Newsletter ~ May 2007


Beloveds, the quickening is upon us!
And the energy around the birth/rebirth of the Goddess temple continues to intensify…

For those of you who are following this journey from afar, know that the new conceptions which we opened to at the autumn equinox have taken root and are now beginning to make their presence felt.  Look out for synchronicities, serendipitous meetings, and uncanny coincidences of all kinds, as the rebirth of the Goddess which is taking place within our beings helps us to make the necessary connections.


The Hearth Fire
sacred to the Goddess as Hestia / Vesta

In the outer world the darkness deepens, creating fertile conditions for the incubation of dreams. Now is the time to commune with the seeds a-sprouting in your inner space. Where previously you may have had to take this inward pregnancy on faith – ‘am I really pregnant, or just tired and a bit off colour?’ - now the potential that has taken hold within you begins to edge towards a new solidity.  Talk to your dream-child, feed her on your aspirations – your brightest, most expansively beautiful imaginings.  Open your inner senses to feel her flutter and kick in response.

Those winged messengers of desire that we once entertained have seeded our beings with a new reality.  Now it is working its ferment within us: intensifying our sensitivity to our inner and outer environments and relationships, challenging and expanding our creative capacities, prompting the purging of old rigid structures, patterns and any too-fixed ideas of who we are and what is possible here.

In the dark depths of us a baby Goddess stirs, seeking new forms of embodiment in and through our beings.  Whatever cannot stretch to accommodate this unfolding must be sloughed off, discarded, fed to the inner fires.  We are put on notice that a birthing is on its way.  In this pregnant interval we would do well to clean out the cupboards of our emotional and spiritual lives, and, if necessary, seek help to address any old unfinished business which might otherwise impede the smooth flow of birthing energy when the ripe moment arrives.

Pregnantly yours
with love and blessings

Ishara.

Volume 3, No.3

Can you help by putting up posters
or distributing flyers?
Please call Ishara!
9314 5973


Vesta

Making Connections...

through the web
From time to time an email arrives in my inbox from a woman - somewhere out there in this wide world of ours - who has gone seeking the Goddess on the www and found her way to one of my websites. Most recently, I've been blessed to be in an inspiring dialogue with a soul-sister in Belgium whose opening message to me began  "Funny that is: today, April 10 it is 13 years ago that I set off starting my trip around the world-which lasted 16 months and brought me to South East Asia and Australia. We landed in Perth....and I could have stayed there forever. Iabsolutely loved that place and I still recall strolling around in Fremantle.."    [..click to read on]

spot the priestess
One symptom of the present quickening - priestesses seem to be popping up in my life at shorter and shorter intervals...  [ ..click to read on]

in print
At present I am enjoying dipping into an inspiring book entitled "Meditation Secrets for Women: discovering your passion, pleasure, and inner peace" by Camille Maurine and Lorin Roche. If you, like me, have struggled with meditation and failed to measure up to ideas of how it ought to be done, you may find this book useful..   
[..click to read on]


Women's Mysteries
Next Ishtar Ceremony

The Birthing

Friday 22nd June
6:30pm start

Sheik to Sheik bellydance studio
Shop 1 /115 Lefroy Rd
Beaconsfield WA

Entry is by donation (your generosity is appreciated).

Bring a floor cushion, a meditation blanket or wrap, and a small plate of supper food to share...

RSVP to Ishara on 9314 5973 or ishara@ishtarsdaughters.com

Please pass this invitation on to your friends!

 

If you are even in the Fremantle area on a Monday evening, why not join me for the

CHALICE CEREMONY

Together we invoke the sacred vessel of the Great Mother Goddess
for the healing of our fragmented world - within and without.

Mondays 6pm til 7pm at the Sun, Moon & Star Spiritual Centre in Minilya Ave, White Gum Valley.
(Please ring or text ahead to 0415 593 408 to let me know you're coming)

A book on meditation
explicitly for women

At present I am enjoying dipping into an inspiring book entitled Meditation Secrets for Women: discovering your passion, pleasure, and inner peace by authors Camille Maurine and Lorin Roche. This book came to me highly recommended by a friend, who had been loaned it by another friend.. It is premised on the notion that "There is one sobering but liberating truth that you need to understand right off the bat. The ancient meditation techniques were not designed for women's bodies and psyches".

The book is divided into twelve chapters, each of which expands on one 'meditation secret'. Secret number 8 is "Say yes to every part of yourself". I'd like to share with you an extract:

"When you take time for yourself to meditate, any or all of these parts of yourself may come to you in turn for attention. In meditation it is as though you have come home and the kids, the dogs, the cats, the neighbors, the husband or lover, all want to come tell you about their day. Their vying for attention is often your experience when you first close your eyes to meditate. Do not tell them to go away, just bring your attention where it is called. Having to attend to your many inner voices when you long for rest and silence may be the hardest part of meditation. But don't despair - you are on your way into relaxation.

"Your inner characters show up as moods, emotions, inner dialogue, body sensations or visual images. Let them speak. The communication may not be in words; some parts may 'speak' through qualities of movement or by suffusing you with wonderful energies, feeligns or colours. Your task is to listen, appreciate and learn. When finally they've settled down a little bit, return to the unifying focus, which may be your breath, a sound or a movement. By allowing your attention to flow back and forth between the focus and the inner voices, you are weaving together these disparate elements.

"In the ancient language of Sanskrit, this is yoga, which means 'linking together'. Human beings are so complicated that we need to make an effort to link our many parts together. It is part of our regular maintenance, and we suffer if we neglect this work. This linking is also tantra which means 'loom'. You weave all elements of life - mind, body, emotions, breath, soul, individuality, and infinity - into one glorious tapestry."

 
Priestess Connections

At the end of our March ceremony, as I turned the lights back up and unlocked the door a woman appeared, desperate to get in and connect with us. She has since been to two of my chalice ceremonies. In conversation it swiftly became clear to us both that she too was being called to the path of the priestess. Through formidable layers of disruptive resistent energies that manifest as she begins to step towards it, but unmistakably called.

         phoenician sun priestess
Last Friday, ahead of the Ishtar ceremony in the evening, I had the joy of spending some time with the lovely Linda Graham. A year ago, Linda was the first to accept my invitation to deepen her relationship with the Goddess through an initiation into the Ishtar mysteries.
One year on, visiting Perth again for three weeks, she shared with me her growing awareness of her priestess self, and chose to take the further step of opening to the full red power of the Goddess through a second initiation. I feel very blessed be able to share her journey in this way, and to witness the slow opening of this very beautiful deep red rose to the golden light of the Great Goddess...

On Friday, following the ceremony, another unforeseen moment of mutual recognition blooms -with another woman in whom the fire of the Goddess burns brightly - in the middle of a conversation about spiritual vocation, sexuality, tantra and the Great Goddess.

Saturday midday, over a cup of tea, I find myself once more reflecting on the path I'm called to walk, this time with a friend of many years who underlines the importance of the weekly chalice ceremonies in holding a light for healing and transformation..

I've been attending an informal tutoring group with astrologer Daniel Sowelu (who writes that monthly column in Nova magazine) once a month on a Saturday afternoon. In our first session one of the women came up to me and reminded me that she had been in one of my Ishtar ceremonies some time back. Yesterday she and I each chose to explore one aspect of our own natal charts - and voila- her own priestess vocation emerges to match my own, surfacing slowly but irrevocably through the past few years to a point where it now demands a fuller expression in her life. 'What could that look like?' we asked.. We parted ways, promising to talk further.

Today, another email, this time from a woman living on a farm near Narrogin, feeling lost, lonely and like she's missing some kind of fundamental connection to source. She keeps on finding herself falling over my websites, and wonders if perhaps it could be the Goddess that is calling to her??

Two years ago, after this same mystery point, I wrote: "One day soon, my Beloved moves in. And then what ever I do, where ever I am - there SHE IS! "
Today that priestess-reality is fast closing in..

 

Dear Ishara,

I am writing you while the moon is full, vibrant, filled with expectation, eager to let us share in Her knowledge. I am called to watch her, to bathe in her radianace, to let her divine light awaken my divine wisdom. From where I am, she is still hiding behind the trees, but soon, soon she'll be high up in the sky and I will indeed go outside and fall into her embrace.
I once talked to the moon. I can't remember what we talked about, but it made complete sense. It is all possible...talking to the moon, the trees, the animals, the plants, even the fridge and the coffee machine...we just have to open ourselves, receive and allow....
the female energy of allowing and receiving.

How much have we fogotten the past 2000 years! How much have we denied ourself, being cut off from the Source. Ah, it is such a delight, such a relief, to Know the time is right to claim it all back. All of us, all of us women, we should get up, wake up and claim our power back. Claim back our birthright, of Love, Joy, Being, Bliss, Exctasy.

Ah, dear Ishara, I read your words, what you are currently going through and I feel your pain sister. Allow yourself your pain. Embrace the pain, the rage. Sit with it, love it. Feel your body, feel all those hidden and long lost places inside your body where the pain, the anger, the fear is stored. It wants to come out, dear one, it wants to come out of hiding. The pain wants to surface, it wants to stand in the light, it wants to be released from its prison, it wants to be set free. All those hurt places that we kept hidden for eons of time, they want to return to you. They want to be a part of you. They want to meld into your Divinity. Those hurt places, they all have a voice. They only hurt because we ignored them for so long. Allow them their voice. Let them speak to you, let them come to you, home in your arms, in your heart. Allow the stuck energy to come out of hiding, allow the enrgy to flow, flow, flow.

I know our humans self has all these pains, all these questions, all these WHY's....allow your human self to gently rest in teh arms of your soulself. Your soulself can shed a light, your soulself doesnt judge, your soulself loves you just the way you are....with all your anger, doubts, pain, misery...Gently rest in the compassionate energy of your soulself and let it's light shine through all of your cells..,

You wrote: - involving trusting the ancient knowing that is in our bones, in our souls, and feeling our way toward finding new expression for it. Our job is to find somewhere firm to stand, and open the doors for the Goddess to fully embody into present day reality - then others can step in with their own pieces of puzzle and help the whole to grow and expand into its full richness.

YES, YES, YES, it is connecting the old with the new. Trusting ourself enough to Know the ancient wisdom is there, and find a way of expressing it in today's world. Follow our own passion, in the now world. Paving a path for others to find their passion, their own unique way of expressing! Paving our own path first.

I have often been desperate...paving a new path, with no examples, no friends who understand....no where to turn but inside. Taking baby steps, afraid of teh vast darkness before me.
But I know now, I chose this. I came to earth knowing the time was right. I came to earth knowing I was ready, and the world was ready. I came to earth knowing I could do this, I have the strength, the knowledge. Of course I have been hiding this knowledge all of my life. Being so insecure at times I was even too afraid to go out and go to teh bakery to buy a bread. ... My own challenge of going throught this insecurity . Digging for years to find the cause of it...; looking at what went wrong in childhood. Nothing to find. So at last I understood I must have been born with it. A cumulation of past life experiences. Challenging myself to go through the dark, the immense fear of expressing myself, to find my Voice again

I am grateful now. I look with compassion at All of what I am and have been. Dawn, quite a journey!
I honour myself , embracing Me. My heart opens for Me, and this in turn opens the door for the whole wide universe to flow in, flow through, and grant me my wishes...if I allow myself to...
And this divine flow brought me to you, dear sister, and we are connected, as we were connected before. And it would be easier if I lived around the corner in Perth, but this is good too, this is definately good too! because our energies are connected and waking up codes in our DNA, waking up more wisdom that is stored in our cells. I greatly thank you for connecting, dear Ishara.

I will go and bathe in the Moonlight now. It is almost midnight here.
Something calls to me I need to take a bowl of water with me...
Ancient wisdom speaking to me....ancient rituals wanting to be remembered. ( I am normally not good with rituals... they freak me out, make me feel lost....so many details to remember to do it 'right'. I feel resentment. I feel imprisoned.It is a past life thing, I am sure... I am allowing it to release)

I feel honoured to be part of your circle Friday. I 'll be there. I'll dance my way through the stars to connect with you. Please feel free to share my words . It is an honour.

In love, light and laughter,

Gitta

 
Questions or comments? Email me at ishara@ishtarsdaughters.com or phone 08 9494 1665
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