Soul Lessons: Homing - Returning to One's Self

The bargain was for love but the price was high - I had to give up my hometown, my male friends, my social life. Then I had to give up my identity, my self esteem and you know he would have really really liked it if I gave up Wolfcon and this list! You know how they talk about Peeling The Onion? Well that's a good way to describe what was going on there - he would peel back a layer of me, criticise it and discard it and it kept going and going until there was almost nothing left.

When I finally extracted myself from him there really was Phoenix magic at play. I had Nothing. I went home but it just wasn't the same. I moved. It was like I burned my old life up and started again. It took a while - but I spent 4 months or so almost entirely alone in a city writing and riding an exercise bike and walking and healing. I dissected that relationship into pieces and tired to figure out how I had given him so much control over me and I was able to see my own part in it too. I would never give up that experience, that relationship. If I was offered the chance to wipe that lesson from my life I would still keep it. I carry the knowledge of the pain he put me through, the pain I put myself through, as a lesson and a beacon. My life would not be the way it is today if I hadn't walked in those shadows.



Ahh here we have the disastrous relationship that sent me on a journey that landed me here. My heart kept saying that something was wrong. We met online. We progressed from email to phone calls pretty swiftly. He said he was single and everything seemed to jive with that.. but that damn lil voice in the back of my head kept saying something was off. Well he came into my hometown one weekend and we hooked up, and i thought i was in love.. Later, I found out that he was married but separated. It plunged me into such heartache when it did end. I didn't trust myself with men. I didn't trust my instincts, because what I did was to throw my instincts away for what I thought was love.



And this quote reminds me to keep my wild self close (and awake) in my dealings and interactions with my family and others. I heard someone say once that "hurt people hurt people." Most of my family are still hurting....if I get too close and/or in their face they *will* lash out. I need to keep my wits about me

Dear Wild Woman Mother, Strengthen my endurance and resolve to stick to and stay with the process. Help me to remember to keep my eyes open and my wits about me, that you are with me (always!), that you love me and have only my best at heart. Thank you for being with me. Amen.



I do find it significant that these stories were attempted to be extinguished. Patriarchial power sought to take away our power, except the power to create life, at will. Since they couldn't take that; they took away a woman's knowledge. How long was the act of love..sex, told to be a bad but needed thing. Women should only have sex to procreate. It has taken hundreds of years to take back the pleasure of sex. It has taken even longer to accept the fact that women have untapped sources of power. Can you imagine just how women could change the world if we all traveled deeper even to the underworld, only to come back radiant, changed, empowered, and truly heard?


There have been times in my life when I was definitely led to the underworld and felt afraid, yet was so awed by what I learned there. While I wouldn't necessarily want to go thru them again, I sure wouldn't trade them. My thought this morning is how very helpful it would have been to have had Clarissa's "frame" of simple acceptance that this is a natural part of the process and it's actually an honor to be going thru it. Her words remind me that our underworld journeys are sacred and hallowed....true "holy ground."

Dear Great Loving Mother, I believe in your presence in my life always - especially in the hard parts - help my unbelief. Thank you for your love, your nurturing, your nourishment and your ever present presence in my life. Truly, I am grateful.


I have 2 distinct visions about it, like yin - yang. One is when you loose contact with your inner wildness, your creative center, your fire. When you feel you are struggling too much, when you are sad, and weak and canīt see the light at the end of the tunnel.
The other one is when you are a baby and itīs time to stop being breastfeed and start to learn to eat other kinds of food.
In both cases, we are weaned from something that sustains us.But in one case, we have to recconect with this source and in the other we have to learn to find new sources to sustain us. So I guess itīs important to know when we are experiencing one or another.


I know this isn't necessarily an actual partner for the woman being described here...I do understand the concept of the animus. But this is a difficult thought for me...are there really men doing work on themselves like we are here? Of course I know there are, but I have found a lot more women on this journey than men. So, this part confuses and frustrates me a bit, for it fills me with a longing I don't quite grasp. I like the idea that there is a man for me who is doing a kind of work that somehow "complements" or fits in with my journey...but I can't quite wrap my mind around it either.



its a wonder that women don't get in their cars and leave while this soul learning is going on. But you know, sometimes it takes a leaving. And that is important too. Especially if one of the things you need to get away from is a partner or someone who thinks of themselves as your partner.. or well someone influential to you.