The second half of life is the ultimate initiation. In it we encounter those new, unexpected, unfamiliar, and unknowable moments that remind us that we are the sacred mystery made manifest. If we truly understand what is required of us at this stage, we are blessed with an enormous opportunity to develop and embody wisdom and character. We enjoy limitless possibilities to restore, renew, and heal ourselves.
The Second Half of Life, Angeles Arrien
Recently I have been thinking about how the rising of the feminine in the current cycle is similar to the mid-life experience. But first let’s back up a little.
In Dorothy Atalla’s book, Conversations with the Goddess, the presence states, “Earliest man’s apprehension of my nature was unconscious; his awarenesses were not so much part of his thought processes as they were experiential.” And that the experience of the goddess was more a “collective awareness.”
As children we also are the embodiment of an unconscious expression of the fullness of life.
As humanity evolved, through a combination of choices and the developing mind and ego, a disconnect occurred and grew.
Similarly, on the road through adolescence and into adulthood most of us have lost the innocent openness that allowed us to fully embrace life. Our experiences have left us with a disconnect from our bodies and therefore our lives.
And then comes the mid-life transition where hormonal shifts ask us to be seated back into the very bodies that we have abandoned. Mid-life is an opportunity to once again learn what it means to live life fully, but this time consciously. Embracing this passage creates a new reality for us. We come into mid-life with a lifetime of experience that can be transformed into wisdom.
The rising or return of the feminine is similar to mid-life in that this time our embrace of the feminine will be from a place of consciousness and so our experience will also “be a new reality,” and not just a collective experience but this time an individual experience.
Moving forward is always a choice. Both paths are about learning what it means to embody spirit. The work is individual but easier when shared with others who are like-minded. Marion Woodman calls this work of healing old wounds, releasing erroneous programming and learning what it means to step into our own authenticity, “dancing in the flames.”
It is important to learn how to source yourself, to attract the resources that will support you on your journey. All of the books that I share quotes from on the WellSprings Women Facebook page have supported me on my journey as well as the tools that I learned while a student at the Berkeley Psychic Institute. I share these tools in my online course, Meditation: Cultivating the Divine Feminine.
Meditation is a great tool for creating awareness. My online course introduces you step by step to an amazing set of “energy” tools that will help you to reclaim your mind, body and spirit. I have used these tools daily in my meditation practice for over 20 years. To listen to Session One for free and learn more about the course, click here.
Whichever path you are on, opening to the wisdom of the feminine or being seated in mid-life, welcome to the initiation!
I would love to hear from you. Leave a comment here and then join in the conversation on Facebook.
This month I am sharing a guest post on Kristen Roderick’s website, The Spirit That Moves Me. For the month of June Kristen has been featuring her “Soul Paths: Women Answering the Call” series. I am honored to be one of her guests. My post is titled “To Be a Woman” and I share what that has come to mean to me as I walk the path of the divine feminine. I hope you will take a moment to read the post and share your thoughts. Here is the link.
Pregnancy forces us to have patience with the process of growth and development. As a culture, we want everything instantly. But Mother Bear wisdom doesn’t work that way. You have to allow your pregnancy to reach fruition. And you have to wait for labor to begin.
Mother-Daughter Wisdom, Christiane Northrup, M.D.
The kind of pregnancy that I am writing about here is not limited to the creation of babies. In my case I was pregnant with and gestating the launch of my meditation course. I had taught the course several times in my home and now I was reformatting it for an online release. My early thoughts were that this would not take long. My apprehensions were more around the technical aspects of setting up a membership site. So I set a target date for the release of the course and set to work.
But the editing and reformatting seemed to have a pace of its own. The process moved slowly as if I were taking an advanced version of the course, stirring up the resistance that needed to be released. There was no getting near the material without being affected.
Deadlines came and went, exposing the artificial imposition of these dates in my attempts to take control of the process. During this time I came across the above quote in my reading of Mother-Daughter Wisdom. It resonated in my experience, a sure sign asking me to take note.
The coursework continued to progress ever so slowly. Meanwhile, in my peripheral vision, I kept noticing magical little synchronicities. Those small “coincidences” that were confirming my knowing where I had doubts, soothing my insecurities, reminding me that I was headed in the right direction.
Then I heard Dr. Christiane Northrup, on her radio show “Flourish” on www.HayHouseRadio.com, quote astrologer Daniel Giamario, saying that “mercury retrogrades are simply to remind us that things are not logical and linear the way we think they are supposed to be.”
By now all signs were pointing in the same direction. That is to say that in “Goddess Time” nothing ever gets cranked out, everything happens in its own time.
I came to see that Goddess Time allows for all aspects of the process to matter. Those magical synchronicities that boost our belief in the work we are doing; the spiraling back of the forward moving path that creates breathing room, allowing us to integrate newness; and the constant reminder that it is about the journey even when the goal is the motivator.
In the end I love the course that I birthed, even though its labor was six weeks overdue according to my artificial schedule. But I have been just as deeply affected by my understanding of how my belief in linear time tends to ignore or trample over many aspects of the process that reside in the realm of the subtler feminine energies. In terms of our personal well-being, it is integrating these aspects of the process that is most meaningful.
I will continue to set goals and create timetables. But I have a much deeper respect and appreciation for the vast and nourishing wisdom of Goddess Time. Because in the end it really is all about who we have become in the process.
You can learn more about the Meditation: Cultivating the Divine Feminine course by clicking here.
I would love to hear from you. Please share your thoughts here and then join in the conversation on Facebook.
We’re living the end of time. Not the end of the world, but the end of a world age—a 5,125 year cycle of time—and the way we’ve known the world throughout that time. The present world age began in 3114 B.C. and will end in A.D. 2012. Because the end of anything also marks the beginning of what comes next, we’re also living the start of what follows the end of time: the next world age, which ancient traditions called the great cycle.
Fractal Time, Gregg Braden
As this is 2012, I decided to begin the year by sharing how I have come to think about this point in time. On December 21, 2012 we will be completing not only a 5,125 year cycle but also a larger 26,000 year cycle. That is what makes 2012 so significant.
A 26,000 year cycle is a journey through all 12 signs of the zodiac. The five smaller 5,125 year cycles nested within the larger 26,000 year cycle are called world ages. Within these macro cycles are the smaller annual, seasonal, monthly and daily cycles that inform our lives.
Marija Gimbutas is credited with giving us the rosetta stone for understanding the goddess cultures. In her book, The Civilization of the Goddess, she describes the high level of civilization the goddess communities attained before coming under assault by a series of invasions. These invasions, which began around 4400 B.C., created massive dislocation of ancient settlements and introduced a culture that included violence, a religious system that revolved around a sun god, and a hierarchical organization. In time, the value system and lifestyle of the goddess cultures became dominated by the new invaders.
Out of the last 26,000 year cycle, only the 5,125 year cycle that is coming to a close seems to have been defined by a detour into patriarchy. Understanding this gives me some perspective in a world where patriarchy seems endless and unchangeable.
Patriarchy is a fundamental abuse of power and a distortion of the divine masculine. We know this in our bodies. We are socialized to participate in a system that we know is a lie. This is system that does not place value on all of life and our connectedness. It is a system that has lost its spiritual grounding into the feminine.
In Dorothy Atalla’s book, Conversations with the Goddess, the presence she communicates with says, “The feminine is rising to restore balance, but this is not merely a recurring cycle. This time a new reality will emerge, completely transcending the old yin/yang cycle. This new cycle will span 26,000 years.”
This year, not only are we beginning a new 5,125 year cycle, we are beginning a new 26,000 year cycle. Just as old cycles do not end abruptly, new cycles do not begin abruptly. The rise of the feminine has been occurring for a while. The counterculture movement of the 1960’s was an aspect of this. The environmental movement, feminism, and racial equality, are all aspects of the inclusive nature of the divine feminine.
For me, embracing this unique time on our planet means continuing to open myself to the work of unearthing the divine feminine in my life; to deepen my understanding of the gifts of the feminine that are grounded into the elemental energies of Mother Earth; and to learn to own the power of the sacred feminine in my experience. I hope you will join me.
I would love to hear from you. Please share your comments here and then join in the conversation on Facebook.
At this point in history, the masculine needs to learn that its trajectory away from earth is not its sole function. The masculine does transcend limitations to acquire vision. But it must then “come back” to earth with its vision, and re-seed earth with it.
Conversations with the Goddess, Dorothy Atalla
This is the season of darkness in the Northern Hemisphere. The time before the celebration of the return of the light. Colors are denser. The bright red and greens of summer have become the deep, rich, berry and spruce of winter. Here in central California you can hear the honking of geese overhead, passing winter in the valley. The air is crisp and damp.
It is the annual time of turning inward. Slowing down. Taking stock. And asking ourselves how we want to move forward in the next cycle of growth. How do we want to transcend last years manifestations? What is the next step in our personal evolving? This is the masculine energy. The energy of vision. Our vision brings the seeds of change, of moving forward, and embeds these seeds into the dark ground of the fertile feminine. It is the feminine that nurtures and sustains these seeds of change.
In my awareness of the simmering compost of possibilities deep within, I am thinking of Abraham’s distinction between inspiration and motivation. Inspiration is the energy of moving toward something, being inspired. Motivation is the energy of moving away from something. I am asking myself to plant seeds that are grounded in inspiration. This keeps me connected to my heart.
Any new growth cycle needs the right environment to sustain momentum. This is the feminine aspect. I am noting if I have the support I need in place to nurture the changes I am desiring. It is a process of discovery. Sitting quietly, allowing my needs to surface. Learning what I need to move forward. Not expecting myself to get it right the first time or every time.
Sometimes embracing change is as simple as giving myself enough time to introduce familiarity into something that feels too foreign. So I move slowly, in small doses, until I have a sense of familiarity. I have learned that too much newness will overwhelm me, sabotage my momentum.
Also, I am finding that in order to move forward, I have to deepen my relationship with myself. Every step involves releasing fears and limiting thoughts. The more expansion I envision, the more I need to ground my energy into the feminine matrix. Grounding into the feminine asks me to be present, engage fully, and trust myself.
So I am trusting in the abundance of the fertile feminine and in my ability to attract the resources, the people, the practices I need to sustain the coming cycle of growth. And as I prepare to welcome in the new annual cycle I am still celebrating the fullness of last years growth. I am appreciating everyone who I was able to play with this past year, and the unknowing role you played in my evolving. And I am looking forward to more. From my heart, peace, love and joy to all of you. . .
I would love to hear from you. Please share your comments here and then join in the conversation on Facebook.
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