I’m going to begin focusing on my blog in a new way. I’ve been thinking about this for awhile and Kris’ virtual tour sparked my desire to begin including women of wisdom on my own blog as guest bloggers, it being my privilege to know so many. Also, I will  include writing about other people’s blogs so you can discover all the great wisdom Mother Mary is leading me to. I love the cooperative spirit inherent in the web. In this post I have included an except from Kris’ new book Women of Wisdom. It was taken from Barbara Marx Hubbard’s key note address at one of the annual WOW conference. These speeches and Kris’ amazing story comprise this book. 

So I’m laying the groundwork for what I mean by an evolutionary woman, a feminine cocreator. Not only is she awakening to her equality, but she doesn’t want to be equal to men in a dysfunctional world. We do not want front seats on the Titanic. So we have a role to play in creating this new world.

I actually think that this quantum transformation—what Teilhard de Chardin describes as the Omega Point, and what Jean Houston calls Jump Time—this radical, non-linear exponential connectivity of what’s emerging, will happen in our lifetime. I think we’re going to see it, we’re going to feel it, and we’re going to be it. We’re going to help cocreate it.

We’re going to see that the crises on this earth are actually evolutionary drivers pressing us to give birth to what’s emergent in every one of us. Let’s think for a moment of the significance of women en masse not having the maximum number of babies they could have, and living longer because of it. I work with women in their thirties and forties who have chosen not to have any children; and they are passionate women. Where will their energy go? This is what I call the shift of the feminine from maximum procreation to cocreation; from self-reproduction to self-evolution. This shift happens through choosing a vocation with life purpose and through expressing the authentic feminine self.
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First we had to get just the basic rights; then we had to get the sense of equal rights; our identity and the freedom of our own bodies; the choice of reproducing ourselves or not; or evolving ourselves, or both. And now, we have a certain work and purpose that is larger, having to do with all humanity and with the evolution of the earth. Because may I ask you, who else is going to lead this world? Who? It cannot be those trapped in the existing dominating structures, whether they’re men or women. It’s not even about men—it’s about the structures, wherein you have to dominate and control in order to lead.

I believe the feminine cocreator is the evolutionary type that Teilhard mentioned so long ago, before he probably even had a clue that this was going to happen. The feminine cocreator is awakened from within, through the heart, by a passionate desire to express her gift, her vocation, and her purpose for the evolution of self and humanity. It is done out of love. It’s loving; it’s passionate.

Women of Wisdom by Kris Steinnes, is being offered beginning on June 23rd, 2009 at 12:01 am. We invite you to go to this page - www.wisewomanpublishing.com/womenofwisdom.html- to access the order page and then go back to this page and enter your order confirmation code and your email address. That will take you to the sign up page for the Women of Wisdom enewsletter, once you join the WOW book group you will be sent an email with a link to the bonus gifts that are available to people who buy the book on June 23rd. You can later opt out of being on the Women of Wisdom newsletter list if you choose.

I am enjoying this book so much. I invite you to support and join with women and men everywhere as we transform our lives and our world.

Namaste’ Danielle

As a woman on a spiritual path I find have a desire for super model chic and a hippies sensibilities. As a result I buy most of my clothing at small boutiques and pay $50 for a hair cut, but rarely wear make up or blow dry my hair. High heels have gone the way of the Dodo and I’m no longer the sole supporter of my dry cleaner’s plush lifestyle. At times I revel in the choices I have as a woman to add color and beauty to my life through the art of dressing my body. And at others I rage at the changes designers make every five minutes in fashion that I am expected to adhere to. As usual I am a bird of many colors. My beliefs outside run deep within. I have yet to dance in the moonlight naked with my sisters to a primal drumbeat while bleeding on the earth and howling at the moon. When I think about it what comes to mind is the pain in my feet from stepping on all the rocks and forest debris and the romance is replaced by thoughts of a week on crutches.

I used to think to be spiritual I had to give in completely to my hippie chick, as if God needed my hairy legs and armpits to prove my devotion. Was make up just a mask? After the pads, restrictions, color, and fluff came off what would people find underneath? I spent most of my life growing up in the South where 99% of the female population had full face make up and perfect helmet hair in place before they came down for breakfast. My friend Brian tells me he never saw his mother without make up until he was well into his 30’s.

Now I feel I am finding my balance. I let my super model and hippie chick shop together. I have been pleased with how they dress me. Nothing is one or the other anymore. Everything is a fine blend, like a meal with not too many ingredients, that compliment and play well together in your mouth. Just when all this blending and peace is going on, at 44 I am faced with the worst indignity of womanhood…whiskers!

I look in the mirror and think, I’m becoming a man. I settled into the indignities of surprise menstrual moments, I put up with the archaic bra designs (what if you are a B1/2?), the possession of my body by my little pod person who grew inside me, the agony of breast feeding, and now mini pee when I have a big sneeze. But I draw the line at whiskers. Even my hippie chick is recoiling. My recent prayer to Mother, because if any entity would understand it would have to be Her, is that She provide the money I need for enough laser treatments to rid me of this scourge. If not will my husband and I shave our beards each morning together? Will we swap shaving tips, talk hockey, and snap our wet towels at each other in the bathroom? I admit I despair it will only get worse.

At the same time I recognize that I get to whine about this in my blog because I have so little else to complain about in my life. Whiskers as a luxury, interesting concept. Mother please just keep it humorous.

Revelation is a normal part of my life. Mother Mary is constantly showing me my behaviors that keep me from love and freedom. As I write those words I think wow, that sounds intense or nonstop. But the truth is Mother shows me a little at a time. I get enough glimpses until one day I have the aha moment. What follows is a steady steam of validation that never feels punitive, but rather enlightening.

About two months ago I was having tea with a women who lives in town. She and I are slowly entering into a friendship like shy children at a birthday party full of noise and distraction. Our lives are both busy and full of family and work. I like her. She has a strength and clarity I admire. And like myself, she knows how to pick herself up, dust off and keep going.

In the course of our conversation that night, I discovered my desire to avoid pain had shown up in my friendships. Part of the glimpses I had been getting were around the distance I had placed between myself and all my friends. It started when my son was born and I was overwhelmed and exhausted with being a mom. My friends with children assured me this was normal. But here I am almost five years later and I still am not in touch with my friends on a consistent basis. Granted, I have always struggled with consistency but never to this extent with friends.

I was telling my new friend about my difficulties with maintaining my friendships as a disclaimer to our burgeoning one. As I gave her an example of my past experience with a mutual friend of ours, what came out of my mouth was an admission that I created the distance so I could avoid the pain of being hurt again.

This is a long running theme in my life. The little girl inside is adamant never to feel the kind of pain I did in my childhood. The problem is she tends to have a childish, black and white view of pain. It’s all bad. In that moment I realized I had put an ocean between myself and my friends that even Moses could not part. Each of them represented the possibility of future pain because in the course of my friendships I had gone through difficult confrontations that always got resolved but not without pain. The feelings of disappointment and sadness that comes as a result of being in a relationship with another human being all of a sudden became too much for me. At some point I decided the pain and stress of my relationship with my son and husband was all I could bare. As I have done over and over I chose isolation as the solution.

I am now convinced that isolation added to the difficulties that arose between myself and my son and husband. By separating from the support of my friends I looked to my son and husband to fill the void. And as I have done so often in my life I was asking something of them that no one or two people can give, especially not a child. Here I am again with the avoidance of pain creating more pain. Damn.

The mess of life is hard for me to accept at times. The irony of this revelation is my pride over the years of having “real” friendships, authentic people engaging in authentic connections. All the work I have done around acceptance of myself and others needs to be revisited and revised. My friends have an enormous capacity to forgive, which is fortunate for me. When I think of them I miss them to the point of weeping, and when I think of calling them I want to weep just as much.

Today I am grateful to know that as I become more willing to find my way back, Mother will be there to guide me. I can feel my self imposed isolation fading. I may need to swim the mote and battle a few dragons to get to the other side, but at least I know what’s waiting for me…..life.