Noticing that She wants me to notice Her

It’s difficult putting some things into words. Such is the Divine Feminine. She is most present to me in moments of quiet or in other forms of connection – like yoga, singing, holding hands in a circle. I can’t say I feel her very strongly when I’m tapping away at my keyboard.

Still, there seems to be a place for voicing the un-voicable. Think Rumi. He helps us to tap into the Divine, though he is using the very mode he seeks to take us beyond. This is the sign of the master; his poetry never gets old. Words have been painful for me of late, precisely because it seems like I’m focusing on the old. Whenever I am able to articulate an aspect of the Divine Feminine, it seems that She has already moved on. She lives in the Mystery, and I must settle for describing her coattails.

This month I am in California, conducting interviews (for my PhD) with women who embody the Divine Feminine. I am here to use words of course. But – in recognition of all I have just said – I am also here to experience these women: to suck up their wisdom through my eyes, to revel in their naughtiness with my dancing feet, to bask in their love and affection as I spend time with each of them. As Anne Scott says: “It’s less about teaching and learning and more about living in love.”

Day one and I’m with my first woman in Northern California. We take our lunch down to the side of a lake, munching on our goodies and enjoying the sun sparkling on the water and the wind gently rustling the trees about us. Being a weekday there aren’t many others around, and yet we keep being interrupted. A red winged blackbird has decided she is going to join our conversation, inserting its beautiful calls at periodic intervals and sending us into fits of giggles (typing up that transcript will be fun).

Day two and I’m just wrapping up with another woman a few miles south when she hands me a book to take with me. As I flip through it on the bus ride home I notice that it mentions a red winged blackbird. “Okay”, I think. “She wants me to notice her.”

Safely back at home base in Alameda, I hop on Google to find out what the symbolism is, and I find this:

Blackbird stirs psychic abilities and brings to consciousness latent gifts and creativity. Blackbird teaches you how to use your voice for healing purposes. Blackbird teaches use of intuition that will aid in understanding Mother Nature and the connection to all things. The Red-Winged Blackbirds are directly connected to the Goddess and primal feminine energies.

This shows the power that lies both in words and beyond words. The bird was there to catch my attention, and to remind me to trust my intuition and to stay grounded. But in a world where so many of us have lost the ability to communicate directly with the natural world, we need words (indeed we need Google half the time) to impart this ancient wordless wisdom.

And so it is that I conduct my own PhD. Hoping that I can use my words for healing purposes, and allowing Her to show me the other ways to connect to the primal feminine energies we all so desperately need.