Posted on

Body Talk and Let’s Talk

Share

I’ve three fun things to share with you. But first, this:

~~~

I am in the middle of the launch for my new course, Becoming a Force of Nature. I’m excited about teaching it here online after teaching this material for so many years. And, I’m nervous. Why? Because I’m finally mixing this Stanford curriculum with my very personal experience and wisdom about the sacred feminine. I’ve wanted to share this, but I’ve been filled with a voice that asks me, “Who are you to teach this?”

The reason I’m finally offering this course is because I came to see that I have experienced what I’ve experienced, and that is what I teach from…not only in the Stanford work but also the accompanying material around womanhood, the feminine, and what is needed in our world today. And this is the heart of the course…coming to know Self by way of your own experience. It is time to come home to ourselves, to what WE know, not what another tells us is so. This has been the most difficult thing for me to do – to not look outside of myself for answer. I still do it – and my coach lovingly guides me back.

This morning a friend on Facebook shared a link to my course with words that showed how much she believes in me. She wrote, ‘She’s the real deal.’ I read these and I wept. She caught me off guard. It was out of the blue, not requested by me, but solely an action from her heart. And in a flash the voice that usually shouts fraud was silent.

Somewhere inside each of us is a small voice that so worries that she’s a fraud.

I remember being in my third week at Stanford, sitting in a room with a group of non-traditional students. Our advisor asked us to close our eyes and then to raise our hand if we answered the following question with yes: “Do you feel like a fraud?”  I raised my hand without a second thought. I mean, of course I was. I didn’t belong there. She then asked us to keep our hands where they were and open our eyes. I did, and lo and behold every single hand was raised. We all looked at each other and burst out laughing. Every single one of us felt like a fraud.

No one is immune from this.

So when my friend shared her confidence in me and my work this morning, her gesture soothed that small voice and filled my reservoir just a little bit more. I don’t know if it ever gets filled. I think that’s why it’s so important for us to champion each other, to delight in each other’s successes, to know that each of us has our own unique gift to share and that when each one is shared, the whole tapestry can finally be woven together.

When we stand in our own ordinariness, in the truth of our own experience, just as we are, as vulnerable as we can muster, the fraud voice has no place to stand.

A force of nature is unstoppable. Yes, we are forces of nature; yet, when we don’t trust our own knowing and wisdom, we stop ourselves.

And, when we don’t have a web of sisterhood to hold us, we can feel amazingly alone out there in the world doing the work we are here to do.

How about we find one woman each day and somehow, in some way, champion her? Tell her the truth about what we see in her. It has to be the truth, ’cause we know it when it’s not and it only then feeds the voice that believes it’s a fraud.

Thank you, Aime Miyamoto, for championing me. And, thank you to these two friends below, for including me in your latest creations.

~~~

My friend, Kristin Noelle, asked me to share something for her ‘My Body is my Guru‘ series. And, of course I said, Yes. You know how I am about the body. And when it came time to write it, my body wanted to have a big say in it. Of course.

I was writing about the body being the teacher. It had a few things to say. And that’s what the post is about…my body beginning to converse with me in a way it never has before.

From the post:

My body hungers for beauty and connection. It thirsts for the sun and wind. It feels exquisitely alive when it is touched, and is touching, with beautiful attention.

In listening to my body, I begin to understand in a deep way what it means to be a human being. The body is the human being. It is the creature. It’s the wild and furry feral cat that slides along her back just to feel the sunshine on her belly, or the fish that used to swim underwater for huge periods at a time, or even the snake on the dance floor that undulates along, moving in rhythmic motion.

You can read the entire post here.

And while you’re there, take a look at Kristin’s work on Trust. It’s beautiful. She is a trust coach, and writes, speaks, teaches, makes art, and listens deeply, all to help trust grow.

~~~

My friend and colleague, Dian Reid, has released her new eBook, Summer of Authenticity: Fully Alive!  Over the summer, I took part in her series, and now she’s put all of the stories together in one place for you to download for free. There are many great stories here, and many of my online friends are included.

From my story:

These words are moving in cycles, weaving things in and out. This post isn’t linear. And neither am I, nor are you. We are human. We aren’t reasonable. Nor is life. We are sensual, sensing, feeling beings. Long before humans were reasoning, analytic thinking creatures, we responded to life, to rhythms, to change instinctively, intuitively and skillfully, weaving together everything that happens in our experience. We still have this skill.

To be authentic human beings, means this, too: to come back to our animal selves, to sniff the scent of what’s here, to notice when we feel off, to feel our longing, and to notice when we are in tune with, or out of tune with, nature. 

I love Dian and her work. I was able to meet her in person this summer when she came to San Francisco for a weekend getaway with her partner. The three of us shared a bottle of wine together at the ferry building, overlooking the bay. We talked and laughed. It was one of those times when everything just flows with ease.

Dian coaches women around owning their authentic voice and using it to create transformational shifts in both life and business. She is bold, real, and very generous.

~~~

Tomorrow, October 10th, I’ll be hosting an information call for my new course, Becoming a Force of Nature. I’ll be sharing a bit about why not only finding our creativity but also bringing it into the world is so important at this time on the planet.

Thursday, October 10th, Noon PDT
Dial-in Number: (712) 775-7100
Access Code: 1005863#

I’d love to have you join me. I think we’ll have fun. And if you can’t, the call recording will be posted on the course page here.

A quick reminder: the early-bird price of $599 is good until Sunday, October 13th at 9:00 pm pdt. The price then increases to $799. There is a installment plan option if you’d like as well.

Sign-ups are going well. We have a beautiful group of women gathering together for this 24-week journey. I know it is going to be rich and full and lovely.

Share
Posted on

Somewhere, under all those layers, She is a Force of Nature

Share

 

We wear many veils, veils that keep us from both seeing ourselves, and being seen by others,  as we really are.

Like this beautiful Iris, the petals protect the soft layers and fragrance of the Feminine. At some point, the petals spread themselves out to slow dance with the sun, and the beautiful soft places within come into the light.

What causes this flower to pulse and push and open to the sun? A fierce aliveness, a fierce desire to be fully expressed, fully seen, and fully held. Held by the earth, held by the hips, and held by One who loves her…deeply.

To know you are held by this Love within yourself, truly, madly and deeply, is what ultimately allows your inner flesh to be revealed. 

Think of the force of nature it takes for this flower to open. Fully. Unabashedly. To the Light.

Within every woman lives the Feminine. But, She almost always lives deep within the shadows, underneath the many layers. For eons, it hasn’t been safe to let her out so women have kept her hidden. She’s been dormant. But no more.

 

She is here.

Somewhere, under all those layers, She is fiercely alive.

Can you feel Her?

Can you hear Her speaking to you in symbol and image, dream and metaphor?

She doesn’t speak the way we’re accustomed to being spoken to. She speaks in heartbeats, pulses, beauty, and fire.

Deep in your pelvis is a cauldron – a cauldron where She mixes her creations, where She nourishes and sustains creation until it is ready to breathe on its own. She lives within you. She is you. You ARE fiercely alive.

When you know She lives within you, when you feel Her pulsing every cell of your body with Life, you begin to feel this pulsation opening you from within.

At one point in my own life, I crossed the threshold from invitation to insistence. She no longer invited me to open, She insisted I open, and as every part of me pushed this away, She stood her ground. Literally. She came up into me through my feet, my legs, and into my core. She was lovingly and fiercely insistent.

I share this here, because She’s been insistent once again.

 

Becoming a Force of Nature

My new course, Becoming a Force of Nature, has been gestating for a long, long time. I was telling my mentor, Michael Ray, just this past Wednesday, that I feel like the gestational period must have been that of a dinosaur, ’cause it feels much longer than the 12 months of an elephant, and I don’t know anything much bigger than an elephant except for a dinosaur.

Becoming a Force of Nature is a potent, provocative, and highly practical 24-week journey. The Stanford curriculum has been taught for over three decades, in various places, with wildly successful results. It became famous, really, at the height of the boom of Silicon Valley because so many of the valley’s successful people were students in the course. And, with the rising feminine infusing all of us with a new way to be conscious in the world, the timing of these two aspects coming together is perfect.

The course is also an opportunity to hear and share experiences and stories of the Feminine making herself known within us. This is one very important way we come to see what is happening within us as women as we awaken to Her. I’ll have interviews with women who share their experiences, and there will be plenty of opportunity to share yours, or even to begin to articulate it.

 

The Inaugural Offering

The first one! A little wet behind the ears; assuredly a little messy. Fur needs to be licked. Legs need to be shaken out. But, She’s here. And, from what I can see, She is beautiful. And rich. And powerful. And tender. And waiting…

Waiting for you…if it’s right. And, you’ll know if it’s right by reading about Her, feeling Her in your body, sending into what might be possible if you allow Her to move you from where you are to where your soul is calling you to lead, live, and love from.

This course is a container to hold whatever transformation is right for you at this time, and it is indeed a time of transformation for us all and for the planet.

 

The Unknown IS a Creative Process

Whether we call it the Hero’s journey, the Shero’s journey, or the Human journey, it is about entering into the mystery of the creative process. If we are stepping out into the unknown in the world from a place of action, we must ultimately surrender to this creative process because the unknown is just that…a creative process. If we are going within, as this journey requires, in order to rescue ourselves in the deep way the feminine is asking us to do, we must disrobe, unveil, and offer ourselves into this mystery.

The creative process is this. If it is truly creative, it is a transformational process. If it is truly creative, it is a receiving of what comes. If it is truly creative, it is a letting of what we want and becoming a vessel for our soul to express in the world.

I’ve been teaching this Stanford curriculum for eleven years, and I’ve been living into the feminine for about the same time. That is no coincidence. These two pieces, married together, are a vehicle to bring together, into balance, the masculine and feminine within, bridging the two worlds within us that have been divided for so many centuries.

I tell you all of this, because I want you to know I understand this is not easy, but it can be filled with ease. It will be filled with grace.

You can learn more about the course, here, as well as listen to two audio pieces: one where I talk about the course, and one that is just a small sample of the kind of guided meditations and exercises you’ll do as part of the course.

Please consider joining me. We’re gathering a beautiful circle of women who feel called at this time to let go of the old way and to receive the new, the truly creative that is hungering to be expressed.

 

 

Share
Posted on

Dark Times? Stay steadfast to the wisdom of your heart. You are in beautiful company.

Share

 

When I was a teenager, I would sit on my bed and listen to the folk songs of my era. Late sixties, early seventies was a beautiful time when much of the music offered a new way of seeing things. There was an energy in the air of Love, of the possibility of living differently.

I remember the feeling in my heart. I remember feeling this deep connectedness to Life.

I remember the Beauty.

I remember hope, a hope that seemed to have a powerful life of its own.

Lately, I’ve been listening to this music again. The Beatles, Neil Young, James Taylor, Carol King, Crosby Stills and Nash, were some of my favorites. When I listen, I feel those same feelings of connectedness and hope. But along with those, I also feel a steadfastness that comes from age and wisdom. I now know, as experience, things I only dreamed of back then. I now know that it is possible to make this shift to peace, to compassion, to Love.

::

As a species, we are facing, and have been facing, choices that demand we find a new way of being, living, and creating in this world. The old way of domination and control have brought us to, not only other beings’ actual extinction, but the brink of our own.

I know it can be hard to stay with what you know in your heart when all around you are images, feelings, words, and rhetoric that attempt to manipulate and intimidate you to disbelieve what you know.

Do not listen to those voices that try to condemn you for your open and compassionate heart.

Do not listen to those voices that keep trying to push the illusion that might makes right, that toughness will always win out over compassion, reconciliation, and tenderness. 

Don’t listen to those voices, AND don’t close your heart to them. Those voices are inside you, too. They are inside all of us.

“The most valuable possession you can own is an open heart.
The most powerful weapon you can be is an instrument of peace.”
~ Carlos Santana

Compassion, reconciliation, tenderness, and resiliency are qualities of the heart and they can be fierce in their commitment to love.

::

Stay with your heart. Hold beauty there, the beauty that constantly graces us in each moment. Even in these difficult times there is beauty. And, beauty is not what we’ve been taught to believe it is. Beauty is all around us, in every moment, and you know it when you encounter it by its fiercely tender powerful effect on your being.

The forces against awakening to our oneness with all of life, both inside of us and outside of us, are still functioning from a belief of separation, one that manifests in forms of tribalism that many will tell you is how human beings are. Period.

But this is the opportunity at hand: to realize, both inside and out, that what we truly are is not this behavior that’s been lived out by humans over thousands of years. What we truly are is love, is compassion, is the One that breaths all of life.

The future for our children and their children is bleak if we do not make this leap of consciousness.

People will say over and over and over (I hear it all the time) that what we see in the world right now is proof of what we are. But do not believe it. Much of what we see in the world right now are the EFFECTS of believing what we’ve believed. We see now are the forms that our thoughts and beliefs and fears have created. AND, if you look and feel, really look and feel, the bright green new shoots of something new, very new, are here. They are the sprouts of a new way coming into being. Perhaps these sprouts have sprouted from the seeds that we sown back during those years of the music that guides us to something different.

::

“You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.” ~John Lennon

When you doubt yourself, remember you are ‘not the only one’. You are in beautiful company. By staying steadfast to the wisdom of your heart, you invite others to join you. They will feel your steadfastness.

Until recently, I would let the words of others cause me to question my wisdom, what I know in my heart and soul. No more. There is no time for that.

Look at the new. Feel it in your body, in your heart, in your soul. The new is what is coming into being. Allow these shoots to spring forth in your heart. Allow them to perfume your words, your acts, your prayers, your song. Allow them to guide your action in the world. As long as you follow the truth in your heart, you do not have to know where you, or we, are headed. You cannot know. But your heart can guide you.

May you know that you are always graced with beauty even in what seem to be such dark times. Hold beauty in your heart. It is a form of prayer for your more loving, fiercely loving, nature to pour forth.

::

ps This post was fueled by darjeeling tea and serenaded by sixties music. If you sit still and listen, you just might feel that transmission.

Share
Posted on

Appetite: Living from the Pulse of Soul

Share

 

Appetite.

It can be so much more than a desire for something on the menu. I felt it the other day. I feel it now.

I thought I’d not felt this deep, deep appetite before…deep and raw. No, that’s not quite right. I’ve felt it, but I wasn’t so conscious of what it was. But the other day, I did…and I was…conscious and aware of the experience of profound appetite.

It wasn’t an appetite for food. It had nothing to do with hunger in the traditional way we use that word. It was an appetite to feast on life, to be smack dab in the middle of life, alive and awake and aware.

[This is not to be confused with hunger in someone who is starving…literally starving. That I do not know. I’ve never known that. This is about appetite, something deeply instinctive.]

When I felt this energy coursing through my body, it reminded me of giving birth – open and available for life to move through. Both times I gave birth, I felt myself begin the surrender that happens. It happens before labor begins. It happens when you understand there is life growing within and that this life will grow and move in its own way. And, once labor begins and that baby is coming, something takes over and the body moves through the process of birthing. I remember how raw and alive I felt as I worked with my body instead of against it. I remember the felt wisdom of labor. I remember the power and love at the heart of that process.

In birth, I worked with the appetite for life and birth and becoming. And this raw appetite is exactly the same…it is life pulsing and prodding to live and breath in its own way.

Just the other day…

as I felt this appetite, I was open, deep in my body, to the level of soul, not only my own, but also what felt like the soul of life. What I mean is open to the raw material of life itself…the chaos of becoming.

It was appetite, appetite not for food but for life, life that is rich, raw, and even voracious; a profoundly powerful appetite to experience life wholly. Appetite is the best word I could find to describe it. It was ravenous, yet not insatiable, like I was really, really hungry for something, yet I had no words for what I was hungry for.

The appetite wasn’t of words. It didn’t need to understand anything. It knew.

How do I know it was soul? I know it because what was communicated was in images, feelings, sensations, and inklings. What was communicated was feral and fecund, pulsing with life and creation. And it was clear that there is deep wisdom in appetite. It is very clear and it knows what it wants. It’s a different ‘want’ than what I’ve felt in the past, a want that felt like it could never be satiated.

This appetite isn’t to fill a hole that cannot be filled. Rather, this appetite is a relationship – a relationship between soul and life.

As I fet it, I just kept saying the word, Appetite. Appetite. Appetite. I could feel it rolling off my tongue and it felt right.

Like giving birth, it follows the pull of something wildly intelligent that flows through DNA, through the cells, through the inherent wise movement of life.

I sense how it moves through me, how it knows what it wants without any sense of hesitation or apology. I’ve thought of all the times I’ve not known what I really wanted, yet all the time this instinctual appetite was just under the skin, emanating from deep in the core of the body. It’s primal, sexual, creative power. It is impulse. It knows what it knows. It senses and tracks, and follows what it’s hungry for. It feels joyous, yet not like the lightness I usually associate with joy. It’s joy that comes from deep in the belly, like a good kind of belly laugh, a kind of lip-licking joy felt when appetite is sated.

This deep and raw appetite moves through women. It is part of our powerful sacred creativity as beings who bring forth life. Many women choose not to have children, or cannot have children. Yet, their appetite still pulses with pregnant possibility. There are infinite ways to bring forth life.

We all have this appetite right under our skin, simply waiting to be acknowledged and trusted. I know, boy do I know, it is not easy to trust this. We’ve been directly and indirectly taught to distrust this. We’ve been taught to not allow ourselves to see that it is our life force, our sacredness, our sacred sexuality and creativity, and that it is first and foremost a part of our own soul and our own life expression.

When we honor that it is within us, a part of our soul and a part of the joy of being a woman, we come to know it for ourselves, and in doing so, we then are more able to share it consciously with the people we love. This appetite is not something we are to give to others, it is something that is intrinsic to our own expression, and when we honor that, its expression can be received and enjoyed by others.

I’m going to be exploring what it feels like to live life from this deep appetite, allowing it to guide me in what I write, what I create, and how I express myself. I’ve been known to rely heavily on my rational mind when I get nervous or fearful, so this practice will helpfully go to the core of my learned coping mechanisms.

It was appetite that drew me so deeply to the dance.

It was appetite that moved me out of a career in technology and into the work I do now.

It was appetite that called me to dive directly into living the question of what it means to be unabashedly female, even when so many internal voices feared that dive.

For me, this goes straight to the heart of women’s creativity, sexuality, and power. It takes us out of the oh-so-well trained mind and into the heart of the feminine.

Stay tuned…

And, I’d love to know how you’ve experienced this. What have you come to see? To know? To feel? And if you haven’t, what you’re curious about.

::

Photo by Anne Jablonski, taken at Feathered Pipe Ranch during the Waking the Inner Teacher retreat.

And, my good friend and colleague, Rachel Cole, writes beautifully about hunger and being well-fed…perhaps another way to look at appetite…

Share
Posted on

A tsunami doesn’t just stop when the clock strikes midnight!

Share

Now what?

One Billion Rising is over. And, it has just begun.

I first joined One Billion Rising about a year ago. The day, Feb 14, 2013, seemed so far off. Yet, the vision pulled me in. One Billion women rising. I wondered how that would shift things. I wondered how that would change the feeling on the planet, in our cities, in our hearts.

Altar by Stacey Butcher

Last night, I co-led a beautiful event with Stacey Butcher, a teacher of 5Rhythms. Stacey created a gorgeous dance wave and she led us through it with love and grace. Kim Rosen, a well known spoken-word artist, and a personal friend of Eve Ensler’s, shared two spoken-word treasures that lit a fire in us before we moved into the dance. And, for the last song of the wave, Christine Hodil sang a beautiful song that we all joined in on at the end. Our hearts were opened, moved, fired-up, and lullabied. We were the one billion, and we danced for the one billion. And, there were so many men present, who danced alongside of us, who danced for the women they love, and for the women they don’t even know who continue to face abuse, violence, and harassment.

 

It is jarring to be in a beautiful event such as this, to open our hearts, to invite in the possibility for a world that is different, and then to step back into what seems to be the same old world.

What I do know, now, after witnessing so many women and men across the planet rising and dancing by way of live-streaming and the internet, is that this is no longer the same old world. While on the outside it may look that way, on the inside we are changed. We’ve cracked open the cage. We know something different now. We’ve experienced the fire and joy and creativity that comes when we dance, and come together, and rise.

One Billion Rising IS a new way of life. It’s a new way of being. It’s living unabashedly the fullness of our womanhood.

In practical terms? It’s about allowing out all the parts of ourselves we keep hidden for fear of being abused and harassed.

Our patriarchal conditioning keeps an essential aspect of us locked up in an internal prison…the aspect that is the most powerful and enlivening for our souls. This aspect is nourishing and healing. It is our instinctual, sexual self, that when expressed brings forth playfulness, joy, passion, creativity, and a good dose of fire. It is not easily controllable, meaning our own internal conditioning has to work really hard to control it. It gets exhausting.

You know what I’m talking about, don’t you!?

We’ve internalized the oppressor, so we continue the oppression against ourselves, along with the fear of oppression from outside. Eve Ensler so wisely saw that we have to break the chains ourselves, we have to break out of the cage we keep ourselves in, and dancing is a beautiful way to free this instinctive erotic nature that is both organic to our souls and a sacred aspect of life.

Before I go any further, I want to reiterate, that the erotic as it is understood in the current paradigm, is simply a small thin slice of what it truly is. When I shared my thoughts with one man I know and used the word erotic, his response? “That’s porn.” This is what we’ve been conditioned to think eros and the erotic are.

Yet, what the erotic is is a beautiful aspect of life, this aspect that is at the heart of our creative, sensual, sexual, joyful, and loving natures. And because it is at the heart of creativity and embodied love, it is also the channel that will bring about lasting change, and deep nourishment to a world that has been out of balance for far too long.

And, it is exactly what our world hungers for just as it is what we hunger for. How could it be otherwise?

Life is wholeness. When we pretend we aren’t whole, we aren’t really fully living. 

To dance is to unleash joy.

To dance is to step back into the flow, to move that which has been stuck. 

To dance is also to reawaken our natural relationship to the body, to music, to rhythm, and to the beat of the drum, the beat of our blood pressure, the beat of our hearts.

One Billion Rising is “unleashing a feminist tsunami, an energetic rearrangement of our universal chemistry. the biggest volunteer action maybe ever of women across the planet, a seismic collective remembering of who we are, a calling back of our authenticity, a world dance shaking up our original energy and wisdom.” ~ Eve Ensler

 

So what do I now know that I didn’t know before yesterday, V-Day 2013?

I know that we can come together as women to reawaken our wisdom and nature.

I know that we are hungering to rekindle the fire of our erotic nature.

I know that many men all around us want us to do this. They know they cannot. And they know that it is in all of our best interests to do so.

I know that many women fear this aspect, along with many men. And, I know we have the courage to dance through this fear for the sake of life itself.

I know that dance is sacred, that our bodies are sacred, and that it is up to us to embody this truth.

I know that women have something important to do in this new era that men cannot do and it is time we do it.

I know we’ve stepped through a threshold and we cannot turn back.

I know that women across this planet can come together to rise in service to each other, and to all of life.

I know this. We’ve witnessed it. I felt it last night. I feel it today. I feel it right now.

Margaret Mead wrote, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

If a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world, just imagine what a feminist tsunami of a billion women and men dancing can do. Imagine it. Feel it in your bones. Pray it. Dance it. Paint it. Sing it.

A tsunami doesn’t just stop when the clock strikes midnight!

Take your sisters and brothers by hand and step across the threshold into this new land. And, keep dancing. We must be committed to dancing. We are in this together. Isn’t that a wonderful thing to know! 

::

I’m putting together the pieces I read last night, along with a little something else, into a complimentary ebook for my newsletter subscribers. If you’d like to receive it, be sure to sign up for my newsletter in the top right corner of the page. When it is ready, I’ll send it your way.

::

Here’s the One Billion Rising video from San Francisco. It’s hard to see me, but I’m there. I love seeing myself dancing. I’m so serious here, so passionate. It’s a lovely thing when you FINALLY accept your intensity is a beautiful thing.

 

Share
Posted on

Being Woman. Supple. Unified. Amplified.

Share

 

Anjali, by Ramona Klee on Flickr

She is here.

If you sit, quietly listening with heart ears, feeling with heart touch, you will know Her. She has been on her way. A few years ago, the author, Arundhati Roy, wrote,

“Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.”

And, now… She is no longer on her way… She is here.

With the turn of this solstice, She is here.

She is here. In all beings. In all of life. 

A new way of being

I’ve been working with two beautiful women to birth something new in business. We don’t really yet know what it is or how it will come to be, but we know we are to be doing this together. We are feeling our way, trusting our intuition, following the petals as they are scattered upon our path, trusting in the intelligence inherent in life.

This is the new way. This is the creative way, the way of trusting in life to guide us as we work together in unity. I remember telling a friend a few years back how much women needed to find solidarity, find a way to realize our wholeness as women, both individually and collectively. At the time, the current paradigm separated women rather than joined them. At the time, there was still so much competition between women, and beliefs that we had to compete with each other for love. But that was then, and this is now.

She is here.

Rainer Marie Rilke wrote of this over 100 years ago when he wrote Letters to a Young Poet. Rilke wrote,

“Women, in whom life lingers and dwells more immediately, more fruitfully and more confidently, must surely have become fundamentally riper people, more human people, than easygoing man, who is not pulled down below the surface of life by the weight of any fruit of his body, and who, presumptuous and hasty, under-values who he thinks he loves. This humanity of woman, borne its full time in suffering and humiliation, will come to light when she will have stripped off the conventions of mere femininity in the mutations of her outward status, and those men who do not yet feel it approaching today will be surprised and struck by it. Some day… some day there will be girls and women whose name no longer signify merely the opposite of masculine, but something in itself, something that makes one think, not of any complement and limit, but only of life and existence: the female human being.”

Unity: This Humanity of Woman

Over the last period of time, a time that ended with the solstice and the birth of a new way of being, women were taught to not trust each other. We were conditioned to believe that it was in our best interest to compete with each other. I feel we were all, men and women, taught this, yet for women the distrust went deeper for in the old way, under the patriarchy, men were offered a kind of belonging within the structure that women were not.

Healing this distrust of women has been a beautiful journey for me. And, I hear it has been the same for other women. Now, in this new time, there is more ease and more support for this healing.

Shannon Port of The Art of the Feminine writes,

“Women are uniting in the Heart. We are remembering that we are One Woman. We could never really compete with each other for anything. The illusion taught us that we could be threatened by another woman. It taught us a false belief that we had to compete for love. This has never been so.  …  The old paradigm divided women and caused them to work against each other keeping them from UNITY. The support for this paradigm has left the planet. Anyone who chooses to stay in it will be shaken quite dramatically. We are moving into the knowing of our Oneness. When we align with Oneness willingly, we will be supported by the Universe in ways we never even imagined. The Feminine is being restored to its auspicious place in the World. Those who hold this Vibration of Love in their Heart will be the Teachers, Healers and Leaders of the New Era.”

Amplify

This humanity of woman, this One Woman, is here.

Can you feel Her? Can you feel this burgeoning unity? Can you feel it both within yourself, and within the collective as well? Notice the shift in coming together.

One of my new partners, Jennifer Kenny, speaks of amplification – just how important it is for women to amplify each other’s work in the world. Jennifer sees amplification as the opposite of competition. We can amplify with joy and with love, for not only is there more than enough love in the world, by amplifying we bring ourselves together and aligning ourselves with Oneness. When we follow the thread of Oneness, we amplify not only women’s voices, but also women’s creations into the world.

I used to feel solidarity was so important because it felt as if we were fighting the nature of the patriarchal paradigm and how the paradigm itself made it so difficult for us to know this humanity of woman. Perhaps I was feeling the different energy that was here at the time. Now, with this new shift, we are actively supported in this amplification. Whether we work together through collaboration, spend time in circles sharing, or share each other’s work into the world, the new way is of amplification, of celebrating, of flowing and aligning with Oneness.

It is Simple

Hilary Hart, author and wise woman, shares this about women and power on her Facebook page, Women’s Power Wheel:

“It is simple. It is simple like breathing. It is simple like gathering with friends. It is simple as standing in nature and knowing you are not alone. The trick is trusting how simple real power is… sensing it… knowing it… and not doubting it…”

When I read these words, I feel a softening and a suppleness to my body and breath that have been absent for most of my life. With these words comes an ease in the moment, when I relax into the simplicity of real power.

It may take time to know this more and more. I’ve been well conditioned to believe power not only looks different, but comes from doing. Yet, it is simple. This is being, coming together, and receiving, then offering up, what has always been so generously given – this life.

When I woke up this morning, these words were in my heart: It is so, so easy to take this all for granted, to expect this breath, this sun, this day to come just like it has each morning of our lives, to expect to receive without ever a thought of what is being given.

May today mark a change in how I receive these things…with conscious awareness of the love being so freely given and the opportunity in each breath to offer it back out in love.

The Feminine. She is here. She is you. She is me. She is women. She is men. She is us. She is all beings. She is life.

She is the Goddess.

Share
Posted on

Birthing isn’t logical or reasonable, nor is it necessarily practical.

Share

 

 

I am sharing something that I am excited about, and something vitally important to me, with someone I know.

He listens. Then, he says, “What you are saying is so abstract.” “What does this mean?” “What are the practical implications of this?” “How do we do this?”

None of his questions are wrong. He is seeing what I am saying from a practical viewpoint, a viewpoint that is about putting things into action. Yet, alongside his questions comes a feeling of frustration within me. I know this feeling well. His words take me back decades, back to when I was very young…

I am excited and want to share what I’m excited about with my parents. I try to say it in words. I try to share what I see and feel, and the complete joy of it all. And when I do, I am met with a look of tightness and almost a kind of disapproval. I can see they want me to calm down. They want me to package all of this joy into words and sentences that ‘make sense’, ways that are logical.

Then I hear these words, “That’s not logical.” and my heart drops to the ground.

The effect of these words on this little psyche is profound: the little voice dries up, the throat quivers, and the tongue becomes tied in knots. I’ve shut myself up tight and there’s no getting me to say another word. I go silent. There is a giving up that happens, a giving up because it feels, emphasis on feels, impossible to take this young one’s heart and soul’s fire and put it into logical words that adult people will get.

 

It is amazing how we can be taken back to old times so quickly, how the stories stuck in our bodies are coded with the time and place where the story unfolded.

As I sit with his questions, an ages-old fear comes up that there is someone on the other side of what I am going to share and they do not get it. They want me to put what I am saying in terms they understand, terms that are about doing, about how, about it being practical. They want me to take this abstract and make it practical. It feels like I come up against this hard wall on the other side, a very literal, very rational mind that doesn’t get it.

It’s like there is this big beautiful fullness and I fear that I don’t know how to get people to understand. Just feeling this makes me go mute and want to turn away.

I see images and visions. I see them often. They are beautiful. Beautiful images, and deeply intense feelings fill my heart. And yet, this world seems to have this logical, rational mindset that wants me to fit all of ‘this’ into a ‘how to do it in 10 easy steps’ world. And then I see it…

 

Kapow.

Bammo.

Hell yes.

The rational mind cannot fathom the irrational. It cannot understand that which is beyond the scope of what cannot be explained with reason and logic. It is like trying to fit the vastness of the heart into the tight structure of the rational mind. It cannot be done. The mind tries to know in the only terms it can grasp. It does this all the time, especially with the vastness that is the divine.

 

And, I see my own internal struggle with this same translation process. The heart is vast. It sees and feels things that cannot be proven, and cannot be put into words without losing the qualities of what we experience. I see the relationship. I see the richness on one side, then the strict structure on the other – the desire to take something multi-layered and condense it down to one.

The feminine, or yin, is multi-layered. It is feeling and knowing. It is rich and mysterious, dark and watery. It is intuitive. The masculine, or yang, relative to yin is straight and clearly defined. It is angular. It is logical. It is linear.

These are actually distinctions to try to help the rational mind understand the relationship between yin and yang…because it’s always about relationship. We can’t know one without the other. Something is only mysterious in relation to something that is clearly known and defined.

 

As I write this, I can feel, literally feel, life pulsing through my cells, images and visions in my mind’s eye, and emotions fluttering through me. None of this can be put into words without losing richness, texture, and fullness.

Words themselves are definitive. They define.

As a young one, I learned to shut down the feminine mystery, the vast symbolic realm where so many layers exist that it can only be represented through images, poetry, and symbols. I shut my own voice down. I knew the spigot well, and when things got tough, when I felt that old familiar feeling that I must turn something so profoundly beautiful into something logical and practical, I felt this familiar frustration and shut the spigot off. I became quiet. I squelched my voice. And, I gave up trying to paint when it became clear from teachers that they wanted something representational. They wanted things to look like ‘real life’ – whatever that is.

 

What is so remarkable about this moment, though, is feeling the spigot in my throat, feeling the place where I shut down because I’m feeling a sense that it’s not in terms the man will understand. I haven’t felt this so clearly before. I feel frustration at having to translate to get him to understand what I am saying and fear he will not understand.

In going back to this early experience, I see something clearly. I see old patterns, old beliefs, old messages that tell me I must make things ‘make sense’, must take the vastness that is my heart, take the multi-layered awareness that is my soul, and pare it all down to logical steps.

The struggle I feel within myself is the same struggle I see in the outer world. This finding our way to balance, a balance that brings the masculine tendencies so woven into our cultural institutions together with the under-represented feminine nature I share above, isn’t easy. What we struggle with within our own psyches, are the same things we struggle with as a collective.

 

Then I realize that perhaps that is why I am feeling such an urge to reclaim the artist in me. Sometimes things must be created with something other than words, with media that lends itself to many layers, rich textures, feeling states and mystery. So many people I know are trying to reclaim the artist within.

I have a sense many of us are seeing things in symbols and images, visions of a new way of being in the world, and perhaps even visions of a new world.

A new way is coming into being. It is being born, and many of us can see images of this new way. Many of us can feel this new way. Many of us know something in our bones that is not at all, or at least not yet, linear or logical.

Birthing isn’t logical or reasonable, nor is it necessarily practical.

 

It is time to fully re-member the artist within, to share what we see and feel, in whatever way we can. Yes, others may question it, but I also know that we all long to know the mystery, we all long to feel the depth of our humanity, and on some level perhaps we don’t want ten steps to this, or five reasons why.

Perhaps we just create and speak what we know, regardless of whether anyone listens or understands. Perhaps creation simply wants to happen, perhaps it is simply trusting the vision and putting it into form, regardless of the reception it receives.

So many women are writing, writing, and writing. So many are painting and dancing. So many are expressing their voices in ways that aren’t even close to logical and practical.

New worlds come into being through creative acts. The tender shoots of the new world come up through dark rich soil that’s been tilled and fed. Creation rises up out of the void in the belly. Creation comes into form by way of a dark, moist birth canal. It comes in contractions – messy contractions.

It is good for me to remember this when my voice feels tight, when I shy away from speaking because I don’t quite know how it will come out. Something does know what is longing to be created and voiced.

Maybe we say to each other, “Show me what you see. I am listening.”

Share
Posted on

Rise Sister – Unplugging Your Power

Share

Unplugging our Power

Lately, I’ve been having some incredible conversations about power with other women. I find it fascinating what this five letter word points to for so many of us, and how unconscious our power dynamics can be.

In a culture based on a kind of power-over dynamic, a hierarchical sense of what power means, it is an act of love and service to unplug from this dynamic and instead discover the autonomous state of offering one’s vital force to life itself. Our vital force, our life force that is at the heart of our creativity, sexuality, joy and expression is sacred and to offer it in the service of life is to live one’s power as an autonomous being. And, the paradox is that it isn’t really our power at all…it is simply the expression of life moving as you.

As Adyashanti writes,

“True autonomy is not trying to fit in or be understood, nor is it a revolt against anything. It is an uncaused phenomenon. Consciously or unconsciously all beings aspire to it, but very few find the courage to step into that infinity of aloneness.

I know I’ve uncovered so many of the ways in which I give my power away in exchange for something I believe I need. The more I become aware of these power bonds and begin to unplug myself from them, the more I feel my own vital force moving within me, and the more creativity, joy and autonomy I feel in my own life. When I am plugged into power dynamics, I am squandering this vitality as I trade it for ‘things’ I believe I need.

And, the more I move into this autonomy, the more I can feel alone. For me to come to know how I was giving it away, I had to be willing to let go of the very things I swore I could never let go of. There are still more, yet as I feel these bonds unplug, I am feeling deep gratitude, an organic longing to serve, and a quiet desire to simply be what I am.

You can listen to more on power, as well as forgiveness and letting go, here in my interview with Tricia Karp. It was a pleasure to speak with her.

Notice what you trade your power for.

Notice what you are plugged into that no longer serves you.

Notice what drains your power.

Notice what causes you to feel more alive, more true, more real, and more quietly joyful. 

Begin to unplug from that which you believe you need so that you can find it within yourself.

Rise Sister

I’m honored, truly honored, to share this song with you. When I first heard this song that Kandice wrote, inspired by my work here at Unabashedly Female, tears flowed. Her music and words encapsulate exactly what has been, and continues to be, at the heart of my work in the world. One day, we will know a sisterhood so strong, so solid, and so loving, that the earth will feel herself wrapped in the arms of all of her sisters, and all of life will know it is held in the lap of the Mother.

Kandice has a beautiful voice, an uncanny ability to write songs that are infused with love and deep meaning. You can find more of Kandice’s music and creative offerings here and follow her on Twitter. In Kandice’s words:

“I write songs and share them with the world (a.k.a. YOU).

I am pursuing a dream that is won’t stop pursuing me. I create songs with high vibrations and inspirational uplifting intention. I write specially commissioned songs for creative entrepreneurs, which makes my heart soar.”

 

Share
Posted on

Women and Power – Wisdom Learned from Omega Institute’s Conference

Share

 

Labyrinth at Omega Institute

This past weekend, I was very lucky. At this point in my life, I can see how blessed my life is. I have so much, not necessarily as material things, although I don’t lack there, but more importantly in opportunity. Over the past years since my late-husband’s death, my life has changed dramatically. His death, and some other life-changing experiences that I’ve written about before, catapulted me into a life of longing and searching for something I thought I needed, something I thought I did not have already. Sometimes, it takes searching out there to discover what you were searching for has been here all along.

This search has taken me to so many beautiful places and lands. It has allowed me to meet many wise people. I’ve been able to take in many words of wisdom, words that somewhere I already knew, but had no access to. We all have this within, yet sometimes we need guidance to find that which already resides in our own soul.

I share this sense of blessedness, because I know along with it is a responsibility to embrace what I’ve been given and offer it back to the world. Nothing is really ours. Everything is a gift, a gift to in turn be given again.

This past weekend, I once again found myself in a place where much wisdom was offered, much emotion was shared, and so much courage was modeled – Omega Institute’s Women and Power conference. Women such as Sister Joan Chittister, Sally Field, Eve Ensler, Isabelle Allende, Elizabeth Lesser, Jennifer Buffett, Majora Carter, Loung Ung, Pat Mitchell, Chung Hyun Kyung, and so many others, shared deep life experiences and the wisdom they’ve discovered from living them. There are so many things I soaked up over the weekend, so many AHAs, that it’s hard to resource it all into one post. But there are some moments that stood out for me.

Eve Ensler

Eve Ensler spoke of the multitude of atrocities perpetrated on women and children that she’s witnessed. In her words, “There is no word. I have not come close to finding the language to describe what I have seen.” 

She also spoke of the Cassandra myth, and how it is a curse that keeps women silent because we are considered lunatics when we tell the truth. {I will write more about this later}. Eve went on to mention the ways we break spells and curses:

1. We have each others’ backs. We stand with each other. We speak out immediately if we see a woman being labeled in such a way for speaking truth.

2. We create communities of love where we can tell our stories and be held, cuddled and loved. She shared The City of Joy in The Congo as an example.

Eve also mentioned that a part of the curse was this… She was waiting to be honored, loved, valued and approved of by the Patriarchy…and then she would would win…and she then wondered, win what? This was an AHA moment for her, and she realized there was no winning, but more importantly this was preventing her from living as ‘her full crazy self’.

Elizabeth Lesser

Elizabeth Lesser, author of Broken Open, spoke of the one thing she’s found from sitting with so many wise, alive people who’ve come to teach at Omega. She shared that no one person has the answer, no one can handle idolization, and it is our shared core humanness that has sets us free. She also shared how destructive it is when we “indulge in the habit of comparing”, and that, “No one is living the life you think they are.” She mentioned that Eve Ensler told her, “Everyone is just making it up, including presidents of countries. Everywhere I go, its just people making things up. You can do it, too.”

One last thing Elizabeth Lesser shared is her experience that “when you fully occupy yourself, vast reserves rush in to fill the space that was filled with self-doubt.”

Sister Joan Chittister

Perhaps the most amazing talk for me was the conversation between Pat Mitchell and Sister Joan Chittister. Sister Joan had an amazing transmission, so much that I, and the two women I was sitting between, had tears streaming down our faces through most of what she said. At one point, the woman on my left and I just turned to each other simultaneously and hugged each other. There was so much truth in Sister Joan’s words, as well as passion and fire, that my soul and heart just opened right there.

Her call to us was a call to speak up, to make others feel uncomfortable every time we speak, and to not stop speaking out. She shared with us the falsities of our current day, offering that the culture is not the place to look for truth. Her words, “Religion tells us who we are, and the media tells us who we are supposed to become.”, served to let us know to stop believing these sources of so much false cultural conditioning that does not serve women or anyone.

Insightful comment posted on the sharing board.

My takeaways?

Power, the power spoken of at Omega is the power of life, the power to serve life, the vast life force that is within each of us. Our power as women is to serve life, to serve the life that permeates all of existence, and to know that all of existence is sacred.

Our power is not like that which has been wielded over others to dominate and control. Our true power, the power that flows through us when we are embodying the feminine principle is the power to serve, and it is inclusive, holding, and connecting, and it weaves life together in a supportive bond.

Over 500 women sat in that hall over the weekend, women who are all vibrantly wanting to be part of this healing wave that women must step up to offer to the world. We, you and me, are not alone, sister. We are not alone.

What do you trust in so deeply within yourself that allows you to step out and speak out?

For me, I trust in my own creativity, my own sacredness, my own ability to be with whatever arises because I know that what I am IS the ability to respond to life with love. And, now I know I am also part of a global sisterhood that is rising. We are rising.

 

 

 

Share
Posted on

How will you be in your Womanhood?

Share

Womanhood. The Sacred Feminine incarnate.

For so long, a story of womanhood as less-than has been told, repeatedly, in almost every language. Tongues of both genders have spoken words of feminine degradation. These stories have been woven into the institutions we have to interact with on a daily basis.

They are stories that have been told for many centuries. And yet, that doesn’t make them true.

In life, there is no better-than or less-than, there is only what is…what shines out from the depths of your eyes, what loves from deep in the center of your heart, what moves in the belly of your soul. It is only our minds that want to compare and judge.

The mystery that is creation, will always be a mystery, no matter how doggedly man pursues the ultimate unveiling of creation by way of rational reason. At the heart of the heart, is a sacred mystery, at the center of the womb, a divine purity.

What if the very thing you hide, or try to deny, or apologize for, about being a woman is what ultimately will free you to be all that you already are?

What if the embodied awareness of this pure mystery in every woman on the planet is what is needed for our very survival?

What if?

How would you be with your womanhood?

How WILL you be in your womanhood?

I’d love to know your thoughts to these questions by having you share them in the comments. I feel we all benefit from knowing what is going on deep inside of women. It is time we share.

Blog Widget by LinkWithin
Share