Just yesterday, this best friend sent me a picture. She has been scanning old pictures and came across this one. I am on the left. Just seeing this image brought back a flood of feelings and memories of a time in my life when I felt so connected to the world around me, especially nature through all the time I spent outdoors. As I thought back to this time, I realized how important these years are. It’s during these times that we have a glimpse into our deeper nature and a sense of our place in the world. Once we grow up and move out into the world, and into making a living, most of us lose contact with our own internal knowing, because we believe we have to conform to our culture and society to make it. And, we believe that conformity requires letting go of who we really are and what we truly want to do with our lives. It’s not that we consciously choose to go against our authenticity, but rather we are conditioned to do so.

Seeing this picture and remembering that time in my life, with all the friends and experiences it held, re-affirmed who I am and what compels me to action today in my life. I know that my work with women to awaken our connection to the Earth and our connection to each other is exactly what I knew somewhere deep within me when this picture was taken.

Think back to your youth, those years when you wondered what your life would hold. What did you envision. Who did you see yourself to be? Are you honoring that deepest place within you, that place that speaks to you quietly, but insistently?

“You must be the change you wish to see in the world.”

We have all, men and women, been highly conditioned by our parents, cultures, religions and society at large. This conditioning is the basis of our personal ego. This ego has its own gods (beliefs and opinions) and these gods are the ones the ego believes all should follow. For example, with regards to the Hilary Clinton vs. Sarah Palin debate, on one level we may believe that the way Hilary carries herself in the world (beliefs, character, background, actions) is better than the way Palin carries herself…or, perhaps, for many others that Palin is “better than” Hilary. It all depends on the way we have been conditioned. But, conditioning is conditioning. Period. All conditioning is a box that has been created to keep each one of us in conformity and a false sense of security and safety. And, even though we have outgrown our conditioning, we keep choosing and acting from it so that we stay part of the ‘tribe’.

We are on the brink of something new, something fresh. What is required is true leadership from each American. We must quiet the fearful cries of our egos so that we may hear our own truth and ‘be’ this truth in the world. This does take trust in our own wisdom. It means taking a stand for what we know to be true within our own being. It means responding rather than reacting. It means questioning our reliance on our leaders to be responsible to us when we haven’t found our own means of being responsible to ourselves. It means becoming citizens again, citizens of not only this country, but citizens of our world.

There is an amazing opportunity presenting itself. We have the opportunity to heal the cultural distrust between men and women, and between women themselves. This distrust has been passed down from generation to generation as part of the cultural conditioning. It has been part of our cultural shadow for hundreds of years and for this distrust to heal, the shadow needs to be seen, acknowledged and personally owned. What we fear within ourselves we project out onto others. How does the shadow show up for you? What are your deepest fears about women in positions of power? How are you judging the women and men involved in the campaign rather than objectively looking at their qualifications? In what ways do the candidates, and their opinions and beliefs scare you? In what ways do you align with them?

Right now things feel chaotic. They are. This election has suddenly, and beautifully, brought in new voices, the voices of women, voices that have for too long been kept quiet. Things are changing and the change feels overwhelming to that part of us that wants to ensure our own beliefs will win.

But, in chaos is opportunity. How can we use this amazing opportunity to create something new and fresh in our political and cultural landscape with regards to women and men leading together?

True creativity, something truly fresh and innovative, can only come into existence when we trust in our own nature and in what we know to be true for ourselves.

Here are a few thoughts I have with regard to the current dialogue regarding women and the elections:

1. As women, we can choose not to disrespect another woman simply for holding other views and opinions. We need to own our projections. We must separate out what we hate and fear about the ‘other’, and what we disagree with about their position. What we hate and fear about the ‘other’ is what we hate and fear about ourselves.Our cultural conditioning is misogynistic. This means both men and women have been conditioned to see women in ways that are belittling and demeaning. It shows up in subtle ways, and we are all guilty of it. If we can see our own part in this and consciously find a way to heal whatever it is within ourselves that feeds this dynamic, then we will be actively embodying the change we hope to see in those who lead our country.

2. As women, we can recognize that we have all found a way to survive in this male-dominated culture. We continue to rely on our conditioned strategies to stay in the fold, whatever fold we have found to rely on be it Democrat, Republican, or Independent. Our parties seem to have become tribes that keep us seeing ourselves as different and separate than those of the other tribes.It helps to own that we are all clinging to our worn out strategies and beliefs, ones that no longer truly serve a society that is moving towards a different perspective of power and prosperity.

3. Why should we be surprised that women running for office would hold wildly differing views? Men have for centuries, and women will, too. Can we separate out gender from clearly defined positions and platforms? Yes, it would be amazing to have a woman in office, but to vote for a candidate simply because of gender would truly be a mistake if we don’t genuinely agree with the positions the candidate espouses or the integrity with which they lead.

4. Can we choose to not act out of fear and negativity? Everywhere we look, something is feeding our fear. Everything is about ‘fighting’ and winning the war on fill-in-the-blank. This perspective of fear and fight continues to cause us to see the world in which we live as an enemy to be conquered rather than an environment that can sustain us if we see ourselves in relationship with it rather than dominators.

5. We each must step up to the plate and be willing to be in action. We must be that which we are asking of our leaders. This means finding and claiming our own authority to act from our integrity and authenticity, those qualities that define successful visionary leaders. Then, regardless of who wins in November, we will be walking our talk and living our values…being the change we wish to see right here in our own backyard. Doing this brings forth the peace within that we are looking for out there.

Hopefully, we can open to a new way of seeing our personal role in this election, and beyond it to the rest of the world. How will we hold our relationships with other women, especially those who hold differing views? Can we agree to disagree, while maintaining a sense of compassion and respect for each other as women? Can we begin to build and nurture the humanity of women, a web that connects us to each other and to the sacred feminine?

Can we refuse to do to each other what has been done to us as a gender for hundreds of years?

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.

Learning to trust yourself, your experience and your wisdom is the key to learning to claim your personal authority.

Let me share an example. I started writing a book over three years ago. After at least a year of writing, I ended up with a pretty hefty book proposal, with a complete chapter of 40-plus pages. One of my much esteemed colleagues introduced me to his agent, so I contacted her and asked her if she would read my proposal. She asked me all sorts of questions about my background and education. When she discovered that I didn’t have a PhD, or a “national following”, she said she wouldn’t read my proposal as I didn’t have what it took to be credible or sell books. At the time, I let her authority crush mine. Let me explain.

I did not yet understand that my own experience and the wisdom that comes from it is the only knowing that I can truly have. And, that sharing our wisdom to others, and being open to others wisdom, is a way we learn about who we are and what is real, outside of what our cultural conditioning tells us, especially for women. We learn by sharing stories and the deep seeds of wisdom that come from living consciously.

Don’t get me wrong…I am all for a good education. I loved my time at Stanford University, finding the intelligent discourse and amazing flow of ideas completely full of life. But, education can only take us so far.

But with this literary agent, I accepted the status quo she was offering to me. I was standing alongside her in this culture’s perspective that others with education and some kind of ‘sensational experience’ know more than those who don’t have these experiences. I believed the story that without a PhD or some kind of notoriety, that what I have to say is not enough of interest to others to sell books.

Now, I can understand this from the current way publishing works. It is about making money, and in this culture, at least right now, what makes money is sensationalism or a hefty academic pedigree. But, I let this experience kill my own compelling urge to write the book. I also let it squash my own inner authority that I absolutely know I have something to offer and to share, and have the right to share it.

I think realizing and exercising ones personal authority is a necessity in these times of turmoil. And, personal authority is not by definition in conflict with other forms of authority. We can claim our right to voice and act on what we know to be true from deep within, our own Truth, while at the same time allowing this response to not infringe on another’s rights.

Historically, women have not had the luxury of being born with authority. Over the past few thousand years, women have lived mostly in the confines of patriarchal cultures, which don’t teach or honor that we have the ability to know and own this personal inner authority.

What it comes down to is owning our own wisdom, nurturing this wisdom, looking within to understand our own truth so that we may step forward and voice this truth into the world.

We are conditioned out of our own inner authority. We are taught well that others make the rules and choices and our only way to voice them is by voting for those we believe will hold up the values and choices we stand behind.

We are also conditioned out of honoring our wisdom. In my work with women directly affected by 9/11, at the end of each class day, we would hold a wisdom circle where each woman had a chance to speak the seeds of wisdom she gleaned from the work of the day. The wisdom in those circles pierced one’s heart with clarity and love.

I am now writing again and loving it. How it will turn out I don’t yet know. I have stepped into a new perspective about what I have to say. All I know is that I must say it…how it appears, and who will read it, is not up to me. I do know that I have the wisdom and the authority to speak up and be heard.

What is your wisdom? What are you wanting to say? What if there were women out there just waiting to hear your wisdom? How might you share it? I look forward to learning from you…

This month also happens to celebrate Speaking Up and Voices in general…at least in two of the circles I run in: the Creativity in Business (CiB) Teacher Training community of 2006 and the National Blog Posting Month or NaBloPoMo.

I was blessed to be a coach and trainer for a second group of people training to teach the Creativity in Business course that was taught at Stanford Business School for over 25 years. I took the course in 2002 and teach it to a variety of groups and individuals.

In our CiB teacher community, we are following a Live-With titled “Speak-up”. A Live-With is a practice that suggests a new way of being in the world with regard to a specific challenge or tool from the course. Our group is now practicing new Live-Withs that are not in the course per se, but continue to challenge us to grow into the fullness of our creative nature.

The purpose of this Live-With is to learn to speak up in situations that one might not normally do so. Sometimes we don’t speak up due to fear or perhaps habit or maybe even unconsciousness. To speak up is to tell the truth, our own truth, even in times when it feels frightening or difficult. It also means discovering what is true.

NaBloPoMo was started by Eden Marriott Kennedy, and, according to the site, National Blog Posting Month is “the epicenter of daily blogging”!The theme for NaBloPoMo this month is “Voices”. Since I have committed to post something every day in the month of May related to this theme, we’ll explore all the ways in which Voices might be experienced.

When I realized the two themes were so closely related, I figured something was up and I had better pay attention and join in the fun. Perhaps it is time to speak up and really use my unabashedly female voice, or maybe it’s time for you to speak up here to tell us about how you are discovering your unabashedly female self.

I hope to hear many other unabashedly female voices this month, so please stop by for a moment and post a comment or just introduce yourself. I look forward to hearing your voice here and enjoying what you have to say when you Speak Up!!!

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 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?

As I recollect the day, I realize how important these traditions and rituals are. Marking these moments allows us to spend unhurried time in each other’s company, allows us to slow down and appreciate the life we are blessed to live, and appreciate the presence of life in each other and in our coming together.

Being in the company of 11 other women…daughters, mothers, sisters, nieces and friends…is soul-satisfying. My mother Joan who has been living with cancer, and moving toward healing of heart and soul through the experience, was there, obviously buoyed by the presence of so many women she loves. My mother-in-law, the mother of my late husband Gary, was there as well. These two mothers have been such strong influences in my life. I watched them yesterday, sitting together sharing the latest news, and more importantly, sharing moments of reflection of years past, of moments such as this one with Melodi. They came together through the love that Gary and I found. They came to know each other through the same ritual and tradition that we experienced yesterday, through two people coming together in marriage.

I was taken back thirty-some years, back to my youth when I was the one expectant with love and expectant with life. I was witnessing my mothers and their mothers spend time together. And now, I have moved up a generation. My niece Melodi is expectant with love, expectant with hopes and dreams for the future with Chris. My daughter and niece are expecting babies, expectant with all life will bring in the fall when they hold their babies for the first time.

In the midst of all this expectancy was the beauty of the present moment, the beauty of life and love blossoming, and the beauty of wise women who have lived full years.

I think what captivated me was the simplicity of it all: sharing food, enjoying the beauty of flowers, giving gifts and engaging conversation. Youth and Wisdom. Life and Love. Giving and sharing. We live such busy lives, yet time slowed down with our coming together. I could see that thirty years later, life was still just doing what life does. We were older. Some women have passed, while others were born and had grown into womanhood. But held within it all was a deep thread of continuity. The tradition and ritual brought us together and marked a moment that we could share. As in the way of transition, this ritual moment brought us to the present, allowing us to catch up to and acknowledge where we are in the place of things.

As one of my teachers says, when you forget who and what you are, just stop and be still. Yesterday was a day to do just that. Another way to stop and be still…and be grateful for the life and love that awaits us when we do stop and we are still.

It is one thing to have expectations that life will turn out a certain way. With regard to creativity, expectations can be the death of all things creative. But this is expectancy in a different form. To feel life coming into being, to be so present with all that is here that you feel it pulsing from within, you feel the vibrancy of spirit manifesting in each moment is to savor the nature of all that is. To savor the pregnancy inherent in every moment is to be one with your own creativity, that force of creation that is within all of life. To savor that feminine creativity that resides within your womb, and the womb of creation is to be filled with the wisdom of Sophia, the wisdom of the feminine aspect of life.

So take a moment to feel the immediacy of this moment, the birth that is imminent, that aspect of self that is the Creator creating the moment. Revel in this aspect of the Feminine, and in your own creative capacity as a woman. Yes, we can give birth to babies, and we can give birth to so much more…

On Sunday, I noticed Innocence again as I meandered through the Japanese Tea Garden in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. Cherry blossoms, California Poppies and many others all were making their debut in Spring, 2008’s show. When I feel innocence in the air, and in myself, I feel a fresh awareness in the moment.

No matter how old we get, we still have this fresh awareness available at any moment. It’s this fresh awareness that allows us to experience the vibrancy of life, quivering with aliveness. And, when we tap into this vibrancy of life, we can feel our own vibrancy, our own innocence, which can also be felt as wonder, discovery and a simple joy inherent in life itself.

When I realize this natural sense of wonder within, I awaken to the fluidity of the Now. Wonder invites me to participate with life, allowing me to remember that I am no different than that cherry blossom peeking out for the first time. I, too, am life blossoming into wholeness.

What do innocence and wonder have to do with creativity? Everything. Engaging with the flow of life is creativity, the life that you are and the life that you are swimming in in each moment. If you are not seeing with fresh eyes, you miss all that is right here now. You can’t tap into everything that is available for your new creation, your new vision, if you have your mind made up and your expectations set. When you feel a vision wanting to be born from within, allow it to move as it chooses. You are the vehicle of this creation. Feed it. Nurture it. Love it as it finds its way. And, feed, nurture and love yourself as you carry it into being.

Every day you are creating…but not by yourself. You are creating with the world around you. Innocence and wonder bring you back to the freshness of what is here in each moment, a freshness that knocks at your door, ready to teach you what it has to offer.

It’s a great song to dance to, run to and simply to listen to. The lyrics are powerful.

As I listen to the song, the two lines that keep grabbing my awareness are:

“What’s wrong with the world, mama
People livin’ like they ain’t got no mamas”

I love this description of people’s behavior today. There is so much violence, greed, pettiness, fear, distrust, lack of love…you name it, it seems as though the collective Ego is fighting for dear life to hang on in this time and sea of change. While there is much to smile about in this world, the line

“People livin’ like they ain’t got no mamas”

keeps ringing in my ears. What does it mean to live like we ain’t got no mama? What popped into my head is the stark clarity of what has happened as a result of the suppression of the Sacred Feminine.

In his very-popular current book, A New Earth, Eckhart Tolle speaks of the shunning of the Sacred Feminine that began centuries ago, and that has been internalized by humans to a degree, some lesser, some more. The Sacred Feminine was ‘rendered powerless’ through the developing male ego, and in time, became internalized in all humans to some degree.

What we see now is a world gone mad because it is out of balance. The Big Mama, the Sacred Feminine, has been silenced and put into darkness. The world has run amuck without a mama to keep balance with the Sacred Masculine.

When I hear this line, I realized it’s like we all know Mama is missing, but we don’t know where to find her.

But she is here…right here. She never left. We simply put her away into the dark recesses of our psyches so that we could stay alive.

We, as women, are more of the body and the earth, and less identified with our minds. As Tolle says, “Because the ego was never as deeply rooted in woman, it is losing its hold on women more quickly than on men.” (pg 157)

What would our world be like if we let the Mama, and our own Sacred Feminine mama within, out again? How might we be different? How might the world be different? How might men change? How might our children grow up to see gender and love differently?

What if you were to begin to trust your own Sacred Feminine nature and the body in which She lives and breathes?

image by aussiegall on Flickr