Women's Body Wisdom Retreat

My lovely and talented artist friend Julia Speer, is giving a Women's Body Wisdom Retreat, and has an Indiegogo fundraiser campaign to enable women of limited income to attend this retreat. If I didn't live so far away, I would certainly attend! 

Rites of Passage

 

 

 

I was asked to write a guest blog post for my gracious, beautiful and very talented friend Julia Speer , who has a wonderful site, Sage Soul Sisters.

 

Having reached the age of being a Crone, I decided to write a post about rites of passage, and examine what the term means to me personally. I believe it is about transitional change.  I continue to learn what this means to me, and hopefully I will always welcome change with courage.
 In particular, I strongly identify with traditional First Nation people's outlook, and philosophy regarding rites of passage.

People are always changing. We are either moving forward, or regressing, regardless of  the pace or situation. The one thing that stays the same, is that life is always full of transition, from birth to death.
 My life transitions are particular to me of course, but like most folks, many did not come easily, were beyond my control, and some were of my own choice, and decision.

I don't think it much matters what my experiences were, so much as what my attitude was when they happened, and what I gleaned from these rites of passage. The lessons learned, helped me to become a better human being. I always reflect and paraphrase what I heard Angela Davis say during an interview, when asked about her time in prison; when you go through difficult times she stated, these times either break you, or you get stronger.

My attitude toward rites of passage was, and is everything. I had to find the positive, courage, faith, and trust. When I couldn't find these within myself, I borrowed them from some one else. I had to leave put my false pride aside, reach out to others for help, and put my faith in God.

I certainly understand that much of my behaviour was already hardwired in my personality due to my parental upbringing that determined in part, who I would become as an adult woman.

I have had many rites of passage, and I am still connecting these to myself, as a spiritual being, having a human experience, who has recently transitioned into being a crone, now reaching the age of sixty. When I think about this, it causes me to reflect over the course of my life up until the present, and to take a kind of inventory of these rites of passage.

I have listed the most significant rites of passage in my life.

•  The first transition in my life came at the young age of five, when my brother developed multiple sclerosis.
•  I would be directly effected by two diseases. MS and alcoholism.
• At the age of 13 my father left my family, and my brother had a mental breakdown at the age of 23.
• My mother and I returned to Nova Scotia without my brother, and this point I began to get more seriously involved in substance abuse.
• My brother returned to Nova Scotia. I quit high school, and went to vocational school in order to help me get into art college. I decided I wanted to study art.
• At 17-18 years of age I moved out of my mother's home and lived on my own for a period of time in Halifax.
• At 21 I got accepted into NSCAD ( Nova Scotia College of Art and Design ).
• In 1981 I married the love at my life. Four months later, he was dead from a complications from schizophrenia and brittle diabetes, that tragically took his life in 1981 at the age of 26.
• I married again to an abusive, alcoholic man in 1986.
• I got pregnant twice, and miscarried both times.
• In the late 80s I re-united with my father after having no contact with him for 26 years.
• Joined Al-anon in 1988, found myself in Transition House, and divorced in 1991.
• After meeting an Art Therapist, and she introduced me to The Artist Way. I quit my Youth Care Worker profession to go riding horses at 40  for  a period of approximately two years, and I got sober.
• In my second year of sobriety my mother died. My father and mother came to my first year  anniversary.
• Suffice to say, without going into the messy details, I was out in orbit for the first four years of sobriety, until I started to work the 12 Steps, and then things began to improve. I truly had turned my life, and will over to the power of God as I understood.
• I got involved with Mediterranean dance ( Beledi )  which means folk dance, or commonly known as belly dance.
• My father died eleven years ago, and two months later, MS took my big brother and I was a mess, but I stayed clean and sober.
• At 56 years of age, I went back to University and graduated with my Bachelor of Fine Art from Mount Allison University in 2012.

I hesitated a bit in making this list, as part of my post being so personal, and to some may seem very negative. Yes it's true, much of it was negative, but in retrospect, all of these experiences, and events have helped me to become, and to accept who I am mind, body and spirit. I choose not to let my rites of passage define me in a negative way. I became a resilient, whole person, that learned to take responsibility for my own health and happiness. I've learned to accept the things I can not change, to change the things I can, and to know and discern the difference.
I am grateful for each, and every day of my rites of passage, for my contented, happy, sober life. Especially I am forever grateful to those who helped me along the road.

                                            Self-Portrait/ Artist As A Crone



 

The Forgotten Relationship-Julia Speer-Guest Post

The great thing about the internet is it enables you to meet some wonderful people. One such very beautiful soul I recently have come to know is artist, teacher, and minister Julia Speer. It moves me to know such an inspiring woman, makes me feel motivated, and hopeful. I feel she is one of my many soul sisters I have been blessed to know, who are so important and vital to my life. She has an excellent website, www.sagesoulsisters.com and blog, http://wildwomanthoughts.blogspot.com

I am very happy and proud to share with you, her guest post, entitled The Forgotten Relationship.

Image By Jade Beall Photography

My new friend and kindred, Catherine, generously 

invited me to write a blog post to share. I thought to 

myself, “If there were only one thing I could say (to 

women), one thing I could share, what would it be?” 

I would say, “You can know just how magnificent

you are.” I don’t mean when; when you lose 10 

pounds, when you get that promotion, when you 

accomplish whatever it is you think you “should” do. 

No, I mean right now in this present moment, you 

can know the magnificence of the beautiful and the 

not-beautiful within you. 

I turn 56 in less than 3 weeks, and if there is one 

thing I now know like I know like I know, it is that all 

that I have ever longed for, searched for, felt was 

missing or just not quite right in my life was 

addressed with one primary relationship - the 

relationship with self. Yeah, I said it. Do you have a 

visceral reaction to it? Do you have little voices in 

your head that whisper words like selfish, 

self-centered, self-absorbed, egotistical, narcissistic, 

unattractive, unspiritual, wrong, bad? Tell me how 

did “self” become such a dirty word? It’s like the 

word “no” for women. Nice girls are always loving 

and giving… to others. From the time we are little 

girls we are taught to focus our attention outward 

and away from ourselves toward others. We are 

taught to focus our time, attention, energy, love, 

commitment, generosity, patience, and compassion 

to other. This is done often out of balance and to the 

exclusion of our self. 

How many women do you know who are very 

comfortable with giving to others their time, 

attention, love and acceptance, but feel 

uncomfortable and undeserving when it comes to 

giving that same thing to themselves? How many 

women do you know who are just as comfortable 

with receiving as they are with giving? I have been 

facilitating women’s soul work since 1997, and I 

have met and know a lot of women. I would have to 

say in response to this question, very few. What I 

have discovered is that as women, this is one thing 

we seem to share universally. I don’t think it’s limited 

to the U.S. because women from all over the world 

respond to my women’s Facebook page, and it is 

certainly broader than American culture. The problem with this message and the resulting 

impact is that women disconnect from their bodies. 

This is a grave problem because our bodies house 

our instincts and intuition. Our bodies tell us the 

truth about when we need to say yes and when we 

need to say no. In fact, our bodies will tell us exactly 

what we need at any point in time if we will but 

listen. Sadly, we have been taught to fear this. We 

have been programmed to see our body as the 

enemy. Most women believe that if they listened to 

their body tell them what they need that it would 

destroy them with its voracious appetites. But that, 

Dear Girls, is a lie. Our magnificent bodies are an 

exquisite resource. Most of us have come to believe that if we accepted 

ourselves exactly as we are in this moment, we 

would become lazy, complacent, unmotivated to 

create positive change. We have come to believe 

that our harsh inner critic is what motivates us and 

keeps us from becoming something undesirable. Is 

that really true? Think for a moment about how 

humans thrive. What results would you get if you 

said to a child the critical things you say to yourself? 

Would that child thrive? Would that child be 

motivated to risk, to step out of their comfort zone, 

to learn new things? Or would that child become 

fearful, distrusting, hesitant, lacking confidence? This 

is true of any human. If the inner critic actually 

worked, wouldn’t all we be in a very different place 

by now? The truth is that constant criticism enlists 

our lizard brain, the part of our brain that responds 

with fight or flight. When we are threatened or 

under stress (criticism), our bodies produce cortisol, 

a stress hormone. When the body feels consistently 

threatened or attacked, the long-term effects of 

cortisol can have a negative effect on our overall 

health. The body, when under this constant internal 

stress, in order to protect itself, will eventually shut 

itself down. Depression follows. When a person is 

depressed, there is little motivation. So a deeply 

ingrained pattern of self-criticism is actually 

de-motivating. All that garbage you have been telling yourself all 

these years does not help you. It does not expand 

your life or nourish you in any way. It is counter-

productive, diminishes your health and impedes your 

joy. You deserve joy. Period. Commit to the act of 

Embracing. Synonyms: Acceptance. Approval. 

Agreement. Implementation. Yes, practice it. Get up 

every morning and say yes. Yes to this belly, yes to 

these breasts, yes to these hips, thighs, waist, arms. 

Yes. Look at your body in the mirror and begin the 

practice of loving and accepting yourself right here 

and now, all of you. Reconnect with the wisdom of 

your body. It has so much to tell you. Look into your 

own eyes and begin to build a relationship with 

yourself that is honoring and respectful. The self is not some ugly, anti-god monster. The self 

is our soul-self, that rich, dark fertile soil of the 

psyche. What is there drives our actions whether we 

know it or not. We can live from an unconscious, 

self-defeating place or a conscious loving place. It is 

a choice, but it is not an event. Tending soul is like 

tending a garden. It needs love, nourishment, and 

nurture. When we make that commitment, we get to 

reap the harvest. There is a bounty of joy, 

compassion, peace, freedom, and personal 

empowerment waiting for each of us. It starts right 

here at home, this relationship with myself.