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One of the most powerful things I witnessed in my life is seeing men pray in ceremony, seeing men connect with one another and seeing men cry. Men allowing themselves to feel and reveal their vulnerability. As a woman I long for men who deeply seek for their service to life. Does he know his power and what this power is good for? Does he dare to look into his shadow and is he aware of the cultural poverty he comes from? Is he willing to work with the shame and guilt that the collective unconscious dumps on him as a man so he can free himself to use his power in a clean way? Does he follow his soul into the wild, unknown territory of what it means to be a man at this time in the world beyond his conditioning and expectations of others?

To be sovereign in the world, one of my deepest longings, is to be sovereign in my inner-queendom. This deep urge is often projected into the world as fighting for our rights (and rightly so) however if it is not accompanied by a deep inner inquiry of reclaiming sovereignty in the psyche, it won’t go beyond fighting and temporary triumphs. I am solemnly responsible of developing – growing, healing, studying, holding myself accountable and pulling the resources I need towards my center – myself as a queen in the inner realm so I can hold that presence in the world. I am not talking about an isolated, ego-enhancing “personal development” process to manifest one’s own wealth in a world that is both dying and being reborn.

The mountain towered over my tired and recovering body. That imminent presence eclipsed my being in such a powerful way that I could only say “yes, I am here”.
Here I was in my favorite dress from India, having danced and about to dive into this deep, cold water. So I waited. I turned to pages of “Coming Home to Myself” for guidance and slowly it was revealed to me what the prayer was. What aspects of Self needed redemption and what life experience needed a visitation. I followed course. I did the prayer. And then I stood tall, in the shade of the mountain, and dove into the deep blue water for a new life. This is how it ends and how it begins. Over and over again, in infinite cycles…

The work is to understand why things and people are the way they are and meet the poverty and the suffering of the world, “the skill of your heart being broken on schedule and the schedule says now.” (Stephen Jenkinson) The work is to show up, bruised and disillusioned, and continue doing what needs to be done and to remember what needs to be remembered...We do not have the luxury to rise and ride on our "hope" addiction just to crash again with the next heartbreak when things continue to collapse and disintegrate right and left. It’s not about what I like or want, in fact it’s not about me at all. If I can stop taking it all so personal, I may yet see ways how to love this world and honor this human experience better...

So when the enchanting mysteries are not there so visibly, palpably in the streets and neighborhoods I was raised, bereft of any sense of deep time or cosmology, how do I not wander into the mysteries of the world but rather stay put patiently to be revealed some kind of old magic of the place I come from? This is a question I am sitting with now. Here I am, in Iceland, learning about deep ancestry in a small village in Westfjords from a Canadian elder. Last night I was listening to singing of Hindu and Buddhist mantras in a health food store in Reykjavik - I thought to myself surely it doesn't get more absurd than that - and I was contemplating what kind of a crazy world we live in.

When parents, grandparents or other people of older age and higher status are not able to offer the kind of guidance, unconditional space holding and compassion towards the young – and they are not able to because they have not received it themselves for whatever reason – there’s a deeper wounding and depression that descend on the whole community. The traditions and wisdoms, especially the ones that are transmitted orally and in circular, spiral ways of storytelling, rite of passages, rituals, dances, songs, poems do become orphans, like us, when they have no one to pass them on, when they have no place to land…
 

All stories can and will change. Sometimes it’s good to remember that WE DON'T KNOW. 
Ultimately everything is part of the Great Mystery that we breathe in constantly. It is real surrender – even momentarily – to drop all stories, including and especially the stories that make up the core of our identity – and bow to the Great Mystery of not knowing. Sometimes it is necessary to say, “I don’t know what is right and what is wrong anymore” to clear the debris of everything known and learned. 

Sometimes tasting and witnessing my own suffering is overwhelming; the inner demons vehemently avoided in light and inspired moments clamp down on me like nobody's business. But even in that bewildered state of utter confusion and despair, some other aspect of me which manages to escape from fully identifying with the suffering asks quietly: "Who am I? Who am I? Who am I?" This voice is a gentle helping hand directing my attention to what wants to be revealed as whole and sacred beyond the confinements of my ego-driven human drama. 

I am suddenly aware
of the field of love,
like the impeccable breath
that animates my being,
perpetual, suffusive, benevolent,
lifting me up and carrying me over
the steep mountains, self-inflicted suffering
and unforeseen heartbreaks.

All the trophies of the past that I bore proudly become a certain kind of weight and limitation that define who I was but not anymore who I am and could be. It’s like flying to the moon and as I get higher I need to drop ‘masses’ that fueled me but now they are empty structures holding me back. The question is ‘what is essential and carries life essence?’.
I don’t want to drag dead bodies around. It helps a tree to prune its old branches to bear new shoots…