Honoring the Feminine
(Jun 2002)

As Rod Stewart sings in one of his songs, “May God bless us all with a little romance.” I have often blown kisses up into the sky or into the creek for the wonderment of being alive. These day I am feeling even more blessed for I have connected deeply with a wonderful man who is my age, a man who doesn’t watch TV or even care about the sports or stock reports. He is a long-term vegetarian who likes to keep fit, meditate, listens to New Age music and reads holistic books. As I said to Marcel, my editor, after our third date… “I didn’t know men came so nice.”

Richard and I have lots in common and every weekend that we are together we get to discover more. We are busy people who live in different towns and realize it will take time to rearrange our lives so we can be together, but the magic we both feel is awesome. We are both interested in one day creating a spiritual community/retreat centre, so if you know of land that is suitable, please contact me. I expect the universe will give us guidance when we are ready.

The next most exciting news is a five-and-a-half pound granddaughter …Isabella, born to my oldest son and his wife in Abbotsford on May 13. She was so eager to get here that she came two weeks early. I am looking forward to having her bright light in my life. I am so glad the universe slowed me down enough so that I have the time to enjoy them both.

People often say to me, “You are an inspiration, creating a living doing what you love,” and I tell them, “If I can do it, anyone can.” I too was born into a dysfunctional family but still lived a fairly normal existence, in a body so frozen with undealt-with emotions that I could barely lift my arms without discomfort. I knew I had to change, but where to start? I am grateful to my inner voice for guidance that graced me with choices of yoga, meditation, rolfing, organizing the Spring Festival, along with some weekends with a Reiki Master. I knew deep in my heart that changing careers in mid-life was the only sane thing to do. Once I accepted that fact, the speed with which the universe moved was awesome. I feel I have been given a divine mission and have looked back only to see how far I have come in learning to be an authentic person and not the one who was conditioned by society and all its rules. I love the challenge to be more than I am and feel blessed with the many teachers along the way who have showed me how to be a wise woman; one who lives closer to the truth in my heart and the feelings in my body.

The front cover is not the painting by Graham Pettman of Vernon exhibited at The Lloyd Gallery in Penticton which was chosen because for me it represented a Wise Woman. I liked the vibrant colors, the image of an eagle soaring and the buffalo grounding her to the Earth. It was timely because this issue includes the program for the Wise Woman Weekend taking place at Naramata, BC, Sept. 13th to 15th. The back cover is a past Wise Woman parade to the gym for the Closing Circle. It is led by Laurel Burnham, an enlightened soul who enjoys sharing her love of the Earth with everyone. This image is one of the tables inside the Great Hall that honors the return of the feminine, other tables represent the four directions.

If you are searching for more meaning in your life and want to mingle with like-minded souls, the Wise Woman Weekend is good place to start, as are the Hollyhock and Johnson’s Landing Retreat Centres. As I said last month, it is important to recharge your batteries by being around loving and inspiring human beings who can offer guidance.

Another incredibly wise and brave woman who just released her third book is Ghislaine Saint-Pierre Lanctot, M.D., She was a medical doctor who followed her heart and was banned from the College of Physicians and Surgeons after speaking out against the misuse and abuse of the system. Her new book, is entitled What the hell am I doing here anyway? and gives great examples of how we can change the system if we don’t like it.

Here is a quote that I resonated with from Ghislaine’s book: “After writing the Medical Mafia, I came to the conclusion that only a change in individual awareness can lead to unlimited health and help heal the health system in general. Most people are fixated by the bad news—the hell we live in, and do not hear the good news—the paradise we are about to create.” I agree with her and feel that many people do not accept their divine-ness. If people spent more time learning how to reprogram themselves instead of watching TV and reading newspapers they would soon learn that each person that changes does make a difference to the whole.

The healing crisis facing us is on a planetary scale, and the collective can only be healed by each of us individually. To heal the world we need to heal ourselves, and that only happens when each of us is ready to accept our divine-ness and accept responsibility for our choices.

As Ghislaine says… “I am here to transform my imaginary fears into love. Discover that life has a direction that makes sense. Experience self-fulfillment, find happiness, laugh, get younger and healthier. Learn to think, speak and behave like the divine being that I am.” Her book is reviewed on page 8 and is self-published.