Nancy Lankston
“The mothers who remind us, no matter who we are, that our first country was a woman’s body, and our first element was water, and that our first reality was darkness…”
~Meggan Watterson,
Mary Magdalene Revealed
🌙
Blessed are you
who bear the light
in unbearable times,
who testify
to its endurance
amid the unendurable,
who bear witness
to its persistence
when everything seems
in shadow
and grief.
Blessed are you
in whom
the light lives,
in whom
the brightness blazes –
your heart
a chapel,
an altar where
in the deepest night
can be seen
the fire that
shines forth in you
in unaccountable faith,
in stubborn hope,
in love that illumines
every broken thing
it finds.
~ Jan Richardson
♾
Image: Tree Sculpture by Debra Bernier
“Life is a good teacher and a good friend. Things are always in transition, if we could only realize it. Nothing ever sums itself up in the way that we like to dream about.
…To stay with that shakiness — to stay with a broken heart, with a rumbling stomach, with the feeling of hopelessness and wanting to get revenge — that is the path of true awakening. Sticking with that uncertainty, getting the knack of relaxing in the midst of chaos, learning not to panic — this is the spiritual path. Getting the knack of catching ourselves, of gently and compassionately catching ourselves, is the path of the warrior. We catch ourselves one zillion times as once again, whether we like it or not, we harden into resentment, bitterness, righteous indignation — harden in any way, even into a sense of relief, a sense of inspiration.”
~ Pema Chodron,
When Things Fall Apart
Heart Advice for Difficult Times
“The world which men have made isn’t working. Something needs to change. To change the world, we women need first to change ourselves – and then we need to change the stories we tell about who we are. The stories we’ve been living by for the past few centuries – the stories of male superiority, of progress and growth and domination – don’t serve women and they certainly don’t serve the planet.
Stories matter, you see.”
~Sharon Blackie
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Photo by Benjamin Lossius
New Moon in Libra, champion of justice, balance and equal relationships. But imbalance and chaos rule right now in the outer world. The crazy roller coaster of events and emotions continues day after day.
The Goddess of Justice reminds us that true justice and equality are rarely easy to achieve. People who have amassed power and riches from playing by the rules of the current system will fight to keep the system as is — even as the unfairness and inequities of the system are being exposed to everyone. As Machiavelli noted centuries ago, “power corrupts.”
But the Goddess of Justice also reminds us that true power is not about status or position or money. True power flows from within. True power is grounded in knowing and trusting in one’s self and one’s gifts. And standing in a place of true inner power, one person can change the world. Remember Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Joan of Arc, Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Lasting change grows out of people standing in their power and their knowing.
Get off the roller coaster of news and rumors for awhile. Focus on you. What does your heart need right now?
Allow yourself to feel everything that this time is bringing up in you; fear, rage, confusion, despair, hope, love. Those feelings are markers pointing you towards what matters most to you – and what parts of you need extra care and healing right now.
You can cultivate your internal power and knowing by listening deeply to yourself and all your fears and desires. Inner balance, peace, wisdom and power lie just beyond all those difficult feelings you’ve been trying to avoid.
Your Soul is always there, beneath the outer noise. Listen.
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Myths are ancient wisdom stories that can teach us how to navigate life. In one Egyptian myth, the Goddess Isis weeps and weeps in grief for what she has lost. And her tears bring balance to the land; her tears nourish the earth and the barren soil heals and becomes fertile.
Could it be that the grief we are feeling right now is a healing balm? Might our tears be the medicine that our country and our Earth need to heal?
Let your tears flow. They may heal more than your heart. 
~~~
Image: Sasha Wolf/Wikimedia Commons
“The woman who takes the time to grow herself in darkness becomes familiar — perhaps for the first time — with the real source and containment of her psychic strength. No longer is her strength dissipated in obeying an idealized father figure, in pleasing a lover, in trying to satisfy a perpetually unsatisfied mother figure, in accommodating to a patriarchal organization or culture, in appeasing the inner witch who tells her she is worthless. No longer is her strength lost to obeying compulsions, drives, and obsessions that can slip in during the dark night of the soul and substitute for the real thing.
“And what is the real thing, the thing for which she longs? The love affair with her own spirit, the inner marriage that commits her to her destiny, the rituals of soul that feed her deepest hunger, and the sense of being pregnant with her Self, her creative essence.”
~Jill Mellick