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

2/20/2015

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.

@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.

@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.

from "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.

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.

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,

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.

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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The Spiral Path

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Boscowen'un

Strength Part 1.

The Key

Sarah

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