“You have to get through the bad stuff to get to enjoy the good stuff.”

“Our personal journey is more of a spiral than a linear path- don’t be surprised if you circle around the same themes a couple of times- you cant go backwards, only forwards. If only because you are different the next time round.”

Shew, but its been a blur, and kind of kaleidoscopic and so I will itemize in no particular order the few things my much-stiller-mind remembers of 2011:

• Meditation works. Very, very well. For most things, from anxiety to zen.
• Hurt hurts. And my teacher is right: pain is heart food.
• Letting go can happen the easy way or the hard way, and the discomfort is proportional to the amount of resistance involved. Note: resistance is futile if the ultimate object is inner peace or growth. Letting go is a process that cannot be rushed.
• Mirrors are not the enemy they just are.
• Women gather in circles for a reason.
• Illusions dissolve, and the world is better for it, though its  tough to say goodbye to them. Good things wait on the other side. Being brave, patient and gently opening is the way through.

A wise man once said: “Breathe, notice and relax.”

And a wise woman:

“I will weep and weep for you, O Mind;
(my Soul) The world hath caught you in its spell.
Though you cling to them with the anchor of steel,
Not even the shadow of the things you love
Will go with you when you are dead.
Why then have you forgot your own true Self ? ”   Lalla

This is my thank you from the organisers:

“Dear Cathwrynn, Thank you for your wonderful gentle, grounded but eagle-like contribution to this workshop. I look forward to our work together.”

What generous inspiration in this thank you note!

Gratitude and joy from me…

This was our prayer and meditation as the core group of Camissa Temple came together to build and then enter a new Sweat Lodge for a women’s sweat,  in Scarborough, Cape Town. One of our temple members, Novukile, had a friend wanting a sweat built on her land, which she will use for sacred ceremony. We were willing labour and lucky enough to be the first to then use it too!

We agreed that physically building something so sacred would be a very fitting beginning process for our temple guardians as we ‘build’ a unique temple space in Camissa Temple for women, together. We are also aware of our own individual needs for healing, rebirthing and reclaiming our connection with Our Mother, Earth. We wanted to share this passage together. We have a deep commitment to authentic relating in this temple, and we felt sure that hard manual labour, a new experience of building together and then the challenge of sweating together would create the perfect pressure cooker experience for triggering and being triggered! Yes, we actually consciously chose that!

Devi, our lodge keeper, created a stellar constellation with all of us. We each had the privilege of holding the position and energy of a planet in its exact position in the lodge as in the night sky above. The moon graced us with her/his beautiful light and the wind laid low for just the perfect amount of time to build and sweat. I knew that it would be a special night, driving through a thick curtain of mist coming in to Scarborough earlier in the evening. I was right.

Personally I enjoyed a deeper, essential connection to Mother as she held me during the intensity of the heat. I battled a headache for most of the day, which was frustrating. Frustrating not to be able to know the mind body link in order to let it go. As a group I feel that we have centered our connection to sacred creation and the great mystery more explicitly within each of us, and as a collective core circle. We have a shared resonance which we can call to when relating gets tricky, or logistics get demanding. We can both source guidance more clearly and now create more meaningfully.

We are blessed and grateful to know and love each other. Makhosi!

My eyes were further opened to the reality of the patriarchy in all our lives. We examined the impact of Gender Based Violence (GBV) and I was startled at its lifelong impact in my own life. I wonder also how consciously the sacred sexuality community is addressing this on a social level. A beautiful effect of doing this work in a muslim queer community is how we begin to tease out the subtle and not so subtle threads of patriarchy, culture, religion and social conditioning. Because of the atmosphere of love and unconditional acceptance we are able to examine more closely our own wounds and limitations- there is never need for defensiveness or shame. Because we can look inward with compassion we are also better able to enquire into our community wounds and deficits.

I have many notes to go through and my mind is very full of new ideas, new priorities and possibilities. I will share the learnings and challenges that come from this extraordinary conference in a series of posts here. I look forward to sharing with you.

When you have not had a drink of Love:

Your face hardens,

Your sweet muscles cramp.

Children become concerned

About a strange look that appears in your eyes

Which even begins to worry your own mirror

And nose.

Squirrels and birds sense your sadness

And call an important conference in a tall tree.

They decide which secret code to chant

To help your mind and soul.

Even angels fear that brand of madness

That arrays itself against the world

And throws sharp stones and spears into

The innocent

And into one’s self.

O I know the way you can get

If you have not been drinking Love:

You might rip apart

Every sentence your friends and teachers say,

Looking for hidden clauses.

You might weigh every word on a scale

Like a dead fish.

You might pull out a ruler to measure

From every angle in your darkness

The beautiful dimensions of a heart you once

Trusted.

I know the way you can get

If you have not had a drink from Love’s

Hands.

That is why all the Great Ones speak of

The vital need

To keep remembering God,

So you will come to know and see Him

As being so Playful

And Wanting,

Just Wanting to help.

That is why Hafiz says:

Bring your cup near me.

For all I care about

Is quenching your thirst for freedom!

All a Sane man can ever care about

Is giving Love!

From: ‘I Heard God Laughing – Renderings of Hafiz’ 

 Translated by Daniel Ladinsky