Divine Father

52. GRATITUDE HEALS

I’ve been going through my journals looking for clues to how I got to where I am. I have journals dating back to 1975. I’ve kept everything I have ever written in my mother’s old cedar chest. Her hope chest carries my past.

In October 2007, I was just about to launch LoveDance® into the world and was in a place of profound appreciation …

I am in deep gratitude for the blessings in my life, for:

• Steve—for his passion, protection, partnership
• Jarys—for teaching me compassion and courage
• Kyra—for embodying love and delight
• Mom—for buoying my spirit
• Dad—for seeding my existence
• Sisters—for opening to possibility
• Friends—for supporting my dreams
• Patients—for believing in me
• Colleagues—for challenging my mind
• Enemies—for challenging my heart
• Home—for sheltering my soul
• Community—for encompassing my passion
• Nation—for the freedom to expand
• Planet—for sustenance to be
• Divine Mother—for my glorious form
• Divine Father—for my expansive soul
• Divine Son—for my creative mind
• Divine Daughter—for my passionate heart

I still feel the same, thank the Divine. It’s good to count your blessings. It’s better than keeping count of your woes. Much more healing. Besides. Gratitude opens up your heart to love. A good place to start.

* * *

At the grandmother’s council, I learned about an ancient Hawaiian forgiveness prayer. Whenever there is a disagreement among the people, the elders hold the offending parties in a circle of energy until each can truthfully say to the other:

I’m sorry
Please forgive me
Thank you
I love you

What a great example of how gratitude morphs into love. I believe the prayer means:

I’m sorry—I recognize my part in orchestrating such drama to learn my soul lessons.

Please forgive me—I ask forgiveness of all those in the wake of my human drama and I forgive myself.

Thank you—I am in deep gratitude for your humanity.

I love you—In loving your divine self, I am able to love my divine self.

Next time you are feeling angry and frustrated with someone else, do this meditation. Sit quietly with your hands resting in your lap. Take a deep breath and with the exhalation release everything that doesn’t serve you. Repeat the breath two more times breathing deeper and deeper until it feels as if you are breathing all the way to your fingertips where they meet at your root. Now imagine the other person as a bubble of energy. I like to imagine their life color, but you can picture their face if you wish. Then say each line of the Hawaiian forgiveness prayer out loud really trying to feel the energy of each line:

I’m sorry
Please forgive me
Thank you
I love you

Repeat as many times necessary to feel love and gratitude for the other person and for yourself.

14. FOUR FACES OF THE ONE

As I waited for Genesis Gold® to be manufactured I sat down to write my opus—Hormones in Harmony®—what I was known for, all my healing secrets. Yet it wasn’t coming easily. In spite of all the case studies and stories, I could not seem to get it down. And I am a prolific writer. I have a whole cedar chest filled with my handwritten journals, poetry, short stories, novelettes…yet what I do best was not coming…

2-1-03 Finally I sat in meditation, awakening early by the light of the day while my animal charges continued to slumber. Upon my couch I sat still and quiet and within moments and lasting what seemed an eternity I was visited. The Father, the Mother, the Son and the Daughter came unto me. I envisioned their form through closed eyes, yet felt them intimately interacting with my physical being, touching my aura within and without.

The Father held the space balancing the energy confirming the wisdom of the Mother and Son. The Daughter was beautiful to behold and when I asked who she was I was told Shekhina and I saw that she was a huge version of Me! Full voluptuous body, moving gracefully through space and time, glowing with a golden love light dancing sensuously to the vibration of the moment. She had my face, my hair, my eyes, she was me lovely to behold.

The Mother gave me her wisdom through counsel and vibration. When I asked what I was to do, she said I had done enough that all was progressing as it should, that Genesis Gold® would come in its own time as divinely planned. I was to write, only write. I asked which books to begin with and she said there is one book, all the stories are part of the one. My story, all of it. Not Hormones in Harmony® separately, but inclusive as is my understanding. The Son concurred stating that unlike Christ my true story would come out while I was still alive and the work would unfold from the telling of it.

I was told that I was to use my gift in energy healing to minister to a patient- Eddie- whose cancer was based in his fear, that I would be guided as to what physical support systems he would need and that yes, Genesis Gold® was necessary, but would come too late. I know that people come into my life for a purpose, some to stay and some for just fractions of eternity. All part of the web of love connected with the white gold filaments of alchemized truth.

The Mother guided me to understand that like a teenage girl, I needed many mirrors to assure myself of my truth and confirm what I perceived as blemishes, as imperfections. Those I call my mentors have been these mirrors for me. They guide me with such finesse, because I am witnessing myself. It is my connectedness that makes their counsel, their channeling, their energy healing so profound. It is me.

Excerpt from My LoveDance. Available on Amazon

Remembering the Divine Masculine

One thing I learned in writing LoveDance is that life at least for me is about Joyous Service. My husband and I are both in helping professions—he as a police officer and me as a family nurse practitioner. The stories we share at the dinner table of our respective work day are often quite similar. As a healer, I spend a lot of time educating my patients, counseling them, guiding them with heartfelt advice. As a police officer, Steve protects and serves…truly he is more of a peace officer. There is not enough room in this blog to record all the incidences of him helping others through their issues.

Last year, we stopped in Santa Barbara for brunch on the way up to our favorite romantic getaway in Cambria. While we were dining, a gentleman greeted Steve with such profound respect and gratitude. I asked about him and Steve said that some 20 years ago, he arrested him. Before the man was imprisoned, Steve advised him to use the experience to help him grow. “And he did!” Steve said proudly, “He paid back society and became a responsible outstanding citizen raising a fine family in our town.” You see, we both take care of those in need.

Last evening after an impromptu date—dinner on the pier and a stroll through a summer street fair, I was making Steve’s lunch. My daughter teases that even though she and her brother are gone, I’m still packing lunches. A dear friend of mine just reminded me how I showed her years ago how to cut the kids sandwiches into shapes. I used to put little notes in their lunches—words of encouragement, of love, of hope.

Well, as I was making Steve’s lunch, I felt my grandmother’s presence. Nana used to do so much for Poppop, most of which he could have done for himself, yet she needed to do it. Serving him fulfilled her. And he was always extremely grateful. My mother served my father in the same fashion…yet something was missing. It was more of an expectation of how wives and husbands act. They divorced after 24 years of marriage. My grandparents were married over 40 years; unfortunately they died young. Poppop was only 62. Nana followed him to the grave twenty months later. She stayed around just long enough to hold her first great-grandchild, my son—Jarys. I have a photo of her cradling him in her arms. She was dying of lung cancer, in a wheelchair with a cannula of oxygen hanging from her nostrils. He’s only three pounds—born ten weeks premature—under the eerie glow of the neonatal intensive care unit, gazing at her intently. She died shortly after that one and only visit. I miss both my Nana and Pop.

But last night, Nana was with me as I prepared Steve’s lunch. Holding the energy of love as I sliced the left over steak, washed and tore the baby lettuce, arranged the roma tomato. As I made vinaigrette, I felt her guiding me…a pinch of Italian herbs, a little salt, a bit of pepper sprinkled into the olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

When I was done, I found Steve doing his back exercises in the bedroom. “Why do we take such care of one another?” I asked.

“Because we love each other so much.” He smiled and gave me a kiss.

True, but I think it’s more. You see, he takes care of me so well. He cooks for me…and he’s an amazing chef…he took care of the kids with the finesse of any mother…he spends time with me…and enjoys it! After 27 years of marriage we are still very much in love. We are best friends, each other’s truest confidantes.

Yet we have lives outside of us….I do my things…I have a circle of dear women I meet with regularly, a very spiritual supportive group. I love horses and can be found riding far and wide on my mare all over Ojai. I meet with my three sisters once or twice a year for a girls’ weekend and regularly spend girls’ time with my daughter. I work with my mother (she’s my office manager) but we “play” well together too.

And he does his “guy” things. A yearly backpacking trip with old friends. Lunch and golfing with new ones. Biking from Santa Barbara to Ventura with a colleague. Just the men.

It’s as if we created virtual chamams. In LoveDance, Mary meets with the women during her monthly periods in the baths. A special time just for them, taking care of one another.

I believe caring for one another out of love not expectation, taking joy in the service of our beloved is key to our long and happy marriage.

Last summer, I had an amazing dream that reminded me of an aspect of the Divine Masculine that has been forgotten, yet I see it so clearly in my husband.

The Golden Bear

In my dream I was entering the Home Depot through the lumber department to get to the garden center. I was going to buy jasmine. The center of the Home Depot was a raised platform and as I ascended the steps to the platform, a great golden bear came through the door. It was huge, larger than life, a golden orange color, translucent, brilliantly colored like a child’s crayon, surreal. I was the only one to see it. It snuffled around the entry and I crouched down on the steps. It snuffled its way over to me. And snuffled my hair, my face, my neck. Then tapped a great claw over my right eye, then over my third eye, again and again. Then it hunkered down over me like a mother bear over a cub. Yet I knew this bear was male. I felt loved and protected like when Steve throws a leg over me, pulls me into his body—trapped by love. Trapped under the bear, I was secure, feeling the soft fur of its belly, the weight of its body, the warmth, the mass…protected in a golden cave of bear energy. Then the bear transformed into a…man. I could feel his naked body, the roughness of his hair, the shift in weight, mass, warmth from bear to man. We stood and faced each other. I was WOMAN and He was MAN…all men, naked, dark skinned and hair like a Mediterranean man. We took each others hands and then he disappeared. A woman friend of mine said… “That is the forgotten aspect of the Divine Masculine.” And I woke up.

When I lie in Steve’s arms, his leg pressing over mine—the weight, heat and furriness comfortable, secure, I am very grateful to have found my home in his heart.

I pray the GOLDEN BEAR ENERGY OF THE DIVINE MASCULINE becomes well known by all.

While I hope my writing is enlightening, in essence this blog is my healing journey. I have kept a journal since my youth. The pages have always welcomed me, comforted me in times of sorrow, and gave me space to place my reflections. In writing, I learn more about me, about my life, about my world. And usually it is what I cared most to record in my precious journal that I use to comfort others.

A weblog is so different. You lay yourself wide open and quite bare online…yet it is who I am…like the heroine of my book—Mary Magdalen—I unveil my heart and soul easily. I hope my musings serve you, my readers…for I do it in joy.

Love and Light,

Deborah

The Father Wound—missing the Divine Masculine

I didn’t really know how profoundly I am affected by the separation from the Divine Father until this past Father’s Day. My children had come home to celebrate. Jarys flew in from San Francisco. A newly credentialed teacher, my 25 year old son took the time from searching for a teaching job to spend with his father. It was a joyous weekend. On Sunday morning, Kyra asked Steve if he missed his father.

“No, baby, I never really had a father.”

Our daughter began to cry, “I’m so sad for you. I can’t imagine not having you as my Dad.”

We all teared up. For how sad is it that so many of us do not have amazing fathers? I see so much of this pain in my practice. Middle aged men still suffering the wounds of not having a father who supported them. Young men who struggle with fathers who do not believe in them and worse, young men without fathers in their lives trying to make their own way unguided. Women young and old still suffering from the lack of paternal approval or worse being violated by the one who should be protecting them. My husband, a police officer for the past 27 years, says that, in his opinion, the increase in crime, especially gang related crime, is in direct relationship to missing fathers. And the young women in abusive relationships, even teen pregnancies, are a reflection of poor fathering.

As the father wound began to fester, I began to have a profound pain in my neck. No amount of heat, ice, stretching, massage, natural anti-inflammatory therapy or conventional non-steroidal meds helped. My chiropractor asked what I was so stressed about. He thought it was Steve’s recent back injury. True, it is not easy living with a wounded warrior. Taking away his uniform and putting him on light duty brought up questions of self worth and struggles with aging. And yes, I have had a lot on my plate related to incredibly challenging patients. And true, I had spent last fall and this past winter dealing with aging parents on both sides. Yet this felt like something deeper.

The last time a chiropractor asked me this same question, I was suffering from sciatica. I knew then it was related to birthing my son into the world. It began the moment I finished helping him fill out college applications and did not let up until I took him to the University of San Francisco for a tour of the campus five months later. Once I felt the energy of the place…that USF was where he was meant to be…my sciatica disappeared.

So in prayerful meditation I asked, What was I being so stiffed neck about?

And that day a person from our past surfaced bringing up such waves of sorrow that I had to explore the source. Steve and I discussed my profound reaction that evening. And again I heard Kyra’s voice praising Steve’s paternal skills. Steve’s father, an abusive alcoholic, abandoned the family when he was only six. He had no father figures in his life, yet he has become the most awesome Dad. How was this possible?

“It’s because of you.” Steve answered my query. “My partnership with you allowed me to learn from my father’s mistakes and glean the good from fathers all around me.”

I began to cry…partly in joy for the Divine Father my husband has become and partly in sorrow for not having such a father myself. And the pain in my neck intensified. In my fervor to create an abundant present, I had not been looking back at the past. I know we should live in the moment. It is our mantra for 2010—Be in the Moment. And I’ve tried, truly I have, yet people from my past keep surfacing—some in need, some to remind me of something I’ve forgotten, some to unveil the face of my fear. In spite of my awakening, I cannot manifest joyously until I clean house. This house, the temple of my body which houses my soul. My mind has been busy convincing me to move along my path to enlightenment, but it is my body that reminds me to do my deepest work.

So the reason, this person from our past whose presence brought up so much emotion surfaced at this time is because Steve had been doing the same thing…cleaning house. It’s a little eerie how we ride tandem on our journey. He had decided to clean out his proverbial closets. If he hadn’t worn it in at least two years, out it went. The same with people in his life. If he hadn’t heard from them in spite of his efforts to connect in the past two years, he gave them one more chance, then either connect or move on.

The pain in my neck throbbed as Steve shared his “house-cleaning”. Time to look back. Gingerly I turned back and saw the roots of my feminine woes…(it’s the left side of my neck that’s been in spasm…the left side of the body represents the feminine, the right—the masculine) and I remembered the Red Cord.

So I’ve been researching fetal imprinting. What happens at the cellular level to the prenate…the infant in the womb. Well, she feels everything her mother feels. So if Mom felt unsupported, unloved, abandoned by Dad…the baby grows up with this cellular imprinting. Hmmm! So back to the womb, I went. And lo and behold…I discovered my “Not Good Enough” imprint. My mother’s perception of my father…his treatment of her and her reaction…well, that imprinted me as a fetus in her womb. And my childhood spent trying to get Daddy to notice me by being the “best” student, “best” athlete, “best” daughter…well, that helped cement the fetal imprinting such that even today, nearly 50 years later (that’s how long ago I was in my mother’s womb) as accomplished as I am, as wonderful the relationships I have with my beloved husband and children are, as amazing my connection to my patients, my community, the earth herself is…still I feel “Not Good Enough.”

My parents have played their part beautifully. Even down to Dad suffering from spinal cord impingement so severe that I had to use all my connections to get him treated by a neurosurgeon….Now THAT was a pain in the neck…his neck and mine…Reminding me that no matter how grown up you become, not matter how much education, expertise and influence you hold, fathers (at least mine) do not believe that you know so much. It took a prominent male surgeon to make Dad listen. I did not want to become involved, yet my sisters begged me to help…so I did. Dad had his surgery but he’s back to his old hard-headed ways and I must let him go. And now I’m back to no paternal guidance…no wise old man in my life.

So I took my aching neck and my heavy heart out to the Medicine Wheel. Steve and I built a sacred circle in the back of our property. In the northern power point, where wisdom flows. It just so happens to be where the horses are…but the Native Americans believe horse represents power and my horses do treat the circle of huge rocks as a sacred space. So there, sitting upon the eastern stone, I communed with the Divine Mother. And through the Earth I felt her. She showed me how beautiful our relationship was, how deep and enduring, but she also revealed how rarely I looked up to the heavens. How long had it been since I communed with the Divine Father. Looking up hurt my neck something fierce. Gazing at the gray summer sky…June gloom here on the Pacific coast was in full force…I felt an embrace…of light.

It’s been a long time since I connected to the Divine Father. Not since my formal religious days have I referred to the Divine as Father. Somehow I felt judged by the patriarchal in my life…the authorities, the medical community, the church leaders…so the patriarchal energy of the Divine was not so welcoming. In the past 13 years, I have come to know the Feminine face of the Divine. And since LoveDance, I have come to fully embody the Sacred Feminine so now the Divine Masculine now reveals his handsome face to me on a daily basis.

Of course, I see Him in Steve. But also in others. Just last week, I saw Him in the trash man. We forgot to put out our barrels thinking that July 5^th had been a holiday when I heard the trash truck lumbering down our street. So I ran out in my heels dragging the recycling barrel. The dear trash man, not only came back for my recycling but got out of his truck to help me take our three other barrels to the street. I thanked him profusely. And in his smile, I saw the Divine Masculine. He’s around…we, women, just have to look for him. And he shows up when we embrace our Divine Feminine selves…He’s in the gentleman who opens the door for us, the bagboy who helps us carry our groceries to the car, the male driver who lets us park in the closer spot with a kind wave. Our job is to recognize Him with joyous gratitude.

I shared this story with my women’s circle last week. It was a tough sharing time for many of the women that night. The masculine in their lives was so distorted…the shadow side of men. I believe, those of us who are awake, especially us women, we must nurture the Divine Masculine. Like precious seeds of potential planted in the garden of life, our loving gratitude, our joy, our being our Divine Feminine truth is the water and the light necessary to grow a fine crop of men fully embodying the Divine Masculine. Then there will be no more fatherless children…for the Divine Father will come forth in those men. And perhaps someday the father wound will become an ancestral memory.

THE DIVINE DAUGHTER’S BACK!

I envisioned this blog to be one of Remembrance. Remembering the Divine Daughter—Mary Magdalen, the original Divine Daughter and the heroine of my book—LoveDance: Awakening the Divine Daughter—Yet now two years after the last post…I find myself needing to unveil…again…

LoveDance: Awakening the Divine Daughter helped me heal the Mother Wound…the original separation from the Divine Mother…as my heroine Mary Magdalen awakened to her truth as the Divine Daughter…so did I…and in doing so received the fullness of the Divine Mother. I reconnected to Her…embodied in the Earth…enlivened in the hearts of so many women here in Ojai…mothers and grandmothers who receive me…as if I am the Divine Daughter…and I feel it. I see the Divine Daughter energy in so many others…women young and old and even a few precious men… Time to feel the fullness of our emotions and allow the Divine Daughter to dance us into wholeness.

Here’s what I wrote in the book, “My understanding of human consciousness is an evolution of the Mother-Father-Son-Daughter aspects of the Divine. Originally, I believe, humans worshipped the earth as the Divine Mother, her body was ours. Then we looked into the cosmos and envisioned the Divine Father as spirit. In the last two millennia, avatars teaching in parables initiated a revolution of the mind, and ever since the Divine Son has been the center of religious worship. Now the time is ripe for the Divine Daughter to manifest in human consciousness. She is emotion weaving the mind, body, and soul into Sacred Unity with All That Is.”

The Divine Daughter is alive and well…Awakened now through LoveDance. On the Earth at this time—dancing her dance—her dance of love—LoveDance.

LoveDance became my philosophy of life. I created a whole website around it. LoveDance is my expression of Self. Love is at the center of the triad of Relationships, Soul Purpose, and Health. I include Health because as a Holistic Nurse Practitioner, Health of Body, Mind, and Soul is paramount in the Process of Enlightenment. It is not enough for me to talk…but to walk my talk…or rather…to dance my truth!

So now in the midst of this summer of profound transformation, nearly three years after LoveDance was launched, I find myself facing another wound…the Father Wound—separation from the Divine Father. Yes, I have begun Book II…LoveDance is a trilogy…and I began the second book shortly after the first was launched…and I got 1/3 through the writing…just as my heroine Mary Magdalen confronts her father wound…I could write no more!

Why? Because until I face it, live it, breathe it, am I able to write it. What I wrote in book one became manifest for me. I did not realize the depth of the mother wound I embodied, imprinted since prenatal time, brought into this lifetime as deep karmic imprints. I had done a regression on myself many years before. Way before LoveDance…In fact two years before I dreamt I was Mary Magdalen walking down the streets of Nazareth I brought myself back to the womb…Disentangled myself from maternal karmic imprints… from the Red Cord…

I shared this story with the Grandmothers Council of Ojai on Mother’s Day. I was an hour late for the gathering, having driven back from a mother-daughter-grandmother weekend in San Diego. It was lovely to spend time with my daughter who was born on Mother’s day 22 years ago. My mother enjoyed herself too, but on the way home her issues with her mother surfaced… there was not much to say…so I just listened…and then dropped her off at her house some 70 miles from Ojai and headed home. I needed to be with the grandmothers. But they too were reliving their mother wounds! So I told them this story:

THE RED CORD

Years ago, before my daughter entered puberty, I vowed to get a hold of my eating disorder. If you are a fan of this blog, you know all about it, if not…here goes…

I was anorexic before Karen Carpenter died and the psychiatrists had named it. I was hypnotized, medicated, and psychoanalyzed. To no avail. Anorexia transformed into bulimia. Not the typical eating disorder because I did not fit their psycho-patterns. No, I had not been molested, no incest, only a father’s great expectations passed onto me of being perfect. Yes, I was the straight A student…and did great things with my life, but there was more.

Recently eating disorder research has led from blaming the father to blaming the mother.

Still, I had an excellent relationship with my mother. Had learned from her mistakes. And felt loved, adored by her and my father. My grandparents too, especially my grandmother. No, it wasn’t a parenting problem rooted in childhood. It was something deeper.

I had begun research on the hypothalamus which led to my dream of Genesis Gold and had been taking the Sacred Seven amino acids for a year when I felt it was time to get to the root of my problem.

Bulimia was a coping mechanism for me. And while I could stuff my anxieties down with food then purge them into the toilet and flush them away, many, many times, my fear was not my own. How many times had I felt driven to binge just to purge a fear that was greater than me. So what was this fear, I asked.

I will tell you…it’s not the father, it is the mother…but it’s not about blame. It’s not what you think.

In a dream, I regressed myself.

Into the womb, I went. Looking down between my fetal thighs, I was surprised to see NO penis! No blade! How could I accomplish my mission in this form? I felt a pulsation deep in my belly, putrid fearful, coming not from me, but through the umbilical cord—the Red Cord.

It was my mother’s fear. I felt her. Her world as she perceived it….the struggle with her parents, her new husband, her fear…her fear of her mother, then…

I was in my grandmother’s womb feeling her fear through the red cord. And then in her mother’s womb feeling her mother’s fear and her mother’s and back and back in time. Like a video montage, yet I could feel the fear…yellow and acidic as bile….the pain, tears, terror…of losing children, abortions, stillborn babies. Of being raped, used as chattel, traded like beasts. Of husbands, and fathers and lovers beating us, blaming us. Of too many babies, of hunger and pain, of sending our sons off to war and our daughters into the same traps we found ourselves. Of burning at the stake, of drowning, of torture for being our truth. Of giving away our power.

Through my mother’s womb, through hers, and unto the beginning of time. Back to Eve. All of women’s woes…that was my fear. The fear I had been purging forever.

Time to release it. I awakened with a clear intention and pure desire to release my mothers’ fear, all of my mothers.

Synchronistically that day, I had an appointment with an energy healer. She was working with another powerful male healer. He stood at my feet, she at my head. I didn’t tell them of my vision, but lay there fully intending to release. And I did. Like a volcanic eruption of black tar, the energy exploded from my belly into the atmosphere. I felt lighter and freer than ever. I opened my eyes and laughed. I sat up. The two healers were plastered against the walls of the healing room. “What was THAT?”

“That was fear!” And it’s not mine!

Then I headed to the beach, and lay on the sand, my feet in the water, the sun on my naked skin and was held by the Great Mother. My Divine Mother loves me…I am everything she ever desired in a daughter. I no longer need to purge the fear of my sex.

So here we are back from the summer of 2001 to now—2010. A summer of great transformation lies before us. Today is truly the first day that it feels like summer here in Ojai. Finally hot…it’s been so mild…perhaps now we can burn the illusion away and unveil the truth. My neck aches from all this typing, but purging on paper (or rather, online) is a sweet means to a sweeter end. Yet my aching neck reminds me that it’s time to heal the Father Wound.