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Truth and Validation

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“Myosho Virginia Matthews speaks of inner authority when she says, ‘Women, especially seem to have difficulty finding and trusting that inner authority.  I know very few women who trust their truth. I could count them on one hand. But I know hundreds of men who trust their truth because they’re validated from the beginning by their culture, at their schools, in their professions. So women are going to have to find their authority, their courage, their confidence in their perceptions and understanding.’”
from The Unknown She, by Hilary Hart

…

Validated FROM THE BEGINNING.

When we’re young, we’re taught HOW to do things. We learn them, either directly or indirectly, from our parents, caregivers, teachers and others.

We watch people to learn how to do things.

We watch them to see what is right behavior.

We learn, very early on, how to ‘be’ in the world; whether we say ‘that thing’ or not, whether we trust our own feelings and express them or not, whether we trust ourselves…or not.

We learn that some ways of being are okay, and some are not. It’s really important to teach kids the difference between right and wrong. And yet, right and wrong can be a really long slippery slope. I know. I raised two daughters, and now have three grandchildren. I know I passed on things that don’t serve them. I know just how easy it is to pass on moral judgments that are much, much more than simply helping children to survive in the world.

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This quote from Virginia Matthews points out something key that is so important in these times: in general, women are not taught to trust their truth. This truth is the internal compass one uses to navigate life. This is the ‘thing’ we check-in with when we choose. As we open to living our life from what really matters to us, from those things that bring us alive, from that which we love and brings us joy, this compass is critical to trusting that we do have authority, we do have wisdom, and we do have value.

At the core of this, though, is how we are taught to see our own nature, because if we’re taught we can’t trust our own perceptions, what follows is a deep distrust of the way we experience our own nature: instincts, feelings, thoughts, bodies and wisdom. And, if we see boys and men being validated, then somewhere we make up that it is being a woman that can’t be trusted.

…

If we are not validated from an early age that our truth is real, and that it is the foundation of our personal authority, then we grow up always looking to someone else for this authority.

This truth is the core ‘knowing’ so many of us are striving to find ‘out there’. This truth is our integrity. In the end it is all we really have, because it is at the core of the essence of our nature as sacred beings in sacred bodies.

…

I have struggled with this one all my life. Trust in my own perceptions; my own knowing; my own experience; my own understandings.  And when we’re asking ourselves the question, “What is it to be female?”, trust in our experience is imperative to recognizing truth as opposed to all we’ve been told it is to be female.

What is it like to grow up with your perceptions validated? I turn this question over and it’s as if I can’t quite grasp what the experience would have been like, as a child, as a teenager, as a woman, to have validation mirrored to me in such a way that I so believe in my own authority that there’s no hiccup between perception and action.

It’s not that I feel a victim to this lack of validation. And, it’s not as if I never trust myself. Sometimes it’s clear. It’s that I wonder how it would be to not have it even be an issue.

Of course, nothing is that black and white. I don’t know if that is what it’s like for men. I’m curious if and how they feel validated, or if it is even a question for them.

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I know that somewhere I almost always know my own perception. And yet, I don’t always trust it and stick with it, especially when others, whom I’ve been taught ‘know better’, try to convince me otherwise…or want something different…especially when my perceptions tell me my response is ‘No’.

Sometimes, my perception is so fleeting, as if it was simply a scent wafting on the wind.

Sometimes, my perception is right there, so obvious to me as it registers in my psyche. But then the ‘No’ seems to just slide away.

Sometimes, in that little hiccup, I can sense a quick questioning of myself, of what I heard or saw, of what I think about it, of what I feel I have the right to do with it.

That little hiccup is the re-playing, over and over again, of the ‘other’ making it very clear to me that I was wrong in my perception, that I shouldn’t really trust myself.

That little hiccup is a gap, a catching of my breath, a knotting of my heart, that causes me to question myself. And as soon as the question takes hold, I hesitate. And in my hesitation, I am no longer standing on a solid footing of inner-authority.

…

What I’ve come to see very clearly that the real question at hand is, “Am I willing to face my own fears of what will happen if I do claim my inner-authority? Of others’ perceptions of me? Of how I see myself in the world?

Maybe this last question is the most important one. I, for one, had a self-image of a nice girl, one who was easy-going, not too opinionated, not too strong, not too weak. Boy, has that image been shattered over the last few years…and, thankfully so.

It hasn’t been the easiest thing to really see my shadow, all the ways in which I am quick-tempered, opinionated, hard to get along with, manipulative, fearful, boastful, self-righteous…the list could go on and on.

I’ve discovered this seeing truth, and acting on it, takes courage. It has taken humility to own up to these aspects of personality I would rather avoid. But in the facing up to them, I’ve begun to find some freedom, freedom to trust myself and my own experience, and to speak out in the world of what I envision and the wisdom I’ve gained from a life richly lived.

This truth isn’t the universal truth; it is simply what I know in my own heart. There is no way anyone else could tell me whether or not this truth is true. I can only know it from how it feels. This is my compass.

I do have authority, authority from within. This isn’t authority over others. It is the authority to know that what I feel, and what I have to say, is just as important as any other human being.

It’s also the authority to realize there is a true need, right now in these times, for us to share our own perceptions about what is happening in the world and the wisdom we have that might make a dramatic difference in how things turn out as we try to heal all the damage that has been done.

It comes from trusting that at the heart of who and what we are is a basic goodness that is, at its root, sacred. It comes from knowing that this basic goodness is the goodness and sacredness of all of life.

Others can tell me I am wrong, but it is up to me to stand tall and firm, like a deeply-rooted tree, in what I know in my heart. This is easier for me when I feel called to say, “YES”. It has been much harder for me when I feel called to say, “NO”.  ‘No’ challenges. ‘No’ can be perceived as negative. Yet, sometimes ‘No’ is exactly what needs to be said, especially the ‘No’ that can change everything, that can lead to the sweetest ‘Yes’.

…

And, you?

How was your truth validated as a child and young woman?

Do you sense a similar hiccup between your own perceptions and your authority to act on them? If so, what have you found works to keep you honoring and living your truth?

Is there a ‘No’ in you waiting to be owned and spoken?

…

[This post is part 2 of a two-part series on Truth and Authenticity for Dian Reid’s blog challenge, as well as Bindu Wiles #215800 blog challenge.

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saying Yes

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My last post, the sweetest Yes, was the first post of a two-part series. I’m inserting this one into the middle of the two for reasons you’ll come to see. It’s like a two pieces of bread becoming a sandwich, where the filling in the middle is this amazing spicy concoction of passion, power and sacred activism. Here’s why:

One of the comments I received about the sweetest Yes was from Zan at Breaking Sod. Zan wrote, “Have you heard this amazing woman? Your post reminds me strongly of her:

I was so moved deeply by this spoken word piece of masterful art by Andrea Gibson. I’d love to know how she moves you.

Thank you, Zan.

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Say Yes ~ by Andrea Gibson

when two violins are placed in a room
if a chord on one violin is struck
the other violin will sound the note
if this is your definition of hope
this is for you
the ones who know how powerful we are
who know we can sound the music in the people around us
simply by playing our own strings
for the ones who sing life into broken wings
open their chests and offer their breath
as wind on a still day when nothing seems to be moving
spare those intent on proving god is dead
for you when your fingers are red
from clutching your heart
so it will beat faster
for the time you mastered the art of giving yourself for the sake of someone else
for the ones who have felt what it is to crush the lies
and lift truth so high the steeples bow to the sky
this is for you
this is also for the people who wake early to watch flowers bloom
who notice the moon at noon on a day when the world
has slapped them in the face with its lack of light
for the mothers who feed their children first
and thirst for nothing when they’re full

this is for women
and for the men who taught me only women bleed with the moon
but there are men who cry when women bleed
men who bleed from women’s wounds
and this is for that moon
on the nights she seems hung by a noose
for the people who cut her loose
and for the people still waiting for the rope to burn
about to learn they have scissors in their hands

this is for the man who showed me
the hardest thing about having nothing
is having nothing to give
who said the only reason to live is to give ourselves away
so this is for the day we’ll quit or jobs and work for something real
we’ll feel for sunshine in the shadows
look for sunrays in the shade
this is for the people who rattle the cage that slave wage built
and for the ones who didn’t know the filth until tonight
but right now are beginning songs that sound something like
people turning their porch lights on and calling the homeless back home

this is for all the shit we own
and for the day we’ll learn how much we have
when we learn to give that shit away
this is for doubt becoming faith
for falling from grace and climbing back up
for trading our silver platters for something that matters
like the gold that shines from our hands when we hold each other

this is for the grandmother who walked a thousand miles on broken glass
to find that single patch of grass to plant a family tree
where the fruit would grow to laugh
for the ones who know the math of war
has always been subtraction
so they live like an action of addition
for you when you give like every star is wishing on you
and for the people still wishing on stars
this is for you too

this is for the times you went through hell so someone else wouldn’t have to
for the time you taught a 14 year old girl she was powerful
this is for the time you taught a 14 year old boy he was beautiful
for the radical anarchist asking a republican to dance
cause what’s the chance of everyone moving from right to left
if the only moves they see are NBC and CBS
this is for the no becoming yes
for scars becoming breath
for saying i love you to people who will never say it to us
for scraping away the rust and remembering how to shine
for the dime you gave away when you didn’t have a penny
for the many beautiful things we do
for every song we’ve ever sung
for refusing to believe in miracles
because miracles are the impossible coming true
and everything is possible

this is for the possibility that guides us
and for the possibilities still waiting to sing
and spread their wings inside us
cause tonight saturn is on his knees
proposing with all of his ten thousand rings
that whatever song we’ve been singing we sing even more
the world needs us right now more than it ever has before
pull all your strings
play every chord
if you’re writing letters to the prisoners
start tearing down the bars
if you’re handing out flashlights in the dark
start handing out stars
never go a second hushing the percussion of your heart
play loud
play like you know the clouds have left too many people cold and broken
and you’re their last chance for sun
play like there’s no time for hoping brighter days will come
play like the apocalypse is only 4…3…2
but you have a drum in your chest that could save us
you have a song like a breath that could raise us
like the sunrise into a dark sky that cries to be blue
play like you know we won’t survive if you don’t
but we will if you do
play like saturn is on his knees
proposing with all of his ten thousand rings
that we give every single breath
this is for saying-yes

this is for saying-yes

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the sweetest Yes

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Too often our authentic “yes” has been lost in a landslide of unexpressed “no”. We can do the emotional homework of expressing the anger and resentment through verbalized expressions of “no”. Then it may be possible to find the sweetest “yes” of our lives. Rick Moss

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A few days ago, I had a conversation with a dear friend about “No”.  About how all the little ‘no’s’ we ignore cause us to not be able to say the BIG NO when it’s necessary. And, when we don’t trust and voice the BIG NO, the consequences can be huge.

It’s not as if I have never heard this before, but you know how when you hear something again and it just lands? This landed.

I thought about all the times I said ‘yes’ out of habit. Simply habit. Many of these times the truthful response would have been ‘no’, but the ‘no’ didn’t even register, because I was operating out the habitual pattern of saying ‘yes’. And the habit came from wanting to please. Even though I am a grown woman, this habit still operates…sometimes.

Since this conversation, Life has offered up multiple opportunities to practice what I realized. One, in particular, was a fairly big ‘No’. I could feel a small part of my personality worried about saying ‘no’, but once I did say it, I felt compassion, not guilt. I felt peace, not resentment. I felt truth, not pleasing.

…

I’ve had a vision of something for a while. I say I’m doing it, but then I ‘think’ life just seems to get in the way. Under the surface of those words, which imply powerlessness, is the “landslide of unexpressed ‘no'”. Life doesn’t get in the way. I get in my own way. Life is always pouring in, in wondrous and mysterious ways. It’s not Life’s job to choose for me, it’s my job. It’s not Life’s job to say ‘No’ to those things that don’t serve me or my vision, it’s my job.

How utterly egotistical of the ego!

Maybe what Life offers up is to help me choose for authenticity. Maybe what Life offers up is completely random. Maybe I think too much. Yes, that would be very true.

…

“You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestation of your own blessings.” Elizabeth Gilbert

And then I see Rick Moss’ quote. It captured my heart, because of the words at the tail end…”the sweetest ‘yes’ of our lives”.

Wow. The sweetest ‘yes’ of our lives. What might be waiting for me within that landslide could be the sweet yes, the honoring of what most matters to this heart, the coming into right relationship with the truth of what is calling me forward. That’s sweetness.

In the no, lies the yes. In the yes, lies the no. In each moment, something is compelling me in a direction. It’s not something I believe in; rather, it’s something I feel. It’s a pull, an urge, a compelling, a longing…

Choosing that is the sweetest yes. Choosing that means I have to be willing, very willing, to say ‘no’…the little no and the BIG NO…and the no in-between. Choosing that means I have to be willing to experience whatever others experience. That could be a range of emotions from complete disinterest to open and engaged, from being displeased, maybe even angry, hostile, to aligned and in agreement.

I can see, in reality, none of that matters. None of these possible reactions matter…except to the ego. In reality, when I simply live that which is compels me, what matters is what life responds with, for in the response is the next pull, the next moment of unfolding, the next most obvious thing calling to me.

…

Now this might be Life 101 for many of you, but in my experience, the truth comes around again and again and again until I realize it deeply and profoundly. And then it comes around again.

[This post is part 1 of a two-part series on Truth and Authenticity for Dian Reid’s blog challenge, as well as Bindu Wiles #215800 blog challenge.

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Rage, Love, God & Red-Tailed Hawks

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All the fear has left me now
I’m not frightened anymore
It’s my heart that pounds beneath my flesh
It’s my mouth that pushes out this breath
And if I shed a tear I won’t cage it
I won’t fear love
And if I feel a rage I won’t deny it
I won’t fear love.
~Sarah McLachlan

Okay. I admit it. Here. To you. Now.

I… am in love with… God.

I know, I know. The ‘G’ word scares people.

I could say Spirit, the Sacred, the Divine, the Universe, Nature. I have and I do and I will.

But, something in me melts when I acknowledge I am in love with God. This isn’t the love I always thought love was; it’s the deep humility and awe I feel each time I experience the love and grace available to me when I’m stumbling out of my own distractedness, and ‘fumbling towards ecstasy‘.

Even as I write the word God here, and share it with you, I can feel old thoughts and feelings of fear creep across my mind. Old feelings brought about by a system that turned God into something I felt I had to fear, because if I didn’t, I would find myself in some bad kinda way.

Last night, Jeff and I went to Inspiration point in Tilden Park, here in the Berkeley hills. We went to mark the Solstice, the longest day of the year, by sitting in nature. You know, the nature that is hills, trees, birds, sun, wind, moon. It’s easy to say, “I’m going to go spend time in nature”, as if somewhere I’ve forgotten I am nature, you’re nature, we’re all nature.

We found a bench where the view didn’t quite catch the sun setting, but we could see its orange glow spreading out across Mt. Tam and the Golden Gate.

From our spot, I breathed in the scent of the wild.

Two red-tail hawks, life mates, followed each other from tree top to tree top. Each time they sang out their tell-tale ‘Screeeee’, and each mate responded to the other, something in me also responded, as if I were also being called by this wild, untamable force that moves both the red-tail and me.

A gopher, close by to my right foot, chewed vigorously on the long grass, causing it (the grass) to disappear down into the earth. She was chewing with such intensity, such wild ferocity.

As the sun set, the slighty-over-a-half moon glowed intensely against the deep blue almost-night sky.

Something stirred deep within me. It always does when I open to the wild forces, the wilderness that we really live in…and that lives us. I am wild and feral, even though so much of my personality was created to keep this bit of reality away from my conscious awareness. After all, if I remember how wild I really am, what will I do? What kind of trouble will I create? What kind of joy might I know? What kind of emptiness and ecstasy might I fumble into? What kind of rage might I feel and express?

This wilderness is God. I know my old fears of a mean, sitting in a throne man, are the lies I was told. This wilderness out there, and in here, are God. This wild and woolly force, which is completely unknowable and yet totally available,  is God. This life force pulsing through my veins is God. It is powerful. It is fierce. It is loving.

I can’t say I don’t fear it or that I’m not frightened of it anymore. In fact, the opposite is true. The wilderness scares the bejeebers out of me. But this fear is not the fear I was taught about God. This fear is not about my sinfulness, my automatic ticket to hell simply because I am human…and female to boot.

This fear is that heart-thumping, breath-catching feeling when you know you’re being called to step into the wilderness within, that fullest place of empty that awaits.

This fear comes from my remembrance of wild, of passion, of unleashing. This wild has nothing to do with pretending to be an over-sexed psuedo-goddess that lives to please others. This wild will never be tamed. It can’t be tamed. This wild knows tears and rage. It doesn’t deny them.

This wild is calling me to know the tears and rage that remain buried deep in this body. It is calling me to know the shame and humiliation. It is calling me to know the love and the power that waits, just under the darkest of dark emotions.

All of this, all of everything, all of nothing is God. And even then, I don’t have a clue as to what God is. I just know the love.

And, you?

There is much rage hidden in women’s bodies.

Do you feel rage? Do you deny tears? Do you fear this wildness? Do you fear love?

And, if you are a man?

What can you share about rage? About the wilderness? About your own fear of tears?

I’d love to know…

This post on Wilderness is part of Dian Reid’s blog challenge, as well as Bindu Wiles #215800 blog challenge.

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divine robes of feminine flesh

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婦女圖 - Woman
婦女圖 - Woman

Artist: m-louis/takato marui, under CC 2.0

::

Each individual woman’s body demands to be accepted on its own terms. – Gloria Steinem

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This body, this female body, is divinity all dressed up in robes of feminine flesh.

Too often, way too often, this beautiful garment has been shamed and humiliated, objectified and used, scorned and belittled – the most hurtful damage done by the very one who wears it.

I now experience something different. I know that I, the one that sees all this, is not the one who scorns. The one that scorns is the only self I used to be aware of…the false self that mimics all she ingested and ingests, heard and hears, saw and sees.

The true self, the self that sees this all with such love and compassion knows I am dressed in the finest of flesh.

Yes, flesh. Flesh is divine. This feminine flesh is divine. It robes a home where Spirit and matter are brought together in a miraculous way. Creation has made this humble home for life to come into being by way of this womanly body.

…

I used to apologize for myself over and over. It was simply a habit borne of some belief that I couldn’t take up space in the world. Somewhere I learned that I didn’t belong to this world that seemed to be a man’s world. A world run by men, where men called the shots. Men belonged. Boys became men, but girls seemed to stay girls in this world. At least that’s what I learned by way of listening and watching as grown men and women would refer to men as men and women as girls, even women who were old and wise and beautiful.

I rarely apologize for myself any longer, but I am still too polite. It’s a hard habit to break. Politeness has its place, but politeness can also be another form of apologizing.

I see women apologizing for themselves over and over. I hear them say such harsh words about themselves. I want to just hold them and tell them what divine and sacred beings they are, just as I longed to be held, while having these loving words whispered into my ear.

When I feel the old familiar pangs of not belonging to this world, I find the nearest tree, flower, furry being or baby…something that reminds me of the immense variety of beauty there is in this world. Something that reminds me of the innocence that is at the heart of life. Something that reminds me that the world is owned by no one and that because it is owned by no one, we all belong to this place. Every living thing belongs to this place. We all reside in this “house of belonging“.

When I remember this, I remember what I am. A sacred being. A woman. A creation created to bring sacred life into being in infinite ways.

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This being female is delicious. I’ve migrated down from my head to my heart to my belly to my womb. I feel the earth here. I feel my weightedness, the weightedness that connects me to the earth, the feminine to the feminine. It’s as if I am ripe with love, and the juiciness of the fruit weighs me down in a grounding, sensual way.

There is a fierceness here in this womb. A fierce love that protects life at all costs. A fierceness that ensures the life entrusted to this womb will be fed, nurtured, warmed and loved.

I’ve witnessed this fierce love in my daughters as they birthed their babies. Birthing is fierce love in action. Fierceness on the part of life as it charts its own course of labor and delivery, a course the mother has no say in. Fierceness on the part of the mother as she opens herself to the most vulnerable, tender and terrifying unknown she might ever experience. Fierceness on the part of the  baby as it travels the short distance from womb to the world, but a distance that can take hours and days to navigate. It is all born from love, from the deep love of life wanting to birth itself anew in an infinite variety of forms and ways.

I’ve witnessed this fierceness in my daughters as they care for their babies in the day-to-day, doing whatever it takes to make sure their children feel safe, loved and cared for.

I’ve witnessed this fierce love in my mother, as she did whatever it took to raise her three daughters. I witnessed this fierce love in my mother as she fought to stay alive, to stay connected to those she loved even into the last hours before her death.

…

From this place, from this womb that is a microcosm of the big womb that is in constant creation, I know that the most important ‘job’ I am here to do is to protect and nurture life, all of life, all babies, all children, all men and women, all furry beings, and all the other myriad life forms. It is to live with this awareness, consciously infusing all that I create with this fierce love.

The awareness that I’ve found deep in my womb has brought me into the stark realization of all the ways I haven’t nurtured life, the ways I have added to the pain that earth, this home I belong to, is experiencing. This awareness has shown me that all my choices affect how the human race will continue to evolve, or not, and just how much power we humans have come to posess; power to love and power to destroy.

I don’t have some fancy big job. It’s insignificant and yet completely significant. Each of us has this capacity to bring forth this fierce love into being at this time. The ways in which we bring this fierce love for life into the world may seem small and insignificant, but when we all realize the capacity we have for fierce love, something can shift.

I am one of those older women now. I am not a girl, but a wise woman, a woman that knows she is more powerful than the culture would have me believe. I am a woman robed in feminine flesh. It is part of what it means to live and love in this ‘house of belonging’.

…

And, you?

Tell me about your finest garment. I’d love to know what it is to be robed in your divine flesh.

…

This post on self-awareness is part of Dian Reid’s blog challenge, as well as Bindu Wiles #215800 blog challenge.

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What Is It To Be Female?

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Why is it that sometimes the words don’t come?

I can’t tell if they really aren’t there, or if I am straining too much to find them, causing me to miss them entirely.

…

Sometimes, when I sit to write, my fingers can’t wait to share what they know is coming.

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Sometimes, when I sit to write, fingers on the keyboard, poised to go, I feel into what’s here. I sit with the silence that hovers between the key and my finger ready to strike. I wait. I notice the emptiness, the stillness from which all comes. Then a smile seems to form on this face, and something moves within me. The keys begin to tap and words are formed. I don’t know why, or what or even how. I just know it’s time to write, because I am writing. I am writing from my body, from that which knows.

…

I do know there is much that wants to be said in words, by way of these hands and this blog. There is much to be discovered and shared about being female; what it’s like to consciously live in a female body within a culture that doesn’t really celebrate, respect or honor female bodies or the feminine, even though it likes to think it does.

…

I do know the power of living a question, especially the one I offer up here, “What is it to be Female?” With so many images bombarding us, notions filling our brains, judgments piercing our hearts, how do we discover our own experience of being a woman in this culture at this time?

We live the question, as Rilke suggested.

We become aware of the unfolding of our own lived wisdom.

We ask our bodies to share what they experience as robes of feminine flesh, which provide the spirit a home in this world.

We offer our ears and hearts to other women when they yearn to speak of their experiences and can no longer hold them within.

We open to holding each woman as sacred, even when we see eye-to-eye on absolutely nothing, knowing that the sacred feminine within her is the same within me.

We learn to honor what longs to be known through this body, this spirit, this expression of the sacred feminine in female form.

…

Many ask me why I focus on being female, since the feminine is within men, too, and within all of life.

Firstly, it’s what I am compelled to do. Somewhere there is no reason for it, other than the question compels me.

Secondly, I know, absolutely know, from lived experience, that there is something divinely important about women coming to know the sacred creativity they are imbued with.

Thirdly, while I believe we are still a long way from equality for both genders, equality doesn’t mean sameness. There is richness in discovering the diverse natures that women and men have – discovery that leads to embodiment and expression rather than that which becomes rigid roles to act out of.

…

How might what we discover, as women, in our own unfolding be brought to a world that is yearning for truth, for love, and for balance of the feminine and masculine within and without?

What do women have to offer that is uniquely female? I will be exploring more of this in the days to come. As the Dalai Lama recently said,

“The world will be saved by the western woman.”

If we are to bring our gifts to this world that is crying out for balance, we must know in our hearts what this gift is.

…

And, you?

I’d love to know what you’ve discovered about being female. Yes, you were taught what it is supposed to mean, but if you toss that out, what is your direct lived experience of being a woman?

Please share what you come to see here. I am listening with both ears and an open heart.

…

This post is part of Bindu Wiles 2.15.800 Blog Challenge.

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Life’s Darshan

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That which God said to the rose, & caused it to laugh in
full-blown beauty, he also said to my heart. ~Rumi

…

The other day, I had Darshan with Amma. It was delicious because it was filled with laughter…laughter mixed with love.

Amma is a woman, some say a saint, who has given her life to selfless service. She has created a global web of humanitarian services that are empowering women, feeding children, and responding to the immediate needs of millions of people affected by both natural and man-made disasters.

And, every day of her life, she spends hours giving Darshan to those who come to receive it. Darshan is a Sanskrit and Hindu term meaning sight (in the sense of an instance of seeing something or somebody), vision, apparition, or a glimpse. It can also mean to experience a realized Being, one such as Amma.

During her Darshans, Amma hugs you. You kneel down into her lap, and she hugs you. Now, this isn’t just a hug, it is a HUG. Everyone’s experience with Amma is different. Usually, I am simply filled with love.

The other day, it was a hug filled with laughter. As the woman ahead of me was receiving her Darshan, another woman brought a baby over to Amma and the baby began to laugh. Amma laughed. The baby laughed. Amma laughed. They began to just grin at each other, and I was kneeling right in front of the whole shebang as it unfolded.

I just watched the playfullness of the baby, mirrored in the playfullness of Amma. You know how laughter is contagious? Well, the virus began to spread. I reached in for my hug and as Amma hugged me, she was still laughing. I could feel her entire body moving as she heartily laughed. I mean REALLY laughed. And, she has this deep, earthy laugh that makes it all the more compelling. My entire body began to laugh, too. I experienced sheer delight as I was held in the arms of this incredibly strong and lovingly compassionate woman.

Love, laughter and delight.

…

This past week, I also spent time with my granddaughter Aveline, and my niece’s twins, Eli and Hannah. Again, laughter. So much laughter at the sweetest things, the simplest things, the most unexpected things. Bugs. Berries. Peek-A-Boo. Dancing when there was no music to be found. Dancing at the drop of a note. Fascination with the littlest details I pass over every day.

Aveline is twenty-one months old, and Hannah and Eli are twenty-months. There is a wonder and curiosity at this age that is totally contagious.

With babies and children, one moment there’s laughter, and in the next, crocodile tears; one moment there’s amazement and wonder, and in the next, the need for a generous, big mama hug. These babies in my life are always giving Darshan.

…

Laughter, delight and amazement are qualities of the feminine aspect of life, qualities always available to us all, when we step out of our analytical minds and into the graces of the heart. From here, we can see, know, feel and touch things we miss in the ‘figuring-it-all-out’ places of the mind.

Life is full of so much turmoil right now. And yet, wonder and curiosity, hugs and amazement, love, laughter and delight are here, too. Just maybe, we might find a way out of all these seemingly intractable problems by remembering the innate, spontaneous movement of love that appears when we remember our own innocence and listen for that which caused the rose to laugh in full-blown beauty.

…

Life is always offering Darshan. Are we curious enough and open to receiving it?

…

And, you?

What Darshan have you received lately? From life? From children? From who knows where?

…

This post is part of Dian Reid‘s blog challenge at Authentic Realities. Check our Dian’s blog challenge to learn about discover other bloggers writing about Self-Evidence and Authenticity.

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The Messiness of Human Love

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My last two posts have been about gender healing, feminism, and what it means to come into balance within and without. Balance between the feminine and the masculine. The coming together of two aspects of ourselves, and of life.

I don’t yet know where these issues will take me, us, or our world. There is so much more to come, I can tell.

For the past week, I’ve been struggling a bit with writer’s block. Nothing is flowing. So, I thought I would share with you this poem I wrote to my love, way back when we were first finding our way with each other. As I read it anew, it seems so fitting to our conversation about women, men and healing.

…

The Messiness of Human Love

Lying here beside you,
I feel you struggling with the weight of this.
I hear your words and feel their harshness,
and experience them as unforgiving of the messiness of your own love.

As I lie beside you,
Your body says something else.
It speaks in a muffled voice of the freedom it longs for
To simply let go and weep.
It speaks of its most earnest yearning
To let go its armor
So it can reveal the supple fragrance of your true existence.

How I long to know you this way,
And long to show you my own supple fragrance.
Supple body to supple body,
Fragrant heart to fragrant heart
Pressed up against each other,
Close enough to catch the fleeting opportunity to become One;
Feeling and felt, sense and sensed, observer and observed.

In these imagined moments,
We are free to explore each other in the ripeness of the present
Where the touch of our souls
Explodes every particle of the Universe
Just as Love intends.

What is the illusion that lies within,
Telling us fibs about our true identity?
What is this illusion that hangs between us,
Stopping us from knowing each other,
In this most sacred way?

My own rigidity flares when I experience
the clear outline of your boundaries,
But I choose to challenge my own harshness,
For something from within you calls me forward.

Feeling my way along your ridges,
I look for an opening, some entrance into that
Sweet, sweet spot I see so clearly
On my heart’s radar screen.
I know there is a way in.

My fear of rejection suddenly voices its objections,
“Not too fast, not too hard.
Be careful.
We’re walking the line between invitation and invasion.”

I sense the opening I know is close at hand.
What greeting do I speak to let you know
I am here at your doorstep?
What is my heart’s invitation to your heart,
One that I know will find the center of softness longing to accept?

We are like two bumbling fools,
Crashing through the dark,
Feeling our way towards something that is already here in our company.
It waits for us to forgive ourselves the messiness of human love.

…

What if we could just let it be messy?
What if we let go into the unknown, so we might find the place where we can stand side by side, two equals, yet different in our own uniqueness?

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I Begin Here

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It seems as though my last post, Listening Into Liberation, resonated with many of you. The comments you left were insightful posts unto themselves. They touched me deeply.

::

“The future of humanity will be decided not by relations between nations, but by relations between men and women. ” D.H. Lawrence

::

I realize that I know very little, if anything, about the answers to how liberation into wholeness can unfold. And at the same time, I absolutely know that wholeness is our inheritance, and that our true nature is already whole.

I know that consciousness is seeking to know itself, to awaken fully into wholeness.

I know that my rational mind can’t understand it, even if it thinks it can.

I know that I have a deep longing to heal into wholeness, and to be liberated from these ties and snares that keep me falling back into the false beliefs of our culture, that:

  • women are secondary to men,
  • the feminine is something to fear,
  • the masculine is bad
  • women have to apologize, constantly, for something not quite known
  • men must be taken care of
  • men and women can’t trust each other
  • women are inherently jealous of, and hostile to, each other
  • I, as a woman, will be more safe and secure in my relationships, and in the world at large, if I ‘pretend’ to be good, compliant, selfless, small…in short, something I am not.

These are just a few of the notions I (and others I know) have believed in the past, or continue to believe right now. Is there anything else you might want to throw in here?

::

“…re-examine all you have been told at school or church, or in any books, and dismiss whatever insults your soul.” ~ Walt Whitman

::

We’re told many things about women, about men, and about our worth, our value, how we should be with each other. We’ve been conditioned by parents, by our schooling, by the church, by the culture, by the media…

I can see the most necessary and important thing I can do to begin, is to question all of my beliefs. Period. Even my most treasured beliefs, the ones I cling to that give me a sense of righteousness, or a sense of safety and security. This is really about questioning the small, yet sometimes very loud and insistent, roommate in my head that wants me to believe these things so I will stay ‘in the tribe’.

I know liberation into wholeness will not come by hanging onto my beliefs. It will not come if I hang on to anything I have to believe in, because if I believe in something, it means I don’t really know the truth of it. If I did, I wouldn’t need the belief.

…

All of Life is Sacred

One thing I know is that all of life is sacred. I know this. I don’t have to believe it, because I experience it. I witness the sacred looking out your eyes. I hear the sacred in your voice. I feel the sacred in your touch. I taste the sacred in your kiss. Everything is alive with the sacred. Everything.

We are breathed, we are fed, we are loved, and we are held by the sacred. All is infused with the sacred. When we don’t see this sacredness, it’s because we believe the conditioning that tells us differently.

Patriarchal conditioning teaches us to fear matter, to fear that which is here right under our noses. Patriarchal conditioning is about fearing the feminine in us all, but most especially in women, because we embody the sacredness of the feminine life principle. Patriarchal conditioning tells us to transcend rather than embody. Yet, it is through the body that I experience, that I enter into relationship with you, with woman, with man, with life.

I know I begin here, with my own experience that all of life is sacred. Somehow it’s easy to see this sacredness in children. I see their innocence. Yet, this same innocence is alive in us all.

I begin with this innocence, this wonder and amazement that are naturally a part of being alive and aware. The only thing I can know, truly know, is what my experience shows me.

I long to know you, to listen to woman, to listen to man.

Wholeness is about Oneness, about no longer experiencing division within and division without. I have to begin here, where I am, seemingly still ensnared by beliefs, but willing to look to see what is here, what is true, what is so. And, then acting on that knowing, to move with truth, rather than shrink away from it.

The roommate believes it won’t be easy. Yet, the longing is much stronger than the roommate’s resistance.

…

And, you?

I’d love to be in conversation with you.

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