The Goddess Within

Despite the Wheel turning to seasons and shifting in weather patterns, I sometimes view the seasons in terms of patterns and rhythms.  What has it brought in the past?  What is it revealing now?  Where are the clues to be followed to unveil what's to come?  This season has been mixed in emotion, jumbled even, not quite fragmented, but not entirely visible to the naked eye.  It has been both bright and dull, both seen and unseen, and, as I reflect to the actualized theme of what is being presented, what lesson I am to learn, who the Teacher actually is... I'm left, not necessarily awestruck, but sort of like a child who has taken a test and the whole time the answer was written right on the desk. My season?  Spider.  Spider has been visiting with such enthusiasm, if I didn't know better, I would assume He would want to move in.  I have, forever, shielded the "welcome" mat to Spiders, entirely out of fear, it's often joked about that I can walk in...

During the time span of being sick for over two weeks, and really sitting with the emotional (and psychological) aspects that came up from a diagnosis with Bell's Palsy that had me feeling far different than the image being reflected to me in the mirror, I knew the overall message was to rest, and why I chose not to listen before it came to the rollercoaster that was delivered isn't entirely revealed to me, yet. The (acknowledgement) of the cold came first.  A minor but stubborn, foggy head and germs invaded my system, leaving me feeling strange and emotional, as my colds tend to leave me, but the numbness and partial facial paralysis was something I couldn't prepare myself for.  To feel yourself change while everyone around you sees nothing different reminds me of my days out of high school, following the call of the Goddess more deeply and sensing that my overall being was entirely different, yet I remained looking the same to others who knew me well -- or so it would s...

"Letting go means letting come and go, letting be. Letting go means opening to the wisdom of allowing. This is nonattachment." -- Lama Surya Das That one quote, aside from making me catch my breath just a little bit in truth and awareness, pretty much sums up the month of March for me: letting go.  It was letting go in both its small and large forms, some of which meant simply letting go of time -- I didn't open my datebook once during that month, didn't look at my calendar on the wall once (actually forgot it even existed!), I didn't plan for anything.  Unusual, yes, and completely out of character.  I hardly live in the calendar montage, but I am quite cognizant of linear time when I am fully here, and yet even in Spirit there is that awareness, because I'm here, my contract is here, and so Here maintains a level of responsibility that I must facilitate and abide by, per "contract" rules, after all. March has, in the past, been a month o...

In my slow digestion of Pema Chodron's "When Things Fall Apart", I find myself coming across her wisdom in moments that I really need to receive it, though sometimes met with apprehension, it's an invitation to go deeper, even if my inner self is, sometimes, in denial about what it may find. I have been contemplating this one passage, this one chapter really, that she speaks about Hopelessness... "For those who want something to hold on to, life is even more inconvenient.  From this point of view, theism is an addiction.  We are addicted to hope -- hope that the doubt and mystery will go away.  ... As long as we are addicted to hope, we feel that we can tone our experience down or liven it up or change it somehow, and we continue to suffer a lot." Upon reading this passage it immediately triggered me.  Denial, sure, anger, indeed, but a sadness of truth that I hadn't expected.  Addicted to hope?  Really?  When something is wrong, when we're in...

It's been a week of reflecting -- a week of peeling away the layers to reveal old memories.  This hasn't felt like a "year", it's been tremendously longer than that.  The days appear to go by faster the older you get, and yet, when you look at the end of the year and see the 12 months behind you, it doesn't feel so fast after all.  At least not to me, not this year, not in a year where I was cradling the pain and needing to step outside of the shadow to see the actual light.  It was brighter than I remembered, and while my eyes didn't burn from the impact, tears still fell... in a year of building so many relationships, and needing to say goodbye to others, how is it that at the end of the year I feel as though I am always meant to face the final dark alone?  It's the Cave.  It calls to me, even now, even as the words flow (at a fragmented pace), that retreating to the Cave is what I would normally be doing this time of year.  I go within, retreat, a...

I am dancing the dance that isn't unfamiliar to me, but the steps are ones that are being taken so gracefully, it's as though I am, indeed, the ballerina to the Shaman's song... the darkness rises, but its an ally, one that has been hidden deep into the shadows, waiting for me to peel away those mucky layers, and now, as though the test (of this level) has been achieved, I am... swimming.  The bridge is up, the water is clear, and I am swimming in the ocean of mysteries... I laugh to think where the road takes you, where you, yourself, journey on that road, and how it returns home, in its multi-layers, it's home again... much like Chad's song, the lyrics that have been swimming in my own mind: "The person I was could go by another name He's a stranger to me now Amazing the difference a few years will make You don't realize you've lost yourself until you turn around I keep coming back here to this place Where it's lonely and cold here with...

"Fear is a natural reaction to moving closer to the truth." - Pema Chodron Sometime last year I was in a book store in need of a book.  Nothing in particular, but just in "need" of something, which usually leads me to the Buddhism section when I'm unsure of what I want but feeling as though I "need" something.  That day I picked up Pema Chodron's "When Things Fall Apart", and it wasn't until a couple of days ago that I finally started reading it.  "Heart Advice For Difficult Times" it says on the front cover -- this purchase happened before any of the deaths that would come in the year -- and sat on my bookshelf, collecting dust, but patiently waiting until I recognized the need to pick it up and read it.  It has become, mostly, nighttime reading before falling asleep.  It goes against my general principle of reading anything too "heavy" before sleeping, yet I felt something significant about carrying these wor...