Uncreasing the furrows

Last night in the mirror, while examining a blemish blossoming as a badge of menopause, I noticed my first facial lines almost imperceptible behind the bangs and eyebrows. There they were: two furrows already imprinted on my forehead. Eeeeee gads, have I been that serious lately? I asked myself.  Then, this morning:

In the slipperiness of the pool, the voice said "Be joyful."

In the darkness of the sauna, the voice said "Look within, instead of without."

In the warmth of the shower, the voice said "You're doing exactly what you're supposed to be."

I believe that is my prescription for losing the furrows and living life now, in the present. For so long I have struggled against myself, waiting for something external – an event, a companion or Spirit – to alter that struggle. I have known the Divine inside experientially, but intellectually, I still held onto the notion that it came from somewhere external ... a remnant of the white-bearded man in the sky I have tried to shake.

Two recent insights from spiritual mentors have helped me recognize I really have all I need within. In a meeting with Charlotte when she patiently and skillfully listened to me list my wounds, she noted that I alluded to the Divine as if it were outside of me. And Gary, who has nurtured me over a dozen years when I first stumbled onto his massage table after a car wreck, said the struggle in life is how to to let Spirit into our bodies, our beings.

Hummmmm, looking within, not without.

I tearfully admitted to Gary I felt Goddess had been showing me myself through a dark mirror lately. He quickly quashed that theory, retorting that the Divine only wants love and joy for me. After sniffling through a dozen tissues, Gary gathered up my discards, much to my dismay at him touching my snot, and offered them to the fire with a prayer for transformation.

I believe that transformation is already at work, shifting my obsession with all of the darkness inside of me to realizing where the seed of the Divine resides. And rejoicing in that: being happy where I am; grateful for the life I live; and beginning to love myself as Goddess does.

• What is my conception of where the Divine resides?
• How has that been shaped?
• How has that changed as I have matured?
• What reminders can I create to remember how much I am loved?
• How can I open myself to that Divinity within?


normally, I would beat
myself up for being so ...
well, wrong


but in the realization that
Divinity is within, comes the
acceptance that I couldn't
always handle that information


that it is a process of
self discovery,
one step at a time


it can't be hurried, rushed
or on any timetable
other than that which is
meant to be


and the growing into
this knowledge is joyful