Archive for November, 2009

Living Intimately

Sunday, November 29th, 2009

Living Intimately: A Guide to Realizing Spiritual Unity in Relationships by Judith Blackstone - this is a brief but pithy book and I found several valuable insights within it, even prior to actually doing the simple exercises she provides.

She writes about humans having three main ways of understanding and relating to the world, themselves and each other: Through the head, the heart and the body. These are located in three points along the what I think of as the ‘central colomn’ (she doesn’t call it that) - the energetic line of light that rests along/inside/within the backbone, although it can extend both upwards and downwards.

Her understandings of intimacy within relationships I found clearly explained and useful. She points out that each time we step away from ourselves and inhabiting our own selves, we step further away from the possiblity of true intimacy - it’s only when we are fully within ourselves that we can relate to another being. She is quite comprehensive and detailed about this, with examples, exercises and clear guidelines.

I actually started this book some time ago and got bogged down in it - even though it is so short and mainly clear, the author ocassionally inserts paragraphs that - to me - are in a kind of spiritual/psychological jargon so obscure I stopped understanding what she was actually talking about. However this doesn’t happen very often and the majority of the book is not at all like this. I reccomend it for those looking for extra tips on spiritual/intimate living with a partner, in particular.

The Lesbian Body

Thursday, November 26th, 2009

Monique Wittig’s extraordinary book, The Lesbian Body, is one of my all-time-favourites,  best-ever and top three most influential books.

Wittig catalogues women’s bodies in a way that transformed my understanding of the body. In the world she creates, bones, inner organs and the layering of skin and blood vessels are the essence of female (human) beauty, as well as the inspiration of passion. She literally rewrites our cultural understanding of the female body.

When I first read this book (twenty or more years ago), I found it incredibly hard going. I literally could only read a page or two before putting it down again. But I persevered - partly because I had a sense, even before I could see it - that she was doing something truely extrordinary. Through the realms of passion and cataloguing body parts, she creates what I think is still a new vision, a different way of seeing.

River #2

Tuesday, November 24th, 2009

When I went to swim in my favourite river place on the weekend, there were other people there! I tend to think of it as my private place, because I hardly ever meet anyone there… but there were half a dozen young men in board shorts sitting on a rock on the opposite shore, down near where I usually swim. So I swam my laps in the other direction.

The other direction! I hardly ever go up there (it has shallow parts where I can’t do overarm swimming and if I’m not careful, can scrape over rocks that are close to the surface). But it’s beautiful! More tropical, jungley, perhaps than my acustomed direction - huge boulders covered in moss and fern and a tangle of growth in from the shore… my usual direction is more tall trees. Plus this new direction (if I’m careful over the shallow bits) goes nearly twice as far… it was like a whole new world.

Of course I tried to abstract this - what else in my life could I turn around and go in the opposite direction? - actually it is relevant to my Tree of Life position, Malkuth, where I have been heading downwards but shortly will have to turn around and go up the Tree - but I was wondering about other things, as well. Attitudes, maybe, or habbits…

The river is beautiful at the moment. Silky and clear and not even cold (a little unbelievably, it’s always cold! But not at the moment…)

Magical Staff

Sunday, November 22nd, 2009

At the Australian Goddess Conference recently I was gifted a magical staff… of the best sort, that is, pre-loved. A staff that has already been working magic, for a lovely woman I esteem and admire. She is in the process, in her own life, of shedding skins - I think of it as the powers she has internalised, and so doesn’t need the external reminder of them anymore. And her staff is one of these things, and I was lucky enough to be in line for it!

It’s very beautiful in its own right, and for me it has the added depth of its history. I hope that I - and many of us - can learn to do this, to pass on things that have had meaning for us, to others who would value and use them, when we no longer have such a direct need for them in our own lives. It’s a beautiful example to set and I trust I’ll be able to follow it.

Meanwhile, I have a wonderful, snakey staff to carry with me into ritual and organisation, as I step increasingly out into the world. I already know the gift that I want to give to the staff itself - some silver stars, embedded into the wood, and my partner is going to make them for me. So in this way the staff itself will grow and change as it passes, person to person, along its journey.

Aphrodite’s Magic - Proofs

Thursday, November 19th, 2009

What an interesting term: proofs. As in: Now I have proof the book will exist! I’ve been sent the first proofs for Aphrodite’s Magic: Celebrate and Heal Your Sexuality. This is pretty exciting, first proofs of my first book! I am almost afraid to read through them, and will have to hone my editorial eye again…

I’ve also been sent the final cover - and furthermore, it’s possible to place an advance order for the book on Amazon - it is really arriving into the world… I think with gratitude of all those women whose stories are in the book, and all the women who have done the Aphrodite’s Girdle process… all those girdles, floating (dancing) round the world…

Check it out at: http://www.o-books.com/obookssite/book/detail/565

Complete Dead Sea Scrolls

Tuesday, November 17th, 2009

I am slogging my way through this - the Complete Dead Sea Scrolls (in English)… 600 pages of it and I am half-way through. It has moments… of references that seem related to the Kabbalah… of momentary poetry… of a vision of a tiny band of people living in an obscure place bound about by dogma and rules but seeking to align themselves with spirit… I don’t know whether to think it’s a tragedy, the torture they and many others have put themselves through to try to prove their purity before God, or to feel glad that they tried so hard…

When they have pictures of the scrolls themselves, or talk about translating them (or say things like; this is the longest scroll, at 25 feet) - I love it. The antiquity of it. And the valuing of words and writing and long ago thoughts we still can glimpse.

Sacred Marriage #2

Sunday, November 15th, 2009

The update on the Role of the Feminine in Sacred Marriage workshop I ran at the Australian Goddess Conference recently:

Nearly 30 women (plus one baby) in a smallish room… I asked each woman to name what Sacred Marriage was to her, and so we heard a list of words: Equal, respectful, loving, deep, commited, holy, compassion, passion… Then after some discussion I asked the women in pairs to share what had been their deepest personal experience of Sacred Marriage in their lives so far…

We did a visualisation, of the Goddess and the God meeting and joining together, within Nature - I left this very open, so that some women may have been visualising rain on a forest, others the sweep of a comet through the Milky Way and others the Horned Lord with the Spring Maiden… and exploring the concept further, I asked them all to explore what changes it would being about in their own lives, if they were to live as the Feminine within the Sacred Marriage… and I left a space for any silent dedications or self-promises…

Then we began to move further into the deep Feminine - exploring what we thought that might look like (and adjusting our clothing and appearances to come closer to that), what it might sound like - sounding and trying out our voices in toning/singing/calling, and how it might move… stretching ourselves, rolling on the floor, dancing silently… We followed this with a fifteen minute ritual, unplanned and with no words spoken where - as a group - we brought through the Deep, Sacred Feminine - screaming and singing and dancing and sighing, revelling in our bodies and sound/movement, admiring of the other women’s bodies and embodiements… Finally to close with 5 minutes silence, during which we all sat small on the floor, grounding down into the earth the excess energy or finding support there…

Afterwards (it was a while afterwards, until words came back), several women said they had found the whole workshop very grounding and energising - but I remained more-or-less wordless for hours, stunned into a different level of being… (and I was exhausted) - I think the combination of going to that place but also trying to hold the roomful of women together was an overload…

So it was kind of like a wild experiment, but I recommend it!

I have an article I wrote on Sacred Marriage, some years ago, on my website: http://www.janemeredith.com/Sacred.pdf

Kabbalah - Malkuth

Wednesday, November 11th, 2009

Last night we had our third Kabbalah meeting and I moved from Yesod into Malkuth. I felt really excited, watching the ‘lightning bolt’ progress down the Tree towards me, as each person moved along the Paths, down one position… and when I actually started walking to Malkuth I felt even more excited. When I arrived there, it was like coming onto an altar - the person who was there before me had left a shell there, plus given me a frangipanni flower… and then sitting at the bottom of the Tree, looking up I felt I was the gravity of the whole thing. Not holding its weight, but keeping it in balance, somehow. It felt strong and solid.

Then I dreamt that I was entering Malkuth - literally, I entered in through the disc that represents that place on the Tree and then I was within it… It was the world. My life. But I was extra-aware of everything - the shops, the people - as being a part of this Malkuth energy… it still seemed special, not mundane at all.

I’m looking forward to an energetic and grounded month!

The Shape-Changer’s Wife

Tuesday, November 10th, 2009

I just read a beautiful, short little book (a nice change from various other difficult, long, complex books I am mainly reading) - The Shape-Changer’s Wife by Sharon Shinn; apparently a classic. It’s a beautiful fable about love and magic, power and knowledge… Just delightful! Highly recommended.

Beltaine

Sunday, November 8th, 2009

Last night we had our Honouring Beltaine Ritual - 8 adults, a maypole and coloured ribbons to dance around it, a series of deepening-heart exercises and a feast.

The maypole worked beautifully - a youngish camphor (a pest tree in this region) my partner and son cut down and then set into the middle of the lawn… Now woven with different coloured ribbons in a beautiful pattern. Before we did the dance, we each created charms, carrying our hopes and wishes around love - we cut them out of coloured cardboard and threaded them onto our ribbons, so that as we danced, and wove, our wishes ended up bound into the weaving. It’s now like a decorative sculpture in the West (to the West of the house) and we’re thinking just to leave it there…

Part of our ritual was also a beautiful men’s-group/women’s-group section, where the groups speak one at a time, with the other group surrounding them and therefore hearing - but not participating in - what is spoken. This is a lovely way of sharing both amongst the sexes and between them, as each group gets to hear the others’ experience. In this case, both groups were sharing their deepest experiences of love…  hopefully some insights were gained!