We described ourselves as tired, unfocused, scattered, off-kilter and too busy. Just a typical group of women gathered virtually for a new moon circle. Some of us have children at home, most do not. Many of us have jobs, others of us are retired. Our commonality: most, if not all of us, were experiencing some degree of overwhelm.
We didn’t discuss as a group why we came to the circle feeling this way, but I have my suspicions. Let me speak for myself. Growing up, I was rewarded for being “good.” I earned good grades, was involved in school activities, and had a part-time job. Sometimes it was hard to juggle all three, but I did it anyway. Sometimes I was sick and didn’t feel like doing any of the things. I did them anyway. “Doing” was good, “being” was…well…unheard of. Perfection was the ideal.
This went on for most of my adult life. Moms don’t stay in bed when they are sick. Management-track employees don’t miss meetings. Writers don’t have any typos in their emails. Etcetera. This striving for “good-ness” meant I got less sleep than I needed, had less fun than I wanted, and I rarely (if ever) took a moment to notice my true nature–my divinity. I’m changing that now, but I often slip back into striving mode.
Many of you have heard me express my belief that we are all Divine. Here’s a direct quote from my website: “I believe that each of us is a unique expression of Divine Love who has gifts to offer our love-starved world. When we embrace our unique Divine energy, we are able to share these gifts. But it is not always easy to feel Divine.”
Our tired, unfocused, scattered, off-kilter and too busy–aka human–women’s circle got a chance to remember this last night. Our July circle leader, the amazing Cleo Dunsmore Buchanan, led us through a guided visualization that allowed us to glimpse how we usually meet our daily challenges and what it might feel like to approach these challenges as a being of light. The bottom line was that we are Divine light beings. We can live in the flow and trust that we don’t have to be perfect, or even good, because we already are.
Cleo gave us a tool by which to remember our Divine nature. She introduced us to the Gyan mudra, a sacred hand gesture used to direct energy and maintain focus. It is commonly used in meditation, so you may be familiar with it. In our case, we used the mudra as a touch point, a bodily reminder that we are always Divine, no matter what the circumstance. So, when difficult circumstances arise, we can come back to ourselves, without the need to struggle to get things right. We can offer our gifts to our love-starved world because we won’t be too tired to do so.
Our group spent exactly 90 minutes together on Zoom. During this time, we lit candles, shared our truth, connected our awareness to our breath, visualized, practiced the mudra, and meditated. We transformed from a frazzled to a peaceful bunch because we slowed down and filled our cups.
As we formed the Gyan mudra with both hands and touched our thumbs and forefingers together so that we would remember, I noticed something. In this position, they look like angel wings. Now that’s perfection.
