Posted on: Jun 18, 2021 @ 10:00 Posted in: Featured, From The Book of Sabbats, Sabbats
A Summer Solstice Meditation: Thou Art Goddess
Excerpt from: The Path of She Book of Sabbats
In the midday brilliance of the Summer Solstice, find a comfortable place in your home by an open window or a private space outside to do your meditation. Bring your attention to your center and imagine breathing in and out from your solar plexus. Feel your belly rise and fall with the movements of your breath. Slow your breathing down and track its reflexive, rhythmic cycle from fullness to emptiness, fullness to emptiness, over and over until your body is relaxed, your mind is empty, and your consciousness is deeply anchored in your inner core.
With a soft-focused gaze, open to the signs of Summer in your part of the world: the dry heat, the sun-bright green edges of leaves, the fragrant smells of flowers and grass, and the infinite other ways Mother Earth is blossoming around you.
See what plant, bird or other wild thing catches your attention, and notice its beauty and behaviors. Know that this plant or creature is doing exactly what it is meant to do, in accordance with the blossoming instincts of its unique essence and purpose.
Close your eyes and use your breath to shift your awareness down through your flesh and bones, and into the depth of your inner landscape. Draw the enervating powers of sunlight deep inside of you and feel it spark your blossoming instincts.
Sense the soles of your feet against the contours of the earth and let the powerful presence of your Goddess Self lead you forward.
As you travel, take in the state of this path. Is it smooth and well-tended, in a state of neglect and disrepair, or somewhere in between? Is your way free and clear, or blocked by debris and brambles? Are you beleaguered by limiting thoughts, doubts and fears? Or are you in synch with the natural state of abundance and grace that underlies this path?
Take a deep, full breath and accept that, whatever its condition, this is your path and way forward to your beauty and blossoming.
Feel the rightness of your desire to reclaim your destined place in the greater weaving of Mother Earth. Open to your hungry longing to be reunited with your feminine wisdom and instincts that connect you with the mysteries of beauty, blossoming and sacred purpose. Listen for the beckoning voice of your Goddess Self. Try to catch Her scent on the wind. Surrender to Her magnetic power, and you will be drawn to Her side.
You will know when you have reached the threshold of your inner sanctum; something deep inside will tell you: yes, this is it, this is my most private, sacred space. Take a few minutes to center yourself and ensure you are completely present, for this is a powerful moment — a homecoming and reclaiming of your holy of holies.
Your Goddess Self may look like you, or have Her own unique appearance. Bask in Her beauty and radiant smile, absorbing the details of Her physical form and the up-close sensations of Her energetic presence. Open to your own energetic and emotional responses to this reunion and homecoming.
Reach out to your Goddess Self, clasping Her hands in yours. Gaze deep and long into each other’s eyes. Let the love and goodness that you are, and that infuses all things, flow between you. Settle into this rightness that is you — this worthiness that is you — this beauty that is you — this power, mystery and presence that are you.
Spend as long as you need with your Goddess Self to renew your bond and to receive Her guidance, insights and loving support. Follow Her into the deepest roots of your beauty, gifts and best qualities. Delve into the true essence and purpose of your Deep Self. See what parts of your beauty and purpose are ripe for blossoming, and what your emerging pathwork may look like. Explore together your shadow-side, fears and doubts that are also part of your pathwork.
Expand your shared awareness beyond your personal pathwork and story to your broader environment, including your family, workplace and community. Open to your Goddess Self’s knowing of the natural abundance of the sacred feminine and Mother Earth. Let Her reveal the beneficial impact you can have on your outer environment through your beauty and gifts, and how you can bring more grace, goodness and generosity to your life and to others.
If you are ready, say yes to your blossoming and the pathwork that has been revealed to you. If you not ready, share whatever changes and commitments are right for you at this time on your journey of soul.
Retrace your passage along the pathway that led to your inner sanctum. With each step and breath feel yourself return to your physical body and everyday consciousness. Open your eyes and connect once more with the summer-bright world, basking in Nature’s generous gifts of sunlight, fresh air and green-growing things.
Put your hands on your solar plexus and savor this moment. There is no separation between you and your feminine wisdom, and there never was. Like the plants and creatures of the natural realm, you too have a luminescent spark of Creation in your core that holds the unique essence and sacred purpose of your Deep Self.
There is a place for you in the great weaving of life, just waiting for the shining outward of your deepest beauty and gifts. In this shining, and your spirit of grace, goodness and generosity, you naturally are a part of the munificence of the Mother Earth, and naturally help to create an ethos of abundance in our human society.
The Goddess is everywhere and in everything. Thou art Goddess.
Excerpt from The Path of She Books of Sabbats: A Journey of Soul Across the Seasons.
Let The Path of She Book of Sabbats transform your life through teachings, guided meditations and pathwork exercises that reconnect you with the seasonal energies of the Earth, the mysteries of the Goddess, and the deepest roots of your life’s purpose and story.
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Posted on: Jun 17, 2021 @ 10:00 Posted in: Sabbats
Three Lessons from the Summer Season: Visioning a New World
There’s a powerful juxtaposing of realities going on right now. One is our human world stuck in a mindset of fear and scarcity that bears the fruits of poverty, social injustice, war, mass overconsumption and climate change. The other is a life-centered ethos revealed in Nature’s emerging summertime landscape of stunning beauty and overflowing abundance.
Two realities, two ways of living and engaging the world around us, two different outcomes for our lives, human society and Earth home. At this moment, both these realities are turned on high, in our face, shaking us awake and asking us to choose.
This isn’t a comfortable discussion to have. It asks you to show up to the toxic brew of sexism, homophobia, racism, violence, environmental destruction and the myriad of other ills that pervade our human psyche and collective behaviors. These terrible events and human ills aren’t isolated, disconnected aspects of our society. They’re symptoms or outcomes of a reality of fear and scarcity that rules our world, where there isn’t enough food, money, jobs, power, social status, and even love to go around. In a reality where the dominant, aggressive and greedy rise to the top of the pile, gathering life’s goodies to themselves, things are going to get nasty and ugly.
Here are three simple, potent lessons from Nature that can help you revision your life and our collective reality in alignment with the powers of life in Summer.
1. Abundance is real.
In the sun-bright days of Summer, abundance isn’t an illusion or utopian ideal. It’s real and substantive, woven of the raw elements of sun, earth, rain, soil and seed that, through the wondrous miracle of life, produce the foodstuff that feeds the hungry bellies of this world.
Nature’s abundance expresses itself in an ethos of generosity, of giving more rather than less, and taking only what is needed. Take a single cherry tree, not only does it offer up delicious fruits for humans and creatures alike year after year, but the pits of the fruit provide the seeds of future plants and harvests.
Imagine living in harmony with Nature’s ethos of generosity by giving more of yourself rather than less, and only taking what you truly need by walking lightly on this Earth.
Imagine conceiving this same abundance in our shared society, where a decent standard of living is a given, and power, worthiness, love, and other markers of personal satisfaction and social value are infinite and available for all, each in accordance with our deep, true needs.
2. Life is good.
The powers of life are at a peak it the Summer, and the good things of the living world are on full display. The sun is hot. The sky is clear blue. Wild things are plump, healthy and busy tending their young. Ripe fruits weigh down branches. Gardens are overflowing with produce.
Sunshine caresses bare skin. Luscious flowers scent warm breezes. Wild music of birdsong and buzzing insects fills the airwaves. Flowers paint the landscape in bright colors and vibrant greens. Strawberries are soft and sweet. Life is very, very good.
Imagine living and sharing this same goodness inside of you by gifting others with your best qualities and nature.
Imagine a world in which Nature’s goodness is cherished, with its gifts and wonders received with gratitude and a debt of protecting these precious resources, and where people share their own goodness and best nature with others.
3. All life is beautiful and worthy.
Wild things don’t have self-worth or identity issues. A dung beetle doesn’t stop to measure its beauty and value against a butterfly. It goes about the business of being a dung beetle, in alignment with its unique dung beetle purpose and place in the great weaving of life.
Be it a dung beetle or butterfly, dandelion or rose, robin or turkey vulture, mouse or wild cat, no one is more beautiful or worthy than another. The summertime powers of light and life call every living being to blossom, flourish, and play their essential part in the balance and well-being of the whole.
Imagine honoring and claiming your beauty, gifts and sacred purpose, knowing that you’re truly beautiful and worthy, and that your contributions to life deeply matter.
Imagine living in a world where others do the same, where there is no better or worse than, just infinite configurations of beauty and gifts, all contributing to the balance and well-being of the whole.
Visioning a New WorldAs I share Nature’s lessons and these visions of a life-centered reality, I want to be clear that I’m neither naïve nor someone who believes that light and love can banish life’s evils. Nature isn’t always gracious and generous. Winter brings scarcity and death, and the wild world can deliver up devastation through earthquakes, hurricanes, wildfires and other natural disasters. Yet Nature always returns to abundance, goodness and life.
In the same way, our personal lives and collective humanity are plagued by the natural ravages of illness, suffering and death, as well as the countless ills and horrors of our collective reality of fear and scarcity. Yet we can choose a vision for our lives and world based on a reality that always returns to abundance, goodness and life, no matter what challenges and hardships come our way.
This isn’t an easy choice to make. It’s hard sometimes to believe in abundance, goodness and life’s beauty in the face of the pain, suffering and horrors that weigh down our personal histories and shared humanity, and the terrible, terrible things we humans continue to do to each other and our Earth home.
Believe me I know, because I’ve traveled into the depths of my own personal horrors and those of our humanity, and come out the other side. I’ve come to understand that I/we can’t undo the harm that’s been done to us, and to the people and things we hold dear. What we can do is look life in the eye, see and speak truth, and choose accordingly.
We humans are capable of immense horror and great goodness. We can build a world based on an ethos of scarcity and fear, or abundance, goodness and beauty. We get to choose, each moment and each challenge, which of these two realities will be our guiding force. Yet, in the end, only a life-centered ethos, love and the best of our nature can mend our hearts, transform our life and take on the momentous task of creating a new, better world.
Nature shows us what we’ve forgotten. It teaches us that abundance, goodness and beauty are real and ever present. It reminds us that nothing is forever; from the depth of Winter, life always returns to and unfolds into the stunning plenitude of Summer. So too we can emerge from the long winter of soul of humanity, and a collective ethos of fear and scarcity, to return to a life-centered reality that can embrace and nourish us all.
Imagine that there’s a place and purpose in this world for every person and wild being, each beautiful, worthy and precious, and that we each bring our best gifts and qualities to the communal table of humanity to solve the problems we’ve created and build a better world together.
Then shift into this living state of abundance, goodness and beauty; stretch out your hands and send this vision outward, like a prayer, into the suffering hearts of our human world.
Bring these lessons and the life-centered ethos of the Summer into your life through the Path of She Guided Journey – Summer Journey: Thou Art Goddess .
The Summer Journey: Thou Art Goddess offering is part of a Guided Journey Series through the seasons to help you seek and source the transformative, life-centered teachings of the Goddess and Nature. The Summer Journey includes: a Guidebook (pdf ebook), Journal (pdf ebook), and Guided Meditation (mp3 audio) that offer an integrated, seven lesson program with wisdom teachings, awareness practice and journaling exercises, and a guided meditation.
Learn More at: Summer Journey: Thou Art Goddess.
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Posted on: May 9, 2021 @ 10:00 Posted in: Featured, Goddess
The Silver Threads of the Great Mother: A New Weaving for These Times
Long ago, we worshipped the Great Goddess, the Creatrix and the Dark One, the giver and the taker of the breath and sustenance of our mortal existence. Her ever-present love and life-giving ways, like shining silver threads, wove the tapestry of our human society, threads that were passed down from the Great Mother, to the priestesses and women leaders, and to the daughters who were to inherit the red cloak of feminine power.
So it was, for generation after generation, the silver threads of the Mother’s ways continued, shining and undiminished.
Yet nothing lasts forever and the seasons of humanity turn. As the sun overtakes the moon in the shifting of night into day, so the rule of men and their patriarchal Gods eclipsed the leadership of woman and the Great Goddess. Dominion and death overruled creation and the nurturance of life, and the silver threads of the Mother became tarnished and frayed.
Still, within this newer, distorted weaving, the silver threads remained visible for those with eyes to see and a heart to receive.
With each successive generation and in patriarchy’s quest for absolute rule and absolute suppression of the Mother’s ways, Her silver threads faded farther and farther from our human awareness. Fear and disdain replaced love and reverence.
There were no priestesses, no women leaders, and no daughters to pass on our sacred feminine lineage. Only the bravest of our ancestors, the witches and the healers and the wise women, dared to remember and speak of the remnants of the Mother’s silver threads, woven into the Old Religion of the Great Goddess. Then they too became a part of our disappearing herstory, tortured and murdered during the horrors of the Burning Times for the taint of association with She who must be purged from Her stubborn roots in the human psyche.
Yet nothing lasts forever and the seasons of humanity turn. The sun shares the sky with the moon, just as God shares this world with the Goddess, and a male ethos with that of the sacred feminine. One may eclipse the other for a time, but what was lost will be refound and balance will return.
Posted on: May 9, 2021 @ 10:00 Posted in: Goddess
Our Collecting and Weaving Task: A Tapestry of Love
These are powerful times that call for powerful presence. The world as we know it appears to be coming apart at the seams, in both immensely positive and terrifyingly negative ways. And we must find our place and power, our love and goodness, in the midst of this river of change that carries us forward to a brighter or desolate future. The Goddess speaks to this transformative moment, calling us to collect and weave the silver threads of Her love and life-centered ways into a tapestry of love that offers a new vision for our lives and shared human society.
I feel the import of this moment, like all of Creation is holding its breath, waiting to see what we humans will choose at this colossal tipping point. I’ve visited this tipping point many, many times with the Goddess and always She returns to the same message: you already have what you need to heal your soul and this world; it’s inside of you, my greatest gift to you, and your most sacred birthright — love.
By this the Goddess doesn’t mean our human, emotional kind of love, but the love that infuses all living things in the unfolding Cosmos, that drives life to create and nurture new life, and to honor and embrace the brilliant manner in which every life form, and every one of us, holds a unique, essential piece of the shining, living, breathing whole.
I feel the Goddess in my fingertips as I write this post. I feel Her in my heart and in my solar plexus.
“Find these threads in your own life. Gather them to you as the precious gifts that they are. Weave them into a new vision, a tapestry of love that centers your everyday existence, and your choices and actions in the goodness and beauty that you are, and the goodness and beauty of your Earth home. And then live your tapestry of love, with all your heart and all your will, knowing that this, and only this, will bring the depth of change that’s needed to turn the tides into a brighter future in these perilous, exhilarating times.”
This is our spiritual pathwork, now and for the rest of our lives. Be assured, the heat is being turned up in this battle over what will rule our soul and our human society: the worst of our nature, with its fear, greed and compulsion for dominion, or the best of our nature, with its goodness, generosity and drive to create. Our primary task, no matter what challenges, fear and resistance cross our path, is to keep collecting and weaving these silver threads into our tapestry of love, to make this weaving strong, resilient and shiny beautiful, and to join with others to create greater tapestries in support of the things we commonly hold dear.
Remember that to face our fears, heal our pain and embrace our challenges are essential parts of our collecting and weaving task. Whatever tapestry we create, individually and together, will contain the shiny, silver threads of our intact goodness and beauty, and the tarnished, frayed strands of our wounded places. All these things are part of our truth and wholeness, and essential to the strength and integrity of our tapestry of love.
As we collect and weave, collect and weave, trust that She, the Great Goddess, Dark Mother, or whatever language you use to name this greater power of life and love, collects and weaves by our side. Together let us sing out to the listening Cosmos and our fellow humanity: we are awake and we are choosing love, and then dive into that river of change and swim with all your might toward the brighter future that awaits us.
Related Post: The Silver Threads of the Great Mother
Posted on: Apr 28, 2021 @ 10:00 Posted in: Sabbats
A Beltane Meditation: Making Life with the Green Man
For everything there is a season, and Beltane is the time to embrace your life-making instincts for the new and beautiful to take root and flourish in your world. Whatever you seek, the Green Man will give to you, for He is the lover-God whose ardor can spark new life and possibilities.
On Beltane, in the heat of daylight hours, seek out a patch of the wild world where you can privately commune with Nature, preferably with soil at your feet and the sky overhead. Make sure this is a space where you feel safe and comfortable to go deep. If you can’t be outdoors, settle yourself in front of an open window that lets in ample natural light and fresh air.
Close your eyes and use your breath to ground yourself. Track the soft, sensual rhythms of your breath, slow, slow in, slow, slow out. Savor the tingling passage of air through your nostrils, filling your lungs and stretching your muscles and ribs outward, and the long, gentle release of breath, flattening your belly inward toward your spine. Follow this pattern over and over, emptying yourself of thoughts and concerns, until your body feels supple, enervated and relaxed.
Focus your consciousness in your solar plexus and then reach your awareness and senses outward toward the exuberant ways in which Nature is bursting forth new life in your part of the world. With your eyes still closed, immerse yourself in the smells and sounds of the burgeoning life around you, and the wild-world energies of sex and birth; draw these energies into your body and let them connect you to the erotic, sensual currents that infuse the Green Man’s Beltane magic.
Take a few minutes to check in with yourself in this exchange. Beltane energy is edgy and intense, and can sweep you off your center or dredge up any shame or wounding you may have around your body, sensuality and sexuality. Be very, very gentle and compassionate with yourself, and only take this work as deep as is good for you at this moment.
Yet do not retreat back into the shadowy places in your psyche. For everything there is a season, and now is the time for you to embrace your life-making instincts for the new and beautiful to take root and flourish in your inner and outer landscapes. No matter your personal doubts, resistance and judgments, or those of others, know that life loves you as you are and longs for you to embrace and live from your deepest beauty.
Know that it makes no difference whether you are straight or queer, man, woman or transgendered, a blade of grass, a frog in heat or a nesting eagle — the Green Man is beloved and lover to us all.
In your inner landscape, let your wild instincts paint for you a forest wilderness decked out in its glorious, Beltane display of new growth: the bright, leaf-green canopy of trees, the musky scents of mating animals, and the melodic communion of nesting birds. Feel the heat rising from the soil, from the branches and foliage, and from the creatures of this place.
Feel a mirror heat emanating from your soul’s desire. Surrender. Become the lover that says yes to life’s embrace.
Imagine the Green Man emerging from between the trees. Take in His physical appearance, His scent and the way He moves His body. Feel how your body and heart respond to Him. Sense the energy field between you, and His magnetic pull on your body and soul. Share whatever words of welcome and communion come to you.
Abandon yourself to the love- and life-making dance that arises between you. Whatever you need, in whatever form, the Green Man will give to you, for He is the lover-God whose ardor can spark new life and possibilities within you, rooted in your deepest essence and beauty.
Do not rush this embrace. Leave behind all traces of your old stories and hurts, and anything that stops you from being fully, wondrously present and sensually engaged. Luxuriate in His delicious companionship. Savor His taste of the wilderness and the delicious joining of your outer forms and inner energies. Let Him fill you, fill you, fill you, and receive His igniting, transforming magic with your whole being, making fertile your soul’s desire to live and flourish from your Deep Self.
When this magical union feels complete, seal it with a sweet, gentle kiss. Then say goodbye to the Green Man with words of love and gratitude. Let the forest landscape fade away. Use your breath to bring you back into your physical body and waking reality. Slowly open your eyes to the bright light around you.
The shadow-side of humanity runs counter to the Green Man’s magic, and you may come up against tender, wounded places inside yourself. These things may resist and block your impetus for new growth. So be gentle, take care of yourself, but do not let the old, stuck places hold sway on your journey of soul.
You must become the lover of your own life, tending your new growth, cultivating your deepest beauty, and making the most with what you have been given. It is time to dig deep, shine bright and embrace the magnificent gift that is your Self.
Artwork by Amdhuscias
Excerpt from Path of She Book of Sabbats. Available on Amazon.
Make your own journey with the Green Man into the wild, delicious, life-making powers of Beltane with the Path of She’s Beltane Guided Meditation. Available at the Path Store for $9.99.
