Archive for Being the Change
Becoming Myself
Posted by: | CommentsI ran across a brief note to myself today, a sentence from a seminar I took awhile ago. “We are here to flourish and bloom!” What an interesting lens to look at my current life through and to look at what I want to create. January is a month for focusing on the theme for the rest of my year, and this little sentence may be a key to a change in emphasis for me.
As is true of many women, my family has been a primary focus in my life. First it was as a sister and daughter, then as a Mother and wife, and most recently as a Grandmother. These are roles though, not who I am. Sometimes these roles have created a time of blooming and flourishing; sometimes there has been strife and angst. After all of that though, they are still roles I play and have played, not the truth of who I am.
Speaking with a very dear friend today brought some of this into sharper focus for me. What if we cannot become as powerful and useful as we are supposed to be unless we are able to leave behind all those roles and push off into the unknown terrain of Wise Woman/Crone? Maybe the ties that bind me to a definite place in my family of birth and origin actually keep me from becoming myself? Can I step into my own wisdom and power as an elder if I do not loosen the tethers I have to the roles of the younger me?
Another statement from this same slip of paper is equally intriguing. “The extent that the world is working is the extent we are stepping into our power.” Applied to the previous ideas, this speaks to me of allowing my deeper, wiser self to emerge and be as powerful as I can sense her to be. I have gifts and talents that can be of use in the world and they have remained under the proverbial bushel for fear it would make someone else seem ‘less’ or take the spotlight off of one of my own.
The ‘everyone else comes first’ idea is from a time when we didn’t live this long with as much health as we have now. In many ways we are on the very edge of the known Universe looking into an unknown future. It occurs to me that we are the elders that have the life skills, the time, the health, and the wisdom to step fearlessly (or not so fearlessly) into what CAN be instead of what has already been.
Dream your dream of how the world can look and feel! Allow the juiciness and passion of the best Earth has to offer us fill your thoughts, and picture a future we can all prosper in. What have you learned by living that allows you to see into a future of beauty? What didn’t work and what brought you gifts beyond expectation? Where is love found and how do you and I cultivate our lives so that each one of us flourishes and blooms? Create a vision of healthy foods, clear, clean water, and vibrant communities that care for the Earth we live in. Dare to breathe in these possibilities above all others, and we can go there together.
We each know the qualities and attributes that are present inside us that give our lives deep meaning, joy, and beauty. We also know that these are the very things that create a peaceful and prosperous world for us – regardless of possessions, position, and cold hard cash. Now, finally, this is what is important in my life. I have lived long enough and lived through enough situations that I do not fear being ‘thrown out into the cold’ so to speak. Been there; done that and I’m here to tell you it’s just another curve in the road. Wait a minute and this too will change.
My true power is within, and I have been funding it all of my life – with all of my life! Now I am ready to claim what I am, and use all the power that I have, to help create a world flourishing and flowering with the best that we have to give. Walk in beauty, my friends, flourish and bloom.
Happy New Year!
Posted by: | CommentsA Happy New Year to you! It’s the end of a year and the end of a decade. All of the planets are direct (no retrograde planets – not even Mercury!) It’s the end of a Lunar cycle as the moon is in the last quarter and is waning. This is a good time to be very still and become clear about what you want to release , let go of, weed out of your life. This is also a time to ask yourself what you want to take with you into the next year and the next decade.
The ceremony I do tonight calls up my gratitude and joy for the lessons learned in 2010, honors all the pieces and parts I am leaving in the old year and then I write them on a piece of paper which I burn (safely). The smoke carries them into the past.
Now I write what I want to acknowledge, receive, explore, and create in the new year – a manifestation list. I write it in my journal so that I can look at it and read it during the year. I also throw very tiny pinches of sacred herb into a flame as I read each item out loud. This smoke carries my words into the future.
Next I light a new candle and I do a reading for the New Year: with Runes, Medicine Cards, and/or Sacred Path Cards. Any Personal Oracle will do in whatever combination works for you: I Ching, tea leaves, Angel Cards, etc.
This is another way to bring in the New Year…and it deepens the New Years Eve experience into something that contains a lot of personal awareness. When no time is taken for self examination, course corrections, and allowing beliefs to change, we are in ‘default’ mode. That means the same-old-same-old on into the future. That is going to become very uncomfortable from now on! Right now rapid change is inevitable so we might as well go with it and surrender as fast as possible.
Calling in what you want in the New Year has two parts this year. Right after mid-night (or first thing in the morning of January 1st if you go to bed early) I read my manifestation list; then again 12 hours after the first new moon (night of Tuesday January 4th or the morning of Wednesday January 5th). Remember to say the list out loud and breathe after each item.
As you know, when steering something you are constantly making corrections with the steering wheel or tiller. Remember to do the same with your life’s journey. Steer it to avoid the potholes, the speed bumps, and that cliff up ahead! Keep your eyes on both the destination and the moment. Change only happens in this moment so make very good use of it. That’s what will finally deliver you to your destination, or not!
So Happy New Year! Remember that all is sacred. Here is a poem sent to me by a very dear friend and I want to share it with you. It is from the book I Send a Voice, by Evelyn Eaton, 1978:
Great Spirit,
Whose voice we hear in the winds,
Whose breath gives life to the world,
we would restore what greed
has taken from the Earth.
Great Spirit,
we are blind and deaf,
Open your eyes to us
that we may see.
open your ears in us
that we may hear compassion
open your compassion in us
that we may have compassion
upon the Earth.
upon our Mother Earth.
Great Spirit,
may our feet walk gently,
may our hands respect her,
may we learn the lessons
in every leaf and rock,
may our strength restore her.
Great Spirit,
When we face the sunset
when we come singing
the last song, may it be
without shame, singing
‘it is finished in beauty,
it is finished in beauty!’
—
Sacred Women
Posted by: | CommentsLast week I spent 4 days in ceremony with 33 other women. I have never before had the privilege, never had the pleasure, of women coming together for sacred play. We laughed and drummed, cried and comforted, danced a new vision, dreamed a new dream, and deeply reconnected to Honua, PachaMama, Turtle Island, Mother Earth. We were called to the Grandmother’s Summit celebrating Turtle Island during the new moon, the Turtle Moon. Each one of us was called to come even though there was no program, no schedule of events, no description of the time to be spent together. We just knew.
We ranged in age from the 20’s to the 80’s; we covered a broad spectrum of races, cultures, and practices. And we were ONE. There was enough trust, enough acceptance, enough appreciation, and enough safety to be who I truly am without ‘toning it down’. All of us are teachers, healers, channels of the Divine, and dedicated to focusing our energy towards a new dream of the world.
We women, in many other groups like this one, are gathering to support each other, to support ourselves, and to support the world shift to a new consciousness. As we become more and more aware of the role we play in this shift, women are standing hand in hand, heart to heart, in communities bound by love, integrity, joy, sacredness of all that is, and allow the Great Female to emerge anew. With hearts wide open, we are united in our dedication to passing this beautiful Earth on to the next seven generations.
This is the eleventh hour; this is the call; this is what all of you have been waiting for. The Grandmothers are calling and when Grandmother says something in that tone of voice, it brooks no compromise. It is just so.
All of you women who have stood with your feet planted, arms folded or fists on your hips and said: “Not in my home! This will not happen in my home, ever again!” are now joining and in one voice and a million voices simply saying: “No more.”
It is time to roll up your sleeves and do what women do best: Pray for strength, pray for inspiration, join each other, sing the work songs, and just plain clean up this mess! This can be done from wherever you are – in tiny ways and in big ways. Do one thing at a time: stop buying plastic bags; use cloth napkins; buy fair trade and local stuff. Don’t know how? Read some of my other columns and ask me to come teach a class in all sorts of easy ways to slow down buying and throwing away. (Where is ‘away’?)
There is an astonishing array of ways to connect and become part of a new way of being. Find one. You are my family, and I am yours. We can do this if we all stand together. You are needed and you are unique. No one else can do what you do. Come join the the biggest change in the history of humankind! It’ll be a gas!
