Seeds for a happy planet

As the photo shows, I was ‘out’ on that Sunday evening.

Maria and Sarah offered to do a Tarot reading on our common question: What is the next level of women’s leadership, connected to Source?

Now, I would maybe call it ‘feminine leadership’…

Many elements that came out of this reading supported my own ideas of how and what is next; so I could safely lay down…

At the centre is the realisation that it is about change, huge change; about breaking out of a paradigm; and we don’t have a choice! Many people feel that these days, and our trap is that we want to have the bigger picture first, and then act. No, it is as we said before: sense and act, sense and act, sense and act…

This ’sense and act’ is our new practice. We do it over and over again, like a good apprentice who wants to become a master, until we slip through the mystery! It is coming into our awareness that we do need a new form, not one we planned ahead, but a form that is coming from Source – the form is ‘coming through’ us.

There will be many forms, many layers, many versions; with a danger that creativity can be scattered. We will need to be very un-traditional, and to let a form emerge that makes the feminine visible. But the near future brings ‘the wheel of fortune’: we will awake to the alignment…

Poem From Women Moving the Edge, a string of sharings by all of us, noted down by Maria.

I realise that I touch people
I don’t have to be part
Of an ‘edgy’ organisation
I make a difference

Surrender, Surrender
To who we are
I have to get that, I am
Already doing it

I walked the woods backwards
Feeling the strength at my back
I walked it backwards twice!
And I did not fall

The simple and the explicit
The touching and being held
The simple gestures of touching
Connecting

The question is:
Is staying disconnected an option?
Because it is uncomfortable
For a few moments to connect?

I am not really ready to find anything
I am still in the inquiry
Still in a place of seeking

Why am I afraid?
Because women in my time
Were burning bras, hating men
I did not want to be part of this

Yes, it is about us being powerful
About us being out there
And touching men, touching women
Out there, in the space we want
To act upon

Have we lost something?
I know there is a deeper level
We do not have to drop it
We touched it and left, touched it and left

For me the real feminine is to
Stay in that connection all the time:
To stay present to your body and senses
To contain your attachments
To ego, or to whatever

We are just beginning to see
How much we are living in the masculine
- Not to say that we are doing a bad job -
Our track in consciousness of the masculine
Is so deep
The new track is hardly visible
And it needs all our consciousness
What is the subtle that calls my awareness?
Allowing the silence
So much noise
So many words

They will not heal us
Only when they are connected
We hardly touched what is
Connection to Source

So much to discover deep inside us
Inner wisdom, inner knowing
As Priestesses we need to bring it out
It is still there

The Feminine is about collectiveness
Holding the Whole
The only way we can nurture
Ourselves back to this
- Not just as feminists – is to come together
As women
It is needed, it is necessary
As far as I know
All Priestesses, all Witches
Have come together
In Circles to hold the Source

To get a physical experience
Of how it is to be in
Feminine Energy
We are overwhelmed with the masculine
How we work, our cities, our buildings

It is only fair to get a physical
Experience of the Feminine

We are more knowledgeable
About Zen
We need to be in experience
Be in the body
Be in the layers of the body
Then use our consciousness

Let the words come out
From the deep layers, not the minds
And the grandmothers sit around us
Three, four, five circles
Just lean back!
They hold us
Lean back!
Life is happening anyway
Just sense how it wants to be born
Which muscle you have to stretch or release
Evolution is happening anyway
Get out of the way
Rest in silence

I know that when I sit in circles like this
And this is not the first
Then when we are ready
Source vibrates out of the centre
It’s a resonance
I can move from it, speak from it, act from it
But unless I am open
And those that gather
Can contain resonance
It is lost
Until the presence is ready again

I have no doubt
That Source appears
When there are men and women
But there is a quality that emerges with women
Because Source is deeply feminine
There have been times throughout history
Delphi, Witches, 8 million women burned
Because they held power of self
They were connected to this
This was perceived as dangerous

There is a reverence to embodying
And the noise is so, it is everywhere
The static, the confusion
For me, I guess, in this moment
I am understanding the reason I came here
It is to reconnect to the brilliance that is
This energy called Source
To plug myself in again
And to witness others into that to

The other name of Source
Is Home
Not good enough to just know it exists
And feel it from time to time
We have to act from it
And invite it into places without question

I am feeling so much pain
In my body
Can we dance?

And we did!

It is now two weeks ago, that third day of Women Moving the Edge. Of course I don’t remember everything, the memory isn’t that fresh anymore, but still I want to complete my harvest of this fascinating time together. With the help of my own and Maria’s notes and Helen’s and Judy’s blog I come a long way.

I remember that on the evening of the second day I was very surprised to hear so many stories from these women, which revealed lots of un-freedom, lots of pain held in the area of embodiment, the area of sexuality. I had forgotten that my own journey through years of emotional bodywork, 5 Rhythms dance, family constellations and trauma-work had freed me from a huge pile of inhibitions. And it isn’t a path that is taken by all the women! It made me think of integrating more of this experience maybe in the next gathering of Women Moving the Edge.

Now it was Sunday morning. Anne-Marie shared her story that she entrusted her little baby into the arms of her husband. Feeling the power she had as a woman to keep it with her, to hold on to it, to keep him out. Still she did it, she handed over the baby so that he could make his own relation with the little child, could learn how to handle it. This conscious act of ‘handing over the baby’ and ’stay with it’, as she named it, seems so essential for us women, in the world of today. We must not assume that men know what we know; we must not blame them if they don’t know how to hold the baby; we must not turn our backs when they do it ‘wrong’. Can we ’stay with it’??? Can we show by example? Can we walk our talk? Can we give attention to them, instead of the other way round?

Maria and Sarah arrived, having been on a grandma’s funeral. Effortlessly, they took their space in the circle and fitted in. We had invited them to join the circle, even if they couldn’t be on time. Death is part of life, and our gathering should be able to hold it all. It did. No problem at all.

Here we are in the room in which the third Women Moving the Edge gathering will start, this afternoon at 3pm.

The three of us, Judy, Helen and myself are making the place into ours: beautifying it by putting flowers, arranging the chairs in a circle, adding colors and drawings to the flipcharts which hold our deep questions. We prepare it for whatever wants to happen: putting books out, and make pencils, pastels and paper available for everyone, installing the music system etc.

Being here and settle in ourselves is an important part of preparation, of building up the space, ‘the energetic container’ in which the whole gathering can unfold. Helen is still coloring some charts, Judy is looking through her journal, I am importing some music and writing this blog entry. It is so good when there is time to prepare in this way.

Yesterday we sat in circle almost whole day, going deeper and deeper in the conversation and the questions we are holding; trying to dig deep into the unknown. The innovation, the newness here, is that we also include the wisdom and information we get from our bodies. When it doesn’t feel right, then we are not there yet! We all have a sensing of cycles – like if we are done or not – we all have a sensing of what is natural, but we recognized how much we are dis-sociated from our bodies. We have lost this natural connection, and most of the time we live (only) in the world of concepts and ideas, shoulds and woulds, norms and so on.

Will we be able to come to this place of presence, where we can speak and act ‘in the moment’ where body and mind be/act/live together in the same instance? This is my big quest for this gathering: not only be able it to do it on my own, but do it all together. Can we inhabit the inter-subjective space in presence?

Another wonderful journey is to unfold!

Recently I wrote some thoughts and experiences about the question I was holding for a long time: What am I doing when I am holding space?
Quickly it become a much deeper quest, involving the concepts of Spirit and Source. I’m trying here to uncover the core qualities and core functions of each in our daily life. More precise: to unearth what this could mean for the world that we all wish to come into manifestation.

This is not an easy task, as so many concepts and ideas in our language are made to separate. Using them to convey meaning about wholeness make me look for other – for myself more familiar – tools, like making drawings or reside in contemplation, but the level of share-ability is quite low here. So back to language and writing and making the best out of it.

I tend to see Spirit somewhere high out there and I experience Source as something deep within. Watch my words here: I see’ Spirit and I ‘experience’ Source. Maybe this is only valid for me, but other people tend to go with it. So, let’s stick to it for a while.

If we draw them on a blank sheet of paper, Spirit sits on top of it, and Source takes the bottom position. Then what is in the middle? I name it ‘the real world’; the world in space and time that we see as the manifested world with its three dimensions. Then draw a circle connecting Spirit and Source, because somewhere they are One. That is ever harder to express in words and I leave that to others. Remember: my inquiry is about understanding ‘holding space’.

For me Spirit and Source is like the first couple that came out of the One. The first paradox was created with them. Related are: light and darkness, yin and yang, inward and outward, masculine and feminine, …
But back to holding space, and more specific within the context of facilitating or hosting a group conversation. I wrote recently: “When I am holding space, I connect in my body with the unmanifest potential of this person, this group or this place. It asks for an emptiness and a deep stillness inside to be able to carry this potential. Maybe it is better to say to be a container for it, and I mean it in a very physical way. I open my body to be this container in service of something that wants or can become manifest.” In short: I hold the energy container in my body, in which the potential can unfold. But much like many failed experiments with non-authoritarian education, something is missing if we want to see the unfolding of the potential in ‘real’ time. Holding Space asks for its counterpart of keeping the intention or the focus. But this focus or intention can’t be closed or fixed, otherwise there is no room for unfolding. So I suggest to use ‘Stay in Inquiry’.

In my drawing I write now:� Stay in Inquiry below Spirit, and Holding Space above Source, and I connect them also with a circle.

Looks good, but I am not satisfied. The distance between the two circles is too big for me. How does Source becomes Holding Space? How does Spirit becomes Stay in Inquiry? What is Source providing when going in the direction of the real world? What is it’s first level of manifestation (that I can distinguish)?

When I put myself in the shoes of Source I experience unlimited Potential. That makes a lot of sense to me. What is then it’s counterpart on the side of Spirit? How shows Spirit itself to the real world? I am inclined to name that Inspiration. Now we can draw the third circle within the two previous ones.

For me it was highly revealing how this map – so far – fits together. Because later on I want to dive deeper into the lower part of these circles, which hasn’t been receiving much focus, as most of us pay attention to the real world and the real phenomena. But there is more!

The ancient and contemporary spirituality practices give you a quiet detailed map how to go on these different steps towards Spirit and up to Oneness. But my whole focus of exploring this is to get a sense of the lower part and its different steps, to finally see a more full picture. And we will see that it tells us more about the collective than the individual.

In trying to write this article I had to blend the two different energies also in myself. This is not a theoretical writing. I am somehow used to write ‘from inside’, to access my inner wisdom, through writing, regarding important questions and issues. This means that my mind doesn’t have ideas before the words come on the paper. But now, here, I want to convey some of its wisdom to you, to others. So there is now knowing in my memory, and still I want the freshness of accessing new inner wisdom too. Can I stay in touch with the inner wisdom and still write a coherent piece, understandable for people who want to?

It seems like mixing oil and water. Being an inward person, the integration needs to happen – first – in my body, in my energy. Writing from inner knowing has no time delay, I only know it when it is written down, not before. Writing from memory goes the other way round: first knowing, then writing. Difficult mix. But women are known for being good at multi-tasking, so there must be a way!

After these powerful images of the feminine force I was wondering: If we’re giving birth here to ‘something’, what/where was the conception? Or what is the driving force that made us come here?
This led to the question by one of the participants about our intention for this gathering.

It wasn’t easy for me to give words to what I saw as the answer.

“I hold in my body the space of the unmanifest potential… I recognized the first evening that I needed to go to deeper levels in myself in order to hold more, to create a deeper container, in order to let others in this container manifest themselves or something.

I know deep inside me that some people have to give birth to the new ‘we’ space while being a totally autonomous individual, centered in themselves but in service of the circle or the collective space.

The questions of our time can only be held by circles – it’s the only way to navigate the complexity because no mental thinking will be enough; and innovative answers will come out of it. It seems to me that women are better wired to do this. If we know something that can change the world, then it’s us that need to bring it out; from the unmanifest to the manifest – without rushing, but there is an urgency.

I can see we are making new grooves in the collective consciousness. If we go there, to this collective We-space, it will be easier for others to go there too.”

Judy added: “It was born out of some kind of deep collaborative inner knowing, and I feel both urgency and responsibility to bring the collective form into being as it’s emerging now. It’s needed now – the feminine way of leadership, and it’s so important – we can only discover it together. Every time we come together in this way, we are creating new grooves in consciousness – and then it’s easier for others.”

Les agreed that it is ‘authentic embodiment’ that is at the root of why this circle is working.

The dialogue went deep and again we were invited to join Eve-Marie in her longing to use color and express our images of the collective She or the feminine power. Judy: “I remember sensing that this emergent feminine energy carries this power of the self-generating fire storm, a powerful image for me. I recall my drawing was much bolder than any before. The emergent feminine energy holds all the dynamic tension of the ‘gentle fierceness’ that came through in the first Women Moving the Edge. It holds Wholeness of Knowing, of Being, of Doing.”

I let the drawings speak for themselves: