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So Many Silences – part one

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“The fact that we are here and that I speak these words is an attempt to break that silence and bridge some of those differences between us, for it is not difference which immobilizes us, but silence. And there are so many silences to be broken.”
— Audre Lorde

Privilege

Privilege, handed out at birth.

White privilege: Yes.

Gender privilege: No.

Born into color. Born into gender. Born into a system.

I am white. I am a woman. In reality, I am neither of these things. Yet, I live in a system, a system full of institutions that are insidiously laced with privilege, domination and oppression.

I don’t know…

what to do with this. I know I’ve been handed privilege. I know I’ve used this privilege and enjoyed its benefits. I know part of me would rather not talk about it.

Yet, I must.

Why must I? Because, not talking about it keeps me in a silence that needs to be broken.

Not talking about it keeps me from seeing my own humanity, keeps me tangled up in a fog of complicity and complacency that go against the nature of what I really am.

Not talking about keeps me from fully waking up to the light that is at the heart of every cell of matter.

Not talking about it keeps us from solidarity, soulful human connection that can help to break apart this system that we all uphold, both consciously and unconsciously. And I no longer want to uphold this system.

Once,

a woman told me this story. She was talking with her boyfriend about gender oppression, about what it’s like living in this culture as a woman. He replied to her that she couldn’t know oppression because she is white. He told her she couldn’t be gender oppressed because she was privileged by her skin color. He negated her experience of gender oppression because he determined that her whiteness denied her the very real and direct experience of gender oppression.

I once had a man, a white man, tell me that my whiteness automatically made me an oppressor. The first time I heard this, I was stopped short with surprise. Then anger. Then confusion.

I asked myself,

“What do I do with this?”

So, I sat with it. It churned. There were no clear answers, no short and sweet snippets of wisdom.  And then I forgot about it.

Until now. Until my deep, deep desire to see men break the silence about gender privilege invited me to break my silence about what I’ve been privileged with – racial privilege mainly, as well as financial privilege, class privilege, etc.

As a white woman, I know both privilege and oppression. And, yes, I know I experience both, that one does not negate the other.

We were all born into a system that oppresses. We didn’t’ choose it, yet it is our responsibility to see it for what it is. And, for the sake of our children and grandchildren we must come to terms with the insidious ways it keeps us doing things that I know are antithetical to our true nature.

We’ve been born into it through no choice of our own. AND, we have a choice as to whether or not we continue to uphold it, because the system doesn’t do it to us. It works through us. The system is just a collection of beliefs that we internalized. Everything that we create from these beliefs continues the system. Everything that we create from knowing that we are simply many expressions of the One source of all of life will create a new infrastructure based on the love that is  this One source.

I no longer want to know separation, because I know I am you and you are me. I know this. I see this, and it is only my internalized idea of the way the world is, and my habitual response pattern to these ideas, that keep me upholding something so painful.

I am angry about what has been done, and continues to be done, to women and children, to the earth. I am angry about the continued degradation of the feminine.

I am outraged at my own complacency.

My love for life, for this beauteous wonder that moves through me, calls me to live something greater than my habitual fear and confusion.

Am I willing to look here? Yes, I am willing to look. And, I hope you’ll look with me.

…

This post is part one of a series on privilege and oppression, and compliance and complacency. I don’t yet know how many parts there will be, or how and where it will end.

I hope you’ll inquire with me and leave rich comments here. Let’s begin a discussion. Let’s find a way through the fog of not wanting to see and know, so that one day we will meet in the place where there is no ‘other’.

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Solitary Impulse

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Creative Impulse.

This phrase kept running through my awareness as I danced on Sunday morning. Many of you know, since I write about it fairly frequently, that I dance every week, and have for over eight years. My practice is 5Rhythms, and on Sunday mornings 150 of us faithful practitioners come together to ‘Sweat Our Prayers’.

5Rhythms is a moving meditation where you dance the 5 rhythms that Gabrielle Roth discovered are at the heart of being human. In the practice, the mind is invited to let go as the body is invited to move on its own, without the normal constrictions the mind and thoughts place on it.

This past Sunday, I moved. I sweated. I let go. And in the space of these two hours of dance, this phrase kept repeating itself.

Creative Impulse.

Creative Impulse.

Impulse.

Impulse.

As I danced,

I was consciously aware of the impulse that came from somewhere deep within my body.

The impulse came up from the dark space within. When followed, the impulse guided me in a fluid movement, where there was no mover, just movement, just expression.

Deeply dropped in the body, I was aware of the impulse as a free and alive movement of energy, a never-ending stream of pulsation coming into being, then flowing out into expression and falling away into nothingness.

I was aware of the impulse…until I was more aware of my mind. Thinking. Judging. Comparing. Deciding it didn’t like the way I was moving. Deciding I looked clumsy. Deciding it didn’t like the music, or how others danced. Judging, comparing, deciding. Stopping the flow. Stumble. Stepping on my own toe. Ouch.

And what did I do then? I began to move again. Dropped back into the beat. Felt the impulse. Moved.

I’ve danced long enough to know this. But what was important this time, was a really bright awareness of this process of stopping, stumbling, being clumsy.

I came home and

considered what had happened and how it translates to life, because right now I’m stopping myself from allowing this impulse to move through me as it wishes. On the dance floor, I feel safe and comfortable to express, except for those moments when the thoughts come in.

In my life, I don’t feel that safety, even though, in reality, I am just as safe. I mean, who knows what people are thinking of me as I dance. Who knows what judgments are flying, what stories they make up about me? Who knows? I certainly don’t. But I feel free there, free to move, to listen, to express.

I know this creative impulse is always here. It’s always moving up and out of the deep darkness of the inner place. When I write I can feel it. And, when I write I can feel the sudden move of the mind behind the impulse that stops it.

As I am known to do,

I looked at the word impulse, because for me an impulse feels like it sounds. It is a pulse that moves out of me, one after another, but so closely together it is fluid.

As I looked up the word in the thesaurus, these other words showed up as synonyms:

Desire.

Drive.

Pulse.

Pulsation.

Thrust.

Beat.

Signal.

Stimulus.

Urge.

Force.

Pressure.

Impetus.

Whim.

Wish.

Itch.

Inclination.

Yen.

Bent.

Spur.

In simply reading them, I feel the impulse. Try it. Read them again, and feel how they feel in your body. Feel the words move through you. What do you discover?

For me, there is a resonance with the feeling of spring, of emergence, of a pushing up through soil, of a seed emerging into the light. There is also a sense of body function, inspiration, breath, pulse, desire…all pointing to a wide open sense of eroticism, of creation at its core giving birth in each moment to a new moment.

The practical side of this,

is seeing of how many ways I stop the flow with minuscule thoughts, tiny aberrations in the fluid movement of time and creation, where I attempt to stop what is happening, where I clog up the pipes, sit back and think rather than stay in the fluid motion of action that comes from within.

The flow stops when I don’t feel safe, for whatever reason. Sometimes, I’m still amazed at how important safety is for the ego, how it looks for that at all costs.

Not that we must be in motion all of the time.

In the dance, there are many moments where the impulse moves in tiny, tiny ways, even to a point of pure stillness, where what is moving is simply respiration, sweat dripping, maybe even a muscle trembling ever so slightly, a finger with a tender pulse, a ever-so-slight movement of the eye.

These moments happen all the time in life, where there is a pause, a breath, maybe even a languishing time of being still, silent, inward-turning.

This impulse is intelligent and wise.

It is the same impulse that moves through us all, yet how it expresses through each of us is different. And, how it expresses through women is different than men, for the female body is different than a man’s body.

This impulse knows something our minds can’t know. And right now, this impulse is guiding us to truthful action if we are willing to trust it to move through us.

I know this is happening in my life. I’m making choices that aren’t comfortable, aren’t cozy, aren’t safe. And in doing so, I find myself stumbling, hesitating, maybe even stepping on my own toes, missing the beat of the music, bumping into others I love and care about.

What is it I trust in

as I move out in directions I don’t know? There is a footing inside, a place that never changes, something I know is there. I don’t have a word for it, really, but Rilke does:

“But your solitude will be a support
and a home for you,
even in the midst of very
unfamiliar circumstances,
and from it you will find all your paths.”
My solitude. That place of aloneness. Only I can feel the impulse, can know its movement, can taste its insistence, can bow to its fortitude. Only I can give breath to it, can trust the pulse inherent in it, can allow it to inspire me forward.
As it is for you. Only you can know this in yourself. It is a place of great aloneness, yet we dance together all the same.

That’s okay. All that matters is that we keep dancing, keep breathing, keep moving our feet, letting the impulse move us, trusting that our own solitude is exactly the footing we are standing on, even when there is nothing underneath our feet.

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the Note of Love

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Sunset Light at Lands End
Sunset Light at Lands End

Spring is here. At least it feels like Spring is here, even if it is February 8th. St. Brigid’s Day, or Imbolc, is thought to be the beginning of Spring in Ireland…and maybe here, too, judging by our weather.

The beginning of Spring does something to me. The lovely bits and pieces that I’ve kept warming by the fire during the cold and wet winter months come alive with the first warm rays of the sun.

It was a beautiful 72 degrees here, yesterday. We took a walk out at Lands End, the line of coast that wraps around San Francisco’s northwestern outermost tip. The light was amazing, as evidenced by the colors and shadows on these trees, above, just prior to sunset.

We had dinner out at a wonderful Thai restaurant, finishing it out with Hot Coconut Cake, a specialty recipe from the owner’s Mother-in-law in Thailand. The owner told us this cake is not sold in restaurants in Thailand, but is only available as street food.

Yesterday, was a day filled with so much life. And,

This past week, so much of my focus has been on dying, on being with, along with many others, someone I loved and respected deeply as he let go into death. Sitting in his room at the hospital, I could smell the blossoms just outside the window. The warm temperatures invited the trees to blossom, and blossom they did. The moments were a bit surreal.

In today’s walk, I could see signs of life springing up again.

I came home to find this very important video by Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, a Sufi Sheik I quote quite often. He is a mystic who sees what is coming, and shares profound guidance as to how to be of service during these times.

I can’t share the video here; but, you can watch it here. Please do. In fact, watch it a few times. He is sharing such important information for us all to know.

In the video, he asks,

“Do you work with what is dying, or do you work with what is coming into being?”

A powerful question, indeed.

In Llewellyn’s video, he shares that the note of love that hits the bell of creation has changed, and with that change, “life will begin to manifest in a different way.”

As I sat with Emmett, last week, it was so important to me to love him, deeply. In those moments, it felt so totally clear that what I could offer was love and letting go. I could be with, in the state of love, without trying to save, fix or change things. For if it is really time to die, then the greatest gift is to not interfere, but to let go.

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Seed of Life

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Waking dream synchronicities & natural collaborations, by Sandilee Hart
Waking dream synchronicities & natural collaborations, by Sandilee Hart

Sandilee Hart is an artist. Her Brighid’s Dawn graces my last post, Fire and Soil, where she shared this comment:

And in another very synchronistic moment–

This morning, as I was quickly getting ready to launch out the door & a busy day, I was still thinking of your posts, the birth of seeds, Brighid’s realm, the new moon…. I was giving a quick wipe of the sink-drain, and out came a little seed- sprout with a green heart leaf and a spiral end-root. I could not have been more surprised & delighted to see symbols that are special to me. Their very presence switched everything into waking dream mode.

Even though I knew the origin of the sprout had to be from rinsing out the cockatiel’s water dish with a stray seed there, it was still a marvel to me of symbolism and impeccable timing. Sometimes, things like this just put me in the most wonderful alignment and help me tune in & pay attention. Sure enough, the day was full of remarkable symbols-messages, spirit nourishment, laughter, and loving connectedness with others.

This morning,

a man I loved and admired passed away. Emmett Murphy was 89. He lived a long, long life. He had been a POW in WWII. I can feel myself not wanting to let go.

Imminent death and precious new life have been on my mind since Sunday. Upheaval. Seeds. What is dying. What is being born? What is birthing?

Tuesday,

February 1st, was St. Brigid’s day. Another lovely reader, Kelly, posted a comment in Fire and Soil:

My mom always used to say that St Brigid was the seed-planter – the saint we all needed to rely on for rebirth, hope, and warmth.

I didn’t know, until Kelly shared it, that St. Brigid was the seed-planter. The more I researched St. Brigid, the more synchronicity I’ve discovered.

Brigid the Weaver

According to Mary Condren on IrishTimes.com, Brigid was also known as Brigid the Weaver:

Before mass media and travel, and great political rallies, societies were held together by fragile threads, and weaving tools signified a key responsibility: that of weaving the precious webs of life and tending the bonds of community.

She goes on to say:

Like community activists and nurturers, Brigit wove the fragile threads of life into webs of community. She invented a shriek alarm for vulnerable women travelling alone, she secured women’s property rights when Sencha, the judge, threatened to abolish them and she freed a slave-trafficked woman. Above all, her bountiful nature (23 out of 32 stories in one of her Lives concern generosity) ensured that the neart (life force) was kept moving for the benefit of all and was not stagnated by greed.

Neart

Brigid’s “bountiful nature … ensured that the neart was kept moving for the benefit of all and not stagnated by greed”.

This morning, when I saw Sandilee’s heart seedling, I could see that new life is always sprouting, just as death is always coming.

The neart is always moving, especially when not stagnated by greed, by holding tightly to that which is not ours to hold. Brigit’s generosity is a symbol of the flow of life.

One of the most difficult lessons for me in this life has been to let go of what I wanted to hang on to. Over and over in life, we are all asked to let go of those things we don’t want to let go of. Even when they go, I’ve found I am still hanging onto them somewhere within, through some thread, some grappling hook, some way of staying connected, even if it is a sense of guilt, grief, or loss. When I’ve felt the grief, when I’ve allowed it to work its mysterious healing, I begin to move again along the current of life.

We’re all greedy for things in our own way.

The web of life and its interconnectedness is all around us. Like Brigid,  women are weavers, and when we live the way of the feminine, we know this. We see the symbols in the everyday, we notice the synchronicities, and, like the earth, our nature is bountiful.

In upheaval, there is leaving and there is becoming. The changes in these days at hand can feel so big, so violent, so new, especially when we don’t know what lies just past this very moment.

Perhaps it is the fragile weaving we each must do, those webs of community that need tending, the neighbor that could use our shoulder to cry on, or the business step that awaits to ensure that the person that most needs your service has access to it.

Maybe we’re looking to be the savior to many when the next thing that awaits us is to simply notice what is wanting to be tended to.

In these past few posts, I’ve written about what has showed up, and in doing so, many threads of the web have become obvious. In fact, perhaps it is all simple one big net…Indra’s net, which “symbolizes a universe where infinitely repeated mutual relations exist between all members of the universe“.

Seed of Life

More than any other post I’ve written, this one has woven itself through my fingers. I’m even a little bit lost in the web of it all. I can see it, yet it is too big for me to know the whole.

Sri Aurobindo, the visionary of modern India, said:

‘It is only the woman who can link the new world with the old.’

Somewhere we know this, and somewhere we already know now. It’s in our bodies. It’s in the web of life. It may take retraining ourselves to come back to our instinctual knowing and wisdom. It’s not another way we have to try to be perfect, but rather it is a knowing that is already within us, a seed of life simply waiting for us to remember.

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Fire and Soil

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Brighid's Dawn, by Sandilee Hart
Brighid's Dawn, by Sandi Lee, @WakingDreamart

Fire.

I awoke this morning with fire on my mind.

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.

A little history:

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
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.”

There’s that seed, again.

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The Seed in Upheaval

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Amidst the death, upheaval and chaos of destruction in Egypt, Tunisia and other places around the world, something new, something not yet seen or known, is coming into being.

Like a seedling pushing up through the ground, this new way is strong and resilient, not because of its size, for a seedling is tiny, but because of its strength, tenacity and resilience. These come from the very source of life that is midwifing a new way. The ever present energy of life is pushing forth and through.

Life encompasses the totality that we see held in the opposites, and everything in between along the continuum they create: the masculine and the feminine, death and birth, light and dark, hardness and softness, destruction and creation.

This morning, I came across this post by Filiz Telek, a woman who is passionate about “awakening the presence of sacred and possibility in human heart and spirit”. I love what she writes about and how she writes it. In her post, she shares this video, and the words she shares with it are quite beautiful. She holds this video with such tenderness and honor, in the same way she holds life and the sacred feminine. In Filizat’s words:

Listen to her, she’s saying “I am the meaning in the middle of chaos“
As the old system falls apart and chaos unfolds – and it is very likely that it will touch us and our loved ones too – we will need these heart songs, we will need to ground ourselves in her calling for wisdom and courage. I remember Neda, the young Iranian woman who was shot dead in front of our eyes as she was demanding freedom during Green Revolution in Iran. She was silenced, but now Amel is singing for her too and for all of us:
I am free and my word is free.
May our heart songs bring the freedom and unity consciousness that for so long, we have been waiting and longing for.

I, too, feel compelled to share the video here, because it is such an indication of what I wrote about yesterday, that being human is a vulnerable proposition. And,

This video spoke to me so poignantly of what is happening all over the world, and what is happening in my own being: something strong, and fierce and beautiful is pushing up through, trying to be born. It has to push up through so much of what has been in place for decades, so much of what has been created to keep things the same. Yet, the force is powerful and I know it is relentless, and that it will not be denied.

Upheaval is here, both within and without. I also share it too, because the woman singing, Amel Mathlouthi, is a symbol of the courageous soft power of the Feminine, standing in the middle of chaos, singing of new life.

Watch and listen and feel what is stirring within you, what new life is pushing through you to come to the surface and grow. It is so evident, that we are one. Like our brothers and sisters in these places, we, too, feel something stirring, something coming, something new. May it come with peace, may we begin to trust Life, that Life itself is change.

Thank you, Filizat, for sharing this with us.

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Alive and Awake: part three

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The more alive and awake I become, the more embodied I am, the more I cannot hide: from myself, from life, from the truth. And even though part of me would like to hide, who I really am keeps bringing me closer to this place: awakening to the power of the Feminine, the power of Her, the power of the Mother.

This is where our power lies as women…in our bodies. Bodies tied to the Earth, alive like the Earth, and awake like the Earth.

Being in the Body…

is vulnerable. Very vulnerable.

Being alive is a vulnerable proposition.

Being wholly alive as a woman in a misogynistic culture can feel overwhelming when you’re tuned into the energy that is held in the shadow of the culture.

There is an implicit (and in some places explicit) physical threat to women who speak truth rather than follow the dictates of the culture that would ask us to keep silent. The level of obvious threat is relative to the level of freedom we have in the culture we live in. The level of not-so-obvious threat is not quite so relative to that freedom. Sometimes, in some cultures, even though things look pretty calm on the surface, underneath we feel the unspoken waves of hatred and anger that misogyny breeds.

In this female body, I know I am susceptible to harm, to hurt, to invasion. I know, because I’ve experienced it. I know because many of my friends and other women I’ve met have experienced it. I know, because women all over the world are experiencing it right now.

Many of us have learned to protect our vulnerability in this physical world with a tough exterior. Many of us have learned instead to find ways to be small, to take up little space. In so many ways, we’ve learned to hide this soft, soft place inside so it can’t be hurt, and to protect this body that can be the target of people who take their aggression out on the female form.

Men, too, have beautiful soft places of vulnerability, and this culture has taught them well how not to show them. And in a culture where it is part of the very foundation of the structure for men to hold power over women, how they experience vulnerability is different than how women experience it. Different.

Every woman…

finds a way to stay safe in a culture where she is not safe simply for being her full self. We cut away parts of ourselves. We become silent, stuffing down the words we would say in a heartbeat if we felt we could. We become like men. We even adopt attitudes and beliefs that keep other women down, and that take away our own sovereignty. We trade truth for being wanted. We give up hope of ever knowing ourselves for who we really are. We pretend we can’t hear our own selves crying out.

Even though there are many women who’ve adopted ways of being I don’t agree with, I can see why they’ve adopted them. I don’t have to agree with a woman to understand how vulnerable she feels in this world.

There is upheaval happening on so many levels, both internally and externally; individually and collectively. We’re experiencing destruction and creation, death and re-birth, together. The deeper I drop into my body, the more I feel the upheaval that’s here right now.

In the body,

we are in tune with what is here. In the body, we are fully connected to the Earth and each other.

In the body, we have access to the wild and feral self, the intuitive and instinctive realms where we know things our minds could never understand.

In the body, we come back in tune with our sacred creativity, the primal Yes of creation, the Mystery.

Anat Vaughan-Lee, in a closing reflection titled, “Making the Way for the Feminine” at the 2008 Conference “The Global Peace Initiative for Women” in Jaipur, India, shared these remarks:

The feminine, whether the feminine quality or women themselves, holds the secret of creation, which is the light hidden in matter. This is very important to understand; that if one is to do any real spiritual work at this time of global and ecological crisis, one has to realize that the feminine holds the unique understanding of the sacredness in matter and also how we need to reawaken this aspect in life.

The feminine is both the feminine principle or quality, and also women, all women. It is both important for men to reclaim the feminine within themselves, and for women to remember, and reclaim, who we really are. To quote Anat, again:

Woman has to remember, reclaim who she is and by doing so, reclaim, midwife, the reawakening of the spiritual understanding of life. And I am also reminded of what Mother Teresa said: “We serve life not because it is broken but because it is Holy.”

Just like life, our bodies are sacred.

Embodiment can be remembering, living and serving this sacredness that lies at the heart of womanhood.

It’s an invitation that awaits our reply…

If you missed them, part one and part two will offer more about this invitation.

And, you?

I’d love to know how you experience this sacred creativity within you as a woman.

If you enjoyed this three-part series:

I’m in the process of putting these three posts, and more, into an ebook on embodiment. I invite you to send me stories of your experience, of how you see embodiment in your own life, for inclusion in the book. It is all completely confidential, of course.

Thank you, as always, for your willingness to participate here with me. I learn so much from what you share.

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Alive and Awake: part two

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IMG_2497

How could I know that what Gail Larsen shared would change me so profoundly?

She said to speak from the body; that the body remembers everything that ever happened to you; that it knows every detail of your stories. When you speak from the body, what wants to be said will be said. She said,

“The body has all the details. Just move and you’ll know them.”

Standing in front of the group on the first night of the retreat, I let her words sink in.

The body remembers. Everything.

There was a subtle sinking down in. The mind relaxed just a bit, realizing that something else knew ‘how’ to do this, how to speak truth, experience, and wisdom in the moment.

I began to tell a story from my life. I could feel the words coming up from the body, as if they were ripe for the picking. The body was ready, willing and able. The words wanted to be said. That’s the best way I can describe it.

As I relaxed into the process of speaking in this way, the story flowed. Laughter came, tears trickled down, meaning arose, and synchronicity happened. The story happened in two parts, seven years apart. But in the telling of it, these separate instances, and the third instance of now (the moment of telling) merged together into one fluid river of experience. As I spoke of time being a fluid river running together, time showed us, in the room there in Santa Fe, that there is no time, there is only now, a fluid coming and going of experience.

Beginning at the beginning

On a Friday afternoon, I landed in Albuquerque, and headed up to Santa Fe by shuttle. I’d never been to New Mexico. I was there to attend Gail Larsen’s Transformational Speaking Immersion, along with five other women brought together by Danielle LaPorte. I knew this was going to be a powerful time, a time of transformation, but I couldn’t even begin to imagine just how much I would change from my time in Santa Fe.

When I received the invitation from Danielle, I didn’t hesitate one moment. I had already read about Gail, and had known I would work with her at some point. From what I knew of Danielle, I knew the five other people she would bring together would be those who are interested in truth-telling – my kind of people. And, I wasn’t wrong.

In anticipation of the time in Santa Fe, I thought a great deal about what I wanted to come away with. I’ve had a vision for some time of speaking in front of large audiences about women and their worth, about the sacred feminine and how women are the embodiment of this sacred presence. I knew I wanted to learn how to speak in the moment.

Santa Fe

Santa Fe
Santa Fe

This day in mid-January was cold with a bright blue sky and clear air. I settled into my room, and then went down to check out the lodge. I decided to get a workout in before dinner. I know that deep inner-work needs a healthy dose of body movement. I would make sure, over these four days, that I moved my body a lot, through dance, yoga and walking.

Over the four days together, Gail would lead us deep into speaking from the body. In a beautiful and supportive container, we learned so much about what we’re here to say, what our ‘original medicine’ is (that which others experience from being with us), and the structure from which to create any talk that will captivate and hold an audience.  Gail’s work brings you to the intersection of “your authentic self and life experience – where your power as a speaker emerges.”

The first time I stood in front of the group to speak, what had been high-flying nerves became a smooth, deep source of power. I can’t begin to explain how that happened, other than I trusted my body to know what wanted to be said. Yes, it was that simple. It’s not as if there were no nerves. I was still a bit nervous, but I stood in front of the group and listened deeply to what was right there inside me, right there all around me, right there wanting to be said.

In my experience, speaking this way is about telling the stories out of which wisdom naturally arises. The body remembers the story and the story offers up the wisdom. And that is what I experienced.

This is exciting. To have experienced this, means I now embody it. Any time I speak, or write, or share in front of a group of people, I now know, deep in the bones, that everything will emerge from the truth the body holds; and, even more important is the truth of what I experienced. In the moment, in any moment, all of what is needed is already here; and, it is found by way of the body. The body holds our instincts, our intuition, our power and our wisdom. The body is the vessel through which the soul expresses.

Sharing Here What I Shared, There

So, I’ll share that first story with you here, just as I shared it in Santa Fe.

On a warm day in 1991, my husband, my daughters and I, arrived on the Stanford University campus. We were there to help my older daughter move into her freshman dorm. All of seventeen, she was arriving at Stanford to begin her studies.

As we walked across the campus, we happened to pass by the clock tower as it was striking on the hour. We stopped to listen, and in that moment I felt an overwhelming urge to be a student there, at Stanford. Now, at this time, I was 34. I had my daughter at 17, and had consciously chosen to not go to college while my children were young, so that I could be there completely for them, and so I could enjoy my years of motherhood.

Once they were a bit older, I had started courses at the local Jr. College, taking one class a semester at night. I’d been doing this on and off for four years at this point, and I knew I would eventually transfer to a four-year college. But of course, the dream to attend a prestigious university such as Stanford was just that … a dream.

So here we were, the four of us, standing at the clock tower listening to it chime. I spoke my urge aloud to my husband, Gary. “Honey, what I would give to be a student here, someday.” And his reply? “Then, I bet you will be. Just trust that it can happen.” I responded to his positive image, with a somewhat more futile one, “As if that could happen. I’m 34. There’s no way.”

As the clock finished its announcement, we began to walk on, arriving a few moments later at her dorm. We dropped her off to begin her college life, and left for home.

Seven Years Later

I’m walking across the Stanford campus, alone. No longer do my husband and daughters surround me. Gary died, suddenly, three years before, my older daughter has graduated and is in graduate school, my younger daughter is away at school on the East Coast.

As I walk, I hear a clock chiming. I look up and there it is: the same clock tower chiming the same bells. I’m stunned into silence. You see, I’m there to attend new student orientation as a non-traditional transfer student.

Suddenly, time conflates and I am both here and there: here as a student, back there as a mother. In this moment, there is no time. It all meshes into one fluid river, punctuated by the striking of the clock.

Back to Santa Fe

Here, in the same fluid river, I’m standing in front of these beautiful women in a small, sacred container in Santa Fe. As I reach this part of my story where time conflates, just yards away from where I stand, the clock tower in the historic chapel on the grounds of The Bishop’s Lodge begins to strike the hour…with bells.

There is a palpable sense of presence that takes my breath away. In this moment, there is no moment. There is simply the fluid all flowing together. I’m stunned into understanding.

The body is the portal to all experience. From within the body, we have access to the totality of life.

The body breathes.

The body knows.

The body awaits.

::

And, you?

I’d love to know your experiences of the body, of its wisdom, and of how it speaks to you and through you. If you feel called to, please share here in the comments.

::

This is part two of a three-part series on embodiment. You can read part one, here. I look forward to sharing the last part with you.

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Changed Through Her Softly

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Life is standing at the edge of an abyss of forgetfulness waiting for the light of the world to be born. This birth needs the wisdom of the feminine, and women must take their place in this time of great potential. ~Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

::

My dear friend Megan shared this video with me today. It is a stunning combination of eloquent words of wisdom and evocative pieces of sacred art. Created by Sandy Wolk, it will move you at the cellular level.

Sit back, watch, listen and take it all in. Deeply.

She nurtures in silence, loves with such a love, that the world is changed through her softly, in a way that seems invisible, yet shakes life in the world to its very core. ~ Sandy Wolk

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Alive & Awake: part one

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Woman with a Crescent Moon (or) The Eclipse, by Paul Albert Besnard - 1888
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.

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