The Importance of Ceremony

A common theme these days is the rapid pace of changes, both personal and wordly, some chosen and some unwanted and many challenging in some way to deal with. When asked for my wisdom on how to deal with the challenges of change, I speak of transitions being hard for most folks...and that creating ceremony offers ease to our human dislike of change by honoring what has served our life in it’s way.

So when something's time is up-be it a relationship, habit, job, or place to live-it is important to consciously honor how what is leaving-whether it be our choice or not-has blessed our life. Doing so allows us to continue to receive the blessings of what is moving out of our life and to be in ease with the changes. Ceremony, with it’s calling upon elements of our being other than our minds, offers a sense of understanding and completion otherwise not possible using only our mind.

My ceremony for ease and gratitude with change is below. You may have other ways of ceremony; my invitation is simply to make conscious your gratitude...

1. Sitting down in a quiet place, close your eyes and take some deep breaths in and out, relaxing yourself into your body until you can feel yourself calm and focused within.

2. Write down what is leaving/changing, focusing on realizing clarity and positivity in how it served your life. (Even things we did not like/are happy are moving out have something to be grateful for, even if it is that it is leaving!)

3. Closing your eyes, bring what is leaving/changing into your heart, imaging beautiful light and joy surrounding what is leaving. Invite those who surround and guide you to help you understand how what is leaving has served your life. When you can feel the warmth of gratitude for what is leaving you, offer your well wishes for it’s service forward.

4. Opening your eyes, take the piece of paper with what you wrote and with a prayer, burn the paper. This releases what you wrote and the fire element offers release and transformation.

Ceremony offers us the opportunity to remember we are not simply the doings of our life; that our living has nobility, courage, and destiny. And so when you are feeling yourself bemoan what is changing in your life or world, take some time to remember with your body and your conscious choice, what is good and of noble in what is happening with the changes and the challenges.

Being a Woman Matters

We are living within amazing and powerful transformations of the foundations of how life on our planet is ordered with all that calls Earth home affected, essentially requested to transform. We have valued the intellect at the cost of the spiritual, the seen world at the cost of the unseen world, and having learned the wisdom of these choices, we are being expanded into more wisdom and beauty. We are being asked-really, demanded-to bring about more balance into our world through reclaiming and revitalizing our relationship with our spirit and soul....to live less by the belief that the divine is separate from us and to embrace in ecstasy that we are the divine embodied.

As women, we are ambassadors for humanity and divinity through our innate powers of creativity, sacredness, and sensitivity. As women, the realms of magic, mystery, and miracles are ours simply through the grace of being born a woman. Many of these elemental aspects of ourselves as women have been previously denigrated, deemed dangerous by those in our culture who feared the unknown, As women, we have not been encouraged to develope our awareness or trust of our wisdom, creative power, or the strength within us. As a woman, we have amazing power and deep impact, simply through being a woman......are you in conscious relationship with your sacred powers?

We are women first and secondly our roles of daughter, mother, wife, sister, which are wonderful workshops for learning, remembering, and then offering as our wisdom. All humans are born through a woman, learn first from a women, and seek to be loved by a woman. We are the creative force of the universe-we simply need to become aware of what we are teaching those around us about what we value and what we believe is the gift of a human lifetime. Trusting our knowing and speaking of what we know ignites the vital healing of ourselves, our times, and our world.

Simply, the divine is inviting us to become the teachers, healers, warriors, and leaders the world dearly needs us now to be. Live the radical notion that within us is all that we need and that in bringing forth what is within yourselves, not only are our own lives transformed for the better but our families and communities as well. Choose to make love with your life......choose to receive in trust and faith your divinity ...choose the bliss and bounty and beauty that is yours through birth as a woman.

An Ode to Mother, big and Small

It is that time of year when we allot a day to the honoring of Mother, using flowers, food, and perhaps our presence to show gratitude for the women who honor the sacred trust of tending, guiding, and nurturing the young -and not so young-for the world. In recent times, we have expanded our notions of mothering to include those who nurture others through compassion, consistency, and care as well as those whose role in a family is Mom. Yet, we have not so much expanded our active support for the mothering role, still subscribing to beliefs from an age when Father knew best and Mother simply made it so. If mothers truly took their power-not only their responsibility- to heart, would we mothers truly allow the killing of children we call “war” as an acceptable form of conflict resolution? Juliet Ward Howe, instrumental to the celebration of Mother’s Day in the US, certainly did not think so as evidenced by her poem in honor of the power of mothers.

To be Mother is to be the first teacher, leader, warrior and healer that a soul in the human journey encounters, her impact beginning in the womb deep and wide. A mother first informs the young what is and is not true, what can and cannot be done, and what is to be and not to be...the first map of the human world for the next generation as it were. We mothers also benefit from investing in the mothering role (for life truly is mutual); while mothering we stumble upon places within ourselves still un-mothered... the sacred invitation to heal a wounding of our past instead of simply passing the wound onto the future. And in traditions ancient, the prayer of a mother is said to be the one prayer the gods must answer.

In working with women in transition-and who is not these days!- what I have come to understand is that often before we can relax into more of our unique selves as women, our daughter-selves need to allow our mothers to have been both good and bad, right and wrong, big and small, individuals and accumulated lineage. When we cannot allow our mothers to have been human with her own needs and desires as a woman and limited by the times she lived in, we put ourselves at risk for not allowing our needs as women and dissolving the limitations we may feel from the times and roles we are in. Where we still act as daughter, while otherwise claiming the full rights and privileges of being a grown-up, is an invitation to not so much make our human mother wrong as much as a reminder to call upon our Divine Mother and Earth Mother to nurture us as their children.

Honoring the sacredness of the role of Mother invites us to become more conscious of the lineage of the women before us in our family, for truthfully, this is who is present-known and unknown, liked or disliked- in ourselves as women. We all know where we swore we would be different from our mothers; are we also willing to also give gratitude and acknowledgment to their wisdom and ways that we are passing on? Mothering is a role with tremendous power and impact, a role sacred in a world often profane.

And so, my prayer for all mothers in honor of Mother’s Day is that we honor the role of Mother, taken up in sacred trust with the souls we call children, on behalf of All. And I pray that we truly and actively support mothers in not only the attending responsibilities of this sacred trust, we truly and actively support her engaging the power of this sacred trust as well. For all reality begins with a dream and is it not the dream of all mothers that her children realize a life long of health, happiness, and the holy from the gift of a human life? All of us are children of Mother Earth and I know this to be Her prayer for all us children, simply we are asked to remember our sacred relationship as such....mother Small, mother big..

Late Winter Musings

A Story for our Times

I am looking out my window at the snow is falling, our wood stove and fireplace keeping us warm, and a fresh stock of marshmellows for roasting later. I love the cozy feeling that comes from being safely inside a warm dwelling while Mother Nature is expressing herself, something she is doing very much so these days. I have grown to love New England winters, their days of more darkness offering me more opportunity to dwell within myself.

My daughter and I recently went to "Avatar" the 3D movie released in December 2009 and I came out of the movie theater again reminded of the power of seminal movies. The themes within "Avatar" are an invitation to become more aware of how our current beliefs and choices effect our life and our world. Without giving away the movie, here are some of the themes within both "Avatar" and people's lives today . And how this may present in your life as a woman~

1. "Sh*t happens that challenges our life in often big ways; we choose to engage our powers to transform it or claim being victim of it." Greet challenges as simply requests for more of your heart-based wisdom, love, and strength already present in your powerful gift of birth as a woman.

2.Beliefs and habits from tribes you pledged allegiance to at one time now may not be beliefs and habits that serve you. What serves at one age and stage of your life often needs to transform to be of service in your next age and stage of life. Your own experience will edit what is true and not true for you and your life.

3. Without the presence of others, your challenges will not become transformed; sovereignty of soul is not the same as solitary in being. We are sovereign souls here to serve the sacred gift of our human lifetime and journey and we count upon others-as others count upon us-to provide mirrors for what we cannot see ourselves. We all need people in our life who kindly mirror where we lack clarity and awareness, the result is greater ease and joy in our lives.

4. Our hubris as human beings is ignorant and immature; not only do we share this planet with other life forms, these life forms are considered by many cultures as nations themselves....the green nation, the animal kingdom, etc. We humans are simply one aspect of the Earth's eco-system, dependant on other forms of life for our living while other life forms are not dependant on our living. If for no reason than our own self-interest, we are being called to respectfully relate to the Earth and her other life forms who truly can benefit us if we but alter our relationship with them.

5. Women is the first teacher as Mother and the vessal through which all humans existence enters through. An active, strong feminine acts as guardian for the sacredness of all life, even for life we ourselves do not create and life we seemingly do not benefit from. Women in many traditional and ancient cultures are considered the heart and guardians of the culture and it's well-being and the divine feminine honored as the creative aspect in life. Where women are not respected and honored as the embodiment of the divine feminine, the culture considers that place at risk or in decline. When we honor the feminine as the grace of the divine, the divine will grace us in return.

6. Events in life will demand we choose; not choosing is our choice and all choices have an impact. If you are there, you are part of what is being created, the invitation is increased re-spondabilty. Even the carefully constructed scientific standards for experiments concede that who/what is present to the experiment influences and impacts the results: ie. there is no such thing as an impartial result. Whatever event, situation, relationship you find yourself in, you are being called to become conscious of your impact and power through your response-ability to the situation.

7. Courage is necessary in life and engaging what does not seem possible in trust and faith does result in miracles.When we call upon the courage of our convictions-what is true for us within our hearts-divine grace answers our call and serves what we call a miracle. What has been previously thought to be impossible become possible through our engaging in acts of faith and courage with others.

8. Calling upon those who lived before us- our ancestors-is calling upon the strength, wisdom, and light from those who came before us. The heart and wisdom we contain does not die with our bodies; never doubt that what you transform within yourself continues as light and wisdom for the benefit of all who follow you.

Part of my winter interior work has been contemplating ways to expand my connection and service with our community of women from all over the world. To that end, I am very excited to be working on a series of teleseminars which will begin later in March~ more information soon! It promises to be a wonderful and powerful way of engaging the transformational energy of Spring, offering guidance, tools, and community in honor of your life as woman at this time.

In closing, please accept my gratitude for your gift of presence in my life~it is my honor and privilege to be in your life. My guests on Blogtalkradio continue to inspire and inform me and I invite you to download a show or two to hear what people in service to others have to share about the world these days.

love and blessings...

JaiKaur

www.jaikaur.com
http://jaikaur@jaikaur.com

http://www.facebook.com/jaikaur

pilgrimage

It has been a few months since this blog has received my attention, a combination of a "tween" home on summer break, working on new projects for my business, and enjoying the summer once it showed up in late July. Gratitude for your patience with my summer slow-down....

For the past few summers, I have longed to make pilgrimage to northern Michigan, more my home while growing up than the many towns and houses we lived in. Both my parents were born and raised in this little town of Cheboygan, land of birch forests and crystal clear lakes. Once our family stopped moving to a new town every year, we rented a cottage for the summer on the large inland lake next to Cheboygan. My teenage summers were spent in imitation of a mermaid's life, my hours spent in the lake offering me retreat and respite from my duties as the oldest of 7 children.

Life lately has taught me the fallacy of putting off through logic what time will bring back as regret. I began to plan for my longed-for road trip to northern Michigan where I could say hello and goodbye to my elderly relatives, make some peace with ghosts of times past, and swim once again in the embrace of my beloved lake. And while my tween dutifully made her objections to being tortured by the hours of being in the car with her mother, I knew the life-wisdom of bringing her to her larger family and history at this teen-age and stage of her life. Grace brought to my computer search a lakeside cottage on my beloved lake, offering my childhood bliss of being in the water for hours and hours at a time. Even the weather, which had been not so summer-like, was turning sunny and hot, the perfect weather in which to swim in water where ice leaves in late May.... grace was greasing the wheels of my pilgrimage.

And yet, I realized I was hedging on fully committing to my pilgrimage "up north". Gently inquiring within, I understood that this road trip was a commitment to re-claiming my trust in my life, trust that had become rather tattered after the betrayal of a husband of many years along with the betrayal by the spiritual community I had loved and and helped grow. ...trust that my car with many miles would not break down, trust that the money I was spending on renting a cottage would be replenished in the fall, and trust that the lake of my childhood would still as magical as it was in my memories. There was realization that my reasons for not embarking on this journey of my soul's longing-dressed up as logical-were simply excuses to live a little less, feel a little less, and reach for a little less. OK as long as I was willing to tell myself the truth of my choice to live a smaller life due to dented trust in life, not the pseudo-reasons of work, finances, and time....often used as excuses for not leaning into life with trust and faith.

And so, not wanting to surrender to living "less than" my glorious precious life, I chose to embrace my life scars not as damage, but rather, as victories in fully engaging with life. The result? One of the best experiences of my life with my tween even offering that she would like to do this trip again next summer! The lake's embrace was as magical and nurturing as I have remembered it, the relatives grateful and generous in their love and sharing of family history, and the break from all things electronic-even my computer, oh my!-simply priceless beyond words. The cottage was perfect in it's cottage-ness of knotty pine walls and birch tree vista of lake and vast sky. My morning meditations and journaling on the deck just 10 feet from the shoreline, were shared by multitudes of hummingbirds and the sparkling of the rising sun upon the water. My daughter made good friends with a baby duck family of 7 plus mom, exchanging leftover corn chips for the stroking of their downy backs. It was as good as it gets for each of us...

Lying in the waves, watching the sunshine sparkle, I remembered again how embracing the sensual feeds my soul, nurturing a strength and clarity that logic alone simply does not grant me. My body and it's wisdom about the soul it contains and has partnered with, knew what treasures lay in a pilgramage to my lake most holy....simply I needed to choose again my trust in both the soft knowing of my body and in the strength of my life's grace.

grace exercised

A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure-and unexpected adventure-of hosting a guest on my radio show who is brilliant in her field, insightful, powerful, and quite provocative. I was looking forward to being with her again 15 years from the time we had first met, curious as to where our years had taken us. Little did I know that our radio show experience would have me living a blog I wrote a few month ago titled "letting go of figuring it out".

For those who listened to my May 28th BlogTalkRadio show, you may know where I am going with this. My moment of truth came when my guest questioned me for throwing an herb into my compost pile, scolding me as wrong and insensitive to do so. This was one of many in a series of questions that had a cat and mouse dynamic to them...and I did not like being the mouse especially on a live show! By the time we got to the nettle question, I could feel my excitement about hosting my special guest morphing into irritation, and then into my body getting it’s armor up and ready for battle.

Now don’t get me wrong, I am an advocate of lively dialogue, knowing the avoidance of healthy conflict not only misses a creative opportunity, it often-times leads to an escalation of conflict and polarization between the parties. However, this cat and mouse game was not only irritating to me, it was not respectful to the listeners who had come to learn from our show and so I began to claim the righteousness of my anger.

Ahhh, the beauty of a daily meditation practice...As soon as I realized my body was girding up for battle based on my right to indignation, I smiled, took some deep breaths in and out, and asked myself "what is really going on here?" (versus my current thought of "off with her head!"). My soft inner voice whispered back "learning" and my body began to relax, my mind shifting from being surprised, then defensive into curious. Not much to my surprise, my guest then changed gears and away we went with the show that had been intended....grace exercised.

Instead of engaging in either the active conflict of whose is right/whose is wrong or the passive war of "she’s a piece of work!", choosing instead to pause and breath graced me with wonderful learning and how I have grown. I was neither negating nor diminishing myself in the experience I was having, which I would have 15 years ago, especially given the dynamics of this guest playing her cosmic role so well. By making room for grace through the choice to drop back into my body through breathing, self-awareness became present, transforming my irritation at another into an opportunity to choose grace.

Grace for me is less about being passive and more an active choice to let go and trust in what is being delivered is for my best. Before the show, I had placed myself as the novice and my guest the expert; afterwards, I could appreciate my grace and my guest's mastery. Through exercising grace, more of my guest's brilliance could be shared with the listeners and I received understanding of the important of grace in how I live......less reluctance to live as a queen. But that's a writing for my next blog.

You can hear me talk more about the matters in this blog by going to the June 5th BlogTalkRadio show.

integrity matters

One of the things I have learned about my life is 1. answers do come to the questions I ask of the universe and 2. sometimes I need to do something physical to get out of my head in order to hear-feel really-my answer. And so, on this fine May day, I took myself, my ipod with mp3s that I have been meaning to listen to-omg is that one truly from 2007?!-to rake up oak leaves buried in the grass over winter. Good focused physical exercise that would allow me to engage my conscious mind so that other minds could speak to me.

The question awaiting an answer was how to craft a business that delivers my passion for women's impact -our grace, grit, and gratitude-while being a woman, a mother, a friend, and a daughter, an artist.... As my peeps know, I am all about the "how" in deciphering the world, for in the "how" is the integrity, something our world is learning the need for these days. I first learned the importance of integrity-the congruence between the "what "and the "how"-while volunteering for a series of non-profits in my early 20's. It was in these years of working with people committed to bettering the world and yet, so often angry at those perceived as not caring the same, that I learned of the importance of integrity in my life... ....that going to war for peace does not create peace.

I learned integrity's wisdom while learning to parent, for while children may not come with a written instruction manual, they do come with their own directions. And when we are willing to acknowledge the difference between their needs and our history, make our parenting choices accordingly, we honor the sacred trust of being the child's first god/dess and teacher, growing up both the child and the parent in the process. Another wisdom learned through integrity....life is mutual, set up to teach and benefit all involved.

Raking and listening to my ipod, I heard Howard Schultz, the founder of Starbucks, talk of the four principles that guide him, number 4 being "everything matters" or as I say, the small builds the big. As women, we know this well...the many small acts needed to grow a human being from a baby into maturity, the many small acts that transform a building into a cozy home, or the many small acts over time which actualize our faith and trust in each other. Another JaiKaur life truism...we grow wisdom, a quality different from knowledge, through the experiences that the street life of daily living graces us with.

And so, through the repetitive act of raking, it came to me, my answer so soft and yet so certain in it's knowing...my business needed to embrace the same integrity that had served so well my parenting, my crafting of a house into a home, my work as an architect and mediator. Simply, I needed to pay attention to the needs voiced by my business, listen well to the unspoken but clearly said within me, and surrender my impatience to trusting the divine's way. And in surrendering more to receiving and releasing more my need to control, my business could become more than I could have figured out through my knowledge, control, and will alone.

Question asked, answer received....thank you grace!