Glorious Debris-Midlife Card (Back), collage by Licia Berry, 2009 copyright

The continuing story of my Midlife Collage! 

After the initial 4 elements were in place, some months later I was guided to place the above image and wording on the back of the collage.

What does this mean?

First of all, for just one lovely image (it is artwork from the WeMoon calendar) to have been chosen, it must be powerful; it carries an energy that doesn’t need other images to complete the story.  The words “Deepen into Nature” just compliment or affirm the image.

Secondly, for the image to be chosen for the back tells me that it is a foundational piece of information.  The back of the collage is the spine, the thing that holds the collage together.   Deepening into Nature is a primary suggestion for me to navigate my passage through midlife.

Of course the image itself is full of symbolism!    It is steeped in symbols of the Sacred Feminine, the earth, transformation, higher knowing and growth.  Fits right in!

Nature used to be my best friend; it rejuvinated me, gave me fresh eyes, reminded me who I really am and the bigness of the universe we live in.  Nature, since it is inherently balanced, helps me re-balance.  Over the last few years, though, I seem to have shifted my focus to more indoor activities.  It was a good prompt to get back in touch with my old friend.

You can see that I have used the back of the card to record the dates that I have been guided to add something new.  It is interesting to me now as I look back on starting this card how much of what was shown to me has absolutely been my journey!

Next…parsley, the swinging lady, “marriage” and “glorious debris”!

"Motion", collage by Licia Berry 2010 copyright

A favorite poem, something to remind all of us how amazing we are…

“Invictus”

Out of the night that covers me,

Receiving, collage by Licia Berry, 2010

Sunday, July the 11^th is the new moon and total solar eclipse.  I hear from astrologer friends it is going to be a big one; this is confirmed by my invisible friends.  It is a new moon in Cancer, a water sign, involving family, relationships, feelings and the Sacred Feminine. 

For weeks preceding this event, I have been coming into wonderful alignment within, marveling at the information Consciousness is bringing through me for the book on Sacred Union and feeling great love for and connection with my husband after a time of challenge. It is blissful.

A couple of days before the event, I start to feel a little tension inside, a feeling of being a little less in the flow.  Fits and starts.

Sunday I ask for suggestions about how to work with the energy the most effectively, and am told to align with the energy of the eclipse, and do.  I feel the push to focus on what I want in my life, what new energy I want to bring in.  I do this.  I think about healing and love in my relationship with Peter, success and fulfillment in my work, joy with my children, healing and love for the waters and the world.   Ease and flow in my life.

We watch the world cup final and it is full of contention and conflict as one team plays dirty.  The other team, the better soccer players, win the tournament.  The octopus is right again.  Pete says 4 billion people are watching this game; it is amazing to be part of something that so many in the collective are involved in at the same time.  We bring thoughts of healing the gulf waters into this mix at this time.  I feel the beginning of a deep wave within me start to build momentum that night.

Monday, July the 12^th:  I awaken with a very sore jaw; I have been grinding my back teeth again, hard.  I feel odd, a little separate from my body.  I know this feeling; it is the feeling of something being “up” in my energy field.

I have immense release of grief and outdated energy dealing with feelings of unworthiness in the studio.  Very, very painful, racking sobs ripping from my heart, holding my head.  I am stunned by the depth of this wound, the message that I am bad, unworthy of love, a waste of space, a bother, etc.  This goes back too far for me to remember the origin of it, prior to age 2. I realize that all of my life I have been trying to prove that wrong while secretly believing it.  At times, it has felt like trying to hold back the tide with my finger in the dyke, and today I have to give in to the pain of this internalized feeling about myself.  It is what I have tried to hold myself above forever, the thing I would not let myself feel.

July 13^th:   I am very scattered in my energy, have trouble hearing intuitively when it is usually so easy.  Trying to do work is almost impossible.  I give up and ask what is going on, and am told that major energy movement has occurred in my system due to the release and that I am re-making myself.  The falling apart in order to be put back together in a new, improved way.  It feels like chaos.  I choose to be very easy on myself for the rest of the day.

July 14^th:  Awaken with sore jaw again, but feeling more “together”, as if the parts that were scattered about yesterday have come into a more seamless alignment.  I have profound awareness of and write about the imbalanced masculine within me and its efforts to prove wrong that I am unworthy through competitive behavior, seeking outer approval from the world, the pushing drive to be seen and be shown through physical evidence that I am loved. I see a tough little boy with his arms crossed and a defensive, protective scowl on his face. 

My inner masculine is so concerned about the outcome; he has a feeling of panic for his survival –All about the outer drive to succeed, to “make it”, to get the outcome, rather than the focus of being in the moment and revealing the message that is truth in my heart.  He is my internalized father, the one who pushes and forces, rather than acts in accordance with the feminine’s knowing.

I have made out-of-balance decisions from this place; this has led to things occurring that did not serve me in the end.  I have made some choices through this filter that had unpleasant consequences, such as pushing my divine timing.  I cry with grateful tears for this knowing, and wrap this wounded inner masculine up with Great Mothers arms within.  He needs love so much.  I rock him.  Hush, child…..heal, child.  Shhhhh.  In the feelings of being safe in the arms of the Sacred Feminine, my imbalanced inner masculine calms; he lets go of the need to prove himself as worthy.  Suddenly it doesn’t matter if I am successful, known, recognized, famous, fulfilling my purpose by reaching lots of people, etc.  I am overcome with feelings of love and connection.

As I drive to the studio, I have trouble focusing on the act of operating the car because I am having distinct sensations of being All That Is, the knowing of the truth of this, that I could say “Wake Up, Dreamer” and I, along with all of physical reality, would cease to exist. A feeling of death approaching, or the end of some existence….the threshold is close.  Looking back on my life as if it were a story or a dream, with fondness.  It is all okay.

July 15^th:  Another awareness of the pain in my life as a great teacher, including this year with a girlfriend that has triggered feelings of betrayal (this has happened over and over in my life).  Again as I am driving to the studio, I thank her out loud for being a teacher, for she has brought to my attention my core mother wound; she has been of service in this way.  I set the intention to heal my core mother wound from the inside out.  Perhaps she and I have helped each other with this mother stuff.  Interestingly, I am also guided to set intentions around receiving from the universe. 

Also very thankful for those who came into my life not bearing pain, but love and acceptance…I have learned and am learning much from them, as well.  I think I am moving towards learning in that way as much if not more than in the painful way. Maybe it doesn’t always have to be painful to learn.

I must be one powerful, big Being to have signed one for so many lessons in this life!  I’m smiling as I write this, feeling appreciation for myself and a sense of humor about it all.  I guess it’s true I like to learn.

I’m aware that the collective energy has been very intense these last weeks and days, but that every one has a different journey.  I do feel there is a common thread, though; I think it’s that we are being grown, being brought into more and more integrity with our true nature, being “pruned” of the things that aren’t in alignment with our authentic soul and expression.  If I allow this, open to it, flow with it, I find this kind of support to be a beautiful expression of how All Creation loves me with the tenderest of hearts.  It feels like coming Home.

Soul Surrender, collage by Licia Berry 2007 (click on image for larger view)

“Listen, listen, listen to my heart song…

Listen, listen, listen to my heart song…

I will never forget you, I will never forsake you…

I will never forget you, I will never forsake you…”

-round sung in sacred women’s circles, composer unknown

Sometimes we get so busy in our lives, moving in the direction we want to go, creating and doing, and sometimes things are going pretty well.  We are going along…

And then we get the spiritual 2 by 4 upside the head.

What happened?  The circumstances change…a job loss, a relationship crisis, an illness, or some other startling attention getter.  I thought I was doing good things.  I thought things were fine.  I thought things were the way I thought they were…

I have experience with this one.  Moving in a direction, thinking I am in alignment with myself…but what is really happening is that I am being driven by some part of myself that thinks it knows what’s best for me, and that part of myself is operating out of alignment with the LARGER me.  I will call that larger me “Soul” for the purposes of this exploration.

I know for a fact that we can create a life out of alignment with our soul; I have seen others do it, and I have almost done it.  Well, I guess there are degrees…I have seen some folks who seem to be creating WAY out of the ballpark of soul intention, and I have observed myself trying to create within a certain range of my soul’s intention, but not being spot on. 

Apparently, in my case, it is important to be spot on.

When I get the spiritual 2X4, I’m inclined to sit still and listen.  When I have had this situation in the past, it has been a most fortuitous course correction for me.  To my credit, I don’t get knocked down, dust myself off and hop up to continue whatever I was doing.  I do change course.  As long as I am listening.

Listening seems to be a feminine trait…and by feminine, I mean Sacred Feminine.  Doing and forging forward are things that feel masculine to me, or left brain.  To sit and be still, and listen…I only found my ability to do this when I remembered my right brain, or feminine self. 

The last time this happened for me personally was when I broke my right (masculine) ankle…it served to gain my attention in ways that other smaller attention getters had not.  You can bet that I made a promise with myself that I would catch these course corrections served up on a silver platter when they were more subtle messages.  No more broken bones for me, thank you.  I pay attention much more closely now to those whispers, those animals that stray across my path, the words a friend says in passing…I have my nose to the wind, almost all the time.  But we all have our blind spots, so it is important to set aside time to sit still and listen.

What does it feel like to listen, to be still and know?  It feels like coming home.  It feels like the return into the arms of the most wonderful, loving parent.  It feels like being in the lap of goodness, or with the most trusted friend.  I experience my soul/spirit as so knowing and wise and loving, it is hard to believe I would ever NOT want to listen.

But I know…We get caught up in our ideas of what we want to do, or are driven by fear or attachment or some other egoic construct to behave in ways that take us further and further away from that pure intent that our soul has for us.  And the kind and beneficent universe reminds us where our balance lies, and we are given the opportunity once again to be still and know.

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.

 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.

"The Life Giver", collage by Licia Berry 2006

“Whatever shines should be observed.” -19th-century astronomer William Herschel, discoverer of the planet Uranus

“All that sparkles does not shine.”- common proverb

I’ve been thinking and observing folks in my life lately, whether they are close by or far removed.  I notice that some folks “shine” and others don’t.  I have been observing my own pattern of being attracted or repelled by them, and trying to understand.

Some folks look shiny, but it is a fake shine…as if applied from the outside; a sort of veneer of what appears to be sparkle, but is more a thin layer of determination to appear powerful, beautiful or holy.  I remember watching my mother carefully apply her face make-up, a long ritual that built her up into believing that she was sexy and powerful.  Sometimes it worked…others would look at her and see the carefully applied illusion she wanted to create, despite what she was feeling inside. 

Sometimes I think shine is also applied by others on the outside who want to idolize the person, such as in the case of celebrities or gurus (or the pope?)  I observe that we can want to believe that another person is special (I find this to be true when we aren’t owning the specialness of ourselves), and project our own unclaimed shine onto the object of our attention.

Similarly, when I am identified in my own limited-ness, I can look at someone with the carefully applied shine, and be drawn to it because I think it is real and that they possess something that I don’t. 

But true shine comes from the inside; it’s that glow that seems to be coming through the pores of the skin and emanated out beyond the body, but can’t quite be identified by the physical eye.  For me, it is more a felt sense and can be seen if my intuitive eyes are open and free of filters. 

 What am I observing when I see true shine?  I feel it is the light that emanates from being “turned on”, the light that comes from life force coursing freely through us, the light from inside.  I know it when I see/feel it.  The presence of it is unmistakable, and it is pure joy to be in the presence of.

My feeling is that we probably have a good bit of this Divine emanation when we are little…and that many of us slowly cover up our inner light as we buy in to the illusions and lies that we are taught to believe about the realities of earth-living.  The greatest of which, in my experience, is that we are separate from Godde and therefore unworthy of Love.

Pain is a great teacher when one is conscious.  But it is a great “herder” if we are not; pain will drive us into pens and into corners, and in our effort to get away from it, we cut ourselves off from our larger Being.

My sense is that the more we forget our innate connection to the Divine Light, or life force that we traveled in on, the more closed off we become, the more in the dark we are, and the more lost from our original blueprint and purpose we get. 

I have seen folks who are almost black holes, their light is so far removed from sight.  Some of them are energy “vampires”, the ones who seek the life force of others because they are so far removed from their own.  Others feel like their density is so great that nothing could escape their heavy gravitational field.

I have also seen folks who talk a good game, act as if they are feeling the light, even acting as if they are speaking or teaching from that knowing, when in fact under the surface I feel them flailing about in search of their center.  They construct fantastic belief systems and philosophies that are nothing short of brilliant, in a mental way.  I feel compassion for these folks until they hurt others from this place of lost-ness…and then I know to avoid them.  

I have some beautiful people in my life who shine, not because they have it all figured out, but because they are genuinely seeking to be the most loving people they can be in the world, and are open in that state of not-knowing, paradoxically in the most knowing state we can be in.  They are at peace because they are aligned with their soul, and finding their way.  Their seeking is honest.  I like those people…I want to be around them because I trust them. 

In the end, it becomes my choice about how I will interact with the world, how much I will engage with light-filled or not-so-life-filled folks.  I find the ones that shine from the inside out to be the ones that I want to hang out with, as they, without effort or word, illicit my own inner light to shine forth.

Witch Power and Grandmother Nature

Like so many GOOD things that have been twisted, misinterpreted, and manipulated, the conclusion that I am coming to about the word “WITCH” is that it needs to be shed of its nasty connotations (at least in my own mind), and that the word needs to be reclaimed.

In the spirit of reclaiming, I invite you to play with me and create an acronym from the word “witch”…several of you have already offered some:

• Wisdom Intuition Transformation Compassion Healing -Peter
•  Woman’s Intuition Touching Communal Heart –Liza
•  Women Inspiring Truth Change + Harmony –Peter
•  Wisdom Interconnected Terra Caring Hope –Licia
•  Wonderful Intuitive Teacher Called Healer –M.

Let’s hear some more!

First let me say that I am not so much a popular movie buff.  I do like some movies that happen to have fallen in the popular range, such as Star Wars and Lord of the Rings…those stories carry that mythical quality that appeals to my Hero’s Journey mentality.  But most of the time, I will not see movies that most others see; I usually find them to be hollow.  I certainly don’t attend first run movies in the theater unless there is some very good reason to see it on the big screen.

Avatar was one such occasion.  A bit of a geek for visuals (I am an artist, after all), I wanted to see the new technology every one is talking about.  Similar to when Star Wars first broke into the movie industry, Avatar is carrying a whole new ability to enter the film as if we are part of it, and this is due in no small part to the new computer and filming technologies used to make the movie.

 It satisfied in that respect, totally.  Avatar was eye candy from the beginning, and so the artist geek in me that totally gets off on the visuals was delighted.  Completely.  Very.

And now that I have acknowledged that, I want to deepen the conversation for a moment to the larger philosophical, ecological, and spiritual implications of the film. 

Other innate aspects of me are my love of universal themes, my love of humanity, my love of the earth, and my innate awareness of my connection with All Creation.  This movie appealed to those aspects, as well.

It interested me that the geek side of me was completely revved up…my geekiness seems to live in my head, at least that is where I feel it.  It is a fascination with the pretty things, the distractions, the amazement at what we can create with our brilliant, curious minds.  But the story, and the larger impact, I felt deep in my being.  My experience was of being stretched like taffy from top of my head to the core of the earth, where I choose to ground my energy to the planet.

And perhaps that was intended on the part of the moviemakers.  So much of the time I see humanity hanging out in our heads (what I call “the Penthouse”), a place up high with a fabulous view, where we don’t have to interact with the messy stuff that lay at our feet (the stuff of being human).  We can hide in the penthouse, being fascinated with our mental constructs, believing we have control of our lives, inventing all kinds of brilliant (if flawed) philosophies and get rich quick schemes, and keeping ourselves “safe” from connecting with each other. 

 I see many using their bodies as a kind of walking prop that carries the penthouse around, not really grounding and connecting with the earth in the deep way we were intended to (and our ancestors used to do).  I have done it, too, and feel I am rescuing myself now from the edge of making that way of life a habit for me.  I have made no secret in the years I have been writing publicly that I feel this is a kind of madness, a sickness that has taken humanity away from our feelings of connection with the earth and with each other, resulting in disastrous consequences.

Seeing Avatar left me with a sense of fullness, but not over the top fullness.  It was a fullness that my entire body, my entire Being could hold.  It was a, “Wow, that was an amazing feat of technology, and hmmmmm, yes, that story is so familiar to my heart and belly, and therefore not a big deal”.  I know for some the story will be a new awareness, and perhaps this is even one reason many are so deeply affected by the film.  Perhaps the use of the new technology to appeal to both hemispheres of our brain, coupled with the deep and ancient nature of the story, was a guarantee that the messages would get through, in one way or another.  For this I am glad.  

An utterly visually beautiful film, an eye popping experience of technology….but what really felt important to ME was how old the story is…to me it is the ages-old tale of how we struggle in ourselves to feel as if we are in control of our own destinies, denying our connection to Source and All Creation, the web of life. 

Do we flail about our whole lives, building walls around us, living in a box of our own creation, resisting the attempts of the universe to break though our self-imposed barriers?  Or do we let the Light in; do we take the risk and surrender to love, opening to the inherent goodness of the universe and allowing ourselves to experience our connection with the All That Is?  And what will be the consequences of those choices?  To me, that is the essential message of this film.

The story in Avatar is as old as the hills….perhaps the most ancient story there is.  I pray that each of us find our way back to the awareness and experience that we are all connected in this Web of Life.  Therein lies our salvation.

It has been a challenging few weeks for me; Thanksgiving kicked off some wild feelings of powerlessness, a waft of a former age, when I used to be a child.  Catching the scent of those crazy holidays with my family of origin and all of its ghosts was enough to trigger my inner child into being very present. 

She (my inner child) is alternately delighted with the holiday time, and so, so, so fearful and anxious and sad.  The old days were scary.  The evidence of that is her terror.  My job is to hold her hand and be as loving and capable a parent as I can to her.  Sometimes, it is hard to remember that I am both the parent and the inner child, though….when the little me has feelings, they can seem so big as to blot out the rest of the world.  It then becomes apparent it is time to don the trusty diving suit, plug into the oxygen machine at the surface, and go down into the depths with her, because she IS trying to show me something.  It is always the trick to remember not to dive alone.

In shamanic work, we know that retrieval of disenchanted parts of ourselves is a healthy and necessary expression of our wholeness.  This is seen in psychology, too, where the desire and intent of therapeutic work is to integrate the compartmentalized aspects of self. 

This is exactly what I have been doing when I elect to follow my inner child’s call down into the dark waters.  A kind of waking shamanic journey, we enter the earth through openings in the mountains, holes in the earth, and travel quickly through the rocks and soil, passing moles and earthworms, until we emerge into the caves and caverns deep underground.  There, we then must swim the great black seas that exist where the sun doesn’t shine, for at the bottom lies treasure.

There are dangers, though, to this work.  Sometimes, the immense pressure of this deep inner environment is enough to make my eyes want to pop out of my head.  I can feel the pressure of the vast waters and the miles of earth on top of me in my body, as I walk here on the topside through my day, shopping for groceries or driving my children to orthodontist appointments.  How interesting, I think, as I merge safely into traffic, while underneath I am reaching through dark crevices to see if a gem, or part of myself, is inside.  How odd, I notice, as I kiss my husband while I am digging through the primordial slime and hitting something of note with my fingertips.  I live in many worlds simultaneously.

In shamanism, it is important to have your lifeline attached when you go into the other worlds to retrieve those parts, or you can get lost.  I have fortunately chosen some very able and supportive helpers in my life who hold me and love me as I writhe around and wrestle with those dark creatures under the water that threaten to hold me down until I give up.  Just when I feel I am going to lose my life or my mind because something powerful and I have gotten ahold of each other, either my own soul and spirit give me the strength suddenly to bring the great beast to the surface, where I can look at it in the eye and see it is not going to kill me…..or some grace-filled creature or person in my life senses I am floundering and reaches a hand down through the layers of reality and pulls me up.  Thank Godde for love.

Now that the new moon cycle has begun on the 16^th, I experience a release of pressure.  I am back topside.  I retrieved some great bounty from the depths these last few weeks, and have now emerged with the spoils, breathless but alive and jubilant, at the surface.  Navigating the multiple worlds that I do, they all collapse into one world, the here and now, and I am more powerful because more of me is here, playing happily in the sun.