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The Spiral Path

Reflections, explorations and musings on the spiral path - in our daily lives, on our daily walks, on sacred journeys on ancient pilgrimage paths.  

The Spiral Path calls and challenges us to walk deeply and to live rooted and aligned, awake and aware. It calls us to be willing to connect with our core selves and from the depths of our deepest desires and dreams, aligned with our soul gifts, authentic beauty and creative genius, to live an extraordinary and free life! 

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The Spirals on the River of Life

9/24/2015

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Back in my favorite chair in my special room where I love to read and write.  The day after the Autumn Equinox.  Feeling the shift of energy and finding myself settling in to fall and rhythms of school, cooler mornings, and being pulled in.  Returning to my blog, where I love to write.  Somehow, writing here gives me a container in which to write and share my journey.  My spiral journey, with all of its unexpected twists and turns. Truly a spiral in every way.  Never a straight line.

I recently have had a profound awareness around the nature of a journey or a path.  We are going along our path, often with a destination in mind.  The path is beneath our feet and we move forward along this path, sometimes with a destination in mind, sometimes just going along.

And then something happens.  Life.  Life happens.

A loved dies - or kills himself.  You become unexpectedly pregnant. You have a son or daughter who needs you to assist them in some unexpected way.  Perhaps she hit her head and can no longer attend school.  Perhaps he need daily help with his daughter, and needs you to return to the town he lives in to be the hands-on grandmother. Just when you thought you knew where you were going to be and what you were going to do, Life calls you to a different place, in a different direction. 

As one friend says, she sees it like a river.  There is the main river of your life, and then there are these tributaries that can suddenly pull you off and into their flow.  So you hang out there for a while, living and traversing its rapids until you've run the course of the tributary and you find yourself back in the river.  You may find yourself miles further down when you return to the river, or perhaps you're quite close to the place where you departed.  Yet you know that you're back on the river.  It feels familiar - and that you've returned to something right and flowing with who you are and your life's purpose. 

You can look at the tributaries as diversions, or detours, as places where you got lost and an unnecessary journey that pulled you off your path.  Yet, you know you're a different person from your travels on the tributary.  Something in you has developed, changed, matured, deepened.  Relationships have been created and built, or completed, children have been born.  But what if these "detours" are actually just as necessary and essential to your life's journey as the river itself?

I see a picture of a straight-ish line going along with these spirals off to the right side, and then the left side, and on and on in varying sizes, each one taking us on a ride and journey that plops us back on the line somewhat close to where we got pulled off. Somehow, we still continue to move forward even as we take these excursions.

I wonder if somehow these spirals actually give us exactly what we need to continue to move forward on our life's path - the skills, the strength, the insight, the courage, the fortitude, the wisdom, the hindsight, the compassion - so that we can actually move forward and bring to our life's path the necessary ingredients to fully receive it, fully own our path, fully contribute to our unique purpose and reason for being alive?

What if there are actually no detours or diversions?  What if the tributaries are as much a part of our life's path as the river itself?  What if the tributaries and the experiences we have on them are actually what source the river to continue to flow forward?  What if without the tributaries and its gifts of growth, development and transformation, we actually wouldn't be able to withstand the rapid flow of the river and would drowned, or be thrown out of the river, defeated by its intensity? 

Perhaps we need to develop a capacity or a skill, or an understanding that would support us being able to being in the rapids of the river.  I can liken it to having the wrong kind of boat to navigate the rapids, and this particular tributary would give us the experiences to build the right boat so that we safely and smoothly navigate the waters; perhaps I don't have a strong enough oar, and so need to develop an oar to dig deep into the depths of the water. 

What if the tributaries are actually the cultivating, strengthening and harmonizing we need to stay true to the essence of the river, our life's purpose, and all that it demands of us?  The purpose isn't some destination off in the future at the end, but now, in the present, in each and every moment where we get to recognize and align with our soul's purpose, and choose to reconnect with it, over and over again, and receive and live it fully.  In turn, each time we choose to recognize and return to the river, we connect with something greater, both within ourselves and within the bigger world.  We then contribute to the greater good of the world at large by being our truth and living our purpose, each time with a deeper sense of presence, capacity, courage, commitment and wisdom. 

I'm feeling like I might just be returning to the river...
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The Journey Within the Threshold

5/24/2015

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As you may remember, back in December when we went to Prague, I opened up to crossing a threshold and beginning a descent to be with Her, the Dark Goddess, the Black Madonna.  I came home, and immediately was presented with the reality of Gracie's not going to school because of hitting her head.  So, these past 5 months, I have been being with Gracie, doing some homeschooling but mostly just living life with her as she has been resting and healing.  While she's been headache free for several months, I also get reminded of her sensitivity and susceptibility.  She slipped on the wet grass playing kickball the other night and landed hard on her butt.  The impact went right up her spine into her head - she was scared, and in pain, and in many ways, left her body.  Fortunately, the next day she received some amazing body/energy work and I felt her return.  But she's on a journey that will not allow her to go back to her old ways.  She has to honor her sensitivity and the new, unusual journey she is on.

Anyway, during this time I wouldn't have said that I have been on this profound inner journey.  I have been taking care of Gracie, doing life, cooking meals, etc.... My world has basically become me and my family, and now my garden too!  I walk.  I take care of my family.   But what I am starting to recognize is that I have been on a journey myself too.  I have been in a process of letting go -- letting go of my business (including my business checking account), letting go of thinking that I know what I want to "do" and how I'm supposed to do it, letting go of thinking I have to "work" and earn money; letting go of any and all identity I have of myself as an external person and business person, a pilgrimage leader leading others.  It's as though I have had to come home to myself without any of those ideas or trappings of all that other stuff.

I have often described these past 5-6 months as a paring down to my roots, a pruning of my inner tree of its branches and visible extensions and coming back to the trunk and the roots.  I feel as though I have lived my life upside down, from the branches down, from the external, from the who and what I thought I should be and do.  Two years ago, I thought I had righted myself by planting my taproot in Restormel.  While a step in the right direction, it wasn't until I recognized Boscowen'un Circle in Penwith as my sacred home and center, that my inner journey was truly catalyzed and initiated, and I crossed the threshold to journey with the Dark Goddess. 

Over last fall and this winter, I kept returning within myself to Boscowen'un and my experiences of the stone in the center of the circle.  When I first experienced this stone circle in 2013, I loved it, and knew it was a special and magical place.  I also thought that the center stone was masculine as it jutted out of the ground at an unusual angle. 

I have come to realize two things: 

1) the center stone of Boscowen'un in not masculine at all, but feminine - deeply and sacredly feminine.  It is the center of a women's being - her vagina - our sacred cavern and genitalia with the clitoral tip emerging from the ground at the very same angle as the vagina in our bodies.
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The center stone in Boscowen'un Circle, Cornwall
It lies right on the Mary Line and is believed to have a massive, hidden base to it -  another replica of the vagina hidden deep within our bodies.

2)  This is my taproot, my sacred place of belonging, my home.  In meditation, I now root to the center of the Earth and to Boscowen'un - my taproot - my vagina - firmly rooted in this sacred, and beautiful place.  I feel as though I have had many lifetimes living near here, performing rituals and being a part of this landscape.  Of course it's not Restormel - that castle, while round and beautiful and a place that I have also lived, is man-made.  This circle of stones speaks deep into my heart and soul, and moves me, stirs deep within me the truth of who I am.

"When I let go of who I am, I become who I may be."  

In this process of undoing, unbecoming who I thought I was - I am rooting deeply into the truth of who I AM, connecting at the core to the core of my being, and and being initiated, guided and held by this sacred circle of stones.

I am being held in the arms of my family and home and supported to allow for this process of unbecoming.  How does it get any better than that?  On a certain level, Gracie's hitting her head has given me the time and space - and permission, as it were, to be on this journey, even as I engage with my everyday life as mother, wife, etc.  It has been for us both in so many ways.  I have been given a time and space to very gently let go of all that is unessential and come home to myself.  I am so grateful.

During this time, I was drawn to a course whose name is quite ridiculous - Vaginal Kung Fu, which gave the context and practice for focusing on our vaginas, strengthening it, and coming into our sexuality.  I knew that I had to take it, and so spent 8 weeks in February and March focusing on my vagina. 

Have you heard of the Jade Egg practice?  We used a jade egg as an object for your vaginal muscles to resist and work with and becoming stronger.  The "Kung Fu" part of it is when you get really strong, you can lift objects like coconuts, weights, bottles full of liquid, with your vagina!  Well, I'm not there yet but I was getting definitely stronger and more toned as I practiced with the jade egg!  "They" say it's much more effective than Kegels because your muscles need something to work with and resist, plus it gives a focus to the exercises.  I obviously don't relate so much to the "kung fu" aspect of the class, but I deeply relate to the vagina and my experience of it being the overlooked, often forgotten aspect of our sexuality and creativity.  So often, it seems that we focus -  at least I have - on the womb but we tend to overlook the vagina itself.  The threshold.

The Vagina, my vagina, is the trunk of my tree -- the trunk of all of our inner, sacred tree of life...the stem of the chalice.  

And the truth is that I resist it, ignore it, and have numbed it down. I'm actually scared of it and its power and potency.  As Kim Anami (the women who taught the class) says, "the further you go inside your vagina, the further you go inside of yourself, energetically and emotionally."  Truth is that I resist and fight my sexuality, and myself - and at the same time, long for it, crave it, demand it.  

Even during the class, while I practiced with the jade egg just about daily, I numbed out to feeling the pleasure of my sexuality.

This is my edge.  My challenge. My healing. This is my soul coming me home to my Self and my body.  This is the hardest thing for me to do and be.  And yet, I know that I am a sexual and sacred being who longs - deeply longs - to express and experience her sacred sexuality, and her sexual sacredness - in the fullness and wholeness of my being.

I saw an amazing healer named Francesca several times over the past few months who actually named the core of my wounding around my sexuality - the first person who was able to do so.  It was a very intense experience from a past life where in service of the Goddess of assisting people to reconnect with their creativity and sexuality, I experienced a horrific betrayal that I was still carrying energetically.  My commitment this lifetime is to heal from this wounding - to heal the psychic and physical split within myself and cellular/energetic memory.  (My body is vibrating as I type.)  This split has shown up in so many different ways and permutations this life, and requires from me a deep soul commitment to heal...and many, many miles of sacred, spiral walking!!

I know that I am continually being deeply and divinely supported on this journey.  Even though it doesn't look like what I thought it would look like,  the support and guidance keeps showing up.  Most recently, I have been asked by two of my close friends to share with them the knowledge, wisdom and practices of the Vagina.  We met for the first time yesterday afternoon, and this in turn is giving me the opportunity to return to the practice of the Jade Egg within a sacred container and to spiral around again on this journey with my vagina/yoni.  Another pass to deepen into and move through my resistance and fears and into pleasure and joy and beauty.  

All in preparation for my return to Boscowen'un Circle in early July.  

A question was asked in an article from some powerful information about the Dark Taurus Moon of this past week, http://www.cosmicintelligenceagency.com/2015/05/newmoontaurus/2/:

"Will you honour the strength and depth of your sexual creative energy and consciously channel it towards your further awakening?"

I am so appreciating the Goddess' humor that our sacred core and embodied connection to Her lies within us all the time, hidden yet within reach for us to explore and experience all the time!  In her amazing book, Vagina - A New Biography, Naomi Wolf talks about the vagina as a "goddess-shaped hole" that holds the "longing human beings feel to connect with something greater than themselves, and which motivates religion and spiritual quests" She sees that this longing for the Sublime can be "experienced during and after certain moments of heightened sexual pleasure... and that is critically linked to an experience of self-love or self-respect, and a sense of freedom and drive." 
Such moments of heightened sexual sensibility lead to a woman's awareness that she is in a state of a kind of perfection, in harmony with and in connection with the world. In that state of consciousness, the usual inner voices that say the woman is not good enough, not beautiful enough, or not pleasing enough to others, are stilled, and a great sense of a larger set of connection, even a sense of what I would call, an Universal or Divine Feminine, can be accessed.

Major creative insights, and powerful work, can emerge after an experience of transcendence of this kind.  I do believe that when women learn to identify and cultivate an awareness of "the Goddess", defined in this way,their behavior toward themselves, and their life experiences, change for the better, because self-destructiveness, shame and tolerance of poor treatment cannot live in harmony with this set of feelings.

But I would argue, less literally, that "the Goddess" - a gendered sense of self that is shining, without damage, without anxiety or fear - inheres in every woman, and that women tend intuitively to know when they have glimpsed or touched upon it.  When women realize the spark of the Goddess, in themselves, healthier, more self-respecting, and other sexual behaviors follow.  The vagina serves, physiologically, to activate tis matrix of chemicals that feel, to the human brain, like the Goddess - that is, like an awareness of one's own great dignity, and of great self-love as a woman, as a radiant part of the universal feminine.

The vagina may be a hole, but it is, properly understood, a Goddess-shaped one.
From my vagina, my core, I right myself.  I get into right my relationship with myself, my Self, and the Goddess. I strengthen and grow my trunk from my deeply tapped roots, tapped into "home" in every sense of the word.  In turn, I heal the physical/psychic core of the core within myself, and become a cohesive receptacle for the Goddess.

This is the essence of my journey - to touch and feel the Goddess, to embody and embrace Her, to live as Her, with Her, for Her, and to express Her through my sexuality and my creativity.

In mid-June, I am going to go up to the mountains for a 3 day mini-retreat over the Dark Moon and deepen my descent to meet the Dark Goddess.  She is within me, demanding that I slow down, drop in to my belly and my vagina and reclaim my sexuality.  Again, all in perfect timing for returning to Boscowen'un in July.  I am so blessed and grateful that I get 6 days to walk the sacred, spiral paths of Penwith by myself.  I am so longing for this time and space to deeply walk and experience these paths and sacred sites that my being knows so intimately.

And then my father arrives and we will be in Cornwall together for nearly 3 weeks...I feel there is a wonderful opportunity for deep, ancestral healing both of us, and our family lineage.  I am so honored and grateful for this as well.

So, to end this post, I repeat the question from above:

"Will you, will I honour the strength and depth of your, my sexual creative energy and consciously channel it towards your, my further awakening?"

My answer is YES...I will honour the strength and depth of my sexual creative energy and consciously channel it to my further awakening, and embodying the Goddess.

Suseya.
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How did I awaken to my Vagina, you may ask?!!

2/20/2015

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What if my strength and the core of my being ~
the tap root within my body is my vagina,
has been hidden in plain sight all along?

I was in Prague nearly 2 months ago, when I made a vow to cross the threshold.  I committed to taking a journey, a descent down to the Dark Goddess, to explore my shadow, my depths, my hidden and rich interior, to find the gold in the dark interior.

What would call me down...and in?  What could lure me across the threshold, and perhaps even show me the map of this journey?  When and how am I going to go to the core and connect to my roots, cultivate my strength, and live my life, fully aligned with my soul and my soul's purpose? What will it take for me to go to the core?  It sounds like what will it take for me to "go to the mat?" 

What will give me the catalyst, and even more, give me the map with directions and a guide to take this seemingly perilous journey?  What, who will guide and provide for me every step of the way?

The Path.  The Path will guide and provide for me every step of the way.

My experience of walking a sacred pilgrimage is that there are places along the way that seem to have a pull on you and that you remember differently than other places.  They may just have a personal significance for you.  Something happened to you at that place.  Perhaps you had an insight, a breakdown, a breakthrough, an encounter that somehow changed you and in turn, this place becomes a personal sacred site for you.  Long after your actually being there, they continue to work on you, reverberating in you on a cellular level, opening minute spaces to light and awareness, and creating shifts and change on a molecular level. 

Also possible is that a site holds a more universal sacred energy.  Usually, energy ley lines converge here.  Something feels different. Special.  Heightened.  Resonating.  Often there is a well, a grove, a church, a Celtic cross, an ancient stone, or a stone circle at this very site as evidence that reflects and/or celebrates the converging energies, and that most likely, people have been gathering here for thousands of years to align with the energies, celebrate them, receive from them, use them.  There is so much that I could write about sacred sites - a whole book could be written.  Many books have been written.  I will create a Resource Page on my website so that you can easily access and find different books on sacred sites, pilgrimage, etc.

Boscowen'un

In all of my walking and pilgrimages, the site that continues to "work" on me the most deeply is Boscowen'un, the sacred stone circle that lies on the Mary Michael Line in western Cornwall.

This sacred site has invited me, moved me, held me and challenged me both times that I have journeyed to it, first in June 2013 when I walked by myself for 15 days, and then again last summer in June 2014, when I was co-leading the Spiral Paths Pilgrimage where we weave together the pilgrimage journey
with the sounding of the Earth.  Here's what I wrote in June 2013:
The image of the sacred circle of stones with a vertical stone in the middle has been with me throughout this journey.  I experienced it at Boscawen-un just outside of St. Buryan in western Cornwall on the second day of my pilgrimage.  This circle is a very ancient, potent and powerful circle of stones that invited me in to lie down in the middle next to the vertical stone, with the intention to open and receive its energies. Since then, I have been mulling over the stone circles, and the image of the circle and the point in the middle.  I believe that it is an ancient symbol that speaks powerfully and directly to our heart, soul and psyche and does not even engage the mental mind.  
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@Gifts from the Path. Boscowen'un Stone Circle, Penwith, Cornwall. June 2013
Over the past 20 months, Boscowen'un has worked and worked me, and has even become the core of the body of work that Wende and I are co-creating together.  As we work with the energies of our experiences together and develop our body of work together, we keep returning to Boscowen'un.  It was a central to our 2014 pilgrimage experience, and we continue to consciously use it as we co-create.  We both had very powerful experiences here this past summer, in profoundly different ways.  I will share mine in another blog post. 

To deepen our working with the energies of Boscowen'un, Wende and I decided to work more closely with the energies of Boscowen'un within the container of a coning in early January.   Since this day, we both have had access to deeper wisdom and guidance, and have also experienced significant shifts in our lives, both independently and together, that is creating a flow of energy moving us forward.  Decisions have been undone and changed.  Directions have significantly shifted. Anything that was not fully aligned with the profound energies of Boscowen'un rapidly dropped by the wayside.  Choices and decisions that just a few months ago seem improbable are now in place.  Just to give you an idea:
  • Homeschooling my 13 year old daughter for the remainder of 8th grade.  She was hit by a cosmic 2x4 in early November.  Quite literally, she fell backwards and hit her head, ending up with a concussion and persistent, significant headache that made going to school impossible.  It became clear after the holidays (and the beginning of January) that going back to school was really not an option, thus homeschooling, a choice that has redirected and shifted both of our lives.
  • Waiting to offer the next Spiral Path Pilgrimage to Cornwall in 2016 instead of 2015.
  • Not leading a proposed hiking walk tour in Cornwall in June 2015 for a small group from Boulder.
  • Not offering a tour in July with my father for his historical saga, The Miner and the Viscount, choosing instead to focus on marketing the book to hundreds and thousands of people, expanding into the vision of the book becoming a TV or movie series, and creating a documentary.
  • Receiving invitations to walk in France, Scotland and even the Great Wall in China, yet it's not time to choose or do anything to define the future.
  • Enrolling in a crazily named class, Vagina Kung Fu, an 8-week class designed to strengthen the vagina.  More about this later!!
While each of these shifts and choices has been very unexpected, there has also been an inner experience that each has been divinely orchestrated.  I've just had to pay attention, accept what it, surrender, be willing, align myself with, and stay open to the flow.  Sure, I could fight and resist, but I can feel the rightness of all that is showing up and unfolding.  I am being asked to be present, responsive and open to receive the ancient wisdom and innate intelligence of this sacred site, and to trust this journey that it takes me on.
Only now am I now ready to fully receive the natural intelligence and innate wisdom held in the stones of Boscowen'un. 

A most powerful, personal sacred site, and an ancient sacred circle of stones that has been part of this wild landscape for thousands of years.  I experience this sacred site as a place of worship and celebration of the Goddess.  These sacred stones in a sacred configuration remind us of the dark feminine energies that pulsate in the Earth, and offers us a way to reconnect with Her and find our way home to ourselves through an intimate, loving, powerful, respectful, co-creative relationship with Her and all of her beauty and resources. 

This circle of stones is guiding and providing me with the map, the container, the calling and the pull into the core of my being, deep into my depths, my essence, my body and my Soul.
Picture@Wendalyn Bartley. The center stone at Boscowen'un, June 2014.
How can a circle of ancient stones have this kind of impact and influence on me and my life?

This stone circle is unlike most other sacred stone circles in that it has a center stone.  This powerful stone is angled and in many ways, appears to be very masculine and phallic, sticking out of the ground in the middle of the feminine circle of stones.  I would imagine that most assume that it is masculine.  At first, I too made an assumption that it had to be masculine....until recently.  Aware of a deep unrest within me, I knew that this conclusion didn't feel right.
Picturefrom "The Sun and the Serpent" by Paul Broadhurst and Hamish Miller, Mythos, 2013.
As you can see from the picture, the center stone is in alignment with the energy line.  One question may be, does the stone align with the flow of the energy line, or is the direction of the energy line created by the stone?  Turns out that I am asking the same questions as Paul Broadhurst and Hamish Miller.  It was their seminal book, The Sun and the Serpent, that called me to England to walk the Mary Michael Pilgrims Path in the land of my ancestors, and as it turns out, the land of my family, and me.
In The Sun and the Serpent, Paul Broadhurst and Hamish Miller explored and questioned this specific alignment, wondering if it was a natural or intentional occurrence:
According to our observations this stone, erected in the Bronze Age or earlier, actually caused the energy flow to re-orientate or it marked the precise spot where this happened naturally.  Either way, this could throw light on the argument that has raged between antiquarians about whether the stone had originally been upright, and subsided, perhaps through excavation, or whether it had been meticulously set at this angle thousands of years ago.  It if was raised with this intention, then it must surely mean that there is a long shaft of stone buried beneath the ground in order to counteract natural subsidence. 
                                                                                                                p. 123
Given that everything about these ancient stone circles is about intention, precision, alignment, balance and sacred connection between the stars, Sun and Earth, I firmly believe that this center stone was intentionally and meticulously set to align with the feminine energy current.  This then begs the question about the energy of the stone itself?  Is it masculine aligning itself with the feminine as a way of bringing the masculine and feminine together in sacred relationship?  

Or, what if the stone actually feminine?  So deeply and sacredly, divinely feminine that its truth is hidden in plain sight?

What if it's actually not phallic at all?

What if it's actually vaginal?  As in the female genitalia of the Sacred Feminine herself - the clitoris and the vagina, the center and the core of the beautiful feminine, Goddess body, and I will add, the human woman's body too?  The clitoris being the exposed tip of the stone, and the vagina buried deep in the earth, synchronistically at a very similar angle to the vagina in a woman's body?

Even Broadhurst and Miller said, "It if was raised with this intention, then it must surely mean that there is a long shaft of stone buried beneath the ground in order to counteract natural subsidence."

Underground lies a massive stone that balances, roots and stabilizes the angled stone in the center of the circle, and toward the center of the Earth?  What if the shaft is not phallic at all but a feminine vagina leading to the sacred womb of Mother Earth herself?

WHAT IF THE STONE AT THE CENTER OF BOSCOWEN'UN IS FEMININE?

How does this awareness shift MY - and our - experience of this sacred stone circle, and in turn, of ourselves and our relationship with the Earth, and the Goddess?

I have been distracted for many of these past 18 months in believing that my strength and power lay in my embracing more of my inner masculine energy, and this has only created more of the same. 

In waking up to the core as feminine, and even more explicitly, the core as our VAGINA, I find myself excited that the source of my power lies WITHIN me, and I want to surrender to this sacred feminine power that has been within me all along!  I want to fling the doors open and dive into Her, and go wherever she wants me to go!

It's just so obvious, and simple. 

OUR CORE FEMININE STRENGTH, POWER AND CONNECTION LIES IN OUR VAGINAS. 

MY CORE STRENGTH, POWER AND CONNECTION LIES IN MY VAGINA.

The center stone of Boscowen'un demonstrates this to us this truth with its magnificent center stone intentionally set into the earth at a remarkable angle, aligned with the Mary Line.  Mistaken as a masculine phallus, this core stone actually mimics the feminine vagina, with the bulk of its shaft anchored deep in the earth.  Touching this stone, sitting at its base, leaning our bodies into it, communicating and listening to it, sounding with it - these visceral experiences invite us to breathe into our vaginas, connect with our feminine bodies, and in turn, to embrace the magnificent power of our vaginas - passion, desire, creativity, sexuality, conception, birthing, strength, and to to re-connect with the sacred Feminine and these lost aspects of ourselves. 

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The Core

2/12/2015

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Somehow, I have journeyed full circle in this exploration into strength.  A spiral journey from strength to not strength.  Perhaps it can be a journey to come back out again with a new relationship with strength.  It's like walking a labyrinth.  You start at the entrance, walk a winding path into the center, stop, pause and breathe, receive and then walk back out again with the awareness and insights gained on the journey to and in the center. 

The center. 

The center.

The center.

What is the center?  Where is the center?  The core.  The root.  The tap root.  The deepest, still, most central, and most powerful place within us.  The place where our bodies and our souls meet, and where our sexuality and spirituality join.

Wait.  What if the abdominal muscles that create and hold the pelvic bowl - the abdominus recti, the obliques and the transverse muscles, are not the core?

They are not the core.  They are the container.  They are the muscles that create and hold the bowl, the container. 

The core is the core.

So what lies at the core of my body, my being?  What is the core?

What is the part of a woman's body that lies hidden within our bodies, creates an opening and a portal to our womb and deep mysterious interior?

Any guesses?

What is hidden in plain sight?

The vagina.

Oh. My. Goddess.  It's the vagina!

My vagina.  Your vagina. 

Not your womb.  Not your transverse or other abdominal muscles.

The vagina.  My vagina.

Right here - in me - all the time.  It channeled my blood when it flowed.  It birthed my babies.  It receives my man when we make love. 

But somehow other than that, I forget it's there.

I stopped bleeding nearly four years ago, so the monthly rituals of taking care of myself and the bleeding and in the process, connecting with my vagina have disappeared too.  And sad to admit, I really don't pleasure myself frequently at all.  Too busy.  Too tired. Not feeling it.  Not feeling much libido these days.

Even more, I carry this strange attitude that even though it's MY vagina, somehow it's not for me to touch it, feel around, or be intimate with it.  That's my husband's domain.  My lover is the one who gets to touch it, know it, be familiar with it.

For me, it's "down there."

I can't see it, unless I look at with a mirror.  I only touch it - I mean go up inside and really touch my vagina when I make a conscientious effort to do so.  It's so internal, hidden, and tucked away.

I guess I avoid my vagina.  And it's not like my vagina is demanding to be touched.  It's pretty numb.  Tired. And yes, weak.  Not strong at all.  I can barely stop a flow of pee once it gets started.  It even feels like my vagina is getting old.

Four births and four increasingly large babies - 6 pounds 2 ounces all the way up to 9 pounds 10 ounces and one baby with a 15" head.  My vagina got stretched.

Kegels.  Did them throughout all of my pregnancies and somewhat afterwards, but they never felt like they did anything...really.

I just remembered that I used to have vaginal orgasms, some time ago. I don't remember the last time I had one.

Oh.  My.  Goddess. 

The core of my body and my being is my vagina, and it is NOT STRONG.   My vagina, the core of my core, is numb, tired, weak, untoned, stretched out, old and simply, not strong.

I have been looking in all the wrong places for my core, my root.  It's been here all along, hidden in plain sight. All of a sudden, it is so frickin' obvious that I can't believe that I never saw it before and wasn't even aware of it.

Thoughts, insights, awareness after awareness, are tumbling out of me!

...If my vagina is the core of my core, and if my vagina is not strong, it cannot hold my strength, and I cannot be and feel strong, no matter what I do. 

...If, however, my vagina is strong, it can hold, support and build my strength, and it can wake up, feel, engage, be supple, alive, vibrant, sexual, powerful!!!!

...What if my strength - physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual strength, lies at its core in the strength of my vagina?

...What if it were that simple?  That obvious?  That crazily, cosmically, ridiculously hidden in f&*@^g plain sight root of the roots, core of the core, way for me to reconnect with my strength, power, passion and sexuality and yes, even my spirituality?

...What if?

...What if becoming awake to my true center - my vagina, and actually strengthening it is the key to my deep, inner strength, beauty and purpose, and that this awareness and connection to my vagina as my core and my root is the coming home to myself that I have been longing for, searching for, walking for?

...What if it were within me all the time?
 
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Strength.  Part 2

2/12/2015

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Or perhaps, more aptly titled...Not Strength.

This morning I was at my "Fit for Life" class that I just recently recommitted to attending.  As I was doing the exercises, I was paying close attention to my body, and where and how I engaged with the different movements.  I also found myself reflecting back on my 100 Day Personal Challenge from this time last year when I committed to exercise every day for at least 30 minutes for 100 days in a row.

I did it.  I exercised every day, sun or snow, cold or warm, busy or idle, sick or healthy, for over 100 days in a row.  I went to exercise classes, I worked out to dvd's at home, I stretched, did Pilates, danced...and still I walked on top of my exercising.  And you know what?  After 100+ days, I truthfully still did not experience being strong in the core of my being.  My arms and legs were stronger.  Even the split in my abdominal muscles was stronger, more knit together and cohered.  Overall, I was more fit, and toned.  Yet, still, at the core of my being, I still did not experience strength.  Somehow, I still felt weak and not strong or powerful in my body.

How could I exercise every day for 100+ days and feel not strong in my body?

The visceral experience in my body is that the core or pelvic bowl of my body feels like a sieve.  Energy and strength may come in, but it also somehow leaks out.  It's as though I have a set point on how strong I can feel, and when I reach that limit, all additional strength and energy leaks out and I am left pretty much as I started.

More specifically, my body, and my pelvic bowl in particular, is like a sink that has no plug.  Water cannot fill the sink that doesn't have a plug.  Between the split in my abdominal muscles and no plug in my base, I am leaking and losing energy all the time.  At times, the leakage is minimal and barely noticeable, and at other times, I hemorrhage massive amounts of energy and collapse.  Sometimes, I just collapse.  

I remember an experience in high school when girls got to invite boys to a "Sadie Hawkins" dance.  I wanted to invite a boy from a different school whom I had recently met.  I really liked him, so I had it all planned out how I would invite him in the hallway outside of the gym.  He would often come to our school's basketball games, so at one game in particular, I saw him, and both nervously and courageously went up to him, reminded him that we had met at this function of our parents, and asked him to the dance.  I'm not sure that he even remembered me, but he graciously said yes!  I was so excited and overjoyed!  When I went back over to my friends (who were of course waiting in a group nearby and wanted to know what happened), I collapsed in the center of them.  It was the weirdest response.  Even at the time, I was really shocked and perplexed by my reaction, and I actually felt ashamed and embarrassed.  I didn't understand why I had collapsed when I had just received exactly what I wanted.

Many years later, I again experienced a similar energy collapse each time I birthed my children.  After each baby was born, I would be elated, empowered, and so deeply grateful as I held my brand new baby in my arms.  Then, within minutes, unable to effectively birth the placenta, I would hemorrhage blood and/or energy and deplete the surge of energy from birthing these beautiful babies. First time unexpected.  Second time, expected but I adamantly refused drugs (silly me!) and my blood pressure plummeted to 50 over 0.  The midwife was roughly pinching my feet to keep me in my body.  (I did get lots of fluids via IV as well as acupuncture.) Third time, anticipated and prepared with an IV in my arm, I lost no blood, but the energy seeped from my body.  Fourth time, prepared yet somehow still lost blood but this time, no energy loss. 

It seems I have a very low set point for how much strength and energy I allow myself to have in my body.  And with what I do have, I have learned how to masterfully use in a way that camouflages how little strength I actually have.

How?

I compensate, and when that doesn't work, I avoid. 

This is what I realized as I exercised in class this morning.  I use my outer hip muscles, leg muscles, back muscles to the do the work of my core.  Compensation is second nature to me.  And if I can't do something using these other muscles, I don't do it.

Strategy:  Compensate first.  Make it look good and that I'm doing it right. If this doesn't work, avoid.

I am actually very loathe to use my core, and feeling the pain and challenge of not having any core strength.  I feel so powerless, so useless, so ashamed.  And so I avoid these feelings by compensating and avoiding.

I recently came across an old my blog post from the past five years and found one that spoke of my tendency to compensate.  In "3-Tenths", I wrote:
Thinking about this idea of compensating.  I have compensated for my belly split by using the outer muscles.  I have used the big muscles in my legs, hips, butt, anything to not use the muscles in my belly.  One, the belly muscles haven't worked they way that I have needed them to.  I feel a lot of shame and not being good enough when I do use them, and then this only contributes to the split and makes it worse, at least energetically.   A vicious cycle.

So I would have rather compensated and gotten by than feel shame, blame and self-loathing. 

Makes a lot of sense - oooohhhh, there's that line again.  But it didn't support or challenge me to deal with the cause of the shame or with the split itself.  It just left me with 20 years later still having the split that affects every area of my life.

When we compensate, we get by...until we can't just get by anymore.  What worked in our 20's and 30's, even our 40's, no longer works in our 50's.  Our bodies change, we begin the process of menopause - which is a whole journey unto itself!  We're not as strong, fast, slim as we used to be.  And that's just the physical aspect of it all.  What we want and what matters to us in our 50's is very different than when we're younger.  And when we're younger, we just don't think that it's going to happen to us.  I sure didn't!

To tie this back in to "walking our walk", I have avoided my walk out of my fear of being all alone and not being loved and accepted.  I have compensated for this fear by staying out of my core - my core desires and dreams, and have supported others to live theirs, as a mother, wife, friend and coach.  This is how I have felt loved,  useful, wanted and needed.  7/10's of me is happy, fulfilled and not scared.

But the other 3/10's of me is no longer willing to be quiet and compensate.  I am now 51 and this 3/10's of me - which must be the most close to the essential part of who I am - is getting loud, antsy, and ready for a good, long walk. 

And I gotta listen.  I gotta stop compensating, justifying, explaining, and wishing it would go away.  'Cause it's not. It's only getting louder and more insistent.  
So interesting to re-read this and see familiar themes, desires and feelings.

And yes, here I am, 5 years later, nearly 56 years old -  still compensating.  Still avoiding the shame and self-blame - for being not strong, for wanting what I want, for being who I am.

Still circling around the same old issues and challenges.

Still leaking energy, collapsing and hemorrhaging.  I get started and then something comes along and takes me out of my own game.  I've exercised for 100+ days.  Nothing has changed.  I have done "healing the split/diastisis" exercises for months.  Nothing has really changed.  I have taken different classes and workshops.  I've read books.  I have been in therapy.  I have had coaches. I have dreams, visions, plans.  I have even made promises and commitments to myself and others.  Nothing.

People around me are losing their trust in me and my word.  I am losing trust and faith in myself.

It's as though I have this initial burst of energy to create change and transformation, and then something happens.  I go sideways.  I forget.  I justify. I get distracted.  I compensate.  I get busy.  I disengage.  Whoa.  I just typed "I die" when I was trying to type "I disengage".  Does a part of me die? My desire die?  Do I just let it go - hemorrhage it out - when I am up against the wall, or my inner limit of how much power or strength I allow myself, and in doing so, a part of me dies to my dreams and purpose?

Not strong.

This deep experience and feeling of not strong has been the invisible wound that actually lies unseen at the core of my being and my life's experience.  It has been so hidden and out of my awareness that I didn't even know it, couldn't even name that my being not strong was silently imprisoning me in my own shame, imposing limits, sabotaging my every intention and effort to be successful and create my magnificent dreams. 

It's even different from being  "weak" because I compensate for and avoid the places where I feel weak.  So it's not weak per se.  It's definitely a feeling of being "not strong".  Perhaps splitting hairs, but the distinction lies in the associated feelings of shame and blame connected with feeling weak; not strong has been hiding in plain sight just beyond my awareness and consciousness, running the show to make sure I collapse or hemorrhage, or compensate and avoid whenever I may get too powerful, confident, successful or strong!  Not strong has kept me just where I am - safe, secure, looking fine, taking care of everyone else, keeping my dreams and desires contained, my wildness tamed.

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Boscowen'un

2/11/2015

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My home.

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The site that has moved me, held me and challenged me both times that I have journeyed there.My true home.  The sacred place on Earth that has received me, welcomed me and has since been waiting for me to recognize and receive it as the site where my tap root wants to be rooted.  The sacred place that when I finally more fully allowed it is turning me and my life upside down, righting me in a way that I didn't know was needed, and connecting me, actually calling me to my core, my place, my body, my purpose, my creativity, my strength, and my Self.
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Strength Part 1.

2/11/2015

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A few days ago I received a clear impulse to write about "strength" and to explore it from many angles.  Since then, I've been just allowing my thoughts, beliefs, reactions and considerations around strength to bubble up and emerge from just below my awareness.  I am struck by how strength and being strong, powerful, confident, determined as well as the lack of all this, and the opposite, almost imperceptibly dictate, determine and control the unfolding of my life and the degree to which I live the life I truly long to live, to which I am aligned with my purpose, and to which I feel fulfilled, successful and happy.

What is strength?  It's one of those words I use without really thinking about what it means.  I mean strong is strong, and strength comes from being strong.  But what is being strong?  Where does our strength come from?  Is it merely physical?  Mental? Emotional?  Spiritual?  Or all of the above, or even some of the above at different times?  How do we know we are strong?  When do we need to be strong?  And why strong?  Is it the same as being powerful, forceful? What does being strong give us?  Why is it necessary?  What happens if you're not strong?  Is not being strong the same as being weak?

Even as I begin this post, I am aware that I actually have a very strange or perhaps more accurately, an estranged, relationship with "strength".  It feels like I get it, I understand it, but at the same time and simultaneously, I don't.  It's a concept, a definition, a word, but that I don't actually feel and know it in my body.  It's as though there's a huge area of the relationship that I don't know, and that I don't know that I don't know.  Having written that, I see that this article/post is going to be an exploration into what I don't know that I don't know about strength, and opening to the possibilities and potential of deepening into, and most especially, about embodying strength.

I feel nervous and scared as I begin the dive into strength, as though I am entering into a forbidden territory, a room with a locked door whose key has been hidden away, or even thrown away.  I even keep wanting to find another word to explore, such as "power" but as I attempt to veer off in that direction, I am pulled back to the word "strength".  Key.  This image of the key appeared as I typed it.  I immediately remembered that last summer I was given a key by my dear friend, Lys.  I started a post about this unexpected gift and perhaps will have to finish it now before I continue on with this here.

Pause....

I finished the post on The Key...you can read it here.

It was necessary for me to return to that post and finish before I continued here.  As I wrote the post, I immediately returned to my journey with Chiron and my sacred wound.  At the end of the post, I committed to going on this descent into and through my sacred wound, to allow the pain and embrace the wound without getting stuck into it, so that I may step into my soul's destiny and contribute to the transformation of our world.

So when I ask the question, "Why strength and why now?", I can feel deep in my being that to go on this journey into the darkness requires a certain foundation of strength and courage.  And in all truth, I'm not totally sure that I have that kind of strength in me.

So it seems that the first steps of this journey demand that I connect with the strength that I have and build my strength as I take this journey.  Perhaps building my strength is actually an essential part of the journey.

I don't feel strong.  I would never consider myself a strong person, emotionally or physically.  Actually, until recently, I have learned how to hide this conclusion from even myself.  I am a master compensator and a master avoider. 

Years ago, I was told I had "no core."  I know that I have written about this before, most likely many times, but when I was told this, I actually had no idea what the person meant when she said this. How is that possible?  That diagnosis has plagued me for years.  Even more, it has catalyzed me, motivated me, shamed me, confused me, tormented me, and stopped me.  All of the above. Paradoxically, being told that I had no core has been the core of my inner journey, exploration and transformation!

As if peeling away another layer of the proverbial onion, I am just coming to understand that my core has very little strength.  No matter what I seem to do - Pilates, healing the split exercises, yoga, exercise for 100 days, walk hundreds of miles on a pilgrimage - I still experience an inherent and fundamental weakness and lack of strength in the core of my being and body.  It's as though no matter what I do, nothing touches the core of my core.  I may cycle hundreds of miles in France and England (back in 1981-82 when I was 22-23 years old) and have super strong and toned legs, but somehow my belly was still not strong.  I may walk a 100+ mile pilgrimage, and feel strong and toned, vibrant and alive, but somehow my pelvic muscles are still not engaged or strong.  I can exercise every day for 100 days, and feel good, but not strong. 

The experience, feeling, sensation of being strong eludes me.  What does feeling and being strong feel like?

Being with and feeling into STRENGTH, I have come to realize a few things over this past week or so.

Physically speaking, my movements do not originate from my core.  Rather, my movements start from extremities and as a result, are not strong or very centered. I use my hip muscles to do many activities that others would most likely use their core muscles.  I tighten up in my shoulders and upper back to move my arms. I've been noticing this when I walk, especially when I use my Nordic Walking poles.  When I do yoga poses, there are certain ones where my hips cramp and I simply cannot do the pose.  I try to come from my core, but it's as though my body only knows how to do things from my hips, back and shoulders.

That reminds me of when I was giving birth (four times!), and I felt excruciating pain in my back and up in my upper back.  It's as though I was holding on and trying to birth using the strength in my shoulders.  Crazy!  And, I can assure you, that it didn't work very well!

Even after months of focusing on and doing diastasis rehabilitation exercises (healing the split in my abdominal recti muscles), I still did not feel strong.  I felt better, but I have to say that I still did not feel strength emanating from my belly.

After years of trying to "fix" and heal my belly, fix and heal myself, I guess I have to admit that I had in some ways given up hope and was working to just accepting myself as I am, surrendering to a belly that doesn't feel strong and is bigger than I like, wondering what and how I was going to do physically to keep active as I grow older and still want to keep walking.  Quite honestly, and quite sadly, I have been slowly giving up hope to ever feel truly strong and connected in my belly.  I was accepting that it's just the way things are.  Just the way I am.  And accepting that I am just going to have to figure out how to keep walking no matter what.

But my body is aging.  I will be 56 in 2 months, and I am noticing a huge difference from even 6 years ago as I was preparing to walk the Camino for the first time.

Also, I am aware of a creeping resignation coming into my being.  I don't feel sexual and passionate.  Oh, well. I guess that's what happens when you get older. Perhaps sex won't get better or more frequent as I age.  As I was counting on.  Oh well. Too bad. My joints creak and are stiff. Oh, well.  At least I can still walk. I thought I was going to make a difference in the world.  Create something beautiful that was going to contribute to the world being a better place.  Well....maybe not.  I guess I'll just focus on my family and my kids and support them to be all that they can be.  Not that's that is bad.  It's not. It's just that I always thought I would do that, and more.  Dreamer.  Be grateful for all the blessings and the love you do have in your life.  It's okay that you're getting older, and your dreams are getting further away.  Focus on what's here and now.  England?  Well, that was a pretty crazy dream anyway?  Did you really think that you were going to create that?  I mean, seriously?  Oh, and that somehow your work was going to fund this crazy dream, and that you were actually going to make enough money to contribute to your family and create your dreams?  It's okay...you're a big dreamer.  Just be okay with what is, let it go, and come back to here and now.  It's okay that you don't feel strong.  Or even successful.  Because look at your kids.  They're amazing.  And look at what they're doing in the world.  They are all doing such amazing things and are successful and creative each in their own right.  You have been an amazing mother and have contributed and supported each of them so beautifully.  Let that be enough.  It's their turn now.

Ahhh.  So this is the place that has been beckoning to get my attention.  That I am becoming an older woman whose prime has past and now it's their turn.  I lost my chance. I was never strong enough or able enough to create my dreams.

I am becoming resigned.

Resigned from ever being strong and vibrant from my core, or even knowing what that feels like.  Is this what happens to old people?  They just sort of give up on their own lives and let themselves become old?

DAMN IT.  NO. NO. NO.

I am not ready to be old.  I am not ready to give up on my dreams. I am not ready to give up on myself or ever finding or knowing my core.  Connecting to my core and having a strong, vibrant, alive, pulsating, soul-connected, sexually alive core is my birthright.  Finding my core.  Feeling my core.  Knowing my core.  Strengthening my core.  Loving from my core.  Moving from my core.  Having my core and having it move me, guide me, provide for me, love me.  This is my journey. My purpose.  My focus.  My mission. 

My core is my roots.  My core is my tap root. 

It may have been severed.  I may have lost it.  I may have become disconnected.  But that was the deal my soul made.

I had to lose that which is most essential to who I am, with the promise that I would find it.  No matter what.  No matter when. No matter how far I have to travel, walk, search for it.

Because the truth is...it is here, within me all along. 

And I'm just beginning to understand this...that the split is not my core.  That my abdominal muscles and the ones focused on in Pilates and yoga are not my core.  That all these places and areas that I focused on, searched and explored have been masquerading as the core.  Diverting my attention from the core, my core.

What if the strength at the core of my being, the tap root within my body, has been hidden in plain sight all along?
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The Key

2/4/2015

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This past summer, during an unusual liminal time and space between pilgrimages in England and while I as home in Colorado, I got together with an old friend, Lys, whom I got to know when she cut my hair.  I always loved going to see her.  Not only did she give great haircuts, but she had her own private studio that offered a very different experience from being in a busy studio.  Her studio was an artistic and creative oasis, with its textured golden walls and artwork.  I could feel Lys’ artistic and creative nature reflected back to me through the space she created.  Perhaps it actually mirrored the possibility of a creative space and capacity within me.  

Today, she is the editor of Women News Network (WNN), an award winning not-for-profit news network dedicated to reporting in-depth regional global women's news not often found in the public media stream.  This offering emerged out of her own personal physical crises, when the only thing she could do while lying flat on her back was to find great stories on the Internet and share them with others.  

I have always loved this woman, who she is and what she stands for.  I was thrilled when an opportunity to get together organically presented itself. Meeting for a cup of tea in a wonderful local cafe, we immediately dropped into an intimate, familiar space together.  The only difference was that she was sitting down with me, not standing with scissors in her hands cutting and styling my hair.  But you know what they say about visiting your hairdresser — 

“When people are going through shit, they tell their hairdressers secrets they won’t share with anyone else, and often the revelation of those secrets changes the person and how they feel about themselves. - Tabatha Coffey

So Lys and I know each other in a somehow different, yet intimate way, and we effortlessly recreated and dropped into this intimate space when we saw each other this summer.

After a rich and nourishing conversation, and as we were preparing to part, Lys unexpectedly gave me a key that she had on a necklace along with a few other precious and meaningful pieces, including the Lady of Guadalupe.  I had noticed her necklace as I too wear necklaces with meaningful and significant pieces, including the Flower of Life symbol, the spiral, Green Man and Sainte Sarah.  I wear these every day and only very rarely take them off.  

When Lys gave me the key, she said that she had never given it to anyone else before and that this gesture was a first.  I also suspected that it was intuitively motivated and that neither of us fully understand the power and the love under her gift to me.  I have had it close to me ever since she gave it to me, sometimes wearing on a silver chain around my neck, sometimes having beside me in my sacred space, other times having it on my desk as I work.  Right now, it is on a much loved silver chain that I recently bought in Glastonbury, resting on my purple computer case right beside my computer as I type.

It seems to be made out of pewter, and is simple and beautiful.  The bow (the head) of the key is patterned with swirls and circles with an large opening shaped by the swirls.  The blade is a very simple round, hollow tube, about two-thirds of an inch long.  Its smooth tubular blade seems like a skeleton key - the key that opens all doors.  As I look at it closely, I can see that it has been worn.  Its texture is smoothed down and almost soft from Lys’ wearing it all these years. As I write here and connect more deeply with the key itself, I am moved almost beyond words as I feel its love, and the generosity of Lys’ gifting me with her sacred and special key. 

Since our cup of tea together, I have been blessed with extensive travel in England and Europe.  I have been to Glastonbury, England and the surrounding areas including Avebury and West Kennet Long Barrow.  I have traveled to universities in Europe with my younger son, Michael.  I have also been to Prague, in the Czech Republic with my husband and two oldest children.  You can read about this experience in my blog post, Prague - An Invitation to Cross the Threshold.

I knew at the time that the pilgrimage to Glastonbury and Avebury was a powerful journey.  Even more, when I walked the labyrinthian path of the Glastonbury Tor, a nine-hour walk up, down and around the Tor, I knew that this arduous, steep and long spiral journey was a pilgrimage on initiation.  As I walked the spiral path of the Tor, I was aware of its physical and spiritual intensity, challenge and invitation, and that I had to find a strength and determination in me to complete the journey.

Just days before, I had an astrology reading with John Wadsworth, who synchronistically also led us on the Tor labyrinth walk.  Curious but not one who typically retains the specific wisdom shared with me from an astrological perspective, I had a very different experience this time with John.  At the very end of the reading, John mentioned and talked about the placement of Chiron, the “Wounded Healer” in my 8th house of Aquarius.  I knew intuitively that this piece of information was the reason that I had done this reading.  As soon as we connected with Chiron, my body and soul responded to this key piece of information.  I went to the local used book store and got the book, Chiron and the Healing Journey, by Melanie Reinhart, that John recommended.  I bought and listened to an online course by Archetypal Astrologer Robert Ohotto called “The Astrological-Archetypal Chiron” as well as purchased the ebook, Chiron and Wholeness – A Primer by Joyce Mason, an astrologer who has studied Chiron for over twenty years. 


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According to Joyce Mason, Chiron represents the Quest for Wholeness. This half-man/half-centaur, who is known as the "Wounded Healer", appears in our astrological charts to give us the "clue about what we have to work on and resolve in order to feel fulfilled."  She claims that he is the archetypal force within us that bridges Heaven and Earth, reminding us that we are spirits in a human body. Synchronistically, Chiron’s glyph or symbol is a key. But it’s not just any key—it’s a skeleton key, the kind that opens all doors. Somewhere, either from the cosmic soup or out of what psychiatrist Carl Jung called the collective consciousness; a shorthand symbol was created for Chiron that captured its passkey nature. Understand Chiron in your chart, and you have unlocked the door between worlds, clicked and removed all barriers…within yourself as well as the seeming polarities.  Even more,
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Chiron
Mythical Chiron was a misfit, not man or horse, a half-breed with a hoof in both worlds. Yet he was unlike the other centaurs, which were renowned for drunkenness, raping, pillaging, and destroying the environment. Chiron grew into a wise mentor of heroes like Jason, Hercules, and Aesclepius, the Father of Medicine. But it was wisdom for the pain, because Chiron has a history of suffering like no other centaur. It appears his trials softened him—humanized him, if you will—helped him live more in his upper half or man-like nature versus his lower, more animalistic half.⁠

Chiron is the missing link in understanding personal evolution, how we become fully spirited in a body.  He represents not just our wounds -- where we were shattered -- but how we pick up the pieces and sew ourselves back together again.  Chiron is a first aid kit and our needle to create beauty from the crazy quilt of our lives.  Each of us is a work of art needed by our community for our unique talents and abilities.  Together, we become a breathtaking tapestry and a society that clicks."
Essentially, Chiron's role is the key to spirited living as a wholemaker or weaver.  No longer either-or, but both/and.  We are spirits and humans, spirit and matter, the bridge where both/and can and do exist. 

Similarly and according to Robert Ohotto, Chiron provides us with the key to embrace and heal our wound without getting stuck in it.  From the myth of his own story, Chiron demonstrates how to live a life of destiny rather than fate, and also gives us the invitation to return to and be who we really are.  We can expand to understand that not only can pain be sacred, but also to the possibility that our deepest wounds can be the secret key to our fullest potential.  This key is the invitation to live the life aligned with our destiny rather than chained to our fate.  Even more, Chiron acts as the bridge to our soul.  In working with the placement of Chiron in our own astrological chart, we can become aware of our own personal sacred wounding, and through our accepting and surrendering of these wounds, we can heal and connect to our sacred gifts, connect with our own life's purpose, and step into our own mythic story.  Chiron gives us the map and the template to the journey of transforming our fate into our destiny.

Chiron's placement in my chart is in the 8th house in the sign of Aquarius.  I'll be honest, astrological language can feel like a foreign speak to me, so delving into this information has actually provided me with the beginning of an understanding and vocabulary has previously boggled my mind.  So using Mason's ebook as my reference as well as Ohotto's course, I will dive in and attempt to explain! 

Having Chiron in Aquarius suggests that like Chiron, my feeling different my be a primary aspect of my deepest wounding, and that I feel left out, or that I don't fit in or belong.  Yet the pain of not fitting in or feeling left out actually becomes my medicine and gift to give.  I "get" how individual acts affect everyone in society, and that we are all part of an interconnected web.  I've actually often said, perhaps naively, that if everyone were connected with and fulfilling their sacred dreams, then we would have a world of peace and harmony.  I strongly believe that everyone's talents and needs to be included and respected.  Both my gift and challenge is that I can see the world as it could be, and my challenge is to actually contribute to making that vision real rather than complaining, despairing, and getting stuck in what it is not. 

With Chiron's placement in my eighth house, this suggests that my wounding is connected to lovely dark themes of death and rebirth, sexuality, power, endings and beginnings, and inheritance.  Fortunately, this house also fosters psychic perceptions and awareness, permanent change, and resonance with life's mysteries as well as transcendence.  Mason suggests that this resonance with life's mysteries is the magnet that draws me to my Chironic healing journey so make sense of the losses I have suffered, whether by literal death, abandonment, and that most likely involved my personal power.  The upside is that this house is also where power and regeneration live and that I get to knock on the door, or perhaps, with the turn of a key,  open the door and receive its gifts that are rightfully mine.

Robert Ohotto spoke of those whose Chironic wounding residing in the 8th house as ones who are here under contract to carry the poisons of others to help awaken and heal others.  Even more, that there is a clause in the contract to constantly dip down into the shadow again and again.  If this is true, it's as though I have to accept that this is what I signed up for and that what it will look like is being the recipient and scapegoat of someone else's pain and poison, and that I have to be very good at being in the shadow and in the underworld.  This house is Chiron going to Hades, and in this placement, lies the invitation, or perhaps recognition of my destiny as a powerful healer and true Shaman.

Quite honestly, I'm not sure that this is a key I want.  Can I have another key to another door please?

Yet to ignore this key, invitation from my soul to live my destiny and fulfill my life's purpose leaves me as a victim to my fate.  I can choose to accept and surrender to my destiny, or I can try to resist.  Resistance only creates struggle and suffering, discontent and misery.  So I am left standing on the threshold -- with the key in my hand -- knowing that it is time to put the key in the lock and turn it, and to take the step into my sacred contract as a true healer and shaman, turn the lead into gold, the pain to gifts and to walk my soul's path and fully live my spirited life.  Perhaps this is how I contribute to creating Heaven on Earth, by my willingness to go to Hell, dive into the shadows, and tap into the rebirth and regeneration that only is possible through this descent into and through my sacred pain. 

How do I choose to work with my sacred wound and cultivate the sacred medicine from taking my soul's journey?

Is it as simple as saying "yes"?  Choosing this?  And accepting the invitation?

With the turn of the key, I say YES, I choose to live my destiny and fulfill my sacred contract.

YES.
YES.
YES.

And so it is.

And as I say yes, I feel the presence of the Dark Goddess close by...celebrating my decision and offering her hand to guide me on my journey.  She has been waiting for me to say YES, knowing that I have been standing on the threshold since Prague.  Today, with the energies of this powerful Full Moon, I say yes.  `7Thank you, Goddess.  Thank you.  With you, I will go anywhere.
Picture
Descent with the Dark Goddess, Cray-Pas Picture created on the Dark Moon, January 20, 2015
1 Chiron and Wholeness – A Primer. Joyce Mason, 2009 - 2010.  p. 5
2 Ibid, p. 6
3 Ibid., p. i
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Prague - An Invitation to Cross the Threshold

12/22/2014

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I have just returned home from a 10 day trip to Prague.  Steve, Andrew - my oldest son, and I joined my daughter, Alea, who was finishing up her semester abroad study program there.  We spent just over a week exploring and experiencing this "Golden City" in the heart of Europe.  Ostensibly, this trip was about family, being with our two oldest kids, and exploring a place that we might have never visited except that this is where Alea chose to spend her time abroad studying "Art and Social Change".  Together, the four of us together walked many cobbled streets, taken trams and trains, experienced the beauty and history of the buildings and sites, and delighted in the cafes serving excellent coffees and pastries.  Yet, whenever I travel, I also ask what is the "other" journey that is going on at the same time.  Why else was I going to Prague?  What else was going on at the same time as I was walking these cobbled streets and visiting these particular sites?  What was the soul gift from this journey and these experiences?

Before leaving for Prague, two resources presented themselves to clue me into the answers to these questions.
 The first was receiving the "Libuše, Prophetess of Prague" card from Cheryl Yambrach Rose's beautiful "Art through the Eyes of the Soul" Oracle deck of cards, with its message: 

"A New Door is Opening - Step over the Threshold"
Doors open to allow us an opportunity to reach our fullest potential.  Do not fear unknown territory.

In the 8th century, the Druid Princess Libuše foresaw Prague in a mystical trance.  It is is said this took place on the hill of her castle at Vysehrad, a magical site that has been occupied since 3000 BCE.  She saw a castle whose "renown touches the heavens…its boundaries set by the Vltava's waves….in this place would be a man constructing a "prah".  This is translated as "threshold", but is also known to be a hollow dug in the center of European cities to connect them to the Otherworld.  There would then be a "prah" ritual performed by a Duid priest aligning it to the four directions.  This is how Praha/Prague got its name.  Libuše began the Premyslid Dyanasty of Czech kings and represents the last of the Celtic matriarchal society.

The second resource was the unusual travel book called A Traveler's Companion to Prague by Jan Kaplan that is a compilation of personal reflections on Prague over many centuries through letters, diaries, memoirs and anecdotes from many different people.  This book provided information and insight into Prague that I would not have been aware of from simply reading travel guides.

In the chapter "Early Beginnings", Kaplan shares Prague's early history in tales written by Cosmas, the Canon of Prague in the 11th century, whose writings give us the ancient account of the legends of Libuše. As one of three daughters of the Pagan Bohemian Pince, Krok, Princess Libuše reigned with her consort, Premysl, and the legend says that she received a vision of a town that created the founding of the City of Prague.

Standing on the rock of Vysehrad in the presence of her husband and the elders of her people, and incited by the spirit of prophecy, Libuše uttered this prediction: 'I see a town, the glory of which will reach the starts.  There is a spot in the forest, thirty strides from this village, which the River Vltava encircles and which to the north the stream Brusnice secures by its deep valley; and to the south a rocky hill, which from its rocks takes the name Petrin, towers above it..when you have reached the spot you will find a man in the midst of the forest who is working at a door-step for a house.  And as even mighty lords bend before a low door, so from this event you shall call the town which you shall build - Praha.  THus the proceeded immediately to the ancient forest, and having found the sign which had been given them they built on this site Praha, the mistress of all Bohemia."  (p.36)

Bringing together these two resources provided me with a powerful context from which to explore and experience this magical city, whose glory most certainly does "reach the stars."  Also, we stayed at a lovely hotel that was located right at the base of the Cathedral and Castle, the site of the Libuše's vision.  I could easily and frequently look up to the rocky mount and see the spires of the cathedral as they reached for and touched the sky.

I felt strongly pulled by the legend of Libuše and the site of Vysehrad where she had received her vision. I kept returning to the card and Kaplan's book to re-read the stories about the legends of the origins of Prague.  I was also very curious to experience the actual land and magical site where where Libuše received her vision, and to open myself up to the card's invitation to step over a threshold of my own journey.  And so it was perfect that we would spend our last day in Prague visiting Vysehrad which in Czech means "the high castle" and served as the place from where the ancient princes ruled the land of Bohemia.

On our last day, Alea, Steve and I set out and headed south to Vysehrad.  Andrew had experienced the underground night life of Prague the night before and had only just gotten back to the hotel as we were leaving.  It was an especially cold and wintry day as we walked from the Metro stop and entered the gates into Vysehrad.  As soon as we got inside of the walls, the place took on another worldly and timely feel.  I began to feel as though I had truly entered an "other world".  As we walked the quiet streets, I saw many signs of the sacred feminine - rotunda towers, stones marking ley lines, Mary and Child images above doorways and a full sized statue in the famous cemetary, even a vulva shape in a tree. I experienced a soft, protected energy here high up on this rocky outcropping and was very happy to be here.
 
We walked through the Vysehrad Gardens and found the statue of Libuše with her consort, Premysl, as she received the vision, her hand outstretched to the heavens.  I stood before her and gave thanks for her providing me with this invitation to experience Vysehrad and to cross this threshold.
Picture
We then walked out to and explored around the top of the wall, overlooking the woods and river to the south.  I had misread the map, and thought that the baths where Libuše had supposedly received the vision was over to the south, but I knew something didn't feel right.  Why would she receive this vision on the opposite side of the city and the rocky hill where she would site the castle and the Cathedral touching the stars?

I was a little disappointed and confused by this experience, so we continued to walk along the pavement around the top of the wall, coming to the southwest corner. A small vineyard was tucked in next to a building, and as we  rounded it, we came into view of the city of Prague to the north, with the Castle and Cathedral in the distance up the river.   The energy here opened up and expanded.  I felt drawn to this area.  I felt enlivened.  I took a picture that included another vineyard with the city in the distance.  I could feel the creative energies of this spot, and generation of life and nature in the vines, even though they were pruned and prepared for winter.  I experienced a vibrancy and aliveness in this area, and when I looked over the vineyard and down hill, I saw the rocky outcropping, the remains of the baths and the ancient castle, and the river down below.  I was here a the very place I had been so pulled to come.
I walked over to the outlook, imagined the vision as Libuše saw it, and saw the low clouds quickly moving, seeming as though they were touching the spires of the Cathedral, reminding me of the "glory of which will touch the stars"!

I rooted myself to the core of the Earth in this spot, and reached my energy to the stars, connecting myself like a Tree of Life.  I gave thanks for being here, for experiencing the invitation to cross a threshold, and to open to and receive a vision and to bring it forth into reality and form.  Nearby, there was a young tree that was hung handmade, simple ornaments made of fruit, bread, toothpicks and thread.  So simple, yet it offered a symbol of acknowledgement of the legend of Libuše and my accepting her invitation, and promise of the fruit and gifts to come.
Picture
As I walked toward the church, I became aware of the connection of the vision of Prague to this land, this place.  The vision needed a place to land, to be received and then to be created and made manifest. It needed a container where it could both be received and take root. Land. Place. Connection to the Earth. The vision and the dream would have remained simply a dream without the land to root it, contain it and give it form.

My awareness expanded into a reflection of my journey over the past five years that has been about finding and connecting to my roots - my physical as well as my spiritual roots, and feeling a sense of belonging. Eighteen months ago, right around the time of the summer Solstice, as I completed the first leg of my Mary Michael pilgrimage, I planted my core tap root into the land of my Cornish Celtic ancestors in the middle of the of the circular Restormel Castle in Lostwithiel, Cornwall, deep into the center of the Earth, to connect with the core crystal at her center.  Resonance and relationship with the land and a sense of belonging are so vitally essential to me.  Having left my homeland when I was three and grown up in another country and culture from my ancestors, and having learned by necessity how to live without this connection, I have only recently begun to accept the full truth of the necessity of a powerful and intimate relationship to the land, and to the Earth.

I then paused, and realized that just as the vision of Prague was received on this ancient, magical site, it also was received by a woman, a person, a soul, in a body to contain it, communicate it and act on it.  She who was willing to be in sacred action in alignment with the sacred vision.  The vision of Prague needed a wise and receptive person who was willing and able to hear, see and trust its message, and to understand and resonate with it.  A deep and intimate connection to the land along with a woman of trustworthy character and a openness to the sacred and divine.  In a heartbeat, I realized that the Sacred communicates through both the land and the stars, Earth and Heaven. We may open our hearts and hands to Heaven to receive from above, and at the same time, we must be rooted and grounded to the Earth to resonate and contain the fullness of the message.  It is not either/or but another opportunity of both/and.  It is our connection to both the spiritual and the physical, the stars (Heaven) and the Earth that gives us the capacity to hear, see, receive and act on communications from the Divine.

This awareness then spiraled and expanded into an acceptance that I am - and we each - can be the container and receptacle of sacred communications.  To be deeply rooted not only to place and land, but also deeply rooted and connected to my body.  My body is my Earth, my personal magical, mystical and sacred site, my home, the place to which I always belong.  It is the paradox of it is about place, and at the same time, it is not about place.  It is about being centered and connected to the physical, the material, in a respectful, accepting, and loving way.  Always.  I am rooted and belong wherever I am, and wherever I am, I am rooted and belong. 

This is the threshold.  To come home to my own being and body.  To accept with the totality of my being that am home in my body.  My soul belongs right here.  I am being invited to cross and step over...to come home to my body.  To love and celebrate my body.  My sensations.  My sexuality.  My physicalness.  My pleasure. 

The next step of my path of evolution, creation and transformation is to come home and be deeply rooted in my body.  Fully.  To release all shame, guilt, resistance and come into full love and acceptance of all of who I am as a soul in a beautiful human body as a woman. Sacred and divine.  Sexual and spiritual.  Divine and Human.  Earth and Heaven.  All here, in me, as me, walking on this beautiful planet Earth, whose glory touches and connects with the stars.  Heaven on Earth.  Right here.  In me.  As me.

I paused.  I took a big deep breath of recognition and acceptance of the fullness of this vision, this invitation and threshold.  I said YES. YES. YES.  

As I arrived at the Church a few hundred feet away, I was greeted by two of the most beautiful mosaic murals above the two side front doors.  They spoke deep into my soul, with their unusual, colorful and golden symbols of trees, spirals, Heaven and Earth, angels, Life and Light.  On one level, they spoke to me in a way that confirmed and celebrated my YES.  On multidimensional levels, they communicated in a symbolic language that somehow I know provides me with a map of the journey on the other side of the threshold.  I have yet to decipher and decode these symbols so that I can use and understand these maps, but I trust that the symbols and images will reveal themselves as and when the time is right.  For now, they are calling on me to simply receive them, trust them, and allow them to speak and communicate with me, and to know that I do not have to fear the journey.  The way into this unknown territory will be shown to me, and that I will receive guidance and support as I step onto this powerful journey of the Great Mystery and the unknown.
To complete, I will share with you some powerful and wise words that I received in honor of the Solstice from Francis Rico at www.ashamansguide.com:

So – are you ready to step into the Great Mystery?

Stepping off into the wild beauty of flowering Creation need not be daunting. We’ve prayed for this time to come, and we’re all in this together...align with a willingness to accept what Life is offering – with a keen sense of the possibility that Mystery just might offer us a greater opportunity to heal our selves and our world than we have achieved with “mastery.”

This truly is the calling of the Spiral Path. To step over the threshold and leave behind the safety of the closed circle.  To step fully into effortless flow of the Spiral.  To allow for the mystery of the universe and of Life to guide and carry us forth into a new world, one in which we celebrate all of life, the sexuality and the spiritual, Heaven and Earth - for it is all Beauty, Love and the Divine.

This is the invitation and promise of the Spiral Path.  It will guide and provide for you every step of the way. And it will take you home to your Self, and create a world beyond anything you have ever known. 
A powerful experience on the day before the Winter Solstice that also happened to be the 28th anniversary of my marriage with Steve.  As I walked the land of Vysehrad, I was with Steve and my daughter Alea.  They were with me, but also know and love me as to give me space and time for mystical, inner experiences at magical and sacred sites.
Such is the beauty and gifts of these relationships.  I am so blessed and grateful.
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A Windy Preparation for my Soul and Body

12/4/2014

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I went on a windy walk one day last week, so windy that as I turned down the gravel road to the trailhead, I could see the grasses blowing ferociously along the side of the road.  The wind created an unusual experience.  It wasn't my typical walk of just walking along a path that I have walked many times. It was an experience in and of itself that opened my soul, cleansed my body and prepared me in an elemental way for a deep and sacred journey. As I was on the last stretch, heading back to the car, I realized that my walk was not just a walk. I recognized that it had a special quality about it and that both the walk and I were being held in a sacred container.

The wind had transformed my walk into a journey on the Spiral Path. I was blown into a different dimension, out of the normal, everyday realm and transported into a sacred and mystical realm on the sacred Spiral Path.   In Jane Meredith's words from The Descent to the Dark Goddess:

..the mystical [realm is the] one...when you slip across from one realm into another, into the sacred; into the realm of the Dark Goddess herself. In this layer you will feel the divine all around you and within you, and you will sense yourself as being in an altered, perhaps luminous space.

As I walked, I reveled in the solitude, the protective intensity of the wind, the safety of being alone out in Nature with my dog as my companion. I laughed out loud, sang, sounded, and delighted in this totally unexpected pleasure of being on the Spiral Path.

Oh, how I've missed Her.

The Spiral Path is a delicious and alive place to walk. It is mystical, nourishing, and so real. Paradoxically, it can seem so unreal and otherworldly at the same time. Ah, the presence of paradox. In Carolyn Myss' words, paradox is the language of Spirit, so when paradox is present, so is Spirit!

As I completed my journey and was heading back to the car, I reflected on this amazing experience and realized that I had walked through five distinct stages of a sacred, spiral journey: Preparation, Descent, Being In, Ascent and Integration. All five aspects were totally present as I walked the circular path around Boulder Valley Ranch. 

Allow me to share:

PREPARATION

Rupert and I began our walk from the parking lot by circling around the north side of the ranch. Immediately greeted by the ferocious wind, we were pushed us along the path, sometimes very literally. Even my sticks were getting swept by the wind, and at times, I was walking, almost running with the wind.  It pushed me up the little hill out of the ranch and onto the mesa.  As I looked up and toward the east, I could see the rough, white waves on the water of the Boulder Reservoir, so big that I could see and feel them from where I was a couple of miles away. As I walked, I found myself thinking of the journey I have committed to meet the Dark Goddess, and I asked the wind to cleanse me of all resistance - a request I asked consciously; in hindsight, I was also asking unconsciously to be cleansed and cleared of any place that I am misaligned and attached with my ego.

As we headed toward the furthest distance from the car, Rupert looked back at me as if to say "really, we're really doing this?!".  Truthfully, I was asking myself the same thing, because as soon as I would turn the corner to head south down the hill, I knew that I would no longer have the wind at my back.

DESCENT

I turned down the hill, with the wind on my right side pushing me toward the east.  It was intense, cold and invigorating to say the least.  I was on the path all by myself, with my dog.  No one else was coming out in this wind!  As I started to walk on the east side of the pond that sits at the bottom of the valley, the coldness of the wind picked up as it gathered the icy air from the top of the frozen pond.  Plus, I was down in the bottom of the valley which created a funnel for the ferocious winds.  It was so loud, and I realized that I could make sounds to match the wind and that no one would hear me.  So I stood facing the wind, asking it to cleanse me in every cell of my being.

BEING IN

I turned so that my back was to the wind, and I yelled.  I sounded.  I connected to a deep rage and anger that was emerging from my the depths of my being. I sounded from my belly to release the anger, to cleanse it from my system. I found myself thinking of a former friend with whom I have felt angry at our last conversation and betrayed by my perception of her need to be right.  I yelled.  I sounded.  I screamed.  And the wind carried away my pain and my anger, the fear that was lying just below began to surface. I turned into the wind and faced the truth that I was afraid of this person, of standing up to, of speaking my truth. It is easier to feel anger than fear, and so I allowed her to dominate me, and leave me voiceless and apologetic.

I breathed deep into my belly and found a deeper voice, a voice below the fear and anger. I found my strength, my truth, my resolve and my core.

I howled and hollered into the wind with all of my being. I became lighter and lighter, stronger and stronger.

I rejoiced in the release. I bowed to the wind and honored Her presence and support. I knew that she had held a sacred and private space for me to sound into, and in turn, She received my anger and fear and used it to fuel her ferocity. Ah. Thanks be to the great Goddess.

ASCENT:

I began my walk up the hil. Rupert was delighted to be running again! As I walked, I had the conversation that I wished I had had with this person at the time. I spoke it outloud, from my body, in my strength and truth, with my heart open and my mind clear. I climbed out from the "hell" in the bottom of the valley, and with every step, I embodied the lightness that I had become aware of at the bottom. It infused every cell. My walk shifted to one of purpose, clarity and commitment. I completed the conversation, and at the same time, my relationship with this person.

In that moment, I opened up to know that the issues and challenges, as well as the direct barbs and criticisms that arose out of the original fateful conversation were not mine to take on. I asked, "Are these words and attacks mine, or someone else's?" With delight, I knew the answer and "returned to sender with love and compassion."   I took responsibility where responsibility was due, and returned the rest to where it belonged!

I was free.

INTEGRATION:

At this point, I had reached the top of the hill and only had to walk the remaining, relatively flat section of the path along the ditch and bare cottonwood trees.

I fell into deep, peaceful contemplation as I walked. I wondered about my choices and possibilities out of this new experience of freedom.

I found myself thinking of and longing for England. Oh, to go home and to live there.

But more, I found myself longing to go deep within myeslf, to meet my Soul, and to live with Her as my trusted ally and guide. Even more, I knew that I had been given the map for the descent to meet my Soul and to engage with Dark Goddess. I had been given the experience of going in and going down, and most especially of coming back up, whole and complete within myself.

My greatest fear of not returning and of being eaten alive and spit out by the Dark Goddess had been resolved in the healing, love and compassion of my experience.

This journey and descent has to be my commitment, my quest, my journey. To experience my wholeness, living from the depth and truth of my being

No matter what.

To risk who I've been to become who I may be. To meet my Self, my darkness, my shadow, the Dark Goddess. To love, embody and accept all of my Self, my Soul, my purpose and mission, and to be Home wherever I am, with all of who I am.

WIth each step closer to the car, I opened up to an acceptance of myself, my journey and my purpose.

WIth a map and an experience of the sacred, spiral journey to meet the Dark Goddess, I am preparing and being prepared for this sacred journey. The next step beckons...

This is the gift of the spiral path. You do not return to the same place you started, as in a circle. You come back a different person, an expanded and deeper expression of who you were, and so the threshold from which you reenter the world must be different to accommodate this transformation. And so it is, close to and resembling the entrance into the mystical path, but on a different turn of the spiral that you return and reenter your life.

Such is the gift and the magic of the spiral path. For truly, when the spiral path ends, the journey truly begins.

Ahhh. The winds of change, and magic. I offer my gratitude for transporting me into the mystical realm, for giving me the map of my soul's journey, and for preparing me for this most sacred of journeys.

Solvitur Ambulando!
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    Sarah

    I love to walk.  I love to write.
     
    I am a pilgrim. 
    I am a Womb Shaman.
    I am the Feminine Christ Awakened.  
    ​I am becoming the Feminine Christ Embodied. 

    I walk the sacred spirals of the ancient pilgrimage paths and sacred sites along the "dragon" ley lines of the Earth.  I walk local paths. I walk to be in Nature.  I walk labyrinths and spirals. I walk to move and celebrate my body. I walk to come home to the truth of who I truly am, to connect with the Earth and Spirit, and to live my life aligned with my soul's path. My intention is to walk In Love, As Love, For Love.

    I have led Spiral Path Pilgrimage Walks & Retreats in Cornwall in the very southwest of England.

    Mostly, I have been walking the sacred paths of the Womb Spiral - internally and in Penwith, Cornwall.  These sacred journeys continue to take me more and more deeply in to the core essence of who I am - as a women and as the embodiment of the Divine Feminine.  As I root more deeply into my essence, I have experienced a strength and presence within myself that cultivates a clarity and ferocity that demands a willingness to stand in truth and love.  This in and of itself has created a tsunami of change in my life that 

    Picture
    Sarah at Chalice Well, Glastonbury, England, September 2014.

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