The Flight of the Bumblebee

"Aerodynamically, the bumblebee shouldn't be able to fly, but the bumblebee doesn't know it so it goes on flying anyway."

 Have you had an animal show up and guide you, or point out something poignant to you, make sure that you're paying attention to the moment, the place, the thought, the action?  Often the animal will show up repeatedly as its way of guiding or reminding or highlighting.  Sometimes its presence will just alert you to a bigger picture.  It will remind you that Spirit has a role in what's happening and to surrender to the process.

The bumble bee is one of my animal guides.  It accompanied me on the Camino, the Celtic Camino and my time in England last summer.  Every time that I saw or heard it, I knew to pay attention.

It first showed up when I was eating with Sue Kenney at a little restaurant in Toronto just before we were going to go the airport to fly to Madrid.  It was on the window near our table and somehow I knew to pay attention to it.  What was so interesting was that Sue didn't notice it at all.  Her animal guide for our Camino was the butterfly, even showing up on the cheap watch she bought so that one of us had the time.

There was this magnificent, large and loud bumblebee buzzing on the window, as if to say,  "Here I am for you.   Notice me.  Pay attention to me.  I am here to let you know that you are on your path and that all is well."

Now I'd never had much interaction with bumblebees before this.  Yet, on my pilgrimages, I saw bumblebees frequently.  I would just be walking along and all of a sudden, there would be one dancing in front of me.  I should get out my journal and see where I wrote about it, but I know that even at the time, I felt guided and somehow even protected by this small, beautiful animal.

When I was with my cousin in Somerset in England, we went to see this beautiful home and walk around its gardens.  There was a flowery bush filled with buzzing bumblebees.  I was so struck by how many there were.  This is a picture taken by my cousin.

It felt as though they were there for me.  When I returned home, I spent some time researching the symbolism, messages and meaning of the bumblebee.  I found some great material, and as I  just revisited the pages I had found, this is what stood out for me:

Their movement from one plant to another symbolizes the interconnectedness of all living things. The bumblebee is a messenger that holds the secrets of life and service.  If your energy is scattered the bumblebee can show you how to regain focus. If it stings you, it is saying, wake up and follow the rhythm of your own heartbeat. When a bumblebee buzzes you it is asking you to follow its lead. In so doing you will arrive at the destination most appropriate for your new life awakening.                                         Source: http://www.sayahda.com/cycle.htm

I added the italics for emphasis.

Just yesterday, I found a bumblebee in my shower,  Unfortunately, it had died but was in perfect shape.  I felt as though it had died so that I would touch it and receive its medicine through actually holding it and touching it.  

And then this morning, as I go on the computer, I opened up a weekly newsletter from Therapy in Transition that had an interesting article, What Flight Path Would Your Inner Bumblebee Take?  That grabbed my attention and actually provided the catalyst for this blog. 

The bumblebee is reminding me that I can do what I think I can't do, and that following my own heartbeat, and at the same time, to follow the lead of the bumblebee, will guide me where I need to go for my soul's awakening.  I am on the path.  I am in the flow.

I feel that in my belly!  I feel the path revealing itself in front of me.  I feel a cohesiveness inside of myself that feels both unfamiliar and deeply familiar at the same time.  I am so grateful for the split to guide me and bring me back to my path.  Sometimes we have to get lost to find our clarity again.  Sometimes we have to split to experience our wholeness.

The flight of the bumblebee is not straight, or predictable.  Remember, it shouldn't even be to able to fly, but because it doesn't know this, and does it anyway, it cross pollinates and serves the world in a much larger way than just the individual flowers that it visits.  It is full of life and beauty, and "holds the secret of life and service." 

Thank you, dear Bumblebee, for coming to me, guiding me and waking me up to my path, and my life's service.  I will continue to notice you and follow your lead.

Suseya!

Sahara 

A Mile Deep and an Inch Wide

It is such a beautiful morning.  I love this time of year.  Yesterday I bought some more plants for my vegetable and herb garden, so this morning I am going to plant them, plus the seeds that I have.  It's a little late but I am excited that I am even creating a garden this year.

I am noticing that the more I am able to accept the "pilgrim" side of me, the more I can actually "be here now" in my home, in my garden, in my life.  Crazy paradox, eh?  When I resist that part of me that loves to go "walkabout", then I live my day-to-day life not fully grounded and not fully present.  I feel as though I hover and float in my life rather than be fully engaged, present and alive.

I am going to call the part of myself that loves to walk "Peregrina," the Spanish word for pilgrim.

Peregrina loves to walk, to travel, to live with intention.  She loves to walk a pilgrimage where she knows the destination and the path, but does not know the journey.  She loves to live from her highest purpose.  She loves quiet, reflective time.  She loves to be alone.  She loves to contemplate deeply.  She loves rich, deep conversations.  She loves to walk with friends and enjoy these rich, deep conversations while walking.  Pergrina loves to enjoy life at a walking pace.

I have said for years that I would love to be "a mile deep and an inch wide".  How is it then that in most of my life I feel like "a mile wide and an inch deep"? I can cover a lot of territory, get a lot done, be productive, make sure everyone is okay, fed, clothed and where they need to be, and know just enough in many different areas to seem knowledgeable. 

Yet what I long for is to be "a mile deep and an inch wide." This is the pilgrim's way.  A mile deep and an inch wide is the pilgrim's path.  What a pilgrim knows is to take the next step on the path that leads you to your destination.  On the El Camino, we knew that we were walking to Santiago de Compostela.  We had maps to show us where to go and described the accommodations, restaurants, history and points of interest along the way.  There were yellow arrows painted on the path and on buildings to guide and point us in the right direction.  There were cairn-like kilometer markers to tell us how far we had come and how far we had to go. 

What I didn't know was the journey, my journey.  Each day I got to walk, but I had no idea what would unfold and transpire as I started out each day.  I knew that my intention was to walk, eat, drink water, and arrive somewhere along the path to Santiago, bathe and sleep.  That's it.  I was blessed to walk this inch wide path that was so rich and deep with history, with pilgrims' stories and journeys embedded into it.   This richness infused each step that I took and informed my journey.  Imagine walking a path that has been walked by millions of others, all of whose destination is to make a sacred pilgrimage to Santiago.  Everyone has their own impetus and reason for walking, but this path has been sacredly walked for over a thousand years, and I also venture to say thousands of  years before the Catholic Church took it over for their own purposes.  This path has existed forever.  It reflects the Milky Way - as above, so below.  Before there were maps and yellow arrows, pilgrims followed their hearts and guts to know which way to go.  They also looked up to the stars and followed the Milky Way as they crossed Spain to this destination tucked away in the isolated northwest corner of Spain.  This is the journey of  "Ultreya."

I started this blog yesterday, and since then, I have planted my vegetable garden.  I loved creating it, planting it, digging in it.  I put in plants and seed, vegetables and herbs.  My hands and knees were covered in rich dirt.  I felt connected.  I felt alive.  For over  hours, I quietly and reflectively asked and listened for where to plant these plants and seeds.  I co-created this garden with Nature herself.  It is a beautiful garden.  I found myself going out and just looking at it, loving it, and marveling at the potential that lies in the plants and seeds.  I rediscovered a part of myself yesterday.  I realized that my children have not experienced the gardener in me.  When my daughter came home from her soccer tournament, I couldn't wait to show her the garden.  I shared a few details about why I planted marigolds near the tomatoes, and why I did this, and she just looked at me.  "How do you know this?"   I don't know.  I just do.  Little tidbits of information that I got to incorporate into my garden that my children had no idea that I knew.  How fun is that!

Working with Nature in my garden yesterday opened back up a vast, deep part of myself yesterday.  I just got it.  My not embracing Peregrina has kept me a mile wide and an inch deep.  Embracing and accepting Peregrina opens up the rich, deep, connected, creative part of me - the juiciest, darkest, wildest, most natural parts of me. Giving myself permission to be a pilgrim and to walk the pilgrim's path, both literally and metaphorically, gives me access to the true and essential parts of myself.  Peregrina is the authentic and essential aspect of myself.  She is connected to all of who I am, and at the same time, is an active and engaged reflection of my soul.  She is my soul in action.  She is my spirit.  So of course to access, allow and embrace her gives me access to the deepest and richest parts of myself.  I get to be "a mile deep and an inch wide."  This to me is the rich and juicy expression of life that I have been longing for.

This is the journey.  Ultreya!

Suseya!
Sahara

The Calling of the Black Madonna

I got a new split yesterday.  That was an interesting typo - when I typed "splint" I actually typed "split".  Let's go with this and see where it goes.  I got a new split yesterday.  You know, it kind of feels like that.  As the main physical split is coming together because of the exercises, other little splits are occurring.  This split is not ready to be closed up, despite my doing my exercises everyday, despite my wearing the splint 24/7, even during the Bolder Boulder.  I cannot rush this process.  I also don't want to have the physical split come together and heal prematurely, to only split again.  I have written about this in another blog.  My intention and commitment is to heal the split on every level, from its core and original cause out.  My sense is that this is a spiritual split, a mental split, an emotional split, and then a physical split.  The catalyst for this healing process is the physical work and exercises I am doing to heal the physical split in my belly, but as I do these exercises and as I write this blog, I am aware that my intention is to heal the split on every and all levels.  Leave no stone unturned!

I just felt a sensation in my belly of the edge of the tear.  Without realizing it, I am sitting here and pushing my belly out.  I do that a lot.  My default position is to push my belly out, even with the splint on.  I push out.  Only when I am consciously engaged with my belly is my belly engaged and am I pulling my belly muscles in.

What is that pushing out all about?  I have wondered about this many times.  Oh, and by the way, all my excitement about being able to pull the splint tighter and that my waist is getting smaller was premature.  With getting the new splint yesterday, I realized that the old splint had stretched out by about 3 inches.  I am so disappointed.  All my stuff about not getting results even though I am following the protocol perfectly is up and in my face.

I feel ashamed, frustrated, challenged, fat, and big - and that I cannot hide my belly.  That my belly is not hidden.  I am not hidden.  I feel so differently in my body than how I look from the outside.  Yesterday we shot some video for our Own It, Sister! website, and I was shocked to see how my body looks.  Am I really that big?  I just don't feel like that from the inside.  I am aware of my belly pretty much all of the time, but I am still shocked at how my belly looks from the outside.  It looks way worse, way bigger, way uglier than how I feel about it from the inside.  Well, there goes all attempts to love and accept my belly out the window.  Truthfully, I just feel so big, exposed and ugly and unattractive.

When I look at how I look in the video, the words I hear are, "Oh my god, just look at that belly.  How do you even go out in public looking like that?  You should be wearing clothes that completely hide how big and ugly you really are.  Someone's going to take one look at you here and say no way do I want to work with this person.  She's so big.  Wow.  She really doesn't walk her talk.  She's so not in her body.  Look at Jeanie and Whitney next to her.  What is her problem then?  How do those other two even work with her?  I don't care how great she talks, she's obviously a fraud.  The upper part of her is just fine.  You would never know the truth of her belly if you just looked at her from the waist up.  But the waist down.  Watch out.  You know, she's split from the waist up and the waist down.  Who she is from the waist up is fine.  But who she is from the waist down should be hidden from the world and kept out of sight.  Oh my god, girl.  Just go home and keep yourself hidden."

These are harsh words.  I can feel them as I type them.  I am sitting here with a pit in my stomach.  The even more revealing part of writing them down here and seeing them is that these are the words running in my head and in my body all of the time.  These words and the feelings behind them are so familiar.  They are part of the air that I breathe and the water I swim in.  These words are on an endless loop, just going around in "play" mode all of the time.

What I realize right now out of writing them out on to this blog is that I relate to my body from the waist up.  How I feel about myself, how I present myself, where I engage with others is from the waist up.  And the crazy part is that is how I think that others are relating to me...until I see a picture or video of myself, and then I realize that no, they are actually relating to me as my belly.  Then the crazier part is that I think that I have hidden my belly and so that they can't see it.  Until I see it reflected back at me, and I realize that I have been fooling myself.  Of course they see my belly.  They can't not see my belly, because I haven't and actually can't hide it, at all.

It's been my own self-illusion all this time, and the only person I've been deluding is myself.

Shit.

You know...this sucks.

My belly sticks out and reveals itself all the time, no matter what I do, or for that matter, no matter what I think about it.

I have Joni Mitchell's lyrics from "Both Sides, Now" in my head:

I've looked at life from both sides now From up and down and still somehow,It's life's illusions I recall. I really don't know life at all. 

I can easily substitute "belly" for life.

I've looked at my belly from both sides now, from up and down and still somehow.  It's my belly's illusions I recall.  I really don't know my belly at all.

 I really don't know my belly at all.  And all of my intentions to heal it physically are about fixing it, making it normal and acceptable, so that I don't have to hide it.  So that I don't want to hide it.  So that I actually relate to myself from my belly, not just the waist up.  So that I become embellied.  So that I AM embellied.

How I relate to my belly is so out of a very old, engrained habit.  I don't know that I really know any other way to relate to it except how I do and have done for as long as I can remember.

I relate to my belly with shame and disgust.

There it is.  That is how I habitually relate to my belly.

Unless I think that it is following the game plan and getting smaller, flatter and more beautiful.  Until I realize that it is not cooperating and actually tearing, or splitting again, in another way.  It's like it has a mind of its own, and that it's from another place all together.    Who is this belly anyways?  or more accurately, whose belly is this anyways?  Why are you in my body?  You feel foreign to me.   Who are you?

I am the container for the life that you really are.  I hold all of who you are, from all dimensions, all timelines, all lives and all bodies.  I am the culimination and the container of all of your experiences, choices, loves, losses.  I hold it all right here within me.  I am this big because of the bigness of who you are, and of what you bring to this body, this lifetime.  Please accept that you are not here to be a flat-bellied cultural icon.  You are here to be embellied and to bring women back into their bellies, re-aligned and re-connected with the Divine Feminine.  How you feel about me is how your world, your culture, your society feels about the Feminine.  As above, so below.  As within, so without.  What is personal is universal.  I know that you do not want a big belly and that you feel like you stick out and are too visible.  I know you want to hide.  But this is not the time to hide.  She has been hidden for too long.  It is time to embrace Her, love Her, embody Her.  EMBELLY HER, in all of her bigness and full expressions - in Kali, Lakshmi, and Saraswati.

EMBELLY HER.  Love Her,  Accept Her.  Honor Her, with a strong belly.  Strong not out of being small and flat, and hidden.  Strong like a round basket woven of flexible, colorful, varied fibers, reeds and grasses that contain, hold, embrace and body.   Strong like a copper chalice that holds wine and water.  Strong like a stone bowl used with a mortar to grind herbs and spices used as medicines and foods.  Notice that all of these containers are strong and solid, but that they are also open at the top to allow the gifts to be offered and shared.  This is not about holding and hoarding.  The belly is about holding, and also about offering and sharing.

Loving my belly is loving the Divine Feminine, the goddess, Sophia, the Black Madonna.  Accepting my belly as it is is loving and accepting the Black Madonna, the black, internal, hidden, earthy parts of myself.  Again, I am recognizing another aspect of my pilgrimage last summer.  I saw the Black Madonna everywhere I went.  She sought me out, and I sought her.  Not the images of the Mother Mary with the baby Jesus on her lap, although I connected with her too.  But the images and icons of the Black Madonna.  She quickly found me in Santiago.

I was in the magnificent cathedral, looking for the perfect place to leave the stone I had worn around my neck next to my heart for every step of my Camino.  There is a tradition that you carry other people's dreams, blessings and intentions with you as you walk the El Camino de Santiago, and when you arrive in Santiago, you leave their blessings in the cathedral to receive the blessings of the pilgrimage.  There she was behind the bars in a chapel behind the altar.  She sat regally with an open hand, with the child upon her lap.  I knew that I was to leave the stone with her, at her feet and she would do what needed to be done for these blessings and requests.  I took the stone off and tossed it gently to her feet.  She received the stone graciously, and even when I went back the next few days, the stone was still at her feet.

Black Madonna at Chartres Cathedral, France

She called me to the Camino as She calls me now to the Camina.  I must answer her call, for She is the one who initiated me.  It was a pilgrimage of initiation.  I knew that.  I just wasn't quite sure into what I was being intitiated.  I  now understand anothe layer of the labyrinth, of the spiral of my walk.

I am an initiate of the Divine Feminine, here to bring Her back into our lives, our hearts, our bodies and our bellies.  The universal is the personal.  I am here to bring Her back into my life, my heart, my body and my belly.

And to love, accept and embrace my belly unconditionally...now,without waiting for anything to be different, or better, or healed.  To love and embrace fully my belly is to heal the split.  It's that simple.   Not necessarily easy, yet certainly that simple.

Suseya!
Sahara

Once in a Lifetime

Writing this blog about healing the split in my belly is as much about the split as it is about the healing.  Until now, I have kept the split a secret and I now realize that I have daily put energy into hiding and compensating for it.  Now I am taking that energy and using it to get up early and write about it and reveal myself, the split, and my healing journey. 

This daily act of writing then informs me about other areas of my life and my relationships as well as informs the relationships themselves.

Over the last few weeks, I have become aware of a dynamic of  "stealing" time and space for myself.  I get up at 4:30 in the morning so that I can write without being bothered, anyone else really having to know what I am  doing, and without having to set aside time during my already busy days.

I want to slip what I do and what I want under the radar.

Often I will slip into my office to do a little work when it's not "work" time.  "Oh, I just want to answer this email...I'll be right there...just a minute."

I steal time for myself by checking out on the kids and spacing out into my own little world.

Having sex with myself is a stolen moment, an unacknowledged experience.

Even my dreams and desire to return to the Camino feels like I am slipping it in, afraid to ask for what I really want.

This became so clear yesterday when my husband, Steve, and I were talking on an early morning hike.  I mentioned that a year ago I started walking the Camino.  I could feel my first steps out on to the Camino under my feet as I walked the trail up Sanitas Valley.  It felt so good.  That sharing opened up a conversation between us because Steve actually asked questions about the Camino and when I wanted to return.  I got to talk about my desire to walk the Celtic Caminoand lead a group of women on this pilgrimage.  I got to talk about my dilemma of walking just from Santiago to Toulouse (when I say "just, I don't mean to minimize it at all.  This leg is a 6 week pilgrimage.) or walking in one period of time all the way from Santiago to Rosslyn.  I felt sheepish even bringing this up.  None of this makes sense, it's so crazy, what am I even thinking.    Leaving the family for 6 weeks doesn't make sense, so how can leaving the family for 6 months be any better.

As we talked about all of this, 2 major turning points in the conversation occurred.  First is that I realized as I shared about none of this making sense that "that makes sense" is one of the places that I split off.  Remember my sharing about my dog Rupert and leaving him behind in England, and how it made so much sense to leave him there. "That makes sense" takes me out of my feelings and desires, even my knowing.  Only when my feelings, desires, and knowings make sense are they allowed, or reasonable, or worthy of having.  Everything has to make sense to be okay.

I remembered in that moment when my jaw locked open (talk about painful and scary!) during the movie "Stop Making Sense"  with the Talking Heads.  Yes, I am dating myself, and this would have been 1988 or so when we had a "Stop Making Sense" theme party with our closest friends.  Nothing made sense, from what we wore (Steve wore pearls) to how we presented the food (guacamole was put around the central container which contained the chips)!  We had so much fun.  Later in the evening, we watched the video, "Stop Making Sense" and during the song with the Tom-Tom Club (which was about sex) I yawned and somehow locked my jaw wide open.   I couldn't talk, I had a hard time swallowing, and it hurt like hell.  Despite our friend's massaging my jaw and being so sure that he could unhinge it, we ended up in the emergency room where the doctors were even quite challenged by this.  Plus they just didn't take Steve seriously at all.  After all, he was in his pearls!  Anyway, after much relaxing and praying on my part, the one doctor finally got my jaw unhinged with his thumbs by pushing down and back.  I had to relax so deeply.  I had to trust so deeply, just to release and allow my jaw to un-do itself.

And all of this during "Stop Making Sense."  There was the message 22 years ago. Sahara, stop making sense.  It's not about making sense.  If you live your life by making sense, your jaw will lock up.  Your life will lock up.  And you will not be following your heart, or your path.  It's just not about making sense.

It's about knowing what you deeply desire, trusting this, accepting this, and acting on it.  And in other words, it's about knowing yourself, loving yourself, trusting yourself, accepting yourself, and acting in accordance with yourself.

Yet all this time I have been trying to make sense of it all, of me, and all this time, I have been split off from who I truly am and what I truly want.

Out of this a-ha came the second turning point of the conversation.  Steve totally supports me in my dream and desire to walk the Celtic Camino and to lead a group of women on this pilgrimage.  He said that he knows this is who I am and that he loves me, accepts me and supports me.  It may not be convenient,  it may not make sense, and if this is something that I feel that I have to do, then of course he supports me.

What?

I even had to come back to this later in the day, "Just to clarify..."  He said that yes, I'm crazy.  Does he wish that I didn't want to do this?  Yes, of course.  Would he rather I didn't go away to walk?  Yes.  AND he also knows that this is who I am.  He knows that I am a bedouin.  He's the one who actually gave me the name "Sahara"  - which I realized is actually my soul name which I why I use it here.  So I like to think of it that he "reminded" me of my true name.  Do you know what a "bedouin" is?  A bedouin is a wanderer or nomad, often associated with the Sahara Desert.

I am a bedouin. Accepting this about myself has been one of the most difficult challenges. You are supposed to settle down, live in one house, have a mortgage, stay in one place.  Well, I spent a lot of my first years out of college traveling in Europe, living in England, and traveling around Australia.  When I got married and moved to Colorado, I couldn't just stay in one house. I have moved us 5 times in the 23 years we've lived here.  I've walked part of the El Camino de Santiago.

And now, I want to go back, for 6 months.  How can I do this?  I am a mother of 4 kids.  I have responsibilities here, children to raise.  Childen who need me.  I am married.  What am I thinking?  This is crazy.  This doesn't make sense...

No, it doesn't.  Not at all.

But then life doesn't make sense.  And what we truly desire doesn't go away, no matter how hard we push.

I do believe that what is in the highest good of one is in the highest good of all.  This may be a justification, but I also know it to be true for others, not just for myself.  So if walking the Celtic Camino is in my highest good, and is integral to my life's purpose, then perhaps it is also in the highest good of my children, my family, my marriage, and Steve.

Something shifted for me yesterday in receiving Steve's support.  I got that he really gets who I am and that he loves me.  Steve knows who I am, in my fullness.  He accepts me.  He knows that I am a bedouin, and he accepts this is about me.  I may not always be easy, but he knows that I am a package deal.  He said that we are here together to support each other be who we really are, to live our dreams, and to be our greatest selves.  We are not here to keep each other small and safe.  We both know that, but it can be so challenging in the midst of marriage, children, mortgages, security, etc. to remember that and to live by that.  We forget as we get caught up in the day to day management and logistics of life.  It becomes all about safety, security, finances, soccer games, and playing safe with each other.

Yesterday I got that I can come out of the closet with myself and my dreams.  I don't have to steal off and nurture my dreams somewhere else.  I can own them, nurture them and live them right here, within my marriage and my family.  I felt so loved and accepted yesterday.  I got that I don't have to hide with Steve.  I don't have to make sense with Steve.  He loves ME.  In turn, I then love and accept myself more deeply.

We talked of creating a new paradigm where we get to "walk" our dreams and be fully who we are, wherever that may take us, withing the love and support of our marriage.  We don't have to experience a separation or divorce to create a new life, to strike out on our path. We both can actually consciously choose it now because we know and honor what we want now, and honor our love and marriage now.  I don't want this to be the exception. I truly want our total love and acceptance of each other to become the new paradigm for marriage and relationship for everyone.  Perhaps yesterday's conversation can be a template within this new paradigm.

Thank you Steve.  

So often there is a catalyst to shakes us up, rocks the boat, and takes us out of the day-to-day grind and habits.  We can get so dulled by our habits that we can forget why we are truly are and what the purpose of our lives really are.  Not that our lives are bad.  So often they are good.  But are we living, being and doing what we are here to live, do and be?  Are we fulfilling our divine purpose?  Are we fully living into our divine mission?  So often we are fulfilling a part of it, such as raising our children.  But just as often, we are split off and disconnected from the "real" reason we are here.  We think that it is to be financially secure and stable.  We think that it is to raise our children to be good upstanding citizens.  We think that it is to have a beautiful house.

How funny, I can hear the words of the Talking Heads song, "Once in a Lifetime":

You may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile.  You may find yourself in a beautiful house with a beautiful wife.  You may ask yourself, well, how did I get here?  Letting the days so by...

 Talk about synchronicity!

It's not that our lives are not about those things.  Of course children, finances, wonderful homes are important.  They can be part of what it is all about.  Part of it.  They are not all of it.  They are not the it.

What's your it?  What is your divine purpose, the sacred reason that you are here in this body, living this life, right now?

These are such important, vital questions.  As we live into the questions, we create our answers, with each choice and action that we take.  Our lives are the answer. 

For me, right now, in this moment, my courageous choice is to commit to walking the Celtic Camino in 2011 and to lead women who know that they are to walk this sacred path.  Together, one step at a time, we will heal the split within ourselves, within humanity, and for the Feminine, and for the Earth.

This is my Camina.

I am committing.  I am committed.  Ah Ho.

Deep breath.  Much gratitude.

Suseya!
Sahara

La Camina, a.k.a. The Celtic Camino

So if I have spent the last 20 years getting by and not dealing with the split, why now? Why now am I choosing to focus on healing the split?

This is a question that I have been asking myself. I really believe that my choosing to heal the split represents a convergence of intention on every level and that the time is now! It chose me and I chose it.

I committed to the work of "healing the split" during the ritual from now nearly 21 years ago - it was the summer that I became pregnant with my now 20 year old son. It really doesn't matter if I remembered the ritual or not. I made a commitment that afternoon that has powerfully shaped my life. And now I am remembering that commitment.

Also, a year ago I became a pilgrim. Last spring, I walked the last 170 kilometers of the El Camino de Santiago in Spain and then I traveled by train with my then 15 year old daughter up the Celtic Camino from Santiago up through France to Rosslyn Chapel near Edinburgh, Scotland. I am clear that as a pilgrim, we have both our conscious reasons for our pilgrimages and also our unconscious reasons that only become apparent after we have completed our journey. Perhaps if we were to know the true reason for the pilgrimage we might not take it, so we go on our journey under the pretense of our known reasons. Yet the pilgrimage works its magic and the real reason always emerges anyway.

Walking the Camino and traveling up the Celtic Camino was a pilgrimage of initiation for me. I admit that I knew it was an initiation, but quite honestly, at the time, I had no idea what I was being initiated into. This is what has revealed itself over the past year. Sue Kenney, with whom I walked the Camino last year, says that "when the Camino is over, the journey begins." What is so interesting is that Sue is back on the Camino right now walking through Galicia to Santiago. She is walking a day or two further than we did a year ago, but I am reliving my Camino as I follow her on her Susesya page in Facebook. It is so alive and pulsing in me a year later, as though I can remember every step that I walked.

My journey began when I left Rosslyn Chapel last June.

In the perfection of Spirit, without my having to do anything to plan this, I traveled to the city of my birth, Newcastle-upon-Tyne in England. I began my journey home at my birthplace.

But I jump ahead of myself. I want to share more with you about my pilgrimages as they are essential to why I am healing the split and even writing this blog today.

While I was on the Camino, I realized that walking the Camino was my physical and spiritual preparation for the Celtic Camino. While everyone else was walking the Camino as their pilgrimage, I was walking in preparation for my sacred pilgrimage, the journey that follows a sacred configuration of 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.

Even before I left to travel on this pilgrimage, I called this journey “La Camina.” I could feel deep within myself that it embodied for me the sacred feminine and the hidden streams of spirituality that flow beneath the surface, connecting all of life, rooted in the body of the Earth and the ancient wisdom traditions. After my experiences on the pilgrimage and in my journey over the past year, I am more clear than ever that the Celtic Camino is a profound "pilgrimage of initiation" and that even more importantly, it is an initiation of deep feminine wisdom and healing.

Hence, LA CAMINA. It is the way of the feminine, a feminine journey to bring one home to oneself, in body, in wholeness, balance and deep connection. One is not hit over the head. It is subtle, yet profound. It unearths oneself from the deep core of our being without our even having to be aware of it until it starts to spill over into one's life, like a volcano.

It has not been a violent process for me. The volcano isn't spewing hot lava ferociously, at least not yet. It has been persistent, oozing, heating up, not to be ignored and you'd better pay attention to me kind of volcano. As I write these words, I realize that the goddess Kali is here with her fiery energy, demanding that I pay attention to her, to me and to honor this process. If I don't, she will boil forth with molten lava.

I made a commitment to heal the split 21 years ago. I traveled La Camina and was initiated.

The time is now.

Suseya,

Sahara