Shakti Bhava Healing Grace
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Dancing in the Flames -                                                             the transformative fire of menopause

2/18/2019

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The literal meaning of the word menopause is “the cessation of menstruation” but this meaning falls hopelessly short of the experience of the vast majority of women. Somehow the word indicates a moment in time – a moment that will simply arrive and pass at some magical pre-ordained time in a woman’s life. In reality menopause – or peri-menopause as it now more correctly referred to, can be a long journey with many dips and hills along the way.
 
As I talk with women I am surprised to hear those of a certain age declare – “oh I’m not there yet – I’m still bleeding” as if menstruating or not is the only indicator of menopause. They are shocked when I inform them that peri-menopause is a gradual process impacting, on average, 15 years of a woman’s life.
 
Fertility in women is a gradual climb from the time of menarche (first bleed) until a peak in the mid twenties. Just as it was a slow walk up the hill, the decline in fertility is a long one and at first imperceptible. The menstrual cycle usually remains relatively steady and unchanged and unless you are trying to get pregnant you probably won’t notice anything. But then the downward slope begins to gather speed.
 
Of course the experience of peri-menopause is as unique to each woman as her experience of menstruation, sexuality and giving birth. The common symptoms and changes are also influenced by the everyday factors of life: the food eaten; stress levels; whether you feel satisfied in your job or with your partner; still mothering or not; sense of achievement in the world; underlying illness. The list goes on.
 
So it may come as a shock to many that peri-menopause begins around the age of 42. The midpoint of life for most of us. Physiologically the female hormone levels, which have been declining for several years, drop further and fertility – ovulation, begins to dance to the beat of a different drum. These changes are subtle at first and may even pass unnoticed for several years but they are occurring none the less. Midlife is an important psychological crossing over, when a woman will look back at her girl self and wonder where that child went. This reflection gives rise to a need to reclaim what may have been lost: a lost childhood dream; a sacrificed career or direction. The need for a “return to self” becomes an urgent questing and is often misconstrued as women acting out or going crazy. Crazy making indeed is a compromised life and as women we have been conditioned to make the sacrifices needed to ensure the wellbeing of others, our partners and children.
 
42 is also an important astrological phase, when Uranus is conjunct with the position at birth. According to astrology the impact of Uranus falls like a sword of truth determined to upset the apple cart, and we question the status quo – both in our own lives and in the bigger picture. Uranus calls us to dream and will stir the pot of complacency to create change and growth. Whether you believe in planetary impacts or not, there is no denying that the early 40’s is often a time of personal questing and questioning. Combine this with the hormonal changes of peri-menopause and you have a potent mix that, if not stirred with gentleness and awareness, can create havoc in a woman’s life.
 
Menopause itself cannot be known as it occurs. You’ll never know when you are having your last bleed. Physiologically a woman is said to have experienced menopause only 12 months after her last bleed. So you don’t know if you’ve been through menopause until you’ve been through it! And the average age of that is 52.
 
Like every major life, and menopause is a major event, women need connection to others to make sense of this rite of passage. Getting support, sitting in circle, making positive change and paying attention to what your body, mind and heart are saying are essential for wellbeing and happiness. And not leaving until you are 52!

See my classes and events page for gatherings near you.

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Searching for the Goddess

5/18/2017

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I've just arrived in Athens and spent today immersed in images of the Madonna. On my last trip I loved awakening to the history of the divine feminine as she transformed over millennia from Isis and Aphrodisia in Turkey (ancient Asia Minor) to Aphrodite in Greece onto the Madonna of Christianity via the many forms of the goddess in Roman mythology.

Today I was delighted with rows of terraphims - magical talismans of fertility and sexuality that were common in the life of women nearly 6000 years ago. It is astonishing to see these forms, some as small as a coin to fit in a clenched fist or hide in the fold of a pocket. Some larger to adorn an altar and invoke the mysterious power of fecundity. For mysterious it was and for all our medical knowledge and modern understanding the magic of creativity is still a thing of mystery.


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5800 - 5300 BCE. A neolithic Madonna.
My journey in the next 5 months will take me through Greece and eventually to India. So often I am struck by the similarity of the Ancient Greek mythology and imagery to the gods and goddesses found all through modern India. Immersing in the images of Byzantine Madonnas I wonder at their lush red robes and the orange swathed baby Christ seated in their lap. They seem closer to the flaming devi of Durga than to the virginal representation later common to Christianity. I love the enduring presence of the divine feminine and feel hopeful that she will continue to re-emerge as a force of connection to nature. 

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Don't mess with me Madonna.
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Changing Woman

5/25/2016

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Where are you little girl?
 
Close your eyes now and remember yourself as a child, a girl of maybe 6 or 7. Who do you see? This image passed by on my news feed the other day and I'm sorry I can't find the source but I wanted to share her with you as she landed in my sights just a day after a workshop for menopause: "Transitions". For a while during the day we had explored memories of ourselves as little girls and it seemed so right to see this expressed so beautifully. 

When I look back I see a girl is a cotton nightdress whirling like a dervish in the lounge room to the classical music that was my mother’s choice of vinyl. Like a Sufi I would spin for what seemed an age, delighted with the giddy sensation and lost to an internal world of imaginary places and faces rising up from some far off memory. My whirling and twirling was bought to an abrupt end one day when I caught my big toe in the hem of my dress and fell crashing head long into the corner of the glass coffee table; a rude awakening from my revelry.
 
From time to time I rediscover this wild child as I loose myself in song and dance.  If the mood is right and the music invites me I find myself back twirling and spinning, loosing my mind and heart to the vortex the movement creates.  I am free again, just a girl dancing in her nightdress expressing something beyond words or logic.
 
In my work with older women as they move through menopause I invite a reflection for each woman back to her younger self, a time when she was maybe freer to just be. I say “maybe” because all too soon little girls are pulled into the adult world. Family dysfunction; grief; loss all serve to rob many of their childhood. More than ever now, the early sexualisation and maturing of children is truncating childhood. I am grateful that my childhood was filled with hot summer days running free in the suburbs; time to lie under the trees to dream, hours spent drawing and creating without distraction. Time to be bored. Play acting the goddess Athena as my brothers fought off imaginary Cyclops and sirens. As I grow older I am reawakening these experiences again – allowing time to dream and draw and paint and dance and read myths and legends.
 
Using the “Women’s Wheel of Life” as a map for self-understanding, when a maturing woman entering peri-menopause she sits opposite her young self, the child she once was and always will be.  As the demands of family life abate and the hormonal shifts of menopause create a new reality a rediscovering of this younger self is essential. Menopause becomes a time of reclamation – a quest to ask “Who am I?” And with that asking is the secondary question “What do I want?” not just as a desire but as a deeper quest: “How do I want to be in the world?”
 
Such questing can be misunderstood by others as selfish, as they witness the changes being made. Loved one’s may feel abandoned as old friends and ways of being are reclaimed by the empowered Maga Woman, or stand by amused as a new fire springs a flame to ignite passion for new interests and concerns outside of the immediate family and community. And this change of focus, this return to what is essential and a re-membering of self is what renews a woman.
 
Menopause used to be politely known as “the change” in years gone by and whilst it might seem arcane now this euphemism speaks of a wiser knowing that menopause is indeed a time of change that is not just physical but deeply psychological and potentially spiritually. The Apache honoured such a woman as a goddess - Changing Woman / Estsanatlehi.
 
Wise woman Jane Collings explains beautifully in her Moonsong musings the renewal Changing Woman achieved:
 

“Changing Woman / Estsanatlehi
The Apache called the Earth Goddess by this name, for she never grew old. When her age began to show, she simply walked toward the east until she saw her form coming toward herself. She kept walking until her young self merged with her aging self and then, renewed, returned to her home.”
 

This myth – this story – remains as guidance for us to find renewal as we age by revisiting our younger self and inviting her into our lives, allowing her a voice once more.  Using creative processes and ritual to invoke what may be long forgotten aspects of self are part of the “Women with Spirit” retreats. If you would like to receive more information on up- coming retreats and events please subscribe to our mailing list or feel free to send a message via the contact page.

In the meantime - time for a twirl!
 
 



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More Menopausal madness?

4/1/2016

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Hot flushes are nothing compared with the changes to the inner world of a post-menopausal woman. We are portrayed in equal parts as either crazy or wise – but the getting of wisdom for me is not a smooth, lineal transition. Like much of my life it involved twists and recurring cycles and unexpected awakenings to look at things differently.
 
It occurred to me today as I scrolled my news feed just how much my outlook is changing. I have used the model of the Women’s Wheel of life for over 10 years to make sense of the biological changes experienced as a woman and I really thought I had a handle on it all – in myself and in the way I bring this information to other women.  I also thought I knew what to expect as I entered my post – menopausal years because I had paid attention to the shifts and changes in my body and my psyche for so long.
 
In my 40’s as my children grew I experienced many years of heavy bleeding that would take me down into the underworld each month. This was a time I enjoyed as it encouraged me to rest, a time when my dream life came alive. My prayer was a simple “Dark red thread of moon, take me down into the unconscious, bless me with the magic of symbolic dreams and intuition.” I relished the opportunity to live in my dream world – just for a day or two. This “going down” as I came to call it, was a drinking at the well, reminiscent of the coming together of women in the Red tent of old.
 
As the peri-menopause years progressed I experienced unexpected sadness when my bleed was late, longing for the energy of the dark moon to quiet my mind and body. I learnt to ride the chaotic waves of hormones and energy as menopause approached and in gratitude gave thanks and surrendered to the end of my bleeding time. I marked the changing time with two significant rituals – the first on my 50th birthday was a marker of stepping into my maga years as an Amazon woman.  My youngest daughter had just stepped through her own doorway of womanhood; menarche and after 25 years of intense mothering I could feel the apron strings loosening.
 
The second ritual was several years later, 12 months after my last bleed. I set myself an all night reflection to claim a new way of being in the world, letting go of the past and intuiting a change of name for myself.  Both these rituals were important steps on the path of ageing, steps that are rarely acknowledged consciously in our culture and I felt enormously empowered by the choice and act of ritual making. I felt prepared for the next phase to well and truly to begin.
 
It’s been nearly 2 years since that second ritual and the intervening time has at times been dark and disconnecting. Like the lament of the last bleed letting go of the role as Mother (in a practical day to day sense) has left an unexpected hole, not in my personal life but in the way I look at the world.  For so long the monthly activity of my womb and the daily activity of mothering kept me focused on the bigger issues of mothering. It was my passion to teach and support other women on this journey of motherhood and I still care deeply about women; the dehumanisation of birth giving; the medicalization of pregnancy; the outsourcing of childcare; the lack of real choice women have to claim motherhood as a valued way of life.  I am hearted reading a recent discourse by Vanessa Olorenshaw: 
LIBERATING MOTHERHOOD AND THE NEED FOR A MATERNAL FEMINISM discussing the failure of feminism for women who want the choice of mothering as a primary “occupation”.  It seems to me that women have simply been herded into the paradigm of economic rationalism, another masculine paradigm. 
 
But all these issues have become somewhat less pressing. The letting go of the past includes not just releasing the pain and disappointment but relinquishing passions and beliefs that have felt essential, even at the core of my being and I am surprised at what a far seeing vision of Maga years actually looks and feels like. As a scroll my news feed I pass over the articles and comments about pregnancy and birth: I feel disconnected from the promises of awakened sexuality through tantra, dance and yoni yoga.  My attention is now captured by bigger issues: politics; global greed and corruption; the servitude of the mass unconscious.  I lie awake at night now not with thoughts of how will I get through the next week, but wondering how will my children get through their life. I continue to be inspired by the rise of the goddess in popular culture not just as an inner force of personal power but also as a global force to shake the existing paradigm to its core. The wild force of Kali is being called upon to tear away the old and make way for something entirely different, something neither exclusively feminine nor masculine but a dance of the two. I feel this stripping away in myself as I move with intention to a state of greater balance, using yoga and meditation to smooth the way.

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Life as a Garden: Reflections on my Maga years.

1/30/2016

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Summer is in full swing at last. Warm days and stormy skies abound, but being southern Australia – perhaps the most temperamental climate on the continent, nothing can be taken for granted. The weather can swing from sweltering to cold and grey in a matter of minutes and I am left lamenting the move south. You see I am a light lover. I can do the cold, in winter, where I think it belongs, but it’s the sun I miss, the sense of space an open sky creates. So in the tentative warmth of summer days I have my hands in the soil and delight in abundant green growth that endures as I feel the promise of autumn just around the corner and reflect on the passing of my own summer days.
 
As an older woman I resonate with autumn, a time of harvest and review, to look back at what has worked in my life and what didn’t. Sneaking in a last few plantings for a winter crop – those hardy brassicas that endure the cold and sweeten with the frost.
 
I love to garden and think it is a beautiful and apt metaphor for life. Mother nature has all the lessons we need to know as she patiently goes about her business. As the macrocosm so the microcosm.
 
I see the earth as ourselves, who we are, the life we have. I think about the modern industrial lust for the earth, seeing her as a resource to be used. How her hidden gems have been ripped from her belly indiscriminately. Growth is good and must be maintained at all costs, a crazy model of how to live. Do we treat ourselves the same? Seeing our body, this life, just as a vehicle for me, me, me! To use it up till it’s broken and just patch it up along the way. Or can we life in simpler harmony with our body and mind by responding to our real needs? Giving rather than taking.
 
On contemplating all the factors that make a beautiful garden I saw so many relationships between these elements and the tools of yoga; all the wonderful practices available to us to life healthy, happy, creative lives.
 
Water is our emotional life, expressed as devotion. Too little and we cannot thrive or survive. Too much and we rot, our roots lose strength. Waterlogged soil without drainage for emotional outlet and we get bogged, our roots can’t go deep and strengthen. Bhakti is the yoga for our emotional life, directing the longing to the highest, to the divine, kirtan and service transforming our emotions into bliss.
 
Fertilizer equates to our spiritual nourishment, our practice. We have to apply it regularly in the right amount to nourish the soil and the plants of our garden. Compost of the sweetest quality needs to be fully integrated into our life/soil for maximum benefit. Too fresh or too much encourages the plants to grow with big leafy leaves for show but little fruit for nourishment. If too dry the compost can’t break down and get into our centre, our core way of being. Using unnatural fertilizers give the quick high, the fast growth but no lasting juice or goodness, in the end destroying the soil.
 
Then there the weed seeds that blow in or that are picked up on the way that bring unwanted plants in any garden. They are hardy; strong and prolific threatening to choke out the goodness of life. How can we deal with the weeds? Poison them but then all is eventually poisoned, life becoming sterile or dead. That’s when we take no risks nor allow possibilities.
 
If we ignore the weeds the entire garden becomes chocked, lost and has to be stripped out to start again.  The best way to deal with the weeds is to get down on your hands and knees and peer into the garden, carefully and systematically pulling them out one by one. As we do so we take care to preserve what is needed, marvel at hidden joys re-found that have survived despite the odds. Meditation is the weed pulling of our life. Systematic, slow, a daily practice. And isn’t it wonderful how easily weeds are pulled after a good watering of bhakti or better still rain! Rain is grace in life, divine grace, kripa. More nourishing than just watering with a hose but out of our control, not something we can always rely upon.
 
The there are the pests – hungry to eat all the goodness of the garden. Birds before you are out of bed, possums and rats in the dead of night. Caterpillars and bugs if your fertiliser is all wrong, souring the soil.
 
So much to manage, sometimes we just need to protect ourselves/our garden with screens and netting. Take time out to retreat and heal.
 
Most of all we need sunlight, warmth in just the right amount. The rays of the mighty fire at the centre of our solar system, our sun. Fire is yagya, the letting go, sacrifice or surrender to life itself. Ritual relates to the element of fire, ritual brings rhythm and meaning to the everyday experiences of being human. When we create a ritual in the right balance we can feel its glow permeate.
 
So much to balance to create a productive beautiful garden! And of course what of the plants, what is in your garden. What grows from the seeds planted? Are they right for the soil, the temperature, the season? Do they bear fruit or are they just for show?
 
The last factor is the season. This is the factor that no one has no control over- it is inevitable, part of the great cycle of birth and death. In this life we only have 1 full cycle of the seasons. Some of us don’t even have that much time and at menopause we are at the season of autumn.  We might look at our gardens and feel regret for the things neglected, over whelmed by weeds and pests. We also harvest: the slow growing pumpkins that have been hidden under wild growing leaves, tomatoes weighing down the vines, corn with her silky ears mellowing in the sun needing to be picked before the sweetness turns to starch.
 
We may also salvage a late crop, if Mother Nature is kind. Maybe winter will be mild and plants will yield after all but the light will fade eventually and darkness will come.  A time of quiet reflection as the soil cools to ice.
 
But today as the summer sun shines and a storm brews from the south, I remind myself to show gratitude for what is going well in my life right now and for give thanks for the harvest I make from a life well lived.

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                      Navaratri - Nines Night in Honour of Devi

10/15/2015

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Durga Yantra - Artist Hasanthi Kingsley
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We are currently into the third day – or night – of Navaratri, a festival celebrated in India in praise of Devi. Devi is worshipped in nine different forms in some traditions: Nine Ways to Call in the Devi  is a clear outline of those nine forms.
 
Navaratri celebrates the great goddess Durga’s triumph over the demon Mahisha, an allegorical story of the struggle between good and evil.
 
In ashrams Navaratri is a time of intense sadhana that incorporates asana, meditation, lots of mantra chanting and fire ceremonies on a daily basis. One can also make dietary restrictions; most notably no grain just fruit, vegetables and yoghurt. Akin to the Christian time of lent, Navaratri is a time to give something up - to go without for just a few days. There’s plenty in our rich and diverse diet and way of life to think about giving up and the intention is to keep the body light and the awareness high.
 
For me Navaratri is about yoga sadhana, an important time to make an effort with my practice. In yogic traditions Navaratri is broken into 3 days of 3 that focus on Durga, Lakshmi and Saraswati sequentially. In fact these devis are one and the same, representing different qualities of energy.
 
In India Navaratri falls at the end of the monsoon season – the time for removing the mould from the walls, opening the doors and windows to the cooling breezes blowing off the Himalayas. Here in the southern hemisphere Navaratri falls at the beginning of spring and the energy is similar. The days grow longer and it is a time to open the house, get outside and get active after the internal energy of winter.
 
The first three days of Navaratri are dedicated to Durga is her form as the force to overcome blockages. She is powerful and to invoke her form will awaken willpower, focus and the energy to move. She is the transformer of Tamas – that aspect of energy that is inert, heavy and can sometimes get stuck.
 
I have been cleaning, sorting and chucking out. Clearing out my home both inner and outer. I have also been challenging myself to work a little harder in my asana – a few extra rounds, finding greater balance and today letting go of fear. Durga is the slayer of the ego – symbolized by the severed head and the sword she clutches in her hand. It is the false ego we must slay. Jung describes the ego as that part of us that is the “preserver”, that aspect that thinks it is the Self. Yet we are greater than the small ego-self. We are spirit as well and ego must be integrated as our servant not the master.
 
Meditate tonight on the form of Durga as the Compassionate mother using the yantra above.
 
 
Tomorrow begins three days/nights to the energy of Lakshmi – the beautiful, benevolent one who awakens the potential of spiritual wealth. As Durga is the warrior that awakens the will at Manipur, Lakshmi is the flowering lotus awakening the heart and filling us up. She represents the quality of Rajas, the dynamic force that balances and dances with tamas. As tamas can be calming in its positive quality and depressive in excess, rajas is a force that we use to move out of tamas, to break the old habits of self-destruction and lack of inspiration, but in excess rajas can send us into a manic frenzy of fantasy, over work and hyper stimulation. Lakshmi’s gifts can become over whelming and the risk is to fall back to tamas seeking balance. It would seem most of modern life is a seesaw back and forth from tamas to rajas and back again.
 
In Lakshmi we invoke divine grace and meditate on the blue lotus of the heart. The willful energy of the first three days gives way to deep longing for union with the divine mother within all of us. Our inner divine holds the ability for self-care and has the power to heal our wounds. We are longing not for something outside ourselves but rather the divinity that is within.
 
I have always loved to meditate on the deer in contemplation of the inner search for the divine. The deer is the animal totem of Anahata chakra, a flighty nervous animal that hides at the smallest sounds or threat.  It also searches endlessly for the potent healing smell of musk that is always present, yet it's fruitless in it’s search because it fails to realise that which it searches for is coming from within itself.
 
In the same way we can search externally for a form of the divine, the benign outcome being that the search is fruitless or at it’s most toxic we put our faith and hand over our power to a fallible belief system or person, only to be bitterly disappointed in the long run.
 
Asana and pranayama sadhana for these three days focuses on opening and receptivity to become sensitive to what is within.
 
The next three days/nights call in the energy of Saraswati, the Goddess of knowledge and grace. She awakens us to our higher Self and we meditate on her form as the Satguru, inner guide at the eyebrow centre. Saraswati represent the quality of Sattwa, the balanced energy of harmonised Shakti. This balanced state of energy is the kundalini that rises in the spinal cord (sushumna). Meditate on the breath in sushumna and focus on the eyebrow centre to receive wisdom from within and renewed inspiration.
 
The tenth day is Victory Day and is celebrated as Durga’s final triumph over Mahisha.  Traditionally the celebration is a large havan (fire ceremony)  to offer a sankalpa (resolve) that has arisen from our insight. The fast is broken and treats are eaten.
 
So Happy Navaratri! If you would like to observe this time simply start now. Be realistic, little and often is good. Set aside some time everyday to meditate, chant, sing, draw and create in what ever way feels natural for you, keeping the form of Devi in your heart and in your home.
 
Jai Ma!



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Women's Wheel of Life

8/10/2015

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Serendipity is a strange and wonderful thing; life asking us to “be alert” and pay attention. 10 years ago now I was living in the bush of the NSW far south coast and life was pretty simple and sleepy. My Saturday morning habit was to drive to our local one horse town for the weekend papers, a quiet ritual of a few locals chatting over coffee, utes pulling up for gas bottles and straw bales, a “dogs in the dust” kind of scene.

One Saturday a few trestle tables meandered down the street out of the local hall, manned by old timers selling jams and old tools and hand knits and piles of unwanted books. I wandered along trailing my hands over the wares, not looking for anything in particular. As an enthusiastic collector of literature around the divine feminine it was the last place I expected to find a book on Women’s Business but lo and behold I was to find in my hand a book that has now become a template for my work on Women with Spirit, the title “The Women’s Wheel of Life”.

First published in 1996 the book is still available and really is timeless for the information and stories it holds. Authors Elizabeth Davis and Carol Lombard offer a simple mandala image of life – one that is cyclical in nature, creating a space of transformation and void at the centre. I devoured the book quickly, resonating with both the concepts and the personal stories shared by many women.  The familiar phases of life as maiden, mother, maga and crone are divided further into 3 sub-archetypes and the central space completes the archetypes to 13. It is this expansion of the model to 13 that mirrors the richness of the experience of being a woman.

What I love most about the model is the reflective value – each phase sitting in a harmonic opposite that mirrors and informs the qualities and experiences of each phase. I continue to revisit the wheel to make associations with yogic principles of evolution; match archetypes to myths and goddesses that hold ancient wisdom for the universal experience of being human; reflect on my own life and share with other women a way of seeing themselves as they move through different times of life. The 13 archetypes have also provided fertile material for artistic exploration.

It’s been curious over time to come back to the wheel and remember where I thought I was at 10, 7, 5 years ago and place myself now.  Life isn’t linear and it’s always informative to stop for a moment as I allow myself to really embrace the challenges and opportunities that are both before me and arising from within me and I love sharing this model with women, seeing the “aha” moments as they see themselves a little more clearly. 

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Kali - the dark Goddess.

8/5/2015

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It feels like the world is spinning ever faster and whilst this might be a moot point from a factual point of view, the rate of change has never been greater. According to yogic timelines we are close to the end of the Kali Yuga – the age of Darkness. For a really good breakdown of the complexities of the Yuga’s and how they are astrologically mapped you can read this article: End of the Kali Yuga. 

Just like Medusa, Kali is a dark goddess misunderstood by many due to her ferocious appearance. She is the first of the 10 Wisdom Goddesses, the ruler of time, driving us ever forward through the cycles of birth, death and reincarnation representing the ultimate transformative potential within everything. She is an archetype of seeming opposites: creatrix and destroyer at the once; divine and demon. Understanding and loving Kali is said to be the most difficult path for a sadhaka and her presence is certainly becoming more universal with the resurgence of interest in Goddess culture.

I had an “aha” moment hearing Innovation strategist Monica Bradley challenge all of us to think into the future. Like Kali she invoked “the past is dead”. A truism if ever there was one but suddenly I felt it, a visceral understanding of what that means. The arrow of time on a one-way trajectory and we can never go back.

But so often we are held by our beliefs, our need for security and assurance of the known, the inherent values of many traditions still relevant and needed for social cohesion. Ideally, ethically and morally, there is always need to reflect and consider how changes are going to affect us all. But change is a coming – oh yeh!

Everything is possible and all we need to do is imagine it, see it and open our minds. That is Tantra: expansion and liberation. In recent times many people have focused on manifesting only self-focused possibilities, ones that maximise profit and personal gain – all aspects of the power paradigm of our current era: the energy of Manipur chakra uncontrolled. Now is the shift for collective awareness into new ways of being that are sustainable, humanistic and radical. US philosopher and activist Cornel West recently lamented the dearth of new ideas in the public discourse. As a passionate orator and progressive thinker he practically begs us to come up with something new, to stop rehashing the old way of looking at the world.

Just after thinking about the possibilities in life I came across an article on the Na people in China. This small tribe from the hills of Yunnan province is a matrilineal society that doesn’t even have a word for husband. Relationships are contained within what is called a “walking marriage” where men stay living in their own family home and simply visit their women folk each evening. Nowadays this tradition is under threat but I was struck by the realisation that of course there are so many ways that societies adapt and organise themselves. Whilst it is an old tradition it is a new way of thinking about family structure to many of us in the west.

Over the course of my own experience of motherhood I have seen enormous social changes that have largely de-stigmatised divorce and single parenthood. New family models are evolving all the time and I wonder if we are not closer to the idea of a walking marriage than we think. I would say that what is wonderful is the potential for many approaches, no fixed model. Nuclear, extended, shared parenting between several single women, same sex parenting, blended families, the possibilities are endless and it is seems only social mores limit our possibilities. There are a million ways to make a family and children need the love of lot of people. We can re-model the old idea: “It takes a village to raise a child” into something new and unexpected. That's what Kali consciousness can create - letting go of the past; stepping into the new.

I want to believe that consciousness is evolving. According to the Vedic model of time the Kali Yuga is passing and this is a time of chaos and dissolution. The shift is now, the discomfort increasing as we approach the tip of the fulcrum. Collectively the energy is moving through the chakras and as the remnant shadows of war, abuse and power have the light shone upon them integration is possible. Through integration new paradigms become possible.

 


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Medusa - the Goddess of Protection

7/27/2015

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There she is – a figure of terror, the mythical gorgon of Ancient Greece.

But is she really who we think she is? I love archetypes; they just pop up in my imagination from time to time and stay with me as some sort of beacon or reminder.  Medusa emerged in my dreaming about 18 months ago, around the time I was getting ready to make big changes in my life. It’s no coincidence to me that’s she came at this time, as I was feeling a bit snaky and maybe just a little capable of a death stare.

For me Medusa aligns to the Sorceress phase of a woman’s life, a time towards the end of menopause. Remember menopause is a long time – 15 years in total, so there’s plenty of time to get to know her. This is the final phase of the power years; the fire burning bright in it’s last transformation.

In myth Medusa was the granddaughter of the earth (Gaia) and the ocean (Oceanus), a beautiful mortal Gorgon maiden sworn to celibacy to fulfill her duties as an attendant to Athena. But she forsook her vows to consummate the reciprocated love of Poseidon – God of the Sea. Her punishment for this transgression was to be transformed into a snake haired, ugly monster turning to stone those who looked upon her. Her destiny thereafter was to wander, homeless and loveless until Perseus, another of the Greek heroes, ended her life by cutting off her head, which he then used to protect himself and others from harm and treachery. 

Medusa is by any measure a terrible form of the feminine. Unlovely: scorned: suffering for love. And yet in the end she becomes the protectress, triumphing in death, as she never could in life.  I was delighted to discover Medusa recently in my travels through Greece and Turkey and was surprised to find her always in her place as the protectress, adorning doorways and pathways. But most magically of all she lives under the great city of Istanbul, deep in the underground cisterns, supporting one of the mighty pillars. 

On returning from Turkey I began a project of painting the thirteen archetypes of woman and started with Medusa. For me painting is a meditation, an immersion into the essence of the archetypes or form I am attempting to render. Rather than aim for likeness I seek out the feeling of face and let it speak to me. My time with Medusa was undertaken at a challenging time for other external reasons and so many times I wanted to abandon her. She began as the beautiful maiden and slowly revealed her shadow, the darker side we are more familiar with.

Resolution of the shadow, bringing those aspects of self we deny into the light is the work of becoming whole. The shadow, according to Jung, is the unfinished business of repressed behaviour. Those dirty little secrets underneath the face of pleasantness or spirituality or any other pedestal we allow ourselves to be put on. Shadow is personal and collective. In these troubling times we live in I see plenty of shadow coming to light. It is hard to look at, difficult to understand and the hardest of all; to accept. But in the end it makes us whole and healed.

oms to all.

 

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Past and present

7/26/2015

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Well it’s been too many years to mention since I last had a web site and 12 months since moving on from my life as a swami in the Satyananda linage. It’s been a big year of loss and grief as I have moved away from the structure and support of a large global network of yoga teachers and spiritual family.

But with an end comes new opportunity. Death renews for new life. As one who has explored the never-ending cycles of life through my menstrual journeys, pregnancies, relationships and a lot of yogic philosophy, the time has come to walk my talk.

I’ve been too long in the void of surrender and letting go, waiting patiently for life to heal the wounds and hoping for some bolt of lightening from the sky to get me moving.  But of course the lesson has been that my future is of my own making and the climb out of the void is long and sometimes dark.  Of course the irony is that grief blocked me from the very thing I absolutely knew would be my saving grace. In my hurt and anger I abandoned my yoga practice and in that abandonment lost inspiration.

So what stirred? It built gradually, a return to asana and pranayama first. Kirtan has remained but it’s again daily, as is the practice and singing of bhajans, those beautiful prayers to the divine that challenge my mind to mastery of the Sanskrit and challenges my heart to open to the intention. A renewed and growing daily art practice is also a major release.

So now is the time for stepping into the new.  Into increased creativity and openness. It feels good to be back on the horse.

Om shanti to one and all.

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    Gauri Ma's little insights, shares and sometime rants.

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