Blooming of the ROSE…

“Just as the ROSE does bloom, we each have an inborn potential to become. Release the potential and allow the bud to unfold.”
~ Cheryl Berry

“Seasons Change And So Do We” is a title that came to me many years ago as I was entering the Autumn of my life, turning fifty, experiencing menopause, a relationship ending and an empty nest.

For me, all I could feel and sense were “the endings” in my life and in my body. I was struggling with not wanting to leave the energy of Summer, for the energy of Summer is about creating, growth, and expansion. It’s a time when women are typically expanding their education, being in relationship, birthing babies, creating families, growing their career. It’s a time when the body is reaching it’s peak performance.

I didn’t care for the idea, nor the experience of leaving Summer. I felt I was starting to fall apart and the best years were behind me . . . just like the ROSE starting to have her first petal fall.

What I discovered is that our culture rarely celebrates the many transitions, women experience, especially that of the womb . . . unless it’s of procreation and birth.

Also, our culture rarely celebrates the crone or wise woman, or even the queen in her mastery of continually finding Grace, Joy and Love in her heart each day living life, even with the many years of challenges she has faced, grown from, and acquired pearls of wisdom.

Fortunately for me, I could see the Seasons playing out with my daughter, myself, my sister, and my mother.

I could see how I wanted to shift from feeling depressed and grieving for this time of my life to re-discovering the creative energy of my Soul and feeling Joy in my heart…no matter what my body, or my womb, was going through.

Looking back, “Seasons Change And So Do We” has been incubating for close to nine years. Now, by request, it is finally being birthed by bringing a multitude of my own personal experiences and divine guidance into a 4 hour workshop with the support of various feminine archetypes in guided meditation, as well as through journaling, breath work, and more for women in my community.

“Seasons Change” is designed to explore the different Seasons of a Woman’s Life … from the maiden, mother, crone and queen … and also the transitions of the womb.

Together, in Sister Circle, we hold “Sister Support” to heal the feminine “Wounds of the Womb” in ourselves and that of our lineage. We also celebrate together, individually and collectively, as we remember, witness and (re)discover the Beauty, Power and Vulnerability in our transitioning from where we have come, to the infinite possibilities that still lie ahead . . . no matter our age . . . or Season.

We honor the feminine passage of child to maiden . . . maiden to mother . . . mother to crone . . . and crone to queen through the ROSE as SHE symbolizes the graceful passage from Bud to Bloom . . . the Blossoming . . . the first petals falling and leaves withering . . . with the final crowning Rose Hip, the nutrient rich seed of wisdom and grace to be passed on to future generations.

This is an invitation to not only heal the wounds of YOUR past, but that of your daughters, sisters, mother…as well as her lineage…and to re-write more beauty and grace into the Seasons of the Feminine and HER future generations.

It is an opportunity to create a new template and foundation for the women in your family, knowing the old stories and patterning you lived, or witnessed, that no longer need to be repeated.

Now is the time to create a new pathWAY of celebration for life through ALL the Seasons, knowing it is possible to live life, having merged and integrated ALL the energies of Joy (Spring), Love (Summer), Gratitude (Autumn), Grace & Wisdom (Winter).

ALL the qualities of DIVINE LOVE can be held within the human heart . . . no matter a woman’s age . . . and no matter the Season of HER life.

For even in the Season of Winter, although the body may change significantly from that of Spring and Summer, a woman’s HEART and SOUL can still feel Joy and Wonder . . . just like she did as a child in Springtime.

So with honoring Mother’s Day this May, I wish to dedicate this workshop that is being birthed and this blog to ALL women, of ALL ages and ALL seasons. This is for YOU to fully heal the wounds of the womb, the wounds of your heart, to re-discover your soul gifts and to fully integrate ALL of who you are, to return to the garden of YOUR heart.

NOW is the Season for YOU to bring ALL of you home, to return to wholeness, to rediscover the pathWAY back to your heart . . . and allow the beauty and grace of the ROSE to show you the WAY.

Season of Spring . . . the years of the Child into Maiden. This Season brings the initiation of a young girl into womanhood with her first menses. Whether this Season came with sunshine and clear skies, or clouds and rain, it is a Season meant to be a time of Innocence, Joy, Wonder, Possibility and Discovery for a young girl’s heart.

Summer is hallmarked with the Maiden becoming the Mother as she steps into the transformational energy of birthing. Whether she births children, a family, a career, or a business, this season is about creative energy abounding and expanding from what a woman desires to create from within her heart and from within her womb. This Season exudes Passion and Love for what her heart wishes to blossom and grow in life, planting the seeds for her legacy as she pours her energy into the Season of growing something upon the earth.

Autumn brings the Season that begins the process of slowing down and the Mother transitions to the Crone or Wise Woman. This is the ultimate involution of her womb, as this prime creative energy center was focused on procreation, now begins this divine phase called menopause. As she embraces this Season of Change as a “moment to pause” . . . and a moment to reflect, whether it be in gratitude or in grief . . . she is able to look at the bounty of Summer and what she has created and grown, or NOT created, nor brought to fruition. For this is the Season for her awareness to peak and to begin the harvesting of what she has created and what truly has brought AND still brings great Joy to her heart. It is a time for deeper healing of what was . . . or was not . . . to forgive herself and to forgive others . . . and to explore how she wishes to create from here forward.

A woman’s heart and womb always has the ability to create and even how she is going to live in creating AND being in the second half of her life. Now is the time where she stands at the threshold to choose . . . will her heart choose to return to Joy and Love, stay in Gratitude, and allow the Beauty of Grace and Wisdom to unfold and blossom??? Or will she choose to be depressed, sad, bitter, angry, unforgiving and stuck???

For it is within this final transition when the heart can fully open, just like the ROSE, in the “allowing of Truth and Love to guide the process.” Truth and Love is what will allow the Crone to emerge fully as the Wise Woman wearing her Crown.

Winter . . . the Divine Feminine’s Heart aches to see how women have been mislead about the Beauty and Creative energy of ALL the Seasons, especially Winter. Winter for the ROSE holds the final birthing of HERself with the “Rose Hip” . . . the ultimate fruit and the seeds that the Wise Woman has been able to integrate from all the ups and downs within the Seasons of her life. Here she is able to return to the remembrance and art of mastery. She becomes the Queen wearing her Crown in all her glory as she has integrated her life’s experiences, allowing her heart to lead her life and all her creative endeavors, big or small, from morning to night within Joy, Love, Passion, Gratitude, Grace and Wisdom. For these are the future seeds that when planted, are the nutrients that fuel and feed the buds of future generations to grow, blossom and become their full potential from within their own heart . . . and in the WAY of Love.