Stuckness

I’ve been a little stuck lately – wanting to step out more fully into the world, fully embodying the Work I am here to do, yet meandering in a place of trying to figure the Work thing out. Business is really good right now, and…

I can see snippets of what that Work is. Although my work with people, mostly women, to help them move toward their vision has found great success already, there’s a place where I have felt somewhat stuck.

Just today, in researching for this post about Margaret Wheatley (who will be speaking in Oakland this Saturday), I came across words she wrote some time ago that seem to directly speak to the place inside of me where a sense of stuckness has been living.

“What if we could offer our work as a gift so lightly, and with so much love, that that’s really the source of fearlessness? We don’t need it to be accepted in any one way. We don’t need it to create any certain outcome. We don’t need it to be any one thing. It is in the way we offer it, that the work transforms us. It is in the way we offer our work as a gift to those we love, to those we care about, to the issues we care about. It is in the way we offer the work that we find fearlessness. Beyond hope and fear, I think, is the possibility of love.”

I usually see insights…meaning, I see images that show me something I’ve not known. In these images that have come to me, I see myself offering this work in love, from a deep place of love that is far beyond me or anything my rational mind could conjure up.

Work as Offering

Perhaps like you, I’ve been taught and conditioned to look for results, to see success in my work as something results-oriented. In our current paradigm, that’s how success is measured. Even streams of thought that teach us that success is not based on dollar figures still hold a sense that success is about a certain outcome.

When I read Margaret’s words, “We don’t need it to be any one thing. It is in the way we offer it, that the work transforms us.”, my mind relaxes. I can feel how its been caught up in ‘understanding’ what the ‘one thing’ is that my work must be.

When I read, “It is in the way we offer our work as a gift…”, “It is in the way we offer the work that we find fearlessness.”, I can see my focus has been on the how, on what I am getting done (or not), rather than on the way I offer it and how I hold the work itself.

I sense the how comes out of the offering, the next step comes when I am let go into the love that is there for “those I love, to those I care about, to the issues I care about…”

A love so vast

In the short video on fearlessness I’ve shared with you below, Margaret shares this quote:

“Fearlessness is not being afraid of who you are.” ~ Chogyam Trungpa

When I heard these words, I saw that being tied to the ‘what’ of my Work keeps me stuck.

When I feel the love I have for those I am here to serve, I feel a letting go happen on its own.

Simply offering what is here without any attachment is having to ‘be with’, really ‘be with’ the vast unknown that is at the heart of this love.

It’s a vastness that is terrifying yet in some strange way reassuring because it is the only thing that never changes. It is that which has always been here, unchanging, yet from which change seems to be born from.

I have a sense that who I really am is a love so vast that it scares the begeebus out of me. I’ve had glimpses of this love and I literally can’t hold the glimpse, can’t stay with it because it is too much contain.

Latent Powers

I have to laugh at these words as they appear on the page. Of course I can’t contain it. The small “I” seems to think it can do this. This small “I” sees it all as impossible, because the small “I” is not the power behind one’s life-task…

“Our proper life-task must necessarily appear impossible to us, for only then can we be certain that all our latent powers will be brought into play.” ~ C. G. Jung, Letters vol. 1, p. 94

I can see that what I sense lies ahead appears impossible, and reading Jung’s words helps me have a sense of why that is. These latent powers within us can come forth when we get out of our own way, in a sense a kind of ‘bowing down’ to the real you that you are, the one you are afraid of. In my experience, it doesn’t have anything to do with the small “I”, or me, that is attached to the outcomes, does want success, or longs to have it be seen or received in a certain way.

That part will always try to control, and it is this control that is creating a sense of stuckness within.

A Call to Fearlessness

I have dined on Margaret Wheatley’s wisdom many times in my life. I first saw her speak in person in 2005 at one of the Thought Leaders Gathering in the Bay Area. Her wisdom, as she shares in this short video, always opens something new in me…

This Saturday, October 22nd, along with the wise and multi-talented Barbara McAffee, Margaret Wheatley will speak to a community of change-agents in a day-long event titled, A Call to Fearlessness: Discovering Your True Leadership Voice to Create Community and Joy.

Hosted by Bay Area Coaches, this is going to be an event to open your heart to doing work in the world in an entirely different way. Even if you don’t live in the Bay Area, you can still attend via simulcast.

And, if you buy one ticket to attend in person, you can purchase a second ticket for a friend at half price – either in person or via simulcast.

Take a moment right now to taste more of Margaret Wheatley’s wisdom in this article on Eight Fearless Questions. I promise, you’ll come away with an entirely new take on what it means to be fearless.

Photo Booth, 1964

Perfect? No.

Loved me? Yes. Fiercely.

She became a single mother of three young girls in the early sixties,
a time when being so was judged harshly.

She did whatever it took to provide for us. Whatever it took.

Intelligent,
artistic,
with a wild side that was never really expressed,
she taught me about
hard work,
taking action,
perseverance,
oil painting,
sewing,
ice skating and
remembering our ancestors.

She taught me about Spirit,
things you can’t see but know in your bones,
questioning,
compassion,
and a deep love for four-leggeds.

She taught me to champion for women,
children,
animals and the earth.

She taught me to find a way to carry on when life brings painful times.

She taught me to see the unconditional love that shines through conditioning.

::

Joan left her body three years ago, today.

Perfect? No.

Loved me? Yes. Fiercely.

I originally wrote this piece for Amy Oscar and her wisdom series – a series of thirteen posts by women whose writing she enjoys. Amy’s series wrapped up on Monday, and after the fact, I realized that you may not have read what I shared. So, I’m offering it here. Do go and check out Amy’s blog. Not only are there some fabulous posts in this series, but Amy’s blog is one I regularly read and thoroughly enjoy. I have a sense you will, too. I’d love to know what you think of this post, how it affects you, and what you feel about it.

::

I sit here poised to write.

My good friend Amy Oscar has asked me to contribute a post on wisdom to her spring collection of works by bloggers she loves to read.

I feel honored. I value and respect her work. I want to write something good, something fresh, and something alive.

So, I sit still and listen to my body. I close my eyes and ask my body what wants to be shared. This is where aliveness is, not in my thoughts about what I am feeling and desiring, but in the direct experience, in the cells of this body. Alive. Light. Numinous. Awake.

My body speaks of fertility, of abundance, of the rhythms of nature. My body knows these rhythms, even if my mind has forgotten.

I am aware of how much our culture fears the wildness of women, our wild nature. So much so, we have all but destroyed the home where we live, our beautiful Earth, in our quest to control and dominate this wild nature.

Feral and fertile, women’s creativity and sexuality are intertwined, like a long, long braid of gold. We know this deep in the center of our cells.

As Isadora Duncan wrote, “You were once wild here. Don’t let them tame you.”

The body knows this.  It knows we were once wild, and it knows we believe we’ve been tamed. Old traumas and unwelcome emotions are trapped in the body, trapped until we realize the soul’s longing to be free.

As I begin to write,

I can sense my strong sexual energy and a passion for creation. I feel deeply and I am happiest when my body is set free to express this passion through movement and dance, when I paint and the colors run freely on the paper, when words, whispered from someplace unseen, come to rest, together, in a way I could never have planned.

Women are different than men. Yes. We are different. It is not only okay to say that, it is imperative we see this. Why? Let me share a story with you.

A while ago,

perhaps six years or so, I took a class called mess-painting. Mess painting is a kind of process painting, where you use tempera paints, brushes and wall street journal pages to burn through layers that keep you from your deep creativity.

In the six-week process, I painted in my own apartment, in a tent of plastic sheets that I hung from the ceiling. This is a very messy process. I painted six days a week, at least twenty paintings in a session, where each painting was created in the span of two minutes.

In mess painting, the process is to cover one full sheet of Wall Street Journal paper (the ink used doesn’t run) with paint using brushes and any of eight specific colors. That’s it.

It’s a very physical process. You have to move quickly. There is no time to think about what colors you want or how they should go on the paper. There is only enough time to move the brush to the color then to the paper, allowing something more present than thought to choose which color and where to place it.

About four and a half weeks into the process, I suddenly felt a very different energy begin to move through me. It felt wild and untamed. It felt animal and soulful. I had the overwhelming urge to drop the brush and dive in with my body. I painted with my fingers, hands, and elbows. I couldn’t get enough of my body into the process.

I painted until the energy quieted. And then I wrote this:

When I mess-paint, I come alive. I can’t wait to pull out the colors and begin. When I am painting I am totally engrossed. I love to see the colors mix together on the paper, to see what transpires in a given session. I find I can’t get enough of me into the mess – hands, fingers, fingernails – I am so taken with the paintings that I keep watching them as they dry, dying to see what beauty is there. What are the qualities of my painting? There is an energetic pulse to it. I can feel my soul coming through me. Does it come charging through me like a tiger? Does it spread itself on the paper with love and softness, or even reckless abandon?

It is akin to intimacy – when there are no longer any barriers between another and me: when clothes are off, small talk is quieted, distractions are gone, and there are only the two of us in conversation. The language is intimacy. The “words” are infused with love and deep meaning. There is a direct channel open where truth and soul are shared without reservation, without holding back. Passion, desire, and love all come pouring forth into this conversation between two beings. That is the incredible connection and intimacy that I long for. That is the juice I find in painting. When I create art, it is an individual act. It feels like connecting with myself in a deeply intimate way.

As I read again what I wrote then, I can feel the joy I felt in the liberation of this fiery self. I can feel the love and aliveness, and my soul’s desire for connection and expression. The direct connection between creativity and sexuality is right there and so plain to see.

I’ve been taught

to fear this power, to fear my feral side, my passion, my fire, my ferocity and uncontrollability. I’ve been taught well to fear chaos, yet it is from chaos that anything new is born. And while I was taught this, it is me that keeps it under wraps.

Chaos was wildly singing during that painting session.

Chaos is here, right now. Chaos is ushering out the old and inviting in the new. The old way is dying. Something new is coming. And we have no idea at all what that is.

It is time.

It is time to open deeply to this wild nature as woman. It is time to know it, to invite it out, to welcome it to express. It is time that we see the feminine cannot be reawakened by only knowing the feminine principle in both men and women. We must also honor the spiritual nature of women, the nature that flows through women’s bodies in ways it simply does not in men.

I’ve struggled to articulate my deep knowing that we women have this precious opportunity to come to know the sacred within the cells of our own bodies, how our bodies serve spirit in ways men’s’ bodies cannot, and what this direct experience and realization might do for the evolution of human consciousness.

And in my struggle to write about this, I happened upon an article written last year, by one of my favorite authors on this topic, Hilary Hart.  Hilary writes,

“This spiritual insight into the created world inquires into the nature of women’s bodies, and asks if the receptivity of the vagina, the spirit/matter-integrating capacity of the womb, the nourishment of our breasts, reflect an esoteric dimension that receives energy, serves the infusion of spirit into the physical world, and feeds life in a way men cannot.

Do our bodies show that we offer different gifts and have distinct roles in our collective spiritual evolution, just as they have different roles in the material realm?

While answers to these questions are not easy to come by, asking them opens us to an intriguing and compelling line of inquiry into an entire new spiritual territory – the spiritual nature and power of the incarnated world.”

I know…

I know the spiritual nature and power of this physical world by direct experience.

I know it because I’ve experienced it by way of the body’s cycles, by way of menstruation, pregnancy, birth, and breastfeeding my daughters.

I know it when I remove myself from the places where I tend to be most in my head and go into the places that call to the wild succulence of my body.

I know it through the direct witnessing of the deaths of those people in my life I have profoundly loved and the births of those bright angels who are now vibrantly part of my life.

I know it because I have witnessed the cells of my own body come awake again, after a long, long sleep.

It is not mirrored in the collective consciousness, yet that does not negate it one damn bit.

It is neither valued nor protected in the linear, masculine-centric institutions of our culture, whether they be political, medical, legal or religious, yet we know this way down deep in our cells.

When I read Hilary’s words, clarity flows from the connection between my own knowing and her clear articulation. A gap that had been is now bridged.

It’s as if I have been hovering above my own knowing, not quite ready to drop down in all the way. It’s as if I’ve been held up by old beliefs that still infused my awareness, beliefs that kept telling me that the sacred is somewhere else, somewhere up there, and certainly not in this female body.

We don’t need to transcend our bodies to know the sacred realm. And we don’t need to look out there for our power as women. All we need to know is here, right here, within us. It’s already here.

My body has guided me through this writing. It has taken me on the journey of discovering something wholly new.

Our way is the way of the body. Our bodies are sacred and pure. Our creativity and sexuality are physical manifestations of the creative power of the sacred. Whether or not we ever physically give birth to a child, our bodies are vessels for new life. This is the “spiritual nature and power of the incarnated world.”

::

And, you?

I’d love to know of your experience of the “spiritual nature and power of the incarnated world.”

Back a few years ago, I fell in love with someone new. The moment I met him, I knew he was someone I wanted to know deeply. I met him with a wide-open heart.

You know that feeling of being so ready for love? Where the eagerness and light-heartedness far outweigh your wisdom and discernment? That’s where I was.

You see, I had just completed an intense transformational retreat where my heart was broken open – open so wide, that it found its way back to its natural tendency to trust. I had finally come through the deep grief of my late-husband’s death, a death that had plucked me out of Kansas and dropped me in Oz. Death didn’t provide me with ruby slippers, though. Death seems to be like that. It doesn’t give you a way home to the old life. Instead, you must travel through the darkness to discover the new life waiting on the other side.

So I found myself with this brilliant heart of light. I had known deep lasting love with my late-husband, and I felt eagerness to love again. But, I was different now, and I didn’t yet know how different I was.

So, here I was ready for love. I dove right in. It was deep and rich and sweet. Then it ended. He ended it. It wasn’t mean to be. I can see that now, but back then, I didn’t see it coming. My very pink heart took one hell of a hit.

I fell hard. I curled up inside my shell and thought long and hard about giving my heart away so easily. Why hadn’t I seen it coming? Why did I trust so easily and carelessly?

And then I saw it. I saw how I had left myself to be in relationship with him. I didn’t see it happening at the time. But, in the aftermath of rejection, I realized I felt untethered and unmoored. I was no longer solidly in myself. I was hanging out there. I was perched precariously in no-man’s land – literally. The man I thought was there had moved on.

Somewhere along the way, I had gone from ‘in here with me’ to ‘over there with him’. The realization shook me to the core. When had it happened? How could I have done that to myself?

I decided I wasn’t going to date again until I found the wisdom that must accompany the open trusting heart. I needed time to understand. I needed time to make sense of the lesson that was being offered up.

So I sat with myself. And I felt. And I danced. This is when I began to dance as a practice, a practice that provided the opening to embodiment. And, I began to be really honest with myself. I began to see how much I had projected onto this man. I could see how enveloping an open heart can be when it’s not grounded in oneself and balanced with discernment and wisdom.

My teacher has since talked about what happens when the heart opens, how it can lead us into places we don’t expect to be when its not yet tempered with the wisdom that comes after the opening. But at the time, I had to learn this myself.

While he wasn’t all that gracious or compassionate in how he went about ending the relationship, I saw his ending it as rejection. This was another sign I had left me. The good thing about this was that the feeling of rejection was my doorway in, my doorway into me. I suddenly saw me, my own reflection in his rejection and I realized it was time to come inside to find the love I was longing for. I wasn’t really longing for him, the man out there. I was longing to know me, to stand by me, to stay with me from the beginning.

Then, they came unannounced, as they so often do. Words came. Words came up through my body and out through my fingers. Wisdom wound its way up from somewhere down in the dark recesses, places I had pushed away a long time ago.

Wisdom coursed out my fingers onto the page. No editing was necessary, for it knew itself fully before it was formed.

When the writing was done, I stood up from the desk and went to throw up. I threw up as if I was expelling something poisonous from my body – and I was. They were poisonous beliefs that kept me looking out there for love. As these beliefs were released, wisdom, that had longed to see the light of day, flooded my body and mind, wisdom that was meant for me.

Wisdom hungers to be known by the one it loves.

ripe with love

You see me here, strong and soft, eager and afraid,
my heart racing with desire
to be seen and heard,
to be held and to hold.

I am here,
emerging
from this bondage placed on me long ago,
from this cage of sin, fault, and fear.

I found the key
to my release when
I saw myself
in the reflection of your rejection.

My open heart was
both weakness and threat, lover and enemy.
You saw me seeing you
and you shut the door on my escape.

But freedom is funny,
it was mine to find all along.
Redemption came
when I filled my emptiness, with the fullness of me.

The dive was deep, the way was dark.
On the surface I had only seen,
how I never quite matched up
with everything I was expected to be.

But as I dove deeper into the depths of my being,
A glorious Light began to emerge.
It came from a time long ago,
It called me home in a language I had long forgotten.

There, deep inside me, I found the seed
Planted long ago, at the beginning of time.
My deepest Self, my truest Truth
My inner being in perpetual Spring.

I am ripe with love,
Ripe with the nectar of passionate presence
I am here to hold you,
within the folds of my velvet petals.

Fall down, deep down, into the depths of my being.
For I blossom in time to break your fall
As you land with a thundering whisper,
“Catch me, please catch me.”

Open yourself to the center of me.
Drink deeply the love that has been waiting for you,
waiting with timeless patience,
knowing what has always been, will be again.

Let me lay side-by-side with you.
Let me feel again how perfect the fit is,
if we only allow ourselves to relax
into the shape we already are.

Remember the rightness of this fit.
Don’t fight what you know to be true.
I can love side by side again,
Knowing the love comes through me to you.

You see me here,
soft and strong, knowing and sure.
My heart is filled with the truest Truth and the brightest Light
See your Self reflected in my love.

~ Julie Daley

::

Why am I sharing this with you today? After I wrote my post of last week, The Courage to Sin, I remembered this poem, written as I traveled from ‘out there’ to ‘in here’, as I came back from ‘out there with him’ to ‘back in here with me’. I remembered how I had wound my way out of the structures that I had believed in for all those years, structures that told me I could only find love ‘out there’.

And in writing the post about sin, I revisited the sense of rejection: rejection of self, rejection of  body, women rejecting each other, rejection of men, and rejection by society of the natural, intrinsic beauty of the feminine nature of things. Perhaps I’ve gone from the microcosm to the macrocosm. Seems like I’m traveling in circles.

I see that current-day cultures, fed by patriarchal beliefs and practices, reject the woman who speaks truth, the woman with a voice, the woman with fire, the woman that no longer wishes to roll over and play pretty.

Just as it was with the man ‘out there’, so it is with the world ‘out there’. I can’t find the wisdom ‘out there’. I can only find it in here, in the depths of my own being. And if I’m seeing rejection, then I’ve left myself. That’s the real pain, rejection of self.

Anything growing needs roots down deep into the earth to support its growth, to give it nourishment as it opens to the sun, rain, wind and stars. And so it is with humans. We, too, must have strong roots, grounded in the earth, so that we are nourished with wisdom, the wisdom of the feminine principle, the wisdom of Sophia. With this available to us, we can marry this with our internal masculine and come into a more balanced harmony within.

I have found my heart can open, and stay open, even in the most difficult times, as long as I am rooted in the body, rooted down into the center of things. If I am to truly love another, and I’m not just talking about the other I’m in relationship with, but all beings, my love must come from this grounded place within my own body, within my open heart. When the body is grounded in the earth, the heart is held by the body, and the mind is held by the heart, clarity, compassion and sovereignty can flourish.

I must remember this now as I begin to voice the truth of my own experience and as I listen, with an open heart, to women and men voice theirs.

This is where our power resides as human beings. It is available to us when our open hearts are grounded in wisdom. Power that isn’t power to dominate, but power to all the love we have to give. The seed of our wisdom was planted long ago. It remains, simply waiting for us to turn and look within.

::

And, you?

I wonder what you’ve experienced? What have you learned about an open heart and wisdom? What lessons have relationship, loss, and death taught you? What journeys have you taken within? How has wisdom hungered to be known within you? I’d love to hear. I’d love to know what you’ve discovered down in the depths of your own body and in the openness of your heart

The moment a woman comes home to herself, the moment she knows she has become a person of influence, an artist of her life, a sculptor of her universe, a person with rights and responsibilities who is respected and recognized, the resurrection of the world begins. ~Sister Chittister

As I pondered today’s prompt, “A word or phrase that encapsulates your year”, a flurry of words swirled into my awareness.

Autonomy

Sovereignty

Personhood

Responsibility

Inner-Authority

Value

Self-worth

None of these captured this year – they merely helped point to a feeling of how the turning of the days of 2009 have shifted my consciousness. They brought me to here, this moment, while helping me to distill and encapsulate the unfolding of my life over these 365 days.

Looking back, I can now see how this year has been about learning the power of choice. All these words point to the opportunity that exists in each moment to choose what the still voice within asks of me, rather than succumb to the status quo, the conventional ‘wisdom’ of our culture, that right now, doesn’t look so wise at all.

I have come to understand just how seductive this status quo is. But over the days of this year, this voice within has become louder and more insistent. At times, I have wanted to run away from this voice within, but there is no peace out there. The only peace I am finding is not really peace at all. The peace is in surrendering to this that compels me with insistence, burning, and longing. It is here that I must jump. Jump into the blackness that is the unknown depths of my heart. My body. My soul. That is all that is here.

Truth, my word for 2009.

This post is part of Gwen Bell’s Best of 2009 Blog Challenge
Day 17? Word or phrase. A word that encapsulates your year. “2009 was _____.”

On the 4th of July, Independence Day in America, we celebrate our independence and the birth of our country. In the spirit of independence for all, I want to celebrate the fire and passion of the soft power and green revolution in Iran…as well as in all places where people are fighting for their right to vote, their right to speak, their right to freedom of expression.

Soft Power is a term that’s been in the news since the Iranian election and the protests in its wake. In PeaceXPeace’s blog, Week X Week, Mary Liston Liepold’s post of July 1, Peace The Soft Power of Iran’s Green Revolution, describes soft power and the velvet revolution in Iran:

“Governments aren’t good at soft power; their feet are too big. It’s exactly the right size for citizens like us. Our Sudanese friend Dalia Haj-Omar reports seeing these words on a protest sign: “Calmness, Hope, & Patience: The Keys to a Green Revolution.””

Along with calmness, hope and patience, I would suggest determination, fire, wisdom and heart. Soft power is fueled by the deeply profound outrage and determination found in women, when they reach the point of “Enough is enough”. And, women all over the world are reaching this point.

In the patriarchy, women have been conditioned to be afraid to cross the line. In her incredible book, Healing Through the Dark Emotions, Miriam Greenspan speaks of this line that women dare not cross.

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

The “powers that be” (in Iran and all over the world) don’t want the status quo upset, and women are conditioned to not upset the status quo. This has kept us in line, or I should say “behind the line” in the past. However, the women of Iran are no longer behind the line. The women in Iran, and many other parts around the world, are fighting with soft power every day. They have decided to cross this line of demarcation. They are willing to upset the status quo.

Here’s the question I am holding: What does it take to push us past the point of fear, past the point where we are no longer stopped by this conditioned implicit threat of violence? What does it take to say, “Enough is enough”?

Women’s second-class status here in the west is not as obvious as it is in many other cultures. It’s easier to keep a blind eye to it here. In Iran, and in other places where women have risen up to fight against their lack of rights, it is much more obvious. And, it’s obvious to women here in the West that other women around the world face much more serious, and consequential, attacks on their personhood.

How can we develop the solidarity necessary in order to galvanize us to stand with our sisters? How can we link with each other across the miles to help us to know we stand united? What kind of infrastructure do we need to support our solidarity?

Peace X Peace has women’s circles for just this reason, and other ‘Networks of Grace’ (a term coined by Andrew Harvey) are possible as well, through the Internet and other channels.

I’d love to know how you feel about this and what vision you might hold for sisterly solidarity in the service of birthing a new, profoundly loving and compassionate consciousness.

 ”Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” — Rumi

This is the first of a series of posts on this topic of Rumi, Women’s Leadership & Love.

To be a leader, one must truly feel what others are feeling. To be a leader, one must be able to truly love those she leads. How do we learn this most necessary trait? By feeling, deeply, the depth of our own experience. By allowing our own hearts to break. Many spiritual teachers speak of the necessity of allowing one’s heart to break open. It’s not that the heart will break. It cannot break. It must, however, break open, meaning that all the bindings that have grown around one’s heart must give way so that the heart can thrive in its natural expansiveness. When one’s heart is free to be, it is as large, and as expansive, as the whole of the Universe.

Feeling the depths of shame and humiliation from our own experience of being marginalized, disrespected and humiliated generationally is key to women waking up to our fullness and wholeness. Both our lightness and our darkness must be brought back into consciousness if we are to be wholly female and embody the sacred feminine that we are.

Every midwife knows
that not until a mother’s womb
softens from the pain of labour
will a way unfold
and the infant find that opening to be born.
Oh friend!
There is treasure in your heart, it is heavy with child.
Listen.
All the awakened ones, like trusted midwives are saying,
welcome this pain.
It opens the dark passage of Grace.

~Rumi

Opening to the pain of our experience as women, individually and collectively, is our passage to Grace. It is paramount that we open ourselves to feel, deeply feel, that which has been projected onto us over the centuries of oppression. There are many layers to this feeling. How much of our anger, shame and disowned power can accumulate before the dam breaks? We can use this pain as the way into Grace, the way into the opened heart, the way into the depths of our humanity. This humanity has become ripe and fragrant with our own capacity to walk side by side men, no longer simply a complement or accessory, but rejoicing in our sovereignty and self respect.

When we are able to feel the depths of what has been internalized within our own beings through the generational oppression, our hearts will move into an awakened state of love for ourselves, for other women, for men, for all of life. And, when we come to embody this love fully, for ourselves, and for others, every cell of our being will be filled with Grace.

Yesterday was one of those satisfying days, a day filled with sunshine, family and celebration. It was a day to celebrate the upcoming wedding of my sister Katie’s son Chris and his fiance Melodi. My other sister Molly and I hosted a bridal shower for Melodi. I love showers…both bridal and baby showers. Yesterday was a blending of both brides and babies, because my daughter Jenny is expecting in September, while my niece Liza is expecting twins in October. There we were, twelve women ranging in age from 22 to 82, spending the afternoon celebrating love and life. Love between Melodi and Chris. Love of the company of women and family. Love of the new life coming into our lives through Jenny and Liza.

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…

This weekend, my partner Jeff and I took a few days off and traveled down to Pacific Grove, a quaint town nestled between Monterey and Carmel. We needed some time to just be. We walked along the beach, slept, ate, walked, talked, read, and watched Harry Potter movies (a first for me!). We had a beautiful time together.

Whenever I take the time to simply slow down and rest, I find that playful place inside me that seems to get little time in my day-to-day life. It’s one of the things I want to bring more fully into the day-to-day, that playful side that.

Yesterday, after deliciously sleeping in, we stopped by a little coffee/book house on the main street of Pacific Grove, Lighthouse Avenue. I was wearing my Kali Yantra , a silver necklace Jeff gave me to wear on my trip to India last year. As we entered the coffee house, two women caught my eye. They were deep in conversation, but something about them spoke to me. I didn’t know what it was at the time, but I could feel a connection with them.

I purchased my tea, and as I walked away from the coffee bar, one of the women and I caught a shared glance and we smiled. She then spoke first and mentioned my necklace, noting that she was wearing a pair of earrings that matched. I went over to them and we began a conversation. She asked me the name of the Goddess that the yantra represented, and I responded by telling her of Kali: that Kali is the Goddess of creation and destruction, and that in images she is shown with a necklace of skulls around her neck, and that she is misunderstood. She isn’t about death, but about the death of the ego, of the beauty of people finding who and what they are. “Her perpetual dance of cosmic bliss plays out through the eons as the creation and dissolution of worlds within worlds. Yet God, in the feminine form of the Mother – as the Absolute made Immanent – is ready to shower Her love and affection on any who care to turn their gaze toward Her fiery heart.” (source)

As I spoke of this divine symbol of love, the other woman said something about how important this was for her to remember. She then began to cry sweet, soft tears that ran down her cheeks. She was beautiful in this moment of recognition of something deeply important for her. The beauty was in the flash of truth that she felt. Something spoke to her deep within. What exactly we said didn’t really matter. What I witnessed, and treasure, is the flash of knowing that can come to us at any second if we are open to what might meet us.

I had just written the prior post about the amazingness of women, and I once again thought of this idea, that there is such beauty, strength and pure love in women that is ripe for us to once again reclaim. This flash of recognition came to the three of us because we were open to each other and to discovering what it was that drew us to each other.

We shared a few more words about women and how we need to acknowledge the tears of truth in ourselves and in each other. And then I said goodbye. I thought of these two beautiful women all day, and felt such gratitude for what they shared and what I witnessed.

“Wisdom is not a product of schooling but of the lifelong attempt to acquire it.” ~Einstein

Over the last few weeks, I have been struck by the way in which our culture looks at knowledge versus wisdom. It seems to be that many in our culture value knowledge over wisdom. By wisdom, I mean the understanding that comes from life experiences and how we grow and change by what we experience. Wisdom comes as we respond to the world and our experiences in it. Reflection on these experiences, as well, can deepen our sense of who we are and the vehicle for change we wish to be.

As we shift out of the patriarchal culture and into something new (what seems to be a more masculine/feminine balanced worldview), the way in which we hold wisdom is shifting, too. Valuing our life experience, and the wisdom that comes from it, is another way in which living an important question can enhance discovery of what is true on a personal level.

Maria Shriver penned an article for Newsweek last Fall. I just came across it recently and found it to be insightful with regard to “What it means to be Female?”. In the article Maria states,

“I now have a new definition of power. It’s passing on what we have learned and creating meaningful change through these experiences. That’s the kind of power that truly matters.”

As a woman, how do you value your wisdom? What wisdom have you gained from the life you have lived? Do you share it with others? How does this wisdom empower you? What kind of meaningful change might you create through the experiences you have had and the wisdom you have gleaned?

Share your responses here. I look forward to reading them!