Beloved: Entering The Matron’s Tent — A Guided Workshop

This premium workshop is an invitation into the Matron’s Tent, an environment from The Midnight Carnival that holds the Divine Feminine, the inner mother, tenderness, grief, forgiveness, nurturance, softness, and love.

In this session, I guide you through a reading, meditation, opening the senses, energy sketching, automatic writing, and one inspired action to help you carry the journey into your own life. This is a space to soften, listen, and reconnect to the part of you that knows how to hold what is tender within. You may want a journal, paper, and something to sketch with nearby. This is a replay of a live class, and throughout the session, I’ll occasionally invite you to pause the video so you can write, sketch, or reflect; thank you for your patience with any background noise from the original recording.

Transcript

Hi, I'm Jocelyn. Welcome to Beloved. This is the entrance into the matron's tent. And it feels appropriate. In around a month, We're going to have Mother's Day. I've been working closely with Mother Mary in the Akashic Records. And I feel like life is calling in a softening, A tendering. A receiving, Supporting. And really the world outside is so. . . There's so much activity. There's so many things to feel judgment and blame and fear and doubt about. That sometimes we need to mother ourselves a bit, Even if we didn't have the mother that we wished we had. I was lucky enough to have a beautiful mom who gave me a lot of mothering. But not everyone is. In that same position. And right now, I've been mothering myself. So I just want to introduce myself. I'm Jocelyn. And i am a creative midwife i am an akashic records guide human design guide a soul art guide i was an expressive arts therapist intermodal for many years working in and out of the different arts and expressive modalities And I left that world. Became a mom, I homeschooled my three kids. I have been using creativity in all the elements of my life for a very long time. And in 2021, I lost my parents seven days apart. We were living with them at the time. My kids were young. And it was very traumatic for me. And so I've gotten on this journey of grief. I decided to look it in the eye to be with it. And to allow it to take me for a ride for a little while. And out of that journey into grief. And it started just with my parents, But that journey took me so much deeper. It took me into ancestral wounds. It took me into. . . Working with the inner family. It took me into the Akashic Records and where my soul has been. It took me into many, Many journeys, Soul art journeys, Akashic Records journeys, Soul shamanism journeys. I have been steadily working with my grief since it happened. And that is where The Midnight Carnival comes from. The Midnight Carnival is my book. And it's, Let's see, I have it here somewhere. Let's see, Here it is. This is my book, The Midnight Carnival. A Tale of Remembering, And it is a piece of fiction, But it's also an autobiography. So it's a map of the journey that I've been on through all the bits and pieces from becoming a Yoga Nidra guide to becoming a soul art guide to becoming an Akashic Records guide. All of that happened in the time of my grief. To tapping back into my expressive arts roots. To learning about the divine feminine and bringing all of those pieces in and it's all in here in the environments of the midnight carnival And one of the environments is the matron's tent. And in the matron's tent, It's one of the first environments that the main character finds in the midnight carnival. One of the first. And it really holds the divine feminine. It holds. The tenderness. The strength. The forgiveness, The grief, The container. The love, The softening. And it holds it in all the faces of the divine feminine. So we're going to be entering that today. And honestly, To take this journey now. When you have like a month before Mother's Day is so beautiful because you can allow the journey. To Soften. Across the next month until you find yourself. At Mother's Day, And whether that is You know, Really, You take Mother's Day to really bless your own mother or. . . You for mothering yourself or your inner mother or the divine faces of the feminine. Whatever you choose to do with it, It gives you some chance to let it steep, To let it steep, To let things soften, To follow the journey, To use your inspired action that we'll talk about today. So I'll be reading a little bit from this. We'll be working with clearabilities, The senses. We'll be working with energy sketching, Automatic writing. We'll be working with meditation. Thank you so much for joining me. Oh, And before I forget, I was in the Akashic Records with. . . The Ascended Masters, And I was working alongside Mother Mary, And I wanted to share this beautiful image she sent me. She had her hands out. And in her hands was. . . A seed. And I was working with Mother Mary as she sees me, Right? Her as she sees me in this 3D world. And so I was shown in her outstretched palms, Her hands reaching out, Was a seed. And in that seed, I was there. Authentic i was you know not dressed in anything just naked in the sea that I've been cultivating this home that I was cultivating, Right? And the seed is beginning to open. And I need to get out, Like I need my sprout to grow from that seed. But the message was to soften, To soften. Because as my body softens, It can move, It can maneuver, It can be flexible, And it can grow toward the light. This idea of softening, Of being held and supported while we soften, Is so antithetical to the world right now. But it's not antithetical to our roots. It is our roots. It is our roots, Especially as women. So just if you might close your eyes for a minute and imagine. Mother Mary is standing there with. . . Her hands and her palms outstretched, And inside is this seed. And you. Your authentic self, Your authentic heart is in that seed. And the seed is beginning to open because you are ready to reach out to the light. You're ready to rise. Right? And you have nothing to hide. But you can't just push your way through, Right? You can't just bang on the seed. The way of this image is to slowly soften, To let one piece out at a time. So nothing has to change, Nothing has to shift. Nothing has to be compromised. Right. It's just a matter of allowing, Softening one side while the other side reaches and softening that side while the opposite side reaches. And just this gentle, Tender. Moment of allowing ourselves to rise to the light. That was the message I got from Mother Mary yesterday, And I wanted to share it with you before we started in on this journey. So this is about listening, Remembering, Softening, Tenderness, Receiving, Receiving. So before we go any further, I want to introduce you to the idea of the inner family. So we all have this outer family, Right? We all have a mom and a dad. Maybe a grandparent, Right? We might have children. We have this family outside of ourselves, But within each of us, We have an inner family. And that inner family has an inner mother. And inner father. An inner wise elder or sage. And an inner child. And that's like a system that works within us. And the way that system works. Is the inner child is non-filtered, Unfiltered. They express, They feel, They see, They question, Right? Without the judgment of anyone around. And that wise elder, That grandma, That sage, The one that's inside of us. Watch is that inner child. And they say, Oh, You could really do with some help from the inner mother or with some help from the inner father. They watch without judgment. They watch without. Blame. Without fear, Without doubt in the inner child's beauty. The moment. So once that inner wisdom, Inner wise sage happens, They send the child to the mother. For that nurturing, That support, That care, That holding, That tenderness. Or they send that inner child to the inner father. For protection, For boundaries. Right? So this is how an inner family would work. Uncompromised. It is not always that way. Oftentimes it is not at all that way. Because we have these outer reflections of families, Right? And we're going to focus on the inner mother today. So we have this. Mother that we grew up with that that has become our definition of what a mother is right so if our mother was some way our inner mother might be reflecting that or if we saw that our inner mother was having issues with us right we might have our inner mother that does the exact opposite. It kind of reflects, It mirrors, Right? That inner mother can reflect and mirror the outer mother. But the inner mother. . . Is all about nurturance. And the inner mother is. . . Like a guardian of the inner child's heart. Right? The guardian. The one who holds. Who nurtures, Who hugs, Who supports, Who doesn't judge, Right? Who isn't afraid of their own inner child. And. Softens with them so we all have an inner mother so you'll hear me talk in the meditation that we do about an inner mother And that inner mother is the one I'm talking about. We also have clairabilities. We have like clairvoyance where we can see with. Our inner vision right we have uh where you can hear where you can smell, Where you know. We have clairsentience where you feel things, Right? You might feel sensations across the body. As we go into our meditation, We're going to open up our senses. And the reason for this is so that we can open up to messages, So that we can open up to knowing, So that we can open up to the insights that our own inner Mother has for us, That the Divine Feminine has for us, That Mother Mary has for us. Right? And that we can open up to the insights and feel our way through, Whether that feeling is through vision, Through sound, Through feeling, Through sensation, Through that knowing in your gut. So we do have these clear abilities and clear senses that we will tap into today. We're going to be exercising them for a little bit. I'm going to start with this reading. In an almost invisible thread of the story. She saw a new mother sitting on a bench in the corner of the tent holding an infant The child was hungry and crying while the mother was attempting to breastfeed. A child would not latch. The pressure in the woman's chest was building with the child's cries that were waking the milk. In no time the mother became frenzied with guilt, Rising, And an unknown shame shaping a silent scream. The baby was flailing with her whole body. And the mother's hands were attempting to quell the sound. And the hunger. And it was in that moment that a light hit the statue. And across the surface was Mother Mary. With her open palms. In a delicate moment of memory, Anessa thought she saw one of Mother Mary's hands reach out and cup the young woman's face. A single word passed through the air. Beloved. The mother stopped everything and for a moment took a breath. Then looked down at the child in her arms and whispered, Then she brought the child to her breast and she latched. The soft hiccuping of milk feeding her child filled the tent. And the memory faded only to be replaced by another. An older woman with a photograph of a young woman who resembled her in the shape of her eyes. And the curve of her cheekbones. And the turn of her lips. As she looked up at the statue she pleaded with tears to return her daughter. Again, Anessa saw a hand, Reach out to her again, The word. Beloved. Over and over again, The memories faded only to be replaced. With new ones. News stories, They were all different versions of mothers. Mothers who were abandoned those who were the protectors, Those who had been neglected, And even those who had abandoned their own children. They flashed and flickered in front of Vanessa. And in each and every story, The words Beloved. I love that chapter because. . . Of all the different types of mothers that are present in it. The repetition of that word beloved beloved the word itself is soft and forgiving. The word itself is receiving. Just to hear that word, You are beloved. It's tender. And that is the energy that our inner mother carries. But it's also the energy that faces of the divine feminine carry. So wherever you are, You might want to bring yourself to a flat surface where you could lay down, Maybe your bed or the floor if you have a yoga mat. Or you might want to sit back against a couch or a lazy chair. I just want you to get as comfortable as possible. You can keep your spine straight if you're sitting. Or if you're laying down, Make sure you support your knees, Your ankles, Your lower back, Something so that you have some effortlessness to your body. And I invite you when you are there to close your eyes. Allow your awareness to go inward. You might let your awareness travel to your eyes. Gently invite your eyes to relax back and down. You know, The globes of the eyes, The eyelashes, The eyelids. The eyebrows, All the muscles behind the eyes. You might even tell them you are beloved. Allow your awareness to move to your ears. The lobes of your ears. Cartilage of the ears. The inside of the ears and the inner ears. Inviting all of the ears to Relax back and down. And. . . Just letting your awareness. Move across the ears. With your awareness on your ears, You might see how far your inner ears can pick up vibration as you relax them. There's a whole ocean of sound around you at all times. What can you hear in the ocean of sound around you right now? How far can you hear? Hmm. And let your awareness move to the muscle of the mind, That space between your inner ears. Inviting the muscle of the mind to gently unfurl, Unwind, Relax back and down. Nothing to do here. But rest. Inviting your awareness to your jaw. The hinge of the jaw, The right side, The left side. All the muscles of the jaw. Ligament. The chin. Relaxing back and down. You Letting your awareness gently move across the spine from the top of the spine. Down past the ribs, Each curve, Each space. Gently relaxing. To the middle spine, The lumbar spine, All the way down to the tailbone. Effortless, Just Maybe whispering to the entire spine, You are beloved. And then just bringing your awareness to your heels, The weight of your heels. Invading your heels to relax back and down. Feel their weight be held by the support beneath you. And then just letting your awareness shift to your breath without changing it. Chest. Feel your breath and how it is moving in your body right now. Notice how deep it is. Notice its dance between inhale and exhale. How does your breath dance between the inhale and the exhale? No manipulating your breath, Just allowing it. Just witnessing it. There's no right or wrong and we don't hold any judgment. There's so much information in the breath. And I invite you to imagine a path before you. What does the path look like? Is it winding? Is it straight? Is it cobblestone or gravel? Is it dirt path? Just notice this path in front of you. This path is going to lead you to the matron's tent. The place of the divine feminine. Of tenderness, Softness, Receiving. I want you to look at the path in front of you. Notice how it feels in front of you. Do you have any sensation in the body? Notice how the air around this path feels. And might you imagine beginning to walk this path? To the matron's tent. There's no rush. Take all the time you need. Notice the air as you follow the path. Notice any shifts or changes as you walk forward. Notice the quality of light on this path. And if there are any aromas in the air. And as you begin to find the matron's tent, Just standing in front of it, Take in all the textures, The colors, The qualities. Notice if it reminds you of anything, If it holds memory from this life or another. Notice if it's inviting. I invite you to walk into the matron's tent. The air is soft. The light is dim. But it might have a certain glow to it. Can you feel the stillness in the room? It's stillness, But it's not empty. There is presence here. Might you imagine that there are Stories that have been told over and over in this room. Stories of mothers. Of daughters. Of grandmothers. Stories of love. And being loved. Stories of not being loved very well. They're stories of hunger and grief. Longing and tenderness. There's stories of silence and devotion. This tent holds them all. And now it holds you, A part of you that has. Sensed the need to soften. There is a part of you that needs this place right now. Let that part of you appear however she wants to appear, Young. Old. Tired, Fierce, Wise, Grieving. Maybe she's numb. Maybe she longs so hard for something. Or maybe she just is relieved to be there. And as you notice this part of yourself. Might you notice behind this part of yourself your Inner Mother. This is not necessarily the mother that you have had in your life. She's not the mother you wish you're able to be. This is your inner mother. The mother that knows how to stay present with you. The mother that nurtures and holds. That knows how to witness. Without flinching, Without judgment, Without shame, Without fear, Without doubt. This inner mother knows how to love. What does she look like? What does she remind you of? Just take her in for one minute. Breathe into her. Can you sense her in your bones? Can you know her love? Breathe into this inner mother. Allow her to expand and hold you. I invite you to spend just one more minute with your inner mother. Maybe you want to say something to her or maybe she wants to say something to you. Maybe she offers you a gift. What is that gift? Or maybe she just. . . Touches your face. Just be present with your inner mother for one more minute. Might you imagine your inner mother? Her hand full of warmth, Of softness, Of tenderness. Full of giving everything you need to receive. Imagine her placing her hand on the top of your head. Feel the warmth. The soft glow. Imagine her placing the palms of her hands over each eye, The warmth, The soft glow. Their palms over each ear, Right ear. Left ear. Feel the warmth and the soft glow. The softness, The tenderness, Radiating out from her palms, Across your ears, Around the back of your head. And forward to the tip of your nose. Imagine her hands taking your cheeks in their palms. The radiating glow entering, Softening all the way down the cheeks into the neck. The throat. The back of the neck. Radiating glow and warmth. Imagine her hands on your shoulders. The backs of your shoulders. The fronts of your shoulders. Your upper arms and your shoulder blades, That warm glow radiating across the upper back, Softening. With tenderness. Imagine her hands her palms draping down your arms with that radiant glow that softness softening each muscle each pore in your skin giving over and softening as her hands move all the way down to your palms. Opening. The energy centers of each palm. Imagine this inner mother coming to your heart both hands over your heart you can feel the warmth the soft opening all the way across your chest your ribs your armpits the sides of your chest Opening the heart chakra. Ready to receive, Ready to soften into the moments. Her hands move down to your belly, Your womb. Soft warmth, Opening, Expanding. Releasing The softness radiating all the way around the lumbar spine, The back, And all the way down through the tailbone, The pelvic bowl. All glowing with a warmth and a softness opening gently. As the root chakra opens. The sacral chakra opens. And the solar plexus chakra opens. Her hands move to your hips, Her palms sliding down your legs, Opening with softness. Her palms go down your hips, Down your legs. All the way through your knees your calves and down to the soles of your feet leaving a trail of softness a trail of warmth a trail of opening of receiving of letting go of surrendering And her hands stay at the soles of your feet, The warmth of her hands and the softness of her skin. Traveling all the way through the body, Up the legs, Hips, Belly, Chest, Arms, Heart, Throat. All the way up the face the back of the head to the top of your crown All the chakras spinning in the same direction open. Your inner mother can do this for you. And it is a gift. It is love. It is remembrance. It is softness. It is tenderness. It is receiving. And your inner mother puts her hands once more over the eyes. The third eye, The Ajna. The warmth gently opening that third eye chakra as she turns you. To see in the tent a statue. And this. Statue is a present. And it shifts and it changes with whoever you need to speak to. Whoever needs to speak to you. It might shift from one to the other. It might be Mother Mary, Quan Yin. Mary Magdalene. ISIS. Hathor. Or it might simply be a presence, A mothering, Beautiful, Nurturing presence who doesn't have a name or a face for you. There's no need to force an image just. Be with this mothering presence. You might feel it. You might know it. You might hear it. You might smell it. Taste it. Might see it. Just be with this presence. Notice how the divine feminine looks toward you, Looks at you, Loves you. Notice, Do they say anything? Do they have anything to offer? What do you feel like in their presence? Do you feel the need to say anything? Do anything? Give anything? Just remain present. And if there is anywhere in your body that you are holding where something is tight, Something is waiting, Something is blocked, Something is asking not to be fixed but met. Allow this divine feminine presence to shower it in grace. In their gaze, With their hands. Allowing the word beloved to move through them into you. Let that word, Beloved, Move, Stream through your body. To the place of fear, To the place where fear lives. Beloved to where the shame lies. Beloved to the over-giving parts of yourself. Beloved to the anger welling. And this whole time your inner mother at your back, Divine feminine at your front, Held. Beloved to the daughter in you. Beloved to the mother in you. Beloved to the part of you that's exhausted and tired. Beloved to the parts of you that feel alone, Unseen, Unheard. Held in the back by your inner mother and held in the front by the divine feminine presence. You might, In this place, Ask yourself silently, Where do I need tenderness the most right now? I'm gonna be quiet for the next few minutes. And you can ask whatever questions you would like. Just being present with both your inner mother and the divine feminine presence. Feeling, Seeing, Hearing. Smelling, Tasting, Remembering, Imagining. All of it is yours. Softening into being held. In all directions. Was a nurturing. And when you're ready. Whispering back to both your inner mother. And the divine feminine presence, Beloved. Allowing yourself to one more time take in the tent. And walking out the entrance, Knowing you can come back anytime. Walking back to the path you came. Noticing how the quality of light has changed, How the path has changed, How you have changed. And when your feet are off the path, Taking a nice deep breath in through the nose. Out through the mouth. Let your hands come down to your thighs, Maybe rubbing the top of your thighs a little or putting a little pressure on your thighs and straightening your elbows and grounding down. Inhaling. Opening your mouth and sighing out. Maybe letting your head move along your spine. Circling Blinking your eyes open and coming back to the moment. How is that, My friends? We are going to do a little bit of energy sketching with that meditation. I'm going to read you one more. Part of the book. Anessa wasn't sure how much time had passed. She had witnessed mother after mother in the tent. And then it was done. And in the pause she saw herself enter the tent. She was young and old at the same time. She was a mother and a daughter. She was lost, Alone, Fierce, Soft, Grieving, Laughing, Teaching. Failing and praying simultaneously, As if time was passing before her eyes. She was caught in the loop of the question, Who am I? She could see clearly that this woman was her, But she didn't remember anything she was being shown. The statue was marking time with the faces of Mother Mary, Kuan Yin, Isis, Mary Magdalene. Mother Mary, Kuan Yin, Isis, Mary Magdalene. Mother mary and somewhere in the relentless changing tide of the statue along with her own story alive in the tent something had landed It was like the first drop of rain in a dried-up riverbed. The crusted dirt softened under the weight of water. Only it was a river, Alive. In her own body. She could feel something inside beginning. Her confusion quickly turned into an utter relief as more raindrops poured down. She didn't realize it, But she had been inhaling and exhaling with the turn of the statue. And before she could make sense of what was happening, The tent went dark and the word, Beloved. Perched in the silence. Anessa looked down at her hand, Still trembling and covered in a light mist. She could feel the wetness on her skin in the current of the river inside her beginning to move. She sensed something she had forgotten long ago. It was the faintest whisper of her own voice. In the darkness, She bowed her head toward the statue. And then she turned to leave. Yeah. So much sacredness. So just having that reading and coming out of that meditation and coming out of your own experience. In the matron's tent we're going to begin to energy sketch You don't have to have language for energy sketching. I'm going to just pull out a marker, So I'm not going to look for different colors myself. I just want you to take out a marker or a pencil or a pen, And I want you to close your eyes and just start with the word beloved. So I'm going to write Beloved, And an energy sketch is just closing your eyes and letting your hand move across the page. And doing it, It's a really quick process, Just a way to get a quick energetic read on where you're at with it. So I just wrote Beloved. And I'm going to close my eyes, Get into the energy of Beloved. And you can do this along with me. And I already feel it, So I'm going to let my hand move along the page. If you notice, My eyes are closed. So. . . This is my energy sketch. And the first thing I notice is it looks like a pelvis. It looks like a pelvis and a spine. That's the first thing I notice. And I'm just going to take a moment and jot down my thoughts on it. If any questions come up, Do I want to know more about that? We're going to do another quick energy sketch. This is just to get you started. I want you to do an energy sketch of your inner mother. Inner mother you can put at the top. So just getting into the energy of your inner mother. And then just letting the pen go. And this is my inner mother. Kind of looks like a chair, But it also looks like there's a heart in here. And now I'm going to go to the next page. And right mother my actual mother how was i actually nurtured Get into your energy of it and then allow yourself to sketch. I'm just gonna And this was my actual mother. Now you can take longer with an energy sketch if you'd like. I'm just doing energy sketches catch the gestures. The movement or flow behind something so sometimes when i energy sketch i can just see angles or lines and i just that's what i do and i don't go any further and i'll go back to my energy sketches and write with them but i'm just going to energy sketch a little bit first I'm not going to go in because I've been working very closely with Mother Mary. I'm going to put my relationship with Mother Mary. That's what I'm going to put at the top. So you can pause this at any time. To go deeper into your own energy sketches. This is mine. And I encourage you to go through now and. . . If you want to do more energy sketches, You can. Maybe what I need from my inner mother. Maybe how can I heal my relationship with my mother or my inner mother? Or how do I deepen my relationship with the divine feminine presence? You can ask any of these questions. And you can pause the video at any time to go ahead and do that. Once you're done energy sketching, You're going to start writing. And you can actually write on the energy sketch itself. With each energy sketch, You're going to just notice, What do I like about this? What am I called to? What do I see in it, Right? What do I see in it? What am I called to? What do I like? What pictures do I see? Where do I see structure, Symbols, Anything like that? This one would be easy to pull into a symbol. For the word beloved, And I actually might do that. Finding what i like about it what i don't like what uh what i see how it feels and then i'm just going to stream of consciousness right so that's your next You're going to pause the video and you're going to stream of consciousness, Right? And that means just letting your hand go on whatever the word was for your energy sketch. You can write right over it or you can change the page. Just letting your hand go for about five minutes. And let yourself write. One of the things we're going to do is come up with an action. So we're going to automatically write with our own inner mother. So I would like you to put at the top Inner Mother. And we've already started automatically writing at least the skill with the stream of consciousness, Right? The free writing we just did. We're now going to bring it to the intention of speaking to our inner mother, To ask our inner mother, What do we need? It's really important to have a movement for us, An arc, An energy arc for our life to begin to find the nurturance, To find the softening. Like, How do I soften? What do I need to soften? What do I need to take care of to nurture myself? Right. So what you're going to do is start automatically writing. So at the top of your page, You're connecting with maybe your inner mother or maybe you really had a connection with the divine feminine presence. So you choose what you want to automatically who you want to automatically write with. And I just want you to after you put that at the top who you're connecting with, I want you to write the question. You can choose, Like, What do I need in order to soften? Or what's something I can do to bring this softening into my life? And then you're going to start by writing. In stream of consciousness answer your own question in stream of consciousness but don't concentrate too hard don't over focus your eyes allow your pen to go and not stop don't let it stop and it will shift into a bit of automatic writing after a while. And I want you to come to a place where you have an answer for that. So pause the video and I'll be back. Now that you've done some automatic writing, What you can do is Look at your writing, Look at your sketches, Think about and sit with the energy of the beloved and the softening and what you need. I want you to come up with one aligned action, One inspired action that you can take from now until Mother's Day. It might be Once a week, It might be once a month, It might be every day, It might be giving yourself a hug, It might be doing a yoga nidra once a week. But something simple, Nothing too crazy, Just something simple that you can do that you'll enjoy doing, That you'll look forward to doing, To soften, To nurture, To take care, To receive, Right? So that you can grow up into the light, So that you can stretch into the light from that seed so that you can reach up, Right? What is one action you can take? So go ahead and look through your writing. Pause this. Look through your sketches. Think about your, And live within the meditation, Your matron's tent. What do you need? Maybe you just need to get new curtains for the spring. Maybe you need a new color curtain. Right that reminds you every time you see it like yeah it's soft like me right so go ahead and pick out your your inspired action and i'll be here So you have an inspired action. You've met your matron's tent. You've done some readings. We've done some automatic writing, Some energy sketching. Just to get into it a little further, We've opened our clear abilities, Our chakras. We are softening, My friends. We are holding ourselves. We are nurturing. Ah. This is needed. The world is so angular. The world is so full of sharp edges. We as women. We hold the ability to contain and nurture and soften all of those edges. I'm gonna read you one more piece. It was waiting for her, Tucked away in the farthest corner of the shop. It was folded so perfectly and deliberately as if it were guarding its own silence. It was dark, But not black. It was a color that changed depending on the light. Midnight iron. Ash. It was threaded with a singular silver thread. Anessa approached it slowly, And as her fingers touched the fabric, Her palms began to warm. Her spine lightened. She realized that the shawl held a vibration within it. She wrapped it around her shoulders, And the secondhand shot dissolved. In front of her was the stone circle in the middle of a forest clearing. There was a fire at the center and smoke curled up to the treetop. Anessa looked down at her hands. They were older, Wiser, Marked with veins and time, And they held deep rivers of knowing. She wasn't alone. Figures stood out beyond the fire. They were ancestors, Guides, And witnesses. She could see the faces of Mother Mary, Quan Yin, Isis, And Mary Magdalene. She saw pieces of her own existence living among them. A high forehead, Two dimples peeking out from a half-smile, Green golden eyes, And there was a woman in front. She didn't recognize her at first. It had been so long since she held her in her eyes. It had been so long since a piece of her own story had flooded her chest. But she knew her by the way her own heart sang out. It was a knowing in her heart. It was her mother. No one spoke. As the shawl tightened around her shoulders like a second skin. Her mother stepped forward and embraced Anessa. She could feel her mother's hands warm on her back and the roundness of her body pressed against her. She breathed in the smell of gardenia and clary sage that wafted off her skin, And she lay her head on her mother's shoulder. She couldn't move. And she didn't want to. In that embrace. She was healed by simply being. Not by closing down, But by a distant remembering and trusting and knowing. Anessa offered herself to the unknown without naming it. Tears flooded her face, And before she had time to let it all sink in, The fire began to flicker out. The forest faded into the backdrop of the secondhand shop she had returned. The shawl was on her shoulders and she could still feel the heat of her mother's hands on her back. They still clung to her. Anessa glanced down at the white dress beneath the shawl. Soft and familiar and now sensual and a piece of her story. She decided she would keep the shawl. She stepped toward a wooden tray near the exit. There were pins and brooches. Medallions, And a pocket watch. Without hesitation, She reached for a singular moonstone set in silver. It was oval-shaped. And iridescent. Something about it reminded her of her mother, At least what she could remember. She pinned it over her heart. As she turned to leave the second-hand shop, A rack near the exit swayed gently. And Anessa heard a faint whisper from behind her. You have only just begun. So taking a moment, You have your inspired action. You have been in the presence of the divine feminine. The Inner Mother. Your own heart, Energy, And chakras. You have been softening. Let's take a minute to give some gratitude to your body, Your 3D self. Just one full minute of gratitude. What are you grateful for in this 3D body? Maybe your eyes. Your spine, Your breath. Your creativity, Your heart. The home you live in. People you love. What are you grateful for? Five more seconds of gratitude. Take a breath. Let it out. Thank you so much for joining me, My friends. I hopefully will see you next month with a new workshop, A new circle. Thank you so much for being here. Of course, You can always get my book on Amazon. There are links all over on my link tree on jocelynbates. Net, On Substack. And. . . Yeah, I'm so grateful for your presence, My friends. Namaste.