Gwynn Raimondi, MA

Sacred in the Everyday

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I’ve been thinking a lot about what it is to be a Sacred being. What does it mean to connect with the Sacred and Divine, both within and outside? What does it look like to touch the Holy that lives inside as well as outside of this body? There was a quote on a tea bag for my daughter the other day that said “Your soul is your highest self.” And while I nodded to this truth I also wondered, what the heck does that even mean?  Then on another day my tea gave me this wisdom: “The voice of your soul is breath.” This truth I felt deep within.

And when we put these two little tea quotes together, they are telling us that our soul speaks to us through our breath, and that we can know where our “highest self” is by checking in with our breath. Following this train of thought our highest self speaks to us through our breath, our breathing (or lack of breathing). And then, we can connect to our soul, our Divine, our Sacred, by connecting to our breath. And the deeper we can connect to our breath the deeper we can connect with the Divine.

Simply following a train of logic. Yet still I am left  in this place of, okay, so what does that mean?

I begin every program and workshop with focusing on our breath. It has been a part of my own journey to mindfully and consciously be aware of and connect to my breath for several years, and I truly believe, have believed, this is where our work begins. This exercise has always been for me and my work, a way to guide others to connect more with their body, to find a way to ground and center and be fully present. It is where we can start, easily without needing any thing but our self.

To date, I have not brought the Sacred or Divine into this breath worth, not consciously at least.

Yet these little tea bags are telling me that perhaps I have been inviting and connecting to the Divine in this work all along, without realizing. That perhaps connecting to the body is a way to find connection with the Divine. That the Divine lives within us as well as outside of us and it can talk to us through our own breath and body and being.

In the (Un)Becoming Circle we are about to dive into some of the deep work of healing our Feminine wounds, our mother wounds. Part of this healing is finding connection with the Divine, the Sacred, the Holy; connecting to the Divine Feminine within us and outside of us. And as I told the women in today’s video, this work scares the shit out of me.

The idea of connecting to something that is both greater than the Self and also part of the Self is intense. For some the idea that the Divine is within is where they find resistance. For others it is the idea of the Divine outside of the self that is bothersome. We each were raised with stories of what is Sacred and Holy and what the Divine is or isn’t. More importantly, many of us were raised with stories of how we are unworthy of receiving the Divine within, that it is separate and we do not deserve to be touched by it.

These stories of unworthiness run deep. Deep in our bones, our psyches, our souls. In my work I guide others to dig into those stories, to find their value, to recognize and acknowledge that their own value and beauty. I start tackling these stories of unworthiness by guiding others, and myself, to connect to their breath, to start to fully breath. To stop holding their breath, and to let it out so that fresh breath can come in. To allow the breath to completely fill every part of the body.

The beauty of breath work is that you can do it anytime, anywhere. Connecting to your breath when you are feeling anxious or depressed or just not quite right, is something you can do right now. Or in ten minutes. Or while you are making dinner. Or right before you start to scream at the kids to get their damn shoes on (because you’ve only asked them to do it a dozen times already). Or even right after you have screamed at them so you can take the time to repair as needed.

Breath work can happen at any time.

And if we follow the logic up above, guided by quotes on tea bags, we can also connect to our soul, to the Divine at anytime.

Anytime. Not only at church. Or in the middle of the forest. Or by the edge of the ocean. But right now, sitting at this screen. We can each take in and release a breath, connecting to our body, to our Self, and holycrow, to the Divine too.

sacred self boardAbout a week ago I created the intuitive collage board for my Sacred Self program. When I sit down to create these collages, I just clear my head of all other thoughts except the program or project I want to focus on. Creating these boards helps me to find the core of what the program is to be about, helps to birth the program into the world, to make it something of substance instead of just something that is swirling around in my head. I sit down with magazines and scissors and thumb tacks and tear out and cut the images and phrases that speak most to me while I am thinking of the work to be done. I always feel a bit of a thrill as the images come together and the phrases start to take shape and the feel of the workshop or retreat is birthed into this world, on this bulletin board in front of me. Until recently I have never considered this to be the Divine speaking through me, but perhaps it is.

Perhaps there is more of the Divine and Sacred in the everyday than we realize. My daughter has been asking me about mermaids a lot lately. She’s at that age now where she tells me she wants to know The Truth and I see her fantastical world of fairies and dragons and Santa Claus starting to slip away. She asked me if mermaids were real. And I told her that no, they are not real. She responded with: “But the ocean is vast and deep and we haven’t explored most of it. So mermaids could very well be real and live in the parts of the ocean we haven’t explored yet.” I can’t argue with her logic.

Perhaps my daughter’s mother needs to remember it is okay to have faith in the unknown. Perhaps all of us could take a lesson in not needing everything to be cold facts and figures and to allow for a little magic, a little fairy dust, to enter back into our psyches. Perhaps we can open ourselves to the unknown and not shut it out because of fear.

Perhaps, everything is Sacred and part of the Divine. The budding flower. The falling leaf. The sunrise and sunset.

Maybe even those things we can’t see, like fairies hiding in the trees.  Like mermaids living in the ocean depths.

 

 

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What sparks me: A quick and dirty list of some of the things

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Inspired by a Liberated Lines Flash offered generously by Alisha Sommer and Robin Sandomirsky. So excited to open my writing for my heart again.

What sparks me::A quick and dirty list of some of the things

  1. His babbles
  2. Her smiles
  3. His strong embrace.
  4. The way the sunlight hits the trees of our fairy forest, lighting it up, yet never quite reaching me.
  5. The crispness of the cool air as it sneaks in through the cracks of our door
  6. Her sneaking in to quietly give me a kiss
  7. The smile that is spreading across my face
  8. Women gathering, circling. Sometimes with me guiding, sometimes not. Together, finding our power, our selves.
  9. flashing lights that mark the passing of each second
  10. quotes in books that make me scream YES! and want to share them with the entire world
  11. moving beyond
  12. magazine clippings waiting patiently to be assembled on the board, to give birth to the program to come
  13. notices in my inbox, reminding me to keep following my soul, my intuition
  14. coffee. because, well coffee.
  15. a new mug, just for me, found by me. all mine.
  16. cake. because, well cake.
  17. the whispering of our creek in the fall.
  18. crunching in piles of leaves
  19. a table filled with food, surrounded by those I love
  20. gathering. always gathering.
  21. sharing secrets in the dark, under the warmest of covers, only her and I, sharing our souls, letting ourselves be seen in the darkness
  22. a card to cheer me up
  23. slow cookers
  24. quiet slow mornings where I come into myself as they sleep.
  25. warm water beating down on my skin, reminding me to feel, to sense, to notice
  26. walls filled with her art, given to us.
  27. walls filled with my art, allowing myself to be seen.
  28. walls filled with his art, reminding me of reason #1,345,094, 452 why I love him
  29. unexpected packages on our doorstep
  30. unexpected texts on my phone
  31. shelves filled with over loved books, covers soft, corners tattered
  32. yellow
  33. blue
  34. pink
  35. red.
  36. fire, hot, burning
  37. fire, warm, comforting
  38. ice, cold, burning
  39. ice, cool, refreshing
  40. the city, with its magic, its energy, always calling to me
  41. the grass, my toes digging in
  42. mud, earth, connecting to the dirt and dust and water from whence we came
  43. cozy beds, with so many pillows, so many blankets, so many arms and legs tangled up in each other
  44. space, open
  45. breath. always.
  46. questioning
  47. questing
  48. seeking
  49. finding
  50. all the things
  51. wise women, clearing paths before me
  52. clearing my own path
  53. the hum of the heater as I feel the cold leave my bones
  54. stillness
  55. twinkling lights, a rainbow on my wall
  56. sand, warm on my skin
  57. boots. The boots. Those boots.
  58. laundry baskets filled with clean clothes, waiting to worn again
  59. grief, raw, real, reminding us our humanity, our utter lack of control
  60. surrender
  61. shedding skin, each layer coming through in its own time, and then, quietly disappearing, becoming dust
  62. fairy tales, rewritten, giving power where power belongs
  63. myths, exposed, released
  64. Christmas trees and wreathes with beautiful baubles, sparkling, bring memories of what never really was, but yet is deeply felt in my core
  65. creating the life I want, I dreamed of, I never thought possible
  66. knowing myself
  67. others who know themselves
  68. talking, whispering, screaming, of the evolution of who we are and were and will be
  69. letting go
  70. holding tight
  71. being blinded by the sheer beauty of it all
  72. tears of joy, of disbelief
  73. holding hands, her hands, his hands, infant hands, adult hands
  74. body wracking sobs
  75. loud, spontaneous laughter
  76. earthquakes, reminding us that even our planet can’t stay still, must move and reform and reshape
  77. words… always words.
  78. Wonder Woman, Jean Gray, Rogue, Black Canary, Black Widow, Bionic Woman.
  79. My Cher Barbie doll, long lost
  80. lotus
  81. Om
  82. yoga, stretching muscles, opening hearts, allowing
  83. glitter. because, glitter.
  84. baby hands grabbing at necklaces, tasting them.
  85. exploring with my hands, my own mouth
  86. fingers dancing across the keyboard
  87. Circles of women. Not binders.
  88. ink on skin, permanent and not
  89. long hair. short hair. red hair. purple hair.
  90. forgiveness, and the breath that comes with it
  91. warrior women, not always amazons
  92. hearts
  93. their smiles.
  94. open doors, inviting me in, for no reason
  95. those who give comfort. always.
  96. Mamas, dead and living
  97. My tribes. All of them. Each of them.
  98. allowing every person to have so many sides
  99. allowing myself to not love them all, but still acknowledge and accept them all
  100. me. because, me.
  101. (more to come…)

Explore the power of you

Becoming a Superheroine

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Every time I send out a newsletter to my list, one person unsubscribes. When that notice comes through to my email, I smile. I’m always curious who it is and so always look. I’m send some loving thoughts to the email address that no longer wants to receive my love letters, and I wish them well. I thank them for allowing into their inbox for so long. And I nod to myself that I must be doing something right.

The truth is, I can’t, and don’t want to, please everyone. My love letters can sometimes be muddled and murky, sometimes crisp and clean; sometimes rambling, sometimes to the point. They are an expression of where and who I am in those moments. Part diary, part hey, what’s up, part love letter, to my readers and to myself. They document my skipping, running, walking and stumbling along this journey I’m on, this pilgrimage to each new iteration of me.

I acknowledge that my pilgrimage isn’t for everyone, and I’m grateful for that. The guide work I do is deep and intense, for me and those who allow me to guide them. I don’t want my energy going to those who don’t want it, or who aren’t ready for it. I want those who gather around my guide work to be ready to be… well to be guided into a deeper understanding of who they are, who they were and who they want to become.

This is not to say that every person who is ready for that deeper understanding would want me to be their guide. I get this and understand it. We cannot all be everything to everyone. If we stay true to who we are, the right people will start to gather. Our communities and circles will grow organically. None of this needs to be forced or demanded. It’s not about big numbers to me, it never has been. It’s about, has always been about, knowing exactly the right people will come forward at the right time, and the group that gathers around any particular program will have its own magic and feel.

…

So now I am in this place of curiosity about being female in a patriarchal society. I’m in this place of wanting to understand what it means to be a strong heroine in the fairy tales (like the show Once Upon A Time has re-written Snow White and others to be strong, warriors, independent, the true heroines of their own stories); what it means to be a super-heroine like Wonder Woman or better yet, Black Widow or Jean Grey. Women who have their own back stories, who weren’t always Super Heroines, who have had their own trials and struggles like all of us, and still are fighting for what is right, are still hoping to heal the world. Women who are strong and unapologetic in their femininity, who reject the rules that don’t fit them and allow themselves to be fully who they are. Women who have awakened to their own embodied knowing.

I have always been a rebel, in one way or another. I’ve written about it time and again, both here on the blog and in my love letters. I believe in screaming a firm fuck you to the status quo, in letting go and burning of all those shoulds and can’ts and definitions others place on us about what it means to be a woman or a mother or good girl or a bad girl. I firmly believe we need to shed our shame of who we are and embrace ourselves and each other. We need to stand together, accepting and celebrating our differences and our similarities, acknowledging that no two stories are exactly the same, but they are also so very, very much alike.

Another truth: we are all special snowflakes, and at the same time, none of us are.

So what does it mean to stumble on this pilgrimage of life, of being and becoming, of putting on our super heroine cape, to fail and succeed at becoming the people we are called to be? How many different capes and masks to do we wear, can we wear at once? And are they all us, each its own unique expression of who we are in each moment, in each setting?  I don’t have all the answers right now, and I believe this is my quest, my exploration and excavation work for this year of being 43.

So more layers will shed and new ones will glow through, and more people will decide the pilgrimage I’m on isn’t for them, and more people will gather close and circle with me; this is the ebb and flow of life; this is part of what it means for each of us to be on a heroine’s journey, each of us finding our own way, in our own time and gathering together when our paths meet, at exactly the right time, exactly the right place.

Transform to awaken embodied knowing

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