Challenge and Opportunity

Our next Sisters of Fierceness sabbat celebrates Challenge and Opportunity.

We're in the midst of the doldrums of summer.  Everyone is hot and irritable. The air and energy seems stagnant and it's like moving through a morass of mud to get anything done.  Then again, the sky is blue, the air is warm, everyone starts heading outside to enjoy their summer breaks (or inside to enjoy the beautiful, beautiful air conditioning in some parts of the country!).

So much of how we experience life is determined by how we choose to frame it.  It's a truism that everyone seems to have a variation on, that challenge and opportunity are two sides of the same coin.  Where there's a challenge, there's an opportunity, and vice versa.

Our Goddess for this challenge is Kali - fierceness embodied!  When the world turns upside down, Kali is present deconstructing and then helping us reconstruct, showing us the friction where things are no longer working, helping us through the fires of transformation.  Safety is comfortable. If we are going to make change in our world, we need to be uncomfortable and get up and change those uncomfortable things. Kali shakes up our safe spaces and helps us create brave spaces where true transformation can take place.


What is your challenge? What is your opportunity? Where are your safe spaces? And where are your brave spaces?

Liminality, Schrodinger’s Cat, and Dis/Integration

Originally posted at http://www.lepismatidae.net/blog/archives/1218. 

There is a lot I don’t write online anymore, for a lot of reasons.

One of the things I’ve been struggling with is that I’m very good at compartmentalizing. Who needs to see which Venn diagram of the pieces that comprise me. Who is allowed into one safe space, but not another. Having a rubric of ‘what do I gain from sharing this with this part of the diagram, where and who is likely to find a way to use this against me? And what is my plan of defense if I need one?’ And there is virtually no public safe space. What happens when it becomes too much to manage all those pieces of the Venn diagram. What if the pieces that used to provide structure are merging and blending? What if, as those compartment walls become exhausted, I/we were allowed to integrate them into our being instead of watching everything fall to pieces in disintegration?

When I tell a community that I am an invisible part of that they matter to me, even though some of the people that I am directing that message at and meaning, truly, from the tenderest parts of my heart are not allowed to see that part of my Venn diagram, and even though I suspect that due to other parts of my Venn diagram, I don’t actually matter to them… It’s sometimes a heavy weight to carry. The price for ‘appropriate’ compartmentalization.

And when through experience I know that it’s dangerous and terrifying to stand up, stand out, and that even when I do, the validity of my voice, my opinion is questioned and judged or outright ignored or not heard. And when despite the danger and terror of standing up and trying to stand out, I do try to stand up and stand out, I am still invisible until I am heard and shouted down or ignored until I no longer have a voice, or the will to keep speaking.  Whether that’s on a timeline where the algorithms bury me, or a business room where I can never find the right way to ‘show value’ (or maybe it’s that I’m in my 40s and no longer a young, fresh, face — there’s a reason that age discrimination laws exist, or maybe I just suck at ‘showing value’), there is an echoing loneliness.  And as an introvert, sometimes I find more company with the wind, and the rain, in the dirt, the whirring of a spinning wheel, the pieces of me you’ve never seen (to steal a line from someone else).

Where is the possibility for wholeness? Where is integration? Some days even keeping Venn diagram pieces of me showing up is exhausting. Bringing the whole puzzle to the table seems… illusory and dangerous.  I am so proud of my people with the loud and strong voices, the right words that come at the right time, in the right order, in the right framing, in their wholeness.  And for the rest of us, in the in-between places, it has to be ok to be in liminal spaces.  My heart aches, I am tired.

Am I too much for ‘living out loud’?  I don’t perceive myself as whole, and picking my pieces apart threatens the integrity of my being.  And being told I am too much for sharing what I do share — even now that I don’t share at the levels I used to share — tells me, my whole self is “valued,” but please keep it contained and quiet and you don’t need to talk about that and what kind of ‘value’ is that?  But pieces keep escaping from their compartments awkwardly, demanding to be said when they shouldn’t be said because there is so much not to say that sometimes they break their constraints.  And then sometimes, they wilt in the deafening silence having been said.

Doris Lessing wrote a book called The Golden Notebook about the fragmentation of self & society, and one woman’s attempts to overcome it eventually by trying to combine four different journals into one ‘golden notebook.’ These days, it might be called the ‘bullet journal.’  I have this space, I have another blog (or two), I have a notebook with therapy notes, a bullet journal, a general reflection journal, five DayOne journals, calendars… and others. What does the ‘whole self’ even mean when even in the best of times, I can only expect even those close to me to see a facet of myself?

There is no graceful way for me to end this. I am experiencing the breakdown of my compartments as integration of my whole self, and the fear remains of others picking over the pieces of those evolving compartments and leaving me doubtful, silenced, hurt and all of me present, but still in pieces.

The Solstice of the Golden Road

It's summer, what's better than a road trip!? The Sisters of Fierceness will be celebrating the Solstice of the Golden Road! Whether it's Thelma & Louise looking at each other and saying, "DRIVE!" or Amelia Earhart flying around the world, or just a jaunt across state to see your family and beloved friends, what would a Heroine's Journey be without the journey itself? Not much! So we've heard the call, we've made some decisions, we've found our support team, and now it's time to hit the road. 

Amelia Earhart serves as our ancestress. Aphrodite Euploia, She of Fair Travel, our goddess.

Coincidentally, or not so coincidentally, we see this reflected in our distance dedicants. Some are actively On The Road, including our Presiding High Priestess, Yeshe in Tibet (THE OG Golden Road, the Silk Road!). I took a surprise trip in early June to Oakland and got to see the Sacred Well and a few people In Real Life (3-D and everything!).  Then in July there are family visits and island visits and maybe other travels as well.

Looking forward from the road, in early August, we'll be celebrating Leap & Let Go!

And speaking of Aphrodite Euploia, whatever roads you choose to travel, may the wind be at your back, and the road rise to meet you.

Still feeling the influence of an unexpected trip to the Bay Area, this post seems incomplete without this:

The Joy of Trusted Friendship

The third in the sabbats for the Sisters of Fierceness is when we have found the path, the next steps are identifying who comes on the road with you. Who are your allies, the ones you turn to in trust when the road gets complicated and rough, the ones you turn to for celebration when something good happens? Initially we couldn’t decide whether we wanted to go with the title the Joy of Trusted Friendship or the Gathering of Allies. When you’re on the road, you need to have both at different points. Sometimes those allies are your trusted friends, and sometimes they extend beyond that circle. Our conclusion was that first you need the trusted friends, and from that point you can then call in the allies. So, this year anyway, we’re starting with The Joy of Trusted Friendship. And who are the ones you can trust? Who are the ones you have riotous belly laughter with? Who are the ones that understand you? Who can you tell your secrets and fears to? Cry on their shoulders? Who do you sit around the fire with, arm-in-arm, singing songs, telling stories, scaring the bejeebers out of and then giggling furiously about how spooked everyone was? What fun, what friends, as we continue on where ever this adventure is going to take us! Cross-posted to the CAYA Coven blog as well.

The Heroine's Journey

**cross-posted to the CAYA blog**


The Sisters of Fierceness are developing our own Wheel of the Year. We live geographically disparately and what is one person’s season might not be the same for another person. Where I’m at in Seattle, for example, we have the wet and dark season, and summer! As The Sisters of Fierceness are a group dedicated to personal development, it seemed appropriate that maybe instead of a seasonal year, we have a traveling year as we venture forth through life’s adventures.

To that end, we are developing the following Sabbats:

• Call To Adventure (Early February)
• Refusal & Acceptance (Spring Equinox of Discernment)
• Gathering of Allies/Joy of Trusted Friendship (Early May)
• The Golden Road (Summer Solstice - Celebrating The Journey)
• Leap and Let Go (Early August)
• Challenge & Opportunity (Fall Equinox)
• Acquiring the Elixir (descent & subsequent transformation, Late October)
• Rebirth & Renewal (Winter Solstice)

Part of my commitment this year is to provide a series of articles as we develop our sabbats. Today, we’re playing a little catchup and covering both The Call To Adventure as well as the upcoming Rite of Discernment, Refusal and Acceptance. The names are still somewhat in flux as we explore for the first time what each of these events are about. Bear with us as we explore our possibilities in joy with open hearts!

In early February we celebrated The Call to Adventure. In the still quiet of the February darkness, the seeds in the heart of the Earth, baby lambs, and Spring itself hears The Call — come unfurl and see what awaits in the big wide world! In fairy tales, all genders start each story hearing some Call to Adventure. And we, every day, face the world anew. Some of our adventures are big life-changing adventures, some adventures are mundane like going to the grocery store to pick up some salad greens (but check out what Jack got from a simple produce run!). What is calling you? What secret things are unfurling in your heart, starting to reach for the emerging daylight?

At the March Equinox we will be celebrating The Rite of Discernment, Refusal and Acceptance. Just because you hear a Call, doesn’t mean you have to answer it. In some fairy tales, this is built in — the rejection of the call… but the call comes again, and again, until it is accepted. Discerning whether this is a Call you want to follow is an important piece of the journey. Sometimes you need to say “no” to one call in order to answer another. Sometimes it seems like there is no choice in the matter and you’re thrown into the deep end to see if you sink or swim. In these cases, the discernment, refusal, and acceptance is less about the journey itself, but your attitude towards it. Are you working within your new found adventure with grace and making the best of what you can control within the larger picture? Or are you going into it resisting and kicking and screaming? Sometimes it’s appropriate to kick and scream! Your discernment of Right Action is critical.

We hope some of you can join us on our explorations as we follow this Journey through the year/s! We are looking forward to seeing how it develops and evolves!

Mystery Unfolding

I know, that was last year's Daily Practice, nonetheless, it continues.  I have been granted by life a three month sabbatical in which to focus on what comes next, in the form of being laid off with 2 weeks notice & 11 week's severance.

I am trying to think big.  Way bigger than I have been.  I see jobs posted, read the descriptions, and realize that's me 10 years ago.  I see jobs posted, read the descriptions, and... I don't know who that is. Which is ok at this stage of the game. I think. First things first, I am taking some time to be introspective & reflective of how I've grown in the last seven, ten, fifteen years.  Where I have been is not where I'm going next.  If I don't take time to figure out what I want, how I want to feel, and how that's changed, I won't recognize the right thing when I see it.

Lots of work -- today's thinking led to the realization that I wanted to bring the following archetypes to help me in what comes next: thinker, collaborator, storyteller, visionary.  My default mode of operation tends to be thinker.  In order to accomplish things, I integrate collaborator.  I have other archetypes that pop in and out as well.  Storyteller is one of the archetypes that has been quietly poking at me for some time.  Being able to see and draw out the connecting threads of an existing dynamic, and pull them into something.  I'm still learning to tell a good story, but it's coming along.

And visionary.  I wanted to put this one back, but it called to be kept.  And I had a slow dawning realization that I am a visionary -- often my big crazy ideas are things that will take several years to fully implement... and for the first time, I'm realizing that's ok. It's hard for the short-sighted, and short-term thinkers.  What I need to do is accept that my vision is correct and focus the short-sighted and short-term thinkers on the tiny piece of the vision that can be accomplished in a span of time and sight that their minds can comprehend.

When I realized these developing archetypes, I wanted to run this past many people... and then I realized this validation that these things are true about me must be owned by me.  I cannot keep looking to others for validation, for their acceptance of who I am.  Just as I own my competencies, it is in my heart and a core part of who I am, so too are these archetypes.  

I find myself at the heart of the flame, I find myself in my strength...

L'Oiseau de Feu

As things often do, in retrospect it seems clear now that the cranes were not ever cranes, they were phoenixes, meant for the fire.  Their/my ashes are out there now, floating around re-congealing into something new.  There are about five new phoenixes starting to flutter about here and there...

What seems rare when people talk about burnout is the length of recovery time.  I feel a slow heat starting to burn again, but it is hard to tell if it's simmering embers of destructive burnout or the start of phoenix rising from the ashes.

I am very slowly finding pieces of myself.  I tend to rely on logic rather than feeling in assessing what comes next.  I am learning that logic only takes me so far and that means figuring out these things called feelings.  They're so complicated!   I have also relied on appreciation of things other people appreciate.  I appreciate the flavor peppers and onions bring to a dish, but I don't actually care for their texture much.  But when people rave on about some onion-y, pepper-y thing that they love, I say, 'yes, that sounds good!' despite the fact that I have no desire to eat it myself.  I am finding that I am curious and interested in all sorts of things, but articulating why I'm curious about something is elusive.  Sometimes I find it's because it's something someone else appreciates but is sort of like an onion to me, and sometimes I find that there is no why, it just is.  And sometimes the reason is clear, sometimes the reason is deeply layered.

And sometimes I find people holding space and pointing directions for a me that is not me.  "You would be, I see you, you should..." And as uncomfortable as I am in my skin now, the skin they would have me wear is often as ill fitting and not anything but the perception of a me they carry in their head.  And learning to discern their 'good idea' from a 'good idea for me.'

What I know is that recreating oneself, piece by piece, is exhausting work.  So many assumptions that must be challenged against 'is that me, or is that a piece of someone that I have adopted?' Or 'what do I feel about that?  And what's underneath that? And what's beneath even that? (Is it really turtles *alllllll* the way down?).'  And even when it becomes too much, and I just lie down, the echoes in my head are a wonderland of "Who ARE you?"

And some things are very very clear.  And some things are very very not clear.  It's hard waiting for the smoke to dissipate.  And even harder is picking through hot embers to find the pieces of resurrection.  The embers are so very hot, and the ashes are so very fragile.  Like it is darkest just before dawn, and coldest just after dawn, a phoenix in formation is so very fragile.  Reconstituting strength and confidence is serious business, serious magic.

Perhaps it is no surprise that my favorite ballet and some of my favorite music ever is and has always been Stravinsky's Firebird/L'oiseau de feu. Working on my most complicated re-creation ever...