BURN BABY, BURN
Why, with these red fires, are the rubies
ready to burst into flames?
Extravagaria
Am I fully embodied now? Have all my wounds that opened in my Red night of the soul been healed? Am I a surrendered incarnation of a Red Hot and Holy Love Goddess? Hells no. Although Something Sacred solidified inside me that Redvelatory night (and the Red nights that followed), it will most likely take the rest of my lifetime to fully integrate and implement these ongoing Redvelations. In other words, I’m still being cooked in Her cosmic oven. I’m rare and have a long way to go before I’m “well done.” Placing my soul and my unique Goddess Self first, above all else, is a spiritual practice like nothing I have ever encountered before. As Caroline Myss wrote in Entering the Castle:
Talking about spiritual teachings, and reading about them, is not a substitute for living them on a daily basis in the arena of your life. You must be willing to incarnate your theology and illuminate the world around you with the power of your soul, a power that ironically may not even require your voice at times. Such power comes through even in silence. Your sole/soul requirement is to commit to being devoted to your inner authority — to the divine. That devotion will give you the will to follow through on all that you are guided to do, say, and become in this life.1
Every time I act from my inner reality, I feel another anchor drop into my Divine Essence. Every time I honor my humanity, I feel another tendril of life delicately unfurling through me. And every time I surrender to my Lady, I feel Her total trust … in me.
I’m still rockin’ the angelic vibe (can’t escape what I am on one dimension), but my wings have returned to their natural Red color; they have become dirty and frayed from rubbing the ground; and I’m pretty sure one of ’em is pierced. Despite how much I’ve grown into my life the past years, I realize my “issues” might never go away, but because I’m more conscious of them, I’m better at working with them — and more important than just “working with them,” I’m better at accepting them as simply part of being human. Although tempting at times, I know they don’t all need to be “fixed” in order for me to be Who I AM; in fact, I’ve become a bit of a champion of some of my “flaws” (like my shaky, sometimes window-shatteringly high physical voice), because I see them as battle scars, honest responses to more-than-worthy traumas that my intrepid Being has incurred on Her awe-inspiring journey through the lower dimensions of this magnificent Universe.
Over these Red-hot years, I’ve come to learn that there’s simply no forcing my Lady’s incarnation; there is only growing in burning devotion for Her and, paradoxically, as Her. In other words, there comes a point in your path where you need to fiercely embrace that which you are still in the process of becoming.
TURNING INSIDE OUT
Having taken the necessary time in, I can feel Her tenderly turning me inside out. While I know that spiritually I will be in the Red Tent forever, it is time now to expand my physical Service on this planet. The inhale is always followed by an exhale. We go In to go Out.
A few years ago, the Dalai Lama reportedly stated, “Western women will save the world.” While I’m not sure if I entirely agree with him, I sense he was onto something. Many of us in the West are graced with the time and the means to consciously participate in the process of embodying our souls; thus, it has become our sacred responsibility to do so. It’s not only a privilege to get up close and personal with our soul and the shadows that accompany her, it’s also our duty. As Carl Jung wrote:
Such a [wo]man knows that whatever is wrong in the world is in [herself] himself, and if [s]he only learns to deal with [her] his own shadow [s]he has done something real for the world. [S]he has succeeded in shouldering at least an infinitesimal part of the gigantic, unsolved social problems of our day.2
However, many of us in the West resist this sacred duty or don’t really get the point of it, especially when the spirit path is so much “lighter” and seemingly simpler. And, the soul path offers no glittering “self-help” guarantees, such as instant “Happiness! Success! Abundance!”, but it does offer us a life of integrity, authenticity, and truth, which fills us with a kind of holy happiness (and holy hilarity) that is independent of external conditions.
As I write this last chapter, I have no publisher, no career, no human partner, and limited finances. I do not look or feel like a fabulous, sassy goddess who “gets everything she wants.” In fact, I look and feel like I’ve been through a battle, the toughest battle of my life. I have no idea what will happen to me or this book. We both could be viewed as failures. But I do know one thing: I have my soul. And this is true success. As poet David Whyte acknowledges on his CD “Self-Compassion,”
The soul doesn’t seem to make the distinction between the light and the dark. It chooses both. It doesn’t care whether you do something successfully or fail at it; it just wants to know, did you do it in your way? Was it you who failed, or were you trying to be someone else when you failed? If it was you, the soul is happy, because it was your experience, your failure, and no one can take it away from you. Question is not: Did you fail, or did you win? The question becomes: Did you go your own way?3
I’m going my own Way.
Another reason we avoid soul work is that we’re busy dealing with our “real lives.” In Conscious Femininity, Marion Woodman said she’s often asked: “Why indulge myself talking, reading, learning about or voicing my soul when I may lose my job? My marriage? Or when I can barely pay my bills?” She answers: “The point is that the loss of soul connection, loss of connection to our femininity, may be the real cause of our anguished condition.”4 Living without our soul leaves an ache in our belly that nothing else can fill. When you connect more consciously with your soul, her wisdom and grace will help you with everything in your busy life. Soul work isn’t another “thing” you have to “do” in your life. It is your life.
According to Woodman and other experts, our lack of soul connection is projected into the world around us. We can witness it in the environmental devastation, rampant consumerism, political corruption, economic crisis, 50 percent divorce rate, body-image disorders, poverty, abuse, rape, and a host of other unhealthy epidemics we are currently facing. Sufi teacher Anet Vaughan-Lee says, “What we deny ourselves we deny to all of life. In denying the feminine her sacred power and purpose, we have impoverished life on personal and global levels in ways we do not understand.”5 The polls are in: If we dare to continue without our souls, life as we know it will end. There is simply no more time for denial. It doesn’t take a doomsdayer or a news anchor or an environmentalist or an economist or a whale or the Mayan calendar to tell us that the shit is hitting the fan on this planet. In this day and age, more than any other time in history, we need to be consciously connecting with our soul as much as we need to be breathing air. When we feel lost, she is our truest compass. When the news slams us with fear, she is our inner resource of Love. As the world continues to change, she is our wisest adviser, our natural-born leader, communicating the best course of action for us and for this planet. She is our inner reality check. Learning to follow internal divine direction before external direction is not just an airy-fairy spiritual ideal; it directly affects human and planetary survival. It is the most practical and most compassionate thing we can do — and the most natural.
Once we reawaken the soul force inside of ourselves, we can’t help but recognize and honor it in every living thing. We stop asking Life, “What will You do for me?” and we start asking Life, “What can I do for You?” Surrendered, we become much more effective with our acts of Service, because we’re fueled not just by our willpower alone, but also by a Cosmic Life Force that never runs out of energy. This means we stop doing service with a lowercase “s” — that is, acts of service we think we should do or have been taught to do — and we start doing Service with a capital “S” — or Service we were specifically created to do. Service no one else can do except us. As Bill Plotkin so beautifully wrote in Soulcraft:
The gift you carry for others is not an attempt to save the world but to fully belong to it. It’s not possible to save the world by trying to save it. You need to find what is genuinely yours to offer the world before you can make it a better place. Discovering the unique gift to bring to your community is your greatest opportunity and challenge. The offering of that gift — your true self — is the most you can do to love and serve the world … and it is all the world needs.6
So.
Another way to approach our Holy Heavy Duty is by using a simple gratitude-filled perspective shift: It’s not that we have to take the often-arduous journey to consciously embody our souls in order to help save the planet; it’s that we get to. We get to be our mystical, multidimensional, witchy, wise, passionate, playful, erotic, goofy, grounded, pissed-off, beautiful, badass, radically loving, uniquely Divine Feminine Selves out loud and On Purpose and in Full Service to Life. After all, there’s nothing more powerful than a woman who has embodied her soul, a woman who doesn’t just believe she’s an incarnation of the Divine Feminine but dares to act like it.
So …
(Heart beating.)
You In?
While your soulSelf is always with you, there are certain “come hither” gestures you can make to connect even more consciously.
First, right here, right now, with all of your heart, simply say to your soul …
that you’re ready.
Ask her to turn up her volume in your daily life, and learn to listen to her when she calls you. Over time and with practice, you will learn to discern her voice from the myriad other voices running around your mind and body. She is constantly communicating with you, but it takes a willingness to become accustomed to her language, which is different from your ego or fast, witty mind or even the “love and light” language of your spirit. She speaks best through dreams, metaphor, symbols, synchronicities, your body, and your feelings, always communicating simple, but powerful, life-changing messages such as:
This is not the right relationship. This job is suffocating. Stop meditating so much. Start dancing more. Now, sit still. Ask that difficult question. Dare to hear the answer. Read that book. Volunteer at that organization. Listen to that friend. Trust that teaching. Vote. Go on that date. Play with your dog. Speak the truth to that person. Breathe. Deeper. Cry. Harder. Laugh. Louder. Get messy. Get clean.
You’re not alone
I’ve got your back.
Remember.
I’m Here.
Soon, your soul will start to feel like a palpable presence you are intimately a part of and she of you, and you can invite her more and more into your body’s awareness by consciously sitting with her, dancing with her, moving and listening and speaking and touching and loving as her. Undoubtedly, there will come a time when your soul will demand even more of your conscious attention. When the pressure to Know and Love and Unleash your soulSelf will move up a notch (or ten). There will come a time, a time that’s been decided by your soulSelf alone (not anything or anyone outside of you), when you will be asked to:
Come forward,
Closer still
Till “closer” has meaning no longer.
And it will be thrilling and terrifying and gorgeous and annoying, and there will be days when you will question everything and tell the Universe to screw Itself, and other days you will be trusting everything and telling the Universe to Bring It even more. But no matter the utter insanity of your soul’s sanity, you will know that
This
Is
IT.
The Truest Thing You Were Born To Experience.
And you will be
So
Grateful
that you Remembered.
(Exhale.)
Remember, the process is the point. The D.F.’s not just in the finished, polished product, but also in the dirt beneath our chipped red fingernails as we scratch our way through to the other side. She glows in our dark, our doubts, our fears, our imperfection, as well as in our light, our power, our love, and our gifts. She is the raw, not-so-pretty, but always beautiful truth of a woman who burns with divine love and is courageous enough to show it.
Show It
We need more examples (books, poems, podcasts, paintings, songs, dances, screams, blog posts, hint hint hint) from the Divine Feminine struggling to Make Love on earth. Real Goddesses are needed here, now.
So I am birthing a whole Goddess through my blood, my sweat, my tears, my shit, my pussy, my heart, my surrender, my love, my life, and this very book.
I call her my Lady, or the Red Lady, but Her stage name is Rouge.
And, this has been,
and will continue to be,
My Rouge Awakening.