Sophia's Children

The Feminine at the United Nations CSW

Through a series of connections and synchronicities, I found myself standing in line yesterday to get my delegate badge at the United Nations, for the 54th Commission on the Status of Women session that runs the first two weeks in March. The U.N. CSW convenes every year, drawing women from all over the world together for conversations on a wide variety of global topics affecting women and girls.

As I stood in line with many of other women awaiting our delegate badges, I spoke with women from Botswana, India, and Guatemala, from New Hampshire and Queens. In a circle/workshop yesterday afternoon on Women and Conscious Leadership, women from North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa came together to sit in circle, share stories, honor each other's voices and experiences.

We heard from Donna Hadjipopov about her adventures, courage, and challenges in creating a socially conscious enterprise to bring Bulgarian pottery and textiles to the U.S. market, and watched the first public premier of a new documentary, The Heart to Lead: Women as Allies for the Greater Good, from Imagine the Good films.

All of us were deeply touched when a pediatrician from Lebanon spoke of how painful it was to her that 'the Islam of the people' has been misrepresented due to the actions of a few, and how her experience thus far at the CSW made her realize that Western women have been misrepresented by the media and religious-political leaders as well. "We all have so much in common," she said. "We all want the same things for ourselves, our families, and our communities."

A young woman from South Africa thanked the older generation of women for leading the way, and providing her with the inspiration and strength she needed as she did her work to bring about greater equality and consciousness in her country.

Another woman from Pakistan spoke of her work creating schools for girls in the tribal villages, and how vital it was for her to gain strength and inspiration from other women.

A woman from a grant-giving organization shared that, when you give money to women, they create enterprises that enrich the community - bakeries, schools, healthcare facilities, spiritual-development activities, craft-export enterprises, and so on.

Throughout the two weeks of CSW events this month, women are talking about the effects on women and communities of global climate change, trafficking in women and girls, conscious leadership, spiritual leadership, economics, and many other topics. Women are gathering, creating new connections, talking about the issues, expanding awareness, sharing approaches, ideas, and progress, and gaining renewed inspiration and strength.

And this is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg of the work women are doing around the world, of the ways women are gathering.

In a pre-CSW circle-gathering last Friday, sponsored by Ways Women Lead, Anglican Women's Empowerment, and Millionth Circle, Jean Shinoda Bolen spoke about the power of gathering in circle, of women gathering with women, to foster and bring into the world a new, more balanced consciousness.

So far at the CSW, this is exactly what's happening. We're all threads in a new tapestry that's weaving itself; gatherings like the CSW help us to see the tapestry, when so often we feel like isolated threads. More updates coming soon!

Love,

Jamie

* Photo: Taken in a Turkish bazaar, Istanbul, Turkey

Supporting the re-emergence of the Divine Feminine - it's right where you are.

On the morning of the celebration day of the apostle, spiritual teacher, and favored-companion of Jesus, Mary Magdalene (7/22), a truly beautiful, good-hearted man tells me he really wants to know what he can do to support the re-emergence of the Divine Feminine. He's thinking that it's 'out there' somewhere. Being in service to the Divine Feminine is conceptual. I appreciate the question, actually, and the very sincere desire to be of service.

My response is: How are you treating your partner - the woman with whom you're in relationship? Are you supporting the emergence of the Divine Feminine as it's coming through her, being birthed back into the world through her? How would you treat her if she was the Goddess, Sophia Herself, or Mary Magdalene? Because she is.

And if you want to support the re-emergence of the Divine Feminine, what are you doing to release and heal the strands of Patriarchy that are in your own energy field, psyche and behavior - what are you projecting onto your partner and others that you need to own and heal? How are you treating the Earth right around you? How do you treat your cat, or someone else's cat, or other small critters and creatures?

Women have similar assignments, though also some unique ones, regarding their reclamation and embodiment, literally, of the Divine Feminine in its re-emergence, and the Divine Love and heightened consciousness that comes with it, and through it. No one's off the hook. Every willing man and woman is needed for this work.

The Divine Feminine is an etheric Presence -- Goddess is THAT just as God is THAT. She is that She is. And the Divine Feminine is also immanent, which means that the energy of the Feminine, of Sophia as She was called by the Gnostic Mystery adepts and teachers, is everywhere, in everything. There is no place where the Divine Feminine is NOT. She is the Life force within all things, the very breath and more than breath.

Llewelyn Vaughan-Lee, the psychotherapist and Sufi teacher, and author of Working With Wholeness, and a forerunner of this work, says that women, in particular, are embodiments of the Divine Feminine, and are also vessels particularly attuned to being in tune with the Earth and with the re-emerging Feminine. In fact, women are vessels FOR that re-emergence.  Given the Feminine bodies and alignments with the cycles of Nature and a natural (if often challenging) empathy, this all makes a lot of sense.

From his perspective, when he was asked what the role of men is in the restoration of the Divine Feminine, he responded, "To hold and protect the space, to support women in doing this work, and there are forces that don't want this work to be done." He emphasizes that it's vital that women -- those who are awake to their vesselhood for the re-emergence of the Feminine -- able to do this work.

I believe Vaughn-Lee is correct in this; it's what I've been hearing and seeing as well, as difficult as it can be to accept. And I think both of these roles are incredibly important, and very much the engaged expressions of Sacred Masculine and Sacred Feminine.

Yes, men and women both have Masculine and Feminine within us, but the fact is that we're also primary, literal expressions of one or the other. Our bodies show us what our souls have chosen for our 'great work' at this time, when it comes to this particular work and experience.

To revere the Divine Feminine is to revere how the Feminine shows up in the world: in your partner (if your partner is a woman), in the Earth and Nature, in the Earth's creatures and critters.

As women know very well, part of the Feminine IS to hold space and facilitate the ability for others to be and do; women do it all the time in one way or another, and have done it for eons. And protection, generosity, and blessing are said to be facets of the healthy, healed yang -- the Masculine -- in Taoist qigong traditions.

So revering the Feminine as it shows up right in front of you, supporting and protecting the space for the Feminine to BE itself, to be immanent, and to fully and authentically emerge, is sacred work in support of the re-emerging Feminine.

It's not conceptual at all; it's right in front of you.

Blessings,

Jamie

* Image: painting of Lilith by John Collier (1850-1934)

Women, Men, Patriarchy, and Sacred Relationship

The Feminine. The Masculine. Women. Men. Yin. Yang. Feminism. Patriarchy. Spirituality. Religion. Individual. Humanity. Marriage. Sacred Relationship.

These topics, and even moreso the search for 'right harmony' between and amongst them, has been a long-standing exploration for me, and its drum-beat is getting stronger and stronger, as if insisting that some real answer is both possible and eminently crucial.

In many ways, this is a question or exploration woven into the very fabric of my being: What is the right balance between Feminine and Masculine? How do I -- how do we -- explore and achieve that balance in a loving rather than hostile way?

How do we have a real dialogue, which is necessary for real healing and wholing, given the habitual and too-frequent reaction that shuts down any conversation with a Patriachy-biased attack or debate, or a display of wounded pride?

This is an unsettling time for many people, with reason. A good number of us are now aware that we stand at the threshold of a new consciousness, a new field of possibility whose very soil is Love, or the continued fear, aggression, and destruction that is the hallmark of our culture. We're at what feels like a crucial Choice Point.

A real dialogue, sourced in self-honesty and an intention to listen deeply and compassionately, is the gateway to healing, and to a restored Sacred Feminine, Sacred Masculine, and Sacred Relationship. Where do we begin?

Read the full article at Ivy Sea Online's Deep Feminine Portal.

* This wonderfully moving image is of Antonio Canova's sculpture of Psyche and Eros, seen at the Louvre Museum in Paris, France.