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Piglets for Girls

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Piglets for Girls. When I first read this article, I felt a surge of discomfort and frustration to know that there are things going on that so devalue women and girls that I can’t even wrap my head around them. Yet, this reaction doesn’t really help them. I am only seeing it from my western woman’s perspective without taking into consideration that I don’t know how other parts of the world work.

Piglets for Girls is an ingenious plan that is saving thousands of young girls from being sold into slavery.  To make it happen, Olga Murray had to understand how the Nepali culture worked after living there on and off for over five years.

As part of living this question, “What is it to be Female?”, we can look at women who exhibit their female nature in the work they do, and at the same time are powerful forces in the world today, creating change and leading by example and love.

Olga Murray is one such lady. She is saving lives every day…little female lives. Having been honored by the Dalai Lama and the former king of Nepal, Murray exhibits love, creativity, tenacity and the deep kind of love for the world that Amma calls Universal Motherhood.

When I read about Olga and the young girls she has changed, I could also see how these girls, once they felt secure and cared for, began to show their own strength and resiliency. They become empowered activists in their own right, naturally showing a fierceness towards their younger sister’s safety that can now be spoken aloud.

Olga Murray is a mirror for us all in which we can see our own strength, compassion, patience and creativity. These young women teach us something about what we can embody when we have known fear and stepped through it, and have been truly valued enough to be spoken for.  Take a moment to notice something new you now know about your own nature as a woman. Women can be true to their nature AND be a powerful force in the world.

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Mother

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I haven’t been able to write for two weeks now. My mother passed away on June 29th, and the words have only come in small bits. I have felt wordless, except for the moments when I needed to come up with them when writing her obituary and my portion of her eulogy.

The connection with our mother goes to the core. And, for me, it wasn’t until I realized she was going to die that I felt this tearing at the core of my being. It was as if the connection I had with her was deeply tied to the center of my body. It felt as if the other end of the connection was tied to her center as well. As I tried to describe it to my sister-in-law Shirley, my love for my mother was also a physical connection from center-to-center, from core-to-core.

My relationship with my mother was not perfect…whose is? But as she lay dying, I could feel the love she had for me in a way that I had not remembered experiencing. It was if a different channel a deeper, more physical and intuitive channel of expression was opened between us. In those last days, we shared some extraordinary moments of love. No, she wasn’t able to talk about dying, as she couldn’t speak without a great amount of exertion. But, instead, her communication came through her eyes, through her hands and through her heart. I could feel her unconditional love for me and something within me let go, knowing that her love for me does not, and will not, die. It is beyond our lifetimes, it is more than our bodies, and it is more than simply our relationship as mother and daughter.

My mother’s death has opened up a new place of inquiry into mothers and motherhood that I am following and will share here. How much I expected my mother to be more than human in her ability to mother. And, at the same time, I always knew that she was a mother that always provided what I needed.

My two sisters and I gave our mother’s eulogy together. It was truly an honor to do so. My mother was a strong, independent woman, as are my sisters. I have heard many stories from those who loved my mother, and know her now in many different ways. It’s funny how we learn things about our parents after they die, that we didn’t know before.

I see her humanness and now also know her divine ability to love unconditionally. What a gift.

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A Mother’s Love

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Greetings to all,

I haven’t been posting for a bit. My time for writing these days has been limited. Instead, I have been spending most of my moments with my mother who is near the end of her two-year journey with cancer.

Joan, my mother, is an incredible woman. She is strong, courageous, and vital. She is independent and fiercely stubborn. All of these qualities have kept her alive much longer than we anticipated.

As these past months have gone by, I have been graciously given the chance to see the radiance in her shine forth from a deep place within. She is radiant with love and when she smiles at me I can feel the power of her love and the gentle, yet powerful presence of her true identity. She is my mother, yet she is also love itself.

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Transmuting Anger to Love

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Blue Tara ~ Goddess of Liberation

“Blue Tara, or Ekajati, is associated with the transmutation of anger. A Protector expressing ferocious, wrathful, female energy who destroys all learning obstacles producing good luck and swift spiritual awakening. She removes fear of enemies, spreading joy and good fortune.” (source: Seasonal Salon)

If I am going to be unabashedly female, I must be present to what is here. Anger is here…again. To be honest, I don’t know what to do with this anger. Anger wasn’t something I learned to feel or express, but it certainly is here.

Anger for the way women and children are treated. I sense rage underneath a pretty veneer of good and appropriate behavior, not only on my part, but in the world at large. I sense many women feel this rage at something we can’t quite name, or perhaps don’t know how to name. I am sure many men feel this, too. I know some of it is my own anger, while I know much of it is the collective rage, a rage carried over from centuries of oppression of the Feminine.

My mind can’t understand how this anger and rage can be expressed without hurting another. I don’t want to simply spew more negativity into the world…there is enough already. But, I know I must feel this anger. It is here. And, I feel compelled to do something about what is happening all over our planet. While I feel small compared to the problems, when I feel this anger arise, there is at least something moving, something stirring rather than the complacency that comes when I feel overwhelmed by the problems I see.

In my writing, I have been stymied by the anger that comes up. I am clear that I don’t want to blame or rant or rave. I want to move from the love I know lies deep within my heart. Yet, I don’t yet know the fullness of how love can show up, the ways in which it can move and stand in its fullness as the truth.

I do know that love can cut like a knife of truth. I have seen it. When I stayed at Amma’s ashram in India, I witnessed Her love over and over. Even in moments of Darshan, when she was hugging someone with infinite tenderness of the Mother, she would occasionally express this knife of truth (what I might call anger or something like it) towards someone when it arose. But, here the expression was clean. It cut through the haze of ego like a knife, cleanly without a lingering trace of guilt or blame. Her love flowed through the entire experience. Witnessing its expression took my breath away. I had never seen the beauty in truth of expression like this before.

From my own experience, I know that pure love follows the true expression of anger. When anger is experience fully, without identifying with it, and without allowing one’s conditioning to feed off of it, it transforms into love.

I now know this transmutation of anger to love is what Blue Tara represents. For thousands of years, Blue Tara, and the other goddess forms, have represented this transmutation because anger blocks the way to expression of truth and love. There have been deities to express this because this is part of our path to awakening, to discovering the truth and wholeness of what it is to be female.

There is so much fear amongst women about being angry. No woman wants to be the angry bitch. Yet, we must feel the entirety of what is here, without identifying with it. We are not our feelings or thoughts, yet they move through us. When we block the negative ones, we block all of them. Our hearts are big enough to hold the entire universe…I know we can hold the feeling and expression of this anger, too. Perhaps then it will be like letting the air out of a balloon, slowly, little by little, rather than letting it get so full that it pops.

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Our Female Nature

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If we are to be unabashedly female, we must be aligned with our true female nature. But, what is this nature?

All conditioning conspires against our knowing, yet our desire to know, to really know this nature, runs deep.

We are drawn to healing, drawn to come to wholeness and to knowing what and who we are. We are compelled to lose the binding we believe is wrapped around our feet, and to dissolve the armor that holds our hearts. We are yearning to know the fullness of our feminine vibrancy, that elusive yearning that lies deep in the belly of our bodies.

Everything we are taught about being female is done to keep us from knowing the basic goodness of our innate female nature. All of life, when it is seen for what it really is, is goodness. We simply don’t see it for what it is.

So this is your chance. Open your heart to your own nature. Open your heart to all that conspires to have you know what and who you truly are. Open your heart.

There is more to come…much, much more.

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Awakening the Light Within

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“It’s so clear that you have to cherish everyone. I think that’s what I get from these older black women, that every soul is to be cherished, that every flower is to bloom.”
—Alice Walker

What is it to be female? One of the most amazing aspects of being a woman is our ability to love unconditionally. It is our nature. Within women, there is a substance that flows throughout one’s being. Spiritual leaders speak of this aspect of consciousness that is present in women because women intrinsically bring the divine into incarnation through their bodies. This that flows throughout the beingness of woman is always there. When we love, we love with this substance that brings consciousness to matter, that lights up matter with the radiance of the divine.

As Alice Walker says, to cherish everyone is the chance to bring reflection to the divinity within each person, and for that matter, every living thing. When we women love fully, from the depths of our heart and body, when we welcome in our own divinity and love from this place, we shine the light of awareness on the Oneness that is Life.

Loving unconditionally, though, is not the province of the ego. It is not about satisfying our desires and wants. Rather, it is trusting our nature as women and acknowledging the sacredness of our female body, so that we can fully embody this female nature and trust what it is here to do. This is the beauty that is inherent in women. This is the nature of females that is being called forth to full expression.

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Lovers of This Place

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“I walk in the world to love it.” ~ Mary Oliver, the fantabulous poet.

I received this quote recently and fell in love all over again with the world I live in.

spiral.jpgThe next morning, a sunny spring Sunday morning, I decided to take a walk in Tilden Park. It’s right across the street from our house, so I simply have to step outside and I am there. I took my new camera with me, my new/used D200 that I bought from my good friend Jenn Lee‘s husband, Bring Ng (an amazing photographer if you are in the market for one). This was my first jaunt into Tilden with my camera and I could feel my excitement.

I hiked up into our favorite path, a loop that goes up towards Inspiration Point, and then back down hill until it reaches the creek and meanders along the water for some distance. As I hiked, I kept hearing this quote from Mary Oliver over and over in my head. “I walk in the world to love it.” As I walked, I could feel myself settle into the surrounding landscape, dropping down into the deep peace that was waiting there for me.

fuzzy.jpgIt was early in the morning, about 8:00, so there were still many pockets of cold air, especially in the shadiest spots, while just around the corner the sun would be blazing and a balmy breeze would blow across my face. In those balmy breezes, I could smell the fragrance of each mini-world I came across.

The sun was coming through the landscape, lighting up nooks and crannies I had never noticed before. I could feel a kinship with the world I was immersed in, feeling a kind of deep peaceful love that comes over me when I hike.

As I hiked up to the top of the trail, I came to my favorite spot, a bench that looks out over the tiny valley and out across to Mt. Tamalpais in Marin. My partner Jeff and I love to sit here in silence, enjoying everything that presents itself to us. The bench is dedicated to David and Irene McPhail. I remember to thank them for this place to sit and appreciate the surrounding beauty.

As I approached the bench this time, loversofthisplace_01.jpgI noticed once again the plaque on the back. How perfect. On the plaque was the statement, “Lovers of this Place.” I didn’t miss the serendipitous tie-in with the quote from Mary Oliver, “I walk in the world to love it.”

So I sat down in silence and drank in the beauty of everything presenting itself to me in this rich moment. I wondered what it means to be a lover of this place, this world we live in. What does it mean to love the world, to be a lover of this place we call life and earth and community?

What is it to be fully sensuous, to rest in one’s awareness of everything presenting itself to be experienced? How difficult it can sometimes be to not push certain experiences away, while grabbing a hold of other better ones.

To be a lover of this place means to have a loving relationship with all of life, not making demands on the moment if it isn’t what pleases you. It doesn’t mean simply letting the injustices prevail, but rather loving the world open-heartedly so that you allow it to come to you, allow it to unfold before your eyes, ears and heart. It it then that we can be truly responsive and responsible to the world, to each other and to ourselves.

What does it mean to you to be a Lover of this Place?

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The Moment, Expectant With Life and Love

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CakeYesterday 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.

flowersI 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…

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Living like we ain’t got no mama

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One of my favorite songs is the BLACK EYED PEAS’ “Where Is The Love?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

image by aussiegall on Flickr
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Kiss and Tell

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Patricia Martin, author of RenGen, a fantabulous book about the Renaissance that is taking place in our culture, has created a great contest for Valentine’s Day…a Kiss and Tell contest. Check it out at the Culture Scout blog. Post your own story about your greatest kiss. You know, the one you’ll remember the rest of your life. Post your kiss story. Who knows, you just might win a great new book, The Dictionary of Love by John Stark. And, yours truly is one of 5 judges selected to pick the winner. I look forward to reading the juiciest details you are willing to share. But read Patricia’s post to learn more.

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