It’s seems an age since my last Grace Note and so much has been going on for me since I wrote that way back in January. I have largely stuck to my New Year goal of wellness and this is all good but where I have really been really focussing my attention is on my own spiritual journey and upon articulating my own spiritual story. I have been writing a lot about all of this and have been taking some huge inspiration from some seriously cool chicks out there who are sharing their own spiritual journeys in some kick-ass ways. So get yourself a cuppa and kick back as you might want to go on a click-though odyssey of your own.
I am loving Megan Watterson in general but particularly because she is into mermaids! Hooray! Megan bills herself as a Harvard educated, “spiritual mentor, speaker, and scholar of the Divine Feminine” and she really is quite incredible. I have just read her book, Reveal: A Sacred Manual for Getting Spiritually Naked and her journey is an inspiring quest. Watterson takes some wacky pilgrimages all over the shop and it’s really amazing to witness her revelation. Some of it’s quite out there but I must say, I do resonate with her exploration of the Divine feminine. Did you know that Mary Magdalen had a gospel? That she wasn’t a prostitute? That Jesus spoke the voice of God to her and she, imbued with the divine, brought it back to the disciples? Yeah – me neither. Watterson deals really well with the way that not just the female voice but the feminine divine has been silenced (as heretical) in some traditional religions. Think back to a time when the Goddesses, (I’m talking Athena, Innana, and Artemis here) roamed the heavens – where did they go? Discovering the stories of the divine feminine has enabled Watterson to reveal her own spiritual voice and it has really got me thinking about mine. Wow! I am loving it – God is a woman? – of course and he is DJ as well!
Another cracking inspiration for me at the moment is Sera Beak , who wrote “The Red Book” A deliciously Unorthodox Approach to Igniting your Divine Spark. Beak has studied world religions in intellectually rigorous universities, trekked in Tibet, whirled with dervishes, conducted interviews with mystics and scholars and has generally thought about this shit. A lot. Her book is a treasure trove of spiritual traditions which is helping me to crank-up my relationship to the divine. She selects those aspects of tradition which work for her and forges her own relationship with the divine. She has a bit on creating a sacred altar (more on that later) and I found so much great inspiration in this book.
Although I would not pretend to understand it all, I’ve been interested in Jungian theories of the collective unconscious and archetypes for some time. I’ve been reading Jung and the Jungians on Myth and I find the idea of archetypes fascinating. I definitely believe in the idea of unifying our anima (female) with our animus (male) to achieve psychic wholeness. I’m also intrigued by the idea of embracing our shadow-self in order to achieve unity. Anyway, Jung seems to love binaries which the human psyche needs to unite in order to achieve wholeness and this is the goal of psychological alchemy. Usually we associate the notion of alchemy with the idea of turning metal into gold but of course (like nearly everything) it works on a metaphorical level and can be seen as a quest for the regeneration of the soul or even the psychological maturation process. Jung would call it individuation. This resonates with me as I’ve had some real paradigm shifts though some dreams which I interpret as the reintegration of my soul-self. In one I met an archetypal androgenous figure who represents to me the union of the male and female. Cool huh?!
Call me ignorant but despite my interest in alchemy, I’ve only just really clocked that the symbol of the ouroboros (a snake biting its own tail) is a symbol of alchemy or divine flow. Megan Watterson says, “one becomes a tail eater through meeting the divine within. By connecting with what was other and by becoming ‘whole’, there is a flow that is born, which is what the alchemists mean by the mystical or divine water”. To celebrate my own alchemical journey I have just bought an ouroboros pendant from etsy handmade by Chris Mueller. I’m loving wearing it. (Call me too chicken to get the tattoo!)
On the subject of the ouroboros, check out this painting entitled “She’s the silent one” by Australian artist Leah Fraser.
How outrageously excellent is this? “She’s the Silent one” is definitely a warrior! I adore Leah Fraser’s mythical work and she just had a sell-out exhibition in Sydney awesomely named “The Odyssey and the Oracle” . You can see some of her other stuff here
A remarkable blogpost by Justine musk entitled How to heal the feminine wound is totally related to all of this as it deals with the journey of the soul. I was blown away by this blogpost as it refers the heroine’s journey (that’s you and I babe) as being one of descent instead of ascent (the soul according to Jung is feminine whereas the spirit is masculine).
Musk’s idea is that we women must descend (turn to the dark side LUKE…) in order to find our souls before we can ascend healed. Some say that the notion of ‘the spirit’ is given precedence in western culture because the soul is too unconscious, too unmanifest, too much like depression or hysteria and so ‘the dark night of the soul’ is not explored as much as a way of seeking spiritual truth.
The heroine’s journey of descent plays itself out in myths such as the Sumerian myth of Innana who goes to the underworld to face her ‘dark sister’ and the Greek myth Eurydice who similarly descends to the underworld. I am LOVING thinking about these myths right now, and how they relate to women’s lives and my own journey. Maybe yours too? This is definitely food for creative thought right now for me and a trigger for my own journalling at the moment.
I got to the Justine Musk blogpost though the awesome website of that radical Aussie in New York, Gala Darling. Gala is a fashion blogger with a much broader remit being that of self-love. Hooray! I love checking out her site as she regularly posts new content and I have also signed up for her “DARE, DREAM, DO” emails at the moment. I really look forward to them in my inbox each day. Her stuff ranges from mediations, to visualisations, to book recommendations, to general musings on life, to funky playlists. How splendid!
All of these woman, Megan, Sera and Gala, of course know Gabrielle Bernstein who has been billed by Oprah as a spirit guru of our age. She’s another awesome chick sharing her spiritual journey in a huge way. I love her video logs and think she’s fab.
Which brings me round to the subject of altars. Inspired by Gabby’s vlog about creating your own altar, I have recently created my own sacred space in my bedroom. Amongst other things, I have a gratitude journal placed on the altar and each morning (in the nanosecond I get after drying my hair and going down to breakfast with the kids) I write 5 gratitudes in my journal . I feel really centered by this practice and amazing things are beginning to manifest on the back of them.
Well that’s probably enough to bombard you with for now but I hope you can take some inspiration from it. I am so enjoying my daring and mighty journey in exploring all of this and I know that if it hadn’t been for Katie’s programme, I would not be so far down this path. My next Grace Note will be all about my altar.
Grace notes are written on a musical score. They are tiny musical notes written next to regular notes in smaller notation. Grace notes denote sounds which are shorter than the actual note and exist to embellish the music. Alone, a grace note has no meaning but coupled with a principle note they create a richer tone. This blog exists as an adjunct to Daring and Mighty – rather like a grace note.
