KHADIJAH: The Mother of Believers. I am spiritually and financially abundant. I provide heaven and earth for myself.
There’s an ancient narrative and a destructive misunderstanding that if we are going to be spiritual, then we have to renounce the material world. The body, however, is the soul’s chance to be here. So a healthy relationship to the material world is crucial and integral to reaching our spiritual potential.
Khadijah represents the power and importance of knowing we can provide for ourselves. This power gives us roots and confidence and allows us to create relationships from a place of interdependence rather than co-dependence. We can cultivate the capacity we have to create more and more freedom for ourselves. And we can make choices for our life based on truth, not just on survival.
Living into our true power and purpose does not make us less eligible. Khadijah reminds us that there is no linear timetable that eliminates us from having the sun descend in our courtyard. She lets us remember that we are worthy of the abundance measured in gold and the abundance measured in the depth of our love.
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TERESA OF AVILA: Our lady of the Interior Life. I trust the answers I find within me. I know that the presence of love is real.
Saint Teresa is a call for the importance of the interior life. She knew immediately about the spiritual wealth we all possess and have access to if we’re willing to go inward. She not only emphasized the need to meditate and to pray in order to reach that innermost castle where the soul waits for us, but she also instructed the sisters of her convent on how to discern the presence of the soul, or of a saint, or of a holy person that is giving us wisdom from within us.
She had a bookmark that supposedly read, “If you have God, you will want for mothing. God alone suffices.” This synthesizes the wisdom of her experience. Nothing less than divine love will satiate a seeker, especially once you have met with it from within.
She urges us to meditate, to pray, to go inward and meet with the presence of the soul. And then she asks for us to believe that it is real, and that the answers we find are real. She asks us to move that inner truth out into the world with confidence and conviction.
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DAKINI: The Enlightened Feminine. My gut instinct is wise beyond reason. I trust my intuition to guide me.
The dakini means that the task will be accomplished. Whatever it is you’re currently working on – a project, an answer, or a decision – she will help see you through to the other side. In whatever form you need most, as a playful angelic presence, as a taskmaster to help you maneuver through what’s hard, or as a messenger with the wisdom that’s needed for you to take the next step.
But with the dakini, the answer and the way forward is not with the intellect. She is the embodiment of feminine intuition. She reminds you that you have an innate power to know instinctively what’s best for you now.
The dakini means it’s not going to be a straight, clear yes or no. With the Dakini, it’s the third option. She reminds us that there’s something out beyond yes and no or even right and wrong. There’s something your gut will tell you if you can be expansive enough to hear the answer. She is not bound by the usual, or by the expected. She will allow you to come up with the unthinkable, the most imaginative, and the most brilliant outcome possible.
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