Category: The Feminine

stirrings…

Stirrings.

Urges.

Light slipping through the curtains.

Birdsong.

The familiar undercurrent of other lives.

The vast, unfolding of time.

It’s morning. Morning. Morningtime.

Greeting the day. Entering the day.
•    I choose how I wish to be.
•    I choose how I wish to feel.
•    I choose how I wish to live.

thank you god for most this amazing day… (e.e. cummings)

Waking up this morning I smile, twenty-four brand new hours are before me, I vow to live fully in each moment and look at all beings with eyes of compassion. (Thich Nhat Hanh)

I surrender the day now beginning. May I live in love. May I be in love… (Marianne Williamson and me)

Breath opens.

Body stretches and releases.

Hands land lightly.     On heart.     On belly.

I am here.
•    In this body.
•    In this bed.
•    In this life.

In this morningtime.

Like Spring, morning is a time to begin again.
•    With a new day.
•    With a new chance.
•    With a new perspective.

How will I live into this possibility?
•    With habit?
•    With rushing?
•    With openness?
•    With love?

With awareness.         With curiosity.         With compassion.

I can bring these to any day, no matter how full.
•    A being that is awake.
•    A mind that it interested and open.
•    A heart that is gentle and soft.

Morningtime = Springtime
A chance to begin fresh.
A chance to begin clean.
A chance to begin simple.

A chance to return to what is most true.

You.

Me.

Being here.

Practicing and awakening together.

How can you consciously craft your
morningtime to welcome
the possibility of a brand new and
fresh day of living?

Visioning Your New Year

I used to have a lot of trouble coming up with New Year intentions—all it ever felt like was an exhausting, never-ending to-do list, what my colleague Laura calls a “devil’s to-do list.” I’m still working out exactly how to do it each year, but it’s feeling more comfortable, more like an invitation to land in myself and envision my life.

What better time, in the middle of winter, to make space to dream about how we want our lives to be? You can read about dreaming during our winter cave-time in more depth here.

One of the things that I really love doing is taking the time to look back at the past year—I usually get together with a girlfriend sometime around the cusp of the year, but you can do this now, too. We spend time going through our journals to get an overview of the patterns, the learnings, the moods. We ask ourselves questions like: “What did I learn, integrate, accomplish? What do I want to remember? What can I celebrate and what do I still need to focus on or let go of?”

Then we look forward to the New Year, at what lies ahead and allow ourselves to dream. What is calling to us? What do we need to integrate / learn / lean into? What do we want next? After writing and allowing time for this exploration, we usually draw at least a Goddess Card and perhaps another visioning tool to allow more guidance from the unconscious to be part of the process. When we’re ready, we share what we are understanding and support each other’s paths and visions.

Sometimes we choose a word or a phrase as a North Star. Sometimes an image really captivates, and just recently I read about choosing a “beautiful question.” Steve Quatrano explains: “Questions also fire the imagination. A question is a puzzle: once it has been raised, the mind almost can’t help trying to solve or answer it. In this way, questions enable us to begin to act in the face of uncertainty; they help us to organize our thinking around what we don’t know…”

This year, I chose the Goddess Card for Coventina, who represents purification, and from my hearthstones, the word “faith.” I’m playing with my beautiful question…Its current form is: “What needs to be purified within me so that I can live in more faith?” It feels like there could be many layers in this—and it feels simple enough to answer, two other important criteria for beautiful questions…

May you find more beautiful questions
than to-do lists to light up
your vision for the 2015 New Year!

* Coventina image from Doreen Virtue’s Goddess Guidance Oracle Cards and the heart with “faith” in it is from a set of Hearthstones.

Cave-Time and Dream-Time

No, I’m not talking about going all Paleo and living in a cave! 🙂

But I am curious: Are you are you taking time to dream this winter? The darkness and coldness offer the perfect opportunity to follow nature’s call to slow down and crawl into your cave.

There are many reasons we don’t listen to this call…

  • The fall and winter holidays tend to be so extroverted. We ignore the dark and the cold, dress up and drive around to spend time with friends.
  • We might be on a roll, living busy lives, full to the brim with work, family, social life, exercise, home chores, etc.
  • We might be extroverted people and really used to spending most of our time with others, finding our sense of self that way.
  • Or we might even be filling up our lives in order not to touch into what is below the busyness, what might arise if we went into the darkness, into the unknown.

The mama bear knows how to do this. Our ancestors knew how to do this. Indigenous cultures still know how to do this…how to live in connection with nature’s rhythms, to follow the call of winter into the cave.

Wintertime, cave-time, is a perfect time to let go of outer distractions and tune into your own inner world, to stop listening to the “shoulds,” and open yourself to the quiet, still embrace of the vast, deep, mysterious dark. This is an invitation to envision how you want your life to be. When you’re curled into yourself, listening to your self, what do you dream up?

Most of us can’t take enough hibernation time—though I sure wish I could sometimes! So, how to we make time to connect with these qualities of Winter?

  • Start a dream journal, keep it by your bed, and write down your dreams as soon as you wake up. It doesn’t matter if they don’t make sense to your logical, daytime brain. Just write them down.
  • Try spending more time journalling, especially first thing in the morning.
  • Try engaging in some form of creativity in which you ask for vision and stay open to not knowing the answer, to be shown what you need in your life right now. Collage is an easy one to start with if you don’t already have a specific practice.
  • Take more breaks, rest time, or retreats in which you have unscheduled time. (See my post “Are You Listening?” for more ideas about this.)

Here’s a cave-time practice we can do anytime—try it with me now:

  • Breathe deep into your belly.
  • Feel your feet on the floor, your seat in the chair, your back resting on the chair.
  • Imagine you could breathe all the way from your belly, down your legs, through your feet, into the floor. Feel roots growing down into the earth, rooting into the earth.
  • From this rooted place, breathe into the cave of your belly. If you are a woman, imagine this cave as your womb.
  • Breathe into your cave and feel/see/imagine its cozy embrace.
  • Continuing to breathe deeply into this cave and into the earth, imagine yourself curling into yourself and crawling into this cave.
  • Imagine yourself finding a comfortable place in this cave to lie down in for a little rest.
  • And let yourself stay here for a few breaths, a few minutes, or longer. Breathe, allow yourself to be held, allow yourself to not know, to open to any visions or dreams that might be waiting here in the darkness for you to receive.
  • Close your eyes.
  • …
  • When you open your eyes, move slowly. You may want to write down any insight, intuitions, or feelings.
  • Bring this more centered presence with you as you move into the rest of your day, knowing that you can return here to meet yourself and your dreams, even just for a few breaths anytime.

If you would like to explore your own inner dreams and desires with me, please post a comment below.

Happy cave-time and winter dreaming!

New Year 2015—Reconnect with Your Feminine Essence

connection, relationship, magnetizing, rest, listening, pleasure, savoring,
embodiment, earthy, leaning back in, feelings, flow, sensual, appreciating…

These words grace an index card at my desk. What do they all have in common? The expression of yin, or feminine energy. The words are written in red, orange, and pink, further inviting a luxuriating and rich experience.

When you read those words, how do they land?

Most of the time, my mind jumps in and says something like: “Sounds nice, but who has time for all of that?”

When I do take the time to take them in, I feel myself leaning back in. I feel myself landing in my female body. This body, just as she is right now. And the more I land, the more I feel these qualities…

Our masculine-oriented culture emphasizes their opposite: independence, autonomy, selling, action, speaking, working, analyzing, head-orientation, detachment, pushing forward, thinking, goal-focused, practical, competing…

When you read those words, how do they land? I feel overwhelmed and tired…

As women, we are often so immersed in the masculine culture we live in that we forget our feminine birthright, the feeling of savoring the art of living in a female bodysoul.

Read those feminine words once again. Breathe them into your body, into your heart, into your soul. Linger in them. Luxuriate in them.

When we, as women, own our feminine essence, we are more resourced. We are more who we truly are. We are more able to operate in a masculine-driven culture without losing our balance, without losing our way.

How might you invite more of your
feminine essence, more of who you really are,
into your life in this New Year?
What baby steps could you take
to inhabit your feminine bodysoul more?

The Deep Darkness of Winter Solstice

The Pathdeep is the darkness,
with no light at all,
before and behind,
and to either side

I love this text from Stephen Mitchell’s translation of Gilgamesh. It invites me into the truth of this season. It is dark. The darkness is deep and long, and will be at its darkest depth this weekend. The hours of darkness overwhelm those of daylight.

I was recently in Anchorage, Alaska visiting my sister’s family for Thanksgiving, and it was still dark at 9 am! We took the kids to school in the dusky darkness. By 4 pm, it was dark again. It was really dark before and behind, and to either side.

There have been times in my life where this has been true, too. Deep is the darkness, so deep that I can’t see around me, with no light at all. At such times, it’s helpful to remember that we have choices. We often fumble around trying to see in the deep dark. Instead we can practice surrendering to its depths. And we can seek the light.

Winter reminds us of the mystery of dark and light, of their entwinement, of their ultimate embrace. Each cannot exist without the other—if there were no darkness, we would have nothing to contrast it with, nothing “light.” And without the light, what would “dark” be?

So, as winter invites us into the deep darkness, can we surrender to it, allow ourselves to dive in and become familiar with its depths? What might we find in the darkness? What visions, dreams, gifts, might be there for us to uncover, for us to release into?

Winter Solstice and the other wintertime holidays mark the beginning of the return of the light, at the cusp of winter. Winter Solstice falls on Sunday, December 21st at 5:03 pm CT this year. As we surrender to the darkness of wintertime, we also, paradoxically, are reminded of the light, which will grow ever so slowly from this day until Summer Solstice.

deep is the darkness, with no light at all,
before and behind, and to either side

This winter, how will you enter consciously
into the darkness?

How can you surrender to winter’s depth,
and at the same time allow the
ever-returning light within to slowly
and faithfully guide you along your way?

Are You Listening?

There’s so much to listen to here in this Western culture we live in—news, talk shows, music, weather, random TV shows and movies, our family, our bosses, our inner critics…The list can be endless and overwhelming.

What if you could decide what to listen to?
What if you really took time to tune into that?
Whose voice(s) would you choose
to listen to?

Wintertime invites us into deeper listening.

Deeper listening…deeper than what? Deeper than the outer sounds, deeper than the “shoulds” inside your head…Listening deep inside yourself, where there is quiet and stillness and wisdom. A wellspring to draw upon, if we turn in to it.

Especially in the colder climates, winter really does invite us to go inside—into our actual houses where it is warm, less in contact with our neighbors and friends. We are drawn to cozy up to the woodstove or sink into a warm bath, to light candles and sip warm drinks, to read books and journal, to reflect on our lives.

This deeper listening can be an invitation to surrender to nature’s call, to hunker down and in, out of the cold. In following winter’s lead, we also follow the rhythm of our souls. Our souls need to rest, to go within, to connect with the deeper wellsprings that nourish us. And from this place, we come back to the world more refreshed, more able to respond, more able to live authentically in the world.

The more faithfully you listen to the voice within you,
the better you will hear what is sounding outside.
~ Dag Hammarskjold

Of course, we can do this anytime, even in the midst of the holiday chaos, but it’s a lot easier when we can actually set aside undisturbed retreat time to really listen. Here are a few suggestions for how to create mini-retreat times for yourself any day:

  • Carve out silent journaling time.
  • Add in slow yoga or other mindful movement.
  • Sit in meditation, contemplation, or prayer.
  • Settle in with a cup of tea and look out the window, at the fire, sipping slowly.
  • Take a Do-Nothing Break.

Whatever you do, see if you can drop below the to-do lists, the “shoulds,” the noisy voices of our culture, and listen for the voice of your soul—S/He may speak in words, in intuitive hits, in physical sensations, in feelings, in images or symbols…Listen for your own deeper knowing and wisdom and heed it.

How do you make time to listen within?
I’d love to share ideas about this
essential part of our self-care and wholeness.

Vivian Speaks

Include me.

Include my fear.

Include my confusion of not knowing how to be when mom told me at 16 that it looked like my eyelids were growing mold when I first tried eye shadow—blue to go with my eyes, whose color and size I was always praised for.

Include my self-imposed banishment from the circle of other teenage girls who knew the tried-and-true steps to becoming a woman in the society I found myself growing up in.

Include my innocence that was broken by his unwanted touch in the night, and my subsequent frozen withdrawal from his heartfelt apology, from his owned ignorance, from his unintentional hurt of me—and from my own budding beauty.

Include my disordered eating—my attempt to know and control and stuff my feelings deep down where no one else, especially me, could find them so that I could go on living a good life.

Include my yearning for something more—to live for, to grow into, to speak, to sing, to embrace, to be.

Include my sadness when I cannot express what is in my heart, when my words hurt another, when I feel unseen for who I am—whether I myself can give voice to it or not.

Include my willingness to dive deep to uncover these stories, to turn them over and over again with loving curiosity, to understand, to offer them to myself and you.

Include my resting into myself, my leaning back into my sensual bodysoul in the perfect form she is expressing right now.

Include me.

Include life.

**Vivian is the name of my inner teenager.

**Image Credit: Dive Deep is the top blue painting of a woman diving, from the beautiful artwork of Leah Piken Kolidas: http://www.bluetreeartgallery.com/dive-deep.php. Used with permission.

NN(G)FT and A Virgin Pedi!

NN(G)FT is a term I learned this week from business-strategist, marketing-maven, spiritual-ass-kicker with-a-side-of-hip-hop-swagger, Maria Forleo! (Non-Negotiable Friend Time) I’ve added the “G”, which emhasizes the importance of the “Girl” in Friend Time when you’re a woman, anyway…

I’ve been so busy this past year studying to practice as a Holistic Health & Wellness Coach with IIN that I haven’t made as much time for my girlfriends as usual, and I’ve really missed it! I hereby commit to making it non-negotiable!

There is something so supportive about getting together with a girlfriend to talk, to be heard, to share about what’s going on in our lives. And even better, to get together and have it be my first time ever to experience a pedicure made it even more fun!!

(I know, it’s probably hard to imagine that in my 50s, I had never had a pedicure, but I wasn’t brought up in that world and never really understood what a pleasure it could be…until now!)

In my mission to add more pleasure and fun into my life over the last few years, I have enjoyed painting my own toenails. But I always use the same dark red, and I often go a long time in between painting them.

So, today, at my Virgin Pedicure, I decided to try a different color—a lot lighter and oranger—to break out of the box a bit and invite more fun in!

I was surprised how much I enjoyed entering this new world! I joined a tribe of women who knew something I didn’t—a way of taking care of themselves that is even culturally sanctioned!

We ranged in age from girls of seven or so (for a wedding, sitting in really fun pink kittycat chairs—can I sit there next time?) to women in their 80s, seemingly from many different walks of life. Some came in pairs, like my girlfriend and I, but quite a few came alone. We enjoyed each other, complimented the colors chosen, and settled into the ritual. We all belonged—as women, as women who were taking care of themselves, as women who were seeking some pleasure in connection, in fun colors, in touch, in relaxation, in community…

I still have such a warm feeling of wellbeing from this participation in the tribe of women! It really did feel like an initiation of sorts for me—an initiation into a new form of pleasure, mutual appreciation, and relational connection of womanhood I had not known.

Do you have NNGFT?
How do you bring more pleasure and fun into your life?

Retreating—An Act of Self-Love

I’m just back from our weeklong Diamond Approach Retreat and trying not to scramble too much as I catch up, so that I can be with myself as I land home again.

I so appreciate retreat time to really hunker down and focus on my spiritual practice, without the distraction of daily work, food preparation, clean up, or even the daily choice of when to meditate and do my spiritual practice. It’s all decided for me on retreat, which gives my mind a chance to calm down and let go of control more than normal.

It’s also so restorative and supportive to be retreating in a beautiful place in the country. Just being there, taking in my surroundings with all my senses, is a coming home. I feel myself slow down and land more in my sensual self, in my own inner sense of wholeness, beauty, groundedness.

And all of this, of course, invites my heart to come online a bit more. My mind is calmer, letting go of control, and I am here, grounded, solid, present in my body, which makes my heart feel safe to open, to feel more, to love more, to simply be more available. I had a few really beautiful heart opening experiences, in which, for longer periods, my heart remained really present—there was a sense of intimacy with my heart, of fullness, of impressionability, of deep equanimity, and of self-love. My heart was with me—or more likely, I was with my heart! I feel this now as I write about it, and I am so grateful.

How do you make space in your life for a deeper landing in yourself?

Are there ways you support your mind to let go of thinking and controlling for a bit?

What helps you to land in your body with more presence?

When does your heart feel most available?

life practices: summer solstice 2014

My intention is to blog once a season about Life Practices in order to share what I am practicing in my life, and to suggest opportunities to join me, as well as ideas to use in your own practice.

Summer Solstice is almost upon us! The daylight hours have been growing since Winter Solstice, each day becoming slightly longer until now, when seen from the North or South Poles, the sun reaches its highest position in the sky and appears to stand still (Latin “sol” or sun and “sistere” or to stand still). In 2014, the Summer Solstice occurs at 5:15 am CT on Saturday, June 21st.

Here in Minnesota, we’ve had a long cold Winter and a very unpredictable Spring—cool, hot, windy, thunder-stormy…but everything is growing and really green!! It turns out that the earth knows how to grow and follow her natural rhythms regardless of how crazy the weather is…

Summer’s glory—blooming radiance—abounds, with a new flower coming into bloom almost every day. We’ve passed from Spring’s early blooming bulbs to Lilacs, to Azaleas, to Lilies of the Valley, to Peonies, to Poppies and Clematis, and more…and now Evening Primrose and Daisies are smiling their sunny faces just in time for the Solstice!

How are you preparing or being prepared to bloom this Summer? What are some ways you can support yourself so that you, like the earth, can flourish this Summer?

You may want to write in a journal, or try a short ritual alone or with friends that could include the following:

  • Sitting outside, on the earth if possible, light a candle, red or orange in color.
  • Take a few deep breaths into your connection with the earth—into your feet or bum or legs, and breathe that connection up into your belly.
  • When you feel grounded, look around you and find one beautiful thing—it may be a flower opening or the light or something else that moves you.
  • Say gently to yourself “Beauty sees beauty.” Feel yourself, as beauty, seeing beauty. Own this, breathe it in…be beauty, breathing in beauty…
  • Continue to breathe as you look around, acknowledging and welcoming more beauty within and without. You might also want to try a different verb—”Beauty sees/hears/touches/senses…beauty.”
  • When you feel filled and beauty-full, say thank you and blow out the candle.

Remember that as this day comes to an end, the days will very slowly become shorter, until at Autumn Equinox, the day and night will be balanced, and by Winter Solstice, we’ll be back to the longest night. Savor and enjoy your own flourishing and beauty with that of the earth this Summer season! May you welcome and find grace in this changing of the seasons.

Being Woman-crpd2Collage as a Practice. My collaging has slowed down recently as I pour more creative energy into my studies (more about that below), my daily practice, the garden, creating healthy meals and new recipes, and other projects.

Being Woman explores the luscious, life-giving, instinctual, ever-renewing, deep Feminine ground that not only supports us but also gives birth to our many human expressions. We arise from and return to Her.

How does She live and arise through you?

KatyNourishing Wholeness: My New Holistic Health & Wellness Coaching Practice! I am so excited to be starting to practice as a Holistic Health & Wellness Coach—it feels like the fulfillment of my life’s journey thus far! Studying with the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, I also bring my years of practice and training as a Certified Riso-Hudson Enneagram Teacher, an ordained Interfaith Minister, a Certified Laughter Yoga Leader, a Diamond Approach Student, and an Assistant in Sara Avant Stover’s Red Tent, as well as a Student in her Way of the Happy Woman Certification Program.

I will be taking more clients—both in person and via phone or skype—in September. Be in touch if you’d like to set up a free discovery session to talk about your dreams and desires for your health and well-being. I would be honored to support you on this path!

dandelionsFun, Healthy Eating as a Practice! How about instead of battling with the dandelions in your yard, you picked them and ate them instead?

Are there wild things growing in your yard or on your property that you can harvest and eat? I’d love to hear about it!

poppy-tpWomen’s Practice. As women, there’s something we rarely talk about. We pretend it doesn’t happen. Some of us are ashamed by it. Some wish it would simply go away. Even in the most “evolved” and “spiritual” communities, it remains taboo.  Have you guessed what it is?

That’s right: it’s our moon cycle. (Or period or menses or whatever your favorite word for it is.)

Last year, with the guidance of my teacher, friend, and yogini, Sara Avant Stover, a group of really brave women began changing this conversation. This “Moon Tribe” got real and raw about how their moon cycles affect them, their work in the world, and their relationships. It was edgy. Real. And especially valuable and healing—for thousands of women across the world.

Poetry as a Practice.

Bare branches and silent winter days
are but a memory
as we near summer solstice.

Shades of white snow and crystal blue
have given way to relentless green.

From dormancy rises
a summons to grow
that keeps us on our toes.

No longer shoveling
instead we mow, pull, whack,
and make our choices
around what to trim and tame
and what to let grow wild.

What we know
most especially this time of year
is that everything and everyone
shares this boundless call to grow.

Seasons and cycles give us
quiet reflective times
and periods of busting out.
A pull toward green sprouting
boisterous courageous steps
further in and further out
in this world.

If its inspiration you seek
as you feel the push / pull inside you
of steps in perhaps frightening new directions,
look to the grace of branches
swaying with the weight of vibrant leaves
heavy from new growth and recent rains.
See the way buds stretch skyward
readying for bloom
as if extending a cupped hand
to hold the sun.

You can trust the trees, the flowers,
the bursting green of this season.
Just as you can trust your own yearning
to set your wild spirit free
and grow in directions that call to you

Chris Heeter, Leadership Speaker, Wilderness Guide, Poet
The Wild Institute

Blooming and Flourishing Summer Blessings,
Katy Taylor, Holistic Health & Wellness Coach