Sacred Feminine Intensive for Women

Four Activation Meetings: Power, Love, Wisdom and Integration

First Activation Meeting: Stepping Into Power with ceremony and initiation, shamanic journey work, mask making, deconstructing power-over dynamics and rebuilding personal power, symbolism and myth exploration using archetypes: Steerswoman, Initiate, Warrioress.

December 11, 7 PM and December 12, 9--5

Next Three Meetings: Second Saturday of each month: Jan--March

Rubybleu Puja

Today is the seventh anniversary of dear Rubybleu's birth...seven years ago she spiraled through me only to spiral away a few days later... It is also the time of Makahiki, or 'Royal Eyes' when the Pleiades's begins to rise in the east. This cluster of stars is also known as the Seven Sisters. As we gave our offerings of seven this year, it felt like we were rounding a cycle of sorts.

Below is the poem for Rubybleu:

I.

Venus has returned in early morning sky.

we called it your star, Ruby's star.

it shimmers over dark stones, as i stumble

remembering, remembering, remembering...

II.

her brilliant beginning: soft, red skin, misty eyes wide open

Birth: the smell of blood and salt in dark night.

wonder saturated the air, heavy as smoke,

in the finite hours of one precious day.

Suddenly! newness gave way to blueness; birth gave way to death.

a breath between one second and the next.

Death waxed calm terror as your Spirit flew fast

la whisper over the ocean, fading like Moth wings at dawn,

lost among the waves of the world.

Dear one, came to leave, born to die, master of Samsara

Time spinning and i am holding you even as i am letting you go.

III.

somehow the aching nights turned over.

dread days became lighter weeks,

sun revolving moon reverberating flow.

we floated your ashes, blue bone and red copper

down the Ganges, the divine Mother.

swirling amidst flame and hibiscus, a tiny vessel of Hope,

of Spirit transmuted

the fragile joy cracked open, shattered and revealing;

an illumined spark of the Divine,

Rubybleu essence: glowing burning seeds of truth.

and finally i can cast mine which is not mine

Beyond the you who is not you into the quiet unknown.

Sacred Feminine Intensive for Women

Four Activation Meetings: Power, Love, Wisdom and Integration

First Activation Meeting: Stepping Into Power with ceremony and initiation, shamanic journey work, mask making, deconstructing power-over dynamics and rebuilding personal power, symbolism and myth exploration using archetypes: Steerswoman, Initiate, Warrioress.

December 11, 7 PM and December 12, 10-4

Four Meetings: Second Saturday, Dec-March

Cost: $60 per class (includes materials)

Teachers: Jill Walton has a degree in Psychology and spent the last thirty years as an intuitive counselor and educator. She has worked with Tarot, the chakra system, The Four-Fold Way and the Wheel of the Year Ceremonies. She is currently studying pre-Christian Hawaiian Spirituality with Kahuna Aupuni Iwi Ula. Jill teaches classes including The Seven Chakras: A Journey of Self Awareness, Psychic Development, The Four Sacred Bodies: Physical, Emotional, Mental and Spiritual, Developing a Daily Spiritual Practice, and Accessing Your Personal Guides.

Katalin Koda, author, Reiki Master and shamanic practitioner, has worked extensively with the chakra system, Tarot, Wicca, sacred space and the elements for over twelve years. She authored Sacred Path of Reiki: Healing as a Spiritual Discipline. Katalin is initiated in Tibetan Buddhist practices and the Munay Ki of Peruvian shamanism and currently teaches all degrees of Reiki as well as passing Munay Ki initiations and leading drum journeys. She is currently working on her next book Sacred Feminine, forthcoming Fall 2010. See www.earthweaver.blogpspot.com

Contact: Jill at 965.1824 or jtwalton@hotmail.com and Katalin at 769.7645 or sister_fireheart@yahoo.com

Breaking Apart

I am taking a small break the past few days; a break from my manuscript to re-center and reconnect with my heart, the true voice of this book. Each book, story, poem, have a life of their own, a directive, a kind of conscious template that seems to have nothing to do with me--I'm just the channel, the voice, the fingers to bring it forward.

In writing this book I have used a lot of resources; it has gotten a bit scholarly, as my editor says. Perhaps my father has something to do with my tendency towards over-citing...he does have a degree in Bibliography after all! The return to the West and the entrance into writing a book on the Sacred Feminine was met by my own realization of how many resources are now out there, available for women (and men) on the reclaiming of the Goddess/Sacred Feminine/Dark Beauty. A big part of this is also my reconnection with Sacred Sexuality, Shamanism, Indigenous Voices, Ecstatic Dance and some kind of Poetry Collective that is emerging on the Puna Coast. So there is a simultaneous breaking apart and re-building happening; a kind of deconstruction that is at the same time creating. It's kind of like baking cakes and filtering water at the same time: alchemical fires meeting clarified waters; spirit meeting form; spirituality meeting sensuality. There is a lot of madness and a lot of love and a lot of intense CLARITY.

In other words, in the midst of quiet Hawaiian paradise, my world seems to be very full and diverse. So, I'm writing in a way that is a bit UN-coherent for the moment; allowing dreams to surface; revisiting old poems and stories and writings from a decade ago; seeing where everything has changed, yet nothing has changed; and, beginning a Rewrite.

Exploring the Sacred Feminine and Empowering Your Life

Jill Walton and Katalin Koda are co-leading a Sacred Feminine Intensive for women December 2009 through March 2010. The class will meet Friday evening and Saturday, once a month. This course explores the themes of Love, Power and Wisdom. This training is an intensive and focuses on finding one's path using the Sacred Feminine which will lay a foundation for all aspects of one's life. By using art, Tarot and symbolism, ceremony and sound, healing and shamanic techniques we will reclaim the sacred feminine both for oneself and as a gift to the world.

Jill Walton has a degree in Psychology and spent the last thirty years as an intuitive counselor and educator. She has worked with Tarot, the chakra system, The Four-Fold Way and the Wheel of the Year Ceremonies. She is currently studying pre-Christian Hawaiian Spirituality with Kahuna Aupuni Iwi Ula. Jill teaches classes including The Seven Chakras: A Journey of Self Awareness, Psychic Development, The Four Sacred Bodies: Physical, Emotional, Mental and Spiritual, Developing a Daily Spiritual Practice, and Accessing Your Personal Guides.

Katalin has worked with Reiki, Tarot, Wicca, sacred space and the elements for over twelve years, supplementing her study with the chakra system, shamanism and art. Her book Sacred Path of Reiki: Healing as a Spiritual Discipline was published December 2008. She has also been initiated in Tibetan Buddhist practices and the Munay Ki. She teaches all degrees of Reiki as well as passing Munay Ki initiations and leading drum journey processes. She is currently working on her next book Sacred Feminine, forthcoming Fall of 2010. See www.earthweaver.blogpspot.com

Dates: Second weekend of each month: Friday evening 6 PM and Saturday 9 –5

First Meeting: December 11th, Friday evening/December 12th, All Day Saturday

Cost: $350 in Advance or $400 (Pay as you go, $100 per Class)

Limited to ten participants so sign up now!

Contact: Jill at 965.1824 or jtwalton@hotmail.com

Katalin at 769.7645 or katalinkoda@yahoo.com

Dolphins and Drums and Diamonds, Oh My!

This has been a wild week...I swam with dolphins, my sister unexpectedly arrived from Bangkok bearing precious stones and wisdom and I danced to hot soulful African drums on Halloween night. Needless to say, its a bit difficult to stay mindful of my book and its progress when so much is happening in my world. Thus, entering the chapter of the Weaver is appropriate, weaving together all the different facets of my life.

For Halloween, the Goddess of Destiny, known as Lady Luck, the Moirae or Fates, descended into my soul casting fortunes onto receptive folks. I feel a connection to this Archetype of the Fates, often showing up in myths as three sisters. The Greeks believed the fates were spinners and spun the destiny lines of all us lowly humans, deciding when we are born, how long and fruitful our lives our and when we die. Clotho is the sister who cuts the thread at the end of our lives, reminding us to live in the present, in the very living Now. I danced ecstatic as this Goddess of Destiny, to pounding African djembes, blessed to be surrounded by this multi-dimensional community.

Today we celebrate Dia de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead and honor our ancestors. The time of year is slipping into darkness and we can call on the Spirits of the Night to visit us with visions and sacred dreams. We will graciously give offerings to those who have passsed on, transitioned into the next realms and remember that they nourish us. That the living are fed by the dead. We often forget this, that truly, Death is the Matrix for Rebirth. This is also the Witches' New Year, Samhain, the time when the veil is the thinnest, allowing us direct communication with our ancestors and spirit guides. Let us remember, let us journey on.

Again the Sea

Yesterday was one of those ultra divine days on the Puna coast...a day where the sun is shining brilliant and the waves at the black sand beach down the road are not too wild. I went to the ocean again, flew into the pounding surf, got completely tumbled, lost my bracelet that a friend just sent from South Korea and came up grinning. My little daughter ran back and forth along the foam spilling onto the sand, occasionally letting one take her for a ride. Kehena beach, our little beach just a couple miles down the road, is all black and sticks to your skin like a scrub. The currents are often wild, the waves crash down too hard stirring up giant lava stones, so getting in is tricky and getting out is daunting. It requires a lot of trust ... and when the trust is there, you just fly along with the stones and surf, and nothing bad happens. Although I have seen my fair share of people emerging from that coast with blood dripping down their faces, so its not to be played with. Some have even drowned there and many days it really is just too rough, the wave too enormous to tread into... and other days it is as flat and calm as a lake, dolphins leap joyously, fish swim languidly, turtles drift endless .... That is why living by the sea is so wondrous, so essential to my well-being; to live with something that is so apparently in flux reminds me, over and over again that there is nothing to 'do,' nowhere to 'go' and to simply be. I often need reminders, even in Hawaii!