A Time of Holding in the Way of the Sacred Feminine
This year’s Quest was dedicated to experiencing the Sacred Feminine. In the spirit of the feminine, the women and men attending SpiritQuest entered into an intention to hold whatever transpired in loving awareness.
Being still within and lovingly holding whatever presents itself is an elegantly simple concept, yet in practice, it stretches us to meet the resistances of our own Divine awareness. Our busy minds may be challenged to quiet down. Our intense emotions may be challenged to soften.
We experienced many challenges that come with entering into a state of holding, and to the credit of every SpiritQuest participant, we met those opportunities with great grace.
Any time you bring a group of people together, there are challenges. The differences in our personalities and life-styles alone create opportunities to learn how to find balance between honoring the needs of others with the needs of self.
Add to that the tests of cooking outdoors, keeping a sacred fire tended 24 hours per day for five days, and the powerful energy that we can experience when we are in ceremonial space, and you have plenty of opportunity to see the layers of yourself.
During Quest, each of us created loving space within ourselves to hold what no longer serves us, as well as space to hold our unique brilliance. We discovered within ourselves our capacity to hold the fullness of our sisters and brothers with that same loving care.
In that agreement to hold ourselves and each other in unconditional love, we experienced days of gentleness and kindness, where old wounds unraveled themselves and disappeared. We willingly stepped up to new expressions of ourselves; greater depths of self-honesty; and profound trust in the Divine, ourselves and our SpiritQuest family.
The trust we had developed with each other and the appreciation we learned to have for each other made it very difficult to part when Quest was over. We had found a community in which we truly belonged.
In the age of “getting things done” and “making things happen,” the concept of simply holding life in its suchness has become a foreign concept. And yet, this holding, this nature of the Sacred Feminine, is fundamental to lasting healing and happiness.
Of course, we did get things done during the week. We cooked, washed dishes, tended fire, gave massages to each other, shared stories, prayed, danced, and sang. Yet, because we were also willing to honor the silent space of holding, we experienced an exquisite balance between our Sacred Feminine and Sacred Masculine natures.
In that balance life was, as my Cherokee ancestors would call it, “natural.” The “natural” is a state of harmony with all living things. We witnessed this natural state when a hummingbird flew over our sacred fire as we danced in honor of hummingbird.
We experienced this natural state as we found a delightful flow between exerting a little more energy to finish our shifts at the sacred fire and resting to receive a luscious healing session. We discovered this natural state as we learned to talk to the wind while we tended Sacred Fire or invited the rain to pass around our questers.
We recognized that we are part of a natural order of holding and acting, giving and receiving, resting and contributing.
All the Quests over the past 16 years have been precious to me, but this one was particularly sweet. Embracing the Sacred Feminine in our lives, in practical application, seems to have brought us into a richer experience of natural order and harmony.
I am deeply grateful to each brother and sister that joined us in person, or in spirit, at the Sacred Fire. Your beautiful essence, and your willingness to hold whatever was present, has woven a web that has touched my heart forever.
