Well, we did it. We climbed to the top of Croagh Patrick. It’s quite a feat, let me tell you. I’ve climbed many mountains, but this one is truly a pilgrimage. It is so steep for the last third of the climb, that at one point I was climbing with hands and feet.

And, it was truly a once in a lifetime experience to make this ascent surrounded by so many devotees of Saint Patrick.

As is the tradition, some young men were even climbing in bare feet. I’ve included pictures, below, so you can get a sense of just what it might be like to climb this mountain without shoes.

Not only was the scenery simple stunning, the climb itself was hard, as the trail has so much loose rock and the slope is so steep.

We started out with sunshine, but soon the top of the mountain was covered by clouds. From the base to the top, there’s a 2,500 ft. elevation change.

As I wrote in my last post, in pre-Christian times, this mountain was considered to be the mountain of the Great Mother. So as I hiked, I payed homage to both the Mother and to St. Patrick.

I’d love to know:

Have you ever climbed this mountain, or have gone on a pilgrimage to something you hold dear?

Tomorrow’s post: Queen Maeve’s tomb…

The Land of the Goddess

As you may have noticed, I’ve been absent from posting here. I’ve been on a journey, exploring the wild land and sacred sites of Ireland.

In my readings of Ireland, I discovered that many speak of Ireland as the Land of the Goddess. I’m discovering what that means. It seems to me that the earth itself is the land of the goddess, but we’ve been visiting the land to come to know it.

My intention was to post here when I arrived, and throughout my trip. For one reason, then another, each time I attempted to post from my new iPhone 4 and wireless keyboard, something has gotten in the way of my posts finally making it to publication. I’ve just let this be, as it seemed too much to fight what seemed to be asking me to simply let go of work and surrender to simply being in, and with, this beautiful country and countryside.

The night before last, we drove into Lisdoonvarna, a small town in the western part of County Clare, a place that is also a gateway to the Burren.

Connemara and Croagh Patrick

We then drove through Connemara, amazing countryside, the beauty of which brought tears to my eyes. We arrived in Westport last night, prepared to hike up the sacred mountain today, Croagh Patrick.

This mountain is dedicated to St. Patrick, and many climb to the top as a pilgrimage to this holy Saint.

I have read that, prior to Christianity coming to Ireland, this mountain was considered to be the mountain of the Great Mother. I’m looking forward to climbing it and experiencing what’s there.

St. Brigid

We’ve seen so many beautiful and ancient, sacred sites. One place in particular, really moved me… the town of Kildare, which is home to the Cathedral of St. Brigid and the flame that was kept alive for hundreds and hundreds of years by women dedicated to what St. Brigid held dear and dedicated her life to.

The woman who now keeps the flame burning is Sister Mary. We had the opportunity to call on her, in her home that is an open home, dedicated to spreading St. Brigid’s work. It was an honor to meet Sister Mary and to be in the presence of the flame of St. Brigid.

The presence there was beautifully palpable with a sense of healing and nourishment. I felt ‘full’ when I left, full in a way that is hard to describe. I felt no more wanting nor needing to find that which will fill me up.

After Kildare, we drove to Cobh, where one of my great, great grandfathers left for America. Unexpectedbly, I was moved to tears when I arrived there. I felt a connection to generations past, and felt a sense of what it must have been like to leave his homeland and come to a place so big and vast, so foreign.

We’ve been in the eastern, southern, and now the western parts of Ireland. I have many stories to share with you, which I’ll do in the coming weeks and months, for I know what I’m experiencing bere will only deepen within me.

If you’re interested in seeing pictures, join me on Facebook (Juliemdaley) or Twitter (juliedaley), to enjoy some of these postings.

With great love,

Julie

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“How simple a thing it seems to me that to know ourselves as we are, we must know our mothers’ names.”~Alice Walker

Lineage.

A lineage of women.

I once participated in a dance workshop for women only. It was a beautiful experience. I normally dance each week with both women and men in the 5Rhythms. At this one workshop for women only, we were asked at the beginning of the weekend to introduce ourselves as the daughter of the mother that gave us life, and as the granddaughter of the mother that gave our mother life. We were also asked to introduce ourselves in relation to who we’d given life to.

Hello.
I’m Julie,
daughter of Joan,
granddaughter of Pauline,
great-granddaughter of Clarissa,
mother of Jacqueline and Jennifer,
grandmother of Lucas, Aveline and Jamison.

A Lineage of Women

This experience of introducing ourselves by way of our mother and her mother was incredibly female affirming. I sat and soaked the names in, along with the feelings that arose in each woman as she spoke the names of her matriline (a mother line – one’s purely female ancestry). While seemingly simple, something profound was honored, and awakened, as we acknowledged the line of women we came from, and the line of children we had borne.

::

A lineage of women:
Julie,
daughter of Joan,
daughter of Pauline,
daughter of Clarissa,
daughter of Charlotte…

::

Recently, I traveled to the Chicago area with my two sisters for a family wedding. We decided to make a pilgrimage to our great-grandmother’s house in Park Ridge, a small town just near the airport.

With some help from my mother’s cousin, my sisters and I found the family home on South Crescent. This was the house my great-grandmother and great-grandfather had built in 1908. My grandmother grew up in this house. My grandmother was married to my grandfather in this house. My mother was born in this house. My mother’s cousins were born in this house, too.

Before my mother’s death two years ago, she spoke often of her childhood in Park Ridge. She spoke often of her grandmother with fondness, and with a bit of awe. It was a curious feeling to enter the house. It had recently been sold to new owners who were remodeling it before their third child came into the world. This was in June, the baby was due in July, so I imagine she has arrived by now. The owner was there and graciously gave us a tour of the entire place, basement to attic. As I walked through the rooms, it was as if I had been transported back eighty to one hundred years. So much had happened there in the lives of my matriline.

::

Strong Women, Strong Lineage

“…to know ourselves as we are, we must know our mothers’ names.”

My great-grandmother was a healer, a well-known Christian Science healer in that area. She was strong, vibrant, independent. She had to be. Her husband contracted TB and became very ill. She had to put him in a sanitorium, where eventually he died. She had to take care of her family, an extended family that included her siblings.

My grandmother and mother were also strong women. They had to be. They found their strength deep inside, brought it out into their actions when it became necessary to do so, for the sake of their children, and the sake of their family. This strength is in all women. Strength and wisdom.

Wisdom in the Matriline

I feel there is wisdom in the matriline. I learned something about myself that day. I soaked up wisdom… a knowing of myself in a different way, a different light. While I had heard much about these women from my mother, and knew my grandmother fairly well, when I walked through the rooms of this house and felt into all that had happened there, I knew myself in a new way.

It’s been a few weeks since I returned from this trip, and all the while this wisdom has been working on me, and through me.

I now more clearly see these women, not just as my ancestors, but as people who lived lives that were sometimes good, many times hard and painful, but always indescribably beautiful. I feel the lineage of women within me. I can now see the room where my mother was born, the rooms my grandmother played in, the rooms my great-grandmother grieved, celebrated and grew old in.

What a gift it is to feel this lineage within me. In some way, yet unknown, I will pass the knowing and wisdom down to my daughters. I can feel it. It is already happening in ways unseen.

As I write this, I become keenly aware that this wisdom had always been here. Perhaps, it’s just been activated by visiting Nanny Ruh’s house. We all have access to women’s wisdom.

The wisdom of women isn’t clearly articulated, laid out analytically, in a straightforward manner. Rather, it circles, curves and winds its way around. It appears in the moment, if we’re paying attention. It shows up in symbols and in unexpected connections. Like the moon as it shines on water at night, womens’ wisdom illuminates that which is unseen.

I have come to see we can open to this wisdom of our matriline, whether we can go back to a physical place or not…the wisdom is here if we drop deep into our bodies and open to the moonlight.

In ways unseen

Jen Louden writes: “…every writer has to learn to live – and even thrive– in the gap. Creating actually happens in the gap.”

We enter into unknown territory as we write something new. This is where creation happens. In the unknown. Something completely unexpected, and absolutely delightful, appeared in the gap today as I wrote this post. I didn’t know where the writing would take me. I had considered writing about this pilgrimage since I returned home to Berkeley, but as I mentioned, I could feel the wisdom working on me, so I waited.

As I sat down to write, the painting above (and below) popped into my head. It’s a painting I have hanging in my bedroom, of the moon shining on the water. It’s really lovely…this picture of it here doesn’t do it justice.

I found this painting in my mother’s house after she died. She had collected many things throughout her years, things that were passed down through the family, as well as things she picked up in her travels to the second-hand stores and flea markets. As we went through her collection of paintings, we kept the ones that were obviously family heirlooms. We gave most of the others to the Goodwill. This one painting, of the moon on the water, I grabbed as an afterthought. I had so many of mom’s things already, but as I turned away from the items we were leaving, something told me to turn back and take this one home. I liked it enough, but I kept it because it called to me. I hung it in my bedroom, because it called to me.

I took the painting off the wall to get a snapshot of it as I wrote today’s post. The first one didn’t turn out, so I began to clean any dust off of it to try to capture a better one. As I did, I noticed the initials in the bottom corner:

C.R. ‘99

My great-grandmother’s name was Clarissa Ruh, but we had always called her Nanny Ruh, which is what my mother called her. I just recently remembered her first name on our trip back to the wedding in June. Nanny Ruh was a painter. We have a few of her paintings spread throughout the family, but none of them have her signature. My great-cousin, Nanny’s other granddaughter, told me when we were with her at this family wedding that Nanny didn’t sign her pictures because she didn’t want to seem presumptuous – she simply wanted to paint. I don’t really know the whole story, but none of the paintings we have have her signature on them…except this one.

Just now, in writing this post, I discovered that this painting was also done by Nanny Ruh. I could hardly believe my eyes. Something unknown and unseen found its way into the light of the moon. This is an unimaginable gift. I don’t believe my mother knew that Nanny Ruh painted this picture, because she told us many times to take great care of the paintings she knew were painted by Nanny. This painting was stuck in a place with so many things that were simply flea market finds. Somehow, I came to know something that had been lost back in the matriline. Now, my daughters have another gift from their matriline, one among many.

::

And, you?

I’d love for you to share your mothers’ names with us, to introduce yourself by way of your mother, and your mother’s mother, by leaving a comment below. I think there is something powerful in speaking these names into the world.

::

What of your matriline?

What do you know?

What has yet to be discovered?

What wisdom is there, perhaps in the unseen, waiting for you to ask into it, to know yourself as your mothers’ names?

Burning Heart, by Roger Quayle

::

A fire rages within me,

the fire of longing to be the beauty

that is the center of my own heart.

::

image by Roger Quayle, CC2.0

“You cannot oppress a person, when there is a feeling that in them they are in touch with something that is sacred. You can’t oppress them at the soul level.” Jean Bolen

Protecting New Life, by Shiloh Sophia McCloud

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We live in a society that oppresses everything feminine – feminine values, ways of being, expressions and more. The corollary, more often unspoken than spoken, is that this society, and every patriarchal society, oppresses women. While the severity of this oppression varies by race, society, culture, country, religion, at the core of patriarchy is the oppression of women.

We may want to deny this. After all, our fathers, brothers, and sons are men. And, patriarchy teaches us, as women, that it is our duty to make sure the men in our lives feel good about themselves, that it is our role to do that.

Why do women fight patriarchy? Because, they have the most to gain from its demise. Why do so many men turn a blind eye to it? Because they believe they have the most to lose.

Why do we all avoid, on some level, engaging fully in seeing through this dream? Because it hurts to see the way we’ve been conditioned to treat each other, and to treat ourselves. Because we fear what might happen if this all changes. Because we must grow up, emotionally, to step into our power as sacred beings. And, a myriad of other reasons.

But, men aren’t patriarchy, just as women aren’t the images that patriarchy makes us out to be. Patriarchy is the structure woven into the institutions of this society.

We all, both men and women, to some varying degree, hold this structure up, whether we are aware of it or not. It is woven so deeply, none of us see the full extent of our compliance or complicity, unless we truly awaken out of the dream that is the world of patriarchy.

Men benefit the most from the privileges automatically bestowed at birth in a society that is based on patriarchy. But, even those that are privileged in patriarchy, are suffering, because this is not our natural, sacred way of living.

It is painful to be oppressed. It is painful to oppress. We are all losing in this dream. We know this, and we deny it.

And, we all, men and women, must be part of the solution. The solution is awakening. Awakening to this sacred nature within. A nature that knows the beauty and goodness in all beings.

Something is awakening. Something sacred, something vital, something that knows truth. We are awakening. We are waking up from this dream of patriarchy, from this dream of separation and control, from this dream of fear, domination and oppression.

As Jean Bolen so eloquently points out, when the soul wakes up to that which is sacred within, it can no longer be oppressed. While the body may be abused, the psyche verbally and emotionally assaulted, the soul, when aware and aware of its divine nature, can not be oppressed.

::

And you, beautiful woman. The sacred feminine is alive and breathing right inside your body. As a woman, you have the ability to bring life into life, whether it is babies or any of the other myriad ways you can create new life. Your creativity, sensuality and sexuality are intricately woven together in a way that allows you to nurture and love all of life, without losing yourself. This same rich tapestry is also the source of a fiery life-affirming force, a Kali energy that surfaces as you express the fullness of what you are.

When you come to know the divine feminine you, a true dignity arises from within. You accept the humbleness of your own soul and the opportunity to serve all of life.

You have a part to play in this divine dance of life that is yours and only yours. Your sacred feminine creativity and open heart are needed in our world today.

It is time for us as women to remember our innate power, and to no longer trade it for the false securities of our cultural conditioning.

It is time for us to realize that what we are as women is wholly different than men- this difference serves the natural expression of the masculine rather than competing with it.

When we bring together our innate love for the sacred and our deepest desires to see love made manifest in the world, we become a powerful creative force in service to something greater than ourselves.

::

The good news is that you are already this sacred being. You don’t have to do anything to learn it, to become it, to get the hang of it. The only thing standing between you and your knowing of your divine nature is the revealing of you to you.

Are you ready to reveal you to you, to look within to the beauty that is you?

::

This breathtaking image is “Protecting New Life”, by Shiloh Sophia McCloud, an incredible artist with a divine brush.

Grace is Everywhere

Tenderness, Power and Grace

This is the third post in a series of three: Tenderness, Power and Grace.  All three posts are deeply intertwined. They’ve been born from the deepest, most raw feelings I experienced as I let the images of Sakineh Mohammadie Ashtiani (and the intense feelings of hatred and violence towards women and girls that seem to be so evident in our global community) wash over me.

I sometimes paint with Chris Zydel. It’s process painting, where the process – what happens during the process of painting – is the focus rather than the finished painting itself. On a Thursday, just after learning about Sakineh, I painted this painting, titled Grace is Everywhere. That was three weeks ago. Since then, I have been writing about what I experienced through the process of painting that day: tenderness, power and grace.

For whatever reason (maybe no reason at all), I waited until this last post to include the painting process. In this last post, I’m going back to the beginning. I’m taking us back full circle.

I’ve written about this type of painting before. What I want to share, here, is what happened this particular time.

I had been filled with these intense emotions after reading and writing about Ashtiani. At that time, I wrote a post about the power we women have to create change…how the power of our coming together can change things. And, even though I know there’s power in circles and that we can effect change, I also felt powerless to do something myself, something to free this woman from the hands of tyrannical forces that hold such misogynistic views of women, and on a deeper level, powerless to change the way women are disrespected, oppressed and hated, the way children are of such seemingly insignificant worth in a society that seems to value greed, consumption and violence. Power and powerlessness.

The more I sat with these feelings, the more anger, frustration, and futility I felt at a world that seems to not be able to see, really see just how much unresolved distrust and fear there is simmering under the surface between the genders.

The Process…

And so, when I arrived to paint, the process took over as I selected colors for my palette…or, rather the colors picked me: blood red, black, yellow, purple, and gold.

As I began to paint, the feelings spread out onto the paper: grief, anger and rage, powerlessness and power, hope and futility. They flooded the page through the paint.

Big, wide brushstrokes of blood red: stoning, death, power over the powerless.

Bright brushstrokes of yellow: the brightness of hope.

Swaths of black, deep dark black, so heavy they flooded the bottom of the picture: mourning and grief that could only be expressed with a black that was void of all light.

As I painted, I stayed with the feelings that appeared.

Tenderness that is Grace

Then, something else showed up. I felt a tenderness come through, a tenderness that wanted to be expressed differently – through my fingers rather than the brush. Quivering tenderness.

I put the brush down and submerged my fingers in the paint. The black paint along with this beautiful gold paint, a gold that flowed directly from the tenderness quivering in my fingertips. Black for grief and mourning in the immediate presence of the gold of tenderness.

As I painted, I could feel the word grace come forth as the gold began to make itself known on the paper alongside the black. Grace in the middle of death and grief. Then my fingers chose red and gold – grace appearing with power and powerlessness. As my fingers scooped up the yellow of hope, grace came along, too.

Grace appeared with everything I was feeling. It had a distinct ‘feel’ and color to it, as did all the other feelings; but the thing that stood out so starkly to me, was the deep wisdom that arose about the absolute necessity of feeling everything with conscious awareness, without pushing away any difficult emotions or aspects of the experience. Grace was not there in place of the dark emotions, it was there with them, alongside them, intermingling with them.

Grace made itself known through the direct and conscious willingness to feel the entirety of everything, and the depth of it all; this willingness was cradled by the process of painting itself.

Visceral and Palpable

The grace was visceral and palpable, and made me keenly aware of the possibility of knowing such grace in the middle of the darkest of our experiences. Even when things seem most without hope, grace is always present, falling like rain. Grace’s presence is not a question – it is always here; rather, it’s our willingness to be vulnerable in the most raw and uncomfortable places, a vulnerability that opens us like a flower, so that we can receive grace’s shower.

This willingness to see things just as they are, to feel the immensity of feelings associated with all that is happening to our planet, to the human race, to all living creatures can open us to receive the tenderness and wisdom of transformation. This grace brings the sweetest tenderness, palpable in the body and heart, a tenderness that is much more powerful than the tyranny we see today, because it is kissed with the rain of grace.

This willingness to see things just as they are opens us to see ourselves with tenderness, to see the creativity and love that resides deep in the folds of our divine robes of feminine flesh, and to know we are sacred beings with a sacred creativity to be shared. This is the soft power that we are here to bring forth at this time on the planet.

Just as the painting process held this process of revealing, so can any process of expression provide a container with which to know something greater than ourselves. Whether it’s painting, dancing, writing or any of the myriad ways we can express what’s within, whatever we choose can be the container that helps us welcome out what is wanting to unfold. It is being with all that arises, feeling it deep in the body, and allowing its wisdom to teach us a new way.

It helps me to know that grace is with me when I open to seeing what is happening here on our earth, in these places that feel too painful to look. When I know that grace is here, too, even in these places of darkness, I know I am not alone. And, I know the power of transformation grace offers. What if this life force, that is held in these darkest places could transform into light? into the light of awareness and awakeness? In this time of global shift, it is exactly this awareness we must learn to bring to even the hardest things to be with.

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And, what about Ashtiani? What about grace for her, for others who are in imminent danger, others who are oppressed and victimized? I do know that if we’re willing to see directly into these horrors happening right now, if we don’t turn away, we can act in some way that can help change things. If they can’t act, we must. They may have no power, but we do, and our power lies in circles of people coming together.

Perhaps, grace is telling us that things can be different, but it will take us coming our of our own complacency to help change things for Ashtiani and others. Perhaps, this is the message within that quivering tenderness, that our power is in coming together to help support us all, as a global village to change things through a revolution fo tenderness.

::

And, you?

This is simply my experience with grace and the dark emotions.

I’d love to know how you’ve experienced these dark emotions, and their power and vast potential to transform.

How do you experience Grace? What wisdom does it bring?

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This is the last post in a series of three on tenderness, power and grace. All three posts are part of the Summer of Love Invitational, where the lovely Mahala Mazerov has invited bloggers to write about loving kindness.

In the 21st Century, power will not change the nature of women, women will change the nature of power. ~ Bella Abzug

Power is only a Word

Power is only a word, but it’s a word with a sordid past…and a very sordid present. It has a lot of baggage.

Power, as we know it today, dominates. Silences. Abuses.

Power is abused, too. At some point, power became power-over.

Somewhere, at some time, in the ‘rules’ of the human world, a rule was written about power, men and women. A rule was made that says, men have power over women. Somehow we, men and women, seem to believe in this story.

The recent, deeply disturbing, widely broadcast story of Sakineh Mohammadie Ashtiani’s imminent death by stoning, once again, brought the tyrannical abuses of power-over into the bright light of our awareness.

A few days after the international outcry about both her death sentence and the method the Iranian government threatened to use, the archaic practice of stoning, I still couldn’t shake the visceral anger, sadness and powerlessness I felt. This was such blatant, abuse of power; power so egregious, that I shudder to contemplate just how often and how much this kind of sadistic power is used against those who are completely vulnerable to it.

In the swirl of these emotions, I felt a very real sensation of complete vulnerability as a woman. Here was this beautiful woman, waiting in an Iranian prison for a death sentence to be carried out in a most barbaric and painful way. And, here I was, sitting safely in my home, but acutely feeling an intense vulnerability, as if there was no separation between us.

Then it hit me, there is no separation between us. In a very real collective sense, what is done to any part of life, is done to us all. If we are aware of the deeper feelings that move through the human soul, we know this.

On this same level, we all feel the pain of abusive power, oppression and misogyny whether we are the abuser or victim.

As I sat with these feelings, I suddenly felt a tenderness open up that was deep. It was painful, vulnerable and raw. It filled every part of every thing.

I wrote about this tenderness, about a revolution of tenderness in the first post of this three-part series on Tenderness, Power and Grace.

Soft Power

I know many women who push their power away because the only power they’ve known has been used against them. I’m one of those women.

And yet, my power keeps pulling me to it. This is a different kind of power than power-over. It comes from deep in the bowels of my femaleness. It feels rooted to the earth. It feeds my soul. It nurtures my creativity. It is the source of my deep and abiding love for all of life.

There is an unwritten, unspoken, yet very palpable threat of violence against women if we do step fully into the power we know is contained within our beings.

I feel this threat of violence. Yet, this power must come to life, regardless. This is soft power, a tremendous tenderness toward all of life. It is a great compassionate love. It compels me to drop even more deeply into this place of fierce tenderness.

Of course we’re coming to the brink of extinction of so many forms of life, including our own – our way for so long has been to dominate, control and destroy the life principle, namely that of woman. She is the embodiment of the life principle.

What would life be like if power-over, once again, became simply power, the power to be able – to express, to create, to be, to act? I don’t know, but I do know it will have something to do with love. It will come from not rejecting anything, because what we reject and condemn in another, is the same as rejecting ourselves, and no peace can ever come from that.

The Power of Woman

This is the power of woman: to love everything, without exception. As the embodiment of the life principle, she holds it all, without division. This power can only come when she no longer believes she must be everything to everyone. It can only come when she comes home to herself, with love for all the beauty she is. When she sees the value of herself, she can know the fullest power that is available to her as woman.

How does woman do that when she faces the immensity of oppression, degradation and misogyny?

By turning to look at another woman, to look deeply in another woman’s heart, to see within her what she can’t see in herself. By turning to the earth, to look deeply in the earth’s heart.

By opening our hearts to earth, to feel the incredible suffering this beautiful, living, pulsing beauty is enduring, and at the same time seeing her strength, her capacity to heal, her desire to continue to provide a home for all of life.

Woman is tied to the earth more deeply than man. When we open to her power to heal and regenerate, we can know our own capacity to heal and regenerate.

Anne Baring speaks of women:

There is a danger that in seeking power and equality with men in order for her voice and her creative gifts to be recognised, woman may unconsciously reject the very foundation which gives, through her millennial experience as custodian of life, something of supreme importance to say.

Can we…

There is no question that women are changing the nature of power. We see it occurring everywhere. As we do…

Can we encourage each other to come forth into our power?

Can we hold each other in supreme love and compassion as we travel this sacred path together?

Can we stand firm in the knowledge that we are worthy of the sacred nature we know is at the core of our womanhood?

Can we love those parts of ourselves that feel so difficult to love?

Can we know, in our experience, that we are all mothers to all the world’s children?

Can we love others with the fierce tenderness that might melt the deepest darkest hate into the most brilliant light of love?

And, you?

I’d love to know your feelings and thoughts about power and women; about what is emerging through us; about your story with power.

This is the second post in a series of three on tenderness, power and grace. All three posts are part of the Summer of Love Invitational, where the lovely Mahala Mazerov has invited bloggers to write about loving kindness.

It is in your self-interest to find a way to be very tender. ~ Jenny Holzer

The power of tenderness.

The tender skin of one touching the tender skin of another, causing an exquisite encounter, not possible in any other way.

The tender eyes that want nothing from the world, except to welcome and embrace all that generously spills into view.

The tender heart that loves simply for love’s sake, rather than for what one might get out of loving.

Some tender places of the heart can only be known in relationship, when one is willing to lay down arms, open the heart and wait, exposed.

I know the power of tenderness.

We all know the power of tenderness.

Revolution begins with changes in the individual. ~ Jenny Holzer

We already know, well, revolutions of domination, where ‘power over’ has all but brought the human race to death’s door.

We know the power of tenderness in intimate moments.

What if we were to realize that it is in our own self-interest to engage in a revolution of tenderness?

What if we were to realize that the power of tenderness is so much greater than the power of tyranny?

I, too, wonder how this might happen, how we shift from tyranny to tenderness.

Those that engage in domination and destruction stand in a perspective that sees tenderness as weakness, not strength.

But, I also know the only way to begin a revolution within is with a tender ‘yes’, a surrendered ‘yes’.

It begins with trusting that ultimately, the power of tenderness rather than the power of domination will be what saves us.

Which is the more powerful act?

Somewhere within each of us is a place that dominates and condemns – others and ourselves. This place is the most tender of places, because, it fears tenderness, yet longs to be showered with it. This place learned to dominate early. It learned to condemn and judge at an early age. When tenderness was what this place was longing for, instead it received judgment. Somewhere this place believes judgment and condemnation are the best way to be strong in an unsafe world; yet, if you check-in closely, what’s really going on is a longing to be touched with tender hands, to be seen, really seen, with tender eyes, and to be held and embraced by the most tender places of the heart. Hence, it is in your own self-interest to be tender.

We may fear being tender and loving will be seen as weak by those that continue to shower our beautiful world with hate, violence, oppression and greed. And as long as we see it as being weak, they will. When we know the strength of tenderness as a gift to ourselves, and when we see the powerful effects of the offering of tenderness to another, the perspective that ‘tenderness is weakness’ can begin to shift.

Try it. Feel the effects it has on you and others. Compare these to the moments when you judge and condemn others. Then, ask yourself, truly look to see, which is the more powerful act? Which way of being requires true vulnerability and fierce loyalty to love?

We’ve all judged and been judged. We’ve all condemned and been condemned We’ve all dominated and been dominated.We all know these experiences. What if we were to caress another’s ragged coat of life with the tender touch of one who knows these things intimately? This is the real revolution of tenderness that is poised to unfold.

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This is the first post in a series of three on tenderness, power and grace. All three posts are part of the Summer of Love Invitational, where the lovely Mahala Mazerov has invited bloggers to write about loving kindness.

Loss can be an opening, a portal to profound transformation.

We all lose in our lives. We all experience loss. When we bring a depth of awareness to the experience of the loss, and the hole the loss leaves, the portal can open wide, embracing us like a mother embraces her child.

Like you, I’ve experienced profound loss in my life. More than once.

Loss, Love and Life

I’ve also worked closely, and intimately, with women who lost their husbands in 9/11. Many of the remarkable moments I experienced with these women came as I facilitated a course on dating and new relationship.

Over the course of 18 months, in numerous groups around the New York City area, we explored the deep desire to love again after profound loss and grief.

Portals opened wide for these women. They had already done some powerful grief work before coming to this particular course that I had developed. Using my own experiences of grief, exploration of self, and beginning to date anew from the death of my late-husband in the design, the course laid out a journey of opening the heart to the deep emotions that had been buried.

After all, if we are to open our hearts to love again, whatever is in our hearts, whatever has been buried in an effort to not feel, will come tumbling out. When we have a safe, nurturing community in which to feel and express these things, transformation can happen – the transformation of our grief into powerful presence, and transformation of who we thought we were into who we come to know ourselves to truly be.

And, when we realize we are still alive, that it’s okay to live again, to really live with joy and passion, we begin to honor the life being offered to us in each moment.

Feeling Grief and Love Together

Loss, love and life are intertwined. In grieving the death of my late-husband, I found transformation happened when I felt both the grief and the love together. Grieving with the love I felt for him, the love I knew he felt for me, and the love I could feel this portal was holding me in, was deep and rich and powerful.

Grief is an entirely intelligent process, if we are willing to open to its embrace. Grief brings us right up against all the things we shield ourselves from feeling.

And, there is deep love in grief. I experienced it as an invitation to come to truly know the limitations of being a human being, living a human life. I came to realize the deep peace in surrendering to life on life’s terms, not on mine. I came to see that life isn’t conspiring against me; rather, life is unfolding to its own rhythm, not ‘mine’.

In the shattering of the illusion of control, what arises is a willingness to dance to this rhythm wherever it takes you. In this rhythm, there is divine love.

Beautiful Strength

In the course with the women who had lost their husbands in 9/11, a beautiful strength began to make itself known from within them. Through our time together, a natural delight in the idea of embracing life again began to emerge. The women organically began to follow their own heart’s desires to love. In some, the desire was to date, in others it wasn’t. What did appear, though, was a desire to truly live again, knowing that it is okay to be the survivor. One can move forward from something as profoundly devastating as 9/11, as the survivor, and learn to truly have gratitude for the experience of being alive.

This gratitude comes from embracing the totality of experience; not just the ‘good’ things life offers, but embracing the gift of life itself.

One thing loss has taught me is that each day I am here is truly a divine gift. Each year the life odometer turns over, and in that turning I can honestly say I am grateful to be getting older. Getting older means I am still here, alive, living in this mystery. and receiving the wisdom that comes from living into these rich years.

Toward the end of the eighteen months that this course was offered, one woman renamed our course, “From alone to alive”.

Back in May, the lovely Nicola Warwick invited me to be a part of a beautiful project. She was putting together an ebook offering titled, “Loss Love Life”. This was to be a compilation of writings about the power of loss, transition and change with contributions from Thursday’s Child, Patti Digh, Margaret Fuller, Danielle LaPorte, Michael Nobbs, Carolyn Rubenstein, Andrea Schroeder, Kate Swoboda, Julie Jordan Scott, Dyana Valentine, Eydie Watts Nicola Warwick, and me.

I was honored to submit my offering to this work. This ebook is now available for download. It is truly a remarkable collection of open-hearted writing about these three powerful things, Loss, Love and Life. If you feel called, visit Nicola’s site and download this work. I think you’ll find reading what is shared here to be transformative in itself.

And, you?

I’d love to know what you’ve experienced with loss and the powerful tumult that follows. If you feel willing, share here, with us, any insights, experiences, or understandings you’ve had.

Image: courtesy of Tapperboy on Flickr; Creative Commons 2.0

Image: Mother of All, by Shiloh McCloud

SEED

deep in the darkness of the womb of my body lies the seed from which all was born.

i feel this seed.

it’s always there.

it’s unchanging, yet always giving birth to new life.

light in dark.

life from death.

eternity in this moment.

everything in nothing.

when i lose grounding, when i forget, when the chaos is more than i feel i can handle, i simply come back to this seed, and from here i am born anew.