Your Inner Strength

A few months ago, I entered the darkest time of my life. This was before the pandemic, and had been building for a while but I hadn't realized it was coming. I don't want or need to go into details, for while the finer points are unique to me, the overall situation is universal: we enter the Darkness and face our deepest self. We face our mortality, what we care most about, and who we truly are in the network of our community. 

In the midst of this I encountered a defining moment. I felt and connected to a glowing energy deep in my core that said, "No matter what, this is your Strength. This is part of your True Self, deep, directly connected to God/Spirit. Center in this space and all is well."

Imagine you have a cave system, like a cenote that goes deep into the earth. Now imagine it is seen as the ancestors no doubt regarded these seemingly endless cave systems - a cenote that ties into the Spirit realms. That is how this space feels. Deeper than Spacetime. Accessible through my core. Strong, warm, whole. Unconditional.

I go here to meditate, to sit in the space that says: Be Still, and Know that I am Here. It's a space to inhabit when I'm feeling afraid, or getting triggered. For part of this phase of life is that I am being shown the trauma of my past and helped to release it. I need that deep, unconditional Presence to help me through. It does help, for it shows me the bigger energy of unfolding and lets me know I will be okay, although I don't know really what "okay" means anymore.

Have you found this space in you? If you get quiet, deeply still, and open to your core, what do you find? It is Joy, Light, Strength, Solid Authenticity, Your Soul.  Can you inhabit it? It will get you through anything. What if we were all able to center in this True Self and relate to others through this lens? Can you imagine a world like that? I believe miracles come from there, for it is our conscious connection with Creation, Christ, the Creator, Spirit, the Goddess. It's also how we relate to others' true selves, which many people are unable to do. We're all so wrapped up in our fears, projections, and avoiding vulnerability at all costs.

I invite you to enter the cenote with me.

I hold a vision of a world where we See each other's Strength and Truth in all we do.

So mote it be.

Life is the Soul's Gestation

By Clea Danaan

As I meditated on the idea of being in the womb, surrounded by love, acceptance, and welcome, an image occurred to me of being in the womb of the Goddess. An idea became clear to me: Life is the soul's gestation. On earth we are wrapped in the Goddess' womb, and at death we are born into our soul's bigger life, the soul self that has it's own special place in the universe. Life is about developing the tools we as a soul need to... what? do what souls do. As much as a fetus in his mother's womb cannot conceptualize of his place earthside, we can only dream and wonder and get little clues about what life beyond life might be. And because God is generous and loving, we get multiple chances, sort of like if you needed more time in the womb and could go back in to cook for a while. It's sort of what we're searching for with stem cell research, it seems. But within this life, this gestation, we only get one chance at that time inside. Physical gestation is a time between the worlds. A transition space to grow our earth vessel. Then we are born to this life within the Goddess' womb, preparing best we can to be born into the Goddess/God's greater Life.

The Goddess of Always Enough

Bee Smith writes, "As I have grown older and my spiritual practices have matured it has been shown to me to have faith in the Goddess of Always Enough. She is always able to provide what one needs right on time. Generally, it seems wisest not to try and second-guess Her or try to tell her what she ought to be doing." (1) Reading this was timely for me. It's been a challenging year, with a lot of doubt about myself, our finances, our health, and whether or not we (as a family) are in the right place, doing the right thing. When I get scared about money, I tend to turn to attempted manifestation, and I tend to try to be very clear about what I feel I need. Then when my prayers are answered but not in the way I specified or envisioned, I get frustrated. When I read Bee's bit about the Goddess of Always Enough, something clicked for me. As always, we are okay. We have enough - even more than enough! All is well, even though by conventional terms I feel on a slippery slope of dept and doubt.

The image of the Goddess of Always Enough helped me to reflect on the challenges we've dealt with over the past few months, and see where She helped us, even though it was not what I thought She "ought" to be doing. A few days after we discovered our eroding plumbing needed to be replaced asap, we got low-interest-for-the-life-of-the-loan checks from a credit card. These were a lower rate than your standard equity loans - and since we haven't savings or equity, a bit of interesting timeing. Then we had to replace our only car. A few days before our old car got picked up by the insurance company's scrap yard, a friend got a new car and was able to loan us her soon-to-be-donated beater (but very functional) car. We found our replacement a week before the insurance was due to run out on our friend's loaner. We were able to get needed repairs done on our new used car just weeks before taking an eight hour road trip (sixteen round trip) that had been planned for months. I'm happy to announce that the car, and the plumbing, are doing great!

Then health concerns hit. I am a little scared and frustrated that we have spent our beefed up flex spending account half way through the year - and three months before our baby is due - but isn't it interesting that I had *just* enough in there to get the chiropractic work I desperately needed?

Speaking of new baby, today my husband and I sat down with the clothes, accessories, and toys friends have given us, and we were both totally overwhelmed. Such abundance! Such a community we have! I do not have to buy anything for this baby. Not even shelves if we can get around to using the last of the scrap wood we have (given to us by a friend) to put some shelves in the kids' closet.

And in case this weren't enough reminder that All is Well and She Watches Over Us, I flashed recently on a memory of about nine years ago. We had just moved to Colorado. I had just finished massage school and barely had a part time job, my then boyfriend had just started graduate school, and his father had just passed away. We drove to Wisconsin for the service, a sixteen hour drive with no air conditioning, paid for by credit card. We found out that my boyfriend had a disbursement coming to him from his father's IRA of about $23k. Recalling this time, I thought, "Things may seem scary and tenuous now, but compared to that time - whew! Life is settled, grounded, and all is well."

I can get so caught up in what I think things are supposed to look like, as in no debt, a fancy (if modest) house, and other wants, but really, if I step back and let my perspective shift, I am amazed at how blessed we are. There is always enough. Always.

Blessings, dear reader! May you too be blessed with the realization of always enough!







(1) Smith, Bee. "Seasons of Change: Gaian Rhythms for Positive Living." SageWoman No 76. 62.

Trusting the Inner Goddess

Whenever I teach a Reiki class (and when I received my own Reiki attunements) I always go through some sort of deep challenge or shift in energy before the attunement. Once I broke up with a boyfriend – an amicable breakup that just needed to happen; several times I got sick; another time, just before attuning a Reiki Master, I started a new and serious relationship (ended up marrying the guy).

I’m going through just such a shift now, I realized. Not because I’m going to teach a Reiki class but I because I am about to have my second child. Several mamas have told me that the transition to child number 2 was a biggie. I realized that must be a large part of the stressors and health challenges I’ve faced (and my husband has dealt with) since the beginning of the year.

If you’ve been following my blog at all you know we’ve had a few snafus regarding our house, health, and car lately. Last week I encountered another upset. I’d been struggling with moderate back pain, and then bam! My sacral/lumbar vertebrae went totally out of whack. I couldn’t drive, walk, sit, stand up… it sucked. Lots of metaphors here: paralyzed by life, feeling the total lack of support, sick and twisted (ha, ha). I found a fantastic chiropractor who also does acupuncture and kinesiology, who was able to straighten me out and helped me get at the emotional issues underlying what feels like the biggest health challenge of my life so far. The issue? Trust! You may know my other challenges of this year have dealt with Faith – well, this one went even deeper, to trusting those in my life and even my self. I saw how I have difficulty trusting people, and how this year with my graduating (pending, anyway) with my MFA and publishing a second book and writing my first novel I’ve been struggling with my deepest issues of self trust, like doubt, disgust, and lack of faith in my talent and abilities. Funny how success can make one feel both proud and simultaneously totally freaked out and inept.

The issue of trust goes so deep and can be so transformative. Trust versus mistrust is one of the basic foundations of the self according to Erikson. I don’t know if I didn’t develop a strong enough sense of trust in the world as a preverbal infant and toddler, and frankly I don’t care, but I could see in the present how hard it was for me to trust my chiropractor, my husband, my friends, and my work. And underneath all that, my self.

Something a friend said came to mind as I struggled with trusting myself and others. She said, “A goddess doesn’t look to others to give her love.” Something shifted as I inserted “trust” here: A goddess doesn’t look to others to prove their trustworthiness, to prove the trustworthiness of the world. She knows it, because her sense of trust and faith comes from an inner connection to the divine. I can’t go back and change what I might have felt as an infant (if that was even the problem), but I can cultivate a sense of trust in my inner divine nature, and go from there.

This realization paired with the EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) and kinesiology my chiropractor used helped me clear a whole lot of old crap standing in my way.

And then guess what happened? We had a clog in our main sewer drain and had a guy come and rooter it! Talk about crap (and, yup, roots) being in my way. All cleared out.

So: I’m clearing energy to move to the next big phase of my life as an author and as a mama and as a person. I wish you, too, dear reader, clarity and insight and health on your own path. I hope my journey helps to illuminate some of your own.

Magical Bride: Craft an Interfaith Wedding for a Goddess available from Wyrdwood Publications

My book Magical Bride: Craft an Interfaith Wedding for a Goddess is now available from Wyrdwood Publications. I wrote this book while planning my own wedding, an interfaith hullabaloo integrating Christian, Pagan, Buddhist, and cosmological approaches. Anyone who loves the contemporary fun of a gorgeous dress and a sparkling location, but can't swallow the usual "traditions" will find this a valuable guide for planning her own wedding.








Some pictures from our wedding:




One of our ministers, Acutonics Sound healer Donna Carey, smudges us during the ceremony. Behind her you can see my brother one of the groomsmen and one of the gongs used.




I made my own cake, and my husband made his groom cake. My friend April helped.




Me and my ladies being sexy and silly!


I'm excited to be working on this project with Wyrdwood Publications, who publishes Pagan and Heathen Fiction and Non-Fiction eBooks. Check out their other ebook titles!

The Path of Awakening: Identity and Power

A huge part of the path to awakening and spiritual fulfillment, not to mention everyday happiness, is about understanding our identities and the faces we put on. Our mask can be one of power, shame, fear, beauty... and noticing how our face changes as we move through life can be an important vision of self awareness.

The Beltane issue of Matrifocus, www.matrifocus.com, includes an article of mine called "Facing My Power: The Queen Mask." Check it out and pass it on. Let me know what thoughts come up as you read it.

Happy Beltane!