Fire of Desire: The Way of the Feminine Mystic

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inside to be his one to be his own deep into his Fiery Heart he took the dust of jonar and high above all these wedding guests he hung the ashes of a lovely wedding dress [Music] [Laughter] [Music] blue smoke flicker deep turn side take my sleep while Light Shadows face all your friendly run away falling sweet burn up [Music] every shce will I [Music] patience beond blue smoke fck deep turn and take my sleep Shadows face every name will you come my way again smoke flicker deep wild and set me free Qui wake spark breath will beow ye follow sweet give you all these long can breathe glowy to your mind be the way of Wonder slowly will Mo away away and become new with Dawn fullness ring the world beond smoke Deep Run me wild and set free [Music] smoke flicker deep turn side take my sh face your friendly you Ru away ashes falling sweet burn up every part of me bright Shadows Grace will I let you in will you teach me patience only with the moon why away make leaving with the dawn fullness R in the be all smoke flick turn side take my Shadows face into every name [Music] oh [Music] [Music] oh oh oh oh [Music] slow will the moon away become lewn fullness R the world be smoke flicker deep turn aside and take my sleep bright night Shadows Grace into every name will you come this way [Music] again hello everyone welcome to fire of Desire the way of the feminine Mystic with mby star we are are so happy to have you here with us today in this way and I'm going to say a few logistical things before we dive in and one of them is to make sure if you don't already have something to write with that you grab something either a journal if you like to write by hand or a document on your computer we will be using the chat throughout our hour together um if it's overwhelming for you for any reason you can feel free to just let it pass by and ignore it um our amazing Wild Heart team is here to support Monica Denise and Rosa will be in the chat to answer any logistical questions that come up during our time together and mirabai is not able to check her direct um chats so direct any questions to um Rosa and Monica Denise and we have one hour together and in that time we'll dive into some teaching from Mir a writing practice and then you'll have um some time at the end to ask questions for meby in a live Q&A type environment so thank you for being here I loved seeing your responses to the poll as we were entering um around this question of what lights your fire and there was a lot of responses to um the answer of immersing immersing immersing immersing immersing yourself in to Nature physical movement poetry learning so you're definitely in the right place here with us today we're also looking through your Facebook comments in the Facebook group around your desires and seeing a lot of themes around purpose and authenticity and heart and feminine wisdom so again I think a lot of these things are shared amongst many of us here um so my name is Willow if you don't already know me if you're new here here welcome this is what we call wild heart and I'm one of the co-creators of this amazing space with beloved miror by and I have a background in art and education and interspirituality and it's a great honor to get to curate things like this in these really special spaces with you and before I introduce Miri I want to just draw out some of your your energy however we're coming together in this virtual way and we asked you before we gathered to make a list of your desires and I'm going to ask you to tell us in the chat to this prompt I have always wanted I have always wanted and just whatever comes to mind like a couple words I have always wanted whatever comes to mind just drop it in the chat and a few words and I'm going to read a few as they come through obviously I can't keep up with all of them but I'll read a few I have always wanted Freedom peace for our world to write a book to make passionate love to be free and wild to create art a bat tattoo inner peace visit Italy feel good in my body be a mother live in community publish a book wisdom peace my whole self to live in harmony with my purpose peace pleasure love to talk to fairies wholeness to write a book unconditional love connection true authentic connection love without bondage a husband Independence to love my body to travel the world a peaceful supportive relationship to be a monk Serenity to help others acceptance of discomfort spend time with God to know Spirit peace to be like to be a healing presence authenticity with nature to be loving to be on fire it's a beautiful little taste and with that I bring you mirabai mirabai star if you don't know mirabai already you're in for a treat mby is a an author a translator of um many Mystics and an author of over a dozen books and teaches internationally um on interspirituality and writing and is a dear dear friend of mine we're so blessed to have you nearby so please take us thank you Willow thanks for for playing with me in this Wild Heart space it's just been getting more and more beautiful and Lush As Time unfold and we're so happy to have all of you more than 3,000 of you said yes to this invitation we're deeply moved by your yes and oh my gosh listening to all those desires I I just want to we're going to just take that list and leave it in because it's so inspiring to me all of these things that you want it's just exactly in alignment with what I am feeling more and more as as time goes on which is that all desire is sacred all desire a sacred desire so I'm going to just lead us into this hour with a just a couple of minutes of contemplative presence I'm going to light a candle and read a a prayer oh darn oh yeah I'm gonna read a prayer from my book uh Mother of God similar to fire which is a book of icons by Father Bill McNichols an incred ible contemporary iconographer and uh a prayer I wrote a prayer for each one of his icons and I'm going to read one of them as as our contemplative practice today so first I'm going to begin by lighting a candle and this candle is in honor of you my loves all of you each of you who has made your way to this campire fire in the wilderness that we're creating in Zoom land for this hour together today those of you are here live or listening later I welcome you to this place of sanctuary refuge and whatever has brought you here all the life experience that culminates in this particular moment deep bow to you of acknowledgement for what you've been through and what you carry so I'm going to read this prayer now from from Mother of God similar to Fire and it it the prayer is um for the icon called senle of the new Pentecost senle is is a word for the room The Upper Room in Jerusalem where the where the disciples uh took Refuge after Jesus's crucifixion and where the story from acts unfolds which is Pentecost which is in real time today in the in the Christian tradition one of my many spiritual Traditions that I love and follow and so this is this is the story in a way of of Pentecost when the tongues of fire came down through the ceiling and the disciples were really freaked out at the at the time and scared and hiding and and fire came through the ceiling through the roof through the ceiling and touched the tops of each of their heads and ignited the Holy Spirit in them and not only was did that happen which was amazing enough to ignite the holy spirit in their in their hearts and bodies and Minds in their souls but it embolden them to stop hiding and to go down into the city streets and be brave and encounter the world and there were people in Jerusalem from all over the Middle East who would come for Passover to the Holy Temple this was before the destruction of the second temple and miraculously the apostles could understand all of the the foreign languages that were being spoken on the streets of Jerusalem that an hour before were completely um alien and now they could understand all the languages of the world is the symbolism of this myth I hope you all don't mind if I call it a myth who knows what really happened but the mythology is is real too how about that so I ask you to just take a breath nice deep breath breathing in all the way and exhaling slowly and after you've taken one breath take at least one more inhaling deeply and exhaling completely and just invite yourself to be as fully present as you can for our time together while I read this prayer Mother of God you are the safe haven the secret room where the lovers of the Divine gather to remember remember him the Oasis where the Seekers find each other in the heart of the desert and exchange stories of longing and Discovery the fire of the Holy Spirit comes pouring into the open chamber of your mother heart in your midst all are welcome through your voice everything is understood blessed mother may all faiths find sanct U AR in you may all paths flow like Mountain Streams into the river valley of your love and praise the Holy One with a thousand voices the fire of the Holy Spirit comes pouring into the open chamber of your mother heart in your midst all are welcome through your voice everything is understood Blessed Mother May may all faiths find sanctuary in you may all paths flow like Mountain Streams into the river valley of your love and praise the Holy One with a thousand voices so another deep breath Just mingling Breath with listening with mind with heart and including the whole of your dear body in the process you know I think that's maybe the key to what we're Gathering about today is welcoming ourselves home to our bodies you know many spiritual Traditions speak about fire it's a very common spiritual metaphor and it's one that I have since I was a young teenager always resonated with maybe you too fire is a metaphor like in the judeo-christian and Islam Traditions Judaism Christianity and Islam the so-called monotheistic Traditions you see fire in all the Poetry of the mystics fire fire fire and wine and intoxication and Gardens these are the common images I would say in all of the mystical poetry of those Traditions as well as other Traditions but certainly in the judeo-christian and Islamic Traditions right fire represents the Awakening of the heart that desires God and so the fire of Desire is not new and it's not exclusively feminine by any means in fact as you may have noticed most of the world's religions and spiritual Traditions are dominated by dudes and this is not not knocking those men folk who are here with we're so glad you are here um and you are welcome here too because the feminine lives and burns in people of all genders and people of all genders hunger for the return and Reclamation of the feminine nevertheless as I am mentioning um it seems clear that the world's religions were kind of built by male Architects to fit a male experience and so when they speak about fire and when they speak about desire in these religious Traditions the only desire that's really allowed is the desire for God which frequently involves Transcendence transcending these um problematic bodies we have with the desires of Their Own with the cravings and the feelings in other words we are asked to transcend our Humanity our embodied experience to get to God it's up and out it's a phallic movement it's vertical and it denies this horizontal interrelated reality of being human bodies in connection with other human bodies in this world and it leaves behind connection to the Earth to our mother the Earth because the world and the Earth get conflated in these traditions and left behind and therefore you have also probably noticed it's much easier to exploit the Earth and other creatures if they are somehow elusory or at least obstacles to transcend to a Transcendent experience of the Divine and I'm not knocking Transcendence I am a contemp natural contemplative I love to go into deep states of meditation and dissolve into it's usually fleeting but it happens thank thank you God into these ndu moments of just dwelling in Comm communion with the wine I love that and that's not the whole story how do we reclaim all desire is desire for God so desire for chocolate is not other than the longing for Union with the one through the beautiful um opening of the taste of chocolate so desire for intimacy for sensuality for love making for orgasm whatever it may be in the realm of the sexual is not a distraction from God but an invitation to find the holy in the body and perhaps in communion with another another body whether or not that other body is on a quote spiritual path it's not like you have to sit and do some kind of magical ritual with incense and you know pictures of the Gods and you get them to sign on to your spiritual trip it starts with your own willingness to reclaim your heart's desire your body's desire fire in your soul as the SA sacred gift that it is and it's not always an easy gift fire is dangerous it's perilous it's much easier to just kind of go along with um the Norms whether those are spiritual religious structures that you've been that you've inherited or signed on to or other social um constraints that keep you feeling safe much easier I don't recommend the way of fire unless you're willing to be completely transformed by your encounter okay I haven't talked about thing one on my on my notes because I get all excited so let's see what else I want to tell you in the few minutes that we have before we're going to do a little practice together well maybe we'll talk about some of those of the world's spiritual Traditions that do acknowledge fire as an opening to connection to the sacred um we talked about Pentecost in the in the Christian tradition and I I often think of Mary Magdalene as the embodiment of the fire of Desire who reclaims the whole of the human experience as holy and it's all filtered through her passion for her beloved there's that story that um is told in various gospels and St John of the cross my beloved Spanish Mystic who I've had the great honor of translating talks about Mary storming the halls of the Rich and Powerful she doesn't care because Jesus is in there and she wants to get to him nothing is going to stop her from getting to where her beloved is no amount of formal Authority um that would bar her from her encounter with her beloved he says she's like a she bear who would be do anything to protect her Cubs and she breaks into the banquet hall she throws herself at his feet in some versions of the story she cracks open the alabaster jar and pours the Priceless nard on his feet and then wipes them with her hair in other stories it's her tears she bathes his feet with her holy tears and dries them with her hair she is on fire nothing will stop her in in I think it's in the Zen tradition they say go to practice your practice your meditation practice as if your hair were un on fire and the practice was the stream of cool water so Mary Magdalene embodiment of flame there's the burning bush of course in Judaism um the bush that that was on fire but didn't burn up and from that bush issued the voice of the Holy One That Got Moses to get over himself and overcome his sense that he was not worthy and go down and speak truth to power to the pharaoh to set the people free The Burning Bush was the the key and throughout the Israelites journey through the desert there was a pillar of fire that guided them at night then that's said to be the Shah in the Jewish tradition in the mystical tradition the Shah is the indwelling feminine presence of God not Mrs God as my friend Eve ilson rebman's Widow says not Mrs God but God in the feminine who appears as flame and every Friday on Shabbat comes pouring through the open windows and ites us again with that fire of desire for Union with the Beloved for the coming back together of the masculine and The Feminine who have been sundered in in the in the Hindu tradition it's it's sitaram RAM and Sia in the in the great legend of the ramayana have been broken apart she's been abducted by the evil demon and hanaman the monkey god the embodiment of of loving service reunites them the later in the in the story Rah who is kind of concerned about maybe the fact that satha could have had sex with her captor ravana demands because the people were demanding him to demand it that she walk through fire to prove her Purity such in the world's religious Traditions it's just unbelievable but I mean Rah is a wonderful God other than that little lapse of trust and making his beloved walk through fire to prove her Purity um in it God I want to know let's see what else oh also in Judaism we all carry a spark of the Divine we see this in the Gnostic tradition as well the gnostics say that everyone carries a spark of the Divine in Judaism the Sparks came because the vessel into which the Holy One originally poured its holy self shatter and the shattering happened because the Divine Radiance was so intense no vessel could contain it I mean the Divine poured itself into this container originally so that it could know its holy self as love but the radiance was too intense The Vessel shattered and the Sparks of light went in all directions and emed embedded in each one of us and our task it says in least in the mystical aspect of Judaism is to lift those Sparks and re reform to mend and restore that vessel of light to wholeness and we do that With Every Act of loving kindness Francis and okay one more one more story Francis and CLA you know St Francis and St CLA in the Christian tradition there's this beautiful story where she really they were childhood friends possibly we don't know it's all Legend but they loved each other before either of them became a monk and Claire was the first woman to join francis's order of um the poor of the poor brothers and they created the the poor sisters so that this was voluntary poverty poverty is a beautiful ideal of voluntary Simplicity and and um and living among and with in service to the poor and to the ill and so they both had monasteries so Francis had his and Claire had hers but she longed for him she missed him she wanted to talk to him to be with him they had started this project together and then by virtue of their monastic vows weren't allowed to be in the same room so she finally talked the brothers into arranging a meeting and they were going to hike up to the mountain above a CCE and have a picnic out in the open air with you know women and men kind of chaperoning them on the side on the side but they would get to sit together and have a meal and and talk and so the minute they got together and leaned toward each other in holy conversation the flame started shooting out from them and down below in the city of Ace somebody looked up and said Fire on the Mountain everybody looked up and there were Flames leaping from the mountain top and the whole all the Village People came running up the mountain with buckets of water put the fire out it was just Francis and Claire having lunch but there's that fire of holy friendship whether it's sexual or not doesn't matter it's erotic right it doesn't have to be physically sexual there is an eroticism a communion when two holy friends come together and get to talk about anything they can talk about God they can talk about a sale online hopefully not you know but everything anything can be yes even that can be an opening can ignite that fire sacred friendship is an igniter right of that fire I I have that with my closest friends s several of whom are celibate Catholic priests don't ask me what what that is there a a Jewish girl from New York who grew up in New Mexico and hippie land and I have these at least four deep deep close count them on two hands closest friends are are celibate priests men so holy friendship is a is a an igniter of the fire cultivated there's the dhini in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition she's the embodiment of feminine Mischief like holy Mischief she lights on fire that which needs to burn down she takes nothing seriously she is irreverent she's yeah she's a Mischief maker but she's also she magnetizes The Awakening energies and she has a a discernment that's the other thing about the fire it's like K in the Hindu tradition is the the embodiment of ferocity what is she Fierce about she's Fierce about our Liberation and she carries a sword and the sword is is a fire of discernment it cuts away illusion it's the other aspect of the fierce feminine is that it burns away the the and lays be reality and it's also a cultivator it's it's also a um a composting agent the warmth that when the compost breaks down generates in the earth to nourish the seeds and Germany the Sprouts okay I think that's enough for now you know I could certainly go on but I'm really interested in how all of the feminine wisdom teachings that have been sidelined are threatening precisely because they affirm and reclaim the Holiness of our wanting and so with all of those Mystics of all the spiritual Traditions who I've spent my lifetime hanging out with in in my imagination anyway and all the goddesses across the other all the Traditions except for the judeo uh Christian Traditions don't like calling them goddesses but shakina and Judaism Sophia in in Christianity um let's say maram in in Islam they are all the goddess they're all the goddess and they are waiting for us to turn toward them and say yes to them and become curious about them again in these fractured times the wisdom of the feminine is needed now more than ever even if simply as a space of the Awakening of Beauty in our hearts when our our hearts have been so clouded by despair so welcome home all right let's see um I guess I'll just jump right into a little practice so this in our Wild Heart Community this is the our main practice it's it's a write it's writing but not writing for publication not even journaling but writing as a spiritual practice writing as a way to become intimate with your own heart so I'm going to read you a a poem just as to kind of cultivate the soil a little bit and then I am going to give you a little writing prompt and your only job is going to be to write your heart out out to write without stopping like literally physically do not stop moving your hand write without censoring or judging yourself or editing yourself or in any other way bossing yourself around with the voice of the patriarchy which lives in all of us you're going to banish that voice get in touch with your wild heart and write without stopping for five minutes and not yet not until I give you the prom first I'm going to read you a poem and um this poem is called appetite and it's by paulan Peterson paulan Peterson appetite it'll show up in your followup materials or in in the chat here appetite pale gold and crumbling with crust modeled dark almost bronze pieces of honeycomb lie on a plate flecked with the pale p paper of Hive their hexagonal hexagonal cells leak into the deepening pool of Amber on your lips against pallet tooth and tongue the viscous sugar squeezes from its Chambers Sears sweetness into your throat until you chew pul and wax from a blue city of bees between your teeth is the brown flower and the flower seed passport Pages stamped and turning deaths of fish's hum both the candle and its anther of flame your own yellow hunger never say you can't take this world into your mouth so you're I'm going to ring I'm going to give you a prompt ring a bell and I'll ring the bell again when it's time to stop so you don't have to time yourself you just write without stopping and hold your prompt is my deepest longing my deepest longing go e e e e e e e e e [Music] so how was that Willow you want to take it from here for a moment yes thank you so much Mir for everything you shared and for guiding us into writing so we want to hear a little taste of what you've written and we're going to ask you to share just a couple words up to one line in the chat yes it was short and that's kind of the point too is what comes out right at the beginning so just share a few words with us um to this prompt my deepest longing my deepest longing my deepest longing Divine Union to know God to be fully known and loved to be my best human self freedom of being Break Free of the bonds that keep me small I want to experience myself as a spark of the Divine to not have desire to be drenched in love a healthy body and a happy heart simple living budge the needle back toward Collective wholeness ever expanding love to heal my ankle to savor my moments divine presence with my heart to feel the Divine my deepest longing is to go home to be able to play again I am free to love myself as I love others to be free from fear and see wholeness in the world as we all become free breathe freely Eyes Wide Open rainbow body on transition to belong to make Exquisite art and be fully expressed to lock my childhood bedroom door to heal my trust to live fully fearlessly let's go seek honey together let go of my fears and just love ears and salt and wet faces of belonging riding the waves of change to taste life on the tongue of the heart surrender to become to grow into the full embodiment of my soul radical relationship to smell the scent of burning leaves and know the fire burning the deadness Within Myself to find love to know there is love for the satisfaction of fullness to live free of fear fully embody love to be Fearless my deepest longing is in my belly to fully embody be on fire and enjoy to long to Live While I'm Alive wow if you're here live I do suggest scrolling through because there's so many I couldn't get to hundreds in there but mirabi do you want to say anything me too all those things beautiful you're my people clearly our people thank you so much for sharing everyone thank you so we're g to do a little Q&A period um if you have any questions that you want to bring forward that are just you know percolating inside I'm going to ask us to drop it in the Q&A box so that it doesn't get swallowed in the chat just kind of like a river so there's a a button on the bottom left of your screen that says Q&A just go ahead and click that and then you can drop any questions you might have there and it's really it just Sparks you know what's in the field and what um what are we feeling I was seeing so many beautiful responses in the chat to um what meba was speaking to around fire and the practices in the Persian tradition and in the Celtic tradition and Indigenous tradition how that lives as mirabi so beautifully speaks to and in every tradition um but I love hearing your your following your resonance all right all right I'm going to read a couple of these questions coming in H Jane asks um can you talk about the major characteristics of the divine feminine I mean I can but it's changing for me Willow and I have been talking about this it's like um my latest thing is is uh God is neither masculine nor feminine nor nonbinding binary but queer I love the word queer because it's so inclusive and sparkly like so what I wrote about in Wild Mercy my book about the sacred feminine across the spiritual Traditions is that there are qualities of the feminine such as obvious ones like loving kindness um mercy and compassion in Arabic the and he as well the root of the of the words for mercy and compassion um Rahman Rim are the same as the root for womb so they are specifically feminine attributes mercy and compassion the loving kindness and um so loving kindness Mercy forgiveness tenderness relationality Community oriented versus um singular uh this the solo Prophet while you know charging forth on his horse to save everybody know it's it's a collective salvation um individual Liberation is not nearly as important as as the community being safe and free right so these are the kinds of qualities of the feminine also a a fierce truth teller you know cutting through what's expected the rules and regulations of the patriarchal systems that that surround us and um and speaking truth to power protect fiercely protective I mean the masculine can be protective also but even though I have always affirmed that the feminine lives in people of all genders some more than others whether they have female bodies or male bodies feminine is sometimes stronger and the masculine lives in people of all genders and that the feminine has been discounted for far too long and needs to be reclaimed and and her voice needs to be lifted I am um the distinction between these qualities or attributes or energies that we might call feminine and masculine are becoming more melded for me as time goes on so that's all to say that that I do believe that the feminine qualities it's going to take thousands of years to rebalance the imbalance that we have seen in the repression and oppression and persecution and silencing of the feminine in religion in politics and society and that we need to reclaim and lift the voice of the feminine I also am less convinced of the distinction between the attributes of of the Sacred feminine and the sacred masculine even the psychological feminine and the psychological masculine thank you Mar okay there's so many juicy ones coming in I'm going to bring forward Kristen's question asking what about the fear that comes up if your desire is for Union and for with all but then you feel fear when you contemplate that Union oh sweetheart yes me too you should be afraid be very afraid because when we walk this path of fire when we allow our hearts to ignite with longing for union nothing will be the same it does light our old comfortable structures uh on fire and they can burn down and who you used to be you will not get to be anymore I mean that sounds way more dramatic than I mean I'm a an any for for those of you know what I'm talking about so I get a little dramatic with my language but it's it is true that walking this path of sacred desire and saying yes I will let that overtake me I will let that inhabit me um does probably mean that you will be taken out of your comfort zone and that your sense of self it will chain will chain who you thought you were um will no longer it will feel like like a mask made of Ash that's falling off your face at times anyway you know you can sort of go back to the way things were but not really it's like when you experience a um a radical loss A profound loss the death of someone that you love with whom your life has been entwined you die too you probably noticed this and you can kind of go back to the way things were but really you can't it's a new a new world and a new self that slowly organically comes into form when you have been touched by the fire of loss it's the same thing with the spiritual path I mean you could I guess you could be casual about it but I don't know how just like I don't know how to have casual sex I don't know how to have casual sex with God thank you mayi you're on fire today I'm going to bring our dear friend Emma's question forward saying the groundlessness of being on the fire path is so intense bigger than my little creature can hold sometimes reflections of how to be with the fire without needing to fill in the spaces it leaves wide open to receive what the goddess is making space for guidance on sitting in in the in between linal space my favorite well now having emphasized embodiment and the beauty of food and sensuality and all of those things that are reclaiming the feminine as the S the sacred ground that it is I want to also advocate for contemplative practice some kind of meditation practice whether it's formal sitting practice which has been one of my favorites since I was 15 I just turned 63 uh every day pretty much every day I was a silent sitting practice doesn't have to be that you know walking in nature is also one of my regular contemplative practices I walk I happen to live on the boundary of national forest so I walk in the mountains every day and I I don't listen to music I don't catch up on phone calls I just really try to be present with my footsteps and my breath and tuning in to Nature there are different kinds of contemplative practices even dance with loud music can be a contemplative practice in that what contemplation means is cultivating presence but when we do these contemplative practices whatever they may be Tai Chi chiong Yoga sitting um prayer they teach us uh to be with things as they are and that often means hanging out in linal space in the spaces between this and that it's nonproductive space we're not trying to solve problems we're not even trying to evolve we're simply showing up and cultivating the ability to be present so that when we get off the cushion or finish the walk and re-enter the stream of our daily life our quotidian activities we bring that quality of presence that ability to be with what is that we um became intimate with in contemplative practice we get to be friends with the in between spaces and also you don't have to be on this journey of fire all the time you get to to curl up on the couch with popcorn and watch something silly on Netflix in fact you must you must refill the cup sometimes with lightness not always not always have to be on the passionate pth I'm telling myself this too we all need to hear it thank you sure okay Nikki asked a question um saying so much longing and aliveness but in the wake of my my husband's death how do I direct it and where do I put it and I feel like you spoke to that a little bit but I wonder you might say a few things before I ask our last question because grief is a big one yeah and it's in many of you know maybe not all of you it's a it's an essential feature of our work at Wild Heart it's not all we do but we definitely have a grief Community um grief is a as a spiritual path reclaiming it as the sacred Journey that it is um first my deepest condolences to you sweetheart for the death of your of your beloved um writing this is the way I survived the death of my daughter and many other beloveds but the death of my child being the most sort of impossible burden I've ever had to bear and writing my way through not to check out of it not to transcend it not to even make myself feel better but as a way to honor her to um become present with the truth of of what is now real what is real and and a love song to her and a way to make sense of the senseless make meaning of what felt absolutely meaningless not because I was intentionally trying to make meaning but that is an outcome of writing so Writing Practice giving yourself a series of prompts writing maybe different maybe you've already done this letters to your beloved husband um letters of forgiveness letters of apology letters of Love and Desire memories whatever it may be giving yourself a say a dozen prompts and then each day writing for 10 minutes on one of the different prompts is a wonderful way to reclaim the Holiness of your connection to your loved one who has died thank you mayby and we'll have more events coming up as well more focused in grief this summer so um if that's where your heart is we really warmly welcome you to join into that um I'm going to ask one final question even though I'm like so Juiced up on all of the energy in the chat there's so much more um I'm going to combine Lor's and Tracy's question and to say what are the practices to keep cultivating desire and fire even if we're not necessarily seeing it manifest in reality mystical poetry is my favorite and by mystical I don't just mean um the the known Mystics like Kabir and roomie um Emily Dickinson but any poet who is writing truth is going to spark that mystical yearning that is your birth right so the poetry reading poetry contemplatively reading it allowed to someone who who shares that desire is a beautiful way there are many communities that are spiritual communities that aren't exclusive aren't rigid um you know you can find your people that's the beautiful thing about the internet too is that we can find online communities where we can spark each other we can find that anamara as they say in the ktic tradition the sacred friendship that that whose greatest purpose is lighting up our hearts and reigniting fires that may otherwise have gone out I could say so much more Willow any anything crop cropping up for you in response to that question beautiful that's beautiful and you can always come to us which is fire a good moment yes we are very on fire somebody was asking about my earrings mirbi got me these earrings BLS um well so we want to invite you if if you're feeling this spark and it's um it's blazing for you we're going to continue um with a wild Mercy retreat in in June if you're hungering for a little more of this little taste this is the appetizer for the you know seven course meal so we did this last year and it was a really beautiful um some of you might know the book that mirbi wrote um wild Mercy living The Fierce and tender wisdom of the women Mystics and I happen to have it because I was going to read something but we ran out perfect no no we'll we'll we'll slip it in there um but it's going to be a weekend so not only you know if you've read the book or even if you haven't um this is a really beautiful way to embody these teachings in community so we'll be having teachings from nearby like she just gave us little bites of but in a little bit more depth um with the me women Mystics across the spiritual Traditions we'll have more evocative prompts and opportunities to be in small groups and dive in a little deeper together over a few days so and also in a um Facebook group and more chances to ask all of these amazing questions which I want to get to they're so juicy so we are opening that today and if you if you decide you want to join us before Thursday there's a a healthy um early bird discount before the 23rd and we would just love to have you there um you'll get more information we'll send the link in the chat and in your um um follow-up email it is June 7th through the 9th so it's a Friday Saturday Sunday and we would love to have you with us and and it's not all day it's just a couple hours each day right yeah yeah just a few it's two hours the first night and then three hours in Saturday and Sunday so you also have time off screen to integrate and and live out in the threedimensional world um thank you all so much and meby will you read us just a little tiny t taste at the end as we close oh okay sure thank you for asking okay there is a secret Fiesta going on in a wild wood and you are invited this party has been unfolding for Millennia its hosts are women Mystics from all branches of the Soul family Hinduism Buddhism Daoism Judaism Christianity Islam and every indigenous wisdom way its guests include anyone whose heart has ever yearned for Union with the Beloved and the alleviation of suffering for all beings which means you the Gathering is secret simply because historically for Wise Women to gather openly has been to risk death it's not that they've been afraid to die but rather they have known in every muscle fiber they must protect themselves because they're knowledge is needed their love and Clarity and Beauty are profoundly urgently needed and so they have gone about in Disguise sprinkling party invitations in the Public Square waiting waiting to receive us when we come they wait patiently but they are excited so beautiful so perfect this is the good stuff y'all this is it's going to be such an amazing weekend we can't wait to continue you in whatever way that looks like um thank you to everyone who's gathered today I feel it I feel it burning and so much gratitude to Monica and Rosa for all of the behind the scenes support and of course to beloved Mir by um you can share some more in the Facebook group that'll be open for a little bit longer for you to get to know each other there and hopefully we'll see you in the wild Mercy Retreat again those early bird rates are open through Thursday and we're going to play a song I I chose this song because I love it it's called Freedom which is like a little bit of a theme for our longing sometimes so you're welcome to just linger for a couple minutes let it settle um and we look forward to seeing you soon you want to say anything as we exit me invite thank you Willow thank you Monica Denise thank you Rosa and all of you for saying yes to this invitation many blessings see you soon keep blazing out there freedom freedom freedom freedom freedom freedom freedom freedom freedom freedom spreed freedom freedom freedom freed freed freed [Music] freed freed Freedom freed freed freedom freedom freed freed freed freed freed freed freed freed [Music] freed spread your wings fly right now so fly right now spread your wings fly right now [Music] right [Music] nowed [Music] freed spread your wing fly right now fly right nowly right now right now that was beautiful I saw some of your wings and everything thank you thank you all so see you

Channel: Mirabai Starr

Views: 412

Keywords: Mirabai Starr, divine feminine, feminine mystic, wild mercy

Id: 1pZkHT4dMm4

Length: 75min 20sec (4520 seconds)

Published: Mon May 20 2024