Honoring All Womyn Part 2
March 19, 2010 by Coach Margie
Filed under Health & Wellness, Self Development, celebrations, nature, relationships, self empowerment, woman
As March draws to a close, and Spring is showing up on our doorsteps with singing birds and budding crocuses, I find myself reflecting on the immense and amazing process of the life/birth cycle. Mother Nature, of course, is the ultimate metaphor, and truth, of this process. She is the Divine Mother, the powerful feminine standing strong in her authentic beauty, rawness, expansion and contraction. Her process does not include questioning or doubt, it is inherently trusted that the sun will rise in the morning, day will turn to night, Winter to Spring, and all that lives will die only to live again. It is an intricately designed system that works beyond our wildest imaginations, that is synergy in motion, perfection in the incredible perfection of it all. What lessons we can learn from this divine feminine force, from this iconic state of being.
March, as mentioned in previous posts, is the month that International Woman’s Day gets celebrated. Last weekend, in the small community I live in, we had a lively night of entertainment, showcasing some of Bisbee’s female talent, of which I was honored to be apart of, in acknowledgement of Woman’s day. Reading the original piece of my own, that I shared in my last post, was sweet and vulnerable, and I felt so lovingly embraced as I did.
“Yoni Speaks”, by Melissa Seaman, is a powerful piece that has resonated with me for years, and this year it resounds strongly in my core even more so. Choosing to read this transforming piece was both scary and freeing. I share it with you here, giving full honor and credit to Melissa as a powerful Yoni Shaman, as she calls herself. This is important and necessary work for us all, men and womyn. It is my story, your story, her-story, his-story, Earth-story. Let me know what you think.
Yoni speaks..
I am angry. I have been transgressed. It was not him who desecrated me. It was you. You let him in to far – again!
I know, Womyn. Together we long to be touched in the Center, to be contacted in the deepest. We long to be seen for the radiant Goddess-carrier we are, in our fullness, in our power. And we long to be met by one who is willing to look on the terrible beautiful face of this full Goddess, to Stay.
But this was not the man. You knew that. And you still seduced him into the Holy of Holies, inviting him to take whatever he wanted from our sacred place. Your longing took the better of you.
How can you now blame him? Did you tell him the truth of your imagined agreement? Did you clear his consent for ownership? How can you forget how to protect yourself so?
You know how a man is programmed. He is dazzled by the light in the Temple. He is driven by desire and instinct. It is your Temple, and you invitation, that draws him or keeps him at bay.
I know. It has been eons since you held the gates of the Temple for yourself. They took away your guards long ago. You were dragged, screaming, by your hair, down the marble steps of the Temple, and into the street. You were cut, raped, opened, and bled. Many times.
You still remember the punishment in every cell of your body. I do not blame you Sister/Mother/Lover/Friend. But, I am calling you Home to your wisdom, with the power of my Rage.
You ask, “How, Mother, will I know how far to let him in?” I tell you. If he comes to leave an offering, allow him to the steps, to leave his first offering at the gates. If he is found worthy to receive from the Temple, then let him in, but only to the entryway, to the foyer, from which he might catch a glimpse of the glory, but not able to revel to long, nor take it away.
If you find he is trusted in Love, then allow him to approach your altar and pledge his devotion, to worship at your table. Meet him there and devote yourself with him. This is a deep place of offering, and even here, you are tempting heart break should you invite one who is not ready.
But only if you intend to let him claim you, should you invite him into the Holy of Holies. You know inside yourself, this place where he touches, and you Fully Open. This is the place of your Priest and Partner. This is the sacred place of Trust reserved for the Priest of the Temple-the one who will protect her with his own Life.
You will know this Priest because he will gladly lay the needs of his ego aside, and devote himself to the Vitality and Mystery that runs through you, honoring you as the keeper and the container, and pledging devotion to caring gently for this container in on going devotion.
Your Priest will not come for a day or a week. He will pledge himself to service of your Temple for his foreseeable future, because he will recognize that All He Seeks is in your eyes, your belly, your womyn’s soul.
He will find that you are his Gateway to the divine feminine, and he will choose wisely to honor you as such, despite his primal ego’s longing to collect Yoni’s in a fruitless habit of tasting gates instead of walking through them and dwelling Within.
Are you listening to your Yoni? Are you feeling healed, sensual, powerful? Yoni is a sacred Sanskrit word for vagina. She represents the secret power and voice of womyn. She has been silenced by the modern patriarchal cultures which have viewed her as dangerous and dirty.
But the voice of the feminine is awakening in the world, a co-creative process that reconnects all people to their creative joy, their integrity, and their feminine beauty and radiance.
Men, too, are finding their Yoni Power, as the feminine is alive in both men and womyn. Men willing to sit in their feminine energy have received some major healing’s in reconnecting to their own deep intuitive wisdom and mother energy.
Womyn everywhere are hearing the Call of their Yoni to become more fully feminine, alive, radiant, and powerful in the world. She again has a voice. Now it is her turn to speak..invite her and she will speak through you, and to you, too….
by Melissa Seaman
Light At The End Of A Dark Tunnel
February 22, 2010 by Coach Margie
Filed under Health & Wellness, Whole Health, divorce, emotional energy, personal growth, relationships, self empowerment
Pain. Sadness. Grief. Despair. Stress. “Uck!”, you say? I agree.
Unfortunately, that’s where I have been, to be openly honest.
Well, it’s where I was. Hence the lack of new words, in the last 2 months, on these pages.
Yet, there is light at the end of the tunnel. Actually, I am IN the light right now. Whew……sooooo good to be here.
The journey of life is not always an easy one. Try as we may, sometimes we fall down. Sometimes we can’t get back up for awhile. Sometimes we need to rely on our friends to get us through the day, or even more, the night. Sometimes we wonder if we will make it.
One thing I have learned. The universe, or God, or whatever you want to call it, never gives us more than we can handle. And when it feels like we won’t be able to handle it, it is because we need to learn how to.
The last 8 months have been one of the most challenging times in my life. A period where everything that is my life came up for question, and got turned completely inside out, when my partner made the choice to end our relationship. I’ve come to understand that it wasn’t so much the break-up, or that my partner couldn’t show up the way I hoped he would, that threw me head first and screaming into the dark tunnel. Sure, that was painful and had it’s own set of tears and grief. What had more impact though, was what got called up with-in me, what I was forced to confront, how I chose to engage in the process, and how in the end I was the one that had to figure it all out and re-design my life. Your friends can only hold your hand for so long.
Having the opportunity to evaluate everything in your life and discern the truth of it for yourself is a wild and weird ride. However, when you wake up one morning and finally accept that things just aren’t what you thought they would be, you have to do something. While it is hard to recognize it at the time, such a cataclysmic event can be a real gift. The blessing for me has been about reconnecting to the essential elements of my souls requirements-what my soul needs to live a life of authentic bliss. Isn’t it amazing how we can lose sight of what those things are sometimes?
The re-design doesn’t happen over night. (Small manageable steps, as I tell my clients all the time!) It requires deep exploration, internal questioning, values review and lots of time for simply healing. In my journey I have given myself oodles of gentleness, self nurturing and space to just be. It’s not easy. I’m a go-getter, organizer and facilitator. To not have a clear sense of what is around the corner of my life drives me crazy sometimes.
But the truth is, do we ever know what is around the corner? If I had known that the fated relationship was going to end up as it did, would I have gone forward? And if not, then what would I have lost? Certainly the rich lessons of the journey. While they came with some heartache, ultimately, the gifts I am left with for myself are ones I am grateful to have. I do not regret the journey.
And today, well, for today I am just darn happy that I made it through that tunnel! And, I’m here to tell you, if you happen to be finding yourself in some dark tunnel with no light in sight, that you will too. I just know it.
Adding Value and Giving Thanks
November 24, 2009 by Coach Margie
Filed under Life Coaching, celebrations, personal growth, relationships, retreat
(This is a re-post from another blog I had. I share it with you today as I scurry off to the mountains and cold of Colorado to spend Thanksgiving with dear friends. May you have a marvelously abundant and joyful Thanksgiving holiday! Thanks for being a reader. )
Lately I have been pondering, and sitting with, the question of “How can I add value to your life?”. Your being the collective your; all those around me, all those I touch, have contact with, and intersect with in various ways.
As we approach the Thanksgiving holiday, a time when we naturally take stock of all the things we have to be joyfully grateful for, it’s a bit of an interesting twist. As I list my mountains of abundance that I am so thankful for, I also get to consider all the ways that I might be able to positively impact another’s life.
How can I add value to your life? Depending on who I ask will certainly influence the answer. Actually, it is not even imperative that I really ask the other person, it is a question I can ask of myself about another person. “How can I add value to so&so’s life?”.
It occurs to me, that unless those I am asking really know who I am, they may not be aware of how I may add value to their life. If, for instance, the person I asked did not know that I am a Life Coach, they wouldn’t know that I might support them in gaining clarity or in creating balance in their lives. If they know I am a Life Coach, they may not understand that my focus is on Whole Health and Wellness, especially within relationships, and that my passion is in helping others to gain a sense of complete healthiness in all aspects of their life. If they are needing respite and renewal, and didn’t know I facilitate custom designed retreats for individuals and groups, they wouldn’t know I could help them step out of their usual lives and into a safe place of stillness where their authentic voice could really be heard. Likewise, if one was unaware of my community building experience, or organizational skills, networking prowess, or love for collaborative ventures, how would they know to ask?
As we consider the possibility of adding value to lives of others, in ways that they will be thankful for, while we count our own blessings, it seems important that we let others know who we are!!
But first, we must ask ourselves…how do I value myself? In what ways can I add value to my own life? What aspects of myself do I believe adds value to the lives of others? Believing in ourselves and trusting that we have something of value to contribute to the world at large, and knowing what that is, is as important as wanting to make a positive impact.
Sometimes we are not always able to connect to our intrinsic value and positive contribution to the world. Hopefully, this is when our friends and loved ones take notice, and ask us how they can add value to our lives! And then, we get to count our blessings and have give thanks and the circle continues.
Today, I am grateful for many, many things, and I ask: how can I add value to your life?
The Red Tent Temple Movement
November 17, 2009 by Coach Margie
Filed under Health & Wellness, Self Development, celebrations, personal growth, relationships, retreat, self empowerment
Awhile back a Facebook friend, and fellow Womyn’s Circle facilitator that I originally met back East in what now seems like life times ago, posted a link to a movement that she is starting, called the Red Tent Temple Movement. ALisha Starkweather is well known as an extraordinary and skilled facilitator for personal and global transformation and is the founder of the Women’s Belly and Womb Conference and Daughters of the Earth Gatherings; a Women’s Tribal Event, and her Priestess Path Apprenticeship.
ALisa says, ”
“The Red Tent Temple Movement is a way for women to gather our inner momentum, that feeling like the time is now, and to authentically come forward with everything we are as women. It gives us a place to incubate, dream, slow down, without an agenda or plan. It is a woman space where we can share stories, laughter, songs, food and honor our unique feminine cycles that we experience each month, whether we are in our bleeding time or going through peri-menopause and menopause. The Temple provides a way that is more consistent with our actual rhythms, cycles and ways of being in relationship to each other that support, foster and give us strength and courage.
It is time. The women are ready to co-create a vision in the societies we live in and make a place among us where women are honored by honoring our own unique journeys of womanhood. Join us in a revolutionary act. It is more than a woman’s circle. It is a deep learning process of unlearning the busy and finding the moment.
Inside the Red Tents we give ourselves time to remember who we are at our very core, while honoring that to remember we must turn from our identities and roles towards the innermost temple of our own hearts. Come into the Red Tent and stop. In the quiet and sometimes celebratory company of wonderful women, feel. In what you feel, there is much that is waiting for you.”
I am pleased, and happy, about bringing a Red Tent Temple to my local community of Bisbee, AZ. It’s important. It’s time. Womyn need a place to come together, to gather, to reconnect. We live in such crazy times, and our ancient ways of womynhood and divine feminine experiences are getting lost. As we struggle to fit into the boxes of societies demands and our various roles, the essence of our authentic spirit cries out to be heard and attended to. Come to the Temple. Relax. Unwind. Be nurtured by other womyn. Share stories and wisdom. This is how we create, design, and maintain sustainable relationships in our lives. Reconnect to your spirit, your story, your dreams, your purpose. Laugh, Dance and Play. The time is now.
My heart sings in the anticipation of being in your presence inside The BisbeeRed Tent and/or of visiting your Tent wherever you are. Join the movement. Erect a Red Tent in your community.
(The Red Tent of Bisbee, AZ will be starting Dec 15th. Connect with Coach Margie for more information)
