In a world that requires us to dwell in the head — planning, judging, reasoning and navigating technology — we can easily lose touch with our feminine qualities.  This month, we pause to reflect on and honor our natural abilities to be receptive, nurturing, patient and act cooperatively.  We respond with sensitivity and compassion to our fellow beings and the rhythms of our own sacred bodies.

-Swami Ramananda

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

“Deity meditation can unsnarl psychological knots—for instance, issues with power or love—and call forth specific transformative forces within the mind and heart. It puts us in touch with the protective power within us, and can change the way we see the world.
Whether or not we “believe” in goddesses, contemplating them allows us to become intimate with the vast impersonal forces of the universe.”
-Sally Kempton