The question that I keep coming back to at the moment is “How can I show up and be present with the political arena, respond appropriately, and be nurtured while doing so, rather than drained?”
You may or may not know that I was a political science major at Cornell and deeply interested in politics and activism. I was charged up by fighting for what I believed in and creating a better system. That’s why I was so successful at grant writing and I was lit up by the change that it created. But, what I rarely tell people is the physical and emotional cost of that crusading.
About 15 years ago, I went to an acupuncturist because I was feeling sick and out of sorts. As I lay on the table, he pressed his finger into a spot in my abdomen and I almost levitated off the table in pain. He then put a finger on a spot on my foot and the pain disappeared, he took his finger off my foot and searing pain reappeared. I was stunned not only by the power of the spot on my foot to make the pain go away, but also curious about what that pain was. He simply said that he put his finger on my adrenal gland…and that it was close to being kaput. Needless to say, I worked with him and it was a big warning sign that things had to change for me.
It was five more years before I started meditating regularly and my intuitiveness swooped back in. For years, I simply did not listen to or read the news. I discovered that if anything major happened, I heard about it very quickly from friends and family.
During that time, I realized that while I had been very successful, it had been driven by fear - fear of failure, poverty, looking stupid or mean. I knew I was done with that and deeply wanted to feel directed by love. I wanted to stand in love rather than fight against evil. For several years, I wanted that so desperately and just couldn’t see it and fumbled around in the dark, asking the question, wondering, getting frustrated, losing hope, giving up, and listening to what remained inextinguishable. Somewhere along the way it pieced together – not in some big aha moment of enlightenment, but in a gentle, deepening connection with the core of our being.
I’m not sure that I can articulate it in words, but today I’m infinitely more fueled by beauty and desire for our interconnectedness to be seen, experienced, and appreciated than I am by stopping anything, fighting anyone, or resisting.
And now Trump is our President. I find his actions nasty, divisive, and dangerous for women, children and the natural world. So, just HOW do I stand in love, stand for the things that I hold sacred, and do so powerfully?
I’ve been calling my Senators and other representatives a lot and I find that feels true but I also notice that my adrenal spot starts feeling drained and I begin to feel gutted. So I need nourishment. I need to take powerful action that feels nourishing.
I believe that as a culture we are craving, collectively, to have our feminine nurtured. The worst version of the masculine is dominating our attention and for many of us we have been trained to take a hardened stand and say NO. It drains us at our core. I’ve noticed that the people in my circle – most of whom are empaths and intuitives – are feeling off and wanting to be taken care of. It makes sense ~ we are yearning for the nurturing nourishment of the feminine. We’re feeling the imbalance and craving the nurturer because it’s not prominent in the global context at the moment.
There is a deeper question for all of us; how do we stand in what nurtures us and still be effective? “Resist”goes against my core.
The core question that most of my clients are exploring in life is How do we stand in our feminine strength? and How do I set myself up to be the person I want to be at this point in our collective evolution?
A friend told me the other day that the Greek root of the word apocalypse means an uncovering or unveiling. As you know, my gift and life calling is to lift the veil between the physical world and the eternal, and dance in that space with others (if we want to get dualistic J). I feel the veil getting thinner. We are going through a metaphorical death and rebirth.
I feel deeply that we are collectively in the dark space in between the last epoch and before the seed for new one has sprouted. The place without answers, without easy direction…the dark womb of creation.
I saw a beautiful video yesterday by a young lawyer who said ‘what if this is not the darkness of the tomb, but the darkness of the womb’ and I thought YES…this is what has felt true to me for a long time.
BUT, we are not in labor. We are in gestation. We are in the unknown and there is no assurance about what is going to be born. The baby isn’t viable yet. The womb is dark and not understood by our rational minds. Scientists cannot yet imitate a womb outside of woman’s body. And so, things aren’t going to make sense to our rational minds for a while and things that we hold dear may well collapse, and we will be left with the threads to reweave.
But we women (and many nurturing men), instinctively know what these times call for.
We do. During gestation, productivity happens in the dark. Our rational minds don’t know how we manage to create the miracle of new life. We can only be in awe and learn to revere and listen to our bodies more than ever before.
AND right now, we need to give ourselves PERMISSION to give ourselves and others what we instinctively know that these times call for.
We know that when we are creating life the first thing to do is:
1) keep away from toxins like alcohol and caffeine
2) eat really nutritious foods
3) rest
4) relish in the amazement at the wisdom that your body uses to create life. Listen to what your body needs and give it whenever you can
5) know that labor is coming and will require EVERYTHING that you have
6) carefully choose partners and a midwife to be with you through the process. Trust in her wisdom to guide and create a partnership with her to bring a healthy baby through.
7) Know that you will have to push for new life at some point soon.
As women we know what to do right now, we just have to give ourselves permission to do it. It seems a lot or a little crazy to focus on eating well and getting enough rest when we feel we should be doing something. But, our bodies innately know what we need and we can trust our intuitive guidance. If we want to birth a healthy world, it needs to start with taking care of the gestating vessels – and that’s us right now.
I don’t have answers. No one does. The answers haven’t been created yet, just as socially responsible businesses weren’t in existence 35 years ago. But a true response does live deep within all of us and its calling out for us to hear it. Collectively we can create beautiful responses to these questions.
I desire a healthy, sustainable world in which all life is honored as sacred and the feminine in all her forms is freely and powerfully expressed. My entire career in both grant writing and channeling has been dedicated to supporting visionary people get the fuel that they need to realize their dreams. And I do know that one contribution that I can make is being true to my soul and openly sharing my ability to connect with the eternal – however quirky or counter-cultural that may be.
So, I hope this article has sparked some ideas, settled some discomfort, or given you license to take care of yourself as only you know how to. If you’re looking for a midwife to partner with you as you rebirth yourself by tuning in with your soul’s deepest yearnings, feel free to shoot me a line.