WOPILA! Giving Thanks

Dearest Divine Spark of Creation,

As the year rounds to an end, it is the perfect time to reflect on your last year.

• What challenges did you face?
• What GOLD did you receive from the challenge?
• How did you honor the GIFT that Spirit gave you on the other side of that challenge?

EVERYTHING in life is not happening to you, it is happening FOR YOU! While we are in the midst of a challenging experience it is difficult to see the silver lining and the saying “hindsight is 20/20” has deep significance.

Can you walk through the challenge asking yourself why is this happening for me?

Last year did not disappoint in the realm of intensity, from a supernatural pilgrimage into the Divine Feminine Mysteries of Southern France to the Emergency Room at Vancouver General Hospital being asked who my next of kin is. This year was full of initiations.

When I look back to my experience of spending 11 days and nights in the hospital fighting for my life, I am filled with many lessons that I will never forget.

1. I am my own authority and author of my life experience.
   
   I was tested during the detox, I was asked to self-purge in the middle of my ordeal, and at first I declined and then I let go of my own authority and let someone else be the expert. That was the test. There is no other expert other than myself and my clear relationship with those who GUIDE me from the non-physical realm. I failed my first test but that is how it is meant to be, I never fail my second.
2. Grace over force.
   
   The old paradigm is dying of using force to heal, get what we want, and to be better. The last memories locked in my cells from times past were purged during my hospital stay. Force over grace suppresses the wisdom of the Divine Sophia, the goddess of creation, the other half of the equation if we are ever to find balance within. We serve no one cleanly when we are not in balance within our own god and goddess nature.
3. Receiving is an act of reciprocity.
   
   My time of healing allowed my family and community to fully show up. To love me, to support me, to support my family and my NEEDS. As an ultra-independent woman, I never realized how much of my drive was a trauma response to believing I had to do it all on my own. When my mother came to my side, the tears that were shed from my eyes were as old as time. My mother came, and the great-mother came. I am loved.

AS ABOVE SO BELOW

We cannot go through these initiations without giving back, giving thanks. The Great Spirit gave me my life back, my authenticity, self-love, and personal power. From here all things are possible and ripe for the plucking. As much as I wanted to thank Spirit quietly in my own way, she/he was clear that I needed to bring Wopila to my community.

A Wopila is a giving thanks ceremony, a way of giving back all that has been given to me. I invited everyone who supported me in some way or another and I prepared a feast with salmon (the sacred meat of the Salish coast) as the main dish, then a colorful dessert, and sacred gifts. I gave gifts that meant something to me and each gift came with a story of healing that my friends could take into the fabric of their life.

This IS a RECIPROCITY. This was my duty, to give back for all that has been given to me.

CALL TO ACTION

I invite you in 2024 to keep your energetic plate clean. To offer a thank you for all that you were given in 2023, to give from the heart and teach your community how to live a sacred life. It doesn’t have to be grandiose but it should stretch you a little. It is an act of listening and then delivering…the balance of masculine and feminine in action. As above so below.

Happy 2024 my loves.