martes, junio 03, 2014

Judith Kusel - Celebrating the Rites of Womanhood - June 3, 2014


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We as woman have forgotten the Ancient Rites of Passage – the rites of the celebration of life in all its form.
In a society which worships the teenager and youth – in form and being, it is worshipping but a minute timeframe of life, which is but a puff in the wind.  As teenager, you have not even moved past the first threshold of life (as much as they might protest otherwise and think they know it all).
True maturity in astrological term only comes at the age of 60!  When an astrologer once told me this, I had one of those AHA! Moments, and I looked back on my life and the I thought: “Yes, the rest of life is but the university, the training ground, for the true LOVE, POWER, AND WISDOM which comes when one has reached that blossoming maturity, which has experienced it all, and at last has found that inner peace, contentment and basic KNOWING, which spans time and space.”
There has a lot been written about women in later life, and what is called “mid-like crises” or the menopausal state.  I remember my mom saying to me, that she never had time for all the nonsense, because she never had time to feel sorry for herself.   Later on I researched this topic for someone and then found an interesting article by a woman doctor, where she reckoned that menopause, since it was labeled, has become a psychological label and something that the pharmaceutical companies have honed into.

That made me sit and think:  “What is it that we, as women, then have lost, or are not seeing?”
What we have lost is the celebration of life itself, in all its forms and expressions – most of all its seasons, of birth and rebirth.
Life does not just go and stand still with 17 years, which seems to be the age which some of the media adore – and which seems to be the “ideal” when the physical female form is at its most luscious and hormone active phase of life.
All of this is but another illusion spun on this planet – the illusion of eternal youth.
If you are totally honest with yourself – would you like to be 17 years old again?
We have forgotten how to celebrate life in all its forms and disguises, its waxing and waning.  We have forgotten to celebrate our womanhood – through all its expressions and life forms…. Indeed all its forms!
I have sat in the company of women where their total conversation went around how they could not do this or that, because the man in their life demanded that they be like this – not like that.  Deep down was the fear, that is they did not comply with this, the man would dump them for a much younger woman, and a more beautiful, perfect and sexier one.
In essence these woman, allowed the men to control them and take their power away – yet, most of all it was not the men, but the women themselves, who allowed FEAR to manage their lives.  If a man did not honor the heart and soul of the woman he was with, he would not do that with the next or the next or the next.  Such is fact.
Women are their own worst enemies.  How often are other women judges because they do have the perfect figure – or because of not measuring up to the standards and norms of what a woman should look like, dress like, be like.  There is sharper tongue than that of a woman, and most of all she employs that most often with her own sisters, because she uses this to either feel superior or inferior – both of which feed the negative ego – and not the heart and soul.
The Goddess energies come back the heart and soul.  It is that wide opening of the compassionate heart, which embraces life in ALL its forms – not just the perfection, but also the perceived flaws.  Some women have taken on a heavier form in this lifetime.  I know this from myself, for I have often wondered why I was not born rake thin and I was told that I needed the heavier form otherwise, with my having such high energy fields, I literally would float in the air.
To embrace womanhood, it means to celebrate this state of BEING in all and every single form and expression – in all her bodies and embodiments and in all of life as she expresses herself.
The Triple Goddess has THREE faces, the Virgin, the Mother and the Crone – yet the crone comes to a stage of in the rites of passage where she becomes the virgin again: – symbolizing the passage of life itself, the birth and rebirth and the cycles of the seasons.
First of all, we have to learn to move into the center of our heart and being, and start to learn to embrace ALL of our womanhood and all of our expressions of life.  This means embracing ourselves, body, mind, spirit and soul – and our physical, emotional, mental and spiritual bodies, indeed all our 12 bodies.  When we embrace ALL of us, and celebrate each moment of being alive and well and on planet earth, then we will start to celebrate the passage of life itself.
I have had a relatively early dying of myself at the age of 36, when I had to have an emergency hysterectomy.  Something deep inside of me died then, but what died what the knowledge that I would never have children in this lifetime.  It took me some years to understand, that this merely meant a type of dying of the old, and the rebirthing of another me.
I am mentioning this in the sense, that I finally started to understand, that when one part of me dies, another me is born somewhere along the way.  That me then could channel the energy which used to be in the womb area, into a different kind of conception and way of life, which would give birth to bringing something greater and more profound into the world and gift the world with, than any physical birth of a child could do.
We, as we get older, need to understand this concept.  Instead of mourning the loss of the teenager, and the loss of youth, we should embrace the exuberant freedom which maturity brings!  We grow in wisdom, in understanding, and we have immense gifts to bring into this world.  Life does not stop at 40 or 45, or 50 or 55 or 60 or 65 – indeed LIFE STARTS FOR WOMEN IN MATURITY!
At last she gains the freedom to BE – just to be herself and to explore all those aspects deep inside of herself she could never be and do before.
She is like the eagle rising and flying higher than ever before.  She can inspire others and she can be that leader, that Elder of Excellence, who shows others the way.
Finally she has shed all those masks, those skins, and all that fear, which kept her prisoner for long.  She blossoms into Beingness: – indeed she is greater and more powerful than ever before!
She is not here to please any man and she is not here to be just a mother, or grandmother – or to be there just for her family: – she is meant to move the whole earth into a higher state of Being.
She is that catalyst for change.  She brings with her a life force which is greater than that of the virgin, or the mother – it is the energy of the Goddess itself, in all her power and glory!
She has been through the mill.  She has been through all the initiations and the passages of life, and now at last learns to love herself totally, and to claim her right to be.
She has gained insight and wisdom and this is the time for her to share this with the world, and not to shrink from doing just that.
She has stopped to blame, for she is embracing the responsibility to be the change she seeks to see in the world.
When a woman has reached that inner maturity, which is firmly anchored in love and acceptance of self, and firmly anchored in the wisdom, power, and love of the Goddess herself, she becomes this most powerful force on earth.
She does not need to go to war nor fight battles.  She stands there in the immensity of being itself, and it is the LOVE, pure Love and wisdom – the SOPHIA itself.
She embodies the SHEKINAH; she embodies all the faces, the forms and the expression of womanhood itself.  She has been it all, she has seen it all; she has experienced it all, for she is life itself.
She has been into the Underworld of Hades, she has been to the Sun itself, she had experienced the moon in all its waxing and waning and the fullness of force….. She has felt every emotion, she has been through all the birth and rebirthing of the rites of the passage of life itself, and she stand tall in the knowing that she come through it all, with love, grace and wisdom, which is greater than anything else
Yes, she feels, she feel from the open heart and because she feels she knows that the older she gets, the more the world needs her to lead from the front and anchor in the  New Golden Age.  That is why she is here.  She chose to be the forerunner, the one who comes into maturity, as the New Golden Age, has already dawned, and now it means all hands of deck, so that tomorrow children, can experienced the depths, breadth of love, compassion, harmony and peace.
This is what she brings.