Last weekend I was putting the finishes touches on preparing for a Talking Sticks workshop which I held at my studio, Joyful Pause, this past Wednesday on the Winter Solstice.

The drum, loaned to me by my co-facilitator, Rachel, lay on the ottoman in my writing cottage with the Talking Stick on top which I’d created with Rachel a few weeks before.

My heart intention for 2017 is to focus on offering more workshops to provide moments of stillness, sacred wisdom and reflection for women . It’s something I’m feeling called to do, even when fear tries to take over.

When I saw the light cascading over the drum and my Talking Stick, well, I couldn’t help but feel this as confirmation. 

The early evening sky an hour before the workshop was glorious in it’s shades of pink, coral, and purple as only a winter sky can be. So much promise in that sky, I thought.

As six dear, wise, soulful women gathered in a circle for meditation and drumming, the light within my inner world ignited.

Afterwards, as each took a spot at a table with sticks, beads, string, stones, and totem jewels before them, I found myself in a meditative trance watching them, as if I was wrapped in a sacred cocoon.

As everyone worked on their Talking Sticks, I took a moment to place my stick, along with Rachel’s, on the altar and lit the candles. When I stood back to look, everything coming into full view with the backdrop of one of my tree Goddess paintings, and I suddenly felt very moved. 

It was then that I realized that within the darkness where the roots of a tree lie, there is also light that comes in from above, nourishing them. Just as it is for each of us when we pause in moments of reflection and open to it.

After journaling with our Talking Sticks, we gathered back in circle to talk about the experience. As each person held their Talking Stick it was a practice in our intention of speaking, while others practiced attention in listening…really listening.

For the closing ceremony we each laid our Talking Stick beside the drum in the center, paying tribute to silently witnessing each other where we were in the moment, and what we hope to move toward…each of us wanting to be a divine spark of light that contributes to this world in a healing way.

It was palpable and I was quite moved.

Closing with a Cherokee prayer I read, we then all mindfully began to shift our awareness to saying goodbye for the evening.

But not before taking a picture of the altar we had created as one with the spirit of each of us infused within it.

It was then I was struck again, seeing the altar through the lens of my camera, that I realized our altar with drum and Talking Sticks resembled the sun… a reminder that the light is always there. 

It is always there.

The world will be saved by the Western Woman. ~Dalai Lama

*The next Talking Sticks workshop will be on Saturday, March 4th. Time TBD (mid-morning). If you wish to be notified when registration opens, you can sign up here.

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