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