her.

“So I press ever onward, sometimes feeling like I’m fighting the battle alone. And then I ran across this post: http://www.unabashedlyfemale.com/2010/03/02/theres-no-voice-like-yours/ I’ve been reading Julie’s blog for a few weeks. I’m adding her to my blog roll. She touches the deep places in my soul. She makes me feel that the community I want for my daughters, might, just might, be possible.

And so, we move into a new year, ever closer to the teen years, with at least a little hope that my daughters will live in a world without shame about who they are. That they can spend their energy fighting new battles instead of the same old ones. That they will grow into their own voices and not need to find them, because they will have been there all along.”

As I read her entire post, I was so moved by it. I was moved by her clear love for her daughters and her hope that her daughters could find a community where there was no longer shame for being a woman, and by her hope that her daughters will know their voices, not having to discover them later in life.

I was moved by the fact that connections were made from Jeanne, to me, to Jeanne, to me, to Renae… and obviously there was no beginning and no end, just connections, just life moving as it does. Yet, if we had all stayed silent, we would never have met, we would never have been buoyed up, strengthened by our connectedness, by our shared longing for truth and expression.

I sat and pondered this. There is desire for something here, desire for a better way for women and girls, a better way for men, for the planet, for life itself. Mothers longing for it to be different for their daughters…and sons, husbands, brothers, sisters, men, women and life.

Something is wanting to be born, to come into existence through our words, through the impetus each of us feels inside to speak, to express, to share, to love, to create, to be in communion with each other and with life.

We are building something here, a community that is fluid, where people come and go, where ideas build upon the last, and where things fall away as new comes in. The stream meanders, finding its way.

Today, I came across this video on Leadership. It’s a simple homegrown video that’s fun to watch. And someone put some great commentary to it, with an interesting take on leadership. Watch it (it’s short) and see what happens.

Here’s this guy dancing. Just dancing and enjoying himself. His joy is contagious. One brave soul steps up and joins up, no longer able to contain the desire to join in. Then another two join. Then more. Suddenly there is a group of people dancing together. Soon a tipping point is reached and people are flocking in from all directions.

The commentator suggests the movement gets started when the first follower arrives. That seems to be true in the case of the dancing guy. Or is it when there are four. Or eight? Or twelve? What if the group split up into two? Or did the movement really begin when the music started?

Coming back to this deeper desire that is being born through women. What is this?

There are many groups of women, men and children that are creating a new world; but, I sense there is a movement happening that is being born by women. It doesn’t matter where it started, but we are now feeling the movement gain momentum.

This humanity of woman, carried out in suffering and humiliation, will then, when in the commutations of her external situation she will have stripped off the conventions of being only feminine, come to light, and those men, who do not yet feel it approaching today, will be astonished and stunned by it.
—– …some day there will be girls and women whose name will no longer signify merely an opposite of the masculine, but something in itself, something that makes one think, not of any complement and limit, but of life and existence: the female human being.

It’s this humanity of woman that is coming back into existence, but coming back into form after having been in exile for centuries.

It’s funny that this video of a joyful man dancing caught my attention. It’s not that men or women are so significantly different that we can’t see ourselves in the other.

Yet, there is something being born specifically by women, that only women can bring into being and it is something that can heal. It’s born of desire, a longing and yearning for life to be respected, loved and nurtured.

When I read Renae’s words about desire for something different for her daughters, I could feel this new vision trying to come into being.

I also can sense that it is time for our own inner masculine to become strong and active, for women to come into balance, knowing what we long for inside now must come into being through definitive action.

Marianne Williamson held a conference this past weekend titled Sister Giant. Prior to the conference, she created this video, that I find incredibly inspiring. While the event has passed, her message is loud and clear. We women have work to do.

Watching the dancing guy caused me to think about this movement, this movement of women rising up and saying, “Enough is Enough”. We can do it with joy. We can do it with passion. And we need solidarity, to come together, to find the one thing we all hold dear, the one thing we are willing to rise up for: the survival of the human species.

We are not alone in this. There is no starting point that can be pinpointed, nor does that matter. There are many leaders, many first followers, and many tipping points.

Something has been laboring to be born. The birth is imminent. The stream is gaining volume and speed. Where and how will we find the solidarity that allows us to hold our differences and yet stand strong, fierce and resilient?

By the way, I got to the end of this post, realized where it had taken me. I could see my own connections that I hadn’t seen before. I then knew the Mead quote was fitting.

We never know where the stream will take us. We just need to step into it, knowing how many others are already wet and long for the strength, commitment and determination that solidarity can bring.

I’ve been thinking a lot about Voice…as a metaphor, as an act, as a unique expression of oneself.

Every time I sit down to write, my voice sounds different as the words fly from my fingers. While I sense my voice is different, I imagine those of you reading my posts on any regular basis feel I have a ‘voice’ you recognize as different from any other…or maybe not. As I consider that, I wonder if it matters. What does really matter when it comes to speaking that which must be said?

Just yesterday, my dear friend Jeanne wrote, in her blog the barefoot heart, about voice and her experiences finding hers. I love Jeanne’s voice. It is unmistakeably hers.. Jeanne writes that she wonders what her ‘right sound’ is:

“do i forget funny and stick to serious, reflective tones? do i keep trying the funny, knowing that writing humor is different from doing humor? do i do both ’cause i am both?”

Jeanne’s words struck a chord within me. I am becoming more confident in my writing. Same as with Jeanne, much of that confidence I owe to the women I have met on Twitter that have embraced me and my Voice with such love and support.  I notice that my voice can change from serious, spiritual, funny, loving, and sometimes powerful and intuitive. Sometimes I write sludge (feels and sounds a lot like internal processing on the page, something the roommate in the head likes to sell) …sometimes clarity and truth.

Writing is an interesting practice. And I know I don’t even know what will come out when I sit down to write. I can try to force things, but that never feels right.

Writing from my body helps. My body speaks truth, as do all bodies. If I remember to drop down into the body, truth flows.

And there’s still fear present when I write.

What’s the fear about?

For me, the fear is not so much if others don’t like my style or writing abilities. The fear is about the repercussions I might face if I write what is deepest in my heart, some of which is:

• the beauty and sacredness of the female gender and the sacredness of our sexuality and female bodies
• the possibility for women to discover that they are the sacred feminine, and for men to discover they are the sacred masculine
• the devaluation of women and girls and the violence perpetrated on the female gender
• the constant bombardment of demoralizng images, messages, interactions that women and girls face in their day-to-day lives, meant to keep us dis-empowered and depressed
• the pain that men feel as the dominant gender where the effects of patriarchy still hold sway
• the absolute importance and necessity of healing our mother wounds, and the wounding of the Big Mother, our divine planet
• AND the vision I see of the way things could be if we realize, before its too late, that we are all really divine in human clothing.

And the fear comes from simply speaking out as an act in itself. As Miriam Greenspan writes in Healing Through The Dark Emotions:

Fear for women is not an enemy to be conquered but a warning track that says: Go no further. It is the demarcation line that points to the bounds of possibility and permissible female behavior. If you’re a woman and you don’t use fear to limit yourself, there is an implicit threat of violence.”

I came across another post yesterday by Brené Brown titled, ” I’m Pretty. Pissed.”

In her post, Brené writes about two friends and how they were attacked after writing opinion pieces in public forums. She offers up 8 points of advice to women who are speaking out, in hopes we can avoid the kind of attack her two friends encountered.  Make sure to read her full post to reap the benefits of her great advice.

“In my own decade-long research on authenticity and shame, I found that speaking out is a major shame trigger for women.

I can see Brené’s words clearly in my own conditioning and know these powerful forms of conditioned control have played a part in my journey to becoming a writer that can and will speak that which has to be spoken.

The main reason I’ve posted this today, is to speak to what I think is an important community of collaboration and support for the feminine voice to be heard: social media networks – Twitter, Facebook and whatever else you might find that helps you connect to other women that are heading the call to stand up and speak out in these times when it is critical for women’s voices to be heard.

Creating community to speak and listen, is imperative. To have a vehicle for women’s stories to be spoken and heard is critical. Women speaking out is what is being called for right now. Women supporting other women is what is being asked of us right now.

As Jeanne wrote yesterday,

“see, usually i’m a little too tentative, too scared of smackdown to post anything i feel like isn’t going to be well received. but since being on twitter, i’ve met women who make me feel comfortable enough, safe enough to mash “send” because i know they’ll be patient and accepting…”

When I read Jeanne’s words, I felt this connection, this witnessing of story, of voice, of truth by one woman to another. This is where we find power. I saw myself in Jeanne, saw my own struggle to stand up, to speak out, and to know, while doing so, that I am part of a family of women.

One small point here that is of utmost importance: Not all women are supportive of this. Many men are. Brené comments on this, too, saying: “Don’t blame men. Men are as likely to be offended by cruelty as women, and women are as likely to perpetrate it as men.” I have found so many deeply honoring and supportive men on Twitter and Facebook, men who write to me expressing joy and respect for the words I write. And, I’ve had women deride me for the same words.

This point is important, AND there is something that needs to happen by women coming together, to tell their stories aloud, to witness and honor, to hold each other in reverence and awe, to see the sacred face of the divine in each other’s femaleness, wisdom and pain.

You see, I could have picked any one of my village of women – Jeanne just happened to write something yesterday that sparked something in me. I was so taken by her words, by what was happening inside her, and I value being witness to the stories she writes about her heart, her life and her wisdom, just as I value these very things that are born from all women. This is one of the most creative aspects of having a village. We are connected. We witness. Our hearts can break open by empathizing with the other as she unfolds her sacredness onto the page.

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So, here are some ideas to hold as you speak up and out.

1. Just start. Write. To yourself, to others, on a blog, in a journal, by letter, anywhere you can write, just write. Let the fire in you find its way out onto the page.
2. Write and speak from the body. It doesn’t lie. write/speak from your instincts. your intuition.. (check out the book, Writing From the Body, if you want to know more about this.)
3. Trust that your voice will emerge if you just write the words that want to be written. Know that your voice will change, will flow, will find its own way. Your genius will emerge. It wants to be heard.
4. Know that not everyone will agree, and not everyone will find your words meaningful.
5. Find your village of women to support you. Search the social media halls for women who have a penchant for topics your voice likes. Reach out to them. Read their words, and if they truly resonate with you, comment, friend and follow them.
6. Know that you don’t always have to agree with your village in order to support their work. What if we women stood by each other, in solidarity, simply because we know and understand how hard this process is and how important it is each woman be heard. We’ve all been conditioned to the hilt. What if we stopped judging each other’s conditiong, and held each other as the powerful woman we know she is?
7. Hold the paradox of being in community and learning the ‘way of surrender is about remaining vulnerable and finding the power of no-protection” (Miriam Greenspan). At some point, we all must find the place of balance between the two, somewhere on the continuum that works for you.

I share from my own experience. I’d love to know what has helped you.

As I open to this paradox, of knowing I have my village of women, and knowing the power of no-protection, I find truth finding its way.

Some day there will be girls and women whose name will no longer signify merely an opposite of the masculine, but something in itself, something that makes one think, not of any complement and limit, but of life and existence: the female human being.

—– This advance will (at first much against the will of the men who have been outstripped) change the experiencing of love, which is now full of error, will alter it from the ground up, reshape it into a relation that is meant to be of one human being to another, no longer of man to woman. And this more human love (that will fulfil itself, infinitely considerate and gentle, and good and clear in binding and releasing) will resemble that which we are with struggle and endeavour preparing, the love that consists in this, that two solitudes protect and touch and greet each other.” ~Rilke

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For me, the hope of all this work is for woman to become that which she naturally is: sacredly creative, wildly passionate, compassionately loving, innately life sustaining, and vibrantly alive.

This natural being flowers when she is not keeping herself small, apologizing for her existence, silencing the words she knows must be spoken, and dismissing her own value.

This woman values what she loves, deeply and reverently.

This woman sustains life, in whatever way she must, because that is her life currency.

When woman realizes she is already this woman, the world will change.

And in turn, for man to know himself as he naturally is, by his inherent design. Fully loving, protective of life, all of life. Naturally honoring, respectful, and vibrantly alive.

Ultimately, for me, the goal is for woman and man to bow down to the sacredness in each other, to stand alongside each other, each in their own fullness and independence, each honoring the natural design of the other, in order to provide a loving world for every child, for every animal, for every being we share this amazing earth we call home.

And this more human love (that will fulfill itself, infinitely considerate and gentle, and good and clear in binding and releasing) will resemble that which we are with struggle and endeavor preparing, the love that consists in this, that two solitudes protect and touch and greet each other.” ~Rilke

What other goal could there be other than to become what we are capable of becoming ?

Being a girl is so powerful that we’ve had to train everyone not to be that. ~Eve Ensler

By now, many of you have probably watched Eve Ensler’s TED India talk of November, 2009, “Embrace Your Inner Girl”. If not, I’ve provided it here. I just found it and was blown away by her ability to use language that is inclusive of both men and women. It’s one of the things I loved about the talk.

In attempting to speak about a subject that is charged for so many of us, she has come up with a metaphor, the Girl Cell, that speaks to a part of greater consciousness that exists in us all, men and women. By doing so, she is able to speak about the feminine part of all of us that has been suppressed in the Patriarchy.

She also weaves this idea of the feminine within each of us together with the understanding that there is something positive and life-affirming that girls and women have to offer our world that has been untapped. It’s a both/and perspective: that we all, men and women, can embrace our girl cell, and we can honor what women have to offer as well.

That being said, Eve doesn’t speak in this talk about the boy cell or what men have to offer. That doesn’t mean she doesn’t value those things. Who knows why she doesn’t. The reason I bring this up shows up in the comments that follow the video on the TED site. The context we are all conditioned in, the patriarchy, has created an atmosphere where there is much distrust of the feminine in us all, and much violence towards women. From a contextual point of view, much of what she brings forward must be understood in a new light. I would also say we need to understand, in a new light, what it would look like for men and woman to embrace their boy cell, those positive aspects that come from owning the masculine qualities that uphold and protect life itself.

As I read the comments, I feel so much compassion for all of us as we navigate these churning waters of not only external gender healing, but the internal healing we are all experiencing between our own girl cells and boy cells, our inner masculine and feminine parts. I wonder about how we can talk to each other, woman to man, woman to woman, man to man, about this. Some men were obviously put off by her talk, along with some women. Some men totally were not, along with some women.

In the end, this inner balance between our masculine and feminine, and the balance between these two parts in the external world, is what needs to happen for us all to heal, and for our planet to heal.

As a woman, I loved Eve’s talk. I loved that she spoke to the pain that men have had to endure, too. And, one day, I hope we have a video to watch that speaks of the boy cell and how we all can call this forward within ourselves.

I believe we will create a harmonious and peaceful world ONLY when we come to a place of true gender respect, where we’ve all seen through the rampant misogyny (contempt, fear of, hatred of women) and misandry (contempt, fear of, hatred of men) that exist today. Many are doing powerful work in the world to make this happen. Part of our individual work to heal is to become aware of the places inside ourselves where we fear, have contempt for, and even hate our own inner woman and man. That inner hate shows up in the outer world.

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And, you?

Now that you’ve watched it, what do you think? How did her language of this issue impact you?

If you read some of the comments, how were you impacted?

How do you feel about the current state of affairs between the genders, and within your own being?

What pearls of wisdom do you have to share?

I’d love to know.

The body is like an earth. It is a land unto itself. It is as vulnerable to overbuilding, being carved into parcels, cut off, overmined, and shorn of its power as any landscape. The wilder woman will not be easily swayed by redevelopment schemes. For her, the questions are not how to form but how to feel. The breast in all its shapes has the function of feeling and feeding. Does it feed? Does it feel? It is a good breast. ~Clarissa Pinkola Estés

I picked up my old and tattered copy of Women Who Run With The Wolves again, just the other night. This book carried me through a tough time in my life, a time when I was hurting from a break-up that took me by surprise. In my healing process, I decided I needed to learn how to stay by my own side, no matter what, no matter how shiny the object of my desire was over there. That need to hop the fence can be so seductive. Reading Estés’ classic, I took my own hand in mine and walked deeper into the wild forest of me. Her words spoke to my soul in a way no other author has…except, perhaps, Marian Woodman.

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So I picked up Estés’ book again, let it fall open, and it opened to the quote above.

The body like earth. A land unto itself. Vulnerable. Overbuilt, overmined, cut off, carved into parcels. Shorn of its power. Wild women. Breasts. Feeling and feeding.

Ahhhhh. Back in the land of the wild.

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My mind went back thirty years to motherhood, to the times when I nursed my two babies. Such wondrous moments those were. I loved being a mother to babies. I loved nursing. I can still remember the feeling of the milk letting down when my babies cried. The connection between cry and breast, hunger and milk. All on its own, my body responded to my little ones’ cries for nourishment. The wisdom of the body, especially the female body that can bring life into life, can hold it while it grows, and can then birth it into being, is a mystery. It is sacred.

But even if we never feed our children from our breasts, or never have children, they are still wonderful parts with which to feel. Yes, our lovers can enjoy them; but we get to feel life through our breasts, sensations that let us know we are sensual creatures, that we love what we love.

When we are no longer focused on being the object of desire, but rather the subject, we can enjoy our bodies as the wild woman, the woman that knows her instincts, feelings and body from the inside out.

Desire, pleasure, feeling, aliveness. The body brings us into direct experience with life, back to our senses.

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Estés writes:

There is no ’supposed to be’ in bodies. The question is not size of shape or years of age, or even having two of everything, for some do not. But the wild issue is, does this body feel, does it have right connection to pleasure, to heart, to soul, to the wild? Does it have happiness, joy? Can it in its own way move, dance, jiggle, sway, thrust? Nothing else matters.

These words go right to my soul.

When we see the body as an object to be manipulated and controlled, we are cut off from our wildness, from our instincts and intuition, from our power as women.

When we know our bodies as sacred flesh and bones, blood and heart, we open to how we can experience life through this body. Each cell can awaken to its divinity when we are willing to begin the descent, from our heads where we’ve been taught to live, back into the body, the only place where aliveness dwells.

It is through right connection to our own pleasure, through honoring the sacred within us, through embracing our design as women, that we find right connection to the wild and step into our power. Yes, others can enjoy our bodies, and their enjoyment will be so much greater, when we first are the subject of our own desire, when we hold ourselves as sacred, for we are the sacred feminine in physical form.

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And, you?

Does your body have happiness? Does it know joy?

How do you experience right connection to pleasure, heart, soul and the wild?

I’d love to know what your experiences have been.

L'orge by Jipol

Mae gen i afal, what we would translate into English as “I have an apple,” literally means “There is an apple with me” in Welsh. In Celtic languages there is little concept of ownership, of “having” things. Things are not possessed by you; they are “with” you.

Imagine the shift in consciousness that would occur if our language suddenly didn’t support the possessive case. ~from Fruitflesh by Gayle Brandeis

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I think this is one of the most profound shifts the human race could make – to shift from the idea of ownership to ‘being with’. What would happen to us, where we believe we own everything from goods, to natural resources, to the planet, to each other, if we were to realize we don’t own a thing…not even the days we have ahead?

It’s not like it’s a new idea – many cultures, not just the Celtic culture, have seen, and continue to see, things this way.

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As I pondered this, I thought of how things would change if we humans realized we don’t own each other, if we realized this about our partners, our children, our lovers, our family, and not just our human family, but also other living beings, the earth, all of life.

I don’t own a thing. Everything that surrounds me is ‘with’ me.

When I see it this way, I no longer feel things hierarchically, but rather relationally.

When I see it this way, I feel connection, relationship, mutuality, and kinship.

When I see it this way, I feel reverence for the dignity, autonomy, and sovereignty of the ‘other’ I am with.

When I see it this way, I see you next to me, not across from me. I see you with me, side by side, walking together.

When I see it this way, especially in relation to the Earth, I feel a sense of awe. When I see it this way, I come to know the grandeur of the Earth and the fact that She gives me life. Without her, I would not exist.

Without each other, we would not exist.

Without you, I would not exist.

What a slippery slope the possessive case has been, and continues to be. Language is powerful. How we use it creates how we see the world, each other and ourselves.

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And, you?

How might this shift cause you to see things differently?

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Image courtesy of Jipol by Creative Commons 2.0 license

A Year of Great Promise, (C) Shiloh Sophia McCloud

There is a Hassidic saying which goes: “When the moon shall shine as bright as the sun, the Messiah will come.”

Woman through her struggle to understand herself and to articulate the highest values of the feminine principle, could begin to make the moon shine so that it softens the sun-brightness of our present consciousness. In accepting her depression, her suffering, her loneliness, her longing to outgrow the inarticulateness and powerlessness of her past existence, she may accomplish something truly heroic and extraordinary for life, something which humanity in centuries to come will recognise and cherish. Each woman who gives birth to herself and responds to what life is asking her to accomplish, contributes to the survival of our species and the diminishment of human suffering.

~Anne Baring

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Over the past week, I have written about despair and grief, emotions that are far from the flowers and chocolates of Valentine’s Day. And, many of my friends are experiencing a depth of emotion, similar to what I have written.

Deep emotions are part of our experience as women – and, perhaps, it is becoming so every day that passes. Why so, you ask?

As Anne Baring writes on her site, at this time in history, women are birthing a new kind of consciousness. They are vessels for the shift that is occurring

Women share a different kind of love, one that isn’t always reflected out there in the culture. When you know, and feel, this love, it changes your life. May you always know this love is here, as a deep well to draw from, especially in times when you are polishing the moon within you.

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So, this is a valentine to you, dear woman, dear friend.

May you know the beauty of your own soul.

May you give birth to the radiant You that has been there all along guiding you to this day.

May you trust in Her voice as she calls you to listen to your own deepest wisdom.

May you come to know that you are part of a long history of women who love life and will do anything to nourish and encourage its growth and emergence.

May you see yourself as a Mother, through and through, whether or not you have ever given birth to babies, and may you call forth this Ancient Motherhood within, to love yourself wholly and deeply, first, so you have the energy and strength to share your love with others.

May you always shower yourself with love and compassion, trusting that you are wholly, and holy, female, just as you are.

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Image courtesy of Shiloh Sophia McCloud. Her paintings are remarkable, as is her work in the world.

A fruit is not afraid of its own weight. It grows into its skin fully. It is whole, each part of its body equally alive. ~Gayle Brandeis from Fruitflesh

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Since my last post on despair, my body has been heavy with feeling. Heavy not in a bad way, but simply full, like ripe fruit. Full of the life blood that comes with feeling deeply, down into the body. Not thinking about feeling, but feeling. Not running from the emotions, but rather allowing them to mingle with one another as they move from coming to going.

Sometimes these emotions are ripe for the picking, ready to share their succulent wisdom if one is open to eating the fruit. For me, grief is like the bushel basket that holds the ripe emotions that are being offered up for tasting.

I realized, when I allowed despair to dance, that grief had brought it to my doorstep. Grief is such an intelligent, wise process. It knows what we need to become more alive, more real, more human, more awake. Grief opens the door to feeling fully alive, the raw place where nothing escapes our awareness.

Over the past few days, I came to see that I’m grieving the loss of the way things used to be. It seems so clear to me that life as I knew it has changed. The times of believing life can be one full long sumptuous banquet of eating whatever you want, as much as you want, whenever you want has come to an end. Our culture’s mentality of no-end-in-sight growth, a kind of westward expansion towards a never-ending horizon, had taught me so many things that were lodged in my psyche. When I opened the door to despair, they came tumbling out.

It’s not that I hadn’t seen this before. Heaven knows others have been telling us this all along. This was different though. What came in on the other side of grief is the realization that this banquet I had been taught to enjoy, in many ways had provided little sustenance.

All through the illusion of having my way, getting what I want, a laziness to change my habits, the real riches of life have been offering themselves up to me. Only I was too focused on consuming, acquiring, devouring things in order to feel safe, in control, full. I was too focused on thinking, trying to figure it all out, so I could feel in charge, powerful, again, in control.

I’ve tasted grief many, many times, as have we all. After times of great loss, always, always grief has created room in my heart – if I am willing to invite grief in, to allow it to soak me in its wisdom, to allow it to be my mid-wife, as I birth myself anew. It leaves me able to know more of life’s riches, those riches that can’t be seen, but can certainly be touched and tasted by the heart.

This fullness that is here is not the same as the false fullness of having stuff. It is a weighted down feeling, like a mother heavy with child, like a pear so juicy, the juice almost seeps through the skin, while its mother branch bends deeply to hold it until it no longer can.

Something opens in me – I should say a deeper opening – into the realm of the fullness of life itself. I feel the fullness in the air, in my breath, in my belly. It’s as if I can touch this fullness with my eyes, as I gaze out at the life I swim in. I can hear the fullness. As I listen, it speaks to me, in silence, of its love. It wraps me in its blanket of existence. It pulsates. It throbs. It vibrates and quivers. It’s the fullest, ripest emptiness I could ever imagine.

This fullness is right here, right now. Always here, always now. I’ve come to see it as that which holds me as I dance in the unknown spaces that seem dark and pulse with life. This is what I can trust in when I don’t know, which is only every moment of existence.

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Image courtesy of Andrew Michaels on Flickr; Creative Commons 2.0 license

Sometimes I just feel so deeply.

I feel so much love. joy. simple peace. profound peace.

And sometimes I feel fear. anguish. shame. humiliation. heartbreak. and despair.

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Despair is here today. It invited itself to tea. It boiled the water, steeped the bags, and served tea to me. I guess it is high time for high tea with despair.

Maybe it arrived when I heard Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee speak on Sunday.

He is a brilliant Sufi teacher. His words cut me open. Words of longing for God. Words of crying out for God. Words of wisdom about how our western world has forgotten about God, has forgotten to kneel in awe at the profound mystery that the Divine is.

He spoke of how, when things can’t get darker, or more full of despair, a person instinctively calls out to something greater, knowing the situation is beyond anything she can fix or figure out. This calling out, this crying out instinctively, comes from somewhere inside, someplace where she has not forgotten that there is divinity within her.

I’ve had these times in my life. Times of complete blackness and despair. In these times, I KNEW there was NOTHING I could do. And in these times I dropped to my knees in anguish, despair and prayer. And in these times I was held. Answered. Loved. And in this love, I could finally be with what was. And in being with what was, I could begin to move forward again.

I wasn’t raised religious. Wouldn’t say that I am. I have no context for God, other than my own life experience. And, I know God is here. Not a him. Not a her. Simply is.

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Llewellyn. When someone asked him about the state of affairs in the world, he spoke of how the West no longer has a context to drop to its knees, as a collective. When things are to the point of despair, which I believe they are, there is no context for God in our collective culture. We’ve forgotten that there is something greater than us.

I remember how I felt when I returned home from India. My travels there fed me in a way I had never experienced. I realized God is remembered by the culture all through the day. I could feel God in the air. I could feel the Divine in every bit of teeming life. God was in the healthy, the sick, the living, the dying. God was in the awareness. The spark of divinity in me was mirrored by the divinity in the collective. When I returned home, I no longer saw my divinity mirrored by the collective. It felt as if our world here has been washed clean. Oh, yes, thank God it is in everything else… the trees, the animals, the mountains…but, not in our man made world. Not in our culture.

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Perhaps this is when despair dropped in.

I have felt, and feel, so helpless because there seems to be no avenue to express my despair, except of course on my own knees to God. But out there it feels as if we, and I include me in this, go on about our day. I have three beautiful grandchildren, and I weep at what the world will be like for them. Sometimes, when I write about my despair, others respond saying they feel it, too. But then our culture continues on, dropping to knees to the Gods we’ve anointed with power: Money, Technology, Media, Pornography, Consumption, War.

I forget.

We forget.

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I can’t get Llewellyn’s words out of my mind. We as a culture don’t seem to be able to come together at all. We are divided as a culture. Republican vs. Democrat. Christina vs. Muslim. Men vs. Women. Haves vs. Have-Nots. Believers vs. Non-Believers. Those who believe we are hurtling towards a dangerous end, those who don’t. Granted nothing is this black and white, nothing. But we tend to take sides, as if one side or the other is our tribe. There is a palpable push-pull happening, only keeping us stuck in the muck of our own making. There seem to be few valid, concrete solutions to the growing state of affairs. Heck, we can’t even agree that we face problems.

What I do know is that we must feel everything here, all the emotions that the current state of affairs brings up. Despair, grief, sadness, anger are feelings we don’t usually acknowledge until they beome so great we can’t not acknowldege them. We must feel the depths of the darkness that we push away. I know I can no longer not feel despair. I know I can no longer remain silent about the depths of turmoil and grief I feel.

There is a plus-side to feeling these dark emotions. Healing comes through them. And clarity comes, too. These feelings cloud clarity, they cloud the inner strength to act, the creativity that can bubble up to serve us in these times. Qualities like clarity, inner strength, creativity, compassion all come from our essential nature, our divinity. That God-spark within each of us.

Dropping to our knees and feeling the depths of what lies in our hearts helps us to remember there is something greater than us, something that holds us. Call it God, the Divine, Greater Intelligence, Life, or whatever works for you. No Matter. The name is just for us anyway.

When I feel as if my heart will just break, I know it will break open. A heart breaking open is a good thing. Then there is love. Only love. For all of life. Even for the false Gods I’ve created. An open heart doesn’t keep anything out. And it invites grace in. The grace that just might be the only passage to a new kind of world.

Despair has taught me well. It has shared its gift.

This is a love message. To you.

I think of what Mother Teresa said, “If you want a love message to be heard, it has got to be sent out. To keep a lamp burning, we have to keep putting oil in it.” I’m sending it out. Don’t know how it will touch you, or if it will. I just keep putting oil in the lamp.

When an idea reaches critical mass there is no stopping the shift its presence will induce.
~Marianne Williamson

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What if the Internet, itself, was spiritual in nature? This is a question I wondered about back in 2001, when I designed and wrote a thesis on Spirituality and the Internet. My ideas at the time were roughly hewn. I had just finished three years doing a lot of coursework in design, computer science, and digital art. The project was to create a spiritual space on the Internet. But, the deeper message, was that the Internet itself was a spiritual space, simply in its form – following on the form follows function idea.

On this same idea, just today, two very interesting and timely articles fell into my lap, by way of – you guessed it – the Internet.

The first, Saudi women revel in online lives, written by Caryle Murphy, gives us a small glimpse into how the internet is opening up the world to women in Saudi Arabia.

In a country where about one-third of the population regularly goes online, the internet gives women “a place to vent out our frustrations and our dreams,” said Reem Asaad, 37, a professor of banking and finance in the Saudi port city of Jeddah who blogs at reemasaad.blogspot.com.

It also has allowed women who normally are “physically invisible” to participate more actively in Saudi society, Asaad added.

“From the authorities’ viewpoint,” she explained, “so long as women are behind a curtain, or a screen, and so long as they are not before a camera or walking down the street, then everything is fine. Women are free to do anything they want as as long as they aren’t seen, heard or spotted doing it by men.”

When I read the words “physically invisible”, my heart felt a sharp pain of sadness and despair. I can’t begin to imagine how it feels to be physically invisible. Feeling into what it might be like to be hidden in such a way stimulated a deep sense of compassion for all women who are experiencing this. Obviously, I don’t know what this is like. And, of course, I am projecting my own fears and feelings onto the story here. But, from one woman to another, from one soul to another, I feel for these women.

To read on and see how the internet is bringing them into connection and out of such separation brought a sense of possibility for what might be, how the world could shift simply through the Internet. To shift this way, we have to see that the Internet is the means for connection, something I believe we are beginning to understand more deeply each day.

After sitting with these thoughts, the second article fell into my lap (or I should say, landed in my inbox). The Internet as a Living Symbol of Global Oneness, written by Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee Ph.D., a Sufi teacher and author, is an extremely important article on Huffington Post. It could change the nature of how we experience, and use, the Internet.

“I believe that the Internet is a gift we have been given. It provides an image of how the energy of life can flow freely in a way that defies the barriers of nationality and geography. Yet sadly because we are so immersed in the surface activity of this technology, in its tools of commerce and communication, we do not realize its deeper, symbolic dimension. A symbol is a connection to the sacred ground of our being which alone gives real meaning to our daily life. The Internet, as a living symbol of global oneness, offers us a direct connection to an awareness of divine oneness (italics mine). But because we have lost touch with the symbolic dimension of life, we do not fully recognize this potential of the Internet: as a dynamic expression of a new consciousness of oneness that has within it access to energies and means that can unify our divisive world (italics mine). If we were awaken to its real potential, we would be truly in awe–and we would laugh, with wonder, at life’s capacity to recreate itself while we are not even looking.

What does it mean to shift to seeing the internet as a symbol of global divine oneness? What does this mean for our everyday use of the Internet?

I can see, now, that all my attention back in 2001 on this notion of connection through the Internet was coming from intellectual and psychological perspectives. The internet as a dynamic symbol? A brand new door of understanding and knowing.

The Internet as this symbol feels deeper and richer. It feels alive. It is alive. It is dynamic. It has energies and means within it to bring about the awareness of oneness that already exists. We aren’t in control here. Yet, we can, if conscious, align with this potential inherent in the “gift we have been given”.

We can see ourselves in connection with others out there, like these women in Saudi Arabia who are now experiencing a new kind of visibility. We can know we are moving within this dynamic consciousness of oneness as we bring our own gifts to the interplay of connection and expression. We don’t have to figure out how to use this. We can’t figure it out. It knows. It is alive. We can trust in its aliveness. We can move with it.

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One thing I do know: the importance of connecting women, in order to awaken the vital energies of healing and nourishment that lie dormant in the cells of our bodies – to awaken the primal sacred feminine nature of women’s creativity. We won’t fully bring to life this force within that is pushing to awaken, if we stay hidden, invisible and alone in isolation. We will awaken in community. We have been given the gift. How will we use it?

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And, you?

How have you already experienced this divine oneness? How does knowing this change your perspective on the Internet? How might you being to move with it?

What if simply knowing the Internet as a living, dynamic manifestation of oneness were the idea that needs to reach critical mass that Marianne Williamson speaks of? How might things shift?