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Balancing the Brain: You are the artist and you are art in the making.

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There is a deep space of mystery inside of you,

inside of me, inside of every one of us human beings. The cavern within is our inner world and it is the world of the ‘right brain’ – one way to speak of the mysterious nature of our consciousness.

Or as Gabrielle Roth wrote,

“Between the head and feet of any given person is a billion miles of unexplored wilderness.”

Yeah. That. That which we know exists but most of the time would rather not give any attention to.

Except…except when the hunger comes. That hunger that won’t let you alone even though you try to ignore it. That hunger that tells you there is so much more to who you are than you believe to be so.

You know what I’m referring to, right? It’s only you and me here. You can acknowledge it and no one has to know.

There is a deep hunger within us to remember. To remember what we once knew we are and how we once lived as the light of stars and the dark of night and traveled lifetimes of changing tides and shifting seasons.

We are always, hungrily, calling to ourselves to remember. A hunger so deep and real – much more real than what you are sitting on right now reading these words.

“…this is one of the really important things about art, that you can make more than you can understand at the moment the thing is being made. But the gap between what we recognize inside ourselves – our feelings- and our ability to trust ourselves and to trust exposing ourselves to those ideas, can be great.” Emmet Gowin

I saved this article years ago and still have it to this day, for it reminds me in a way that few others do of the artist in each of us that must come alive if we are to live here on earth and not just exist in numbness throughout our days.

These words cut to the quick every single time I read them…

“The fact that something is unsayable, that you are emotionally restricted from saying or even recognizing consciously what your own spirit is struggling with, energizes one’s work. That is exactly where good work comes from.” Emmet Gowin

As a teacher of art, Gowin says…

“But that’s a parental emotion at work when one says I don’t want a student to be trapped. The truth is, I’d be perfectly happy if they would be “trapped” within the experience their own authentic difficulties. If they would be trapped on their own, then any freedoms they discovered would be their own. Which is what interests me, because I believe that the joy of your own discovery is what confirms your own aliveness, your own value.

“So in this sense it’s cool to be wrong. It’s so essential, so necessary. It’s so appropriate to be confused, to be muddled, to be unsure. We preach clarity. Get your ideas organized. Get your thinking straight. And it’s the kind of stuff we all got from our parents, because that’s the role of parents. But it is the aliveness of the unguarded intuition and the persistence of our own feelings that guide us to our discoveries.”

“I believe that the joy of your own discovery is what confirms your own aliveness, your own value.”

Gowin speaks as a teacher but coaching is the same. I am both a coach and an educator and nothing gives me more joy than to experience a client or student sit in their own confusion while I hold the space of love and we, together, close the gap between when they are conscious of and what is struggling to be known and remembered.

Even when it is uncomfortable, and especially when it is uncomfortable, what is unveiled is the act of remembering and it is the deep awakening to more aliveness in our lives.

What is the feeling of coming directly into contact with that unexplored territory?

How does that moment feel inside of you when you come face-to-face with the dark reflection of that well looking down into what seems to be an endless mystery?

This remembrance. This uncovering and discovery. This feeling of aliveness and value, it is the essence of art-making. You are the artist and you are art in the making.

Here’s the thing, though…

This isn’t about art in the traditional sense. This is about opening up your awareness of the capacities of your right brain and coming into a balance between the parts of your brain, a balance where there is great respect for all of your capacities. Most of the time, we incessantly judge the capacities of the right brain. We are constantly reminded taught that rational thought and logic are much more valuable. But the truth is, we need our wholeness to live lives where we feel alive. And we need cooperation between the different capacities of our being in order to be happy, creative, innovative, people who are in conscious action in the world.

Balancing the Brain:
I currently have two ways to work with me:

One-on-one coaching

  • for individuals who want to go deep into self, into the body and the heart, and into the beautiful mystery within. (It’s not as scary as it sounds!)
  • for leaders: those who are interested in diving deeper into their personal leadership.

I hold a tremendously safe place of love for transformation.

In my fourteen years of experience as a coach, this is what clients are truly seeking. Yes, we look at goals and intentions. Yes, we see progress and completion as important to the work. But underneath the achievement of truly satisfying goals is this deeper work, for nothing truly satisfies if it doesn’t feed your deepest hunger.

You are the artist and you are art in the making. You are remembering yourself into balance. And coaching is a powerful cauldron that can support your discovery.

Writing Raw

daisysummerWRA six-week circle for women to access the deep voice within. Yes, we do it through words, but the process works for any inner exploration to uncover the source and voice of your deepest self. You DO NOT need to be a writer.

I lead you into the great wilderness within you…the place where you can finally come home to the voice you’ve been longing to hear.

We begin on Tues, June 27th. Read more and register here.

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Watershed: A Moment of Awakening

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Watershed

This remembering and returning.
Wave upon wave.
A spiral that begins with wide arcs
Never seeming to make their way around
To anything recognizable.
Until one day they do
And I notice
The slightest sense that
I’ve been here before.
Rediscovering something I’d discovered before.
About who I used to be.
But now there’s less veil and more light.

Big mind unknotting.
Catching glimpses of who I am and
Who I thought I had to become.
At the same time,
Flashing back and forth
Beginning to understand
I can now let go.

A mind so very tired of
Believing I am separate
Vigilantly watching
Carefully holding on
While remembering what it was like
To be free
To love the sunshine
To feel unabashed joy
And to simply love what I loved.

Watershed moment
Who am I now?
Back and forth
Unknotting and releasing
A distinct sense of Self, emerging
That isn’t distinct at all
Then birdsong sings and joy floods in
And I realize there is but One
Who is both tired and joyful
Unwinding and free.

***

Yesterday was a full moon eclipse. I experienced something powerful – an unknotting of my awareness. It was quite amazing, really, to witness my thoughts and how I kept seeing through them. But it was without effort. All I did was stay present to what was occurring.

I was walking along when tears came and my mind and heart opened. There was a distinct sense of organic qualities that were just present, while layered upon this was a sense of a created self, born out of trauma and a reaction that turned into habits. A created self who monitors vigilantly, hovering above the self who just is, joyful and radiant, soft and curious, tender and vibrant. A created self, born out of a fractured relationship to life from that trauma, now believing it was separate and wary. As I walked, my awareness slipped back and forth between the two. The wary one was aware that it could possibly let go, that it just might be safe enough to return to the open spacious awareness it was before it became vigilant. And then it let go as much as it was ready to and I softened. And I realized that our consciousness identifies with some idea of self and then habits build up around that idea of self that help to maintain that idea of self. I could clearly see this.

I immediately wrote the above poem to capture the essence of what had happened because it was such a profound experience to be so conscious of it while it was occurring.

***

I share it with you because I know we are all on the same journey – the journey home. When we share our stories, we help each other come to see what is happening within our own experience.RISEstairsbadge

This is much of what my new course R I S E is about – allowing our wholeness (creativity) to be the source from which we choose to make choices in our lives. Our wholeness is here, but we’ve fractured into ideas of who we believe ourselves to be, oftentimes making it really hard to experience who we truly are. We can step back and root down into our wholeness. We can come to live from this place.

And when we do it with others, together, we lift each other up. We rise together.

This is going to be a beautiful, potent exploration. I know sometimes that can be frightening, but it is truly a chance to explore and discover yourself in a way you’ve perhaps longed to do.

R I S E begins on Tuesday, Feb 14th – Valentine’s Day – for this is ultimately about love and letting love be the guide for your life.

 

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The Nature of Power

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In the 21st Century, power will not change the nature of women, women will change the nature of power. ~ Bella Abzug


Power is only a Word

Power is only a word, but it’s a word with a sordid past…and a very sordid present. It has a lot of baggage.

Power, as we know it today, dominates. Silences. Abuses.

Power is abused, too. At some point, power became power-over.

Somewhere, at some time, in the ‘rules’ of the human world, a rule was written about power, men and women. A rule was made that says, men have power over women. Somehow we, men and women, seem to believe in this story.

The recent, deeply disturbing, widely broadcast story of Sakineh Mohammadie Ashtiani’s imminent death by stoning, once again, brought the tyrannical abuses of power-over into the bright light of our awareness.

A few days after the international outcry about both her death sentence and the method the Iranian government threatened to use, the archaic practice of stoning, I still couldn’t shake the visceral anger, sadness and powerlessness I felt. This was such blatant, abuse of power; power so egregious, that I shudder to contemplate just how often and how much this kind of sadistic power is used against those who are completely vulnerable to it.

In the swirl of these emotions, I felt a very real sensation of complete vulnerability as a woman. Here was this beautiful woman, waiting in an Iranian prison for a death sentence to be carried out in a most barbaric and painful way. And, here I was, sitting safely in my home, but acutely feeling an intense vulnerability, as if there was no separation between us.

Then it hit me, there is no separation between us. In a very real collective sense, what is done to any part of life, is done to us all. If we are aware of the deeper feelings that move through the human soul, we know this.

On this same level, we all feel the pain of abusive power, oppression and misogyny whether we are the abuser or victim.

As I sat with these feelings, I suddenly felt a tenderness open up that was deep. It was painful, vulnerable and raw. It filled every part of every thing.

I wrote about this tenderness, about a revolution of tenderness in the first post of this three-part series on Tenderness, Power and Grace.


Soft Power

I know many women who push their power away because the only power they’ve known has been used against them. I’m one of those women.

And yet, my power keeps pulling me to it. This is a different kind of power than power-over. It comes from deep in the bowels of my femaleness. It feels rooted to the earth. It feeds my soul. It nurtures my creativity. It is the source of my deep and abiding love for all of life.

There is an unwritten, unspoken, yet very palpable threat of violence against women if we do step fully into the power we know is contained within our beings.

I feel this threat of violence. Yet, this power must come to life, regardless. This is soft power, a tremendous tenderness toward all of life. It is a great compassionate love. It compels me to drop even more deeply into this place of fierce tenderness.

Of course we’re coming to the brink of extinction of so many forms of life, including our own – our way for so long has been to dominate, control and destroy the life principle, namely that of woman. She is the embodiment of the life principle.

What would life be like if power-over, once again, became simply power, the power to be able – to express, to create, to be, to act? I don’t know, but I do know it will have something to do with love. It will come from not rejecting anything, because what we reject and condemn in another, is the same as rejecting ourselves, and no peace can ever come from that.


The Power of Woman

This is the power of woman: to love everything, without exception. As the embodiment of the life principle, she holds it all, without division. This power can only come when she no longer believes she must be everything to everyone. It can only come when she comes home to herself, with love for all the beauty she is. When she sees the value of herself, she can know the fullest power that is available to her as woman.

How does woman do that when she faces the immensity of oppression, degradation and misogyny?

By turning to look at another woman, to look deeply in another woman’s heart, to see within her what she can’t see in herself. By turning to the earth, to look deeply in the earth’s heart.

By opening our hearts to earth, to feel the incredible suffering this beautiful, living, pulsing beauty is enduring, and at the same time seeing her strength, her capacity to heal, her desire to continue to provide a home for all of life.

Woman is tied to the earth more deeply than man. When we open to her power to heal and regenerate, we can know our own capacity to heal and regenerate.

Anne Baring speaks of women:

There is a danger that in seeking power and equality with men in order for her voice and her creative gifts to be recognised, woman may unconsciously reject the very foundation which gives, through her millennial experience as custodian of life, something of supreme importance to say.

Can we…

There is no question that women are changing the nature of power. We see it occurring everywhere. As we do…

Can we encourage each other to come forth into our power?

Can we hold each other in supreme love and compassion as we travel this sacred path together?

Can we stand firm in the knowledge that we are worthy of the sacred nature we know is at the core of our womanhood?

Can we love those parts of ourselves that feel so difficult to love?

Can we know, in our experience, that we are all mothers to all the world’s children?

Can we love others with the fierce tenderness that might melt the deepest darkest hate into the most brilliant light of love?


And, you?

I’d love to know your feelings and thoughts about power and women; about what is emerging through us; about your story with power.


This is the second post in a series of three on tenderness, power and grace. All three posts are part of the Summer of Love Invitational, where the lovely Mahala Mazerov has invited bloggers to write about loving kindness.

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I Begin Here

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It seems as though my last post, Listening Into Liberation, resonated with many of you. The comments you left were insightful posts unto themselves. They touched me deeply.

::

“The future of humanity will be decided not by relations between nations, but by relations between men and women. ” D.H. Lawrence

::

I realize that I know very little, if anything, about the answers to how liberation into wholeness can unfold. And at the same time, I absolutely know that wholeness is our inheritance, and that our true nature is already whole.

I know that consciousness is seeking to know itself, to awaken fully into wholeness.

I know that my rational mind can’t understand it, even if it thinks it can.

I know that I have a deep longing to heal into wholeness, and to be liberated from these ties and snares that keep me falling back into the false beliefs of our culture, that:

  • women are secondary to men,
  • the feminine is something to fear,
  • the masculine is bad
  • women have to apologize, constantly, for something not quite known
  • men must be taken care of
  • men and women can’t trust each other
  • women are inherently jealous of, and hostile to, each other
  • I, as a woman, will be more safe and secure in my relationships, and in the world at large, if I ‘pretend’ to be good, compliant, selfless, small…in short, something I am not.

These are just a few of the notions I (and others I know) have believed in the past, or continue to believe right now. Is there anything else you might want to throw in here?

::

“…re-examine all you have been told at school or church, or in any books, and dismiss whatever insults your soul.” ~ Walt Whitman

::

We’re told many things about women, about men, and about our worth, our value, how we should be with each other. We’ve been conditioned by parents, by our schooling, by the church, by the culture, by the media…

I can see the most necessary and important thing I can do to begin, is to question all of my beliefs. Period. Even my most treasured beliefs, the ones I cling to that give me a sense of righteousness, or a sense of safety and security. This is really about questioning the small, yet sometimes very loud and insistent, roommate in my head that wants me to believe these things so I will stay ‘in the tribe’.

I know liberation into wholeness will not come by hanging onto my beliefs. It will not come if I hang on to anything I have to believe in, because if I believe in something, it means I don’t really know the truth of it. If I did, I wouldn’t need the belief.

…

All of Life is Sacred

One thing I know is that all of life is sacred. I know this. I don’t have to believe it, because I experience it. I witness the sacred looking out your eyes. I hear the sacred in your voice. I feel the sacred in your touch. I taste the sacred in your kiss. Everything is alive with the sacred. Everything.

We are breathed, we are fed, we are loved, and we are held by the sacred. All is infused with the sacred. When we don’t see this sacredness, it’s because we believe the conditioning that tells us differently.

Patriarchal conditioning teaches us to fear matter, to fear that which is here right under our noses. Patriarchal conditioning is about fearing the feminine in us all, but most especially in women, because we embody the sacredness of the feminine life principle. Patriarchal conditioning tells us to transcend rather than embody. Yet, it is through the body that I experience, that I enter into relationship with you, with woman, with man, with life.

I know I begin here, with my own experience that all of life is sacred. Somehow it’s easy to see this sacredness in children. I see their innocence. Yet, this same innocence is alive in us all.

I begin with this innocence, this wonder and amazement that are naturally a part of being alive and aware. The only thing I can know, truly know, is what my experience shows me.

I long to know you, to listen to woman, to listen to man.

Wholeness is about Oneness, about no longer experiencing division within and division without. I have to begin here, where I am, seemingly still ensnared by beliefs, but willing to look to see what is here, what is true, what is so. And, then acting on that knowing, to move with truth, rather than shrink away from it.

The roommate believes it won’t be easy. Yet, the longing is much stronger than the roommate’s resistance.

…

And, you?

I’d love to be in conversation with you.

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On The Edge Of Wholeness

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Pink Tulip

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.

Image: Pink Tulip by Julie Daley

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Growing Whole in the Darkness

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“All beauty contains darkness.” ~ Daniel Odier

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Our Female Nature

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

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

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

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

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

There is more to come…much, much more.

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Greetings!

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Welcome to Unabashedly Female!

133235475_e2838d4a52_m.jpg We are living in a time of deep change. Wisdom beyond our individual knowing is calling us forth to remember what we are and to discover a whole new truth of what it means to be female. This new truth will come from our own experience, from a remembering of the past and the archetypal images of the fullness of the Feminine, and by allowing our wholeness to return, a wholeness that embraces those parts of ourselves that have seemed to dark to allow into the light. But all of what we hide from ourselves must be brought forth if we are to know the truth of our being. We can know the simple elegance that we are.

As Rilke wrote many years ago in Letters to a Young Poet, “Someday there will be girls and women whose name will no longer mean the mere opposite of the male, but something in itself, something that makes one think not of any complement or limit, but only of life and reality: the female human being.”

This is an invitation for us as women to dive into a discovery of who and what we are, to live into the question, “What it is to be Female?” and to come together so that we recognize (re-cognize) what we know deep within.

photo courtesy of Pandiyan

 

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