Spiritual Cowgirl

“concerned: i find your blog totally disgusting and tasteless. you call yourself a woman of God? you should be ashamed of yourself! i can’t believe The Sophia Institute would have your filthy mouth as a speaker! NOT funny at all and no class whatsoever.”

Ah, here it is, my first negative comment on this blog from someone who is highly offended by my spiritual reality. It’s about time. My initial reaction to this comment was mixed: amusement, shock, sadness, and even a bit of fear (it brings up all those illogical past collective unconscious “memories” of being burned at the stake for this Work. I’m super extra-strength glad they can’t literally throw me into the fire this time round, only figuratively).

Because this commenter referenced The Sophia Institute, where I’m speaking on May 16th, I worried that they might send this wonderful place a negative email. I worried this person might actually show up at the event and harass me, or my audience (this is because someone got all sorts of nasty towards Marianne Williamson a few months ago when she gave a talk at The Sophia Institute). I worried about my poor parents who will be attending this event as they live part of the year in Charleston and are an active part of The Sophia Institute community. As parents, they just desperately want everyone to like and support me. My family is filled with “people pleasers”. We’re so Midwestern and smiley and freckly and sweet and kind and open minded and non judgmental that we’re often downright shocked when people don’t like us…and this can be a problem, especially when the red starts pumping through your spiritual veins and your Being demands total and complete freedom from all social, religious, moral, political, and sexual standards, programs, beliefs, practices, and energies that do not serve your highest good. And truthfully, I’m only just beginning to let the red out. Yeah, good future times for my family. Sigh.

As I was writing this very post, a delightful and deeply conscious radio host and I talked on the phone about the possibility of an interview. I love what this man is creating within the world. I think his work and radio show are incredibly important. I value his opinion. So when he made the comment that some of his colleagues and other people who need to hear the red message might not be able to because they would be put off by the fact that I use the word “fuck” and other such colorful language in my blog posts, I paid attention. I tried to be as open as I could to receiving his advice, and yet, I also tried to tune in to my inner guide and get Her opinion and not just immediately default back into my Midwestern-catholic-good-girl-people-pleaser self in a blink of a blue eye.

These comments brought up a very important inner teacher: self doubt. Am I sure of what is is I am doing? Am I allowing the divine into my work completely and clearly? Am I expressing my particular facet of the divine feminine as authentically as possible? Is my brash language truly coming from my higher self or from my past life as a trucker from Vegas (and are they really so separate after all?)?

Truthfully, I’m sometimes shocked by what comes out of me. On the left hand, my red expressions feel so very deeply Me. They make my spirit wiggle with glee and my heart feel like it’s actually doing its job. My red expressions help me to realize “ah yes, here I Am, here We are…finally”. On the other hand, the right hand, my personality self reacts to some of my red work all, “Holy Crap Sera, that’s too much! Pull back! Fire in the Hole! Retreat! Save your self (and your poor readers)!”

Van Jones says that a rebel opposes, whereas a revolutionary proposes. Sometimes we need a stick of dynamite, sometimes we just need a drawing board. From what I’ve experienced, a Redvolutionary needs both.

I cannot deny who I am and how I relate to and express Spirit. Some of my work might seem provocative and rebellious, and even a bit risqué, but I do know this: my work is rooted in love. Fierce love. The type of love that is here to part the Red Sea so we can safely move through to our other side.

My firm “no” to old paradigms, “holy” altars, repressive spiritual models, patriarchy, and stagnant “tame” spiritual expression is actually a celebratory “yes” to my self and to the divine and to all of existence. And although my particular red flair might ban me from certain agents, publishers, radio interviews, and a front row seat at America’s commercial spirituality arena, I refuse to dim my red light. If I do so, I’m just gonna have to come back and try it all over again till I learn that the only thing that really matters in this show we call life is living and speaking our divine truth.

Another thing I know about my red work: this world has gone to such great lengths to repress and contain this red energy that the act of breaking free from the thick cocoon will not be perfect or easy or pretty. It’s a rough and raw and messy process (”process” being the key word here). In other words, I’m young. I make, and will continue to make mistakes in my work. My sword might cut too deep at times and my fire might burn to hot. All I can do is apologize, make amends, keep a healthy sense of humor, and keep on truckin’.

You see, my heart beats clear: However I can be of service to the Divine Feminine, I will be so, especially this particularly, er, spicy form of the divine feminine, the Red Lady – who, if you haven’t noticed by now tends to hang out in bedrooms (and brothels), temples, beaches, bathtubs, dance clubs, gardens, and the soft gooey space between “right” and “wrong”. She eats red meat (organic, free-range, local, and sustainable of course). She drinks vodka, sake, red wine and lots of lemon water. She has tattoos. She breaks the law. She creates chaos out of order. Her favorite time to get it On is between 9pm and 3am. She wears red patent-leather stilettos, a silk robe that’s slit up to there, and gold body glitter. She smells like new beginnings. She moves like sex and your favorite cartoon character. She’s goofy. She loves to laugh, wink, and shake her ass. She does not understand “lines,” morals, class, or separation. She plays with fire. She swears like a sailor. She speaks a demanding language that you can only understand if you are naked, drunk, and willing to let go of everything you’ve been told God is or isn’t. And Oh Yes, She is deeply, madly, passionately in love with you. Yes, you. And she will go to any and all lengths to remind you of this truth. Of your truth. Of our truth.

This, of course, is not The Truth. This is simply my truth, for now (oh yeah, the Red Lady apparently has ADD. She rarely stays focused on one thing or place or way of being for too long. She’s all about movement, shedding skins, and evolution). I would never assume or demand that anyone else adhere to my spiritual reality, but I will continue to share my spiritual approach with the sincere intention that by doing so, you will be inspired to create and share your own unique approach and relationship with the divine. My hope is that by expressing a bit of the red wildness, you will be reminded of your own divine wildness, your spiritual freedom, and your spiritual responsibility to be your true self, boldly and loudly, to the best of your ability, within and without the fire.

And even if we differ in belief and expression, I also hope to convey through my work that you are not alone on the path. The Red Ones are here to support you, tickle you, kiss you, and tell you how goddamn sexy you are, even if, and especially because, you think we have filthy mouths.

I fired a priest today. OK, technically he’s an ex-priest who was asked to officiate my little sister’s upcoming wedding, but still. He’s also a wonderful person and if my little sister wanted a man to officiate her wedding, he would be ideal. All that said, I have to admit that asking him to step aside, so I could officiate the wedding by myself, was very satisfying and deeply significant. I swear I could hear Mary Magdalene clapping.

Yeah, I lied in the below post. I didn’t want to be a nun when I was a child. I wanted to be a priest. I heard, what many Catholics refer to as, “the call,” from what I assumed back then was from Jesus, but now realize, was most likely from Mary Magdalene. They sound so similar sometimes, mystically speaking that is, except M.M. has that deliciously dirty sense of humor, that shameless sensual sensibility, and that heaven-shattering divine feminine wisdom that keeps J.C. lovingly washing her feet with the Roman collars he steals from the Vatican. But, let’s return to my wacky childhood.

When I informed the priests at my church that I too was called to be a priest, they laughed, patted my head, and told me I couldn’t have heard the call to be a priest because women were not allowed to be priests. After all, they said, Jesus only had male disciples (M.M. shakes her red head, juts out her hip, and slaps her left cheek), but all was not lost, for of course, I could be a nun.

OK, I thought, nuns must be female priests. Fine. “Can I marry people? Can I give sermons? Can I give people the host? Can I hear confessions? Can I anoint the sick? And, uh, can I bless the red wine?” No. No. No. No. No. And finally, a no.

Wow. These men were so powerful, so intuitive, and so omnipotent that they could translate and determine my personal spiritual experiences. Fascinating. Their surprised reaction, crafted response, and staid theology communicated to me that my spiritual knowing was not real or true or right. These men told me that the voice from God that I so clearly heard, urging me to serve Him as a priest (not a nun), was false. My collect call from God was a wrong number.

Why did these men of God try to silence and reshape my hoot from the Holy? Because I was already questioning the hell out of my Sunday-School teachers? Because I enjoyed swiveling my hips when I walked up and down Church aisles? Because I wanted a pink Trans Am as my priest mobile? Because I was already showing alarming signs of my future redness? Perhaps. But the obvious reason why my sacred nudge to adorn a collar and serve God as a priest was immediately denied - was because I had a vagina. Duh. And we all know the only thing that terrifies the Church more than Hell is a vagina.

Fast forward a few decades to the Beak family Christmas 2007. That holiday week I met with a young priest for dinner. He had read my book, come to my talk the previous spring at The Sophia Institute, and wanted to talk spiritual shop with me. During our lovely time together he exclaimed a few times with surprise, “Sera, you’re a priest!” Each time he said this I shook my head, deflecting the painful title, but all the while hearing this strange hissing noise, “sssss,” from somewhere deep inside.

It was during this very Beak family holiday that my little sister told us that she and her boyfriend were getting engaged soon! After we expressed our delight, I randomly asked, “Can I officiate the ceremony?” I was kidding. Sort of. But, much to everyone’s surprise, my little sister said “yes”. Of course, my family felt that there should be a priest present as well to make it all official and proper and holy (and because my parents are Catholic, and oh yeah, because I’ve never officiated a wedding before, well, at least not in this lifetime and this wedding is big – 300 guests and counting).

And so a few months later, after the perfect proposal in Paris, we started asking various priests if they would co-officiate the wedding with me. I even asked my new friend, the young sexy priest. He said he’d love to, but his congregation would not allow it… because I’m not ordained. This was the answer we received from every priest we asked, except for the wonderful ex-priest. He said he would risk the fires of hell and officiate the wedding ceremony with me despite my lowly non-ordinated status (I do realize ordinated is not a real word, but it’s late and my brain is tired and red wine has been involved in this evening’s musings).

Fast forward a few months later when I was asked by a Unitarian Church to give a sermon. I agreed without thinking much about it. A week before my sermon, as I browsed the church’s calendar to prepare, I saw that every person who had given a sermon in the past year was ordained. Hold up. Gulp. Did the U.U. peeps think I was ordained? This assumption has happened before because the sister program at my grad school was for those who were ordained. I was about to call the kindly U.U. minister to tell her I’m most definitely NOT ordained and that she should cancel my sermon, when my body came to a halt. My spirit bit my tongue. The heat rose, pausing my temporary insanity. My heart roared and I heard, in a loving but fiercely feminine voice:

“Do you really think you’re NOT ordained?”

Like I do whenever my spiritual underpants are pulled down, I called my cosmic twin for reinforcement. She has more personal connections with “the clergy” than I do, having been through the sister program I was referring to, and she reassured me that I do not need to be ordained in order to give a sermon for the liberal U.U.’s. She then said “but la (my nickname), that’s not the point. Even if you did need to be officially ordained, you would still do this…you know what you are… you know what we are….you know”.

I do.

I’m a priestess. I’m ordained simply by the fact that I exist and have a vagina. Naturally. And so are you. If you dare to remember and if you’re willing to re-define this “priestess” role for yourself and shake off any ideas that this somewhat sci-fi, ancient-sounding, exotic title is out of your league or cheesy or woo woo or mystical or something other than a label for a powerful archetype that if appropriately reintegrated could change your life and this planet, not too mention scare the cardinal robes off the Vatican – all things we red ones try to do at least once a day.

As Jalaja Bonheim says in her brilliant book, Aphrodite’s Daughters (please go buy this book. Right now. I’m serious. And pass it along to every one of your girlfriends, sisters, and even your mother)

“Today, I would describe a priestess as a woman who lives in two worlds at once, who perceives life on earth against the backdrop of a vast, timeless reality. Whether or not she is mated to a human partner, she is a woman in love, wedded to being, to life, to love itself. Having offered herself, body and soul, in service of spirit, she mediates between matter and spirit, between the human and divine realms”

“Claiming her own authority is possibly the most important step that a contemporary priestess can take…for untold centuries, we lived as spiritual children who bowed to the authority of supposedly wiser authorities or institutions. Like all children, we often had to sacrifice our personal truth in order to conform to the rules of our religious communities. Now such authoritarian structures no longer serve us.”

After remembering and trusting something so obvious, but so repressed, I called my little sister, waved the red flag, and we decided to nix the priest. And, as we all know, there are plenty of sites online that will ordain me in a few minutes so the marriage will be legal. I am amazed and a bit embarrassed that we of the spiritually-liberal Beak family had been searching so desperately for a man to stand next to me, just so I could officiate my own sister’s wedding. It was absurd. It was sad. It’s a perfect example of how deep and subtle the roots of patriarchy grow.

My beautiful little sister who is most definitely spiritually attuned but not exactly familiar with this sort of funky parlance, called me this afternoon and said: “I don’t want you in the dress I had planned for you when you were going to be a bridesmaid, you know, that white one. Nope, now I want you in a red dress, a sexy stylish long red dress, like something a modern priestess would wear”. My eyes filled with tears, I smiled, thanked her, and immediately prayed to the fashion deities for help. Seriously, if any of you come across a sexy, long, stylish red dress in the next 6 months, lemme know. Price is not an issue. I’m sending the bill to the Catholic Church.

Reclaiming, redressing, re-igniting the inner priestess is not just for the unique or special few. It’s your inherent birthright. A priestess is every woman who trusts her individual path, determines her own life, celebrates her unique relationship with divinity, unifies her sexuality with her spirituality, and uses her innate spiritual authority to ordain herself…over and over and over again…from the bedroom to the boardroom to a wedding ceremony.

“In our day and age, the long-dormant priestess is awakening, knocking loudly on the doors of our psyche, demanding entrance, and often bringing tumultuous change and upheaval to our lives. Afraid, we may turn away and try to ignore her call. But she will not take no for an answer. “You have work to do,” she insists. “Don’t run away.”

“To know oneself as an embodiment of the divine is to gain access to the ultimate source of spiritual authority within. The man or woman who knows God within is no longer dependent on outer intermediaries. Women must discover the divine female essence within themselves. This should inspire self respect, confidence, and the “divine pride” that is necessary to traverse the Tantric path. Divine pride, or remembering one’s ultimate identity as a deity, is qualitatively different from arrogance, for it is not motivated by a sense of deficiency or compensatory self-aggrandisement. This pride is an antidote to self-doubt and discouragement and an expression of the pure Tantric view. When a woman reclaims her divine identity, she does not seek outer sources of approval, for a firm, unshakable basis for self-esteem emanates from the depths of her own being”
- Miranda Shaw, Passionate Enlightenment

“One should worship a divinity by becoming oneself a divinity. One who has not become a divinity should not worship a divinity. Anyone worshipping a divinity without becoming a divinity will not reap the fruits of that worship”
- Gandharva Tantra

My shakti left the building this past week. My mojo vacated to Mexico. My She Bang was barely booming my inner universe. It felt horrible. Painful even. Like going from Technicolor vision to black and white, pomegranates to potatoes, Astroglide to KY Jelly. Every time I checked in, I got nuthin’. My true self drew my personality self a big depressing blank. I felt like I was covered with a thick funky fog from a Stephen King novel. I became depressed and withdrawn and even started watching really bad T.V. (gasp).

Finally, last night I managed to lift my self out of the creepy weepy fog just enough to receive a download from divinity.

“You need to love Me”

Whaa? Love the divine? Come on! Give me a freakin’ break! I’ve loved you since I was cosmically conceived. I wanted to be a nun for the first ten years of my life, for Christ’s sake. In third grade I scribbled “I HEART God” on every test, note, and paper, risking severe teasing from my peers. I spent years yawning behind the rigid walls of academia to appropriately study you. I traveled around the world and dealt with all sorts of physical ailments to encounter you. I have participated in countless personal retreats, read all the books, done all the workshops, risked late-night dangerous bus rides through the Himalayas - all in order to directly experience you. I have dedicated my life, my career to sharing my experience of you in order to inspire others to deepen their own unique relationship to you. I have faced, and continue to face, my deepest fears in order to spread the red, and btw, while I’m bitching, you know I haven’t seen a dime yet for all this work and my checking account and credit card debt would make Suze Orman pass out with a bottle of Scotch. And isn’t it enough that I love you through loving the people in my life, the trees, my parrot, my self, organic vegetables, even a few Republicans…isn’t this loving you? What more do you want from me?

“Everything”.

Gulp. After I piped down from my loaded defense, I inquired deeper. I looked, I unpeeled, I began to slowly realize, that I was, well, scared shitless to love the divine in this seemingly new way - free from patriarchal ideas of the divine, prescribed ideologies, popular modern spiritual maxims, rituals, trends, personal habits, my past. When I listened I heard a few definitive basic reasons why… from my unconscious (Sense a theme these past few posts? I’ll be nailing this one home for a while folks. The shadow world is just too damn revealing. My conscious beliefs have very little power when they’re up against my unconscious beliefs). So. If I love the divine the way my spirit wants to, deep down, where the shadow puppets frolic, I’m scared:

1. I will lose my personal power.
2. I will turn into a freaky sappy chick no one can relate to or want to invite to dinner for fear I will lick their foreheads and hug the steak.
3. My human relationships won’t measure up to this Divine Lovegasm and I will continuously be let down and disappointed.
4. I won’t be regarded as “professional” in my career.

Also, if I love the divine the way my spirit longs to, really and truly love like I have never loved before, won’t I split open like the Grand Canyon? Won’t my blood burn through my skin? Won’t my eyelashes catch fire and my heart beat so loud that I’ll disrupt yoga classes, airports, sex toy stores and bookshelves?

I paused, took some deep breaths, went into my heart, and began to feel all the space I had been saving, guarding, protecting. Tears came and came and came, and so did the obvious and deeply humbling other reason why I’m hesitant to love the divine in this new way:

5. I don’t know how

Really. I have no idea. How the hell do you love Love? I can’t exactly smooch the universe or bring it red gerber daisies. I know that how I’ve loved in the past has been beautiful and real and good, but this new nudge to love feels amorphous, unknown, foreign, and obviously uncomfortable. This new way of loving also feels very needed, because I’m calling my self to experience it, repeatedly, gently, with a fancy cosmic fog machine.

I then understood that the only One who is capable of teaching me how to love the divine in this new way, is the divine - which I’ll admit is sort of woo woo and circuitous and chicken and egg-like, but this understanding felt like an energetic allowance more than an intellectual or intuitive realization.

Suddenly the Red Lady interrupted my spiritual navel gazing with the song lyric, “give a little bit, give a little bit of your love to me!”. I burst out laughing and said, “fine, teach me how to love you”.

And with that red invocation, the shakti shook free, my mojo made out with my She Bang, and together they huffed and puffed and blew the fog away. I have no idea what will happen next, how the love lessons will unfold, but I’ve always been a good student.

So how are you loving the divine/universe/god/dess/energy these days? How long do you make out with divinity? How far do you go?

Check out this video

Although I often recoil at calling myself any “ist”, I like this simple video (and check out the Ms Magazine Kali cover!).

For many, being a feminist isn’t just about changing laws, fighting against patriarchy, and demanding equality in the outside world, it’s also, importantly, about venturing inside ourselves and acknowledging the patriarchy we have internalized - a powerful archetype both women and men have that is sometimes called the Inner Patriarch, Negative Animus, or Shadow King. Our Shadow King can be a patriarchal force far more powerful than the external version only because for most of us, he’s unconscious, yet ruling our daily lives. No matter how well educated we are or how progressive or sexually empowered, chances are our Shadow King is influencing our decisions, relationships, careers, clothing, health, sexuality, and even our spirituality. Bottom line: most of us are unconsciously living in reaction to this Inner Patriarch and allowing it to define and create our reality.

As we all know, when we start doing serious inner work and dive into the unconscious realms and intend to reintegrate what we find, we stop projecting as much of our dark or our light onto others or the world. So, in my red universe, if we don’t take the necessary time to explore and integrate our personal Shadow King (or whatever term/phrase, symbol that works for you), we will continue to live in a patriarchal world. There’s much more to say about this subject, stay tuned for my own special meeting with this inner Mac Daddy. It wasn’t pretty. Pissed off Daddies are never fun.

It started, as most red things do, with a dream. This particular late-night romp with my unconscious was triggered by my tango-inspired Alexander Technique lesson, or, vice versa, depending on how you play with the space/time continuum and how much red wine you imbibe before sleep. In this dream, I was at a friend’s loft and there were dozens of glasses filled with colored liquids resting on circular tables. I was making the rounds, somewhat frantically, chugging all the purple-colored liquids as quickly as possible. Suddenly a beautiful young man tapped my shoulder and motioned for me to quit already with the purple-sipping relay. He handed me a glass filled with a bright red liquid, and said, “this is the one you need. This is Power”. Earlier that day, during my tango-inspired Alexander Technique lesson, the power went off in my teacher’s apartment – but nowhere else in the building.

As the week progressed more electronics frazzled. CDs skipped, sparks flew (my electric toothbrush almost started a small electrical fire), my cell lost its charge within five minutes after charging it, my vibrator…well, OK, thank Goddess that one was spared from my personal electro tornado, but for the grand finale, my computer began to act all tired and whiney and whirly and then, it simply refused to turn on…sob. My sweet clunky ibook is a bit of a dinosaur, but it has sentimental value, and even a personality (as do all inanimate objects that reside in my personal space. Call it a soul nod to Tom Robbins or a quaint Aquarian projection trait, I’ve always had special relationships with most of my inanimate objects, for better or for worse). I received this computer years ago when The Red Book became a possibility. It was the first electronic playground for my new red voice. It held my gaze, fears, joys, and divine intentions day in and night out, for over 4 years. It was in front of my body more than any lover.

So I did what any spiritual cowgirl would do in this situation, I blessed my little ibook, smudged it, kissed its belly. I even chose a tarot card for it, and of course, drew the Death card. Gulp.

I called the Mac Genius Bar and was told I had to wait 3 days for an appointment. Three days! I had already gone two days with no computer because I kept hoping my electric buzz would fizzle down and my electronics would magically come back to life. They all did, except my computer. I haven’t been computer-less for an ever. But there I was, unable to write my book, blog, surf the web, check my email, or do any of the things we do with computers, which for me as a writer who works from home, is just about everything. It was downright freaky, and obviously, tremendously revealing. After a little over a week with no computer or easy email access, a funny thing happened, my head quieted down, my rhythm relaxed, my personal space began to clear. Oh yeah, and I met my Inner Patriarch, which I will share in a future post (how could I not delve into the symbolic reason behind all these power outages?).

Btw, right now, I’m typing on a beautiful new computer, the Mac geniuses could not save my previous computer or my hard drive. I had backed up about 80 percent of my writing, but I have lost over 5 months of email that was downloaded to my mac mail and purged from my server. That’s hundreds of personal and professional contacts…gone. Recovering my hard drive would cost me thousands - money I do not have at the moment. So, if anyone reading this has sent me an email in the past five months, please do so again, and do me a red little favor and acknowledge, affectionately rub, and kiss your computer with gratitude, right now.

“You were seeking their approval”.

Shit.

Not exactly what I want to be hearing from my higher self regarding a few of the fabulous social interactions I experienced last weekend. But this is what happens when I inquire within – the answers always come, and although deeply compassionate, they state truth the way Kali wields a sword. Clean, clear, and swift. Off with my head. Again and again and again. Makes me want to hermit out with a bottle of sake and a planter of Orchids, except knowing me, after a while, I’ll try to get the flowers drunk and the sake to bloom… in order to seek the divine’s approval.

My higher self asked me to meditate, dive deep into my unconscious, and listen for the top 10 reasons why I seek approval from others. Not exactly a fun exercise, but I did it anyway and lemme tell ya, the reasons I intuited for seeking approval, suck. I want to tear them up and flush them down the universe’s toilet and pretend they don’t exist. These are not even statements I consciously believe in – they are hidden rip tides, internalized programs, moldy beliefs that are unconscious. But I also know that if I don’t acknowledge them and accept them as a funky part of my inner posse, hand them each a sexy red t-shirt and a kazoo, they will continue to pollute my social interactions with their mourning breath. And I prefer to smell like Red Egyptian Musk when I’m up close and personal.

Alright, enough prefacing. Here are the top ten unconscious reasons Sera seeks approval from strangers, friends, family, lovers, bosses, publishers, agents, blog readers, and even, the divine.

1. I want to be right
2. I want to be loved and admired
3. I want to be safe
4. I need to survive
5. I want to control how others experience me
6. I want to please
7. I’m scared they’ll think I’m not good enough
8. It’s the only way I’ll get what I want
9. I’m nothing without their approval – I cease to exist (Ouch!)
10. How else will people like me?

Yay me! We all know it’s not cool to try and seek approval. It’s like driving a nail into the tire of our spirit’s Prius. It’s like rubbing Velcro on Chinese silk. It’s like Donald Trump’s comb over. It’s a waste of energy, touch, and really good hair gel. Seeking approval cinches our natural flow, mocks our authentic beauty, and keeps us separate, unable to truly connect and be present with the one, and the One, we are with.

We seek approval in often incredibly subtle ways. You might think you’re all fine and dandy with your beliefs, your spiritual practices, your political views, your body, your reality, your heart, your sexuality, but watch yourself in your next personal interaction…especially if it’s a new person you’re meeting. Pay close attention. Where does your mind go? How well are you listening to them? What’s happening with your body language? Why are you sharing this particular information about yourself with this person at this time? What’s really fueling your presentation?

My interactions last week were diverse, profound, pleasurable, exciting, and apparently, extremely revealing…at least to my higher self. And that’s why she keeps pushing me into the line of fire and providing subtitles: “ooh, did you catch that tone you just used? You tried to prove your reality trumps his reality. Interesting. Hey now, check that out, the way you just non-answered his question? Sheesh, you’re not dancing with the stars tonight, you’re dancing way the hell around them? Why did you tell her about your future book plans? What were you trying to prove? That coy mask you just raised – holy smoke screens! We haven’t seen that one since what, high school?! Oh sweet Mercury, notice how you shifted your eyes and withdrew your energy right then and there? Yeah chica, that was the seeker seeking to be sought, again”. And on and on the tutoring continues.

Let me be clear: this is not criticism. This is not my ego speaking. This is my divine spark gently reviewing my home movie. I actually invite this crazy wisdom of a witness into all of my interactions, all the time now, because I’m here to be authentic, or I’m not here at all. Obviously. I would like to be free. I would like to blaze forth as Is. I would like to really and truly, completely and honestly, not give a fuck what people think of me. Eventually. Right now, I would like you to think that this post is super cool. Shit.

So, how do you seek approval? What situations provoke you? What people? How do you share your self, your universe, your heart with another, without somewhere, somehow, hoping they approve?

All the red deities and angels and glowing mystics know that making love on an Altar does a spirit, a body, and most definitely, a Church, good. In fact, in ancient times, in certain cultures (in Mesopotamia, India, Egypt, Greece, even Italy), altars were the best place to get your groove thang on, usually with a priestess or a priest who was a well-trained “stand in” for a goddess or god. In other words, if you were alive back then (and you probably were, once) you could (or did) visit a temple in order to directly experience the divine… through sex.

Now, that’s Holy Communion!

But when the monotheistic religious giants rolled into town, they were not so kind to these priestesses or priests. The One God was, well, frigid, and if he ever had sex, well, apparently it was just with himself. There was no Goddess around to help create the New. Sexuality became spirituality’s nemesis. But, here we are, a few thousand years later, and it seems like the sacred sex train has steamed back into town, modern priestesses are throwing back the covers, and even “ordinary” Jane and John have begun to actively seek out the spiritual within the sexual and the sexual within the spiritual and they will break into Churches and get all sorts of hot and messy to prove it.

Check out this recent news story that a Friend directed my way:

A couple in Florida were caught doing the dirty deed on the altar of a Baptist Church. The couple brought red candles to set the mood and the Deputies who arrested them complained that “there was splattered red wax all over the altar“! When asked why they did the horizontal tango in a Church, the young woman simply said “she wanted a spiritual and sexual experience”. To which, Isis and Mary Magdalene and Ishtar sung “Hallaluja, sista!”.

Now I’m not saying these two frisky kids are some sort of modern-day priest and priestess, and I’m not advocating that we disrespect someone else’s place of worship (well, maybe sometimes, if the spirit moves ya) but this story is a juicy little reminder of how this sexual spiritual energy is rising up in all the right places these days - and it’s important to inquire, pay attention, and investigate what this might mean.

A Red Point: You can’t suppress an innately horny Universe forever, no matter how many people you punish or how many deities you banish or how many bad clothing choices you make. Payback is a powerful bitch that likes to desecrate (or consecrate???) church altars with red candle wax.

So what can you do this week to help relieve the Universe? What can you do to sanctify your sexuality and sully your spirituality? There are only so many churches…(wink)

Good Friday and Happy Easter, Ostara, Purim, Holi, Full Moon and Spring Equinox!

A Bit O’ Red Herstory:
Forget pastel-colored eggs this Sunday! In the Eastern Orthodox tradition red eggs are exchanged at Easter. Why red? Well, once upon a new millennium, a powerful spiritual teacher named Mary Magdalene decided to visit a grumpy Roman Emperor, Tiberius, in order to tell him about the risen Christ. For this important meeting, Mary brought a white egg as a symbol of new life and Christ’s Resurrection (she also knew men need visuals in order to get the deeper symbolic meaning of things). After Mary shared the good news Tiberius responded - not too surprisingly – with, “B.S.!” He believed the lady in red was most definitely nutz (or drunk off that special red wine that J.C. was so famous for creating spontaneously. If J.C. was around today, I bet he’d run a winery in Napa called “Sinsuality”. I also bet he’d host one helluva Re-Birthday party. Holy hangovers are so worth it. But I digress).

Tiberius announced “A human being can no more rise from the dead than the egg in your hand could turn red” (at which, Inanna, Attis, and Osiris immediately spit out their wine and slapped each other on the back like they had just heard the silliest thing, like ever. Well, at least since that crazy rumor about Eve causing “The Fall” of humankind). A word to the wise: When the Divine Feminine pays you a personal visit, listen to her, no matter how love drunk she may appear or how sexy she moves under her robes or what crazy wise information she decides to throw your way. I mean really.

But Mary didn’t flinch at Tiberius’s rude response, she looked him straight in the eye, raised the egg to her chest (directly in front of her heart), pointed to it – and the white egg turned red. Yep, the Divine Feminine has always loved to turn things (and people) a beautiful, bold, shade of Red.

Resurrect Yer Fine Self
J.C. demonstrated that death is necessary for rebirth, but Christianity isn’t the only kid on the spiritual block with a death wish. Sufis often say “die before you die,” by which they mean we need to die to the ego self in order to be reborn to our divine Self. Btw, Sufis are also big fans of the vino, hmmm… (Rumi nods passionately, swigs, and swoons). And most shamans from around the world had to undergo a “death” before they started their healing work - sometimes they were even temporarily buried alive, which symbolized the necessary surrender of their previous life.

Not jiving with crucifixion, drunk Sufis or dirty shamans? No problem. You can still take full advantage of this, er, “metamorphical” season by letting go of that which no longer serves your highest good. If you’re not quite sure what to let go of, simply ask yourself: “What needs to die and be reborn?” Be willing to hear the answers.

A stagnant relationship? A repressive belief system? A self-destructive attitude? An environmentally unfriendly habit? A crappy diet? A spiritual practice that might have served you well in the past, but is making your spirit yawn in the present? A hair style you’ve had since 1997?

Pay close attention to your intuition and the divine winks fluttering throughout your day, and you’ll soon realize that some piece of your self, some part of your life, is asking to die, to be transformed, so you can create the space to become a powerful container, for the New. As Marion Woodman says, “New wine poured into an old wine skin will cause it to burst”. And all the goddesses and gods know that it’s a Cardinal Sin to waste good wine.

While death ain’t exactly fun or easy, the more we try to hang on to the old, the more painful and slow the death can be. Bottom line: we can’t escape the natural process of death and rebirth. Change is the only constant in life (and death). Like a snake whose skin is restricting her graceful movements, like a caterpillar who innately knows she’s reached her limits, like a young sexy (in my red opinion) Jewish man from the first century who sacrificed his life for a higher good – you too need to shed your tight skin, morph into a beautiful butterfly, “die” to who you believe yourself to be so you can be reborn to who you really are.

As the Japanese mystic, Ikkyu, so beautifully wrote:

“A butterfly hovers in front of her face
how long will she sleep”

After all, tis the season to play strip poker with the Universe and win your self a brand new life. And, make sure to throw yourself a rockin’ Re-birthday Party, replete with red wine, red eggs, and a red Welcome mat for the Divine Feminine.

Check out this hilarious and deeply moving new documentary about a Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp for Girls in Portland! The two male documentarians trace the path of 4 girls, ages 7 through 17 through the transformative experience of the week-long camp. The filmmakers say they got an in-depth look at what it means to be a girl these days, “The film that we ended up making…wasn’t just cute girls with guitars. It was about girlhood, about why it meant so much to these girls to go to a place where they could be loud, where they were not worried about what they were dressed as or what their weight was”.

When these girls first got to the camp, most were extremely quiet. Even if they had loud voices, they were, as the filmmakers found, sort of energetically “silenced”. The more the filmmakers interviewed these girls, they became aware of just how much the culture, media, and male/female dynamics have silenced them. Put a guitar in a boy’s hands and he’s screaming and rocking out, put one in a girls hands, and she stands there for a while, not sure if she should rock out. Shyness, lack of confidence, strong body-image concerns were abundant in the interviews – in fact, one of the girls says this: “I just accept that I hate myself and I don’t really think about it”. The filmmakers said it’s hard to talk to these girls about “being silenced” by the culture around them when they are, well, silenced.

But at rock camp most of these girls find their voices again, they taste what it’s like to break free from the subtle but dominant energies that bind them, and they realize that being “loud” is not about the volume of your voice, it’s about reclaiming and freely expressing your unique feminine power.

You Tube Video Link