There was a berry-filled bank of bushes containing the gold to ruby tones of salmon berries, and we stopped to sample these on our way to the basecamp site, and again on our way back up the trail at the end of the day. It is so wonderful to find literal as well as figurative nourishment from nature, freely offered! One of the gifts of the south and summertime is the lush fruits of the earth, there to pluck and to share with the other creatures.

Once our shelter was ready, we set up an altar with coloured stones for the four directions. Each person placed an object that was special to them on the altar, and we had a circle-round of sharing our current state in the moment and our intentions for the walk. I felt very moved by how strongly each person had felt called to come on this walk to explore something they cared deeply about. When I set the date and put out the offering for the day’s event, I offered the day quite lightly (partly because I never know if anyone will want to accept the offer), but it seems to send forth an energetic beam that draws people who are really into what I am offering. This is magical to me, and I am so grateful. As I have mentioned previously on this blog, the flow of events unfolding is an important indicator to me of how to offer my gifts into the world. If I offer something and there is no response, I conclude either it is not the right time, or it is not the right offering. This year three people came, and a few others almost came, so this tells me the flow is happening! And that bringing the nature teaching closer to Vancouver (rather than only offering events at Monkey Valley) was a good idea. I feel so psyched about the medicine walk day that I am inspired to offer a yoga and the four directions workshop in the same location in September!

After a teaching on the four directions, and some grounding in safety principles for their solo walk, the three participants set off on their three-hour meander through the woods. When they returned, all safe and not even too wet considering the heavy downpour that occurred during the first hour of their walk, I felt joyful to see their faces. We had a late lunch together, and each person told their story of what occurred during their walk. It was such a gift to hear how nature responded to their open-hearted intentions. Each person had a unique story, and it was fascinating how the details of their journey reflected their inner guidance and wisdom. The mirroring of nature is so beautiful! I am always amazed at how it seems that exactly what is needed is what occurs on the medicine walk, in the sacred space of the ancient ceremony. The perfection of the unfolding of the universe is revealed so clearly when the intention is to see.

Yoga is…

… union or communion. B.K.S. Iyengar

… a poise of the soul which enables one to look at life in all its aspects evenly. Mahadev Desai

… a way of remembering our true nature, which is essentially joyful and peaceful. Donna Farhi

… an act of kindness toward oneself. Judith Hanson Lasater

This morning in the North Shore mountains, just 20 minutes from downtown Vancouver, and 15 minutes from the Commercial Drive area, will allow you to explore your yoga practice in nature. We will spend the morning in an idyllic sandy spot by the Seymour River.

You will learn the nature psychology of the four directions, an ancient-modern model of understanding the psyche of humans and nature. Each cardinal direction has its own colours, textures, seasons, stages of life, and qualities of true nature. We will explore the qualities embodied by the directions through yoga poses that connect these elemental energies with your own physicality. This is an opportunity to deepen into your connection to yourself and the natural world.

Enjoy the last days of summer in our beautiful Vancouver rainforest, with fun people like you who are interested in going into the depths of nature.

Location  Lower Seymour Conservation Reserve, North Vancouver

Date & Time  September 3, 2011, 9:00 am – noon

Cost  $30

Carpooling  We will meet at 8:40 am at a location on Commercial Drive to carpool to the LSCR. Or, you can meet us in the parking lot at LSCR at 9:00 am.

To register  Click the Registration tab and complete the form.

Questions  Contact Karen at 604.251.6337 or email info [at] bcwildernessvisions [dot] com.

About the teacher

Karen Rempel is a certified and registered yoga instructor, and spent a year as a volunteer teaching yoga to youth in prison. She’s also taught yoga to seniors in Merritt, and developed a Yoga for the Office program that she teaches in Vancouver. She is certified and registered through Yoga Alliance and YogaBC. She is also a trained wilderness guide.

July 16, 2011 – Vancouver

“Journeys start from where we are. Everything starts from where we are. Where we are is where we’re supposed to be.” – Evelyn Eaton, The Shaman and the Medicine Wheel

This day-trip in the North Shore mountains, just 20 minutes from downtown Vancouver, and 10 minutes from the Commercial Drive area, will teach you tools and ceremonies for working in nature to access your own inner guidance and the guidance that nature can bring. This could be in the form of answers to questions, deepening connection with the greater mystery, healing, letting go, accepting, or gaining new strength. Whatever you need is available to you, and can be reflected to you through the mirror of nature. You will learn different ways of working with the four directions to access this guidance.

Our ceremony will begin with setting our intentions for the day and creating a sacred container for learning by creating an altar together. You will learn the four shields, an ancient model of understanding the psyche of humans and nature. Each shield corresponds to a cardinal direction, with its own colours, textures, seasons, stages of life, and qualities of true nature.

Then you’ll explore what you’ve learned on a solo medicine walk. After brief instruction, you will go on your own solo walk in nature, seeking guidance from our dear earth mother and her diverse creatures. Following in the footsteps of our ancestors from many cultures and traditions, this solo time includes fasting from food, human company, and human-built shelters. At the end of the day we will break our fast together with brown-bag lunches while we share our stories with each other around the circle.

9:00 AM to 5:00 PM Saturday
We’ll meet at a location in the Commercial Drive area and carpool from there. Bring your lunch. Wear comfortable shoes for walking on hiking trails, as part of the day will be spent wandering through the woods by the Seymour River.

Cost: $30 (free for those who wish to participate if the fee is an obstacle)
To register, please fill in the online Registration Form. For payment information, see Fees.

This is a new perspective on anger that I have not come across before. Yet the expression of rage leads to high blood pressure and heart disease. That doesn’t sound healthy either. What is a person to do? The resolution to the paradox is that both repression and rage are ways of avoiding the genuine experience of anger. According to Toronto doctor and psychotherapist Allen Kaplin, “Healthy anger… is an empowerment and a relaxation. The real experience of anger ‘is physiologic expereince without acting out. The experience is one of a surge of power going through the system, along with a mobilization to attack. There is, simultaneously, a complete disappearance of all anxiety. When healthy anger is starting to be experienced, you don’t see anything dramatic. What you do see is a decrease of all muscle tension.’” (pp 270-1) Astonishing!

When experiencing rage, people tighten up, breath shallowly, and tense their muscles. These are all signs of anxiety! Gabor explains that acting out through bursts of rage is a defence against the anxiety that invariable accompanies anger as a child:

Anger triggers anxiety because it coexists with positive feelings, with love and the desire for contact. But since anger leads to an attacking energy, it threatens attachment. Thus there is something basically anxiety-provoking about the anger experience, even without external, parental injunctions against anger expression… Naturally, the more parents discourage or forbid the experience of anger, the more anxiety-producing that experience will be for the child. In all cases where anger is completely repressed or where chronic repression alternates with explosive eruptions of rage, the early childhood history was one in which the parents were unable to accept the child’s natural anger. (pp 271-2)

Gabor goes on to describe the two forms of defence people tend to use against feeling the aggressive impules of anger. One defense is to act out by yelling, hitting, or swearing. This is a defense against keeping the anger inside where it can be deeply felt. The other defense is to repress the anger. Both of these methods, as we have seen, lead to illness. (Gabor documents this extensively in his book.)

Gabor concludes that anger does not require hostile acting out. It is a feeling to be experienced. Learning to do that can be difficult (because of the incredible anxiety that often co-exists with anger), and it is something a trained person such as a therapist can help us learn to do. In the times when I have successfully felt my anger as a physical experience, it is actually quite simply a feeling of heat and energy in my body. It is sometimes even beautiful—a sparkly strawberry-red substance that can even have a sweet taste!

The second thing about anger is that it contains valuable information. If instead of acting out I can consider what triggered the anger, I can learn what is really going on (or, often, what I think is going on but is actually just an old pattern being activated in my psyche). Do I feel threatened and powerless? Unloved? Not considered? Has someone trespassed on my boundaries? Whatever the case may be, the anger can give me the energy needed to effectively deal with the situation. This is much different than unconsciously acting out my rage!

As I have mentioned before, anger and the red essence are energies we can work with in the direction of the south in the four shields psychology. It is very valuable work, learning to protect our inner child through the skillful expression of anger. BC therapist Joann Peterson says “Anger is the energy Mother Nature gives us as little kids to stand forward on our own behalf and say I matter“! (p. 274)

July also marks the two-year anniversary of this blog! Two years ago my friend John Harper encouraged me to begin writing about ecopsychology and the work I do in nature. Since then I have shared many stories of the land at Monkey Valley, wilderness work, and my happy trails and trials running. Writing this blog has been an expression of my heart as I have shared stories with you of the things that I love. The creativity of writing whatever I feel like in a blog format has felt like a flow of fun and lightness of spirit (with an occasional dash of despair about my unruly ways). I sometimes wonder if anyone reads this blog, but I do hear from one or two readers from time to time! So please join me in celebrating this two-year anniversary, and drop me a note to let me know you’re out there!

This year I am offering a new program at Monkey Valley, together with Angela James—the ChiRunning and yoga retreat July 23 – 25. In addition, it will be the third summer in a row of putting a faster out on the land to fast for a vision, using the ancient and modern ceremony of the vision fast. And, on June 20, I brought the four-shields teaching and medicine walk to Vancouver in a new day-long format.

Two beautiful souls accompanied me to the forest beside the Seymour River in North Vancouver, where we created an altar in a clearing on the bank of the river. Using the form of speaking from the heart known as council practice, we did several rounds. The first round was in honour of our fathers and Father’s Day. It was very moving to express appreciation for the gifts our fathers have given us. The second round was in honour of the summer solstice. Then the participants spoke of their intention for their medicine walks.

Although it was a cloudy day, the land was lush and green, and bursting with salmon berries. Although the participants were to fast from food, shelter, and human companionship during their walks, I left it up to their own inner guidance whether to make like bears and enjoy the berries! While my two friends went on their three-hour walks, I sat beside the river, and drank in the silence and beauty. The water rushed by, green and playful. Sometimes the spumes of white foam curling over rocks looked like little skunks swimming upstream. Swallows swooped low, eating bugs in the air over the river, and one swallow circled, swooped, and darted around in a long loop about five times before seeking new bugscapes. A bald eagle flew upriver high overhead, and a pair of ducks sped downstream in a formation as tight as fighter pilots. What a gift it was to have this unhurried time to watch nature do her thing. As time went on the quieting of my mind deepened, and the trees across the river began to reveal their mysteries in a way that the ordinary waking mind cannot hear.

The richness of my solo time was enhanced by knowing my companions would be back soon, with stories to tell of what happened on their walks. They returned with gifts of stories and berries, and we ate a meal together in the circle before sharing the stories. It was very moving to hear how the land and her creatures had interacted with my friends on their walks. I felt a deep appreciation for this special place, and for the people who were willing to take time to be with themselves in a quiet, intimate way. After we closed the circle, packed our things, and said goodbye to the spot that had held our ceremony, we hiked out through the forest trails feeling a little lighter and closer to our hearts.

Do you ever wonder what you’re doing with your life, and whether it is truly fulfilling your deepest joy, your purpose here, right now, on this earth, in this lifetime? Do you ever feel like maybe you’re not quite in alignment with your deepest values? Do you seek to find the right balance for yourself between obligations to your self, your people, your work, and your place?

It is a precious gift to have the chance to live in a body on this beautiful earth. I’d like to tell you about two events that celebrate both the earth and our connection to it.

Radical Joy for Hard Times is celebrating our love for the earth through an event called the Global Earth Exchange, on June 19. This is a do-it-yourself kind of event, where you find a place near where you live that has been wounded, perhaps by human activities or perhaps by a natural disaster. Go there on June 19, with a few friends or alone, and create something of beauty in that place. It could be a song, drumming, bringing flowers, planting a tree, picking up trash, or anything else you might like to do to bring beauty to the area. That’s it. Pretty simple. Just letting your heart express its love for the earth by caring for a place that could use a little attention. If you’d like to be a part of the event in a more formal way, there are resources on the Global Earth Exchange web site.

If you are wondering how to connect with the earth and bring your gifts into the world, I invite you to join me on a medicine walk on June 20. I’d love to share with you this ceremonial way of walking on the earth and seeking guidance from the more-than-human world. I’ve reduced the fee to $30, but heck, if money is an issue for you, you can participate for free. Just use the form on the Registration page to sign up, and I’ll contact you with the details about where to meet on the morning of the 20th. Then we’ll carpool to the Seymour River (about a 15-minute drive) and spend a day together in the woods.

Both of these events occur on the weekend of the summer solstice. Connecting with the earth in a conscious way is a wonderful way to mark the turning of the seasons. If neither of these events appeal to you, perhaps you will find your own way to mark the passage from spring into summer.

“Talents are better nurtured in solitude, but character is best formed in the stormy billows of the world.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I feel very fortunate to have the opportunity to test my character and grow through interactions with my colleagues in the workplace. It is so clear to me how the arising of Being through various people and situations is part of the perfect unfolding of the universe and my own life path, allowing me many opportunities to actualize myself as a real human being.

Each day, I go to the office with the intention of behaving with compassion towards all. I feel the gentle nature of my soul, and am aware of the innocence and lovability of my colleagues. And then! So often this wider awareness is lost as I fall back into my early self images and object relations.

My Diamond Approach group is doing a deep piece of work on identity, and it is marvellous how I can apply this work to the situations occurring in the workplace. The work of inner realization involves coming to know our true identity as luminous beings that are part of the oneness of reality, and eventually switching our sense of identity to this truth, rather than the conventional ego sense of identity that we all develop during our maturation process as human beings. In the Diamond Approach, the true identity is called “The Point.” I once experienced this as a point of light in my heart. And through my individual and group work in the Diamond Approach I have had many, many experiences of the exquisite qualities of my being and of reality. Yet I keep forgetting! I keep re-identifying with my ego self, which is primarily constructed of the impressions of myself and others that shaped my soul in my early childhood years.

During the past two months I have been working on a technical writing contract that involves going to the office most days, and interacting with dozens of people. During these interactions, my object relations are often triggered. This is what I referred to earlier as a great gift, for it allows me to see and understand the inner workings of my psyche. While I was living and working at Monkey Valley, the opportunities for interaction, learning, and growth were obviously much fewer, though of course incidents did still occur! This is why I gave the quote from Goethe, above. The time alone served its purpose, to develop my abilities and, in my case, heal, in the solititude and safe haven of nature. And then, when my soul was ready, Being propelled me back into the busy world of people to test and refine the qualities of my being.

For those of us who have experienced the trauma of repeated physical abuse in childhood, the defensive structures that we develop to survive this unbearable situation are very strong. One of the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder is a continuous hyper-vigilance, in which the nervous system is on high alert for danger in the environment. Since this defensive structure, which is one of many structures that make up the entire ego sense of self, actually formed at a young age (say between the ages of 3 and 6) its sense of discrimination of what is actually happening in the environment is not very well-developed. Let me give you an example!

At work, I developed a plan for providing online help to the end users of the new banking software (which would be most of the employees in the credit union). I developed the plan after discussions with many people and extensive analysis of the current banking software and documentation that the company already had. I showed the plan to the project management team, the trainers who would be training the employees to use the new software, and others. The plan was approved by the project management team, and was in the process of being approved by the Senior Executive Team of the company. Then one day, several people talked about the documentation at lunch and came up with a new approach to the documentation. The new approach was actually something I had already considered and rejected in favour of what I believed was a superior approach, which would make the help easily accessible to the end users.

This probably sounds like a very dry, paper-like scenario, devoid of emotion and certainly not a source of danger! Yet my early patterning was triggered by this situation, and felt that I was in danger and needed to defend my self, my work, my plan (my identity as a competent technical writer)! Before I knew what was happening, I lost control and was practically yelling at a coworker. The defensive structure was in full swing and on the attack. I totally forgot about the truth of my being—in that moment all that mattered was making the coworker back down. I said No and she said Yes, and the angry confrontation went on for a few minutes before I regained enough control to realize this wasn’t productive and backed off. It took a week to unravel what had happened and come to regain some kind of mutual respect. Eventually I realized that my coworker hadn’t really understood what I was proposing. So to her the idea she put forth was better. Pretty simple. Just a misunderstanding. Yet I felt caught up in a life or death struggle!

This situation helped me see how quickly and automatically my defensive structures take control of my being; I identify with the structure completely, believing that this really is a life or death situation. And from this vantage point, any means is justified to protect myself. As you know if you have been reading my blog, anger is my preferred way to deal with the situation and protect myself! But something has changed. After the heat of the moment has passed and I am no longer so identified with the defensive structure, I start to notice the pain of losing contact with my deeper being and behaving in ways that hurt others. This actually feels very uncomfortable. I notice a feeling of dis-ease in my soul. Of course being cut off from my deeper being never feels good. But the part about noticing the feeling of discomfort at harming another—at not treating other beings with the respect and kindness they deserve as equally precious parts of the wholeness of reality—this is so new to me. I first had a glimpse of it at the Diamond Approach summer retreat last year, as I described in an earlier entry. And this piece of work keeps arising, through the outer events and inner experience in my soul.

I feel both powerless to prevent the defensive structure from kicking into action and a deep longing to remain in touch with the truth and treat others with kindness. And in this moment, a deep sorrow about the harm I have caused others, and the pain of being separated from my own heart. As I feel this sorrow, my heart becomes full of a tenderness that is both strong and vulnerable.

The first way we do that is by telling the gift of our story. Having had the privilege of sitting in story council dozens of times, listening to the stories of fasters, I affirm wholeheartedly the value of hearing these stories. It is moving, uplifting, and makes us more human to witness the vulnerable, innocent, desperate, and triumphant struggles of those who dare to fast alone in the wilderness. It is truly a gift, and we tell the fasters not to squander the gift on just anyone. We tell them to share the story only with those who have ears to hear. I am trusting that you, dear blog readers, are such people, people who have ears to hear.

It was wonderful to sit in circle with Ruth and Larry and tell them about my medicine walk. I gave them the gifts I had made for them, and showed them the bouquet. I told them about the four ceremonies I did.

Although I had focused on each of the four directions in my ceremonies, Ruth said that it was strongly a story of the south, of the place of the child, with the strength and passion of the red south energy. She named the many times I used red in my ceremony—the threshold of red beads, the blood, the red cap for the lizard, the red suede wrapping the bouquet stems, the shield with red hearts on it that I gave my inner man.

This is one of the mysteries of the wheel. When we are working with the wheel, we can view each direction through the lens of one direction—in this case, the south. So the energies of the west and inner man can be viewed from the south. The making of gifts for our people, north energy, can be viewed from the south. And the creative celebration of the east can also be viewed from the south. In this way, the eyes of the child and her strength interact with the energies of the other directions, viewing them with her particular concerns, interacting with them with her innocence and ruthlessness.

Ruth reflected that the little girl in me was strong, and that her love of beadwork was a gift she’d brought to the world that helped me survive. That little girl is a survivor, all right! Ruth honoured the way that I held my little girl, and later made a piece of art depicting my hands unbraiding the little girl’s hair. The freedom of the little girl running through nature after I held her in the ceremony is a feeling I have experienced several times since returning from the desert, when I have listened to my experience deeply. The freedom to just be myself, without distorting, contorting, or contracting to be what I think someone else wants. This is the freedom of the unecumbered soul—the birthright of us all.

The other aspect of my ceremony that Ruth mirrored was that I claimed my balls! I hadn’t realized the significance of this at the time, when I was interacting with my inner man in the final ceremony and gave him some balls of warm peachy-yellow stone. In the past when I have worked with my inner man, I have given him a penis but not thought that the balls were necessary. But I guess a man might have quite a different perception! This spontaneous act of claiming the balls is what solidified and completed my intention of claiming my inner father: I am mother and father to myself, and I have the strength and take the time to care for my hurt self.

I didn’t understand the importance of this brief moment of spying a stone and scooping it up, and sliding it under the penis I’d already give the man figure I created. But this has had an incredible impact on my life since coming home from the desert. Even a few days later, when we returned to Big Pine, the confidence and groundedness in my body was palpable. I went on a night run through the town of Big Pine, saw some pink roses drenched with recent rain, and totally ravished them, sinking my face into the petals and drinking up the rose-flavoured water. This is what it feels like to be a man, taking what I want! (I imagine! Any male readers who care to comment on whether this is true for you, please do.)

Other evidence of the incorporation of my inner father continues to manifest. I noticed right away that a particular kind of longing for something from a man had disappeared. I didn’t need it from the outside, because I had it on the inside now. I am speaking of a longing to be seen, cherished, approved of, loved. What I wanted from my father, and sought from lovers. I was no longer looking at men with this same needy eye, hungering and trying to get something from them. There is truly a feeling of completeness on the inside. And, correspondingly, a realization that no man can give me this. This makes me feel freer—no longer driven to try to be what another wants to get the love from the outside. And it also gives any men I might come across freedom to be who they are, not the projection of my father. So freedom all around. That’s a good thing!

One interesting thing I have noticed as I recount the events of last October to you is that I can’t recall what Larry said. I didn’t take notes of the mirroring. Although I vividly recollect sitting in circle, and hugging Larry at the end of the mirroring, I can’t remember any words. I only remember a loving feeling of being held by his warm attention. Perhaps the claiming of my inner father manifested this way as well—I didn’t need to be affirmed by a man on the outside. [Coming back to this later it occurs to me that of course Larry affirmed my story. I may not have needed his words to affirm my words, but the warmth of being truly listened to and heard is something I do need, and that I felt nourished by on this occasion.]

And finally, I hope you will all understand something else from this story. By being more fully who I am, free to be my true self—playful, innocent, strong, vulnerable, confident, dignified, silly, and joyful—I actually am free to contribute my gifts more freely in the world. This is one of the benefits of the vision fast ceremony. It empowers us all to be more fully ourselves, and this is the greatest gift we can bring our people.

Next time I will tell you about a dream I had the night after I returned, which illustrated some of the themes I have written about in a beautiful way.

The time spent mirroring my intention was part of the severance phase, during which I was preparing to leave my people and go out into the wild. This time also included packing and preparing for the day walk.

The time on the walk is called the threshold phase, during which I was in the sacred space of the ceremony, and a ghost to my people. The threshold place is the place of spirit, of magic, and of the unknown. Some call it the liminal space. This is the place where trees, animals, and rocks can talk to us, if we will listen. This is the place where a vision might come, though it can come to us anywhere and anytime if we are open to seeing.

The final phase, reincorporation, is when we return to our people with the gifts we have gained from our time of trial. The hardest task is to embody the vision in our lives, through service to our people. But before I describe this phase of my journey, I’d like to summarize what I’ve said so far.

First, there were the entries from the severance phase, about mirroring for intention.

Then there were the entries from the threshold time, while I was out on my medicine walk:

• Hiking up the canyon and the ceremony of fire
• Cell phones and lizards
• Cholla cactus and golden braids
• Bouquets and gifts of the north
• Ceremony with the inner masculine
• Getting down to the nitty gritty

Next time, I will tell you about the reincorporation phase.

After I danced with my inner man, I spoke aloud to the figure I had made of stones, imagining it was the man I was currently attracted to. I told him everything I longed for, thought I knew, and feared about him. I imagined my first name paired with his last name, and smiled, for this combination forms the name of a spiritual teacher I respect greatly. It reminded me of being in grade school, with the other girls, writing out our names with the last names of the boys we had crushes on.

As I spoke to him, we danced a little more, and I picked up some stones to add to the figure. I found a branch that looked like a tree of life, and I put it in his right hand. Then I found a shield with red hearts on it, to put in his left hand. I gave him warm, round, peach-coloured balls. One leg was a bit shorter than the other, and I put a smaller red and white rock under it. My heart!

I spoke aloud my belief that he needed to walk the path of his own truth, healing, and growth. That was the most important thing, and more important than any relationship he might have with a woman. At this point I put a rock that looked like a road, with a line running down it, under his feet. A little while later, as the ceremony unfolded, I put another small rock to represent my heart, and another to represent a warm stone pussy, on the road.

After I’d done all the talking and dancing, I sat down beside him and asked my inner man to talk to me. First he said, “I love you.” Then that he would protect my inner child. Then I felt a shining golden bliss in my torso, the feeling of our love-making. Then he said he loves me fiercely, in the ancient ways and for all eternity. I could feel the wind blowiong like the wind of eternity, and the truth of it.

I wondered how my own father viewed me, for that is part of the impression that forms our inner masculine. I remembered being a teenager, dressed up to go out, with makeup and a mini-skirt, and my dad saying I looked like a whore. As if there’s anything wrong with that, I said to myself. I remembered how he liked to look at Ursula Andress in her white bikini, arising out of the ocean in Dr. No. Him saying this had always hurt me, but now I knew he was just having a hard time letting his daughter go to other men. I couldn’t recall either parent ever talking about my future as a wife or mother, or hoping that I would have a good relationship with a man when I grew up. Maybe it was expected but unsaid.

I thought about the man I was currently drawn to, and what the attraction felt like. I imagined various aspects of a life together. Just then a plane flew over and made a giant X in the sky! It is so nice when the universe gives really clear messages!

My inner man expressed the fierceness with which I want to be wanted—sexually, romantically, and for who I am as a person. That is how he wants me, and as the inner father I am claiming in this ceremony, that is what he wants for me. Looking back at the ceremony now, I feel that the inner father was blessing me to find this kind of relationship with a man in the outer world. And I also know that the fierce longing is the longing of each soul for our beloved—the mystery that we are, are from, are part of, and long for complete union with. The love between lovers is a beautiful form this takes: the love of the beloved in each other. May it be so…