Initiation

Arrived last night after our 4th day of walking from St. Jean Pied de Port. In beginning our pilgrimage in St. Jean and walking east to Toulouse, we actually walked the most difficult 4 days at the very beginning. The Pyrenees have been to our right as we walked a total of about 80 kilometers in distance and through woods, corn fields, farms, villages and towns, and up and over many steep foothills and down into valleys carved out by creeks and rivers.


We have met many vaches (cows), and brebis (sheep) and many wonderful, warm and welcoming local people, yet have encountered only two pilgrims after we left Mauleon, a young retired couple from Ontario whose were originally from Quebec. Even I could tell that their French was different, yet a natural language for them. They were on their way to St. Jean from Toulouse - having walked the path from our destination. Interesting timing of our paths crossing, given that we were wondering if we were actually going to Toulouse at that point, or were perhaps considering another destination of Conques, for its homage to Sainte Foy.

One of my experiences of the Camino, or le Chemin, and perhaps most simply, the path, is that the "path guides and provides every step of the way." This couple from France reminded me that my journey is to Toulouse, despite temptations to go elsewhere! Yet what I also know is that Conques will be on the way from Toulouse to Orleans...She has made that clear!

I already have a major blister on my right pinky toe that I am taking good care of. Just yesterday, I noticed that my legs started to reveal symptoms of "walker's legs" - a rash on my calves, swelling, intense tenderness in my feet. I thought I was just tired and out of walking shape. I did not prepare for this pilgrimage like I have for the others, either with the distance I walked or the weight I carried. I allowed my busy life to dictate my daily activities, rather than center my life around my daily walks. I should know better...walk first, and then else falls into place and alignment...with joy and ease.

We walked into town last night around 6:00, and then walked around town, which here means going up and down many steep hills into the different sections of town, until after 7pm looking for a hotel. There were many "manifestations" happening here last night, but our "Oloron Ange" helped up to find a sweet room with two windows at l'Hotel de France, across from la gare, the train station. He was worried that it would not be nice, as it was only 40 euros (my euro symbol does not work on this portable keyboard), but it is quite fine, and the older woman who owns and runs the hotel is lovely. SHe actually has a scarab on her necklace - I am longing to ask her about it!

Last night I think both Beebe and I were ready to call it complete. My feet hurt so badly, my legs were so tired and I couldn't remember why I was even doing this! Beebe too was questioning whether or not to continue. After a hot shower and delicious dinner, I knew that no matter what that I must walk this journey - by myself, with or without Beebe. I had felt concerns coming up over the past couple of days about walking this by myself and didn't know why I was having them. Now I understand...this is a journey that I must take. It is my soul's journey.

Ultimately I am walking from the first chakra of Santiago, up through all seven chakras to Rosslyn. I walked from Santiago to St. Jean 2 years ago - basically, I have been in between the first and second chakras for the past two years, and yes, this is what has been reflected in my life through my challenges, choices and processes.

I have now embarked on the journey to Toulouse, the second chakra, and quite honestly, I am not surprised that this has been the journey it has been so far for me! This is a challenging chakra for me - relationship with creativity, sexuality, finances, pleasure - and so no wonder, I want to get off and just have it come easy. I don't want it to be hard, grueling or challenging. I just want it!

To begin this journey with the hardest and steepest challenges is perfect. My commitment and will were being tested...how committed are you to receiving the gifts and beauty of this powerful and beautiful chakra? How willing am I to receive, period?

HOW WILLING AM I TO RECEIVE?

As I type these words, they seem to be the gift of this journey, and the question of the initiation...these past 4 days were the initiation, just like O Cebreiro was on my first Camino in 2009. My first day was up this strenuous and beautiful mountain. For most pilgrims who walk to Santiago from St. Jean, the Pyrenees are their initiation. One of the qualities of a true pilgrimage is the "initiation". While we do not know exactly what form it will take or how it will look, we can open ourselves up to receive it and give thanks for its presence, for its gift is the blessing of the pilgrimage itself.

I am so blessed and grateful to be on this pilgrimage of the second chakra.

Thank you.

Suseya!

Sarah,what do you do?

I was asked this question yesterday. Today, as I took a lovely walk in the rain,I found myself stating out loud the answer to the question.

I answered, "I weave women's pelvic/belly wisdom into sacred circle, sacred pilgrimage and sacred commerce. I co-create with women in sacred circles to embrace our worth. I walk with women in sacred pilgrimage to embelly our wisdom. I work with women in sacred commerce to own our wealth.

Together, we embody the divine Feminine, become WEALTHY* women, and transform ourselves and heal the world.
*
Wise
Evolutionary
Abundant and authentic
Loving
Truthful, team player
Heart-centered and healthy
Yourself

Pilgrim of the Sacred and the Wealth Path...part 2.

And then, of course, there is also the other journey, that of the WEALTHY** Woman Enterprises and in particular, the WEALTHY Woman Pilgrimage.  This is the WEALTH path.  This is the journey I have embarked on to on to claim, cultivate, and embody my relationship with wealth, finances, and money.  This is the path where I have to deal with the mundane, the practical, the financial, money - this is the path I had avoided, and had hoped that I could continue to avoid for as long as possible.

Yet, as much as I have tried to avoid, my soul pulls be back to this path.  I am called to claim and embody my WEALTHY woman with the same force and intensity as I am called to the Camino.   The path to claim WEALTH is actually as deeply a spiritual path, if not more so, than the Celtic Camino.  Even as I type that, I know that truthfully, actually, for me, they cannot be separated.  They are reflections of each other, and cannot exist without the other.  As I walk one, I walk the other...they work in tandem, each reinforcing and informing the other.  They are like two sides of the same coin...it is not even an issue of either/or...it only can be both/and.

In fact, I was invited into WOW ~ Women Owning Wealth, as I was preparing to leave on the first leg of the Celtic Camino.  Synchronicity?!  Of course.  While I walked, I questioned Spirit every day about why this path, why this vehicle, why me?  And every day, I worked to understand, to surrender to this path.  I drank Body Balance, the product I would be sharing every day, and as I shook it in my water bottle, I demanded big answers.  All I got was "Drink your Body Balance."   It wasn't until I returned home, and realized how great I felt that I was willing to dive into my business.  And even then it took me a little while to get why this business, this model of doing business, this community, this company - are the sides of the river, the structures and the support for my pilgrimage. (Truthfully, I am still "getting it"!)

My business, exists within this collective called WOW - Women Owning Wealth.  My success and growth, both personally and professionally, is really because I am an intricate part of this amazing community of vibrant, lit up, pleasure-loving beings who believe that a planet full of healthy, alive,  nutritionally sourced, and spiritually supported human beings is what we all need!

In WOW, we practice Sacred Commerce.  In other words, we work together as a community, with our businesses supporting and contributing to each other in powerful ways.  We work inside of a common agreement that everything we do is sacred, an offering to ourselves and each other, and in deep service of the awakening of the planet.  We are partnered with Life Force International, an impeccable, family-owned company that was born out of love, integrity, and a commitment to service.

Life Force manufactures Body Balance, a 100% raw, organic, whole food liquid product made of a blend of 9 seaweeds and aloe vera juice.  Body Balance is ecstasy for the cells, an elixir for the spirit, and an activator of the body’s natural, healthy state.  It is like drinking chi every morning by giving your body the most potent nutritional support there is! And the most beautiful thing about it is that it is just FOOD.  So we source the body the way it was designed to be sourced--with highly absorbable, nutrient dense food.  In WOW, we also claim that Body Balance is "nourishment for spiritual transformation."

So how is my journey with WOW and Life Force related to the Celtic Camino pilgrimage? 

This company chose to market their products using the direct (or network) marketing model, so that people could be generously compensated for sharing a product that they love. Out of the Life Force compensation plan emerges the rank attainments, or milestones that reflect the destinations of the WEALTHY Woman Pilgrimage.  They are labeled with names of the precious metals - Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum, and then as one progresses along the journey, one steps into Diamond, 1-Star Diamond, 2-Star Diamond, 3-Star Diamond, Crown Diamond, and ultimately, Royal Crown Diamond.


In the past year, I walked quickly through Bronze, Silver, and Gold into Platinum.  I compare these rank attainments to Santiago, Leon, Burgos, and Ste. Jean Pied de Port.  Going Bronze felt similar to arriving in Santiago.  This was my initial demonstration of getting on the path and committing to the Pilgrimage.  Walking through Silver and Gold was like walking and arriving in Leon and Burgos, beautiful cities along the Camino with stunning cathedrals of their own.  Wonderful places to visit, rest for a day or two and appreciate the beauty, but not a destination in and of themselves.  Ste. Jean Pied de Port is a little town just inside of France in the foothills of the Pyrenees.  For most pilgrims who walk to Santiago, this is where they embark on their 800 kilometer to Santiago.   As I am walking "al contrairio" or the other way up through France to Scotland, this was a destination in the middle of the first leg.  To walk to Ste. Jean, I had to walk up and over the Pyrenees.  The day I walked over was a very windy, dark, and challenging day. The wind would literally blow me off the path, unless I anchored down and held my ground...just like going Platinum!  And just like I have been hanging out at Platinum since last June, I feel like I have been hanging out between Santiago and Toulouse in Ste. Jean Pied de Port for the past 16 months, wanting to walk on, yet waiting to claim the next leg of the journey to Toulouse. 


It is a journey for me, and I believe many of us, to truly claim and own our WEALTH.  We have been taught to split our spirituality from money, wealth, the material.  One aspect of this journey to heal the split between these two realms, and recognize that they too are two sides of the same coin.  Also, I believe that most women have been taught to separate from their divine feminine strength, wisdom and power.  This is a journey to reclaim all of this.

This is a journey of initiation and embodiment.  I walk to initiate the lessons and healing of the particular chakra, and then I return home to live into those lessons and embody the transformation. As I heal, transform and grow, I then attract the lessons and experiences which reflect the next chakra.  Sometimes the Camino comes first. Other times the WEALTHY Woman pilgrimage is first. Right now I am being called into the second chakra through my experiences of the WEALTHY Woman pilgrimage.  I am also being called back to walk the comparable leg of the Celtic Camino, from Ste. Jean to Toulouse.  Even this week as I have been writing this entry, I had a conversation with a fellow peregrina, or perhaps I should say "pelerina", to explore the possibility to walk together next fall!!

As I wrote above, I walk with one foot on each path, and I cannot walk one without the other.  They are seemingly parallel, but at their core, they are deeply connected and intertwined rooted in the teaching that WE ARE ALL ONE.

Suseya,
Sarah 



(**I capitalize WEALTH because I see WEALTH as an acronym.  Wealth can trigger a lot of reactions in people, just like money can.  From my core, I believe that wealth is a powerful concept that when we expand our understanding of what it truly is, it can become one of the cornerstones in our foundations.

A WEALTHY Woman is:

Wise and intuitive

Evolutionary, Embodied

Abundant and Authentic

Loving and Luminous Leader

Trusting and Truthful; Team player

Healthy and Heart-Centered

YourSelf with outrageous and total acceptance.)

Pilgrim of the Sacred and the Wealth Path...part 1.

I am on a journey, one foot is in the sacred world on the path of the Celtic Camino, a sacred pilgrimage from Santiago up through France to Rosslyn, Scotland; the other foot is in the practical world of the WEALTHY Woman Pilgrimage to claim, cultivate, and own my wealth.

I used to think that they were parallel paths, but have now realized that they are intricately interwoven, like the strands of DNA. These paths embrace and entwine each other to create a beautiful chord that connect us from our root to our divinity, and serves as the bridge between the spiritual and material worlds.

Each of these pilgrimages is a path, with a destination, goals and layovers along the way, as well as a road map with guides, arrows, directions and support along the way. Just like on the Camino, everything you need is on the path. You just need to ask, be open and receptive, and allow yourself to receive the guidance, direction and support.

As I've written before, the Celtic Camino follows a sacred configuration 0f seven pre-Christian sites from Santiago de Compostela, Spain, up through France to Rosslyn, Scotland. This sacred configuration forms the route of a “pilgrimage of initiation” used by the Druids and Christian mystics in their search for true knowledge and enlightenment. These 7 sacred sites actually correspond to the 7 chakras of the human body, the first or root chakra being Santiago and the 7th crown chakra being Rosslyn.

It seems that I live into the issues of the chakra before going on the related leg of the journey.  When I return home, I simultaneously complete and heal the chakra, as I move into the issues of the next chakra.

So, I walked from Santiago to Ste. Jean Pied de Port in the autumn of 2010.  In essence, I have walked from the first chakra part of the way to the second chakra, located in Toulouse, France.  Since returning home in November 2010, I have been completing the issues, challenges and lessons of first chakra issues, and in turn, living into the issues of the second chakra.

In Carolyn Myss's words,

The second chakra is your center of personal power, creativity, sexuality, and finances.  Issues of physical survival, control, and one-on-one relationships are at the core of this energy center...The Sacred Truth (of the second chakra is) "Honor One Another."  Every relationship you develop, from casual to intimate, helps you become more conscious.  No union is without spiritual value."

So what I have been doing these past 16 months?  I have started my own business, WEALTHY Woman Enterprises, and have been growing it steadily over the past year.  I have surrendered to my marriage.  I have been doing deep pelvic floor and bowl massage and healing, both physically and emotionally.   I am part of a beautiful circle of women who are exploring our "wild feminine" together through the book of the same name.  These are the big reflections of the past year.  There are many small reflections of the second chakra journey as well.  Together, they are a profound reflection of my issues and challenges with my personal power, creativity, sexuality and finances, and how I show up in my relationships, whether with my husband, Steve, my mother, my finances and business, and most importantly, with myself.

Next time...my WEALTHY Woman Pilgrimage as the other reflection of the "pilgrimage of initiation"...

I Claim my Sovereignty...and my Wild Feminine!

This is my 40 day daily practice - to walk our labyrinth and with my staff (that I am borrowing from my son who at 15 years old no longer uses this gorgeous carved wooden staff he bought at the Renaissance Festival years ago), I declare "I claim my Sovereignty."  As I plant the staff three times on the stone in the center, I can feel my declaration ripple out in the cosmos, rearranging not only my cellular structure, but also the energy patterns of the universe.  My world and myself are being profoundly rearranged, realigned, and reorganized.

I visited Portland, Oregon, back in October as part of a northwest college tour with my daughter.  We spent a couple of hours at Powell's, the famous bookstore that takes up a whole city block in downtown Portland.  We set our timers and agreed to meet back in an hour.  We both wanted to just wander and get lost in all of these beautiful books!

Wild Feminine by Tami Lynn Kent fell off the top shelf and into my hands just as I started to wander...the title immediately grabbed my attention, but the subtitle,"Finding Power, Spirit, & Joy in the Root of the Female Body" sealed the deal.   I knew I had to buy it, and while I had many books in my growing pile, I knew that I was not going to deliberate about this one.

The premise of this book is simple, and yet so profound.

"When a woman found the wild feminine in her core, she was radiant and wise in her own unique way." (p.9)

When we restore the internal pelvic landscape, the capacity within our female bodies that supports the presence of the feminine, we witness a return of the feminine to our lives.  When we recognize her essence in teh root of our bodies, the feminine will no longer be invisible and endangered...Recovering her full range in our feminine core, we receive sustenance from the wild feminine at last.  (p.11) 

As I began reading the book, I realized that the author, a physical therapist who developed "Holistic Pelvic Care, was sharing her approach to the wild feminine through our pelvic bowl, and that much of her work and healing was through an inner physical exploration.  She was actually talking about going into our pelvic bowls from the inside, through our yonis.

It actually made so much intuitive sense that my world opened just in reading the first few pages, much less the first chapter!  In fact, I have only read the first chapter!

But, since early December (so for over the past 2 months) I have actually been seeing a physical therapist who specializes in the pelvic floor, and I also invited my dearest friends to join me in a Wild Feminine book group!

We met for the first time last night and we have scheduled 7 more gatherings over the next 2 or so months, including a full moon overnight celebration in early May up in the mountains.  It came together so beautifully and gracefully, as though She had a hand in it Herself. I am so honored to be in this beautiful circle with women in their 50s who all felt as though serendipity brought them to this book and this circle as the container to return them to their core, and to their pelvic bowl.

And then there is the profound growth, transformation and coming into my womanness that is all apart of the inner pelvic floor work.  I will share more about this tomorrow.

Suseya!