Here's a lovely new video just produced by Richard Dealler and Rachel Cornish. It speaks to my heart of the gifts of sacred pilgrimage and the experiences of the Mary Michael Pilgrims Way in particular.
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Just posted a dark picture from my walk home tonight on a wet and rainy night. I stopped off at the labyrinth at St. John's Church as I walked home by myself on wet, reflective streets. I had been out with my brother, Nick, and his wife, Karin, my sister, Tori, and her husband, Bob, and my husband, Steve for our traditional adults-only night out at the Rio for margaritas and Mexican food. Great marts, good food, and lots of fun and laughter together. Loved being with them, and then also knew that at a certain point, I was ready to go home. Typically, they have gone to another bar to play games and have a beer. From my past experience, this has been when I crash and burn, and realize that I should not have continued to join in the fun. Bars, beers and games are just not my scene.
So, tonight, I turned to a new chapter in my Book of Life, and instead of going down the same street with the same hole in it, I chose to not go down the street, and to walk home instead. I chose to trust and honor myself, rather than just go along with the group and the crowd. I also chose to not feel wrong or guilty for my choice. Sad, yes. But for the first time, I did not feel guilty. I know that I deeply honored myself and what was in my highest good. And I live by the adage that "What is in the highest good of one is in the highest good of all." Somehow, if it was best for me, it also must be best for them. So...here I sit, sharing with you. I walked the wet labyrinth for honoring my choice and for the clarity and courage to continue to walk my path, especially when it diverges from the path of my family members. These moments when we get to make choices for ourselves show up in our daily lives, in instances like this. Do I stay or do I go? Do I honor myself and walk home alone in the rain (by the way, I could have taken the bus!) or do I stay with the group and follow the crowd, even when the crowd is small and familiar? Or especially when the crowd is small and is my family? Tonight, I chose to honor myself, and while there were aspects that felt scary and even threatening to the status quo, I know that walk MY path...and listen to myself. To honor and love myself while still honoring and loving my family members. I hope that they're having a great time! Truly. And I am looking foward to going to bed and getting a good, long nights sleep!! Solvitur Ambulando! Never have a defeatist attitude no matter how difficult things may appear to be on the surface. Empty yourselves of that little self, so you can be infilled with My divine Love and Light. How can I fill you with the gifts of the Spirit when you are so full of the little self there is no room for them. Rededicate yourselves to Me and to My service NOW, and see the most wonderful changes take place not tomorrow but right NOW, in this ever present glorious NOW. 2 August 2013 It's now been a week since I've written. I felt very exposed and vulnerable in what I was writing and sharing, and needed to pull back. Plus, the process of being sick and not feeling well catalyzed a deep healing process within me that also involved some of my shadow coming out from its hidden recesses to reveal itself. Such a gift actually, because I've gotten to see those aspects of myself and my behaviors that are not so pretty, and that I've tried to ignore and pretend aren't there.
First resentment revealed itself...a low grade, but persistent resentment that has permeated much of my being. Naming that took courage and a willingness to tell myself some deep and hard truth. Then powerlessness showed up...uninvited I might add! Yet there it was, pulling me down into its clutches and gripping me in hopelessness and futility. All week, I've been up and down, swinging back and forth between clarity and despondency. This is very unusual behavior for me, and my world has felt very unsteady and uneasy. Somehow it's all part of my returning to my life here with my family after walking a sacred pilgrimage that has shifted dynamics within me on a fundamental and cellular level. What I got by with before no longer works, and those beliefs and behaviors that no longer serve are coming up to the surface to be revealed and released. The challenge has been that I became very lost in the stuff and identified by it. I forgot that I am not it. It's as though the fears and concerns were fighting for their lives and were not going to give up easily. They had me in their grips really believing that I was not worthy of any of my dreams, or that I even could make a difference or a contribution. Thank goodness I've been enrolled in Marianne Williamson's course called "The Divine Alignment of Body and Soul" - talk about perfect timing. In the Course of Miracles, all of our challenges come down to one thing - our separation from God. It's that simple, and all there is to do is to give over our challenges, thoughts, concerns, everything - over to God, and to re-connect with God. So despite my desire to pull away even further and slip unnoticed into deeper isolation, I chose to hand it all over to God. Because certainly what I was doing wasn't working. I turned it over to God, and to Mary, Michael, and St. Sarah, my personal saint, who is there for me even if I don't always believe it or know how to access her. And something shifted. I woke up at 2:45 in the morning a couple of nights ago, and felt a creative clarity and an aliveness within me that I had not experienced in a while. And I decided that I was going to take some steps forward to create sacred walks for myself and others. I began the design on my Chakra Walks, I looked at the calendar for 2014 for pilgrimages in England and Spain, and I created my Nordic Walking class series. Baby steps, next steps. My friend, Richard, from the Mary Michael Pilgrims Way - www.marymichaelpilgrimsway.org - organization in England, shared this poem with me by David Whyte - and I chose to receive its wisdom and start close in. START CLOSE IN Start close in, don't take the second step or the third, start with the first thing close in, the step you don't want to take. Start with the ground you know, the pale ground beneath your feet, your own way of starting the conversation. Start with your own question, give up on other people's questions, don't let them smother something simple. To find another's voice follow your own voice, wait until that voice becomes a private ear listening to another. Start right now take a small step you can call your own don't follow someone else's heroics, be humble and focused, start close in, don't mistake that other for your own. Start close in, don't take the second step or the third, start with the first thing close in, the step you don't want to take. Today, the core of my struggles and challenges revealed itself to be named - SHAME. As I named it, I knew that this is what has been underneath it all - including the resentment and powerlessness. Shame has caused me to separate from my Self, from God, my dreams and desires, my path, and my love and acceptance of myself. I could see and feel it so clearly. And the antidote is simple. To choose self love and acceptance. Every time I feel the sensation of implosion and contraction in my body, I can choose to be aware that this is how I experience shame coming in to take over the show. I can name it, and in doing so, I can choose something different. I can choose self-love and self-acceptance. Simple. Perhaps not always easy. This is my starting with the ground beneath my feet, starting with what I know - my body. My body never lies and I know this sensation all too well. I now know if I allow the implosion to implode that shame will once again have me in its grip. And even in the midst of this hell-hole, I can still choose to remember that I have a choice, and choose self love and acceptance. That's what this past 2 weeks have taught me - that no matter what, I can always turn it over to God, and in doing so, reconnect with Spirit, with the divine, and in turn, with my Self. That's what this journey is all about - reconnecting with my Self so that I can love my Self, all of me, and fully accept all of who I am. From this place of love and acceptance, I can honor my dreams and desires, and get to contribute all of me to being of the highest service. It's such a paradox isn't it? For me to fully be of contribution and service to others and creating Heaven on Earth, I actually have to fully love and accept my Self. And to fully love and accept mySelf is at the same time being in full connection with the Divine and all that is. And if this is true for me, I know that this is true for others too. That my journey is a mirror and invitation for others to connect with and love themselves profoundly so that they too may walk their path of contribution and service from a place of wholeness, connection, and self love. It's almost midnight on 8-0-1. I am so grateful for this journey I am on, for the sacred pilgrimage paths that have initiated me onto a path of evolutionary transformation that is aligning with my soul's mission and purpose. Everything that does not serve my true purpose is being revealed and released from my being. I am so grateful. I am so blessed. When I started this journey a week, I will admit that I had expectations and preconceptions along with my intentions about what this journey would look like, and how it might unfold. The first day went as planned, and also the second day. And then…
If this was an actual walking pilgrimage, it would be comparable to walking on the path, getting the rhythm of your days under you, and then unexpectedly getting sick just and having to stop, just as you were getting going. And then not just having a cold or a fever, but throwing up, feeling horrible, and having it go on for more than 24 hours, even more than 48 hours. It feels like you're pulled off the path almost as soon as you got on. But what if getting sick isn't actually getting pulled OFF the path, but is actually a necessary part of the journey? That is what these past six days have felt like to me. Not at all what I thought or expected them to look like, but somehow a very necessary journey in and of itself. Getting sick last Saturday evening, throwing up for over 36 hours, and then after not feeling at all right has made for a long week of sleeping, being in bed, not doing much, seeing a couple of alternative health practitioners, and contemplating what the gifts are from this experience. Because I know that it's all good…there is a wisdom and a "rightness" about this time of feeling so strange in my body. Something is being brought up to my conscious awareness from deep within my core so that I can see it, name it, release it, and heal it…. And it has taken this process and this timing for it all to converge and reveal itself. I am so curious about what is coming up to be revealed and healed… It's something to do with my gallbladder and its associated out-of-balance emotion - resentment. I wonder what wants to reveal itself. I feel as though I am coming out of a long, dark tunnel. It's now Wednesday evening and I am just starting to feel better for the first time since Saturday evening. What a journey! I woke in tears last night, threw up one more time, and felt so much pain in my stomach.
I have been asking myself, "what am I not able to stomach?" And I realized this evening, in participating in Marianne Williamson's The Alignment of Body and Soul class that there is a point at which I separate from Spirit and do not believe that I can trust Spirit to do the work through me. So, I take over, and start generating what I think should happen. I miss the moment of opportunity to allow Spirit to work though me. This is what I can no longer stomach. This is what no longer works. Choosing fear when I can choose love. Every time, I make this choice, it only limits what I create and actually takes it out of alignment with divine source. This is what I wrote after the class: Marianne said, "God is doing the work through you - it is not generated by you." That opened up something for me. I think that I always have to be the one generating and making it happen. It may be what I think it is alignment with God's will, but still, I do the generating. This is where I separate from God, out a lot of pressure on my body, and don't trust. Wow! And I imagine, that this may be where I separate from my body, don't trust or like it, judge it, and feel like I have to work really hard to do anything, including lose weight, exercise, and not feel shame. What if it really is all about "going for God" and releasing the separation?!!! And knowing that I can send God ahead of me! I am wondering if this is the same moment I separate from the flow of wealth and abundance in the Universe and the Earth… Any where and everywhere that I feel that I have to be in charge and make it happen, generate the results I am looking for, am I willing to uncreate and destroy? Yes, I am. RWGBPPA9SB&B. That's the abbreviation for the clearing statement from www.accessconsciousness.com ...AND LOVING YOURSELF UNCONDITIONALLY.
I am still feeling nauseous and queazy in my stomach…I am not felt like this before. I have read things along the lines of these being symptoms of evolution and transformation. I sure hope so! Feels like a lot is moving on this journey. As I wrote in my daily journal this morning, I realized that I am no longer connected or attached to thoughts of money being dirty, mean or evil. I recognized them as thoughts that I have had in the past, but are no longer current or real for me. As I move fully into embracing that Money is Love, I wondered what the reflection for my own self is…and where I went was this. If Money can be Love, even more…if Money is Love, then I can be Love too. I am Love. I am Love. I am Love. And if I am Love, then I am loved, simply because of who I am, not because of what I do, how I look. Simply because I am Love. And then again, aren't we all simply Love? What if we were all to take in and receive this simple truth - that we are each, every single one of us, no matter what choices, decisions, good or bad, right or wrong, we have made? We are, I am, You are LOVE. And if this is true, which I know it is, then we can only fully love, accept, express our selves, because there is actually nothing else to do but love!! From a Facebook post my Walking My Talk:
Each of us is in a different place in our spiritual journey. Some of you may be farther along, and some may be seeking guidance and support. One of the lessons that took me a long time to learn, was the concept of change. For many years I tried to change myself into someone other people would accept. No matter how hard I tried to change, I never found the kind of acceptance that made me feel good about myself. That's because we cannot change who we are. We can change the way we think about things. We can change what we believe. Most importantly, we can change how we feel about ourselves. From my experience, I would define "change" as the evolution or expansion of who you already are. It's accepting and playing with your own unique quirks. Be more of who you already are, do more of what you already love, and give more of what you love giving. The joy that comes with that, will bring the self-acceptance and social acceptance you already crave and you won't have to sell your soul to do it. I am slowly starting to feel better. I threw up for what I hope is the last time just after 6am. Yuck. On Thursday I get the very clear directive to go on this pilgrimage, and by Saturday night I am flat out, throwing up, and feeling miserable. It was all centered in my stomach. What can I or am not willing to stomach? And, as my friend, Sharon, pointed out on the phone this morning, stomach is the seat of action. Where am I out of right relationship with action? What actions have I been taking - or not taking - that are not aligned with my higher purpose and intentions? I felt fine all day Friday and Saturday, physically anyway. On Saturday morning, I talked with my wise friend, Ingrid, who also was a major catalyst in my going on the journey to reconnect with my taproot. She played the catalyst role very powerfully again on Saturday morning. When I shared with her what I was up to with this journey with Money, she challenged me. Threw the gauntlet down and upset my neat package. Sarah, money is not your nemesis or even your challenge. It is your default and your addiction. You honor yourself with these amazing and courageous pilgrimages, and then you come home and try to fit yourself back into a box, into being at home with your family and all of its responsibilities, and you default to money. Money is not your challenge. Telling yourself the truth of who you are and what you really want is your challenge. Gulp. Interesting that I just used the word "gulp." A very descriptive word that uses the digestive system to swallow, and here I've been - throwing up everything I had swallowed and could not stomach. There is most certainly truth to what Ingrid shared with me. By the way, Ingrid has my permission to speak so directly to me, and what I typed here is the synopsis of our much longer conversation. I trust her implicitly and know that she deeply loves and cares for me. It is out of this trust and love that she knows she can cut through the chaff and go straight to the heart of the matter. I just saw a great quote on Facebook: "...it is not what I am saying that is hurting you; it is that you have wounds that I have touched by what I have said." ~Don Miguel Ruiz What Ingrid said to me touched something very deep and repressed in me. I do not remember giving myself permission to be myself since I was a very young girl. I quickly developed habits to look outside of myself to know what I wanted, what I should wear, how I should act, what I should do. Somehow, I told myself it was not okay, I was not okay, to be truthful about my dreams, desires and feelings, and I developed a finely tuned, externally based system to figure out how I should look, act, feel and think. I believe I said this somewhere before in my blog, but I gave away my connection to my core so that I would be loved, so that I could and would belong to my parent, my family, my friends, my peers, and now again, my immediate family. I have a very strong will and have used it to make sure that I always do the "right" thing, or at least just enough of it to get by. Truth is, I am terrified by what I want, what I long for, and who I am. I am terrified because I have made up a very convincing story that if I honor who I am, be myself, be truthful about what I want, that I will be all alone, and nobody will love me or include me. I will not belong anywhere or with anyone. I will be all alone. So, to belong and to be loved, I have been willing to not be truthful with myself and to be my authentic self. And instead of taking responsibility for this, I have always found someone, or something else to blame - my mother, my upbringing, my environments, and yes, Money. I have used Money as my scapegoat, bully and saboteur rather than confront this truth that was lovingly and directly reflected to me this past Saturday. I would rather have been "poor me" and the victim than take responsibility for my lies and deceit, and become the heroine of my own journey and my life. Big deep breath. Yuck. As I write that, it feels like what I have been throwing up for the past 36 hours. YUCK. So what if what I have been projecting onto Money is actually the aspects of me that are the bully and the tormentor? What if I take those words I wrote the other day and retrieve them, and own them for myself? It is a masculine energy, that looks down at me, with his finger pointing at me, and with a very condescending voice tells me that "You will never be one of us. No matter how much money you have, you will never belong. Ha! You will never be enough, have enough, know enough. Who do you think you are?" I feel like throwing up again. My stomach hurts. My throat is choking. I feel sick to my stomach. So this is what I do…every time I have a desire, thought of my own - I judge it, and myself, very harshly. And I say these mean and horrible things to myself, and then I take that desire and put it through my "outer acceptability filter" and rework and morph my desire until it becomes acceptable, until I become acceptable, and know that I will belong. I am my own saboteur and bully. And, I have projected all of this meanness, bullying, unlovingness onto Money, and made him wrong, bad, uncaring, unloving, and so of course, have not wanted it really. Made just enough to still play victim, "poor me", I can't do what I really want, I'm stuck, I'm unsuccessful, I'm worthless, I am not enough. And Money has accepted this, and allowed me to project all of this negativity onto him. Because Money is Love. Money was willing to play any role that I chose to project onto him, because ultimately, he - it - knew that I would recognize that despite all my best efforts to make him the bad guy, that he was always here for me, patiently waiting for me to take ownership of what I do to myself, so that he could show up in his essence and in his truth. This is the ultimate of being in service, isn't it? That we are willing to play the dark and maligned roles in someone's life so that they can actually come back full circle into the truth of love. Because the truth always is Love. Over the weekend, as I was being with all that Ingrid and I had talked about, I wondered about the possibility of the words I had "heard" from Money and the condescending and unloving tone that I had imagined him to use. What if I had turned and manipulated the tone of this voice to fit my story about being excluded, unloved and not belonging? What if he actually said those same words but with a loving tone? What if it was his way of reminding me that I am not here to belong to anyone else but myself? I am going to take those same words and interject them with other words that I may have cut out with my own internal editing. What if he was actually trying to tell me exactly the opposite of what I heard? "You will never be one of us. You don't want to be…that is not your purpose. If you keep trying to be one of us, or one of them, you will never just be yourself. No matter how much money you have, you will never belong. Because it's just not about the money. It's never about the money. It's actually all about you and how much you can love and accept yourself - all of who you are, all of your dreams, desires, impulses, passion, sexuality - all of it. Ha! You will never be enough, have enough, know enough. Because you are already enough, just as you are, for who you are and what you came into this body and this life to create and accomplish, to be on your soul's path. Who do you think you are? Just a mere human being that wants to be like everybody else? No…who you truly are is the most magnificent unique spiritual being having a human experience whose only "job" is to be fully yourself in this beautiful human body and to love yourself, and to be love, embrace love, be love wherever you go. In this, all else is simple and clear." Because Money is Love. In Barbara Wilder's words from her book, Money is Love, Today, money carries with it all the fear, anger, and greed that every individual has felt about it as it passed through their hands. Money is dirty, filled with disgusting, mean-spirited, terrified energy of the human beings whose thoughts direct...Money is energy that should flow freely though our lives and throughout the world. But fear blocks the flow…if we humans have infused money with all this negative baggage, it only stands to reason that we should also be able to clean and infuse it with positive power. I mentioned the work Financial Alchemy™ in a previous blog. Financial Alchemy is a coaching process that has you get very clear about your relationship with money through personifying "who" money is for you, and to give you the opportunity to create a new relationship. In my experience, the shortfall of this process is that once we identify our "Money Monster", we are told to just get rid of our it/him/her through breaking up with or firing him, and that just never worked for me. The habitual monster bully just kept coming back into the picture, and reluctantly, that's who I've been in relationship with, despite all the inner work, the workshops, and positive affirmations. That's like telling someone to breakup with an abusive partner and to now, just like that, get into relationship with someone who's truly loving and respectful without the inner work to make the changes. Also, it missed the deeper piece of recognition and compassion that this negative being has actually served a very great purpose. In my more enlightened moments, I can recognize that the even most challenging people or presences in my life are actually there to serve me and my spiritual and emotional growth and transformation. Without them, I would have no grist for the mill, nothing to work with or push against. In this instance, Money has deeply served me by allowing me to project the saboteur and bully onto him, knowing that ultimately, I would take responsibility and own these feelings and projections. This then allows for the possibility for me to fully accept, and love myself. Without Money, I wouldn't have some "one" to help me to recognize the beliefs, patterns and behaviors. I actually feel much gratitude and compassion for money in its willingness to carry all of our fears, angers and greed. What an enormous gift and generous role it has played for all of us for all of these thousands of years. In the work I have done in Financial Alchemy™, I created a new Money that resonated with my core and my purpose. He is Green Man, the timeless archetype of the wild man who lives in the natural green and wooded world. He is fully masculine, embodied, sensual and passionate. He loves unconditionally and he is very rooted in the natural world, trusting in the abundance and beauty of Nature. Trouble is, I have kept him at arms' length and have been unable to fully relate to him for these past five years. I have known that he is there, waiting patiently for me to come around to the truth of who he is, rather that always relating to him as the monster perpetrator villain in my "woe is me" life story. Even more, he is patiently waiting for me to come to the truth of WHO I AM. I now feel ready to invite Green Man to walk with me. Green Man is the embodiment and expression of money that I want to walk with and journey with. He is my mirror and my guide. He is the bridge for me between the spiritual and material worlds. He is who I walk with on this journey of coming to fully love and accept myself. So why don't I just walk by myself, with my essence? If this journey is really about me and my self-worth, self-expression and self-esteem, why am I walking with Money? Because for whatever reasons, Money is the direct reflection of my willingness and capacity to love and accept myself, and to create my life from within, nourished by my gifts, dreams and desires, guided by my soul's purpose and path. I am here to contribute and serve, and my willingness to step over the stile and fully onto my soul's path of contribution is the key to unlock the blocks and fears that stop the flow of financial prosperity. As I allow myself to receive my Self, Money as Green Man shows up to guide me, call me forth, and support me to shine my brightest light. Today is St. Mary Magdalene's Feast Day - July 22nd. And I am clear that I will not waste what I initiated and received from this journey I have walked by myself on the Mary Michael Pilgrims Way. Mary and St. Michael are within my heart, guiding, providing and protecting every step of the way - even now as I am home in the US, with my family and re-entering to integrate and receive all from my experience. Today, I read a quote from a group that experienced St. Michael up on Brentor, which is on the Mary Michael Way in Dorset. The quote from the Bible that was opened to this page at the St. Michael Church that day gave them a message about the following: We learned to not be afraid of our light inside of ourselves and that when we let this light out all the way, for our communities to see, we will be quickly accepted and recognized. Also when we allow our true selves to BE present in this world, we become the calm in the storm. Just as St. Michael guides, provides and protects me along the path bearing his name, so too does Green Man. Perhaps somehow they are connected and are reflections of each other. More on that another time. I trust him and know him to always reflect the truth to me. As we journey together, we heal each other and serve to reconnect the material to the divine, and also the divine to the material, and to shine our lights brightly and boldly, and be the bridges to create Heaven on Earth.
Matter matters, the divine matters. It is all the same thing, just different sides of the same coin, after all. Solvitur Ambulando! |
SarahI love to walk. I love to write. Archives
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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!
Join me as I share with you the gifts from the Spiral Path!