Latest / Healing Her Story with Riva Jean-Paul / Why Patriarchal Spirituality Teaches Us to Leave the Body (And Why That’s Hurting Us) with Cynthia Abulafia

Transcript

Why Patriarchal Spirituality Teaches Us to Leave the Body (And Why That’s Hurting Us) with Cynthia Abulafia · Healing Her Story with Riva Jean-Paul

• 1:39
  SPEAKER_03: Hello everyone.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_03: Welcome to today's episode of the Healing Her Story podcast.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_03: I am very excited for a guest interview today.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_03: And today we have a very special guest as we often do on the show.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm really excited because at the time that this is being recorded, it's before we started season two.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_03: But this is actually going to be the first guest episode of season two.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_03: And season two guest episodes are starting in airie season.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_03: And airie season, as I was kind of feeling into the season, it's a very uh fiery, kind of warrior-like energy.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_03: And I thought this guest day would be a perfect fit because she's really connected to a topic that really keeps me fired up and really helps me kind of like, or rather not it helps me to, but it really activates that warrior within.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_03: And so for this season of Aries season, I really want to have these very fiery, uh, these very passionate, uh, these very deep, meaningful conversations about things that I think as women we we really need to be more informed about and more educated about.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_03: So I was so excited when I had Cynthia present it to me and uh just kind of getting a sense of the things that she really built her work around, I thought, wow, what a wonderful conversation.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm very excited today to bring Cynthia to the show.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_03: Cynthia is an author, educator, and yoga therapist whose work lives at the intersection of spirituality and real life.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_03: Her new book, Embodying the Goddess, offers a deeply nuanced and much-needed map for spiritual seekers, one that centers embodiment, nervous system awareness, and trauma integration alongside awakening.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, please.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_03: With over 20 years of experience as an educator and yoga therapist, and deep roots to uh, I'm not sure I should have asked before we started.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_03: Shak Shakta, is that correct?
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, Shakta.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, Shakta.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_03: Beautiful.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_03: Tantra lineage.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_03: Cynthia brings both rigor and reverence to her teachings.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_03: Her work challenges what she calls the transcendence bias and patriarchal spirituality.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_03: So excited to dive in.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_03: The idea that awakening means leaving the body and instead invites us to return back toward the body, toward life and toward the divine feminine as a living relational capacity within all of us.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_03: I'm really excited for today's conversation and curious to see where it takes us.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_03: Welcome to the show, Cynthia.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_01: I'm so happy to be here.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, I do love all those things.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: Specifically the goddess, the divine feminine, and embodiment, which I see as the same, you know, the same, same pulsation.
• 4:32
  unknown: Absolutely.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, I would agree with that.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_03: And that is definitely uh the undertone, the pulse of the work that we're doing here on the show.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_03: So you're you're in the right place for this conversation.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_03: And the body.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_03: The sanctity of the body.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, yes, absolutely.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I always love to start with a little bit about your story.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_03: And you're welcome to share as much as you feel comfortable sharing today, as much as you feel is relevant to our convert conversation today.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_03: But yeah, we'd love to hear a little bit more about your story.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I didn't start off seeking out the goddess, is really the the base of it.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, I didn't even know there was such a thing as a divine that could be represented by the feminine in any way.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_01: I started off having a series of transcendent experiences as a child and looking around at the religions that I was situated in.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: And not it it I didn't really see my experience of total unity with the divine reflected in those religions.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: I now know that it is there, but at the time when I was a child, there was too much noise, as there often is for so many people, that I didn't have the um the tools to get through the noise.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_01: And so I had a series of Kundalini awakenings.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: It took a very long time as a yoga teacher and a yoga therapist to get deep enough into the textual traditions to find the ones that spoke to me.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: And the ones that really spoke to me ended up being the these goddess traditions, especially the tantric non-dual traditions.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_01: So the ones that center around a representation of life and reality that comes from this pulsation perspective, this perspective of embodiment as the totality, as the transcendence, but in form and not different from and not subordinated to, really is the important piece there.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, beautiful.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_03: So really hearing your background with organized religion and really feeling like there wasn't a resonance even from a very early age, and then kind of coming back around as you got a little bit older as you went further along your journey and kind of seeing things in a different way and really being connected to this sense of embodiment of coming home to the body and this connection to the goddess and to the divine feminine, would you say?
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: I would, yeah.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_01: And now I study the sacred texts.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I am studying Sanskrit.
• 7:32
  unknown: Okay.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_01: So I am looking directly at these lineages and traditions that have held her as a principal in important ways that have influenced so much of what we call spirituality today.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: Actually, at the root of spirituality today are usually these traditions in one way or another.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_01: And what that's also opened me up to as I've gone deeper into history is many other religions and traditions.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: My degree that I'm pursuing now is in religious studies.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I do see the map.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: I do see the map.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: I see the map, and then I also see where specifically the goddess gets eradicated out of the religion and tradition.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: And then I see what the consequence is to that.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_01: And when I look around at the world we're living in today, I don't see this as, you know, 18 and 20,000 different problems.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: I see it as one problem, right?
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: I see this as one problem where we have so internalized this bias that I call the transcendence bias, which is the God bias, that we've even forgotten that there was an alternative that humans followed for oh, I mean tens of thousands of years, right?
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_01: Like this is the anomaly.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: This has only been about 22,500 years.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_01: This is the short time period, and that time period was was quite long.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, I agree, and I see it the same way you see it too, as it's not a series of problems, it's it's one problem, it's this disconnection to what you would call the goddess.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_03: Is that correct?
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_01: I call the goddess our fundamental connection to pulsation.
• 9:34
  unknown: Ooh, I like that.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: Because I know that we have to suture this a little bit.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: We have to do some dissecting and some suturing, we have to do some surgery because a lot of times when we talk about the goddess, we're so used to hearing her as an archetype.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, which is like a pattern of the whole, right?
• 9:53
  unknown: Yeah.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: But that's just another way some guys put her in a box, right?
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: Like, like that's part of the history, and that came through as we were trying.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_01: And to be fair, like this was part of hey, something's missing.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_01: So let's turn toward the warrior archetype, let's turn toward the nurturing archetype, let's turn toward, and those are such valid pursuits.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_01: But the way that I look at the goddess is not as an archetype, I see her as the whole the pattern of pulsation.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: And what is the pattern of pulsation?
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_01: And what is it in the sacred texts?
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: And the way that the sacred texts describe her, especially the very early ones, is usually as breath.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_01: She breathes forth.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, right?
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: That's pulsation.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_01: Expand, contract, pause.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: That's breath, right?
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_01: She breathes forth.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, beautiful.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_03: I've never heard it explained like that.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_03: This fundamental connection to the pattern of pulsation.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, yeah.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_01: Well, but I bet you've heard of her as sound vibration, as wisdom and knowledge, like the mother tongue.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_01: Or mother earth.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, yes.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: Because when sound vibration comes forth, that's what we call breath when breath is empowered.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: When you empower breath, it becomes sound vibration.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: So she's always been sound vibration.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_01: She's that which pours forth a sound vibration.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_01: And as sound vibration, that is all pulsation, but that ripples into form.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: Even in even in our Abrahamic religions, God spoke.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: Well, He speaks first, and it's the speaking that creates.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: So you can't erase her entirely, right?
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_01: Like she's still there.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: She, you know, she just gets subsumed by this, um by this God figure.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_01: But there were always a paired couple in history, in the history of these religions, where this breathing forth principle, the breathing forth of beingness came through.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_01: And as breath, she became sound, vibration, knowledge, the alphabet, wisdom, song, incantation, chanting, and really like the flowing of word, like the flowing of song and vibration.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_01: So that that's how we that's how you will often see some aspect of a very powerful goddess figure.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_03: Wow.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_03: Wow, that's like just opened up a whole other world for me here as someone who is deeply connected to sound, um, to music, to singing.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_03: And it's interesting as I've become more connected to, let's say, this pattern of pulsation of life, I have kind of intuitively become more connected to my voice.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_03: I know I, you know, a few years ago, not even a few years ago, quite a few years ago now, I became a breathwork facilitator and I began offering breath work to my clients.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_03: And as I went deeper down that path, I got connected to menstrual cycle awareness and started going really deep with that.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_03: And as I started to become more connected to my menstrual cycle, I started to want to sing more and to make music.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_03: And I started really developing this deep connection to music too.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_03: So that's really interesting.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: I've had we could talk about the menstrual cycle too.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I know we talk about that often on the show.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, lots of people.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_03: I know you do.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: I know.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_01: I once had a yoga student.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: I I lead yoga teacher trainings, trauma-informed yoga teacher trainings.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: And very recently there were two minutes left in my lecture, and I was just wrapping up final questions, and I had one student raise her hand.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_01: She's a therapist, and she said, How do these traditions deal with the female menstrual cycle?
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I was, I was like, Well played, friend.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: Two minutes to go.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: We had to unpack the whole of patriarchy.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_01: But I'll tell you something, I'll just tell you one beautiful little tidbit on that particular topic.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: That in the in the tantric non-dualities, in the in the traditions where the goddess represents the pulsation of reality, and specifically in the goddess traditions, where the deity is the goddess, whatever her name is, and she has several different names in these traditions.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: She's often very fierce.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the ways that a um somebody gets initiated into her tradition, these initiations were very fearful.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_01: They happened in cremation grounds, they happened at making use of really like the things that that might confront us and our conditioning.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_01: Ah, what do I hold a conditioning around here?
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the very specific parts of initiation, traditionally, one in initiation, in tantric uh uh initiation, gives flowers to the deity.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's a very important part of an initiation.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_01: But in these goddess lineages, giving flowers to the deity was often a code for giving menstrual blood.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: Giving blood out of the left arm or giving menstrual blood.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_01: So, what are flowers when we give flowers to the deity?
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_01: And what's the most powerful substance, right?
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, menstrual blood.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_01: Menstrual blood, yeah.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, beautiful.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_03: Wow, it's so interesting.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_03: It reminds me of kind of another podcast I listened to a couple weeks ago talking about how this knowledge literally gets wiped from religious texts, and it sounds like there have been really interesting ways that there have been try uh attempts to kind of like weave it in.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and through code because it and it's not even just secret code, right?
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's power because it's so powerful.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_01: This is such a po, but you know what it is?
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_01: It it's the shutting down of the body itself.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_01: It's like here's the edge and the boundary of my body, and anything that leaks off of this body is kind of like dangerous, right?
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_01: So, like anything that comes off the boundary of this body, whether it's you know, any of the fluids that come out of the body, are dangerous and suspicious in so many religions.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_01: And therefore, because they're dangerous and suspicious in so many religions, it other traditions will come up that get born in these in these contexts that challenge the orthodoxy, and they say, Hey, this is a power substance.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_01: So now how are we going to use it as a power substance?
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_01: How do we include the body again?
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, that the challenge does come up periodically over time.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, wow, beautiful.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you for that.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I'm curious as we kind of go further down this topic, if there was a moment where embodiment became a non-negotiable for you.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_01: When my first child was born.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: Can you tell us more?
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, yeah.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_01: I had been very deep in what are called direct path non-duality traditions for a very long time.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_01: And these are traditions that are very popular right now in spirituality, which are beautiful, really.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_01: But it's a kind of like see that you're not your thoughts, see that you're not your emotions, see that you are not the paint on the canvas, you are the canvas, you are awareness itself, pure-free, and can't be touched, can't be burned, can't be cut, can't be wet.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_01: You know, so there are so many traditions, and a lot of them claim that they're not denominational, that they're just this direct path of understanding.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_01: Like, see that you are the transcendent reality.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_01: They're beautiful, but they do have a lineage.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_01: They're beautiful, but they do have a recension history, and it is a deeply biased one.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_01: And for a long time, I was in this very expansive state in my spirituality where I could easily access these states of transcendence, and there's a lot of transmission that comes through as well with these teachers.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of power and there's a lot of beauty.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_01: And then when I got pregnant with my first child, my daughter, I could feel the power in my body, and all of the energy that I had been feeling, the subtle body energy, the kundalini awakening, was concentrating and getting hotter and hotter, especially in my belly.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I began to pretty fundamentally reject and perhaps investigate and reject at the same time.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_01: Hold on a second, there's a bias here.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_01: It's not that I disagree with what you're teaching me, it's not that I disagree with the transcendent model, it's more that I feel like I'm only learning half of the story.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_01: So you're getting me to the place of what I'm not, but you're not then getting me to the place of what I am.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_01: This is not a one-way street.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_01: This is a two-way street.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_01: And when you're only teaching me how to go up and out, and none of your religions and traditions are teaching me how to come back into form, I'm not understanding what's happening here.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_01: And you start to really listen to these non-duality teachers, and you realize that, you know, families get broken up.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of unethical behavior happening behind the scenes, there's a lot of enacting of just, you know, like not good behavior happening.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, but I didn't do it.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_01: It didn't happen.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_01: It's just this is the transcendent reality.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_01: Only the body did it, but I'm not the body.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_01: And then this becomes even more problematic.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_01: And you even hear teachers saying things like, Well, I was having an argument with my child, and um, you know, I just had to remind my daughter that she didn't exist anyway, so her problems didn't exist.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, okay.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's when I get up and I walk out, and I'm like, I'm done with this.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_01: This is not that I call that abuse, right?
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_01: That's not honoring love.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_01: That's honoring the void, and that's being so in love with the void that you have lost your balance.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_01: Because when pulsation is less than and that bias is embedded in modern spirituality, then we deny the body, we deny the lived experience, and we don't give sanctity to the coalescing into form.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: Because guess what?
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_01: Our thoughts and our emotions, our memories, our sensations, our perceptions, and yes, even our desires are also God.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_01: I call that the goddess, I call that the pulsation, right?
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_01: So when we diminish that element within ourselves, we create a problem.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_01: I remember holding my daughter for the first time in the hospital, and it was like my entire heart was all of a sudden outside of my body, and I had a crisis moment where I was like, oh, this really hurts.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_01: This is very dangerous.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: It's so dangerous to love something that is so breakable, that is so that that you know, elemental.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_01: And what's going on with all these religions and traditions that have mixed up what's called non-attachment, and this gets maybe a little philosophical, but this is such an important topic.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_01: Mixed up what's called non-attachment with what's called renunciation in patriarchal religions and traditions, non-attachment equals renunciation, but they're actually two different things to renounce, to leave, to step away from.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_01: I call it let it go spirituality, to let it go.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_01: But that's not what non-attachment means, and it's certainly not what it means in the divine feminine.
• 23:04
  unknown: Right?
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_01: Non-attachment is the ability to stand in the presence of the moment and be absolutely one with pulsation, and to know the distinction between a deep conditioning pattern and the deep calling of the heart.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's the ability to play the instrument of the heart in totality.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't mean to renounce, right?
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that any and I actually I remember it's so great that you asked this question.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think I've been asked this question before.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it's bringing up such a beautiful Memory for me because I really do remember that moment of holding her on my skin and just being like, whoever said that, you know, the spiritual ideal is leaving.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, like, that was not a mother.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_01: That was like, not that was who was that?
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I mean, like historically, we know who that was, right?
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I wonder, I wonder what the Buddha's wife and children said about him leaving.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_01: Like, okay, but then we glorify that model and we we create a transcendent religion out of that, and it becomes one of the most successful religions on all of Earth.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: You are not.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_03: Wow.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_03: So much you shared there.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_03: And I love how this experience of pregnancy, this experience of birth, this experience of motherhood is what really um kind of opened up this new path for you, this path into the infinite well of wisdom and power and creativity that resides within.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, that is connected to that which resides without as well.
• 24:46
  unknown: Yeah.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_01: And it Yeah, maybe even pure stubbornness too.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_01: Like I refuse to buy into this model anymore.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_01: That says it's better to go up and out.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_01: Because guess what?
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_01: Like, yeah, it's hard to come back and in.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_01: It is hard.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_01: It is scary, it's dangerous, it's risky.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_01: And also, I'm here and I'm alive.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I am not gonna buy it that it's better to leave.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, no, I'm I'm with you.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_03: As as I've calmed down my healing journey, I have come deeper and deeper and deeper into my body, into the felt experience of what it is to be a human.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_03: And it's one of the most beautiful, magical things to me.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_03: And I don't think I was able to feel this deeply five, seven, eight, ten years ago.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_03: And I really attribute that to this sort of down and in approach that you're naming here.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_03: As I've gone um deeper down, as I've gone deeper in, I've opened myself to experience more of life.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm actually able to enjoy life more when I'm here, present with it, versus trying to get up and out.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_01: The coming down and in is holy too.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: And when our traditions equally, right?
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_01: The transcendent is equally holy to embodiment, but when our traditions don't teach us how to come down and in, it can be kind of like a series of trippings and fallings.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, it's like, oh my God, I just got so small.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_01: How did that happen?
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_01: Or, you know, and then we create a shame around that built on an uninvestigated bias.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_01: How did I get so small?
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_01: How did I get so locked up in that?
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, that's one way to look at it.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_01: Another way to look at it is we have a pattern here.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_01: What's the pattern trying to say?
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_01: What where is it shielding the heart and what aspect of the heart is ready to look at it?
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, there's usually something that we're avoiding, I find, at least in my experience.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_01: That's why I actually believe in some way is that trauma work is doing the work of the goddess.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_01: Perhaps more than spirituality in a certain way, in a way perhaps that understands the intent of the divine feminine in a very clear, purposeful way, to dismantle the conditioning, to investigate the patterns, to turn toward and to look at.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_01: These are firmly within the path of the goddess.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that's beautiful.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_03: I I feel like I've sensed that connection through my own studies and exploration.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I kind of I did this master class in one of my certification programs on the connection between menstrual cycle awareness and trauma-informed care.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_03: And it was so interesting to see all of these overlaps and the qualities and the values, and that's exactly what you're naming here.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_03: So thank you for that.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: That's beautiful.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, definitely.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I'm curious, you speak about um non-dual divine feminine, and I'm curious if you could share a little bit more about what that means, especially for any of our listeners who are unfamiliar with non-dual traditions or maybe unfamiliar or just getting to know the divine feminine.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_01: It's such a mouthful.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_01: It is, yeah.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_01: I know I'm like, I teach the non-dual divine feminine.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_01: Hold on a second while I pull up an entire like dissertation's worth of right.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's such a horrible thing to have to unpack because the thing is, all I'm talking about is pulsation.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_01: Like a really that's all I'm saying.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I'm just talking about pulsation.
• 28:44
  unknown: Yeah.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_01: But in order, in order to walk that full circle, we have to understand what non-duality is, and we have to understand what the divine feminine is, which just it's like it's like walking a circle that happens to also be an endless infinite spiral, you know, that with like offshoots and rivers and mountains and valleys and like you know, but non-duality is the fundamental notion that I core I am not different from the divine.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_01: Period.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_01: That there is only one reality because this word dual means two, and non means not that.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm not two things.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_01: It's not like I'm a Cynthia and you're a Riva, right?
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's more like infinite awareness is pulsating into being both Cynthia and Riva into this open field of awareness that now begins to ripple form and contain all things.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_01: So non-duality is just the simple, perhaps the best way to say it is it's an observation that there's no separation here.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and like sometimes you look up at the sky and or you look at a tree.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_01: This nature is a powerful reflector to this, right?
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_01: You look at a tree and all of a sudden it's like, oh, we're the same.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_01: We're the same.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_01: We're like you're doing the dishes and you disappear for a moment, you know, and you come back and you're like, ah, doing the dishes, right?
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_01: So that that's the fundamental, and it doesn't need to be this crazy wild experience.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_01: This is part of the problem, right?
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_01: This is like once you call non-duality enlightenment, once you give it a title, which it often that's what it is, it's enlightenment, right?
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_01: But what is enlightenment is a patriarchal term, right?
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_01: It means that I'm gonna cross a certain line and I'm gonna achieve this thing, is a goal.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_01: And once I get there, like everything's gonna be great.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_01: Like we have this like like deep thirst for enlightenment.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna get to enlightenment.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_01: So this is my goal.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_01: Now I like I used to have a goal around like making money or having fame or being a good whatever, and now my goal is like the ultimate goal, enlightenment, right?
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but here's my problem with enlightenment, one other than the fact that it doesn't exist, is that in order for enlightenment to exist, something called not enlightened has to exist.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, that's what doesn't exist.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_01: There's no such thing as not enlightened.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_01: There's just no such thing.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_01: This is the one field of awareness pouring itself through the heart.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_01: Now you can tune that heart instrument to be more in sync with that, or you can live in static and chaos.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_01: That's your sovereign choice.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_01: You can do that.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_01: But the closer we get to the heart, the more we pulsate in rhythm to that, and then the heart is seen as the pouring forth of the instrument of reality.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that is beautiful.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, because we are all love, right?
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_01: It is, yes, and and love is a very interesting term, it's free and independent, but you know, when you start to really look into some of the spiritual texts, the sacred texts, and the teachers that are in these traditions, the non-dual traditions, and they look at that word, and they sometimes use this word, but they don't distinguish or they don't separate love out as a quality that's like um separate from the unpleasant qualities, right?
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's not like grief is exempt from love.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_01: No, it's more like love is the thing, is the word we're using for total saturation, an entire saturation into the reality of the thing that I'm feeling.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_01: Which can sometimes be grief or pain or fear or right?
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_01: So there's a deep power in the vibration, and it's more that like love represents a total saturation into there's a Sanskrit word that's very important here, it's chamatkara, which is like to saturate so deeply into the present moment.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_01: I call that love, right?
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's a kind of a love, but to saturate so deeply into whatever isness is that it can have whatever quality it has, and it's not diminished, like the quality's not diminished from the totality of being connected to that moment.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, so good.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_03: As I'm hearing you say that, I'm getting all these little goosebumps and tingles on my arm, just really confirming what you've been sharing here.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, thank you for that.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_03: It kind of just brings home that point of like it's all sacred, like the human experience and its full spectrum and its full beauty and its full polarity is the experience.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_03: And the more we can be with that experience, the more we can access life and maybe even access the divine, would you say?
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, as an expression of the divine.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_01: It's kind of like at this point, I recognize that this is the pouring forth of the divine, and sometimes I forget that, and sometimes I remember that.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, and what a gift when I get to remember that.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, true.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_01: But the it's not like all of a sudden I'm gonna be dancing in the field, picking daffodils and like singing to the sound of music.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_01: Like I'm not uh that that's not what that means.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_01: It means to be able to meet the moment in the totality of the moment without disassociating.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, beautiful.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_03: I'm curious.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_03: This might be uh more kind of like shamantics around language, but I'm curious if you feel like there is a difference between the divine feminine, uh, the sacred feminine, the goddess, or if it's all just connected to this sort of pulsation that you've been naming here, time and again, time and time again.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_01: Pulsation, embodiment, curiosity, yeah, goddess, divine feminine, vibration, the pouring forth, the heart, fire.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_01: These are all synonyms, right?
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's all, these are all element, like these are all it it it points to the same, it points to the same principle.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_01: And the reason I use the gendered term the goddess, it's something I get asked a lot and that I bring up a lot.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_01: Because why?
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_01: Why would I use a term like the goddess when after all what I'm talking about is embodiment, which doesn't have a it's not, doesn't need to be binaried.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't need to be like feminized, right?
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_01: Right, but there's a historical precedence for doing this, there's a historical reason that I bring up the goddess because she has been specifically the goddess across so many different traditions and religions, has been supplanted, erased, subordinated.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_01: The people who paid homage and respect to her have been murdered, have been displaced, have been suppressed.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_01: And until we reconcile that history and understand the consequences that we live with, that until we do that, we we have to keep using the term.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_01: Like someday I'd love to live in a world where we don't need to be like recall the goddess, recall the goddess, recall the goddess.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_01: But that's not the world we're living in right now, right?
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not the world for women, girls, you know, gendered or whatever the sex, whatever the orientation, it's not the lived reality for the embodied experience right now.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_01: So the goddess still has a place in our vocabulary, and as we recall that principle and as we recall that history, there's a reconciliation that happens.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, I agree, and not just for women or female-bodied or people who identify more with this feminine quality.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_03: It's for everyone.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's for everyone.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_01: I do get men that ask me, Hey, am I allowed to come because I love the goddess?
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_01: And am I allowed to, and of course you're allowed to, you have a body.
• 38:22
  unknown: Yeah.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_01: How many, you know, this is I actually think the patriarchy, this term should be renamed.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_01: Because it indicates like something to do with men or something.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_01: I I think of it as like um almost like it injured women and men equally.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_01: Whatever this force is that has come through humanity has injured men and women both.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I would even argue that the men that won out in those systems, the ones that like were at the top, that got to do all the privileged, you know, like talking to God on our behalf kind of a thing, right?
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_01: I would even argue that being put in that kind of a position is injurious fundamentally when the pulsation principle has been erased.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_03: So these positions of power that these more privileged people and bodies get placed in, you're maybe kind of seeing them not even as places of I don't know if privilege is the right word, but there's there's a harm being done there by being placed in these positions.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_01: There's a very major harm, and it's structural.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_01: The harm is structural.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_01: It's a structural harm, right?
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_01: Because being born into it, right, and then a whole society has to agree to it over and over again.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, there's a lot of ancestral pain.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_01: I think out of all of the people that I look at and the traumas, and trauma is so real and it is so personal.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I have to say, what seems to be so up right now for people is reconciling this ancestral memory, almost this ancestral trauma.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, what is it I'm carrying, not just from my parents, but from their parents and from their parents.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_01: And we can hear them.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_01: Like sometimes we hear them kind of like whispering through the form.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_01: And it's it's a very powerful ancestral um reconciliation, I would say, that needs to be addressed.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_01: And that people are because when we do trauma work, we're not just doing it to clear up this lifetime, but it has a ripple effect in all timelines and directions, right?
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_01: It has a ripple effect way backwards, way forwards.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_01: You know, because time doesn't have a boundary.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_01: Time isn't like I end here.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_01: The present moment ends here, right?
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like go find it, please.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_00: Go find it.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_00: Go find the edge of the present moment.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_00: Tell me, tell me when you get there, right?
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's not that doesn't it doesn't, there's no there's no edge to it.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that's beautiful.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_03: I can feel again little lots of little tingles and even some tears kind of welling up behind my eye.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_03: I know that I've experienced that deep connection to my lineage, and as I've gone deeper with my work, uh I'm constantly bumping up against these things that you said that aren't even ours.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_03: And I've I've said it here on the uh on the show before, but I'll say it again.
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_03: There's studies that that have shown that we carry for certain up to three generations of DNA in our in our bodies.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_03: And now there are studies that are coming out to show that we carry up to eight.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_03: So it's not even like you said, what you went through.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_03: It's what your mom went through while she was in your grandmother's belly and what your grandma went through while she was in your great-great grandmother's belly.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, all that gets back.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_01: And how many, how many and ultimately go far enough back and you've just connected yourself to all of lived reality.
• 42:25
  unknown: Wow.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_01: To the last unified common ancestor, right?
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_01: The last, the la that go far enough back, and the vibration is uh pretty clear.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_01: Here it is.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_01: I'm now connected to to the whole pattern, and the specific still matters, right?
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_01: The specific does still matter.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, I feel those whispers too.
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, beautiful.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes the pattern comes up, and I'm like, where did that come from?
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_00: That didn't happen to me, and this that's not what in the what?
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_01: And now I have to what and I have to work.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes they don't just like resolve, sometimes it's like decades.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, oh, okay, this is a this one goes so deep that it's almost like I don't know if I don't know if you've ever gardened, but I have a garden, and it's like I made the mistake one time of planting mint, like not in a pot, but in the ground.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and mint is famous for for being like right because it has this underground network where like you start ripping it out of the ground and then it shows up like on the other side of the yard in a crack.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_00: Like this ancestral work is like that.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's like it's like a mint plant, like all of a sudden it's like growing up in a crack on the other side of the universe.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_00: And you're like, how did it get there?
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_03: I love that analogy.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_03: That's great.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_03: I I've had have had mint in my backyard.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_03: It wasn't planted by me, it was planted by my neighbor.
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_03: And it did.
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_03: It like went under the fence and it grew like this huge mint path, like in our backyard.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_03: It was very interesting and and it was challenging to like kind of contain that mint for sure.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh, it is so excited to be there.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's like I'm here, I'm everywhere.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_00: Make me bigger.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, that's funny.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_03: I'm remembering that whole mint exposure.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the whole mint saga.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, no, literally.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_03: Wow.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_03: Well, okay, so for for our listeners who are they're they're maybe resonating with what we're sharing here, and they're maybe feeling this sense of curiosity to explore this this path of the goddess if they haven't yet.
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_03: And I know this is something that you discuss in your book.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_03: So, what is the the path of the goddess?
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_01: The path of the goddess.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_03: Or what would that that look like?
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_01: Coming back to the body, to the sanctity of the body, and to to treat what comes up as sacred.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_01: Now, if a pattern comes up, if something comes up and it needs to be looked at, then instead of doing the let it go thing, let me figure out how to let it go, let me figure out how to move, let me figure fast as possible, let me get out of this.
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_01: You do the opposite, which is let me turn toward this, let me investigate it, let me follow the mint, let me get in, like let me become a microbe, let me go down into the ground and follow these little bulbi networks and let me have the patience.
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_01: To do that and the tools to do that.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_01: So we do have the tools to do that.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's the opposite of let it go because it's turned toward, get curious, investigate, and realize that you can do that in community, that you have allies to do that.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_01: You have we have access to friends and therapists and coaches and resources and information.
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_01: And we can really make use of this incredible intelligence and support around us to come into our own selves.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_01: Because it can get so overwhelming that we want to just kind of like figure out the new best shiniest tool to like cut the thing and make it go away, right?
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_01: To get enlightened.
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_01: And this is, but I I've actually found in as much spiritual work as I've done and living in California where I'm surrounded by people who do spiritual work, that when somebody truly let something go, that's not even the right term.
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's not like I let it go.
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_01: It's more like, hey, I investigated this thing so much that I like put it into my mouth and into my eyes and into my nose and into my ears.
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_01: I collected it into my body and then I chewed on it and I followed it and I brought it into my body.
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_01: Then my body got a little bit more wise, and I was able to work with it and get a little bit bigger and understand exactly how to like take in the nutrients that needed to get taken in, and then like move the nutrients through that could be wasted out.
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_01: And it just it's almost more like a turn toward amplified digest and become wiser process, right?
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, yeah, it's a becoming wiser.
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_03: I I love all of this, and such another beautiful metaphor you've used here to describe that so clearly.
• 47:49
  SPEAKER_03: Because, you know, I agree with you, and and I see this sometimes in spiritual communities and spaces, just as, oh, I just want to just let it go without really understanding where it came from, what wisdom uh is behind whatever is coming up, because everything is connected to this greater sense of intelligence, this greater intelligence of life, of the seasons, of the earth, and our bodies are so wise in that way.
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_01: So we can do it.
• 48:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, right?
• 48:19
  SPEAKER_01: We can do hard things.
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_01: Like, yeah, it can be so hard to do that, to turn toward, investigate, follow, and and it takes courage.
• 48:31
  SPEAKER_03: It does.
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_01: And fortitude.
• 48:33
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_01: But we can build courage and fortitude.
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, we can.
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_03: And as I've shared before, uh, in my journey, I've found that to be so worth it.
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_03: Um, any pain or discomfort or um just things that didn't feel great that I met inside, on the other side, I experienced greater love, greater connection to myself, greater joy, greater understanding, greater authenticity.
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_03: And to me, that makes it worth it to go through that.
• 49:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 49:07
  SPEAKER_01: And then it's a little less scary when you see the pattern instead of being reactive and hot and kind of like freak out when you see the pattern, which is what a trigger is, right?
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's like you don't even, it's like just happens.
• 49:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 49:23
  SPEAKER_01: There's something about understanding it very deeply and following it very deeply that we actually become a bigger vessel.
• 49:32
  SPEAKER_01: So instead of getting so hot, we might be like, ooh, I'm super hot.
• 49:41
  SPEAKER_01: And that's powerful.
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's powerful to instead of just like getting red hot, and I I I'm just a really passionate person.
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_01: So like I live in full, like, I live basically.
• 49:54
  SPEAKER_01: If I could be a volcano, I would, I would just like go to the mountain right now and I just turn into a volcano.
• 49:59
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I love like let me let me get hot.
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_01: I'm so happy to get hot.
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_01: Like of all the elements, the fire element for me is like burn it, you know.
• 50:09
  SPEAKER_01: But but there's power in being so so big in the vessel that you could be like, ooh, uh, that heat is coming through.
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_01: The lava's at the surface.
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_01: Let's see what you know, like to track it is very beautiful.
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's very beautiful.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and empowering, I would say, too, to really understand uh how to navigate those things that are coming up, how to tend to them, how to meet them, and how to maybe channel them, especially specifically that fire energy, right?
• 50:43
  SPEAKER_03: That passion.
• 50:44
  SPEAKER_03: Um, maybe it comes out as anger or rage.
• 50:47
  SPEAKER_03: There is so much power in that for change, for transformation.
• 50:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, but that's what anger is, right?
• 50:55
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_01: Anger is the energy of this needs to change.
• 51:01
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 51:02
  SPEAKER_01: It it's it that is the whole purpose.
• 51:06
  SPEAKER_01: You anger, if it appears, is trying to use force to change a thing.
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_01: Now, it might be way out of proportion, yeah.
• 51:16
  SPEAKER_01: It might be totally misguided, it might be like, hey, I experienced something when I was really little, but I don't remember that thing.
• 51:24
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm gonna like burn the forest down now, right?
• 51:29
  SPEAKER_01: But nonetheless, nonetheless, what that anger is is a force of change.
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_01: This thing needs to change.
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes that's holy.
• 51:39
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I look around us, like there's like there's holy anger, like there's things that we can turn toward right now on this earth, and like it's the correct response, yeah.
• 51:50
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 51:51
  SPEAKER_01: It's and and if we were to diminish it and be like, see that you are not that, right?
• 51:58
  SPEAKER_01: That's not that's that's not what Mother Earth needs right now.
• 52:03
  SPEAKER_01: She doesn't need a bunch of people sitting on a mountaintop being like, I am not my anger, right?
• 52:09
  SPEAKER_01: Like she what she needs is like, what is this coming from and what what really needs to change?
• 52:15
  SPEAKER_01: How can I be part of that?
• 52:17
  SPEAKER_01: How can I be in support of the change that needs to happen here?
• 52:22
  SPEAKER_01: Like this, I'm I'm an active participant, I'm a part of the network.
• 52:26
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I am I am a part of the pulsation here.
• 52:29
  SPEAKER_01: I'm part of the symphony, I'm one of the instruments in this great symphony.
• 52:33
  SPEAKER_01: So, what does my instrument want to do?
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, you know, some of the most awake people I know, people that are the most like, I mean truly deeply, like powerfully connected to their hearts, are activists.
• 52:48
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, absolutely.
• 52:51
  SPEAKER_03: Such a lovely invitation here for listeners to get really curious about any of that sense of fire or anger or frustration that might be coming up, especially in these times that we're in, and how we can really learn to work with that energy to create change.
• 53:08
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 53:09
  SPEAKER_01: Figure out if it's yeah, figure out if it's a trigger.
• 53:13
  SPEAKER_01: Figure out if it's a trigger.
• 53:14
  SPEAKER_01: Figure out if it's a trigger first.
• 53:16
  SPEAKER_01: Like, is it personal?
• 53:17
  SPEAKER_01: Because if it's deeply personal, then you've you've got a mint plant.
• 53:25
  SPEAKER_00: Situation.
• 53:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 53:27
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, definitely.
• 53:30
  SPEAKER_03: How do you see the things that we've been discussing here today?
• 53:35
  SPEAKER_03: How do you see these things being problematic in spiritual spaces?
• 53:38
  SPEAKER_03: Like what are the things that we um miss out on, or maybe what are the consequences of not attuning to the body, of not learning how to work with this energy without kind of staying connected to this pulsation of life?
• 53:58
  SPEAKER_01: What a good question.
• 54:03
  SPEAKER_01: I think the body is our home.
• 54:08
  unknown: Yeah.
• 54:09
  SPEAKER_01: And it's the first place of coming back that orients us how to find the heart, because the heart is here in the body, in the home, in the center.
• 54:21
  SPEAKER_01: It's a heartbeat, breathbeat, pulsation, and the skin pulsates.
• 54:25
  SPEAKER_01: The skin is a pulsation.
• 54:28
  SPEAKER_01: So it's not so much like do it or else, right?
• 54:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's not like that.
• 54:35
  SPEAKER_01: It's not like look at all those, look at all those unconscious people out there doing no, it's not like that.
• 54:42
  SPEAKER_01: Like that, if you say that, that's a you problem.
• 54:45
  SPEAKER_01: That's not a them problem, right?
• 54:47
  SPEAKER_01: Like, like that's a judgment.
• 54:48
  SPEAKER_01: Now, where's that judge?
• 54:50
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, consciousness is pulsation, remembering itself.
• 54:58
  SPEAKER_01: So, where is it a problem?
• 55:00
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's a problem internally, it's a problem when I'm doing it, it's a problem for me.
• 55:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that that's all I can say about it, because I don't know.
• 55:10
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know about you.
• 55:11
  SPEAKER_01: Like, if you're doing it and it's not a problem for you, then like, you know, carry on.
• 55:16
  SPEAKER_01: But right, like for me, when I am not paying attention to pulsation, then I tend to get a little bit disassociative.
• 55:27
  SPEAKER_01: I tend to get a little bit reactive, I get impatient with my kids.
• 55:32
  SPEAKER_01: I get right, like it's like, okay, let me come back and be an active participant in the situation as it's arising.
• 55:39
  SPEAKER_01: And then all of a sudden, even if it's a difficult situation, now more of me can be present and I can get bigger.
• 55:46
  SPEAKER_01: So it that's a very, I think that's a very personal question.
• 55:49
  SPEAKER_01: Like it matters to me.
• 55:52
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I hear you.
• 55:53
  SPEAKER_03: It matters to me too.
• 55:55
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if it matters to other people, but I think it does.
• 55:58
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I hope it does.
• 56:00
  SPEAKER_01: I think it does.
• 56:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I think I see people really, really loving the goddess right now.
• 56:06
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, okay.
• 56:07
  SPEAKER_03: Let's just like I'm seeing people love, you know.
• 56:12
  SPEAKER_01: I mention to people, oh yeah, I study the goddess, and I tend to be like, I I still think like it's not no big, you know, oh, we're just gonna carry on.
• 56:22
  SPEAKER_01: Some another topic of conversation will come up, and now what do you do?
• 56:26
  SPEAKER_01: That doesn't happen.
• 56:27
  SPEAKER_01: People are like so interested in the goddess.
• 56:31
  SPEAKER_01: Who is she?
• 56:32
  SPEAKER_01: What do you mean by that?
• 56:33
  SPEAKER_01: And then specifically, can you tell me about this dream that I had and what it means?
• 56:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, what does it mean to you?
• 56:40
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 56:40
  SPEAKER_01: But she's waking up in people right now and she's visiting people in very specific forms, and each form I'm starting to see has a signature to it.
• 56:51
  SPEAKER_01: Like I've got this, I've got my nose on the ground right now, to be totally honest, because I've been working with people in spiritual process for 20 years, what's in Kundalini Awakening specifically.
• 57:03
  SPEAKER_01: And when a goddess appears to somebody in a dream or in a meditation, it's always a very specific goddess.
• 57:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's always like it was her, and I know it was her.
• 57:16
  SPEAKER_01: And she was holding this thing in her hand, and I don't know what that thing was, and I'm like, it's abyss.
• 57:22
  SPEAKER_01: Like, it's like I don't know what that thing is that you're describing.
• 57:24
  SPEAKER_01: You're describing it very specifically.
• 57:27
  SPEAKER_01: That's exactly what I would expect her to be holding.
• 57:29
  SPEAKER_01: And these are people who who may never have even understood, known, heard of, had any connection whatsoever, right?
• 57:37
  SPEAKER_01: So she she's coming to people in collective dreams too.
• 57:40
  SPEAKER_01: I've heard especially um women communities.
• 57:44
  SPEAKER_01: I've heard this how multiple women in a single community, if it's an environmental organization, something like that, will have the same dream.
• 57:54
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 57:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, and she'll come to everybody.
• 57:58
  SPEAKER_01: So she is waking up in people, and she's waking up to us also.
• 58:03
  SPEAKER_01: Like, now that sounds mystical and pretty cool, right?
• 58:05
  SPEAKER_01: But like she's also waking up to us in our trauma work.
• 58:09
  SPEAKER_01: I need to do this pattern.
• 58:11
  SPEAKER_01: I just I need to do it, like I need to look at this, like I need to see, I I need to see where this pattern is coming from.
• 58:17
  SPEAKER_01: I need to go do a ceremony and figure out what it is.
• 58:20
  SPEAKER_01: I need to go sit on a beach and like really figure this out.
• 58:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's in our impulse to connect with turning toward and investigating.
• 58:32
  SPEAKER_01: With unbridling our curiosity.
• 58:34
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, I think she's waking up and specifically it's like everybody.
• 58:38
  SPEAKER_01: I I mean, I have had the most beautiful conversations with just like soccer moms who are like, Can you tell me what this goddess means?
• 58:46
  SPEAKER_01: Because like she came to me in a dream where I had this like visitation, and like I've just been too scared to tell anybody about it.
• 58:52
  SPEAKER_01: Cause you know, everybody's too scared to tell anybody.
• 58:55
  SPEAKER_01: We're all too, we're all and we're all we're all having music and we're all too scared to tell each other, like what is going on?
• 59:03
  SPEAKER_00: When are we just gonna like start talking about it freely?
• 59:06
  SPEAKER_03: Like, hey, yeah, wow.
• 59:10
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I mean lately I've been really into ISIS, you know, like okay, cool, and what does that mean to you?
• 59:15
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I I mean, like, you know, we should've create a database on like what does she mean to you and what does she mean to you, and what is she, you know, is she really trying to tell you you gotta get out of this pattern?
• 59:26
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, wow, I love that.
• 59:29
  SPEAKER_03: As I've been listening to you describe those things, I've been kind of feeling into my own experience, and I've been having just kind of around the time that we've been um kind of leading up to this conversation, I've been having some really interesting dreams, not all ones that I can articulate and remember.
• 59:47
  SPEAKER_03: They're quite strange.
• 59:48
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and I've just found that really interesting because usually they're in a very specific part of my cycle, and now there's no kind of cyclical rhyme or reason to them.
• 59:58
  SPEAKER_03: They're just like very strange dreams where I wake up just like, oh my gosh, like what was that?
• 1:00:03
  SPEAKER_03: I'll have to see if there's a goddess that comes through tonight.
• 1:00:07
  SPEAKER_03: And um, yeah, I just find that so so interesting.
• 1:00:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I've never seen her in some kind of visual form or in an auditory form.
• 1:00:17
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I hear there's certain things, but that's not my that's not the way that I collect information.
• 1:00:23
  SPEAKER_01: I'm kinesthetic.
• 1:00:25
  SPEAKER_01: So for me, it's a felt sense.
• 1:00:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that sometimes we forget how powerful the kinesthetic felt sense is to be, for example, walking through nature and to have this like expansive feeling of connection with the rock or the tree.
• 1:00:43
  SPEAKER_01: And that I call that that is also the pulsation, right?
• 1:00:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, she doesn't need she can come to us in these kind of like funny embodied forms, but she she can do so much more because she's not an archetype.
• 1:01:00
  SPEAKER_01: That's only one of the things she can be.
• 1:01:02
  SPEAKER_01: But she's so much more than that, right?
• 1:01:04
  SPEAKER_00: She can be so much more than an archetype.
• 1:01:07
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, she can come in all these other forms.
• 1:01:09
  SPEAKER_03: We can tap into her in our day-to-day life, we can experience her just like walking down the street.
• 1:01:15
  SPEAKER_03: We can experience her in an interaction that we have in a conversation with someone.
• 1:01:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, holding a pet.
• 1:01:23
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:01:24
  SPEAKER_01: You know, like being with a pet and feeling the warmth of their skin or the pulsation, feeling the vibration of like heart and breath.
• 1:01:33
  SPEAKER_01: This is this is so human.
• 1:01:36
  SPEAKER_01: And it's that's pulsation.
• 1:01:39
  SPEAKER_01: And Mother Earth has a pulsation, right?
• 1:01:41
  SPEAKER_01: She does.
• 1:01:42
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:01:42
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:01:43
  SPEAKER_03: It's interesting getting ready for today.
• 1:01:45
  SPEAKER_03: I had another call right before our conversation, and I was listening to the Schumann resonant, just as kind of like my own kind of preparation and self-care.
• 1:01:54
  SPEAKER_03: So it's also funny to have you name frequency, just a lot of synchronicities here for me in this conversation.
• 1:02:00
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:02:01
  SPEAKER_03: Let me know what it is.
• 1:02:02
  SPEAKER_01: I also listen, I listen to frequencies also.
• 1:02:06
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:02:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:02:07
  SPEAKER_01: Beautiful.
• 1:02:09
  SPEAKER_03: Well, if there's anything that you feel like you would love listeners to know, uh sort of regarding your book, you're welcome to share that now.
• 1:02:20
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, thank you.
• 1:02:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:02:21
  SPEAKER_01: I I think the book is pretty, pretty special.
• 1:02:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's a, it took a long time to come through, right?
• 1:02:29
  SPEAKER_01: Like working with the publisher takes a while.
• 1:02:31
  SPEAKER_01: And it does, yeah.
• 1:02:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:02:33
  SPEAKER_01: And so it just feels kind of like this exciting thing that's born out into the world.
• 1:02:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I think my greatest prayer for it is that it helps to draw the map of the goddess.
• 1:02:47
  SPEAKER_01: Like, who is she?
• 1:02:49
  SPEAKER_01: Who was she historically?
• 1:02:51
  SPEAKER_01: How do we unpack her in the different layers of our being?
• 1:02:55
  SPEAKER_01: Because like when I have a reaction or a response, it can actually happen on many different layers of being.
• 1:03:02
  SPEAKER_01: So I go through all the layers of being, the layers of the heart, according to one of my favorite medieval teachers.
• 1:03:11
  SPEAKER_01: So I yeah, this is beautiful work, and I'm gonna I'm gonna keep doing it.
• 1:03:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's this is it.
• 1:03:18
  SPEAKER_01: This is me in service to the mother.
• 1:03:21
  SPEAKER_01: And may she, may she use me as that vessel.
• 1:03:25
  SPEAKER_01: I am here for it.
• 1:03:27
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I'm here with you, sister.
• 1:03:29
  SPEAKER_03: It's beautiful.
• 1:03:30
  SPEAKER_03: Wonderful.
• 1:03:31
  SPEAKER_03: Well, the book sounds like a wonderful follow-up to this conversation and a wonderful resource for listeners to really use is we find ourselves in these just absolutely, I mean, I want to say trying times, but I feel like that's so um um, what's the word I'm looking for?
• 1:03:49
  SPEAKER_03: It's kind of cliche.
• 1:03:52
  SPEAKER_03: Something we've all heard a lot, but we we really are in transformative times.
• 1:03:56
  SPEAKER_03: And I believe that this work of coming home to the body, of coming back to this pole station of life is um what the the the medicine that our world needs.
• 1:04:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's powerful medicine.
• 1:04:09
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, indeed.
• 1:04:10
  SPEAKER_03: Beautiful.
• 1:04:12
  SPEAKER_03: Well, thank you so much for your time today, Cynthia.
• 1:04:15
  SPEAKER_03: Are there any other takeaways that you're wanting to leave our audience with today?
• 1:04:20
  SPEAKER_03: If there was like one thing that they could take away from this conversation, what would that be?
• 1:04:26
  SPEAKER_01: Notice what you notice.
• 1:04:27
  unknown: Yeah.
• 1:04:28
  SPEAKER_01: That's that is curiosity.
• 1:04:29
  SPEAKER_01: Notice what you notice, and it starts small.
• 1:04:32
  SPEAKER_01: You notice what you notice, and then before you know it, you realize all practices, all traditions, all philosophies come back to notice what you notice.
• 1:04:47
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:04:48
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, beautiful.
• 1:04:50
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you so much, Cynthia.
• 1:04:51
  SPEAKER_03: We'll leave your um your information and your your book in the show notes.
• 1:04:56
  SPEAKER_03: But where is a place where people can connect with you or maybe learn more about you?
• 1:05:01
  SPEAKER_01: I have a website and I do lead trainings and workshops.
• 1:05:06
  SPEAKER_01: And um I am available.
• 1:05:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:05:11
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:05:12
  SPEAKER_03: I saw you were doing some workshops in the Berkeley area, or did you just do one?
• 1:05:16
  SPEAKER_03: I think that's a good one.
• 1:05:17
  SPEAKER_03: I just did one.
• 1:05:18
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:05:19
  SPEAKER_01: I just did one at the Olympic.
• 1:05:21
  SPEAKER_03: Wonderful.
• 1:05:21
  SPEAKER_03: And then your next one is it in California, I saw too.
• 1:05:25
  SPEAKER_01: It is, yes.
• 1:05:26
  SPEAKER_01: It is in Santa Barbara in February.
• 1:05:29
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 1:05:29
  SPEAKER_01: And um, I'll I'll I'll keep adding workshops to the mix, definitely.
• 1:05:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 1:05:36
  SPEAKER_03: Wonderful.
• 1:05:36
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, great.
• 1:05:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I'll keep it all updated on my website.
• 1:05:40
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, wonderful.
• 1:05:41
  SPEAKER_03: Well, we'll put all of that in the show notes.
• 1:05:42
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you again so much for your time today.
• 1:05:44
  SPEAKER_03: I've loved this conversation.
• 1:05:46
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 1:05:46
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, Riva.