I am in more of a questioning, watching, introspective state of mind today. I not in a “spit it all out” state – those times in which I can’t type fast enough, those words that want to escape from me. Therefore, for today, I will share someone else’s words.
I recently read something interesting from the author Donna Henes. She claims that women don’t jump from the Maiden to the Mother, and then immediately on to the Crone (the traditional Triple Goddess paradigm). Henes says that with the long lives we are living these days, we have a crucial stage in between Mother and Crone called the “Queen stage” This is how Donna Henes describes us Queens:
“The Queen is firm in the Defense of Her time, Her space, Her boundaries, Her priorities, Her preferences, Her ethics, Her needs, Her desires, Her safety and Her sense of well-being. She acts not from the feeble uncertainty of a victim, but from the steady and stable center of Her acceptance and ownership of Her own thoughts and feelings, beliefs and actions. She is sure of Her Self. The Queen allows Herself to feel worthy, entitled, and esteemed based on the success of Her own efforts, accomplishments and growth. Her Intention is to learn and master all of the ways that She can feed, feel, help, heal, hear, change, mend, befriend, embrace, and love Her Self. She takes care of Herself on every level. And She vehemently defends Her right to do so.”
Have a great day, Your Majesties! In fact have a fabulous month of June, and let’s just go all in and make it an incredible summer! Let’s make it a decree.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
This is a going to be a little more serious than my typical Monday post, but it has been playing around in my head too long, for me to not get it out in writing. That’s how it works with me. My husband and I have been devoted to watching the “Better Call Saul” television series for the last few weeks. It’s excellent. Having been huge fans of “Breaking Bad”, I am not sure why it took us so long to get to the spinoff, “Better Call Saul”, but better late than never.
There is a powerful scene in the show, where one of the characters, Kim Wexler, is having to dig herself out of a hole with her employer – a hole, partially made by her love interest, Jimmy, and his bad judgment. Jimmy is trying to fix what has happened, in order to get back into Kim’s good graces. At the end of this poignant scene, Kim dismisses Jimmy’s shady ‘solution’ to the problem, by using her own reason and common sense and good judgment. With a very determined, and empowered and all-knowing demeanor, she says to Jimmy, “You don’t save me. I save me.”
“I save me.” Friends, this is a good mantra. Keep it in your back pocket. Use it often. Remind yourself how often you have saved yourself from negative experiences such as abusive relationships, toxic work places, financial crises, bad personal habits and addictions, health problems, and even working through, and overcoming grief. Sure, you may have received help from loved ones, and professionals, and your Higher Power, but you accepted that help. (As the proverb goes, “God helps those, who help themselves.”) You faced the problem head on, and realized, and admitted to yourself and to others, that you needed help. You loved yourself. You saved yourself. You loved yourself enough to save yourself. You stepped out of the victim chair and into your personalpower. You saved yourself again and again. You showed yourself how worthy you are of love, and kindness, and goodness, and grace. You showed yourself that you could trust yourself. You stopped waiting around for someone, or something else, outside of yourself, to save you. You saved you. It’s the only way.
“I save me.”
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
“Acting is all about honesty. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.” – George Burns
“When real music comes to me – the music of the spheres, the music that surpasses understanding – that has nothing to do with me, ’cause I’m just the channel. The joy for me is for it to be given to me, and to transcribe it like a medium… those moments are what I live for.” – John Lennon
Creative arts is all about authenticity, vulnerability, and channeling Greater Forces. That is why we all respond to these artistic outputs, in their highest form. A beautiful painting, a breath-catching photograph, a soul-searing poem, touch us and connect us to the deepest part of ourselves like nothing else can. And then, when we look around and catch a glimmer of that same awestruck feeling that we are feeling, also in the faces of the other observers/experiencers, that’s when we feel the least alone. That is when we feel the silver web of connection that we often forget is there, holding all of us together, creating an amazing, gorgeous tapestry of Life and Love. That’s when gratitude washes over us and cleanses us to our cores, reminding us of what we are all really made of, at our purest form of passionate energy.
My friend turned me on to Lizzo yesterday. Her college-aged daughter introduced her to Lizzo and I earned a lot of “cool mom points” when I picked up my daughter from the high school yesterday, playing Lizzo, at high volume. My daughter knew all of the words already. Lizzo is a female rapper and most of her songs speak of empowerment. Lizzo sings/says a song called “Truth Hurts.” When I looked the song up on Youtube, I saw this comment, about the song, that made me smile:
“this song makes me feel like a strong independent woman.. and i’m a guy.” – Foreign Warren
My favorite line in Lizzo’s “Truth Hurts” is this:
“Why men great ’til they gotta be great?”
If we’re going to talk about equality and empowerment, that line applies to all of us – male and female and everything else in between, doesn’t it? We lose the connection and the channel to our deepest, most creative inspirations, when we start focusing on the response to our output versus the joy of creating (an co-creating) the output. When we start aiming in on how many likes and views and notes of approval from others that we’re hoping to get, the connection to what the Universe is really trying to do with our lives, gets static-y and sometimes even gets disconnected. And we feel lost and confused and disappointed and sometimes, empty. We need to be refilled with what really keeps us connected. And the rub is, what keeps us connected is not anything applauding us on the outside, but moreso, what is deep, and profound, rising up inside of us, just wanting to burst through, in all of its glory.
John Lennon is arguably one of the greatest musicians of our lifetime and “those moments are what I live for” were the moments that he was gifted to “transcribe” what the Universe wanted the rest of us to enjoy, and to relate to and to sing along to, sometimes at the top of our lungs. He didn’t talk about sold-out concerts, or how many people were in his fan club, or his NYC penthouse. Lennon’s “live for moments” were during the creative process, with his juices flowing, and his open heart just taking in everything and transcribing the Love that was meant to touch all of our hearts, every time we listened to one of Lennon’s songs.
