I love my own inner little one.
Accepting Love from the Beloved
ONE OF THE BEST WAYS TO RE-GREEN ARID places in our psyches is to cultivate the skill of accepting and absorbing love. What is more nurturing than resting in the tender embrace of a loved one? What revitalizes us as much as feeling gently and unconditionally accepted? Very little, and yet it is often hard for us to both accept love and to ask for it. As with any skill, however, we can learn how to do it.
Gayle, a client of mine, was going through a very painful divorce. As a result, she felt betrayed, enraged, terrified, and totally unlovable. Although her friends and family tried to love and support her, she found it almost impossible to accept what they, or I, offered. As we worked together and her anger and terror dissipated somewhat, Gayle realized that the “plexiglass dome” she'd erected around herself was only serving to alienate her kids and make everyone, including herself, increasingly miserable. In a wonderfully passionate manner, Gayle decided that the best way to “get even with the bad guy” was to be happy.
Knowing that the ability to accept love was a big step toward happiness, Gayle committed herself to mastering the skill. She began each morning by telling her reflection in the mirror, “I love you” or, on really hard days, “I'm, sort of, a little willing to love you.” A very determined woman, each day Gayle visualized herself being in the presence of a loving and caring spiritual being, and she practiced consciously accepting love from her. At first the exercise was very hard and felt phony, but she persevered. Next she practiced laying her hands on her heart and asking it to open when her children offered her love or she wanted to show love to them.
Although it took quite a while for Gayle to heal her hurt and learn to once more embrace love, today she is a happy woman with a close relationship to God, herself, and her family.
You, too, can become adept at welcoming love. Make a commitment today to be open to accepting love, and visualize being held in a loving embrace by the Great Spirit.
God is the Beloved who kisses me on the inside of my heart.
I am worthy of love.
Balancing God's Qualities
I'VE HEARD IT SAID THAT IF GOD IS MALE, then the male is God, and in our predominately patriarchal culture, God's masculinity does remain the prevalent belief system. But in this belief something crucial to us all has been left out—the Feminine. Indeed the loss of the Feminine from our spiritual ideologies has caused a grief so deep and so raw, particularly in women, that it has been virtually unspeakable until recently. Why? Because, as women, we have been disinherited; we are not created in His image. In her book, A God Who Looks Like Me, Patricia Reilly beautifully addresses the wounding some women feel around this issue.
But the loss is not women's alone. No matter how we may feel about the idea of a purely male God, it is obvious that when the Divine is only masculine, only male qualities are highly valued. This leaves the feminine qualities of compassion, inclusion, cooperation, tolerance, beingness, intuition, and nurturance underrated and even perceived as weak or ineffective. With the negation of heart-qualities such as these comes many of the malignancies in society; lack of empathy, elevation of power, violence, disregard for nature, concentration solely on the mind to the exclusion of the heart, and loss of soul, to name only a few.
In a human family, it is optimal when both loving masculine and feminine models are available. The same is true within our spiritual family. Believing in and honoring both the mas-culine and feminine divinity within our hearts, and within the great unknowable mystery that is God, is essential for the balance and harmony of our spirits.
We need both the law and the love, the word and the wisdom, the mind and the heart of God. With tender honesty, ask yourself if the God that you love possesses both feminine and masculine aspects. If not, make a commitment to give yourself a sacred gift by incorporating the missing virtues into your heart's vision of the Beloved.
I honor and appreciate both the masculine and the feminine qualities of the Divine.
I possess qualities worthy of honor and admiration.
Finding the Motherhood of God
ALTHOUGH I BELIEVE THAT GOD IS BIGGER than I can ever hope to fathom and embodies both masculine and feminine qualities, I often feel a deep yearning to sit at the feet of an ideal Mother God to be consoled or taught.
It wasn't until my own mother's last illness that I became fully aware of how much I longed for an unconditionally loving female presence. I wanted, both within me and in my spiritual ideology, a guide and plumb line who represented the feminine principles of love, wisdom, and patience. Jolted by the recognition that my most important female influence would soon be unavailable in physical form, I began to pray for and meditate on a feminine aspect of God to whom I could relate.
God responded to my request in beautiful ways. Teachers appeared as I was ready, and the two most important things I learned from them were very simple: Your desire is valid and essential and Trust your images.
As I began to trust my own images, they became clearer and more frequent. Right now, I'm aware of several female beings who comfort and guide me. One in particular, whom I call “The Lady,” appeared as a result of a knocked-to-myknees, end-of-my-rope plea. She is incredibly strong, about seven feet tall, infinitely wise, and impersonally compassionate.
Please understand that I realize that I haven't a clue as to the reality of the mystery of God. The best I can do is love, honor, and serve the images that resonate with my heart at this time. But frankly, I don't think God cares what we call Him/Her/All, as long as we keep in touch.
I trust my images of God.
I ask for the Mother God who is right for me.
Walking the Earth with Sensitive Feet
IN A PERPETUAL DANCE, EARTH AND SKY provide us with a beautiful life-sustaining environment. Just when Mother Earth pulls back into her roots to replenish and revitalize, leaving her queendom brown and barren, Father Sky fills his realm with a carnival of clouds that bring moisture to a parched planet. Working in concert, they never leave us with a time when our eyes cannot be dazzled, our hearts uplifted in awe, and our lungs filled with air. Regretfully, ignorance and greed are damaging both earth and sky as we humans act as if there is an extra earth in the attic.
One outcome of living more in harmony with the Spirit will be a natural increase in awareness about the need to care for our planet. It is the literal ground of our being, and both Mother Earth and Father Sky need us to be sensitive to what harms them. We are planetary stewards and must learn to treat our home with respect and care.
Every now and then I travel to sacred spots with a group of spiritually-minded women. Recently we went to Arches National Park in Moab, Utah, where Mother Nature has responded to the elements of wind and water by creating breathtaking sculptures, awesome in size and beauty. One of the goals of these excursions is to consciously bless the earth and restore energy to places that may have been depleted through misuse.
On this trip, we spent two hours silently in the presence of the incredible arches. The single suggestion made by one of the leaders before we began was to hold the sentiment, “I see you from afar, and I am longing for your healing” as we experienced Mother Earth. Afterward, one woman's comment especially struck me: “I promised that I will walk the earth with sensitive feet.”
How different our world would be if we all walked everywhere with sensitive feet! Take a moment today to consider your relationship with nature. How can you walk the earth with more sensitive feet?
I