Today was my first day of living into the spiritual practice of the Lord's Prayer, as offered by Kathleen McGowan in her book, The Source of Miracles. Early this morning, I decided to begin the practice with a walk at a labyrinth about 10 miles from here that is outside and made of rounded stones with sand, and is a replica of the Chartres labyrinth complete with the rose of the 6 petals in the middle of the labyrinth. I spoke the prayer as written in Kathleen's book before I started into the labyrinth, and then once I reached the rose, I moved around the petals saying the lines that correspond to each petal, and focused on the first petal of "Faith" that correspond to "Our Father, in Heaven, May Your Name be Hallowed." Much of the petal of "Faith" focuses on our divine mission and our willingness to commit to fulfilling that sacred mission.
Now I have experienced high levels of resistance to, actually rejection of, anything to do with Christianity, "Our Father" languaging, Jesus Christ as a God, the patriarchy, and the Church. So I do not undertake this practice lightly. Even considering the Lord's Prayer has brought up for me all the reasons I left the Christian church in the first place. It has been thirty-five plus years since I was an acolyte in the Episcopalian Church and involved in the teen youth group. This all said, I trust Kathleen and her heretical approach to Christianity, Jesus Christ, and more importantly, Mary Magdalene. Out of this trust, I decided to be open to the Lord's Prayer and experience it for myself. Yet, as I said the Prayer out loud for the first time, and especially with focusing on the the first two lines which include the words, "Our Father", I seriously questioned and doubted both the prayer and myself as I spoke these words. I was very nervous that I was giving away my power and stepping back into the patriarchy. I felt strange, challenged and even anxious.
However, as I moved through and around the labyrinth, I received very clear ideas on how to lead my local pilgrimages in the new year. While I had already had the idea of focusing the pilgrimages on the 6 local labyrinths, I wasn't sure how I was going to do this, or what the context for these pilgrimages would be. It became crystal clear to me that it will be a weekly pilgrimage over 7 weeks, that focuses on the teachings of the rose of the 6 petals, and complete with the teaching of Love, as in the center of the rose, returning to the first labyrinth that we visit. It also seems appropriate to start and finish with a Chartres labyrinth that has the rose of the 6 petals in the middle.
Moreover, I have had a great day today. I have viscerally felt as though I have aligned with a loving force much greater than myself, and that Love is now working through me. In one day. I worked with Kate all morning as we deepened our collaboration and creation of Women Owning Wealth; I got to have some amazing conversations in the afternoon; and then I went for walk at one of my favorite trails that is most like the woods for me, with its deciduous trees, a creek, and wide open fields. In my conversation with a dear friend and co-creator, Ingrid, I shared that I felt as though I had just conceived and am now newly pregnant with multiple babies - the book I am going to write, leading sacred pilgrimages in both Europe and locally; the Cornwall tour with my father in June, Women Owning Wealth with Kate - at least these are the babies/projects that I am aware of right now! While each baby is its own unique and complete creation, they are each intimately related to each other, and the health, well-being and growth of one both affects and contributes to the health, well-being, and growth of all the others. During these next 9 months, I am going to grow and nurture these projects and give birth to a beautiful book, a successful business, an engaging tour, and both local and international pilgrimages.
Ingrid and I also talked about the balance and necessity of both the masculine and the feminine. It is no longer an either/or, or one or the other, or even one over or on top of the other. It is the sacred marriage of the masculine and the feminine that is necessary for the healing of our planet, our world, our lives, and our hearts.
As I walked, I reflected that I had just declared my multiple pregnancy. As I felt and accepted this, I realized that today I had also spoken the Lord's Prayer with intention for the first time. I had said a prayer that invoked the sacred masculine through the profound words, "Our Father". I had invited the divine masculine, Our Father, to assist and support me to live true to way of Love and to fulfill my sacred mission. In saying the Lord's Prayer, I had both invited the masculine energy of providing that which I asked for, and I had received it. Within 6 hours, I declared that I was pregnant.
This may be some of the magic and the mystery that Kathleen was referring to when she talks about the power of the Lord's Prayer. In her words, she says that this prayer is "now, as it was when Jesus lived, the incorruptible formula for personal and global transformation."
Both the synchronistic recognition of my "pregnancy", and my moving forward with, committing to and "owning" my projects - my babies - is the first miracle I have received in the sacred practice of the Lord's Prayer. Kathleen says in her book that the Lord's Prayer is the "most powerful tool for changing your life - and changing the world - that you will likely ever encounter." That's a hefty claim, and I'm open to the possibility that there may actually be some truth in it.
The journey continues...
Suseya!
Sarah
Monday, December 13, 2010
Sunday, December 12, 2010
The Writer's Grail - I am a Writer.
Yesterday I attended the Writer's Grail Workshop (this is the first one and they will be offering more in 2011. www.writersgrail.com) in Denver with Kathleen MacGowan and Philip Coppens. I loved it. I loved getting to meet and connect with Kathleen and to own that I AM A WRITER. I am a writer because I write. I now expand this declaration to include that I AM AN AUTHOR.
While I was working on an exercise yesterday at the workshop, I shifted my role as author to the center of my soul's mission. Even as I put this on a piece of paper, something didn't feel completely right to me. I realize that PILGRIM is at the center of my mission. As I own and embody who I am as a pilgrim, very closely connected is my being an author and writer. Perhaps they are inseparable. Hmm...
There are many people, including Kathleen, who have known that they have wanted to be a writer since they were a child. Not true for me. It has been since I have stepped into being a pilgrim that the writer in me is asking to be birthed. Perhaps like divine complements, they co-exist with each other, and do not exist fully by themselves. Until right now, I have questioned whether or not I can still be a writer since I haven't wanted it forever, yet as I write this, I realize that my desire to be a writer could not be seen or felt until I became a pilgrim and connected with the Camino, and the sacred art of pilgrimage. For me, being a writer is as much about what I want to write about as it the craft of writing.
Today I begin a 21 Day Commitment to write for 5 or more minutes every day. This is spiritual act of my living into, or perhaps more truthfully, living out of that I AM A WRITER.
My writing my book about the journey of the Celtic Camino is one of my deepest priorities for 2011, and my intention is to have the first draft of the book completed by May 31, 2011. In June, I return to England and spend my summer traveling, with the intention to walk the next leg of the Camino from Puenta la Reina to Toulouse in September. So to have the book completed before I begin my travels will be a send off to the next leg of my pilgrim journey.
Thy will be done.
Suseya!
Sarah
While I was working on an exercise yesterday at the workshop, I shifted my role as author to the center of my soul's mission. Even as I put this on a piece of paper, something didn't feel completely right to me. I realize that PILGRIM is at the center of my mission. As I own and embody who I am as a pilgrim, very closely connected is my being an author and writer. Perhaps they are inseparable. Hmm...
There are many people, including Kathleen, who have known that they have wanted to be a writer since they were a child. Not true for me. It has been since I have stepped into being a pilgrim that the writer in me is asking to be birthed. Perhaps like divine complements, they co-exist with each other, and do not exist fully by themselves. Until right now, I have questioned whether or not I can still be a writer since I haven't wanted it forever, yet as I write this, I realize that my desire to be a writer could not be seen or felt until I became a pilgrim and connected with the Camino, and the sacred art of pilgrimage. For me, being a writer is as much about what I want to write about as it the craft of writing.
Today I begin a 21 Day Commitment to write for 5 or more minutes every day. This is spiritual act of my living into, or perhaps more truthfully, living out of that I AM A WRITER.
My writing my book about the journey of the Celtic Camino is one of my deepest priorities for 2011, and my intention is to have the first draft of the book completed by May 31, 2011. In June, I return to England and spend my summer traveling, with the intention to walk the next leg of the Camino from Puenta la Reina to Toulouse in September. So to have the book completed before I begin my travels will be a send off to the next leg of my pilgrim journey.
Thy will be done.
Suseya!
Sarah
Thursday, December 9, 2010
The Journey Continues...
I have been home for 5 weeks now - home for as long as I was away on the Camino. Sometimes I feel as though it takes me as long to re-enter as the time I was journeying. This time I have been allowing myself to re-enter more slowly and quietly, with my desire to be present with my family and friends as the central intention. I am in the midst of clearing out my office and creating it with an openness and space to allow in the new unfolding of my life. I moved all the stuff out on Sunday, and here we are on Thursday with most of the stuff still sitting on my family's dining room table. While I can take note that I am up early and sitting in my office to write (which means that a certain level of creation has occurred - I have taken out 2 chairs for clients to sit in, and moved in just one comfy chair for me to sit in while I read, write, talk with clients on the phone, and ponder), I am very aware that I do not want to automatically move all the stuff back in. My focus is shifting - I actually moved out my notebooks from coaching school - I am claiming my coaching and what I do know; my notebooks from Own It Sister! - I am releasing and letting go of the past 2 years of my life and allowing the new venture to come in; my notebooks filled with notes from old clients - I no longer want to coach clients one-on-one. My bookshelf is now in a prominent, accessible place (before it was on the other side of my desk and hard to get to). I am including my books on the Camino; Mary Magdalene and the Divine Feminine; Celtic wisdom and spirituality; money and wealth; and some of my most favorite reference books, by authors such as Carolyn Myss and Barbara Hand Clow. These books clearly reflect the direction I am preparing to head in 2011.
One of my intentions and desires is to write an engaging and magnetic book on my pilgrimage on the Celtic Camino. While there is a lot to sort out and to become clear on, I am receiving quite clear impulses on the content of the book. For now, I have titled the book, A Woman's Pilgrimage on the Celtic Camino: Healing the Split and Walking Home to Wholeness. On Saturday, I am attending a workshop with Kathleen MacGowan and her partner, Phillip Coppens. Kathleen is the author of The Expected One, Book of Love, and The Poet Prince, 3 novels that have resonated with my knowing about the true story of Mary Magdalene, the sacred bloodline, and the sacred Feminine. I am so excited to meet her, as I have been developing a relationship with her over Facebook. It is a joy to be in communication with a bestselling author whose books I love and respect on many levels.
Connected with this intention is my deep desire to return to the Camino and to walk and lead a small group of women on the next leg of the journey from Puenta la Reina and the Eunate Church along the Camino Aragones over Somport Pass along the Via Tolosana to Toulouse.
My third intention is to build a strong and collaborative business that generates a powerful residual income for me and my family. My big dream is to be able to live in Colorado and England and to be free of location for my income, to be able to travel, walk and move as I desire, to create from my deep feminine well of creativity, abundance and prosperity, and to be able to offer and share this with others. I want other people to live their dreams and to get to create from a powerful, and empowering place within themselves that both reflects and infuses the new paradigm of co-creation. No more doing it alone, no more struggle, and no more living small and out of fear and lack. I left that back on the Camino. I am owning what I want, and have committed to living from my deepest and biggest desires and dreams. Want to join me?!
I had to put away my Own It, Sister! notebooks so that I could live into and embody owning it! No more just talking about it - now is my time to live into what owning it really means, what it looks like for me, and to express it fully in my life and into the world. I am committed to the new paradigm of co-creating with the feminine power that has been denied for thousands of years. I have denied it in myself, both personally and globally. Every time I do or say something to look good, or right, to others, I deny myself and my true and inherent beauty, gifts, talent, and purpose, and in turn, I deny it in others. Every time I play small, or from fear, I deny it. Every time I avoid my fears, I deny it. Every time I sidestep, I deny it. I even have to own that I have denied it, and to stop denying that I have denied it.
Now is both my time and opportunity to recognize all that has stopped me and kept me small and name it, see it, hold it, let it go, and from this, choose. Choose fear, or choose love. Simple. Choose, and choose again, and again, and again.
I walked with fear on the Camino - much of these past 5 weeks has been about my deeply recognizing that I chose to walk with fear on the Camino. That has been the Camino's gift to me - the recognition that I chose to walk with fear. I am not fear, but I did have it right there along beside me (or in front or behind, but never out of sight). I walked 500 kilometers with fear, so that I would know, in an experiential and embodied way, what it looks and feels like for me to walk with fear and what the consequences of that choice is for me. So often, I placated, I pleased, I kept quiet, I acquiesced. I doubted myself and I hid behind the fear.
To walk the first leg of the Celtic Camino with fear is an essential catalyst for my walking home to wholeness, for only when we recognize that we have split and are separate, can we feel our longing to be whole and connected.
The journey continues...
Suseya!
Sarah
One of my intentions and desires is to write an engaging and magnetic book on my pilgrimage on the Celtic Camino. While there is a lot to sort out and to become clear on, I am receiving quite clear impulses on the content of the book. For now, I have titled the book, A Woman's Pilgrimage on the Celtic Camino: Healing the Split and Walking Home to Wholeness. On Saturday, I am attending a workshop with Kathleen MacGowan and her partner, Phillip Coppens. Kathleen is the author of The Expected One, Book of Love, and The Poet Prince, 3 novels that have resonated with my knowing about the true story of Mary Magdalene, the sacred bloodline, and the sacred Feminine. I am so excited to meet her, as I have been developing a relationship with her over Facebook. It is a joy to be in communication with a bestselling author whose books I love and respect on many levels.
Connected with this intention is my deep desire to return to the Camino and to walk and lead a small group of women on the next leg of the journey from Puenta la Reina and the Eunate Church along the Camino Aragones over Somport Pass along the Via Tolosana to Toulouse.
 |
| Eunate Church, where the Camino Aragones joins the Camino Frances |
Another intention is to assist my father to market and lead a tour in Cornwall in June based on the historical fiction novel that he is writing on 18th century Cornwall. I am so excited for him and what he is creating at 78 years old, and I truly want to support him in any way that I can. Plus I get to be in England again, with him, in Cornwall, and assist him to lead a small group on a journey. How great is that!
My third intention is to build a strong and collaborative business that generates a powerful residual income for me and my family. My big dream is to be able to live in Colorado and England and to be free of location for my income, to be able to travel, walk and move as I desire, to create from my deep feminine well of creativity, abundance and prosperity, and to be able to offer and share this with others. I want other people to live their dreams and to get to create from a powerful, and empowering place within themselves that both reflects and infuses the new paradigm of co-creation. No more doing it alone, no more struggle, and no more living small and out of fear and lack. I left that back on the Camino. I am owning what I want, and have committed to living from my deepest and biggest desires and dreams. Want to join me?!
I had to put away my Own It, Sister! notebooks so that I could live into and embody owning it! No more just talking about it - now is my time to live into what owning it really means, what it looks like for me, and to express it fully in my life and into the world. I am committed to the new paradigm of co-creating with the feminine power that has been denied for thousands of years. I have denied it in myself, both personally and globally. Every time I do or say something to look good, or right, to others, I deny myself and my true and inherent beauty, gifts, talent, and purpose, and in turn, I deny it in others. Every time I play small, or from fear, I deny it. Every time I avoid my fears, I deny it. Every time I sidestep, I deny it. I even have to own that I have denied it, and to stop denying that I have denied it.
Now is both my time and opportunity to recognize all that has stopped me and kept me small and name it, see it, hold it, let it go, and from this, choose. Choose fear, or choose love. Simple. Choose, and choose again, and again, and again.
I walked with fear on the Camino - much of these past 5 weeks has been about my deeply recognizing that I chose to walk with fear on the Camino. That has been the Camino's gift to me - the recognition that I chose to walk with fear. I am not fear, but I did have it right there along beside me (or in front or behind, but never out of sight). I walked 500 kilometers with fear, so that I would know, in an experiential and embodied way, what it looks and feels like for me to walk with fear and what the consequences of that choice is for me. So often, I placated, I pleased, I kept quiet, I acquiesced. I doubted myself and I hid behind the fear.
To walk the first leg of the Celtic Camino with fear is an essential catalyst for my walking home to wholeness, for only when we recognize that we have split and are separate, can we feel our longing to be whole and connected.
The journey continues...
Suseya!
Sarah
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