Experiencing The Divine Femine

 With a handful of exceptions, the teachers and guides in my life have been women. I gravitate toward the Divine Feminine. Many writers have expounded on the feminine as creator, bringing forth life. I like my transformational teacher Bettie Spruill’s idea of the Feminine as the soil in which the Divine Masculine may grow and express itself – and without which it cannot. (Of course I too am soil for my wife, children, birth family, friends, colleagues.) On this Thanksgiving, I acknowledge a soul partner who appeared in my life this year, and from which sprang forth a family.

For more than two years, I was immersed in a community that grew out of a transformational training company based in Florida (a thousand miles from my home in Virginia). Gratitude Training offers a four-month course in personal/professional leadership development. The core awareness training takes place over nine days; its foundation is that we are born perfect and whole, and that over time we adopt beliefs that limit our potential. Graduates of the core training then may participate in “Masterful Living” teams that, having exposed and discarded those limiting beliefs, spend about three months practicing the skills of creating the life of their dreams.

Over 30 months I learned the skills of awareness and then coached others who followed me, eventually leading teams of coaches who supported others taking the training. I developed intimate relationships with scores of people and influenced the lives of hundreds of others. My last call with Gratitude was to lead, with Jennifer, a Masterful Living (ML) team.

I had met Jen two years earlier, when I was in ML and she was a coach, though we hadn’t spoken much. Now we had been matched to co-captain a team of 32 ML coaches and participants. On our first phone call, about a month before ML began, we practiced the skills we had learned, creating intimacy and revealing ourselves in ways we might share only with a close friend.

As ML transpired over 15 weeks (gathering in person five of those weekends), Jennifer and I texted most days, phoned each other a couple times a week, and listened in on innumerable calls with elements of our team. Some members took to thinking of us as Mom and Dad.

When I try to describe Jen, words mostly escape me. She’s a single mom of two loving boys, an elementary school teacher, a person of exquisite heart. She is the Divine Feminine. As my partner, she set the context for everything that transpired. She was the love, the safe space, that encouraged every member to be vulnerable, to share, to give, to love. I can’t offer a seminal moment; she was simply the loving gift, allowing me to show up as Dad (and whatever else). For everything I did, every conversation I had, every distinction I defined, I felt her support. She fed me.

Now that ML is over and we have set on new paths, I am left with the experience. We don’t talk regularly. But my heart has grown because of what we co-created. I am grateful.

This story touches my heart as it is what I call the story of "soulful connection". On our life journey we meet so many great people, however there are a few, as Bennett will say, with "exquisite heart" that leave the imprint on our life just a bit deeper than anyone else.

I met Bennett through my own transformational journey that started in 2014 in Florida. His professional history includes 28 years as a Capitol Hill beat reporter, House press secretary, lobbyist and legislative analyst. Yet it is not his professional journey that is so impressive, it is being in his presence that just makes "all be all right". I call Bennett "gentlemen with the big heart". Truly, one of a kind and yes ladies, if you are curious "he is taken." You can learn more and follow Bennett through his blog on conversations of democracy in America , Transformational Citizenship. www.transformationalcitizenship.com