Shadows of meditation
I have few words for how big this experience has been so far. For now, I’ll just share this photo and promise to come back when the stories start to have more clarity.
shadows of meditation
For more photos, go here.
Many points of light
As part of the harvest team at ALIA, it was my role to try to synthesize today’s experience in a blog post for the ALIA website. Here is that post…
On the OSU campus where ALIA 2011 is being hosted, there are more fireflies than I have ever seen before. They make themselves seen at night when we wander from the fullness of our experience in the organized sessions to the other fullness of experience in our informal gatherings in the dorm (fondly called “ALIA underground”). While we walk, processing the day, they sparkle all around us like a thousand diamonds in the depth of the shadows.
Tonight, after a time of deep listening while our friends from Japan shared their stories of ongoing trauma resulting from the triple disaster of earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear leakage, I wandered into the greenspace outside of the student union building, leaned up against grandmother tree (an ancient sycamore that would take 5 people to complete a circle around her), and breathed in the depth of today’s experience. Opening my journal, I tried to synthesize my thoughts of the day. All that would come, though, were tiny spots of light flashing in and out of my mind, like the fireflies flickering in the grass around me.
When I got back to the dorm room, I asked others to share in the synthesis, and what I heard from them were more tiny (but rich) spots of firefly light.
Here are those fireflies:
Today has been a deepening.
Sometimes tiny moments change us – almost imperceptible turnings.
Connecting us with our bodies, and then sensing the other people in our spaces.
The strength and wonder of touch.
There was lightness in the moment of the Brazilian dance flash mob.
We started the day with spontaneous.
This is embodied consciousness.
We offered the stories into the centre of the circle.
Lightness helped us deal with heaviness.
Some of our community left and walked the land and then re-joined the circle.
We serve as witnesses of each other’s body space and witnesses of each other’s stories.
Today we took conversations to a deeper place.
We find each other in the groups.
Seeing ourselves in others and in the social space.
Holding space for our Japanese friends to share stories of trauma & transformation.
We are carrying the stories for each other.
She found a little green man who taught her about having conversations with the earth.
There is a sense of lineage.
When she understood it was not her own, she could reclaim her life.
Trusting each other to hold the group’s best at heart.
Dichotomies. Yin Yang.
We find the conversations we need, and the conversations find us.
A community made a choice to live with a mindset of abundance.
Flashes of collective insight arise from the space.
A flower continues to bloom in a place of disaster.
What I need will be provided.
We are the victims, the supporters, and the perpetrators.
Systems change when real conversations happen.
Moving from hero to host and holding both in our hearts like yin and yang.
After disaster, there arises a clarity of what is meaningful in my life.
She was able to let her body relax after arriving in Columbus.
What I don’t need isn’t worth carrying.
Concern as a young woman exposed to radiation that she may not be able to give birth.
Tears of sorry and of joy listening to the stories, feeling the connection.
Your bravery inspires my own.
The room went past the walls and entered a space all its own.
We are in a massive flow of connectivity.
Trauma can be a gift if you hold it tenderly.
Going to a dark place with our friends and coming back up.
There is space for play even in trauma.
The energy of youth revitalizes the elders, the wisdom of the elders informs the youth.
We are finding new pockets of activism.
Trauma can make us harder or softer.
Music changes us.
Here we are finding a place of trust.
And then, after the thought fireflies had been gathered and the light shared, there emerged a spontaneous musical jam session in our dorm room, each person bringing a gift into the room and offering it to the collective good. Food, wine, music, touch, movement, play, warmth, vulnerability, spontaneity, creativity… community emerged out of our common experience.
It’s the way of women
Back in October, I had the pleasure of spending 4 days in a circle of powerful, warm, funny, wise women. We listened to each others’ stories, built a labyrinth of leaves, cried together, laughed together, ate together, dreamed together, and plotted ways of changing the world. It was one of the best experiences of my life. I felt like I was wrapped in the warmest hug of feminine support.
Even though I’d never met any of the women before, we were able to create an incredibly loving and energizing environment. This circle of women continues to meet periodically to offer each other support over the phone lines. I feel very, very blessed to have them in my life.
This is not the kind of feminine relationships you hear most about in the corporate world. No, we’re more likely to hear of cat fights, gossip, and “bitches” who do anything to protect their own interest. Some of that is true, and some of it isn’t. I’ve experienced both sides of the coin. I believe that the part that is true is largely due to the fact that there is incongruence between corporate culture and the most instinctual way for women to relate to each other. We haven’t found a way to bring our feminine wisdom fully into the boardrooms and cubicles (and frankly, our feminine wisdom might very well abolish both boardrooms and cubicles).
One of the greatest beauties of the circle/story retreat I was at in October was the range of ages and life wisdom of the women in the room. The youngest was a medical doctor who hadn’t yet reached 30, and the oldest was into her 70s. We had all archetypes – maidens, mothers, and crones – represented in the room, and it was a beautiful thing that reminded me of the best kind of community.
It was a particular delight to me to have such beautiful older women present – women who fully embodied and embraced the “crone” archetype. Beth and Diane in the photo above are two of those women. Wow! These women are amazing! Their energy, wisdom and pure delight in the world continue to inspire me these many months later. They didn’t try to hide their ages behind layers of make-up or plastic surgery as the fashion industry has convinced many women to do. They celebrate who they were, dance in the leaves like phoenixes rising from the flames, and share their wisdom and strength in the most generous way I have ever seen.
How I wish they could live next door to me and I could sit at their kitchen table whenever I need a boost of courage!
Yesterday I had the pleasure of having a conversation with Diane (whose face you see above). Even over Skype, Diane sparkles with energy and love. I adore her. She teaches Reiki, leads women’s circles, has a labyrinth in her back yard, builds sweat lodges, and does all kinds of amazing things in support of other women. She has become one of my most treasured mentors. I can’t tell you what it means to have a cheerleader like Diane who absolutely believes that I am on the right path and will do anything she can to help me along that path. If she believes that I will succeed, how can I not?
Qualla with her birthday cupcake
On the other side of the coin, I too have had the pleasure of becoming a mentor to a younger woman who sparkles with energy and love. Last year, when I was at ALIA, I met Qualla Parlman. We spent her nineteenth birthday kayaking off the coast of Nova Scotia, followed by a delicious barbecue on the dock. I didn’t get to spend a lot of time with her at ALIA (as we weren’t in the same sessions), but since then we’ve gotten to know each other better online and I absolutely adore Qualla and I would do anything to help her succeed. She is an emerging young leader who’s learning to trust her feminine wisdom and I just know she will do big things in the world. I am honoured to be a companion on her journey.
It’s the way of women, isn’t it? The true, natural, instinctual way of women – not the way we have been socialized to become (or to believe we are). We are meant to support each other through the generations and across the generations. We are meant to find wise women who will teach us the ways of the world, and then we are meant to BE those wise women and offer our wisdom generously and without apology to others who need it.
Who are your wise women, and to whom are you offering your wisdom?
I’m not blaming the men, but…
“The purse strings of the planet are held by men. The greatest expenditure: global military spending at $900 billion. In 2003, according to the Women’s Environmental and Development Organization, the estimated funds needed to look after basic human needs were as follows: to provide shelter, $21 billion; to eliminate starvation and malnutrition, $19 billion; to provide clean safe water, $10 billion; to eliminate nuclear weapons, $7 billion; to eliminate landmines, $4 billion; to eliminate illiteracy, $5 billion; to provide refugee relief, $5 billion; to stabilize population, $10.5 billion; to prevent soil erosion, $24 billion. The estimated annual total budget for human needs, $105.5 billion vs. the actual global military spending, $900 billion. Imagine how differently women with maternal concern might manage the “family budget” now spent by the nations of the world.” – Jean Shinoda Bolen, Urgent Message from Mother
It’s time, women (and men who embrace their feminine wisdom).
Time to stop letting our leaders spend so much money on weapons when what we really believe in is caring for Mother Earth and her children.
Time to stop letting it be okay for little boys to grow up socialized to fight and win and never show their emotions.
Time to say “it is NOT okay to run through the streets of our cities and destroy things because your favourite team lost a game that has become much too violent and leads you to believe that violence as a response is okay.”
Time to tell our politicians to start building communities instead of polarized enemy camps.
Time to honour sustainable growth over excessive production and consumption that rapes our earth.
Time to let kindness become as important in the corporate world as competition.
Time to rise up and be leaders and stop letting old leadership paradigms hold us captive.
Time to quit apologizing for our wisdom and ideas.
Time to let our fierce love change the planet.
Time for courage.
Time to place some of the power of the purse-strings into women’s hands.
In micro-credit programs in developing countries, it’s a well known fact that if the money is placed into the hands of the women, there is a much greater probability that the children will get fed, the community will be looked after, and the money will be paid back when the loan is due. What if we extrapolated that wisdom and did the same with the $900 billion currently invested in military spending?
We’ve waited long enough. We’ve watched too many things break our hearts. We’ve seen too many of our sons and brothers die in needless battles. We’ve let too much oil spill into our oceans. We’ve been patient with too many testosterone-driven government decisions. We’ve cried over too many little girls sold into sex slavery.
I’m fed up. You’re fed up too, I know it. It’s time to act. Time to make bold moves.
Time for Sophia leadership.
Note: I feel a fire burning in my veins, and I know I need to act. This is my calling – to serve as a catalyst for emerging leaders learning to trust their feminine wisdom – and I need to start doing more about it. This is urgent. We can’t sit around waiting for someone else to right these wrongs and shift the balance. We ALL need to act. With this in mind, I’m planning to offer something I’ve been meaning to launch for quite some time now – a Sophia circle. It will be a gathering place for women who feel their fierce feminine rising up and calling them to claim the name “leader”. If this feels like the right fit for you, leave a comment or send me an email with any ideas or thoughts you might have on it. I’ll be unrolling the details in a few weeks, when I come home from ALIA.
Joy Journal #5
– Pelicans. I’ve seen more of them this Spring than ever and I just love the way they glide through the air in giant, lazy, graceful circles.
– Birthday lunch with my 14 year old daughter Julie on a patio yesterday afternoon.
– ALIA. I’ll be there at this time next week with my tribe, soaking in the wisdom, and being awakened to new ideas and possibilities.
– Lilacs. I can’t walk past a blooming lilac bush without stopping to smell the blossoms.
– New, soft growth on evergreen trees. I can’t resist reaching out to touch.
– Interesting clients who let me serve as midwife for their stories. This is more fun than I could have imagined.
– Interesting members of my Paint Clothes learning circle. I can hardly imagine more fascinating and deeply honest conversations. They energize me to do more of this work.
– Friends. And the fact that I get to hang out with several of them at ALIA and another one after ALIA.
– Princess Bride, and the giggles I had with friends and followers on Facebook & Twitter as we shared favourite quotes.
– Books, books, and more books. (My “Sophia Reads” page is updated with new recommendations.)
– Hope showing up in some places that seemed hopeless a few months ago.
– Arizona Green Tea with ginseng & honey.
– A healed foot injury that means I can go for long walks and runs again. (Note: for those who remember that I was going to run the half marathon, well, I’m not. I missed a month of training and I’m just not up for it, but I’m going to do the 10 k walk this Sunday instead. And I continue to train for the 100 km. walk in September.)
– This work I get to do. Today I am filled with gratitude that I was chosen for this amazing work and that I get to interact with such an amazing circle of people in the process.
A tale of two trees – the story of transformation
The above image has become my most powerful metaphor this Spring. I discovered it a few weeks ago and have made a couple of pilgrimages back to it since then. Last night Maddy and I braved a swarm of mosquitos to finally take photos of it. (We tried to do a video too, but Maddy was too busy fending off mosquitos to hold the camera still long enough.)
This simple sapling, taking root in the middle of an old rotten stump, has taught me more than many of the teachers in my life.
Out of the rot of the old, the new will grow.
Nobody understands more about transformation than the Creator does. Look at nature, read the story of Easter – it’s all about transformation, and its all intertwined.
Life happens in cycles. Birth, growth, maturity, death, decomposition, regeneration, new birth, and so on and so on.
It’s the same for every one of us. In order for new seeds (ideas, projects, businesses, etc.) to find places to take root, we need other things to die.
When we fail, we need to have the grace and dignity to let those failures sit and rot and become compost for new ideas.
When a project has reached the end of its value, we need to be willing to kill it, watch it decompose, and then watch what new things emerge out of the space it creates.
It’s human nature to want to hang onto the old “tree” (project, lifestyle, career, home, relationship, etc.), because it offers safety, familiarity and strength. But sometimes that tree has already begun to rot from the inside (the places we keep hidden from each other and even from ourselves) and holding onto it is only serving to hinder the growth of the young seedlings lost in its shadow.
Death is hard. Decomposition is excruciating. I know it – I’ve been through more cycles than I care to count. Rot is ugly, painful, and demoralizing. Some days it feels like it will never end. Some days it feels like there is nothing but rot in our lives.
This past year has been that way for me. Lots of ugliness. Lots of wading through rot. Lots of letting go.
Sitting with rot seems counterintuitive, especially in a culture that values productivity and success and climbing social ladders (with sturdy rungs that never succumb to rot). And yet the rot is an important part of the process. The rot creates the nutrients for new growth, and that takes time – LOTS of time. Compost isn’t created out of freshly killed trees. The tree stump in the photo, for example, was probably dead for about ten years before a new seed found enough nutrients there to sustain its growth.
For each of us, it’s the same. When something old has died, we need to give sufficient time for the transformation before we can expect new growth to happen. Patience is the most valuable part of the process.
Don’t rush your way through transformation. Let rot happen.
Note: If you are currently going through a transformation process, you may want to consider working with me as your Transition Guide. Contact me if you have questions.