Category Archives: Dreamtime

THE GREENING OF SOUL:CREATIVITY and THE WILD FEMININE

13 Thursday Jun 2019

Posted by in Baby Boomers, DIVINE FEMININE, Dreamtime, Eco-feminism, Ecopsychology, feminine power, Happiness, Jungian psychology, New Story, spiritual ecology, Uncategorized, Women and Leadership, women's leadership

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Did you not see that when your creative force turned to the world, how the dead things moved under it and through it, how they grew and prospered, and how your thoughts flowed in rich rivers? If your creative force now turns to the place of the soul, you will see how your soul becomes green and how its field bears wonderful fruit?                                                C.G. Jung, The Red Book

 

In yoga this week, we were doing a pose called “Parivrtta” something. (I looked it up: Parivrtta Paschimottanasana.) One leg is stretched straight out; the other folded at your thigh. Then you stretch sideways towards your toes with both arms. The goal, as I saw it, was about a foot and a half down the horizon to my toes. Hmm. Maybe with more effort and hard work, I’d get there this year. Or next. Then the teacher added: Now, I want you to think about receiving and not trying or pushing. Immediately I felt a softness, an expansion, and I flowed forward with ease all the way to those seemingly distant toes. No “work”. No “trying”. No “striving”. Just joyfully touching my toes.

The expansion with ease can seem magical, but it is really opening to Source. To infinite creativity. When we are aligned and open, we can grow into greatness. Each of us is a wild genius and you have everything you need already within. You are enough, perfectly designed and brilliantly destined to create in joy.

“Be wild; that is how to clear the river. The river does not flow in polluted, we manage that. The river does not dry up, we block it. If we want to allow it its freedom, we have to allow our ideational lives to be let loose, to stream, letting anything come, initially censoring nothing. That is creative life. It is made up of divine paradox. To create one must be willing to be stone stupid, to sit upon a throne on top of a jackass and spill rubies from one’s mouth. Then the river will flow, then we can stand in the stream of it raining down.”

Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes

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Q: Are you consciously initiating change in your life or shrinking to fit an illusion of safety in your same old story? BE the change; don’t wait for it to wallop you from the outside. Neptune (dreams, intuition, unconditional love, mystic knowing) in Pisces is calling!

The best thing to do for the world is to become the fullest truest expression of you and go to the unknown. Love your life into being.

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Maybe you have had a dream that offers you some clues about how to get into the river of your life again. How to connect to your creativity, your joy, the sense of your life as adventure. Maybe you are stuck and missing a sense of vitality. Of direction. Of the joy of feeling your soul moving you.

I would love to help you unblock the river, and connect to the River underneath the river. I will be offering The Way of the Wild Feminine ecourse live online beginning July 17th. In the meantime, why not take a dip into the waters of your dreaming and take advantage of a greatly discounted consultation hour for only $97? Available for the next three days until Friday, June 14th, 5 pm. Send payment to PayPal address: drmsteele@gmail.com

Use that address also to contact me so we can schedule your hour consultation within the next 30 days.

In a dream of many years ago: I am in a line of Native American women dressed in fringed buckskin dresses, shells and turquoise, hiking down the steep, winding path to the great river. Each of us carries a bundle wrapped in cloth which we hold in front of us. When we reach the river after a long walk we watch the water for awhile, to find the right place to enter. Then each of us chooses one of the flat granite rocks, moving into the water to spread open our bundles on the stone surface. When we first unwrap them and lay everything on the rock, the different objects look a bit disorganized. Everyone has different objects in their bundles. Gradually we find an arrangement that fits, placing the objects in the sun on the flat rock. We do this to give thanks, to offer everything we have. But the most important part of the process is feeling our way to the placement on our own particular rock that has an echo, a resonance, a connection from the rock and the earth beneath the rock. This line of energy is also reflected in the sun to the sky. You set your things just so, in the right order, and they are lined up with the blue sky above and the brown rocks and water and sandy earth below. These are our offerings, our gifts, our thanks, now aligned with the energy beneath what is beneath the rocks, and above what is above the sky. This is an infinite source of divine energy. This is how we connect to our power and the map of our soul’s destiny.

Just as our bodies have energy meridians and an auric field, so does the Earth. There are places on Earth where the spiritual energy is especially strong, ley lines which are energy lines passing through sacred sites and places of power. The Big island of Hawaii is one of those places, an energy vortex similar to our body’s chakras and to acupuncture points. These sacred places can heal us, connect us to our deepest source of energy and creative flow.

But all of Earth has healing and creative energies available. It can help you now to spend some quiet time in the wild. Meditate. Dream. Go within, and let the energies from the Great Below connect you also to the star and planet energies of the Great Above that are influencing us right now. Particularly, jovial Jupiter in his home sign of Sagittarius opposes Neptune (intuition, dreams, source of mystery) in his home sign of Pisces. A propitious time for your spiritual inspiration and unconditional love to team up with the expansive, dynamic, confident and jovial Jupiter who brings abundance to whatever you focus on.

I would love to help you unblock the river, and connect to the River underneath the river. I will be offering The Way of the Wild Feminine e~course live online beginning July 17th. In the meantime, why not take a dip into the waters of your dreaming and take advantage of a greatly discounted consultation hour for only $97? Available for the next three days until Friday, June 14th, 5 pm. Send payment to PayPal address: drmsteele@gmail.com

Use that address also to contact me so we can schedule your hour consultation within the next 30 days.

If you are creatively engaged, you will be happy. Discern what is true for you- what you carry in your bundle- and let the illusions, false teachers, fake news, cookie-cutter programs, go. Focus on connecting the deep truth and magic of you to the inexhaustible source of divine energy.

I would love to live
Like a river flows,
Carried by the surprise
Of its own unfolding.

John O’Donohue

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Master your creative power with ease and flow. Don’t focus on the obstacle, the limitations of your current situation, the seeming insoluble problem in your path. Get to the river. It is still and always flowing. Know yourself to be a creator with a divine power to manifest, and wake up fully to this moment.

As above, so below, as within, so without, as the Universe so the soul. Hermes Trismegistus

Adjust your vision to what you love to do. Look within. How might you get into the flow again. Pay attention to your happiness your joy. Jupiter expands what you focus on.

Make a vow to be brilliant in your chosen work. Grow yourself into greatness by stripping away false beliefs, illusions, distractions and drama. Love your life into being. Use joy as your navigator in the river of life.

 

“When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.”                                          Rumi

 

 

 

2019: FIND YOUR VISION, YOUR VOICE, YOUR VALOR, YOUR VALUE

02 Wednesday Jan 2019

Posted by in DIVINE FEMININE, Dreamtime, Eco-feminism, Ecopsychology, feminine power, Jungian psychology, New Story, New Year 2019, solar eclipse, spiritual ecology, Uncategorized, Women and Leadership, women's leadership

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“For last year’s words belong to last year’s language, And next year’s words await another voice.”                    T. S. Eliot Four Quartets

This is a critical moment in our history and in the evolution of consciousness for women’s voices to be heard. I think this is going to be a year of power and beauty for the awakening woman, the visionary entrepreneur, the healer, creative, Dreamer; the transformational leader and aspiring leader.

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2019 ushers in new beginnings, like every New Year, but this one is especially potent for a fresh start in career and leadership. For example: let’s celebrate the fierce hope that a new Congress in the United States brings, with an historic 126 women of diverse ethnicities, religions, races seated. The image above Rainbow Boat of Women speaks to the Wild Women Wayfinders who are the dreamers of a New Story, the pioneers and pilgrims, the midwives to the evolution of consciousness, the beauty and power of the emerging possible.

2019 is the year to face the truth about who you really are and make a bid for freedom. Get something done. The 2019 New Year will begin with some powerful aspects as the Sun conjunct Saturn in Capricorn will beckon you to devote to your purpose and aim for achievement. Jupiter in expansive Sagittarius encourages use to go big on our vision and aspirations. To add to the fire, Mars will come home to Aries giving us the impulse to take action on our goals.

You are encouraged to step out and take the lead. To be responsible for building your dreams. The steadfast sacred Capricorn Goat is the wise elder, viewing life from the mountain tops and seeing all as it truly is.

If you have been wanting to try something new, this is the time to try it. Your intuition is strong. You can make big decisions and make use of opportunities.

Today (January 1) Mars enters Aries giving us the courage, the inner fire, to take action, to move. This will be a year of exploration, adventure, and action, building new structures and foundations. In a week (January 6) will be a pivot point -very possibly an initiatory change and paradigm shift for you -as the new moon in Capricorn and a solar eclipse urge us to let go of the old story that isn’t working and take clear, focused action on our soul assignment. Capricorn rules the tenth house in your astrological chart, the house of public images and one’s work in the world. Although it is often characterized as a rather stern, strict, controlling fatherly disciplinarian, Capricorn as Sea Goat is a beautiful blend of earthy, grounded, practical energies with sensitive, creative and magical qualities too. Governed by Saturn, Lord of Time (who also rules Aquarius), Capricorn is concerned with maturity, boundaries, stability and structure. A holding place for governance. Evolutionary astrologer Daniel Giamario calls Capricorn “The Council of Grandmothers”. As the centuries-old Native American prophecy predicted, “When the Grandmothers from the four directions come to speak, a new time is coming.” In 2004, a group of thirteen international women leaders did come together forming the first International Council of Grandmothers. This was the manifestation of a big vision that spiritual teacher and storyteller Jyoti had, which matched the dreaming of other women. Without knowing how she and her partner would make this happen, it did.

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Reset. Reboot. Make a commitment to show up in a different way. To shine as you are. Unapologetic. Not ashamed. Boldly certain of where you stand, and what you stand for. Don’t diminish yourself or play small. Uranus stations direct in Aries before going into Taurus, lending great momentum and motivation to your desires to succeed. As 2018 was a year of much inner work, descents, reviewing, possibly the blocking of your outer plans, 2019 will be a year of creativity, courage, collaboration and heart centered expression. It is important to have a clear and focused plan. For a jumpstart on learning how to marry your vision to a grounded plan, contact me for a complimentary 20 minute session drmsteele@gmail.com. We will focus on celebrating your old story, strengthening your feminine powers, calling on your dreams, finding a path to align with the call of your wild soul. Are you ready to claim a new name?

The Circle of Grandmothers is one expression of the Capricorn archetype of The Great Turning that Joanna Macy speaks about. They are the teachers bringing past, present and future together to care for the next seven generations.

The dreams and visions coming to us now allow us to come alive again, to a new story of consciousness. This year urges us to build with great courage, creativity and cooperation the structures which will enable the new story to grow and flourish. Some of these desires and dreams were seeded eight years ago. You are being called to play your part in the global shift of consciousness as we awaken and remember who we truly are. We are the midwives of the new story. We carry the promise of the emerging possible. But this takes planning. Sourced in deep feminine wisdom, values and vision, there is a world trying to be born. The larger ecology of Becoming emerges from awakened feminine power. Recover a sense of beauty. Reclaim joy. Revision success. Redefine power. Bring your unique talents, your soul gifts, your powerful medicine to this New Year of creativity, courage, and collaboration.

As Mars moves into Aries bringing passion, assertiveness, drive and a pioneering spirit, this is an excellent time to use your courage and daring on a focused, strategic plan for your new story. Look forward to 2019 to bring new order to your life. To root yourself in the nurturance of your heart and to come home to yourself. You are now at a crossroads, and it’s time to make a commitment.

“The wild soul is calling out, calling for us to sing our song as the new myth breaks through, calling for new vision, for new creations, for the embodiment of subtle knowledge, centered in the compassionate heart.” Veronica Goodchild PhD

This is an auspicious time for a mentor and I would be honored to explore that possibility with you. Contact me at drmsteele@gmail.com to schedule a complimentary 20 minute session via telephone, Skype or Zoom.

This is your time for Mastery.

Expect yourself to succeed.

Trust that you are capable.

Something new will be birthed in 2020 but is coming into view, into manifestation now. It’s time to get serious and more disciplined as you commit to placing your personal stamp on the world. Something that will endure. Your legacy. There is an opportunity to harness your imagination to enhance and accelerate the production of your Great Work.

Uranus moves back into Aries for 4 more months (until March 2019). This is your last chance for the next 84 years to take advantage of Uranus (the Great Awakener and revolutionary energy) in Aries energy.

What allows you to feel free? With gratitude, honor your growth this year. You can have a brand new life. Fully expressed. In joy. We are catalysts. Changemakers. The carriers of the emerging possible. You are meant to be lit up with the fire of your heart. Accept who you are at a soul level. Enlist the help of your inner shaman, your inner warrior, to nurture you. Find a mentor. Join a sisterhood community. Walk your true, destined path and name your spiritual destiny. “This is how I am meant to be. This is how I am meant to serve.” Share what is profoundly true from the root of what matters to your heart. Make a promise: Now I use it. Now I take this to heart. This is who I am. This is my Divine mission, my soul assignment. I accept.

“There’s a secret name inside you/that belongs to the stars/wind, trees, waves, soul/Take what is yours and live it.”

                                                 Veronica Goodchild -Songlines for the Soul

 

 

 

TAKE OFF YOUR MASK! STEP INTO FEMININE POWER, MAGIC, MYSTERY

03 Wednesday Jan 2018

Posted by in Cancer Super Moon, DIVINE FEMININE, Dreamtime, Eco-feminism, Ecopsychology, feminine power, Goddess, Jungian psychology, New Year 2018, Shamanic dreaming, spiritual ecology, Uncategorized, Women and Leadership

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[Art: “Mother of the World” Nicholas Roenich]

 

“And now we welcome the new year, full of things that have never been”

                                                      Rainer Maria Rilke

Take off your mask. Come home to yourself.

 2018 will be a year of alchemical transformation. It is an 11 universal year in numerology, master number of new beginnings. It is also the vibration of creation and partnerships. Step up. Expand beyond what you thought was possible. There will be increased synchronicities, miracles, the possibility for fulfillment of your destiny. As we move into the Aquarian Age, we enter the mystery as a huge shift begins in the world. Pushing the restart button, get ready for liberation and illumination. Now is the moment. Focus.

This super moon in Cancer, the Full Wolf Moon, brings to light just what needs to end, transform or shift in some radical way in the structures, foundations and old stories that keep playing out in your life. This is true on both personal and collective levels. This Full Wolf Moon will throw you into the heart of mystery of your purpose with radical shifts. Use the energies of this Cancer moon to get over your fears by filling yourself with unconditional love. Mature into your purpose, taking responsibility for your feminine power and sovereignty. Conjunct to the full moon was Black Moon Lilith, and Eris, two fierce feminine warriors who are fed up with  being ignored.

Saturn moved into Capricorn at Winter Solstice December 19. At the Galactic Center, the vast black hole in the middle of the Milky Way, we see into holy darkness. The womb of creation. The place where stars are born. And new stories are birthed. What did you seed at Solstice?

 The future cannot be controlled but it can be created. It may feel like we are being sucked into a vortex of destructive economic, political and environmental news. But we are birthing a new story. It is important to tell ourselves, repeatedly, that we have the strength to succeed. We are the ancestors of the future.

Saturn is tough but bestows true authority and the power to make change on this planet and in our lives. He means serious business, an initiation into our own authority, responsibility. Like the Hawaiian word for responsibility – kuleana– this is not just about “duty” but the privilege and blessing of being given a sacred task, the blessing of your gifts, your healed wounds, to accomplish it. Now it seems to me Ho’okuleana is even more important: the shared and collective responsibility to heal ourselves and care for our world kin and the planet.

There is great energy to ground your vision, focus, build a structure to support you, boundaries to protect you. Saturn is the master of time. Stay steadfast in serving what holds you to your greatest good.

Are you ready to act? Saturn rules social structures, communal life, government, financial systems. Via Cathy Pagano [http://www.wisdom-of-astrology.com/public/page/blog?i=2] and Daniel Giamanio, some ancient cultures saw Capricorn as a Council of Grandmothers who shared their wisdom for the common good. This is the wisdom of the earth and of the body. The last time Saturn was in Capricorn was 1988-89. What were you doing then? What have you learned?

In a current online course Kaypacha(http://newparadigmastrology.com/kaypacha/) “Getting Stronger with Saturn” we learn how Saturn allows us to claim our sovereignty, own our authority, by insisting we honor the boundaries, borders, structures of time and the real limitations of third dimension time and space.

Find home within your inner Mother, nurture yourself and your dearest creative babies. Capricorn and Saturn are excellent at structuring and stabilizing your visions and goals.

Saturn is also the planet of synthesis, helping us to put it all together in alignment with our soul’s destiny. Define yourself. Time is limited. What has been deconstructed over the last few years is ready to be reconstructed, renewed. Get it done. Saturn asks of us to come into correct alignment with our soul’s purpose, to stretch towards the Goddess as she is reaching for us. He is the Magician. This could be a very creative time for you.

I especially love helping midlife, Baby Boomer, Primetime women 50+on the journey toward Reinvention. Renewal. A journey to discover your legacy and leadership. This could be the most meaningful chapter of your life! And the world needs you. Perhaps you have felt ashamed of your dreams and wishes, and hidden your power. Time to let that go. Open to the initiation of your authentic authority. Learn to trust your intuition, your instincts, your visions. Build a foundation and framework especially in relationship to the world. You have the maturity now to dedicate yourself to this journey. First, a deconstruction. Deconditioning to your previous reality. Perhaps you need a radical new perspective, a reconditioning, a restructuring. Step outside of the old story, the old rules. Redefine power, revision success, and reclaim joy.

As this is such a month for imagination, tapping into your enthusiasm and creativity, why don’t you join me in person (Bay Area, California) or via Skype for a consultation? Find your joie de vivre. A new initiative is ready to begin. Let’s map it out and prepare to implement and manifest . A call to action is emerging from the Universe, calling you to freedom.

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE GREAT AMERICAN SOLAR ECLIPSE: A CALL TO QUEENSHIP

20 Sunday Aug 2017

Posted by in American history, DIVINE FEMININE, Dreamtime, Eco-feminism, Ecopsychology, Jungian psychology, Shamanic dreaming, solar eclipse, spiritual ecology, Uncategorized, Women and Leadership

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The wind is roaring through the trees here in Marin County, the sun alternating between brightness and clouded. It already feels eerie and anticipatory for tomorrow’s cosmic event. It will be a psychic event as well, a time of completions and new beginnings. Imagine what is possible. And I must add, as I sit at Peet’s cafe, typing, that “The Age of Aquarius” by the Fifth Dimension is playing. Magic is afoot!

The solar eclipse that will happen tomorrow is called the Great American solar eclipse. It is the first total eclipse whose path is entirely within the United States since the birth of our country in 1776. It is the first time in 99 years it will be visible across the entire country. And yes, you may have heard it has a direct impact on the current President’s natal astrological chart. We do not know exactly what the effects will be. (I imagine he will be gone by October). The shadow of leadership has fallen on our country. The original sin of our country’s founding, our genocidal history with Native peoples, with slavery and festering racism, with the exclusion, fear and hatred of women, has been revealed. It is not just the character of one man. It is the original sin at the roots of our country.

What then are we called to do? Because this solar eclipse is in the sign of Leo, under the fixed star Regulus “the heart of the lion”, it is a call to reclaim our authority, sovereignty, dignity and courage to lead from the heart of hope. To bring our original medicine into ascendence for healing, wholeness, beyond dualities and conflict. It is a wake up call to work together, as “We, the People”, to create a more perfect union. To bring our heart’s hope into the future we imagine is possible. It is happening. It just happened in Boston, in the heartfelt responses and growing courage of leaders after the Charlottesville tragedy.

In the horrifying events of Charlottesville, and the equally horrifying responses of our American President, the shadow of American history is exposed at its very roots. The shadow of our original sin. In response, we bring our original medicine. There is an alignment in this eclipse with the fixed star Regulus, the brightest star in the constellation –the heart of the lion. Regulus moved into Virgo in 2012. The virgin Queen. The feminine ruler. This is the energy of the Goddess available to us now.

 Beginning in 2012, and resonant with the prophecies of Native American and other indigenous cultures, the star of leadership is shifting to the Feminine. Awaken your royal heart and be bold, courageous. This is a time of quickening, of acceleration. Everything is up for review (Mercury in retrograde). Release all that is not essential. Honor the old beliefs, the wounds, the old story, but hold to what you love. Be fierce as a mama lion for all of that. Especially release the old story of duality and conflict, played out in such ugly ways in current events. Feel empowered by being in the field of unity, oneness, the flow of change and transformation. How fiercely can you love?

The Sabian symbol for this Leo new moon is: A mermaid emerges from the ocean waves ready to take on human form. This is the divine Feminine rising from the collective unconscious, ready to manifest in visible and fully conscious form.The Sabian symbols came to clairvoyant Elsie Wheeler in 1925 and were transcribed by Marc Edmund Jones. They are symbols for the meaning of each degree of the zodiac. Popularized later by astrologer/philosopher/composer Dane Rudhyar who integrated Jungian depth psychology, Western and Eastern philosophies with astrology in his book An Astrological Mandala: The cycle of Transformations and Its 360 Symbolic Phases.  

In a dream this week, I saw another image that speaks to the current situation: There is a group of us women in a circle, holding scripts for a new screenplay or script which is being written. I call a dream teacher to invite her to join us and am surprised when a particular Jungian analyst answers. I didn’t realize she was interested in the role of the rising Feminine, although I know her to be a strong dreamer. I recover from my surprise, remembering her dream of a powerful, mystical healing which came through chanting with the ocean. I tell her I am good at seeing the patterns, the context, the myth beneath the personal stories. In my dream, the theater we are going to use is just emptying out. Row after row of old white men are filing out towards the front, to the side of the stage. We only see them from the back. Balding gray haired men. We come in with enthusiasm, chattering away, to work on our screenplay or our script, each carrying a piece of the story. Or perhaps each with her own story, which will become the script or the screenplay. We are not on the stage yet. But we have filled the theater. We are almost ready to start rehearsing our parts, our lines. Maybe we are ready for at least a read through.

 [Lion with flowers art: Sally Barlow at Makaio Design. By permission]

How to find your original medicine? Your wild genius? What you have to offer for these times, to create a future in which it will be easier to love? What is the unique ability or talent, the gift you came here to give? As “original medicine” is a concept from indigenous cultures, I like to recall one of the meanings of indigenous: “born from within. This is how you locate your original medicine. Go inward and really claim your own sovereignty. The power you want to rule with. The values you want to live by and bring to the world. Bring your original medicine to this revealed blackness of original sin in the United States. Crown yourself Queen. Each unique creation, invention, expression of our being is essential and irreplaceable. Own your story. Share it. Make it part of the new story we are readying for the big screen, the big stage. Show up. Be visible, be heard. Discover the key and the core of your personal power. It is found by following the compass of your heart.

The solar eclipse erases the old story. Dissolves into the unity of the hieros gamos – sacred marriage of King and Queen. Claim your Queenship. What is it to wear a crown (see the corona of the sun just visible) Make peace with the old. Then shine with your true enthusiasm (filled with the divine – en theos) and imagine the possible. In my dream of the women entering the theater with their scripts, I almost forgot this dream voice, perhaps the stage director, who cautions: ”Steady. Steady”.

The effects of your intentions set now will be felt for the next 6 months to two years.Do not lose heart. Do not flip into despair with each demented tweet you hear. Keep your heart open to the light which is available to you now, open your heart, and shine that into the possible and emerging future. Hold that higher vibration. Hold steady, steady to what beautiful future you can imagine, “a world in which it will be easier to love”.

FALLING: FINDING YOUR WILD HEART IS THE KEY

12 Monday Jun 2017

Posted by in DIVINE FEMININE, Dreamtime, Eco-feminism, Ecopsychology, Jungian psychology, Shamanic dreaming, Uncategorized, Women and Leadership

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On Friday night we had a Full Rose Moon, or Strawberry Moon, named by the Algonquin tribes as the season to gather the ripened fruit. What are you harvesting at this time in your life? Is it sweet? Does it feed you?

 Sunset in the ethereal waves:

I cannot tell if the day is ending, or the world, or if

The secret of secrets is inside me again.

                           Anna Akhmatova (trans Jane Kenyon)

 There is much to distract us, to disturb us, to distress us in the world today. Yet there are also beautiful, brave, bold new energies and creations emerging like strings of strawberries from the dirt. This is a time for us to define, refine, sift through what our heart’s mission and soul purpose really is. Like sifting nutrients from the mud as  Flamingo does, we can gather the sweetness and the essence of our truth to partner with others in our tribe for a new story. We must let go of our old stories, anything that is superfluous, and speak the truth.

 When order crumbles, mystery rises. (John Shea)

 Breaking free from an old story can be abrupt, as I found out recently.Sometimes, by falling, we may have to shed all that is not essential to our wild souls to get to the heart of what is trying to be born. At least that is what happened to me, when I collapsed on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant Chow in Lafayette.

Feeling a little nauseous after lunch – perhaps it was the coconut milk chai latte? The earlier political discussion about the firing of FBI Director Comey as I jogged around the reservoir? The poaching of rhinos? Not knowing where we were moving in three weeks? -I had gone to my car to rest on the reclined driver’s seat. But as the nausea subsided, I began to feel dizzy. Black spots spread rapidly across my field of vision. I had just enough time to grab my keys and open the car door, calling to a woman nearby talking on her iPhone. “Excuse me, excuse me, I need he..” then slid to the concrete with keys in hand.  Splayed on my back like a stranded starfish. I hear my keys hit the concrete. For the next 20 minutes or so I could hear people around me, trying to help. I could not make a sound nor open my eyes. A man picks up my wrist. Then lets it go and it falls to the ground. “Does she have a pulse?” “Yes but it’s weak.” “Is she breathing? Is it agonal breathing? Does she have alcohol on her breath?” That annoyed me. But for the vast stretch of time there was only stillness. Silence within. No stories. No opinions or feelings. No fear. No lights at the end of the tunnel, either, or faces of beloved lost ones. It did pass through my mind this might be the end. That was okay. All was well. Just as it was. I wasn’t struggling to breathe nor was there any pain at all. Most astounding, although it felt quite simple and matter of fact, not at all dramatic, was that I was completely There, and utterly Not There. The thought passes by that perhaps I m leaving. I have no opinions about any of this – rare for me. No feelings at all – also rare. Yet I am completely present to sound, the feeling of the breeze, a hand on my face, a pounding on my chest, a few slaps to my face. Perhaps I had some feelings about that. The same level of annoyance when on of my helpers asked if there was alcohol on my breath, if I had been drinking. But no place for my indignation to land or be expressed. It just passed along. I did not see my ancestors, nor see a light, or a tunnel. Perhaps that will be different someday. But maybe leaving will be like this. Peaceful. Quiet. Simple. So very calm.

 Eventually, as my heart rate began to rise above 50 in the ambulance, a hydrating IV in place, I opened my eyes to the most vivid sights. The green of the trees, the white of the EMT’s coat, his deep brown eyes. Where had I gone? Nowhere. Everywhere.

At the hospital overnight for observation and EKG monitoring, the tests were extensive, thorough, from CAT scan to echocardiogram. Nothing turned up. “You’re the healthiest, strongest elder I’ve ever seen!” enthuses my lovely Indian doctor. “Ha!” I respond, nodding to my IV drip. I tell my two older children not to visit as they have their own children in tow. My older daughter sounds very somber on the phone. Is she burdened by my absence and inability to help with Scout this weekend? But it turns out when they put her call through I was housed in the Oncology ward and she thought they hadn’t told me yet that my 2001 cancer had returned. It was just a free spacious private room with a view. I had one visitor: My youngest daughter who has not spoken or written to me for two years, for reasons I do not know. Periodically in that time I have written to her, especially after a dream of her. Trying to stay connected, trying to stay in my heart. Recently I have fantasized running into her in Berkeley- perhaps at Whole Foods, or Berkeley Bowl where we both shop – and yelling at her. Turning my back! Refusing to acknowledge her! But when I saw here in my room all that fell away. No effort. It just was no longer there. I was happy. I patted the side of my bed “Come here.” And we snuggled for a good long while. We talked some. Not much, about what was going on in our lives. No tears, no hurt, no anger. No need to explain the past, no need to define the future, either. “I love you.” “I love you.” It was just perfect as it was. She did confirm a dream I had written to her had, in fact, happened. That was enough to know. Confirmed for me that visible or invisible, we are connected. The gifts and learnings of this mystery continued to unfold. A friend and colleague Nancy Mills “The Spirited Woman” who runs a wonderful global women’s foundation called me for the first time in over a year. She had been thinking about me a lot. The urge to call me would not let her go. She had a new scarf for this month’s donation named “Awakened Energy” she thought I should have. Then I had to tell her what had happened, leaving us both silently stunned.

 As with all mysteries, it will be a long time, if ever, I will understand the falling. What exactly fell away. Who is left.  I will say there were many miracles about this day and much to be grateful for. Usually I would be on the freeway at that time, to pick up my grandson from preschool. But that morning we could not get my car seat to work so his mom would pick him up. I had a few seconds warning allowing me to get out of the car rather than pass out inside my parked car. I did not hit my head on the concrete. People helped. Someone even put an explanatory note on my car so it would not be ticketed or towed. How did they know to do that? I have health insurance and the hospital care, extensive testing, were amazing. One of the women who tended to me on the sidewalk tracked me down at the hospital. I was so happy to be able to thank her and to tell her I was fine which “made her day”. “You were so pale; we thought you were gone.” I did not tell her that I was, and was-not, gone.

 A few days later I went back to my office and found a dream drawing from February 2017 which foretold this event:

 Towards the end of the dream, I fall to the ground with all my keys and several tools on a heavy key chain beneath me. A man hands me back just one key, a large key with full rounded top, in solid gold metal. Then he says “You only need this one. That’s a mistake so many people make.” To try to understand this one key, on waking I had drawn it with oil pastels to perhaps see what it was. [The drawing packed in a moving box at the moment.] The large solid gold key turned out to be a Goddess with rounded arms and an abstracted, triangle form to her lower body. At the center, a heart.

So this is the key, the one heart, which I had forgotten in trying too many different things and tools and templates for my livelihood, my calling. Which I am sure I will forget again. Perhaps not. So much of the old story fell away when I fell to the ground. So many surprising and wonderful new connections since that day. In searching for a likeness, today I found many Anatolian Goddess figures from about 5,000 B.C. The word “Anatolia” (Turkey) means City of Women. So I am centered again, solidly, simply, in the heart of my work with the sacred Feminine, the Wild Feminine, my soul sisters. Just this one heart is what I offer.

This is an especially good time to tap into your intuition to see what life, what love, is asking of you. To listen for the soul story longing to be born through you.There is great wisdom available to you when you are honest, when you allow your heart to sing. Sometimes it helps to have a translator and mentor to discover the key to your heart, so that you may celebrate and create with it. Contact me if you would like a consultation in person (Bay Area, California) or Skype call. In celebration of this Strawberry Moon, summer solstice (June 20) and still being here I am offering a 20% discount on a half hour or hour session. From $275 to $220; half hour from $150 to $120. Email me to book an appointment.

SEEING IN THE DARK: FINDING OUR WILD MEDICINE ~ PART I

29 Wednesday Mar 2017

Posted by in Dreamtime, Eco-feminism, Ecopsychology, Jungian psychology, spiritual ecology, Uncategorized, Women and Leadership

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SEEING IN THE DARK: FINDING OUR WILD MEDICINE ~ PART I

 

For all the devastation of these dark times -the attacks on women, children, the elderly, immigrants, the land, on the truth, international relationships, – T-rump’s essential role as the cruel Fool has catalyzed a fierce awakening. He has woken us up. If Hillary had won, we would be tempted to apathy – without suffering, without feeling. Now, we are engaged, we are concerned, our hearts are broken on a continual basis with the daily news of more devastation. Still, we rise. From the depths of our wild, wise selves we are seeing in the dark and bringing our wild medicine to the surface. We are turning what was shameful – our caring hearts, our feminine power – into brave and effective actions, together. Millions of women around the world marched for life in January wearing pink pussy hats. In this widespread show of humor, of flamboyance, of strength, of pride, women reclaimed a “dirty” word that has been used to degrade, insult and shame women long before T-rump used it in his crude boast about sexual assault.

Monday, March 27th 2017 was a new moon in the fire sign of Aries. This marks the beginning of the New Year in the zodiac, the strongest new moon of the year. Aries energizes leadership, fires up new ideas, ignites action for charting a new course. Venus, sacred to the Goddess of love and beauty in many traditions, is retrograde, gone to the underworld to reclaim – like Inanna – shadow parts of herself which have been repressed and ignored. For women this is often our exiled feminine power.

This feminine power is buried within all of us. “The one who knows”, as Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes calls her, is breaking through frozen ground like spring grass and blossom as we saw in women’s marches and brave actions around the world.

Our deepest sources of creativity and understanding lie out of sight in darkness, in the unconscious. We must learn how to perceive “through the eyes of soul as well as through the eyes of the ego.” This dual way of seeing, being, and acting, Dr. Estes explains, is the most direct way to reclaim the gifts and the “healing apothecary” set into each soul at birth. We must learn to see in the dark to mine the raw gems of mystery, dreams, sudden knowings, and the shadows of power as individuals and as society.

Many of the dreams I am hearing, and experiencing myself, take place in group settings – conferences, classes, circles. The purpose generally seems to be some kind of learning, some kind of education. The root of the word educare is to bring forth, to transform. We are carriers and midwives of the new myth. It is a collective dream. Of many ways to dream this dream onward, to strengthen the New Story, I find sharing our dreams, writing and telling story, and encouraging each other to step into the light with what we know, what we see, of “What is To Come” is most powerful. In the following dream, we women in a hostile environment wash off the shame of patriarchal projections, and find our way to the beauty and joy of community as we reclaim our wild souls, our wisest selves.

Dream #1: Surfing with Flamingos

There are many of us women staying in a hostel. I step into the rustic tin walled shower and find it clogged with black, inky water from the women who have showered before me. I am quite indignant at the poor maintenance of this place. As I shower the water washes black ink off of me as well. Eventually the water runs clear and drains. I see out the window a view of the ocean and go down to the beach for a swim. In the water to my left, a flock of flamingos is surfing a wave to shore, grouped in the curl of the wave.

The dream of a “hostel” where the women must wash off black dye seems to speak to the dark projections of the hostile Masculine which have shamed us and shut us off from the beauty and power of our wild natures. When we wash off these projections and rinse off our shame, we are free to come into the light. Called by the wild wisdom of nature and the vast ocean’s creativity and mystery, we find our way to the ocean where the flamingos are surfing. They are a joyful community, a flamboyance of feminine energy and magic, surfing the large waves of change.

Here are some gifts from Flamingo medicine which come from several of her unique features

~Balance: ~With her long legs, wades in deep water while remaining grounded.

~ Just as Flamingo wades into the muddy waters and stands at the edges of the shoreline to locate and taste shrimp, we find the real nourishment and aliveness for us stands at the shoreline of our souls. These are the thresholds of our most dramatic and challenging changes.

~The upper part of the beak is hooked sharply, almost as if broken. This movable part scoops up mud, forcing it through a comb-like structure (lamellae), retaining what is edible. This distinct ability to eat upside down, filtering food from the mud and silt, speaks to the need for us to learn how to filter our soul lessons and soul nourishment from the emotional waters.

~Radiant, vibrant, graceful, beautiful, elegant, flamingos are a fine example of feminine beauty and magic. Be bold, be brave, show your colors.

~Associated with the Phoenix, flamingos are a sign of rebirth, of resurrection. You can rise again from devastation, your fall from grace. As a guidance totem and heart healer: Discern what is poisonous or not useful in your life and what can heal your wounds.

~They are shapeshifters, masters of illusion as they stand on one leg, or tuck their heads, and can bend over backwards.

~The flamingo’s tongue is unusually large and fleshy for a bird, acting as a powerful pump to pull water backwards and expel through filters. The tongue gives us speech. Communication is a gift of Flamingo. Use your voice!

~This is a 30 million year old species within the crane family, pointing to our ancient power as creators, as artists of life. In spite of the overuse of flamingos as decorative, tacky lawn ornaments, they have power and medicine in two areas vital to us as women:

The creative process.

Coyote medicine.

Exposes illusions, or makes them

A shapeshifter

A Trickster

~Because of her pink color, associated with the heart chakra, Flamingo reminds us what you put into your heart influences your colors. Flamingo is a visionary and draws its power from water, from our emotional life and from the collective unconscious.

 

O mother of the sea

Lend me a wave that is strong and true

To carry me from this Age which binds me.

 

I do not need a ship, mother,

But make it a buoyant swell

To bear me up and float me on the sea’s dreaming

Then beach me on some lighter shore…

                                                      Sharon Blackie, “Peregrina”

 

 

The Grandmothers: Secrets of the Old Ones

31 Wednesday Aug 2016

Posted by in Dreamtime, Shamanic dreaming, Women and Leadership

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A few weeks ago I dreamed a group of us women went down to a pool where a herd of elephants was standing. It was very crowded. We squeezed in, skin to skin, with these giant animals who were so strong, so gentle. As we settled into the water up to our chests, the elephants began to rumble, to vibrate. We were there to learn how to tune into their vibrations, to sound with them, at the same level of 500 waves per second, or maybe minute. The attunement was the task. The harmonizing to the same song. Not quite audible but felt. And in the communication, a message.

What might that message be, for us humans, us women, us Grandmothers? Because this was not a dream about elephants. It was a dream from the elephants.

On the physical level, there is a message about the terrible dangers they are exposed to – poaching, habitat destruction, hunting. But this dream felt more like a reminder, an awakening, for us women in the pool to reclaim the ancient wisdom we have forgotten, of the strength, compassionate power and urgent need to care for our Earth and to dream a new song that will carry us all for generations.

As tough protectors and gentle nurturers, elephant Grandmothers remind us of the importance of family, of tending to the babies, of community. They are a matriarchal society where the elder females have an honored and essential role to play. They are the ones who carry the cultural knowledge and history of the herd. The location of safe areas of plentiful food, of watering holes. Having a Grandmother elephant in the herd has a critical influence on the survival of the babies, of her own daughters if she dies before they are nine years old. Unlike most mammals, elder elephants can continue to bear young so there could even be three generations bearing calves at the same time. Perhaps for us elder women, this trinity represents maiden, mother, crone and speaks to our creativity at any age. Bearing new babies from the wombs of our imagination. Elephants are extremely intelligent with brain structures similar to primates like us humans, chimpanzees, apes, monkeys and cetaceans (whales and dolphins). They have amazing hearing and communicating capacities, able to hear low frequency sounds (infrasonic) better than almost any animal on Earth. And they can communicate at long distances for 5-50 miles, as well as being able to sense through their feet an oncoming thunderstorm, tsunami, herds running at a distance. They are the keepers of memory. The guardians of the land. They keep harmony in the herd, but can be fierce in protecting the young ones. They have great power, stamina and patience which they use in service to the whole, to the community.

In this dream is a story about the law of vibration, about interdependence and interconnection. It is a story told now by physicists as well. When we realize we are all swimming in a mighty Universe of vibrating energy, that we are fields of vibrating energy ourselves, we can then dream new forms with our very thoughts.

As women, perhaps as Grandmothers, we too carry the ancient wisdom, the old stories, that are essential to the wellbeing of future generations.

A poem from artist and author Patricia Reis comes to mind:

From the beginning/We have been with you./We are the ancient ones/And we remember.

We remember the time when there was only love/The time when all breathing was one…

We are the ancient ones/And we have waited and watched/You say that you have no memory of us/You say that you cannot hear our voices…

We say the time of waiting is over/We say the silence has been broken/We say there can be no forgetting now. We say       listen.

We are the bones of your grandmother’s grandmothers/We have returned now/We say you cannot forget us now/We say we are with you/And that you are with us.

Remember. Remember.