Dearest You~

This is my first blog post and I thought I’d give you a little background about me as well as some idea of what you can expect to read in future postings.

My childhood years were spent in a suburb of Boston where a small wood was my playground. Wandering several well-worn trails, hopping over a muddy brook, and throwing sticks and pebbles into a pond called, ‘pink ice’ was where I was closest to God and quickly discovered closer to Goddess. Something about nature and its rhythms spoke to me in a woman’s voice and that’s where the sacred made most sense. But I was a Catholic girl and God had a very different revered house.

I remember being a little kid in church totally enthralled by the pageantry of the Mass--the ritual, costumes, and many smells. The warm glow of these powerful enactments did not speak to those infinite spaces of my soul, however. Instead, I felt outside as if watching through a window some play I knew I’d never fully embrace. Women and girls were clearly minor characters--statues, nuns veiled as brides of Christ, and in later years live altar girls. I can’t remember ever feeling offended but I recall sensing that this wasn’t the place for me and that one day, I would leave--not in rejection but with a full capacity to explore Spirit in my own way. I would grow older in this church but I’d grow up elsewhere.

I couldn’t imagine being the only female unable to relate to the dominant male themes that speak about women and at women but rarely to women and for them. I know I sought stories that explained the great mysteries of life and death from a point of view that reflected my experiences in nature.

So, off to the woods I would go, dancing along a reservoir’s edge whose small tide brought in foamy bits of earth’s decay that fascinated and filled me with wonder. The frogs, chipmunks, squirrels, and all kinds of birds, taught me the power of stillness and presence so their wonder could be revealed. Some of my fondest memories are wandering those woods holding strawberry-scented incense, marveling at tiny yellow meadow flowers, eating wild blueberries, and climbing jagged pieces of granite in an area I called the rock palace. Some played in the woods. I played with it.

When I wasn’t there, I was often beside my mother in the garden watching her grow the best tomatoes I’ve ever had in my life. She was always digging in the dirt—often in a 70’s style bikini no less. There was no mention of flat abs, tight butt cheeks, and defined arms. The woman gave birth to 5 children including twins and if she cared how she looked in a bikini, it never came up. Now if that isn’t Goddessy, I don’t know what is!

My mother’s artistic, free-spirit confidence was infused in me by simply being in her presence. It is what I took with me when I went into the world to begin the journey of my becoming. Surprisingly, I walked a conventional path and have been fairly traditional. At least I think so. I went to college and graduate school. I married a wonderful man, Doc, with whom I am raising 3 children. We bought a small hobby farm in Eastern Washington and I am the resident garden Goddess, growing organic produce and flowers. It isn’t the woods of my childhood but it reminds me of my mother’s garden only on a much bigger scale. Tending to and caring for this plot of Mother Earth is a homecoming on a profoundly Spiritual scale. It’s a lovely life we’ve carved out for ourselves. Some might say, it is dream come true.

But with dreams, there are nightmares and those create wake-ups that are abrupt and painful. For us, the brutal nightmare was our middle child diagnosed with Leukemia when she was 4 years old. The instantaneous all-consuming terrifying journey that a cancer experience is, set me on a course of fearless expression that I still find myself on today, 5 years later. There is nothing like standing on the edge of life that looks oddly like a wasteland, holding your child above the insatiable desire of death and being granted a second chance. We know how lucky we are. It is her wellness that propels me to act on virtually everything I do from gardening, sewing, writing, creating art, to hosting Full Moon Goddess gatherings once a month on our farm, which are the events I’m most excited to share with you.

My experience with my daughter, Aria, has brought everything I’ve learned and studied into high definition and intense focus. That she survived has taught me that ‘right now’ really is everything. That she continues to thrive gives me confidence to share with you and others all that I’ve come to understand about the Divine Feminine Sacred Self. I know how to listen to that Spirit voice within. I have broken the confining restraints of the inherited traditional patriarchal systems and have found refuge in feminine mysticism.

That, my friends, is what I’ll be sharing with you. It is my honor and privilege to introduce myself and get to know you.

To the sacredness of you, I bow deeply. ~julia hayes