IT ALL POINTS TO SELF LOVE

The lessons of the week all seem to center around one theme this week. Or is there only one theme?  Self love. 

It began on Monday. I attended a Meditation and Dharma talk on gratitude. Ok I thought , that is easy. I am constantly grateful for the town I live in, my family and friends, my health, What is not to be grateful for? 
 But the talk centers around the gratitude we can choose to feel  for all the difficult people and circumstances we encounter in our lives. For it is those things and people that bring us the greatest catalysts for our own growth. I get the concept. Yes, I have worked through some major forgiveness relationships and consider myself "doing well"on that front. 
In my reading during the week I encounter a lovely transcript of a channeling session by St Germaine http://joyandclarity.blogspot.com/   titled: THE TRUTH ABOUT YOU. I copy some of the more profound ideas into my journal. "By engaging the truth of your true identity at the fundamental level ( the truth being that you are god/goddess/all that is in human form) you will begin to disentangle yourself from the complications of living in the world. You will find that the challenges you face are only imaginary, they only reflect the energy YOU were expending by keeping your masks in place."

 It goes on to say, "rest comfortably in the remembrance of your divinity, Rest in the knowledge of  WHO YOU ARE.."

A facebook friend posts a video of a unknown, to me, channel. His channeling centers on claiming your true identity as well, and that is the identity of the divine nature that sustains your life.

"When you focus on only this aspect you life will change forever."

Then there is my old youtube friend Mooji, the Jamaican guru who spontaneously lost his connection to his ego self. He comments that all the stories we create about ourselves keep us in a state of duality and separation. The beliefs fed us by society, parents and religion all keep us from the truth. There is only one consciousness (the ocean) that we are all expressing. The "outside" aspects only reflecting what we belief to be true about ourselves.  
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6t2XVQSZaII&feature=fvwrel

This is the end of that week.  After claiming these truths all week I have just finished reading an email from a woman , whose house I stayed in, claiming I had committed an unforgivable act by throwing out 6 small dried chili peppers that were in her million dollar perfect home. She was demanding an explanation and hopes that she would find no more of these unforgivable surprises. 
As I read it, my heart pounded with anger and the sheer stupidity of it. I wanted to respond - GET A F**KING LIFE LADY!!!
How myopic can anyone be.

But then the dharma teaching came to mind. Gratitude. Now here was the gift. The answer to my weeks outpouring . I was claiming my divinity and all the beliefs in opposition to that belief were being invited to show up in any form. I want to love and respect who I am and all that is not in accordance with that INSIDE me must be reflected so that I can see it. How can I feel like the goddess incarnate and allow it all to fly out the window when some woman who does not know anything about me claims I am unforgivable. 
My choice : feel guilty . Shame. Anger. or  see the gift of choice.

This woman was EVERY thought I have had of my imperfection, All the thousands of little things I accused myself of that were unforgivable. All that ridiculous self criticism . It is easy to say I love myself when there is no reflection of the "other" in my face.


Now  I actually feel the gratitude as I confirm over and over. 
I know who I am .
I know what I am
I know how I serve in the greater plan

I breath and release "her".

 I breath and recognize ME

What is unforgivable is my lack of recognition of my essence.
What is unforgivable is my ever giving power to anyone "outside" of me to remove the truth of my real nature.

I breath 
I know who I am 
I know What I am 
I know how I serve the greater plan

Thank you!

Hard Times Require Furious Dancing

For months I have attended belly dance classes, training my body in very precise isolations of  muscle sets, fine motor skills, hip lifts, and shimmies. I do not know why but there is a moment I know that I must leave these classes. There is some  drama happening that is draining my awareness and my offering of my dance to the Goddess. Yes, but it is more. When I first moved to San Miguel de Allende, Mexico I had attended a free form dance on Sunday mornings called Dance from the Soul.

 The music was of many different rhythms and attitudes. The dancers were the same.I had stopped going for so long, telling myself that I needed more discipline, a deeper practice. Now as I fly around the room expressing movement to the eclectic beats I realize how much my body has missed the variety of attitudes and the mixture of people. I know this feels right. I am glad I trusted my feelings and had the courage to leave my safe woman's group. Danza de Alma lets me sweat my prayers. I am able to push as hard as I want and use any part of my body to move any way that feels good.. The mental attitude is one of freedom.

Hard Times Require Furious Dancing.

This particular session ended with a song called ONE LOVE . And that is was.

ASPECTS OF SHE: Mittie Babette Roger

ASPECTS OF HER: I am SHE

 In my life I have known many aspects of the Goddess embodied in the women around my life. The aspects have ranged from women I love and admire to those I have found extremely challenging, like my mother.  And yet, all have shown me that they are SHE. 

Is the drop of the ocean anything other than the ocean?

On this blog, I would like to tell stories of some of these aspects of the SHE, including at some point my own mother.

Each of these women have impacted my life in deep ways and through them I have grown to love and respect more parts of myself. 

I first Mittie, a beautiful young bubbly woman I took to be in her mid  20's, in a belly dance class. Mittie has a beautiful body well suited to showing off the midriff area . I could tell she had worked hard on dance of all kinds. She introduces herself after my first class, " hi , I am Mittie," and she points to her middle as a visual que for her name. I can tell she loves to help people learn.

I always wonder how young people like her can make a living here in Mexico. She tells me she is a teacher. I suspect she is a good one. She teaches English to young students in a school. In two years she has also become fluent in Spanish. Her story includes her father and his wife living also in San Miguel de Allende .They had been "wiped out" in the hurricane Katrina that hit the New Orleans area. In a leap of faith they relocated to Mexico and he started a tequila business and she, a high end resale business. Mittie had come to visit and fell in love- not only with San Miguel and Mexico but a handsome young Mexican artist. They moved into together.

She had danced in many forms over most of her life. And on a creative level the artist seemed like a good match for her. I watched as Mittie over the next year in class develop into the embodiment of the Goddess through tribal style belly dance.

 She had quit teaching and now was traveling  to promote her father's tequila business in the US.  I would say she had the perfect personality to be in sales, bubbly , warm, confident, and above all genuine.

Genuine and authentic rank high on my attractive womanly attributes list. 

I strive for the high road myself. Not always achieving it but always looking for it. So I admire those on the same path. Mittie jokingly asked me one time where I ranked her on the my scale and I told her that she was a 10, jokingly of course.

But on the serious side, there really was not anything I did not like about Mittie.

She is kind, respectful, and funny. In class she treated me like everyone else. Women my age in the US are often marginalized and invisible to the young. I had experienced this once or twice in a Waldorf school town with lots of young,hip, "in" parents.  Mittie on the other hand, went out of her way to help me through my directionally challenged brain. In class I was often extending the wrong arm up or out, starting on the wrong leg ect.  Mittie would smile and either mirror to me the posture or physically move me into the correct posture.

A true pinnacle in Mittie's life arrived about 1 1/2 years after I met her. She and and another young woman studying belly dance were given major roles in a dance and drum show. Wearing a borrowed golden outfit, she had a six minute solo and a number that included balancing a sword on her head. It was breathtakingly beautiful. She had truly become the Goddess. 

Her artist partner was in the audience that night. After, I smiled and told him how wonderful it was. He smiled

back but did not seem to me  to be glowing with pride. Had he just seen too much belly dance?? I suspected more was going on.

Within 6 months of her stunning performance she would be moving on. He had asked her to stop dancing and traveling. While his artistic endeavors were never in question. 

Mittie moved on well.

She still respects her past partner and acknowledges his gifts to her life.

She moved on with pride and self respect because she recognizes on some level that she is SHE and can not be disrespected or put down. It is time. Time for the Goddess to stand forth. Be all that she is here to be.

She not only shows this respect for herself but for all of us. 

She is SHE.

( This gorgeous photo by our friend SEAN REAGAN)

THE SAND WOMAN

I don't know why I was so called to this ritual. The river and its many sand bars were a big part of my life for 20 years. I spent quiet summer afternoons with friends,swimming, talking and  picnicing.

 I spent solitary time dancing on sand bars.

When my son was young, we spent hot days diving off sand bars, into unusually deep waters surrounding them.





 I played Frisbee and catch the ball with dogs that I dog sat for. I ate watermelon, and watched late night bonfires with friends. Yes, the sand was an integral part of my experience.
A moment came when I began to envision a uniquely personal ritual.
At a Christmas party  we were discussing an enchanting movie called, Calendar Girls, a true story about how a few middle aged women posed nude for a calendar, to raise funds for a friend who has cancer. 

We all laughed and hypothesized about our own ability to do such a thing. Most said they could never do it for any reason.  But a few brave souls said yes . There was a photographer present and he suggested that he would love a project like that and offered to do the photos for free. That seemed to be the end of that.


As summer approached I began to mildly contemplate what month I wanted to be in the calendar and just what my project would be.Instantly, the sand came to mind. 
Symbolically, sand speaks of change and impermanence.  I remembered watching the Tibetan monk, who once lived next door to me, create a magnificent sand mandala. Each grain of colored sand is laid down gently to create an exquisite, intricate ancient design that is almost unimaginable. I asked the Lama why did his culture do such a laborious, tedious  and labor intensive art form in sand??? He said, " we use sand as a sacred  teaching tool of impermanence." When the mandala is completed after many weeks of work it is simply swept up and the sand is set free in the flowing waters of a near by river. It is symbolic of the constant shifting of forms. No matter how hard we strive for stability and the safety of permanence it is not the true nature of existence.



It made sense to me. After leaving the stability of a 15 year marriage, my life was in a constant state of change. The more I allowed and embraced these shifts the easier they became. The meaning of my life began to coalesce  around the ability to shift gracefully. 
I wanted my photo to represent that. What began as a humorous idea was to become a deep personal ritual.

On the day of the shoot I kayaked out to a sandbar alone. I spent the afternoon in silence, just allowing ideas to come to the surface of my consciousness. It began by my dripping sand until it built up, by scooping the sand with lots of water and allowing it to slowly funnel out of my cupped hands. I began to build a tail all the way down the length of the small sand island I had chosen.I dug a huge hole in front of the tail where I could kneel waited deep. This way my hidden legs would allow the tail to appear as though it was attached to my waist. It took the entire afternoon to build the layers of wet sand high and long enough to match the proportions of my upper body. Like the Tibetan monk had described to me, a meditation. My thoughts did not wander aimlessly but kept to the task at hand. I was a meditation of new forms I would be creating in my life. No part of me would remain. In the late afternoon the light of the setting sun would be perfect  My closest friend, Cecilia, and Dick, the photographer, would kayak out to my island. When they arrived we worked quickly to catch just the right moment. I stripped and put hair gel in my hair to facilitate sand adhesion. I settled into the hole while Cecilia buried my legs and brushed away all the footprints around the shot. Earlier I had created a partial clay woman and I now rolled her into the sand so that she appeared to be made of sand as well.I held her high and looked up. Dick shot from all angles and within a few minutes had 130 exposures. As the sun set, there is an indelible delicious mental picture in my mind of the three of us kayaking down the river into the setting sun to have a celebratory dinner together.

 I was deeply moved by Dick and Cecilia's experience of what I considered MY ritual.  They also had had personal epiphanies. And each of us had allowed the river to help us on our personal journey of change.

 Knowing that night the river would take the remains of my sand creation along with it on its journey I smiled and felt a sense of empowerment . The idea of ritual as a tool became real for me. And I like to think that my ritual was for all of us.

RARE RACHELS

The first time I saw Rachel was at a belly dance class with her lovely navel exposed. I had no idea how old she was I just knew she was one of those rare ones. Our paths crossed occasionally over the two years that I have been in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. Mostly I would see her at Sunday free form dance.

 Everyone seems to know her and love her. She smiles sweetly and moves with the grace of a woman who has learned to love all the parts of herself.

It was not until she invited me to a Artist's Way writing group that she hosts at her house that I began to hear her stories. She talks of a traditional Jewish upbringing and a "normal" life up until her husband dies in the 1970's. Then she is off to India, Jamaica, and Indonesia. In California she rides the leading edge of the "new age" movement , hanging out at Esalen , taking dance classes with Gabielle Roth, and breathing classes.She is wealth of information from those years.She tells us to breath and vigorously rub our breasts to clear our lymph nodes because as she says," no one else will do that for you."

Today we all share our writings and she talks about her upcoming birthday at the end of the week.There will be a grand party at her house, but today she writes about her fear as well as her joy. Turning 90 brings up many emotions for her. 
I have several older woman friends close to her age. These women are the ones that have inspired me for many years. I look to them to show me the way. How to step forward each day and live it to the fullest. How to cherish every moment of life and care for my body and mind into the wise years.
I feel women of this stature are the truest goddesses. They have lived beyond and through so much. They have been so many different faces of the Divine Feminine.
Rachel exemplifies this and yet........ there is fear. How many years will I have birthdays.
What can I realistically expect from my aging body. Am I living in the right place and is my life in order. All these things she contemplates and yet at the end of her writings she shares that she will just accept the days as they come no matter how many are remaining.
I wish I could say something wise and yet I know I am entering my aging years as well. I want to do that as gracefully as possible and the RARE RACHELS of the world show the way.

DIVINE INTERVENTION

For many years now folks of all kinds have come out of the closet on their beliefs and or personal experiences with Angels or some Divine Being that intervened in their life at some critical moment.Doreen Virture wrote a book and does workshops on Angels, making them very credible.She also produced cards with words on them to help develop a deeper personal connection to your Angel. 

I was raised Catholic and as children we were told to save room on our school chairs for our Guardian Angel. We each had one , that was just our own special Angel. Our little eager minds easily accepted this idea. Wow how special we all felt, but once I entered the higher grades there was no more talk of invisible little Angels by either the nuns or my parents. They just seemed to fade away with the tooth fairy , Santa Claus and the rest of those childhood betrayals.
The message was , leave those childish ideas behind if you want to fit into a mature society. Those ideas once revered and accepted so easily were now cause for humiliation if you dared to still believe beyond a certain point. 
Even though I still find words like Guardian Angel, Faeries ect difficult to use in adult company I can not deny the many incidents of divine curiosities and interventions that have happened in my life. Many witnessed by others as well. They came in many forms, never appearing quite as portrayed in the movies.Many are too personal to write about but one I found playful and was witnessed by a good friend and my son, then a child. It is  a lovely story .
Samantha, was looking to buy land in North Carolina and she , I and my 6 year old son, Antwan, took a short road trip from Atlanta to the area she was interested in.Before getting to the land we met a man on the road who told us that very nearby was a fabulous waterfall in a remote area that we must see. We were in that magic go-with=the =flow attitude so we agreed . We went to the land that Sam was interested in first and by the time we reached the waterfall is was late afternoon. It was deep in a canyon , on private land and it took us almost an hour to walk to it.

 Well worth the adventure, the falls were spectacular .We all agreed they had a very magical feeling. Antwan stripped off his over shirt and frolics on the rocks in from o the falls. The visual was stunning. Rainbows played off his blonde hair and all around him. We commented that he looked like a fairy playing in the colors. It was truly etherical









The sun was setting and we decide we must go now to make it out before dark. We hurry down a very narrow path lined with thick vegetation on both sides. Half way out Antwan notices he has left his favorite bright blue over shirt behind.


 We stop to assess the situation. If we turn back now we will not get out before dark and the path could be very dangerous . He is so upset that we decide to risk it. We turn to retrace our steps and there on the narrow path we just walked is the shirt. We are all stunned. I ask Antwan if he is sure he did not have it with him and just dropped it. He is 6 and of course , I know he did not think to take it along but I ask. "No, he says , I just thought of it now.
                                               
                                               Suddenly, we all start laughing .

 It seems so absolute clear to us that the fairies have brought it to keep us out of trouble. We simply thank them and leave. Divine Intervention plain and simple.

Frieda and the Guad.

Mexico adores two women. One is a spotless, miracle producing, virgin and the other a bisexual, uni-brow who drank and smoked heavily. Strange heroines. Both involved with men named Diago. Hummmmm.
I always have found the idea of Virgin woman producing off spring to be as weird a concept as any distorted sexual view of w omens nature. I have been contemplating the distance between these female icons for over  two years of living in Mexico. I knew little of either of them before coming here.

It seems that Frieda was as wild as The Guad was pure.


 Do Mexican men visualize their women somewhere in between? 
I suspect Mexican women walk the line of polarity.
Does he want the sweet purity of the Virgin? The one who can lift him from his poverty mindset to the heights of recognition.
Do the "Roses" she gives him verify his worth?
If he "prays"to her will she deliver the fruits of his loin, bearing him the golden prize, a MALE child.
And if not , can he denounce her purity and feel justified in her joining the ranks of the beaten? No guilt there.

Or should she be strong enough to be the "wild " Frieda? How can he live with that? Could he accept his wife's bisexual nature, her drinking,her passionate art?
Her SUCCESSES?

I believe these two women offer the far ends of the spectrum of polarity. Because there is such strong worship of the one there must be the other.Where there is light there must be darkness.

And I ask, is it possible to live in the glare of the bright white light or the deepest darkness?
Do real women need to be on this spectrum. Is this WHY the world is so out of balance.. 
I can only say , that as a woman I feel the need to balance all the aspects of my nature and hopefully that will affect the world. 



I also hope these unbalanced stories of woman fade like distant memories of cultures that were on a path to evolution and moved beyond them to higher levels of thought.

What Women Do

 I did not know Bill well but I knew Zihna. He had been her whole world . Now he was dead. Quite a few years older than she, Zihna knew it would happen one day but this was the day. She called his children and together they kept vigil until he died in her arms at 4:30am Saturday morning.He went peacefully.

 One of her friends had suggested that there be a gathering of women to prepare his body for cremation. At first , Zihna was not sure she could do this but the idea seemed right. She said yes and called other women friends to join her in this ritual. Five women gathered at her house then headed to the funeral home together. I joined them in spirit in Mexico. Two women had no experience with ritual and three did, yet when they gathered each woman had known just what to bring, and was open to her role . Kathy was told to bring towels. Instead she went to the local you-can-get-everything store in their small town, She purchased small white wash cloths, and purple ribbon. She has small copies of Bills photo made and wrapped the wash cloths with Bills photo on top and tied it all with the purple ribbon. Deb is an award winning quilter. She purchased nine yards of a gauze-like fabric and hemmed it so that they could wrap the washed corpse in it before cremation.She also made an elegant altar cloth and gifted it to Zihna after the ceremony.
Val brought 2 white feathers and blessed each woman's hands by touching them before they began to wash Bill. Zihna brought the wedding candle that graced the marriage ceremony.
I am lighting the candles on the altar I created in Mexico. Mexico is known for elaborate Day of the Dead rituals and altars are common in the streets. There are many elements easily available for creating amazingly lovely altars.

On a walk during the afternoon, I gathered wild flowers. It is the rainy season in the high desert mountains and there are tiny wildflowers to weave into a circle wreath. I often used this technique to quiet my mind in Wisconsin where wildflowers were plentiful in the summer. I asked for a sign, something from Bill or Zihnas helpers to be able to offer her. As I walk past a store the Simon and Garfunkel song Bridge Over Troubled Waters is playing. It is rare to hear American music. I think this is the sign and hurry home to look up the lyrics.

When you're weary 
Feeling small 
When tears are in your eyes                            
I will dry them all 

I'm on your side 
When times get rough 
And friends just can't be found 
Like a bridge over troubled water 
I will lay me down 
Like a bridge over troubled water 
I will lay me down 

When you're down and out 
When you're on the street 
When evening falls so hard 
I will comfort you 
[ Lyrics from: om/s/simon+and+arfunkel/bridge+over+troubled+water_20124580.html ] 
I'll take your part 
When darkness comes 
And pain is all around 
Like a bridge over troubled water 
I will lay me down 
Like a bridge over troubled water 
I will lay me down 

Sail on Silver Girl,                                                                   
Sail on by 
Your time has come to shine                                                
All your dreams are on their way 

                                               

 See how they shine 

If you need a friend 
I'm sailing right behind 
Like a bridge over troubled water 
I will ease your mind 
Like a bridge over troubled water 
I will ease your mind

YES THIS DEFINITELY WAS THE MESSAGE. Zhina had looked to Bill to always be by her side and yet now it was her time to Sail on Silver Girl . Her time had come to shine. And Bill was telling her he would be sailing right behind to ease her mind.
I filled a small glass bowl with water and placed it in the center of the flower wreath. I dropped 4 heart shaped stones (one black, one red, one white and one pink) into the water and floated small white jasmine blossoms. I surrounded the wreath with rosemary and tamarind seeds.

 Along side the water bowl I placed a small ceramic skeleton woman , dressed elegantly waiting.. Mexico is filled with these skeleton figures. They freaked me out at first but after I learned they are an honoring of life and a reminder of how short it is I relaxed and enjoyed the humor of them.





I took some photos and emailed Zihna the words to Bridge over Troubled Water, hoping that she might see some inkling of a connection to Bill . During the night the sweet scent of rosemary mixed with jasmine floated into my awareness.

The next day one of the ladies at the ceremony emails me. She tells me that they all honored my being with them in spirit. Zhina asks some grandchildren to play sing Bridge Over Troubled Water at Bills funeral.
After the ritual they perform they create a talking circle to express their feelings about being called to do this sacred circle. 
For two days I lit the candles and  then I clear the altar. It has served its purpose and I cleanse it with sage smoke. It is complete and 
we women have done what women do.

Trotsky in Mexico

I don't know why I wanted to go to this movie. Was it because my son is dating a Russian woman and just returned from  three weeks in Moscow and St.  Petersburg? Was it because I was once friends with Stalin's daughter, Svetlana? Or because I was now living in Mexico? Whatever the reason, I certainly was not prepared for the depressing analog of revolution on a world scale that passed before my eyes. The movie chronicled happenings all over the world at the time Trotsky was welcomed into exile in Mexico.
 All I saw for 80 minutes were photos of men slaughtering each other. And all I could think was how much women need to be returned to power.

Women are the bringers of life not the destroyers of it.

After birthing a son I was determined to raise him with a new paradigm, a new perspective on his role in society. His father was a "soft" male drawn to spiritual and humanitarian ways rather than football ,politics or war. Although we were not together as a family, our son was growing up surrounded by males of this nature.
All the men who were strong male figures to him were intelligent, sensitive, kind,gentle. and humorous. The other children he was friends with were creative,noncompetitive types. 

Yes , he did play war with fake guns.. The guns were sticks from the 200 acres that surrounded our house.There was something in the innocence of it that did not concern me.

 Later , I read an article on this in a respected magazine on parenting. It said that it is important to the make energy to do this kind of PLAY. This allowed these tendencies to express as play so that there would be no need to express this in real life. Men play out aggression and hormones by killing and hating, instead of with little plastic soldier men. I allowed my son fake guns, army guys but balanced it with a male doll called Buddy, skateboards, and lovely children's books with heart energy. Balance seems to be the answer to everything. When I thought I would never know how to parent, a neighbor suggested it was easy. " Just check in with your heart on everything and you can not make a mistake." He was right.

As a woman I am a life giver.

 I consider my son a new male.

 Yes, neurologically wired differently and also exposed to a balanced life with violence stayed in the world of make believe.

He is my gift to the new world.

 epilog:( from an recent email from a friend:
Dear friend, we just had some few days here with Antwan .We enjoyed he and his girlfiend and were happy to have a chance to reconnect peacefully with no hurry. Antwan has always been such a wonder for me. He is one of the most harmonious and free spirit I have met in this life. You and Randy did a great job to let him grow as he wished.