I debuted my art show last night, “The Journey of the Masculine through Shadow and Light” at my studio here in Tallahassee.  A part of the installation was a story that I channeled that morning and printed up, placing it underneath the 50 images that comprised this show.  I believe I was guided to make this art and to bring through this story in order to create a book.  However, I want to share The Story with you now. 

“Once upon a time, there was peace. 

The Masculine principle desired to expand its knowing of itself.  It began by making choices; these choices compressed All of Creation, towards the end of the Masculine knowing itself. 

The compressions resulted in the Masculine principle fracturing the world.  Manifestations included the subjugation of nature and the Masculine principle’s partner, the Feminine. 

In coming to know itself, the Masculine revealed the need for balance. 

All of Creation supported, in love, the Masculine’s desire to know itself.  All of Creation was in agreement with the expressions of the out-of-balance world that the Masculine created.  So, when the time came to correct the imbalance, the Feminine stepped in to bring balance. 

The Feminine principle held the space within which the Masculine began to mend the fractures.  The Feminine invoked the powers of balance to assist in the mending.  The return created a stirring in the hearts of humankind, which opened a door to a side of themselves they had forgotten. 

The return of the Feminine created a choice – to continue in the imbalance, or to embrace a new wholeness.  The choice became more and more apparent as the worlds collided; friction, the result of two coming together to become one, was the medium to invoke the choice. 

The friction became so prevalent as to capture All of Creation’s interest.  Spectators and supporters attended the Great Re-Balancing; across the farthest reaches The Story was felt and held.  The love that emanated from All Creation provided an alchemical support which increased the intensity of the friction. 

The increased friction acted like sandpaper, destroying old patterns.  Cleansing and re-ordering became the way of life.  The new wholeness was achieved through the union of the Feminine and the Masculine principles. 

Balance again reigned.”

What was interesting to me was that this channeled story has a happy ending, as if from a larger perspective, all of the pain and suffering that has resulted from the break between the masculine and feminine were just part of the “play”, and that in the end it really is just experience. 

However, the 50 images I was guided to create tell a different story…in graphic detail, I was shown over and over the fracturing and the pain and subjugation mentioned in The Story, yet there was no happy ending in the 50 images.  I was told that the human version of the story is told by the images, and that we’re not at the end yet.

I was so grateful for the considered questions and responses that folks had.   One man whispered quietly to me, “Thank you for not blaming the men for everything.”  It broke my heart, and made me glad I have access to another version of the story.

A flood of work is coming through me, and it seems to be very much in examination of the dynamic between the feminine and the masculine, both within each of us and in the collective whole.  I am beginning to see that part of my soul’s desire on the earth is to bring healing to the masculine through the embodiment of the Sacred Feminine.  I am brought to tears with this knowing. 

all contents copyright Licia Berry, 2010

Soul Surrender, collage by Licia Berry, 2008

“Love is an attempt at penetrating another being, but it can only succeed if the surrender is mutual”. - Octavio Paz

I’ve been known as an independent and willful person since I was very young; one of the most pervasive images I have been given of my own toddlerhood is of me sticking my chin out and saying “I want to do it myself”.  These days we call that a “spirited child”, and know better than to think of these qualities as “bad”, or that the child is trying to be a trouble maker.

That stick-to-it-iveness has gotten me through some tough times, and so I am thankful that it has been a part of my being.  It was a way to prop myself up when there wasn’t anyone on the outside holding me up.

Over the years, though, I noticed that there were times that called for a softer touch, a more melting center.  When I began to consciously look at my own spirit nature, it seemed that there was something larger within that was asking me to surrender.

Surrender?  Not me.

When I heard the word surrender, I thought of waving the white flag.  I thought of giving up.  I thought of being wrong and “I have failed in my efforts”.  But this is not what my Spirit thinks.

Surrender, according to my conversations with my wise inner voice, is the act of allowing myself to become one with the greater Whole, or Love.  It is laying down arms, letting go my need to be separate, merging once again with the larger flow of life.

This has felt like a safe way to conceptualize surrender to me.  I don’t trust others enough (most of the time) to surrender myself to them or their agenda, but I DO trust Spirit enough to surrender IN it.  Sometimes Spirit will ask me to surrender, and I will go kicking and screaming down the lane, but when I stop and realize it is only Love that wants to claim me, I stop fighting and it is such a relief.

But it is a choice!  I know from hard won experience that I can choose to stay closed off in my little box because it feels safer to me.  Sometimes I have been right to do that because conditions outside my little environment were NOT safe.  But other times, I have missed out on some good stuff because I was so busy defending myself or hanging on to an old way of being that no longer served me.

So the Octavio Paz quote above has special meaning to me.  Love cannot penetrate me, nor can I wake up to the fact that Love is actually the core of what I am, unless I am willing to open and soften and let it be.

I had an interaction last night that was such a blessing to me; I went to a cookie exchange party here in the valley and got into a conversation with a woman that was simultaneously sad and affirming for me, causing me to get even clearer on what I want for myself and this beautiful world.

This woman solicited me to help reform our local Goddess Group (an informal group of local women who  enjoy getting together for ceremony, play, and being with each other) into something more “serious”.  She is a proponent of one of the “new age” spiritual philosophies and she would like to see the group become much more like this philosophy.  I asked her what she meant by “serious”; I am all for intentionally working with the global energies (such as the full moon) and expanding love into the universe from a grateful and intentional heart, but I am not interested in getting “heavy” or dogmatic, if that’s what is meant by “serious”.  I told her that I have found that lightness and play and humor and love are a more effective tool towards feeling our divine connection and therefore shifting the vibration of the planet.  She then seemed to be triggered by what I said, and went into her philosophy that she has learned, which is that if we are not taking things “seriously”, we are allowing our ego to dominate us.  She said, “If we don’t negate our ego, we will never grow“.       

WOW.  Such a clear picture did I get from this comment!  A picture of sadness, self hatred, judgment of self and others, self-flagellation.  It was shocking and so very sad at the same time.  I got a picture of how many of us try to pretend some part of ourselves is not really there, and over time, how we forget our wholeness.  I got a picture of the earth, and millions of people, who in their misguided attempts to “be spiritual” try to kill off parts of themselves that they were born with, that are necessary in order to be alive.  I heard a voice saying “This is how wars start.”  I got images of people of different cultures over time saying “….I negate you…..you do not exist….your beliefs are wrong….I negate you.”  I got a clear understanding that if we are making war on ourselves by negating a part of ourselves, of course we are going to make war on others, whether in physical combat or in arguments over “what is more spiritual”.  To try to negate a part of oneself is like cutting off your own limb.  It was an all encompassing vision that has stayed with me since last night.

I took all of this to the aspects of All Creation that I know as angelic and this is what they had to say this beautiful morning:

“Sweet One, your instinct is correct from our standpoint.  You have children and you have seen with your own experience how if you ignore a needy child they just get louder, they up the ante, they will not be negated.  Over time, if they are repeatedly ignored, they will give up their fight to their birthright of being seen, heard and acknowledged, but they have closed away a part of themselves in the process.  This is what occurs when an individual tries to shut off a part of themselves….that aspect of their divinity gets louder, it wants to be heard, until over time a door shuts inside and the person forgets they have that part.  But the beauty and the challenge is that the part they have tried so hard to negate is now unconsciously “driving the train” of their life. 

It is not possible for you to be in the earth plane, in a physical body, without an ego.  The ego is a necessary part of your Being and the beautiful design of being in physical form.  You can no more negate your ego than you can negate your existence.  It is not possible to be in physical form without an ego.  You see, in the grand design, the ego is the information gatherer; the ego processes the data of life in the physical plane, then gives that information to the rest of your infinitely vast being.  You ego is a valuable part of the multi-leveled and fabulous individuated consciousness of Prime Source that you represent. 

It is human invention that a person must “kill the ego” in order to be spiritual, just as it is human invention to judge something as right or wrong.  There is no angelic presence that will tell a human being to negate the ego, as it is our very essence to be unconditionally loving (Prime Source is unconditionally loving, too).  In addition, it is an illusion to think that you CAN negate the ego.  As you witnessed in the one who brought this to you, her ego ran rampant in her extreme desire to negate it.  What part of herself is making war on herself, her grand Spirit?  We think not.  This situation makes us chuckle a bit. 

It may be worth your time to have compassion for one who would wish a part of themselves dead; only one who is in quite a bit of pain would wish such a thing.  We have a question; how is one who holds themselves to such a rigid standard able to grow?

We advocate an appropriate partnership between the ego and the vastness of who you are.  We of course see that the desire to negate the ego is a backlash to the many on the earth plane who allow their ego to be the ONLY part of themselves making the decisions, regardless of the input of their Soul, Spirit and their Source (and of course their angelic helpers!)  However, one extreme swing of the pendulum in opposition is just as imbalanced as the other.  It is our suggestion that humans choose to come into balance, to choose right relationship between their ego and the largeness that they truly are.  We see that attempting to negate a part of oneself is not life affirming, to you or to the Whole.   

Any aspect of yourself that you attempt to destroy, hide, suppress, or negate will come back to be acknowledged in larger ways, and primarily unconsciously, because you have not been loving enough to yourself to acknowledge that aspect consciously; so it will make itself known in ways you don’t notice.  The analogy of a needy child is appropriate here again; if the child cannot get what it needs from the appropriate source, it will seek what it needs elsewhere, and sometimes in ways that are not life affirming.  It will find a way to be heard, or die.

You are magnificent, multi-faceted Beings; do you truly believe that your Source would have made you the way you are, only to have you reject certain parts as unworthy?  Would your loving Source have intentionally created “flawed” beings?  Do you mistrust the wisdom of Prime Source so much? 

Our suggestion is that you love all aspects of yourselves unconditionally, as we and Prime Source love you.  You are so very dear and precious to us, and it is our great honor to know you, an extension of ourselves.  Thank you for this opportunity to speak to this.  We love you, dearest.”

The Stolen Mother Moon

from a story that Clarissa Pinkola Estes tells on “warming the stone child”, worshipfully transcribed by Licia Berry

This is about a light, a certain kind of light that is represented by the moon, a psychic light, a cool light, it has some distance to it, not the hyper-tropic mother that is all over her children every time their nose is running they might have pneumonia, this is a mother that is a little more aloof, a little more circumspect, she does not so much love by showering love as she loves by guiding, by bringing consciousness out of the darkness.

There was this village, a wonderful village, and everything happened just the way it was supposed to happen, and all the children were terrific and all the mothers and fathers loved each other, except, as there always must be in the psyche and in fairy tales, there was this one thing that was very, very adverse…..this beautiful, harmonious village was surrounded by a moat of black, murky bogs.  It was dark there always, and it stank because everything was rotting.  It was for that reason, the darkness of those quagmires and quicksand, that the people depended on the light of the moon to guide them at night.  Some nights, she did not come, and on those nights the bogs were filled with treachery, because there were evil things that lived there.  Things that live in the darkest corners of humans’ minds would come out at night and lead the poor, struggling travelers with no light into the quagmires and drown them. 

Well, it turned out that several people died in the course of a very short amount of time.  When the Moon Mother learned of this, she was filled with sorrow, for she cared for humans.  In fact she was so concerned she decided she would come to earth and see for herself.  So when the dark of the month came, she stepped onto a slow shooting star and landed at the edge of the marshes.  She wore a black cape pulled around her so that no light could escape, and for as far as she could see, the bogs were like black mirrors, with a few sparse willows sticking up here and there, and the smell of muck everywhere.

Around the bottom of her cape there was a bright rim of light; she saw that and she pulled her cape even tighter.  It was so cold she was trembling, and she feared the evil ones, just as we all do, but she loved the human soul more, and so she began her investigation, guided by the little golden light that leaked through her cape over her beautiful white feet.

She felt her way through the grass with the dank ponds on the left and the quagmires on the right. And just as she had thought she got the lay of the land, all of the sudden, she felt a vine across her ankles, and too late to hold herself, she began to fall forward.  She reached for a twining tree, the kind under the control of the evil ones, and sure as she grabbed its branches, it sent out tendrils around her wrists and her ankles, holding her as though with manacles.  And the more she struggled, the tighter it held her.  And there she was in the blackest dark, shivering and straining. 

She heard a voice calling from far off, “help me, please help”.  She listened and the cry came nearer and nearer, and she heard footfalls stumbling; at last by the dim light of the stars, she saw a haggard, despairing face with fearful eyes and she knew it was a poor soul who had lost its way, and was floundering on to his death. 

And the traveler now caught sight of the glimmer of light from the captive moon, and made his way toward the light, thinking it meant help, but there was a quagmire right in front of the moon.  She was filled with sorrow because she was luring him with her little tiny light, luring him to his death.  Frantic to warn him, she struggled until her hood fell back, and her dazzling hair lit the black waters; a flood of yellow, precious light of the Moon Mother glinted and the whole was as bright as day. How relieved the traveler was to see the evil ones rush back into their underwater holes. 

But the moon struggled against the branches which held her tighter, and she was so glad he was safe, but the traveler ran to the edge of the marsh so quickly, with such haste and relief that he forgot to wonder about the wondrous thing that had just occurred.  And the Mother Moon sank, exhausted into the mud, and as she did, her head fell onto her breast and her hood fell back over her hair and all became darkness again.

And the vile things that love the dark came too, then.  They came with a kind of whisper chatter… “we’ll get her now, we’ll get her now, now we’ll kill her, yes, we’ll kill her.”  They gathered around the Moon Mother, snarling and kicking and grasping, and they drove her into the ground, they who hated humans.  At last, no more light shown across those dark waters.  The One who gave light and even more, the One who shown down on mothers nursing their babies, the One who made sleeping women kiss their lovers’ backs, the One who put words into the dreams of poets, that One was pushed deep into the mud.  The evil ones didn’t care about mothers or babies; they didn’t care about lovers or poets.  The Moon Mother let one last ray of light zig zag over the waters before she disappeared completely.  The evil ones rolled a great boulder over her grave and danced a crazy dance on top of it.

On nights there was no light to guide, and so many people became lost, and so many children became orphaned, and so many people suffered, that the villagers decided they must go and find what had become of the moon.  Armed with torches and clubs, they trekked through the night into the bog, sinking down into the wet and slimy grass all the way up to their knees, and cold and wet they continued on.  The evil things were about and surrounded them, scratching and clawing at them, but the flames from their torches kept them safe.  

And they came to a great boulder, and they said they did not think this boulder was in this place before.  There was a little lip of light all the way around it that shown whiter than white.  With great excitement they lifted and they hauled and they tugged until the boulder rolled away.  And then staring down into what seemed like the most beautiful face they had ever seen, they saw eyes filled with the love of humanity.

  The light rose up, lighting their faces first from beneath and then straight on and then finally from the top as the Moon Mother escaped from her prison and climbed the dark staircase back to the sky, where now, on most nights, she travels across the sky with her hood turned down and with her radiant light everywhere. 

And on those few, now predictable nights, when she veils herself in grey and does not shine, travelers have learned to stay by the hearth and wait until she shows the way again.  

I have been ruminating on marriage and commitment to a Beloved Other recently since I celebrated my 23^rd anniversary with my sweetie, Peter.  I know there are many opinions about marriage as an “institution”, and I’m not here to argue with anyone or convince anyone about marriage being a desired state to live in.  I just want to talk about mine.

Growing up with my parents, I saw marriage at its best as unreliable and unstable, and at its worst, as a torture chamber.  My mother and father eloped when they were quite young, and my mother had me when she was a mere 18 years of age.  She went directly from her father’s house to her husband’s arms, and chose not to have time in her life to prove to herself that she could make it on her own.  Neither my mother nor my father had the benefit of time and experience to grow and mature in themselves before commitment to one another; therefore, they had by default to do that with one another and with their children. 

Their marriage was shaky from the beginning; they were quite infatuated with one another, so that held them together for some years.  But their lack of emotionally maturity caused them to fight with one another; their alcoholism caused them to unconsciously play out mean games, my father the angry dominator, and my mother the crying victim.  Their lack of boundaries emotionally and sexually drove them to have many sexual affairs by the time they divorced after 20 years of marriage.  Their union did not feel holy to me, their concept and modeling of love did not feel divine.  In fact, it felt like the opposite; the environment and climate that their marriage created felt unsafe, chaotic, frightening, even dangerous.  I was relieved that they separated; I wondered why they hadn’t done it sooner.

As I came into the age of wanting to be with another, I was fortunate to be drawn to a young man in my senior year who was still innocent in his own love experience, as I was.  We were able to be gentle and shy in our explorations of what love meant with one another.  It was an ideal first love, I think.  His respect and kindness with me were the complete opposite of the roaring rage of my predator father, who took what he wanted from my mother with a set of his massive jaw, and when she was not available, passed out from drunkenness, or hiding from him, he took it from me.

Later, after the blurry university years where I played out my internalized parental modeling in endless and repetitive fashion, I met my Beloved Peter while applying for a job as a server at a popular Atlanta restaurant.  I was at the end of my rope, completely hopeless in the love relationship department, jaded and burned out.  I had given up; interestingly, it was this surrender that opened the path for Peter and I to SEE one another.

We both tell the story similarly…we saw each other across the room, and there was a sense of recognition.  A feeling of “Oh, THERE you are!”  The feeling I had was of being drawn in to something much larger than myself.  Sure, I could have walked away, but I was curious.  This feeling was different than anything I’d experienced.

It didn’t take very long to understand that we were meant to be together.  On our first date, we walked Piedmont Park together, sharing spiritual philosophies and favorite ice cream flavors.  In the midst of my answering the latest round of “what’s your favorite___”, he said, “I think I’m falling in love with you.”  I just kept talking…to his credit, he bravely said, “Didn’t you hear what I said?  I think I’m falling in love with you!”  This stopped me in my tracks; how could I ignore it now?  This was my clue that this man, this relationship, this love was going to be different.

Oh, the pain of failed love relationships that I carried in my heart!  The sad example of years of mutual hurting that my parents provided, along with my attempts to find love by compromising my body, mind and spirit, had created a defensive and jaded wall around my heart.  This complete honesty from Peter, this innocence and confession of his heart, totally disarmed me.  Both of us threw away the game playing that seems to prevalent in the dating scene, and spoke deep truths to one another.  It was a great relief. 

Some data was still buried deep in my knowing that his honesty awoke.  Once the rusty door to my innermost center was sprung open by his simple offering to love me, an old song came faintly from inside; a clear stream came trickling through until it became a rumble and all but washed away the debris lodged there by my previous messy attempts to create relationship.  Peter was the reminder and personification of my childhood concept of love.  I remember skipping around the dining room table at age 4, pretending my love and best friend was playing with me. I saw him clearly; he had dark hair and eyes, and pale skin.  He loved me utterly; I was the apple of his eye, and he would never knowingly hurt me.  I could trust him completely; he was absolutely safe.  I now saw him in Peter, as if I had known as a little girl that I would find him someday.  Peter was a doorway to my most precious and innocent self, and that old knowing had been rushed to the surface by the purity of his love. 

On an ego level, I fought this for awhile; my skepticism about love and marriage certainly caused me to insist that we live together for two years before we married, and my poor Beloved has had to endure all manner of tests that I unconsciously laid at his feet, opportunities to prove his chivalry and the true mettle of his deep feelings for me.  Much to my great happiness and relief, he has always passed.  

It’s not that we haven’t had our human problems, one of which was my angst very early in our relationship about surrendering my protective ego to the purifying flames of greater love.  “Who will I be if I’m not Licia?” I would ask him with worried brow.  I did not trust Peter’s utter loyalty to me for many years, and still I have attacks of outdated, dark concern that seem to emanate from my dustiest inner file cabinet, memories of the ways my parents hurt each other. 

I feel that we agreed to come together at some level, perhaps the soul, for the purpose of healing one another.  We have had some very hard times; there have been periods in our 23 years together that felt like slogging through deep mud, when the spark and inspiration of our original meeting was all that we could muster to remember why we were together.  But we held on through those times, and it enabled us to grow in our mutual respect and knowing of the magic and integrity of our desire to love more deeply, to bring more of our Spirit to this earthly life.

I have come to see the love relationship, and certainly mine, as a Temple of Initiation, an alchemical cauldron in which we have the daily and moment to moment mirroring of our own self in the Beloved Other’s eyes.  If we seek true growth, if we crave spiritual learning and submission to a Greater Teacher, what better Master than our love relationship?  In the coming together of the two, a third is created; it is the classic Trinity, the union of the polarities, the positive and the negative, the yin and the yang, the Great Father and the Great Mother, or the Divine Masculine and the Divine Feminine.  Call it what you will.  Our mutual awareness of a Third Presence of Holiness created by our coming together, of a larger energy field created by our union has invited, inspired and invoked the best of each of us.  In moments of awareness of this Holiness, neither of us wants to lie or be less than pure with one another because that would be desecrating the union.  

The innocence of this ideal is something I can still feel today….the cockles of my heart know this innocence is real.  It is the divine, pure quality of real love.  It is high in vibration, it flies and dances on wings of rainbow colored light, it lifts and inspires, makes me closer to God/dess, yet causes me to weep in celebration of my earthly body which receives Him and holds Him in my arms.  It is a recognition that my True Love, and yes, that I, are physical representations of the Creator, the Divine Masculine and Feminine, the two poles that unite as one to create the All That Is.

Some people do not believe that there is such a thing as true love, in which both partners come together for the purpose of healing, consciousness, and lifting one another up to their highest potential, but here at our celebration of 23 years together, I am blessed to know better. 

Copyright Licia Berry, 2009

“Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.”~Dr.Seuss

I am of the mind that I am the one who has to live with myself, regardless of whatever anyone else thinks or has to say about it.  That I am the one who has to make discerning choices about my thoughts, my words, my actions, and my life.  Not because they are right for anyone else, but because they are right for me.

Naturally, as a result of my feeling this way, I have run into problems with other people.  I have wondered why….since I was a small child, I have had a clear notion that being curious was natural and that having room and permission to ponder reality was something that was my birthright.  I wondered why other people did not like it that I thought for myself.  Many years of therapy and life experience later, I am starting to understand that lots of people don’t like to think/feel for themselves, and therefore don’t feel comfortable when someone else does not play by the rules of conformity.

I know it takes a lot of courage to be a non-conformist.  To even contemplate change and self-improvement, to challenge one’s own thoughts and feelings, and to reflect and examine oneself requires honesty and a pretty good bit of spine.  I haven’t met a lot of folks who are willing to do this.  I know they exist because I have been blessed to meet a few of them, and the great works of authors and brilliant thinkers that I seek out to read and be inspired by exist.  But in everyday life, I don’t run across a lot of folks I can say are seekers to the extent that I am.

Sometimes I drive myself crazy….I have always been a question asker.  Why are things the way they are?  What makes the universe tick?  Who am I, and is who I am just what people say I am?  How did this (any) situation come into being?  Where do I come from, and where am I going?  As a result of asking LOTS of questions from as early as I can remember, I get a lot of answers.  But it is never enough.  There will always be another question.

Maybe the fact that I am a question asker and a challenger of status quo is annoying to others (it IS).  Maybe the fact that I choose to honor myself by allowing the questions to be asked, and the answers to come, and to trust those inner answers is also threatening to some (IT IS).  Tough.  

It is my belief and understanding that there are many roads to the end destination, whatever that may be.  It’s my understanding that all roads are valid, too.  I don’t believe that there is any one right way to do things, but I do believe that honoring oneself as a source of wisdom is an honorable and truthful way to go; I don’t believe in doing things or thinking things or believing things just because we are told to, or expected to.  To me, everything in all of existence is up for self-examination.

I have watched people from all degrees on the spectrum, whether “conservative” or “liberal”, “republican” or “democrat”, “capitalist” or “environmentalist”, “criminal” or “moral pillar of society”….I have personally seen all points of view be in danger of becoming hardened and lose personal meaning because people give their power away to the belief itself instead of feelign whether the belief continues to be true for them, moment to moment.

And I have watched people become so aligned in a belief that they think it should be the right belief for everybody.

As long as we judge each other, as long as we think the world would be a better place if only it would conform to our beliefs, the world will remain in a state of conflict.  There will never be peace of earth as long as we think that others are wrong for the way they think or believe.  I suppose that peace will only occur when there is room allowed for individuals to feel for themselves what is right for them and not be judged for it.

Dr. Suess was a wise man, in my humble estimation.  The people that love unconditionally, meaning they hold a space of non-judgment and acceptance for others, are the folks I want to hang out with in my life.  They are the ones that matter to me because they are taking the courageous path of listening inside to their inner compass to decide what feels right to them.  The people that don’t like it that I think for myself, do what feels right to ME, are the ones that don’t matter.  I don’t much value what they think.  If they would ask me NOT to be myself in order to make them feel safe or to take care of them emotionally, then they are not the type of person that I respect and look up to in the world.  

Anyone who would ask me to be different in order to make them feel safe is not only asking me to diminish myself, but they are not taking the courageous path to examine WHY they need me to change in order to feel safe.  What is happening inside of themselves that is creating this feeling and desire to be taken care of by another?  Why does their happiness depend on something outside of themselves?

I will not diminish myself to placate or please anyone; I choose to surround myself with people in my life who honor my need to be uniquely me.  All else, bless them, don’t matter.  

“Compliance causes a shocking realization:
To be ourselves causes us to be exiled by many others,
and yet, to comply with what others want causes us to be exiled from ourselves.“

-Clarissa Pinkola Estes 

If you have followed our story at all, you know that we listen to our inner guidance to determine where we are going and where to stay, etc.  This was a skill that we developed as a family during our last Big Trip that served us very well.  As a result of asking for input from the larger picture, God/Spirit/All of Creation, we have had the most magical adventures and met the most marvelous people. 

To navigate through the Los Angeles area, we were guided to stay “north and west” of L.A.  When I looked at the map, I asked about the places I saw there and got a “Yes” on Van Nuys area.…typically, I take the guidance I am given and search online or through other resources for RV parks in that area.  I found two, but one I got a clear “NO” on, and the other was just “Okay”.  We could find no other ideal RV park in the area, so we wound up at Walnut RV Park, where we are squished in like sardines, but it is very quiet and safe, and convenient to lots of amenities.

Jude and Scout, our travel vehicles, and the Lovely Tree

Our trip to the Getty Center was easy and wonderful…we got there early on Saturday and spent four hours enjoying the art, the architecture and the amazing space created there.  I found myself taking photos (which is allowed there, by the way!) of Madonna and Holy Family art…hmmmm, wonder why that is?   Of particular interest to me is a piece in which Mary is breastfeeding Jesus.

“The Madonna and Child with a Male Saint, Catherine of Alexandria, and a Donor” about 1496, by Michelangelo di Pietro Membrin, tempera on panel

It is such a phenomenal gift to the world that this resource is being made available to the public, and free of charge.  Thank you, Getty Family!

My visit with Joan Norton was delightful…I am a little wary about the social network craze, having been burned pretty badly on FaceBook.  It is easy to think you know someone when you are only interfacing with the persona they present online…but it can be a very different story when you get under the surface of the mask.  Joan is one of those genuine gems that came across my path while I explored social media this last summer.  She is intelligent, insightful, and heartfelt in her understanding and communication about Mary Magdalene’s story, and the blessed union of the masculine and feminine.  I highly recommend her blog, Mary Magdalene Within.

As we neared our third day in the L.A. area, I noticed that my sweet Pete seemed tired and a little cranky….He is mostly a pretty energetic person, and hardly ever is he a grump, so this was unusual.  When I asked him what was going on for him, he said he thought his sensitivity to density had increased so much it was really getting to him to be in the population center that L.A. is.  It was literally sucking him dry, draining his batteries to be there.  This was interesting to me, as I have struggled with this problem for years, but have found some way to center and balance now so that I am not so affected by population density.  I actually remarked on how good I felt considering how much energy we were in the midst of.  The kids seemed pretty balanced, too.  We did all remark, though, that it did not feel like the right place for us to live.     

On our last night there, the kids practically kicked us out the RV door for another date night.  We are very blessed with children who truly value that Pete and I actively love each other and spend time working on our relationship.  The kids know that daddy and mommy time is super vital to the health of our family, so they understand and even encourage us to take time out for us.  Plus, that means they get to play their video games without interruption!  So Pete and I went out to a great little sushi place that was literally around the corner.

We sat at the sushi bar, our favorite place to enjoy the sushi experience, where I sat next to a perfectly pleasant fellow who was there on business.  As we got to chatting with him, he shared that he travels the world, teaching about how to do day trading on one’s own.  This sounded lovely and exiting…what a great career, empowering people to take their financial destiny into their own hands!  But as we talked, I felt the presence of something tightly wound in him, something that felt repressed, as if the surface did not match his insides.  I found out later that, as I left for the ladies’ room, Pete learned from this man that he used to be married.  From what he told Pete, he and his wife came to a place that she requested that he choose between his career and her due to his long periods of travel.  He told Pete that he loved his career more than his wife, and they are no longer married. 

This made me feel sad and also caused me to remember back in 2003 when we left Asheville for our first Big Trip….I couldn’t understand why so many of my then-women-friends seemed to be so mad at me, and did not say in touch with me when we left.  I did not find out until months later, when one of them shared reluctantly with me, that they were jealous that “your man chose you over his career”.  You might remember that Pete left his promising career with Toshiba in order to go on the road and do the work of reclaiming us, his family. Back then, I was stunned that a beloved partner would NOT choose his partner over his career, if for some reason it came down to that in their lives.  Apparently, I am one blessed woman to have a partner who values me and our love partnership over anything else in his life.

We left Los Angeles on Monday, November 3^rd and headed north to San Luis Obispo.  It was there, a mere five weeks into the journey, that we got the biggest surprise of our trip thus far….