What is SoulCollage(R)?

This easy, fun, creative process allows you to explore your inner parts of self  by making a visual journal of cards that you create. It is deeply transformative and helps us answer the age-old question, Who am I and what am I doing here?

Watch this short video to see and hear more:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4NlG9JW4Go


I am keenly interested in helping women find creative tools that feed and tend the soul, that make us feel nurtured and protected in what are turbulent and confusing times. I believe we are beings filled with light, yet we often live in fear of shadow.

We are limitless and courageous in facing our challenges with persistence. 

Yet we doubt ourselves.

We are women with heart, connected to all living things. 

And we thrive in community.

Come join me and learn more at:

One Day Introductory SoulCollage® Workshop: 

Gathering the Pieces,  Finding Wholeness, from 9:30 - 4:30 pm 

on Sunday April 7, at the Ermitage Ste-Croix 
21269 boul. Gouin, Pierrefonds  (near Montreal)

Cost $60
pre-pay by e-transer or paypal 

Registration on my website or by email info@jenniferboire.com 

xxxx
Jennifer
www.jenniferboire.com

SoulCollage(R) Facilitator Training in Canada

Jenn facilitator card

This is a new year, and with it comes a new role for me – to train people interested in becoming facilitators of SoulCollage(R) workshops.

SoulCollage(R) (www.soulcollage.com) is the single most interesting creative process for self-exploration that I have used in over twenty years of leading creative journaling classes and retreats for women.

Basically, it can described as an easy, image-based tool to delve into a dialogue with the self in a deep, but playful way. I find it more satisfying than journaling alone (although we do journal and write with the 5 x 8 cards we make). I find it calls on my inner artist without challenging my lack of art skills – anyone can cut and paste images onto cardboard cards. And exploring these images with my imagination, finding out where they come from and what they mean, allows my inner wisdom to pop up as I gain intuitive insights. Sharing this with others in community also provides hours of fun and creative flow.

Founder Seena Frost described it this way: "It is a tangible way to know yourself in your diversity and depth, and also to show yourself to others. Showing your deck of SoulCollage® cards to another person can be a profound experience. In like-spirited groups, you can share cards and work with them in many sacred ways. You can consult them intuitively and discover wisdom within yourself which will amaze you. Besides all this, creating them is just plain fun! You will love your deck -- a multi-card Mirror of your Self and your Soul -- whether it consists of three cards or a hundred."  

SoulCollage(R) has also proven to be a valuable therapeutic tool when used by therapists and professionals as a part of their practice. It has brought healing and guidance to individuals, groups and communities, such as cancer wellness centers, seniors homes, women in prison, conflict resolution, pastoral counseling, couples therapy and many more. Facilitators are sharing and teaching this unique process in many ways with diverse populations and in a wide range of environments.

Images, intuition and imagination

The collage process we use helps to reflect and give a voice to all our parts; sometimes images call to us and we don’t know why, it seems beyond words, until we dialogue with the card and discover who or what  it is. SoulCollage(R) is a great tool for awareness and personal growth, and making the cards is a pleasing process full of synchronicity and surprise. Some of the images you choose will symbolize inner parts of self, maybe your Inner organizer, your happy inner child, or your inner lonely one, or your Inner Nurturer. Others are larger energies, on a mythical level, like the Great Mother, or the hero archetype. These universal stories are woven into our own personal journeys and stories.  I see this process as a gathering of the whole, bringing all the pieces together, the unknown or invisible ones, the silent or ignored ones, and acknowledging them, reclaiming them.

Tapping into your own inner wisdom using images develops intuition as well. The more you play with it, the more you learn to trust the process. It’s a great life lesson. We can become our own wise oracle, consulting our cards and using our imagination to let the images speak with us.

In my own women’s circle, some of us get together every two weeks to make cards, dialogue with them, and then do card readings once a month. Consulting cards you have made to represent energies and archetypes, parts of self and members of your family and friends, is a very rich way of accessing inner wisdom, and to my mind a lot less mysterious or esoteric than consulting a deck of oracle cards devised by someone else with symbols I may or may not understand.

There is no wrong or right way to do SoulCollage(R). It is a gentle, intuitive self-care process that reaches deep into our inner pockets of knowing. Most of the people I have introduced to it find it immensely satisfying to both make cards and do readings.

Body Love card

In early July, I will be offering a 4 day SoulCollage(R) facilitator training. All information on registration, lodging and fees is on my website at www.jenniferboire.com.  

or http://jenniferboire.com/the-soulcollage-facilitator-training/.

In the training, you will be given a comprehensive, step by step workbook (manual), and all supplies are provided; accommodation and meals are covered in the total fee. You will learn all about SoulCollage(R), how to use it, how to incorporate it in your workshops, including ethical care, and be invited to network with like-minded people. 

The only pre-requisite is that you have followed an Introductory course on SoulCollage(R), either in person or online, and begun making cards for yourself, so you see the benefit of it, before starting to share it with others as a facilitator.

Sample card:  Heart Focus for 2019 card

I made this card recently to represent an intention of mine for the coming year. It said to me: 

I am one who longs to feel my heart open. I am one who receives guidance from the universe. I am one who feels connected when she is around open-hearted, soulful creative people. I want to bring back more of that Heart Focus in my life this year.

Heart Focus card

Watch this video to hear from some people attending a facilitator training on how and why they love to work with SC.  And if you want to learn more about SoulCollage(R) or become a facilitator, just drop me a line.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrHmvbEb4w0#action=share

Jennifer

Increased Intuition at Menopause?

Dr Christiane Northrup, in her book, The Wisdom of Menopause, says that hormonal changes at menopause are actually rewiring a mid-life woman's brain for greater access to her intuition (drnorthrup.com). "We go from an alternating current of inner wisdom to a direct current that remains on all the time after menopause is complete. During perimenopause, our brains make the change from one way of being to the other."  TWofMenopause.  But how do we get in touch with that intuition? In our busy, frenzied pace of life, sometimes that still, small voice gets drowned out.

Time alone, solitude and calm - these are the best ways to encourage listening to the inner voice. How do you get time alone? That is the question. Northrup suggests that we first acknowledge and validate the need,  and from my workshops with women, I can say that this is the hardest part. We feel the impatience and crankiness that results from not having time to hear our own thoughts without distractions, and that is the first clue. But we must be willing to allow ourselves to feel worthy and deserving of quiet time, because it will not be given to us on a shiny platter; we will have to push something else aside to make room for ourselves, so we can dialogue with or listen to the Wise Inner Self (my name for my intuitive side).

To court our intuition, we need to give ourselves the space and time to be away from whatever noise and activity is disturbing us and preventing us from getting in touch with our inner wisdom (cell phones, email, telephones, kids, work stress). It doesn't mean you have to book a weekend away on a desert island, although that would be nice. But you can clear a little private space in your home - after the kids are gone to school, or inside your cubicle at work with earphones on. What can you do that is absolutely practical and doable, to create a space, even if it's just an inner space, for you to court your intuition?

I think intuition is always available to us, but we need to learn how to tune in, to trust it, learn the language it uses through the body guidance we receive. Sometimes you may feel a sense of calm, a feeling of being in the  flow, the serendipity of the moment. Or you may feel a tightening in the belly when something is wrong, out of whack, and your inner senses or instinct is warning you. Learn to pay attention, be open, and act on the information you receive.


Here are some tips, from practices I do to help me stay in touch with my Inner Wise Self or intuition:

-        -   Cultivate your inner awareness through more downtime:  rest (naps), yoga, chi gong, relaxation

-        -   Spend time alone walking in nature, meditating, getting in tune with silence and calming the static

-       -    listen up and follow up – when you follow your intuition, it helps strengthen that Inner Voice

-         -  Write in your journal, start a dialogue with Inner Wise Self as in Writing down your soul. ask the question and wait for the answers to come. 

namaste

musemother

I 

I 

Let your heart be drawn by what feeds it

These days, I'm writing but not writing. Blogging, journaling, writing essays, lectures, sometimes lists, keeping a daily agenda filled with notes of things to do, but lately no poems, no spontaneous bursts of creativity. Sigh. My heart is not in it, I guess.

I found a great quote on Facebook, (where I often steal quotes in beautifully photographed frames). This one has no picture around it, but just says what I feel in my heart these days:

It's not about figuring out what Big Thing you are here to do. It's about recognizing what is life-giving and turning your face in that direction. It's about letting yourself be drawn by that which feeds your heart and soul, about being present enough to turn away from that which has no life for you to turn toward that which makes you open and open and open, like a blossom reaching toward the sun, rooted in the earth.

– Oriah Mountain Dreamer 

I'm not sure what the Big Thing is anymore. It appears to have escaped me once again. But I just spent five days and more on retreat, listening to that which feeds my soul, and now that I am back home, I feel slightly different. It's not that I am not promoting my book, arranging speaking engagements, setting up classes to begin next week, but in my heart, I am happy to sit in silence for a wee bit longer, filling up the well.  I stand at the washing machine and separate the white from the coloured piles, get through the suitcases of laundry, but still my heart is remembering how full it feels. I don't appear to need to write about it.

My normal habit of doing three things at once is still on automatic, but I find myself stopping in the middle of pouring leeks, potatoes and broth into the blender to just savour the moment, take a breath and feel my feet on the ground. I look out the window at the loud wind blowing through the tall grasses and the oak tree, the sumac bending over double, and I feel calm, not anxious.

So may be I am feeling a tiny bit more present, more open to turning towards that which opens me up inside, like a sunflower turning towards the sun, but still rooted - as I am rooted in the everyday actions of cooking, cleaning, typing, doing laundry. I spent a number of days listening to Prem Rawat, a teacher of mine for almost forty years, speak in sometimes humourous sometimes deep and serious tones, about my connection to the Divine, and how important it is to feel it, and how easy to let go to it.

I don't feel like I need to tell you everything he said, I just feel in awe of the transformation that has come over me. A little disconcerting at moments, when I relish just sitting in the silence and letting the tender ecstasy take over. There is still a small part of me that resists, but it is getting smaller, being washed away by the love within, the strong pull of the human heart wishing, no, longing for connection.

So there, I've said it, I am turning away from flogging my 'products' and turning towards writing about the heart's need for connection and love. It seems very unworldly of me, almost naive in a childlike way. But there it is, the need for more admiration of existence, the need for something greater to fill my sails from within, the need to turn away from chasing fame, success, and glory, and just be, who I am. That is the shortest complete sentence in the English language by the way, and it's written on a cap I brought back from Amaroo - I am.

Thanks be, I am.

best

Jennifer/Musemother

Feminine Wisdom from Musemother: 15 Tools to a Happier More Connected You

What do you need today to feel whole, happy, authentic, true to yourself?

What elements of the creative feminine do you need to play with? Ie how to listen to your body and honour your emotions, feel what you feel.  Here are some things I do to tune in:

1.       Journal writing and Affirmations: I am flawed and fabulous (for self-acceptance)

2.       Develop my inner coach – write a letter from my 80 year old self to me now

3.       Fire the Inner Critic and let negativity be overridden by loving messages from Inner Coach

4.       Time alone, quiet time in nature, attunement to inner self

5.       Soothing rest, naps, music, breathing and centering, find my core again

6.       Dancing and singing, celebrating life and being a woman

7.       Dialogue with my Wise Inner Self  when I’m in a quandary, over a decision

8.       Self-love – practising compassion, loving kindness, forgiveness for mistakes

9.       Soothing the frightened child, rocking my fear

10.   Patience as a practice

11.   Whole body healthy eating: happy healthy whole

12.   Increase Intuition and body guidance, listen to the body

13.   Weaning myself from my addiction to adrenaline rush, speed demon - the art of slowing down

14.   Inner peace – finding a daily practice I can live with

15.   Make a written vow to Self: commitment to Conscious self care

What Visions May Come: Listening to Inner Guidance at Mid-life

Since my mid-life quest or transition began, I have gone on many journeys and retreats, taken classes with inspirational authors and sought answers to my questions in many, many books. The odd thing is, all of these ended up teaching me one thing: turn within for the answers.

At one retreat week in particular, I had booked an appointment with a woman who was said to channel spiritual guidance, hoping she could help me discover which writing project deserved my full time and energy. I sat in the chair across from her, nervously waiting for her to open her eyes and speak. She looked at me after a few minutes of silence and said, My guides are telling me you have to find your own answer!

I was a little bit peeved at the time, thinking, I came all the way to Taos, New Mexico to hear this? But ultimately, it was a very good truth. I had been looking for the answers in other people's books, in conferences, in outside authority. And it was time for me to be author of my own existence and trust my own inner authority.  Easier said than done.

Over the past four years, I've been developing my trust in this by using various exercises and visualizations, and I have to say, it takes practice to trust your own inner guidance, but it becomes easier and easier. Two of my favourite authors on the subject, Dr Mona Lisa Schulz and Dr Christiane Northrup, both say that our bodies are the greatest source of intuition or women's wisdom if you like. Sometimes we get small whispers, but if we don't listen in, the signals get stronger and stronger. For example, a friend of mine recently recovering from a burn-out, is back at work and her work hours are increasing. She told me one week she had a recurring dream three times, that she was in her car, stepping on the gas pedal and there was no power, no movement, no response. That seems an obvious metaphor for lack of energy, no gas in the tank.

Through dreams, through body signals, through direct questions in your journal, you too can access your inner wisdom. Shakti Gawain has shared her visualization for meeting your inner guide in her book Creative Visualizations (http://www.shaktigawain.com/) and I use this exercise often in my Creative Journaling classes.  I also use angel cards, tarot decks and native totem animal cards to get access to the sub-conscious or inner guidance on mini-retreats I make for myself at home (see my website for tips on how to do this at www.jenniferboire.com ).

I believe we all have a Wise Inner Self; perhaps it's the same thing some people call Soul, or Heart. It doesn't matter what word we use, but there is a wonderful feeling of accessing our best or higher self, when we let go, ask for help, and release self-doubt. Writing in my journal and doing my sitting practice of going inside, I access this wise, quiet voice. Solutions and answers to my questions bubble up from inside. I begin to trust that everything I need to know is inside me. My teacher Prem Rawat has been inspiring me to go inside for years now (www.wopg.org), and his teachings have been most helpful.

It takes a bit of practice, but anyone can get in touch with their inner guidance. It strengthens your connection to your self, to your faith in an Inner Authority. It is a powerful, free, inner resource. It releases you from self-doubt and helps make you a stronger more confident person. It feels good to be aligned with the Creative spirit and I believe we are all co-creators with the divine energy of creation.

Writing Down Your Soul is another good book to get you started, by Janet Conner, www.writingdownyoursoul.com  and I find that in general, writing a question in my journal and asking my Inner Wise Self for guidance always helps me find my way through whatever confusion or doubt is assailing me.  You can develop a trusting relationship with your own wise self, and practice using affirmations and positive thinking to undo the years of negative conditioning or crippling self-doubt that some of us were brought up with.

Going on Retreat and spending a whole day or two nurturing my connection within is also an excellent way to strengthen your connection to your own intuition and wisdom. I have so enjoyed working with Karen Ely, Ken Nelson, Joan Borysenko, Jennifer Louden in workshops and retreats, and hearing Prem Rawat`s live inspiration has been especially wonderful.

Check out my website for more information on classes and retreats in the Montreal area. I hope to offer an e-course one day, so keep posted for that development.

Namaste,
Musemother
https://www.facebook.com/Musemother
https://twitter.com/#!/musemother

Women in transition

I just received the Kripalu fall catalogue, with workshops and classes listed - there are so many wonderful offerings for cultivating intuition, journeying to the self, awakening your feminine power, reflecting on spirituality and stress, healing emotional trauma, self healing, finding enlightenment and fulfillment, and kayaking and yoga, on top of it! (http://www.kripalu.org/)

But I didn't see anything specifically offering something for women in transition, or women in mid-life, which is where I am, and maybe some of you too.

What is this mid-life transition about? why is so fraught with emotional turmoil, ups and downs? It seems like it should be the best time of our lives - garnering more experience, more wisdom, more time for ourselves, if only we can give ourselves permission to take the time....

In my forties, my kids were hitting puberty as I was entering peri-menopause. The tug of war between their needs and roller coaster emotions and my needs and roller coast of emotions seemed to take up all the space in the house sometimes.  I often felt the need to just get away, so I could calm down and find myself again. It seemed like huge waves of hormones or emotions were always sweeping me away, pulling the rug out from under me.

I did find some herbal helpers, thanks to Susun Weed's wonderful book, Menopause the Wise Women's Way, (http://www.susunweed.com/) and finding Dr. Christiane Northrup's book The Wisdom of Menopause was another lifesaver - http://www.christianenorthrup.com/.  Reading that my brain was being rewired in menopause for greater intuition and inner wisdom helped me trust the changes my body and brain were going through. A few homeopathic remedies like sepia helped with feelings of overwhelm.  And eventually, I got through it, I made it through the other side of fifty.

That is why I am working on this book, The Tao of Turning Fifty, to share the wisdom and resources I discovered, and to let women in transition know that they are not going crazy, that it's temporary insanity at best, and that things will be better, much better once the Change works its magic.  You see, you do need to go through a transition, to become more connected to your own intuition, trust your inner knowing, and become that wise woman you always admired in other women.

Stay tuned for the book's publishing date, I'm working hard to get it out in the fall of 2011, as well as a new website which will link to this blog.

syonara
jenn/musemother

Inner Guidance is one breath away

What I love about my Inner Guidance System is that it's so close to me.

Only a breath away.

All I have to do is sit quietly for a moment, and close my eyes, take a breath and relax into my body.

I gently breathe and let go, letting thoughts float away like clouds passing in the sky.

I let my attention come deeper down, into the belly, with my breath.

And rest there.

In this quiet place inside, I find my inner guidance or inner wisdom comes to me naturally without forcing

Answers to questions arise, I remember things I had forgotten. In this still empty place, the waters are clear and I see my peaceful reflection.

Often, I feel gratitude for just being here. I feel the simplicity, the oneness.

I feel grateful to my teacher for showing me how to go inside.

And grateful for finally turning within for guidance. Because it's so portable. It's always with me.

nameste,
jenn/musemother

What if a woman listened to herself?

“What if a woman trusted her own tears enough to listen to them, to make real changes in her individual schedule, and to see if those changes spread to her office, her committee, her religious group? What if she trusted her anger, her irritation, her illness, even her depression, as signs that her own life was calling to her?

What if a woman allowed herself to leave a mode of doing that does not nourish her, that actively makes her unhappy? What if it were not so difficult? If her upbringing had not sought to teach her to be dutiful, moral, caring, giving, helpful, productive and loving…at all times...to all others. ….it is often finally a woman’s own pain and sadness that make her change her life. Finally, it is impossible to deny her feelings any longer.”   

From Circle of Stones, Judith Duerk, Woman’s Journey to Herself

Yes, what if I listened to myself?

Get off the computer and take a walk with the dog. Give myself more creative loafing time, more timelessness, more experience of the timeless, without schedules and appointments and frantic rushing. What if I pencilled in come creative loafing time on my agenda? what if I made an artist date with my camera and the tree bark I love to take photos of?

What if I sat on the lawn chair and stared at the lake?

Now is the moment!

musemother

ps teaching what I need to learn, as Suzy put it today. That's why I am blogging and writing and teaching writing classes and leading retreats....I so need to learn/feel the value of 'me' time, down time, slow sacred space time.

Gentling the Woman's Soul

Listening to a wonderful CD this morning, by Karen Drucker, A Retreat of my Own.

Monday mornings are retreat time for me. I like to light a candle, (don't turn the computer on or read emails till afterwards), play soothing music, and treat myself tenderly.

Yoga stretches, pigeon pose for my hips, downward dog for my hamstrings, shoulder rolls, whatever can move me into my body and into receptive mode.

Then I worked on my retreat schedule for the New Moon retreat upcoming.

Oddly enough, at my chiro/naturopath appointment later that morning, the subject of Receiving came up.  She was getting that I had some energetic blockages around being kind to myself, taking care of me. And we cleared some old baggage (stored in the body since a very early age, and reinforced with time as a belief system).  I won't go into the details, but suffice it to say, I had no conscious awareness that these issues were still so strong in me.  Since I lead retreats and blog about self-care, I assumed I knew how to take care of myself.  I eat well, I live well, and I even allow myself a massage once or twice a year (hah!).

Anyway, the upshot of my morning, is that I am now willing to receive. I am ready to make room for myself in the busy schedule,  and I am willing to be taken care of. There, I said it.  Not so hard really, but words alone are not enough.

I welcome you all to consider how you can be more gentle with yourself today, strive less, push yourself less, make room for the heart and breath, and really allow the beauty you are to be what you love.

Baby steps.....

jenn/musemother

ps check out the link below

Good News from Imagine a Woman International: May 3, 2010

This year the Imagine a Woman poem is celebrating its 15th year anniversary with a new website and new programs and opportunities for personal growth and professional enhancement. You're invited to the launch of the IAW WomanSpirit Empowerment Program, today May 3, with free inspirational gifts and complimentary coaching at http://www.imagineawoman.com/. We'll be celebrating WomanSpirit all week so get your party clothes on, invite your friends, and come on over.

Journalling the Journey

So, without making a resolution for the new year (because I don't believe in them), I did silently decide to use my journal as a tool for self discovery more often and without sticking to a strict schedule, I have been making time to write every morning, for as long as I can.

The question (I wrote questing) I have been posing in my journal for the longest time is about where my passion lay, what project would ignite a fire in my heart and get me moving. I lead occasional retreats, I teach occasionally, I work on my own writing sporadically, but no one thing was calling me.

Then I began writing with the Writing down Your Soul book by Janet Conner, http://janetconner.wordpress.com and asking my higher self or Spirit, what do I love? What do I want to manifest (I know, I always ask this question and have written about it before, but it's been a long transition to acceptance)?

The answer is never far away, is it? Through journalling, and through some astrological help from my sister Sue, I did get some clarity. What I was resisting (and journalling about) was that this is a time for rest, for renewal, for getting in touch with the power of Presence, which is what I want to encourage in others.  In other words, it has been a time of putting into practice what I preach.  And my impatience to have a new project was preventing me from enjoying this beautiful present moment. I kept journalling about where I was headed, always looking into the future.

Transitions are always (or usually) uncomfortable. You close one door, then look for the other to open. Sometimes, as Joan Borysenko ( www.joanborysenko.com) put it in a workshop I attended, you stand in the hallway, in limbo, waiting for that other door to present itself.

Journalling is a way of promoting patience with the process, asking the questions, receiving guidance, and hopefully being present and compassionate with yourself until clarity comes.  You know how it works when you've been waiting for a bus forever, and just when you are about to give up and find another way, the bus arrives? Or just when you think you're on the wrong road, this highway is going nowhere, a sign appears that your destination is near.

Journally for me has been a kind of navigational system, helping me link up with the satellite of higher intelligence within me.  A higher wisdom does come through, will come through, if you keep asking the question and stay open.  Listen for your dreams too, for they hold clues to your deeper awareness, what's going on beneath the surface life you are wading in.

Isn't it amazing that all this time, journal writing classes have been my part-time job, but I didn't consider it a major passion.  But it has been reignited in me as a way to reach women, to provide a safe space and support for their own wisdom to unfold. And a way to teach the thing I need to learn the most. The thing I was looking for was right under my nose (isn't it always?)

nameste,
jenn

Random Acts of Beauty

excerpt from Beauty, The Invisible Embrace by John Donoghue

The life journey can be a journey of ascent to beauty. The longing at the heart of attraction is for union with the Beautiful. Not everything in us is beautiful. We need to undertake the meticulous work of clearance and clarification in order that our inner beauty may shine.

...Somewhere in every heart there is a discerning voice. This voice distrusts the status quo. It sounds out the falsity in things and encourages dissent from the images things tend to assume. ...The inner voice makes any complicity uneasy. Its intention is to keep the heart clean and clear.

This voice is an inner whisper not obvious or known to others outside. It receives little attention and is not usually highlighted among a person’s qualities. Yet so much depends on that small voice. The truth of its whisper marks the line between honour and egoism, kindness and chaos....

This faithful voice can illuminate the dark lands of despair. ....Each day in the world, in the prisons, hospitals and killing fields, against all the odds, this still, small voice continues to echo the beauty of the human being.

...Ultimately it is the voice of the soul....When you take the time to draw on your listening-imagination, you will begin to hear this gentle voice at the heart of your life. It is deeper and surer than all the other voices of disappointment, unease, self-criticism and bleakness. All holiness is about learning to hear the voice of your own soul.

Your soul is your true source and a new energy and passion awakens in you. The soul dwells where beauty lives.”

This quote is part of our mini-retreat theme this week, Random Acts of Beauty. The question asked last week was How can I commit two random acts of beauty, one for myself and one for the world (others around me)?

for Valentine's Day, ask yourself what act of beauty you can perform,

nameste

Jenn

aka Musemother

New Year Check In

First off, happy New Year, to all who have stopped by at this post.

I am not one for resolutions, and am especially irritated by goal setting exhortations from self-help types, so I will not incite you to improve yourself in any way, either by losing weight, eating less fattening food, quitting smoking or joining a gym. I've done all that, and it never lasts very long.

Instead, I am reminding myself today that "I am enough". I happened to be reading my journal from exactly one year ago today, and found an interesting entry. In it, I told myself exactly what I would be doing (before I had made steps to lead retreats) and where my real work lies. This may seem odd to you who know I lead workshops and have written books, and think that I must know what I am doing. But the weird thing is, it hit me only very recently that I am exactly where I need to be, and yes, I have been travelling on this path for some time now.

Having made a big move, built a new house and moved in November, it's been like living in a whirlwind. Once the dust settles, you look around and realize you are not in Kansas anymore. Yet where I am feels more like home than ever before. The gift of this brand new location with vast windows overlooking a white expanse of snowy lake, is that here we start anew. Here we live our dreams, the ones we can't put off any longer, the deeply felt creative life that has been calling.

I have given some thought to what the new year might bring, just not formulated any resolutions. Someone asked me what I wished for the new year at a party. I surprised myself by stating emphatically, Focus and Simplicity.

Perhaps these two words don't mean much to anyone else, but they summed up nicely what I want - more acceptance of what is, less distraction of desiring what I don't have, and generally, just focusing on what's unfolding here and now in front of me. (It's not easy, but it's what I want). Yoga helps bring me to a place of contentment in my body, and helps me focus on the now. Meditation has been bringing me to a place of peace for over 30 years now. But acceptance of what I have has always been a challenge.

So, here is the excerpt from my journal that says it all about where I've been, where I am going, and where I am already:

Questions I ask myself - maybe I am too self-involved (to be a good mother)? Yet, the more balanced I feel, the slower I allow myself to be, for example in accepting Silence and Serenity as allies of the Slow Feminine, the better I feel. I still judge myself too harshly, and sometimes allow the fear of not being busy, outside the house working to confuse me. Yet, I KNOW MY WORK LIES IN THIS INNER WORK OF QUIETING, CENTERING, finding balance. (N.B. CAPS are because I can't believe I need to hear this again to believe it).

My inner research time will bear fruit, with patience; once I can live it, then I can teach or share it. I need to assimilate the self-care message - act it and not only speak about it - first. Find a gentle place to move, speak, and act from, and leave behind the harsh critic. Practice stillness, observe.

So there it is - my own New Year's message to me, written last year on January 8,, yet so timely for today.

Thank goodness for my journal, a rich record of my yearnings, longings, thoughts, passions and passtimes. My own silver mirror to see my deeper self in, as Marion Woodman calls it.

I can look back on the last few years, a somewhat painful journey, that brought me through a menopausal descent, and a resurfacing. A few years of searching, and shifting from writing poetry into working with women in workshops. I feel a sense of excitment about the new adventure, teaching a class entitled Time For You: Mini-Retreats, at the West Island Women's Centre, beginning next Wednesday.

Wish me luck, and if you join my class, we'll explore this gentle inner space together.

nameste,
musemother/jenn

Synchronicities and Trusting the Present

This is my new mantra: I am OK. I have everything I need.

First I read it in a little book of affirmations by Louise Hay, I Can Do It. The same clairvoyant my friend saw had told me to look up Hay's books.

The next time I heard the message was at a Woman's Circle meeting with Andrea Pinto, who teaches yoga near here. She gave a talk about higher consciousness, meditation, and then did a visualisation exercise. As I closed my eyes and followed her instructions, I came down a spiral staircase to a wooden door. Inside the room, was a telephone table and inside the drawer was a message for me: I am OK, I have everything I need.

A few weeks went by with me remembering occasionally to repeat this mantra to myself; in the spirit of the Secret, and the Law of Attraction, I am moving out of negative thinking patterns and into an attitude of gratitude. Last weekend, I attended a workshop at Kripalu, in Massachusetts, with some wonderful facilitators helping us to create transformative workshops of our own. One of the information sheets was called, The Practice of Being, and gave instructions on how to breathe into the moment, bring all your attention to the body sensations, feelings and just be a witness, observing with compassion and acceptance as energy moves through us.

It's perhaps all about trust. A new way of being for me. To allow insights and knowing to come into being on their own instead of figuring things out. Got a chance to practice that the next day, at a local high school, as I lead a poetry workshop with 2 classes of Grade 10 students, ("too cool for school" is how the teacher put it). Hmmm, could we start with just being? with breathing in and out to wake up our feeling senses? it worked wonderfully. I am OK, in spite of being nervous, I have everything I need.

In an art class this last week, our teacher and guide, Kate, urged us to use our intuition, not to think too much, just put pastel crayon to paper and let go. Let the fun of colouring come back in, just like it used to when we were little and open to our imaginations. Before we learned the anxiety of pleasing others and comparing ourself to everyone else. We were all nervous, giggling and convinced our 'artwork' was no good. We needed a lot of pats on the back to believe: I am OK, and I have everything I need.

Yesterday, I was at a church service to hear a friend perform two songs. And wouldn't you know it, my mantra showed up there too. The minister used the psalm, the Lord is my Shepherd as the basis for his text, and asked us to respond whenever he said, The Lord is my Shepherd, with "I have everything I need" (another way of saying, I shall not want, the King James version).

I had to laugh, not having been in a church for years, and never having been to a Presbyterian service, that the message of being in the present moment was part of his sermon too. He quoted C.S. Lewis who said being in the present moment is the best way to experience eternity. At the end of the service, a woman got up to offer yoga and meditation classes in the Church annex. So many reminders, so many signposts along the way.

Just for today, I remind myself: I am OK. I have everything I need.

nameste,
musemother

Kindness and compassion in mid-life

Kindness and compassion for myself? I'm good to myself, usually. I eat well, go to bed early, do yoga once a week, have even been known to get a massage once every six months....

A friend of mine, aged 49, consulted a woman who works with guides and angels for advice on her life. It was suggested that she needed to be kinder to herself. That left her perplexed. A therapist several years ago told me the same thing. It appears I was good at being strong, at carrying on, at taking on burdens that were not my own....at being responsible for everyone else except myself. Aching in the shoulders that was so bad I needed a heating pad to sleep at night was my first clue that I was carrying too much.

After working on the physical pain with physiotherapy, acupuncture and osteopathy, I began to untangle the emotional ingredients of my 'burden of responsibility'. My journey to healing through self-care has been a bit slow, but it is paying off. I am learning ways to be kind to myself, starting with getting the proper healing treatments. But mostly, I am working with the mind set that got me there.... a life time of perfectionism, and striving to be number one. (being eldest daughter in a family of eight, and 'little mother's helper' geared me up for it, and also striving to please my father with academic success). The trouble is, when I am harsh on myself, I am unforgiving with others close to me also.

How to undo the mind set? First off, I have tried to absorb the wisdom my therapist gave me in three little words. "I am enough". She questioned why I was giving away all my time to volunteer efforts and other people's projects and incapable of sticking to a creative project of my own. She made me look at how I strive to please others with 'good behavior', and constantly need outside approval. Five years later, I am still practising that mantra, I am enough, and still disengaging from too many volunteer projects. The feeling of being overwhelmed and stressed is often the product of saying Yes when I really mean NO.

How do I take care of myself? good question, and a good reminder to me to do something nice for me today. This week I asked my daughter to cook on a night when I wasn't going to have time before chorus rehearsal. I gave myself one morning off to do some creative loafing and dreaming with my journal. I went to bed at 9 pm one night after two nights late nights. I snuggled with my hubbie and watched a movie last night. He cooked me breakfast and made my cafe au lait this morning.....I want to book a pedicure this week to let my feet know I haven't forgotten about them. I tried a new yoga class and walked there in the sunshine. Oh yeah, and my women's circle brought me to an art class where I coloured with pastels and got in touch with my inner scribbler.

I know there is more I could do, affirmations to help me believe in myself, to attract joy in my life.

How can you be kinder to yourself today? this week? It may involve slowing down the pace, reducing your 'to do' list by only one or two items instead of trying to tackle the whole list. Or it may involve sitting down to eat a meal without interruptions, paying attention to the savouring and enjoyment of nourishing food.

Got a tip for mid-life women and self-care? leave a comment,
we can all benefit,

nameste,
musemother

Opening to Dream time or Liminal Spaces

For ages and ages, women have, by the very nature of their cycles and connection to the moon, enjoyed a special connection to dream time or inner sight.

I believe that the greatest damage we do to ourselves is not allow for enough down time, rest time or dream time, especially around our menstrual cycles. How many women even know when they are going to menstruate? We are so out of touch, we need a calendar to remind us, and we forget to look at where the moon is in the sky. Do you ovulate at the full moon? do you menstruate at the full moon? try getting in touch with where you are in the cycle, and maybe you will open the door to getting in touch with your 'inner dreamer' or inner guidance system.

Alexandra Pope has this to say about the liminal time:

"Liminal spaces are windows of opportunity, a way of liberating our thinking, a place of dreaming, a time for magic, a place to garner soul food and guidance for our life. A place to collect ourselves. It's where we step out of the world, out of our mundane life, into a kind of in between territory. No longer confined by the material world, it's a place where we can travel into the farthest reaches of our selves and the universe.

When a woman moves from one part of her cycle to another she's crossing thresholds: transitional moments she must pass through as she moves from one phase of the cycle to another. Some of these transitions will feel slight, a momentary dip in feeling or rise in energy, sometimes a pain as ovulation occurs. For other women the post ovulation phase can feel intense, not unlike what many experience coming into menstruation itself - the premenstrual angst.

....a woman often thinks she's stupid or clumsy at the premenstruum because she's dreamier, less clear in her thinking and behaves in apparently illogical ways. She's not less intelligent - her intelligence is simply operating in a different way. ...women multi-channel at this time, the way mothers do all the time, operating on many different levels all at once."

She suggests that maybe in the premenstrual phase, we are just 'in between' - neither one role or another - we become more open to the unseen. We can't hold things in, or repress our feelings. All kinds of socially unacceptable sides of ourselves get liberated - like in the time between dreaming and waking, we're not quite sure where we are, vulnerable, and open to the unconscious.

And if during this time you also have PMS or symptoms of discomfort, it's time to pay attention: "Menstrual problems, whether unpredictable moods, pain, fatigue, endometriosis or fibroids, are signaling some overall health difficulty." Your cycle is signalling a problem through its increased sensitivity at that time, not causing the problem.

Wise women slow down and listen to their cycles and stay open to the liminal space, the place of learning and self-growth. You are your own best 'thermometer'. Stay close to the symptoms and ask the deep questions. Use this time as an initiation into yourself, and be willing to explore the inner labyrinth.

What is it you most want to do, or need to receive at this time?

Remember that dreams can be healing, and get lots of rest. "Accommodate the dreaminess", says Alexandra. "Slow down and allow your curiosity to extend your vision of the world. Dreaminess softens the boundaries between our inner life and the outer world, opening us to surprising discoveries." And if you're operating machinery, give yourself frequent short breaks.

Some advice taken from The Wild Genie, by Alexandra Pope, sub titled, The Healing Power of Menstruation.

enjoy the day,
musemother

Descent into Menopause

For any of you interested in a Jungian approach to menopause, I recommend reading Descent to the Goddess, A way of Initiation for Women, by Sylvia Brinton Perera. She analyzes the myth of Inanna, (before Ishtar, middle-eastern) in psychological terms, and describes it as a story of modern woman's quest for wholeness. Her theory is that we who are 'daughters of the father', well adapted to a masculine world, have repudiated or repressed our full feminine instincts and energies. And that in this 'stripping down' or descent to the underworld, we find healing.

The story of Inanna is a fascinating on its own, as it is the oldest written myth (on clay tablets) of a feminine divine power, known as Queen of Heaven and Earth in ancient Sumer (5,000 years ago.)

I read this book through the worst year of my peri-menopausal descent, which I described to myself as the 'bug soup' stage, when the feeling of melt-down, loss of power and energy, mild depression, weeping, and general upside-downness, took over.

Here is a short excerpt from the book:

"The basis of women's experience of childbearing and of all blood mysteries that create and maintain life is that Nothing changes or grows without the food or some other sacrifice. ....
the myth of Inanna's descent and return is centered on this archetype of exchanging energy though sacrifice. ...She needs to sacrifice her dependence on the patriarchal gods to find her true home in the feminine ground of being.

"What I have seen in myself and other women who are successful daughters of the collective, often unmothered daughters of the animus and the patriarchy, is that we suffer a basic fault. We do not have an adequate sense of our own ground nor connection to our own embodied strength and needs adequate to provide is with a resilient feminine, balanced yin-yang processual ego.

...there is a deep split, maintained by loyalty to super-ego ideals that no longer function to enhance life, a loyalty that keeps the ego alienated from reality....thus we need to undergo a descent to the underworld levels of the dark goddess (Erishkigal), back to ourselves before we had the form we know, back to the magic and archaic levels of consciousness ...back to the body-mind and the preverbal tomb-womb states, searching back to the deep feminine, the 'dual mother' Jung writes about.

On the way down we shed the identifications with and the defences against the animus, introverting to initially humiliating and devastating but ultimately safe, primal levels. (awaiting rebirth). ...We feel as if the old meanings are loosened, as if we are suspended out of life, without energy.

What helps: "Creative improvisions, touching, holding, sounding and singing, silence, breathing, nonverbal actions like drawing, sandplay, building with clay or blocks, dancing, ... maternally nurturant and companioning behavior....

the descent to the earth, the darkness is the yin way. Like Inanna, we must submit, going into the deep, to allow the transformative mystery to take place."

Wow, I know, this is heavy stuff, and written in Jungian jargon. However, read between the lines. Some of us have some deep healing to do, some of us can benefit from therapy, and some of us just need to loosen up and play more. Less book knowledge and more body knowledge. Less ego ideals and more feeling ideals. Less 'overarching boss of everything' mode, and more 'tend and befriend' mode.

This is just a hint of what the transformative process is like. It's not everybody's journey, but enough of the women I know have been through burn-out, depression, divorce and major health challenges in their mid-40's, for me to recognize the truth of this part of the journey. For me, it started just before my father died, and it's taken me from age 47 to 52 (about 5 years), to come up for air. But now, I feel the cocoon splitting open, and my damp wings are scintillating in the sun. My energy has returned, and I feel closer to the Queen of Heaven, than to the Queen of the Underworld.

have a compassionate self-care day,
and write me if this passage speaks to you,
musemother