The gift of retreating

September 11, 2016 ~ Nicole Gnutzman

“There is nothing more natural than for Life to align with Light in a sacred dance of co-existence and co-creation.” – Birgitte Rasine, The Serpent and the Jaguar: Living in Sacred Time

The Lake (Lake Atitlan) called me back and I returned, not alone this time as on my first solo retreat, but with 10 beautiful and brave souls, who were open to whatever awaited them there. And what awaited was more than any of us imagined.

As we opened to our retreat, we left the bustling world behind and immersed ourselves in a new energy, an interplay of quiet solitude and tribal community, relaxation and movement, restoration and revitalization, and receiving and giving.

We closed ourselves off to the world as we knew it and entered a cocoon, a sanctuary, to emerge from our chrysalis more vibrant and alive, and with bright wings that allowed us to rise above ourselves and the world and see with new eyes.

We lived into the spiral of life, the intertwining energies of the four elements: creation and destruction (fire), nourishment and growth (earth), deepening and flow (water), inspiration and clarity (air). And we yearned to take that emergence and transformation home with us, back into the world.

Re-entry into that world is always challenging after retreat as it seems less real or even unreal, an alternate reality of frenzied, ungrounded energy, disconnected from our own deeply felt experience while on retreat.

Retreating brings us back to our true selves, and we want to bring that radiant energy and truth back with us. It can feel like a burden as the world does not always welcome truth and radiance, but it’s a gift we must give to the world, knowing that everything we give will return to us perhaps not in that moment, but in time.

Our inclination may be to protect what we experienced, shielding it from the unremitting, relentless darkness of the world. If that helps us to keep the light within us alive, then let us hide it for awhile, but know, to hide it for too long, weakens it; it needs to be given to others, so they may shine too, and in their shining, their energy comes back to us. It is the energy of life, the spiral on its return journey, the law of attraction, flow.

If we have one mission in this life it is to rediscover who we truly are, so we can offer our light and our gifts to the world as we walk on our soul’s path. Retreating from the world for just a little while to deepen that connection to ourselves and to life itself allows us the spaciousness we need to restore that light. And then we, and others we touch with our light, can shine.

Many of us will return again to Atitlan. Our retreat may become an annual celebration of the transformative power of the Lake and our own transformation….

Copyright ©2016 Soulscape Coaching LLC

Radiant darkness

July 3, 2016 ~ Nicole Gnutzman

One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious. –Carl Jung

I have a confession to make. Probably 50% of the time when I mean to type, “sacred,” I type, “scared” instead. My next confession is that I am not a touch typist, I am a hunt and peck typer, so that may explain why, but I think there’s more to it than that….

There’s something about the deep unknown that scares us (or at least some of us). We’ve been told and taught that the unknown is dark and shadowy; it’s murky and mercurial; it’s a place we should not go. Hence, scary.

And we tend to run from what scares us: from our darkest shadow, from our deepest emotions, from the parts of ourselves we cannot accept. We suppress our anger until it festers and we vent it on the wrong things (and people); we stifle our sadness until our unshed tears dry up leaving us empty of joy; and we deny our fears by trying to control everything and everyone in our lives. When we ignore these darker emotions, we are in danger of falling into a black abyss of depression where no light penetrates or emanates.

Without acknowledging these darker aspects of ourselves–our anger, our sadness and our fears–we aren’t quite complete. These aspects of ourselves don’t, and won’t, go away on their own. They stage a sit in and wait in the dark.

All this talk of shadows and darkness, reminds me of Ursula K. Le Guin’s book (the one many of us read as teens), The Farthest Shore, and Ged, the young wizard, who runs from the shadow he unleashes upon the world. It is not until Ged names his shadow that he is able to face it, to conquer his fear, and merge with it. It is his understanding and ultimately his naming of it that allows him to be whole.

Shadow work is the path of the heart warrior. – Carl Jung

One of my own shadows came to me in a dream, capturing my attention. I was both disturbed and intrigued by it. When he then came to me in meditation, this time in a more demanding way, I was alarmed. When I next meditated I could feel him lurking, so I asked him, “what do you want?” He expressed that he wanted my love.

I knew in that moment that he was an aspect of myself that I had rejected and denied–the free-spirited puer (young male) part of me. When I was able to acknowledge him and his positive energy, he was satisfied and became an energetic quality that I can call upon when young male energy is most needed. He became my ally.

When we choose to look closely at ourselves, most often when we are in a place of despair, we begin to see into our darkness with an honesty and a clarity that shines its light upon it.

If we sit in that darkness, without fighting it, our vision adjusts. And if we sit there long enough to name the shadow that we deny or suppress or ignore, the inner light of our being begins to glow with understanding and compassion, and eventually suffuses the darkness.

Our darkness begets the light. We shine with its radiance. And, as heart warriors, we unmask what scares and reveal the sacred within.

The sacred is even deeper within us

June 27, 2016 ~ Nicole Gnutzman

A [wo]man must go on a quest
to discover the sacred fire
in the sanctuary of [her] own belly
to ignite the flame in [her] heart
to fuel the blaze in the hearth
to rekindle [her] ardor for the earth

– Sam Keen

P1000364 I took the liberty of updating Sam Keen’s gorgeous prose about the sacred to include the feminine experience. When he wrote that piece many years ago, he believed that men were in desperate need of connection to the sacred. I would say the same is true of women, especially today, so we can regain and reclaim a deeper connection to ourselves.

The sacred strips us bare of all pretension, beliefs, and assumptions if we let it. It humbles us. Its fire burns away the things we need to let go of. And it is from that fiery, empty place that we can rediscover our inner sanctuary, the sacredness of our soul, and life-affirming connection to ourselves and to the natural world.

My first experience with being stripped bare and made empty by the sacred was in personal cacao ceremony. I cried like a baby while it opened up depths within me that I didn’t know existed.

We all know that chocolate is sacred on our tongues and in our tummies, but in its more raw form (cacao) it has a long tradition of being revered, celebrated, and used in ceremony by indigenous cultures in South and Central America, the place from which it first came.

cacao elixir

Cacao allowed me to find that place inside of myself where the sacred resides, revealing hidden parts of me and my connection to life, and set me on my soul’s path. I’m quite sure I wouldn’t have been so intent on finding my soul’s path if I hadn’t opened myself fully to it.

Cacao ceremony became a practice for me, not a daily one (it can, as you might imagine, be quite stimulating), but certainly every few weeks. It brings me back in touch with the sacred like nothing else I’ve ever experienced. I am so enamored of its power to reconnect us to our deeper selves that I offer it in one-on-one sessions as well as at retreats or when I’m invited to share it at group gatherings.

Many of the beautiful women with whom I have had the honor to share cacao have said that they experienced profound, heart-opening realizations. My own experience has been one of deep insight and wisdom, unconditional love and compassion, and healing. Although, it hasn’t always been all love and light; cacao opens us up to our darkness too, but in a healing way, so we can become whole again.

When I began this work with cacao, my dreams became much more vivid and profound as if I was tapping into the sacred in all aspects of my life, both waking and sleeping. The richness of dream language is astonishing in its ability to cut to the quick of things. It’s as if the picture it paints is made up of tiny puzzle pieces that we have to rearrange into a new, more meaningful picture we can understand and truly see. If we allow it, our dreams change our perspective; they open us more fully to our inner wisdom.

The sacred wisdom of ceremony and dreams reveal that the sacred is even deeper within us. And we have yet to plumb its full depths. As Robert Johnson, the eminent psychotherapist, wrote in his book, Inner Work: Using Dream and Active Imagination for Personal Growth, “every expression of the unconscious–whether dream, imagination, vision, or ritual–proceeds from the same reservoir deep within. And everything, therefore, works together.”

Learning to work with our deeper selves–our unconscious–through ceremony or dream work, gives us, according to Johnson, “a deep source of renewal, growth, strength, and wisdom. We connect with the source of our evolving character; we cooperate with the process whereby we bring the total self together; we learn to tap that rich lode of energy and intelligence that waits within.”

We touch the sacred fire even deeper within us.

The sacred is within us

June 20, 2016 ~ Nicole Gnutzman

Your sacred space is where you can find yourself over and over again. – Joseph Campbell

There is a place within us that is sacred. A place that is whole and holds us, open and spacious, loved and loving. But, being creatures ensnared in an increasingly unnatural and external world, we forget that it’s right there in all of us.

It never actually goes away; it just gets a little bit lost, or rather we misplace it like our keys, leaving it haphazardly in an incongruous place. And we very much need it (and our keys)! If we just could put it in a bowl by the front door, maybe we could find it more easily and hold on to it. Maybe that’s what we need: a vessel to hold our sacredness and a practice to remember it’s there.

So, how do we return to that sacred place within us? How do we reconnect to our deepest selves? How do we create a vessel deep enough to hold what’s most sacred within us?

We all know when we’ve touched the sacred in ourselves. Too often it’s while we’re on vacation–probably about day five–when everything that we’re holding or juggling or denying simply falls away. Suddenly, we look around and the world looks brighter and yet softer. We are filled with a sense of wonder at its beauty. We feel more open, spacious and loved. THAT is the sacred.

We all want more of that feeling, but, as we know all too well, it’s fleeting. The glow that comes from that sacred place that we’ve reactivated begins to fade as we gear up for re-entry into the crazy outside world. The glow more than fades, it dies.

There are certain places within nature that call up the sacred within us. A rushing waterfall in the midst of a forest, an isolated beach with waves crashing on the shore, a preternaturally calm and glassy lake at dawn. What each of these sacred places evoke is a silence within us, one where we can touch and listen to a deeper part of ourselves.

Our physical bodies too can reach this sacred place through sports, dance, singing, yoga, running and meditation. The expansiveness we feel is both an inner and an outer one. Our vessel gets really huge before it contracts and shrinks and collapses in on itself. Ultimately what we are all seeking is a held expansion.

When do you feel fully connected to yourself? What is your way of touching the sacred within?

Find it, feel it and fold it in to yourself. Say to yourself over and over again, “I want to hold on to this feeling,” until it becomes a mantra.

Creating a vessel or container to hold it (a “bowl by the front door”) is a way of reminding ourselves that it’s there and needs to be filled. I literally have a bowl by my front door where I place stones and shells I gather when I go to my sacred place at the beach. I touch them when I’m starting to feel disconnected from myself. Your touchstones could be anything. A picture on your fridge. A talisman in your pocket. A mantra you repeat to yourself.

Sometimes, if I’m truly honest with myself, even my touchstones are not enough to fully bring the sacred into life. It becomes a glimmer rather than a prolonged glow, and I’m reminded to make more time for those things and places that bring me back to myself. To know that I need this in my life in order to feel whole is humbling.

On my soul’s journey, I have discovered other deeper ways of touching the sacred– creating an altar to honor, and remind me of, the sacred that inspires me with its beauty; accessing sacred wisdom through ceremony; and understanding the messages of my dreams. It’s there that I find what’s at the root of my disconnectedness, the cause of my sadness, and most importantly, the way home to the sacred and to myself.

In my next blog post, I’ll go deeper into these awesome catalysts that allow us to access, expand and extend the sacred within us. Let’s keep that sacred glow alive.

The energy of place

June 12, 2016 ~ Nicole Gnutzman ~ 9 Comments

Our heart knows what our mind has forgotten–it knows the sacred is within all that exists, and through a depth of feeling we can once again experience this connection, this belonging. – Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

The belly button of all Creation. I’m not sure I could make up an image more evocative of the energy of place than that. That is what the indigenous people of Guatemala call Lake Atitlan. It is a deeply sacred place to them (and now to me).

I tend to feel the energy of places quite deeply and distinctly. When my husband and I vacationed on one of the Hawaiian islands, which I will not name, we found ourselves grousing and fighting on our first day, which was so unusual (we never fight) that we both looked at each other and said, “What’s going on here?” We felt into the energy and realized it was angry, almost rageful.

Once we named the energy and decided not to let it in, we were fine, but we agreed that it was not a place to which we wanted to return. Friends, who have visited that island and with whom we have shared our experience, also found themselves inexplicably argumentative on vacation while there. Some even went home early.

The energy of Lake Atitlan is like nothing I have ever experienced. As I boarded the boat in Panajachel that would take me to my solo retreat, I felt in awe of the lake’s vast expanse cradled amongst towering volcanos and highland hills. The energy was powerful but distinctly feminine. I felt sheltered and cared for, even held, by its energetic presence.

The wind off the lake was warm and invigorating, and it was deeply transformative, cleansing me of all monkey mind thoughts. It was as if the lake’s energy urged me to be present and the magic of the wind carried away all my worries and cares.

The wellness center for my retreat was nestled into the hills across the lake from the largest volcano; it felt as if it were watching over me, protecting me with a fierce nurturing love.

There are certain places in the world that are kind of energy vortexes, which are phenomenal. – Ian Somerhalder

As I spent my days relaxing into yoga classes, a massage, cacao ceremonies, a Mayan fire ceremony, writing in my journal, meditating and consciously admiring the beauty, I sensed a strange restlessness deep within me. How could I possibly be restless amongst all this peacefulness? It was then I realized how poorly I was sleeping and just how intense my dreams were. Something was not at rest very deep inside me.

When restless, I often meditate, so that’s what I did. And that’s when the realization came to me. I hadn’t fully embraced the energy of the lake; I was out of sync with her energy. She had been calling out to me all this time, and while I had acknowledged her energy, I hadn’t brought it into me. The only solution to my dilemma was to immerse myself in the lake. Literally.

I found a spot to wade in to the lake rather than jumping in off the dock, which seemed a bit too shocking to my system, immersed myself and drew the energy of the lake toward me. It felt like a warm bath. It was so soothing. I felt whole again. That night and each night after that, I slept like a baby and touched the sacred in my dreams.

I came home from my retreat open, spacious, fully present and reinvigorated. The light in my eyes stayed for weeks and weeks, and came from a deep place within me. This was no mere vacation glow. Touchstone moments and talismans from my retreat became reminders of that sacred, renewing energy. I could call upon it and return to that fierce and nurturing feeling anytime I wanted.

I vowed then to return to Guatemala, to the belly button of Creation, and the very first thing I will do is immerse myself in the lake, a ritual to honor the life-giving energy of a most sacred place.