"Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing."   

Arundhati Roy

Greetings companions on the radical pilgrim road,

On this pilgrimage that we are sharing—this radical pilgrimage, this radical alchemical pilgrimage that asks nothing less of us but total transformation—we can, if we are willing to stop and listen, hear a beautiful new world take a breath.

If you’re not quite sure you can hear her breathing, you can take a peek at her instead.

Everyone can see her. Just look at the air over Los Angeles! It is clear and the sky is blue.

Photo by Pedro Marroquin on Unsplash

I lived in LA in the 70s and even then, the only time you could see the surrounding hills was during the short annual burst of intense winds called the Santa Annas. Suddenly you could see the beauty that was there all along, hidden behind a veil of smog.

But the winds always ceased and the veil returned.

But now, thanks to everyone staying home, the air is clearing all around the world. The waters, too. The trees are enjoying the longest deepest breaths they’ve taken in ages.

And the animals! They promenade through towns, lie down on roads, cluster on bridges…. (This one on Ha'penny Bridge in Dublin.) They, too, are excited about the new world, which for them is the old world—the world their ancestral bones remember.

Our human bones vaguely remember that world too.

Some deep part of us sniffs the newly sweet air, relishes the suddenly bright blue skies, and smiles at our brothers and sisters frolicking on land and air and sea.

And we remember. We remember something, even if we don’t really know what.

This is the entire point of this period of quarantine, this blessed time of pilgrimage that holds the potential to guide us firmly from chaos and suffering into harmony and wholeness.

We can and we will and we must walk this sacred pilgrimage in our individual lives so that we can as a collective welcome the new world that has been long waiting behind a thick greasy grey veil accumulated decade after decade after decade by greed, abuse, consumerism, power, and domination.

She remembers. Mother Earth remembers. And because we are her and she is us, that means on some subtle mysterious level we remember, too.

But how. Isn’t that always the question.

How do we remember? How do we reawaken the part of us that remembers? The answer is both incredibly simple and incredibly difficult.

It is simple, in that our ancestors knew how to stay in a state of harmony and wholeness with Mother Earth and all Her children.

And they passed down powerful mystical practices that remove the veil between worlds. Practices that brought everyone and everyone alive.

Those practices are older than any of our religious traditions. Those practices honor the Sacred Feminine in our bodies, our lives, our communities, and our earth.

And this time of pandemic is an invitation to refresh those mystical practices and step back into harmony with the fullness of who we are meant to be.

Four magnificent pre-patriarchal transformational practices are:

1. Rosary--ancient goddess prayer invoking the three faces of the Divine Feminine going back all the way to Paleolithic times
2. Labyrinth—pre-historic 4, 7, or 11-circuit walking prayer that carries us straight into the Womb of the Mother for healing and transformation
3. Anointing—ancient mystical practice that opens all the channels of the body, transforming us into vibratory fields of love that transcend time and space
4. Tree of Life—ancient holistic mystical prayer practice that lays out the path to harmony through the integration of the Sacred Masculine and Sacred Feminine energies in our bodies, our lives, and our world.

If the purpose of this Radical Pilgrimage is Transformation so that the veil lifts first around each of us individually and then gradually around all of us, then the Tree of Life—the ancient mystical body of wisdom known as Kabbalah—shows us how to embody the living presence of the Divine Feminine.

Not just in your mind. In your body.

When Rabbi Tirzah Firestone and I planned this first-ever prayer intensive on the Tree of Life, we had no way of knowing that it would open at the height of a global pandemic.

We didn’t know we’d be in a time of Radical Pilgrimage, called by the Divine Feminine to stop—stop!—and walk deep within ourselves to discover who we really are and why we’re here.

Nor could I have possibly known that in the last two weeks, as I sit outside hours on end, rereading The Meaning of Mary Magdalene, that I would begin to anoint myself one morning and find myself thrust into a very deep mystical experience of the cosmic power of anointing.

And—I can’t quite get my head around this yet, but:

Anointing, the Rosary, the Labyrinth and the Tree of Life are interwoven together into one exquisite tapestry of the mystical body of the Goddess in and through and as us.

But here we are. In a global pandemic. In quarantine. On deeply private intimate pilgrimages into the self.

And blessed—oh so blessed—to get to sit with Rabbi Tirzah a profound—many might say radical—guide into the endless depths of the living presence of the Divine Feminine in pre-patriarchal Jewish mysticism.

This is all I know right now:

• We have been ordered to stop; we simply cannot continue living as we have
• This period of isolation can be the most sacred and healing experience of our lives
• The veil can be lifted and we all have a part to play in lifting it
• Each one of us is necessary right now. I can’t do this alone. You can’t do it alone, we need one another more than ever, so from within our separated homes we feel a visceral need to explore the mystical with a soul community
• Ancient Divine Feminine mystical practices have always held the mystical wisdom we need to transform ourselves and our world

The Tree of Life is a perfect mystical prayer practice for our pilgrimage. And it will be amplified with the deepest anointing practice I have ever received. I dare say Mary Magdalene had something to do with that!

Please watch the video Tirzah and I made. We didn’t plan. Tirzah just said a prayer and I hit record.

You can see and hear for yourself what a divine channel Tirzah is for the Voice of Shechinah, the Voice of radical Divine Feminine love, the love that will lift the veil and transform us.

The Radical Path of Shechinah Revealed in the Tree of Life 

to walking this sacred pilgrimage led by a sacred woman who embodies the Divine Feminine and in the company of sacred soul companions 

Janet

PS: I can host 100 people and we've been that full in the last few events and intensives, so do please register as soon as you can.

The Radical Path of Shechinah