women’s awakening – unabashedly female

March 21, 2018

You are your own Oasis

max-guillaud-389038-unsplash — Photo by Max Guillaud on Unsplash

Eyes that wanted to take
frightened meÂ so
I hid the most beautiful parts ofÂ me
But that only grew my ownÂ thirst.

I am my ownÂ Oasis.

There are many reasons we hide the most beautiful parts of ourselves.
Many of us humans learn to be takers. Takers of all that is not ours. Believing that anything can be ours if we simply decide we want it, then doing whatever we must do to get it.

Big things.

Little things.

We take to fill holes inside.

And we hide in order to not be taken.

Not everyone does this. But so many do.

I hid my most beautiful parts. Parts that seemed to be wanted the most. Prized parts according to some. Parts that I thought must be most beautiful because they were what others hungered for.

And I learned to take, too, to fill holes. And, Iâ€™ve learned they are unfillable. Because nothing can be owned and no oneâ€™s stuff can fill another.

If you grow up in a world where there are few boundaries, you find a way to inhabit that world and still stay {relatively} {hanging by a thread sometimes} sane. Look at so much of this patriarchal culture â€” few to fewer boundaries.

When there are no to few boundaries, all sorts of taking and giving away goes on. We learn how to surviveâ€¦wellâ€¦until we can no longer survive that way.

At some point, we see that weâ€™ve hidden ourselves. From others. But mostly from ourselves. Those luscious, soft and tender, vulnerable places long to be revealed again. Those hot and fiery places long to express. We are full and glorious creatures. There is a lot to us.

The thirst can become so hot and so big until we see that nothing can quench it. Nothing outside of ourselves can. But the places and parts were hidden and so we donâ€™t know where to go to be quenched.

Untilâ€¦

Until all else fails and we are left with ourselves. And our thirst is hot and big. And we come to see there is a great well inside of us, a well that is deep and lush and verdant. And, we see there is no need to thirst any longer if weâ€™d only go within, bow down, and drink.

Go within.

Bow down.

Drink.

The well awaits.

You are your own Oasis.

(Writing Raw begins April 3rd)

February 19, 2018

Writing Directly Out of the Vast, Deep Mystery

when you are struggling
inÂ your
writing (art).
it usually means
you
are hearing one thing.
but
writing (creating) another.
â€”Â honestÂ | risk

from salt, byÂ nayyirahÂ waheed

We all receive what wants to be created through us in different ways. As a writer and creative, I get images and a sense of what wants to be written/created. I can feel it, but it’s rarely clear. But even then,Â there’sÂ always enough to begin, enough to take that first step.

That’s really the most important piece. To take that first step. To begin.

But what happens along the way to cause the struggle?

I was talking to a friend today about writing. We were sharing with each other about our writing process and how hard it can be sometimes to put words to what we ‘hear’ or ‘sense’ wants to be written.

I usually get a sense of the writing that wants to come. Sometimes it comes in images, other times I ‘hear’ something.Â But to write and create, my mind has to communicate what I sense, see, and or hear. Something deeper than my rational mind, the unconscious, is showing me the writing in its own way, but my mind must take that and put it into words. My mind must communicate the creation into form.

Sometimes I’ve noticed that my mind has a hard time doing that because there’s too big a gap between what I sense and what my mind can translate into words. So my mind fills things in as best it can and what I end up with isn’t at all what I sensed or heard. I’ve lately found myself sitting here at my laptop, fingers poised to write, while my mind attempts to find the words. It’s such an interesting thing to witness in the moment becauseÂ I am aware of a felt sense of frustration within me – seeing/hearing what I’m trying to write and then trying to find the words and phrases that capture it.

Sometimes, too, the writing just flows. There is no gap. The mind is open and free enough that there is no separation in me, the one who is writing. There is only writing.

And then other times, I notice that my Voice of Judgment (VOJ) jumps in almost immediately, judging and criticizing what comes even before the mind gets it down on paper. It’s like an immediate judgment of what comes. It’s crazy how fast theÂ VOJ can grab a hold of the steering wheel and take you right off course.

But really what I want to do is communicate what I am hearing and sensing. That is all I really want to do. It’s easier for me through photography (the image above) and dance. I don’t edit. There’s no judgment. There’s only the expression. But writing has been harder for me to lose the VOJ, the editor that wants to edit before there are even words on the page.

Can you relate?

We want to get it right but so often we come up short. It’s the mind somehow thinking it has to ‘make it happen’, which is really way beyond its job description of simply communicating. It’s trying to play ‘Soul’ rather than letting Soul be Soul and being, doing what it was created to do.

I’ve found that writing regularly helps to shorten this gap. A regular writing practice helps the mind get used to the practice of writing what it receives.

And, what I’ve found always brings me back to writing more naturally and effortlessly is writing about what brings me joy, or what I love, or what I care deeply about. If I’m trying to write something because I think it is what others want to hear, I never do so with much ease. I struggle to get the words out and once I do the piece can feel stilted and tight. And after writing it, I do, too. Because I’ve left Soul by trying to make it happen.

But when I write something that brings me joy or pleasure, then the writing flows. The soul can be heard and felt. When this is true, Soul is so close. That’s also true about writing in my Writing Raw groups. I love diving into writing when I’m surrounded by that sisterhood. Just the energy alone of the circle is a big support. And in these circles, we write from deep within, from the texture and beauty of Soul. We write directly out of the deep and vast ocean of Mystery. But you don’t need to be in a circle. You can begin to deepen your own practice of entering into this deep and vast mysterious oceanÂ that is the source of all that is created.

…

We are so deeply interconnected through something much greater than any one of us. When you write what brings you joy or deeply moves you,Â and you faithfully express it as you hear it, youÂ move those who feel a similar way or need to hear it, or something else related. There is a connection. There is a correlation. We doÂ meet our audience through our words but not in the way we ‘think’ we are supposed to.

Something greater than any one of us connects us through the deep place of love within each of us. It is this that drives creative expression. It is this that we honor when we write what we hear. And our writing becomes so much easier through this honoring.

…

Thank you toÂ nayyirahÂ waheedÂ for her poem, available in her profound book of poetry, salt.Â And thank you toÂ TanyaÂ for reminding me of this poem.

April 15, 2017April 16, 2017

The True Hunger

We live in a culture that wants to super-size us. We’re supposed to constantly reach for more, whether that be more stuff, bigger goals, or a better self – even a better, more beautiful evolved spiritual self. There is a consistent and insistent voice telling us to keep reaching, that somewhere out there we will finally find that which will be the one thing that will make us extraordinary enough to satisfy the demand.

We do this until one day we feel the ridiculous exhaustion it causes within us. Ridiculous because nothing out there could ever satisfy the false hunger this attempts to fill. The false hunger will always want more and more and more to satisfy it but it can’t be satisfied because it is built upon a foundation of ‘not enough’. A foundation of scarcity.That is its core identity. And so it has no desire to really see through the endless journey of suffering to finally becoming enough. But we feel the exhaustion of trying. So we stop. But before long, like a trick birthday candle, this false hunger lights up again and we’re off on our way to the Land of More that lies somewhere out there beyond a horizon we cannot get to.

I know this cycle well. I’ve lived this cycle over and over and over. I had a very lovely woman for my counselor when I was at Stanford who finally asked me, upon the eve of graduation, “Julie, when will it be enough? When will you feel you have achieved enough?” Funny that she was working at Stanford. But not really. She had the prime seat to watch this play of continual striving for more play out. It wasn’t the desire to learn and grow she was commenting on. It was what she saw in me (and so many others): the endless search for something that would fill this false hunger.

I now know the feeling when the trick candle goes out. The feeling of ‘ oh, right, I’ve been in that cycle again. I am exhausted and I haven’t gotten anywhere, really. It’s harder to feel the trick candle light up again. It’s subtle. Terribly subtle.

Over the past months, a very simple truth has finally dawned on me. The true hunger has become clear. It’s not for anything really. It’s simpler. There’s a quiet voice inside of me that says, “I get to just be myself. I get to just be myself.” That’s it.

That’s it.

Some of that spiritual striving has actually helped me uncover myself enough to recognize the self I long ago thought could never be enough or could never be redeemed. She’s quite lovely in her simplicity. She’s beautifully ordinary in that there’s nothing special about her at all. And yet, at the same time, she’s got a really funky uniqueness that the false hunger thought was too weird, too strange. But when I hear those words inside, “I get to just be myself.”, I soften and the trick candle goes out and I can see and feel and hear what’s right here in front of me. And here, I can feel the profound beauty within that has always been here. The profound beauty that we are and that is visible when all of the clamors of the false hunger dies down.

It is from this place that I can truly RISE because it is what is – the truth of who and what I am. This place is within each of us. That’s the operative word – within. It will never be found out there. Never, ever. And it cannot be found by following the false hunger.

There is a true hunger. It is the hunger to remember, to uncover, oneself as one already is and then to simply live as this self. No one can tell you what is ‘the false’ and what is ‘the true’. Only you can feel it. But when you soften and stop and listen, you are close to knowing.

Who I really am is quite quirky and quite dignified, too. And really quite joyful and playful. We are like this on the inside. Quite beautifully quirky and that is good.

Who are you?

***

My potent and practical course, R I S E, is now open for registration. The early-bird price ends on Tuesday, April 18th.

We just finished up the first round and it gave me such joy to witness the subtle and loving ways this course works to remove the layers that hide our true selves from ourselves. The participants experienced many shifts in how they navigate the world and made concrete choices and progress towards real life goals. Yes, this course is both spiritual and practical, but then true spirituality is extremely practical in nature.

R I S E begins on April 25th for 9 weeks. If you’ve been following my work for some time,Â you know I offer a powerful and safe container within to do some beautiful life-changing transformational ‘work’. And I want to invite you to come join me. Check out the course. Let me know if you want to join and are finding challenges to doing so. If you feel called to be there, it is important for you to be there when we begin.

February 11, 2017

Watershed: A Moment of Awakening

Watershed

This remembering and returning.
Wave upon wave.
A spiral that begins with wide arcs
Never seemingÂ 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 veilÂ 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 experiencedÂ 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.Â 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, bornÂ 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.

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.

February 7, 2015

Caressed by Invisible Grace. God(dess) is Decidedly Sensuous.

caressed by invisible grace

this caress
unseen hands
tender fingertips
that spread across the sky
spread across my face
touch me
like nothing else has
ever
in existence
my face open to the light
my soles on forest floor
this miracle
shines brightly
freedom
connection
so deep in my clay
down where fossils
cease to decay.

For as longÂ as I can remember,

I have loved soft warm wind blowing against my face. I never â€˜knewâ€™ why, although I used to try to understand. Funny things we do.

The most profound experience I’ve had of this was in Hana, on Maui. There, the air is moist, always moist, and filled with scents. And, it is warm there. It doesnâ€™t get cold in Hana, really.

There, I feel the wild more acutely in my cells, the wild of the land a mirror to the wild of the terrain of my body.Â

The soulâ€™s secrets rise to be known on land that isnâ€™t covered over by thought divorced from flesh (concrete one of the literal expressions of this broken marriage). Raw earth offers itself to my raw soul, inviting soul forth into flesh to be touched, felt, and seen. And the conscious mind, for at least a moment, meets soul in this intimacy.

The body is soulâ€™s physical expression. This human body is how soul makes itself known on earth, in flesh. The soul’sÂ longing to experience and be experienced comes through as our longing to see, touch, and feel, and be seen, touched, and felt.

This is the creative impulse to live and to express our sacred uniqueness into flesh and blood and bone – of body and of other physical creation. This is an impulse for life, an appetite to know through experience, through feeling and senses.

Oh, and to think how we deny our appetite for life. Consider how much effort it must take to deny this deep impulse of life, to grow into our fullest expression, to offer it into the world so it can be known.

There is nothing wrong with our appetite, nothing wrong with our desire, nothing wrong with our flesh. There is everything right with creation.

“The body is a sacrament. â€¦ A sacrament is a visible sign of invisible grace.”Â

“All our inner life and intimacy of soul longs to find an outer mirror. It longs for a form in which it can be seen, felt, and touched. The body is the mirror where the secret world of the soul comes to expression.” ~ John O’Donohue

Your body, my body, every body, is the physical manifestation of soul, a physical manifestation of grace.

Invisible grace – like wind. This is what I feel as I am caressed by wind – caressed by invisible grace.

The soul is deeply affected by body and what our body experiences. Earth touched, wind felt, fragrance inhaled, all leave an imprint on soul. I now understand why the different lands I have traveled to, and walked upon, affected me so deeply. My soul took it all in, and my willingness to go, even when I did not understand why, was how this body, this body/mind, walked what she needed to walk for soul to live the experiences soul was hungering for – that outer mirror.

I now have a sense of why I love warm wind against my face.Â It is not really for me to ‘understand’. It is more that I have the capacity to choose to have those experiences that feed my soul, that feed her appetite for life.

This is life’s grand radiance:Â this invisible grace making itself known in physical form, and then our physical forms, our bodies, offering back the gifts of this human, everyday, life, to soul.

When every cell of the body is awake with invisible grace, awash with love, alert with awareness, consider how much more fleshy real estate isÂ available for this sacred interchange between flesh and soul, this experience of being alive. Instead of just understanding what it might be like as an idea,

we become fully aflame with life’s grand radiance…a living, breathing, loving vessel of liquid soul.

This poem, above, was written during a Writing Raw circle call. They are powerful, potent circles where soul-knowing can pour forth. Join me for the Spring, 2015, Writing Raw circle…now open for registration. We begin the first week of March.

January 14, 2014

Allow The Dark To Grow You

illustration by Kristin Noelle

I’ve been aware of the newness of things.
Soft. Fresh. Not quite open.
Something still tucked away, not yet ready to be revealed.

Where is this within you, this ‘something new’ that is not quite ready to be in the light?
Treasure this.
It is a magical thing to stay in the dark, taking in nourishment,
discovering the shape, fragrance, and texture of who you are yet to be.

Don’t rush this.

Allow the dark to grow you.

Sometimes, we must enter the dark to grow; we must enter so we can, too, be held like we hold. They are one in the same.Â It is a natural expression of the Feminine to hold, to nourish. Natural.

As we hold, we are held.Â Take time to come into this embrace, consciously, with reverence…just the way you long to be held and known. She is no different.

Don’t fear the dark. It is rich with nutrients, rich with soul food. Yes, it will strip away; yes, you will be transformed; yes, you will be reborn – if you allow the dark to grow you.

If you allow the dark to grow you, you will bring back to life all that you pretended to put to death; and all that you’ve pretended is life and alive, will die.

Kristin Noelle illustrated this beautiful image of being held in the darkness of the Universal womb. Working from just the few lines at the top that I sent her, she created this powerful image. It speaks directly to what I wanted to share.

Kristin Noelle is a Los Angeles-based illustrator. She creates soulful art that fosters a worldview of trust. Find her atÂ www.kristinnoelle.comÂ and be sure to check outÂ BlessingsÂ – a 10-day series of inspired, illustrated blessings.

Speaking of the power of the female belly,Â I’m co-facilitating a one-day retreat on the land in West Marin County:

A Woman’s Belly: Source of Health, Strength, and Creativity

At a wooded retreat site named Paradise, we’ll explore the health, strength, and creativity of our female belly. My friend and colleague, Simone de Winter, is an Ayurvedic Practitioner. Together, Simone and I will weave a day full of belly wisdom and love. It was Simone who led me through the powerful cleanse just three months ago.

We would love to have you join us for this intimate day.

Simone describes what she will offer:

“Ayurveda offers the lifestyle, dietary and herbal support. Yoga is often part of the lifestyle support, which can be in the form of breathing exercises (pranayama), meditation, chanting, mantra, movement and postures. Yoga offers a path to self-realization, freedom from the constraints of the mind. We all know about the role of the mind in health and self-care. And in this pursuit, if practiced in the right way, it can be very disarming for the nervous system. Another beautiful way in which they come together is in the understanding of the subtle body, where the chakras are found. In working with a woman’s belly we work with the second chakra, the creativity center.”

And, I’ll be sharing:

If we are to really be happy in the world, and to live our nature, then we must come into an alive and loving, compassionate relationship with our bodies. For women, this has many difficulties because weâ€™ve been taught to objectify ourselves â€“ to see our bodies as objects, and to relate to them that way. Instead, when we come to experience our bodies as beautiful alive creatures, not objects at all, by listening deeply to them, we begin to express what it is they offer into a world that, I feel, is truly thirsty for the alive, creative expression of awakened womanhood.

We women give birth to many things, not just babies. When we become conscious of this, and when we rediscover how to listen and honor what the womb can bring forth, we begin to live this very natural capacity of womanhood.Â Itâ€™s a matter of listening, honoring, and trusting, and then expressing these energies. In all honesty, we are rediscovering this. After so many centuries of women being disconnected from the creative capacities of the female body, at least in most of the industrialized world, we are coming to realize just how crucial it is that we embody these capacities â€“that we live them.

September 18, 2013September 26, 2013

Drawing Close to Soul

Raising Her Hand

the too-full bud
learned never to speak out in class
was the weird one
showing up the other kids
learned to raise her hand
as late as possible
not because she didn’t know…but because she always did
too many years tight in the sheath of fear
then light came knocking
love crept through the frail stem
now
she’s raising her hand
she’s gonna raise every banner, every petal, every talent
open it up to the sun.

Bard Judith / Judy Alkema, 2013, shared with permission

~~~

â€œI have a lot of faith. But I am also afraid a lot, and have no real certainty about anything. I remembered something Father Tom had told me–that the opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty. Certainty is missing the point entirely. Faith includes noticing the mess, the emptiness and discomfort, and letting it be there until some light returns.â€
~ Anne Lamott

The emptiness and discomfort. The mess. I know these, well. To be honest, I know them often.

If we are honest, are any of us certain? We are living in powerfully uncertain times.

Funny thing is, I know about creativity and the creative process, and about how it feels when I’m in the unknown. It feels crappy. And, it also feels invigorating and beautiful and alive, too. Somewhere we know things are cooking inside, in the dark, in the womb.

And, I know that if I simply sit in and feel the discomfort, that at some point ‘light’ comes in. It reminds me of the moon. How it goes black. And for a time it is void. And then we begin to see it again, even if it is just a tiny slice. If we didn’t ‘know’ about the moon, meaning understand that how it works, would we still just believe that it would return?

So what’s happening in the mess? in the discomfort and darkness? A lot. Even if we aren’t conscious of it, much is taking place. Just like in the ground when a seed is planted. And, just like the moon when it is void. The moon hasn’t disappeared. But we cannot see it.

After seeing this quote, I was working on the copy for my new course, Becoming a Force of Nature. I was scooting right along and then suddenly I compared. Myself to others. My course to others. My copy to other copy. And, boom, I suddenly had a billion, zillion thoughts swirling in my head, thoughts that seemed to make the discomfort even more uncomfortable.

Comparison is one of the worst things for creativity. It just kills it.

So, I stopped working on it.

I stopped. I just set it aside, made dinner, tidied up, read my book*, and got ready for bed. As I settled into bed, I reflected on the fogginess I’d found myself in. I felt the discomfort. And, I asked for guidance. Whether it be a dream, or something else, I actively asked to be shown what I didn’t yet know. I asked for something to come to light my way. With that, I turned out my light and went to sleep.

In the morning, as I often do, I posted a photo of a flower to Facebook (the one above). As I shared this flower (the one at the top of this post), I found myself typing in this description:

“I love this stage of unfurling, when that first petal shows itself in full.
It’s a vulnerable place that we humans know, too.
Yet, look how gorgeous it is to begin to reveal.”

I woke up feeling much lighter about this place of vulnerability. What I chose to share was both intuition and muse.

And then… Boom. Boom. Boom. Suddenly, clear things appeared to light my way.

My friend shared that they felt in this place, too. I asked her how it felt, and she wrote,

“It feels beautiful, sacred, inevitable. And exposed, tender, vulnerable.
The precursor to full bloom feels like an intense risk.
And yet, it’s the risk I can’t afford not to take.”

And Judy shared the poem at the top of this post, titled Raising Her Hand. It caused my breath to catch. Here it is, again.

Raising Her Hand

Bard Judith / Judy Alkema, 2013, shared with permission

Friends messaged me privately. They wrote about how the light came to them…and they knew nothing about this quote above.

Another friend, Kelly Letky, shared this pos tÂ where she offers,

“And you, yes you, the one who saysÂ I am lost. Look into your heart. There are flowers growing there, right now.

Bloom.

Wonder.

Wander.

Breathe.“

And then I knew. I could see how the flower unfolding fit so beautifully with my new course.

And, with that, I was back on track. I had a much better sense of what women are feeling with regards to allowing themselves to give way to the delicious, yet sometimes frightening, wild life force that courses through us…this wild force of nature.

Life is a mirror reflecting in an infinite number of ways and directions.

What about this opening…

this unveiling of ourselves, our true selves? That vulnerable place we feel when we decide to reveal another pink layer of soul we’ve never shared with the world. Are these places as tender as the wound we’re trying to protect? Are they strong and vital and ready to be known and seen? Does the tenderness come from the wound itself, rather than from the fresh soul flesh exposed?

Perhaps the real lesson is to come to live this this wisdom from Meister Eckhart:Â ‘the ground of the soul is dark.’

It is this rich dark from which everything is born. When I come to uncertainty, I am being invited into the ground of the soul. I wonder if this has to feel uncomfortable? I wonder if I can open to it in a new way, without all of the things I ‘make up’ about it?

Wondering reminds me of what Kelly shared, “Look into your heart. There are flowers growing there, right now.”

This impulse to blossom is strong within us. It is the force of nature pushing its way to birth and growth. When we try to deny it, it causes us pain and suffering.

Eventually the suffering of denial becomes greater than our fears of who we might be if we do reveal ourselves.

This is the place I am interested in, this place where discomfort seems to be so, but in closer light perhaps it is the drawing close to soul that is really causing this dis-ease because to know soul we must be shaken and transformed. The shell of the seed must crack and be destroyed so what is within can grow forth.

~~~

Today, September 18th, is the opening day for The Business of Soul Telesummit, hosted by Jennifer Urezzio. I’m honored to be one of over 32 speakers sharing wisdom about being in the spotlight. My interview is titled “You Belong in the Spotlight.” and I talk about … Belonging.

The telesummit is free and you sign up here.

~~~

Revised Sept 26, 2013:

My new course,Â Becoming a Force of Nature, is open for registration. There will be a set number of openings as this will be the first run. And as the first run, it will be priced lower than subsequent offerings.

If you’ve read my work for a while, you know what I’m about. While I’ve taught many places, this is the first big course I’ve offered online. Â I am really excited about it and I’d love to have you join me.

* The book I’m reading? (Marianne Elliot’s, Zen Under Fire, which is fantastic!)

March 8, 2013March 8, 2013

International Women’s Day – Coming Home to Soul

As we celebrate International Women’s Day, 2013, let us reclaim what it is to be a whole women. There are aspects of womanhood that have been dormant during these times of patriarchal ways, yet we are now in times of remembering these ways.Â Let us guide each other back into living the wholeness of womanhood.

We’ve all (men and women) been well trained in the ways of the masculine mind. Itâ€™s the basis for our school systems. Weâ€™ve been trained to believe in, and be good at, black and white thinking, linear problem solving, and rational decision-making. Weâ€™ve been taught to value bullet points over poetic imagery, clear thinking over murky emotions, and rugged individuality over interconnectedness. While helpful in some areas of life, in reality, as a way to live life, this training hurts us all, and it especially hurts women.

The linear, rational mind thatâ€™s been conditioned to believe it has all the answers, can control and dominate life, and should be the master over feeling and mystery, is not very good at navigating life.

Life is inherently messy.

Life is unknowable.

Life is full of a multitude of experiences.

Life is always changing.

When the conditioned mind believes it is omnipotent, we make decisions (really important decisions) based on ‘hard facts’ – numbers, data, and rational reasoning. We forget we have hearts and bodies. We forget we have souls. We forget we are connected to the web of life. We forget we have an intuitive capacity that is far more intelligent and capable of living life and than our rational capacity could ever hope to be.

We begin to believe we are our thinking patterns and emotional tailspins.

As a young girl, I was wildly energetic and vivaciously in love with color and creation. I remember how it felt â€“ so much beauty, so much feeling, and so much joy. But as I got older, it became clear that the logical, rational mind was king, and everything not logical was to be distrusted. And as I got older, our home became more chaotic, with a deep sense of impending doom. As life became crazy, I longed to have something to gauge things by. Good grades, following rules, being polite became important ways to feel in control and good about myself.

So womenâ€™s consciousness can hold many things in relationship all the time. But what happened in the last centuries is that as women became educated in schools and colleges designed by men to teach men how to think in a masculine way, they absorbed this masculine consciousness. They overlaid their feminine relationship understanding with a masculine mind. And because they wanted to succeed in a manâ€™s world, they focused their energy on this masculine way of thinking. But it doesnâ€™t fully work for them â€“ it is not in harmony with their real natureâ€¦

~Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, The Return of the Feminine and the World Soul

Goodness in this culture is evaluated in a hierarchical, black and white wayâ€¦the very essence of the conditioned masculine mind. I learned that wildness and abandon were at the bottom of the scale, ways of being to push away, while a good grasp of math and science was near the top, with obedience to rules (for girls and women) at the very top.

The chaos I felt as a child became manageable if I could find something to hold me, something rigid and knowable, something that felt like structure, and so following the rules gave me a sense of rigidity that allowed me to let go and breathe. Well, not really â€“ it actually caused me to be tight and only breath down to my neck, but then the mind is good at making up fibsâ€¦big fat fibs.

When the nuclear family isnâ€™t so nuclear, we long to feel something is holding us. And when we grow up in a culture that only values the nuclear family, we find we donâ€™t have a village to hold us, and we donâ€™t have an understanding of interconnectedness or how this interconnectedness might already be available to us through life itself.

To a certain extent, most of us in the west have been trained to not trust these things, so we neither create them, nor do we look for them. Weâ€™ve been taught to believe the earth is dead, so we feel no sense of belonging to something larger than this culture that is hell-bent on women following the rules.

Hence, I internalized a hunter, a predator. This hunter would track down anything too wild, too out there, and too far from the top of the chart of goodness and kill it, and then toss it into the shadow regions to decay. In the wild girlâ€™s place, a good girl was born that was rigid, had to be right, and most importantly had to be polite and nice â€“ although those things donâ€™t really go together do they? Having to be right isnâ€™t really truly nice, is it? Itâ€™s funny how none of this is logical at all.

I donâ€™t know about you, but I do know that everything Iâ€™ve been taught about the â€˜way things areâ€™ is being blown apart by the very clear recognition that nothing is the way it seems to be.

Over the past two decades, Iâ€™ve been breaking free from this internal hunter â€“ the one that learned that safety comes from figuring things out, from knowing what is good vs. bad, from being nice and polite and hiding all the juicy, delectable parts of that wild child. This breaking apart has come in chunks, sometimes it comes in big chunks that leave me a bit lost and befuddled.

Deconstruction of the mind is a funny thing. The more it deconstructs, the more I see and know the lack of any kind of solid structure. Yet, what I have found is the heart, the heart and soul that are so beautiful at living a life that is mysterious by nature. While the conditioned mind loves rigidity and structure, the heart knows something the mind could never know â€“ it knows truth, and it knows the soul, which also knows wildness and abandon.

The soul calls us home, and like a wild animal, it leaves a scent as it moves through the brush. But this scent is not a scent the hunter can find. The soul is wily this way.

No, the hunter has no business in this soul brush, so the soul leaves a scent that only the wild child can find. Iâ€™ve had to get down on all fours, nose to the earth to discover it. Iâ€™ve had to walk barefoot through the mud again; Iâ€™ve had to dance until the sweat pours off me and then dance some more; Iâ€™ve had to paint large swaths of yellow paint across the paper to remember what this wild child loved; and, Iâ€™ve had to leave relationships that I used as structures of seeming safety rather than openings to soul.

Iâ€™ve had to come to see that there is no safety, not the kind I longed to know as a child.

What there is instead, now that this child is older and wiser, is a deep belonging to the earth, a belonging that cannot be denied by political positioning, nor laws that donâ€™t honor this womanâ€™s body.

Iâ€™ve come to know an autonomy that can only be found within the realm of the soul. Iâ€™ve come home to a longing for the divine that can only be traversed through the deepest, most interior chambers of the heart.

Coming home to the soul is the coming home weâ€™ve longed for our entire lives.Â May we come to remember that we are held by the earth and by the web of life, and may we remember our responsibility to the children, to this earth and all of her creatures, and to each other, women and men.

This post was originally written for and posted at Roots of She.

image “Silver Waterfall” ByÂ onlynickÂ :Â Â Some rights reserved

January 3, 2012

Persistence. Grace. Unfurling.

Less

After a long, long week of wonderfully internal time, slow quiet mornings and a few days of being really sick, I’m re-entering this new year with less.

Yes, less.

A little less weight from being sick, but also less looking, less sense of internal chaos, less wanting.

A great load has been lifted from how I experience life. And, with the lifting of this load, there is a marked experience of less veiling, less pushing, and less of a need to search for something that never was attainable.

None of this was necessarily a beautiful spiritual experience. Ha. I suppose there is such a thing. Yes, I suppose I have had them. But I don’t want to make it sound like this was all grace and light and beauty. It was painful. And that pain was beautiful, is beautiful. It was real. I felt things I had stuffed for eons, things I didn’t want to feel, but finally came to realize there was no avoiding it if I wanted to know peace…and be free.

I saw things about myself that aren’t pretty, ways I can be, ways I have been with others, ways I hold myself back: self-righteousness, jealousy, wanting to be special, wanting to be wanted, and how damn careful I can be…

In being with these parts of myself, really being with them with love, I came to see that at the heart of each of these unskillful habits is a pearl, a little gem of goodness and truth that was the seed of what grew into behavior was absolutely necessary at the time and saved my little psyche. AND, as an adult this behavior certainly wasn’t helpful in my relationships with others or with myself.

Shedding, unfurling, letting go…all beautiful acts of both persistence and grace.

Speaking of Unfurling

I’d love for you to take a look at this interview I did with Amy Kessel, ACC, a coach and simply a beautiful woman. Video is not my favorite form of communicating, but with Amy it was a lot of fun. She has a gracious presence that drew me in from the moment I first met her by Skype.

Her question of me and other women is, How are you unfurling? A lovely question. I think it’s a great one for all of us to ask ourselves.

While at Amy’s site, check out her other interviews on unfurling with Jennifer Louden, Ronna Detrick, and Kate Courageous.

Happy New Year!

Julie

April 21, 2011April 23, 2011

Something Different for Earth Day

The task for women is to consciously live their unique connection with the earth. The earth needs to stay connected with consciousness. Matter is so dense, and consciousness vibrates at a much finer frequency, and matter needs consciousness. You can look at it as women providing a way for the earth to be conscious. ~ Angela Fischer, shared by Hilary Hart in The Unknown She

Last year, the United Nations designated April 22 International Mother Earth Day. I didnâ€™t know they had inserted the word Motherâ€¦nice.

I’ve spent a fair number of hours in these past weeks taking walks in the park across the street, a park filled with redwoods, creeks, a lake, all sorts of furry, scaly and winged creatures, and even a merry-go-round.

On my walks, I’ve been noticing how the earth is so alive, so available, so nourishing. As I walk, I feel the same aliveness is me, in the body, and I notice how deeply connected I am to her. I notice that as I am acutely aware of my own consciousness in the body, my awareness of her deepens. and vice versa.

Something Different for Earth Day

What is this deep connection women have with the earth?

Friends left some beautiful comments on my last post, Earth’s Embrace:

Colette: This is the most important thing we can do for Gaia today…simply engage with her.

Marjory: The Earth comes even more alive when we truly see and feel Her.

She comes alive, and we come more alive. There is a deep relatedness between women and the earth.

I’m feeling something different for earth day could truly bring us all more vibrantly alive.

Coming to know the earth in this manner, woman to earth to woman, can help us all to awaken.

Rainer Marie Rilke wrote:

“Women, in whom life lingers and dwells more immediately, more fruitfully, and more confidently, must surely have become riper and more human in their depths than light, easygoing man, who is not pulled down beneath the surface of life by the weight of any bodily fruit and who, arrogant and hasty, undervalues what he thinks he loves.”

Immediate.

Fruitful

Riper.

Pulled down beneath the surface.

In our depths.

In our bodies.

Open and receptive to life.

Surrendered to life entering.

Creating and birthing new life.

As of the earth,

so as of women.

The old Irish saying, “May the road rise up to meet you” is a wonderful experience when you can really feel the earth meeting your foot.

When I consciously walk on the earth (in the happiest moments, I am barefoot), it’s as if the earth is meeting each footstep, meeting the foot, coming into relationship with each step. The earth is not just a lump of dirt…it is alive. It meets us, especially if we meet her, giving her our love with each step. I’m not sure the Irish meant that, but then perhaps they did.

One practice I give my coaching clients is that of ‘Lotioning’. I want to share it here, because it is such a lovely way to awaken the cells of the body with awareness and love.

Lotioning Practice

Find a nice lotion, one you really love the fragrance and feel of.
For a generous amount of time, at least 10 minutes, give yourself complete time and space to silently apply lotion to each part of your body, in this particular way. You can begin with any part of the body, but for example we’ll begin with the thigh.
Apply the lotion with your hand to your thigh, with awareness in your hand as it touches the thigh. Be aware that you are the lotioner, applying lotion to the leg.
Switch, and allow your awareness to be in your thigh, so you are the one being lotioned, aware there is a hand applying lotion to you. Feel the experience of being lotioned.
Switch back and forth, from lotioner to lotionee. Feel each sensation of applying lotion, and each sensation of being lotioned.
Repeat with your entire body, area by area.
As you lotion, notice if there are areas of the body where it is more difficult to be aware. Be kind to yourself as you enter these areas. Lotion lightly, yet continue to invite awareness into the cells there. If emotions arise, feel them, and let them move through you.

Take this awareness outside

You can take this same awareness outside to the earth.
Find a soft place to walk barefoot.
As you walk, become aware of your feet, each foot as you step on it. Feel the ground underneath each foot.
As you become more aware of the earth beneath your foot, be curious about any awareness you experience in the earth beneath your foot. Allow yourself to be surprised.

While to many, these practices may not seem as important or practical as what we’ve been taught to do on Earth Day, and everyday, anything that brings women into closer communion with the earth may be some of the most important ways we pay reverence and respect to this beautiful home that provides for us day in and day out.

I’ve discovered a direct correlation between how awake I am in my own body and how aware I am of the earth’s aliveness. The more aware I am of how little respect and love I’ve had for this body, the more aware I am of how unconscious I have been of the earth and all she provides.

May the earth rise up to meet you and may you come to know her as vibrantly alive and awake, and may we all come to know, in the cells of all matter, how sacred life is.