We Are the Earth

 

“You carry Mother Earth within you.
She is not outside of you.
Mother Earth is not just your environment.
In that insight of inter-being,
it is possible to have real communication
with the Earth,
which is the highest form of prayer.”

- Thich Nhat Hanh
October 11, 1926 - January 22, 2022

 
 

Feeling the embrace of “Grandmother Tree” on January 22, 2022

 

Dear Wise Women,

As you know, the Treasure Trove and the themes we explore in our circles are not pre-planned. Each week, in the “space between” our gatherings, I reflect on the words we shared and feel into the energies we activated. While tending to the various aspects of my daily life, I strive to weave the wisdom we have cultivated into all that I think, feel and do. It is my sense (and hope) that each of you, in your own way, are also having this experience.

Sparked by the Charles Eisenstein video we watched last week, I really felt into what he calls “the story of separation”. As we have explored in the past few weeks, and in many of our sessions before, the belief that we are separate from one another, and from life itself, creates a divide and an insurmountable gap between who we are and who we want to be. Furthermore the belief that the gap is empty prevents us from accessing the life giving potential that actually exists in the space between (also known as the uncertain and the unpredictable). We have talked about how aligning our thoughts and feelings with the energy of love not only bridges this gap, but turns unimaginable possibilities into reality. We have even dared to call our ability to do this “magic”.

I believe it was the feeling of magic combined with Charles Eisenstein’s words to “trust what makes you come alive as valid source of information” that percolated through me the most this past week. Like so many of you, I feel most alive when I am in nature, so this week I really paid attention to this feeling.

When I let myself feel the elements of nature rather than view them as an object, something magical occurred. I noticed a dissolution of the space between me and the earth. I have always been able to appreciate the beauty of a tree and many times I have felt the energy of the trees, but never before have I felt a complete union with the trees like I did this week. I believe that by bringing my awareness to the space between me and the tree I activated the field of life that inherently connects us.

While embraced by a tree I lovingly call “Grandmother”, I heard the words:

“I am you. You are me.”

Serendipitously, I was emailed a passage entitled “We Are the Earth” written by the beloved Buddhist monk, Thich Naht Hanh. The email came just just four days before Thich Naht Hanh’s passing.

Let us feel deeply into his words and let us remember what we once knew to be true.

Love Patti

 

Thich Nhat Hanh after the stroke he suffered in November of 2014. Photo courtesy of Plum Village.

At this very moment, the Earth is above you, below you, all around you, and even inside you. The Earth is everywhere. You may be used to thinking of the Earth as only the ground beneath your feet. But the water, the sea, the sky, and everything around us comes from the Earth. Everything outside us and everything inside us comes from the Earth. We often forget that the planet we are living on has given us all the elements that make up our bodies. The water in our flesh, our bones, and all the microscopic cells inside our bodies all come from the Earth and are part of the Earth. The Earth is not just the environment we live in. We are the Earth and we are always carrying her within us.

Realizing this, we can see that the Earth is truly alive. We are a living, breathing manifestation of this beautiful and generous planet. Knowing this, we can begin to transform our relationship to the Earth. We can begin to walk differently and to care for her differently. We will fall completely in love with the Earth. When we are in love with someone or something, there is no separation between ourselves and the person or thing we love. We do whatever we can for them and this brings us great joy and nourishment. That is the relationship each of us can have with the Earth.

If we think about the Earth as just the environment around us, we experience ourselves and the Earth as separate entities. We may see the planet only in terms of what it can do for us. We need to recognize that the planet and the people on it are ultimately one and the same. . . .

- Thich Naht Hanh

 

In reading the above words and honouring Thich Naht Hanh’s death, I was reminded of a saying of his that I particularly love:

“Walk as if your feet are kissing the earth.”

And this got me thinking of the magical mycelium network. To me there is no greater proof that the earth is alive and that we are not just living on the earth but are intrinsically part of it!

 

“The earth is more than just a home, it is a living system and we are part of it.”

- James Loveback, “The Gaia Hypothesis”

 
 

“Mycelium Dreaming” by Autumn Skye Morrison

Dear Wise Women,

Will you dare to dream with me?

Let us imagine.

Let us activate our deepest memories.

Let’s build bridges and let’s cross back over them

to a time when we knew we were

One with Mother Earth, and

One with all of her creations?

Dream with me…

 

We Are Divine Creators

 

“When we fully lay down the old, familiar life or mind and start creating the new, there is a moment between the two worlds that is bereft of anything we know, and most rush back from this void to the familiar.

That place of uncertainty—the unknown—is what the maverick, the mystic, and the saint know to be fertile ground. To live in the realm of the unpredictable is to be all potentials at once. Can you become comfortable in this empty space? If you can, you are at the nexus of a great creative power, the ‘I am’. “
- Dr. Joe Dispenza, “Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself”

 

Dear Wise Women,

Last week, during our exploration of “the space between” we both conceptualized and felt the aliveness of the space between ourselves and others, and the space between who we are on the inside and who we present to the outer world. As we shared, when mired in the memory of painful emotions this space feels more like gap or a divide that has the potential to create unbearable separation and disconnection. If left unobserved and unattended, we can spend an entire lifetime living in this painful gap between “who we are” and “who we want to be”.

It is my desire, with your help of course, to transform how we view this gap. Through awareness and intention infused with gratitude and compassion, we have the ability to bridge the gap and to open up entirely new pathways. The “space between” is actually a field of electromagnetic potential and, as humans, we can raise the potential of this field through our capacity to love. When mind and body are aligned and in coherence with the vibration of love we can create a more beautiful world…and to do so in an entirely surprising ways.

“Love is the bridge between you and everything.”
- Rumi

I now wish to share a beautiful and inspiring video created by someone I deeply respect, Charles Eisenstein. His words and the animation speak to all I am trying to convey and, so I wish to share this with you now. 💕

 

Here is an excerpt from the video:

“If we can accept that we don’t know how this world works…
that our understanding of causality is very very limited…
and in fact come from the story of separation.

Then we are plunged into the mystery where we have to rely on some other impulse to guide us in making choices about how to spend our time and how to devote our gifts.

So one of those impulses could be:

What is that makes you come alive?

And do it for no other reason because it makes you come alive, because it gives you a feeling of life.

Ultimately what we are in service to is life.

To serve life means first and foremost serving life within yourself and accepting what makes you come alive as a valid source of information to guide your choices.”

 
 

“If we look at this tree outside whose roots search beneath the pavement for water, or a flower which sends its sweet smell to the pollinating bees, or even our own selves and the inner forces that drive us to act, we can see that we all dance to a mysterious tune, and the piper who plays this melody from an inscrutable distance—whatever name we give him—Creative Force, or God—escapes all book knowledge.”

- Albert Einstein

 

The Space Between

 

“When we see ourselves as the sun and everyone we meet as planets in our orbit, we are trapped in the I-It relationship, objectifying everyone we meet.

But when we can meet others as equal living beings, each with their own center, then we live out the I and Thou relationship, through which the Mystery manifests as a vital life-force between us.”

- Mark Nepo

 
 

“Beloved” by Autumn Skye Morrison

 

Dear Wise Women,

Oh my, what a journey it has been in the space between our last gathering and this one!

During my return back to my hometown and to my family of origin I was able to see many aspects of myself and my family in a new light. It seems that the physical space and the passage of time helped me to become aware of destructive patterns and habits. It also helped me to witness the gap between how I and others appeared externally and who we all really are (infinite love).

For the first portion of our visit I was able to observe these patterns with compassion and hold presence, and I was blessed to witness magical transformation between many family members. Buoyed by the river beneath the river, I was able to to stay in my heart and sense the liminal space where creativity and healing reside. It was more beautiful than words can describe!

Perhaps this was divinely orchestrated (who am I kidding…of course it was)! For had the pathway not been so elegantly paved, I am not sure that my heart would have opened up enough to move through what transpired during the second part of our visit (and continued upon our return to Salt Spring…and continues still).

Contracting Covid and becoming very ill triggered old wounds and propelled me into a state of emotional turmoil. I was taken over by memorized emotions from previous illnesses which, of course, amplified my suffering. In addition, I judged myself for spiralling into such emotional darkness and I be-rated myself saying “This is not who I am!”

And then one morning a fierce love arose through me - for me. And, with crystal clarity, this devoted force declared that she was not going to have anymore of these beliefs! It was time to clear the field and step into my integrated and true Self.

During my integration (which continues and will continue for a lifetime), I was guided to finally read some of Joe Dispenza’s work. I devoured one of his entire books in three days. As they say, when the student is ready, the teacher appears.

The following passage, especially stood out for me:

 

When we memorize addictive emotional states such as guilt, shame, anger, fear, anxiety, judgment, depression, self-importance, or hatred, we develop a gap between the way we appear and the way we really are. The former is how we want other people to see us. The latter is our state of being when we are not interacting with all of the different experiences, diverse things, and assorted people at various times and places in our lives. If we sit long enough without doing anything, we begin to feel something. That something is who we really are.

When how you appear is who you are, you are truly free.

- Dr. Joe Dispenza, “Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself”

 

I have come to notice that there is a

gap between

who I project to the outside world

and who I am on the inside.

Only recently have I been able to name this gap

and greet it with Compassion.

And from this place of compassion

I see bridges popping up

Bridges between my inner and outer self

Bridges between your heart and mine

Magical Bridges

transforming what used to be a division

into a world of vast potential.

Will you meet me on the bridge?

- Patti Wardlaw

Holding the Opposites

 

“If we can stay with the tension of opposites long enough —sustain it, be true to it—we can sometimes become vessels within which the divine opposites come together and give birth to a new reality.”

- Marie-Louise von Franz, Swizz Pshycholgist (1915-1988)

“The greater the tension, the greater is the potential. Great energy springs from a correspondingly great tension between opposites.”
- Carl Jung

 

Dear Wise Women,

In our first gathering of this session, I wrote:

“During the course of our eleven weeks together, spirit will guide us and bring forth many messages. We will deepen and we will explore. Guided by Grace, let it be so.”

And so it was. And so it is.

This week, like so many times before, the title for this week’s sharing came to me in the stillness (or what I have come to call the pause) in the time between our sharing circles and the creation of the next treasure trove. In truth, I felt tremendous resistance to the words “Holding the Opposites” and doubted the impulse to follow them. However, knowing that resistance has wisdom, I pushed myself to stay with it. I became very curious and I listened for answers. The answers didn’t come easily and several times my mind fully rejected the concept and searched for a different “theme”. But time and time again, in the stillness of my meditations and in the liminal space between sleeping and waking, all I heard was “Holding The Opposites”.

So I continued to sit with it.

Though my mind stayed muddled about what it actually meant to “hold the opposites”, my body most definitely felt it. It is very hard to describe the sensation and I hesitate to put words to it as I want you to feel it in your own way. What I can say is that by blending the word “hold” with “opposites” a new way of being with tension was created. It also seemed to draw me even deeper into the “peace inside of pain” that we explored last week. And so I referenced some of the words from last week and I was especially drawn to the passage of Mark Nepo’s that wise women Laurie had brought forward:

 

“The deepest place on Earth is not a physical place, but the stillness we enter at the bottom of our pain, at the bottom of our fear and worry. The stillness we enter there opens us to a spacious state of being that some call joy. When we put down our dreams and maps of memory, precious as they are, we can feel the pulse of life. “

 

After re-reading these words, the impulse became stronger and more clear and so I decided to see what others had written about “holding the opposites”. I was deeply moved by what I learned and at how seamlessly these teachings wove into all that we have been exploring together.

As always, I hope these words land tenderly and meet you where you are,

Patti

 

“Meaningful transformation is the secret aim of the tension inside life.”
- Micheal Meade

Whilst the two sides of a dilemma can appear to be irreconcilable opposites, at their heart they are one. In a genuine polarity, one side cannot exist without the other: up and down, happy and sad, male and female…to be in this world is to be part of the realm of opposites.

There are moments in our lives where we find that circumstances have brought some unresolved dynamic within us into critical focus. Perhaps we are having to decide whether or not to change jobs, pursue a new relationship, move house, or make decisions around care for an elderly relative, for example. When faced with challenges such as these we can experience ourselves becoming polarized, caught between opposing choices with no real idea of how to proceed. Once we have become hooked by the dilemma and the internal conflict that lies at the heart of it, the inherent tension can be hard to endure. 

The failure to engage with the tension of opposites in a way that leads to creative outcomes has big implications in the wider world. In the era in which we currently find ourselves it’s easy to observe how, as the future of the world appears increasingly uncertain and less secure, people have a tendency to become more divided in their thinking around all kinds of issues: religion, politics, national borders and identity, personal opinions even…all of these have become fertile ground for the rise of fundamentalism. As the sense of uncertainty grows in people, so does the tendency to seek the security of black and white ideas. Increasingly, it seems we don’t have the stomach for occupying the spaces in between which, in reality, contain many different shades of grey.  

The problem is that genuine solutions only appear where we are willing to risk some dissolution. We find internal tension uncomfortable, the lack of steady or familiar ground unsettling. In our eagerness to be at ease with ourselves again, we are tempted to choose one side of a dilemma prematurely. There can be relief in extricating ourselves from the feeling of internal conflict but, in bringing the debate to a conclusion too soon, we miss out on a greater opportunity. Rather than having brought about a genuine resolution, we find the issue merely reappears in another form further down the road, or it manifests again at a deeper level of life.

What we often fail to appreciate is that the tension we encounter in this kind decision making is, in essence, a creative force - one that has the potential to bring renewal into our lives. More than that, this tension of the opposites, as Jung called it, can in fact be a necessary pre-condition for real transformation to occur - it's how we grow. If we are able to hold the tension, rather than rushing to choose one option over the other, there is the potential for something new to emerge. This third possibility could be an idea, an image, a feeling, a fresh way of understanding our situation, or a new way of inhabiting it. Its arrival on the scene resolves our dilemma in a way that transcends the need to choose one side over another.

As mature individuals, we need to develop the ability to allow an issue to grow in complexity and tension inside us long enough for the possibility of a previously unknown or unseen solution to appear. For a third way to emerge, we may need to be willing to allow our ideas about how the outcome should look to dissolve, and to recover our ability to be surprised.

- Gavin Conochie (inspired by Carl Jung and Michael Meade)

“Short-term thinking always tries to avoid the genuine need to hold the opposites long enough for a third way to emerge.”
- Michael Meade

 


I also can’t resist sharing one of my favourite (and often quoted) passages from Pema Chodron:

 

“We are at a time when old systems and ideas are being questioned and falling apart, and there is a great opportunity for something fresh to emerge. I have no idea what that will look like and no preconceptions about how things should turn out, but I do have a strong sense that the time we live in is a fertile ground for training in being open-minded and open-hearted. If we can learn to hold this falling apart–ness with- out polarizing and without becoming fundamentalist, then whatever we do today will have a positive effect on the future.”

- Pema Chodron

 

Finally, in closing I share more of the poem that I began last week’s treasure trove with. You can imagine my surprise when this poem was quoted in a blog I read entitled “Holding the Tension of the Opposites”. I remain ever grateful for the synchronicities that continue to guide the way.

 

And a woman spoke, saying Tell us of Pain.

And he said:
Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.
Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain.
And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy;
And you would accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass over the fields.
And you would watch with serenity through the winters of your grief.

Much of your pain is self-chosen,
It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self.
Therefore trust the physician, and drink his remedy in silence and tranquility:
For his hand, though heavy and hard, is guided by the tender hand of the Unseen’
And the cup he brings, though it burn your lips, has been fashioned of the clay which the Potter has moistened with His own sacred tears.

- Kahlil Gibran

 

The Peace Inside of Pain

And a woman spoke, saying

Tell us of Pain.

And he said:

Your pain is the breaking of the

shell that encloses your understanding.

Even as the stone of the fruit must break,

that its heart may stand in the sun,

So must you know pain.

- Kahlil Gibran

 

“ All of western medicine is built on getting rid of pain, which is not the same as healing. Healing is the actual capacity to hold pain.”
- Gabor Mate

 

“When we are training in the art of peace, we are not given any promises that, because of our noble intentions, everything will be okay. In fact, there are no promises of fruition at all. Instead, we are encouraged to simply look deeply at joy and sorrow, at laughing and crying, at hoping and fearing, at all that lives and dies. We learn that what truly heals is gratitude and tenderness.”

- Pema Chodron

Dear Wise Women,

I am sitting at my keyboard sifting through the numerous quotes and poems that I have gathered for this week’s Treasure Trove. Each one seems so important and I feel a need to share them all with you. At first this “need” feels like an inspiration, an impulse to create…so I go with it.

But as I try to form words, I notice that I am hitting the backspace key way more than the enter key. Frustrated by this, I pause and I close my eyes, take a few deep breaths and drop into my body. Almost immediately, I sense a frenetic energy fueling this need to share, underneath it I sense a swirling eddy and my body’s response is to kick to the shore, to grab a branch, to cling to anything that feels solid…even words.

I breathe, relax and find the courage to go deeper, to sense what is beneath the eddy. I surrender, and I eventually I feel it - beyond the stirred up sediment, past the broken tree branches, I find the stillness, the source that knows all. And I remember, that it was from this source that the title for the Treasure Trove arose.

The words “Peace Inside of Pain” arose earlier this week. They came to me later in the day on Tuesday, in the wake of the storms and destruction in BC. Within moments of their arrival, wise woman, Melanie texted me the above poem by Kahlil Gibran. A few days later, my yoga teacher shared the following poem by Mark Nepo*. In addition to both of these direct confirmations, spirit continued to send several messages and signs to follow this impulse - to invite you to journey with me to the eye of the storm and discover the peace inside of pain.

And now, the most clear message of all has arrived. There is no one path in. There is no one way. We each have a unique discovery to make.

And so it is.

I leave you with these words. May these words meet you where you are and may you feel held in the journey.

Love Patti

* UPDATE (added on Nov 23rd):
Synchronicities continue to occur. In our Monday evening circle, wise woman Laurie shared a passage by Mark Nepo that speaks directly to the concept I have attempted to capture in this treasure trove. Laurie is taking an online course with Mark Nepo and he shared the passage .”The Gift of Deepening” in his class this past Sunday morning. Laurie was very moved that she had received Mark’s message and the message of this Treasure Trove on the same day. I was also very moved by this synchronicity and by Mark’s words, so much so, that I have added his passage to the Treasure Trove - I find it even more poignant than the poem I originally chose (also by Mark). I include both here for you.

ACCEPTING THIS

Yes, it is true. I confess,
I have thought great thoughts,
and sung great songs—all of it
rehearsal for the majesty
of being held.

The dream is awakened
when thinking I love you
and life begins
when saying I love you
and joy moves like blood
when embracing others with love.

My efforts now turn
from trying to outrun suffering
to accepting love
wherever I can find it.

Stripped of causes and plans
and things to strive for,
I have discovered everything
I could need or ask for
is right here—
in flawed abundance.

We cannot eliminate hunger,
but we can feed each other.
We cannot eliminate loneliness,
but we can hold each other.

We cannot eliminate pain,
but we can live a life
of compassion.

Ultimately,
we are small living things
awakened in the stream,
not gods who carve out rivers.

Like human fish,
we’re asked to experience
meaning in the life that moves
through the gill of our heart.

There is nothing to do
and nowhere to go.

Accepting this,
we can do everything
and go anywhere.”

- By Mark Nepo, “The Way Under the Way: The Place of True Meeting”

The Gift of Deepening

 The deepest place on Earth is not a physical place, but the stillness we enter at the bottom of our pain, at the bottom of our fear and worry. The stillness we enter there opens us to a spacious state of being that some call joy. When we put down our dreams and maps of memory, precious as they are, we can feel the pulse of life. 

 Then all we could ask for is softly between us, when too tired to deny that there’s nowhere else to go. These moments of unfiltered depth are brief. We may only experience a handful of such openings in a lifetime. But like the strong chorus of stars that watch over us, we can navigate our way through the dark by following them. I’m thinking of the time we met in our grief after losing my father and your mother. We found ourselves sitting on the edge of our sorrow like a cliff we couldn’t leave or jump from. I’m thinking of the time we felt complete for no reason after falling in the grass with our dog and the light softened all we were carrying. 

 It is these visitations to the deepest place on Earth that make life bearable, that draw who we are more fully into the world, that help us grow softer and stronger at the same time. No one can will these moments to open. No one can find them in the same place twice. And no one can live without them.

- By Mark Nepo

Opening the Gates of Creation

 

“Inspiration is the impulse which sets creation in movement.”

- Roger Sessions, composer, teacher and musicologist (1896-1985)

“There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening, that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and will be lost.

- Martha Graham, dancer and author (1894-1991)

 

Dear Wise Women,

Will I ever cease to be amazed at how the path continues to unfold?

I knew when we parted two weeks ago that the seed had been planted for some beautiful transformation to occur. I certainly set this intention for myself, and for all of us.

As the days passed I noticed a rippling-out effect of the opening that has been occurring in my heart. I noticed a longing for Unconditioned and Unguarded Love to expand beyond my experience of being and to create a revolutionary new way of doing.

You see, for as long as I can remember I have been “working” to find more flow, ease and joy in my daily routine. Like so many of us in the modern world, I have searched for tools and techniques to reduce stress, make healthier choices, and “end” procrastination and distraction. And, to so some degree, I have had success. Yet, all along, I have heard a whisper from the still small voice inside, saying “darling, it need not be this difficult.”

So over the years, and especially the past few months, I have been relaxing into this message, and you, wise women, have been right there with me….floating down the river!

And in the relaxation, an inspiration has arisen. An inspiration to connect directly to the universal impulse of creation and to see how my daily movements, decisions and actions would be effected.

And so without any hesitation, I followed this inspiration and asked spirit to show me the way…and, as before, I was guided to embark on a journey.

I invite you to journey with me:

Guided by the steadfast compass of our hearts, we courageously enter the labyrinth. It is bigger than before. The expansion that has been taking place in our hearts has created an ever widening path for us to follow. We walk together and there is more ease to our navigation. We are lighter now. Our hearts are free of the conditioning and defending that has previously limited our ways of being.

Sensing the undercurrent of abundance flowing through us, we relax and let ourselves be moved. As we walk, our scope of vision expands even more and we see a gate at the center of the labyrinth. We look at our hands and realize that we are each holding a key.

Shocked by this apparition, we question what we are seeing, we wonder if it is safe, we even wonder if we deserve the key. And in this moment of doubt, the keys disappear and the path narrows. We feel constricted and we want out. We look at one another, seeking affirmation of the fear and panic we each feel.

But in the turning towards one another, something else happens. An impulse ripples through each of our hearts, causing a shiver of knowing to spread through our bodies. Our hearts open again, and, without a word spoken, the keys are returned.

We walk in silence now as we move towards the center of the labyrinth. With each mindful step we take, the earth bestows us with a new gift - a flower, a crystal, a bird, the warmth of the sun upon our faces. Full of wonder and completely present, we absorb it all.

As we get closer to the center we begin to sense a pulse gently beating through our bodies. This pulse has a quality that is similar to our heartbeat, but is not the same. It is connected to our breath, but it is not our breath. The pulse we feel is flowing beneath our breath - it is the source of our breath, the source of creation. It is the Mother of Love.

We walk on and the pulse gets stronger and we feel a surge of freedom and creativity, of ease and joy. We listen, we surrender and we allow the impulse to guide our movement.

And before we know it, we are all dancing along the path. From the ground level it looks like we are all moving in different ways, but from above, there is a beautiful synchronicity to our movements…each of us connected as we sway to the pulse and rhythm of our unique soul’s song.

We reach the gate and the doors open wide.

A light shines and the gift of creation is returned to us.

We remember.

We rejoice.

Uninhibited, we allow this pulse to beat through us and guide our every moment, our every action and every word.

Love Patti

Once we were given the gift of creation
with the light of the stars to guide our way home.

Yet with all our time here,
the layers of illusions just blocked memory of that which once was.

The seed of truth that was planted so very deep in our souls
waiting for a prayer or a wake up call from God
to glimpse some truth that reminds us of what we are really made of.

- Rev. Cindy Paulos.
* Listen to Wayne Dyer read this entire poem at https://insighttimer.com/cindypaulos/guided-meditations/wayne-dyer-the-gift-of-creation

Reclaiming Our Artistry

Before to-do lists and chores

Before passes and fails

Before pressure and responsibilities

There was another way

A way of moving, of being and doing

Building a tower of blocks

Painting with our fingers

Plunging our hands into sticky cookie dough

No hesitation, no fear, no worries about the mess that might follow

Only an unbridled desire to explore, to create,

To follow the impulse of the moment.

I long to reclaim this innocence

To infuse just a drop of that magic elixir of wonder

into my adult self.

The elixir is at my fingertips, and yours,

If only we have the eyes to see it

and the will to drink it.

Every moment, a new dropper full of inspiration

that transforms

the mundane into magic

chores into creations

and messes into masterpieces.

That prompts us

to wake up every morning and say:

“What wants to be created through me today?”

- Patti Wardlaw

“The heart of creativity is an experience of the mystical union; the heart of the mystical union is an experience of creativity.”

― Julia Cameron, The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity

Unguarded Love

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”
- Anais Nin

 
 

Dear Wise Women,

Seven weeks ago we met in the field and set off on a path. No road map. No plan. No destination. Just a profound willingness to expand in the direction of love.

And, oh my goodness, can you believe what has transpired since then?

Oh wise women, I truly believe something magical happened back in that field. I believe that our openness, our curiosity, our innocence, our wonder, our willingness to meet one another so fully initiated some sort of alchemical reaction. I believe that we touched, and were touched by, the same magical energy that turns a caterpillar into a butterfly and coaxes a rose out of its bud. Unbeknownst to us, we received this magic… our hearts united and we agreed to open.

And in doing so, we unlocked an ancient memory. A memory of a time when our hearts only knew about pure love. A time when our hearts were unlocked and unguarded.

Whether for a fleeting second or a for a day, we remembered, and we felt the sensation of an infinitely expansive heart.

And then, as we must, we returned to the path. The human path. Where expansive hearts do not feel safe. And we (innocently) contracted.

But something is different this time - the contractions feel familiar but the path feels different. Its like we are walking the same labyrinth but it is much bigger than the last time we walked it. There is a spaciousness and an awareness around the contraction. It still hurts, we still feel frightened…but there is something else going on - there is a source of ease beneath the contraction, a river reminding us to stay open and keep flowing.

And it helps that we are not alone.

Hand in hand, we ride the waves. We support each other on our relentless quest to un-condition love and to un-earth our innocence. Piece by piece, rock by rock we notice the fortress walls relaxing… the jewel is slowly being revealed.

And eventually we come face to face with the loyal defenders of the fortress around our hearts. We come to realize that these vigilant guards, though they served us at some point, are no longer needed. We see how they are preventing us from receiving the love we want to receive, and giving the love we want to give.

And buoyed by this river, we say yes. We say YES to our deep, deep longing to experience unguarded love.

“Unguarded Love”, This title came through me as full body experience this week. Swimming in the wake of all that had been revealed over the past three weeks, it became painfully clear how much easier it is to be in the field of love with you women than with my partner, my children, my mother. I noticed my tendency to blame them for this “disconnect”. I noticed the tightness in my chest, an all to familiar feeling in our relationships. My mind almost tricked me into spiraling down the familiar loop of blame and resentment. But my heart wouldn’t allow it this time.

My heart said its time to let go of your remaining defenses.

Its time to trust that Love knows how to protect itself.

And so, bravely, slowly, and and very, very gently I am embarking on a new way of loving…

❤❤❤❤❤

No longer afraid of what they will say,

I speak the way love wants to speak.

No longer afraid of what they won’t say,

I speak the way love wants to speak.

No longer afraid of how they’ll react,

I act the way love wants to act.

No longer afraid of how they’ll feel

I touch the way love wants to touch.

One step at a time,

one word at a time,

one gesture at a time,

I explore this new way of walking in the field

unguarded.

❤❤❤❤❤

Wise women, will you embark on this new way with me?

With endless love,
Patti

And now a little “outside” wisdom and guidance…

“We may once have had very good reasons to guard our hearts; we had to protect ourselves from further hurt. But from the seat of awareness, there is not one good reason to continue doing so. We are not born this way. We had to learn to shut down, and by the good grace of life, we can unlearn it. We can learn to open back up to the force of love and joy that resides within us in every moment of every day.”

If you want to live a heart-minded life, the decision is yours, dear one. It begins by making the choice to take just one small step toward yourself, instead of away. Start gently blowing on the wounded and scared parts of yourself as if they were hot coals. Stoke them with encouraging words. Cocoon them in love. Genuinely care for them. They need to be coaxed into coming out from protection and they need a life raft to hold on to when traversing through the rough and choppy waters of the darkness. Most importantly, you need tender, gentle, and constant encouragement to strengthen your resolve in keeping your heart open, especially when your finely tuned instincts to protect are activated.

We must decide to excavate, to search for the tender parts of us we have abandoned and hidden away. We must look to welcome home the split-off and orphaned parts. This retrieval of the forsaken is where profound and beautiful soul making begins. Our hearts house the essence of life and source. They are the well of divinity within us, which when aligned with, awakened, and re-connected to, will eradicate and heal, forgive and dispel, and reconcile and release each hurtful relationship and memory. Our hearts are the source of our inspiration to spread and stir love and goodness throughout the world. I would go so far as to say that if each of us were to choose to live in alignment with our hearts, the world would have no choice but to find peace. The earth would thrive. How could it not?”

- Sarah Blondin, “Heart Minded, How to hold yourself and others in love”

 
 

Letting The Guards Go

If it were up to my mind, I wouldn’t do it.

But, for the first time in my life, my heart is louder than my mind.

I can hear it beating,

pounding,

pushing its way out of the fortress and past the guards.

I say yes to my heart

Its ok

We’re ok.

And in hearing this permission, something changes within my heart

it slows down, it stops pushing

and starts dancing with each guard

with a slight bow, a little curtsy

my heart thanks each and every guard for their devoted service

and asks them,

“What has your post been for the past 50 years, what have you been protecting me from”?

And one by one, they proudly respond:

Hurt

Rejection

Abandonment

Despair

Oh, my heart says, I guess you didn’t know…

you never really kept those things away from me

I felt them knocking the whole time

and when you fought against them, my fear of them grew stronger

and so did my belief that I needed you.

Thank-you dear guards for your devoted service

your work is done now,

I’m ready for Love to be its own protector.

- Patti Wardlaw

Unearthing Innocence

 
 

“You are here on earth to unearth who on earth you are.”

- Eric Micha'el Leventhal, author of “A Light from the Shadows”

Dear Wise Women,

We return to the river.

We are standing on the shore…we are a little disheveled… and we are holding hands. We look up at one another and we see the mud streaks upon our faces, the slight tears in our clothes, the bareness of our feet. The rawness of our revealing is almost too much to bear. But we lean in and we embrace the pounding sensation we feel inside our chests. We embrace it as its never been embraced before.

Together, we step a little further towards the flowing water, we are not quite in the river but we are no longer on solid ground. Our toes sink into the mud and we feel the transition as earth meets water. We shudder slightly as the cold water splashes upon our feet. We sink into the mud beneath our soles.

We breathe deeply…and we feel the unearthing that is taking place right beneath our feet.

This piece of dirt, this tiny rock, this sediment of clay that tickles our toes was not here a second ago. Ever moving, ever sinking and ever rising, this small particle might have come from the other side of the shore, the field we just walked through, or the bottom of this river. This exact piece of earth that just ran over my toes, that one over your toes, likely has not been touched by a human for hundreds or thousands of years…or maybe even ever.

And in this noticing, we remember. We remember our connection to the rocks, the water, the fish. We remember our connection to all beings who have walked this earth before us and will walk after us.

We remember the beauty of our incarnation - the fulfillment of our soul’s longing to have a chance to be in a human body- this body. We remember the innocence of this incarnation and the source of Love that we came from.

We remember our innocence and we also remember the loss of it. The history of hurts, injustices and violations, the pain and suffering caused by our collective confusion.

And in the pain of this remembering, we feel an impulse. An impulse to embrace our innocence and the innocence of all of life. The upturning of the soil beneath us reminds us to keep on digging until we find it. It is there, beneath the pains, the losses, the hurts of human history. It is there and it never left us. This impulse, we come to realize, is Love.

We unearth another piece of innocence, one story at a time, until the fragments return to wholeness and we return to our true innocent nature. Standing on the shores of the river, hand in hand, we laugh out loud. And in a rejoicing glee we shed our clothes, let go of the shore and plunge into the river! We let ourselves float and flow in this swirling pool of earth and water.

And from beneath the river, we hear the voice of Love, unconditioned, pure and alive.

And she says:

I am not asking you to accept what cannot be accepted, to forgive what cannot be forgiven or to love what cannot be loved, I only ask you to:

Embrace your own innocence, and I will accept on your behalf.

Embrace your own innocence, and I will forgive on your behalf.

Embrace your own innocence, and I will love on your behalf.

………….

Oh dear wise women, I am forever grateful to look beside me in the river and see you there with me!

With endless love,
Patti

 

“We can surely get through this together. It will take all of our efforts combined to create the depth of healing that brings to every heart the justice, relief, opportunity, and peace that is our right, privilege, and honor to equally receive. Even while a historical pattern of unconsciousness always sets the stage for a greater consciousness to emerge, it is only when we roll up our sleeves and dare to dig our nails into the dirt that we put forth the appropriate effort that shows respect to every person adversely affected by those who came before us.”

- Matt Kahn, https://mattkahn.org/my-ancestors-sent-me-to-apologize/

 

“Surely something wonderful is sheltered inside you. I say this with all confidence, because I happen to believe we are all walking repositories of buried treasure. I believe this is one of the oldest and most generous tricks the universe plays on us human beings, both for its own amusement and for ours: The universe buries strange jewels deep within us all, and then stands back to see if we can find them.

The hunt to uncover those jewels — that’s creative living.

The courage to go on that hunt in the first place — that’s what separates a mundane existence from a more enchanted one.

The often surprising results of that hunt — that’s what I call Big Magic.”

- Liz Gilbert, “Big Magic”

“Mycelium Dreaming”, www.autumnskyeart.com

Unearthing Innocence

No longer afraid of what I will find, I begin to dig

finger nails caked in mud, knees raw

I dig and dig and dig.

No longer afraid of what I will find, I plunge into the water

cold, dark, deep

I swim and swim and swim.

No longer afraid of what I will find, I turn over a rock

small creatures scurrying, mushrooms growing, a whole world revealed

I turn and turn and turn.

No longer afraid of what I will find, I remember the past

pain, suffering, betrayal, one story at a time

I heal and heal and heal.

No longer afraid of what I will find, I look past the locked off hearts of humanity

and one, by one,

I see the innocence hidden within.

- Patti Wardlaw

Unconditioning Love

“Love is the impulse to embrace the innocence of life.”

- Matt Kahn

 
After two weeks of an intense (and painful) deep dive into where I’ve been holding conditions around my self-love, I smile at the freedom of the beginning of the release.

After two weeks of an intense (and painful) deep dive into where I’ve been holding conditions around my self-love, I smile at the freedom of the beginning of the release.

 

Dear Wise Women,

As always, I trust that our journey is unfolding as it is meant to. Believe me, I have had to dig pretty deep to access this trust over the past two weeks.

When we last gathered we explored ”the river beneath the river”, and it seems that this activated something that I have been intellectualizing for years but have yet to find the courage to fully reveal.

The river beneath the river…such a powerful metaphor. It is our true selves, our souls, the depths of the body, the depths of the earth, the current that runs deeper and truer, and pulls us from the surface of our lives into stillness. It is intelligent and full of power. It is the source of a love so pure that to feel it requires a full release of all we have even known about love.

Oh friends, I am in this lower river and I am naked, vulnerable, and scared - and yet I am held. Held by a love that I have never known. Held in my weakness, my fear, my doubts, my frailties. Held despite my imperfections. Held because of my imperfections.

And in the arms of this source of grace, I am finding the strength to courageously face another layer of wounds. I am seeing how I have resisted showing my weaknesses to those around me for fear that I won’t be loved and accepted. I am realizing that I have not allowed these same people to show me their weaknesses.

I am realizing how much shame I have been carrying.

I am ready to release and I am feeling the transformation, I am opening and opening and opening.

And, once again, spirit has led me to receive messages to guide me. Matt Kahn has recently arrived in my life, I am overwhelmed by the timing and poignancy of his teachings.

I share with you Matt Kahn’s words.

I trust that you will open to receive what you need. I trust in our circle, our safe and sacred space, for all to be accepted and loved exactly as we are as we walk this endless path together.

With endless love,

Patti

When I’m sad, I deserve more love, not less.
When I’m angry, I deserve more love, not less.
When I’m frustrated, I deserve more love, not less.
Whenever I’m hurt, heartbroken, ashamed or feeling guilty,
I deserve more love, not less.

Even when I’m embarrassed by my actions,
I deserve more love, not less.
Equally so, when I’m proud of myself, I deserve more love, not less.
Despite what I think, I deserve more love, not less.

No matter the past that I’ve survived, I deserve more love, not less.
No matter what remains up ahead,
I deserve more love not less.
On my worst day, I deserve more love, not less.

Even when life seems cruel and confusing, I deserve more love, not less.
When no one is here to give me what I need, I deserve more love, not less.
In remembering the greatest way I can serve the world, I deserve more love not less.

No matter what I’m able to accept, whomever I cannot forgive,
or whatever I’m unable to love for whatever reason, I deserve more love, not less.

In celebration of your true innocent nature, love doesn’t ask you to accept what cannot be accepted; it simply says, “Just embrace your own heart, and I will accept on your behalf.”

It doesn’t ask you to forgive what is unforgiveable, but simply says “Just embrace your own heart, and I will forgive on your behalf.”

It doesn’t even ask you to love what cannot be loved. Instead it simply says, “Just embrace your own heart, and I will love on your behalf.”

No matter the circumstances at hand, love ensures that everything is done through you, instead of by you. By embracing your innocence more than anyone has ever dared to embrace it, you find the parent you’ve never met, a best friend you never knew you had, and the lover who has been there all along, as the truth of what you are. Equally so, by making your own heart the object of your affection, you invite the truth of others to be recognized beyond the characters they’re imagined to be. With love as your guide, the uniqueness of all can be equally appreciated, without the pain of conflict dividing you from one another.

When your heart is open, you are able to notice that anything you are feeling is part of a healing taking place within you. Conversely, when your heart remains closed, the emotions you sense always seem to be viewed as barriers to your higher fulfillment.

- Matt Kahn, “Whatever Arises, Love That - A Love Revolution That Begins with You”

The River Beneath The River

 
“Eternal Waters” , by Autumn Skye www.autumnskyeart.com

“Eternal Waters” , by Autumn Skye www.autumnskyeart.com

 
 

With the world spinning and the stomach heaving it’s easy to overlook the Shining Self. Yet it’s right here, whirling like a dervish, inviting me to release, relax, weep, disappear altogether into its subterranean womb – into Rio Abajo Rio – the great river beneath the river of the world.

- Miriam Louisa, “This Unlit Light”

 

Dear Wise Women,

We return once again to the river.

As before, the inspiration for this week’s treasure trove arrived in a series of messages and experiences both direct and indirect. Last Sunday, I opened an email from Richard Rohr entitled “Money and Soul” and was captivated by his words:

 

“ I’m convinced that money and soul are united on a deep level. This truth is reappearing from the deep stream of wisdom traditions after centuries of almost total splitting and separation at the conscious level. There is un río profundo, a river beneath the river. The upper stream has always been money in all its forms, beginning with trading and bartering. The deeper stream is the spiritual meaning such exchanges must have for our lives. Money and soul have never been separate in our unconscious because they are both about human exchanges, and therefore, divine exchange, too.”

 

Richard Rohr’s words activated something in me and and I saw an image and felt a sensation of two rivers. Words cannot fully describe what I see and feel, but I can say that the one on top is shallow, choppy and turbulent and the one beneath is deep, calm, peaceful and…surprisingly… fierce so fierce that she catches my breath, this river, she is resolute, strong, and unwavering.

Could this imagery be yet another way to access, in every moment, the vital life force of our creator?

Is it our awareness alone that allows the river beneath to flow into the river above?

Could this be the river beneath be the river the Hopi Elder’s asked us to push off into?
(Recall our deep exploration of Hopi Elder’s Prophecy in our previous session: “There is a river flowing now very fast. It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid. They will try to hold on to the shore. They will feel they are being torn apart and will suffer greatly. Know the river has its destination. The elders say we must let go of the shore, push off into the middle of the river, keep our eyes open, and our heads above the water.” View the entire prophecy here.)

These questions let me on a quest to explore this concept of “a river beneath the river” and was moved deeply to discover that “Rio Abajo Rio” is a name that Clarissa Pinkola Estes gives to describe the Wild Woman. I share with you a few passages to activate your awareness of the great river beneath it all.

May you allow your bones to marinate in the deep waters.

With love,
Patti

 

To embody the soul is to expand far beyond my personality, into the depths and the uniqueness of who I am. I am, you are, unique without being separate. Like all journeys, the unfolding of my individuation needs a foundation. I cannot expand, grow and evolve into the vastness of my spiritual nature, I cannot open to the presence of the divine, without this ground. I can make trips into these higher realms, I can climb up the ladder into the light and receive messages from on high. But I cannot embody this deeper intelligence, the boundless nature of this love, until I descend. Down into the body, into the feelings that live in the body, into the earth.

The part of us that I call soul loves this journey, and calls us to take each new step. Once we align ourselves with the evolutionary energy of the soul, it will call us relentlessly. This movement towards the truth of who we are, the truth of what life is, what reality is, is like a river that we enter. Clarissa Pinkola Estes calls it “the river beneath the river.” For a long time we live in the river on the surface of our lives, the river of survival, of false belonging, of all the contracts we agreed to, in order to belong. There is a current that runs much deeper and truer, and we can dive down and feel the pull of that. The river beneath the river moves to a different rhythm. It is not frantic, desperate, and full of noise. It flows and it is also full of stillness and presence. It is intelligent, loving and full of power.

- Shayla Wright,www.wideawakeheart.net

Always behind the actions of writing, painting, thinking, healing, doing, cooking, talking, smiling, making, is the river, the Río Abajo Río; the river under the river nourishes everything we make. In symbology, the great bodies of water express the place where life itself is thought to have originated. In the Hispanic Southwest, the river symbolizes the ability to live, truly live. It is greeted as the mother, La Madre Grande, La Mujer Grande, the Great Woman, whose waters not only run in the ditches and riverbeds but spill out of the very bodies of women themselves as their babies are born.

The Río Abajo Río, the river beneath the river, flows and flows into our lives. Some say the creative life is in ideas, some say it is in doing. It seems in most instances to be in a simple being. It is not virtuosity, although that is very fine in itself. It is the love of something, having so much love for something—whether a person, a word, an image, an idea, the land, or humanity—that all that can be done with the overflow is to create. It is not a matter of wanting to, not a singular act of will; one solely must. The creative force flows over the terrain of our psyches looking for the natural hollows, the arroyos, the channels that exist in us. We become its tributaries, its basins; we are its pools, ponds, streams, and sanctuaries. The wild creative force flows into whatever beds we have for it, those we are born with as well as those we dig with our own hands. We don’t have to fill them, we only have to build them.

Since the Wild Woman is Rio Abajo Rio, The river beneath the river, When she flows into us, we flow. If the aperture from her to us is blocked, we are blocked.

- Clarissa Pinkola Estes, “Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype

 
 
 

At The River Clarion

I don’t know who God is exactly.
But I’ll tell you this.
I was sitting in the river named Clarion, on a water splashed stone
and all afternoon I listened to the voices of the river talking.
Whenever the water struck a stone it had something to say,
and the water itself, and even the mosses trailing under the water.
And slowly, very slowly, it became clear to me what they were saying.
Said the river I am part of holiness.
And I too, said the stone. And I too, whispered the moss beneath the water.

I’d been to the river before, a few times.
Don’t blame the river that nothing happened quickly.
You don’t hear such voices in an hour or a day.
You don’t hear them at all if selfhood has stuffed your ears.
And it’s difficult to hear anything anyway, through all the traffic, the ambition

- Mary Oliver

Weaving a New Way Together

 
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The Tao is dark and unfathomable.

How can it make her radiant?

Because she lets it . . .

This source is called darkness.

The gateway to all understanding.

- Tao Te Ching

 

Dearest Wise Women,

This week we close our spring session and our brief, but intense, dive into the rebalancing of the Divine Feminine. I feel a strong pull to simply share stories, legends and visions of times gone by - to rediscover our magic and to dreams of new ways.

May you rest in your heart and your womb space as you sit back, listen, feel, and remember…

With utmost love and gratitude,

Patti

 
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A Moontime myth from the Native American Traditions

A long time ago, women did as they do now, they held the family, they held the power (life-force) for the family, they held the happiness and joy, they held the sorrow and the disappointments. After time, the negative emotions and heartache that the women took on upon themselves on the behalf of their families would begin to weigh them down. The women would became sick and finally, could no longer take on the burdens of the family. Yet, the nature to do so had been imbued into them by Creator.

One day, a woman was in the forest, crying because the burden had become so great, when Raven heard her and asked, “Mother, why do you cry?”

The woman responded, “I love my family so very much. I hold my family in my heart and soul, but the pains of life have filled me up. I can no longer help my family. I can no longer take their burdens from them. I just don’t know what to do.”

Raven responded, “I understand the pain you feel, as I feel it also. I will go and ask Grandmother Ocean if she knows what to do” So Raven flew to the ocean and shared with Grandmother the plight of the women.

Grandmother Ocean responded, “If the women will come to me, I will wash their pain from them, but this won’t help the ones who are far away. Let me ask my sister, Grandmother Moon, if she can help”.

So Grandmother Ocean spoke to her sister of the women’s plight. Grandmother Moon responded, “I am the power of the feminine. I will send into the women, my sisters, your waters carrying my power. Once every moon cycle, you shall come into the women through me and purify them” And she did this. So ever since then, every woman has a time each moon cycle when she embodies the power of the moon and flows the cleansing of the ocean. We call this the woman’s time of the moon, or moon-time.

It is each woman’s responsibility to take the time when she is in her time of the moon to purify. It is the responsibility of the men to give the women the opportunity to do so.

~ Nicholas Noblewolf

 
This is a photo of my Salt Spring Island friend, Dana, weaving her latest creation. Dana is a master weaver who is intimately aware of the feminine need to unravel and reweave. How perfect that this photo is the weaving of red and white!

This is a photo of my Salt Spring Island friend, Dana, weaving her latest creation. Dana is a master weaver who is intimately aware of the feminine need to unravel and reweave. How perfect that this photo is the weaving of red and white!

 

We need to unravel the threads of time that have left us separated from our past and future selves, and reweave the womb of timelines that connect existence together in a unified reality. The Great Mother Womb has always been known as a weaver, a Divine Creatrix, artisan, and craftsperson of all life. In fact the word crafty refers to the cunning Old Ways of the wise woman, and the Indian word tantra means to “be woven together.” The priestess title Magdalene (Mag-Dal) also translates as “great weaver” and “magic doorway.”*

In nearly all shrines dedicated to Artemis, spindle whorls, loom weights, and shuttles have been found, and in her sanctuaries woolen clothing and threads wound on spools were offered as gifts to her. On Corinthian vases, Artemis and her womb priestesses are seen holding a spindle.

The ancient and timeless Womb Mysteries are a path of love, a returning to harmony with the way of nature, with the dreaming of Gaia, with life’s vast benevolence, with Creator’s deep and tender love, and with the wild, untamed creative flows and cyclical rhythms. This feminine feeling dimension is rooted in love, wildness, kindness, tenderness, patience, and union.

Feminine consciousness is weaving a new way into being, and inviting us to step through the magic doorway to be part of the great change—to become conscious co-creators of a new reality.

She who lovingly created us, gestated us, and birthed us, is now calling out to us..

The return of Womb Consciousness is the greatest revolution on the planet at this time. The womb has the power to birth and to rebirth. The ancients looked to the womb for all their healing and redemption, and the feminine was honoured as the throne of creation.

As a web of wombs, we are birthing a new earth into being. Together we can heal the inner and outer wasteland and return it to love.

We are weaving a new way.

- Azra Bertrand and Seren Bertrand, “Womb Awakening: Initiatory Wisdom from the Creatrix of All Life”

 
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Myths and legends of almost every ancient culture speak about the capacity of menstrual blood to promote health and longevity, and directly alter consciousness to produce states of illumination, sacred bonding, and embodied awakening. In the ancient days as well as now, the power of menstrual blood at times was used in the name of love and healing, and in other situations was treated as a commodity and exploited by the powerful castes who guarded its secrets for themselves.

Modern science has just discovered what the ancients have known for hundreds of thousands of years: menstrual blood is rich with these incredibly potent stem cells, which have the power to renew, regenerate, and create life. Stem cells are magical cells. They are similar in some ways to the imaginal cells that can turn a caterpillar into a butterfly, containing within them an incredible power of regeneration. They can regenerate and repair damaged tissues in our body in miraculous ways that science would have previously called impossible. Menstrual stem cells are multipotent progenitor cells—they can grow and differentiate into almost any kind of cell in the body as needed. Modern science shows us that within a few days, a single menstrual stem cell can differentiate into a heart cell that spontaneously beats. When two such heart cells come within a few inches of each other, they automatically begin to beat together in rhythm—they become energetically entangled in a synchronized dance.

The new scientific understanding of stem cells, and in particular menstrual-blood stem cells is truly breathtaking. And what is even more remarkable is that for thousands of years before modern science could prove their existence and healing properties, the ancients knew about their life-renewing potency through a process of direct intuitive gnosis, experience, and inherited wisdom.

We have the power within to awaken the magical properties of these stem cells, enjoying longevity, vitality, expanded sensory awareness, and regeneration. We can honor our bodies as holy and wise. This is why the ancient womb religion spoke so reverently of the wise blood.

We all have an “imaginal butterfly” within, waiting to take wings and fly.

- Azra Bertrand and Seren Bertrand, “Womb Awakening: Initiatory Wisdom from the Creatrix of All Life”

…Aaand if the last passage didn’t make your jaw completely drop, then consider this:

For many thousands of years these wonders of menstruation and the womb were honored and worshipped. In Hebrew hor meant “cave” and “yoni/womb.” Communing with the Holy Hor, the Holy Womb, was believed to gift a spiritual enlightenment called horasis to men. This gift was especially potent at the menstrual cycle, and is now diminished by the interpretation of hor (Hera/womb) as whore, meaning prostitute. It is time to reclaim the Holy Hor.

Azra Bertrand and Seren Bertrand, “Womb Awakening: Initiatory Wisdom from the Creatrix of All Life”

 
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Longing and Wondering

My heart, like yours probably, has been aching when I look into my local area, my world, and see such a great need for the sacred. I see an unmet need in our young to have a place they can count on for mentoring, initiation, and coming into their womanhood with other women. I see an unmet need in our lives to connect deeply, rest and take time to simply be. I see an unmet need for our elders where they can gather to be honoured and share their wisdom. […] And I wondered what would happen in our societies of local places if women were to have a place we could count on where we are respected, supported and held. I understood from the work that I do that to empower women of any age means to bring health back into a community.

- ALisa Starkweather, at the founding of the Red Tent Temple Movement

Stitching revolutions together,

Spinning new worlds from our wombs,

Dreaming back the wild edges of our souls,

Calling forth that which has been lost.

We are women of the womb,

Maddened by love into action,

We are men of the heart,

Softened into surrender,

Afraid only of not feeling.

We are thinking in a web,

Your thread holds mine together.

We are tale-weavers and troubadours,

Telling the words that were broken,

Singing the songs of longing.

We are weaving a new way,

Gathering the thread of pain,

Spinning it back into gold.

- Azra Bertrand and Seren Bertrand, “Womb Awakening: Initiatory Wisdom from the Creatrix of All Life”

Understanding the Four Seasons of a Woman's Life... and Peering into the Shadows

 
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With each life season there is a rite of passage or initiation that marks the end of one season, and the beginning of the next. It is a time of transformation, the woman transforms from one way of being to another, never to return again to her previous life season. What happens during and around this transition, whether by conscious creation or by default, sets the theme for a woman’s experience of her self in her new role in her next life season.

- Jane Hardwicke Collings, “The Four-Phase Feminine Way”

 

Dear Wise Women,

Last week marked a significant and memorable benchmark in the history of our wise women circles. Since I first began facilitating women’s circles, I have dreamed of creating a space where each and every woman felt safe enough to vulnerably share her wounds and to celebrate her joys surrounding menstruation, childbirth, menopause and aging.

In our modern society, these topics are rarely spoken of openly and honestly and yet such sharing is essential if we are to heal the feminine and the masculine wounds and bring back the sacred balance of light and dark. This IS the feminine way.

This week, I wish to delve a little deeper into the archetype of the four phases or seasons of a women’s life…the larger cycle within the smaller cycles of the four seasons of the year, four phases of the moon, and four phases of the menstrual cycle. Understanding these four phases is critical, as is the understanding that, though we embody the phase we are in (according to our age), we also naturally move through all four phases each month and each year through the changing of the seasons, the moon and and our own cycle (if we are still menstruating). Awareness of the energies of each phase activates a deeper connection to Source and calls us into greater alignment.

I also wish to discuss what it looks like when these energies are imbalanced/not honoured. The safe container we have created within our wise women circles enables us to begin to peer into the shadows of our personal and our collective lives. Though shadow work sounds scary, it need not be so. Just like a flashlight shines a beam into the dark corner of a room and reveals what is there (and in doing so releases our fear), shadow work shines the light of love and compassion into the parts of our lives that we have kept buried and releases them so that we may be free to be our true and divine selves.

The shadow is not darkness…it is a representation of the imbalance of darkness. In having the courage to bring light into these corners of our lives we allow the divine dark and divine light to dance again.

“Shadow work is the highest form of light work you will do.”
- Carl Jung

 

Carl Jung, a 20th-century Swiss psychologist, spent his life studying the human personality and mind. Among his numerous developments in psychoanalysis was the idea of the “shadow self.”

The “shadow self” is the parts of ourselves that have been pushed down to the unconscious — the parts that we’re insecure about, ashamed of, or frustrated with and therefore repress.

The concept of the shadow self is based on the notion that we figuratively bury those pieces of personality that we fear would not be welcomed, accepted, or loved by others; therefore, we keep them in the “shadows.” In short, our shadow selves are the versions of ourselves that we do not show society. 

So what is shadow work? This is the practice of loving what is, and setting the shame and judgements free, so that we can be our true selves. 

https://www.bemytravelmuse.com/what-is-shadow-work/

https://medium.com/big-self-society/shadow-work-a-simple-guide-to-transcending-the-darker-aspects-of-the-self-e948ee285723

 

YOUR INNER COUNCIL + THE FOUR STAGES OF WOMANHOOD
- by Rebecca Campbell (credit for text and images shown below go to Rebecca Campbell)

The Maiden, the Mother, the Wild Woman, and the Crone signify the four main stages that women journey through over both the duration of our lives and every month through our menstrual cycle.

As women we have access to each of these archetypes of womanhood (I call them our Inner Council of Wise Women) and are able to call upon them for guidance, strength, courage, advice, wisdom, clarity and support.

As we move through each of these archetypes we are being invited to reclaim all aspects of who we are as a woman. To surrender to what is blooming and rising in us as well as what is falling away.

1. THE MAIDEN (menarche to approx age 25)

 
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At some point in a woman’s life, she just gets tired of being ashamed all the time. After that, she is free to become whoever she truly is.
- Elizabeth Gilbert

 

The Maiden is young, enthusiastic, strong, independent, determined, excitable, hopeful, courageous, energized, boundless, and positive. Full of ideas and excited about the future, what she lacks in years, she makes up in enthusiasm and zest for life. The Maiden is the Virgin, the innocent part of us that sees potential in everything. She is a woman one-in-herself. She sees the magic in everything.

This is the time for coming up with lots of ideas, playing and dreaming about what could be without restriction. Write your dreams, make your plans, the sky is the limit.

Shadow Maiden: Naive, self-centered, impressionable, inexperienced, lacking confidence, too many ideas, spends lots of time in thought, good at starting things but lacks drive to finish them, full of hope and big ideas but easily discouraged as they are not fully grounded yet; a tendency to overcommit, she says yes because she gets overexcited or doesn’t want to miss out.

Corresponding phase of menstrual cycle: Pre-Ovulation
Corresponding moon phase: Waxing Moon
Corresponding Season: Spring (full of possibility)
Corresponding Element: Air

2. THE MOTHER (approx age 25-50)

 
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"We don't have to have answers for our children; we just have to be brave enough to trek into the woods and ask tough questions with them."
—Glennon Doyle, "Untamed"

 

The Mother is the fertile part of us, the part of us that births things into the world for real. She is compassionate, protective, nurturing, devotional, understanding, encouraging, and big-hearted. She is loving and nurturing, but also committed to doing whatever it takes to get the job done. She is able to take the energy and enthusiasm of the Maiden and turn it into focused action. Able to birth both life and creations into the world. Manifesting thought and concept into form.

This is the ideal time to commit to what is rising in you and go about making it happen for real.

Shadow Mother: Overprotective, smothering, martyrdom, forgetting to look after self, controlling, codependence, abandoning, exhaustion, doesn’t know when to stop, making others feel guilty for not needing her.

Corresponding phase of menstrual cycle: Ovulation
Corresponding moon phase: Full Moon
Corresponding Season: Summer (everything is fertile)
Corresponding Element: Fire

3. THE WISE, WILD WOMAN, QUEEN, MAGA (approx age 50-70)

 
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The Maga woman is needed as a strong conscience for the community and society. She can “hear and tell the truth without shame or blame” and “stand in strength, while staying in heart”.

- Jane Hardwicke Collings, “The Four-Phase Feminine Way”

 

The Wise, Wild Woman is uninhibited and wise. She has journeyed through Maidenhood and Motherhood, knows who she is and isn’t afraid to show it. Also known as the Medicine Woman or the Healer, she is in touch with and recognized for her inner medicine and magic. She knows her worth, is guided by her intuition and calls upon it regularly.

There is a certain ruthlessness about her because she can see through what is important and what isn’t. You can’t pull the wool over her eyes, she knows her power and she demands your respect. If you push her or do not respect her she will react and it might not be pretty. She’s fierce. She’s not afraid of what people think. She’s not afraid to do what it takes to get what she wants.

This is the best place to let things go, to refine, perfect, and refocus. Dance, sing, or do whatever you can to express and transmute your feelings into passion. It’s a great time to de-clutter your life, negotiate fiercely, protect your boundaries, and create powerful and authentic work.

Shadow Maga: Ruthless, angry, jealous, vindictive, impatient, blunt, end justifies the means.

Corresponding phase of menstrual cycle: Post-Ovulation
Corresponding moon phase: Waning Moon
Corresponding Season: Autumn (things are falling away)
Corresponding Element: Water

4. THE CRONE (approx age 70 - death)

 
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The Grandmothers of times past were the ones who held the final say on matters such as war. If this were still the case, the world might be a different place today.

- Jane Hardwicke Collings, “The Four-Phase Feminine Way”

 

In ancient societies the Crone was highly revered, however today she is often not given the reverence she deserves. She is the wisdom keeper, the one who has the ultimate perspective and has nothing left to prove. She is able to see with absolute clarity and advise in a selfless way, as she has no ulterior motives. She has a certain patience about her, having been through it all herself, and no longer cares what people think.

The Crone is the part of us that is most potent in her wisdom. Is able to see through all inauthenticity and patterns from afar. While the Maiden has an innocent purity about her, the Crone has a certain purity as well.

She is closest to Source and in surrender to Life.

Shadow Crone: Brutal, hermit, unforgiving, judgmental, bitter, jaded, lonely, self-pitying, defeated.

Corresponding phase of menstrual cycle: Menstruation
Corresponding moon phase: New Moon
Corresponding Season: Winter
Corresponding Element: Earth

 
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We dare not talk of the darkness for fear it will infect us.
We dare not talk of the fire, for fear it will destroy us.
And so we live in the half-light,
Like our mothers before us.

Come to the fire,
Feel it warm your skin.
Come to the fire,
Feel it burn in your belly,
Shine out through your eyes.
Come dance in the fire,
Let it fuel your prayers.


― Lucy H. Pearce, “Burning Woman”

Honouring the Power and Wisdom of Our Cycles

 
 

“At her first bleeding a woman meets her power. 
During her bleeding years she practices it. 
At menopause she becomes it.”

- Traditional Native American saying
― Lucy H. Pearce, “Moon Time: Harness the Ever-Changing Energy of Your Menstrual Cycle”

Dear Wise Women,

Welcome back! As we enter the third week of our five-week spring journey, I would like to remind you of the tone and theme for our spring circles.

In week one I invited you to “fall back into the arms of Grace”… to simply relax and rest in the heart. As relaxing does not seem to be the theme of our mainstream society, it is my wish that our gatherings provide a much needed sanctuary and respite. A place to see and be seen. A place to listen and be heard. A place to honour and be honoured. A place to receive the power of feminine connection.

In week two, we peeled back some of the long-held misunderstandings about the true meaning of feminine and masculine, yin and yang, dark and light. Slowly, we are remembering and revealing the truth and power of Divine Unity, where the Sacred Feminine and Sacred Masculine within everyone and everything is revered, honoured and balanced.

As we continue, I now wish to unbury a treasure that lies within the feminine collective and, likely, within each of us. A treasure that many of us were told was not a treasure at all, but was rather a shameful aspect of ourselves that we should hide and even despise.

 

“Menstrual blood is the only source of blood that is not traumatically induced. Yet in modern society, this is the most hidden blood, the one so rarely spoken of and almost never seen, except privately by women.”

- Judy Grahn

 

The information I am sharing is crucial and it needs to be shared - the way it was always intended to be shared, within a women’s circle.

Whether you are still menstruating or not, whether or not you have given birth, this information applies to you, it applies to all of us. The power of understanding our menstrual cycles and the phases of a woman’s life is just that “power”.

We cannot reclaim and embody the sacred feminine without healing these wounded aspects of ourselves. When we heal this wound within ourselves, we heal it for our mothers, grandmothers and great grandmothers. We heal our daughters and our sons and their daughters and sons. We break an old cycle of suppression and we begin to live and teach a new one.

In our society we value a portion of our menstrual cycle (the follicular and ovulating phase when our energies are naturally expansive, outward and productive) and devalue, even demonize, the other half (the luteal and bleeding phase when our energies are naturally contracting, inward and intuitive). Similarly, we honour and worship the first phases of a women’s life, the Maiden and Mother phases, and dishonour and shun the second phases, the Maga and Crone phases. In doing so we reinforce the imbalance of energy that exists within us and within all of society.

We cannot have the flower without the seed, the full moon without the new moon. The more we reclaim and honour the dark, the feminine, and the inward the more radiant we rise!

This topic is a passion of mine, and I have long desired to delve into it. Today and the next two weeks will just be an introduction…and I am curious to see where the wisdom of our circles takes us!

With endless love and gratitude,

Patti

“In the tradition of the Native American People's Moonlodge, the community waited for the wisdom that the women returned with from their 'moontime' retreat. They would come back with information about when and where to move camp, about where the buffalo were etc. The community valued this highly and made their plans around it, they honoured the wisdom of the feminine.”

- Jane Hardwicke Collings, “The Spiritual Practice of Menstruation”

 
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“Once we start to work with Feminine power we begin to see that it is not our minds that are in control of this power – it ebbs and flows with the movements of the planets, the procession of the seasons, the moons and tides, our own internal cycles of menstruality, anniversaries, the events around us. All these and more impact our experience and expressions of power. We learn to become aware of these various patterns and their impact on us and work more consciously with rather than against or in spite of them. We learn that they are all part of the same process. We open towards the energy, rather than shut down to it. We learn to trust the flow.”
― Lucy H. Pearce, “Burning Woman”

 

P.S.: When transcribing the above quote, I had to google the word “menstruality” to see if it existed (even my spell check said it was not a word). Sure enough it is a word, a word that I wish I had learned at the beginning ,rather than the end, of my menstruating years. “Menstruality is the process of tracking the cycles in your life and noticing how you change through your menstrual month, this is known as menstrual cycle awareness.”

P.S.S: The sanskrit word for menstruation and season are the same - “ritu”. The root word for menstruation “mens” is the same for moon, month and measurement. The first measurement of time, the first calendar was based on the menstrual cycle.

The Menstrual Cycle is a Cycle within a Cycle

“Understanding the way of cycles brings with it an awareness of the flow of energy, the wisdom in that flow and the opportunity to be in synchrony with that flow.

I believe, honouring her fertility cycle is a woman's responsibility. It is in fact one way she can participate, in helping to correct the imbalances that have been created through not honouring the feminine. An issue that we must address so that we can live harmoniously on our planet.

Through honouring your menstrual cycle, you help heal the "wounded feminine" the symptoms of which ravage the Earth and most of her people. By honouring her cycle, a woman honours the feminine, the dark, the juicy, the mysterious, the feminine power of creativity, sexuality and our Mother Earth.

The menstrual cycle is a cycle within a cycle. The bigger cycle is the woman's life cycle, her life seasons, which are just like the Earth's seasons. Every cycle is the same as every other cycle, just different lengths. (Note: as we have developed over time and our life expectancy has increased, the ancient tripartite divisions of Maiden, Mother, and Crone has been expanded to include the Maga or Queen phase).”

Maiden Phase (menarche to around age 25), “Spring”, Fertility and Sexuality

Mother Phase (around age 25-50) “Summer”, Nurturing, Caring, Giving
Note: The energy of “mother” is characterized by the energy of giving birth and its surrendering and nurturing aspects, and does not require that we give birth to a child.

Maga/Queen Phase(around age 50-70) “Autumn”, Harvesting, Sharing

Crone/Sage Phase (around age 70 - death) “Winter”, Wisdom , Reverence

- Jane Hardwicke Collings, “Honouring Rites of Passage in a Woman’s Life”

 

Our menstrual cycle is connected to the phases of the moon and, as the moon waxes and wanes, our bodies also transition through these four archetypes of womanhood each and every month.

Journeying through each stage of womanhood each month can feel as if we are having the rug pulled out from underneath us if we are not aware of the transitions that are taking place. But if we begin to see this process as an invitation to embody each of the feminine archetypes (the maiden, the mother, the wild woman and the crone), everything changes. As we move through each of these archetypes we are being invited to reclaim all aspects of who we are as a woman each and every month. To surrender to what is blooming and rising in us as well as what is falling away.

Connected to the moon and the mysterious force that controls all of life, your period has the potential to become a monthly initiation in deepening your potency as a wise, creative, powerful woman.

- Rebecca Campbell “Rise Sister Rise”

 

NOTE: We will talk more about how to reclaim and honour the different phases of a woman’s life cycle next week. In the meantime, if you would like to read more, here are a few great articles:

https://janehardwickecollings.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Honoring-Rites-of-Passage-in-a-Womans-Life_by-Jane-Hardwicke-Collings_BW-Print-V.pdf

https://janehardwickecollings.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Introducing-Maga_by-Jane-Hardwicke-Collings_BW-Print-V.pdf

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In Praise of Menstruation

if there is a river
more beautiful than this
bright as the blood
red edge of the moon
if there is a river
more faithful than this
returning each month
to the same delta
if there is a river
braver than this
coming and coming in a surge
of passion, of pain
if there is a river
more ancient than this
daughter of eve
mother of cain and of abel
if there is in the universe such a river
if there is some where
water more powerful than this wild water
pray that it flows also
through animals
beautiful and faithful and ancient
and female and brave

- Lucille Clifton

 
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Receive the Feminine Way (Class Two of Spring Session 2021)

 
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Dear Wise Women, 

It is early in the morning, and I am sitting at a campground near Tofino gazing at the forest. I am awe struck by the beauty and the wisdom that is seeping from this ancient land and the trees growing upon it. My husband and 13-year-old are asleep in the tent, and I am sipping my morning coffee while being warmed by the fire.

I notice the array of contrasting emotions flowing through me. I feel immense gratitude to be able to be here and sadness that so many do not have the freedoms that I do.  I feel steadfast and on purpose as well as wobbly and uncertain about my next steps.

I look up from my screen and I am reminded of something I was taught a while ago - the simple yet profound practice of softening the gaze and receiving through the eyes.

Let’s practice this together:

Look around you.

Look at what you see (a plant, a piece of furniture, a window).

Just look at it the way you normally do.

Perhaps you notice the mind is labelling it as “that’s a table”, “that’s a pen”.

Notice the active and outward direction of energy that flows from your mind to what you are seeing.

Now, soften your gaze and reverse the direction of the energy flow.

Allow the images in front of you to come to you through your eyes and allow the mind to receive.

Do you notice the difference?

One way of looking is not right or better - they are just different. One is active and one is passive. One is yang and one is yin. When we look outward, we are like the sun; when we receive inward, we are like the moon. One is the masculine way and one is the feminine way.

We need both ways and we need these energies to be balanced.

It is not the masculine energy that is the problem in our world, it is the imbalance of masculine and feminine.

 With this awareness, I invite you to deepen into the sanctuary and respite of our feminine gatherings. Let yourself receive and be filled. There is nothing you need to do, just relax and feel into the sacred chalice we are creating and, through this vessel, allow yourself to see with new eyes as we reveal the truth about light and dark.

I am not sure about you, but I sometimes get confused about the way we speak about light and dark. In Chinese Medicine, light and dark (yang and yin) are revered as essential aspects of a continuous continuum. However, in everyday language and in many spiritual teachings, we often refer to the light as benevolent and dark as malevolent.

I believe there is a deeper truth about light and dark that I wish to explore within our Wise Women circles. It is my feeling that what we call “Divine Light” isn’t so much about light (as in the absence of dark) but is more about the energy of Divine Truth and the energy of Divine Unification…which is felt as radiant light.

I also believe that our insistence on turning away from the dark causes us to repress the powerful challice of creation that lies within each of us. And while it is true that evil forces exist, is our aversion to the creative essence of darkness somehow preventing us from clearing what needs to be cleared?

I think of a flower and how much focus we put on the beauty of the petals and overlook the power of the seed that sprouted in total and complete darkness.

For it is in the dark, that the seeds of all of creation are sprouted.

To honour this is to reclaim the feminine way.

I look forward to exploring this with you together in our circles.

 
Magical beings appear to me in the ancient forests at the Pacific Rim National Park

Magical beings appear to me in the ancient forests at the Pacific Rim National Park

 
 
“Through observation and reflection, the Chinese witnessed the polarities inherent in the Universe and formulated the yin/yang concept. Everything is part of the whole, and although aspects may appear to be opposite, they are not polarized (as in our Western thinking) - rather they represent a continuum. Night cannot exist without day, light without dark, nor soft without hard. Yin represents inward, cold, dark, hidden, feminine and contracting qualities. Yang is outward, hot, light, expansive, and masculine. Their relationship is symbolized in the Taoist tai chi symbol of yin/yang: yin and yang continually transform into one another without end, where the possibility of yin (as seen in the dark seed within the white) is poised within yang, and yang within yin.”
— Deborah Davis, “Women’s Qigong for Health & Longevity”
 
 
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“We each have within us both masculine and feminine energies. While your sex indicates what energies you chose to focus on in this life, we still embody both.

As we are coming out of 5,000 years of patriarchy, where the unbalanced masculine has been the focus, it is important to note that the unbalanced feminine can be just as destructive.

Just as the sacred feminine’s anger has been silenced through patriarchy, the sacred masculine’s ability to express emotion and recognize his divinity has too. As we recover from patriarchy, it is important not to aspire to its polar opposite - patriarchy to matriarchy. Rather, let’s bring the sacred masculine and sacred feminine energies back into balance. As the sacred feminine rises, may the sacred masculine rise along with Her.”
— Rebecca Campbell, "Rise Sister Rise"
 

“A woman’s highest calling is to lead a man to his soul as to unite him with Source.
A man’s highest calling is to protect woman so she is free to walk the Earth unharmed”

— CHEROKEE PROVERB

 

“Joy is hiding when the divine feminine is in hiding. This is true for everyone. Waking up to the divine feminine begins by waking up to the social reality all around us. The dominance of masculine power is everywhere. Feminine power has been so suppressed that it seems to be in hiding. At the psychological level, when masculine values are considered. not only superior to the feminine, but the only route to power and success this imbalance is what makes life joyless. At the deeper spiritual level when the access to the divine feminine has been closed off and forgotten the path to healing is lost at the same time. Having seen reality in all these levels, social, psychological and spiritual, we’ve done enough on the side of diagnosis. Our greatest need is to locate in ourselves the level of healing within. Healing cries out to be our main focus and healing is always personal.”

- Deepak Chopra

From the 21 Day Meditation “Activating the Divine Feminine: The Path to Wholeness”

Available for FREE for a limited time at https://chopracentermeditation.com

 

The Seed

Beneath the surface of the earth

hidden in the dark

lies a secret.

A seed has been planted

yet no one walking up on the earth is aware it is there.

Silently

the feminine way transmits the code of life

and the seed gets all it needs

to open

to germinate

and to sprout.

A stem shoots up through the soil

and grows towards the sun.

The petals open

and gives thanks to the seed

never forgetting where it came from.

- Patti Wardlaw

Falling Back Into the Arms of Grace (Class One of Spring Session 2021)

“Grace is always present. You imagine it is somewhere high in the sky, far away, and has to descend. It is really inside you, in your Heart. Grace is the Self. . . .You are never out of its operation.”
- Sri Ramana Maharshi

 
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Satsang

In late afternoon

wind and redwoods

get together to talk

about the ocean.

They are remembering

mist that arrived before dawn:

call it manna,

or grace.

The trees make a vow

to stand all night

so they won’t miss it.

- Ellen Grace O’Brian, “The Moon Reminded Me”

Satsang is Sanskrit for a gathering of devotees. It refers to being in holy company, those who come together for spiritual study and remembrance

 

Dear Wise Women,

By now you are aware that our wise women journey is not a linear path. I do not follow a course outline and each gathering is informed by the energies of the moment and the uniqueness of the women who sit together. For someone who like to plans ahead and be in control, I have had to learn to trust in this process and to fully surrender to its grace.

And Grace has yet to disappoint.

When we gather, we create a container for magic to happen. We open a portal for the divine feminine to flow in. We create the container and Grace fills it!

As we know, we are standing upon a critical threshold, a transformation, a rebirth….and the labour pains of this birth are intense. We are witnessing a surge of division and a flare-up of the polarities. The challenge is intense and we must answer the call - we must stand in the light.

There are a myriad of tools, techniques and teachings available to us and, though all are valuable, it can also feel overwhelming.

And so, my dear tribe, as we embark on our spring journey together, I find myself being called to simply rest in the heart with you. With so much going on around us, it is my sense (and it is a profoundly deep one) that the highest service I can provide at this time, is to provide a sanctuary of grace and nurturance. To hold Satsang.

May our gatherings be a respite from the noise. May you get exactly what you need and may you be replenished through the power of feminine connection.

Thank-you for your trust and faith in the process.

With love,

Patti

p.s. I wish to thank my friend and wise woman Gabriole Wilson for an email she sent to me yesterday. Her words came at the exact right time and solidified the strong pull I was feeling to “offer more by providing less” for our spring session.

“…l also want to thank you for all the work you did bringing Pamela Wilson to Calgary so that I could have her lovely, calming presence in my life. I had a private satsang with her because I was just feeling . . .  well . . . the same as so many of us who are getting frustrated by the never-ending journey toward an abiding awakening and the shouty voices of some teachers who just seem to throw more homework at us rather than just giving us the opportunity that you and Pamela do to just reside in a community of blessed silence.”

 
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“The way of the feminine is the way of connecting. And the path of the mystic leads from the illusion of separation to the reality of divine union, manifested as interdependence with all that is. To walk as a feminine mystic in this world is to recognize that our lives are interpenetrated with the lives of all sentient beings and that the One we love shines from every nexus in that web of interbeing. Whenever we tend to a single strand, we are participating in the care of the whole. When we turn our face from the suffering of any being and walk away, we are exiling ourselves from our Beloved.”

“Sometimes we drift into despair when we perceive the entrenched power imbalances that devalue life. We cannot imagine how we could possibly rectify anything on our own. The song I am singing—and millions of my sisters and brothers are everywhere echoing the refrain—is one of interdependence and mutual empowerment, of collaboration rooted in love. These are feminine values. Cooperation and emotional connection. Championing one another’s efforts to build a better society and supporting one another’s projects to sustain the earth.”

Mirabai Starr, “Wild Mercy, Living the Fierce and Tender Wisdom of the Women Mystics

“The Sacred Feminine is needed in our world now more than ever – on a global level, and on an individual level – to bring our planet and our psyches back into balance. The reawakening and reclaiming of the Divine, by women and for women, began in the last century and is gaining momentum with each passing year. Women the world over, like individual drops in the ocean, are coalescing to form a great wave of change, and the tide is now turning – away from the patriarchal rule this planet has known for over 2000 years.

As is the case with the majority of movements that pertain to women, this shift is coming not from the top down, but from the bottom up. Like seeds buried generations ago, we rise organically, sensing the time is now to see ourselves as the awesome force of nature we were born to be.

The rebirth of the Sacred Feminine is, like most things symbolically female, circular. Rejecting the current social values placed on hierarchy and linearity, women have begun to reclaim the domain of sacred circling as our birthright, honoring our cyclical nature. Women’s circles and mother-daughter circles are perhaps the most powerful agents of change on the planet right now, with each woman contributing to the healing of our world as she herself experiences healing.

What would it be like if our life experience as females was that of being safe, being valued, being respected? For many of us, it is difficult to envision being part of a culture in which girls are encouraged to grow into their sovereignty, where women’s bodies are trusted and honored; where the Sacred Feminine is valued and cultivated. And while there is not such a place on Earth at this moment in time, we can connect with the energetic vibration of such a reality by creating a collective vision of what it would look like, and perhaps more importantly, what it would feel like. When we tap into the wild and wise potential of the Sacred Feminine, we come home to our deepest truth.”

Amy Bammel Wilding, “Wild & Wise: Sacred Feminine Meditations for Women's Circles & Personal Awakening”

Grace Within

Still enough

brave enough

and willing enough

I dive within

past the waves

through the currents

noticing

the many schools

swimming and swirling around me

Still

I dive deeper

and finally

I exhale

as I remember

the ocean within provides infinite breath

A voice beckons me

to go deeper

and I go

to where there is only stillness

I feel a warm embrace

and my body melts

into the arms of

the One

who knows me,

guides me,

carries me,

breathes me

She whispers,

“I am here, I never left you”

and my True Self remembers

She is Me.

I am Grace.

- Patti Wardlaw

Everything will be OK...Dare to Truly Hope

 
Photo taken by wise women, Katrina Campbell last week in Calgary. Follow Katrina on instagram at km_bella

Photo taken by wise women, Katrina Campbell last week in Calgary. Follow Katrina on instagram at km_bella

 

The heart breaks open
A dried branch bursts into bloom
Light comes pouring in.

- Mirabai Starr, Wild Mercy - Living the Fierce and Tender Wisdom of the Women Mystics

Dear Wise Women,

This week we close our 12 week journey together and it is my deepest hope that you have felt seen, heard and held by this sacred community. It is also my hope, whether you continue with a wise women circle or not, that you sense that you are at the beginning rather than the end of a lifelong magical journey.

Many weeks ago, I invited you to view yourself as a midwife to the great re-birth…the manifestation of Heaven on Earth. Together we have been rising up to choose wonder over why, love over fear, and presence in every moment. We have bravely embraced true forgiveness, integrity, compassion, kindness, and gratitude in order to surrender enough to raise our vibration and shift us to a higher dimensional way of Being…to push off the shore into the middle of the river.

And now we hope! For it is the energy of true hope that will move us from the Old to the New, from the Dark to the Light, from the Collective Consciousness to Unity Consciousness…to Resonate in Love.

 

“It is a misnomer that hope is idealistic and saccharine. In actuality, hope is the energy of life filtering through the honesty of all its impediments. In our modern era, we endure a culture of hiddenness and denial, which has left most people frantically searching for the true energy of hope.”
- Mark Nepo, “Drinking from the River of Light: The Life of Expression

 

But, here’s the thing… true hope requires vulnerability. Otherwise it’s just a wish - something ethereal that we say while blowing out our birthday candles and then continue controlling our outcome. True hope is not a wish. True hope involves more of us and our soul…a life of hope feels risky.

 

“Embracing our vulnerabilities is risky but not nearly as dangerous as giving up on love and belonging and joy—the experiences that make us the most vulnerable. Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light.”
- Brene Brown, “The Gifts of Imperfection”

 

And it is with this understanding of the” vulnerability of hope” that I find myself better able to understand what Pema Chodron means when she suggests that we “abandon hope”. Could it be that she is calling us to release the false hope that we have been conditioned to believe in - the type of hope that comforts our egos, keeps us safe and prevents us from being vulnerable? Could true hope be something quite different all together?

 

“If we're willing to give up hope that insecurity and pain can be exterminated then we can have the courage to relax with the groundlessness of our situation. This is the first step on the path... if we totally experience hopelessness, giving up all hope of alternatives to the present moment, we can have a joyful relationship with our lives, an honest, direct relationship, one that no longer ignores the reality of impermanence and death.”
- Pema Chodron, “When Things Fall Apart”

 

Pema suggests we give up on hope as a wish or a longing for things to be different than they are, and she offers us an even better version of hope - a joyful, honest and direct relationship with our lives and the present moment. Such presence IS the pathway to the New Earth and is how we actively “hope” for a better world and a better way.

It is only by fearlessly accessing the vibrant energy of NOW that we align with the highest frequency that will transform our lives and life on our planet.

Wise Women, we are needed and NOW is the time! Dig deep. Show up. Have courage. Hope. Believe. Trust. Ask for help. You are not alone. Surrender to the divine plan. Surround yourself in white light. And know that all will be ok.

 
unsplash-image-TCm5pmnDed0.jpg
 

OK

I don’t know how its all going to turn out

my small life

or the future of humanity

I want to know though.

Will I be OK?

Will my children be OK?

Will the dolphins and whales be OK?

Someone please tell me

guarantee me

assure me…

and then, maybe, just maybe,

I’ll surrender

give up my need to control

and push off the shore.

Pardon me, what is is that you are saying?

“I am sorry, but that’s not how it works”

“You have to believe and hope that all will be OK

without knowing exactly what OK looks like

OK does not mean everything will stay the same

OK does not mean that the change will always be easy or pretty

So if that is your definition, I’m sorry but I can’t tell you all will be OK

But, if you are willing to see OK as the unfoldment

of a truly Divine Plan

then yes, I can assure you…

it will be OK

better than OK”

OK, I say.

- Patti Wardlaw

P.S. Here is the card I drew moments before my Monday Morning Circle, so fitting…you really can’t make this stuff up!