Midlife Chrysalis
Moving from Crisis to Creation

The natural life cycle brings some powerful physical transformation points that also function as initiations into a new phase of consciousness. Coming of age, stepping into adulthood, child birth, and menopause are all doorways into another aspect of the self. These can seem like purely physical changes but the physiological transformation that accompanies them are just as vital to the next phase of life.

Unlike our ancestors that lived in a closer relationship to the natural world, modern life gives us few clues as to how to navigate these life altering passages. Unless someone around you could explain what happens in a transformational initiation you probably entered and made your way though without much guidance or support.

If you lived in a time or community that consciously engaged these life initiations you would understand that these soul passages melt your former self down for you to emerge into an entirely new way of being. While knowing this might not make the passage any easier, at least you would know you weren’t crazy and the people around you could support your journey in a way that was actually effective.

Instead of just being the rebelling teenager, the hormonal pregnant woman, or the unstable hot flashing menopausal manic there could be support for the depth of inner physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual changes occurring. Knowing that all aspects of your former self will dissolve into a glob before you re-form into the you that will emerge from the chrysalis, helps in some strange way.

Consciously participating in the transformational process moves you from engaging it as a crisis to intentionally crafting the next version of yourself. At midlife an additional and powerful aspect of integration happens along this journey. Each individual thread of learning and knowing you’ve gathered in your life gets evaluated, sorted, and spun into a new creation during your time in the chrysalis. You begin to weave the treads of your life together into a tapestry of inner wisdom.

Threads that seemed like separate streams of life get woven together into a deeper matrix of wholeness at midlife. This weaving gives you a more stable awareness of your inner truth and the unique wisdom that is yours to carry. While the treads are the same as the previous individual strands, when woven together they create an entirely new fabric of expression for the next phase of life.

How empowering it would be for young women to know that they won’t simply be growing older with each passing year but truly wiser. That there will come a time when all of their experiences will merge into an awareness of life that has the capacity to significantly bring wisdom and creative expression into the world.

With this awareness the passage of time and the portal of menopause and midlife takes on a deeper meaning. Grey hair and laugh lines symbolizing a vibrant wise woman, with a zest for life. The wisdom gained during the passage a reason to mentor and assist others by being a supportive guide through their transformational journey.

Collectively we need the wisdom of the midlife woman. And we need the women who’ve woven their tapestries to join together and to sew the individual patches of wisdom into an enormous quilt. Creating one large enough to wrap the world in the warm embrace of the wise woman.

Wrapped in this embrace of wisdom there is…

• support for creative pursuits.
• a place for feminine and masculine values.
• a world wide circle of wise women to go to for guidance.
• honoring for your personal journey.
• a way to support those in need.
• a heart centered awareness for life.
• respect for nature and her guiding wisdom.
• valuing of the natural rhythms of life.

To take part in the global honoring of the wisdom of midlife women…

• find time to listen to those around you who carry this wisdom.
• ask what they have learned that could be of value to you.
• seek out women of various cultural backgrounds from which to learn.
• connect to the wise woman within and help bring her clarity out into the world.
• honor women when they are willing to share their teachings.
• appreciate the natural aging process while continuing to increase vibrancy.
• form circles of women so that women of all ages can learn from one another.
• find a midlife or older mentor to support your next passage.

To assist your own midlife journey and the development of your inner wisdom…

• be in silence some portion of your week to strengthen your inner guidance.
• spend ample time in nature to access the forces of creation.
• pay attention to the rhythms of nature to develop a deeper awareness of right timing.
• spend some time in the company of other women.
• allow space in your life to weave your inner treads into your wisdom tapestry.

And finally take the time to enjoy the wisdom of midlife.

Two weeks ago, I entered the doorway of the beautiful Goddess Temple of Orange County, California. I heard about the temple the week before from a lovely woman, Vajra Ma, sitting next to me on the last day at the Woman of Wisdom Conference in Seattle.

She had also presented at the conference and as we discussed our love of dance and where we were traveling to next we discovered we would both be in Southern California. She told me about the Goddess Temple and her presentation about the Natural Spiritual Authority of Woman. I was thrilled when I realized I could be there.

As I toured the temple, the thing that impacted me the most was the beauty everywhere. There were lovely Goddess meditation rooms, luscious places to sit, and visual representations of the Goddess all around. The temple is a sensual feast for the eyes and soul.

The temple was not only exquisite, it was also well organized and professionally well run.  It is supported by local volunteer temple priestesses who assist with events and temple duties. They have a weekly Sunday service and many other special dances and events.

The temple founder and centerholder, Ava, manages the temple with grace, clarity, and purpose. I was able to spend a few moments talking with her afterwords. One of the things she shared was that she had three different marketing companies take a look at the feasibility of a temple like this being supported in the area and all of them came back with no the area couldn’t support it. However, after their first year they had to move to a larger location, and now after four need more space again.

Clearly the Goddess needs room to spread out, grow, expand, and flourish.

Vajra Ma’s talk was filled with insight, wisdom, and reminders of the innate power woman holds in her creational womb center. She and her  husband Wolfgang founded the Southern Oregon Temple of the Goddess in Grants Pass, (southern) Oregon in spring 2007. It is inspired by and modeled in many ways after Ava’s GTOC.

I came away from the evening so excited and uplifted to see what these amazing women have created. It forms a powerful model for any city.

If you go to the Los Angeles area, you owe it to yourself to take the time to visit this lovely place, The Goddess Temple of Orange County. They have a wonderful list of Other Temples on their website if you are traveling and want to see what else might be in the area.

Last night, as I began writing this blog on the Goddess Temple I opened Iris Stewart’s fabulous book Sacred Woman Sacred Dance right to this paragraph…

“Dances of Goddess energy can be done by anyone of any faith. These dances are not “religious,” as we know the word. They are a method of getting in touch with the flow of grace; they are a movement meditation and opportunity to share in community.”

The Goddess Temple of Orange County embodies this flow of grace and is an inspirational model and a feast for the heart & soul.

Description from TED talks…In this passionate talk, Eve Ensler declares that there is a girl cell in us all — a cell that we have all been taught to suppress. She tells heartfelt stories of girls around the world who have overcome shocking adversity and violence to reveal the astonishing strength of being a girl.

Eve Ensler created the ground-breaking Vagina Monologues, whose success propelled her to found V-Day — a movement to end violence against women and girls everywhere.

Direct Link http://www.ted.com/talks/eve_ensler_embrace_your_inner_girl.html

There was one line in the blog that as I tossed and turned kept surfacing in my mind…Dance is a primary form of worship of the Goddess. I realized as twilight dawned that a part of me, even after 11 years of being a high priestess and facilitating over 30 priest/ess circles, was still afraid of publicly making such a statement.

At each new level of development as I have made my way through the years of being a priestess I have had to clear old fears and internal patterns. Cellular memory runs deep. I have found the years of persecution as patriarchy took over the Goddess temples and imprint of the burning times were layered in my consciousness. And they have gotten released and healed one layer at a time.

Even after so much inner clearing work I found another layer of fear residing around my love of the Divine Feminine, the Goddess. For me she isn’t a replacement for the Divine Masculine or God, I love and appreciate the masculine tremendously. But the Goddess, the Divine Feminine essence, nourishes me as a women differently than the masculine does. She feeds my soul in so many important ways.

Through connecting with her I have found deeper value in my own presence as a woman. I have come to appreciate the feminine force in creation and the ways it shows up in the women and men around me. My body is enlivened as I dance to honor her Divine essence. My inner wisdom and knowing strengthened as I drink from the deep well of the Goddess within.

Today I clear another old layer as I share this with you. If you find this speaks to you take a look at the video blog below I have posted about the Dancing Priestess process starting in two formats in 2010. And soon, I will be blogging about my recent experience in a beautiful Goddess Temple in Southern California.

And whether you are a man or a woman may the essence of the Divine Feminine, the Goddess, bless you and enrich your life with her precious grace.

Illustration by Prescott Hill

For the first time ever there will be a process starting that will help you increase your body’s ability to bring spirit into matter and your consciousness to more fully connect to the Divine. In the Practical Dancing Priestess process you will activate the inner priestess (or charge her more fully) and connect to the sacredness of dance to increase your capacity to channel Divine Essence into your life.

This creates powerful authentic movement to unify the desires and dreams of your spirit in order to manifest them into physical form. Find out more by watching the presentation below…

It seems it was produced from 10 years of the music from this conference. I remember thinking when I received it how wonderful the conference must be, now I’ve been blessed with experiencing it.

While the conference had two powerful and wonderful national speakers, Donna Eden and Joan Borysenko, currently it mostly draws local presenters and participants. This conference has nourished the local women in a strong way over its 18 year herstory.

I found the conference founder Kris Steinnes, the support staff, the other presenters, as well as the participants I meet to be interesting, insightful, fun, and wise. The conference creates a great model for other cities, as well as national expansion.

I came away with new friends and nourished deeply from my time spent with these lovely women in Seattle. There were so many wonderful resources that I connected with  and I want to share just a few with you today…

Kris Steinnes has produced a beautiful book entitled Women of Wisdom. It’s full of stories to support women stepping into leadership and fulfilling their dreams.

The opening night of the conference an amazing singer graced us with her voice and then her side splitting comedy routine, Celia.

She was accompanied by Donna Eden enchanting dancing daughter Titanya.

Donna Eden’s workshop was a blast and gave me a host of new energy techniques to strengthen the physical body. If you are looking for ways to increase your vitality her book Energy Medicine for Women is a must.

At the entrance to the conference stood a lovely woman Katya Taylor with her clothing collection Renaissance Rags. A true textile artist, her creations bring out the goddess in the women adoring themselves with her special pieces.

This rich conference brought more gifts than I can possibly share this morning before traveling to Los Angles. There were so many fabulous ceremonies, dances, songs, musicians, stories, presenters, and people. Thanks to all those who made the Women of Wisdom Conference a pleasure to attend!

Sometimes expanding your capacity means doing deeper inner clearing of old energies that are ready to be released. Other times it may mean actively focusing and targeting your energy and actions in order to reach your destination.

As you tune into this, I would love to hear what kinds of things you feel you need to fully activate your capacity to create, in any or every area of your life. Please comment and I will connect to the messages as I craft ways for Natural Rhythms to assist you in the days, weeks, and months ahead.

Many seed stirring blessings for you today, Lisa

“We come spinning out of nothingness, scattering stars…the stars form a circle, and in the center we dance.” Rumi, 13th century

Your inner priestess forms the part of your consciousness that directly connects you with the Divine. When activated and practically applied to any area of life or creative pursuit, the priestess within helps you bring Spirit into the physical world. The priestess archetype deepens your ability to fully run the energy of the Divine through the temple of your body and dance in step to the sacred rhythms of nature.

After ten years of facilitating over 30 priest/ess circles, introducing conscious dance in workshop after workshop, presenting a Dance of Creation Convergence last year, and all of this on top of over 20 years of teaching hundreds of young dancers and training dance teachers, I feel it is time for the Dancing Practical Priestess™ Process.

My personal experience with activating the priestess archetype within deepened my ability to fully run the energy of the Divine through my body. Until I did that, I was only able to reach a certain level of connection while dancing; despite years of spiritual development and other metaphysical study (all of which was important in other ways).

The priestess within me has gradually remembered and reconnected to the dancer within, and together they are able to powerfully channel Divine Essence into the physical realm. Additionally, through this type of dance, I find a richer level of guiding insight and energetic movement in my life.

I have found that a Dancing Priestess honors the rhythmic cycles and seasons of nature, and of life. She learns from, and works with, the natural timings of the earth, sun, moon, and stars and dances in step to these sacred rhythms.  She observes, values, and expresses through her movements he relationships between earth and sky, nature, and humanity.

In families and communities, a priestess brings awareness to the way change effects life by creating time and space to honor life passages. She creates dances and ceremonies that recognize the transitions of birth, puberty, a new job, the loss of a job, marriage, divorce, menopause, elderhood, and death.

A priestess may counsel, support, and lead others in a sacred dance during times of crises, transition, healing, and creation. She may assist through by dancing, prayers, meditation, deep listening, or simply being present and bringing awareness and attentive witnessing to a situation.

A dancing priestess brings the sacred into form by connecting to Divine energy in her creative pursuits including dance, art, writing, music, theatre, ceremonies, rituals, and celebrations. She uplifts the community by finding ways to ecstatically dance herself and help others find ways to move.

Deeply connected to her spirituality from the inside out and able to apply it to her daily life, a dancing practical priestess may also be a member of any religion or have connection to none. She may connect to the Divine in nature just as well as in any home, church, synagogue, or temple. As a dancing priestess, she brings the Divine essence through her own body temple and expresses the sacred through her movements.

If you feel drawn to activate your inner dancing practical priestess and powerfully strengthen your connection to the Divine, please plan to join me in either the 5 weekend format or for those who prefer a condensed process (great for travelers), the 5 day intensive format. Sorry guys but these first two are for women only as they are based on feminine movement styles.

Location will be in the Atlanta area. The exact location will be determined once I have a sense of the number of dancers attending.

Download more DancingPriestessInfo here and to register go to http://naturalrhythms.org/2.0/events/.

Download a free web brochure on the Practical Priestess Process.

The body is often referred to as a holy vessel or a temple. Understanding and aligning with Spirit within your body temple can provide you with a clear and direct inner path to the Divine. Hidden among the layers of skin, muscle, blood, and bone resides the creational glue of the universe.

Comprised of the fundamental forces – Earth, Water, Air, Fire, and Spirit – your body provides you with a portal to the core essence of creation. The rich matter that make up your cells flow in harmony with the universe when you honor the forces of the Divine within and dance in time to the rhythmic pulse of cosmos.

Just as an outer world temple becomes enlivened by the prayers of the people within its walls, the Divine within responds to your devotion, reverence, and activation. By dancing your body as you pray to the sacred musical pulse found in the rhythm of the sun, moon, and stars, as well as, your beating heart; you enliven the forces of creation that live inside your body temple.

With rhythmic movement you activate: 1) your earthen physical container. 2) your watery emotional energy. 3) your mental air realm. 4) your fiery life force. 5) your spiritual soul essence expression. When these elements in your body move to the tempo of music, you literally dance your prayers into being.

Without movement and the fiery energy it creates, the physical body temple becomes stagnant and lacks life force. Dance provides an exceptional tool for igniting life force, generating energy,  and activating your prayers.

When you use Fire’s main activity (movement), it teaches you to move your energy, move your body, move your life forward, and move out of situations that don’t serve you. When a level of social change occurs, dance and music generally can be found at the forefront of that change.

In some cultures, people have felt fear around certain types of dance because they perceived them as too radical, different, or promiscuous. For instance, this happened when the dances preformed to waltz, jazz, and rock and roll music were first introduced.

In some cultures, the regulation of dance has been used as a means to control. When people’s  movement  is very limited, their ways of thinking, their life force, power, and ability to  connect to the Divine directly becomes restricted.

If you want to free your thinking, increase your creativity, free a block in your life, or fully enliven your prayers, you literally need to move in new ways. Finding new movements shifts your energy. For this reason, dance has been used to free overly-tight constraints around the physical body, or the way people perceive the world, and bring in new levels of perception.

Dancing your body temple gives you a powerful tool for moving deep issues and energies. Dancing to strongly percussive music with little or no words serves this purpose very effectively. Shamans use the ancient tools of ritual drumming and dance for connecting to the Divine, transforming energy, spiritual journeying, and achieving trance states.

Riding the rhythmic musical wave while dancing moves you into a trance state allowing access to inner realms and awareness not found in your ordinary reality. Dance can be used for increasing personal expression, opening to creative insight, connecting to the Divine within, and accessing deep levels of soul transformation.

From the beating of your own heart drum to the rising and setting of the sun, nature’s elemental forces of creation provide the rhythmic pulse for your sacred dance of life. Dancing your prayers into being and enlivening your life force as you honor the Divine within, forms an entry point for the forces of creation to assist you in bringing grace into every area of your life.

Either way, when it is brought by nature or the hand of others, if destruction makes its way to your doorstep its devastating. The chaos, loss, disorder, and helplessness remind you to the core of your soul of the vulnerability of life.

It can be tragic to live through devastation, and tough to live with the knowing that life is fleeting, subject to the forces of nature, and the potentially destructive side of humanity. So what do you do? How do you experience destruction in your life and go on? How do you help those around you when they face the utter transformation of their lives?

Whether the loss of the old way of life is brought on by a sudden natural disaster, the slow decline of a marriage, industry, or economic flow, the death of a loved one, or the cruel hand of humanity, you need strong inner resources to help you through. How you engage the loss makes a difference in whether it destroys you forever or you are capable of rebuilding.

Collectively, we’ve witnessed stories of both individual lives and the lives of entire groups of people that faced tragedy, cruelty, loss, and still found it within themselves to  rebuild and thrive. What is the difference in those people and others who face similar situations but end up so beaten down by life that they never recover?

From the outside you can’t tell the difference. There is nothing that shows up externally that determines the depth of inner tenacity. But there are markers of character and personal development that seem to make a difference.

One is the capacity to find gratitude for even the smallest thing, even in the midst of the bleakest situation, and focus energy on that until it uplifts the spirit. Another is the ability to focus on creation both immediate and long term. What do we need to create right now to get food, water, and health care to where it is essential? How can we rebuild in a way that is stronger and more in alignment with the forces of nature?

Those two things alone can make the distinction between those who never recover from tragedy and those able to regain the strength and will to survive and thrive. At the core of both these components is the consistent practice of focus. Continuing to direct your focus while also allowing time for your feelings about the situation to be processed, aligns your head and heart toward creation.

In trying times and situations, as well as in daily life, centering yourself in gratitude and creation uplifts and directs your energy. It develops strong inner resources that help you and those around you not only survive, but ultimately thrive.