A roadmap for Becoming: a love letter to women traversing soul-beckoning transformation

Feb 4, 2020

 

Sweet love,

 

please know

 

becoming unfolds in its own way.

 

It takes its own time.

 

Also:

You can be trusted with your own becoming.

Your body can be trusted.

Stay present, and be a witness to yourself.

It takes time, and you can’t hurry the process.  Not a thing can be done to hurry the process.

You need good people around you.

There will be a period of not-knowing, and it will be longer than you are comfortable with.

But you can be trusted.  Your body can be trusted.  Your heart knows, your intuition knows.

Perhaps the best practice is to learn to listen.  And heed your own innate wisdom.

Gather your allies.

Be gentle with yourself.

Be quiet.

 

Know that, actually, you carry every bit of wisdom of

every animal, mineral, bird, tree and rock, and so you

already know how to shed your skin, drop your leaves

and renew.

 

Release will be necessary.

Surrender is not a demon.

Death is a part of this, not an aberration.

It’s okay to rest.  In fact, in becoming, rest is a skill.  Learn it well.

Also, make something with your hands.  Weave a new story, knit a healing shawl, knead dough and maybe feed a few others too.

Your body will know when it’s time to emerge. Emergence should be done one step at a time, slowly, gently.

 

You should carry a basket for collecting wisdom,

because you will pick up pebbles and petals of it all

along the way.

 

Even if the path you are walking is dark.  Trust yourself.  As you place your feet, one in front of the other, feel the earth beneath you.  Does it feel okay?  Okay, proceed.

Trust yourself.

Also, move your body.

Remember, you are an animal.  So: move.  

Use your voice.  Practice speaking, loud and soft, for what you want.

Consider what you want.  

It might look different than what you expected.

You can trust that the woman who emerges through the fire of this crucible will be newly minted, stronger than ever, full of courage and conviction.

Sweet love,

Remember:

OPEN.

And this:

There is no way out but through.

 

And when you think you can’t take any more

 

rejoice

 

because you’re almost there.

 

This is an excerpt from my morning pages journal; a channeled writing that happened when I asked myself, after twelve years of supporting women to become mothers, after five years of coaching women through modern-day rites of passage, and after a good many deep, soul-shifting transformations myself, “what do you know about Becoming?”  Some of these are words I’ve whispered to myself; some are incantations I’ve repeated a thousand times in the ears of birthing mamas; all of these words are a gift for you, especially if you are traversing your own time of becoming right now.

 

The Becoming Podcast has been on a short hiatus while I focus on writing my book, but oh what a comeback episode I have for you!

This month, I spoke to Toko-pa Turner, who many of you may know as the unofficial patron saint of many of my circles and gatherings because of the sheer number of times I’ve quoted from the wisdom of her book, Belonging.

Toko-pa is a Canadian author, teacher, and dreamworker. Blending the mystical teachings of Sufism in which she was raised with a Jungian approach to dreams, she founded The Dream School in 2001, from which thousands of students have graduated. She is the author of the award-winning book, Belonging: Remembering Ourselves Home, which explores the themes of exile and belonging through the lens of dreams, mythology, and nature. This book has resonated for readers worldwide, and has been translated into 10 different languages so far. Her work focuses on the relationship between psyche and nature, and how to follow our inner wisdom to meet with the social, psychological, and ecological challenges of our time.

Here’s some of what Toko-pa and I talk about in this episode:

> The dream that changed Toko-pa’s life, causing her to question her career and, ultimately, her identity

> How we can court our dreams to support us during times of radical transformation – and the reasons so many of us have a hard time remembering and working with what shows up in our dreamscape

> Toko-pa’s perspective on the message of Belonging after the divisiveness our society has experienced in the years since it was published

> What happened for both Toko-pa and I when we fell out of belonging from the ideologies of the “wellness world”

> How to build community when you’re under-resourced

> “The Big Lie” when it comes to belonging, and how we can reclaim a sense of belonging to the greater family of things, as Mary Oliver so famously wrote

Listen to the episode on iTunes

 

Show Notes

Toko-pa’s Website

Belonging:  Remembering Ourselves Home, Toko-pa’s book

The David Abram video about animism mentioned in the interview

Toko-pa’s self-guided program, Dream Drops

Companion, the program that accompanies Belonging

 

Also, while you’re at it, if you enjoy The Becoming Podcast, I would be so grateful if you would rate and review, and even subscribe to it on iTunes.  That goes a long way to helping more and more people find and benefit from hearing these interviews!  Thank you so much!