Posts Tagged ‘idiots and assholes’

These are 2 of the 3Q’s, as interviewed by Rachelle Mee Chapman of Magpie Girl and Flock, her wonderful SoulSpa membership. http://flock.magpie-girl.com/

 Q. You are a soulcare practitioner with spiritual gifts for healing. In a recent blog post you wrote about how you wanted to attend your community’s Pastoral Alliance, but were advised against it because that group already saw you as a witch and a danger to the community. Can you say a few words about self-definition, and how this experience has influenced the terms and ideologies you use for yourself?

 I have always felt my connection to the All That Is, and felt secure in that (with the exception of a few years of submitting to the tutelage of a “spiritual teacher” during a vulnerable time in my life, which threw me off track faster than anything else has.)  My concept of Self since a very, very young age (my first memory of direct experience of the Divine was at age two) was that I was kind, connected, caring, and wanted to be of service.  I started doing ritual at age 3 (that I can remember), and I knew how to manipulate my energy with my mind at age 11.  I felt part of a loving Divinity, even though the world seemed pretty confusing.  The messages I got from other people were sometimes quite different than my experience, and I did take on some of those false identities as a child, but I am removing those labels as I grow older and wiser.  I am not interested in being defined by others, but in claiming definitions for myself that feel right to me.  I’m happy to say that the core self-identity has remained intact.

Transparency has always been a part of my walk in the world. I have not felt it right to hide who I am…I thought it was a good quality to have!  Truth and integrity (inside matches outside) are my highest values, I think.  I still cannot tell an untruth; my body won’t let me!  But telling the whole truth in every situation does not always serve.  I think I have been somewhat naive and unprotective of myself in that I would be very open in any situation.  Being willing to expose myself in any situation, which seems like throwing myself before the bus in order to get the attention of the people on the bus.  Not a very good strategy!  That was partially informed by growing up with very few boundaries with alcoholic parents, and partially informed by wanting to be accepted by everyone. 

 This occurrence in which I was identified as a threat to religious congregations in the small village where I as living has brought me many gifts, perhaps the biggest being a maturing, or ripening process.  I am seeing that it is not modeling good caretaking of myself to throw myself in front of the bus.  I am seeing it is not kind to me to put myself in situations where I am not loved and appreciated for who I am.  I am seeing that it isn’t always supportive to put the WHOLE truth out there because not everyone is ready to handle it.  I would never deliberately lie, but I may be more discerning in the way I tell the truth about who I am.  If my intention is truly to be of service in this world, then I must feel where my openings are, and go there.  It was also a lesson in going where you are invited, going where the love is.

I have determined that the most accurate thing I can say to folks is that I am a human living life in a spirited way, and that I act as a guide for folks going through spiritual transformation. 

Q. What do you think is your “growing edge” in your work as a spiritual advisor? What upcoming projects are you excited about?

 I am coming out of a 1.5 year sabbatical, in which I went through deep metamorphosis and have emerged into an expanded reality for myself.  It is very exciting to be getting to know this woman I am evolving into and yet the kernel of her has been there all along!

My growing edge seems to be about claiming my power as a woman who chooses to embody the Sacred Feminine.  I believe in balance, very deeply, and I know that I have both masculine and feminine energies within.  I believe those energies are at their best when they are mature and working in cooperation.  However, what I have seen in my sabbatical is that the masculine energy within me and that I see reflected in the world is one that is immature, needing healing in order for the world to come into balance.  I have also been shown (and experienced) that the Sacred Feminine within me is very, very strong and very, very old and that She knows what to do if I allow Her to come forward in my life. 

What has been shown to me is that the Sacred Feminine within each of us is calling to come forward, and that She is what will bring the world into a place of healing that immature masculine.  When the masculine becomes the Divine Masculine, the exquisite dance that occurs between He and the Sacred Feminine is breathtaking and oh, so right.  This information that has been gifted to me has brought me to tears many times; it is filling a hole I did not realize I had, and revealing the truth of my divine nature. 

So I am teaching what I know after many years of experience of self reflection and trial and error…the school of life has been a great teacher for me.  I teach classes in Sacred Feminine spirituality, integration of shadow aspects of self, shamanic art, working with subtle energies in the body as well as working in conscious partnership with other aspects of creation.  I teach what the people want to know. 

My indigenous roots have informed a real feeling of connection with all Creation; I belong to this earth and I know that if the human species is to survive, we must return to the ways of balance that our indigenous ancestors modeled.  I have been called a Wise Woman by my indigenous contemporaries; I’m humbled by this recognition of being a woman who has walked the hard roads and who came through alive with wisdom to offer her people. 

I am privileged to teach what I have learned to other women (and men, if they ask me!) in the form of classes, teleclasses, workshops, retreats, groups, and my writing.  My “Faces of Her”teleclass is coming up Feb. 18^th-it is a 3 session teleclass in which I will be teaching about various faces of the Sacred Feminine, both light/solar and dark/lunar, and how working with these aspects of Her in our daily life can bring immense awareness of ourselves as powerful and carrying a legacy that is asking to be born right now on this earth. It is an overview, a light touch, for folks to determine if they want to invite the Sacred Feminine within to be part of their lives.

My last post has struck a nerve for some of you, and I’m glad to know I’m far from alone in critically examining this word “witch” and trying to understand what it means in an original sense, rather than a pop culture, commercial, colonial, Christian or patriarchal sense (did I leave anybody out?)

 I feel the need to explain why being called a witch is something that stopped me in my tracks.  I have been proud to be a rebel or outsider all of my life, not being willing to be defined by any category or fit into the main stream ideas of what a woman is supposed to be.  I have flaunted my independence, and happily yelled “THANKS!” when someone told me I was weird or different.  However, unlike when a fellow yelled at me from his passing car, “DYKE!” in my buzz cut college phase (I was fine with that mistaken label), being called a “witch” felt too close to home, insidious, and brought up a sinking feeling of terror. 

 I couldn’t understand why I would feel that way in terms of my actual life.  I have never identified myself as a witch, although in my spiritual practice I do some things that might raise the eyebrows of bible thumpers (such as meditation, using homeopathy and herbs to treat illness, and dowsing, a very useful skill I learned from an old woman in the mountains of North Carolina). Of course, my shamanic work could be classified as witchy were it not for its connections to the indigenous populations…or are they “witches”, too?

 While I lived in the village where I was “identified as a public enemy” (before I knew anything about these behind-the-hand remarks about me) I had intuitive flashes in which an angry mob would come drag me out of my office, grab me by my hair and drag me down the street.  The intuitive vision would stop there, not revealing the fate of the woman I seemed to be in the inner vision.  But the feeling of cold stones weighing down the innards of my belly did not easily or soon cease. 

This was not an entirely new sensation for me.  Back in Asheville NC, where we lived for 7 years, I had multiple odd spontaneous awarenesses that involved flashes of me being disemboweled, drowned, or beheaded.  One such instance was preceded by a physical break down of my right shoulder…for weeks it got more and more sore and incapacitated.  After many attempts to have it corrected through chiropractic and massage work (and Advil), in a strange fit of inner knowing, I paused in the living room on my way to take some laundry upstairs and asked silently what my body was telling me. 

Giving in to the motion, my body then took over…I began to move as if somebody much bigger than me was rearranging me like a puppet.  My inner eye saw a lovely young woman with reddish blond curls and a long flowered dress being brought forcibly into a crowd of people.  She must have been 18 or 19 years old.  She was pretty, but had a gleam in her eye and a set to her jaw. My right arm went slammed tight behind my back, fist up behind my heart.  I was forced down to my knees.  My head was pushed down so that I was crouched over.  In my mind’s eye, I saw a bloody stump of a tree, where I was now resting my chest.  As my eyes looked down on red ground, I heard and felt a stalwart, “I will never let this happen to me again.”  Then the “memory” faded, and miraculously, my right shoulder was completely cured.  Never another pain.

I stood there in a bit of a daze.  What the hell had just happened?  Was that girl me?  I wasn’t scared; more I had the feeling of knowing that my body had revealed something to me, and because I gave it permission, something had been released.  It was a pivotal experience affirming my life philosophy, which I have incorporated deeply since, that our bodies are the key to so much wisdom.

Was what happened a playing-out of some kind of cellular or collective memory? Or did I actually live through that?  When I was called “witch” in the tiny town in Colorado where I used to live, was it bringing forth another wave of memories that were asking to be acknowledged and released through me?  If so, what did this mean to me personally?  Why is this such a prominent and repeated feature in my life?

And that’s why I am asking these questions of all of you wise people, and why I feel the need to explore this line of thought.  What is a witch, really?  Where did the word come from, what are its origins?  And when did it become a word for something that was evil, scary, and needing to be put to death?  

And do any of you have these spontaneous memories or experiences?  If so, I would be so honored to hear them.

…cause I’ve been called one!  Seriously!

The town we used to live in, small as it was, had several churches.  There is a meeting of the spiritual leaders of those churches called the Pastoral Alliance.  And, as it goes in small towns, there is not a lot to talk about except for gossip. 

One of the more enlightened pastors of this group (who has since been fired from his position at his church and moved elsewhere) spoke to me quietly at a party about something that made me sit up and take notice.  Here was the conversation:

Licia: “I would really like to meet with other spiritual leaders in the community to exchange ideas and support one another.  It gets lonely sometimes to be one that folks come to for spiritual guidance.”

Cool Pastor: (squirming uncomfortably)

L:  “Is there any kind of support group or meeting of spiritual leaders here?”

CP: (falteringly) “Yessssss…”

L: (excited) “Oh, do you think I could come?!”

CP:  (sheepishly) “No, I don’t think that would be a good idea.”

L:  (genuinely puzzled) “Why not?”

CP:  “Because the Pastoral Alliance is afraid of you.”

L:  “HUH?!  …Am I not the nicest person that you know?”

CP:  “Yes, you are a very nice person.  But they have had a meeting recently in which you were identified as a public enemy.”

L:  (kind of laughing, thinking it is a joke) “WHAT?!”

CP:  (looking very sad) “They have read some of your writing, and your beliefs are very threatening to their beliefs.  They feel that you are dangerous to their congregations.” 

L: (stunned) “Wow.”

CP:  “I’m sorry.”

L:  “What century is this again?”

I learned later that my children were taunted at school.  “Your mom is a witch.”  And not just by other children!  Not one person in that little town had the balls (or ovaries) to come say this to my face, but they sure were talking about it.

It’s made me think a lot since then.  What is a witch anyway?  I learned from my early Christian preschool conditioning and the Wizard of Oz that witches are bad, Bad, BAD. When I hear the word and me in the same sentence, my blood runs cold.  But why?

I am writing a long piece about this that will continue, but I needed to get this out there for some feedback.  In my quest for truth, consciousness and challenging the status quo, I want to know:

What is your definition of the word “Witch?”  Here’s what dictionary.com had to say:

Witch –noun

I’m not buying it. 

Let me hear from you…I really want to know!