How to Find True Happiness and Worth as a Woman in this World

October 28, 2022
Posted by lana

Photo: Levi Guzman via unsplash

Photos of young, naked women peppered the pages of my father’s newspapers. It was a serious newspaper (non-English) speaking to matters of politics and foreign policy and, yet.

Here were these photos too.

There were never any naked men in there. Just women.

I had already begun to internalize messages of being less than boys – my father outright told us such things.

These pictures, with the general conditioning of the culture-at-large had me believing that my value lay in how attractive and sexy I looked – to men – with as few clothes on as possible.

I felt a strange cocktail emotions relating to my body and my gender – disgust, anger, resentment, inferiority. I felt trapped. I felt at war with myself even if I probably couldn’t articulate it as such at the time.

One way in which this manifested itself very strongly in incredibly painful periods. Every month, a torture (until I was able to heal it).

The world we live in now is not quite the same as the one I grew up in. There are far better and more positive messages towards respecting and cherishing women and the feminine. We have more of a voice and the means to speak our truth and have it be heard.

Still, it’s not quite good enough. Misogyny is so pervasive it’s the air we breathe, most of us can barely distinguish.

It’s just normal or the way it’s always been. Sigh.

Even for women, we’ve internalized so much misogyny it’s a lifetime to extract and separate from it all.

So if you find difficulty in finding joy and your true purpose in your life, especially as a woman, you are not alone!

And the practice of finding joy and pleasure and purpose in being a woman is a lifelong one of discovery.

Below are my suggestion on where to start re-discovering your joy, purpose, power, and pleasure in being a woman. It’s based on decades of my own practice and in working with hundreds of women.

It may seem simple but I truly believe to begin these steps will liberate us. Start with one and I would suggest it be this first one:

Dance & Move Your Body. In Private. Just You.

When was the last time you danced? Or, more importantly, moved your body to music? If you can’t remember, or it’s been a really long time, you’re not alone.

And this needs to be remedied.

The discernment between dancing and moving your body to music is important for some of us to understand.

Sometimes we dance and we think it has to contain certain choreographed movements or look a certain way (like polished or sexy or ‘good’ in whatever way). This can be fun and challenging in interesting ways – nothing wrong with it.

However when we slow down and become present to our body with our attention and our breath, we can allow our body to move in the manner it wants and needs to move. I would still call this dancing but it’s not choreographed, it doesn’t necessarily look good. It can look chaotic and strange.

This is why it’s important to dance and move alone with no one watching. With safety and freedom to truly feel (and even discover!) yourself and move in all sorts of weird and unusual ways.

Pay attention to your hips and pelvic area. Chances are these are tight.

Pay attention to your jaw as you’re paying attention to moving your hips and pelvic area. Chances are this area is tight too. What will it take to relax all these parts at once? How can you move? How are you being moved?

What feels good can be your guide. Be prepared to have different feelings come up. Welcome them. Use the feelings to guide you in how you want to move. Bonus points for letting sounds out too.

Move the body. In private. Just you. Move in weird and different and unusual ways. Breathe. Breathe.

Pick your favourite music. Then pick music you don’t know or don’t particularly like. Try out different things is what I’m saying.

Do this every day! Yes, every day. Even just 5 minutes.

A stiff body breaks down. A body that moves is a body that lives, is a body that can respond and flow with the inevitable and unpredictable.

Of course, not every body can move in the same way.

There is a starting point for everyone. It doesn’t need to be the same. We start with where we are.

Where and how can you start today with movement and dance?

Dance with Others

When I was a young woman, one of my greatest joys and thrills in life was going clubbing. Music on full blast and dancing with people, flirting with strangers, being out with my friends was the thrill of finally being an adult.

But somehow, I got it into my head that once I reached a certain age and once I was married, going out dancing was supposed to stop. Like it was a flighty thing appropriate for young people only.

I’m not sure where I got, and why I had, that idea in my head. But those years where I stopped dancing were some of the most miserable in my life.

Whatever age you are, get yourself out to where people are dancing and dance. Find the safe spaces for this.

If you have ecstatic dance happening near you, please try that out. It’s dance as meditation. Dance for expansion. Dance for the sake of pleasure and as the name implies, ecstasy. No one else is looking at you, they’re dancing ecstatically themselves. If it’s done right, it’s a safe and supportive space where the new parts of ourselves we are uncovering can begin to emerge.

Dance and move with other people. Allow your self-discovery and emergence to continue in the presence of others.

We don’t fully heal alone.

Befriend and Spend Time with Women Who Love, Nourish, and Uplift You

And minimize the time with those who do the opposite (even if they say and do ‘love’ you).

Most of us carry deep wounding we’ve experienced from the behaviours or words of other women and we’re yearning for re-connection, trust, safety, and the love of female friends.

A good place to start could be to spend some time contemplating and even journaling on the women in your life right now who love and uplift you and those who do not. (And sidenote: if someone falls into some middle category between the two, slot them in the ‘do not uplift’ you category).

Make a commitment to surround yourself as much as you can with the positive, loving, affirming women. Create and attend gatherings. Make friend dates. Do errands together. Find your like-minded people and agree to support each other in the manifestation and creations of your life.

I think ‘Sex & the City’ is so iconic and enduring in part because of the strength and constancy of the friendships of the 4 women. This is something we need and want in our own lives. The thing is, we must be proactive in creating it. I think this is the mistake a lot of us make. If doesn’t really just happen, we have to make it happen.

It’s such a gift to have even one such friend, and honey, not uncommon, if you’re feeling you have no one. If this is you, you might like to think back to someone at some point in your life. Perhaps a kind, thoughtful teacher or an auntie, or someone who was kind, loving, and generous towards you. Someone who really saw you for you and loved you.

Remember how that felt and feel the gratitude of having had this person. Remember how they made you feel- comforted, special, loved, etc. Come back to this feeling, and the memory of this person often, as you go out and explore different ways of making new friends.

I’ve heard the lament that it gets harder to make friends as you grow older. I dispute that. I’ve made more friends, with ever deeper connections, in the past 10 years of my life than ever before. I fully expect this to continue.

Some of the places where I’ve found these friend soulmates: work, self-development workshops, trainings, women’s circles, in cafes, at parties, concerts.

We need the presence of people, and especially women, to reflect our beauty and light back to us. People who we can trust and have the best wishes in their heart for us. And like sunshine, we will always need this even as one day we begin to believe that yes, we are beautiful and wonderful.

Create or Make Things that Bring You Pleasure

(and that don’t need to serve any other purpose!)

This can be just about anything! We are creative beings. I know I’m not alone in drifting away from doing things I love as I grew older (like in my aforementioned dancing story). Is this you too? Is there something you loved doing and creating, that brought you pleasure and made you lose all sense of time? Are you still doing it? Time to start!

We need generative, creative experiences.

When we make something with our hands and bodies, we are in some important way blessed with beautiful evidence of our wonderful existence.

Some women want to create babies. Some women do not.

But I believe we all have a drive and desire to make something. To see and hold something of ourselves beyond ourselves.

I love cooking food especially for others. I love singing and making up songs and sounds. I love writing words and creating transformative, moving experiences for others.

What do you love to make? Are you doing it regularly?

Or, what did you used to love to make that you no longer make time for? Or that maybe feels frivolous? How can you start again?

Choose You First

You may naturally find your way here after you’ve been doing the first four recommendations (dance privately, dance with others, befriend uplifting women, make stuff that makes you happy).

Chances are that you are now experiencing (or beginning to experience) what it feels like to feel good. To feel satisfied and at home with and in yourself.

Which can start you on a path toward naturally making choices that are right for you.

Not making a choice because someone else wants you to, or expects you to.

You choose for you.

One of the harmful ways we’ve been programmed to think is in ‘either/or’ terms. This has us pitted against one another as though for one person to be satisfied or happy the other one must be unhappy and dissatisfied.

Try on ‘and/both’ instead the next time you have to make a choice.

Instead of saying:

I can do ‘yyy’ OR I can do ‘zzz’ (the either/or scenario)

Try on saying:

I can do ‘yyy’ AND I can do ‘zzz’ (the and/both)

You can apply this re-frame to any decision you need to make. See how it feels to use ‘and’ instead of ‘or.’

At times, it may be that someone is going to be disappointed or frustrated or unhappy by your choice, but I say let that frustrated person not be you.

We have been conditioned forever to be accommodating of everyone’s needs before our own. The more we veer into sacrifice of our own needs, the most burnt out and unhappy we become. This, too, serves no one.

Get more practiced at choosing you.

~~~

So this is it, the start to finding happiness, power, pleasure as a woman.

Note I said the start!

Now that you’ve read the steps go out and do them. The juice is in the action. Do these steps. Expect to encounter resistance and dance/move through it.

It’s very easy to stay in the mind about this and be critical. Like, I don’t get it. Why would any of this make the difference? The point is not to intellectualize and figure things out. Do it and see what happens inside the doing of it.

Click the image to the left for the list – feel free to print and put it up where you’ll see it.

Practice it all. Do it! Have fun with it!

And by all means, add to it!

It’s not in reading this blog that you’ll have transformed into joyful woman.

It’s in doing these things.

Now, go dance.

Transformation: We Want It & It Scares Us

May 5, 2022
Posted by lana

Transformation by Robert Lovejoy

The other week I watched my niece, 7 month-old Kat, on her belly getting set to crawl.

I had seen her and Mira (my sister) about 4 days earlier and enough time had elapsed for very visible change. Kat felt weightier, heartier, even more energetic. Watching young ones during these times of rapid development is such a gift!

It is possible to literally watch her grow.

So I did. I watched her as she squirmed on her belly. Mira said she is a minute away from crawling. And it’s true. She shimmies. She moves. She swerves. She uses her hands, her arms, her feet, her legs, her belly. She uses everything she has. She’s propelled forward by her curiosity, her interest in that colourful thing in front of her, that place she wants to get to.

Pushing, grunting, working.

A short time ago, I watched another baby a few months older who has mastered crawling and can shoot swiftly across a room before you’ve even had a chance to blink.

Consider how one’s world opens up?

I was taking all of this in while watching Kat, wondering if this was going to be the moment. Would I get to witness the moment of transformation?

This is the moment life evolves. The moment after which nothing is ever the same again.

And, while I have the privilege of watching her and knowing what is coming up, she herself doesn’t know. She doesn’t know how much more exciting and interesting life is about to get.

Watching her, and really getting into the energy and the electricity around this impending milestone, I had a new appreciation and understanding of transformation.

The nature, and the very definition, of transformation is that we CANNOT know what awaits us on the other side.

Transformation requires some blind faith, requires that we give up trying to know or control what awaits us, requires giving up the expectation of a reward or gain, requires us to continue driving forward, propelled, unconcerned with failure, innocent, untroubled by the unknown.

To just keep going with no guarantees that anything awaits us on the other side.

Lots of us get to a point where we are done. We’ve learned and mastered all there is, we think. Maybe we are complacent. Maybe resigned. Like that’s all there is, at least for us anyway. Let someone smarter/richer/stronger do the other stuff. I’m fine

I’ve been there. A lot.

Where have we given up? And why?

Are we really okay with what is so or are we in some denial about some nagging feelings of regret or anxiety that stir around just under the surface?

Do we have to wait until our present situation is so bad, so untenable, that the only choice we have is to leap. Aren’t we there yet??

Present day mystic and spiritual teacher, Caroline Myss, refers to us humans as being in a time of predicament. It isn’t that we have a lot of problems in need of solutions. We, humans, are in a time of predicament with regards to our survival on the earth.

There are no solutions to predicaments. Predicaments must call forth transformation. Transformation starts with me. And it starts with you.

The more we are willing, and we allow ourselves to be in this uncomfortable space, the more we make it possible for others to do the same.

Where is it in life that it would serve to keep plugging away, squirming, getting sweaty, being okay with the discomfort, grunting, working…without attachment or knowing what it will bring? Without any measurable, visible show of progress?

Can we be okay with failing over and over and over again? And still getting on with the work anyway without any guarantee that anything will happen.

It’s actually an electrifying and powerful place to come from.

Of course, many of us are dealing with a lot of trauma. It may be here that we need to start.

Truly consider that our collective lives on Earth depend on our willingness and capacity to transform and throw ourselves into the scary unknown.

I share these insights and experiences on transformation here because the work we do here is transformational in nature. Reclaiming our Feminine selves is powerful. It can feel scary. It is diving into the unknown. But I’ve never known anyone who would go back to the time before.

You know, before crawling.

Why Some Women Have Difficulty Conceiving

April 18, 2022
Posted by lana

Rainbow Spider Woman, Giclee’ by Sheranda Ann Kumara

Most of us are in a state of considerable disconnection from our wombs. It’s not our fault.

We’re not taught how to have a relationship with our wombs. Much of the world still struggles with wanting to maintain control over what happens here, and in our bodies in general.

We store a lot of trauma and shame, whether we are aware of it or not. Our wombs are a repository, a living memory container not just for our own pain but the pain we inherited down from the ancestral line.

As a result, far too many of us have painful periods or some kind of cycle-related dysfunctions that affects nearly every aspect of our lives.

Furthermore, it can be really hard to talk about this. We may feel stuck and alone.

Conventional medicine often has little to offer and when it tries, it’s typically from the framework of how to ‘fix’ periods and women’s problems versus acknowledge the bias and misogyny that exists and causes the problems to begin with.

This space of the womb is highly beyond our control.

The womb, in fact, is in charge. We are better off to befriend and surrender to its wisdom. And I know, this isn’t something we are easily able to do.

I mean, how outrageous and backward might it seem to even be reading this? Reduced to a womb?

But the womb is so much more – wisdom, aliveness, creativity, power – than we know.

Beyond just making physical life, our wombs contain intuition, guidance, safety, and inspiration.

Even if your mind *knows* this to be true, is it actually how you feel about, and relate to, your womb?

Consider that before we can conceive a baby here, we need to clear and prepare the space.

We may need to deal with what may be there festering – and I’m referring to the emotions and energy.

We have to listen and hear the needs of the womb and this relationship will likely take some time to form trust.

The reality is not everyone will be able to conceive of course. However, healing IS available for us all.

It doesn’t mean there is no grief ever or no sadness.

But we can feel great about ourselves as feminine beings. We can feel whole and in love with who we are, just as we are.

We can find an unconditional and whole-hearted acceptance of ourselves. No matter what.

I don’t know what the specific answer or path for any one woman is.

But I know that your womb space knows.

With Love,

Lana

What if you just can’t have some things now! now! now!

September 28, 2021
Posted by lana

Art: Dawn Harrell

Someone made a request in an online group I’m part of asking for resources on how to help heal and clear womb issues FAST.

Ah, yes.

I understand this tendency and desire to have something immediately. Probably you do too. I’ve done it often and continue to catch myself still. I want or need X number of dollars right now or to drop some pounds immediately.

We have become somewhat accustomed to getting things quickly. And sometimes we get lucky. Even in healing, we hear stories of instantaneous transformation. Miracles happen. Everything and anything is possible. So why can’t it happen for me in this situation?

In reading this woman’s post, I felt how at odds this request was with actual womb healing. In my experience, womb healing is a process. The healing happens in that process. It’s likely never fully over while we’re alive and what we need to do is allow it to happen and take the time that it will.

The nature of the womb, and the feminine, is to be more on the slow side of things. We may experience it as kind of passive, kind of held back. Diffuse. There is no rush about it, no force that can be applied. I’m talking here about energy, but you could look at it from the point of view of the physical for example. A baby requires 9 months to gestate. It may be born sooner but it will be premature and require special care. It may even die. The 9 months can’t and shouldn’t be rushed.

Again, this is difficult not only because we are used to gratification coming to us quickly but also because we’ve identified qualities such as ‘slow’ and ‘passive’ as somehow negative or not as good or worthwhile as ‘fast’ and ‘active.’ As opposed to seeing these as simply qualities and acknowledging all exist for good purpose. What may appear to us as passive for example in yin yoga has a lot of healing going on underneath the surface as the held posture releases stored up tension.

Consider also that we acquire and store trauma in our womb over our entire lifetimes. Add to that, we also come into the world with an accumulation of what our ancestors before us carried within their wombs. This is to say, a lot of ‘stuff.’ When we understand and feel the full weight of this, it’s imprudent to think that this can all be resolved quickly or even that this outcome would be the best one for us.

Because…

The slow healing journey is what brings healing to the womb. If it were fast, it wouldn’t be healing. Do you understand?

Ultimately what I have found to be true, whether specifically womb work, or healing and spiritual life in general is that the journey is the point. The uncovering and discovering of what we’ve been holding within us is the key to forging a new and strengthened relationship with ourselves. This is what we need and crave.

It is ongoing.

At the end of the day, the world will continue to throw misogyny at us; it will continue to offer toxicity. It means that our womb healing journey asks us continually to be connecting, purging, releasing, composting, creating newly. It’s not a one-time, open and shut event.

Womb clearing and healing is an ongoing journey full of riches. So just get started without trying to control the pace of the outcome or the outcome itself. This is beyond our scope. Bring openness, curiosity, compassion, and kindness. Patience we can all learn.

You’ve got this.

P.S. – If you’re interested in getting started in this work, download my Womb Clearing Handbook & Manual here.

The Amplification Time of the Mother Archetype

July 23, 2021
Posted by lana

And ideas on how to make the most of it.

Art: ‘The Passion’ by Helen O’Sullivan

In the northern hemisphere, currently the earth (summer) and moon (full) are in this corresponding phase we can call Mother. Are you ovulating in your cycle? Then you are synched up too. I’ve been exploring throughout the year how this overlap of energies may offer some deeper connection or even portal to experiencing these archetypes fully.

The Mother archetype is one that we all have some experience with and may confuse with the role itself. The energies of the Mother archetype are very expressive, nourishing, fruitful, warm, flowing, loving

Some of what I’m noticing or feeling strongly in this time:

~ nature beckons, envelops, warms, loves us up; is primordial Mother to us all.

~ this time of year offers an incredible abundance. It is an enchantment to contemplate the heavy, dripping fruit on the trees and branches. The raspberries in my yard are ripening these days. The fruit grows plump and full and simply awaits release with any effort and I can’t help but meditate on how this can translate in our lives.

~ these are days offering much in the way of a potent and charged sensuality. Nature offers so much in the way of sensual delights:

the sights (infinite variety of flowers, blooms, colours, leaves, shapes, etc)
the smells (the fragrance of so many flowers, herbs, sea or ocean, etc)
the tastes (so much fresh food)
the sounds (birds, rustling sounds of trees, lapping of waves, etc)
the feels (breeze on the skin, grass under bare feet, rain on your skin, etc)

~ earth and mother is our primary, physical nourishment. In a climate like the one I currently am in, there is a tendency to want to grasp these times really hard and hold on to them. Life is easier, supportive, and more pleasurable in the warmth and the sun and the summer is relatively short compared to the rest. If we are grasping, we can’t be relaxing nor opening up to it. In our grasping and trying to ‘make the most’ or ‘squeeze every last drop’ we are in some states of lack or desperation. This phase is one in which to begin to explore release and surrender. We know nothing lasts forever and we know that the fall and winter must follow.

Below are some suggestions for utilizing these current energies for a deeper communion and experience with the Mother archetype. Use what works and ignore the rest.

~ explore some ways to bring softness and gentleness into your life, and your body in particular. Stop to take some deep breaths and notice where there might be tension. Good places to check in are the hips and jaw. Use some movement (wiggle, massage, yawn, sigh, etc) to keep relaxing these spots.

~ find ways of allowing the natural world to enter and nourish you through ALL of your senses. I listed some of the ways above but the possibilities are endless. Even if you live in a dense city are there trees (or a tree) you can seek out for communion and appreciation? Or find a spot to gaze up at the full moon?

~ consider where in your life you might be grasping and holding on too tightly when you could relax and let things unfold in their own time. There are things we want but worrying and grasping actually never guarantee that we get them, just make our lives stressful and compromise our health.

~ spend some time meditating or attuning to the energy in your heart. Does it feel tense, guarded, or closed? Or soft and open? Can you use some of the communion with nature and your senses to open and feel into your heart more? Even as this means feeling the grief that may be stored there?

~ do you have people in your life with whom you would like to spend more time or share more love? The capacity of the Mother archetype to nourish and love is immense but in order to do it in a healthy way we need to be filled up ourselves. If we are allowing the opening and sustenance of our own hearts and souls, we will naturally want to give it to others. This may even be a time when forgiveness might come easier. Or even just having a difficult conversation that we may have been avoiding.

We are living in a time of great information, great awakening, and great destruction. The plethora of abundance I see in my own backyard isn’t the experience of all, as so many places on our earth are being scorched, many are flooded, many are being clear-cut of their ancestor trees, and so much more. Many are suffering.

These are some of my personal questions in this Mother phase – how can I love more? Can I be more of Mother now to offer the sustenance the earth and her species need right now as so much is ravaged and suffering? How do I do this?

As always, I love to hear about your experiences. Thank you for reading.

Can We Begin To Find the Temple in the Place We Call Home

June 6, 2021
Posted by lana

Goddess of the Mountains by Laurie Crain

And why it’s vital now more than ever.

In conversation with a dear friend the other day, we shared some personal pandemic ruminations. He said there are some things he is in no rush to do once restrictions lift. Like drinking in a bar.

I understand that, I said. That particular activity isn’t one I indulged in often so I haven’t missed it. I’ve missed being able to throw parties and have people over; I’ve missed rummaging through thrift shops for treasures. I have missed most having a sense of freedom and being able to go somewhere and travel.

Despite not even having a budget for travel, there is still something of a ceiling on even my imagination that I have felt. The right word to describe it is probably ‘depressing’. As in this stark reality, pressing down upon me: you are trapped here, you can’t go anywhere.

Yet, to be honest now, I am not feeling in a hurry to travel.

Home has been Toronto (Tkaranto, the traditional land of the Huron-Wendat, the Seneca, and the Mississaugas of the Credit) and during this time, due to poor leadership and mismanagement, we have had one of the longest lock-downs in North America. I am fortunate and privileged in having a place to live and food to eat and still it has not been without challenges.

I have taken myself out for daily walks in my neighbourhood. I have reminded myself of my fortune and privilege in living both close to the city’s largest park and the waterfront — which has always factored into my decisions when choosing where to live. I will gladly sacrifice some comforts for nature and beauty at my doorstep.

I prepared myself mentally for a long-haul winter but the early spring, as per usual, was the challenge. Especially with no prospect of escape. Here I was walking the same old streets like a crazed mouse in a maze. Where was the reward? When, freedom?

We are still locked down being taunted with things slowly re-opening. Soon. Soon. I, like many others, like my friend, are watching places from afar opening up again. It’s unsurprising to read of flights selling out as travel resumes in some of these places. While obviously I understand this, I’ve come around to feeling disappointed about it.

What is it about our ‘homes’ — cities for most of us — that we relate to as pit stops or perhaps just ‘good enough’ that we have to escape from as soon as the ticket queue opens up?

Is it possible or desirable to begin to relate to ‘home’ differently?

Has it become clear that cities are difficult places for humans to live in happily and healthily for extended periods of time? Here in Toronto, we have seen one of the largest condominium booms in the world. On and off for the past decade, I have worked in one of the most condo-dense areas in the city. There has never been a single time in these past 10 years that at least one hasn’t been construction literally surrounding the building I work in.

(Meanwhile, the number of people pitching tents they call home in the city’s parks grows.)

I have watched and felt how these condo-dense downtown areas have become darker and shadier as more of the sun is blocked out. I have noticed how the green and open spaces have disappeared to be replaced with scraggy random token trees not given enough soil and space to grow so they die after a few, sad years.

I understand that if you live in such a dense area, you are likely experiencing more of this itch to escape. I would be too, I don’t blame you. But it highlights why it is important to look at where we are living and how our environments may support or harm us. I also understand not all of us have a lot of choice in the matter. It’s complicated.

Once upon a time not so long ago, commercial travel was expensive and it was rare. People did (and many still do based on ability) live their lives in one relative space without ever traveling very far at all in their entire lifetimes. Travel was a luxury and a privilege. It’s disappointing, though again unsurprising, that many of us want to pretend that everything was great and okay before pandemic times and that we can seamlessly go back to cheap travel and the way things were.

Pandemic times have not erased the reality of climate change and the cost of cheap travel to our environment.

So in good faith I am not in a hurry to travel. I will not be first out of the gate in booking a flight out. Part of what has been illuminated in this time for me is how important and possible it actually is to see where I live with ever new and appreciative eyes.

So we come back to how I titled this piece. How to find the temple, and the sacred holy ground in the place where we call home, where we lay roots, the place where we spend most of our lives. Ask:

Where is the holiness to be found here?
Is there more to be seen and known beneath the surface of this familiar and ‘known’ space?
What have I not opened my eyes and heart to?
Should it be that I’m never able to travel anywhere again, can I be happy and content here?
What can I create?

What I increasingly know to be true is that, while it is special and wonderful to be able to travel and experience different climates and cultures, it can be borne of a restlessness and search for meaning that will never be quenched. If I can’t be happy and fulfilled and whole in the place I call home then I will not find it by roaming elsewhere. I will, at best, distract myself for a time.

I keep at it. It isn’t always simple or easy. I step out from my house and it can feel as though there is nowhere new to go, nothing new to see. So I search. The sky is always different, the way the breeze feels on my skin. Every day brings new growth to the plants and the flowers, the trees. In the park there are so many, how could I have ever thought to know them all?

Walking this familiar maze of streets, I’ve been able to open my eyes and melt my heart into seeing the pulsating life, the ever-changing yet eternal renewal, growth, and decay of the earth. It moves me to deep reverie and a growing connection to this place.

I have seen in the Bosnian mountains shades of Oahu. There are times here in Toronto, in the park, where I’m brought back to the feeling of being in Sedona. I gaze at the vast pines, their crowns high in the distance of the sky and I sense that I’m in British Columbia.

It is all one Earth and the holiness and divinity of this place can’t but be everywhere if we allow ourselves to soften and see. We don’t have to go anywhere to find it, it is already always where we are.

As the world begins to open up, many of us will like, or expect to, jump right back into the familiar ways of living (and let’s face it, consuming) we’ve known before. This may be possible for at time but for how long? The reality is that many places in the world are still struggling to contain this virus. Nothing is assured for any of us.

Which is why it makes the most sense to cultivate this connection with ‘home,’ wherever it may be. To touch and commune with the ground underneath our feet. We don’t know what awaits around the corner. Most of us could never have conceived of enduring the situation of the past year. Anything is possible.

But to feel connected, nourished, and held exactly where you are without need to escape…that is an immense gift. It needs nothing added, nor can anything be taken away.

Will you try it today?

How to Ride High on the Maiden Energies this Spring

April 16, 2021
Posted by lana

Artemis painting by Ria

We are firmly in spring now in the northern hemisphere. Spring corresponds energetically to the times of the waxing moon and, if you have a menstrual cycle, the phase right after bleeding, referred to here as the Maiden.

Whether you have a cycle or not, these waxing moon days, during the earth’s spring season, (approx Apr 16-23, 2021 and again May 15-22, 2021) offer an overlap and amplification of these energies which we may engage for our personal use and development. If you do have a cycle and overlap on these days with your own Maiden phase, I would suggest you have even more of a portal into these energies!

What does this look like and what does it mean?

The energies of Spring/Waxing Moon/Maiden are of coming into the light and experiencing a re-birth and renewal after the dark and cold days of winter. We are emerging, thrusting out into the world. Observe the ways the green stalks begin to shoot out from the soil, the breaking open of the buds on the trees. This energy is bold, unfurling its life and beauty.

It is a beginning. It is being in action. It can accomplish a lot. This energy is optimistic, sharp and bright, courageous and ready to learn and grow ever brighter. (You can look to the Goddesses Aja, Artemis, Athena, Persephone, Freya to name a few)

If we think about it in terms of life cycles, we can see that Maiden is exploration and playfulness. It is a time for adventure, trying new things, taking risks. She is passionate, fearless, bold and carries a nothing-is-going-to-stop-me kind of vibe.

Below are some ideas & suggestions on working with these Spring/Waxing Moon/Maiden energies, followed by some important cautions. As always, try out and take what works, disregard the rest. 😊

Spend time out in nature with full attention and presence (try leaving your phone at home); commune with, and talk to, the saplings, the babies, the goslings and so on. Notice and appreciate the growth, the new shoots springing to life. Drink in the emerging colours and dynamism. Allow it to fill, nourish, and inspire you.

Play & express yourself! Remember back to your teen years and before. What brought you joy? What had you squealing for delight? Connect back to that energy and how it made you feel in your body. Is there something you haven’t done in a long time that would be fun to return to? Things that come to my mind are howling, skipping rope to songs ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rucp0rWs4pU ), hula hooping, juggling. Have fun! Conversely, perhaps there was something you weren’t allowed to do or explore… can you gift this to yourself now?

Strengthen your body. This phase is the amplification of a lot of energy. How can you best use it? It may be especially useful applied towards tasks that may have seemed difficult or overwhelming in the past. A good focus here could be on building core strength and generating a momentum (and nourishment) to last through the next phases and to power confidence and self-esteem.

Try new things! Is there something you’ve been putting off beginning because it’s felt somewhat scary or out of reach? This could be the perfect time to get to it.

Focus, brainstorm, plan, create structures and routines, work out the full details of things. Consider keeping an idea notebook. You may find that the ideas and inspiration comes at a pace beyond your capacity to implement. Capture these for a future time.

Cautions & Pitfalls:

It is important to remember that this phase and these energies do not last forever (though they will return).

There may be a very easy and tempting tendency for some of us to get kind of high on this energy and grasp to it too hard once it is over. This could be a largely unconscious desire yet easily derail us once we emerge. Watch how your personal energy and your actions in this phase are affecting the people in your life. In particular, keep an eye on anger.

Ride hard here if you have the stamina and the inclination; throw yourself into your passions and what is important to you, but remember it will pass and when it does, let go with grace and ease. Rest assured that it will return and the time in the new phase (which will be Summer/Full Moon/Mother) brings its own gifts to explore. We create pain and suffering for ourselves when we resist the cyclical nature of life.

It is vital to stay attuned to our needs and our boundaries. We may experience Maiden as quite independent and self-sufficient. It is a lot easier in this phase to allow things to roll off our backs. It is easier and perhaps more tempting to agree to things that aren’t necessarily in full alignment with our own values and goals. Being loose with our boundaries here can come back to trouble and haunt us in a later phase (that would be the Enchantress).

Ultimately we want to balance and contain Maiden energy with good routines, intentional stillness, and reconnecting to the overall big picture and vision for our life.

I would love to hear your experiences in this Spring/Waxing Moon/Maiden phase. ❤️

A free Womb Clearing Manual & Workbook for You!

March 24, 2021
Posted by lana

I am honoured to be able to offer all Womb Bearers this gift of a Womb Clearing Manual & Workbook.

While it was originally borne out of an idea to help recovery from miscarriage, abortion, and stillbirth what I have discovered in my years working with hundreds of women and womb bearers over the years is that this is the space where we tend to store a lot of trauma and ‘stuff.’ Some of it isn’t even ours to hold and it weighs us down!

Over time, this ‘stuff’ can create problems for us on an emotional and spiritual level and on a physical one as well. Consider all the womb related problems there are and the few ‘cures’ that are offered by the allopathic model of care.

This manual contains instructions, reflective questions, and links to audio meditations to help you safely and gently begin to clear out anything within your womb that is not yours.

It is offered as a gift though you are more than welcome to make a donation if you find the work beneficial to you, or you may like to book a one-on-one womb healing session with me directly to go deeper into this clearing process.

Blessings and blessings to you and your womb!

A Special Portal for Crone Energies

February 8, 2021
Posted by lana

Art by Michelle Maiden Art

If you are bleeding this week, and you live in the northern hemisphere, you are going to be in a phase of triple Crone energies around the days of the new moon on February 11, 2021.

This is because the moon in the dark/new phase is the archetypal energy of the Crone and the winter season is also identified with the Crone. When you are bleeding, you are in this Crone energy as well. Voila, triple Crone!

It is rare that we experience this triple alignment, which is why I highlight it as a special time if you are bleeding this week. It potentially offers some very special opportunities and what I would distinguish as a portal to enter into, if you should choose, the deep mystical powers of the Crone.

(If you have stopped bleeding, and are in menopause, this applies to you as well as keeper of the blood wisdom!)

Ok, so what does this mean and what I can do?

First let’s look at what some of the archetypal energies of the Crone/Dark & New Moon/Winter are: darkness, night, cold, depths, descent, going within, death & rebirth, bleeding, solitude, stillness, inner reflection, wisdom, prophecy, the underground, earth.

The Crone archetype is also sometimes referred to as the Witch, the Hag, Hecate, Kali, Grandmother, the old Wise Woman.

She is the superheroine offering for us right now. (and what better time; winter is a challenge for many of us in a regular year. This year we have a pandemic and all of its impacts thrown in)

To enter into the realm of the Crone is to tumble into the underworld. It is the time to drop into the depths of our bodies especially into the womb, the legs, the feet. It is to intentionally go into what has been buried… This may sound scary but consider she has the answers for this time we are in.

This is an invitation.

(It may take some courage. Trust you have that.)

The Crone wisdom holds all the other archetypes – think, Grandmother holding the younger ones at her bosom. She is boundless wisdom; there is nothing she does not know, there is nothing she can’t be with. She offers safety to us. We return to her again and again and we emerge from her again and again, reborn. Alight with transformation. We are her.

When we allow ourselves to speak and listen to the Crone (and our bleeding time), we set ourselves up for a better cycle ahead of us.

Below are some suggestions or inspirations on some activities, questions, and places of focus that you can experiment with at this time. Take what strikes a resonant chord with you (as with all of the ideas in this piece) and leave what doesn’t.

I would love to hear what you uncover.

Suggestions & Ideas for Exploring the Crone energies:

Rest deeply in ways that are very nourishing. Take care of your bodily needs with presence, compassion & gentleness. Drink earthy teas and eat baked root vegetables. Don’t wait until you are overrun and burnt out to rest and take care of yourself.
Unplug from your surroundings – meaning phone, netflix, news, other people, etc. We are bombarded by information and energy from the outside world, typically at a pace beyond what we can process in a healthy way. This can cause a lot of anxiety (it may be low-grade and something we’ve become so accustomed to; we may not even realize it). See if you can quiet your surroundings to be able to be with yourself.
Find soothing light especially as the sun goes down. Lower bright lights and use candles instead.
Spend time with your breath. First, notice the quality and the depth of it. See if you can deepen it and in this way commune with how your body is feeling. If you meditate regularly, you may find this time very amenable to dropping into your practice in a very deep way.
Read something nourishing. Be guided by what feels right, put down what doesn’t.
Do some free writing or sketching without thinking about what you are putting down. Allow things to spontaneously arise.

Going even deeper…

Drum. There are many different ways to play with this. It could be tuning into the rhythm of your heart or the rhythm of your womb. I often feel pulsing in my womb when I am bleeding. Can you begin to explore and connect with your rhythms with some drumming? A physical drum isn’t even necessary; we can tap and use our hands and fingers to play out a rhythm with anything.
Allow your waking mind to drift and daydream. Notice what you see – even what seems the most ridiculous or meaningless can hold important information for you. This is a potent time for visions.
Feel and explore your emotions – whether through tears, movement, sound. If you feel pain at this time, it may be useful to look at any anger you may unwittingly be repressing. I’ve made a video speaking to my own experience here that you may find useful.
Pray if it feels good to and ask questions of your Crone. Be open and content in not receiving an answer in the way that you may expect.
Pay special attention to your dreams. Give yourself the time to explore them by journaling, sketching, dialoguing, researching symbolism.

Lastly, view any insight and wisdom that you receive in this time as a gift. If there is something you know you need to pay specific attention to, or take action on, make some note for yourself to do so or make the proper scheduling in your calendar. Personally, I make it a habit to regularly read my journal (I treat it like a real ‘book’) so that the wisdom channeled at this time doesn’t get forgotten and lost.

What I know is that we each have access to our own specific wisdom, inspiration, and guidance. And a lot of our vision and purpose, which may seem missing in our lives, can make itself available at this time. Especially because it’s hard right now. Especially when we need somewhere to pull strength from.

So work with the gifts you’ve been given and share it! The world needs feminine wisdom at this time and this is how we begin to access it.

P.S. – there will be one more triple Crone available to us this year around the days of the March new moon on the 13th. After that we will be into the Maiden energies and I will write more about that then.

For those in the southern hemisphere, you are in the earth’s summer season so your triple alignment occurs on the full moon on February 27th – which is also the next Worldwide Womb Blessing. I will write more about the Mother/Lover phase later this year.

Welcoming Being Lost

January 14, 2021
Posted by lana

On three occasions this past week, I found myself lost in the world.

Twice in my neighbourhood and the third time a bit farther out, though still a place with which I am well acquainted.

In one, I turned a corner onto a street I had walked many times before and it appeared utterly different to me. I even stopped and muttered ‘where am I?’ My brain needed a few seconds to sort itself out, recall what we were expecting and then began to see a few of the familiar things – signs, buildings, landmarks. ‘Oh, yes. OK…I see.’

Then this experience repeated twice more within a matter of days.
knock! knock! knock!

Has this ever happened to you?

The quality to this experience for me is disorienting, even dizzying. It doesn’t last long, a handful of seconds. But in that brief time, something happens…

…a crack breaks open in the code of my life.

Personally I enjoy this kind of disorientation. It’s not unfamiliar. I welcome it as a gift.

In those seconds, I feel like a kid again; the world looms so large and mysterious and unknown before me. I feel like I have no body, I experience myself as a kind of floating nothingness. Where am I? Who am I? What’s happening?

Those seconds of disorientation offer a portal, a glimpse, into all-that-I-don’t-know. It is a potent reminder that I am just an experience, of many, in an infinite, mysterious world.

Even the most basic, elementary things I think I know – perhaps I really don’t. Perhaps there is nothing at all that should be left off the table; what can I really be sure of?

And can I be okay with not being sure of anything? Where does that leave me?

This is a breaking apart, and allowing, that’s been happening for many years. Where it is nudging me towards is more permeability, more flexibility, more curiosity, less attachment to who I might think I am and what I think I know.

I receive this as a gift.
Especially now when I think it would be good for us to question all we think we know. I think this would be a gift most especially for people who think they do question everything already. Because this is ultimately not about questioning what is outside of ourselves.

It’s questioning what is inside.
What is the realest of the real for you, and could it be false? Or something else entirely?

Are you willing to even entertain the question?

Photo by Louis Maniquet on Unsplash

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