Sacred Heart Transmission ~ October 16 - AM - Los Angeles
Dear Friends,
A month ago, I was called to convene a group of women to experience a direct transmission of the Sacred Heart. Twelve women gathered in Germantown, New York, where I live. We went effortlessly and deeply into a beautiful kinship and shared experience of something very potent, healing, and heart-opening.
I witnessed and learned many things. Here are some highlights:
Instead of intentions (goal-oriented, directional, mental) we opened with each of us sharing our heart’s desire (What is it that you really want?) for herself in the retreat. Everyone held each other in the achievement of her heart’s desire. This service to each other was enormously nourishing.
Sisterhood was the coda by which we lived and the culture we created—a remembering of sacred sisterhood and the relating of women beyond judgment, comparison, and competition (all symptoms of the patriarchy)
Ritual with nature, our wild kin, devas, and the land grounded us, shaped the container and uplifted our process; we opened our circle with the setting sun on Thursday, cozied up and deepend into the rain all day Friday and Saturday, and then ended with a closing ceremony at the Hudson River with the sun peeking through the clouds again.
We moved through the Divine Feminine, holding and healing what came up and then moved through the Divine Masculine, holding and healing what came up; the Sacred Marriage was the destination—beyond power dynamics, in sacred energetic union, integrated
We slowed down, rested, and moved with ease, ate well, enjoyed sensual pleasures, danced, bathed in sound and vibration, sang, did morning practices together, made art, listened and shared deeply…the quality of relating was such a gift
Each woman embodied a quality of the heart that she selected for the duration of the retreat; deepening in her knowledge of that aspect of love
Our practices—gentle yogas, breath work, and meditation—were designed to energize the subtle body and open the nadis (channels)
We read and interpreted sacred scriptures of the heart including The Heart Sutra, The Aramaic Lord’s Prayer, the Gospel of Mary, and the poetry of Rumi and Hafiz
We praised men and held them in high esteem (not my experience in many women’s retreats); we told stories around the fire about the good men who had held and helped us on our journey
We ventured into the topic of sacred sexuality and explored shame, trauma and desire in a safe and nurturing way
We experienced the grief, confusion, and elation of the archetypal process of the resurrection as a life-death-life cycle
We explored how we’d like to be in service and each woman stepped more into her own unique gifts; we blossomed in each other’s presence
In the closing circle, we each offered a prayer for how we long to call on and trust the Sacred Heart in our own lives—each was received deeply into the hearts of the other women until we all felt each prayer as fervently as if it was our own
I had incredible support from Diane Kelly and Rebecca Grossman, two skilled women I consider dear friends and allies in the healing work. We already have a strong basis of trust, which our guests could feel as they stepped in. Diane and Becca’s competence allowed me to focus on holding the energetics of the field, which took everything I have to generate, respond to, amplify, pull back and harmonize.
Of course, there were things I wished I’d done differently and there were ideas born in the moment that we will incorporate into upcoming retreats (we’re planning several for 2024, stay tuned!). But, overall I’ve never been happier or more fulfilled in my work.
Afterwards, I needed a great deal of rest. The event had enlivened my spirit, but my body was exhausted. A week after our departure, I was with my beloved in Los Angeles. One night, I asked myself before I went to bed, “What is this transmission of the Sacred Heart that is coming through? What is the teaching that is showing itself to me? How can I describe it? How can I talk about it?”
The next morning, I received what I call a download or transmission because of the way it lands all-at-once in my awareness. I jumped out of bed to capture the essence. What you see here is a combination of what came through and my own embellishment that morning as I sought to further articulate key points. I am holding this as a creative process, an act of co-creation. I am holding this lightly. I am trusting that more will be revealed as I step towards it. As we step towards it.
My mantra for this relationship with The Divine and the revelation of the Sacred Heart to me has been: Stop Worrying. Start Walking. Keep Walking. And so I have and so we will. Join me?
Sacred Heart TRANSMISSION October 16 - AM - Los Angeles
We are in a time of endings and beginnings—a time of disintegration and resurrection. The crucifix is a symbol of resurrection; the path of resurrection as walked by Inanna, Sati, Osiris, Persephone, and of course, Jesus…This is a primary archetypal, mythopoetic node for this time. We must know the old stories and update them for now. We must master the art of resurrection.
***
This is a time of expansion and inclusion—a time of unity and harmony of seeming opposites. We must expand to hold more in our hearts; for it is outside the capacity of the mind to reconcile such things as must be reconciled. To do this, we must lay down the crown of mentation that has sat so heavy on our heads for a long time. We place our crowns, as an offering, at the base of the heart and enter that temple in humility. The sacred heart is a symbol of this process and a result of it. It is a place of unity, beyond power dynamics, beyond polarities. We must turn towards the power of love; the wisdom of the heart; the silence of its ministry.
***
Our offering of the Sacred Heart here is not specifically from Christianity—or Buddhism, Tantra, Sanātana Dharma, Judaism, Islam, shamanism, paganism, or alchemy—though it has aspects of all these. It is integral, post-traditional, trans-lineage. It is cosmic in origin, but inarguably earthy—the marriage of heaven and earth: the holy union of body and spirit; the alchemical elixir of sun and moon. When we are in it, we are at home on this earth, in this body; but capable of flight, in touch with space itself. It is the power of The Absolute held within the human heart, our connection to the stars, our place in the greater story of the sun, the moon, the planets, the galaxy…GOD.
We seek to become people who can awaken into this moment fully, which requires us to call on our Higher Selves, to remember in our bodies our divinity and our humanity. You could call it a marriage of Heaven and Earth or Soul meets Body or Ensoulment. You could say it’s a “yoga,” a yoking together of spirit and matter; or a “practicing path” as the Buddhists say, in that we learn and grow by practicing together in real life. This is not philosophical or academic or monastic in its essence. This is a living tradition that is not a tradition at all, but a way of being in the world, with the world.
The Sacred Heart, the Star of David, the Shatkona (Siva/Shakti)—it is the place where the polarities are resolved. It is a magical place that is entirely natural—supernatural—a place out of time; out of patriarchy or any -archy; where balance, bliss, and stillness live. It is a union of the divine masculine and feminine within; a place where prayer is the language and miracles happen; a place where we give generously and receive with confidence knowing the truth in the saying, “as ye sow, so shall ye reap.” It is a place of kindness, peace, purity, healing and wholeness. It is a place of quiet, a place of peace. All of these qualities are available to all of us. They are alive at the very center of our being in the spark of godself that lives there.
When we are connected to the Sacred Heart, we are aware of the interconnectedness of all life. We are in service to a plan beyond our comprehension—trusting and surrendering to the highest impulse moment to moment. In this way, it is Tantric—a weaving of the threads of Life and Reality (spirit and matter) together now…and now…and now…in touch with the ecstasy and the suffering without being attached to either. In the Sacred Heart we are awake and filled with compassion.
***
We are using all available tools, transmissions, and techniques to access and integrate the power of Love, to heal, to connect to the Sacred Heart…in order to meet this moment and all of the challenges we currently face on Earth. A better world—the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible1—is waiting. That is the destination. This is our vehicle. We cannot get there from here without the heart, through the heart. We must do this not as individuals seeking personal gain (the misunderstood goal of individual liberation), but together as humans in service to something greater.
We must die to the ways of the mind, the ego, the outdated pathologies of the current world and resurrect in the image of the Divine, in the heart, with each other.
***
In the Sacred Heart, every individual has a place within the whole. We are all part of the Garden and all will blossom in due time with sacred tending and resourcing. We need each other for this process—all living beings, but non-living and non-human beings also. Our perception of LIFE must change, deepen and become more subtle. We must seek counsel with other species, ancestors, our higher/future selves, angels, archetypal energies, deities, devas, and all who hold together the threads of this incredibly rich and complex web of life. When we find coherence within ourselves and with each other—starting small and growing organically, moving at the speed of trust—we can FEEL our way forward.
We know Truth through resonance in the clear body-mind. We surrender to the Divine Feminine. We trust the Divine Masculine. We surrender to and trust God, and we learn to surrender to and trust each other. Maybe it feels like we are very far from this right now. Maybe it feels hopeless. But, that’s only from one point of view. Thomas Hübl once said, “Intimacy is not a matter of time, but a matter of trust.” Intimacy happens heart-to-heart.
We can seek refuge in the truth that we’re all in the same boat. All sentient beings through the dimensions are a part of the same process. What process? The return to Source, to God. We all go home together. As Ram Dass said, “We are walking each other home.”2
***
The Sacred Heart empowerment is timeless, and some of the means to achieve it are ancient. But, the way the practice is coming through now feels new—not calcified or reduced into existing forms and norms. Who we are as we discover it is new. And the context is new because it’s not the past…it’s now.
We aspire to live in the heart. We do this by surrendering to what we call the Divine Feminine and trusting the Divine Masculine (knowing both come from a place beyond duality; beyond conceptions of feminine and masculine; and way beyond the baggage of what that means here on earth). We do this by becoming people who know how to surrender and trust radically, profoundly, even in the most contracted and challenging of times. We cultivate the discernment to know what to do—what to surrender to, what to trust. We can feel the way in our hearts, in our bodies.
***
How do we do it? How do we enter this inner sanctum and abide there together?
By marrying what is “below” with what is “above.” By not seeing them as separate. By experiencing the sacred union of “opposites” within our very hearts. By asking for it. By wanting it with all our hearts. By putting aside our doubts and reservations (but not overriding them or bypassing them as they contain important information and seeds of healing). By working with our trauma and holding the trauma of the world. By recognizing our participation in planetary events.
We include everything and use the flame of passion, of transmutation, or purification, of divinity, alive within us to burn up what weighs us down and holds us back. It takes courage. It requires we walk in service to our brothers and sisters. It has conditions which will form and inform your own blossoming and unfolding—like the rose itself. We cease worrying needlessly; we check our expectations and entitlements at the door; and we start walking. When the going gets tough, we surrender, we trust and we keep walking. Together.
There are conditions for this work. You must be self-responsible. You must be in touch with your own needs and able to express them; capable of feeling yourself and extending the empathy to a wider circle of others—capable of feeling others. You must be compassionate to your own suffering and the suffering of others. You have to know the truth of interconnectedness within your body—not as an idea, but as lived reality. You must be ready to sacrifice personal needs for the good of the whole if that is what the moment requires for more coherence, more wholeness, more harmony, more peace—knowing as part of the whole, you will benefit, too. You must be ready to center the sacred—however that presents itself for you. And you must have the desire and willingness, if not always the ability to surrender to what is emerging and trust what is guiding us.
***
Practically speaking, it helps to have experience working with trauma. It helps to have healthy discipline and self-awareness. It helps to be resourced, rested, and resilient. It is critical to listen to the body; to what’s emerging; to who holds the authority in the moment. It helps to have a connection with the natural world and a deep love and reverence for nature. It helps to believe in magic.
I ask those with a desire to participate and engage with the practice:
Can you be open to spontaneous and easeful healing? Do you know your own limitations and honor them? Can you speak up and name your discomfort without blame? Trusting it will be received? Can you be a willing and active contributor to the building of a container and then trust that container to hold the alchemy when things get rocky? Really rocky? Can you trust a higher process is at work even when you are contracted? Can you surrender your need to control what’s happening? Most importantly—are you open to something new and willing to try?
Good. Then, you’re ready.
Ram Dass and Mirabai Bush, https://www.ramdass.org/walking-each-other-home/