10 Days Before My 50th

Hello fellow Earthlings,

"I discovered that crone is derived from the word crown. The crone holds the wisdom gained through her years. She is a healer, counselor, and wise woman. In the old days, the word "witch" came from "wit" or "wisdom." Elder women were looked to for their wisdom gained through their experiences. They were the bringers and preservers of life. They weaved the stories.."

In 10 days I will be 50! That's half a century and I can't be sure I'll live a century in this current body, so you could say my life is more than half over. Wow! What an interesting, wild, ride it's been.

I did not get here very much in 2019. In fact, I didn't write a single post during my journey through Europe. That's not to say nothing happened. So much happened! Most of my experiences over the last 5 years or so will appear in my next book Venus on Fire which I hope to finish during my 50th year on this planet.

Today I woke up and my jaw hurt and I had a headache. Lately I've felt angry a lot in both my dreams and waking life. It's not a constant thing. I also go through moments of tremendous bliss and happiness during my day, but this dark, negative energy seems to want to get my attention. There's this little nudge I've been getting that I'm not exactly where I'm supposed to be. I feel like I've somehow compromised myself because I'm afraid—afraid of what people may think of me, afraid of hurting others, afraid of being alone, afraid of losing security and stability in my life, afraid of losing friends or disappointing family.

On the one hand, I want to behave in ways that are accepted by the status quo because, well, they are acceptable ways of being in this world. I have a respectable job at a local community college. I teach immigrants and refugees now to create small businesses. I get to help them take their ideas and turn them into reality! What could be more inspirational than that? Truthfully, I love what we create in class. I love to see students following their dreams and hearts because I believe that is important. But there are aspects of my job that don't fit me at all. I don't like administrative work and following mandated rules and regulations. Lately it seems like so much of that is coming down the pipeline.  The work keeps stacking up and a lot of it seems like a bunch of bureaucratic nonsense. Sometimes it seems like so much work is created just to keep people busy and make them feel important.

 For so long I've been called to follow a different drum and in many areas of my life I am following that drum. I'm in a vision circle. I made my own elk drum in that group and I meet other like-minded visionaries once a month to drum, journey, share and hold space. It's a space where each person can truly feel safe to say anything. I'm also in a Ho'oponopono, a Hawaiian healing class, where we do similar work. We share in a circle and witness each other in different ways. For five days, over my birthday, I will be heading to Breitenbush Hotsprings to attend a Vision Seeker 3 Class with Hank Wesselman. Many of the people in my Vision Circle will be there. We do a lot of journey work and even though we all go on our own journeys, we are the collective whole that creates the dream of this world. Lately, many ancient practices coming from indigenous earthlings are coming to the forefront. They are not widely accepted yet, but they are so needed. Our earth is suffering in so many ways. Humans have forgotten that they are part of a fabric of life, not the key players in it.

The fabric, or the web of life, is asking each one of us to step up and remember WHO WE ARE. It's scary because it goes against who we have been and it's never easy to forge a new road when the old path is so well-worn. In fact, it's not a new road at all, it's a path we've all taken before and we are just being asked to remember it.

Who are you and what are you here for? Do you ever ask yourself those questions? Don't be too quick to answer those questions. Try sitting with them for awhile. Those very questions, I feel, are what my 50s and beyond will be about. And I'm okay with the unknown. There's so much power in not knowing. In creating space within me, I'm able to receive powerful messages that lead me to where I need to go. And where I'm going doesn't always make sense to a lot of people and I've learned to be okay with that.

For now, I'm being called to step away from a heavy teaching schedule and move into a full time schedule of writing and tuning in. I'm being called to be part of more circles that involve inner work. The upcoming winter is calling me to go into hibernation. It's calling me to gather all my journeys and sew them together into a patchwork quilt of stories that will become my next book. I have no idea what shape or form this quilt of stories will take and that is the joy of creating.

I'm not afraid of this next phase of my life. I'm excited about it. I'm on the downhill slope. I will become the wise, old woman...the crone. I've earned it through the experiences I've gathered. But there's still so much to learn, gather and let go of.

In 10 days I will be 50. I'm ready.