Phoenix II Retreat

“This is why they used to burn us” one of the women offered up, quietly, but in a voice that was throbbing with power. And we all nodded. It was simply the truth.

There is such power in a circle of women. And yes, such magic, though it has nothing to do with spells or cauldrons or black pointy hats.

It is instead the magic of becoming honest. Feminine power is circular. Shared with. It sources itself from within itself. It accepts, radically, what is truly present and hums over it, lays hands on it, offers up a fierce love to it. Women work through rings: it’s how we push life itself into the world, through the ring of our own flesh.

This was a weekend that proceeded within the round. Closing loops, spiraling upward, rippling outward.

And it was a weekend of burning, though all that was burned was self-chosen for the flames.

I have a great deal to say, and a heart that is always overflowing with deep love for my work and my people…and… coaching is a confidential relationship. I don’t disclose my clientele (though they’re welcome to name me, and I love it when they do!). But the end result of this dynamic is that I end up talking a lot about myself, simply because it’s what I *can* talk about.

All of this to say: talking about the Phoenix II retreat this weekend will be similar. Ethically, what I can disclose to all of you is what it sparked within me.

We declare our breakthroughs, as I talked about a bit in my last post. Mine for this weekend was “to be a conduit for powerful cosmic love.”

The thing is…we don’t take on coaching to fix ourselves, though almost everyone wants to in the beginning. We come to coaching to start actively living as we truly are. In order to become more ourselves, we must first be willing to “unbecome” that which we *thought* we were. This involves a process of pulling something new from within us, and releasing something old that no longer serves us.

So what I chose to release to the fire was “disappointment”. I knew from ayahuasca and from just, you know, LIFE, that’s very clearly the thing in the way of that breakthrough in cosmic love.

Specifically my deep disappointment in the men in my life. The ones that were tasked with my care and chose to harm me, the ones that eagerly asked to love me and then abandoned me, the ones that asked me to jump from a great height only to drop me.

And, as ever, what we are holding on others is always something we ultimately fear is deeply true about ourselves.

Perhaps I am the disappointment. Perhaps it is me. If I were only better: prettier, more pleasing, always did the right thing, didn’t make mistakes, didn’t need anything, gave more, asked for less. If only I were different. If only I wasn’t this thing here. This forever falling short, not quite good enough, destined to disappoint, me.

And yet I am myself.

My coaches have taught me that we all construct our lives to avoid a certain experience. Rejection, failure, harm, shame, abandonment…whatever it is, there’s something you’d almost rather die than experience from others.

And then…and we all do this, it is the saddest truth of being human…we inadvertently end up creating that experience over and over again for other people, from the very efforts we undertake to avoid it for ourselves.

And that repeats in our lives until we are willing to look at it, own it, and let our story of ourselves be wholly burned to ash, that we may rise and return to love again.

In burning up my disappointment in my men, what I’m actually burning up is the truth is that I am forever and always the first to disappoint myself. By the lack of respect I have tolerated, the torrent of love that I choke down in silence, the ways I wait for men to prove themselves until I will fully reveal myself. In the ways I am so sure I have made them feel like a disappointment to me. Like they aren’t quite enough. For fear that I will try, really really try, and be found not enough myself.

And this is the cosmic joke (though it’s not funny) and the ultimate irony of patriarchy forcing the feminine into pyramidal power structures, into surveillance and silence and submission, into pyres and stocks and scarlet letters. When women are allowed to become honest within their circles, when they are allowed to source themselves powerfully, what actually results is more love. More peace, more acceptance, more joy, more grace. For the masculine as well as the feminine.

When they burned the “witches”, they were really burning “that which was needed”.

Because, sourced by my sisters, I came home and forgave all my men for being humans who try, and fail, and try again. And I forgave myself for falling short. For being me, in process, far from perfect, but always daring greatly. It is no sin to try, and fall short, and try again. It is instead great courage. How beautiful that we get to try together.

This weekend, as Phoenixes, we reclaimed fire. And found wings.