phoenix2

If you stood myself today next to myself of a year ago, you would be looking at two very different women.

This past year has been such an incredible period of personal growth for me. Comparatively, the last time in my life that I grew this much was when my father unexpectedly passed away in 1994, four days after I had legally married my first husband in front of my father and my mother and two months before moving from my childhood home of Texas up to an Air Force base in North Dakota.

That year was a doozy.

But this past year has been a doozy as well.

The ‘Me’ of today has more self confidence and has learned better coping mechanisms. I have rediscovered simple Joy in my life. Nature and I are slowly making acquaintance. Just about every morning, I stand at my backdoor, breathing in the pine trees and sky, watching the birds and hawks. I take walks and appreciate living next door to a river.

I’m figuring out my unique gifts, honing my intuition, appreciating the cycles in myself and nature and the cosmos and learning how to take time out from the time-consuming, nerve-racking job of raising four children to just ‘Be’.

And Breathe.

As Stuart Smalley would say, it has taken me 45 years, but I’m learning to look in the mirror and see a worthy being.

It’s no coincidence that it has also been a year of Moon Lodges – my women‘s circle that meets on the new and full moons.

It was not a year of group therapy where we continually discussed all of the above.

But there is something very powerful when you come together with others and state intentions, when you write down and share, connect, realize how very similar we all are and the challenges we go through and take time out to connect, pause and reflect.

The irony is that by meeting together I have learned to look within.

Female friendships that work are relationships in which women help each other to belong to themselves. – Louise

I don’t claim to have the answers.

But what I do have is a willingness to continually look for the answers, to change and to grow.

Care to join me?

The next four Moon Lodges will be open to new members. You will need to commit to come to the Moon Lodge once a month.

The moment one definitely commits oneself then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issue from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings, and material assistance, which no (wo)man would have dreamed would come (her) way. – W. H. Murray in The Scottish Himalaya Expedition, 1951.