A Journey to Center, Part II:
Deep Awareness
by Astrid Grove
Gasping for breath I reach the door. Sweat is streaming down my body and I feel nervous, frustrated, and agitated. I have been hurrying to get here, as I always seem to be running late.
The ancient oak door is open just a crack, which I know is an invitation to enter. Using the huge block of quartz rock as a stepping stone, I reach my hand up to the gnarled piece of apple wood that serves as the door handle and gently push open the door.
This home is very familiar to me with smells of wood fires once burning, herbs, yogurt and bread. I look around and all seems to be quite the same as last time I was here, and every other time I have been here.
Today the windows are open allowing the fresh early summer breeze in to curl languidly around the space. Herbs like raspberry and comfrey hang from the rafters and freshly baked bread and freshly churned butter sit on the counter. Two chairs are vacant in front of the center altar, which this time of year is on the woodstove.
I sit down in one of the chairs. I am feeling impatience and a general sense of confusion and chaos within myself. I know I could sit here waiting for a while, and I am finding it difficult to settle in. Within moments, she walks in through the back door, carrying a basket brimming with wild mushrooms from the woods.
She doesn’t look over at me, though I know she knows I am here. In fact, I think that she knew the moment I stepped through the door. She puts the basket down, fills two glasses with sun tea, and meanders her way over to the chair opposite mine.
She hands me a glass of tea and sits down into the chair with her own glass. She looks up at me and deep into my eyes. I gaze deeply into her eyes as well. We share the same eyes, though hers are faded with age.
For me looking into her eyes is much like looking into a crystal ball, except instead of seeing the future, I see the truth. This is what I saw today.
First a profound feeling of peace permeated my energetic body and into my core, inviting me to deeply inhale and exhale. She showed me an image of myself, chakras aligned and spinning, trudging through thick mud almost up to my knees. Then she showed me an image of myself sitting within an ancient stone circle, still and meditative. Next I saw an image of myself sitting in my office with a client, my chakras aligned and spinning while in a meditative mind space and active in my work.
The vision fades into waves crashing on a rocky shore and then back to her faded blue eyes. I have no idea how long this trance lasted, maybe moments or maybe hours. Also, even though I may not understand the images now, I know from past experience here that the wisdom of this meeting will be clear to me when the time is right. I know the teachings are profound.
Gratitude fills me and overflows to her. I cross my hands in front of my heart and beam love to her. I then reach into my pouch and offer her an owl feather I found on my journey here as well as a stone filled with rainbows for her window.
She accepts these gifts, and then stands up and begins processing the mushrooms. I finish my tea and then turn to leave. No words are exchanged here. Ever.
As I find myself back on the wooded trail away from her cabin, I am struck with the realization that every time I visit my wise woman within, I return to center. I return to my heart and my womb, I return to my breath, and I return to my truth.
Copyright 2008 © Astrid Grove
Join Astrid Grove at the Wise Woman Center this summer.
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Astrid Grove is a community midwife, a wise woman herbalist, and a practitioner of Maya Abdominal Massage. She is currently practicing as a licensed midwife in the state of Vermont where she also enjoys her mountain view home where she is an avid gardener and wild plant and mushroom forager. She is also a co-creatrix of the Red Temple at Womongathering. She has created sacred circle in the form of moonlodge every dark moon for the past 7 years and offers her own moonblood to the earth every month. She will be offering Maya Abdominal Massage as taught by Dr. Rosita Arvigo, DN and Ms. Beatrice Wright. |
Astrid Grove Workshops at the Wise Woman Center
WOMB•SPEAK - July 5
Access the wisdom of your belly; listen to the stories of your womb, and your sister. We will heal ourselves and generations past and future.
Register on-line for Womb Speak
HER SACRED YONI - July 6
Honor the heauty and power of your "reproductive" system, learn to increase orgasmic pleasure, create abdominal health, and use art to call forth the Goddess within. Please wear red.
Register on-line for Her Sacred Yoni
Susun Weed’s books: |
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Wise Woman Herbal for the Childbearing Year
Author: Susun S. Weed. Simple, safe remedies for pregnancy, childbirth, lactation, and newborns. Includes herbs for fertility and birth control. Foreword by Jeannine Parvati Baker. 196 pages, index, illustrations.
Retails for $17.95
Order at: www.wisewomanbookshop.com
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Healing Wise
Author: Susun S. Weed. Superb herbal in the feminine-intuitive mode. Complete instructions for using common plants for food, beauty, medicine, and longevity. Introduction by Jean Houston. 312 pages, index, illustrations. Retails for $21.95
Order at: www.wisewomanbookshop.com |
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NEW Menopausal Years the Wise Woman Way
Author: Susun S. Weed. The best book on menopause is now better. Completely revised with 100 new pages. All the remedies women know and trust plus hundreds of new ones. New sections on thyroid health, fibromyalgia, hairy problems, male menopause, and herbs for women taking hormones. Recommended by Susan Love MD and Christiane Northrup MD. Introduction by Juliette de Bairacli Levy. 304 pages, index, illustrations. Retails for $22.95
Order at: www.wisewomanbookshop.com
For excerpts visit: www.menopause-metamorphosis.com
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Breast Cancer? Breast Health!
Author: Susun S. Weed. Foods, exercises, and attitudes to keep your breasts healthy. Supportive complimentary medicines to ease side-effects of surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, or tamoxifen. Foreword by Christiane Northrup, M.D. 380 pages, index, illustrations. Retails for $21.95
Order at: www.wisewomanbookshop.com
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Down There: Sexual and Reproductive Health the Wise Woman Way
Publication date: June 21, 2011
Author: Susun S. Weed
Simple, successful, strategies cover the entire range of options -- from mainstream to radical -- to help you choose the best, and the safest, ways to optimize sexual and reproductive health.
Foreword: Aviva Romm, MD, midwife, 484 pages, Index, illustrations. Retails for $29.95
Order at: www.wisewomanbookshop.com
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Abundantly Well - Seven Medicines
The Complementary Integrated Medical
Revolution
Publication date: December 2019
Author: Susun S. Weed
Seven Medicines build foundational health and guide you to the best health care when problems arise.
Includes case studies, recipes, exentsive references and resources. Introduction by Patch Adams illustrated by Durga Yael Bernhard 352 pages, index, illustrations Retails for $24.95
Order at: www.wisewomanbookshop.com
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Susun Weed's Video's Include: |
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Dreaming In Color Luman Deck
The
Dreaming in Color™ Luman Deck is a bridge
that is specifically intended to help the user develop
their intuitive and psychic abilities through the
use of meditative, intuitive and psychological expansion
and color-soaked dreamscape imagery.
60 vibrant 3" x 5" cards on a rich, lustrous
satin matte stock, beautifully boxed (the box is
a lush purple, of course). User guide included.
Price: $19.50
see the Dreaming
in Color™ Luman Deck in our Bookshop