The Path of She: Be Here, Now

In late December, I decided to do a major house clean to have a fresh start to the new year. When moving a cabinet, I found a tiny fridge magnet amidst the dust and debris, with the single word —  “Here”.

I laughed out loud, and immediately pinned this word up on my bulletin board as a reminder for 2017. The Mysteries, with their quirky, in-your-face communication style, were hammering home a message they’d been giving me over and over during the holiday season. In our community Yule and Winter Solstice celebrations, we have a tradition of pulling divination cards for the new year.  Every card I pulled was a version of a common theme: surrender to the process; have patience and await the will of the Mysteries; don’t lust after outcomes; something must die for something new to be reborn.

Be here now, the Mysteries are telling me. This “here and now” is about process, not outcomes; it requires surrender and patience, not pushing and striving; it finds its roots in the will of the Mysteries, within and without, not the personal will of ego and mind.

Here and now in the Northern Hemisphere, January is in the throes of the winter season. This is the time of the Dark Goddess and Her rebirth magic, where new beginnings arise from the vast unknown of the sacred dark, and death, endings and wounding are essential for the birth of new possibilities and growth.

Like so many people, I find January a trying month. I’ve already had enough of the dark, cold, dreary days, and crave the return of bright sunshine and warm weather. Though I’ve done my deep magic at the Winter Solstice, come January 1st, my New Year’s resolution mindset kicks in, shifting me into the outcome focus of goal setting and action taking.

Yet something else in me, more primal and wise, resists these outer-directed activities in favor of rest, simplicity and a slower, inside-out focus and pace. Every January, including right now, I struggle with these counter impulses: one arising from my cultural conditioning, and the other from my soul-based knowing. I get the Mysteries’ message, loud and clear: this culture-soul split within me is my transformative edge and pathwork for 2017 (and beyond), as is the imperative to be here now, in presence and surrender to this journey that is my life.

Though this is most certainly a personal directive for me, it’s also a collective message for our spiritual pathwork in these edgy, world-changing times. When I open myself to this collective message from the Mysteries, this is what comes through.

The here and now encompasses the totality of our life experiences.

The here and now includes both the everyday reality of what we know and directly engage, and the vast expanse of the unseen and unknown.  It’s a whole, round, complex thing woven of the many strands of our life story and shared society: the light and the shadow; the beautiful and the wounding; the parts of us that we honor and cling to, and those that we repress and run from.

The here and now is a state of being.

To be here now requires that we be fully present — open, empty and curious — to this whole, round, complex thing that is our existence, and to the specifics of what is happening in and around us in real time. There is no past, other than how it’s currently revealing itself, and there is no future. All we ever truly have is this moment, then the next, and the next.  Like breath, the moments and specific times in our unfolding life are here and then gone, here and then gone, one naturally following the next, over and over and over.

Substantive, life-changing healing and transformation happen in the here and now.

In any given moment, exactly what we need to heal and grow stirs in our inner landscape and shows up on our doorstep. The kind of truth that can mend our soul and set us free is already here, poking and prodding us to pay attention and do our spiritual pathwork. This is here and now pathwork, requiring our full presence and commitment to: follow where this healing moment leads us; seek out the missing parts of our Self and life story that are ripe for our conscious engagement; and do the hard, wondrous work of transforming our life. One healing moment naturally leads to the next in this unfolding journey of soul.

To be in the here and now, we need to step past our cultural conditioning.

Our Western-world culture is the antithesis of the here and now. We fixate on a physical, intellectual version of reality that represses and fears the unseen and unknown, and the shadowy, wounded aspects of our personal life and shared humanity. We cling to the past, obsess about the future, and rarely find ourselves in the present moment. Our conception of change is all about ego, willpower and concrete outcomes, skimming the surface rather than engaging the depths and mysteries of true, transformative, here-and-now change. To be in the here and now, we need to shed our cultural conditioning, and learn new ways of understanding and engaging ourselves and our world.

The here and now is this present time and moment.

The Mysteries have impeccable timing. They’re delivering this collective message in this present time of the winter season, with its Dark Goddess mysteries of the sacred dark and rebirth magic that can help us step past our cultural conditioning, and step into a greater reality and way of being that are in alignment with the here and now.

The Dark Goddess takes us into the depths of the sacred dark, within and without, where we can reclaim what our culture has taught us to deny and reject: the mysteries of the unseen and unknown; the shadow and wounding of our life story and collective humanity; and the lost treasures of our secret desires, sleeping beauty and dormant potential. This spiritual pathwork is truly of the here and now, requiring a loving presence of emptiness and curiosity, and an unwavering commitment to seek out the greater truths that are the lost strands of the here and now of our life, and the deep roots of our transformative change at this time.

The Mysteries offer us this message in this now moment as 2016, a year of world-changing turbulence and disruption, comes to a close, and 2017 begins with an edge that promises more of the same. Change is coming, deep, fast and bumpy, and the stakes have never been higher, personally and collectively.

Be here now, the Mysteries urge. Show up to your personal version of the culture-soul split that is your transformative edge and pathwork for 2017 (and beyond). Embrace the Dark Goddess mysteries of the sacred dark and rebirth magic. Let Her guide you in the ways and skills of the here and now, and help you to discover the very things that can mend your soul, and birth a better, more positive, loving and sustainable human society at this time.

Whatever you need to heal what is broken, inside and outside, awaits you in the vast unknown of the sacred dark. Whatever is coming next will be reborn from this whole, round, complex weaving of the here and now of your life and our world. This is the transformative, rebirth magic of these here and now times.

If you’d like to further explore this winter season pathwork with the Dark Goddess, check out the latest offering in the Path of She Guided Journey Series:

Winter Journey – Your Rebirth Magic: Braving Your Inner Darkness

Your Winter Journey includes seven lessons with integrated teachings, exercises and journal tasks in:  the Winter Journey Guidebook (pdf ebook), Winter Journey Journal (pdf ebook), and Winter Journey Guided Meditation (mp3 audio).

The Path of She is published on alternate Saturdays; follow it via RSS or e-mail!  If you like Karen’s work, like her page on Facebook or maybe buy her book, Tale of the Lost Daughter, a fictional spiritual adventure into the life-changing world of magic and the sacred feminine.

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