The "G" Word

I just keep taking the next step on this journey.  Yesterday I took an unexpected, but not surprising step during my session with Betsy.

Betsy has been coming to me to learn how to be an "intuitive."  I had put her off for several years, because I really didn't know how to teach her.  Finally, this spring after she attended my trial WEALTHY Woman class, I decided to open up to the possibility of "teaching" her.   Betsy came for her second session yesterday.  She started out by asking how long I have been doing this, which triggered a little something in me but I simply answered after reviewing my personal timeline, "7 years."

We went on into our session.  Betsy opened up the coning in which we would do our work together.  Basically, a coning is the container out of which I do my "intuitive" work.  Another way of thinking about is that this is how I "plug" in to Source.

How an intuitive session, even a training session, flows is a magical, mystery tour!  (I know, I can hear the Beatles singing too!)  I basically download information as it comes through, and it comes through as a person asks a question, energetically opens to receive whatever information is next, or one conversation triggers another conversation.  I am not sure if this is an adequate description, but it will have to suffice for now.

Anyhow, somewhere in the conversation, I asked Betsy if she had ever wondered where she came from to be here on Earth.  Our conversation had moved to a much deeper place when her unwillingness to name the dark became the issue we were looking at.  Big issue and a very big challenge for Betsy because she doesn't like what she sees when she sees the dark stuff.  Opening up to explore this was the doorway for the "galatic" level of the conversation to come into our session.  It began with an objective enough revealing of the 9th dimension and the integration of the light and dark, and as we explored higher perspectives, it became very clear to me that Betsy is a very high dimensional being is came to Earth with a very high level mission of being willing to see the dark, name the dark and to make sure that another world was not destroyed by the dark forces again.  When I shared this with her, she felt the truth of this in every cell of her being.  A part of her came home to her body in a way that I had not experienced in her before.

The challenge for me was that the cat was out of the bag.  I thought that sharing the split in my belly was coming out of the closet.  I was realizing that I have closets within closets!  I  just had the image of the wardrobe opening up to the land of Narnia.  I have the closet which is more like a small room, and within the room is a wardrobe, and within the wardrobe are the realms of the galatic.

I am a galatic being.  I come from another world that is of a different dimension and frequency than Earth.    As I type this, I know this.  I feel this as my cells reverberate in the truth of who I truly am, and also in the fear of this ever becoming public.  This is the core of my split.  Right here.  I am a galatic being in a human body.  I am from the Pleaides, but I live on Earth.  I so desperately want to remember where I am from.  I know that I miss my home so deeply, and I know that I chose to come here and to serve the Earth's ascension process.

I also know that I have so wanted to be normal and to fit in here for as long as I can remember.  I have felt alien and that I don't fully understand or fit in for as long as I can remember.  Just like I am an English person living in America, and then when I go back to England, I am an American being in England - this split is a reflection of the split I feel between my galatic and earthly self, except that I don't get to go back and visit my galactic home.

Sometimes I just feel so alone and so far away and I haven't even understood why.  So often what I have felt hasn't made sense.  Wow, there that is.  Making sense.  No wonder I have wanted so badly for everything to make sense. Being galactic doesn't make sense in this world.  There is barely any understanding or even a concept for this.

I may have remembered my true roots and home when I was a very young child, and I was probably sure that I would never forget who I really was.  But life happens, and I am sure that as a little girl, I just wanted to be loved and accepted, be normal, and fit in.  And so I forgot who I was, and concentrated on being human, being normal, and being loved.

So I split off from my galactic self and relegated her to the basement, to my belly, where I could hide her away and keep her under wraps, and out of sight.  My galactic self is my little girl - the little me who knew and loved where she came from, who embodied the wisdom and knowledge of my people, and who was deeply connected to her mission and why she had come to Earth.  She is Katie, my little, inner child, whom I rejected and cast away out of shame and fear of being found out.  I was terrified of being sent away, not being loved, and not being understood.  So I began to live from my head, to figure out what others wanted from me so that I could give it to them, and to be the perfect, good little girl.  I became a great student, did the right things, never was too wild or too much, went to a good college, graduated cum Laude, and have then spent my adult years trying to figure out what I really wanted to do, got married, became a mother of 4 kids, and so on and so forth.  If I just did things right, then I would be okay, normal and loved.

Now, I am trying really hard to be a good coach, where including "intuitive" sometimes can feel like a stretch out of the box of normalcy.  And then yesterday, I had to go and reveal the "galatic" piece to Betsy.  She's reeling in her own galatic connections, and I'm reeling in my revealing mine.  The truth is that when I am doing my intuitive work, it is actually my galactic work.  I am actually working with and receiving information from very high frequency dimensions that is beyond intuitive.  This actually explains why my work has a depth and richness to it that "intuitive" doesn't explain.  Even Betsy said yesterday that she always had wondered why my work had a depth to it that she hadn't experienced with other intuitives.  I guess that's why she really wanted to work with me to develop her own intuition.  The funny part is though, that she actually came to me to develop her galactic wisdom and mission.

The gift for me out of yesterday's session is that I have put in another stitch of healing the split because out of the session because I have had another layer of acceptance of my true galactic nature.

This awareness has come around time and time again, and yet in the past, it would come up and present itself with less frequency and regularity.  Only once in a while would I have to confront this truth about myself, and then I could forget about it until it would surface up again.  However, it is coming up increasingly more often and unexpectedly.  Right in sync with the Mayan calendar and moving into the Galatic cycle.  But that's a whole other conversation!

This all ties back to the beginning of my conversation with Betsy when she asked my how long I have been doing this.  Well, back in 2003, I actually followed an impulse deep from within me to attend a "galatic counseling" training in Kansas City.  How weird is that, and just what was I thinking?!  7 years ago.  With the very few people I shared this with, I would laugh and very quietly whisper, the "G" word.  Shhhh....don't say it too loud, someone might hear!

And then I moved far away from admitting that this was the training I went to.  I re-labeled it "intuitive" so that I could be more socially acceptable.  This has been fine for a number of years, and damn it if it isn't fine any more.  I thought coming out of the closet was challenging.  Coming out of the wardrobe is going to be the ultimate challenge.

To tie this all together is walking the Celtic Camino.  My walking the Celtic Camino is the act of integrating the galactic with the human on Earth.  I walk literally on the sacred and ancient path of the Celtic Camino on the Earth to weave the galactic and the human together, to create the template for the Earth to receive the galactic, so that the human body can receive the galactic. These two elements/dimensions must come together for humans to ascend.  Ascension is nothing more than a remembering and reconnecting with our true galactic nature, and ultimately returning home to the wholeness of who we are.   We are both human and galactic beings.  Earth became split and separated from the rest of the galaxy and has believed itself to be the only planet with life.  So isolated, so split off, Earth and its residents believed that it was the only life in this universe.  Out of its separateness, it couldn't fathom or figure out how there could be life anywhere else.  This also served to cushion itself from the pain and trauma of separation for if there is nothing to be separate from, then Earth is not separate, and there could be no pain.  The pain and shame of the separation was too much to bear, so that it was easier to remove the source of pain and pretend like it wasn't there.

Yet Earth and its people are separate.  And the time has come for the isolation to end and for Earth to come back to its rightful, connected and integrated place in the Universe. 

This is why I walk the Celtic Camino.  It is my act of integrating my galacticness and humanness and to create a pathway for other humans to remember their own galactic connections.  We are all from different places all over the Universe, hence the diversity.  We are here not to become the same.  We actually to celebrate our diversity within the unity of our galactic roots.  This is the lesson of Earth - to celebrate our diversity and differences with the unity of all life, that we have life, are alive. 

The Celtic Camino is the path of the sacred Tree of Life.  The Tree of Life connects the 1st chakra to the 7th chakra, and is the conduit between the stars, the realm of the galactic and the higher dimensions, with the core of the Earth, the first dimension. As humans, our bodies are the Tree of Life with our legs as the roots reaching down to the first dimension, the trunk and head of our body as the trunk and head of the tree; and our arms like the branches reaching toward the stars and the chakras incorporated within.  As above, so below.  As within, so without.  The Earth also embodies the Tree of Life.  The first chakra is Santiago de Compostela in Spain, up to the 7th chakra of Rosslyn in Scotland.  This is the Celtic Camino, and this is the path I will be walking in 2011. 

Today I open up to another level of acceptance of my own "G" nature.  No, let me spell that out.  Today, I open up to receive and accept who I am as a Galactic being.  Thank you.

The healing has begun, begun.  The healing has begun.  We are sisters on a journey, shining out as one.  Remembering the ancient ones, the healing has begun, begun.  The healing has begun.

Suseya!
Sahara

The Paradox of the Split

May 9, 2010

Have you ever become aware of a dynamic in yourself, your life and/or your body that is so core to your life experience that is related to everything about you and that at the same time, it is not you, not the real, essential, core YOU?

This is my relationship and experience to the split that I have experienced on every level of my being, from the body to the soul level.

Physically, I have a split in the "recti abdominus" muscle of my abdomen, as the result of being pregnant with 4 babies, who became increasingly larger with each pregnancy, from 6 pounds 2 ounces up to 10 pounds 9 ounces.

Emotionally, I have split from my Inner Child, that part of me that expresses my instincts as well as my fears, and is intimately connected to my body. I continually try to move forward without her, and of course, ultimately, get nowhere.

Mentally, I have split between my heart and my mind, my feelings and my intellect. I can feel what I love and desire only to talk myself out of it because it doesn't fit the parameters of what is right, or how it should be.

On a soul level, I have felt split from my Source, the deep spiritual place within each of us. I can intellectually know it is there, but I haven't been intrinsically connected to this inner place.

Some of this almost sounds cliche-ish, and superficial. Yet my experience of the split affects me on every level of my being in every moment of my life.

Where do I even begin?

With where I am right now, writing this blog. My intention is to write my story and share my experience of Healing the Split - Walking Home to Wholeness. Truthfully, it is more for me than anyone else, but at the same time, if this benefits anyone else, or serves as a catalyst for your own healing into wholeness, then it will have more than served its purpose.

Somehow, I feel as though "healing the split" is my soul's mission in this life, and I am just getting that right now at 51 years old. I guess you could say, I am "owning" my specific purpose for being here on Earth in this body. I have been circling around it, hovering you might say, in one way or another, for 20 years.

Back in early 1990, I experienced "the split" in my body on the physical level when I was about 6 months pregnant with my tiny first baby. It didn't take much for the split to occur. I can still remember the night that I turned over in bed and felt this searing pain down the middle of my belly, like I was being ripped open from the inside out. I knew immediately that the baby was okay, and that it was my body experiencing something unexpected and very painful. I learned to wrap my arms around my belly, like a sling, whenever I turned over to hold the muscles together. I learned very quickly to compensate by using other muscles to do what I had used these recti muscles for. If I didn't, I would experience the searing pain of the tear again.

So for all of these years, of being a mother, raising my 4 children - the youngest is 8 years old and the oldest is of course, 20 years old, I have "dealt with" the split by compensating and using more external muscles of my hips and legs, not doing certain kinds of exercise like yoga and Pilates, because when I did, I would feel weak and incompetent. Instead of practicing them to become stronger and cohere the muscles, it was as though there was such an essential weakness in my core muscles that I have chosen to just avoid. Much simpler and less messy (which of course translates to less emotional.)

As I write this, I am remembering a little ritual I did midway through the summer of 1989 with 2 of my dearest friends, Thia and Jasmine. I did not know that I was physically pregnant at the time, but I felt "pregnant" with the possibilities for myself. I even wore a dress for the ritual that was flow-y and loose like a maternity dress. Mostly what I remember is that in this ritual, with my friends as my witness, I committed on a very deep level to my Self and to healing the shame that separated me from her - to "heal the split." This ritual felt at the time like a convergence of lifetimes and healings and separations, and very important and necessary for me to engage in. I was making a soul commitment. I knew that something important had transpired with the promises and commitments that I had made and ritualized. I had stepped into something profound for myself.

And then I found out that I was pregnant. And all of my focus and energies went into this divine yet unexpected process and curve in my life's journey.

And I forgot about the ritual and the commitments I made. Becoming a mother became my sole focus.

Here I am 20 years later, and what I now realize that I have been living out of the commitments I made that day to "heal the split" even when I have forgotten. No matter. It is my mission and my purpose, both when I remember and when I forget. I committed to something bigger and greater than myself during that ritual - it almost feels like when we make marriage vows - and those commitments and promises create the container from which we live and create our life and ourselves.

The container is bigger than the split. The container holds the split. The split is actually an illusion. It doesn't really exist. And yet it does. But it doesn't. Such is the nature of duality...and unity. I am actually the container, but I have lived my day-to-day life from the belief that "I am the split." That is the split right there in action. This is getting very esoteric, and I feel like I am so close to the pulse of a deep spiritual truth that is Truth for all of humanity, all of the Universe. I can almost touch it. I can feel the paradox of that there truly is no split, and yet the split is all there is. It is here manifested in my belly and in my life. Carolyn Myss says that you know that Spirit is present when paradox is present. Thank you for this paradox.

I take a deep breath back into my humanness and invite you to join me on this journey of coming home to our wholeness. It will be intensely and vulnerably personal. It will be unpolished. It will be real and authentic. It will be healing, although there is nothing to heal. It will be a journey, a sacred pilgrimage, although we are all already home and there is no journey. Such is the mystery of the paradox. I welcome the opportunity to walk beside you and for each of us, all of us, to come home to our wholeness.

Suseya!
Sahara

15 Days...The Spiral Is...

The symbol of the Wise Woman tradition is a spiral.

A spiral is a cycle as it moves through time.

A spiral is movement around and beyond a circle, 

always returning to itself, 

but never at exactly the same place. 

Spirals never repeat themselves.

The symbol of the Wise Woman tradition is the spiral.

The spiral is the bubbling cauldron.

The spiral is the curl of the wave.

The spiral is the lift of the wind.

The spiral is the whirlpool of water.

The spiral is the umbilical cord.

The spiral is the great serpent.

The spiral is the path of the earth.

The spiral is the twist of the helix.

The spiral is the spin of our galaxy. 

The spiral is the soft guts.

The spiral is the labyrinth.

The spiral is the womb-moon-tide mobius pull.

The spiral is your individual life.

The spiral is the passage between worlds: 

birth passing into death passing into birth.

The path of enlightenment is the spiral dance of bliss.

The symbol of the Wise Woman Tradition is a spiral.

Twelve is the number of established order.

One step beyond is thirteen, the wild card, 

the indivisible prime, the number of change.

Walk a spiral, you will inevitably come 

to the unique next step, the unknown, 

the thirteenth step, the opportunity for change, 

the window of transformation.

The thirteenth step creates the spiral.

Susun Weed

17 Days...Jitters and Feeling Unsure

I haven't written for several days.  I notice that I do this when I feel nervous, scared and unsure about what I am doing, how I am doing it, and the results that I am getting.

My belly is full of jitters...I keep taking small steps forward...most of the time.

I noticed yesterday that when I am doing what I've been guided to do, which is walk, share KeenFit Pole Walking with people - lead pole walking clinics, support people to order KeenFit poles, plant seeds for future classes and ways of sharing walking poles, such as through different organizations - then I feel clear, confident, aligned and connected.  When I deviate from this, I feel scared, anxious and unsure.

When I see this, my mind kicks in and tells me that it's because I'm stretching and opening up to new possibilities that I am feeling scared and anxious.  That this is good - good for me and blah, blah, blah.

When I feel good, and connected, it's because I am in my comfort zone, and that while it may be fun and feel good, it's not going to generate and create the results that I want, and most certainly, won't bring in any money.

As I write this, I am feeling how money is really one of my biggest saboteurs, and wants to lure me away from my truth and resonance.

Interesting to notice...

Gotta go...time to get ready for teaching a group of senior citizens pole walking...LOVE THIS!!

22 Days Until England! Cornwall Calls.

Friday morning...my father arrives today for a 10 day visit.

My father is 80 years old, and he is writing a novel.  His first.  The Miner and the Viscount.  And I know it's not his last.  It's become the first in a trilogy, The Cornish Chronicle, a series of historical fiction novels based in 18th and 19th century Cornwall.

My father's family is Cornish, and he grew up in Liskeard, in the eastern half of Cornwall, not far from Plymouth.  My grandfather, "Granfer" was the editor of the Cornish Times.  He then went on to school in Bristol and then onto Oxford University where he read History.  I love that through writing these novels he gets to integrate his Cornish heritage and roots with his love of history and storytelling.

Last fall, he spent several weeks in Cornwall, exploring the sites and settings of his novel, such as the mines, manor homes, and pubs so that he could bring a real life quality to his writing and descriptions.  I had just completed walking the next section of my Celtic Camino walk in France, and timed it so that I could come over to England, meet my husband in London, and then come down to Cornwall to be with my father and stepmother.  While I was there, we visited Lanhydrock, a beautiful estate home south of Bodmin, Lostwithiel and Restormel Castle, Polperro as well as Liskeard, Wadebridge, and Polzeath on the north coast where my father had many of his summer holidays as a child.

He spent this winter re-writing and editing his novel, and including his hands on experiences of these places into his novel.  It should be done this summer, with a view to self publish it at first.  It's a great read, and very interesting and real.  You can hear the miner's deep Cornish accents in their conversations, the homes of the "viscounts" has come to life since the edited descriptions have been included, and best of all, you get an exciting, interesting, dramatic yet real experience of life in 18th century Cornwall.   His dream is for it to become a popular and much loved PBS mini-series, perhaps something like Downton Abbey!

Last October was my first visit to Cornwall in over 30 years.  I spent a little time there when I lived in England for a year back in 1981-82, when I visited my Great Auntie Hilda in Wadebridge, and went to Port Isaac with my dear friend, Diana.  While I knew that I wanted to spend my time in England more in the south where my families are from - Dad's family from Cornwall, and my mother's family from Somerset, I somehow forgot that was what I wanted, and ended up spending most of time in London and up in northwest England with my boyfriend's family.  As I look back, I have to accept that it was all good, and that if I had been ready and able to deeply reconnect with my roots and ancestors, I would have.   Perhaps it is something that I really need to long for and desire that is making it so important and essential for me to claim and own it for myself now.

No more giving it away.   No more grafting myself on to other's roots, dreams, ideas of who I should and can be.

I am going home to walk the sacred and ancient pilgrimage paths of Cornwall and southwest England to reconnect with my roots, my heritage, my ancestors, my people, my land.

I want to have my own deep roots, connected on one end to the core of the Earth through the land of my peoples and connected on the other end into my core.

I am rooted, connected, alive and nourished.  I know who I am.  I trust who I am.  I trust my Self.  I know when I am on my path, and when I am not.  I have the courage, awareness, and strength to know that right now, I am a pilgrim who walks to come home to herself.  

24 Days to England - Matter Matters

It’s not deep pockets that we need in order to manifest, but deep roots. It’s quite simple: The more grounded you are, the more easily you can manifest. Roots have both a masculine and feminine quality. On the masculine side, they penetrate the earth, pushing their way downward between rocks and soil. The feminine aspect of roots is receptive, drawing nourishment and moisture up from the earth to feed the plant. You must be able to do both— to hold your ground, deeply penetrating “what’s so” with your intention to create “what’s possible,” while also receiving support and nourishment from the world.  

- Anodea Judith PhD, ; Lion Goodman, Creating on Purpose (p. 211)

This is why I leave in 24 days to walk in England  - to connect with my deep roots.  I have lived my life and worked really hard to manifest, to act as if "matter matters", but it's like my container for holding and building is like a sieve.  It is filled with holes, so that all comes in leaks out without my fully receiving it and using it to create and manifest.  It feels like I don't actually get to the boiling point of full, complete manifestation.  The energy leaks out before I get to receive the joy of fully completing a project or intention, as though I don't know how to contain or fully receive it.

Today is my daughter's 19th birthday.  Funnily, enough she was born minutes ago - 5:19am - after an intense labor.  I had dilated quickly, but pushed for over 3 hours.  As I woke up this morning and reflected on being in labor, I remembered that I had pushed hard, yet very ineffectively for such a long time that I swelled up in a way that I didn't know was possible.  I could barely close my legs after my daughter was born.

Two aspects of this labor are relevant here.  One is that while I thought I was pushing hard, I was actually working really hard, yet avoiding the kind of pushing that would go deep under the pain and effectively push the baby out.  I worked really hard to avoid the intensity of bringing the baby down into the "ring of fire."  I was terrified of that level of sensation and pain.  I have created many ways to avoid intensity in my life.  How we do anything is how we do everything.  How I birth is how I live.  I would rather drag something on that go into the heart of the matter, get really intense, clear, focused and   committed.  Hmm.  Don't like seeing or revealing that one, at all.  So in this birth, I pushed for a really long time, got painfully swollen and also became very frustrated and felt powerless to push my baby out.  I didn't even know that I could do it another way.  I was doing it the way I knew how, at the time. I didn't even know that there was a place that I was avoiding, a place that I could choose to go.  In my following two births, I got to experience both being aware of this intense "ring of fire", and actually choosing to go there and go through it.

Synchronicity - today is a full solar eclipse, also referred to as the ring of fire.  I experience it as the point at which what wants to be birthed into experience stretches you to the maximum and transmutes you into a bigger, better, version of who you truly are.  It is the moment of transformation when the fire burns through all that no longer serves and creates a pathway to receive and allow the new.

The other aspect of this birth that was so revealing was that after my daughter's head was born, my body stopped pushing.  It was as though all the pushing I had done to get her this far was as far as I could go.  I had to go into "manual" pushing where I literally had to use my mind and will to push here out, with no assistance from my body.  My body quit, and it seemed like an eternity for her body to born.   Subsequently, because my uterus was no longer contracting, I hemorrhaged a lot of blood.  I just leaked out all of the energy from giving birth.  I could not contain it.  It felt as though my life force was just draining out of me.  It was.  My blood pressure went down to 50/0.  I was given drugs so that my uterus would contract and the bleeding would stop.  I was given several bags of saline.  The midwife painfully pinched the soles of my feet to keep me awake and in my body.   And I didn't really notice how drained I felt...I just felt warm and oozy.

I hemmorhaged on some level at each of my births.  I either bled out blood, or bled out energy, or bled out both.  With my first son, I bled out blood and some energy.  With my first daughter, I severely bled out both.  With my second son, I bled out energy and no blood.  With my second daughter, I bled out blood, but no energy.  

I had no container to hold the energy, or to receive the energy from giving birth.  Giving birth is a profound experience.  As birthing women, we get to experience the ancient wisdom and power of our bodies taking over and bringing a baby into this world.  We cannot think our ways through this experience.   We cannot give birth without our bodies, and allowing its wisdom to take over and be in charge of this process.  In this, we also get to experience the Divine and Sacred Feminine moving through us, using our bodies as a vehicle to bring in and birth life.  This is profoundly transformative.

Yet I could not contain or fully receive the energy, power and empowerment from these experiences.  I got to experience a taste of it, only to leak it  out of me, leaving me depleted on a deeply physical and energetic level.  I then didn't have this energy to use and transform myself into a powerful, creative, goddess woman and mother.  I was back in survival mode, using everything I had to take care of my baby, and children, and giving myself just enough to be able to do this.  

Had I been connected to my deep roots, not only would I have not leaked out and hemmorhaged this sacred birthing energy, I also would have had the energy to root even more deeply to fully receive this birthing, feminine energy and would/could been deeply nourished and transformed by its deep wisdom and power. My container would have become stronger, more polished and even more cauldron-like!  I would have believed in my capacity to bring to life and birth my dreams.  

Here I am today, 19 years after the birth of my first daughter, and nearly 12 years after the birth of my last child.  My children are amazing beings, each of them in their unique and beautiful way.  I am so honored and delighted to be their mother.   I firmly believe that my children are not of me, but that they chose to come through me.  

My dreams, longings, and soul's desires are of me, and through me.  Without me, they will not and cannot come through.

"What I desire, desires me"

It desires, and needs me to call it forth, and bring it forth into this world.   It is time. Enough avoiding the intensity, to power, the deep yearnings I feel inside of me.  Enough leaking out my power and my capacity and ability to manifest and create.  I am done with this.  Done.

I go to walk my path to connect with my tap root, to plug it back into the seat of my soul, to plug the leak, and to make my cauldron whole and complete again. 

The time is now for me to reclaim and reconnect with MY roots, my tap root.  I am so deeply desiring to manifest and create in this world, and contribute in a powerful, and meaningful way to the new world that is emerging.  I have to believe that my contribution is necessary and worthy, just as I believe that everyone's is, and to contribute my piece.

I have to be willing to walk my path, root myself, ground myself, contain myself so that I can build my capacity to receive, create, and contain, thereby increasing my ability to make solid and create form, speak my truth, claim for myself, and honor and birth what I truly, deeply long for and desire.  

Walk my Path ~ Weave my Dreams ~ Live MY Purpose.  

Solvitur Ambulando!*

*it is solved through walking

Walk. Embody. Transform.

I have been home from my last Camino, or Chemin in this case, for nearly 3 months - November, December and January.  These months have been full and busy with the holidays, and as January comes to a close this week, I am becoming aware of subtle shifts within me.  Who I am being and how I respond to certain situations and people is different than before.  Is walking the Celtic Camino, this profound pilgrimage of initiation actually contributing to real-life transformation and change within me?!

So, really then, what is changing? What has shifted? How am I different?

I have now completed the journey from Santiago, the first chakra of this journey, to Toulouse, the second chakra.  I began the journey in October of 2010, and completed it two years later in October 2012.   It is a long section of the Celtic Camino, approximately 1000 kilometers.  As I visualize this journey from the first to second chakra on my own body, it also feels like a long journey, from my perineum up and around to my belly, the foundation of core and the trunk of my body.  It also has felt the most weak, split open and unattended area of my body.

When I feel into my lower belly, it feels as though a zipper has been zipped up to my second chakra.  The split I have referred to in past blogs is healing.  What used to feel like a metal sieve - cold, holey, thin, weak, now feels like a warm pottery bowl.   As I write this, I have been holding my hands out in front of me, the tips of my fingers open and facing each other about 6 inches apart.  I then bring my hands and fingers together, and allow my fingers to slide in together.  My fingers naturally fit next to each other, and create a woven, seamless basket made out of my hands being brought together.  Can you imagine what I am describing?  This is what my lower belly feels like - a woven, seamless basket of lovingly held and cohered energy.  Even the basket, or the bowl feels warm, strong and solid in and of itself.  Both the container and the container feel strong, clear, and full of energy and love!

I do not remember ever feeling this before. It's a new experience for me.  I have something in me and of myself that feels different.  I have a base, a place from which to root myself that is about me.  That's it.  My sense of rootedness and belonging now belongs to me, within me.  It is no longer outside of myself.    All of my life  I have looked outside of myself, to my family, friends, school, society, to tell me who to be, how to be, what I want, how I should look...and I worked desperately hard at trying to do it all the way I thought I was supposed to.  Now, my compass can look within and actually have a place to point to!!  And, I can viscerally feel the difference.

I had been told years ago that I had no core, no sense of self.  I couldn't get it...what does that mean?  With no sense of self, I couldn't even understand what having no sense of self meant!  I was given homework to go for a walk by myself in nature 6 days a week for 45 minutes.  I am recognizing that even then, 24 years ago, walking was a huge part of my healing and coming home to myself.  I hadn't even put that together before.  Walking.  In nature.  With myself.  Wow.

Walking has always been in me.  When I was in my early 20's and living in England, I remember saying to myself that I wanted to walk the Devon/Cornwall coast when I was older and retired.  At that point, that meant in my 60's!  But it did mean that I was healthy, strong and vibrant enough - and able to walk - when I was "old"!!  Hehe!  Now, being older looks more like when I am in my 70's and 80's, but isn't it interesting that even then, the one dream I had for myself as an older person was to be able to walk this coastal path?

I have allowed these 3 months of being home to be a time of allowing and integration.  I have learned from past Caminos that it takes time to come home, and for the lessons and gifts of the journey to reveal themselves.  No rushing, no pushing here.  Reminds me of a paragraph from Gifts from the Sea, by Anne Morrow Lindbergh.

But it must not be sought for - heaven forbid! - dug for.  No, no dredging of the sea-bottom here.  That would defeat one's purpose.  The sea does not reward those who are too anxious, too greedy, or too impatient. To dig for treasures shows not only impatience and greed, but lack of faith.  Patience, patience, patience,  is what the sea teaches.  One should lie empty, open, choiceness as a beach - waiting for a gift from the sea.

So, while waiting for my gifts from the path, I have been fully engaged in my life, with my family, my business, and open to guidance, clarity, and direction.  I have been writing, learning, listening, responding.  I have also been very, very clear about what I want.  I have been allowing and feeling my desires and longings.  I am no longer willing to put them aside and forget about them.  My desires have become my compass, and they are deeply rooted in who I am, what I want, and why I am here on this Earth, at this time, right now.  They are actually the source of my power and my willingness, capacity and ability to create a life a value, meaning and contribution.

What do I want?

I want to live in England.  I want to move back and forth between the US and the UK with grace and ease, and no jet lag!  I want to be paid to live in both countries, to put down roots in both countries, to create my life around both/and.  I was born in England, moved here when I was nearly 3, and have spent my life in the US.  But I feel deeply at home and connected to England.  I wanna go home!

This is my big, deep desire and everything else falls under this, is created out of this.  I see it like an umbrella, containing and giving shape, purpose and direction to everything else that I am about.  

There is something so powerful about allowing myself to truly, deeply want this, desire it, long for it.  In the past, I would want it, then forget about it, be talked out of it, and let it go.  How crazy, impractical, expensive is wanting to live in England. I mean, really.  Why would you want to live in England?  

Because my heart and soul long for it with every cell of my being.  I feel more at home in England than I do anywhere.  The second that I stepped on the soil of England back in 2009, I felt this wave of "at-homeness" wash over me.  I thought "this is crazy" - I'm in a train station in Kent.  My roots aren't even from around here. They're in Cornwall, Somerset and Northumberland...but I'll tell you, this feeling, sensation, experience of being at home was with me the entire time I spent in England that year.  Every moment, every step, every interaction, every shift of the gear with my left hand!!  I may sound American, but I deeply, cellularly English.

No wonder I have experienced a questioning of belonging and fitting in.   One of the gifts of these past 3 months has been to uncover in a very deep way the shadow side of my needing and wanting to belong, and how it has shaped and informed many of my choices and decisions.  Becoming aware of this had actually freed me up from its grip.  And today, I choose to belong to myself, and to be anchored and guided by my desires and longings.

Because this is what I've learned - what we desire, desires us.  Our desires are the yellow arrows of the Camino, directing and guiding us along our life's path.  It is listening to and honoring these arrows of desire that actually point us clearly in the direction of our soul's purpose, the reason we are here and how we most clearly offer and share our gifts, and be of service to this beautiful planet and her people.  It's all right here, in us, in our hearts and souls.  We just have to listen, honor and allow them to be.  Because they will direct and guide us.  They do show us the way, step by step.

I now belong to my Self.  I have come home to myself, and am deeply rooted in my connection to Source, Spirit.  It's not about England or America.  It's not even about my family of origin, or my family by design.  It's about me, and from this core of belonging to me, I no longer have to prove, defend, explain or enroll.  I live my life in alignment with the yellow arrows of my heart and soul, and from this, I am the kind, caring, loving and compassionate person I've always longed to be.  I am at peace within myself, and so am at peace with the world around me.

I knew that longing was somehow transforming my relationship to belonging.  The word "longing" is even inside of "belonging." And then I saw a quote from Tara Brach in Radical Acceptance:

Longing, felt fully, carries us to belonging. 

As I continue to bring full circle the gifts, lesson, invitations, and healing of the pilgrimage of initiation from the first chakra at Santiago to the second chakra at Toulouse, I recognize that it has been a nearly 4 year journey to come home to myself and my desires and longings, to belong to myself.  This is my core.  This is the essence of who I truly am.  And it is from this core, rooted in my feet, my first chakra and my heart, that my life can then spiral out from a deep connection to what is real, true and loving, and how I can most generously, sustainably and authentically be of service and contribution.  It is the paradox of when I am most connected to myself that I can be of the highest service to others.  And as Carolyn Myss says, when "paradox is present, so is the Divine." 

Suseya!