Sophia

Dec 17, 2018 | Sacred Stories, Women's Wisdom

Wisdom seeking is difficult because, as Martha Nussbaum has written, “Knowing can be violent, given the truths that are there to be known.” What this means for us is that in order to live on wisdom’s path, we will have to give up the illusion of safety. If we try to secure our safety, we will continually be doomed to dwell in fields of hesitation, stalled in neutral, forever wavering in the wind. ~ From Chasing Sophia, by Lillian Calles Barger

In this place, this time, this world, where do we turn for wisdom?

There are many places, many voices, many sources to be sure. And some are better than others. The one I encourage (and the one I work to rely upon myself)? The wisdom that’s yours! That know-that-you-know-that-you-know voice within that sometimes whispers, sometimes shouts, and is always speaking.

How do I know? And how can you trust that this is so, that what you hear is reliable, trustworthy, and true?

Enter Sophia.

Wisdom Herself. Present at all times. The word itself that’s used to define and describe such knowing in the Sacred Text. And yes, a woman.

She’s one of the 52 stories I reimagine, retell, and redeem through SacredReadings. And it’s possible that She is the one who will choose you for 2019 and beyond.

Believe me: no matter who shows up on your behalf, whether Sophia or not, the wisdom (and encouragement and blessing and hope) within will speak perfectly and poignantly to and for you. I promise. How and why can I do such a thing? Because their wisdom (and encouragement and blessing and hope) continue to speak to me – over and over again.

And what I’ve come to realize is this:

These ancient, sacred stories of women are in our blood – longing to be heard and everpresent – offering us all the wisdom we desire and deserve. They are our matrlineal line and birthright. They are yours.

Stories that Still Speak

Dec 15, 2018 | Sacred Stories, Women's Voice & Power, Women's Wisdom, Writing

I’ve been awake for hours. Christmas tree lights on. Coffee made. Fire lit. Snuggled up on the couch. Laptop on. I’ve been working on New Year SacredReadings – the 6th year in a row (!!) I’ve offered them.

You’d think these stories must be repetitive to me by now, yes? But exactly the opposite is true. With each card I pull, I realize a truth to this particular story (and then the next one and then the next one…) that is actually tied to my own. I hear her voice speaking into my heart. And as the minutes and hours tick by, I find myself surrounded by text (and women’s wisdom) that yes, I am offering to others, but that feels like it’s all for me.

Which, of course, is why I continue to do this work – and offer it to others: these stories still speak!

None of this is surprising – at least not to me.

These are ancient, sacred stories of women who have been, for the most part, marginalized and misunderstood. Still, all the while, they have laid in wait – longing to be heard, longing to be seen, longing to be known and trusted and called on for their wisdom, encouragement, and grace. Every single one of them has lived through things unfathomable to us . . . and . . . all too real and relevant even still. Every single one of them knows what it means to pursue desire and have it thwarted. Every single one of them knows how it feels to be silenced or small (but to refuse such!) Every single one of them knows what it means to abide in a world of patriarchal power and yet live a powerful and out-loud story in spite of it all. And every single one of them remain profoundly relevant.

As I work on their stories and hold the stories-and-hearts of those who have already purchased their 2019 New Year SacredReadings, I think of so many other women; all women, actually. And I feel such hope. Hope that these women’s stories – the ancient, sacred ones I love – will yet be heard, known, honored, and loved. Hope that you will discover which one of these stories is choosing you. Hope (and longing) that you might know and believe your story still speaks – in ways you have not yet imagined or dared to hope.

I’ll gladly wake up tomorrow and the remaining days of this year at the same early hour if it means that more and more of these ancient, sacred women’s stories can be placed into the hands and hearts of women today.

These stories (still) speak and we deeply, desperately, perhaps more than ever before, need to hear them.

May it be so.

Sacred Conversation with Your Heart – #6

Apr 29, 2017 | My sort-of Sermons, Sacred Stories, Spirituality, Women's Voice & Power, Women's Wisdom, Writing

Today concludes this 6-part series on (Sacred) Conversation with your Heart. I am hopeful, though, that it is just the beginning of so much more of the same!!! 

If you’re just tuning in today, I’d encourage you to read the first 5 posts: Introductions, Tentative Listening, Hearing Deeper Truths, Speaking Deeper Truths, and Loving the Dialogue. 

And now, today, the big finish: 

PART SIX – HEART CONVERSATION AS SACRED CONVERSATION 

For me, this intimate and honest dialogue with my heart is synonymous with the Sacred. There is nothing disparate between the two. They are one-in-the-same. That know-that-I know-that-I-know voice within is the voice of the Divine. 

I’m hearing the Divine speak to me. Not in a burning-bush sort-of way, or miraculous thunder-clap or shout from on high. Rather, a constant, generous, and trustworthy source of wisdom, love, and life. And this knowing, this awareness, this experience IS what enables me to speak (and live) out loud.

Sadly, our religious traditions have been filled with both language and praxis that too-often have kept us silent. We can go back to the earliest tellings of the earliest stories and see how this silencing has been perpetuated, how it has become part-and-parcel with our deepest and most intrinsic belief about ourselves – particularly as women. Beginning with Eve, we’ve been told that her curiosity, her voice, her conversation with and trusting of her own heart is what led to the downfall of all creation. I COMPLETELY disagree. (Watch my TEDx Talk to hear more of my VERY strong opinions about this.) 

Keeping our hearts (and very selves) silent is painful. It twists us into ways of being that are unnatural, unhealthy, and ultimately, not even remotely reflective of the Divine that dwells within. 

When we raise our voices, speak our hearts, and shout our truths, the S/sacred is seen and experienced. 

This matters! Your voice matters. Your truth matters. Your conversations with your heart matter! Potentially more than anything else. For this IS the sacred – made manifest in and through you. Beautiful. Powerful. True. Yes. 

And so it is. 

REFLECT 

Jan Richardson, one of my all time favorite writers has a poem called Having Taken the Fruit. Here are the last two verses: 

It took a long time to gure out / that my stiing silence / was not a path / back to a paradise / where I could never live. 

I finally learned to listen / to the hissing in my breath / that told me the roots / of my own soul / held the healing that I sought / and that each stilted syllable / I let loose / was another leaf / on the tree of life. 

  • Have you ever considered your inner dialogue, your conversation with your heart, as conversation with the Divine? As Sacred conversation? What does that prompt for you? 
  • Where have you known aspects of silence/being silenced in the context of religion or faith? How has your heart shut down when that’s occurred? 
  • What if the loosening of your tongue, of your throat, of your voice is the redemption of Eve’s story in the here-and-now? Can you see how it IS the redemption of YOUR story here and now?
  • The voice of your heart is the Sacred in and of itself. Will you believe this? What might change if you did, if you could? 

I am hopeful these six posts have been helpful, encouraging, and have offered specic ways in which you can step even more deeply into conversation with your heart. Did I mention that it really matters? 

Know that the process and practice of having heart-conversations is ongoing. It takes time to learn to listen and then respond to that steady beating, those internal messages that will guide you into places of strength, courage, passion, and life. And, as you might have guessed, I am beyond-passionate about such; about heart-conversations: yours, my own, and ours together. 

I promise: your heart will not lead you astray. Listening and responding to it is the safest, surest, sanest thing you can do. It can be trusted. As can you. It is good, beautiful, and strong. As are you.

Sacred Conversation with Your Heart – #5

Apr 28, 2017 | My sort-of Sermons, Spirituality, Women's Voice & Power, Women's Wisdom, Writing

We’re moving toward the end of this 6-part series. I am hopeful it has done your heart good – especially given that it’s all about your good and to-be-trusted heart! If you’ve not read the earlier entries, they all build upon each other. I hope you’ll take the time to catch up. 

  1. Introductions 
  2. Tentative Listening 
  3. Hearing Deeper Truths 
  4. Speaking Deeper Truths 

Today, drum roll please… 

PART FIVE – LOVING THE DIALOGUE 

Once we have become familiar with the language of our heart, the ways in which it speaks to us, the ways in which we learn to listen, AND the ways in which we learn to speak, dialogue is a daily gift. 

Think about the experience of having friends with whom you can pick up conversation and relationship exactly where you left off. No matter the miles or even years between; it’s as though no time or distance has passed. There is an intimacy, a knowing, a familiarity and trust – like synchronized heartbeats. 

The same can be / is true about conversation with your heart: ongoing, meaningful, spontaneous, eortless, and continuous. 

I know a woman who has created a daily ritual of letting her heart speak to her. She carves out time each morning to sit and listen – expecting to hear. She writes down all that her heart chooses to say, trusting its wisdom, its deeper truth, its insight, its value. In so doing, she hears what her heart wants her to speak and do. And then she responds! She articulates (to her heart) all of her fears, her hopes, her desires. Back and forth this dialogue goes. She has learned to trust this process, to be sure; more to love it! Her heart readily responds. 

You can do the same, of course – creating ways to allow and encourage these conversations with your heart, learning to love the dialogue between you – and you! 

And when natural lulls occur, when you struggle to hear – or feel heard, just like in any relationship, you can trust the bonds already formed. You return. You stay. You wait. You hope. And throughout, more certain and sure than ever before, your heart keeps beating, speaking, calling. 

Loving the dialogue with your heart keeps you centered, grounded, and in touch with your most honest, brave, and true self. That dialogue and that relationship fuels and invites a passionate, full-of-heart life! 

May it be so! 

REFLECT 

  • Try the exercise above. Carve out time to listen to your heart – with the full expectation that it will respond. And, as in any good dialogue, respond back. 
  • Consider using two different color pens (or fonts, if typing). Let your heart speak – freely, candidly, spontaneously. Change colors and write out your response. (Remember: no holding back.) Switch colors again, and let your heart speak to what it hears, in response to your response. This is dialogue at its best. And the more of it you do (just like in any relationship) the stronger your bond, your intimacy, your (self) love. 
  • I do this often in my own journaling practice – especially when I’m struggling with myself, something, or someone. I write out how I’m feeling – no matter how cranky or negative or despairing. And then I listen/imagine my heart’s voice in response. I write out exactly what it has to say to me, no matter how hard it sometimes is to hear, allow, even believe at times. It always speaks (like any good friend would). And seeing its “voice” on the page in front of me, gives me opportunity to respond more deeply, more honestly, and almost always with far more tenderness, softness, and vulnerability. Oh, what a difference this has made for me over the years…hearing that wiser, truer, sage-of-a-voice within; learning to love the dialogue with my heart…my very self. May it be so for you, as well.

Sacred Conversation with Your Heart – #4

Apr 27, 2017 | My sort-of Sermons, Spirituality, Women's Wisdom, Writing

PART FOUR – SPEAKING DEEPER TRUTHS  

Conversation, of course, is more than just listening. At its best, it is filled with call-and response, back-and-forth, give-and-take. The same is true when we engage in conversation with our heart. 

Not one-sided, our heart wants more than just our listening ear, it waits (and waits and waits) to hear our voice. 

When I began to listen tentatively and then far deeper, I somehow knew everything was going to change. My heart knew it too – and far before my conscious mind. All my conscious mind could know, it seemed, was fear! To move from the seeming-safety of an endless internal dialogue into a vocalized external reality explains why I stayed quiet for a very long time. 

But not forever.

It was the ongoing (sacred) conversation with my heart that gave me the courage to finally speak – out loud. 

Speaking deeper truths is not easy; but it matters – more than anything else. 

You can trust the conversation you’ve had with your heart – that quiet, safe, and sacred space. Now, stepping beyond your inner world and into your external one, you can also trust that nothing you have heard, nothing you have discovered, nothing you have finally acknowledged and allowed will lead you astray. 

What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life? The world would split open. ~ Muriel Rukeyser 

Choosing to speak deeper truths, to live out-loud, to articulate your desires, hopes, honest emotions, and beliefs is a powerful, world-splitting way to live. 

World-splitting yes, but not world-destroying. Not even heart-stopping (though at times, it may feel otherwise). Your wise and brave heart will keep beating, speaking, guiding, loving. That’s what hearts do. Yours is no exception. So speak. And live. Out-loud. 

REFLECT: 

  • Are you aware of the places in which you remain silent? With whom? 
  • “All her life she has been in love with the hope of telling utter truth.” These words were spoken about the poet, Adrienne Rich. They also speak to what your heart hopes on your behalf. Do you know this to be true about yourself? What if it was? If you spoke that utter truth, what would you say? 
  • What worlds might split open if you began to live (and speak) your heart-conversation out loud? 

Mmmmmm. May it be so.

*****

This is Part 4 in a 5-Part series. If you’ve missed any, you can find #1 here, #2 here, and #3 here. 

Sacred Conversation with Your Heart – #3

Apr 26, 2017 | My sort-of Sermons, Spirituality, Women's Wisdom, Writing

PART THREE – HEARING DEEPER TRUTHS 

My heart does not steer me wrong. It may speak to me of things I’m not yet ready to hear, acknowledge, or accept; but its wisdom remains solid, faithful, and true. (Much like the heartbeat itself…) 

It took me a long time to hear this voice within, to acknowledge it as my heart, to trust it—and even longer to follow it. I knew that if/when I did, change would come: relationships would shift, plans would alter, pre-determined paths would be abandoned.

This may not be your heart’s deeper truth, it’s unique conversation with you; but it was mine. When I learned and was willing to listen to it, my heart told me of my deeper truths; realities I ached for – and the ones for which I’d been too afraid to hope.

Deeper truths are unsettling and stunningly beautiful. They are the stuff of legend, of passion, of dreams fullled, of courage, of faith. But they rarely come without cost, without bloodshed, without tears. Ours. Others’. 

We already know this intuitively and, of course, it causes us to shrink back. 

Our gracious heart knows-knows-knows this, as well – that we are hesitant, fearful, and resistant to hear-and-trust-and-follow what we know lies within. And still, that same gracious heart keeps beating. It calls to us in rhythmic, endless ways. A beckoning, a nudge, a gentle reminder, an emotion that catches us off guard, a piece of music, a memory—all vulnerable (and deep-truth) expressions of the heart’s longing to be heard. 

If you will but trust it, your heart will oer up deep, deep truth that can’t not be heard and honored; that can change everything.  

Deeper truths are there, waiting. Oh, the courage it takes to believe them… 

REFLECT: 

But you can’t get to any of these truths by sitting in a field smiling beautifically, avoiding your anger and damage and grief. Your anger and damage and grief are the way to the truth. We don’t have much truth to express unless we have gone into those rooms and closets and woods and abysses that we were told not to go in to. When we have gone in and looked around for a long while, just breathing and finally taking it in – then we will be able to speak in our own voice and to stay in the present moment. And that moment is home. ~ Anne Lamott 

  • “Deeper truths are unsettling and stunningly beautiful.” Can you name the “rooms, closets, woods, and abysses” to which your heart invites you; the deeper, darker places that call to you? And will you stay? When you do, even for moments, can you recognize and acknowledge even the smallest part of you that feels like you’ve finally come home? 
  • As you listen to what emerges in this deepest-truth conversation with your heart, this know-that-you-know-that-you-know voice within, can you feel and name the emotions that lie just under the surface and the ones that emerge? They all deserve and desire to be heard – as do you.
  • If you truly believed that your heart would not steer you wrong, what would you do? What would you say? And what might that cost? (You already know, don’t you? That is your deeper truth. Beat-beat. Beat-beat. Beat-beat.) 

*****

If you missed the first two posts you can find them here and here.