Seeds for a happy planet

Inspiration

Thirty spokes are joined together in a wheel,
but it is the center hole
that allows the wheel to function.

We mold clay into a pot,
but it is the emptiness inside
that makes the vessel useful.

We fashion wood for a house,
but it is the emptiness inside
that makes it livable.

We work with the substantial,
but the emptiness is what we use.
Tao Te Ching: (part of) Chapter 11

More Inspiration
“When God created the World, he was not alone. Sophia – Wisdom – the feminine Principle – was with him, lived with him and gave Form to his creative Word. And she gave him her joy at what he had created.”
Gerard Bodifée

Our Guiding Question
When we fully name, claim and live as the feminine,
Individually and collectively
In service of the whole
What becomes possible in our world?

We started yesterday with the fifth Women Moving the Edge. We had one day and a half preparation with our hosting team before. One of my big realizations – when being in a collective presence and sourcing energy – was that science and knowledge has evolved over time (as we all know), but that inner wisdom has been evolving too. The inner wisdom that we can access now isn’t the same anymore than during the times of the priestesses of Avalon. It has evolved, we evolved it, it evolved us. We are evolving the Earth – the whole of its system – as much with science as with wisdom.

Speaking from Source… what exactly does it mean?

At different times in our gathering I sensed that something wanted to be said – through one of us – and then I would hand over a talking stone to her. On this fourth day of Women Moving the Edge it happened again, and I supported Lisette in doing so. She could masterly describe how her thoughts would try to get her attention, instead of letting the words coming ‘through her’.

In our preparation before the gathering I named it in this way: “We have learned a lot in the world of Spirit, of concepts, of reflection, of meditation, of meaning making; but the world of the experiences, the subtle knowing, the subtle sensing… the phenomena, the experience of a phenomenon has had much, much less attention in our culture. … Goethe said: “Every phenomena, well contemplated upon, opens a new sensing organ in us.” That is the new what I am looking for. … There is a way of speaking, that is directly linked with your body, or the phenomenon of that moment.

What we did so far was: we have an experience and then we can reflect back ‘on it’, or we can make meaning ‘out of it’, or we can speak ‘about it’. And what we are doing now is: we can speak in that moment. There is a possibility – like when we are at the bottom of the U – that it happens in the same instant, that we are both at the same time: we are in the experience and we talk about it.”

This is what Lisette said:
I’m not somewhere else.
I’m in your body.
Live me, Be me as I am.
I am this glow.
Feel me I am always there.
Allow me to be there.
Allow me to show you the way.
Allow me to teach you there’s always a next step and live me by taking that next step.
I am right here. I guard you, I support you, I live in you.
It’s not big deal. I’m just life. Don’t make it too holy! It happens
anyway. I’ll find my way. I’ll have my way with you! I always do.

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.

What happened on our second afternoon?
Somehow we started with a question about what we had learned in the morning; with the intention to harvest our wisdom,
suddenly almost all women were sitting and laying in one ’sister-heap’

a physical, in-the-moment acknowledging of how important physical touch and physical wellness is,
how important it is to have a connection with Nature..
how important it is to take the time to slow down. How so many times we forget to Be this Body!

I invited every woman to connect with their vagina, this place that holds potential, holds growth and unfoldment, until it, through birthing, manifests in the world. The feminine knowing – different with the mental knowing – goes through and happens in the body, and my sense is that the vagina is important in this regard. It seems to be a challenge for us Western educated women to trust in this inner knowing and speak and act from there before it is processed through our minds. Because that is how we have learned to speak; from our minds. But through our physical bodies, and this applies of course also for men, we connect not only with our heart qualities, but also with Source, this vast container of huge potential. And the question is how we can speak from that place inside, from the silence, before there are concepts in our heads?
I don’t remember how we arrived at talking about the anger inside, and the gift of power it holds. But suddenly everybody was off their chair or cushion, we followed our bodies, supported by music and each other, and expressed anger and power in many forms: with body, movement and voice. It surely was an intense, wild party! The sheer joy of being alive in this body!!!

We came back to our circle again,
the wave of energy had come down,
we were centered…
hardly any need for the talking piece to slow down the conversation; as we would take natural turns in the conversation.

Are we holding back our power out of fear? Which fear is it? To prevent what? Are we asking for permission? Or can we own our power and inform others how it is for us and how we will do it?

You can read more about this day on Helen’s blog.

It is Saturday now, after our morning break, and the room is silent. Everybody is just doing what they are doing: resting, in various positions, or drawing in silence. Nobody told us to do so, we are true to ourselves, in this moment. This morning we, as the hosting team, gave all leadership back to the group as a whole. We are still holding space, but we are not providing the others with techniques or tools or…

Words appear on flipcharts: Radical Authenticity. Swiftness, Preciseness, Love. On another flipchart: Be this Body!

This morning we struggled our way away from talking and concepts to this space of collective presence: present to ourselves in this moment, in this body, now, together.

Yesterday, we decorated the room with our questions on flipcharts, the letters wrapped up in colors and drawings. I used yesterday evening these colors too when harvesting our collective wisdom. We started our gathering with a circle sharing our answers about: What is my individual edge now? Flowing into a World Caf� around the question: What do we hear through the individual stories about our collective edge here? This is my harvest from this conversation.

What happened, and the speed with which we got at this point of collective presence supported my sense that every gathering is contributing to a new groove in consciousness. And the more we go there, the easier it gets for the next ones to step into that path. This is exactly the purpose of doing this: to lay these tracks in a secure and precise way, sensing our way into it.

Sense and act, sense and act, sense and act…

This question just appeared on the wall: Is humanity ready for Crone’s wisdom? It is related to a sentence spoken before by someone else: Humanity is just growing up. It puts our experiences in the bigger picture of evolution.

During the break someone laid out a roll of paper on the ground, somehow representing a timeline from our ancestors, through us, to the future generations. It shows some words and sentences, some colors, some curly lines. Open to others to fill in, to add their colors, their words, their part.

Writing and sensing all this, the sentence comes to me:
We are doing/being the future now.
or even better,
We are living the future, now.

This is not a group of women ‘just doing their own thing’. The intention with which we are here – to move the edge of collective presence – makes all the difference in the world. We live in this paradox of ‘moving the edge’ and ‘being present in this moment’. To me we are learning to be present, and slowly move into presencing.

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!

We came to our last morning on Monday. Everybody was still full of the many learnings the constellation had brought. The dialogue started from there. It is so rich (and long), but I wouldn’t know what to leave out…

* Perceval had to re-trace his steps. In retracing your experience you consciously understand. The healing of the wounded king is when we ask the question “Whom does the Grail serve?” This is about alignment. Our task is to stay connected in the epiphany to that alignment and then right action comes out of that.

* If we look back on these two days – what did we do, what made it happen? Reflecting back and making it available to the collective is important. It is not about us only, it’s about laying these cosmic grooves to make it accessible to all.

* In the meditation this morning I realized how being in this circle calls me to be no more and no less than fully present. “It is not up to me” meaning: I don’t have to do this by myself, I’m part of the collective’, and “it is totally up to me” meaning: when I’m not present (and coming from story), the full resonance potential of the group doesn’t manifest. The image of the crystal singing bowl is helpful here – where every point on the circumference of the circle is in harmony, (i.e. it isn’t a loose, floppy circle). The emptiness of the bowl reminds me of Source, of unmanifest potential, and when invited by the striker, sound comes forth.

* There is something about this circle that doesn’t trigger the ego in the usual way. I can be here in a way I don’t usually experience myself… still reeling from the implications of being Source. No ‘me-ness’, only ‘Is-ness’, there’s nothing foreign, not lost everything by not being me. It is a complete paradox that I would relinquish me and receive so much more. Like dropping my clothes, and everything is off me. Yet my place in the world is not less, and my place is vast. There’s no gravity to bring you off the top of the cliff. The thing I’ve looked for I already am, and so are you.

The alignment is a natural evolution, it is a natural expression into action. The ground of Being is raw impetus, highly energized impetus – into form. How do I experience/express myself if I can’t be you and everything?

Dropping of the boundaries of self because there’s a tangible resting point that’s everywhere, the anchor is in the in-between.

To leave here and have something sustainable is the meat of it – it doesn’t give itself to us if we don’t open up to it. We are unlimited possibility.

What we ask for is what’s given – no more and no less. Until we come to accept the vastness that we are, the more we limit the possibility of anything being possible.

There’s a relationship between the question and my willingness to hold a selfless self, without a ‘me’ to gain. Me being willing to be me in the presence of Source is to let it flow through – a new balance is needed.

* How to bring the Empress (from the Tarot) forth – the feminine, creative, loving? Being the Empress is accessing Source. Is the bowl, is the CircleBeing, accessing, opening to Source?

* There’s a formless quality to this gathering, which has no words to describe it – fullness of the silence, the experience of the spaciousness. Not so much asking the question, but I will leave here being (in) the question: Who is it in us that wants to take form, meaning – is it the ‘She’ coming from the formless place?

* “How can I continue to live the question of working with community and diversity?” How can we transcend the I to the WE, the SHE? How to deepen the understanding of the WE? I had a real experience of transcending the me/I this weekend. I transcended it to ‘We’, that might be Source.

The ‘We’ is the pathway into Source.

* The huge awakening (for her representing Collective Knowing) is that the world wanted me – is inviting me – at some level there’s a readiness, an invitation, a birthing.

So those of us who can sit in circle like this can move into this rarefied space. We’re creating grooves, for something to move forward in a new way, and we can consciously align.

I see the collective ‘We’ as the pathway – the next stage of development in human consciousness – to move out of the ‘I’ into the ‘We’.

This connection to the world is so important. We come to this kind of space and struggle to know how to re-enter. A piece of it is togetherness, collaboration – I’ve always tried to do everything alone – why? True collective leadership is about finding your collective – no attachment to my piece, but also owning my gifts in giving them freely. We’re still learning how to be in alignment with Self/Source and other, so we won’t always do it perfectly. There’s something about the feminine that can work with the subtle, creative impulse, that force coming through, and begin to create those pathways in the manifest world.

* Source wants to move, so have no anxiety to manifest the new, it will come through. Source is robust – it’s our human understanding that is fragile! What is unique about you – you will form Source into uniqueness. It’s not a weak supply! The more our ‘Yes’ is there, the more it’s available. There’s deep and profound meaning in the movement itself – inherent in the very movement is the meaning.

* There seems to be a book with the title: “Things are going great in your absence” (absence of our ego – it’s all about getting out of our way)

* ‘The tone of being magnified’ – it penetrates through everything – the vibration is the healing and the action.

* How can we hold the space as we leave, without going into our distraction?

* I acknowledge the multiple modalities of access we’ve had here this weekend – art, movement, poetry, constellation, sharing etc. – very non-linear, whatever is the next thing that emerges – a feminine way of being. The underlying order is always present and we pop up like mushrooms.

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.