There is nothing like the tragic devastation of the worst environmental disaster in history executed by a powerful few to uproot the depths of grief and rage that has been felt in only small tolerable doses. Witnessing the oil covered birds with their pitiful cry of, “Why?” has unleashed grief buried so deep and so vast it is as if it is coming from the same reservoir of oil that is flowing from the Earth’s core. It is inconceivable and extremely unnerving to witness such disrespect. Unfortunately these few are the culmination of all the seemingly small disrespectful actions that each of us takes in our lives. Multiply each of our unconscious thoughts and actions by every one of us, pour that all into one pot and you have what we see before us. Our little piece doesn’t seem like much, so we think, but, when you add up all the small pieces it makes a very big pot of toxic, destructive soup that can poison our entire world. Don’t want to think about it? Don’t want to claim any of it? If we all claimed just our little piece it would add up to an equally large pot of pristine, delicious, nourishing soup. If we sit back and just blame those few who embody the totality of our unconsciousness, we miss a necessary deep healing, we feel helpless and disempowered, and our rage will ravage us just as we are ravaging our Earth. What we see before us is a physical manifestation of a collective consciousness that has escalated to a momentum of this magnitude. It is a single picture that gives us a reflection of our path as humanity. Think it’s time to choose another path? Say our prayers that the right action will be taken to rectify this unconscionable disaster. Include in our prayers that each of us takes the action in our own lives that will put a stop to this insanity. What is a simple step we can take? One obvious step is to drive less and support clean energy. Expand this outward and another obvious step is to nourish our self with seasonal, local, organic food. This may not seem like much, but consider how much fuel is used transporting our food all over the world. Food transportation and industry is a huge contributor to our addiction to oil, the life blood of our Mother. This simple step empowers us as we demand safe, organic, local food and not tolerate the continuation of this excessive need for oil. This simple step will vastly improve the health of every living being on Earth, including the Earth herself. Our power is where we put our money and attention. Put your money and attention toward a sustainable, respectful relationship with our world such as a backyard garden, or the local farmers at the farmers market. Demand local organic food at your community grocery stores. Use the power of money and intention and transform our world instead of feeling helpless to the path of destruction. If everyone stewarded their small piece of land, yard, or balcony that would multiply and reverberate out to the entire planet. If everyone one of us drive less, live simpler, and eat locally that would multiply and reverberate out to the collective. It is up to every one of us to right this horrific wrong we have inflicted on our Mother. Use this outrage as the fuel needed to make these shifts. The seemingly simple act of feeding ourselves can have a huge impact. Take a serious, honest look at your life. How can you simplify and use less of our precious resources? Our prayers must be united with our actions. My own grief and outrage has made me stop in my tracks and take a deep look at how I can reduce my impact on this increasingly fragile environment. I thank you for allowing me to speak these words as a way to cry out to others and transform this into a sense of joy and well being in the knowing that we are able to make a difference in our everyday lives that honors our Great Mother.

When my mother was pregnant with me, she had a miscarriage. It was my twin sister who had died. I was born with a gaping wound where we had apparently been joined. This wound would not heal, so at four months old I was admitted into the hospital where I underwent surgery and then was encased in a body cast from my neck to my ankles and fed intravenously. This ensured I would not move or poop and make a mess. This was my reality for an entire month. As a 4-month-old baby I was cut off from two critical aspects of early infant experience - the bond with my mother as well as the tactile exploration and discovery of my own body. I was not held, touched or fed and I could not move. Out of this early experience, I was deeply imprinted with the belief that this world could not nourish me on any level, and I related to my body as if it were a cast. This was the initiation that launched me on my journey in this life. As a result of this initiation I’ve come to realize that in a certain way, this has been the acclimation to life for all of humanity as I recognized the same pain in others. The body looked upon as a restriction, a cast that keeps us trapped here in a world that seemingly doesn’t nourish us. Add to that the religious perspective of heaven !- a better world somewhere else and that this is the place where the Divine hangs out. The result is that Earth is just a place to endure, to learn our lessons and then to leave, freed from the restrictions of a body and the limitations of the Earth. Meanwhile the Earth and humanity are dying, both from lack of nourishment. My journey took me down many roads seeking the pleasure of being held, safe and nourished. My life became about healing this sense of separation from our Divine Mother, the Earth. However, I certainly was not conscious of this motivation. Ironically I became a chef, and nutritionist, feeding thousands, first as a way to polarize from my own lack of nourishment. This wasn’t healing me, but it was a start. The journey kept me going deeper. I turned to nature and wild food and herbs. This was a quantum leap in my healing, as that is when I began to connect with the incredible benevolence of our Mother Earth. Now she was providing me with food, medicine, and the pleasure of her company. I have partaken of her beauty and in turn been gifted with her reflection of my own special beauty. She has shown me sensual delight and awakened my senses on a whole new level offering a doorway into an entirely new experience and reality, one of awe and wonder in the natural world where I already reside. She has taught me about living in harmony, with the deep knowing that I am loved and cared for if I’ll just take the time to slow down and receive her nourishment. I’ve learned that each plant and animal in the natural world has a consciousness, with great wisdom to share and it became apparent to me that the unconditional love that I had been so starved for is literally the very environment in which I live. She taught me to honor and enjoy my sexuality, as I witnessed this energy moving through every aspect of her existence. Is it a coincidence, fate, chance, or the brilliant mind of the Divine that buries our treasures and gifts under our wounds? I found that the discovery, cultivation, deepening and preparation for offering my gifts to the world is actually the journey for healing my own. Are we discovering that our wounding because of our disconnection with our Great Mother Earth can transform into our gifts that will honor her, ourselves, and our physical human journey as a sacred walk that will create the sustainability we need? Living sustainably, eating seasonally, locally and organically reaches far beyond what is obvious on the surface. Among many opportunities, it opens the door for the Divine Feminine to take her rightful place in our world and restore balance. It offers a map reflected to us wherever we turn through the surrounding natural world in how to live in harmony, transform and grow. Our Great Mother has not given up on us and continues to offer her wisdom. Is it possible that to live sustainably will not result from saving our Earth, as if we were separate from her, but from honoring her wisdom enough to live by it? Is it the same feminine wisdom that has been ignored for so long that it has resulted in our disconnection from the very being that supports our human journey, and soul growth?

Oh, dear....I am behind. First it was the hubby's 12 day trip to CA. and getting all those loose ends tied up (though he overlooked warm clothes, a toothbrush and comb!), BeBe- the miracle bird deciding she was going to lay an egg and send me straight into white knucklingville (she was my very first blog entry here if you are not familiar with her and her 'eggs'), then hubby returning home ill and finally the topper was my back going out July 6th and getting to crawl around on my hands and knees again. I really had not missed that! But as always I heal and surprisingly enough I am healing quicker this time. Hallejuah! So now I am trying to catch up.

I have been blessed with two very loving and deep thinking Reiki students. I am in awe of their awareness and insights. We always teach each other and I am so grateful for this.

I need to get cooking with Susun's course on infusions. Though I have been making them for years I am learning things I never knew from this class. Her work is always empowering.

Today I was able to do some things and try to get our nest ready for company this weekend. Dear friends from New York who will come visit and spend the evening with us sharing. I look forward to this.

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Hi, For those of you who have the time and interest in learning more about the connection between sustainability, seasonal and local eating and the Divine Feminine I invite you to visit Blog Talk Radio at the following site. http://www.blogtalkradio.com/VoicesoftheSacredFeminine Scroll down to "On Demand Episodes" and click on my name, Mary Lane. I must admit, it is a rather great interview with me by Karen Tate. Please forgive the technical difficulties, her wobbly voice and 20 minute introduction. If you can wade through all that I think you will find it worthwhile. It may give you a deeper understanding, or put words to a knowing you already have.

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Awakening the body's sacred center is part and parcel of a profound revolution in culture and consciousness.

I'm participating in a telesummit, The Body Image Revolution, taking place July 17-28. I'll be in conversation with event organizer and body image transformation coach Sandy Kumskov on July 27.

Call in real-time, ask questions, let's talk!

Here's your chance to add your own oomph to a wave of change that's profound and timely.

Tell me:

• What would your life -- and your daughters' and granddaughters' lives -- be like if every thought within and around us affirmed the beauty of our bodies, exactly as they are?

• What would your life be like if every thought within and around us celebrated our bodies as miracles of energy infusing matter?

• What would your life, and this world, be like if you could express and apply the creativity, compassion, and wisdom you already embody?

It's time to stop judging our bodies as if they were objects on display in some sort of swimsuit contest. Stop trying to mold them according to some fashionable yet impossible ideal of shape and size. Stop peering into the mirror to measure our personal worth according to the image we see there.

• It's time to start living from the inside out.
  
  
• Sensing and claiming and cultivating the life force that propels our pulse.
  
  
• Developing and directing the Source Energy animating our bodies according to conscious intention.

What is this Source Energy pulsing through our bodies, concentrated within our bellies? It's our personal connection to the creative, sustaining, and transforming energy of the universe.

What's that? The creative, sustaining, and transforming energy of the universe? Whatever name you give it -- God, Great Spirit, Inner Light, Goddess, the All-That-Is -- know that this energy is your vitality, the grace which grants you life.

• You're walking around with a helping of God inside you.
  
  
• Which means...?

Here's the body image revolution: Treating ourselves and each other in the knowledge that -- in body, mind, and spirit -- we each are sacred beings.

• The Body Image Revolution is also a FREE teleconference taking place July 17-28, involving more than ten accomplished women speaking to issues of body confidence, nutrition, exercise, and related topics.
  
  
• I'll be in conversation with event organizer and body image transformation coach Sandy Kumskov on July 27.

Register now, listen, call in, ask me and the other speakers questions, let's talk. Here's to the revolution!

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Last night I received a message from a friend in Hawaii, Luna May Seal. "I was standing in the sacred waters of Maui," she writes. And she heard the ocean, provoked by the outpouring of oil into the Gulf, crying out in the distress.

In her words: "We must gather from all corners of the earth in spirit.... In our mind's eye we must hold the hand of all humanity.... We must work to strengthen [the earth's] core once again!"

The prayer of intention and love she offers includes: "Mother Earth, we reach out to you with deepest gratitude and understanding.... We breathe as one, taking in the deepest breath into the core of our belly to meet the core of your belly.... We, together as one, all walks of life, all nationalities and faiths, hold these hands of protection around you...."

To contact Luna May directly and receive the full text of her prayer, email her at corerhythmprograms@yahoo.com

It's long been my knowing that our body's center resonates with the
planet's center. In my vision, as we humans join hands and encircle the
planet, all the while strengthening the Source Energy sheltered within
our bellies, we stabilize and sustain the planet's core.

How do we strengthen the Source Energy concentrated within our body's center? One direct way is to learn and practice the belly-energizing movement and breathing exercises presented in The Woman's Belly Book and the Honoring Your Belly DVD.

And of course, through Initiation 2012: Awakening Your Sacred Center, you receive my personal encouragement as well as the mutual support of an affirmative community of women.

Blessed be,
Lisa

Hello, I'm Mary Lane, author of Divine Nourishment, A Woman's Sacred Journey with Food, among other things. I will be offering a series of classes through WWU weaving the healing and reclamation of the Divine Feminine with nourishing ourselves according to the Earth's wisdom. Nourishing ourselves seasonally, locally, sustainably and spiritually, reveals how this simple act can support us through this collective transformation guided by our Great Mother Nature. Sound interesting? I hope so. I have lived a journey that has taught me both the misery and mastery of this art of nourishment and transformation. I will be offering it in bite size digestible pieces through each course. These courses build upon one another and will take you on a journey of healing, reclaiming, empowering and nourishing yourself aligned and supported by our Earth's wisdom. So look for the first course, "Divine Nourishment, Introduction to Taoist 5 Element Cooking," which will be available very soon. Look for my outspoken sharing that many times speak what most dare not, illuminating the elephant sleeping in the shadows of our collective living room. Check out my book at the Wise Woman University, and know that I am dedicated to the healing and reclamation of the Divine Feminine, and supporting all women to transform the self rejection buried in the shadowy depths of our unconscious to self care and love so we may all step out and offer our gifts to a world that is crying for them.

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