Women Gathering

The Stillpoint

The image that keeps coming to mind is that of Seven of Nine (Star Trek: Voyager) standing in her regeneration chamber.  Alive yet not quite awake.  Present and aware yet not engaging in anything other than her own immediate requirement to source herself.  

On Monday, a small group of women will gather, talking… about manifestation and their lives.  Or is it their lives and manifestation?  In this moment, I am mindful that without manifestation, it all stops.  

My first manifestation is my own existence.  The I AM that I am, streaming through this physical body, is the force that keeps this body moving through a physical world.  Perhaps my moment of stepping into the regeneration chamber is that moment of choosing to connect directly with that force and mindfully consider:  do I want to be here?  If Seven of Nine ceases to engage the chamber, so does her life reflect that.

The question then becomes:  existence for what purpose?  What is my intention in being here… in this time… at this point in history?  Why now and not 1922?  or 1612?  What is it about this space/time experience – like an intersecting stream of consciousness – that makes my presence here just perfect?  And for me to entertain that question, I must be willing to consider that my presence is not an accident; that my intention in being here transcends the mundane trajectory of having been born, living and dying; and that as in all things, I am in this dance with the potential to transform the dance itself.  When have we ever been encouraged to think those thoughts???  Most of us live and die believing that we have not, in truth, mattered beyond the reach of our daily, often small, lives.  

I look around my world and I bear witness to a world manifested without mindful presence/intention.  Manifestation, as a force… as the force of I AM… NEVER stops!  When I manifest from mindlessness, (I believe) we get what we’ve got.  Where do we now stand to manifest differently?  

This coming week, our conversations will move to much more expansive explorations!  We’ll begin and end at the level of discovering:  Who am I?  How does my presence in this universe, at this time, matter at the level of the universe?  I’ve learned over the years that once I/we have a sense of that, life transforms quickly and easily.  Gone is the need to struggle with changes and choices – they simply fall out of my mouth, as required.  

In this moment, I sit in the stillpoint… waiting… knowing that another layer is about to present; one that is completely new and unfamiliar to me, with an invitation to simple engage and discover what comes of it.  No great need to figure it out or analyze any of it – just ‘be’ whatever the ‘it’ of the discovery is.   Trust that if it presents, it is meaningful in some way and engage to discover more.  Letting go of all that has been and allowing what might be to enter into, swirl around and present what becomes my life, with my willingness and ability to simply live it… to be it. 

I read all the blogs and marvel at the insights and discoveries; at the courage and willingness to trust and to test.  I watch from this place in my regeneration chamber and know that in this moment, my place is here… outside all as it unfolds… coming to know that the platform is a solid one.  It is time for the next wave to awaken and be in movement… be the flow of manifesting a different world.  

We are highly contagious.  As I read, I know that the contagion of so many – of Lisa and Sarah and Natasha and Amy and Lisa and Tanya and… and.. and…  (it’s a long list!) is the virus of awakening thought that is, in turn, the invitation to much more powerful ways of being.  Their willingness to stand and be counted… to be seen and heard in the full measure of their own, ongoing evolution… manifests.  And it is all unfolding as it should. 

When I wrote of the compound, I knew that one story was ending and a new one was about to begin.  My story is not one for the telling but one to be lived.  In this stillpoint… in this place of regeneration where all that is required of me is to breathe in and breathe out… I wait… and I listen… and I trust.  And when my eyes open and I take that first step forward, I  know my world will already have changed. 

Those who gather will soon know the truth of that in themselves.  In the expression of a manifestation spiral, it is never about my life or yours.  It is about Life, itself!  

Every day, I wake up and ask myself:  how does the godforce that I AM choose to live today?  I look beyond my walls and consider my world as my domain.  I recognize and seek to engage in knowing that I – like every single one of you – is an essential aspect of expression of the world in which we all live.  My presence does not just touch my family and friends; my clients and colleagues – it contributes to and directly shapes the entire world!  And so does yours.  

I look around me and I see the lives that women live.  I ‘know’ of the women in other parts of the world through what I hear and read.  And yet, I ‘know’ of the lives of the women in my neighborhood… in my community… in my Program Room… in my email inbox… and trust that those are the ones I can touch directly if I am willing to be my Self.  They, in turn, touch another… and they touch another.. and on it goes in seeking the point of critical mass.  In my world, it is all about thought and.   its platform for manifestation.  But for that to be so, I must claim and show up for my own life; and I must be willing to be seen to have done so.  No apologies.  No explanations.  No holding back! 

In this stillpoint… in this I’o breath, the breath of inhaling and exhaling at the same time… I wait.  I invite and allow.  I welcome.  I let go.  I become the blank page on which my own potential is being written.  I trust.  And through it all, I know that it is all unfolding as it should.  

Breathing is good….

March 19th, 2009 Posted by Louise | Insights | no comments

Betrayal from within

Long ago, in a place of hot sand, blistering sun and gleaming water, there lived a small community of women and children.  During the day, they were actively engaged in the larger community of men and women that surrounded them but at night, they retreated behind the locked gates of a compound, surrounded by high and thick stone walls.  The only way in was if invited. 

The compound housed a small collective of women and children, about 40 in total.  Although they looked like everyone else, they were different.  They thought differently… spoke differently… and created their world differently.  Theirs was a world inside a world; and as much as they could venture out into that other world, others could not seem to enter into theirs.  

One night, they came.  In the peaceful stillness of sleeping women and children came the sounds of running feet… startled screams and crying children.  And the carnage began.  When it was over, all the children were silent.  The women, still alive in body, were dead in spirit and soul.  The message had been delivered: silence yourselves or we will silence you!  

We were harmless.  In truth, we ventured into the community and offered new thoughts… new ways of being… that brought hope to those who had tired of living.  We challenged no one.  We invited and offered; we listened and respected; and then at night, we would return to our world within a world.  Clearly, our ways of being had become a challenge or a threat to that other world, as it had come to know itself.  

How could it have happened?  How could the walls of this impenetrable place have been breached?   When the image of the compound comes to mind, its walls are several feet thick and stand several men high.  At a time when tools to challenge were minimal, there was only one way:  someone inside opened the gates. 

Betrayal.  Betrayal from within.  Betrayal of the self, by the self.  In my own world, today, how many times does this happen?  How many times do I pull back and stop myself from engaging in what I know is deeply meaningful?  How many times do I allow an other from within my world to sell me short, talk me out of or into something?  In how many ways do I allow someone… another or some aspect of myself… to breach the compound of my own intentions and leave me lifeless and silent in the creation of what is deeply meaningful for and to me? 

Time passes… information flows… and it comes to be discovered that the one who opened the gate did so out of a desire to help… to ‘make things right’… having come to believe that this world within a world was wrong/bad/dangerous.  Rather than just leave; and in the genuine and misguided desire to help and do the ‘right’ thing; in the need to be accepted and integrated into the larger world, one woman’s choices brought an end to the choices of so many others.  This world came to an end.  The greatest danger… the one that could touch us…  lived inside the walls.  

In this moment, I wonder:  how many women strive to help other women get ‘back on track’… return to the norm… let go of their disruptive thinking and conform?  With the practice of foot binding, it is the women who bound the feet of their young daughters.  

In this moment, I look inside to determine where my greatest challenges lie.

March 7th, 2009 Posted by Louise | Insights | 2 comments