The Land Down Under

My belly is my wealth.  My belly holds my worth.  My belly holds my pain.  My belly holds my power.

To feel my power, I have to feel my pain.

To feel my pain, I have to be willing to experience myself in my body.

To experience myself in my body, I have to be willing to love myself.

To love myself, I have to be willing to care about myself.

To care about myself, I have to be willing to believe that I matter.

To believe that I matter, I have to be willing that I am of value.  That I am valuable.  That I am lovable.  That I have intrinsic value simply because I AM.

Not because of what I do, or how I make someone else feel, or how I look, or how I respond.

Simply because I am.  I am here in this body, in this life, having a human experience.

And I have split off from myself way back up at the top - I have not been willing to feel my pain.  I stuff it down in my belly, down under the horizontal split line between my heart and my womb.  Like the Earth, I have my own equator and a different world in the southern hemisphere than the northern one.  The northern hemisphere is the masculine and mind - the head.  The southern hemisphere is the feminine and the womb - the belly. The heart connects the two worlds, yet to connect them, one must be willing to feel, to grieve, to cry, to laugh, to love deeply.  And to love deeply one must be willing to live deeply - from the womb, from the belly.

As I have been doing my "healing the split" exercises, my belly is getting larger.  LARGER!  I can't believe it.  I feel like I must be the only person in the world who is doing the exercises consistently AND WHOSE BELLY IS GETTING LARGER rather than smaller.

Last night I realized that of course it is.  I stuff my pain into my belly.  In the past, the pain - and the power, could leak out.  I had a built in pressure equalizer.  I never had to feel too much because the pressure valve would always release the energy when it got to intense in my belly.  I have this image of a pressure cooker when I hold the pressure valve open to release the pressure when I am ready to open the pan.  Steam shoots out with such a force because the cooker has been tightly sealed.

My belly's seal is becoming tighter.  As I heal the split, the pressure is building and my belly is becoming larger.  When I first started this process, I was worried about sealing up the pain and the shame in my belly.  I realize now that I have to seal up my belly for the pressure to build so that I can, and will, actually feel the pain so that I can heal.  Heal the pain, release the shame.  Up until now, it has all just been able to exist within me at a level that I have become used to - like a low grade fever.  If the pain cannot leak out the split, then it has to come up through my heart so that I can  feel it and become conscious of it, and then express it through my throat.  It feels like there is a giant boulder blocking the path from my womb to my heart, and my detour and default has been to leak out the intensity through the split, and in doing so, avoid my heart and my throat.  Now, the pressure is building and the opportunity is to remove the boulder with the pressure from my belly and clear the path to my heart and throat, creating a direct, open, integrated and loving connection between my heart and womb.

This is the journey on the Celtic Camino between Toulouse (2nd chakra) and Paris (4th chakra).

I have to walk the Celtic Camino.  I have to walk from Santiago to Toulouse this fall.  Oh my god...I have to do this.  I have to...get to...be willing to do this now, and not put it off until next spring.  I have to begin this journey now.  I have to ....get to...believe that I matter enough to make this pilgrimage.

I keep thinking that I have to do the WEALTHYwoman Workshops so that I can lead the pilgrimages.  NO.  I have to make the pilgrimage so that I can lead the WEALTHYwoman Workshops.  I keep having it backwards.  I have to embelly my worth, embelly my wealth and AS  I do, I can lead and guide other women to do the same. 

I think that I have to believe that I matter enough and have enough money so that I can commit and schedule the Celtic Camino when actually, I have to...get to.. walk the Celtic Camino to cultivate my love and caring for myself. 

I have to breathe into this one.  Breathe... Feel...Accept...Love...Expand.

Suseya!
Sahara

Fragility and True Strength

Yesterday I saw Lynn, the PT I have been working with to heal the split.  I was nervous about going, and realized that what I wanted was encouraging news and that my doing these daily exercises - and I mean daily - was having a positive effect and that the split was actually getting smaller.  Yay!  I got good news. The split at its widest area is down to just under 2 fingers wide (from 3+ fingers)!  Just that little piece of news gave me enough to move forward.  To be honest, I am not sure what I would have done if I had received bad news.  It would have been very challenging to stay committed to the daily exercises.  I mean, why bother?  But now, I can and will be bothered, I mean, stay committed and focused on doing the exercises. They're actually working!!

Lynn told me that the connective tissue just above my belly button is very "fragile."  "Everyone's?", I asked.  "No, just yours." She also said that anything I do to push it out, to "pooch" my belly will un-do the healing in this tissue and that I HAVE to engage my transverse muscles every time I lie down, get up, cough, go to the bathroon.  EVERY TIME.  This was the perfect segue into my wanting to explore how I PUSH from the inside of my belly against the split, against the splint, against the world.

We also did a lot of intuitive work together.  Lynn put her "Intuitive Hands" on my belly and we work for nearly an hour on the issues and the information that my belly was sharing through her hands.  We explored pushing and I realized how I PUSH really hard to make things happen and that I do not trust or allow things to unfold, or to be birthed.  We explored my 4 births and I realized that when I was birthing Michael, my third and largest child - 9 and a half pounds with a 15 inch head, I had to work REALLY HARD.  Actually, harder than I had ever worked on anything in my life.  He was so big.  I could feel how big he was as he was coming down the birth canal, and then when he crowned, I truly wasn't sure if I could stay in my body.  After I gave birth to him, we were all prepared for my to start bleeding because that is what I had done after my first 2 labors.  Crazily, and thanks to drugs, I did not hemmhorage blood, but I did leak out all of my energy.  My energy hemmhoraged out of me just like I was hemmorhaging the blood.  Lynn felt like Michael had received or perhaps even taken that energy, and that I continue to leak my energy out and Michael takes it. So we did some energetic work to cut the chords and to seal up the giving away of my energy to him. 

The image of the placenta then came up - placenta as source of nourishment for the unborn baby and placenta as symbolic inner source of nourishment for me.  When I have given birth to each of my babies, my body has stopped contractions as soon as or while the baby is born which has been what has contributed to the hemmhoraging.  So I have needed to receive pitocin and other drugs that bring on the contractions to expell the placenta and complete the birthing process.

In midwifery, the placenta is believed to be the best medicine for the mother and that child.  A new mother will eat an omelette with some of placenta cooked into to so that she receives this sacred medicine soon after birth. While I buried the first two placentas in the garden with a new bush or tree, I froze Michael's placenta and had it made into medicine in capsules.  This is a process that involves steaming it, drying it, grinding it - local midwives, like my sister-in-law, Karin, provide this service.  In fact, this is what she wrote on her website: 

Taking placenta medicine postpartum has been known to quicken recovery, restore lost hormones, shorten bleeding time, boost energy, lessen postpartum depression and augment milk production. Here's a link to an interesting article at Time.com

I realized is that Michael and I have never taken our placenta medicine.  I will admit that it was in my freezer for a long time and even moved to our new house only to be put into the freezer there.  So I am not at all sure of its quality and I am perhaps even a little squeamish about it!   My impulse is that together, Michael and I need to bury it - the dried, and finely ground powder that it is.  My hit is to bury it in the middle of the labyrinth, under the huge quartz rock and next to the sage plant.  Michael's middle name is Sage so how perfect.  I talked with him about doing this yesterday.  He lgave me this funny, yet somewhat curious look on his face, and at the same time, agreed.  So today, with the full moon as our guide, we will bury his placenta and free us both from the dynamic of hemmhoraging energy and not loving or trusting our bodies, so that we can  reclaim our own power and energy, and trust  in the beauty and widsom of our bodies.

Lynn and I also explored how I still feel energetically pregnant.  She asked me if I wanted to stay pregnant.  I recalled how my body didn't want to release the placenta.  I loved being pregnant and getting to take really good care of myself without feeling guilty or making excuses.  When I took care of myself when I was pregnant, I was caring for my baby.  I wasn't being selfish in any way.  I could exercise, I could take naps and sleep, I could eat really well, I could be quiet.  Whatever I did, it was ultimately for the baby. The placenta was the metaphor for the self-nourishment and self-care that I both gave and allowed myself when I was pregnant.  I loved it.

I also loved being pregnant because for those few months, my belly could be big and it was beautiful.  Everyone loves a big pregnant belly - mine included.  I loved my belly, and I felt really good in my body when I was pregnant. I didn't have to hide it; I could actually shine it out.  It was the most wonderful feeling.

Now my big belly is a source of shame.  I constantly try to hide it, minimize it, cover it, suck it in, contain it, reduce it.  So often, I have experienced someone looking at me, and then my belly, or sometimes even my belly first.  That's when I know that it is big, and that I haven't hidden it well enough.  More shame.

How can I take care of myself and love my belly - love myself - when I am not pregnant? As many pregnancies as I have had, it is still only 36 months of my life which at this point, is 614 months.  So for 36 out of 614 months, I have loved myself and my belly, and taken really good care of myself.  The question is how do I love and accept myself and shine out my belly for the next 614 months without it being about my being pregnant or someone else?  How do I love and accept myself and love my belly with it being just about me?

This all comes back full circle to pushing.  I push out and I don't receive or allow. 

So what Lynn and I created is that when I do my daily exercises, that each contraction of the transverse muscle is an internal embrace for my belly.  The contraction comes from the inside, not the outside  pushing in.  I am to contract and pull in - hug my belly and with each contration, I am communicating to my belly that I love it, accept it, trust it.  Last night I started this.  I can get caught up in the counting to 100, so last night I made up a 10 count little mantra - "I love my belly. Oh, yes I do.  WooHoo"  and then just focused on the 10 count of 10, rather than on each individual count to 100.  This way, I can actually focus on each contraction being an embrace of my belly from the inside out and a pull rather than a push.

This simple shift of focus on this 2 inch fragile section of the split could be the seed for the most major transformation of my life.  This simple, this focused. this small.  It feels like the mustard seed of faith for my transformation.  Simple, but not easy.  Small, but huge.  Focused, but universal.  This fragilityis the source, or perhaps the portal, for my true strength and ferocity.  The paradox is present here, and so I am reminded of Carolyn Myss' words, "when paradox is present, Spirit is present too."

The strength is not in the pushing.  True strength is in the allowing and the receiving of love and the acceptance.  Every time I pooch my belly, I am pushing away the love and acceptance and I re-wound myself.  Every time I allow and receive, I am healing myself.  I get to practice this in my body, in my belly and in the most fragile area of my belly.  I am so honored to be on this journey to heal the split.  Thank you.

Suseya!
Sahara

WombHeart

Annegret gave me a beautiful "heart" stone the other day down at Joyful Journey Hot Springs.  It is an earthy browny red color and is roundish, and not flat.  It looks and feels like a heart - warm and round, and it fits perfectly into my hand.  Annegret wrote me this after we had each returned home from our weekend:

You remember we all exchanged hearts, yours was very different from the others, yours is a whole heart, the others were flat. I take this as a symbol. Your split, soon will be no split anymore. You are healing your WHOLE heart to be who you really are and who the world needs you to be, the life coach you are meant to be. SHINE!!

I am taking these words to heart (pun intended!).  This beautiful heart also reminds me of a womb, my womb and the heart of my womb.  As I hold this stone, I am living into the possibility of wholeness that my "split soon will be no split anymore."  That my heart and my womb will be one, and that living from my heart will be the same as living from my womb.  I have often said that the split exists horizontally as well as vertically.  The horizontal split is the split between my heart and womb.

Before the masculine paradigm came in and took control of our cultures, our lives and our bodies, our hearts and wombs were intimately connected.  They worked in tandem and informed each other.  They were like one heart, wombheart.  The womb was the center for the body; the heart was the center for one's spirit.  Together, a person could access her inner wisdom, be present in her body, know her true desires, and translate the internal to the external.  The path was clear and direct.  Now, there is a road block.  More than that, I keep seeing an image of a fissure in the earth that has cut the road off from itself.  A road on one side and the road on the other side and no way to cross the chasm.

I am reminded of a beautiful maze book that my daughter loves to engage with while at piano lessons and waiting her turn.  There are road blocks and dead ends, so to get to destination, one has to find another road, usually the most circuitous route, to get there.  As adaptable humans, that is what we do.  We do find another way to get where we want to go, even if it is less direct, hard to find, and difficult to navigate.  Also as humans, we compensate.  We will use other muscles, other nerves to get around the road blocks and dead ends.  We will get there, because that is what we are hardwired to do.

Yet something gets lost or left out in the process. When we create with just our heart, the wisdom and grounding of our bodies can get left out of the picture.  Vice versa, when we create with just our bodies and our wombs, we can forget about our heart and its deepest desires, its connection to spirit, and create just for the sake of creating, rather than creating something that benefits the greater whole.  Isn't that what we have been doing for several thousands of years - creating just to create without being connected to the essential pulse of life?  As a result, we have created pharmaceuticals that can do more harm than good, and destroy in the name of healing; we invent contraptions and machines that pollute and destroy the environment; we have the capacity to rape the Earth of oil and other essential minerals without even being aware of the consequences of what our taking the oil may truly mean.  We are like vampires who take the blood of another without asking for permission, and then destroy the body through our use of the oil.  When we create just for the sake of creating, our hearts and wombs are disconnected, and while we can get excited about what we have created, we have missed the opportunity to create in a way that serves the highest good, and that benefits ALL, including the planet that we call home.

The time is now to heal the split between the heart and the womb.  As I've said before, we all have a womb, men included.  It is the center of our creativity.  It is the chalice to hold our creations as they take form.  It is the muscle that births our creations.  Its purpose is to fill, release and empty itself, only to become full, release and empty itself again and again.  Our monthly bleeding cycles, our pregnancies, our children, our creations.

We all know that we have a heart.  This is universally accepted.  We may say that someone has no heart or is heartless, when they cannot care, have compassion, or be connected to their feelings.  Yet they know that they have a heart and where it is in their bodies.  Its symbolic nature and meaning has been written about, sung about, cried about for as long as we can remember.  Love, love, love...but what about the womb?  What about its wisdom, its symbology, its purpose, both physiologically and energetically?

The split that I feel is just as horizontal as it is vertical.  I have focused so much more on the vertical split - it has been what I have known, and is more obvious.  The vertical split speaks of the separation between the masculine and the feminine; the left and the right brain and sides of my body; intuition and logic; emotional and rational; and even England and America.

The up/down split has been more challenging for me to identify.  The more obvious is the split between Heaven and Earth; spirit and matter.  It is more subtle or less obvious for me the split between the heart and womb because how often have we even acknowledged that a relationship and connection between the heart and womb even exists.  The nature of a split presumes that there has been a relationship and a connection to start with.  How often is the relationship between the heart and womb even, ever acknowledged? 

I am venturing further into split just by naming this horizontal split.  I know that this is where I feel a profound distrust for the masculine and where I have preferred to stay safe, and take a long circuitous route to where I want to go.  Now, I am inviting myself to take the next step into healing the horizontal split and connecting my womb and my heart.  This is the journey into the unknown, the mystery, and I accept the invitation.

To our WombHearts.

Suseya!
Sahara

Summer Solstice prayer

It happened...again.  It hasn't happened for a long time, but sure enough, inevitably, it happened again.  Yesterday, while I was watching Gracie's soccer game, a young girl from school came up and asked me if I was having a baby.  I told her, "No, I just have a big belly."


Outside I was calm.

Yet this simple question set off an avalanche of emotions and feelings inside of me.   I was churning, full of shame and disgust.  How can I at 51 years old look pregnant?  Aren't my daily "heal the split" exercises doing anything?  How can I look  pregnant?  Really?  I felt like I was in the middle of my own story, The Woman Who Always Looks Pregnant", based on "The Emperor Who Wore No Clothes" and the only person who will speak the truth is the young child.

I am so ashamed of my belly.  As I wrote that, I asked myself, "Is it what I am most ashamed about?" I am most ashamed of my sexuality, my belly and my relationship with money and quite equally so.  I don't think that one of those wins the "most" prize.  More so, I am wondering about is how are they all connected.  I don't think that they can be separate, and that it is my belly (and the split) that connects and contains it all.

How does the split fit into this picture?  I have an image of my belly like a cauldron holding the shame, my sexuality, and my relationship with money, as well as my power, my light, my worth - all of it.  It's all in there together, churning.  I must be getting close to something because all I want to do right now is fall asleep. My eyes are closing, I feel heavy and slow. 

Yesterday was the Summer Solstice, and I am so filled with gratitude and celebration for what I have in my life and what I am creating.  I am struck by that the gratitude and celebration that I feel co-exists along side of going into the cave of the shame and muck.  It very much is an experience of both/and, and neither are separate from the other. 

To acknowledge the Solstice, Steve and I, along with Gracie, and Michael who swang in the swing, walked our labyrinth in our side yard.  It felt so good to walk it.  I have gotten disconnected from it, but yesterday, my experience of walking it re-connected me with its simple beauty, its presence in my life, and its connection to ancient wisdom .  In the simple act of walking it, I stepped into turning over my relationship with the masculine - in all of its forms and on all of its levels - to Spirit.  What I know can only take me this far.  From here on, it is my stepping into the unknown, into the mystery.  I consciously asked for assistance and guidance, and in turning this over to Spirit, I relinquished control and of knowing how this process is going to go.

I am getting very sleepy again.

I hold my belly. I feel its roundness and fullness.  I give thanks for its holding my pain and shame, and I give thanks for its willingness to be on this journey of coming home to my wholeness. I remembered as I walked the labyrinth last night, I remembered when the deer died within the outer rungs of the labyrinth last fall.  A beautiful, but very sick animal came to our labyrinth to die and to be held within its sacred circle.  I wrote about it last fall - http://weavingyourdreams.com/the-camino-blues.  Back then I was asking, "What needs to die?"  I also wrote about Deer Medicine.

Deer medicine teaches us to use the power of gentleness with the demons and saboteurs, both internal and external. Perhaps her powerful gift to us is to remind us that sometimes we need to let go of the battle with those aspects of ourselves that tirelessly try to keep us from our true brilliance. We can be so loudly consumed with battling them that we forget that a little self love and compassion can transform everything. Let the battle die, and actually be at peace with even those shadow parts of ourselves that we love to hate. Allow the hate to die, and to truly choose love and compassion and acceptance for ALL of who we are. Choose love and compassion for ourselves, for each other, and even worst critics and enemies. What then would our world look like? What is truly possible then?

What a wonderful reminder for me right now.  Love and compassion for all, for all parts and aspects of myself.  This is what it means to EMBELLY.  Embelly is to include and embrace it all.  Nothing is cut out, left out, or dismembered. 

I get to love and have deep compassion for all of who I am  and for my sexuality, for my relationship with money, and for money and wealth itself, and for my belly, my big, beautiful, round belly.

Somehow this is all connected to my relationship with the masculine - the sacred, the physical, the money and the daily relationship with the masculine in all of its guises.  Most importantly, my belly is connected to my relationship with myself, and with my Self.  I release my belly and all of its relationships over to Spirit, to my Higher Self, Sahara, and to my Inner Team.  I ask for their assistance, compassion, and love so that I fully heal the split, heal my belly and heal my relationships, and embelly my worth, my wisdom, and my wealth.

And so it is.

Suseya!
Sahara 

Loving My Vegetable Garden!

I gardened a lot yesterday in my vegetable garden.  Several weeks ago I planted tomatoes, peppers, broccoli, cabbage and some herb plants, as well as seeds of onions, beets, carrots, peas, bean, romaine lettuce, spinach, kale and  a few other herb seeds.  I haven't planted a vegetable garden in years, and I am loving it.  We have lived in this house for nearly 5 years, and our yard is very shady thanks to a lot of big, old trees along the ditch at the back of the yard.  I love the shade because it helps to keep our house cool, and the challenge has been where to grow vegetables that need a lot of sun. 

Last year Steve had cleared out a lot of juniper bushes that were right up against the front porch and had planted a few ornamental grasses.  This year I finished clearing the bed in front of the house, and with my oldest son Andrew's help, prepared the bed with lots of compost and rich top soil.

After I had watered the other day just before dusk, I went out to look at the garden and saw lots of movement by the soil.  When I stooped down to take a closer look, I saw lots and lots of long, thick worms all over the bed.  Each one was 6 or more inches long.  I was thrilled and felt that my garden was blessed in their presence.

 The seeds are coming up and life is happening in my garden!

To honor the rich abundance of movement and life, I weeded yesterday, put down mulch all over, and staked the beans and peas.  The hard part was putting up a fence around it. I wanted to just be able to enjoy my garden and to walk into it easily.  Yet the reality is that we have deer here who love to eat vegetables and flowers.  I would have hated to come out one morning to find my garden decimated by visiting deer.  So, untypical for me, I recognized the great likelihood of this happening and proactively put up a fence yesterday.  Just a simple one with netting that is almost 7 feet high.  You can easily see through it and I am creating a simple gate at the end near the front steps of the house. 

I just realized that this is a boundary. 

Somehow I can hear myself saying that it's not okay to put up a fence around my beautiful garden - that a fence takes away from its beauty, demonstrates a lack of trust on my part, and doesn't honor something, that I am not quite sure what the something I am not honoring is.  I should be open and loving.

Hmm...at what point do I get to value the garden I am creating anda  provide simple and effective boundary that says I care...I want you to survive and thrive? And without feeling like I am doing something wrong?

I've got the first part because I did put up a fence.  Now I am working on feeling okay about doing it. I just realized that I get to go down and water my garden this morning before heading off for the day!  I am really excited to get to do that and that I have planned for it by making the time to do it.  So, in that case, I've got to go. 

There is a connection here between my garden and healing the split.  I know there is.  This challenge of putting up a fence, honoring a boundary, is part of that connection.  How does one put up a boundary to honor and protect that which is like a young plant and give it time and space to grow, become hardy, and produce its fruit?  How do I do that with what is growing and developing within me?  How have I not done this for myself before?

These are the questions I will live into today as I move through my life.

Suseya!
Sahara

The Dance with the Feminine

Annegret, Colocha, Sarah and Sharon Sofia at Joyful Journey Hot Springs

I returned from Joyful Journey late yesterday afternoon.  It was a joyful journey, filled with deep connections and rich conversations with my Costa Rica sisters, Sharon Sofia who lives here in Boulder,  Annegret, who's German and has lived in Costa Rica for the past 20 or so years, and now also lives in Colorado half the year, and Colocha (Waltraub) who's from Austria and has lived in a small Caribbean beach town ever since she traveled down the long, unpaved road to visit there 30 years ago and runs the beautiful Chimuri Beach Cottages. I first met Annegret and Colocha when I traveled there with Sharon nearly 4 years ago to participate in the first Soulsong board meeting. It was the most feminine board meeting in which I have ever participated, as we met at different times over the week, on the beach, at our cottage, as we walked on the Cabinas Black Sands Beach, and even as we traveled to Bastimentos Island in Panama to meet with the local indigenous Ngobe women to explore creating a cottage industry with them to make Sharon's beautiful Angel dolls.  The meetings were fluid, productive, creative, unstructured, and organic.  Look at the Angel dolls the Ngobe women created.

 

I am blessed to be a part of several circles of women and as we do when women have time together, we talk and share intimately about ourselves and our lives.  I return home feeling nourished, enriched, enlivened, and truly grateful to be connected with such wise, loving, caring women.  I experience both a mirroring of myself from them, and a deep re-connection with myself, and this is true for these past few days as well.

What I came home with is that I love and relax into my connections with the feminine.  I emerge more fully when I am connected with the feminine, both within and without myself.  Especially right now, this is really all that I want - to connect with the feminine.  

Yet I feel this pull that I "should" be dancing with the masculine.  It is not okay that I just want feminine time, but this is all I want.

 I am feeling challenged to even write about this.  While I was soaking early yesterday morning in a pool by myself, I invited in the sacred masculine to dance with me in the dance of the sacred marriage, in the Abun-dance!  I invited in the masculine through several channels, the masculine in me; my Sacred Masculine Complement; Money; Green Man, and Steve.  Now, I am not sure that I was really ready to offer that invitation.  What is the push and the pull I feel to engage with the masculine?  Why can I not just allow myself to be in the womb of the feminine right now?

I started my bleeding right after we arrived at the Hot Springs.  I had no idea it was coming (as I have become very irregular over that past 6 months) and also I was surprised by how heavily and quickly it came on.  Also, I noticed yesterday as I was driving home that my split felt tender right around my belly button area.  I bring these both up as reminders to myself that I was soaking and I was bleeding so I must have been clearing out and purifying on some major levels, and somehow I re-injured the split.  I have been wondering if the split tenderness is from when I was floating in the pool saying my prayers and invitation to the masculine.  I'm wondering if I disconnected from myself and my power to create that invitation. 

Steve and I are going away next weekend to Cody, Wyoming.  We were invited to his cousin's wife's 60th birthday, and it seemed like a great opportunity to get away and to be with Steve's extended family.  We will have 3 nights away together, a road trip with quite a lot of driving time, a chance to be alone together and to talk and share.  On one hand, I am really looking forward to time with just Steve, and on the other hand, I am feeling nervous.  I do not feel very connected with Steve right now, and while we are home and caught up in the busy-ness of life, I can get away with that.  But on the road with nothing but miles to drive and time, I will not be able to avoid.  I actually helped to create this trip, because I know how much we need this time together, but...

How does one be married and be in relationship AND just want to be alone and in the circles of the feminine?  How can I be okay with what I want?

I love Steve, and for over 23 years, I have put our relationship before myself.  He may disagree with this, but every time I have succombed to this pressure to put my marriage first.  It's as though I have always come back into the bed with Steve, when what I have really wanted is to sleep alone.  

How do I be married AND want to be alone?

How can our marriage include and accept my intense yearning to be alone and to nurture myself and my sacred feminine?  How do I stay open and connected to him and stay open and connected to myself?  

I do not know how to do this.  It goes against every rule in my inner "rule book" of marriage.  I am breaking my own rules and I am so uncomfortable and challenged by this.  This comes back to my String Theory on Marriage:  you get married --> you put your marriage first -->  all is created out of the umbrella of your marriage -->  you put aside any selfish wants, needs or desires --> your selfish needs, wants and desires could have detrimental effects on the marriage --> you are going down the path of no return -->  if/when I am selfish --> I am putting the marriage at risk --> we will separate --> we will get divorced --> I will be all alone.  

My life has become about avoiding being alone, and lonely.

 That truth just landed and hit hard.  I fell into a deep sleep to process that one.  Not sure where I went when I slept, except that what I know right now is that up until now, I have chosen to split rather than risk or confront being alone.

My desire to dance with the feminine is demanding that I confront this fear head on.  What if the Abun-dance is actually the dance with and in the feminine and not the dance with masculine - that I have to heal into the feminine and from the place of re-connection and wholeness I then get to dance with the masculine? 

I am being confronted by a lot right now.  Time to move into my day with this awakening rippling through me.  This is the journey.  This is the journey home to wholeness.

Suseya!

Sahara

Riding the Wave

I get to go to Joyful Journey Hot Springs with 3 dear friends for the next 2 nights.  I am really looking forward to women time, soaking time, sleeping time, hiking time, away from work time, and away from home time.  Right now I am feeling very tired around the edges.  Yesterday was a really good and really long day.  I was on the phone coaching or talking from 9am until 9pm with an intuitive reading in the late afternoon at my client's house.  As I was doing my Evening Practice, I realized that I was feeling scared.  Actual fear about how busy I am and that I am not, cannot, get it all done.  I have a lot of detailed, focused work that has to get done, and I'm not sure when or how that will happen.  I feel as though I am on  surfboard trying really hard to stay up and stay on the crest of the wave. I can picture my arms flailing  - and that I have gotten pulled out of my belly by fear and concern, by my not trusting the wave, or myself to ride it.

Right after writing that last night, I came across this quote, and I can't even remember where I found it: 

Life is a wave. Your attitude is your surfboard. Stay stoked & aim for the light!

What a gift of synchronicity to receive this. OK, my attitude is my surfboard.  And I know that I want my attitude to be one of trust, confidence, embelliment, and joy.

I choose to ride the wave of my life from the intention that everything that needs to get done does get done at the perfect time with clarity, focus, ease and grace.  I am riding the wave with LUMINOSITY.  

 And so it is.

Short post today so that I can get ready to go.  I'll be back on Sunday or Monday.

 Suseya!

Sahara 

BWM - Big White Male

I just had a huge a-ha!

I was speaking my spiritual focus out loud, and added a few words to it repetively.

I CULTIVATE COMPASSION FOR MONEY AND MYSELF.  I HEAL THE SPLIT WITH MONEY and myself (just added.)  I ENGAGE DIRECTLY WITH MONEY and myself.  I BECOME A SIGNIFICANT INCOME ALLOWER.

Oh my god, money and myself.  How are they the same?  How does money reflect me?  How is money me? Is money me? Are they connected?  Money as a mirror for me?  Really?

Literally moments before I had the thought that I split from money when I got married.  I split from the masculine because I no longer had to carry it in me.  I was now married to it. Masculine became external.  I split from money, power, and the masculine in me when I married Steve, the external masculine.

I stopped making money, earning money, generating money when I got married.

OK.  Got that.

How is money me?  I was so glad to get away from it.  Money had been so mean, bullying and arrogant.  How does that reflect me?

Oh...it is that part of me that criticizes me, sabotages me, tells me how wrong, stupid and bad I am.  It is my inner bully, my most vicious saboteur.

When I got married, I married into the illusion that I was now so loved by another that I would no longer have to deal with the inner critics and berating inner voices.  I was now so loved that I wouldn't have to deal with the inner bully.  My husband would take care him...and me.

I had earned and saved enough money before I got married to travel and work in England for a year, travel and work in Australia for a half year, and work at a yoga retreat center in Montana for 6 months.  I always had enough to do what I wanted to do and to manifest my dreams.  It was pretty simple before I got married.

Then, I got married.  I stopped earning money.  I gave away my masculine power to earn money.  I gave it away, just like that without even realizing it. I gave it away unconsciously.  I gave it away out of buying into crazy, archaic, disempowering beliefs about how marriage is supposed to be and who I am supposed to be as a "wife."

I gave away and split from that part of myself that was not only masculine, but also the critical, vicious, arrogant masculine the Big White Male in me that loved to keep me small, safe and inferior.

I grew up around BWMs.  I went to college with lots of them.  It seems that the places I have chosen to be have lots of BWMs.  I have learned over the years how to navigate around them.  I stay quiet, wary, alert, and for the most part, invisible. Their energy is very familiar to me.  I find them self centered, shallow, single minded, arrogant, not intelligent, disconnected, heartless.  They are partiers and players, who live as though life is one big game or party and the next conquest.  They reflect the worst of the masculine attributes.  They are willing to go to war, to start wars, to act superior, to use people, to use (up) people and resources.

When I was first married, I found Women's Reality - An Emerging Female System by Anne Wilson Shaef.  I was so excited.  I found a book that spoke what I was feeling and what was my intuitive truth.  Yes, yes, yes.  I shared my enthusiasm with Steve, who immediately reacted to Schaef's descriptions of the White Male System.  He took it as a personal attack.  After all, he is a white male.  My response to his reaction - I shut down.  I put the book away and eventually got rid of it.  I couldn't ever read it again.  Steve was right and I was wrong.  (Notice the either/or split here.)   The craziness here is that Steve may be white and he may be male, but he is not a Big White Male.  I couldn't have, wouldn't have been with him or married him if he was.  Still, the White Male System is the water he swims in as a white male.

I am really struck by that I have been looking at these issues now for well over 20 years.  You can put stuff away, repress it, hide it, dismiss it, and yet...if it is truly a part of you to explore, to wrestle with, to engage with, to come to terms with, to integrate, you will...at some point, somehow.  We think that we can control these things, but one thing I've learned is that our soul's mission is bigger and stronger than we are!  If you close one door, then guess what...another window opens.

(I have edited this post and there is a section on this writing taken out.  Suffice it for now that I am honoring a request from the heart to edit this, and at some point soon, will re-write this section.  For now, I have just deleted it.)

Yet it took that BWM energy to be the catalyst for me.  I am curious why that energy and how does it relate to money?

BWM energy is money, for me.  It is what is familiar and what I grew up around.  I am attracted to it and repulsed by it at the same time. Push - pull.  The split.

There is the preppy, East Coast,  Middlebury side of me.  There is, as much as I hate to admit it.  There he is.  I have chosen to reject that side of me, and focus on the spiritual, Boulder, granola, organic foods, Colorado side of me.  Either - or.  How do I love, accept and have compassion for the BWM side of me?  Really?  How do I heal the split with him?  How do I engage directly with him?

I get kind of a sick feeling in my throat as I sit with this.  Yet this is the crux of it.  Without him, I cannot and will not be able to generate income, receive income, earn income, allow income.  It's that simple.  So I need him.  Damn it.  I need him.

And he needs me for his own healing.

It's a two way street.

Sitting with the questions. OK.  My intention is to cultivate compassion and acceptance for Money and myself, to heal the split with Money and myself, and to engage directly with money and myself.  Ah ho.

Thank you.

Suseya!
Sahara

Kali

6am and the sun is gently shining in through my window.  Sun!  We are so spoiled here in Colorado that more than 3 days without sun and we start to get a little grumpy.  Loved these past 3 days of rain - I feel as though I am invited and supported by Nature to go within, stay quiet, do inner work, do work that requires creating, thinking, and being with.  The rain creates and opens up time for me.  My schedule changes.  This past weekend I thought I was going for a 6-mile hike along the Mesa Trail.  Instead I stayed in my pajamas all day, watched the World Cup, and with my computer in my lap, worked on and wrote my landing page for WEALTHY Woman.  I didn't feel rushed.  I got to create and write in a way that felt very natural and much more about the process than about the product.  I love getting to create like that.  It feels natural, supported, rich and deep and then the product reflects its creative process, and is much richer and deeper in its final expression.

I am reflecting back on my string theory theory from this past weekend, and how I wanted to "figure out" some of my strings so that I could understand them, and basically change them.  When will I learn that "figuring out" doesn't work for me any longer.  It is not a rational, intellectual exercise.  I have come to more deeply understand my string with being married with Steve, and it wasn't through figuring it out.  It was through walking and sharing with him, being open and vulnerable, receiving Turtle medicine, engaging with a forgiveness exercise - all of this has contributed to a rich and deep understanding and revealing of what one of my core string  theories in my life.

STRING THEORY on MY RELATIONSHIP with STEVE

First let's start with chronology of events to help.  Love Steve --> independent, financially responsible and successful --> went to Feathered Pipe Rance in Montana for summer -->  still with Steve  -->  not wanting to give up independence --;  allowed myself to be convinced of EITHER I marry Steve OR I have to break it off with him -->  married Steve -->  felt energy drain out of my body  -->  gave my  power away  --> gave my independence away --> became a "wife"  --> unconsciously engaged in a generational dynamic  -->  gave up being financially responsible and financially successful (you have to support your husband and put him first no matter what; you have to feed his male ego - these words were actually said to me as counsel, advice and this is how you do it) -->  "good" wife --> "good" mother --> "good" mother -->  "good" mother --> "good" mother --> taking care of others and putting others first --> everything's fine -->  kind of doing my thing/ not really --> falling back on being a "good" mother when challenged --> CATALYST --> tear in the fabric of my relationship with Steve --> challenging - alive - ripped open - alive - questions - tears - heart wide open - alive - awakened body - alive --> became a coach. trained as a Financial Alchemy coach --> remembered my dream to walk the Camino --> Own It, Sister! --> turning 50 --> walking the Camino, traveling the Celtic Camino --> pilgrimage of initiation --> radio show --> WEALTHY woman --> healing the split --> WEALTHY woman --> pilgrim --> pilgrimages --> WEALTHY woman workshops --> Celtic Camino -->  pilgrim leader

My plan to be the good mother and the good wife was working perfectly until the catalyst and life changing experience happened.  My string theory was be a good, loving wife --> be a good loving mother --> take care of everyone else's needs first --> I am a good, caring, loving, unselfish person -->  all is good, all is fine --> all is contained --> I fit in --> I am normal --> I accept, fit into, and am part of the dominant paradigm of marriage--> I am loved --> I am accepted --> I am fine --> I am an integral part of my family -->  I am loved --> I am wanted --> I am loveable --> I am okay --> I am fine --> all is fine. 

I have an image of building a mountain with sand on the beach and patting it down with wet sand, making sure that it holds its shape, is molded, strong and won't crack open.

Then the catalyst happened and it was like a volcano that exploded the sand mountain.  It blew it wide open and left nothing untouched.  My basement was majorly flooded; my cat was seriously injured and was missing for a week or so before she found her way home; the foundations and assumptions of my marriage were thrown wide open, and I wasn't sure who I was, what I wanted, or how to integrate the feelings, passions, and aliveness that were coursing through my body into my body and my life.

Who knew that there was molten lava brewing in the belly of the mountain?  Who knew that there was a belly in the mountain?

And that when left unattended and unacknowledged, it quietly builds and builds until it can't contain itself any longer.  It explodes, leaving a gaping wound and a trail of destruction in the flow of the lava.  Have you seen Mount St. Helens up in Washington?  Oh my god.  There are before pictures of this perfect cone shaped mountains surrounded by forests of evergreen trees.  Now, there is a massive mountain with its top blown off, and miles and miles of desolate landscape where there used to be trees, green and vegetation.  It is an entirely different landscape.  What I was left with was a deep awe and respect for the power of Mother Earth.  She is not be unattended or unacknowledged.  She is not to be dismissed, or tamed, or neglected.  She is not to be made into a single dimensional, flattened landscape.  She is round, and full, mysterious and powerful, capable of anything, beautiful, multidimensional, wild, precious, and alive.  She is alive.  She is Gaia.  She has the power and the force to blow up a massive mountain.  She has the love and the tenderness to cradle her creatures in her bosom.

She is Kali.  She is Lakshmi.  She is Saraswati.  She is Durga.  She is the Goddess.  She is woman.  She is me.  I am Her.

Looks like my string theory just got blown up by the volcano.  Yet it still is what I try to come back to out of my fears of being unloved and alone.  My gut feeling is that Kali won't let that happen again.  She will come back with a vengeance and blow everything up again if need be.

I must and I get to listen to, acknowledge and honor the passionate and alive part of me that woke up 4 years ago.  She is Peregrina, the pilgrim, the adventurer, the dreamer, the one with the big, round, beautiful belly.  She is the WEALTHY woman.

She is the woman who gets to create a new, empowering string theory or perhaps doesn't need one at all.  She is the one who creates from nothing, without expectation or attachment...No.  She is the one who follows the thread of her life.   A string may have been taking her in a certain direction following its predictable path.  Then along comes an experience that shifts and transforms everything.  The direction of the thread shifts and jumps to a much higher vibration of expression.  She jumps on, fully present in the moment, recognizing and giving thanks for the previous threads for getting her here, but without attachment to what they meant in the past.  She weaves and creates with the current threads, bringing all of herself to the experience.  She trusts in the threads, in herself, and calls on those around her to love and accept her too.  She has offered the invitation and knows that she is loved, she is lovable no matter the responses.  She would love for her loved ones to join her on this journey, and yet with a deep wisdom, realizes and accepts that they have their own threads too.  She has given up the need to be loved and accepted by everyone to feel okay about herself.

Some of this past paragraph feels like it's at the top of my awareness and hasn't even really started to sift down, almost as though I am trying it on for size.  I am going to just let it be for now, and let it sift.  I have lived my life from the outside in, desparate for the  love and acceptance of others.  This has been my undoing.  This has been where I have separated and split off from myself.

This is the split.

Not only is the split vertical and horizontal.  The split is 3 dimensional in that I split off myself off from others, and made them more right and more important than myself.  Healing of the split comes back to fully loving and accepting myself, no matter what.  FULLY, fully, fully loving and accepting all of who I am, all of how I express who I am, all of my body, my soul, my spirit, my mind, my emotions.  ALL OF ME.

In total and unconditional love and acceptance of mySelf, there is no split.  I am in my wholeness.  I am rooted, connected, and anchored in my true self and all of the facets of my expressions.  I am whole, perfect, divine, human, earthy, spatial, sexual, spiritual - ALL of the above.  I love and accept myself.  I love and accept others.  I love and accept.  Period.

I am home.

Suseya!
Sahara

Turtle Medicine

Yesterday when Steve and I were walking out at Coot Lake in the rain, we came across a beautiful turtle.  We were walking along the north side of the lake where we pass quite closely to some waters in the wetlands area, and I said outloud to Steve, "I would love to see the turtle again.  I haven't see her for years." The last time I saw her was 8 to 10 years ago and she was swimming in one of the water holes down below the path.   Still, there isn't a time I walk by that spot on the trail without remembering her.

Steve and I were talking about our relationship.  Steve had been sharing how distant he feels we are and that we are so separate.  I was sharing how I don't know how to be close and connected to myself and to him at the same time, when he said, "there's the turtle."  There she was, right beside the trail, up from the water and by the last pole of the fence that protects the wetlands.

Isn't she amazing?  Ancient and primal.  I wondered if she had come up from the water to lay her eggs. 

We were so close we could have touched her.  I acknowledged that we were being blessed by Turtle Medicine. 

What is Turtle Medicine?

I started with she seems ancient.  I could not see her path of where she came up from the water below, but where she was the mud had been moved and dug into with her powerful front legs.  She was very still, but not withdrawn into her shell.  She was right there for us, at the end of the fence, right next to the path.  What was she gifting us?  What message did she want us to hear?

I googled Turtle Medicine later in the day, and found some rich information very easily.

Icould include every word of the essay since it all felt to right, but here was the paragraph that stood out to me the most:

The energy of Turtle combines the energy of the sea and land or the emotions and the rational. While Turtles spend most of their time in water, they must come ashore to lay their eggs which for both Turtle people and for those that Turtle appears, indicates that they too need to come "ashore" from time to time in order to "lay the eggs" that will give birth to their future. At this time we can all begin to further understand the importance of both the emotional/intuitive and intellectual/rational process's that are required for greater access to a sense of our own wholeness and to create our lives from that sense of wholeness. Turtle is offering itself as a bridge so that we may cross between the two with greater ease and safety. Those who feel more inclined towards acting from their intuitive and emotional side may find that they are better able to work with the rational in actualizing their dreams and visions when Turtle appears. Those who operate primarily from the mental plane, may come to appreciate and value the importance of the intuitive as a guide to help them reach their goals more rapidly.  http://morningstar.netfirms.com/turtle.html

The turtle offers herself as the bridge between the either/or worlds.  She is showing me that I can access both sides and both perspectives to bring them together/  Not only that I can access both sides of the either/or, but that I must engage both sides.  Neither one is sufficient without the other.  The time is now for both/and.  The turtle is my guide and my medicine for weaving my wholeness.

As we came across her, I was sharing with Steve my split between loving and  being connected to myself and loving and being connected with him - another reflection of the split and how it shows up in my life.  I really feel that the Turtle showed up to show us that the split can be healed.  There is a way for me to be deeply connected to myself (that includes honoring the time and space I need) and to also be connected to and intimate with Steve.

Her medicine meets and honors me on every level of the inner work I am doing right now to heal the split, and to reconnect with my wholeness.   She is the reminder to slow down and not make big leaps across the split.  She is the one who will gently and slowly take me into the cavern to explore the dark cave within my belly. using the wisdom and intelligence I experience on both sides of split to assist in the exploration. 

The turtle is also the Navigator.  

They can help us to navigate to the shore we are seeking to land upon when they appear. There is a wonderful book on dreams written by Robert Monroe - Dreaming True. In it he discusses the Polynesian navigation system known as "Waymaking" which basically consists of the following: You set your sight on a goal, in their case navigating the ocean from point A to point B but for our purposes point A can be anything your heart desires. You then focus on using all your inner senses to picture yourself there, your goal realized and you living in the middle of it. The Polynesians say to "Hold the vision in your mind or else you will become lost" as you begin your own navigation process. Notice one important point: The Polynesians do not urge one to focus on HOW to navigate the waters to reach point B! It is enough to simply HOLD that vision as firmly and strongly in your mind as you can, write it down if need be including all the senses such as taste and smell if applicable. If you do this consistently and with patience, the "how's" will take care of themselves. You wil feel guided to take one small step here, another there, ideas will spring into your mind as to what actions to take. If you are truly committed and follow through on each step as it is presented to you, the navigation becomes effortless! As you complete one step, another will be presented. The timing will often depend on how fast you are willing to allow yourself to reach your goal. Rest assured that as each step is taken, more will be presented to you. http://morningstar.netfirms.com/turtle.html

This is such powerful medicine for me.  I am so grateful to have received it yesterday, to have crossed paths with this beautiful and ancient creature, who is her silent presence, gifted me, gifted us with medicine more powerful and healing than any herb or drug.  I trust that Steve will receive her medicine as well, for she was there for both of us.

I am in awe of the power of Nature and that when we open up ourselves and invite Nature is to co-create with us, She is right here to work (and play) with us in magical, synchronistic and unexpected ways.  I am so grateful.  I feel held and assisted.  I know that I am not alone on this journey and that my prayers are being heard and answered.  This feeling in and of itself is so healing and rewarding in its own right. 

I just took a big, deep breath into my belly.  I felt the air fill up the cavern, shine light on every nook and cranny, and bless it.  Thank you. 

I also want to include another image here - the image of the WEALTHYwoman.  She walks with the Turtle, has healed her split, and has integrated all of who she truly is into her being.  She has embelled into the cavern and and acknowledged and received her deepest gifts.  She is embellied.

The Turtle and the WEALTHYwoman are intimately connected as they walk together.  The Turtle is hidden in the grasses right beside her feet.  I was actually taking the walk on my way to meet Tania, the artist who created this beautiful image for me, when I came across the Turtle.  The animal realm is symbolized in this picture by the bumblebee who sits atop the flower on the right. 

The Turtle is showing me how to open up to the deeper parts within myself so that I may receive.  She is my guide to receiving which is the weak link for me in the law of circulation.  I give, I spend, I put out a ton of energy to create, yet I haven't received very well.  I have kept the lid to my container closed.  The paradox is the split is the opening to the cavern which is a huge container within me.  I haven't wanted to allow anything to go in there out of fear that some of the darkness and the shame would leak out.  I have been trying to receive with my mind, my hands, my heart.  Anything to avoid receiving with my belly.  Thank you, Turtle, for  walking with me into my belly, and assisting me to open up this beautiful chalice so that I can allow myself  to receive my gifts and inner wealth,  As I allow myself to receive these gifts, I simultaneously allow myself to receive the external gifts of beauty, bounty, abundance and financial income.  As within, so without. 

I feel so blessed, so held, so guided.  I give thanks, I give thanks, I give thanks.

Suseya!
Sahara

String Theory Becomes the Spiral

It's been raining all night.  It's luscious and green and very, very wet out there.  I am supposed to hike the Mesa Trail (6 miles long) with Whitney and Jeanie this morning and have a delicious birthday picnic breakfast out on the trail, but you know, I'm really not feeling it.  I would love nothing more than to stay inside curled up and get some work done on my computer and read a book.  Wouldn't that be loverly?!  Perhaps we could even light a fire, but I bet the wood's all wet.  Here in Colorado a wet and rainy day feels like a great day to lay low, wrap up in a blanket and really relax.  The sun is out so much (which I love) that when we do have a rainy day I feel as though I am really being asked to shift gears and give up "do" mode for awhile.

I am noticing that it is really hard for me to say "No, thank you.  I really don't want to go in this weather."  That I am waiting for either Jeanie or Whitney to say NO.  Partly because they are doing this for my birthday - which was back in April!  Partly because I don't want to be the "wheeny" here.  I want them to say no and then I can totally align with them on that.  Really interesting to just notice this dynamic.  I keep hoping that the run keeps up, and then it's settled.  The trail is going to be so muddy.  But the pilgrim in me says that we walk no matter what the weather.  I can feel all of these conflicting thoughts going around my head.

What is true for me right now?
It is a cold Colorado rainy day.    I want to stay warm and dry in my home with my family, and I want to enjoy hanging out, a delicious cup of hot tea, a great breakfast, time to relax into something that I couldn't have otherwise, and just time around my family.

This is what I want.  Perhaps I need to have the courage to say this to them.  Here they are doing this for me, and I am the one saying no, thank you, I really don't want to go.

Hmmm....

This dynamic feels very familiar.

How is the split showing up here in this dynamic?

I used the language in my email to them both last night saying that "a part of me this..." and "a part of me that..." so even in my language I talk about these two unconnected parts of myself that want something very different. 

It is difficult for me to come to my center to make a decision.  I am waiting for others to make the decision for me. In writing that, I actually started to compose an email to send to both of them, and admittedly didn't finish it, but got it started.  Then got an email from Whitney saying let's do it another day!  Whew!  Her concern was around destruction of the trails.  I am just wondering if she doesn't even go to whether or not she wants to do it.  She has made a commitment so therefore she does it, and then uses her concern about the trails as the decider, or does she really not want to do it and uses the trails as a plausible excuse, not having to own what she really wants.  I am wondering this because I can have committed to something, and say that I am going to do  it, give it my word, and then once in a while, I will just say, you know what.  I know I have my word around this, but no, I am not going to do this.  I don't want to.  It no longer serves, or feels right or whatever.

What I am exploring here is being one's word and being true to oneself.  Who/what are we more committed to? Our word or ourselves?  I know that this is not black or white.  But at what point do we get to honor ourselves, pay attention to ourselves and what's right for us?  I am even thinking of this summer and for the first time, making plans way ahead of time to fly back east to visit Tori and the Raffenspergers.  So pleased with myself for planning early enough to use frequent flyer miles, and now, here we are and I am wondering if we can go given Molly, our black lab, just being diagnosed with lymphoma.  Can we say "no, we're sorry.  Our dog is dying and we just want to be home with her." - if that's the case  by then.

Also, after just spending the evening with 3 of my dearest friends, I realized that the reason we were celebrating Jill's March birthday in June was because the last time we got together, I bailed.  I can't remember the reason why, but I was exhausted, perhaps I had my period, and I just needed/wanted to be home, be quiet, and not have to go out and interact all evening.  So I didn't go- I honored myself and not my word, and while it was perfect for me, it definitely threw a wrench into their plans and intentions for the evening.

How do I honor myself and my word, my commitments?

Yesterday I met with Christiane for my first session of re-Wilding.  Not a wild session at all, but a beginning of the "house cleaning" process.  I didn't even realize that my house needed cleaning. Well, not in that sense anyways!  So interesting to experience another person's perspective on you, because I am so in my experience for whatever it is that it is difficult for me to get a perspective on my experiences or how I experience my experiences.  I know, I am talking in circles here.  What I am trying to say is that I got that Christiane experienced me as kind of lost down these rabbit holes of stories and assumptions that I have made up about certain relationships and dynamics within those relationships.  For example, that I experience a lot of angst and conflict around "who a good mother is" and if I go on a pilgrimage, then that means that my kids will think that I've abandoned them, that I don't love them, that I put myself before them, that I don't love them, that I am an unloving and uncaring mother, that I am a bad mother. 

You know, as I write that, I see that I have a lot of these strings of assumptions about a lot of things, and that I have so figured it all out in my head that I literally stop myself before I get started.  Wow.  I had no idea that I did that.  Well, yes I did, but I didn't know that I knew that I did that!

Interesting.  With the hike just being cancelled I just fell back asleep for over an hour.  That felt good. 
I also think that I was processing my own personal string theory.  Let's see what may have happened while I slept.

String Theory #1:  Time and Space to Myself

I need a lot of time and space to myself right now.  The way I have been creating or getting that is to wake up very early, write, meditate, have my morning practice, in my "green room", my sacred space.  To wake up early  --> I have to go to bed early and  I have to be committed to this time for myself  --> I have to be focused on myself  --> I have to put me first  --> I love to sleep by myself --> I put my relationship with Steve second  --> I pull back from Steve  --> not have sex with Steve -->  Steve will then think that I don't love him --> then I am a bad wife --> lose my marriage --> lose Steve's love --> lose Steve's support --> be all alone.

The short string version of this is when I take time and space for me I will end up all alone and not loved.

String Theory #2:  Mesa Trail Hike this morning

It's rainy and wet out --> it's a perfect day to stay at home --> but I made a commitment to go on hike --> must go no matter what --> don't want to go --> if I take the responsibility --> then I am breaking my word --> I am a weak person --> a not committed person --> I let my wants, hopes and desires rule my world --> I am not a committed person --> I am a weak person --> I am a bad person --> I am unlovable and unlikable --> they will not like me --> they will think that I am a weak person --> they will know that I am a bad person --> they will not want to be in friendship with me any more --> they will not want to be in business with me anymore --> I will no longer be a part of OIS -->  I will be kicked out of the business --> I will be rejected --> I will be all alone -->  I will be unloved --> I am alone--> I am lonely.
 
So if I am the one who makes a decision for me to not go on the hike because it is rainy and wet, I will be all alone, unloved and lonely.

Wow.

That's quite a leap, and I do it so quickly, and so automatically that I don't even realize that I'm doing it.  The image I keep seeing in my mind is me jumping over the split from one side/extreme to the other.  I jump over the cavern in the middle where all of the juice, feelings, richness is.  I do this to avoid the messiness in the middle. I have used the split as my way of keeping things in either/or so I don't have to deal with the truth in the middle.  "If" is one side, and then there is "then" on the other.  That simple, that clean. 

So the split hasn't just happened to me.  I helped to co-create the split so that I could keep everything as neat and clean as possible.  I like "if/then."  This is quick and clean Cause and Effect in action.  I am feeling very uncomfortable at becoming aware of the string in between.  Yet this is the realm of what I don't know that I don't know.  This is the realm of the split. 

The split is just the opening, like the mouth of a cave.  It looks just like a split in the rocks but when you slip inside and turn on your light, you realize that you have stepped into a mammoth cave full of twists and turns, passageways, jewels, stalactites and stalagmites, water, bats and other creatures of the cave.  It is rich with life, darkness and mystery.  To seal up the opening is to lose access to this rich resource of magic, mystery, wisdom and wealth. 

Oh my god, this is where I have to go.  This is where I get to go with Christiane.  She is my guide in the cave, in the cavern of my belly.  It is not so much about the shame.  It is about the mystery, the luscious and rich unknown that is within me, within my belly.  It is my richest resource.

This is what it means to "EMBELL"  Similar to rappel which is a method used to move down or over a rock face or overhand on its surface.  Embell is to explore deep within a cavern, container or oneself; to recognize and receive the gifts and jewels of the experience; and to integrate, embody and express these gifts into all of who one truly is, coming back up into the world whole, connected, and integrated.

It sounds like Persephone's journey, doesn't it?  It sounds like the heroine's journey that is a spiral.  We return to the outer world with more of who we are connected and integrated.  With each visit to the inner world, we expand and deepen ourselves.  We embelly ourselves.  We become embellied.

This is what's possible for each of us, for all of us.  Even men, for as David Sye of YogaBeats said last week, men have a womb too and can access the same deep wisdom that women can.  I will post that video here when I get it because it is so rich.

My cavern opened up to reveal itself in this blog.  My intention is to become aware of my string theories as they present themselves in my everyday life.  This should be an interesting day!

Suseya!
Sahara   

Rainbow Woman

I woke up a little later than usual this morning so only have a little time to write, so I'll focus on the physical perspective on my belly.  I have obviously been doing a lot of work on the other levels of the split.  Working on the split with money has been very healing in that the split becomes very large and cavernous when it comes to money.  I feel as though the past few days that I have woven a few threads of wholeness and connection.

It's interesting that as I write that, I noticed a difference  as I was doing my nightly exercises before I went to sleep.  It seemed that my transverse muscle felt stronger.  I could pull in more consistently to the back of my belly from a more deeply pulled in place to start.  May not make much sense, but my movements are becoming more controlled, more consistent, and deeper.   My belly is feeling more contained.  My belly is the beautiful copper chalice, and right now, I see lots of colorful and bountiful flowers flowing out of the top!

Here's another image of a beautiful women.

Notice her belly!

It is her powerful center.  Life and love radiate from her belly.  She is an EMBELLIED woman!  She moves!  She takes powerful strides, knowing that she is firmly rooted on Earth, in Nature.  She is connected to the stars and reflects the radiance of the stars.  Just look at her hair and her eyes.  She holds a fire bird in her right hand - the spark of inspiration, the creative fire, the masculine.  The masculine is with her, assisting her, guiding her.  She looks right at you as an invitation to join her, to be her, to embody her, to embelly her. do you accept her invitation?

Notice that there is no split.  The belly is whole, vibrant, pulsating.  The spiral takes you deeply within, and it takes you back out to express what is deepest within you.  It gives you access to the wisdom of your belly, the timeless knowledge of your body. 

Do I accept her invitation?  Do you?

She is asking me to take bigger steps forward, not to only take baby steps but to take steps that take me out of my comfort zone, out of the known into the unknown.  See her left foot?  Her stance is a committed stance - she is not wavering.  She is powerfully moving in the direction to which she committed, and is truly inviting you and me to join her.

I can feel her in me.  And still it is my choice to receive her fully, to dance with her fully, to walk with her. 

I know that the steps that I would take with her are big and courageous steps.  There is no hiding or playing small with her.

She is Peregrina.

And with that recognition, I accept her invitation, breathe in her to my being, and express her with radiance, joy and gratitude. 

You may recognize me when you next see, although my colors may have changed.  I have become the rainbow woman, sparkling and vibrant with the energy of life, and the beauty and strength of the feminine


Why don't you join me on the path, on La Camina?

Suseya!
Sahara

Dear Money,

June 9, 2010

Dear Money,

I am writing to you to express my gratitude to you.  I speak from a higher place in me to a higher place in you.

As I delve deep into my memory, I know that I have lived lives that have been both extremes of wealth and poverty, and where when that was imposed upon me, inside I was miserable, lonely, and filled with grief and fear.  It was the times when I chose poverty, from an abundant and prosperous frame of mind and experience, that I was the happiest.  These are the times when I chose to be of service to God, usually within the arms of the Church.  I didn’t have to assume any responsibility for money – the Church did that for me.  I didn’t have to worry about clothing, food or shelter.  That was all given to me.  I could focus on my spiritual practice and my spiritual service of administering to the sick and poor.  I could love them and look into their eyes so that they didn’t feel so alone and abandoned.

I chose poverty because of the wealth of love I felt in my heart.  This is when I felt the most prosperous, happy, connected and true to myself and what I could offer humanity.  Money, wealth, position, responsibility and all of those trappings couldn’t snare me in their trap.  I was free.

So here I am in this lifetime, growing up amongst the rich and living admist wealth, always being in it but not of it, not having financial wealth or security, and always feeling less than, not good enough, not rich enough, not smart enough because I have never had money. 

I feel like I have lived in the midst of such wealth and beauty (in terms of the location, homes, etc,) as a daily reminder of the wealth because it was not about getting away from it this time.  It was not about living in poverty within the safety of the Church.  It was not about living in the slums with other poor people and becoming one of them.  It also was not about living in Indian Hill and the wealthy and becoming one of them.

It has been about walking and owning my path in the midst of either, both, whatever, and being in but not of.  Even as a nun, I could venture into the poverty without being of it.  I had a wealth of spirit, and I had the protection and security of the Church.

Church was like an all providing father who took care of my basic material needs so that I could serve it, and keep it running smoothly and efficiently, as long as I continued to serve and be part of the family system.  Which I usually did without question as that was how I served.

Until recently when I realized that the Church did not value me, or my insights, or intuitions, or wisdom.  It was all fine as long as I talked the Church line, the Bible, woman as whore and the cause of sin.  But I knew that this was not true.  Everything in me rebelled against this slandering of women, of the feminine, of our true knowledge and wisdom that was getting lost in the midst of the hierarchy of the Church.

So, though I tried to continue to have the protection and security of the Church, I did not experience the joy and the happiness that I had in earlier lives.  To be in the Church, I had to cut off from my true self.  To be true to myself, I had to be willing to be poor.  These was not much middle ground for me.  The lives I had in the middle were boring, uninspiring and mostly uneventful, until something would wake me up and I made a move to be true to myself.  Often this didn’t end well in terms of my physical being, but my spiritual self was alive and awake to my true purpose.

I had the image come up on when I tried to live in the middle, such as in the middle of the split in my belly, it was like mush.  I was safe, quiet, neither rich nor poor, complacent, not visible.  It felt as though I had blinders on to my true self, Spirit, the truth about life, love and what’s really important.  I loved my families, friends, communities, but not with all my heart and being… not with outrageous love.  It was all just contained.  I worked hard and money was there, just enough but never more than enough.  I was enough.  Money was enough.  Love was enough.  Life was enough.

I lived asleep, and I died asleep.

This life I chose to be awake to my true path, to my true calling, to my passion, my service.  Enough compromise, enough complacency.  I chose to heal the split on every level of my life. 

And live, walk, weave, dream, love within the wholeness of who I am.  Not within the mush of the unhealed split where no power, awareness or desire can live.

But within the dynamic, cohesive, interplay of the dance of the extremes – on the razor’s edge where the opposites meet and unite – where any presence of asleep, complacency, compromise causes the split to re-open; causes me to fall of the edge back into oblivion;

This razor’s edge is about vigilance, connectivity, passion, truth.

To heal the split to have a flat stomach is just not what this is all about.  To heal the split to become normal and unnoticed is just not what this is all about.  Go live in the mush inbetween the edges if that is what I want. 

I’ve done that…

So why heal the split?

If these extremes serve you to be awake and enlivened, why heal the split?

Because this lifetime is about integration, compassion both/and.  I have lived the either/or-ness of life.  I actually have lived the integration.  I am here to bring my experience of a higher dimensional integration to Earth and infuse the 3D with this higher energy. 

It is how to live authentically on the razor’s edge of the healed split, not fall off or back into either/or-ness.  Both/and is a very dynamic state to live in – there is nothing passive or relaxing about it, because as soon as you relax into it, either/or-ness is there to pull you back into lower world.

So, Money, what does this have to do with you?

You are part of the either/or.

You promote the have’s and the have-not’s.

You are the masculine in all of its extremes – cold, hard cash.  Heartless, uncaring, arrogant, dismissive, disrespectful, all important, exclusive, hardened, enslaving, power over.  You are the Big White Male in all of his ugliness, hardheartedness, arrogance, meanness, and dismissiveness.  And yet everybody wants and needs you to “survive” on this planet at this time.

You are the single dimensional, cold, metallic means of exchange.  At one time, you were multidimensional, warm, generative, caring, expansive, heart centered.  But as our world became patriarchal and male dominated, you gave up your feminine qualities to survive, be necessary and to be used and loved.  Didn’t matter if it was for the wrong reasons.  You lost your soul.

So what is our agreement and contract together?

Something of mutual benefit, being equals.  You are an aspect of my divine complement.  The wealthy, white, heartless, stupid boy who thinks he is hot shit just because his family is wealthy and has a big house and power and position.  You took on that miserable role to play the extreme of wealth and financial richness and security.  The young BWM who has not substance of his own, besides his access to financial riches.  Because you wanted to remember your heart, love, passion, true substance.  You wanted to remember and honor the feminine.  You wanted and needed me.

I have rejected you, demonized you, cast you off, dismissed you and even hated you.  Yet  I can’t live without you – although I sure have tried!  I have wanted nothing to do with you, so I created debt to get as far away from you as I could.  I have felt abused, dismissed, disrespected by you, belittled by you, insubstantiated by you.  I have let you define my worth.  I have let you be the ultimate authority of what I do, don’t do, won’t do. I have given away my power to you. 

Why?  Because I have felt bullied by you, controlled by you, abused by you.  I see you everywhere and knew that you could hurt me or control me at every turn.  So I’ve done my best to remain invisible to you.  I’ve been so v icitimized by you that I can’t let myself get close to you.  I avoid you at all costs (funny choice of words there).  I avoid, I avoid, I avoid.

What is our agreement?

That you would bully and abuse me until I chose to say NO and to stand up for myself. Until I chose to find and connect with my core strength.  Until I chose to wake up and l

You have been here to make sure that I never got too comfortable or complacent.  You are here to catalyze me to find and cultivate my own power, to take responsibility for my life and its expression.  You are my biggest supporter.  You know that I have a tendency to split and get lazy and complacent.  You are my greatest ally.

I am here to see beyond your hardness, arrogance, cold-heartedness.  I am here to recognize your divinity too.  I am here to invite your heart, warmth, and love back into your full expression.  I know that what you want to do is support people’s dreams, to fuel their expansion and growth, and to be included and loved in their plans and dreams.  You want to be an ally in the

Evert time I react to you like a victim, I perpetuate the old you.  Every time I stand up as the heroine in my life, ask for your participation, and for your full expression, I create the opportunity for you to show up fully.  This gives you the chance to be fully and balanced man with heart, softness, wildness, and masculinity to the table. 

I have tried to reject you, break up with you, dismiss you.  Believe me, you know I have tried.  But that is not the issue here.  It is to bring out the real masculine in you through our dance together.  It is to bring out the Green Man in you – the true you that is connected to Spirit and to nature, to love, to heart, to celebration, to joy. 

It is to give you the opportunity to serve the feminine, to be empowered in this service, to bring balance and joy back into your life and body.  You are ready for some luscious juices to flow within you again, and it is in our relationship, our dance that this happens for both of us.  This is a two-way street, a mutual agreement and relationship.

You know, I really get how lonely, hard, and challenging this path must have been for you.  You have been willing to be used to fund the worst of the worst, to be glorified by others for the worst of you have been, to be perceived as an object devoid of feelings and emotions.  I am sure that you have lost yourself in this egotistic, power hungry, role.  Of course you have.  And yet you have wanted nothing more, after all this time, to come back into your true balance and be an ally and a part of the solution.  Both/and.  Not choose love, not money, but CHOOSE LOVE AND MONEY.  Because you are inherently good.  You willingly chose the dark to bring us all back into the light and into balance.

THANK YOU.  THANK YOU.  THANK YOU.  This is our ABUN-DANCE.

Let’s create a new agreement together.

We are here to support, fuel, and catalyze each other’s growth, expansion, integration and evolution.

We choose to support each other, show up for each other, give thanks for each other.  We choose to support each other in love, gratitude, grace, and joy.

We choose to honor each other for who we truly are, souls committed to cultivating balance, compassion and integration into our world, and to sew the seeds of compassion.

We choose to work, play and co-create together, not separately or as victim/bully.  We now both choose to be the heroine and the hero in this story.

We choose to see each other as the true expression of who we are.  Money chooses to see me as Peregrina.  I choose to see Money as Green Man.

We choose to become each other’s SACRED WEALTH PARTNER.

We co-create wealth, love, joy and abundance together.  Together, we sew seeds that every person, every soul wakes up to their soul’s sacred dream and works with Money (the single dimensional material manifestation of wealth), to create a world of true, authentic, multidimensional wealth.

Together, we transform wealth from 3D monetary wealth to 9D Sacred Compassionate Integrated Wealth.

Together, we transform the paradigm of money from cold, hard coins into authentic exchange of value, respect, creativity, and honor. 

We celebrate every time we work together.  Every time I take the next step on my path to cultivate my Wealth Garden.  Every time he honors someone’s courage to live their dreams with financial support.

When either one of us slips into victim and/or bully, into the lower expression of who we truly are, we will not abandon each other.  We will gently at first, and if not responded to, we will increasingly directly and forcefully, get each other’s attention, remind each other of who we really are, and get back into the flow with each other.

When co-creating out of our True Essential Expressions of who we are, we will be in the flow, in terms of clarity, focus, ease and grace, inspired and courageous action, financial flow and support, and the cultivation and manifestion of a beautiful, abundant, rich, vibrant “Wealth Garden.”

We co-create a mutually equal and supportive relationship.  I ask him for what I need and what he wants of me, and he asks me for what he needs and what I need from him. WE ARE EACH OTHER’S SACRED WEALTH PARTNER.

Our relationship is created out of mutual trust, love, compassion, acceptance, and integration, and deep honoring of who we each are as the sacred containers of the Feminine and the Masculine.

OUR MISSION IS TO EVOLVE ALL MONEY INTO WEALTH AND THAT EVERY PERSON BECOMES WEALTHY BY  AWAKENING TO ONE’S SACRED DREAM, FULFILLING ONE’S SACRED PATH, AND CO-CREATING WITH SPIRIT AND NATURE.

Ah-Ho.

This is our flow.  This is our dance.  This is a mutually agreed upon ABUN-DANCE.

And I give thanks.  I give thanks. I give thanks.

 With love and gratitude,

Sarah