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62. BECOMING THE MATRIARCH

Excerpt from “My Lovedance”

In January, I realized Mom was dying.

In July, she died in my arms.

The first half of 2015 forged my soul in the most transformative fire.

The second half tested my spiritual steel through the flames of change.

Karmic hell broke loose when Mom passed through the veils of heaven.

All of our husbands immediately faced a major health hurdle.

One is still fighting for his life.

Our father had emergency brain surgery.

All nine grandchildren had to grow up fast.

For the first time my sisters and I turned to each other for spiritual support.

There was no one else who truly understood our pain.

The moment Mom took her last breath, I became the matriarch of the family.

I should have known this was coming. I was warned just two months before.

On the Big Island of Hawaii on the Day of the Dead 2014, I dreamt of Nana.

A lava petroglyph wall towers before me. I float up the wall and go through it into a doorway which leads to a light room – the kitchen from my infancy.

My deceased aunt greets me fussing around a pink Formica table where Nana sits. Nana is the queen bee. My aunt says they cannot make much here. I tell them not to worry, I will get them whatever they need and they can make whatever they want.

Nana shows me that they are limited in their heavenly experience to what they chose to experience in life on earth. She is surprised I am there, yet also expected me. I hug her and she feels so real. I wonder why she appears as I remember her in her fifties and not as a young woman. She shows me that her afterlife appearance is that of her at the prime of her power in the life I knew her.

Nana places a shawl over my shoulders. It’s the matriarchal mantle. I wonder how with Mom still here.

Nana kisses my forehead and whispers “It’s your turn to lead”…

Hawaii, 2014

Every November I set my intentions for the next business year. I would gather all the numbers from Mom who ran all three of my corporations – Full Circle Family Health, Genesis Health Products, and my charity Divine Daughters Unite. She would remind me that the holidays were traditionally slow. But after returning from Hawaii, I took the bull by the horns and tried to figure out why I wasn’t more successful.

Granted I had a successful marriage, beautiful healthy children, great relationships with my parents, my siblings, my friends and there was always just enough to meet our needs, yet…I had planned to be able to retire with my husband. And there was never enough to save for that future.

I meditated on why money did not flow with ease… And I heard loud and clear.

“It’s me. I’m blocking the flow!”

I fell asleep that night asking to be shown how to get out of my own way.

The next morning three emails landed in my inbox.

The first was a digital course on how to use YouTube to increase your business.

The second was an invitation to join a mastermind for integrative health practitioners who wanted to increase their cash flow.

These third was a webinar on how to release blockages regarding wealth, health, and relationships.
I signed up for all three.

I got my one and only video up and optimized on YouTube and forgot about it.

The mastermind for integrative health practitioners started in January. Once Mom got sick, I realized wouldn’t be able to implement what I was learning. Trying to get vital financial information from my high, hypoxic mother was difficult. Thank goodness, Steve was retired. He helped me take care of Mom while I tried desperately to save my businesses.

The leader of the mastermind took pity on me and offered to help me figure out my business finances. Thank goodness!

But it was releasing the money block that allowed me to thrive during this crisis.

I was reminded during that webinar about the crucial brain wave states of childhood. From two to six years old we are in a theta brain wave state. The same brain waves as meditation and hypnosis. Highly suggestible. We are imprinted at a very young age and function from these limiting subconscious beliefs.

So I did a regression on myself. I got into a theta wave state by meditating with the intention to “see” myself at the age of two. And I was transported to the backseat of a 1958 sedan, sitting between my godmother and my twin baby sisters’ car bed. Mommy and Daddy were in the front seat. We were driving to California and in the pit of my tummy, I could feel a pulling sensation as if I was being torn away from my Nana back in Philadelphia.

The next scene, I’m in a toddler bed in the hallway of our new apartment in Burbank, sucking my thumb. I feel all alone and scared that there is no Nana here. And realize that I have to be the Nana now.

Disturbed by the emotion of this regression, I bring myself back. What did that have to do with my money block? I shared my vision with Mom and she confirmed it all, down to my bed in the hall since there was no room for me in the one bedroom with their double bed and the two cribs.

Before going to sleep that night, I wrote on a slip of paper: Show me what my regression had to do with money.

And I have a dream.

I’m back in the backseat of the old sedan. This time I’m an adult holding my two-year-old niece in my lap. Her mother hands her a churro. Before the baby starts to put the sticky treat in her mouth, I peel back the paper…it’s wrapped in dollar bills!

“No, baby, money’s dirty!”

And I wake up shaking from head to toe. I told Mom the dream and she said “Oh, no, money’s dirty, Nana said that to you all the time!”

That was my subconscious limiting belief!

No wonder I had trouble handling money, never kept cash on me, let Steve handle the household bills, and Mom handle the business finances. Money’s dirty!

Plus in my mother’s family, money really was dirty. Poppop was a bookie for the mafia. So much energy of dirty money.

So just before the holidays, I spent time reprogramming myself. I would get into a theta brain wave meditating with theta music. Then I would repeat this mantra over and over:

“Money’s good. Money is power. Power is good.”

Why power?

Because I truly believe that what we’re really afraid of is our power, so we either misuse it or deny it.

Time to heal my money/power wound.

Thank goodness! For just a few short weeks later, I had to face my biggest fear. Handling all the money by myself. And I did it.

In fact, in spite of taking so much time off to take care of Mom, doing virtually no online marketing, having to hire new staff, new accountants, new bookkeepers, investing in new software to become more automated, in spite of all my fears, my businesses did better in 2015 than any other year previously.
The financial advice helped me take the reins of my business.

My video on YouTube did the advertising for me.

Yet it was the release of my subconscious limiting belief about money that opened me up to receive abundance.

What are subconscious limiting beliefs are keeping you from being your best self?

60. SISTER-BOND

Excerpt from “My Lovedance”

AUGUST 13TH

Just returned from the arms of my adopted grandmother. First time I’ve been held since Momma passed. The business of death has occupied my mind. My responsibilities to my patients have occupied my time. More family health dramas have occupied my heart. There is little room for grieving.

As I sit waiting for my beloved to recover from surgery, I ponder the words of my wise friend. “In the wake of your mother’s death, your spousal concerns shall bring you closer together.”

Then I hear the wedding vows we each made…

“In sickness and in health. For richer or for poorer. Till death do us part…Or in the case of my marriage to Steve – until the end of time…

And I think how these same vows were made before birth. To our sisters. We may disagree, yet never fall out of love. We may move thousands of miles apart, yet our bonds are never broken. We may dance to different drummers, yet forever appreciate our uniqueness. Through sickness and in health. For richer or for poorer. Till death do us part. Our sisters, both blood and soul, have always been there, will always be there.

All our drama over the years becomes refined into blessed life lessons. Every one experienced differently, yet lessons all the same. Some grow right away, some take the course again and again, until each of us are a more refined version of ourselves.

Sisters never fail you. They rejoice with you. They grieve with you. They tell you the awful truth and love you even when you are not ready to receive it. They wait for you to figure out life and delight in your growth. They pray for you. They believe in you.

And when you’ve fallen to your greatest depths of despair, they are there to pick you up, brush you off, help you put on your big girl panties, fix your makeup, and face the world.

Momma always wished she had sisters. It broke her heart when we didn’t get along. It brought her so much joy when we embraced each other. We thought Mom was the bridge between us, yet her death has shown us that she stitched us together so tightly that our hearts beat as one.

I love you, dear sisters, more than you know.

47. MY ALTAR, MYSELF

Excerpt from “My Lovedance”

Directly across from the door to our home is my altar. A lavender macramé cloth covers the small winged table. Objects sacred to me adorn the four corners with candles in the cardinal directions.

The altar changes from time to time according to my needs. Often my children ask to be put on the altar. And I make elaborate altars for them, holding the energy as they face challenges like when my eldest interviewed for their first real teaching job (and thankfully got it!), and my daughter tested for nursing school (and she got in too!) When Steve’s Gran first fell ill, he asked me to dedicate an altar for her. And after she passed, the altar reflected our love and devotion to her.

Today, items sacred to our upcoming retreat lie on the altar…The red cord I made to help us connect to our ancestors and each other. The crow’s feather bound in triple goddess colors that helped us choose the theme of our retreat. A golden frame filled with photos of men I treasure — my husband, my father, my grandfather — my beloved divine masculine.

And in the front — my Box of Me.

I made this one up… but what healing has come from creating a Box of Me. It started just after my father’s surgery, my sisters had moved him into a senior apartment complex and found a box of old photos. In it was a photo I do not recall, but looking at the black and white image of me at thirteen months old dressed in an Easter dress holding a little purse and gazing out with old soul eyes, I remembered. Showing my parents how to parent me and feeling their emotions. I took that photo and pasted it on the Box of Me. Somehow I would heal the child within. And through the Box of Me, placing me on my altar.

Inside the Box of Me, the mementos change yet each represents my dreams, my hopes, my intentions. I’ve guided many patients and some women friends in the creation of a Box of Me. How therapeutic it has been to honor ourselves, to put into this special box all that we hope for and say to the universe YES! Yes, I am. And more so to fall in love with ourselves. Because that’s where love starts. If we don’t love and honor and cherish ourselves, how can we love and honor and cherish each other?

It’s hard for most women to make a Box of Me…harder yet to place anything sacred within their Box of Me. It is start, a fresh start to healing the child within. I ask them to choose a photo of themselves that is before the time they remember the trauma of childhood. The innocent time before becoming domesticated into humanity. A time when they remember being happy. Few go back to adolescence, most go back early childhood, some all the way back to infancy.

In the center lies the golden runner embroidered by Steve’s Yia Yia…a wedding gift given to me by his father who came from Greece to witness our union 28 years ago. Upon the runner sits Ascension.

44. CIRCLES OF SISTERS

Excerpt from “My Lovedance”

I am sitting in a circle with my mother, my sisters, and my nieces. In the center lies a deck of Druid Animal Oracles. With a bit of Irish and a tad of Scottish blood running through our veins, our interest is piqued. A few summers before I had introduced my sisters to Medicine Cards from the Native American tradition. These cards represent the animals sacred to the Celtic tradition. Time to reconnect to our roots.

We each pick five cards. Each of us uses a different method to choose yet all choose wisely. The cards seem to speak to our souls. The center represents Self. The East is Intellect. The South is Sensuality. The West is Emotion. The North is Intuition. The cards come with a book interpreting each oracle. “Let Aunt Debbie read. It sounds more real when she reads.” My youngest niece scribes while I read.

While my eldest niece attends closely, the rest have trouble giving their full attention to the one whose turn it is to choose. We could use a talking stick. Over the years, I have noticed how little we attend to each other. We each have something funnier or more brilliant to contribute than what is being spoken in the moment. Crosstalk is rampant at every gathering. If you cannot attend to everything going on at once then you get lost. Perry Sister brilliance is loud and quick…few can keep up with us.

In my women’s circle, we pass the talking “stick” or crystal or feather and each woman has a turn to share what’s going on in her life. The rest of us attend quietly only giving insight if she asks. After sharing at the last circle, we needed to discuss the retreat schedule. These ethereal women don’t do business. So it got chaotic…few understood what was needed, women were offering random suggestions and the one trying to keep notes got lost. My Perry Sister brilliance clicked on as I interpreted all the crosstalk. The note taker asked how I was able to do it. “I listen fast.” I replied.

Yet as I watched my nieces try to understand the meaning of their cards, I witnessed my sisters chat amongst themselves not really present in the moment. It was interesting how many cards in common we all had…but we are family. My youngest sister and I both chose Goose and like Mother Goose, we are very maternal. I share Seal with my sister, the mother of my four nieces. Seal represents True Love, Longing and Dilemma. I’ve been faced with many dilemmas in my life and longed to know myself as love. I’ve found True Love.

We are at a time of our lives when The Change can force change upon us. Grandchildren come to us just as our fertility leaves us. Our spouses are changing too, sometimes for the better, sometimes not fast enough. We long for something. Many menopausal women begin their spiritual journeys. That’s one of the gifts of being Hormonally Challenged. You begin to see your life through different eyes…and you want more.

My husband told me once in the midst of my searching. “You climb up the fence to get to the grass on the other side and at the top you meet someone climbing over to get to your grass.” He says it’s all the same grass…perceived through different eyes.

True. But we all go through times when we need to be sure our grass is as green as it gets.

42. BACK AGAIN

Excerpt from “My Lovedance”

And I write this now while sitting in the cool cave-like basement of my sister’s house in Utah. I am taking refuge from the heat of the kitchen. Literally, it’s hot at 8:30 in the morning in mid-September. Mom started cooking meatballs as soon as the sun was up. Yes, meatballs. We’re having a baby shower. Doesn’t everyone have meatballs at a shower?

And it’s figuratively hot up there. My sisters and I are so different. They hate honey. I love honey. They ask me to make granola while I’m here. But it requires honey. They concede. And vanilla and cinnamon and ginger…

“Oh, no ginger!” They say.

“But you liked my granola” enough to ask me to make it again, “and I make it with ginger.”

“We liked the first batch you gave us, that last batch was too much.”

Hmmm. And I say aloud, “That’s interesting, cause my family liked that batch the best.”

“We’re your family!”

“I mean the family I created.” And I come downstairs to take refuge in my writing as I have done since I was a girl.

My sisters are much closer to one another than I am to any of them. I’ve tried over the years. I should be with them now shopping, (which I hate – to shop – not them) bonding, yet it is not my way. Really has never been. Besides it’s that Last Minute Lizzie thing. Although I must admit every gathering is a bit better. They seem more prepared or perhaps I am more tolerant.

My memories and theirs are not the same. We witnessed our lives so differently. And they have taken refuge in each other so their memories have merged. I am learning to love them where they are now. Even if I do not get a voice. That’s why they do not know me and probably I do not know them very well. Trying to separate one from the pack is hard. So when we get together I am lost.

They attend well to one another yet not to me. True we don’t have much in common. They read all the same books. They listen to same music. They all watch TV. And that’s what they like to talk about…the fiction, the rock stars, the reality shows. I can’t keep up.

So our bonding over the years has come in the form of crisis…I’m good with helping others in need. So they come for support and I try to offer wisdom, some of which they receive. And then I do not hear from them until the next crisis or family gathering, whatever comes first.

This gathering is my fault. I wanted, truly wanted, to honor my niece who is having the first baby. I said nothing, but if I want it enough, it becomes. So I was not surprised shortly after voicing my desire to Steve, I get a call from my sister. She wants to surprise her daughter with a baby shower and would like for me to come. So here I am.

Wondering how they will feel about my telling my story…

Do we really choose the family we’re born in? I do believe so…to learn soul lessons. Mine has taught me tolerance. And how to be my truth in the midst of chaos…I’m still working on this one. Because family of origin brings up your deepest darkest soul issues. Goddess, bless them.

They’re home now…I can hear their pounding footsteps above me and their loud voices…sounds like arguing but it’s not. It’s family that loves so hard to bruise. When it comes down to what’s important…our family gathers…and cooks and eats, and sticks together because blood is thicker than water. But that’s Italian…isn’t it?

Besides the sauce is off. Remember the meatballs? There’s no wine. It’s my Mormon sister’s daughter who’s having a baby. Oh, and Mom couldn’t find oregano That’s ok. My sister takes me out to her garden… “Isn’t this oregano” Yep. I snip some off and take it into the hot kitchen to help fix the sauce that will smother the meatballs that the guests will enjoy in honor of my niece. She’s having a baby! And maybe I can get some time alone with her and offer a sacred feminine blessing. I think she’ll like that…

40. A HERETIC IN THE VATICAN

Excerpt from “My Lovedance”

And then I dreamt I was Mary Magdalen. And ten days later we were in Rome. Oh, not because the archdiocese found out about my visions…because it was our 20th anniversary trip to Italy.

Our first European trip was right after 911…but that’s another story. Maybe later.

We began in Rome and on the second day visited the Vatican. Imagine this. Me — educated in scientific theorem, left brained, mathematical, logical, yet trusting my intuition implicitly with a lifetime of prophetic dreams — ascending the winding staircase leading to the Sistine Chapel. The energy of the art overwhelms me. Emotion drips from the frescoes. I can hardly breathe. A guard takes notice and gently guides me to an open window. I take gasping breaths of fresh air. “Not everyone is so sensitive.” He nods towards the herd of people peering at the art like they are visiting the zoo. Apparently not.

Torn between visions of the past and the present hustle and bustle of this iconic museum, I realize viscerally how the sacred feminine was lost. I knew, yet didn’t have gnosis, of this loss until I walked the ancient streets with my husband in form and Yeshua in spirit. Behind a covey of nuns, I say silently. “They believe they’re married to you.” And I hear, Not Yeshua the man, but the mythical Christ.

Before entering St Peter’s square, I hesitate. Yeshua’s presence is so palpable even Steve perceives it. “Come on, you two! I bought the tickets and we are going in!”

It costs a little to view history, the religious relics. It cost a lot to be reminded of a past not completely told. And to have Her side of history flooding my memory.

Grateful to openly discuss my visions with Steve, yet feeling a little schizophrenic with the aliveness of this other reality. The voices, the images, the feelings, I am in between the worlds – Yeshua, angels, facets of god brought more vividly to life in the ancient city.

September 27, 2003

In the wee morning hours I am awakened from a dream in which I, as Deborah, am laying my hands on Mary Magdalen who is laying her hands on me blessing one another as goddesses unto eternity. Then all energies merge into one essence. I lay face down on the bed flattened out by the sheer power of the dream with Yeshua comforting me, whispering, I am she, I am the goddess. I know the secret of manifestation, I know joy. I am joy as is the hummingbird. I taste all of the nectar in life.

Then as I turn onto my back, my hands clasped in prayer, I am guided by the angel Gabriel, who I recognize as the one who escorted me as Mary into my womb to share the forgotten secrets of womanhood. Then Archangel Michael speaks from my right, reminded me that I also have been escorted from darkness by Archangel Lucifer (known as Uriel in Hebrew or God’s light) who smiles at me from my left and delivers me back to myself, back to the One. Then I feel Angel Raphael as the muse behind me fueling my spirit, challenging me to reveal myself to the world. Yeshua speaks, then I hear for the first time the Father above me, the Mother on my left, Yeshua at my right hand as I am his left.

The Father speaks- I am beloved, he has never forsaken me, I will remember all but for now I am to live in the eternal now blending past and present into a glorious future. I can see the glory of my relationship with Steve, as my beloved husband, and Kyra with her joyful goddess energy as a reflection of my own, and Jarys coming into the world manifesting a blend of masculine and feminine energies as an experiment to know himself as god. All my worries are lifted. I am asked to open my heart and to open my arms and invite in abundance. I am reassured that I will be and have been protected and held in the bosom of the One, for I am the joy and he/she/it/the beloved is well pleased.

I breathe in Yeshua, the son, the lover, my friend, and the Mother and the Father. I am whole and I am holy. I am asked to release from my heart all that I believe have forsaken me, then bless them with peace, love, joy and comfort, re-invite them back as whole and accept the abundance and forgiveness for myself and for all. I am freed from all bonds. Even my bulimia is revealed unto me as the false judgment of self not deserving love or abundance. Since the 16th it has been over. I am free and this trip is to be enjoyed with Steve in the eternal Now.

Time is not a line but a spiral circling back and forth weaving in and out of the now. My Italian experience removed layers of history, revealing to me my own truth. I knew for the first time myself as an embodiment of the goddess. Growing up with the patriarchal judgment I saw mirrored in the world, I used the son energies of reasoning and academia to survive – as I spent most of my early life being the scientist, exploring the masculine aspect of self. At 42 I found myself being born again as a sacred feminine embodiment of emotion, my power lies in the creative energies as I manifest beauty and love in my life. Finally, I was free to be the divine daughter filled with passion, emotion and love, infused in relationship to all that is, with people, plants, animals, angels, souls past and present. A bridge to reunite the mind, body, spirit with Love.

September 29, 2003

More comes in clearly during the emotional experience of exploring the museums. The renaissance and medieval buildings are enough to inspire a passionate awakening. The art pulls at my heart strings. The depictions of Christ as a mythical being rather than a man. I just feel that they got it wrong! Yet who am I to enlighten them.

While in Italy, I dreamt of attending a conference where I share with a huge audience how to become consciously connected by highlighting exactly what happened to me. I realized that I would someday share my revelation with the world, yet the novel came first and changed my writing style increasing my inter-dimensional connections creating such an awakening that I would no longer write academically but intimately.

October 7, 2003

My life will be written from my perspective now as well as my life as Mary. Which is fact and which is fiction? They are both my realities.

39. IN THE BEGINNING I WAS CATHOLIC

Excerpt from “My Lovedance”

I was born Roman Catholic. My mother is full blooded Italian. My father is Heinz 57—a blend of English, Irish, Welsh, and maybe a little African because us girls got our bottoms from somewhere more exotic. And there is that old photo of my great-great-great grandparents with seven or eight children and one is black. Who knows?

So we were Catholic. Well, all except Dad. He wasn’t anything of the religious persuasion. Dad believes in what is right in front of him. Not a spiritual person, but his doubt allowed me at least to be open to other possibilities. He wonders why I am so different than my sisters. I believe it was a combination of my mother’s faith and his doubt.

Mom and Dad eloped in March of 1960. She thought she was pregnant with me. She wasn’t. I came the next year. She feels she cheated herself out of a big Italian wedding, but she did get Dad to the local priest. And he took lessons so they could be married in the church. By that time she WAS pregnant with me—very, very pregnant. She tells the story that the priest liked to imbibe and in his drunken state whispered to Dad that he didn’t have to go through with this to which Mom exclaimed, “Father, I’m the Catholic!”

Philadelphia, 1961

So we were all duly christened. I still have my tiny christening gown. And I went to catechism. I loved school, so the classes were nice enough. The church was very pretty. Our Lady of Perpetual Help. A lovely statue of the Virgin Mary all dressed in light blue graced the church. She was very pretty and her baby—Jesus—was very sweet. I loved dressing up in my frilly frocks, hats and gloves and on special holidays, I had a little purse. And every mass, we would get up and down and up and down while the priest chanted in Latin, and then there would be a special moment when all the adults and the big kids got up and reverently made their way to the front of the church and then the priest would give them a cookie!

I really wanted to be part of the church. And you had to learn about being Catholic in order to partake in holy communion. That’s what they called the cookie. I found out later it was a wafer-thin cracker that tasted like sour grape juice and stuck to roof of your mouth if you tried to talk which was why you had to be quiet.

The nuns were very strict. And they didn’t like me asking questions.

“Why do I need to be bad in order to talk to the priest?” I was having trouble figuring out what I was going to confess.
“Why does the priest have to talk to God for me?” I talked to God directly and He talked to me. And the one they called His Son, well, he was my playmate.

But in order to partake in your first communion, you had to go to confession, which meant you had to tell the priest something you did wrong. I wracked my little brain for something. Then right before my first confession, I did it. I was bad. I gave my little sister less than half of the cookie I had saved from Brownies. I did it on purpose which is a greater sin, but I had to tell that priest something!

Finally, I got to receive holy communion. And Mommy was so happy and my grandparents made such a fuss. And then I don’t remember going to church too often after that. Just Easter and Christmas.

It was because of Dad. He didn’t like us to be away so long every Sunday. That was his day with us and he wasn’t going to share us with God. By the time, we were teenagers, he wasn’t so possessive as long as church didn’t interfere with dinner and especially Monday night football. Which was a bit of a problem for us as Mormons because Monday night is Family Home Evening and it’s hard to have lessons with the TV blaring. It was harder on us to be Mormon than Catholic. It’s not just because Catholics understand football. It’s because Mormons feel sorry for a family without the priesthood in the house. And Dad wasn’t joining!

Mom was a joiner. She loved community in any form and the Catholic Church provided community for its parishioners. And when we could no longer go to mass easily (we moved even farther from church when I was in sixth grade) the Mormon church provided the community she desired. Plus she wasn’t letting her daughters alone with those darn missionaries—law of chastity or not!

38. LEAVING THE CHURCH

Excerpt from “My Lovedance”

Judgment made me leave the church. It happened about nine years after baptism. I was in grad school, commuting to UCLA three days a week for class and to work the weekend night shifts at the medical center. Steve was a police officer for the city of Santa Barbara. We lived in Ventura. We didn’t get to see much of each other…working opposite shifts to be home with our two-year-old son.

I asked my husband how he felt about my becoming a nurse practitioner. With a master’s degree as an advanced practice nurse, I would be out earning him. And our school counselors had been counseling the grad students on the possibility of marital instability. Steve wasn’t very communicative then.

It was stressful. We had been together for eight years…never having explored any other possibilities…just following my plan. College, marriage, house, baby…in that order. Now grad school, a career shift, then another baby…too planned. Too idealistic. My fairytale life needed to get a reality check. Right before the semester started I knew we needed a break.

So we agreed to keep our son at the condo. I would stay with Steve’s Gran who lived closer to UCLA when he was with Jarys and he would rent a room in Santa Barbara when I was with Jarys. Because of our shift work, we still needed childcare. The next morning, I brought Jarys to the sitter—a nice lady from the Mormon church who ran a home daycare. When I announced the change in our schedules, she promptly handed my son back to me. “I won’t be party to adultery.”

I was shocked. Granted I had taken off my wedding ring and we had agreed that whatever happened during this “break” would be a learning experience for both of us. But we hadn’t done anything yet. I asked if she could recommend anyone else to watch my son. She couldn’t recommend anyone outside of the church.

That was it. My last moment of being Mormon. Without the church to depend on,
then what?

Feeling very much lost, I took Jarys with me to class. He was very good. My professors were understanding. And thankfully, his great grandmother was delighted to have him. When Steve needed to work, my father was the one we depended on. He had just moved to Ventura. We were back to depending on family. And Jarys. Well, he still remembers those great times he spent with his grandparents!

30. THE GRANDMOTHERS COUNCIL

Excerpt from “My Lovedance”

After Divine Mother was healed, Divine Daughter was Unveiled through the writing of LoveDance®. I made peace with the Divine Mother energies, received the Divine Mother within myself, learned to mother me and birthed myself as the Divine Daughter. I then published my first book in November 2007 and began 2008 ready to begin book two of the LoveDance® trilogy and was stymied…

It began with the Grandmother’s Council. Just after LoveDance® was released, a jolly lady showed up in my office wanting to buy a book. Delighted I signed it for her. She gazed at the cover and said, “The grandmothers would love to know more about the divine daughter energy.”

“The grandmothers?”

“Yes, the Grandmother’s Council of Ojai. Would you come and speak to our group?”

Of course! They met the second Sunday of every month so when my schedule freed up from marketing my book, I went to the Grandmothers Council to share the Divine Daughter with them. They received me joyously and then preceded to offer empowerments. I watched and was transported back to Mary’s time once again. These gracious older women surrounded those who came to them in a veil of love, placed healing hands upon them and blessed them. Tears poured from my eyes as I watched the ancient rites delivered with such love
in these modern times.

Then the head grandmother turned to me and asked, “Don’t you want an empowerment?”

I thought I was there to present…not to receive…yet…I nodded, “Yes, please.” And stood within their loving embrace as the grandmothers veiled me so I might just receive, placed tender hands upon me and began to sing.

“Oh, how we love you. Oh, how we love you…”

And the ancestors came in…all the matriarchal lineage in a beam of light. The spirits guided me through the great grandmother saying they are very proud of me and the work I am doing, that they are always here for me, pushing, nudging whispering encouragement. Now is not the time to stand still. Now is the time to be in the world.
It was profound. And the grandmothers have been with me in spirit and in body ever since.

27. IMPATIENCE

Last minute doesn’t work for me. I am most like the goddess when all my bowls are spinning gracefully in the air. For me, last minute feels as if I’m a clown juggling too many balls knowing they’ll soon come tumbling down upon me.

I pack a week ahead. Just be sure I have everything and everything fits. I like to plan ahead for events, ready when the day comes. One of my dearest friends is a Last Minute Lizzie. Every Easter, she would invite us over and twenty more family and friends to celebrate. We would arrive early to help, and find that they were in the midst of a remodeling project (she liked to take advantage of the gathering to get her husband to fix up the house) and she would still need to shop! So off I would go with her while Steve stayed to help him and frantically we would get it together…rarely before the guests arrived…

My sisters like to fly by the seat of their pants too, waiting to shop when we arrive a day or two before the holiday. That can drive me crazy! I need to plan and be ready. After our parents divorced, my home became the gathering place for my three sisters, their spouses and all their children. It was stressful since there was so much to do before they arrived. I wanted to be able to spend time with them, but was usually so wound up by the preparations and wanting everything to be perfect that their visits became more and more of a burden.

No matter how well I was doing at controlling my eating disorder, the stress of the holidays would bring Bulimic Deb out of her cage. I yearned for quiet holidays. The more stressed I got, the more I would find myself counseling patients with the same Superwoman Syndrome. I would tell them—just say No!—yet could not take my own advice. Finally, after ten years of this holiday madness, I told one of my sisters I couldn’t do it anymore. It was their turn to play Mom.

Yet it wasn’t where we met that made me so anxious. It was being in their energy. I could tolerate my friend’s frenetic energy, but not my sisters. We were too close and would fall into the roles we always played from the drama of our childhood. The more I found peace in my own life, the more frenetic their energy felt. I couldn’t seem to stay centered when I was in their midst.

Every gathering there would be blow up. I was always looking for their souls and they were hiding behind our roles.

Nov 28th, 2004 Finally a breakthrough with my sisters! Always I have dreaded our family gatherings. Early in my adult life, I fretted over the work related to the holidays, then feelings of unworthiness as I worried about the outcome. Was everything good enough? Was I? Lately dealing with deep seated emotion that threatens to boil over, I have not shared my life with my sisters fearing that we could not find common grounds to safely communicate. Still there are gaps but we are closer after this weekend’s tumultuous confrontation, all four of us crying in the bathroom. We needed a red tent and had to create our own chamam experience. Our passion brought on spooky weather. Bitter rain, harsh winds targeted the house. Our husbands took the kids to the mall where the weather was nicer. My sisters claimed that I did not share all with them and I replied that I feared to reveal to them the true fullness of my emotion—my power can be overwhelming. They pushed, then got blown away, then came back for more. My sisters are hardier than I thought. I do feel loved by them but do not believe I appreciate them fully. My sisters are aspects of the divine. They say I feel superior, but I see their unhappiness, their fear, their unwillingness, it seems, to progress. Yet I realize that just because I have leapt so far away from what was our mutual starting point does not mean that they have not also moved. Steve has kept pace, and in their own way, so have they.

As a point being I am supported by their effort, faith, and love. Without them would I be where I am in this moment? I am buoyed up by their being, my own being reflected in the stillness of theirs, in the wake of their progress, exponential reflections of our conscious evolution. Why must we name our faults and weaknesses to equalize the interaction? Yet I do it when I counsel with patients, admitting my humanness, and we grow together.

Over the years I’ve learned to flow more easily when things don’t always fall into place. Now I graciously step into my friend’s house and just lend a hand. And she too has learned to get it together earlier and enjoy her guests.

For my 50th birthday, my sisters treated me to a weekend away. I prefer being in nature so we took a boat trip out to Anacapa Island. No drama just pleasant memories of picnicking on the bluff in the midst of nesting seagulls. My sisters still want to know where I am coming from…I have changed so much. On a beach walk, one expressed concern that she thought I felt our family was dysfunctional. I smiled…three of us had eating disorders, all of us grew up with disordered body images, our mother still struggled with self-esteem and our father lived like a hermit… “I guess every family is somewhat dysfunctional,” I replied.

Then the conversation became confrontational and for the first time in six months, I felt that need to purge. I placed my hand on my stomach and watched as my sister expanded into warrior pose, then I was cast back into our childhood dining room feeling the fear bubbling up as she argued vehemently with our father—always fighting another’s battle—and ending up in trouble herself. And I came back to the present and spoke my truth.

“Thank you for embodying the warrior in our family. But I am not the enemy. I am your sister and I love you.” And since then, there has been peace.

It took me 50 years to flow even with my family. How strange it feels to not care about the outcome, but to be fully in the moment with them. I can get used to this. ☺

Excerpt from My LoveDance. Available on Amazon