Perhaps it started, not the fire, but the thinking of fire, last night. Before I went to bed, I posted this:
Sometimes, fire burns.
And in response, a man I went to high-school with replied,
“So does the sun, but it doesn’t keep us from wanting it to shine on us.”
The truth does shine…
and it burns. It burns away all that is false, all that keeps the truth from being lived, if we are willing to stand in the fire. I’m not claiming to be a fire-walker. I don’t like the burning one bit. And, I’m noticing it keeps coming, regardless.
When I see this, I see an image of a forest fire that rages through, and how that fire prepares the soil for the seeds to pop and grow. Some seeds will only germinate with the help of a forest fire. These particular seeds need the heat to begin their growth.
During my time in Santa Fe, something very old was burned out of me and something that’s always been there, always waiting in the wings, began to move with new life. It moved in because I was willing to begin to stand in the fire of the truth. I was willing to speak, aloud, stories that had been buried in my body. First, though,
a side trip to Kildare, Ireland.
Last summer, I traveled to Ireland. I wrote a few posts about it here on the blog, but some of what happened has been working inside, gestating, growing and finding root.
Some of the most profound experiences centered around St. Brigid and the goddess Brighid. To be honest, and maybe someone more aware of the historical nuances could fill me in!), I am not all that clear about the connection between the two.
Cill means cell or church, and Daire is a type of oak tree, so Kildare means “Church of the Oak.” This is one of many ways Brigid the Saint echoes a pagan goddess of the same name, since the oak was sacred to the druids. In the pre-Christian period of Celtic history, Brighid (a derivation of the word Brig, meaning “valor” or “might”) was the name of one of the most beloved goddesses. Both solar and lunar, Brighid guaranteed the fertility of the fields, sheep, cows, and human mothers; and she protected all bodies of water. Her principal symbol was a perpetual fire, representing wisdom, poetry, healing, therapy, metallurgy, and the hearth.
St. Brigid’s double monastery at Kildare was built at a location previously sacred to her pagan namesake, and the inner sanctuary of the Kildare Church also contained a blessed fire perpetually maintained by the nuns of her community. Some have speculated that St. Brigid herself once served as the last high priestess of a community of druid women worshipping the goddess Brighid, and that she led that entire community into the Christian faith.
Site of St. Brigid's Flame, Kildare, Ireland
In Kildare, I stood in the place where Brigid’s perpetual fire burned. The story goes that, after St. Brigid’s death, the fire was kept burning for over 1,000 years by women determined to keep the flame alive (I imagine not just the flame itself, but what it represented). This realization blew me away, that women could, amidst all sorts of attempts from the outside to put out the flame, keep it alive.
With a little inquiry, we found our way to where the current flame is kept alive for St. Brigid, by sister Mary. She invited us in to the room where the flame burns today. I sat down, and within minutes a complete peace came over me. The only words I could find to express how I felt in that moment were, “Full. There is nothing I need or want.” Sister Mary echoed this, saying that almost every woman who comes to the flame feels this, or something akin.
This sense of upholding life, keeping the fire lit, helping to usher in change without losing the old wisdom is so much of what the feminine is about.
Back to Santa Fe:
In my time in Santa Fe, I was surrounded by strong, wise, spirited women: Danielle LaPorte , who is “interested in liberating truth, raw reality, and grace.”; Jennifer Louden, a woman inspiring us all to serve and savor the world; Dyana Valentine, who is, in her words, “an instigator. Seriously, I’m not for the weak of heart.” ; Susan Oglesbee Hyatt, a Master Certified Coach who describes herself as “Energetic. Honest. Motivating”; Dr. Diane Chung, a wise, Harvard-trained clairvoyant Naturopath, who has a healing approach that is brilliant; and of course, Gail Larsen, the woman who was leading us to tell our stories straight from the soul.
In the circle of strong women, strong sisters there to gain wisdom on how to speak wisdom from the stories of our lives, I re-experienced the strength of the feminine fire. In this fire, it was as if words flowed directly out of the ground of being. They came out raw and untouched by the overzealous mind that wants to manage and package the words in some way, for ensured acceptability. I shared stories in this circle that I have told only to a few, very close, people in my life. And in the sharing of these stories, something shifted, transmuted and transformed. We were, and are, a circle of alchemists, turning lead into gold.
As I stood in front of my sisters, waiting for the words to emerge, I could feel their love, their devotion to the truth, their willingness to hear me, wide-open to the wisdom I had to offer. As I sat in the circle, waiting for my sisters to speak, I held them and witnessed the wisdom emerging through them.
Something here, so wise and so powerful.
Even though St. Brigid’s flame was extinguished, what I imagine it represented, the light of the sacred within matter, is still alive in each woman that lives. And, it is this light that is asking to be reawakened in the world.
As a woman, as an embodiment of the Sacred Feminine, this light is alive within you. It is the fire of your sacred light. We can help each other to reawaken to this light within. And, it is this flame, this light that the world needs to remember its sacredness.
The Wisdom That Holds Us All
To underscore the wisdom that is holding us all, let me return to the fire that I opened with, the fire that burns.
As I sat at the keyboard this morning to write this post, all I could see was fire, an image of a seed, and Sandi Lee‘s image of Brighid. I planted the seed and began to write.
As I wrote, two things became clear. In finding a little history of St. Brigid, I stumbled upon this: that today, February 1st, is St. Brigid’s day in the Northern Hemisphere.
The First of February belongs to Brigid, (Brighid, Brigit, Bride,) the Celtic goddess who in later times became revered as a Christian saint. Originally, her festival on February 1 was known as Imbolc or Oimelc, two names which refer to the lactation of the ewes, the flow of milk that heralds the return of the life-giving forces of spring. Later, the Catholic Church replaced this festival with Candlemas Day on February 2, which is dedicated to the Virgin Mary and features candlelight processions. The powerful figure of Brigid the Light-Bringer over-lights both pagan and Christian celebrations.
Then, as I researched Imbolc, I discovered that one symbol of this time is the candle and flame, mostly from the celebration of Candlemas.
I began with fire and truth, and a wee feeling of Brigid, and lo and behold, everything coalesced in a way that my mind could never have figured out.
Learning to trust the seed, to trust what wants to be told, said, written is a way of the feminine. She emerges through symbol, through what is ripe in the moment. She speaks to us in many ways.
As Gail teaches, we each hold original medicine, something that others receive from us as we share from the deepest places within. Danielle shared with me that she experienced my original medicine as “Dark rich moist soil, like the kind that seeds crave.”
Woman with a Crescent Moon (or) The Eclipse, by Paul Albert Besnard - 1888
She eclipses the moon. And in response, it’s as if the moon highlights the darkness of the feminine mystery that surrounds her.
The Moon. The Dream World. Mystery.
Last night, I slept within a vivid dream world. The overarching theme of the dreams was the simplicity of life when we live from the truth.
Simple, yes. Painless, no.
I dreamed of the body and it’s relationship to truth. In my dream, I became completely embodied. All the way home. Conscious throughout. The further down I went into the body, the clearer the truth was.
In my dream, when I arrived at the very bottom, so to speak, of my body, meaning I was conscious all the way down from the hairs on my head to the ends of my toes, and in every cell in-between, the truth was sparklingly clear and radiant.
If I attempted to do something that did not come from this truth that my body knows, I couldn’t move. I couldn’t act. My body stood steadfast, while my mind argued like a sullen child.
Then, even my chattering mind dropped away. I was only conscious through the body, but in every cell. All there was was truth. All action came from truth. I didn’t fight myself. I didn’t fight others. I just lived from the wisdom of the body.
In this place, full embodiment meant full truth. There was no choice but to live truth, to act from truth, to love from truth.
I could feel the peace that moved throughout the body as I moved in the world.
Coming down into the sacred flesh and bones that was home for me, I could no longer pretend I’m not powerful beyond any kind of human measure; I could no longer stay quiet in the face of the violence that others face every day; I could no longer choose false safety and security over right action. Choice and action were a fluid dance that flowed straight out of conscious awareness.
In the light of morning, I sat up in bed with a new understanding of the power of embodiment.
Next…
In part two of this three part series, I will move deeper into the body and the power it offers to us if we’re willing to come home to it. The body knows. The body remembers. The body could tell stories, all the stories of my life from before I was born up to this very moment.
In order to fully awaken to the fact that you are nothing but Awakeness itself, you must want to know the truth more than you want to feel secure. ~Adyashanti
Reverb10 Day 14
Prompt: Appreciate. What’s the one thing you have come to appreciate most in
the past year? How do you express gratitude for it?
::
The persistence of truth.
I’ve come to see that no matter how hard I might try to avoid, bury, ignore, or deny it…truth remains steadfast.
Sometimes, the truth fits with my liking. It’s what I want it to be and I have no trouble at all doing what it asks me to do.
Other times, the truth is the last thing I want to acknowledge. I want it to go away. I want to barter with it. I ask it to compromise, but of course it does not. Of course. It doesn’t have an agenda. It just is. It’s just the ego that has the agenda, and it’s agenda is to stay safe and secure.
::
The truth just is.
The truth is like a decision that has already been made.
The truth isn’t good or bad. It just is.
The truth doesn’t barter, argue or defend.
The truth doesn’t compromise.
The truth is asking for surrender.
I’m not yet completely there. Close, but not yet there.
::
What is the truth?
It certainly isn’t what the mind says it is.
There is no ‘my’ truth or ‘your’ truth. There is just truth.
It is what is.
And, in writing this, I can see the power of its unwavering steadfastness.
How do I express gratitude for it? Good question.
Much of the time I don’t express gratitude for it. I’m not grateful at all. I want my safe secure nest, and yet, as Pema Chodron writes, “To be fully alive fully human and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest.” Continually thrown out, not just thrown out when I feel I’m ready for it.
The bracing against the truth is exhausting, because of truth’s steadfastness. This hanging on, this not wanting to let go into the abyss, it is exhausting, yet it is, the bracing itself, the hanging on, is what gives the ego its sense of existence.
Adyashanti writes:
“What if you let go of every bit of control and every urge that you have, right down to the most infinitesimal urge to control anything, anywhere, including anything that may be happening with you at this moment? Imagine that you were able to completely and absolutely give up control on every level. If you were able to give up control absolutely, totally, and completely, then you would be a spiritually free being.
This battle of will, this desire of ego to maintain control in the face of the inevitable pull of truth – I appreciate the power of this relationship. It is profound.
There is no good or bad. There is no right or wrong way to be. There is only the ultimate pull of life to wake up to itself.
I can see this dance so clearly. The appearance of me is dancing on the edge of disillusion. This appearance of me fears what might happen to it. This appearance of me can’t be seen or touched or experienced in the same way as life right here. Yet, it’s power is strong. I appreciate the power of its futile dance.
::
I know that simply writing this post is an act of gratitude. I’ve come to see that everything serves this pull. Everything. Somehow, in acknowledging the frightened parts of the mind, a beautiful relationship is nurtured between the truth and what fears it. The mind is beginning to see it is held in love, in that which has no agenda other than to know itself as itself.
Your ability to feel love is directly proportional to your ability to tell the truth. The more truth, the more love. ~ John Gray
…
Telling the truth opens us up to something greater than us. It brings us into congruency with the truth of who we are. It brings us into alignment with the way things really are, right now, right here. This is where love is. Right now. Right here. Love, the stuff of God.
Telling the truth opens us up to the edge of that vast void, the huge unknown called the new.
The New. The Now. It’s all the same. It’s the edge of unfolding.
When we tell the truth, we open ourselves to the unknown. Rather than staying in our conditioned responses, which simply lead to more conditioned responses either by us or those we are responding to, the truth leads us right into the unknown.
This is one of the reasons we shy away from telling it. And, it’s why the truth is where we are most powerful as human beings. When we are in truth, we are in our authority, we are in our power. We are aligned with the creative force of the universe. This is where we are most in service to that which calls us to speak, be, and live truth.
We also shy away from telling it because feeling this amount of love can be frightening. Can we love ourselves this much to tell the truth completely? To speak the truth within takes great courage, and that is why the root of the word courage is cour, the French word for “heart.†It also takes love. And, it gives love. Truth telling takes heart and it gives love.
…
Yesterday’s post, Truth and Validation, generated some pretty awesome comments. As I read through them to begin to respond, I realized a conversation is occurring right here around this topic of truth and validation, of men and women, masculine and feminine, and what happens when we are validated, either back then, or now.
I began to write responses to each of you, but considering the elegance and intelligence in each comment, that seemed almost an impossibility. Instead, I felt a new post might be more fitting.
…
As you’ve noticed over the years my blog has been here, I write about living the question of what it is to be female. Sometimes, I write about how this culture devalues the feminine, while honoring the masculine. And, when I write ‘this culture’, I’m including myself. I, too, was conditioned to do this, and even today, I continue to find ways in which I still, unconsciously do so.
This devaluing of the feminine causes all of us – children, women, men, animals, the earth, all of life – suffering. We are being called to honor both the masculine and feminine, within ourselves and out there in the world. Coming into balance is the key…the sacred marriage.
AND, (this is definitely a time for both/and, rather than either/or) many women experience invalidation, simply because they were girls…and are women. From the time they are young, others in their life teach them life will be different for them because they are girls, rather than boys.
These two things are different. One is something we all experience that causes us all pain. The other is something women experience. Women are the embodiment of the feminine. In a culture that devalues the feminine, it makes sense that women would be devalued, too.
Stating this doesn’t mean men don’t experience their own suffering.
…
From the comments:
Strand Girl writes:
“I have consistently struggled with believing that I have the same authority as the men in my world seem to have…even when I know in my gut that something feels healthy for me or my kids, I “hiccup†and let those thoughts of self-doubt creep in.”
…
Dian remembers the day, and its events, that caused her to believe she would amount to nothing in her life:
“I can pinpoint the exact moment I began to believe I would amount to nothing in my life…the moment my grandfather told me it was so, and simply because I was not—am NOT—a man. Today, I am grateful for that fact, but it’s been a long and windy road, full of hiccups (yes, thank you for naming that part of the process!) and questioning.”
While many women don’t specifically see occurrences of being invalidated simply for our gender, many do.
What I have found to be so important as we move into deeper acceptances of our own worth, authority, and self-love is that we honor every woman’s experiences and insights. We give room for each truth to be so. A big ol’ fat Yes/And always helps, just like in improv.
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The reason I created Unabashedly Female is just this: that many of us were taught being female is the last thing on earth one should want to be.
“when i first met you and discovered your juicy blog, i was somewhat taken aback by the word “female.†“feminine†– i’m okay with that. comfortable. like it. but “femaleâ€? i put my arm out to create a little space between me and that word. see, somewhere alone the way, i came to believe that being female is undesirable, something to be embarrassed about, something to (constantly) apologize for. and to precede the word “female†with the word “unabashedlyâ€????
when i think of all the things i did and said in an effort to be “just one of the guysâ€, i sag. when i think of the time i covered up every picture of every female in that teen magazine with the article about the popular male singing group – taped construction paper over the females – a teen magazine, i tell you. when i think of all the persisting back problems i caused by trying for so long to kiss my elbow because someone assured me that when i did, i would become a male.”
“Here’s the positive: we are coming together now to restore the balance…and when this happens, our world will be strikingly different. Exciting times! I am so thankful for each one of you who bravely steps forward in creating this change by reclaiming your own truth.”
things are changing, and it is an exciting time. We are beginning to see a shift in how we validate each other as women, and how the culture is beginning to validate us as well.
AND, it is of the utmost importance we don’t step over anything because we feel we don’t have the right to say it, or it feels like we’re complaining, or it feels like we’re being a victim. Shoving those things down only causes them to fester, harden, and get really crusty.
Once, after my late-husband died, a grief counselor told me that grief is like dirty dishes. Grief sits in the sink waiting to be washed. The longer it sits, the more crusty it gets. Those dishes don’t just walk away.
Grief around being invalidated for simply being a girl can feel devastating…so much so that we push down the feelings way into the body where they wait for the day to be felt. It’s like any other grief. The process is one of allowing its fullness to be felt, and in so doing, it passes on its way.
There is something profound that happens when we see clearly through an old fallacy. For me, the awakening of the sacred feminine within came after I was willing to be with the feelings of bad, sinful and dirty I felt simply because I was a girl.
“I ached as I read it – aware of my own loss; the many years (from childhood into my 40s, frankly) in which I could not and did not even know how to validate my own truth.
The road back, the journey into validation (and celebration) of my own truth has been arduous – but so worth it! To be able to stand in myself, on my own, strong, confident, assured, and in this know-that-I-know-that-I-know space brings me such rest, comfort, and relief.”
…
When we are willing to see everything as it is, our innate wisdom becomes available.
“Suddenly it occurred to me that I had enough wisdom, after 13 years in management, to be able to trust the way that worked for ME, not just HR management.”
Heather let go of what she had been told to do, and simply allowed herself to act from her own wisdom. The results of her actions told her clearly just how much she knows within herself.
…
Sharing our stories with each other is so important. Having honest truth-telling conversations helps us all to re-cognize what it means to be female in our own experience, rather than through the filter of what we were told.
“The conversations that happen here are so FULL and feel transformative – like we all walk away thinking and feeling more deeply into ourselves. The women who come here, share here, are powerful forces of change, of truth, of love and compassion.”
Women are powerful forces of change, the kind of change our world is dying for.
The path to transformation is through our experiences, not in spite of them. Telling the truth about the ways we’ve been invalidated is not whining or playing the victim. Feeling into and moving through these experiences transform them into wisdom.
The more truth, the more love.
…
As I hope you can see, I so value the wisdom you write here on this blog in response to the words I share. You help me to deepen my understanding of what it is to be female. You help me to see the places I have blinders on. You help me to know I am not alone in this inner journey to wholeness.
Too often our authentic “yes” has been lost in a landslide of unexpressed “no”. We can do the emotional homework of expressing the anger and resentment through verbalized expressions of “no”. Then it may be possible to find the sweetest “yes” of our lives. Rick Moss
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A few days ago, I had a conversation with a dear friend about “No”. About how all the little ‘no’s’ we ignore cause us to not be able to say the BIG NO when it’s necessary. And, when we don’t trust and voice the BIG NO, the consequences can be huge.
It’s not as if I have never heard this before, but you know how when you hear something again and it just lands? This landed.
I thought about all the times I said ‘yes’ out of habit. Simply habit. Many of these times the truthful response would have been ‘no’, but the ‘no’ didn’t even register, because I was operating out the habitual pattern of saying ‘yes’. And the habit came from wanting to please. Even though I am a grown woman, this habit still operates…sometimes.
Since this conversation, Life has offered up multiple opportunities to practice what I realized. One, in particular, was a fairly big ‘No’. I could feel a small part of my personality worried about saying ‘no’, but once I did say it, I felt compassion, not guilt. I felt peace, not resentment. I felt truth, not pleasing.
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I’ve had a vision of something for a while. I say I’m doing it, but then I ‘think’ life just seems to get in the way. Under the surface of those words, which imply powerlessness, is the “landslide of unexpressed ‘no'”. Life doesn’t get in the way. I get in my own way. Life is always pouring in, in wondrous and mysterious ways. It’s not Life’s job to choose for me, it’s my job. It’s not Life’s job to say ‘No’ to those things that don’t serve me or my vision, it’s my job.
How utterly egotistical of the ego!
Maybe what Life offers up is to help me choose for authenticity. Maybe what Life offers up is completely random. Maybe I think too much. Yes, that would be very true.
…
“You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestation of your own blessings.” Elizabeth Gilbert
And then I see Rick Moss’ quote. It captured my heart, because of the words at the tail end…”the sweetest ‘yes’ of our lives”.
Wow. The sweetest ‘yes’ of our lives. What might be waiting for me within that landslide could be the sweet yes, the honoring of what most matters to this heart, the coming into right relationship with the truth of what is calling me forward. That’s sweetness.
In the no, lies the yes. In the yes, lies the no. In each moment, something is compelling me in a direction. It’s not something I believe in; rather, it’s something I feel. It’s a pull, an urge, a compelling, a longing…
Choosing that is the sweetest yes. Choosing that means I have to be willing, very willing, to say ‘no’…the little no and the BIG NO…and the no in-between. Choosing that means I have to be willing to experience whatever others experience. That could be a range of emotions from complete disinterest to open and engaged, from being displeased, maybe even angry, hostile, to aligned and in agreement.
I can see, in reality, none of that matters. None of these possible reactions matter…except to the ego. In reality, when I simply live that which is compels me, what matters is what life responds with, for in the response is the next pull, the next moment of unfolding, the next most obvious thing calling to me.
…
Now this might be Life 101 for many of you, but in my experience, the truth comes around again and again and again until I realize it deeply and profoundly. And then it comes around again.
Lately, my posts have been flowing one from another, as if writing one allows an insight to surface and wash over me. It feels sort of like a scavenger hunt, where one clue leads to the next, and that one to the next. Maybe that’s not the best analogy, but close enough…
After writing my last post, The You That Takes Your Breath Away, I remembered something I wrote a few years back. It was never shared here on my blog. In fact, I don’t think I shared it with anyone. At the time, what I was writing felt too close to my heart to make known to others. Sometimes, this is exactly what needs to happen; we need to not speak those moments of insight so that they continue to work their way through us.
What I wrote to myself was sparked by this passage from , “Shadow Dance†by David Richo:
“We can even declare that we are what Byron saw: ‘a rose with all its sweetest leaves yet folded.†Eventually we realize that whatever in us has remained folded up is really that about us that was never loved. This is the sadness in the folded rose of ourselves. What was not confirmed and loved by others, especially our parents, did not have full permission to emerge. It is up to us to find this confirmation now from within ourselves, our relationships, and our spirituality. Joy results from permission to unfold.†(pg 110-111).
“Joy results from permission to unfold.†Wow. How powerful this statement is.
We are the only ones that can give ourselves permission to do this – to unfold those oh so sweet leaves of our being, those that hid away because, for whatever reason, it didn’t feel safe.
Now, we are adults. Now, we can hold these sweet and tender places within our own heart, hear what they have to say and give them permission to unfold, permission to be seen. Perhaps, being seen first by ourselves is the greatest gift we can give to them.
With this permission comes joy. And peace. And, as these parts come back into the light, wholeness naturally occurs.
The other piece is about the exquisiteness of vulnerability. Complete unfolding brings no more separation. When we open to the fullest extent possible, nothing hidden, petals outstretched, there is no longer anything that knows separation, and this can be frightening as hell.
But, our lives are really about the flower unfolding. We yearn to unfold, to blossom into complete nakedness, raw vulnerability that allows one to be seen and known.
This ripe blossoming is also the very last step before the petals fall and the blossom dies. This is our return to the whole, the moment of wholeness that is simply a breath away from death, where death ends our separation from the whole.
At the singular moment when we unfold every ounce of our being and exist at the height of vulnerability, that of out-stretched petals, we know our sense of separate self will fall away. When nothing is hidden, we can no longer be separate. In our complete vulnerability, we open to all and to everything.
There is a peak of each blossom, when it is poised at its pinnacle of beauty. This is our moment of realization of all that we really are. In this moment, our sense and identity as a separate flower falls away and we let go into our true identity as all that is.
When our petals fall and decay, we can grow into the fullness of a human being, wise and unconditionally loving, for who we now know ourselves to be is the life force that compelled the flower to emerge, bud and blossom, the instinctive drive to open fully to the light, the air, the wind, and all of the world around us.
The edge of wholeness, this edge of ripe beauty, happens many, many times, over and over, until we know ourselves to be the beauty itself. Nothing lasts forever. And, it’s in this knowing of our ephemeral nature, that we know what it is to be fully alive.
So, here is what I wrote, back a few years ago:
On The Edge Of Wholeness
Standing on the threshold of the one true moment of existence
I know myself as both blossom and the urge to bloom.
Every ounce of my journey has been to unfold
To follow the blueprint of this flower
From young rosy bud to powerfully stretched petals
From nubile possibility to the height of complete engagement.
As my petals open to the arc of full bloom
my arms stretch open wide and vulnerable
my chest aches with joy and
I am completely available to Life.
It is in this moment of complete openness
I know that I have loved to wholeness
Every ounce of who I am
Even those parts that once felt impossible to love.
Somewhere deep in the recesses of Being
I realize the natural path of this process and
begin to feel the life force that has propelled
my unfolding welcoming me home.
I know there is this one moment
When my petals are at the height of ripeness
The height of the arc of fullness
just before I turn to the face of release
This moment happens many, many times
And at the same time is a singular moment in my life
I can now see that petals falling is also an act of grace
For as I stand on this threshold of change
I realize it is only by being courageous enough to open
That I have come to know what I truly am
The sunlight and soil of grace have held my becoming all along
my urge to bloom was always at the heart of who and what I am
This urge to blossom is also my urge to return
To the one constant in all of Life, the very nature of all that is.
~ Julie Daley
Just look at the beauty of this inside of this flower. We would never see it if it remained closed.
“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.
The moment a woman comes home to herself, the moment she knows she has become a person of influence, an artist of her life, a sculptor of her universe, a person with rights and responsibilities who is respected and recognized, the resurrection of the world begins. ~Sister Chittister
As I pondered today’s prompt, “A word or phrase that encapsulates your year”, a flurry of words swirled into my awareness.
Autonomy
Sovereignty
Personhood
Responsibility
Inner-Authority
Value
Self-worth
None of these captured this year – they merely helped point to a feeling of how the turning of the days of 2009 have shifted my consciousness. They brought me to here, this moment, while helping me to distill and encapsulate the unfolding of my life over these 365 days.
Looking back, I can now see how this year has been about learning the power of choice. All these words point to the opportunity that exists in each moment to choose what the still voice within asks of me, rather than succumb to the status quo, the conventional ‘wisdom’ of our culture, that right now, doesn’t look so wise at all.
I have come to understand just how seductive this status quo is. But over the days of this year, this voice within has become louder and more insistent. At times, I have wanted to run away from this voice within, but there is no peace out there. The only peace I am finding is not really peace at all. The peace is in surrendering to this that compels me with insistence, burning, and longing. It is here that I must jump. Jump into the blackness that is the unknown depths of my heart. My body. My soul. That is all that is here.
To all women, to all men, and to all of Life, I offer you the original Mother’s Day proclamation of 1870 by Julia Ward Howe. Read it and let is wash over you. Take it in and see what comes from it.
I shared this on Facebook, and received many wonderful responses. One response was from my Aunt, a strong vibrant woman. She recognized her own voice in Howe’s and could see this voice in all women; and, she also feels gratitude for all the men in her life that have served when called.
I mention this because I feel both are true. Neither sentiment negates the other. We live in a world of paradox. While we can hold firmly to the knowing that we can have a world in which peace truly exists, we also can honor those who have fought for freedom and justice. There is only one answer to it all – Love, unconditional love.
Sometimes that love is soft, sometimes it is fierce, but hopefully we can all find a way to the love that is unconditional, for all that is, for all of life, for the depth and breadth of how Life reveals itself. If it is all One, then Love means to love it all, unconditionally, while allowing your own being to move towards that which you know from deep within your self is True in every cell of your being.
Arise then…women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts!
Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly:
“We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,
For caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country,
Will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.”
From the voice of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with
Our own. It says: “Disarm! Disarm!
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice.”
Blood does not wipe our dishonor,
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil
At the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace…
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God –
In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality,
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.
thanks to Jonathan Klate, of Amherst, MA, for sharing this.
WOESER, a Tibetan poet and blogger, is struggling for visibility. In today’s New York Times This Saturday Profile, Woeser (going by a single name as is tradition in Tibet) is highlighted as a Chinese woman of Tibetan ancestry who discovered her roots and moved back to Tibet. She began to research the history between Tibet and China and began blogging and writing about what she saw was happening. In 2003, her first book, Notes on Tibet, was published and quickly sold it. But before the second run could be printed, the Chinese government banned the book.
Needless to say, the Chinese government has gone to great lengths to silence her. They have blocked her blogs and her travels to Tibet are scrutinized.
From the Times, ‘Despite her relatively high profile both inside and outside China, she is well aware that her liberty is fragile. Since 2004 she has been waiting for a passport, which would allow her to travel and speak abroad.
“I feel so insecure inside,†she said. “I feel like I’m sitting on the edge of a cliff and I could fall down at any moment.‒
I feel great respect for Woeser for her willingness to write the truth as she sees it, regardless of the dangers she faces in direct response of her doing so. She is honoring what she knows to be true from within her, finding the courage to keep going in the face of strong condemnation from the Chinese government.
More and more women are finding the courage to step forth and speak out. I feel it is of utmost importance that we support these women in solidarity…all of us, both women and men. Women such as Woeser are exhibiting leadership of a new kind, leadership that comes from listening to what one knows to be true deep within and having the courage to express it from the heart.
What can we do to support Woeser in her vision to travel and speak in other parts of the world? I welcome your comments.
