Like so many others I’ve struggled with relationships my entire life. With my partners I’ve experienced the greatest bliss and the greatest pain. Part of my personal struggle with relationships has been incredible anxiety and attachment. My pattern involved becoming interested and connected with a woman and growing more anxious about losing the connection the closer we got resulting in a fear of intimacy. The anxiety and fear of loss would be so intense at times it would almost reach the level of a panic attack. It felt as if holding onto my lover or partner was a matter of survival. That there was something I desperately needed from them in order to be ok and at peace. And yet I could never seem to get it, I would still feel anxious and upset and eventually the relationship would end and I’d be left devastated only to start the process all over again. This really became a habitual pattern which was incredibly painful because I am a very passionate and loving person and relationship is important to me but I could never seem to make it work to my satisfaction.

My intention in relationship has always been to be free. To be free to be myself and allow my partner to be herself without my needs being projected onto her. In working to realize this intention I began to notice a feeling of lack within me that felt like the core of the anxiety I feel in relationship. In going deeper into this feeling of lack I began to realize that it seemed to represent a disconnection from my own heart which you might call the inner feminine. In working with that I could see that this feeling of lack was being projected outward onto my partners and other women in an attempt to get from them what I was lacking internally. My relationship patterns were being created by me through this process of projection. That was painful to realize but it also felt empowering because my inner process was something I had access to, I could do something about it. But what to do? How to heal this inner wound?

I worked on this in my relationships, in my spiritual process group and in counseling and made incredible progress illuminating more and more layers of this needy, afraid disconnected part of me. My previous partner and I had a similar process with this and we were both conscious enough to work on what was coming up for us in the relationship. We played out the patterns in painful ways at times but we came out of our relationship with much greater clarity as to the nature of the wound and moved an enormous amount of energy related to it. We were able to see it through and remain close friends.

However the real shift for me happened when I began to cultivate a personal relationship with the feminine part of myself, the Divine Feminine or what I refer to as the Goddess. I felt a call from a feminine energy that I could not identify or fully describe. This inner call felt like a subtle pull drawing me into my heart, my feelings and to nature. Slowly I began to make a daily practice out of connecting with this feminine energy and it has gradually been built into an inner relationship with the Goddess which reflects the feminine polarity of the divine. As a man in this patriarchal culture this feminine part of myself has been beaten down and repressed as I tried to step into being the man I thought I was supposed to be. The repression took extreme forms at times especially in my experience in the military where any sort of emotional expression except for anger and lust was violently discouraged.

The more I’ve stepped into my connection with the Divine Feminine the more I have begun to realize that what I was so desperately seeking in women was something I have within me. This opened up the possibility of free relationship for the first time and the potential for unconditional love which is free of grasping and expectations. My relationship with the Goddess is my primary relationship with the feminine and by holding that in my heart always I am free to see women for who they are and not what I need them to be. This process has been cultivated and unfolded for several years now but during the last few months I drew in a connection with a woman which was in a way an initiation into a free flowing expression of the Divine Feminine.

This young lady became of member of my spiritual process group which consists of some of the people I am closest to in my life. We felt a connection to each other right from the first night we met and she seemed to already have the keys to my heart in a powerful way. I felt immediate love and familiarity for this person as well as an incredible attraction. We began connecting and sharing right away and I started to imagine that this person could be an ideal partner for me. However it became clear over time that she was not interested in connecting with me romantically. This brought up a powerful wave of pain and sadness as I saw that I wanted so badly to grasp onto her as the perfect partner. However in creating that inner connection with the feminine and the strong intention to be free of the painful process of attachment to a woman I had another option. I decided I would openly express to her what I was going through but take full responsibility for it and sit with and process my feelings without making her responsible. In doing that I would also continue to engage my connection with her no matter what it brought up, continue to open my heart to her. My friend also happened to be a very wise open-hearted person and she continued to engage a heart based connection with me while standing firm in her truth and boundaries. This elicited incredible respect for her because she held the middle ground, she did not pull away from me and did not enable my projections and needs, she embodied the loving yet powerful Divine Feminine. Slowly I worked through the pain and was able to meet her at the heart and embrace one of the most loving beautiful connections I’ve ever had with a woman. It showed me that love and sex are two different things, I can create deep intimate love with a woman without having a sexual connection. This was powerful for me because I had always linked the two in my relations with women. My friend recently moved away but before she did we spent several days together staying at the same house and sharing another level of deepening love and intimacy after which she reflected to me that she felt seen and respected and loved by me and how powerful that had been in her healing process.

For me this all represents a process of healing the connection between the masculine and feminine within so as to bring it back into balance. I think this is needed on a collective level as well because so many men struggle with the same disconnect from their hearts and their feminine side. This disconnect plays out in many ways including war and violence but especially in relation to the opposite sex resulting in relationships that don’t involve true clear connection because we are in relationship with an object for our needs instead of the actual person. We can only be in true relationship when we accept and see the other person for who they are in this moment without needing to change them. We can only do that when we take responsibility for our feelings and our happiness and realize that we are already complete whole divine beings and we don’t need anyone else to fulfill us. In realizing this wholeness we can then enter into relationship to share the love that already lives in our hearts instead of trying to get it from “out there” which is futile. When we accept people as they are it opens the door to receive incredible gifts which we would otherwise have been blind to. This feels like real freedom to me and I am deeply grateful to the Goddess, the universe, my past partners, women in general and my dear friend for helping me in this healing process.

I want to share a great article a friend posted on facebook recently that addresses how men can relate to women in a sacred way and make a personal connection with the Divine Feminine. The article which appears on the Huffington Post is titled – “Why It Is Wise to Worship a Woman” – awesome title. The author shares his experience of making a deep connection with the Divine Feminine and how that has changed how he relates to his partner and women in general.

Like many men I have lived most of my life disconnected from the Divine Feminine. That disconnection has produced incredible suffering as I’ve chased after women in an attempt to reclaim a part of myself. I’ve torn apart relationships bouncing back and forth between the extremes of either trying to dominate women or giving my power away to them and feeling dominated myself. Over the last few years I’ve felt a strong pull to the archetype of the Goddess and this has lead me slowly but surely into cultivating a relationship with the Divine Feminine in my own spiritual practice. That process has lead to some incredible realizations and has begun to transform my relationship with women. I was amazed at first by the incredible resistance I experienced when opening up to the Goddess and her powerful healing presence. I say resistance but what it really felt like was terror, I’ve been afraid of women because it felt like they had a power I could not understand and which could easily destroy me, at least on an emotional level but also a power I very much needed to be whole. This fear and disconnection prevents true relationship because one is only able to relate to a projection. The projection being the feminine part of me that I am separated from projected onto a woman. I am then in relationship with my projection rather than the beautiful being in front of me and the connection becomes about the manipulation of that projection to get what appears to be needed.

In opening up to the Goddess and creating an inner relationship to the Divine Feminine I am now seeing more of the sacredness and wisdom that women reflect. A new type of relationship with women has become possible where I can worship and adore them as manifestations of the Goddess while simultaneously seeing that as a reflection of the feminine within me. The balance of seeing it both internally and externally is essential because if I see it as separate then I give my power away and dysfunctional connection results. This allows true relationship and unconditional love because I am no longer projecting the feminine within me externally, instead I simply see women as reflecting it and so when I serve and honor them I’m serving and honoring myself at the same time. Without the projection I also see each woman more as who she is rather than what I need from her so true relationship becomes possible. Coming into relationship from this place of wholeness or with masculine and feminine energies in balance in the space of the Divine allows a deep level of relating which the author of this article refers to as entering the gates of the temple, the temple being the Divine Feminine.

For men, women can embody the mystery of the Divine Feminine and can initiate us into its experience if we honor them and open our hearts to receive this amazing gift. I think particularly in this time this is a healing journey that is open to men and essential if we wish to heal our part in creating the brutal imbalance of the patriarchal paradigm. In the article the author suggests two ways of practicing this which I very much agree with, one being a personal spiritual practice with the Goddess and the other being adoring and serving women. I feel this is one of my primary purposes in life. The women in my life have been my greatest teachers and I feel we need more female teachers and role models in our society so as to bring the energies back into balance for the collective. We as men also need to cultivate and strengthen our embodiment of the God or Divine Masculine which can only come to its true power when grounded in the Feminine. We can only truly honor and serve women if we are secure in the Masculine because dis-empowered service is not true service.

This morning was the full moon in Virgo/Pisces and last night when the moon as out in all her radiance I tried a new form of full moon practice. I usually do a special practice on the full moon which includes meditation and channeling the powerful energy with intention but last nights practice opened me up to the energy of the Goddess at a new level.

The moon is traditionally associated with the Goddess in many nature religions and such an association feels quite natural to me. When the moon is full the power of the Goddess is manifested outwardly at its greatest intensity so it is a powerful time to open to her energy. For me the Goddess is the personification of the Divine Feminine within each of us, of the nurturing energy of the natural world, the Yin energy and of the creative life giving force of the universe. It has been incredibly healing for me especially as a man to cultivate a personal relationship with the Goddess thereby awakening the Divine Feminine within me and allowing it to guide and nurture me. This has begun to transform my relationship with women as well because having this connection with the Divine Feminine means I don’t have to unconsciously try to get it from them. I can be more free to honor women as manifestations of the Goddess and offer them love and adoration from a more balanced empowered place.

My practice last night involved going outside under the full moon and reaching up to her in salutation and opening myself to her energy. I imagined channeling the energy of the full moon from above through me while imagining grounding myself into the earth thereby creating a circuit of flowing energy. I reached up to the moon and then moved my hands down to my heart drawing down the moon and the power of the Goddess into my heart, welcoming her into my heart and my life. From that place I allowed myself to breath in the darkness, suffering, pain and fear of the world into the radiant moon at my heart and then breath out the loving, compassionate nurturing energy of the Goddess and see the world and all within it transformed by her loving presence. After a few rounds of this and some giving of thanks and praise to the Lady I then grounded the energy into the earth seeing the planet as healed and transformed. This was a powerful practice because I felt the energy at my heart very powerfully and felt the presence of the Lady more than I ever have before.

The cycles of the moon have become a primary guiding force in my life which feels like a way of reconnecting with the natural rhythms that so many of us have lost touch with. Our tribal brothers and sisters in the past lived by these natural cycles and created their lives based on them and in harmony with them. What would our world look like if we fully were to return to this kind of harmonious way of life? I imagine it would be nothing short of magical. May you find your connection with the Lady and rejoice in it.

Praise to the Goddess in all her forms……….Blessed Be!

For a quick personal full moon practice click here: http://www.mooncircles.com/fullmoonritual_print.html

I love trees, I always have. I love the natural world but for some reason trees have always had a special meaning and a special power for me. The reverence and appreciation I feel for them can be intense and lately I’ve made it a daily practice to connect and work with them. They are a great teacher for me and they demonstrate and symbolize how to live in the world with grace, groundedness, openness and connectedness. They help me move energy by connecting me with the Earth and acting as a channel for its energy. They comfort me when I’m feeling lost and help me get to my feelings. They provide a natural temple to connect with Spirit, the Goddess and the power of the Earth. Its really too bad they aren’t appreciated more for what they have to offer people as well as what we can do for them because I think we are meant to work together.

Trees are an amazing spiritual symbol and they represent grounded connected life very well. If we consider how a tree exists this becomes clear. A tree is dependent on the world around it, it needs light, water, air and soil to grow and prosper. Yet if a tree is to survive it must put down strong roots deep into the ground while reaching up into the sky to the sun so it must be grounded in the Earth while open to the sky. If it is not well grounded a strong wind can topple it or even blow it away but if well grounded a tree can and must withstand storms and the tumult of the outside world. It must also be flexible so as not to break in the wind, a balance of strong grounding and flexibility.

Humans too must be well grounded in themselves, the Earth and in Spirit if they are to withstand the trials of life. If we are not well grounded we tend to be swept up in the circumstances and emotional drama of our lives and this is particularly true in these intense times. However if we are well grounded, we find our stability within and we are not swept away even in the most difficult of times. Like the tree we must also be flexible and not be so rigid in our groundedness that we snap. We flow with the changing current of life without being overwhelmed by it. Being grounded and flexible is what trees symbolize for me.

The tree has also been used by many cultures as a powerful symbol, an example of which is the Tree of Life. Here the tree is used to symbolize life itself in all its complexities and interconnections. A similar concept is that of the World Tree where the tree is used as a cosmological symbol of the underworld, the Earth and the Heavens.

Trees can be a powerful tool for healing because they can help us ground and move emotional energy very effectively. When I’ve felt stuck in my “stuff” lately I’ve taken a trip to the park to do tree practice. I’ll find a strong tree I feel drawn to and touch it with both hands while planting my feet firmly on the ground next to it. I will then ask the tree for help in moving my stuck energy. If it feels right to continue I visualize energy from the earth coming up through my feet and into me and flowing out through my hands into the tree and back into the earth creating a circuit. The tree has a way of helping me make this connection and moving the energy. I usually find emotion comes up rather easily when I do this whether it be sadness, anger or some other feeling I had been holding onto. Once energy has moved I will quiet my mind and feel the energy of the tree and the earth, which is very calming. I conclude by giving the tree my gratitude and sending it love and light.

I think this practice is a powerful one because we can be so disconnected from nature in our modern world yet we are a product of nature. I wonder how much of our mental and emotional pain is made so much worse because we have lost this natural connection that is so healing. The drama and trauma of human life tends to obstruct life energy so it becomes things like depression, anxiety, anger and confusion. To Mother Nature this is all just life energy and so in reconnecting with her she can help us remove the obstructions and free this energy returning it to source while allowing it to flow through us in a way that allows us to live fully connected with life.

In the sacred rites and rituals of old, particularly the Druids, trees represented the place of spiritual worship, the sacred grove. They were a temple to the Divine. I have come to see it that way myself and consider the park near my house a temple and place of spiritual practice. The paths are the sacred halls of the temple and the trees living manifestations of the Goddess as well as access points to the Earth energy we are all a part of.

Reconnecting with the Earth in this way is not only healing for us but for the planet as well. If we can return all the disconnected energy we have created in separation, that energy can be used consciously to heal the planet. The environmental crisis we are experiencing today is a manifestation of this separation. In seeing ourselves as separate from the planet we have harmed it greatly while not realizing we are directly harming ourselves at the same time. Is it any wonder our culture is so sick and dysfunctional? We are not separate from the planet; we are a conscious part of it and with our consciousness acting in harmony with the planet, it and we can be completely healed together. Technology, science and rational solutions will not save us because the problem is much more simple and basic than that and the solution is right here right now if we can just let go, listen, feel and realize our interconnectedness.

Having heard so much about the movie Avatar I finally went to see it today. I expected a decent sci-fi/fantasy film because I trust the people who recommended so strongly that I see it and I very rarely see mainstream movies anymore because I find most of them mind-numbing. I heard rave reviews from people and considerable criticism but I figured I should see for myself because I felt intuitively there was a reason to go see this particular movie.

Well I was not prepared for the experience I had. This movie was powerful for me on many levels and I’m still in the process of integrating the experience. The stunning special effects and immersive 3D took me into another world. It was like a psychedelic experience and the alien forest landscape was much like the vision of the field of life from an astral point of view. A spirit realm of sorts or a shamanic vision. The visual experience while spectacular was only a small part of what this movie had to offer.

I found this movie to have a very deep spiritual message. It struck me at a heart level and touched my spirit as if the Earth Mother herself had a hand in creating it. I walked out incredibly empowered and feeling as if my perspective on the world and my relationship with it had shifted. The way the native people connect and interact with their forest home is a powerful reflection of what we have become disconnected from. They see life, meaning and spirit everywhere in their world and are truly and deeply interconnected with it. The way that these people free themselves from oppression is a very important message for those of us struggling with this dysfunctional society and what it has done to our planet. I think it points directly to what we need to realize and the power we need to call upon to effect real change. This movie isn’t just a story or a visual experience or a spiritual transmission, it is a call to action. Action that comes from the kind of interconnectedness and reverence for life shown here is profoundly powerful and exactly what is needed right now. The soldier who is a main character in the movie goes through a transformation through his contact with the native people and their enchanted world that I feel reflects very well the transformation so many of us are experiencing right now.

Some have questioned how such a movie could have been created by a corporate enterprise such as Fox but I think it is a powerful symbol that this film emerged from a channel that has spread so much mind garbage and fear over the years. That these messages can come through a mainstream channel is a sign of the power of change and transformation we are now experiencing. It cannot be held back and we haven’t seen anything yet if you ask me.

I highly recommend this movie and strongly recommend you make sure to see it in 3D because the effect is an essential part of the experience. This movie communicates directly with the subconscious mind in a way that very few movies have. I believe it will have a powerful and positive effect on the field.

]]> http://www.awakeninthenow.com/2010/01/avatar-a-message-from-the-goddess/feed/ 2 http://www.awakeninthenow.com/2009/10/the-age-of-the-goddess/ http://www.awakeninthenow.com/2009/10/the-age-of-the-goddess/#comments Mon, 19 Oct 2009 19:33:26 +0000 bodhidude http://www.awakeninthenow.com/?p=725

A powerful trend is growing in our society as we move deeper into this time of transformation. It is becoming more and more clear to me that the changes we are experiencing involve the movement of the Divine Feminine into a more dominant role in the world and society. This is being reflected for me on both an inner and an outer level but it feels like it is a very powerful and important aspect of this transformative time.

On the outer level it is being reflected by the changes I see women going through. I’m seeing more and more women stepping out of the old roles prescribed by the patriarchal society and questioning all aspects of it including their roles in relationship, family, work and government. It doesn’t stop there however because women are taking the lead in many ways in creating change and alternatives to how things have typically been done. What this comes down to in my view in an incredible surge in power particularly among women and it makes sense considering the disempowered role women have held in society until recently.

I’ve been a fan of His Holiness the Dalai Lama for many years and he has been a spiritual mentor for me. A comment he made at a recent peace summit in Vancouver BC really struck me, he said “The world will be saved by the western woman”. Buddhism has typically been a male dominated religion as many organized religions have been so this is a powerful statement coming from a Buddhist leader and someone of the Dalai Lama’s wisdom. On another occassion he made the comment that women represent the source of human compassion and compassion is something needed in abundance in this time of transformation. The Dalai Lama’s feelings about the importance of women in this time of change reflect my own because I see it as the pendulum swinging back in the other direction. The time is ripe for women to take the lead in many ways and for men to support that process and also reap the benefits of what it can mean for society and the world.

This has also been an inner process for me as most of my spiritual teachers have been men from male dominated traditions until recently. I’ve felt for several years now a growing desire to commune with the Divine Feminine and to rediscover the Goddess both within me and in the external world. This has lead me in a new direction spiritually as well as in other aspects of my life. While I work to fulfill my dreams and my purpose I have a sense that part of what I’m here to do is to support women, to take a more supportive role as they step into the lead in many areas. This isn’t to say men don’t have an important role to play as well in creating a new society but I don’t think it will be as prominent a role in the same way because we may be experiencing a balancing process after so many years of patriarchy. Men have an incredible challenge in reconnecting with and reintegrating the Divine Feminine within and stepping into new ways of relating to women in their lives. We’ve held more power than is natural for far too long and it has done great damage to men as well as women. I see it as a healthy step for men to let go and surrender to the Goddess which is a part of their nature. Male power can only be truly empowering when it is grounded in the feminine otherwise it becomes extreme and destructive as we have seen so this is a process of men taking their true power back as well and living a more fulfilled existence.

This is an incredibly exciting prospect. When I imagine a society that strongly reflects the presence of the Goddess what I see is something very nurturing, compassionate, and abundant not to mention healthy. We’ve been out of touch with this aspect of ourselves for too long. The time has come for the Goddess to reassert herself in a powerful way and that is what I see happening and the results will be good for both women and men. Ultimately I think we will end up in a place where the polarities of masculine and feminine return to balance as equal reflections of the Divine but we must heal the imbalance before we can get to that.

Read more about the Dalai Lama’s statement here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ariane-de-bonvoisin/the-dalai-lamas-amazing-p_b_324760.html

Image: The Godess Brigid by AvalonSky via deviantART

For the past few thousand years we have lived in a patriarchal paradigm where the masculine has been over emphasized at the expense of the feminine. This has produced not only the oppression of women, constant war and violence but also inner conflict for both men and women as each struggles to be whole human beings in a world where an imbalanced ideal is cherished. The result of the over emphasis on the masculine has resulted in it taking a negative form as the feminine is devalued and even systematically repressed. This negative masculine form is cut off from its feminine side and so is out of balance and taken to an extreme in a futile attempt to compensate for the lack of grounding in the feminine. This is symbolized by two archetypal patterns in particular, that of the Negative Father and the Warrior. The Negative Father is the authoritarian head of the household who rules the family and is often the source of abuse, sexual misconduct and control. This pattern is also seen in the authoritarian governments that have become the norm where the government represents the ultimate controlling punitive father figure for its citizens. This isn’t to say all fathers fall into this pattern but it is symbolic of a key aspect of patriarchal power. As a counselor I see many clients who have a figure in their lives in the role of the Negative Father and much of their work in counseling involves working through trauma associated with that as well as reclaiming their power from that figure and this includes men and women.

Another key pattern in the patriarchal paradigm is the Warrior archetype. This pattern in its negative form represents the aggressive acting out of the masculine through war and domination. The Warrior is not an inherently negative symbol but when it is not grounded in a healthy feminine center it becomes overly aggressive and indiscriminately violent. The Negative Warrior is an attempt at unity and wholeness but because it attempts this through external conquest it can never accomplish the desired wholeness and security. What is missing internally is projected externally and then aggressively pursued so you get unending and escalating violence and war as the frustrated Warrior can never achieve peace and completeness.

The pattern of the Negative Warrior is especially important in the United States as it has become a sacred symbol in my opinion. The US has entered a phase where it is actively engaging in unending war and the attempt to dominate other parts of the world through its unique status as the primary superpower. In America today the symbol of the Warrior is held so sacred that one cannot criticize war or those engaged in it without being labeled unpatriotic or at worst a traitor. Respectful open debate, something that is essential in a democracy, is often not tolerated without it degenerating into attacks. In my view this is due to an extremely insecure attachment to the Warrior ideal with an underlying denial of the disconnection from the Divine Feminine. America is certainly not the only country where this is playing out but it seems to be taking an especially polarized and intense form here. We can see this in our continued wars fighting an obscure and all encompassing enemy which is sometimes referred to as terror itself, the war on terror rather than terrorism. That would constitute a war on an emotional state which is quite revealing in the sense that it is indeed terror that we project out externally and attempt to eradicate rather than facing within where real healing is possible. Terror could be said to be the result of human beings living an incomplete existence, disconnected from key parts of themselves and their world (the natural world), the world becomes a terrifying place where what is unknown is feared and fought against rather than seen to be the mystery that it could be.

It is my view that today we find ourselves at the end of this dysfunctional world view which is partially why we see it expressed in such extreme forms. The patriarchal systems are breaking down and as they do we see more desperate and intense reactions by forces trying to preserve them. This is inevitable as well as futile because the dissolution process is irreversible as the very power of the system becomes the force of its destruction. As difficult as this may be for many of us it represents a very real potential for lasting change and evolution of consciousness and I see this most represented by a reemergence of the Divine Feminine and the Goddess archetype. Essentially the energies which have been most repressed are reasserting themselves as a natural process of balancing. One of the most powerful manifestations of the Goddess is in the reaction of the Earth to the devastation that has been brought upon it by the patriarchal societies that relate to Mother Earth as a commodity to be possessed and used. Mother Earth is now responding with ever more forceful feedback in the forms of climate change, storms, earthquakes and other natural phenomena.

At the same time we are seeing the Goddess reassert herself in other more benign forms such as women stepping into more roles of leadership and authority as well as the powerful and increasing influence of Goddess based and nature based spirituality. The increasing popularity of Neo-pagan spiritual paths is an example of this. Many of these groups involve women in positions of religious power and authority as well as an emphasis on the Divine Feminine and mother nature. However this most often is not done at the expense of the masculine where for example in Wicca the Goddess and the God are honored together as two poles of the divine (in most Wiccan traditions). The rapidly growing interest in Shamanism is another example of this as people begin to reconnect with native cultures and more tribal alternative lifestyles. We also see a growing interest in plant medicine and more of a mainstreaming of alternative healing methods.

On an internal level, I’m seeing more and more men waking up to their deeper emotions and realizing that it is ok and even healthy to express emotions other than anger. I’m speaking here of men specifically being a man myself and experiencing this as well as the fact that many female writers have more effectively expressed what the reemergence of the Goddess means for women. In embracing the Divine Feminine within and beginning to see it as a powerful source of inspiration, healing and wholeness men can transform their expression of the masculine into its positive form which is assertive rather than aggressive and in service of the whole rather than destructive. The reintegration of the feminine side means that men can become whole human beings and also transform their relationship with women no longer projecting their feminine side onto women and then trying to possess and control them to reclaim it. Men can see women as their divine partners and as manifestations of the Goddess which brings great respect and a love that is unconditional. We have a powerful opportunity to come back into balance as a planet, to reintegrate the cut off parts of ourselves and to heal ourselves and the planet as we step into a new dimension of consciousness. Resisting this time of change is what will bring us suffering and destruction but we each have a choice as to how we proceed into the new paradigm. Hopefully we will see this choice and choose well.

I just had one of the most amazing transformative weekends of my life. My partner and I felt a draw to leave the city on Saturday morning, we didn’t know where we were going, well we usually don’t because we try to just flow with the magic of the moment. We ended up renting a car and packing up a bunch of stuff and heading to the coast. We spent the day exploring and walking on the beach and smelling flowers and connecting and being present. That night we ended up renting a room on the Oregon coast right on the beach with the waves crashing outside our door.

I didn’t have any inclination on a conscious level of the experience I was about to go through that night. Quite a few factors ended up coming together to create a transformative experience for me (and my partner). There were several powerful forces present that night all of which represented the divine feminine or the energy of the Goddess to me. We were at the ocean, it was a full moon and I was with my partner (who is a woman and was in her time of the month). Additionally we brought some mushrooms with us and decided to open ourselves to the natural energy of that plant teacher as well. When we took the mushrooms my partner went into a blissful state and immediately seemed to embody the Goddess. I on the other hand was immediately agitated and overwhelmed by the energy present and trying very hard to resist it. I felt disconnected from my partner and in a different world which was initially alarming because I envisioned us connecting in a blissful way for the evening so I had a bit of an agenda. I felt all this feminine energy flowing into me and it was terrifying at first because I was unable to resist or control it. I finally had to leave the room and my blissful partner who tried to help me but realized she couldn’t do so by doing anything except holding space. In that moment she seemed like an enlightened being and I was blown away by that.

I ran outside and down to the ocean under the full moon in the middle of the night and felt like I was loosing my mind. I fought with the great mother running up and down the beach and cursing the waves until I wore myself out and collapsed. Then I took off my clothes and entered the freezing ocean which felt shockingly purifying. This experience broke me down enough to be able to go back up to the room and let go. I collapsed on the floor and was able to reconnect with my partner. As we lay on the floor together in front of a fire without speaking she placed her forehead against mine and channeled the divine feminine which completely infused my being. All my resistances and defenses were completely broken down and I felt unable to move. I began to cry as I surrendered to this nurturing energy of love and acceptance. We hardly spoke the whole night as we were in a place beyond words. Later we made love and it felt as if I was communing with the divine, no words can do this justice.

The next morning I felt like a new person in a way and realized I would not be the same after this experience. I feel more open to the great mother and the earth and feel my intimate connection to the divine in this way. My partner shared some of her experience which in many ways echoed mine but most of it lay beyond words and we share a deep knowing around that. We stayed on the coast for another night integrating the experience and sleeping in the natural energy of the woods.

Being a male and living in what is unfortunately still a mostly patriarchal society, I find it very important to have a reminder to celebrate and appreciate Women. More than that, it is a reminder to focus on and reflect on addressing the obstacles that remain to this being a truly gender equal society. For men this is an opportunity for us to look at ways we might consciously or unconsciously support the patriarchy and work to change that. Women still face inequality and oppression from this and other societies and that is a very sad fact in 2006.

On a spiritual level, I see this as a day to celebrate the feminine energy within me, to celebrate the Goddess in general and to recognize the special wisdom that Women possess. I have always been blown away by the powerful beauty that Women possess and I’ve worked from a point of resisting society’s encouragement to see Women as sex objects and now to see their beauty of spirit, their beauty of mind and their beauty of body equally. When you see beauty radiated across all levels of being only then do you truly grasp what beauty is and for me the most amazing display of such beauty has come from the Women I know and have known. It has been one of the greatest gifts I have received in this life.

Sending love, appreciation and gratitude to my sisters everywhere………