Once upon a time….

That’s how all the best stories begin. In those four little words there is so much potential and my trip to the Red Sea held all of that potential and somehow, while sitting along its shores under the bright blue sky listening to the wind and the waves, I bottled it all up inside my heart and soul and brought it home with me.

So….

Once upon a time, there was a wildness in the air that echoed through the canyons of my soul and I felt caged.

I knew winter was coming. I knew it had been a tough year and I had worked hard on all the new things. I knew I was going to reach a breaking point and I knew that because of the tough year, it had been more of a challenge to embody the words I strive to live by. While there had been lots of Magic, my love affair with Epic and Adventure had been set aside and with each heartbeat my connection to them seemed to be fading. As you know, I’m not a sit-around kind of girl so I grabbed them by the hand and held them close and we had a chat about how to rekindle our relationship.

A friend of mine had been posting some photos of the Red Sea and it looked so inviting I decided that would be pretty Epic and filled with Adventure to walk along those sandy beaches and to explore the desert in this beautifully exotic place. I began saving up and planning and then arranged my flight and already that felt like I could breathe a little easier. Then I found an AirBnB that looked inviting and had great lighting for some indoor portraits if the mood struck. I wanted a real vacation….no work, no plans, just be in the flow and spontaneous, which I knew was not how I usually travelled but I was thinking this would be a great experiment.

Since I had been working so hard, as the date of my departure neared, I started to feel a little crazy and my demon Fear crept in. What was I thinking?! I already spent a lot of time alone working from home and now I was heading out to a remote place, by my Self, with no plans?! Official Freak-out Session was in full swing and I kept trying to breathe through it, telling my Self it would all work out and be okay.

The wisdom of flying into NYC

On the flight to NYC I sat beside a woman from India. I was actually quite sleepy and napped much of the flight but we were able to chat as we neared the city and she was absolutely lovely. I watched out the window as we approached and saw the skyscrapers and water below me and I thought to my Self, “All I had to do was to buy a ticket and get on a plane and here I am, on my way to the Red Sea!” It may sound silly but truly it’s a very powerful thing as it creates possibility and in that moment I was feeling the winter and the loneliness and stress begin to fade away and my old friends of Epic, Adventure, and Magic step in closer.

I had a few hours to wait at the airport before takeoff so I had something to eat and walked around to stretch and move. On my walk, I ran into the woman I’d sat beside and we stopped to chat while other travelers walked quickly past to make their connections. She commented about the fact that I was traveling alone and that she wished she could do that. I reminded her that actually, she was! She’d traveled to Indianapolis from India by her Self and now was returning….but she didn’t think that qualified since she’d come to the States to visit family. I told her about my thoughts as we flew into NYC and she seemed inspired by that. “All I have to do is buy a ticket!” We became FB friends, as one does these days, hugged and said our until-we-meet-agains and headed in our different directions. Me to my Adventure, and her back to her home.

Returning to Egypt

The flight from Zurich to Egypt was filled with 4 hours of beautiful anticipation. I watched the geography below me change from snow-covered mountains, to Venice at the sea’s edge, to the vast blue of the Mediterranean and to the edge of the African continent. Saying it that way even feels epic! “The edge of the African continent.” I watched the miles of blue turn to miles of sand…and I felt my heart settling into its rhythm of homecoming. I was glued to my window seat watching the desert then seeing the Fayoum and wanting to explore there one day, then seeing the Nile river and its green banks and then the mountains. I was mesmerized.

My apartment was lovely and located inside a resort along the shores of the Red Sea so I had access to the restaurant and pools and resort amenities but all the privacy I wanted. I settled down for a short minute then headed outside to the sea. She was calling me and my feet had to walk to her. I sat along the shore listening to the soft sound of the waves licking the sand lit beautifully by the colors of the fading day. I had bought the ticket. I had flown miles and miles. I had arrived and I was letting my eyes drink it all in to my soul.

Sunrise

The next morning I couldn’t sleep after 5 am and went out to watch the sun rise over the Red Sea. I found my Self at the end of civilization and the birthplace of the Wild Places between Here and the next hotspot for humanity. The wind was light and the sun was bright and warmed my face. The cliffs were covered with embedded coral and shapes of things once living but now turned to stone. I sat there on layers of Time as the sun rose as it had done in this corner of the world for longer than we can even fathom. I curled up and rested into the roughness feeling all of my edges softening and breathing.

I’m not sure how else do describe the way I was feeling other than just that….my soul was breathing. Everything unnecessary was slowly falling away and I was returning to my own core under the glow of the big ball of fire that seemed to be lifting itself above the horizon. The world was turning….my world was spinning….and coming back into alignment.

Lilith and her demons

Before I even left home, the theme of this month’s Goddess Diaries blog came to me and I heard “Lilith Goes to the Red Sea”. It felt so right! I felt the presence of Lilith come near and she brought me face to face with my demons and I knew this trip was going to be all about dealing with them. In the stories of Lilith, she’s the first wife of Adam, created by God at the same time and out of the same dust as Adam. She was his equal. The problem was that Adam didn’t see her as such and was always asserting him Self and wanting to make love in a dominant position. Lilith knew her power and this didn’t go over too well and after much soul searching, eventually she left him ….and retreated to the Red Sea.

It’s said that while there she returned to her Wildness and made love to the ocean and to the demons and gave birth to even more demons, and while this may seem like a strange story to embrace, let’s look at it outside of the dogmas of religion.

Lilith represents that part in each of us that feels betrayed, unseen and disempowered. In her solitude she dealt with the pain of separation/divorce and fully embraced these feelings. She raged and went out of control. She became her animal Self, that part that we many times forget that we are…an animal. Animals tend to retreat into solitude when they’re in pain and so Lilith retreated into the solitude of the wide open spaces of the Red Sea that were waiting there for her. It’s as if the wide open spaces wrapped their arms around her and gave her the space she needed to feel safe expressing all of her pain even when it wasn’t going to look pretty…especially when it wasn’t going to look pretty. I have visions of Lilith as a woman at the edge of the sea and sky and sand screaming into the wind whose hair blows wildly around her and hot wet tears of years of repression streak unashamed down her cheeks. There’s beauty in this raw, vulnerable wildness if we dare to go there.

Lilith dares us to go there.

She faced her demons and eventually won, becoming the patroness of all who feel betrayed and unseen and disempowered. I have visions Lilith as a woman who knows her power and is seen for who she is…beautiful, intelligent, confident, loving, compassionate, insightful, courageous and strong.

Facing my own demons

So what are the demons I brought with me to the Red Sea? My demons that I tend to keep close are:

Isolation. Abandonment. Rejection.

They seem to always find a way to stick around so I have to deal with them and I find my Self drawn to situations that set these up for me. One of the most interesting things to me about my trip was that the final few weeks before leaving home to come to Egypt I was really struggling with Isolation especially. As an entrepreneur I work from home so that means a lot of time alone and with the endless forecast of cloudy, mostly cloudy, partly cloudy and considerably cloudy, the cold, and working hard so I could go play hard or relax was wearing my spirit down and literally sucking the life out of me. My inner cheerleader was working overtime so I could just.keep.going. and not break. I knew this was coming (the winter, the forecast, these feelings) and was so grateful for the insight to plan ahead for this getaway.

While I had a few days planned to go out with others (strangers having Adventures) for the most part I was alone. I had time to my Self to walk, to journal, to take pictures and do self-portraits, to create and cook. I found my Self often seeking out this solitude…which felt really really good. Even the way I chose to describe it after breathing and coming back to my Self, was in the healthy light of Solitude rather than Isolation.

I embraced this solitude and sitting alone at the edge of everything on memories of living coral, like Lilith I had come to the Red Sea to heal and made love to the ocean and to my demons and, although I had moments of creating more demons (drama and story-telling in my own mind when I was tired), I overcame them and felt whole in this place of remote wild-her-ness…and it was beautiful.

The Egyptian Mysteries: Nephthys & Lilith

Yes, there are Egyptian mysteries at work here, too…I was in Egypt, right?

The Egyptian Goddess Nephthys was the card drawn for the month of February from the Oracle of Seshet video (that you can watch HERE). The beauty of Nephthys is her ability to embrace solitude and, like Lilith, she knows that sometimes we need to retreat into that space to give our Self time and space to heal. Within every healing there is an aspect of introspection, mindfulness, and processing and without these things, healing can only take place on a surface level. We have to go into the depths of our wisdom to move through the healing and come out on the other side of things whole.

The card of the month’s message was one of taking time out for your Self for self love and self care….and while I was there in Egypt experiencing all of this self love and gentleness I felt the presence of Nephthys with me as well. Lilith’s energy can fell more like that of a go-getter while Nephthys is softer and more gentle… and I love them both. Sometimes we need to actively not give power to others in our own healing and dig deep and tackle it in our own way and sometimes we need to sit softly and nurture our soul.

Tell me….

How do you embrace or feel the energy of Lilith or Nephthys in your life?

What are YOUR words (Core Desired Feelings)? How do you embody them?

Can you name your demons and how you face them?

Do you need guidance or support in finding your Core Desired Feelings, befriending and understanding the gifts of your demons?

Contact me … I’m here to help!

Enjoy the journey into Egypt with me…