Today I'm talking about ONENESS. We hear this, and it’s one of those things that if we try to understand it intellectually, the brain might freeze and reject the notion, but by looking at how it actually functions, how it works and shows up in our lives, we can cultivate a way of living, a way of being that honors and respects that yes, in fact, we are all ONE. One mind, one heart, and one energy body - specifically.
In this episode, I'm reading you a passage from my journal the day before my birthday as I explored and felt into the application of oneness in my own life. Enjoy! Oneness is such a beautiful topic. Please share your opinion, curiosities and experiences of oneness in the comments if you'd like.
This week's Sunday Sermon is about progress, resistance, and holy consistency. I’ve been doing a lot of reflecting lately on progress. My own progress, and the progress I get to witness and also facilitate in my various programs and offerings for clients. And when I think about progress I have to think about alchemy because much energy is required to create progress. Progress results from transformation and transmutation, and there can be no progress without an object to PRO-GRESS. Sometimes it’s a singular object, others it’s a collective object.
For example, you and I. We are individuals and we can make progress. Our “culture” is an enormous object…and requires the individual pieces to be progressing in order for the whole to progress. This is why we do our work. This is why we keep showing up and don’t zone out, because we know we are part of the fabric, and for the fabric to progress, every thread has to do it's part. My focus in today's episode is about the antidote to all of this being what I am calling HOLY CONSISTENCY. Enjoy!
This is Part II of 33 Lessons From My 33rd Year. Part of my intention with doing this two-part series was really personal and also alchemical. I had been thinking about writing a blog post, 33 Lessons From My 33rd year, but it felt daunting. Then when I realized I deleted the episode that was supposed to go live on Sept 4, it felt like an opening. We even ended up moving the episode we had planned for today.
This is how life works when you listen to your Wild Soul. It’s a dance of peaceful action and surrender to life’s mysterious way of unfolding and letting us know what wants to happen. In my experience I find this is what free will is for. To say yes and roll with it when it’s obvious, or say no and do whatever you want.
This episode goes live on Monday 9/11 and my birthday is this coming Thursday 9/14. Many will listen to this long after those dates, so I’m invoking some divine support, and the wisdom of my higher soul to declare that energetically, by telling these stories and sharing these lessons and reflections now, I am putting all the energy and attachments of these things that do not serve my highest and best behind me under grace in perfect ways.
These episodes are an honoring and completion of what was, what has fertilized, and what is new, next, and unfolding. To be able to share these stories, from a more healed and neutral place, with mega compassion for everyone involved, while also not holding back my truth, feels important. It’s something I need to practice more, while also balancing what feels right to keep private or sacred.
Life involves other people and navigating that can be sticky sometimes, but it’s not an excuse to hide.
So that’s some behind the scenes stuff. And reflections on sharing reflections, haha. Enjoy!
After a heavy and intense week all over the world, the medicine of Inner Strength, Protection, and Fierceness that the Goddess Durga brings felt like the perfect medicine for this week's Sunday Sermon.
In this episode I read you some writings about Durga from Sally Kempton and Aurobino Ghose, share my own experience of embodying this archetype and calling on her powerful energy, and guide you through the Fierce Feminine ritual from the Wild Soul Oracle deck. I also share the story of why I saved that card for last when I was writing the guidebook and my own fear around revealing a deeper part of my true nature through writing the ritual itself. Enjoy and please share with friends who could use the energy during these times! xo
Resources:
Awakening Shakti by Sally Kempton
In Praise of the Goddess: The Devimahatmya and Its Meaning
Shakti Meditations by Sally Kempton
Elizabeth Instagram
Sarah Durham Wilson's Instagram
When I pressed record on this episode I wasn't sure how long it would take. I also had no idea how cathartic it would be, or how much I needed to do this to powerfully and intentionally close out my wildest year yet. It's split into two parts - this is part one, Lessons 1-18. Part II will go up next week. May it be useful.
The last year has been one of the most significant, intense, healing, revealing, challenging, and miraculous of my life. Much of that was painted by ending a long term relationship with an emotionally abusive and highly narcissistic person, facing my own codependency, and working through everything that came with that. A lot of it also arose out of recalibrating my identity and reclaiming my power and truth. Many of these lessons also revolved around gaining a deeper understanding of compassion and applying it to every area of my life.
Compassion doesn't mean tolerating bad behavior or not telling the whole truth about things when the timing is right and it's healthy. Compassion doesn't mean protecting people who don't protect you. Compassion is about acceptance in it's highest form. It's about deeply questioning things AND accepting things. Compassion invites us to listen to our souls and take action that aligns with our values. At least that's how compassion has wanted to weave itself into the fabric of my life over the last year.
In the last year I also identified some shifts that were needing to happen in my business and marketing practices. And in a clearer way than ever, I saw where I hadn't been acknowledging and integrating deeper collective issues into my life, message and work. I have learned a lot and continue to learn how to can engage with these issues in a more useful way for the WHOLE, rather than just myself, or the people in, "my bubble." Life is so freaking full and everything touches everything else.
This sermon is inspired by three powerhouse women I got to interview for the show this week: Kelly Diels, Sonya Renee Taylor, and L'Erin Alta. They are all doing their own form of activism in the world and they are all rocking it out with fierceness AND compassion, which is why their work is effective. A big lesson I learned in this last year, is the difference between compassion and tolerance. I’ll riff on that more during my 33 lessons in my 33rd year episode, but the crux is this, we can be compassionate, while demonstrating intolerance for things that do not align with our values.
The core of today's sermon is a reading from Alana Fairchild's Mother Mary Oracle deck. It's my very favorite deck. The question I asked before I pulled the card was, "What is something we all need to know about compassion right now?" And the card I got is called, "Our Lady of Peaceful Change" #youcantmakethisshitup Enjoy and share wild loves, thank you so much!
xo, E