Every time I have the privilege of speaking with a truly wise person, I’m reminded of two eternal truths: the power is really within the individual, and help is literally all around us. Those ideas may seem paradoxical, but they are inextricably woven together in almost all empowering teachings. You are drenched with potential and you are surrounded by opportunities.
Julie Loar is a very impressive woman, an expert on mythology, symbols from around the world, and our conversation on this week’s show was particularly fascinating to me. Julie’s work involves using the Tarot as a tool for amplifying dream symbols and making the link between mysterious imagery and the implied prescription for resolution, growth and transformation. Her book Tarot & Dream Interpretation is a powerful tool for translating the intense imagery of the Tarot and recognizing how these archetypal elements coincide with dream themes. If you do a lot of reading, its easy to recognize that Ms. Loar is a real scholar, someone who truly understands enigmatic material, not someone who hopes to sell a book expecting that the reader will never know the difference.
Julie’s books are profound, uplifting and clarifying. She knows that if you are baffled by a mysterious dream, you don’t want to add a new layer of frustration to your day by reading of ancient symbols that are even more obscure than your dream! Reading her explanations and suggestions is a relief akin to getting a live customer service representative on the phone when you call for help! The surprise and delight takes you off guard.
I asked Julie how she came to write her book: Goddesses for Everyday and she said that after some initial research on a few legendary goddesses, she was swept away by the stories of the Divine Feminine from around the world. The work then told hold, like a force of nature, and she became a partner in her own writing, as if the book itself was struggling to be born, just as she worked to deliver it into the world.
This subtle midwifery is something that writers often describe, and when you read Julie’s work, you will feel what she meant. Because she has had such an incredible journey, from corporate America to teacher of goddess workshops and mystic truths, I asked her for some advice for those of you who are taking the first soaring steps in a dance with your own vision, wondering if the magic you feel is real or just self-indulgence.
Julie had this to say:
1. Don’t underestimate the power of journaling. Be a student of your own process and a witness to the material that has been so long under wraps. Being the delicate writer and the accepting reader of your own truth grants a profound permission for what you know inside to be truly owned and therefore accessible to you.
2. Show up. Make some commitment to the process. Not in an oppressive way, but in the sense of keeping faith with yourself.
3. Create a container. Your journal, your blog, your website, your dream sharing group, your book club, a study group. Something that will give you a space in which to visit your wisdom and to sample and dabble. “Put your fingers in the dirt” and give things time to grow.
4. Be gentle with your process. Like sprouts in a new garden, it’s difficult to tell exactly what is growing until it has a bit of time to take on its form. Give your green, sprouting urges toward life time to emerge.
5. Let go of checking up on your progress all the time. This result-checking compulsion is contrary to gestation. All is not measured by hits on a website, “likes” on Facebook or pithy quotations. Switch to a loving, nurturing mode, rather than measuring and constantly positioning for approval. Give your impulse or idea a stretch of time in which to bud, without forcing it to prove it deserves to exist. This spaciousness feels entirely different from the pervasive pressure we unwittingly place on each and every thought to be a “winner.”
Tend the garden of your creativity, your purpose, and let it reveal itself to you!
Contact Julie here. Listen to our interview here.
Trust in your truth; give life to your creations. You are filled with power, and surrounded by help.
~Gillian