Vulnerability and Community

Hello beloved reader,

I hope you enjoyed the first interview in the series of writers writing about spirituality and re-claiming the Divine Feminine, and a special thank you to those who re-stacked and responded in the comments.

I’m deeply grateful not only to the authors who are participating in this series, but also to you dear reader, for your interest. I’m beyond thrilled to be curating this for you.

And in this post I want to share something about my own journey as a writer.

In 2013, after chanting a mantra for courage in a daily spiritual practice I’d committed to while going through interfaith seminary (which you can read more about here and here) I heard the call to write.

I met a writing teacher (who was of course also a writer) who signed a contract for her book to be published by one of the “Big 5 Publishers.” I was impressed. After I finished my MFA, I asked her if she may be interested in being paid to give me feedback on the manuscript I’d been working on during the MFA. She said yes and we negotiated the terms of our agreement.

However, the impact of her feedback that I received in 2018, was that it stopped me from writing for a while.

And this is not to blame her. I don’t believe she intended to cause harm, and perhaps the kernel of truth in her feedback was what gave me pause.

But there is a more relevant truth I realize now: I was looking outside of myself for validation and approval — this is what stopped me from writing for a while. This seeking of external validation.

When I first began sharing my writing, I was motivated by getting outside approval and validation.

I had done plenty of investigation about why I write — but it wasn’t until this past year that I thought about, what is my intention for sharing my writing in the world.

These days, more than ten years into the journey of a writer, I can tell you that my intention for sharing my writing is to serve you, my dear reader. And perhaps more specifically, to serve the evolution of human consciousness.

The response to why I write, is to express my soul. And by practicing staying detached from outcomes (a la The Bhagavad Gita), I get the opportunity to keep my ego out of it.

But ego is a tricky little thing, especially an ego’s need for validation and approval, which is not a need of the soul.

The soul just wants to express itself.

And when the soul does not express itself, perhaps that’s when anxiety arises. Perhaps creativity is a healing balm for anxiety, which points towards creative expression being an essential human practice.

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While I’ve come to understand that a writing teacher’s feedback is only one perspective, perhaps until I can own the truth in it, it holds me captive.

…in this draft the narrator is positioned that she has figured it all out. And if the narrator is sustaining that it’s all resolved, she’s not allowing vulnerability, hence her coming across as privileged and self-satisfied.

Not allowing vulnerability.

Coming across as privileged and self-satisfied.

Perhaps guilty as charged. But as Eckhart Tolle teaches: guilt is just about ego.

The heart-and-soul-truth here is that yes, I am unbelievably privileged AND I am deeply grateful for my privilege, perhaps more than you could ever know.

And regarding “having it all figured out,” I wish.

I still suffer, I’m not enlightened — yet — and that’s written while grinning. Perhaps the reason Buddhism appeals to me so much is because of the recognition of suffering in the human experience.

I want to share a story here that I originally shared in Chapter 46 in the memoir I’ve serialized on this Substack.

The days preceding this event at the Buddhist monastery across the road were ablaze with activity. The monks and supporting lay people set up a huge white tent, big enough to accommodate about two hundred people. The day of the event itself, was a clear blue-sky summer day, and Jamie had gone across the road early, to help set up chairs. When I arrived, he brought me to the seats he’d reserved for us by laying his jacket across them. After an introduction and opening remarks by the abbot, Ahjan Jayanto, I was delighted to hear Luang Por Sumedho speak about how he became involved with the interfaith movement in London in the 1980s.

Speaking into a microphone headset to ensure his voice also reached those in the back, he told a story of how he’d sat with many different spiritual leaders around a table at one interfaith meeting in London. A priest, a bishop, a rabbi, an imam, a swami, among others — I smiled as it sounded like the set up for a joke. He said that they were asked for one word to describe the essence of their religion. One by one, the leaders from Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism, and more, each said a variation of the words Peace and Love to describe the essence of their religions.

Luang Por Sumedho continued,

“Until they got to me. The Buddhist monk. For one word to describe the essence of Buddhism, I said, suffering.”

Everyone in the tent laughed.

Many people think that Buddhism is all about suffering. Maybe it’s because the first noble truth is that suffering exists. But I’m also struck by how in Christianity, one of the essential images is that of Jesus on the cross, and if that is not a depiction of suffering, I don’t know what is. I’ve learned that Buddhists are encouraged to develop a friendly relationship with their suffering, and by doing so, I’ve noticed the frequent experience of its opposite. I’ve heard Pema Chodron often say in her audio recordings,

“Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.”

Maybe the spiritual leaders of the past like Jesus and the Buddha, “had it all figured out” for the masculine principle, but perhaps we need to collaborate now to reintegrate the divine feminine to bring back the balance.

May our reading and writing together serve the evolution of human consciousness.

May our re-claiming of the Divine Feminine bring back the balance.

May our bringing back the balance in our spiritual natures, serve to address the spiritual dimension of our ecological crisis.

May our re-claiming of the Divine Feminine bring back a harmonic balance with our beautiful Mother Earth, as the indigenous cultures all over the world once practiced.

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I’ve decided to dedicate this series of interviews to my father, whose physical form died in 2022, but with whom I feel closer now that he’s in the ‘other realm’ than I did when he was alive. In his physical form, he would have turned 89 today. May this interview series celebrate the day of his birth on January 20, 1936, in London, England.

Happy Birthday, Dad🤩✨🧚‍♀️🤸‍♀️🌼🌷🌈🌺🪷💕☀️ ✨🌟💖🙏🕊️😘 I have a sense that I’m carrying forward the torch of your climate change activism, but with a focus on the spiritual dimension of our ecological crisis. Plus I just love the irony that you fathered four daughters, so at one time you were living with five females, and here I am writing a Substack called, The Rising of the Divine Feminine. I love you Dad.

Please indulge me in sharing the first hundred words of his obituary in a local Byron Bay newspaper:

Vale John Christopher (Chris) Sanderson

Christopher Sanderson, who died at home in May 2022 aged 86, was a big man in every respect. He was physically striking, tall and broad-shouldered, with an eye-patch and range of raffish headwear, and the deportment and Posh tones of an English country Squire.

But he had a disdain for pomp and the trappings of the privilege of his birth: his concerns were for the common weal — the good of others, his community, and the planet. He was expansive in his vision and his inclusiveness, with an ability to digest complex emerging ideas, from technology to meditation, and to share his insights and knowledge. It was a talent for “creating sandpits where people could play, learn and thrive.” He created communities and promoted causes—most recently the call for action on climate change.

p.s. I am not immune to, nor ignorant of, all that is going on in the world, in particular the fact that the orange one will re-enter the white house today. However my intention for this Substack is to shine the light in other spaces. Plenty of other publications address the more mainstream news.

May the kind of spiritual growth that our Mother Earth so desperately needs, become more mainstream.❤️🙏🕊️