Category Archives: RITUALS & PASSAGES

November 24, 2013

LIGHT IT UP!

By JL

“All of us come into this life with unique gifts. We are beings who are self expressing from the time we enter into the room,”

~ Shilo Sophia, Artist and Visionary

I found Shilo Sophia’s beautiful images of the divine feminine spirit earlier this year, or I should say, they found me. I truly believe that what we most desire finds its way to us. The question is, are we ready to greet it with open arms and a loving heart?

We are all born with the desire to self express through intentional creativity. In its purest form it manifests as the longing to recreate in our own image, to give birth to children who will perpetuate some part of us. It also drives artistic creation in the form of visual art, writing, music and design. But what about planting – gardening and farming? What about building – infrastructure, or widgets, or building the business that builds the widgets? What about less solid form visible activities? What about the energy that goes into the creation of ministering, healing, marketing and selling, teaching, or serving others?

I am here to tell you that everything we do, is a creation that begins first as a thought. If nurtured, that thought will grow with our personal energy and, if allowed, will manifest as our own creation. And we have the same power to create the life we desire.

I didn’t always get this. Before the MAD Goddess muse started whispering to me, I let others’ energy shape and define me. We all do – it’s the norm. We are taught to behave as civil human beings do. We are taught to fit into society. We are taught to conform.

Shilo’s wise words resurrected a poem I wrote many years ago. I had to search for it, though files of loose paper and scribbled words. I think it may well be the MAD Goddess’s first whisper to me.

my own small voice
daughter
sister
mother
wife
what if –
orphan
only child
childless Woman
widow
who am I then
lover
friend
just more names
fitting me to others’ frames
i have listened long to their words
fragmented by the messages heard
now one voice, though quiet and small
has the magic to silence them all

Copyright – All rights reserved.

Who are you?  Who do you want to be in your second half of life? What spark of creativity is hiding beneath layers of imposed fear, pain, anger or abuse? You might think there is no spark, that it smothered long ago.

Nothing is further from the truth. The spark lives; it lives now, inside of you. It lives outside of you in others of your tribe – women like yourself, women who have shared your experience even though you have never met them. I personally believe the spark lives on beyond this physical life in the form of spirit energy. I believe it survives in memory, living on in your children and grandchildren for generations.

The point is, no matter how far down into the shadows your spark has retreated, you can light it up again! Let it enflame and engulf your entire being – mind, body, soul and spirit! Let it rise up from the ashes like the phoenix. Let it consume you. Let it burn stronger, better, brighter than ever before. Let it consume your doubts and your fears, let it fuel your purpose and passion.

You know who you are, you know how beautiful and creative and loving and valuable you are. Stop listening to your limiting thoughts, they are merely echoes from the words of others who have no idea what you are capable of. Start listening to your truth. Start living the second half of your life according to you.

Leave a comment | posted in Beauty and Image, Joie de Vivre, RITUALS & PASSAGES

September 10, 2013

The Turning Wheel

By JL
This moon phase began with the new moon on Sept. 5th and will end with dark moon on Oct. 3. This autumn moon represents change, the cycles of seasons in nature and in our lives. The moon is associated in Celtic lore with the Triple Goddess, Maiden, Mother and Crone.
In our modern society, these stages overlap more than ever before. We can thank our consumer culture for the unrealistic expectation of remaining eternally youthful, forever the maiden. Women of age and wisdom are, to say the least, not exactly honored in our culture. Yet, look around; if ever we needed the wisdom of grandmothers now is the time.
Instead, how many of us are  still mothering our adult children, effectively clipping their wings? How many of us find ourselves providing primary childrcare for our grandchildren long after our Mother stage should have naturally passed? Is it because young parents are not stepping up to the plate, or because we have refused to step aside for them?
I asked my oldest daughter and mother of four, why she thinks so many of her generation seemed to be totally overwhelmed by the task of parenting their children.
“Too many parents who weren’t around or thought their job was  to make everything easier for us growing up,” she said.
Wow! What an eye opener.
So to make up for it we are mothering our children and grandchildren. Yet again we are failing to pass on the mantle of Mother and step into our roles as Crone. What we must ask ourselves is whether stepping in to pick up the slack for our adult children is a selfless or selfish act on our part?  Should we be raising children long after nature would  have us do so? Should we be prolonging our daughters’ Maiden stage beyond its time?
Is our reluctance to take up the duties of Crone because we think that we are not yet seasoned enough for this wisdom stage? If not us, then who?
What stage are you in? Do you find yourself juggling all three? How can you honor your stage and ground your being in your natural place? And how will that help those around you – family, friends, community?

1 Comment | posted in Aging Gracelessly, RITUALS & PASSAGES

September 9, 2011

I CONFESS – I HAVE HAD A SECRET LOVE

By JL

It’s eight-thirty on a morning that is approaching the pseudo-summer days of fall and I’m enjoying a gourmet coffee and cranberry-walnut muffin. A welcome breeze is rustling the leaves of a maple tree that wraps its arms around the corner windows where I sit nestled into a quilt covered futon. I could almost reach out to pluck one of those leaves from a branch tip, yet the limbs are not scraping against the siding. They are at such a perfect distance it seems they have been carefully groomed to create this tree-house like sanctuary.

From the street below comes the sound of occasional traffic. Voices of passers-by float through the window screens on the breeze. I have read the news, caught up on correspondence and will soon be coiffed and off to a few boutiques I’ve been dying to explore. The city is peppered with such shops in neighborhoods of venerable brick storefronts; small enclaves rich with character that has not been assassinated by the blight of malls.

I have dreamed of living exactly like this, in a second floor walk-up with a porch overlooking the street below. I have dreamed of morning coffee with pastries, of lunches in a storybook bistro where I would be a fixture – the author working on her next novel.

Having grown up in a very small town, and spending all of my adult life living in a rural community where everything of convenience is at least thirty miles away, the wonder of what city life would be has been a constant companion whispering in my ear. But mine was a life of keeping a home, raising children and tending vegetable gardens – envied by my city sisters.

I’m certain this secret longing I’ve had to experience the life of a carefree woman in the city has been just that, a secret. I didn’t talk about it, I didn’t write about it. It wasn’t a life goal on my list. It was an undisclosed love and yet, somehow, my daughter has turned it into such accurate reality it’s as if she knew my secret all along.

I is she who brings me to this place that I have dreamed of. It is a magical place suspended in time for me – sitting here, I feel like a young ingénue with the world awaiting. Yet, as enamored as I am of this place, I caution myself. I must not usurp my daughter’s territory. I WILL not be one of those mothers living vicariously through her progeny.

I have a hunch she doesn’t quite see the romance in all of this that I do. Like any relationship, the lure of the city grows faint with time. Battling her way to and from work on traffic clogged thoroughfares cools love’s flame. As time wears on, the warts of the city can make the once handsome suitor begin to look a lot like a frog.

I know that one day she will look back on this time with the fond memories one holds for a love than cannot be recaptured. I am hopeful that until then, she can appreciate this moment in her life for what it is; her awakening into self. And I thank her, for sharing this time with me.

As for me, I plan to visit now and then to remind her what a “catch” her life is; just not so often as to make her bar the doors. After all, this little perch in the corner of the second floor porch, overlooking the not too busy street below, is her home, not mine. I’ll have to remain content with being a secret admirer.

. . . . . mid
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2 Comments | posted in RITUALS & PASSAGES, The Empty Next