the Face of God
Creating and Accepting Sanctuary
Nourishment for the Soul's Journey
I've been a serious fan of Sue Patton Thoele's warm and sage advice since I first encountered her book The Courage to Be Yourself over a decade ago. And I've used her wise admonition to “live gently with yourself and others” ever since I first heard her say it. I am proud to name her as one of my teachers of the spirit, and honored to be asked to invite you into this book.
One of the things I love most about Sue is that she is so real. She knows what it's like to have the best intentions in the world and blow it—and not just once. In her books, she exposes her own warts, and pokes kindly fun at herself and at life, thereby helping us lighten up too. It's part of learning to be gentle, I suspect she'd say.
She's also aware of what it's like to have a busy life, a life full of work obligations, household duties, and childrearing responsibilities. She knows we women tend to put ourselves last on our list. She also knows how vital it is that we give ourselves our own attention, if only for a few precious minutes a day.
That's what's so wonderful about The Woman's Book of Spirit. Written in a series of short meditations, it allows us to connect more deeply to ourselves and to the divine in a way that fits into our whirlwind lifestyles. I love to hold a question, open the book at random and read the message I happen upon. I always find some kind of sustenance and support.
For years, I have been pondering Albert Einstein's question: is the universe friendly? As the world gets more scary (or at least appears to, what with hurricanes and tsunamis and terrorist threats and who knows what other challenges), I sometimes struggle with feeling isolated in a hostile world. The Women's Book of Spirit helps me remember that I am not alone. That I am—and so are you—being held aloft by loving hands.
Sue calls that force the Sacred Feminine Voice. I think of it as the power of love. I know that each of us, no matter our circumstances, is being called upon to manifest that love wherever and whenever we can. And, as Sue points out so powerfully, we can't do that unless we love and nurture ourselves so that we will have the necessary inner resources to serve others. The Woman's Book of Spirit is one of the best ways I know to replenish ourselves for this mighty work.
—M.J. Ryan, author of The Happiness Makeover, Trusting Yourself, Attitudes of Gratitude, and many others
Gathering at the Well
I am so excited to be writing The Woman's Book of Spirit. It's a blessing to be given the opportunity to talk about what a majority of us know in the dark and fertile depths of our hearts, but sometimes lose sight of during the glare and whirl of everyday life. And that is: Women are spiritually endowed. This is not to say that men aren't also spiritually gifted, but we women seem to intuitively know how to live from our hearts where the essence of our Spirit resides. From our hearts spring what I refer to as the Sacred Feminine Voice.
To be sure, over the last several hundred years, attempts have been made by society, both consciously and unconsciously, to freeze-dry the feminine voice and spirit, stuff it in a corked jar, and store it on a musty shelf somewhere in a remote and shadowy closet. The attempts certainly were successful on me. For many years as my own sense of spirit seemed to lie dormant, I felt no sense of connection to either a divine being or to the divinity within myself. Although I did what I was raised to do—go to church, have a nice family, be a nice person—underneath it all ran a vague river of discontent and a profound thirst for a sense of an intimate and joyful relationship with God and my own spirit.
The universe has a magical way of responding to our deep longings and it answered mine with a swift kick in the teeth. My husband fell in love with my best friend and left me. I was reduced to a blithering, emotional puddle and could do very little else but stagger into the arms of God and crawl, bleeding, onto a spiritual path. Turns out it was the biggest favor anyone has ever done for me.
Out of that trauma, I eventually became aware that spirituality is simple. Fundamentally, we are spiritual beings with soul as our essence, our most basic quality. We've forgotten. I continue to forget on a daily basis. Consequently, it seems to me that a huge spiritual lesson for most of us is to reremember, to re-evolve into simplicity of spirit, and invite the natural, inherent essence of our Selves back to the fore of our lives, to “become like little children.”
I believe women are being called to birth this all important spirit-memory. In order for our relationships, our lives, and perhaps our very planet to thrive, we must free our spiritual essence from its relegated closet. Only then can love flow continually into our hearts from the Divine and overflow onto others. Women are inherently vessels of love, and through our love and spiritual connection, we can rescue the parched and perishing within and among us.
Countless women are doing this right now. Through tears, rituals, honoring, acknowledging, and learning from each other, we are healing our wounds and opening our hearts. We are remembering and connecting with our own inherent spiritual core and with the core of others. Rising from the ashes of injustice, domination, and fear, we women are reclaiming our heritage as essentially spiritual beings who are learning and growing through human experience. Since you are reading these words, I have no doubt that you're already dipping your chalice into the well of soul, or, if not, that you are intensely aware of your yearning and desire to do so.
Before The Woman's Book of Spirit was even a seed of an idea, the Sacred Feminine Voice whispered in my ear regarding the writing of it. Having just finished Heart Centered Marriage, I was in a typical let-down mood, a creative lull that often follows a period of intense work. Not being overly crazy about the feeling, I decided to ask during meditation what my purpose and goals were now that my current project was completed. I am not a wildly psychic person who regularly receives a lot of “phenomena” but, during this meditation, unexplained yet very clear, a message was delivered: Pour water upon my women.
Because I was already deeply committed to reclaiming the Sacred Feminine Voice in myself, relationships, and the world in general, I felt the message pertained to revitalizing and reintroducing feminine values. But there seemed to be more that I wasn't understanding. I
