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The Internet is Alive

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When an idea reaches critical mass there is no stopping the shift its presence will induce.
~Marianne Williamson

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What if the Internet, itself, was spiritual in nature? This is a question I wondered about back in 2001, when I designed and wrote a thesis on Spirituality and the Internet. My ideas at the time were roughly hewn. I had just finished three years doing a lot of coursework in design, computer science, and digital art. The project was to create a spiritual space on the Internet. But, the deeper message, was that the Internet itself was a spiritual space, simply in its form – following on the form follows function idea.

On this same idea, just today, two very interesting and timely articles fell into my lap, by way of – you guessed it – the Internet.

The first, Saudi women revel in online lives, written by Caryle Murphy, gives us a small glimpse into how the internet is opening up the world to women in Saudi Arabia.

In a country where about one-third of the population regularly goes online, the internet gives women “a place to vent out our frustrations and our dreams,” said Reem Asaad, 37, a professor of banking and finance in the Saudi port city of Jeddah who blogs at reemasaad.blogspot.com.

It also has allowed women who normally are “physically invisible” to participate more actively in Saudi society, Asaad added.

“From the authorities’ viewpoint,” she explained, “so long as women are behind a curtain, or a screen, and so long as they are not before a camera or walking down the street, then everything is fine. Women are free to do anything they want as as long as they aren’t seen, heard or spotted doing it by men.”

When I read the words “physically invisible”, my heart felt a sharp pain of sadness and despair. I can’t begin to imagine how it feels to be physically invisible. Feeling into what it might be like to be hidden in such a way stimulated a deep sense of compassion for all women who are experiencing this. Obviously, I don’t know what this is like. And, of course, I am projecting my own fears and feelings onto the story here. But, from one woman to another, from one soul to another, I feel for these women.

To read on and see how the internet is bringing them into connection and out of such separation brought a sense of possibility for what might be, how the world could shift simply through the Internet. To shift this way, we have to see that the Internet is the means for connection, something I believe we are beginning to understand more deeply each day.

After sitting with these thoughts, the second article fell into my lap (or I should say, landed in my inbox). The Internet as a Living Symbol of Global Oneness, written by Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee Ph.D., a Sufi teacher and author, is an extremely important article on Huffington Post. It could change the nature of how we experience, and use, the Internet.

“I believe that the Internet is a gift we have been given. It provides an image of how the energy of life can flow freely in a way that defies the barriers of nationality and geography. Yet sadly because we are so immersed in the surface activity of this technology, in its tools of commerce and communication, we do not realize its deeper, symbolic dimension. A symbol is a connection to the sacred ground of our being which alone gives real meaning to our daily life. The Internet, as a living symbol of global oneness, offers us a direct connection to an awareness of divine oneness (italics mine). But because we have lost touch with the symbolic dimension of life, we do not fully recognize this potential of the Internet: as a dynamic expression of a new consciousness of oneness that has within it access to energies and means that can unify our divisive world (italics mine). If we were awaken to its real potential, we would be truly in awe–and we would laugh, with wonder, at life’s capacity to recreate itself while we are not even looking.

What does it mean to shift to seeing the internet as a symbol of global divine oneness? What does this mean for our everyday use of the Internet?

I can see, now, that all my attention back in 2001 on this notion of connection through the Internet was coming from intellectual and psychological perspectives. The internet as a dynamic symbol? A brand new door of understanding and knowing.

The Internet as this symbol feels deeper and richer. It feels alive. It is alive. It is dynamic. It has energies and means within it to bring about the awareness of oneness that already exists. We aren’t in control here. Yet, we can, if conscious, align with this potential inherent in the “gift we have been given”.

We can see ourselves in connection with others out there, like these women in Saudi Arabia who are now experiencing a new kind of visibility. We can know we are moving within this dynamic consciousness of oneness as we bring our own gifts to the interplay of connection and expression. We don’t have to figure out how to use this. We can’t figure it out. It knows. It is alive. We can trust in its aliveness. We can move with it.

::

One thing I do know: the importance of connecting women, in order to awaken the vital energies of healing and nourishment that lie dormant in the cells of our bodies – to awaken the primal sacred feminine nature of women’s creativity. We won’t fully bring to life this force within that is pushing to awaken, if we stay hidden, invisible and alone in isolation. We will awaken in community. We have been given the gift. How will we use it?

::

And, you?

How have you already experienced this divine oneness? How does knowing this change your perspective on the Internet? How might you being to move with it?

What if simply knowing the Internet as a living, dynamic manifestation of oneness were the idea that needs to reach critical mass that Marianne Williamson speaks of? How might things shift?


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The Great Mother

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“How might your life have been different, if, deep within,

you carried an image of the Great Mother?

And, when things seemed very, very bad,

you could imagine that you were sitting in the lap of the Goddess,

held tightly…

embraced, at last

And, that you could hear her saying to you,

“I love you…I love you and I need you to bring forth your self.”

~Judith Duerk, Circle of Stones

::

The Great Mother is here. Her way is not the way of visibility. Her way is dark and deep, down in the darkness where life gestates, where life springs forth from the primal belly.

I first became conscious of Her presence a number of years ago. It felt as if someone was pulling me down, way down into my body, into the depths of the darkness that the descent illuminates. I could feel Her pull, and I knew, instinctively, I was being called to feel, in their most raw elements, all the dark emotions I had been avoiding all my life.

I can’t say I was excited by her invitation. Quite the opposite. All of my spiritual learnings had taught me about transcendence, guiding me to find the Light of Spirit, the masculine aspect of God. This invitation was not about Light, at least that’s what I first thought. It was about darkness, and Her pull was relentless, yet also loving.

It’s easy to want to avoid this dance with the dark. The mind thinks of so many logical reasons why I should’t follow her down. I can’t see Her. And, where is down? Where is this darkness? There is nothing on the outside that would indicate She is calling. It is inside that I hear Her call. It is in the interior of my own experience, that I know it is Her. It is in my body that I know what I know. It is in my heart that I feel Her love for all of life.

I’ve come to know this rich inner life quite well. I’m the only one that knows this interiority; and, you are the only one that can know your own interiority. But, there’s something we have in common. If we are to bring forth ourselves, we women must leave the known outer life, the conditioning that has taught us well how not to trust our own knowing, the conditioning that has caused us to know ourselves only in relationship to others.

If we are to find our own voice, our own inner authority, we must turn inward and begin to listen to our own self. Of course, we are always at choice. That is, until we aren’t, because at some point, it may become more painful to ignore Her call than to heed it.

One of the most important things we can offer each other, as women, is a reverence and respect for this inward journey of women. Perhaps, as we become aware of our own inner life, and all the tugs and pulls and longings we feel to know who we truly are, we can begin to realize that other women we know are also feeling a similar calling. Perhaps, when we each treat the other with reverence, knowing the Great Mother is calling her, too, then a bond of strength and power will begin to nourish our connection to each other, supporting us all in bringing the sacred feminine forth into consciousness.

I can’t say I know for sure why She is asking this of us (although I have my own ideas); yet, she is asking. Don’t take my word for it – or Judith Duerk’s word. Get quiet and take a moment to ask yourself if you hear, in your own world within, Her calling to you.

I do know one thing. As I become more at home in these beautiful depths, I fall more deeply in love with women and all they offer to this world.  We are the gestators of life. Whether or not a woman gives birth to babies, she is always a mother, designed in the image of the Great Mother. As Rumi says, “Woman is the radiance of God; she is not your beloved. She is the Creator —you could say that she is not created.” It is time we come to know our own radiant feminine selves, and see it reflected in all of life.

And, you?

What have you experienced in your inner life? What do you know of the sacred feminine in your own experience? How have you shared this interiority with others? How might you begin to trust this knowing even more deeply? I’d love to know what you’ve experienced.

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The You That Takes Your Breath Away

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Columbine Bud by fireflies604 on Flickr

“We are the only species on earth capable of preventing our own flowering.” – david whyte

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This quote floated across the Twittersphere yesterday, and grabbed my attention. When I posted it as my status on FaceBook, a lovely male friend commented in response, “Yet we are drawn to flowering. Such a juicy existence.”, causing me to pause and consider the dynamic tug of war between closing and opening, concealing and revealing, preventing and surrendering.

So many ways we fight what is. Human beings that is. Only human beings. At least as far as I can see, human beings are the only ones who try oh so hard not to be what we are.

Then, I thought of how much energy it would take for a plant to keep itself from blooming. Oh my. Can you imagine if a bud could keep itself from blooming? I can just see it trying to scrunch everything in, holding itself back and in as if holding its breath, trying so hard not to be what it is meant to be.

Or at the other end of the spectrum, if the plant desires to blossom, gets to the height of its bloom and then tries really hard, incredibly hard, to keep the bloom beautiful. forever. without a flaw. without losing its perkiness. without fading.

::

Fighting one’s design is exhausting. I know. I’ve done it all my life. Especially my design as a woman.

I’ve hid my deeply sensual nature. I’ve kept myself small. I’ve taken on others’ shame as my own. I’ve apologized over and over and over simply for taking up space, for being in the way, for reasons I didn’t even know, even as I was in the midst of doing it.

I’ve been really, really nice, keeping the anger and rage down inside where it won’t be seen so I won’t be seen as threatening or angry or a bitch.

As far as I know, flowers can’t choose. They do what they do because their intrinsic design is to do that. But people, we get to choose. We get to self-reflect. We get to do this dance between ego and soul, a dance between pretending and being.

Fighting one’s design is the never ending staircase, the infinite treadmill, the highway to hell, but you never get to hell, because no matter how hard you pedal, you end up exactly where you started. I call it ‘the project’.

Preventing flowering IS hell.

As I let myself feel my exhaustion, when I stop and allow the full force of my dance with the illusion of my not-enoughness to flow over me, something else makes itself known. It is always there. It’s just doesn’t clamor for my attention. It doesn’t have to. It’s just what is.

It’s the wake up call to remembrance.

It’s the quiet, yet insistent, push to bloom, to flower, to be the one I know I really am. The one I allow myself to see in rare fleeting glimpses. The one that flashes across my face sometimes when I’m caught off guard looking in the mirror. The one that scares the hell out of me because of its persistence. The one that scares the hell out of me because of its beauty.

You know the one I’m talking about… the you that takes your own breath away.

::

My project has exhausted me for years. And, it shape-shifts. Just when I think I am being real and truthful and risky, I can feel the oh so familiar tightness and constriction of the project taking over again.

Let me make something really clear. The project is NOT bad. It is a ingenious survival strategy to stay safe when young. It’s filled with well-meaning parts that will do whatever it takes to keep safe. The only thing is, if the urge to bloom is there, then the project is standing in the way of blossoming. And, hence, creating exhaustion.

It can feel really risky to be the you that takes your breath away. But, in my experience, it hurts like hell to keep hiding it. The body suffers. The soul suffers. Hiding this you is fighting your design as a soul, as a human being, as a woman.

Beauty appears when something is completely & absolutely & openly itself. ~Deena Metzger

Beauty is something being what it is – completely. Sometimes this learning to allow beauty it is messy. Sometimes I don’t feel beautiful, but then I remember THAT beauty was the beauty I was taught to believe in…not the beauty of something being real. messy. powerful. strong. This is the beauty that pushes the seedling up to the light, the bud to open, the petals to fall, the flower to die.

::

Right now, there is a force calling us forth to be beautiful, to be completely and absolutely and openly ourselves. Yes, it is very persistent and fierce force, like truth always is, because, as Andrew Harvey says,

“Everything is at stake, and everything is possible.”

This force is compelling women to blossom. Fully. In all our feminine majesty. It is time.

::

image by fireflies604 CC 2.0 license



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That Which Is Yearning To Be Born

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Each day of December, I am being moved to post by Gwen Bell’s Best of 2009 Blog Challenge:
Today is Day 31 Resolution.

To start with, I don’t make resolutions. I know that creativity can only emerge when we let go of expectations and welcome the mystery to unfold. That takes surrender – a surrender to the mystery that we are, that life is, that awaits in the next breath. So, from this place, let me enter into my intention for the next breath, and the next, and so on…

In contemplating my final post for this best of 2009 challenge, I’ve been reflecting on not only my year, but also on my experience as a participant of this challenge. One encapsulates the other. During these past 30 days of December, I reflected on this year of ’09 and posted 30 reflections. Some posts captivated me more than others. Some posts connected me with new friends more than others. Some have worked on me more than others.

So for this final post, I am bringing all of this together in some way, without knowing how it will end. One thing I have discovered through this process of daily blogging, is that, if I am present and pay attention to what wants to be said, it eventually comes around full circle in a way I never expected.

There were tugs and pulls along the way of this year, and this challenge. I have discovered that when I open the channel and trust, what tugs and pulls is what wants to be born. When I keep the channel open, it propels itself forth into being.

I’ve been blown away by the community that’s been created through this blog challenge. I think, perhaps, we are hungry for connection, hungry for community, and hungry for the kind of dynamic creativity that comes from sharing our innermost thoughts with others we are drawn to.

Toward the end of these 30 days- day 29 to be exact – I noticed a thread running through many of the posts I read…a thread that pulled together our hungers. As I twittered to Karen Caterson (@SquarePegKaren), “Something is being born right here between all of us, and it is raw and beautiful.”

I know, deep in my heart and belly, that women share a profound love for each other. Sometimes this love is covered over by strong conditioning that has taught us to be jealous of each other, or to not trust each other, or to even be intimidated by each other. But, underneath all these fears, lies a deep-seated love that is unique to women. I see this love all the time in how the women in my life are there for me in a second if I call. I see this love in how my daughters care for each other, and how they would do anything for me. This same love has begun to shine through our best of 2009 posts, our comments, and in our intention to connect and share consciously and copiously, woman to woman.

To own my power, to put it into action in the world, means stepping into new territory. The power of the feminine primal matrix is demanding to be embodied by women. Something else is dying so this sacred life principle can be born anew, for the benefit of all beings.

In my work, I’ve made a distinction between the feminine and being female. I think it’s a critical distinction.

All of life has both masculine and feminine energies. For so many centuries, the masculine has been perverted then let loose to run rampant, creating actions that have slowly sucked the life-force out of all living beings. This rampant energy of greed and abusive power has dominated men, women, children, animals and the planet. Having been out of balance for far too long, we are experiencing a crumbling away of the old while the birth of the new is imminent. The old is dying as the new is being born.

I see it is critical for women to open to, and act from, the power that comes from fully surrendering to what we are: women. This is not power that is abusive, such as we have known in our lifetimes. Rather, this power comes from surrendering to one’s life force. Each of us, each living being is powerful beyond measure, when we no longer deny what is real and true within. The power that we are becomes unfettered and free when the ego turns to be of service to the soul rather than obstructing it.

As I wrote in my post, The Challenge is Now:

So, the message is coming through loud and clear. This is the challenge, and it is here, now.

The Dalai Lama recently surprised listeners when he said, “The world will be saved by western women.”

Two great quotes have been swirling in my head for some time, now.

You must learn not to be careful. Diane Arbus

You were once wild here. Don’t let them tame you! Isadora Duncan

These words take me back inside, where my feelings and instincts as a woman reside. My fierce love was tamed, made dormant and silent. But we were once wild here, and we are still wild within.

What will it take to stand and speak, to grow fierce and vocal?

In my post of yesterday, December 30th, Women, Power and Sex, Jeanne Hewell Chambers (@WhollyJeanne) commented most eloquently. I’d love to share what she wrote here, as it sums up so beautifully what my work in the world is, and what I know other women are feeling called to act upon:

“…yes, let’s have this conversation . . . and let’s keep having it until we’ve changed the world. let’s start with ourselves [women]: let’s honor and respect and cherish and adore the sacred and mysterious creativeness that is us. let’s do it for ourselves, let’s do it for others, and let’s keep doing it and keep doing it and keep doing it until we have trained ourselves and others how to see. let’s keep doing it until we reach that special tipping point where it is the accepted way of being in this world – the only way of being with ourselves and with others.” ~ Jeanne

May we, as women, step into our power and stand to speak our truth, so that one day we can stand alongside men in true equality, with reverence and respect for each other and for all of life. May we all be of service to that which is yearning to be born into being: the sacred feminine and a true and lasting peace that embraces the whole world.

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Women, Power and Sex

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Each day of December, I am being moved to post by Gwen Bell’s Best of 2009 Blog Challenge:
Today is Day 30 Ad. What advertisement made you think this year?

Advertising makes me wonder where we’re going as a culture. To be honest, I don’t watch much TV. I don’t like to shop. I don’t read magazines.  When it comes to advertising, I cringe from what I see. I feel outraged. I feel sad. I feel helpless to stop the objectification that continues to occur.

I’ve heard many young women say that they feel empowered because they now have sexual freedom. They equate power with sex. After all, most advertising encourages them to be the sexiest they can be. Everything seems to be about being sexy. Not just beautiful and thin, but sexy, too.

I see woman as beautiful, amazing, and strong. I am amazed by women. And, it makes me sad to think that women don’t see their own sacredness.

What is it to be a powerful woman? Is power only about sex? Maybe in our current cultural milieu it’s the brass ring, but what if true power for women was not about what we give away in order to be wanted, but what we honor and respect within ourselves?

Our sexuality is a powerful force. And, it is a sacred and mysterious force. We are bearers of life. We bring life into life. We are sacredly creative.

I’d love to know what you think about this. What will it take to respect and honor this within ourselves, even in the face of more and more negative advertising?

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Igniting the Spark of Sacred Activism

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shiva

Image by Shapeshift, Flickr
(creative commons license)

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Best of 2009 Blog Challenge:  Day 22: Startup. What’s a business that you found this year that you love? Who thought it up? What makes it special?

“A spirituality that is only private and self-absorbed, one devoid of an authentic political and social consciousness, does little to halt the suicidal juggernaut of history. On the other hand, an activism that is not purified by profound spiritual and psychological self-awareness and rooted in divine truth, wisdom, and compassion will only perpetuate the problem it is trying to solve, however righteous its intentions. When, however, the deepest and most grounded spiritual vision is married to a practical and pragmatic drive to transform all existing political, economic, and social institutions, a holy force – the power of wisdom and love in action – is born. This force I define as Sacred Activism.” ~ Andrew Harvey

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Best Startup of 2009:  The Institute for Sacred Activism, created by Andrew Harvey and Jill Angelo. The Institute held its first series of trainings in 2009.

Why is it special? The Institute is bringing to the world Sacred Activism, which is a marriage between Activism, the traditional path to social justice, and the realization that all of life is sacred – ALL of life is sacred.

Sacred Activism is compassionate action, bringing the wisdom, love and connection of the Sacred Feminine back into this world that so desperately needs it.

I have already celebrated the Institute here and here in my blog. But, the Institute, and its founders, also deserve this mention as best startup, because of the sheer amount of dedication, time, energy, tenacity and profound courage it has taken to create this container for growing sacred activists.

I first heard of it in July, so I wasn’t able to attend the first meetings in April and June, but what I learned in September and November, about how to bring my personal vision for a change in the social structre into concrete action, was of immeasurable value.

I learned about changing the structure of the way things are by engaging people with their values, then seeing if their behaviors match these values, from Monica Sharma, Director of Leadership and Capacity Development at OHRLLS, United Nations. She is a powerhouse speaker with a vision that sets you on fire.

Monica’s teachings were invaluable to me, as I deepen my work on helping women (including myself) to heal from the pain of conditioning that teaches us we are not enough, and from the projections that are placed upon us by a culture that fears our power and mystery. The cultural shadow that keeps women believing in their powerlessness is insidious in how it keeps us believing so much negativity about the feminine and females in general. In very practical terms, facilitating this healing can bring a much needed shift to our world.

In November, we had an entire session on the body (global and personal), where we practiced a new form of yoga, Heart Yoga, developed by Karuna Erickson and Andrew Harvey. It is a beautiful form of physical yoga married with visions of the heart. Their new book, Heart Yoga, will be available in May of 2010.

Of course, we were blessed with the fiery passion of Andrew Harvey each day of our trainings. Andrew is passionate about sharing his hope for a different world. If you don’t know this man’s works, check out his lengthy list of creations.

Simply coming together with people from all over the country who are committed to sacred action created a wonderful community to draw upon was a powerful affirmation of the widespread desire of so many Americans who hold a vision for life in our world to be very different than what we see today.

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If this interests you, the Institute will be holding more teaching days in 2010. Also, check out Andrew’s call to create Networks of Grace. As Andrew writes, we have very little time…

“The one hope for the future lies, I believe, in Sacred Activism – the fusion of the deepest spiritual knowledge and passion with clear, wise, radical action in all the arenas of the world, inner and outer.

We have very little time in which to awaken and transform ourselves, to be able to preserve the planet, and to heal the divisions between the powerful and the powerless.

Let us go forward now with firm resolve and profound dedication.” ~ Andrew Harvey

::

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Drivin’ With Soul

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image by BlackButterfly, Flickr

::

As I open to the grandeur of the soul, I feel the immensity of her being. Such raw creative power. Such soft joy. Such simple elegance. Such beauty – beauty unlike anything I’ve been conditioned to recognize or understand. In many ways, she is elusive; yet, she is right here, always.

I refer to her as she, yet she is she not in the way we think of she. She is she in her complete receptivity and vulnerability. She yearns to know, again, the sweet piercing of the heart. She is of the feminine nature.

In my day-to-day life, I know she is there, yet I lose this immediate connection to her. I lose it through the conditioned way I live daily life, that way that pushes out from the mind, rather than meeting life through the sensuousness of the body. I lose it through the ways I have learned to disrespect myself. I lose it through the ways I was conditioned to dishonor all that is of feminine nature.

Yet, I’ve discovered I can reconnect with the grandeur of the soul by shifting these things in my daily life. As I open to her presence, she leads me to know her through sometimes unexpected means. They are means that speak to only me, for my ways of evading her presence are just as unique as I am, just as soul speaks to you in ways you will know.

::

On a warm, sunny day in August, I took a trip in my new car. All my life, I have purchased things on the  basis of practicality and cost-effectiveness. By themselves, these are not bad values, but when they rule my decision making process, I find myself surrounded by things that don’t reflect my own internal values of beauty, sensuality, and refinement. I find myself wearing clothes that don’t reflect who I truly am deep inside. I fill my home with functionality rather than refinement.

Things that are well made are beautiful, simply because of the care put into the construction through thoughtful details and quality workmanship. They are infused with a sense of the beautiful.

After twelve years of driving a small car, I bought a beautiful car that had been owned by a woman who took impeccable care of it. In this car, I feel its refinement, the craftsmanship of those who created it, and the elegance of its design. I feel more safe in it, knowing its body can withstand much more than the economy car I traded in.

On this sunny day in August, my very good friend had invited me to travel down to Big Sur, to Esalen. Big Sur is beautiful. The scenery is majestic. And, Esalen is a balm for the soul.

We headed off on our trip after our morning dance in Marin. All along the route, from Sausalito through San Francisco by way of the Golden Gate bridge, down the peninsula along one of the most beautiful freeways in California, out to the ocean and along its shore by way of the coast highway that weaves through Monterey and the Carmel Valley, and on to Big Sur, we talked, listened to gorgeous music and felt the sun shine down on us through the open sun roof. It seemed as though beauty surrounded us and infused us with its power and peace.

We arrived at Esalen in time for a soak in their world-famous baths before eating a dinner that was filled with vegetables grown in the gardens on the lan. Looking out over the Pacific Ocean, fully emerged in the natural hot springs that flow from the ground at 119 degrees and 80 gallons per minute, I began to let go into the simple radiant elegance that is the Soul.

During the remainder of our weekend trip, I was fed, both literally and metaphorically.

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I hope you see that I’m not saying we can only know soul by way of grand experiences. Rather, I am sharing how sometimes soul calls to us to remember its beauty and grace, to remember the regal nature of soul. The tightness and contraction we feel when we deny the beauty of the world in its simplest manifestations, can cause us not to know, on the deepest level, that what we truly are walks in the beauty of all that exists. And, that we are that beauty.

What are the things we learned, at a young age, that keep us from relaxing into our true nature? What keeps us from knowing our deep, raw creative nature as women? What keeps us from reclaiming our sensuality, a sensuality that is not something we have been gifted with just to please others sexually, but rather a natural divine connection through the senses to a life force that all along simply continues to come and go, into and out of existence.

::

When I think of this weekend, I think of Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love, beauty and raw sexuality. Aphrodite is my nature as a woman, of the true nature of all women.

Where in your life do you remember this true nature? What experiences are being offered up on the altar that celebrates you and your femaleness? I would love to know when and how you settle back into the soul, and what  that awakens in you.

::

This post is part of Gwen Bell’s Best of 2009 Blog Challenge
Day 19 Car ride. What did you see? How did it smell? Did you eat anything as you drove there? Who were you with?

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Nature’s Design: Beautifully Packaged

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bumppackage

Packaging. For the best of 2009 Blog Challenge, our prompt today is Best Packaging of 2009.

When I read this, I immediately thought of how many times I’ve cringed this year at how things are packaged and how much waste is involved. So much of the time, packaging is extraneous. We just don’t need so much of what is used to wrap things up. In fact, we just don’t need so much of what gets wrapped up in more of what we just don’t need.

As I thought about packaging for this post, I remembered back on the things I purchased, or received, that came in beautiful packaging. I’m all for beautiful, thoughtful and well-designed packing that is necessary, and hopefully, useful on its own.

Which brings me to the best packaging I encountered for 2009. Leave it to nature to provide packaging that works and is beautiful and useful, even after the gift is delivered. Our design, as women, is a breathtakingly beautiful form that clearly follows function…on so many levels. We are designed to give birth to a myriad of creations, just one of which is babies.

My daughter, the beautifully designed mom, delivered the gift, Jamison, in April.

This post is part of Gwen Bell’s Best of 2009 Blog Challenge
Day 15: Best packaging.
Did your headphones come in a sweet case? See a bottle of tea in another country that stood off the shelves?

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The Challenge is Now

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In every advanced mammalian species that survives and thrives, the adult female grows fierce when the cubs are threatened. And we….? ~Marianne Williamson

We women are protectors of the children and of the earth. Look at the love in this woman for her child.  You can feel it.

In the Iroquois tradition, it was women who held the key responsibility of deciding whether or not to go to war, for they considered, fully, the effects of war on the children, on the generations ahead, and on the earth itself. We love our children. But we, today’s women, have been deeply conditioned out of trusting our own instincts, our feelings, and our fierceness.

Earlier this year, there was a story in the NY Times about women in India who could not feed their children. I remember reading it, and looking at the accompanying photos of these beautiful women with their starving children, and realizing just how deeply we have been conditioned to believe we have no power. What stopped these women from doing ANYTHING they could to feed their starving children? When I wondered this, I turned the question back on myself. What stopped me from doing anything to feed my starving children and grandchildren? It’s not that they don’t have enough food. They do. For now. But, and this is the important message that is now coming out loud and clear, we women know deep inside that there is something horribly wrong with the way things are in the world. As Marianne Williamson expressed, our cubs are threatened. We are all threatened. We feel it in our bodies, for we feel the wounding of the earth and all children in our bodies.

As I read this article, I felt rage that these women had no hope to feed their children, and complete wonder at how our conditioning is so strong as to kill the instinct in us to do whatever it takes to get food in the mouths of our babies.

A beautiful woman, Diana Stone, has written a book that will be released in the spring of next year. She came to speak to our Institute of Sacred Activism workshop in September. She told us that the Iroquois have said that women must stand and speak. It is time for women to stand and speak.

The time is now. I have heard this too many times to be able to hold back any longer.

The time is now. For women to speak. For women to stand and speak, to voice what they are feeling.

The time is now for me to speak, as a woman, as a mother, as a grandmother.

We are facing this challenge each and every day. What greater challenge could there be than the end of the world in the way we have known it to be. I stepped my toe into the waters with my post on Living Gratefully. But that was not enough.

Enough is enough. I spent the afternoon, yesterday, with two of my three grandchildren. When I look at them, I wonder what kind of world they will live in. I wonder how long they will get to live. I wonder how much suffering they will endure, simply because we, people who have the ability to do something about the state of affairs we find ourselves in, have done nothing to really stop the anguish of the earth, to stop our own greed, to stop our separate ways.

Yesterday, I received this long quote from a dear friend. It is an excerpt from a book she is reading, Wisdom’s Daughters (2002), which contains the words of Women Elders of Native America. The woman whose wisdom follows is Vickie Downey of the Tewa Tesugue Pueblo.

It is the time of the feminine. With a woman that is what we feel. When I look around at the different women, I see sadness and a heaviness within themselves. What they are experiencing is what the earth is experiencing — her sadness and heaviness because of the way her children are living today. Women, they have that; the feeling is there in their hearts more so than the male people, cause the male is always doing things. The male also has to realize that he has a female part to him and he has to start feeling that same feeling.

Women have to be recognized. The words of women have to be recognized. The women will come out. It might be prophesied or doesn’t have to be prophesied, but the feeling is so strong that women will come out and voice their feelings. Whether people want to hear it or not, it is going to come because it is meant to be. It is that time.

Most women can’t comprehend what it is. They feel it. It is like a depression so they go to psychiatrists, therapists, trying to figure it out. Or it turns into physical ailments. Feelings into physical ailments. So they don’t know. They know something is going on but they cannot pinpoint exactly what it is.

As people, as native people, we are trying to do our best to tell the world this is what is happening to you. This is what is happening to us. This is what is happening to the earth. No matter how many words we give them, how many books we give them, how much information we give them, it won’t help them until they finally decide “well, I am going to accept this. I am sick. I am a sick society. I am a sick world. I am a sick person.”

When we do that we can heal. Then we turn around and we help each other. Then there will not be homelessness. Then we won’t have hunger. We won’t have wars….

So, the message is coming through loud and clear. This is the challenge, and it is here, now.

The Dalai Lama recently surprised listeners when he said, “The world will be saved by western women.” We women in the west, have the more power, resources, and connection to each other than women have had anywhere in the world for many, many centuries.

All over the world, now, women have the ability to voice what is happening, to stand and speak, whether it be to each other, to their neighbors, to their government, or to each other through. We can speak through many means, which blogging is but one.

Two great quotes have been swirling in my head for some time, now.

You must learn not to be careful. Diane Arbus

You were once wild here. Don’t let them tame you! Isadora Duncan

These words take me back inside, where my feelings and instincts as a woman reside. My fierce love was tamed, made dormant and silent. But we were once wild here, and we are still wild within.

What will it take to stand and speak, to grow fierce and vocal?

Image by Yogendra174, Flickr

This post is part of The Best of 2009 Blog Challenge (by blogger Gwen Bell):
Day 9 Challenge. Something that really made you grow this year. That made you go to your edge and then some. What made it the best challenge of the year for you?

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Growing Whole in the Darkness

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“All beauty contains darkness.” ~ Daniel Odier

Learning to see, and then act, outside of the current patriarchal structure has been a journey of ever widening circles, much like a spiral. It is the journey of living the feminine, a way of life that is very different than that which I was taught to know. It means trusting what is revealed in each moment of present awareness, and feeling for what is ripe with the promise of birth. I go in and out of living this way, but as the circles of understanding grow, I find myself opening to the darkness of the feminine to receive Her guidance.

When this guidance is revealed, the only thing that lies ahead is darkness, the darkness of the unknown. The only thing known is that one choice, the one thing that is the most obvious choice. My mind struggles with the darkness, wanting desperately to know what lies ahead, and yet I also know in my heart that this darkness, this unknown, is the mystery of life waiting to be revealed. The divine mystery is the new, is this darkness from which all emerges.

What I am learning to trust in is the strong pull of this knowing. You might call this intuition, but for me, as I live deeper into the cells of my own body, it is knowing.

I found, what I guess you could call the ‘best’ book of 2009, this way. I saw it on a friend’s desk and knew I must read it. The pull was unavoidable. A friend had given him the book, for reasons he couldn’t understand. He had no intention of reading it, but for some reason had not yet given it away.

I would call this book a gift. A gift given and gratefully, and voraciously, received. Not all of the book kept my rapt attention, but the parts that did carried me deeper into the darkness, deeper into the parts of myself that were thirsting for light. I was yearning for gnosis. Through a marriage of the wisdom of this book and my own willingness to allow a new kind of knowing to emerge from within, I began to deepen my trust in this darkness.

The book that has so many dog ears, cracks in the spine, lines underlined, recommendations to others, is Dancing in the Flames: The Dark Goddess in the Transformation of Consciousness. The authors are Marion Woodman and Elinor Dickson. In my knowing, this book can be a guide book for the journey into darkness that we all, and most especially women, must take. As Woodman states, “The evolutionary imperative within the collective unconscious is pushing us toward a new level of consciousness.” We must learn to stand alone, in our own wholeness, if we are going to survive. And, learning to stand alone means diving into the darkness, to come to know ourselves again in a whole new way.

As Odier shares, there is beauty in darkness. It is the rich soil from where all of life emerges.

Today’s post is Day 4 (best book) of Gwen Bells’ Best of 2009 Blog Challenge.

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