In my corner of the world, the call is inward. Windows flung wide open a few weeks ago are now closed tight against the autumn chill. The fire glows day and night, radiating heat at the heart of our home. The hammock is packed away. Ugg boots have nudged out flip-flops.
I’ve been winterizing the garden, pruning long stalks of dead blossoms all the way back, to the dirt, to seemingly nothing. Seemingly.
This was my 60th year. I thought it would be more dramatic. On my birthday last January, I envisioned breakthroughs in expression and service. A grand entrance into elderhood with my head of wild gray curls and maybe a velvet cape. A fire of inspiration fueling my legacy. The curtain rising on the much-anticipated Third Act where the story lines weave together into the great climax (I do so love a great climax) where resolution and meaning is bestowed upon all.
No surprise; it didn’t look like that.
More like another year of shedding what is in the way. Learning from unlearning. Growth from stillness. Finding the fullness hiding in emptiness. An ongoing striping project designed to take off the layers of paint and varnish and get down to the raw grain of the wood of me.
It’s been beautiful. I feel deeply rested–maybe the first time in my life. I feel content, grateful, soft, relaxed.
And often disoriented. Disquieted. It’s a strange new chapter for this lifelong overachiever. I’m learning how to truly trust what is intrinsic, arising but not yet formed. To have faith that there’s a plan, soul authored, even if my head doesn’t understand and my ego is having an importance seizure. To encounter faith not as a concept hovering around the edges of an overfull life but as a daily companion in a life less scheduled.
A central inquiry this year has been: who is she, the one who spent a lifetime thinking she had to be somebody?
My eyes still dart around for the answer when someone asks what I’m up to these days. I can still feel the impulse to manufacture something more impressive than the simple steady rhythm of my actual day-to-day. Rays of sunrise cutting through the ponderosa pines on the eastern ridge, sweaty yoga, laundry, cooking, emptying the compost bucket, reading, stroking the purring cat, tending to the small circle of clients and relations I’m devoted to, laying my naked body next to his at the end of the day.
I haven’t yet figured out how to claim all this as an accomplishment in the same way I once claimed victory over the stress and overwhelm of my busier entrepreneurial days. Turns out, achievements in beingness, simplifying, and spaciousness are hard to put on the trophy shelf.
And isn’t that revealing? We live in a hypermasculine dominator culture that doesn’t validate or celebrate the qualities of sacred feminine beauty, embodiment, love, vulnerability, and intimacy with the natural world. It doesn’t honor seasons, cycles, and the fallow periods crucial for regeneration.
I’m writing to you about this because we need to see that which we long to be. When we witness other women walking the path of meaning, balance, and wholeness, stepping off the hamster wheel successfully, it becomes less dream and more reality.
When we listen to those that speak what is kind, right, loving, and possible into the world, we hear our own voice. We recognize ourselves. We activate the template, attune to the frequency, already alive within us and we feel renewed.
I want you to know that you can count on me to keep speaking to you about our sacred feminine power, our Shakti. It is my passion, heart and dharma to do so (albeit with less frequency of late…still here).
I’m committed to sharing my own journey in the hope that it supports yours. Plus my cup runneth over with wisdom gleaned from decades of coaching truly extraordinary women and my good fortune of being in sisterhood with some of the most remarkable leaders in this field.
Our Shakti feminine power is needed on this ailing planet more than ever. The more grounded we are in our love, pleasure and connection to the divine, the more we can be a vessel for the sacred feminine, Shakti Ma, to flow her radiance through us and into the world. This is the Shakti Woman Way.
It’s a long game moment for goddess warriors. Stay the course. Serve where you are called. Be nourished in supportive community. Resource, She-Source, yourself in the ways that keep you vital. Keep doing the work even if the work is about not doing, or undoing.
Learn more about Shakti mentoring, being in my inner circle and working 1:1 with me here.
In this new moon moment, in this season of giving thanks, know how much I appreciate you, your attention, listening, and good work in the world. Thank you.
With love and gratitude,
.
