Coming to Know the WildSoul is a Reverent Journey

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The soul is like a wild animal…tough, resilient, resourceful, savvy, and self-sufficient:  it knows how to survive in hard places. I learned about these qualities during my bouts with depression. In that deadly darkness, the faculties I had always depended on collapsed. My intellect was useless; my emotions were dead; my will was impotent; my ego was shattered. But from time to time, deep in the thickets of my inner wilderness, I could sense the presence of something that knew how to stay alive even when the rest of me wanted to die. That something was my tough and tenacious soul.

Yet despite its toughness, the soul is also shy. Just like a wild animal, it seeks safety in the dense underbrush, especially when other people are around. If we want to see a wild animal, we know that the last thing we should do is go crashing through the woods yelling for it to come out. But if we will walk quietly into the woods, sit patiently at the base of a tree, breathe with the earth, and fade into our surroundings, the wild creature we seek might put in an appearance. We may see it only briefly and only out of the corner of an eye—but the sight is a gift we will always treasure as an end in itself. ~ Parker Palmer, Hidden Wholeness

I read these words and immediately I recognize this within myself, this shy soul. 

Something within me softens. For a while now, I’ve tried to push myself to be more out there, more in the mix, more visible. I know it is coming. Yet, what also feels true is that my soul is tender and deep-feeling. And in seeing this, I found just a little more compassion for who I am and how I am in the world. As I soften, I can feel myself more whole, aligned and joyful.

So much in our culture tells us we have to be un-soul like to make our mark. I’ve come to know that this way is not my way. There is something so sweet about recognizing how our own soul feels, what allows us to glimpse it, but more importantly, the path to living life that honors it. There are many ways to be in the world, and I know we each can find the way that is true for our soul, even when the culture can seem so separate from soul.

The Wild Soul is shy, she is feral, and in being so, she doesn’t clang around making brash noise…unless she must. Then she will. She is tough and resilient. She is self-sufficient. Yet, there is this place where the soul only shows this soft side, this vulnerability when she is safe, when she trusts.

Coming to know the soul is a reverent journey. It is a blessed journey.


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Because the very nature of this journey is such, I am extremely honored to be holding the first session of the WildSoul Book Club this fall with my colleague, Lianne Raymond. Our intention is to create a place where, together, we breathe with the earth and walk quietly in the woods with patience and care, so that our souls know they can come forth to make themselves known.

Please take a moment to see if joining our WildSoul Book Club might be just the thing you are longing for, right now. We’ve kept the price, $129 for 10 weeks, affordable so that many can join. Many of us are feeling called to awaken the Feminine Soul. It is time.

Questions? Join Lianne and me for a complimentary call for the WildSoul Book Club:

Tuesday, Sept 4, 4:00 pm pacific time.

712-715-7100, 1005863#

And, yes, if you can’t make it we’ll make the recording available here.

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We’ll be reading Women Who Run With the Wolves, an epic book that celebrates its 20th birthday this Sept. 17th. It’s a book that can be read over and over, with each reading bringing forth new wisdom and perhaps a new glimpse of your soul.

We’ve interviewed a number of women about their experience reading Women Who Run With the Wolves.

Today, we’ve released our chat with Danielle LaPorte. If you listen to the interview, you’ll hear that she first read the book when she was living in Santa Fe, literally surrounded by wolves and their calls. 

Danielle shares wisdom and heart, and a real, very fresh life story of how the strength and power of her feminine soul came forth in a powerful way. I got goosebumps when I heard her tell the story in her words. You’ll find her interview, along with others, here.

We’ve also have an interview that Lianne did with Tami Simon of Sounds True, sharing the story behind how Women Who Run With the Wolves came to be.And, on the same page, we invite you to share your comments about the book. We’ll be sharing everything with Dr. Estes, the author, on September 17th.

And, if you have any questions at all that feel too personal to share, feel free to drop me a line at juliedaley (at) gmail . com

May you take some time today to sit down on the earth and listen for the soul’s footsteps, feel her breath on your skin, and feel her longing to bring you home.

 

image by bokeh burgerAttributionNo Derivative Works Some rights reserved

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Life – The Ultimate Mashup

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Life. It’s the ultimate mashup.

Today can be just another ho-hum day for me, while behind my neighbor’s door they might be going through the most horrendous day of their life.

To mash-it-up more, today can be a complete mashup even just for me: it can be a somewhat normal day and a day of significance, too. It can seem to be a celebration, while at the same time a day of retrospection and tears.

It’s the nature of life to have all sorts of disparate things moving through alongside each other. Much of the time we try to make some sense of it all; other times, we pretty much give up on that idea.

Today is April 17th, 2012

I was struck by the mashup metaphor this morning when I remembered it is the birthday of Danielle LaPorte’s new book, The FireStarter Sessions. What a day for celebration. If you’ve followed Danielle for any length of time, you’ve witnessed her emergence as a woman of style, substance, heart and wicked business savvy.

I think I felt so compelled to celebrate this day for Danielle, because I’ve witnessed, sometimes through emails, most often through social media, what a journey this has been for her. She’s been on an extraordinary trajectory. I’ve taken notice. It’s deeply moved me to witness someone really make their dream a reality.

I first met Danielle at Sweat Your Prayers – what I do on Sunday mornings – my Church of Choice. I recognized her from twitter and her in-person Fire Starter sessions – where she landed in multiple cities, meeting with women who were looking to be ignited. After the dance, I approached her and said hello. She was immediately warm and friendly and we chatted for just a moment.

Since that sweaty Sunday, we’ve interacted a bit. I had a one-on-one FSS with her and joined her in Santa Fe for a Gail Larsen transformational speaking intensive, where seven of us ended up in a delectable hot tub while sharing stories of bits and pieces of our lives.

I know Danielle to be a generous woman. She inspires me. I learn from her and I know she has learned from me. How do I know that? ‘Cause she learns from everything she encounters and because she told me. She is generous that way.

Today is April 17th, 2012

Today is also the anniversary of my late-husband Gary’s death. It’s been 17 years – a long time. In the beginning, not too long after he died, I didn’t think I could get through my life without him. I really wondered. People told me I would get over it. I knew I never would. I wondered if that meant I would always be sad and depressed, with one foot in the other world.

I think of Gary often. We had a love that many long for. One thing I knew after he died was that I had been loved. I knew that beyond any doubt. That is a great gift. It’s as if there is no searching out there for that experience from another man. If I find it, bonus. What it did invite me to know was that I am that love inside me.

I have come to see

we don’t get over the things that happen in our lives, nor should we want to. Each and every thing that is offered to us ripens and seasons us.

This weekend I heard someone say, “Life doesn’t happen to us, it happens for us.” That offers us a big shift in perspective if we are willing to open to it.

I know when I was in deep grief, I didn’t have access to the ability to be with it all. The grief was too much. And, I know that when I’ve been in complete celebration, that has flooded my day.

Can we be with it all? Can we push none of it away, but rather receive it all into us? Can we celebrate with those who are celebrating and offer love to those who might be in pain?

Today is April 17th, 2012

What is this day for you? Is it a day of joy, a day of sadness or anger or despair? Is it just another day to tick-off the calendar? What kind of day is it for your neighbor? Your lover? That person you’re struggling to have compassion for?

There are benefits to remembering that life is the ultimate mashup. When we do we know what is here will pass. Sooner or later, it will pass. When we do we know life is rich in the many ways it presents itself. When we do we also can remember that all around the world people are going through an amazing array of kinds of days.

Life flows. It is impermanent. Yet, we are also here in bodies. Awake. Alive. Very much experiencing everything that is happening to us.

I can be thrilled for Danielle, deep in reflection on my late husband and the gifts he brought to my life, getting work done and packing to travel tomorrow. It is all happening right now in this spicy sweet soup of life.

What is this day for you?

I’d love to know. Please share by leaving a comment. What’s this day for you?

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Fire and Soil

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Brighid's Dawn, by Sandilee Hart
Brighid's Dawn, by Sandi Lee, @WakingDreamart

Fire.

I awoke this morning with fire on my mind.

Perhaps it started, not the fire, but the thinking of fire, last night. Before I went to bed, I posted this:

Sometimes, fire burns.

And in response, a man I went to high-school with replied,

So does the sun, but it doesn’t keep us from wanting it to shine on us.”


The truth does shine…

and it burns. It burns away all that is false, all that keeps the truth from being lived, if we are willing to stand in the fire. I’m not claiming to be a fire-walker. I don’t like the burning one bit. And, I’m noticing it keeps coming, regardless.

When I see this, I see an image of a forest fire that rages through, and how that fire prepares the soil for the seeds to pop and grow. Some seeds will only germinate with the help of a forest fire. These particular seeds need the heat to begin their growth.

During my time in Santa Fe, something very old was burned out of me and something that’s always been there, always waiting in the wings, began to move with new life. It moved in because I was willing to begin to stand in the fire of the truth. I was willing to speak, aloud, stories that had been buried in my body. First, though,

a side trip to Kildare, Ireland.

Last summer, I traveled to Ireland. I wrote a few posts about it here on the blog, but some of what happened has been working inside, gestating, growing and finding root.

Some of the most profound experiences centered around St. Brigid and the goddess Brighid. To be honest, and maybe someone more aware of the historical nuances could fill me in!), I am not all that clear about the connection between the two.

A little history:

Cill means cell or church, and Daire is a type of oak tree, so Kildare means “Church of the Oak.” This is one of many ways Brigid the Saint echoes a pagan goddess of the same name, since the oak was sacred to the druids. In the pre-Christian period of Celtic history, Brighid (a derivation of the word Brig, meaning “valor” or “might”) was the name of one of the most beloved goddesses. Both solar and lunar, Brighid guaranteed the fertility of the fields, sheep, cows, and human mothers; and she protected all bodies of water. Her principal symbol was a perpetual fire, representing wisdom, poetry, healing, therapy, metallurgy, and the hearth.

St. Brigid’s double monastery at Kildare was built at a location previously sacred to her pagan namesake, and the inner sanctuary of the Kildare Church also contained a blessed fire perpetually maintained by the nuns of her community. Some have speculated that St. Brigid herself once served as the last high priestess of a community of druid women worshipping the goddess Brighid, and that she led that entire community into the Christian faith.

Site of St. Brigid's Flame, Kildare, Ireland
Site of St. Brigid's Flame, Kildare, Ireland

In Kildare, I stood in the place where Brigid’s perpetual fire burned. The story goes that, after St. Brigid’s death, the fire was kept burning for over 1,000 years by women determined to keep the flame alive (I imagine not just the flame itself, but what it represented). This realization blew me away, that women could, amidst all sorts of attempts from the outside to put out the flame, keep it alive.

With a little inquiry, we found our way to where the current flame is kept alive for St. Brigid, by sister Mary. She invited us in to the room where the flame burns today. I sat down, and within minutes a complete peace came over me. The only words I could find to express how I felt in that moment were, “Full. There is nothing I need or want.” Sister Mary echoed this, saying that almost every woman who comes to the flame feels this, or something akin.

This sense of upholding life, keeping the fire lit, helping to usher in change without losing the old wisdom is so much of what the feminine is about.

Back to Santa Fe:

In my time in Santa Fe, I was surrounded by strong, wise, spirited women: Danielle LaPorte , who is “interested in liberating truth, raw reality, and grace.”; Jennifer Louden, a woman inspiring us all to serve and savor the world; Dyana Valentine,  who is, in her words, “an instigator. Seriously, I’m not for the weak of heart.” ; Susan Oglesbee Hyatt, a Master Certified Coach who describes herself as “Energetic. Honest. Motivating”; Dr. Diane Chung, a wise, Harvard-trained clairvoyant Naturopath, who has a healing approach that is brilliant; and of course, Gail Larsen, the woman who was leading us to tell our stories straight from the soul.

In the circle of strong women, strong sisters there to gain wisdom on how to speak wisdom from the stories of our lives,  I re-experienced the strength of the feminine fire. In this fire, it was as if words flowed directly out of the ground of being. They came out raw and untouched by the overzealous mind that wants to manage and package the words in some way, for ensured acceptability. I shared stories in this circle that I have told only to a few, very close, people in my life. And in the sharing of these stories, something shifted, transmuted and transformed. We were, and are, a circle of alchemists, turning lead into gold.

As I stood in front of my sisters, waiting for the words to emerge, I could feel their love, their devotion to the truth, their willingness to hear me, wide-open to the wisdom I had to offer. As I sat in the circle, waiting for my sisters to speak, I held them and witnessed the wisdom emerging through them.

Something here, so wise and so powerful.

Even though St. Brigid’s flame was extinguished, what I imagine it represented, the light of the sacred within matter, is still alive in each woman that lives. And, it is this light that is asking to be reawakened in the world.

As a woman, as an embodiment of the Sacred Feminine, this light is alive within you. It is the fire of your sacred light. We can help each other to reawaken to this light within. And, it is this flame, this light that the world needs to remember its sacredness.

The Wisdom That Holds Us All

To underscore the wisdom that is holding us all, let me return to the fire that I opened with, the fire that burns.

As I sat at the keyboard this morning to write this post, all I could see was fire, an image of a seed, and Sandi Lee‘s image of Brighid. I planted the seed and began to write.

As I wrote, two things became clear. In finding a little history of St. Brigid, I stumbled upon this: that today, February 1st, is St. Brigid’s day in the Northern Hemisphere.

The First of February belongs to Brigid, (Brighid, Brigit, Bride,) the Celtic goddess who in later times became revered as a Christian saint. Originally, her festival on February 1 was known as Imbolc or Oimelc, two names which refer to the lactation of the ewes, the flow of milk that heralds the return of the life-giving forces of spring. Later, the Catholic Church replaced this festival with Candlemas Day on February 2, which is dedicated to the Virgin Mary and features candlelight processions. The powerful figure of Brigid the Light-Bringer over-lights both pagan and Christian celebrations.

Then, as I researched Imbolc, I discovered that one symbol of this time is the candle and flame, mostly from the celebration of Candlemas.

I began with fire and truth, and a wee feeling of Brigid, and lo and behold, everything coalesced in a way that my mind could never have figured out.

Learning to trust the seed, to trust what wants to be told, said, written is a way of the feminine. She emerges through symbol, through what is ripe in the moment. She speaks to us in many ways.

As Gail teaches, we each hold original medicine, something that others receive from us as we share from the deepest places within. Danielle shared with me that she experienced my original medicine as “Dark rich moist soil, like the kind that seeds crave.”

There’s that seed, again.

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2010 in Five Mintues

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One Moment in Ireland
One Moment in Ireland

Reverb10 Day 15
Prompt: 5 minutes. Imagine you will completely lose your memory of 2010 in five minutes. Set an alarm for five minutes and capture the things you most want to remember about 2010. (by Patti Digh)

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Okay. Timer set. Ready. Set. Go!

Rockin’ trip to Ireland where I fell in love with the land and the people, and felt something new wake up inside me.

Hearing live Irish music.

Going deep into the womb of NewGrange in Ireland.

My grandchildren’s birthday parties: Jamison – 1; Aveline, 2; Lucas, 9 (and many other simple moments with them)

Finding out my daughter is expecting again.

Powerful and beautiful calls with coaching clients..

New look for Unabashedly Female (shout-out to Amanda Farough!).

The amazing experience of being photographed by Siddiqi Ray.

Many, many rocking Sweats on Sunday Mornings.

Moving my father into his new home where he seems to be happy and settled. Peace.

Moments of tenderness and playfullness with Jeff.

Danielle LaPorte Lighting a megafire under my fanny.

Mark Silver teaching me that my business is an expression of my love for the One.

Mastermind moments with Emma and Mandy.

Blogging for the GirlEffect with Tara Sophia Mohr.

Voice Dialogue training.

Awakening Coaching training.

Giants winning the World Series. How did this not come up sooner?

Watching Buster Posey make his debut at the park.

Moving into our new house, and getting organized and cozy in my new office.

Rewarding time teaching Stanford CS, Creativity and Leadership.

Filibernie.

So many little moments of complete and utter peace and joy.

So many little moments of angst, fear, feeling unsettled.

Deciding to be the President of SF Coaches for 2011.

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yes, yes, I did skip days 12-14. I may do them, I may not. We’ll see.

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