The Year of the Body: Week 9

in which I receive the biggest mystical assignment of my life, discover and melt the trauma hidden in my body, and...

Friends, soul writers, mystics, and lovers of prayer,

On Thursday, I celebrated the 3rd anniversary of being awakened in the night with the assignment prayer artist.

That assignment terrified me but, as you know from reading these Notes from the Field, I have grown into it. Or rather, it has grown me. And oh, has it ever grown me.

On my 69th birthday in June 2017, the brilliant depth numerologist Emma Kupu Mitchell said I was entering a year unlike any other in my entire life. When the year ends in June of 2018, she said, “You will be a different person altogether.”

I wasn’t too thrilled to hear this. Would you be? “A different person altogether…” What could that possibly mean?

Well, Emma didn’t know. And I sure didn’t know, but She did. She, the Feminine Divine, She the creatrix of the universes, She the Beloved in all the love songs to and from the Beloved, She knew. And She knew what She was doing.

A LOT happened between June 2017 and June 2018. And, just as Emma predicted, I was a different person when my birthday rolled around again.

• I was a prayer artist.
• I was writing a whole new genre of prayer as love songs.
• I was redefining prayer altogether.
• I was exploring what happened to women, the Goddess, and prayer under patriarchy.
• Within thirty days of hearing prayer artist, I stopped teaching my courses and started offering prayer intensives.
• I didn’t know what would happen. No one searches online for "prayer intensives." But you showed up. Thousands of you have gathered in intensives on Ho‘oponopono, Mary Magdalene, the Goddess Rosary, the Tree of Life, the Labyrinth, and many more.

And then, last August, another intense assignment—Mystic Witch—arrived.

Saying yes to witch has opened floodgates in The Mystic and I’m having the time of my life creating new intensives with glorious mystics that help us find the beautiful wise witch within.

This week, I set aside time to contemplate and celebrate these three years of being a prayer artist. In perfect synchronicity, we are experiencing a full moon in Virgo 8° 57’.

The Sabian Symbol for this full moon is: “An expressionist painter making a futuristic drawing.”

I didn’t know what that meant, but it felt important. So, I took the symbol into deep soul writing. As soon as the words came through my hands onto the page, the symbol opened to reveal its meaning.

At first, I fell into the standard-issue, linear, goal-oriented thinking our patriarchal systems have trained us all to follow and saw myself as the painter being called to create a picture of the future.

But my gut screamed, No, you’re not! You’re not the painter. She is the painter. You are the drawing.

Alone in my backyard, I shouted YES! Of course! She is the brilliant painter creating a world that hasn’t been expressed before. I am a few lines of a charcoal sketch coming through Her hands.

And so are you.

So what’s on that sketch? What is She drawing into being? Well, I can’t see the whole picture. But I did get a bold dash of a line this week.

I had a Tarot reading with a true mystic. It was one of the most thrilling—if slightly terrifying—hours of my life.

• Thrilling because the story of my life and how my son and I weave together came into sweet relief.
• Terrifying because at the end, Jeanne d’Arc showed up and gave me what may well be the biggest assignment of my life.

I wasn’t surprised that Jeanne (don’t call her Joan) showed up. She is the heart and soul of The Return of the Witches novena I’ll be offering on 13 Saturdays in June, July and August. The full name is: The Return of the Witches, Jeanne d’Arc Listening Novena.

It’s her novena. She’s leading the way. She’s gathering the artists, the prayers, the anointing, and the 13 witches whose names we will chant and whose lives we will honor.

But a prayer was missing. Only I didn’t know it.

At the end of the reading, Jeanne gave me an assignment: declare the Female Trinity.

If that weren’t staggering enough, she said this was the mission I came here to complete. And there were books to write that she would direct me to write.

I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t. I was too stunned.

Now, it’s true I’ve rewritten the Our Father and the Hail Mary, returning them to their pre-patriarchal, goddess-centered, diverse, and welcoming incantations. And I wrote The Queen’s Love which totally upends the Apostle’s Creed. And I created my Mystic Family Call and teach people how to write their own. And I recently received a deeply mystical Cast Your Circle practice.

But still…you want me to name the Female Trinity!

Not so very long ago you could get burned for this.

Oh, but if anyone knows that, it’s Jeanne, right.

She said not to worry, she would visit me in the dream time. True to her word, she kept me up three nights in a row until I had not only the Female Trinity (and no, it’s not maiden, mother, crone) but also the hand motions that bring that Trinity to life, The Sign of Her Return (not the sign of the cross).

It’s been a very intense week. And I loved everything Jeanne was guiding me to do.

But there was something inside me blocking me from stepping fully into this assignment and declaring the Female Trinity with conviction and courage.

Jeanne gets that. She’s the one who said, “I am not afraid, I was born for this.”

And that brings us to the great question, surely a question you have come up against: If I have this beautiful work to do, why don’t I do it?

If I can tell there’s a book inside me, a business I’m to create, a group I’d love to form, an idea I’d like to try…why don’t I do it? Why do I start and then stop? Why don’t I trust myself to say what I want to say and write what is inside me?

In short, why do I freeze?

Well in astonishing synchronicity, I sat in on a Somatic Writing Circle with Tanya Taylor Rubinstein on Friday night. Tanya is leading us in a Somatic Writing prayer intensive in March and I am joining all her events to get a sense for the magic we will experience together.

Want to guess what the topic was on Friday?

Freeze.

Tanya opened the evening by bringing us into our bodies and then teaching us a bit about the 5 common trauma responses: fight, flight, freeze, fawn, and flop.

She’ll help us find all 5 in our bodies in our March intensive, but on Friday night we focused on freeze.

I took notes as fast as I could so I could share them with you in this newsletter. Here are a few highlights:

• Trauma lives in the body—lungs, spleen, colon, stomach…
• You don’t even know trauma is in there
• You have unconsciously worked around the trauma in your body your entire life
• Trauma is the block; not your mindset or failure to set or follow goals
• Trauma is not an intellectual construct, you can’t “fix” it intellectually
• Trauma affects everything: health, relationships, creativity, your power in the world
• When you find and heal the trauma, you can finally tell your story without worrying about what others think

Then, Tanya led us in 3 somatic writing experiences, locating and speaking to the trauma, listening to an ancestor who wants to help, and traveling to a place on the land that wants to support us.

It was a transformative experience. I was surprised by the ancestor who showed up and what she had to tell me. I was even more surprised by where my body holds the freeze response. Very surprised. And I adored traveling to my place and listening to the wisdom of the rocks.

In just one hour I thawed out my frozen spot and received four new and surprising pieces for the Novena.

And now I’m ready to declare the Female Trinity!

You will hear the Trinity and the Trinity prayers on opening night of the Somatic Writing prayer intensive with Tanya.

FRIENDS IN EUROPE

Two members in Europe are hosting watch parties. If you wish to volunteer to host one, email me after you register:

1. Uma Girish in Germany on Thursdays at 11am CET
2. Angela Meakin in England on Thursdays at 7pm UTC.Members of the intensive are welcome to come to those watch parties no matter where you live.

NO ON-DEMAND VERSION

Typically, my intensives are made available in an OnDemand version after the intensive ends. Somatic Writing will NOT be offered OnDemand.

So if you are interested, please register now.

The 4 live gatherings will be recorded and available for members on a password-protected page for at least a year.

But Somatic Writing won’t be offered in an OnDemand version for two reasons. First, there is something magical that happens when we write in community. I can attest to that. Second, when people share something they’ve written, everyone listening creates a sacred safe container so their emerging soul can be heard and seen and cherished. We, the members of Somatic Writing, are that sacred container.

BONUS GOODIES

Tanya has generously given us her foundational materials and teaching videos. It's a somatic writing feast that you can start watching as soon as you register. Just follow the active link on your PayPal receipt.

SCHEDULE

We gather for 3 live sessions on Tuesday, March 9. 16, 23 from 7-9:15 pm Eastern, and a closing ceremony on Sunday, March 28 at 2pm Eastern.

Come and liberate the story your body has been longing to tell you for your entire life.

Somatic Writing Prayer Intensive

to the joy of freeing the trauma in your body and hearing your own sacred, precious, creative voice speak, 

Janet