From May of 1992 through December 21 of 1996, my friend Barbara and I had been traveling almost once monthly to sell our wares at women's, goddess and pride festivals. We improvised from these experiences to create three women's craft festivals of our own. These festivals, held in Ojai, were our experiments at making more sacred communal space. We put together a single issue of a very magical newsletter/journal for women exploring the Sacred Feminine. And, during 1996, we also coordinated women's drumming events for the solstices, equinoxes and a couple of the cross-quarters.
It was an extraordinary departure from what had, before then, become my usual life. For many years, I (a recovering overachiever) had been working only two days every other week as a therapist. I was then free to loll through seemingly endless spaces of open time. Time I spent drifting, dreaming, resting, meandering in the mountains and aimlessly puttering around my little cottage and its tiny gardens as I journeyed deeply within.
At the end of the yearlong cycle of drummings, I was feeling exhausted, overdone and profoundly ready to go back into my solitude. I looked forward to a well-earned return to deep hibernation, time to rest and assimilate all the new experiences I'd been through.
Just a couple of months (to the day) into my yearned-for time of rest, I received a call from a very delightful woman. A writers' agent specializing in women's and spirituality books, she was connected with one of the largest, most well-known creative talent agencies in the country. She'd been given a deck of my Rememberings cards a year before and grown very attached to their supporting comfort. Just that week one of her authors had been visiting her (someone who also knew my work). After they'd talked about the cards and about me, she acted on her almost year old intention to call me. She wanted to see if I might be interested in having her represent me.
It was all incredibly exciting! She was warm, vital and juicy. She was really eager to help me get my work out further in the world. We had several conversations. I sent her a huge packet: copies of the many articles I'd written along the way, photographs of my house, my artwork, me. We talked about book ideas, the process of publishing, the ways she might mentor and coach me along the way. I felt truly seen and heard by her. She appreciated my need to move slowly. To move from the inside out, so that anything that grew would be growing in harmony with what I believed and how I lived.
We agreed that I would open myself to what might come to me over a period of some weeks. I was absolutely clear that anything that felt like “work” wouldn't be right for me to do. The timing seemed right in some way¬-I was clearly finished with my four and half year cycle of busyness. But, I wondered, was I ready to take such a new, big step without first having a long space of empty, resting, folding inward time.
The weeks stretched into months during which I felt endlessly pushed and pulled inside myself. Other writers I knew were engaged in long, frustrating struggles to find representation. Here I was being given an extraordinary and magical gift of possibility with none of that effort. I felt the gift was from Spirit. I really did want, someday, to put something together from my writings. Still, the days would go by and I would find myself napping, reading more novels and mysteries, wandering in the mountains, puttering in my little gardens or finding sorting/winnowing projects inside my little cottage.
I struggled with feelings I hadn't had since college paper-writing days. Vague feelings of unease and almost-guilt for “procrastinating” and “avoiding” the blank page. I'd find endless self-nurturing things to do with the open space I'd carved for “writing” to happen. Manicures, pedicures, clay masques (although no more of the tweezing and shaving of college days). I kept having the painful sense that I might be “running away from” or “squandering” this amazing gift from Spirit.
In the middle of all this stressing, I would come to remembering to talk kindly and lovingly to myself. I'd remind myself that, if I wasn't “getting to” the writing, it was most likely because, for whatever reason(s), I wasn't yet ready for it. I would remind myself that following my inside energy was the best guide. That it was important not to let my own or anyone else's ideas of what might be “better” to undermine that deep and natural flow. I'd remind myself that I had learned that my inside self was absolutely trustworthy as my guide. That, when I listened to that voice, I was always in my own center.
I'd remind myself of how deeply I had come to trust and believe in the healing power of going only as fast as the slowest part of me felt safe to go. I'd remind myself of how much I'd been unfairly tyrannized so much of my life by the felt imperative to “live up to my potential.” Then, I could come to feel (for longer and longer stretches of time) that I was really fine just as I was in all my resting-timeout glory. That it was okay not to take this gift when I wasn't ready for it. That this would not be the only such magical opportunity that I'd ever be offered for going forward. And, I would know, then, that all this timeout was surely a part of my process for getting ready.
These musings that, each month, came naturally, easily and delightfully were clearly the “next step” that I was getting ready to take!
Remember to be really gentle with yourself, not to ask yourself to move ahead into anything that you're not ready for and not to harass yourself for taking all the time you need to become ready.
P.S. So many of your delicious e-mails send appreciations for the affirmation, support and nourishment you receive from the site. When I answer them, I don’t always remember to let you know that having your own deck of the Rememberings and Celebrations cards is a way to bring this same loving voice into your everyday world, to have it at hand as you need to remind yourself of the "real" truth moment to moment in the crazimakingness of the so-called real world!
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The card on this page is part of a set of 64 handcolored bookmark-size cards called the Rememberings and Celebrations deck. They can be used as an oracle, a meditation focus or a "book-in-pieces" to kindle and grow a compassionate, gentle, unconditionally loving, fiercely protective inner-Mother to help you carve safe healing space for your emerging self and for the wounded little ones inside.
If you'd like a deck of your very own to support you in your journey, click here to download Order Form.
Please feel free to e-mail me at rposin@hotmail.com. to share your reflections and responses to any or all of what you find here . I'd really like to hear what touches and nourishes you!
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