Way of Change. Hailey Klein

of your most vivid memories. Do you remember any little details of the scenes? How do you think they have influenced you and decisions you have made? Who is influencing you now? Our family or tribal connections can be complicated, but for better or for worse, it is how we receive our early information about life and how to live.

      I remember piling into my grandfather Bud’s green Mustang convertible with my sister and brother on summer nights when we were young and it stayed light until bedtime. We climbed in with our pajamas on, and he would drive around with the three of us squished in the backseat. I was usually in the middle, and we would lean our heads way back and watch the sky blur by. I don’t remember any sounds except the trees in the wind. We all stayed very quiet. It is a memory that takes me right back to the moment, and even when it was happening I was nowhere else but right there as the landscape melted around me. It was a time of few worries, when most things were bigger than us but in a free and wonderful way. Memories are elusive phantoms and we all store them away differently, but this is one I carry with me always. My brother and sister may hold it as a part of their stories in other ways, but it is there somewhere, just the same.

      THE GODDESSES

      I belong to a women’s group. We call ourselves the Goddesses—no disrespect or undue vanity intended. I don’t even remember just how the name came about. We have been getting together faithfully once a month for six years for dinner, laughter, conversation, and the chance just to be women for a few moments. Once a year or so we sneak away for a weekend to spend time outdoors at the ocean or in the woods. It isn’t always easy for spouses and partners to understand the need we have for one another, the strength we gain from our connection and simply being together. We come back to them transformed each time, our spirits renewed, our wells refilled. One goddess’s husband loves it when she has a weekend with the group because she always returns with a passionate appetite.

      We are artists, writers, businesswomen, teachers, mothers, wives, daughters, partners; married, divorced, single; employers, employees, and self-employed. We are thirty-something, forty-something and fifty-something—outdoorsy, indoorsy, dramatic, and shy. But when we come together each month, we are women. We need no other title. It is a refuge from expectations. It is the glory of no-strings-attached connecting with acceptance and love.

      Each of us in the group has been lovingly carried through bumpy times. We have been mentored, cajoled, and lauded through brave change, confusion, new relationships, grief, loss, and triumph alike. The energy created by our connection is tremendous. We often joke that the estrogen levels in spaces we occupy could take out a small army. I realize that this kind of group is not for everyone and there are other ways to make connections. Some women have come and stayed, others have moved away for work life, and love. Still others have sniffed around a little and moved on, not finding what they needed or not arriving at the right time.

      Making connections with others isn’t always easy. We are thrown together with peers at an early age, and that continues through school. We are then on our own to find people we like and who like us, people we connect with. Sometimes even now when I am making a new friend I feel as though I am eight years old again. I am hoping I will get invited to the “cool girls’” slumber party because they want to invite me, not because their mom is making them.

      There is risk involved with opening up yourself to reveal fears and vulnerabilities, to connecting at our sources of truth. Terry Tempest Williams writes when talking about the idea of exposing our true selves that “we commit our vulnerabilities not to fear but to courage. . . .” Find or rediscover powerful connections in your life. Find a safe place to ask questions and test emerging emotions and fears. It is thoroughly reassuring to speak your truth and see heads bob in understanding of what you are saying. The words “I know just what you mean, I feel the same way” will liberate you when they are said to you. Make time in your life and space in your heart for connecting with others. Embrace it wholly with the most terrified, tentative parts of your spirit. The rewards are limitless, the power immense.

      Someday after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides, and gravity, we shall harness—for God— the energies of love. And then, for the second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.

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      from Les Directions de l’Avenir (Towards the Future)

       —Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

      ENERGY

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      A discussion of energy is in order at the outset because it is key to discovering the entrance to the garden. Everything and everyone and everywhere has energy. We ourselves are indeed energy, and energy or life force is all around us, in our thoughts and emotions. We just need to remember. We feel it in our bellies, our intuitive selves, in our very centers. Too often we dwell in our heads, relying on our analytical hemisphere rather than listening to the information coming from our source of intuition, our source of true self. Don’t underestimate energy’s existence as an entity. Have the courage to recognize and respect it. Every cell in our bodies holds the emotional energy of our thoughts and actions. This impacts our health and our happiness.