Beauty

The day is here. My granddaughter, Avaline, is coming into the world. My daughter Jenny just called to say her water broke. I am on my way to the hospital. Such great joy. Life being born yet again.

Greetings to all,

I haven’t been posting for a bit. My time for writing these days has been limited. Instead, I have been spending most of my moments with my mother who is near the end of her two-year journey with cancer.

Joan, my mother, is an incredible woman. She is strong, courageous, and vital. She is independent and fiercely stubborn. All of these qualities have kept her alive much longer than we anticipated.

As these past months have gone by, I have been graciously given the chance to see the radiance in her shine forth from a deep place within. She is radiant with love and when she smiles at me I can feel the power of her love and the gentle, yet powerful presence of her true identity. She is my mother, yet she is also love itself.

“It’s so clear that you have to cherish everyone. I think that’s what I get from these older black women, that every soul is to be cherished, that every flower is to bloom.”
—Alice Walker

What is it to be female? One of the most amazing aspects of being a woman is our ability to love unconditionally. It is our nature. Within women, there is a substance that flows throughout one’s being. Spiritual leaders speak of this aspect of consciousness that is present in women because women intrinsically bring the divine into incarnation through their bodies. This that flows throughout the beingness of woman is always there. When we love, we love with this substance that brings consciousness to matter, that lights up matter with the radiance of the divine.

As Alice Walker says, to cherish everyone is the chance to bring reflection to the divinity within each person, and for that matter, every living thing. When we women love fully, from the depths of our heart and body, when we welcome in our own divinity and love from this place, we shine the light of awareness on the Oneness that is Life.

Loving unconditionally, though, is not the province of the ego. It is not about satisfying our desires and wants. Rather, it is trusting our nature as women and acknowledging the sacredness of our female body, so that we can fully embody this female nature and trust what it is here to do. This is the beauty that is inherent in women. This is the nature of females that is being called forth to full expression.

Just a few days ago, last Thursday evening, I was lucky, lucky, lucky…I got to experience Mary Oliver in person in San Rafael. It was my good friend Megan’s birthday and she invited me along with her.

Mary Oliver is an incredible poet, and having the opportunity to hear her read her own words was one of those amazing moments in life. She is simple yet profound in her ability to articulate the experience of being present to the beauty of life. I found her most engaging as she shared poems about her important relationships: the one with her late beloved partner of 40 years, and the other with her dog, Percy. She is a master of speaking from her heart, in writing and in person.

I am currently re-reading one of Mary’s latest books, Thirst. It is a beautiful collection written after the death of her partner, and opens to two new directions in her work: grief and her discovery of faith. This book looks at sorrow as an opening to the awakening of faith. It reflects my own experience of the profound way that grief can move a person into the depths of the heart, which can bring about an opening into a new, very personal, relationship with life. Pick it up and be prepared to be amazed.

Amy Lenzo, of the Beauty Dialogues, was there, too. We were hoping to meet each other in person, but it wasn’t to be. The place was packed, every seat sold in advance. You can read Amy’s account of the evening in her post in the Beauty Dialogues.

“I walk in the world to love it.” ~ Mary Oliver, the fantabulous poet.

I received this quote recently and fell in love all over again with the world I live in.

The next morning, a sunny spring Sunday morning, I decided to take a walk in Tilden Park. It’s right across the street from our house, so I simply have to step outside and I am there. I took my new camera with me, my new/used D200 that I bought from my good friend Jenn Lee’s husband, Bring Ng (an amazing photographer if you are in the market for one). This was my first jaunt into Tilden with my camera and I could feel my excitement.

I hiked up into our favorite path, a loop that goes up towards Inspiration Point, and then back down hill until it reaches the creek and meanders along the water for some distance. As I hiked, I kept hearing this quote from Mary Oliver over and over in my head. “I walk in the world to love it.” As I walked, I could feel myself settle into the surrounding landscape, dropping down into the deep peace that was waiting there for me.

It was early in the morning, about 8:00, so there were still many pockets of cold air, especially in the shadiest spots, while just around the corner the sun would be blazing and a balmy breeze would blow across my face. In those balmy breezes, I could smell the fragrance of each mini-world I came across.

The sun was coming through the landscape, lighting up nooks and crannies I had never noticed before. I could feel a kinship with the world I was immersed in, feeling a kind of deep peaceful love that comes over me when I hike.

As I hiked up to the top of the trail, I came to my favorite spot, a bench that looks out over the tiny valley and out across to Mt. Tamalpais in Marin. My partner Jeff and I love to sit here in silence, enjoying everything that presents itself to us. The bench is dedicated to David and Irene McPhail. I remember to thank them for this place to sit and appreciate the surrounding beauty.

As I approached the bench this time, I noticed once again the plaque on the back. How perfect. On the plaque was the statement, “Lovers of this Place.” I didn’t miss the serendipitous tie-in with the quote from Mary Oliver, “I walk in the world to love it.”

So I sat down in silence and drank in the beauty of everything presenting itself to me in this rich moment. I wondered what it means to be a lover of this place, this world we live in. What does it mean to love the world, to be a lover of this place we call life and earth and community?

What is it to be fully sensuous, to rest in one’s awareness of everything presenting itself to be experienced? How difficult it can sometimes be to not push certain experiences away, while grabbing a hold of other better ones.

To be a lover of this place means to have a loving relationship with all of life, not making demands on the moment if it isn’t what pleases you. It doesn’t mean simply letting the injustices prevail, but rather loving the world open-heartedly so that you allow it to come to you, allow it to unfold before your eyes, ears and heart. It it then that we can be truly responsive and responsible to the world, to each other and to ourselves.

What does it mean to you to be a Lover of this Place?

There is something amazing in women: beautiful, soft, gentle, strong, vibrant and powerful, the fullness of which is being kept hidden from the world. The world needs this beauty to be brought forward, to shine, to share and to engage with all of life.

Sometimes we catch glimpses of this amazingness of women: a look here, a touch there, words of wisdom spoken with eloquence, strength and grace.

I see this femaleness in my friends, my sisters, my daughters. I see it in strangers as they are with their children, or interact in business, or even simply walking down the street.

I feel this femaleness within my own self, deep within my body. It is my life force and the source of my creativity. When I don’t allow this truth of who I am to be seen, I can feel resentful, but it is only me that can allow it out.

When I coach my female clients to reclaim this femaleness, this vibrancy that is the source of the juice of life, I get to feel the exquisite expression of life dancing as woman. On some level, we are all, men and women, looking to reclaim this vibrancy, this life force that is ever present within. Perhaps we simply need to be the encourager to each other, to radiate another’s beauty so that they may see it themselves. The wonderful part of this assignment is that this is how we will truly come to know our own radiance.

Can you be the encouragement of Light that Hafiz speaks of for another woman? Find one very special woman and be the encouragement of light against her being. See what you find in doing so.

It Felt Love

How

Did the rose

Ever open its heart

And give to this world

All its

Beauty?

It felt the encouragement of light

Against its

Being,

Otherwise,

We all remain

Too

Frightened.

~Hafiz

photo by dragonflysky on flickr

Time spent with other women is such magical time. As I dive deeper into my experience of being female and explore my own feminine depths, I find this time with women so enriching, so fertile and so reflective of my own true nature, and the nature of the feminine.

Creation

I looked forward to my time today with a group we have named Creative Playground. My wonderful friend, and fellow coach, Jennifer Lee brought us all together a few months ago, sensing that magic might occur with us all in one room. Magic did, and continues to, happen.

The thread that runs through our group is one of delight in making art and exploring our creativity. Today we spent the afternoon at Laura’s house, where she introduced us to mandalas. While I use mandala creation in the courses I teach, Laura brought an entirely new way of looking at them by introducing us to them through a wonderful visualization. She taught us that the center of the mandala is the Bindu, the centerpoint of all of creation. In the visualization, we turned inward to experience our own center and all that it holds.

As I visualized, I sensed a pulsing energy, as if all of my life force radiated out from one center point deep in my hara, near the sacrum…the very center of my body. I could see an image emerge, one of a powerful cell that holds all of creation. As I explore the Sacred Feminine and my own experience of being female, I find myself continually brought back to the experience of bringing life forth and giving birth. Even though my own daughters are grown, I sense my connection to the Earth through something mysterious, that essence that is inherent in all women, that allows us to nurture life and bring it to term.

We then dove into creating our first mandala, and the result is the mandala above, titled ‘Creation’. I started with the outer layers, which felt like the lining of the womb as I drew them. Then, I created the center and followed it with the concentric circles radiating outward. Bringing more awareness to my own center core allowed me to put what I experienced out onto the paper. It was another way to sense into who and what I am.

The Earth held by Flowering Hands.

My next mandala was much more free form. I began with the leaves at the edge, and then moved in to the flowers. After we completed our work, I traveled to babysit my grandson Lucas for a bit, and Lucas decided he wanted this one for his art collection in his room. Standing back from it and looking at it one more time, I realized it looks like the Earth being held by loving, living flowering hands. It is an image that makes me smile.

Mandalas are an ancient form from the Hindu religion. The word mandala is Sanskrit and loosely translated means “circle”. But it is much more than simply the circle shape. It symbolizes wholeness and the infinite nature of life. The Bindu is the ‘infinite point’ within which everything is contained.

Gather a group of women together and enter into your own mandala mystery. Focus on your body, and on your interior experience. Allow your experience to guide your creation. Once created, you can then take a fresh look at your mandala and see within it an entirely new view into who and what you are. It is a representation of all that you are, and all that is.