Undergoing God

A friend shared with me a reading from Richard Rohr which talks about how "... It's only the wise, broken ones who allow themselves to "undergo God" and willingly trust, "let go and let God"."

I am struck by the use of language of "undergoing" - you undergo an ordeal, surgery or a transformation. The description of God not as the beginning and end, nor as separate, nor even as an entity... but as a process... this moved deeply in me in ways that my mind couldn't comprehend.

My worldview shifted. I am not in a process of living a better life to be closer to God. God is the process.

There was never a time when I wasn't in process and that process was always God.

The unfolding process of creation is God. There is vector to God. God is going somewhere through me and I am going somewhere through God. There is no destination but an infinite deepening.

I have not failed.

I was never in control.

I couldn't have done anything differently - no need for regrets.

I can DO all I like but I don't need to - the organic flow unfurling into deeply resonant depths IS. I can BE that without doing anything.

The actions that arise from stillness is the God-process prompting me.

I feel so profoundly relaxed and relieved. Just to know I never failed and I cannot fail. I can only Be in the eternal unfolding of the presence of God-process.

Wow.

... I got the answer!

The last posting here asked what it would feel like to really trust?

Well.

There is much I can't tell you about my weekend because of confidentiality. But a great healing took place in which I released a sense of carrying great darkness from my ancestral line. There may be sickness there but not evil.

This was a belief I had been holding that was preventing me from really feeling I could have a child of my own.

I saw my Aunt on Friday who lent me lots of great books to help me with my doula journey, and she gave me my paternal family tree and lots of information about the family that I didn't know and I was glad to find out (even though it is dark!)... I then went to play my role of mentor for the training of onespirit interfaith ministers. I mentor 6 students who are in the second year of 2. In the second year we trace our own biography from before conception through birth, childhood, adolescence, relationships, marriage, endings and partings, illness, old age and death and beyond and we learn to perform ceremonies to mark these great rites of passage.

This weekend was about Birth.

So! Armed with my family tree, 6 weeks of persephone underworld explorations thanks to Yoni Egg and a pile of birth books I went to my mentoring duties. The content of the weekend is confidential but I can share with you my experience of what happened on Sunday...

The night before I was reading an account of birth in one of the doula books my auntie lent me and I was overcome with a desire to have a child. I prayed and said to God that I dare not ask in prayer for something that was not God's will... and God said "ask"... and I did, I said "I want a baby" and God said "OK".

On Sunday part of the altar was a shamanic talisman of a owl's wing (the owl had been hit by a car and a shaman had preserved the wing) and one of the students was terrified of it but was brave enough to touch it. I too am phobic of birds and all things fluttery - so in the break time I touched it. It represented my deepest fear to me and when I touched it it was so soft - softer than the cat - unbelievably soft and I picked it up and it was unbelievably light. I felt "something" enter me and I knew that it was a part of me that had never incarnated. I came fully into being. I went and stood by the window out of the way and started to weep and shake uncontrollably. The floor and walls disappeared - again (4th time this year) - and I was bathed in light - I came to stood by the window with my hand on the pane of glass. I was overcome by the beauty - of everything - and I found myself stroking my fingers down the glass stroking the images of people beyond who walked up and down Baron's Court tube. 

I could not stop this weeping - excruciatingly raw and in complete bliss at the same time. I knew I needed to anchor so I saw Ian - a fellow mentor - and ran into his arms - he saw me coming and stood to meet me and he held me while I sobbed and shook. Eventually the tears stopped and I looked Ian in the eye and said "tell you later" and he said "you don't need to".

I don't need to. But it is a tale worth telling.

In answer to my question "what would it feel like to fully trust and surrender?" the answer is "to Be fully alive".

What would it FEEL like to really trust?

I feel profoundly edgy today. A heady amalgam of the storm that has been battering my corner of the world for over a week - relentless wind and rain - leaving me feeling caged; combined with the world stage overrun with melodrama, mass scale suffering, a sick game of chess where the powers that be have forsaken any rules and are just chucking the pieces at each other; combined with my own first-world concerns of having enough money and enough time and enough love.

Ugh.

Why does it feel manifestly impossible to surrender right now? When I ask myself what my choices are I see that I can either trust in my God or I can wallow on through the mud of life on my own will riddled with self doubt and fears, my mind whirling with machinations of solutions to indefinable problems.

The intelligent decision would be to surrender and trust.

"You tried that once" my ego says "and that one time... you didn't get what you wanted" - evidence enough to keep trying the steep route eh?

Why do I resist surrender? Why do I find it so hard to trust?

The answer comes... "I don't trust myself". I foresee myself trusting that everything will be alright financially so I go and blow all my money on "stuff". I foresee myself trusting that I believe God will save me from eating disorders only to then go and gorge myself to death. I foresee myself trusting that I will be loved only to die a lonely death.

I totally need to control these things! I do not want to be skint, fat or alone.

Oh hang on... these are the things that I am fearing will happen if I trust AND if I don't trust. These fears have nothing to do with trust! They are just fears. I try to rigidly control my money, food and relationships because I cannot and will not accept my powerlessness over these matters despite the destructive evidence of my past that prove my attempts at self control futile and my fears self perpetuating.

How would it FEEL to totally trust God?

I guess I wouldn't even need to trust myself because in trusting God I am trusting myself. There is no separation between my trust in God and my trust in myself.

I guess I would feel peaceful. I would feel calmly accepting that come what may I would be OK.

I guess I would stop fretting about paying the bills in favour of trusting that whatever happens I'll be OK.

I guess I would let go of determining what "being OK" looked like, relinquish my interpretation which really means "get what I think I want"...

I guess I would feel relaxed. I would feel alive. I would feel inspired. I would feel connected. I would feel free to take time out and rest if I needed it and guided to work and take action when it was required.

I could listen to my body's signals. I could hear my intuition.

I would respond rather than react. I would feel loved by everything and seek love from nothing.

*Tears come* I see myself freefalling through space with no-thing to define me or reassure me I was good enough - these things I seek to control... they are my benchmarks of worthiness. When I "win" a job, lose some weight, win some affection... oh boy oh boy... I am worthy. If I relinquish the game to prove myself worthy how will I know I am worthy?

How will I know I exist? Without work or reward or love or attention from others... how will I know I exist?

Maybe I won't. Maybe I am nothing.

What's the worst case scenario that prevents me fully surrendering to God and trusting.

My worst case scenario is that I will be let down. That my trust will not be rewarded. That I will fall into rent arrears and be homeless again. That I will be left by my loved ones and be alone. That I will be penniless, homeless, alone.

I fear that I am not worthy enough for my needs to be met. That I cannot do enough to ever be good enough. That I am nothing without love and money. That I am forgotten about in my little corner of this scary world.

After these recent weeks journeying into the underworld; I am about to be re-born. Can I find it in myself to choose to trust? Have I any choice?

The world did not end today

So another day came and went. The sun rose and set, the stars are there... just... behind the silver veils of cloud. The birds sang. The mountains sat unmoved, the tinkling waters of the river sang her tune like she has done for millions of years. The world has not ended today. There is still Beauty to be seen, Love to be given and received, Truth to be spoken. Whatever we are told there is still so much goodness in this world to be breathed deep into our souls. It would be a crime to forget it! Seek it! So much beauty, so much love.

Where do you find hope?

"I want to send a message of hope to the world" says my ego, my little self looking wide eyed and terrified at the mess served to me by the media, my stomach too sore from digesting too much and forced fed I feel I can't take any more. My friends, each dear person whom I love, all grasping and reaching to send messages of hope or cries for help out into the ether. People changing their pictures to french flags in armchair solidarity in the hope that they are making a difference.

Hope. When I was 16 or 17, I can't remember exactly how old I was, I met a spectre of a teacher from another age. He whispered in my ear "give up hope it's toxic". This message came through time and time again throughout my 20s. Give up hope. Give up hope. And naively I took it for a negative message and tried to ignore it.

Now I can see the wisdom in it. I don't believe that hope itself is a bad choice but I guess it needs some refinement. If "hope" betrays the present moment in favour of the belief that tomorrow will be better then all it serves to do is draw us off balance tipping forlong into an unknown future in denial of whatever this moment brings to be acknowledged.

The present moment presents us with the gift to grow and live but by living in hope we are rejecting the gift in favour of fantasy. And ironically the very future we seek is likely to be forever just beyond our grasp.

Hope is toxic when it lies in the future. Let us never pray for a better future! Let us pray to be alive to the moment, now, today in faith that in doing so the course of destiny shifts and changes.

Hope is not found in the machinations of the human mind. For all our cleverness and knowledge humankind is not managing life very well. All these displays of solidarity splitting us asunder, me and you, us and them, them and the other them. Fragmenting like a broken mirror into a million pieces and distracting us from the great lie which is that we are ever separate at all. There will surely come a point when the great rock of humanity is ground down into a billion billion grains of sand and we will come to see the rock-ness in our nature.

Hope is toxic when it is out there, outside of us and in the future. Do not seek there for hope! Hope is healthy when it lies within us, when we take time to check in with our still beating hearts and ebbing flowing breath. Hope is not a vector, it has neither time nor destination, it is a still point. It is unwavering. We need not search for it but stop. Be still and remember the unity of all things and there authentic hope rises.

Reflections on the trouble with Hades

The more I think about it... what was yesterday about?! I was definitely inappropriately touched by I was not "touched"... I am neither offended nor marked in any way. My psychic defences were well in place. I guess I don't know what the man's motivation was. He was very scared. Maybe he was reaching for human contact albeit in an inappropriate way. I feel only compassion, including for myself. What a strange set of circumstances!

And as a mirror of my shadow - wow - it was dark and the masculine was wounded, scared and scary and LOUD. Perhaps I should be glad that my God believes me ready to see what darkness lies in humanity and own my responsibility for it.

The Trouble with Hades...

I travelled to Bristol and back today; no mean feat! I decided not to take work or a book but a pillow so I could sleep on the train. No chance! Between Wolverhampton and Cheltenham even on the way there at not-much-passed-dawn there were blokes drinking and talking loudly on their way either to races or football... I wasn't sure which.

On the way back I did drift off on my pillow for a short time between Bristol and Cheltenham but as we pulled into Cheltenham a thronging mass of shaven headed drunks surged held back by policemen until the train stopped. They flooded the carriage hooting and jeering and singing and leering. I was so pleased when a muslim gentleman sat next to me; a sober buffer and protector, I thought, against the deafening roars of the drunken crowd as the man behind me thumped my seat in rhythm with their chanting.

The chants soon turned nasty. The bitter aftertaste of yesterday's attacks in Paris left opinion on everyone's tongue. Kill them all! One man shouted. Bring back El Cid! The muslim gentleman next to me leaned forward, his right arm (he was on my left) around his head as if protecting himself. My heart thumped in my throat imagining what I might have to do to defend him if the violence became physical. His coat encroached onto my lap and I thought nothing of it.

It took me a little while to realise that it wasn't his coat. His left arm was reached under his right and he was touching and stroking my lap. I could not believe it. Was this really happening?! If I made a scene there and then he would have been lynched. I firmly removed his hand from my lap and blocked him with my bags but he seemed to keep trying, feeling with his fingers to see if he could find a way through my blockade. I coughed, and shifted as far towards the window as I could, turning my body.

His eyes met mine in the reflection of the window and I narrowed my eyes and shook my head (all the time my chair rocking with the thumps on the back of it) and the football crowds cramming the carriage stood over us. His eyes were full of tears. "I'm sorry" he mouthed to me. I closed my eyes.

I stayed like that. Locked, legs jammed together, personal space blocked down, rocking, deafened for another 20 minutes when they all got off at Wolverhampton. I asked the guy to let me out which he did and he apologised again. I gave him a thin smile and sat further up the carriage. He stared at me all the way to Stafford where we both got off. I was prepared for a further advance at which point I would have probably called for help - but there was none - he disappeared.

I got on a train to Crewe. A different sort of man was on that train. Baby boomer golfers, also a bit worse for wear... better spoken than the previous lot but with similar opinions on muslims. I felt unbelievably sad. One of them didn't participate in the islamophobia - but kept saying "we live in a scary world". Bless him.

Changing at Crewe for Chester I, again, attracted the attention of a group of blokes. They gave me drunken compliments and asked me to sit on their laps. They asked me where I had been and I said working. They didn't ask what I do but I was dying to stand up full height shoulders back like Eowyn and declare my priestesshood. Don't fuck with me little men! But I sat down with my pillow and ignored another man staring at me from down the carriage.

They want something lost - womanliness. I look at the waxed, orange, eyebrows on fleek dolly birds screaming with laughter with their bags of shopping and I feel sad. I look around for the good guys; the sober, heart centred, respectful masters of their own urges... and I feel sad.

And I feel desperate longing to be with my man, Robert, a rare and quirky example of what I think a decent man is. Soft hugs, open heart. Although he's watching the Grand Prix tomorrow apparently. Sigh.

Persephone's Medicine

It's not always healthy to rely on other people's opinions but I am getting beautifully affirmed by dear souls at the moment and I thank you for it.

The past few weeks have been a rite of passage it seems; a guided tour of the underworld complete with obsidian guide and exorcisms. Rich medicine! Nothing to fear! I am really ready for the second year training of the Interfaith Seminary to move onto Birth now; my impatient seedling is ready to break the soil!

As a mentor to students on the OneSpirit Interfaith ministry training I am reliving my own training somehow to a factor of 1000! I don't recall feeling in as much exquisite detail every eroded rock of my soil the first time around. That is not to say that this interim phase before the second year got into a swing wasn't profound - in fact it was very shocking - but it came from my unconscious and returned to my unconscious like a surging bubbling flash flood that left me changed and re-shaped with little memory of the water itself.

From starting my doula training, to manifesting a yoni egg, to miraculously getting it inside me (and not being able to get it out), to norovirus, to tussles with my deepest fears in work, to moving house, to unpacking my old life, to All Souls, to reconnecting to my paternal line, to standing up in my integrity against wrongdoing and winning, to facing upto my own "evil" and still loving me, to getting gorgeous cuddles from my Cariad, to manifesting a cat, to last saturday's red tent where I wept for the pain of the World and they wept with me, to starting a threshold choir singing to the dying, to endings and new beginnings... !

Rich medicine indeed. And I;m only a month along.

Something magnificent has gone on my yoni (TMI warning)

Since the beginning of these shenanigans I have consciously working with my Root chakra; aided by my new friend Obsidian Yoni Egg. In the 3 weeks it's been there I have experienced incredible healing crises in waves one after the next. Inner and outer. I believe it is the egg that takes credit for delaying my menses by 9 days so that I start my cycle now on the Dark Moon! I am officially aligned Red Tent ladies, I am aligned with the moon!!!

Anti John Lewis micro-rant

I already have the annual rising bile at capitalist christmas. John Lewis! Ludicrous, manipulative, shallow. Is that what LOVE is? Is it?! No. John. It's not... it's too easy to give presents and call it love. What about presence?

Not much to say

Tonight I am percolating all the incredible root-y things going on.

All about the Roots

My am I red right now; in my root; rustling around in the basement clearing things out.

As this blog is a metaphorical baby then at 3 weeks gestation it is little more than a bundle of cells on pilgrimage down the fallopian tube to make it's home in the uterus. The sex of the baby at this point is set but as yet unknown. The variable factor which determines the sex is the father's chromosome - how interesting!

The genetic code is there but it is yet to take form. Yep... that describes this blog for sure!

What is being cleared out of the basement at the moment is all ancestral stuff. All about the Roots.

I was amazed to hear from my Aunt today - she was reaching out to me from my paternal line - I wept with joy to hear that she has been doing family constellation work and healing - I thought it was just me, on my own, living out the psychodramas of that part of my past. What a relief! And how interesting.

I don't know my wider family. I don't have conscious roots. Trying to BE in a place, space, community, society, world... in relationship, intimate, vulnerable... trying to be me - without those roots - has been an uphill struggle.

What a joy to make that connection. And to feel again that signpost and waymarker that I am on track... and on track to the Womb it seems.

Maltezer Healing

I was really disappointed today to spot a maltezers packet on my front path. This new house of mine is so precious to me after so long without a home of my own that I had a flashback to the daily rain of rubbish that would come over my yard walls in Saltney as people made their way home from the pub. The contempt that people seemed to have for my boundary lines that I never drew. 

As it turned out it wasn't rubbish on my doorstep but an actual packet of maltezers and a milky way - tied together with ribbon - left by a trick or treater I presume as I hid in my bed on Hallowe'en keeping my germs from the populace.

I cried, actually. I concede to being an emotional wibbly-wobbly at the moment but it seemed such a sweet significance that people had not only respected my boundaries but left me a treat.

There is such a longing in me for community and home and acceptance and to feel that I am safe and secure and nothing is going to attack me or displace me. This small gesture by someone I will probably never get to thank healed that in me. I begin to trust.

I am so in my root chakra right now! 

(No surprise to those who talked me into getting an obsidian yoni egg ha ha... it's still there!)

Oh... and as most of my friends know I don't actually eat chocolate so there's some maltezers in the fridge now for the first person to come by for a cuppa! 

Love xxx

All Souls Afterwards

So... the All Souls Ceremony was lovely. A certain weight has lifted from me. I followed the plan outlined in the previous post with a couple of lovely additions - I was given some consecrated oil as gift by the amazing Pearl Kilkenny and I used it to anoint myself after honouring and releasing the spirits to the Light - it was like a baptism anew - free from those bonds. I also made space for and called in healing for my family still alive and prayed for us all individually and as a constellation.

All Souls Ceremony

I feel them pressing on me. I have spent much of the weekend exhausted from being ill and in some kind of liminal state. I heard Snatam Kaur chant the Akal mantra on YouTube yesterday and I felt an immense detachment and release from my heart; I howled and wept. I feel my ancestors with me. And the presence of those unhealed and trapped with me. I tried to "be" with them today but all day people wanted to talk to me - so much for being off sick! When I did clear time to rest my heart was pounding in my throat. I put on my boots and coat and went for a walk in my pyjamas; the first time I have left the house in 3 days. I walked along the Pilgrim Way. I had seen on the map that there is a well nearby and I went to look for it. I couldn't find it but I found a perfect rock to hunker down on to watch the hillsides picked out in bronze through the autumn fog. I breathed. My eyes closed I breathed and called deep on the Mother to sustain me. When I opened my eyes they stood before me in various stages of opacity, like dust turning and twinkling in half light... I focussed, they faded.

I have moved to live on the Taith Pererin! I didn't even know that when I took this house. When I walked it last year I took a variant on the route at this stage. I am obsessed with pilgrimage. It is, for me, about reclaiming and assimilating my catholic/celtic heritage that was not present in my liberal spiritual upbringing.

They are pressing upon me today. All Souls. I am planning to do a ceremony later and it will go like this:

I will gather images of my ancestors and a candle and create an altar

I will light the candle invoking my God and all that hold and guide me

I will smudge myself with sage and lavender, and the house

I will welcome all those to me that are present and I will inform them they are dead

I will recite the Ho'onoponopono 9 times for them

My guide will take them to the Light

In honour of my catholic roots I will recite the Hail Mary

I will then play Akal and chant along

I will smudge again and blow out the candle to close acknowledging, thanking and releasing all those that came to hold the safe space

Healing the Wounded Mother

I dreamt of someone I have a grievance against. I tried to tell her I was making a complaint. She turned and walked away as I was explaining the complaint wasn't really about her it was about them.

The "them" in this scenario are real people - as was the person in the dream. As is the grievance real. 

"They" are people who I might perceive as having created the space and opportunity for an abuse to take place.

I wake up in complete and utter pain. Physical pain, soul pain. I see straight away that "they" were playing the parts of my parents in a psychodrama. The patterns I hold onto replaying in my world.

I journalled it out. I used the step 4 matrix Who do I resent? Why? What it affects in me? What is my part in it?

My mother came in for a lot of schtick. But if I cut to the chase here is the most important bit... what is my part in it all? These are things I can see I could do differently...

1 As an adult I am choosing to relive these dramas

2 I am not practising compassion or forgiveness

3 I am stuck in the role of victim

4 I am seeing my mother as the source of suffering

5 I am taking it personally

6 I am ignoring her own biography and those of the women in my ancestry

7 I am holding her responsible when in fact I am resentful at the wounded Mother (archetype)

You will notice I highlight the Wounded Mother as an archetype and so I then journal into that. I find myself further wracked with pains of the world - of wars, refugees, destruction of the planet. I find myself, yes angry that she is wounded but that she lets herself be wounded. How pathetic! Stand up for yourself woman! Protect the innocent! I am angry at the loss of innocence.

This takes me back to the step 4 process... what is my part in it again? And I find that am not owning nor healing the wounded mother within me... and I am giving my power away and not claiming my own power as a woman and a mother. I am not protecting the innocent. 

I google "healing the wounded mother" and come across a book which I am pretty sure is on the reading list for the doula training "Songs of the Womb" by Benig Mauger. This seems like a clear signpost and waymarker - I am on the right path and this is the way! I shall buy the book and read it. And let you know how I get on!

 

Self Doubt

1st November 2015

It's been a while since I posted. I had commited to a daily blog but two things happened (and they always happen)... the first was a re-read what I had written and trashed it in my mind... the second was someone said something to me that led me to doubt myself... and so I withdrew.

The idea was that I would blog daily over 9 months as self directed study towards becoming a doula. I read my first couple of blogs back and found them rich and wordy and intellectual. What relevance did they have to being a doula?

Then a lady in my welsh class asked me how many children I have and when I said none she didn't hold back "I wouldn't want you as a doula" she said "I'd be screaming at you that you had NO IDEA" (and she laughed and looked away).

I had blog posts planned which seemed ridiculous to post - an anecdote about an eccentric man managing to silence to the Quiet Zone on virgin trains - or the photos of autumn leaves on my daily walk...

And the days have passed. And this project is 3 weeks gestation and I am afraid that it might not go full term.

I doubt I have what it takes. Who am I to do anything like this?

When the lady said that she wouldn't want me as a doula initially I was unfazed... I smiled at her and gently said "I have no bad experience of my own to bring to the birth, I come holding the ideal of a perfect healthy birth intact".

It was only later my heart broke into a million pieces. I have forced it down and down and down... but I want a baby of my own. But I don't think I ought to.

I am comfortable with death and I work with the dying and bereaved. Why? Because I know death. Death and I have talked. And I know Her.

I have a better relationship with death than I do life. I fear life more than I fear death. I fear intimacy. I fear loving and then rejection.

I fear rejection so badly.

At 28 I was told I was likely infertile. 20 years of eating disorders by that time had stopped my periods. I took it quite well then, I guess, I signed up for fostering and fostered young people leaving care. I worked harder. I also did what I could to be healthier. I did my yoga training, my periods returned, my hormones levelled out. I stopped purging... I gained weight... long story short I found a way to arrest the eating disorder and for 5 years now I have been well and healthy (contact me for more info if you need that kind of help and I'll share with you where I went)...

So now I am 35. Despite all that is said about how late in life people are having children now - it's not my fertility that is likely to slow me down. It's the radical all pervading self doubt that I have any genes worth passing on. The absolute guilt I would feel if a child of mine spent their teens and 20s in the grip of addiction.

So I realise that my journey into birth is about my own journey into a love of life. By the time I get "there" in 8.5 months time... I hope I will love life as much as I love death. I hope that I will love my own life as much as I love others. I hope that I will see my "wasted" years as of value.

And maybe this is a parallel to the beginnings of pregnancy. The fragile seed taking to new soil.

And I am sick. A vomiting bug. Cue inbox jokes about morning sickness...

If only you knew how unlikely conception actually is right now.