I have been reflecting on what it means for a woman to live her sacred power. For that is what life calls out for us to bring forth and to live. Maybe we are afraid of bringing this knowing conscious because of a prior era when such knowledge was suppressed.
How I have come to understand this older, inner knowing was initially through a dream. In the dream I was told that this ancient, feminine knowledge was still hidden. That is, still hidden in the unconscious. I was told that I needed to make it conscious, and that there wasn’t much time left. There was a sense of urgency and need.
I caught glimpses of this knowledge in dreams, and sometimes in life. But still, it remained caught, somehow frozen inside me, and I couldn’t access it. I prayed for many months.
And then one night, what was frozen began to thaw. I dreamt of cars in ice and snow, that finally broke free as the snow melted. And that same night, I dreamt I was given a living pear. A pear that was alive! As I held it, I could feel its warmth. It brought me such gladness, to cradle this living pear in my hands.
So this led me to wonder, how do we bear the fruit of our being and bring it into the world?
I couldn't think my way through this. Only through listening, and sitting still in silence in the early morning before the sun rose. This was how I could begin to feel my way.
I began to experience a guiding quality of this wisdom, like the thawing in my dream, something I could feel and bring forward. No longer hidden as it once was.
And this began to bring about change in a difficult situation. Not so much outwardly, but in the inner feeling of the situation. I could offer this to the now, to life. And with this, came a sense of wholeness that belongs to the sacred feminine.
The following week I was sitting in a circle with a small group of women at risk of homelessness. There was an indigenous woman there, a single mother of three, who sat upright carrying an innate dignity. Yet as she spoke, she said had been drawn to the material life no matter what expense to her soul. And that she knew it was time to live in a different way. But she could not, because, she said, she felt frozen.
I sat quietly, listening. We then went into silent meditation. Afterwards, as the women began to share, she said that she experienced something that she has never felt before while meditating. “I felt warmth. I still feel it – this warmth inside.”
This took place a week after my dream of being given a living pear. And I felt wonder at how women can work at this level of vibration, which belongs to the living wisdom inside each of us.
I thought about how Larry Merculieff, an Aleut elder, speaks of women’s contribution to life and to the earth: “For women…the most important work is invisible. It takes place in the inner, and so is not necessarily tangible or obvious.”
And even in times when there is hardship, like now, when I am quiet in the early morning, listening to this older, inner knowing, offering it to life, I know that a song comes alive. A song the world needs so.
Thank you to everyone who has shared so deeply. The comments unveil the power of holding in stillness – and how – in this dream in particular, the warmth begins to come. Both warmth and the water of life. Just to be aware of this, to know how the ‘frozen knowledge’ ‘ begins to thaw through prayer, grace, and need.
I was given an experience many years ago in the wee hours of the morning. I was laid out like a blanket across the frozen earth. The ice was so deep because the freeze had been in place for so long. I lay in utter stillness feeling the bigness of the earth, the depth of the ice. This went on and on and on … And then, almost imperceptibly at first, the warmth came. What I was most aware of was the moisture — these tiny, tiny, little rivulets that began to flow as the ice and the warmth met and mingled. Thank you dear Anne for reminding me of this. I had almost forgotten.
As I sit now, after reading this tender post, looking out my window at a world freshly frozen in snow and ice, I hear the sounds of the geese – bodies of warmth and life amidst all that is covered over in cold. And it is a reminder to me, as are your words, that the snow and ice will melt, will return to fluidity. It always does, because warmth always returns. The ground always is revealed, again, with the coming of spring. And even if that winter lasts for centuries, hiding the greening seemingly forever, just remembering that it’s there can begin the thaw.
Amidst the turbulence we must remember this truth. Thank you so much for this beautiful sharing.
Oh Anne, I so needed to hear this message right now. Thank you, it gives me hope. Much love and respect, Najeea