Journal Entry 11.9.2013

Just came back from getting my car’s winter tires put on.  While I realize, all-weather radials are intended to handle most every kind of road condition, I feel safer with the softer, sticky tread of snow tires (walnut studded).  I can cruise through ice and snow with a great degree of stability and ease, despite the fact that I’m driving a smaller, front-wheel based vehicle.

And so it is, I prepare myself for what might come, without being overwhelmed in the moment by the worst case scenario.  If the winter is milder than expected, there still might be a few days of ice fog.  Or if the weather is colder than last winter, we might finally get some snow on the ground.  Shovels, chains and a blanket to lie on?  Check; we’re ready for practically anything.

While waiting for the car to be serviced, I took a walk along the primary stream, Mill Creek, which flows through town.  The waterway has been “tamed” by the Army Corp of Engineers after devastating floods that hit the town in the latter part of the 20^th century.  Still, the waters can pack a wallop and are fun to watch through the seasons, depending on the amount of rainfall the area receives.  Many water fowl raise their youngsters during the mild seasons and winter over, only leaving during the heaviest flow and most violent storms.

In my heart, I have always been in love with nature, in all her diversity and beauty.  Seeing the patterns in the growth of trees stripped bare of their summer glory, the geese swimming in chorus, the flow of the glistening water over the lip of stair steps, all these sights and sounds bring me into a state of flowing within myself.  I see myself mirrored in what is around me and nature mirrored within.  There is a growing realization of the connection that I share with all life.  I intuitively knew this as a child and fully embrace it as an elder.

The strength and beauty in nature is a reflection of what resides within.  It is up to each one of us to decide on whether or not we are willing and ready to accept this as being “real” to us.  We need to be able to “feel” that it is real, to live it and to demonstrate this frequency of certainty to the world, but first to ourselves, because we are our world.  If we do not accept all the myriad parts of our self, there will always be a void or hole that needs to be filled.  For this reason do people seek out someone or something to fill that void, but this never really works.  Relationships fail for the reason being that neither or only one of the party believes in self.  If there exists any imbalance in self-acceptance, in male/female energies, and self-love, then the relationship will always exist on a conditional basis.

I realize that I am in the process of consciously accepting myself as a powerful being.  This is a huge step for me, especially as a female in a largely male-dominated society, where strong females are not looked upon as being natural.  Feminine energy has been greatly feared in our society, largely because it emanates from the darker side of human nature, from the womb, from the seed, from the soil and from the darkest reach of space.  Feminine energy encompasses all that cannot be subdivided, categorized or tamed.  It is, simply is, and moves gracefully around and through the structured spaces created by masculine energy, designed to control and lineate.  Too masculine and you have stiffness and an inability to move and flow forward.  Too feminine and you have indecisiveness or chaos.  A little chaos is good to break up a logjam; the energy of the feminine flow of water will break up the jam and ease it downstream to land up on a gravel bar and begin to break down and add soil to the environment.

Acknowledging that you contain within both masculine and feminine energies can allow you to break away from the restraint of former beliefs that something had to be just so in order for you to move forward.  Women often realize before men that they have a choice, to become what others expect them to be or to be true to themselves.  Much of the movement away from marriage and going to church has been led by women determining that they no longer wish to be bound to life-long vows that serve no purpose other than to disempower them and their partners.  We are no longer compelled to serve life-long sentences in order to meet the expectations of our “society”, culture, religion or family.

The tempo of change has been frightening to many of those persons and/or groups who are stubbornly clinging to the old ways of being and thinking.  Still, there is no going back to what was once accepted as being normal.  It never was normal, especially for those in our social structures who were and still are the have-nots, the children, the elderly, women and men who have been subjected to abuse, the gay/lesbians, the minority migrant and emigrant cultures, our indigenous First Nation people, those who live at or close to poverty, the ill or physically challenged population, and many others.   For too long have these groups and others defined as being different, have been challenged by those in power, despite this being a pronounced imbalance in our society giving no benefit to anyone except those who directed the show.

The belief that power is dangerous has been an illusion designed to keep us from claiming or seeking to reclaim our power and sovereignty.  For it is only through the act of consciously claiming your power that you become what you sought.  You must claim it and proclaim your intent to the Universe and then believe it as being true.   Power and sovereignty come from within; no one outside is going to “give” you power, even if they were to place a crown on your head and hand a scepter for you to hold.  True power, the power to love yourself, to accept yourself fully, comes from the center of your being; it is an acceptance and acknowledgement that you are not just a body or a number or a name, but a being of great beauty, strength and wisdom.

With true power also comes a sense of humility and expansion.  This paradox is part of the realization that you are not all powerful, and yet you are, as you belong to the collective energy or frequency of creation.  You are a singular note or frequency in the symphony that defines and brings into being this physical universe.  You are the child and creation of Mother / Father God.  You are the diamond light of the Creator, a facet of the whole, captured for a moment in the vastness of limitless light.  You are Love.

Ah, such grand words from a humble woman, sitting alone in her comfortable chair.  What will I do next to establish myself as a powerful being?  Well, lunch sounds good.

Enjoy your day, night or in between.

Love and kisses,

Eliza