SOPHIA GROUP: TOUCHING THE DIVINE FEMININE
Ongoing group work. New members are welcome.
Spiritual teachers, (R. Steiner,Jung, Sardello,) refer to the soul-wisdom of the world (Sophia) as a being who inspires heart forces in each one, and calls us to leave behind the image of the world as a mechanism fraught with survival strategies based on power and powerlessness. She has been named Mary, Sophia, Isis, Lilith, Athena, Natura, Kwan Yin. She calls us to create an artistic understanding of the world rather than an intellectual one, and embodies the qualities desperately needed in the world today: compassionate,artistic, relationship, and the capacity to create love. In this group we strive to create a connection to her through understanding our soul nature, in its individual and world needs.Call Sharon at 705-424-7999 for dates. THE SOPHIA LETTERS.(1) The B.P. oil spills in the gulf, the suffering of the flood victims in Pakistan, or watching the cruelty in war torn countries, present us with the challenge to accompany suffering of the earth as well as our own personal suffering. It is a call to awaken to our connection to the earth and to all living beings. The tendency is to partly turn away from these images. They create sorrow in us that is hard to stay with. Yet if we remain present to the sorrow that arises, we come in touch with a deep grieving which connects us to the earth’s suffering. We are connected to the earth and to all beings by a common membrane, called in Buddhist wisdom, pranamayakosa, or in other esoteric streams, the etheric, or subtle body.This energetic body holds the activity of the elements:air, earth, water, warmth, within form. We share this energetic body with the earth, and have our part to play, as human beings with the capacity to focus consciousness, in the expression of these life giving forces for health or destruction. At an unconscious cellular level, we know that we are destroying the earth, wreaking pain on all the lives, and we must carry a deeply held grieving as a result of this knowledge. I believe this grieving in the soul, is the foundation of many depressive, fear based illnesses of the present time. However, the capacity we have as human beings to awaken, to focus consciousness on our understanding of these problems, presents a gift. We can participate in the healing qualities of this connective body, which connects us to the creative forces of nature, and of the cosmos, for our own healing and for the healing of the earth. A BEGINNING: Cultivating present awareness. When watching painful images, notice the tendency to turn away, and stay with it. Connect to the sorrow present, an watch it as a mobile activity. It will move you towards an awakened sense of your connection to the living forces of the earth. This sorrow is a part of the subtle body, a part of the sorrow of the earth. Observe nature in its growing, and its decaying. Stay present and sense the responding activity within your own being. To be continued…
Mothers and Daughters
Our life begins with the awareness of our mother. Her gaze, the warmth of her holding embrace, the comfort of the nurturing breast, ray down upon the infant like the life nurturing benevolence of a goddess. We learn quickly as children, how love flows to us, and also how it is withheld, and our lives become shaped, for better and worse, by the modelling our mothers present to us. How we relate to other people, to the world, our ease with our bodies, how we express our sexuality, how we express our needs and feelings, are formed in the daily subtle interplay of family life. The unfolding dramas on this stage will forge the template on which we create the tendencies and predispositions of our adult lives. This can be a pretty intimidating recognition for us as mothers, and as daughters, but we do have a little window of individual freedom with which we can, with courage, look at the terrain and decide which pathways we will take. That small window of freedom, open to my becoming, begins with spiritual discernment and courageous self observation. Was my mother happy or sad? What evoked joy in her and what sorrow? What created illness, dependency, what kept her healthy and free and how do these influences play out in my own life? As an adult which habits of hers will I build on and which will I choose to reject. We can with honest self study see what comes with the blood line and what I freely choose to develop and integrate into my adult life.
We, as mature women, have all had that ” a ha” moment of recognizing that even in assiduously avoiding certain traits that belonged to our mothers, somehow, they have snuck into our lives: the weight battle, the fear of confrontation, the need to please, the negativity, and other limiting habits may be there. Yet, if we look deeper, we might also find inherited traits which can become the gold on which we build our unique individual self. This capacity each individual has to transform the old familial habits depends on the courage to enter uncomfortable styles of relating, and to push the boundaries of what we have learned in our families, to stretch into different approaches to life and its challenges. New ways of relating to loved ones will feel uncomfortable just because it is new for you. Be encouraged by the realization that when we stretch ourselves beyond our old frameworks of relationship, we are modelling for our daughters, the capacity for changing ourselves and growing beyond the habitual.
It begins by observing ourselves in every day life, especially noting how we respond to the growth of independence in our own daughters. How do you feel when your daughter is defiant? What emotions arise when they explore sexuality, or fail to make the team, or struggle with school work? Observe your reactions, without blaming or judging yourself. Sit with them for a moment and see if any memories of your own childhood experiences arise. You may find fears and anxieties that are related to your own childhood experiences with parental control and power. Do I overreact or under react because this issue was difficult for me as a child? Do I react this way because I need control, reassurance, to be right, to feel safe? If you can discover what feelings and needs are driving your responses to challenging behaviours, you may find a more objective response to your daughters behaviours, and clear the way for more open communication about the behaviour in the future.
THE POWER OF STORIES
Sharing our own childhood stories with our daughters is a very powerful way to open up difficult issues. Choose the right time, when both of you are relaxed and there is no resistance. Begin with a story from your childhood and describe how you felt at that time, what you struggled with in your own mother-daughter dynamic. You might begin,”When I was twelve years old, my mother did such and such and I felt in this way. How do you feel when I do such and such?” You can feel free to turn these memories into cautionary tales, embroider them as odysseys of familial challenges and trials which are transformed with honesty and compassion for each other. After all, we are all on a spiritual odyssey of transformation and through the power of such stories we show our daughters important realities about life and its struggles, and we model for them how, we as women create our own mythologies of transformation.
If, for whatever reason, the communication link with your daughter is not open to this at this time, consider writing the stories in a special book, to be presented as a gift at the right moment in your relationship.
SHARING FEELINGS THROUGH ART
For young children, explore your feelings together with art. Using clay or paint, sit together with a short story line drawn from your family life. For example,”Today, when I lost you at the mall I got very upset. This is a statue of me at the mall. Can you make a sculpture of you? And let’s make a play about it! Use the art material to re-enact and explore different ways the scene might have unfolded. In the sharing of feelings through art, you can acknowledge fears, anger, and joy and accept them as belonging to human growth. Emphasize to your daughter that all feelings are accepted and that they help you to understand how to be a mother. The underlying need of all feelings is to be recognized, understood and loved.
With older kids, explore life themes through books or movies, finding the right mood and time to link them to issues that might be alive in your familial relationships. Special letters written to older children, which share the deepest layers of your love for them, may be received with some embarrassment, but, I have experienced, with surprise, how they are treasured and carried as reminders of maternal love, especially during difficult times.
To foster emotional connection we need to shift from being the “good parent” with its heavy list of ‘shoulds’, to authentic and honest communication with our daughters.
As we become awake to our own feelings and the needs underlying them, we assume responsibility for them ourselves, and become less ready to blame or expect others to fulfill them, and less reactionary to the demands of daily life. We can be more responsive to the needs of our daughters. Extremes in response, either overreacting or underacting to difficult issues, may need the support of a therapist. However, in whatever manner we move towards openness and increased self awareness, we model for our daughters the human capacity for growth, choice and individual freedom.
