The Paradox of the Journey

As summer vacation begins to wind down and the start of school is just around the corner, I am excited to get back to writing my blog.  I've missed it; I've missed creating the time to just write and integrate my thoughts and experiences through writing.  A synthesis occurs when I write that can also occur when I am sharing intimately with another person, but there is something about writing for me that opens up a deep space of knowing and inner wisdom, and revelation.

This past month has been a whirlwind.  Vacation, coming home, losing Molly, our black lab - whose presence and love I miss so dearly, making a decision to complete Own It, Sister! Radio by the end of the month, and opening to the possibility of walking the Celtic Camino.  I've heard that things are happening fast these days, but whew!

I have known that we were going to need to make a decision around Own It, Sister! (OIS) We have not been able to make money from the show or from our offerings through the show, despite our heroic efforts in May and June.  So sad, and also so okay.  "When a door closes, another window opens."  Perhaps we have been trying to push OIS - for all of the right reasons - but it has served its purpose.  We are allowing it to go dormant, while each of us owns our it fully and powerfully.  Perhaps we'll come back together to speak about the process of owning it from the other side!

I feel sad, frustrated and relieved.  I also can tell that I am not willing to put a lot more energy into the venture right now...there is another part of me that is being called forth into my it, and to stay with OIS would be to stay back, stay safe and not allowing myself to be in the flow.  So I am letting go of the edges of the river and allowing myself to be taken by the current.

A year ago I had returned from the Camino and knew that I wanted to go back and that I wanted to lead pilgrimage groups.  But I hadn't cultivated something inside of me to give me the strength and the container for my passion to actually allow this to happen.  This has been the gift of this past year with OIS.  I wasn't ready to embrace this calling a year ago.  I wanted it, but needed this year to "heal the split."

The Celtic Camino is a pilgrimage of initiation.  I knew that, but I didn't know what I was being intitiated into.  In many ways, I still don't!  What I do know right now is that I have had to become a cohered chalice for my Self, my Divine path and my soul's work.  Otherwise, I would just continue to leak out the energy, wisdom, and knowledge that I have cultivated and received and never be able to generate the alchemy necessary for spiritual transformation and evolution.  Thank you Spirit for bringing me home, for OIS, and for this year of recognizing the split and for beginning the healing of it.

With OIS ending as it has been, I have been asking "What next?"  What am I to own - really, truly, deeply own?

I am so blessed that it is right here within me, my heart, my belly and my soul.

I AM PEREGRINA, A WOMAN PILGRIM WHO WALKS TO RESPOND TO AND HONOR THE DIVINE FEMININE.  I am here to walk the sacred leylines of the Earth "with footprints of light" and to heal the split between Heaven and Earth, in answer to the call from the Black Madonna.

Expressing myself as the pilgrim, more precisely the "peregrina" (I wish we had a word in the English language that distinguished masculine and feminine pilgrims, so for now I will use peregrina), I am answering the call to walk the first stage of the Celtic Camino this fall.

I am leading a divine group of 7 women, the 7 Sisters, including myself, on the first leg of the first stage from Santiago to Leon.

I am then walking on from Leon to Toulouse to complete the first stage, to walk from the first chakra to the second chakra.


I am a pilgrimage coach, author and speaker.

Sharon and I spoke a couple of weeks ago and she said that she wants to walk the Celtic Camino with me this fall.  Really?  That statement was the catalyst to start the turning the wheels, and here I am, August 13th - FRIDAY THE 13th, an auspicious day, declaring that:

WITH DEEP GRATITUDE TO THE DIVINE FEMININE, in all of her beauty, power and magic, I AM WALKING THE FIRST STAGE OF THE CELTIC CAMINO THIS FALL TO HEAL THE SPLIT, TO HEAL AND LOVE THE EARTH, AND TO HONOR THE BLACK MADONNA, THE DIVINE FEMININE.

As I wrote that, I was taken immediately back to my being in the cathedral in Santiago standing in front of the Black Madonna.  She was the relic that spoke to me and resonated in my bones and being.  She was the one who called me forth, and opened my heart, soul and body.  She was the one who asked me to recognize the split in my belly so that I could heal it.  She was the one who received my pain and separation so that I would no longer have to feel pain and separation.  She is the one who asked me to WALK the Celtic Camino and claim it as LA CAMINA.  She is the one who has patiently waited for me this past year to hear this calling and to respond with a YES.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

I am honored to walk the Celtic Camino in your name and with your loving presence.  I am honored that with each footstep of light and love, we heal the split in all of its forms and expression and we close the gap.

The gap, the seam is the place of union, or in Rajanaka Tantra terms, a place of remembrance.  The gap is a portal, a doorway into seeing that the extraordinary is here in the everyday.  The difference is in RECOGNITION.  (www.jeaniemanchester.com)

As I included this quote from Jeanie's website, and re-read it, I am wondering for the first time, do we want to close the gap and erase all markings of the scar?  Or is there another way of "healing" the split, the gap?  Is it important to remember that the split could always happen again without our being aware of the fine line that it is between either/or and both/and?  Is is important to know that is the Tao, the yin AND the yang, and that together, in union and an acknowledgment of their individuality,is essential.

This is the paradox...and as Carolyn Myss says, that paradox is the language of Spirit.

So, while we want to heal the split and bring the polarities or opposites together, we also want to recognize and honor their distinctions.  It is at that point of meeting that the magic, or alchemy occurs. It is here that we experience the portal - it is through the union, the divine and sacred union of the opposites, that we experience the extraordinary - the connection with All-That-Is and with the truth of who we are.

So as we walk the Celtic Camino, we heal the split and we bring the dualities together so that they can touch, they can relate and engage.  We open up the possibility of the sacred union in reclaiming the Feminine, and bringing Her back up from the depths of the Earth.  She is asking us to walk the sacred Camino to magnetize Her to the surface of the Earth at the same time as we bring bring the Light down from the Heavens.  With each step, we experience the sacred union of the Divine Feminine and Masculine, matter and spirit, Heaven and Earth.

This is why we walk the Celtic Camino, as we walk the path that follows the sacred configuration up through the 7 chakras of  Mother Earth, we infuse our own bodies and chakras with the same healing energy.  It is a profoundly personal and intimate journey that gifts and serves the Earth, humanity and the cosmos with every step.

Thank you, thank you for this calling.  Thank you.

Suseya!
Sahara