“The great loneliness is that people don’t know who they are.” Joan Erikson
I am a woman, always changing, trying to grow, perpetually at the crossroads…not a bad place to be as the crossroads represent choice to me. As long as there are new paths to tread upon and I have the will to risk, I will prevail on my search for wholeness.
Iona allows me to be carried, to yield to unseen currents, to be made to drift. It is a place for the spiritual journey—a time to be more internal than external–a place for one’s spirit to soar—a place to tame my “sacred restlessness” and soothe my longing for more truth, intimacy, and being at one with self. Since spiritual truths are hard to come by and enlightenment requires considerable time spent in solitude any adventure into the wilderness can help the process along.
When I was a young mother and felt spiritually impoverished, I would frequent the local Catholic Church and collect novenas (little prayers) that were left in the pews. After reading them and praying for help, I would dutifully copy them over ten times and take them back to the church to leave them for someone else. Although not a Catholic, it was truly a way to reach for strength when I felt mine lagging.
It’s no wonder that most women feel the need to reach out and search more often than not. Such feelings have their genesis because of so much incessant doing—being all things to all people. The trouble with being the doer is we are working from the external part of our selves and leaving out the internal—external being the ego and masculine, and internal being the feminine and the soul.
This is precisely why we are eventually pulled to spirit—uncomfortable going forward without going deeper—aching for those qualities not obtained from struggle—rather having intangibles such as joy, passion, vulnerability, inner contentment, and peace of mind.
If you have experienced a craving for peace, a need to stop, a niggling to listen to what your heart needs to say, it is your consciousness trying to get you to pay attention. And, by the way, no one insists that we have any of those iintangibles–no one points us to joy–we must find such things ourselves.
Questions to Ponder:
How could you be more feminine, ie. nurture your “feminine energy”, that soft, warm person than radiates and glows–one who has presence with who she truly is.