Coming Full Circle

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I woke up at 4 am the other night with a question burning in my mind: Was it time to boldly let go of all my professional manifestations? Should I stop selling my books, remove my website, quit blogging and Soul Styling?

Was it time to let go of the old to give space to something new?

Something hidden had always stood in the way of the true flowering of my company anyway. And there was no doubt that something new was stirring inside. But as in a physical birth, you don’t know exactly when it’s going to happen nor do you know how it is going to look. There are deeper forces at play. All you can really do is take care of the basics of life, rest, wait and be open.

So here I was, wide awake, wondering… Would it help if I completed the cycle, letting the old structures die? Would concrete, ritual actions, where I really let go of what had been, facilitate the transformational process? 

Would it help in shifting my focus to what was gestating?

As I thought about the things to let go of, what made me most sad was the thought of letting go of this blog. It has become a space to express my deepest thoughts as well as my personal process. I have felt true and real in what I have shared here. And knowing there were readers made it easier to write regularly.

About a year ago Leo Babauta at Zen Habits, (one of the top bloggers) reviewed this blog. He liked the name and the design, and found the subject intriguing. But he also found it confusing and couldn’t really figure out what it was about. According to him this would make it difficult to attract readers.

I think he was right. It has not attracted as many readers as I had hoped for. And considering the amount of time I spend on each post, was it really worth it? Since I am totally unable to write short little posts, I might not be cut out to be a blogger. Maybe writing books suits me better? And Leo’s question was right on… what was my blog really about?

What’s lacking is a distinct red thread to weave it all together to a coherent whole.

Many years ago the seed of a new book came to me. The title was Feminine Threads and I had a vision of personal, ancient as well as cultural threads that were woven together to form a new whole. I knew that at that time in my life I was not yet ready to write that book. It was too early in my own process and I could not even imagine the result of that weave.

Pondering my dilemma in my bed that morning, I realized how this blog has actually been a way to collect the different threads for the book, as well as a way to make my own process clearer. I see the red thread clearly and have some kind of clue where it’s leading.

My new focus seemed obvious: It was time to start weaving together all the different threads that have been spun in this blog, through the different posts, to a book. It was time to connect the threads, to heal what had been broken up in fragments. It was also time to finally discern the unique pattern of the most vital thread.

There is true magic in letting go.

As 4 am turned into 6 am, doubt and sadness had transformed into a deep knowing. Letting go of the old was the right thing to do and all of a sudden it seemed so simple. None of the work I had done had been in vain, it was all part of a bigger work in progress.

So in true feminine fashion, I surrender. As I allow Nature and the creative process to take its course, I just witness this miracle called Life in awe and complete trust. Trying to force things is futile, so there is no need to push. What’s there is being pushed through me. All I need to do is exhale, relax and stretch myself wider than I thought possible…

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To all my readers…

I will take a break for at least a few months. I might take up blogging in a new form later on. But then again I might not.

If I don’t, thank you for joining me and for reading. If my journey has touched you in any way it was all worth it. I will miss your comments and reflections, and most of all just knowing you were there.

To those of you who subscribe to the blog through e-mail or RRS: If you want to be informed about my future work, send me your e-mail through the contact form and I will keep you updated.

Namaste!

Image: Julie Timms

Wild Woman

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A longed-for reconnection is taking place inside me. I can feel it in my flesh and bones. I can feel it at the core of my heart as grief, pain and longing are stirred and mixed, like in natural alchemy, to create a deeply felt love and passion.

A wild woman is emerging from the depths of my soul.

Her wildness is not fierce (even though it might be if needed). She is wild as in non-domesticated. Untamed. Uncorrupt. The rules of the world we know does not apply in hers.

The reality in which she resides is not static. It’s shifting and changing in a state of constant metamorphosis. Her world is ruled by natural laws and the rhythm of the Earth herself. Her body as well as psyche is in tune with the nuances of recurrent cycles and natural processes.

She is timeless.

Her face shifts and changes. Sometimes she looks like a young woman. Other times she is as old as life itself. Her eyes are as wise as in the oldest of crones, yet shine with the pure innocence of a newly-born.

Every twist and turn of the world below and the labyrinth of psychic realms is known to her. She embodies the gate of initiation into true womanhood.

She cares not for worldly beauty. The ideals and aesthetics of the day-to-day world are of no interest to her. In fact, she has no ideals. Beauty stems from the diversity of the natural world. What is beautiful to her must also be true, real and raw.

A wild Beauty is shared between her and the Earth itself.

She is beautiful without any need to be admired. She is seductive, but doesn’t seduce. She is powerful, but doesn’t use it to empower herself.

In tune with her heart I bend down on the ground. I can hear it beat. Slowly… so slowly. With deep passion I ask: How can I serve you? How can I make you visible in the day-to-day world? How can I clothe your wild Beauty? This world is so hungry to remember.

And then, almost as if my life depends on it, I listen…

Time to Get Dressed!

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Wow, how could I have missed something so obvious?

Yesterday I saw a Lilou’s Juicy Living Tour interview with Marie Diamond, who is a practitioner and expert of Feng Shui. There was really nothing new to me, but as I heard the women speak about the importance of the images and symbols on the walls of our homes, I got curious.

I decided to go through my apartment to take a serious look.

The last year I have been feeling very ”naked”. I shared the process of getting there on the blog last spring and summer. The purpose of what I called The Challenge, was to go through a process of metamorphosis with clothes.

Step one was to shed layer after layer of my old clothing style in order to ”get naked” and uncover my essential nature. Step two was to redefine myself through clothes that would hold that quality, so that I could come back to the world 100% true and genuine.

But I got lost in a state of nakedness.

Ever since last fall I have wanted to ”get dressed” again. I have searched for a clothing expression that could tell the true story of who I am. But I have felt stuck somehow, like I couldn’t find the right components. I continued to just feel… naked.

Now, as I walked into the hallway of my apartment, I saw it immediately. It was so obvious and actually the first thing you would see as you entered my home. It was not just an image either, there was even a very outspoken text, that stated: NAKED. In fact, every time I have looked myself in the big mirror on the opposite wall, I have, without being conscious of it, seen that image just behind my left shoulder.

Coincidence… synchronicity… or the true magic of feng shui?

In my own work with clothes and Soul Styling similar clues are crucial. They are really keys to what we are saying to ourselves, about ourselves. They are part of the pattern that shapes as well as expresses our subconscious.

Needless to say, I removed the poster (made by one of my former art students for their final class exhibition). When I put it there, the process of ”getting naked” was important to me. The poster might have helped me get there. But it’s now time to move on.

I am in the midst of figuring out what to put there instead, to represent what I want and need in my life right now. It seems especially important when I realize how potent these images are…

What is obvious as you enter your home?

Poster by Julia Hansen

A Fabric Full of Scars

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I embark on my project Dressing the Bare Soul by tuning in to the wounded Feminine. What stirs in the dark recesses of the subconscious is a familiar grief and pain.

I decide to make a fabric pattern, and then a garment, to express these feelings in color and form. And in doing so, to challenge our view of Beauty.

I envision a fabric full of scars.

Dyeing a piece of natural silk to pink, to make it look like raw, wounded flesh is my starting point. I will use a technique called Shibori (a kind of resist dye) to make a pattern of scars.

As I sit with needle in hand, thoughts and images are flooding my mind. Feelings arise and physical sensations come and go. With each successive row of stitches, my view of what I am really doing seems to change. What started out as a way to express soul pain becomes an act of healing.

I am an active participant in a healing process.

As if I was a doctor or nurse, I seem to be mending open wounds. Am I being healed or am I the healer? I don’t know and it doesn’t even matter. All I know is that I’m taking part in a mystical process, beyond understanding.

I find myself thinking about other things, so I stop. I have promised myself to let this be a process and NOT the making of a product. Unless I am deeply connected to these wounds as I work, I need to stop. I have to be fully there.

I start to think about what Beauty really is…

Can it in any way translate to what I am doing right now? We are so used to projecting beauty onto idealized images. But what about what’s really there? The naked truth, full of genuine blood, sweat and tears?

Why would a fabric pattern showing butterflies in a rainbow be more beautiful than a dying caterpillar or the cracking open of a chrysalis? Is it our light and idealistic inner Hero’s fear of pain that hides these images?

Why would a blooming flower be more beautiful than it’s wilted, drying petals?

To my inner Heroine, what’s dark is not scary. If there is pain, that’s what needs to be expressed. No cover-ups. No compromises. No hidden agendas. No nice and pleasing surfaces. Just true presence.

As I experience the depth of my devotion to the Feminine, I realize that this is my path. It is the only road to take for an ex-fashionista, ready to uncover and truly own what’s beneath our collective ”perfect” surface.

I have no clue how this will look. I just know I need to trust the process.

The stitching of scars continues as I again open up to grief and pain. It feels like an endless task and I feel impatient. But at last the final stitches are sewn. My idea is to dye the piece of fabric red, so that the sewn parts will appear as pink stitches, like scars or healed wounds.

Before I start dyeing, I sit down and pray to the Goddess;

Please heal these wounds. Transfer all the pain and grief to this piece of cloth… release and transform the life-force that has been blocked in these wounds…

I let my own tears soak the silk, thinking this would make it even more beautiful. As my prayer comes to an end, I realize that all the painful emotions that have been so close for more than a week, are gone. I feel lighter and look forward to making a garment of this so elaborated piece of cloth.

In the Shibori technique I use, there is no way to fully control the outcome. There’s always a mystical component there. But as the liquid dye meets the thirsty cloth, I do have preconceived ideas about the kind of pattern all the stitches will create.

Fabric is as impressionable as the soul. Every experience is absorbed and remembered.

I soak the fabric to let it absorb the blood-red dye. I am thrilled to see the result, as always when I work with shibori. Afterwards I rinse the fabric and hang it up to dry.

The next morning I sit down and start to take away the stitches. My excitement abruptly turns into surprise. There is no trace of any pattern. The fabric is just a solid red. During the almost thirty years I have used this technique, this has never happened.

My first impulse is one of disappointment, a feeling of failure. I have to remind myself; I did this for the process, not the product. And then it gets really interesting…

The cloth has forgotten all about scars and wounds.

I did pray for the wounds to be totally healed. And now there is no sign of them. Is it a coincidence? Or true, magical healing?

Something else that is obvious is that the silk that was so shiny before the red dye has lost all of its lustre. It feels heavy and dull and I feel reluctant to use it. What should I do with it?

I turn inward to ask, and the answer is as immediate as clear. The piece of cloth is to be buried in the woods so Nature can transform the energy it holds.

Later on, as I tread the little path in the wood, surrounded by trees, I marvel at the magic of the process…

The Heroine’s Journey

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As I try to put words to the content and purpose of my new project, Dressing the Bare Soul, I am drawn to my bookshelf. The book that ends up in my hands is a favorite… The Ravaged Bridegroom: Masculinity in Women.

According to the author, Marion Woodman, society’s negative projections on women the last several thousand years stem from one of our oldest myths: The Hero’s Journey.

As the Hero conquers the forces of darkness, he confirms his absolute power.

The hero, who symbolizes spirit, light and the rational intellect (in women as well as men), cannot grasp the darkness of feminine mystery. Since the killing of the monster is not understood as a process of transformation, the feminine is severed from its roots, its own source of life and power.

But energy can never be conquered, killed or annihilated. It can be repressed, but if it is it returns to us as frightening, destructive forces. This is something we know from experience. We have seen oppression and wars. We have seen rage and riots. We also know that our health is affected when we put a lid on feelings.

For several years a question has lurked in the back of my mind… Is there another way, a Heroine’s Journey? And if there is, what is different?

How would a heroine meet a monster?

A ”heroine mode” is never to conquer. In deep reverence for all life forms, she would instead listen, embrace and try to incorporate.

With a deep knowing that anything we would interpret as a dark monster is our own repressed energy, she stands without fear. This is why she would greet it with love and respect. She would be open to intuit its true source.

The Soul’s images tell us where we are in a way that no words could convey.

As I browse the book in my hands, I find the perfect description of what I had been trying to express in Marion Woodman’s words:

In utmost powerlessness (confronting the monsters that are hiding in the dark) we find ourselves eye to eye with the Goddess. We try to melt her with our tears, we try to bring her back to life by acting her out in our bodies. If we manage to give blood to the stone, tears to our grief, voice to our rage, truth to our betrayal, the energy is released.

With these words I embark on my Heroine’s Journey of Dressing the Bare Soul. Join me next week in my blog about A Fabric Full of Scars.

Image: Eddi van W.

Dressed for a New Dimension

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Did you know that a piece of clothing spans many dimensions?

If we start by focusing on the 1st dimension, what we can experience is just a distance, like a line. But as width is added, a plane is created. We have now entered the 2nd dimension, where visual fabric patterns on plane surfaces have become possible.

Moving on to the next realm depth joins us and we find ourselves in the 3rd dimension.

A garment is actually defined by its 3-dimensional shape. Threads might be tailored or draped. There are folds or pleats to create different sculptural effects. They can hang from the shoulders or waist of the body or they can be made as a tight sheath.

As we gradually move into higher dimensions, our perceived reality expands. The first three dimensions are physically oriented. They provide space.

Add movement and we can enter the 4th dimension.

4D is usually referred to as the realm of time. But it’s also the realm of movement, which is kind of the same thing. (Without time, no movement could be registered.) Since we are focusing on clothes right now, movement makes more sense.

The modes of fashion during different time periods have shown us in obvious ways how full movement hasn’t always been allowed. Corsets, extremely tight garments and suits have all demonstrated how we have been collectively restricted within the confinement of the 4th dimension.

As we learn to master 4D our consciousness becomes increasingly fluid.

Every transition into a higher dimension is enormous. It’s like moving into a different kind of reality, or consciousness, that we have no concept of beforehand. Right now we are at the threshold of the 5th dimension.

This dimension takes us beyond space and time. It represents the more or less unexplored and unknown aspects of the universe as well as ourselves. Physicists explore black holes, gravitational waves and super-high-energy particle collisions. Mystics travel the inner realms of the soul’s Soul.

We need to move beyond the Ego to make this transition.

As we peek into this new dimension, a vaster existence becomes apparent. The more we start to identify with this higher/deeper Self, the more we become aware of our personality, its different parts and how imbalances split the vision of this higher consciousness. Wholeness is the final ticket to this promised land.

From this perspective the real power of clothes as tools to mould and transform psychic forces is revealed to us. We have a choice as well as response-ability and we can actually alter the game.

We realize that the different shapes of lines and 2D visual patterns are really reflections of a deeper reality. We understand that the 3D shape of garments works like a mould that shapes our energy field and that it’s something we can use for healing. We also gain insight into how we can master the fluidity of 4D. If we feel restricted, we can change that through allowing more potential movement through the garments we wear.

Entering a higher dimension doesn’t mean that the dimensions below will cease to exist.

We will still exist. Clothes will still exist. But the transition will change our perception of reality. Clothes take on a different meaning. The drive to express personality parts through modes of fashion diminishes. We are increasingly motivated to balance the opposing parts of our psyche. And to find wholeness.

As we practice the art of moulding the clay of life with clothes, we can enjoy their beauty at the same time…

Embodying the Soul

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The clothes we dress in are mostly an expression of different personality traits. They are our ”showcase” for all the different ways we developed to try to adapt to the world around us. Polite and controlled. Loud and tough. Expressionless. Or maybe a charming people-pleaser.

What if we dared to go deeper and also embraced, and expressed, the deeper aspects of our psyche that exist beyond our personality? How would clothes look that channeled the darkest depths of the feminine soul?

The last couple of days this thought has intrigued me…

I have pondered the possible therapeutic effect. Maybe this could actually be a way of processing grief, rage and fear? Might it even heal what has been split apart? After working with art therapy many years ago, I know the transformative power of artistic expression.

This all started the other day, when I received an e-mail from one of my blog readers. She wondered why I didn’t share my own designs, to show readers how I would combat the world of fashion. It hit a nerve. I wrote back and defended myself by explaining how I explored different aspects in order to find a new wholeness, and that it wasn’t possible to create something that felt new before I had processed the grief, anger and fear that stood in the way.

I will not design and share anything that doesn’t feel like it’s true to my soul and essence… to a deeper, truer feminine spirit.

Linda’s wise reply about sharing the process visually as well as in words, set off a train of thoughts. I realized that I had been telling myself that I needed to deal with my inner darkness before I could create a new collection. As if beauty had to be nice… as if the darker parts were not ok to show.

I had almost decided to stop blogging because of this. I felt cut off from inspiration when I wrote about clothes and the fashion world, and embarrassingly emotional when I shared the depth of my own process. Like it didn’t belong in a blog about clothes. What if I could connect them?

What if I designed clothes for the darker parts of my soul?

As I started to tune into my soul essence, the well-known, paralyzing grief surfaced, with images of a naked woman buried beneath the earth. Of course I needed to dress her. It was a way of honoring and embracing her (and myself) just the way she was. Darkness included. Why had I not seen this before?

The following night I couldn’t sleep. A full moon was shining through my window and images of prints, embroidery and garment cuts kept flooding my mind. Grief was mixed with inspiration. I was on to something…

The garments would help me embody my lost soul.

Sera Beak describes the deep, heartfelt desire, as well as the importance, of embodying the feminine soul, in her very inspiring speech at Gather the Women.

”Although I had passionately studied, taught, filmed, acted and written about women and feminine spirituality for years, and even though I had always had a strong relationship with my feminine spirit, I had lost my feminine soul somewhere along the way. I knew that I could not continue helping other women until I found and faced my soul again.”

As Sera goes on to say, it is extremely painful to turn and face our soul. It’s also humbling. And messy. As we do we come face to face with all the ways we have abandoned her, as well as all the feelings we have put a lid on.

In the Western world many are called to live from the Soul. But few respond, because entry into the life of Soul demands a steep price.

Bill Plotkin in Soulcraft

The price we have to pay is to let go of everything that is not authentic. Compromise is no longer an option. As for myself, it’s a price I’m more than willing to pay. There is nothing left to lose.

After a short vacation I will start my new project and I promise to share what comes out of it here on the blog.

And Linda… thank you for opening my eyes!

Image: Tangent~Artifact

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