‘Sacred Scrabble’ and Crazy, Holy Grace

Yes, crazy, holy Grace. Like crazy, wild Wisdom; or radical presence; or holy listening — like a weird-in-a-good-way kind of Sacred Scrabble game that beckons us into a full-sensory exploration, adventure, and living-into of the Words.

My kind of words and my kind of game, bubbling up from that deep yearning for a kind of re-energized experience with what’s become rote and bland otherwise.

Crazy, holy grace.

Those are the words of Frederick Buechner, who also had a holy-homesickness for the original, Life-infused meaning and full-hearted, felt-pulse of power-Words that had become rote and more likely to be stuck onto a bumper-sticker than deeply explored or god-forbid, lived.

In his book, The Sacred Journey, Frederick Buechner wrote, “…through flaws and fissures in the bedrock harshness of things, there wells up from time to time, out of a deeper substratum of reality still, a kind of crazy, holy grace.”

Beverly Lanzetta, in her moxie-full book, Radical Wisdom, similarly writes about “the low places where grace flows in.”

From the “flaws and fissures in the bedrock harshness of things” and those “low places” — the places where we’re laid low, broken open, where our learned-answers are useless — that’s where the grace bubbles up and flows in.

Buechner, also in The Sacred Journey, tells of a time when he’s told, “You have to face reality,” and the reality that was under discussion was really about the normalizing of harshness.

We see this a lot right now … just read, watch, or listen to the ‘news’ — it’s like a worship service devoted to the god of normalized ugliness and harshness.

About this unfortunate yet ‘normal’ advice about accepting ‘reality as harshness’, Buechner writes,

But when it comes to putting broken lives back together … the human best tends to be at odds with the holy best. To … grit your teeth and clench your fists in order to survive the world at its harshest and worst — is, by that very act, to be unable to let something be done for you and in you that is more wonderful still. The trouble with steeling yourself against the harshness of reality is that the same steel that secures your life against being destroyed secures your life also against being opened up and transformed by the holy power that life itself comes from.

To let the grace bubble up and flow in, we have to unsteel ourselves, drop the armor that we’ve created against the harshness, or at least let it be cracked. Wabi Sabi imperfection that’s strong at the broken places.

Because I don’t know about you, but I ultimately found that keeping that armor in place, normalizing harshness, steeling myself against it was spectacularly exhausting.

So I’m living into this holy and radical experiment now: That perhaps it’s okay — better even — to be cracked and broken, unarmored and unsteeled — and thus bathed in the waters and flow of grace.

Thanks for reflecting and Musing with me.

Love & Grace Aplenty,
Jamie

Feline Wisdom: “How did you learn to be so still?”

Any among us who are of the Feline Tribe understand The Way of Cat.

And we know that we learn much from our Feline anam cara — soul friends.

They’re joyous and masterful teachers, and quite the Tricksters, too, ever nudging us back into the present moment and mindfulness. [Molly Hall of Wild Bee Grove shares an example of this with a recent post on Baby Jim.]

Cats have long been the companions of wise ones, yogi/nis, and others on the Path, as we see from this tidbit from Al-Shibli, a Sufi master.

“I went to see Nuri.
I saw him sitting in meditation so motionless that not even one hair moved.
I asked, ‘From whom did you learn such deep meditation?”
“I learned it from a cat waiting by a mouse hole. The cat was much stiller than I.’”

Ahhh yes, and so it is … for those who have the eyes to see the wisdom of the Feline.

Love & Purrs,
Jamie

Vibe-Raiser: The Eyes of the Heart Illuminated

Heart- and Spirit-centering practice comes in many shapes and sizes, but if we look closely, we will see an essential few shining out in common among many traditions, though perhaps called by different names, using different words that point to the same or similar practices.

Prayer, attuning to Spirit, practicing the Presence of God, aligning with the Grace Stream, centering prayer, meditation, following the breath, raising our vibration, tai chi, wuji-gong, kundalini yoga mudra and mantra, flower essences, and oils … whatever we’ve got in our vibrational ‘magic backpack’.

These are just some of the approaches for beautiful, simple, powerful ‘Inner Way‘ practices that help us open to the Divine, to cleared, lightened, and heightened vibration.

To the Ancients, this meant opening to the deepest and purest form of Love — Divine Love, which was and is still associated with Source, blessing, and the very life-force which enlivens all.

In the Christian tradition, for example, in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians (1:18), the evangelist says:

“I pray that the Divine may give you a spirit of Wisdom and revelation as you come to know the Divine, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which you’ve been called.”

There are many translations of this phrase, including one that says, “May the eyes of your heart be washed with light,” and “I pray that your hearts be flooded with light.”

Other forms and translations speak of “polishing the mirror of the Heart” and “cleansing the eyes (and ears) of the Heart.”

Even attuning with such a phrase … I pray that your heart be flooded with light , or may the eyes and ears of my Heart be cleansed … gives us a sense of what it feels like to attune to the Divine vibe-stream, by any name.

With so much unrest and turmoil happening around and within us, opening our hearts to Light and Love, aligning and attuning with the “Divine Vibe” as we envision it, can be both our shelter from the storm and our guiding star through it.

Attuned, aligned, with our hearts washed with light, we are more relaxed and open to Wisdom, intuition, a sense of right action, loving thought and behavior … all of the “right brain” ways the Divine speaks to and moves through us.

May your heart be flooded with light, and may it illuminate your Way.

Love+Blessings,
Jamie

The creative adventure of ‘uprooting from false ground’

We don’t always see tension, transition, or life shifts as an invitation to creative adventure, do we?

It can be hard when we’re caught up in the stress of change or that place of creative tension — standing at the precipice of the Unknown, or being cooked in the crucible of it — to see the possibilities for something new and wonderful wanting to be born and experienced, and to give ourselves over to it.

No matter how many times I’ve been immersed in the creative process, or found myself in that tense, creative transition-space between something ending and something new beginning, I’ve felt the tension and an almost unbearable restlessness in it.

After all, creativity and stepping into the Unknown take a lot of courage, along with a sense of heartful conviction and a strong vision. We find all of these within us, though it may seem at times that one or all have temporarily gone missing and we move forward one Faith-step after another.

There have been times, in that ‘Unknown’ place, when I’ve retreated to the known and seemingly comfortable. There have been times, too, when there was no retreating to the ‘known and comfortable’ because it no longer existed, so the creative adventure of the Unknown was the territory in which I found myself, like it or not.

Sometimes, I’ve found the courage to wait there in that tension, be enveloped by the Unknown, and let some new thing find expression through me.

When I’ve found my way to the latter, it’s because I’ve immersed myself in the inspiration of …

Continue reading …

Wise Women and Mid-Life (Re)Blooming

Many of us have experienced, or are experiencing, a sort of radical rebirth, a reincarnation within this incarnation.

We’re living in uber-transformative times, so perhaps it comes as no surprise that transformation around us happens through transformation within us, even as circumstances seem to conspire to nudge us into that change.

For generations of women before us — our mothers, grandmothers, great-grandmothers and before — societal constrictions made such radical transformations difficult, if not impossible.

Even with these restrictions, there were many remarkable women who were transformed, and whose wisdom, words, and actions inspired transformation in others.

It’s always inspiring to me, having experienced such a wild transformation — that Inanna-Persephone death and rebirth — during the decade of my 40s, to see examples of other mid-life ‘re-bloomers’: women, and men, who truly came into new purpose and life-work at mid-life.

This morning, two wonderful and inspiring wise-women come to inspire: Hildegard of Bingen and Florence Scovel Shinn.

Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) was a Benedictine Abbess, a mystic who was called “Sybil of the Rhine” for her power of vision and prophecy. While she had experienced visions from the time she was a small girl, she lived in a time when such things were as likely to be attributed to the ‘devil’ as to Divine inspiration.

She was 42 years old when she had a vision that instructed her to begin writing about the visions and guidance she was receiving. Still hesitant, she resisted the guidance initially, until she received encouragement from several supporters in the Church and finally began to give expression to the visions.

Hildegard’s descriptions of her visionary experiences are very similar to other descriptions of activated Shakti — the powerful, creative Feminine (for more about this listen in to my Feminine Mojo Show with Teri Degler on “the Divine Feminine Fire”, and other shows on the Feminine as well).

Having experienced “the Divine Light” through her senses — the wisdom and feeling of her body — Hildegard poured forth the creative energy of Shakti, the Divine Feminine, in music, art, wisdom, healing and herbal wisdom, and prophecy. Shakti-fed brilliance, coming into full expression starting in her 40s.

Florence Scovel Shinn (1871-1940) lived more than half of her life during a time when women in the United States weren’t even allowed to vote. She was an actress, artist, and illustrator whose life took a radical turn after her divorce at age 41.

During her 40s, rebirthing herself following the devastating ‘surprise’ of her divorce, Scovel Shinn left behind her former life as an artist and cultivated a metaphysical wisdom. She self-published her first book at age 54.

She became a wisdom teacher for what would later become known as ‘New Thought’, and her teachings influenced many of the Unity, Religious Science, and other New Thought teachers who would become well-known after her death.

If we had more information about her experience, we might see the trail of Shakti creative-fire as the source of her rebirth and creative expression, too.

Unity Minister Ernest Wilson, quoted in The Writings of Florence Scovel Shinn, wrote, “She never prepared for a lecture…and she depended on freewill offerings at the classes and in counseling sessions in (her) Fifth Avenue apartment. She lived, you might say, by ‘invisible means of support.’”

In other words, she walked her talk.

Over those years as a metaphysical ‘New Thought’ teacher, she gave many public ‘talks’, saw many clients, published other writings, which are still in distribution and still inspiring thousands.

These are just a few of the women — and men like Carl Jung — who were recreated, ripened, and rebirthed through the experiences of mid-life transformation. They speak to us, inspire us, and guide us as we move through similar transformations and rebirths now.

With Joy and Gratitude,

Jamie

Enter and cultivate your inner Garden of the Feminine with The Academy of the Divine Feminine.

See the original version of this Feminine Mojo blog entry with images of the Zhulong symbol of regeneration, and pics of Hildegard and Florence.

Behind the Scenes with ‘Not Yet’

When?

That’s a question I hear from quite a few people. “When will this craziness stop?” “When will my efforts bear fruit?” “When will the money start flowing in again?” “When will it get easier?” “When will things go back to ‘normal’?”

“When….?”

I’ve asked this question a lot, too, along with a litany of other questions, so I truly understand the curiosity, anticipation, impatience, and often the anxiety and fear that feed the question, “When…?”

It’s an ‘in between’ question, when we’ve got things happening behind the scenes; or when we’re waiting for the signs that the seeds we’ve planted and have been nurturing for what seems like forever will (finally) show their green sprouts.

Or we’ve been in an ‘everything’s falling apart’ cycle (for what feels like forever) and are feeling the fatigue and despair of it, and so we’re full of “When?” because there are bills to pay, our gut is clenched with panic, and our very sanity seems to hinge on the promise of new growth.

For me — and judging from the newsletters I receive and the people I speak with, for a lot of us — there has been a more behind-the-scenes vibe happening: a deep watching, listening, and waiting; and a more spartan, discerning movement into action.

My sense was that for quite a few empaths, teachers, healers, the great drawing inward and downward was a key theme for most of 2012 and into early 2013.

Last year, it was as if much work had been done in the years leading to the much-talked-about 2012 December Solstice, and for months before it the Listening and Watching started taking root.

After the Solstice — with the Earth still turning — it was as though there was a great exhale of relief in the collective consciousness and energy field, as if there had been an equally great, anxiety-filled holding-of-breath to see what would really happen as 2012 unfolded and ended.

Since then, just as when you do exhale a long-held breath, there’s a pause. The pause, the stillness, that’s always present (but not as often noticed) between breathing in and breathing out.

It’s felt to me, too, that this has been a time of recalibration, integration, and a sort of refocusing (such great words for a Mercury and Saturn retrograde period!). Have you felt it?

For empaths in particular — those who are wired to be more sensitive to subtle (and not so subtle) energies and whose work on the planet at this time is one of helping to facilitate the great Shift — it’s been a turbulent and challenging time.

Imagine that you’ve been tossed around a very turbulent sea and then suddenly the water goes glassy-flat and still. WTF? is a pretty natural question, among others (“Will this last?” What’s next?”).

And this is on the inner, energetic landscape. The external circumstances of our lives may still seem crazy-wild, unsettled, or in obstruction or deconstruction mode.

This is why the in-between question of “When?” often does have the impatience, frustration, and outright fear behind it. There’s a tension to it, and we feel our own and no doubt others’ tension, too.

Though Imbolc (early February’s cross-quarter time) has come and gone, it seems to me that we’re in Imbolc Time right through to the Spring Equinox in later March. And Imbolc is a gestating time; a time that promises the greening while it’s still cold and dark.

Wherever you are in the world, there is an Imbolc Time in the creative cycle of our lives. Even if it’s Lammas in the Southern Hemisphere, you might be experiencing an Imbolc Time personally, where the growth in your life has seemingly gone still and you’re still waiting for what’s emerging next.

For me, though I’ve been busy with several clients and the usual ‘chop wood, carry water’ of the days, most of the other ‘work’ has gone on behind the scenes — a flurry of writing, but not yet time to ‘put it out there’. A flurry of reflection, musing, and insight, but not yet time to ‘do something specific with it’.

Waiting — trusting the pull of ‘right timing’ — is challenging, but I know from experience that pushing prematurely or resisting the natural timing doesn’t help, and often seems to create more ‘issues’ than it solves.

In lovely synchronicity, I came across Glenys Livingstone’s Triple Spiral article mentioning Imbolc as a time of ‘Not Yet’.

She asks, “Can we bear witness to the Not Yet,” the necessary womb-time for what is gestating and will come into birth in its right timing? Or will we give in to our impatience and fear and push prematurely and too hard, hurting ourselves and perhaps jeopardizing the healthiest, best-timed birthing?

So, yes, “But when?” is the natural question, and the rather frustrating answer is usually, “In its own perfect time.”

What can (or do) you do to ‘bear witness’ to the Not Yet, to keep an equilibrium, nurture your patience and faith, ease and soothe your fear and anxiety, and stay open to the inspiration of the in-between?

I shared a few of my favorite practices — though I’m often called to improvise, too — in the Sophia’s Children blog entry on “Calming Remedies for Amped-Up Energies.”

My ‘behind the scenes’ musings and jottings point ahead to more articles and resources for my fellow empaths and change agents, as well as those who are helping to rebirth the Feminine and thus going through major deconstructing Pluto-Persephone transformations in their lives.

When? Soon. Feel free to send me an email in the meanwhile.

Until then, deep breaths and deep blessing.

Lots of love,
Jamie

Imbolc and Bhrigdhe’s Creative Well

Happy 2013, and Happy Imbolc.

Imbolc was the name given to this time of year by the Celtic ancestors, as they marked the midpoint between the Winter Solstice and Spring Equinox.

That reminder of coming Spring (and fading Winter) was a pretty big deal, in a region where it got plenty cold, and a time when there wasn’t the ease of electricity, central heating, a gas stove and electric fridge, or a chock-full grocery store!

Yet it’s truly relevant in our high-tech times, too, where ‘modern conveniences’ abound but meaning and a sense of purpose are more confused than ever.

The name, Imbolc, referred to ‘in the belly’ — that which is born in the Spring is ‘in the belly’, gestating, readying itself for birth, whether Spring lambs or Spring itself.

This was Bhrigdhe’s time, too, both the Goddess and the Saint (Brigit*) of those who celebrated Imbolc.

In the beginning of a new calendar year, with the New Moon (February 9-10) and Lunar New Year, it’s a perfect month for tuning into and envisioning what’s ‘in the belly’, what’s gestating, what’s stirring for you.

Authentically, needless to say.

To tap into the Holy Magic of the season, align with the energies of the season and of Bhrigdhe Herself.

I’ve written lots on both, so I’ll link back to those musings on Imbolc & Bhrigdhe (and I may share more musings on these themes in days to come).

Read about Bhrigdhe and her “habit of the wildest bounty” and about Imbolc and my own challenge kindling my ancestral connection to Bhrigdhe.

Academy members and supporters also have access to two audio programs on Bhrigdhe and the wellspring of vision and creativity.

By the end of this month, the macro-energies will be serving up a mega-dose of the Piscean-Neptunean Big-Love and fuzzed-boundaries juju. Here’s a review of this energetic; stay tuned for fresh updates.

Wishing you a wellspring of inspiration and creativity, and a bounty of wellbeing, in this Month of Bhrigdhe and through the coming year.

Love & Happy Mojo,
Jamie

* There are various spellings for Bhrigdhe – pronounced Bree-jhuh. Other common spellings include Bridget, Brigid, Brigit, and so on.