Gratitude is my Attitude

Gratitude is my Attitude

Gratitude is my attitude.

At this moment in life the weather is changing and metamorphosis is happening all around us. The trees, plants, water, and the earth echo the changes that happen within our hearts.  Letting go, allowing the death to creep in through dormancy into the heart of the mother earth. Returning to the deep soil for reflection and preparing for winter to take us into the time of slow movement, rest, creativity, and focus inward.

As life shifts all around us and many demanding thoughts come in from the media bombarding our sense of peace and connection to what matters, I only know how to bow in gratitude for being surrounded by those such as you who make my life better every day.

In this moment I only have gratitude for every day that I arise on this earth to live my passion. It was not always this way for me, and I remember writing the poem below in 2012 during a time when I was ready to make the ever-pressing change the earth and my heart desired.  After two years of healing and education in herbal medicine with plants, I left my job in 2014 after an autumn of releasing and letting go of all that was causing me turmoil and pain. Heading into my passion of being an herbalist, yoga teacher, and answering the call to helping others in the crossroads of their life through the modalities I have and continue to learn.

For the past three years, I have been gifted support from my family, friends, and most importantly the plants. I am so appreciative of the continued opportunities to serve my purpose offering herbal consultations, creating wild crafted herbal medicines, teaching and learning yoga under the Dharma lineage, releasing blockages from those who work with me, learning music, healing with many different plants, integration sessions of plant medicines, traveling creating community, and most importantly serving my home community of DC.

Today, with all that is going on in the world, I want to write to let you know that I love you! I am so appreciative to have this family to share my gratitude for the plants. I am finding so much solace in morning herbal teas, sacred meditations with plants, walks in the mountains, and the changing colors of autumn.

Autumn Metamorphosis
by: April Rameé

Leaves change and fall
Hearts break and split
People lose hope
As the weather turns from sunshine to rain
Those we love break down and die
With the autumn changes
Tears flow and memories of summer fade
The bittersweet beauty of autumn
Rings hard in the collective unconsciousness
Calling us to reflection
Cementing truths unbreakable
Impermanence rains supreme
Bow down to nature
For no matter where you are
Concrete jungle to remote landscapes
You are one with Mother Earth

Read full poem post from 2012 here

Bowing in gratitude,
April Rameé
Warrior of the Light & Founder of Antler Alchemy

Divine Masculine – PEX Summer Festival 2015

Divine Masculine – PEX Summer Festival 2015

Every year since 2013 a team of us create a space at PEX Summer Festival where divinity, openness, love, and beauty co-exist. In the past years our altars were dedications to the 4 elements, nature, and dream catchers using handmade art, art from the Smithsonian, crystals, deities, rugs, and elements foraged on the land. In this space there is yoga, healing, acupuncture, massage, lectures on herbs, sound healing, kirtan, and late night impromptu ceremonies. This year the space was dedicated to the divine/sacred masculine a topic near and dear to my heart. There are so many directions a topic of divine masculine and feminine can branch into and my main purpose and focus of the space is to create the opening of discussion on the importance of the masculine energy and how to honor, raise the acceptance, and remove the word balance of the feminine and masculine as the main topic and turn it into acceptance of the masculine. How do all of us as humans harness the true power of the masculine energy for the betterment of human kind? Do we really understand the masculine?

 

Obviously I am not a man, I am a woman who takes pleasure in being surrounded by beautiful men. There is an abundance of wonderful men in this world and I am not sure they always get the credit they deserve nor do the women who harness and use the masculine energy. I grew up feeling closer to men and thinking I was not feminine but some how more of a man. I think this is due to being raised by a tomboy mother, enjoying playing outdoors more than most girls my age, and the fact that I always was really quiet when in a group of girls due to being attacked or made fun by girls for my ideas and preferred honest interactions. My father made sure I knew how to work on cars and enrolled me in martial arts at a young age to learn how to fight. Everything my parents bought me that could be handed down to my brother was bought with the intention of a boy in mind so there was no pink, purple, or many dolls. I played sports with my brother, pushed him around in a box as if it was a race car, and spent most of my time out in the woods alone. I know my story isn’t unique and there are many women out there who relate to this idea of being more masculine than what culturally is accepted as being feminine. If I feel this way isn’t there men who in turn feel the same about existing in our cultural ideology of masculinity? Is this why I relate to the concept of being a man? Wandering around waiting to find my home within the sex of my body? Is this a phenomenon that some human beings experience at some point in their life? A missing piece to feeling whole, like one belongs, and connected to something greater than yourself.

 

There are discussions of a human cultural identity crisis in the United States, too much patriarchal control. This is not only a hindrance to the growth of the goddess power but to the god power of men. I am not here to way in on if it is bad or good because these days I have a hard time seeing differences. The main point is to start the dialogue, to open the floodgates and allow the masculine to be held up in a positive esteem.

 

Two of the divine aspects of the masculine energy is giving and supporting. This is viewed sometimes as a feminine trait but is agreed upon in divinity to be a masculine trait. There are many of us that tap into giving and supporting others and not ourselves. There is also this idea of not being able to receive what is given freely. and feminine energy is to receive. I notice that the more I learn how to receive (tap into the feminine) without expecting to give anything in return, I am able to give more freely because I understand what it means to receive a gift given without expectation.

 

To quote Khalil Gibran of The Prophet, “See first that you yourself deserve to be a giver, and an instrument of giving. For in truth it is life that gives unto life – while you, who deem yourself a giver, are but a witness. And you receivers – and you are ALL receivers – assume no weight of gratitude, lest you lay a yoke upon yourself and upon him who gives. Rather rise together with the giver on his gifts as on wings; For to be overmindful of your debt is to doubt his generosity who has the free-hearted earth for mother, and God for father.”

 

 

As I watch beautiful women rise into their Goddess nature, and realize their true purpose, power, I want us women to remember to hold space for the divine masculine to step into their power. I think it is important to make sure as women during our evolution and returning to roots that we bring the men with us, because they are your sons, brothers, fathers, friends, and lovers. We are all human and desire support, love, opportunities to release, and even more opportunities to be part of something bigger and greater.

 

Therefore I urge everyone to look at their definition of the masculine. Where is the wounded man appearing in your existence of relation with the world? Are you honoring the masculine energy within yourself, your friends, and family? Are you open to the idea of the raw wild energy that comes with being a human? Can you see there is really no difference in the masculine and feminine and creating acceptance of others stems from accepting the wild free self within you, respect for the way others walk in the world and the way they identify themselves?

 

Check out the space created for the divine masculine at PEX Summer Festival 2015. Thank you to my team, Dean Hively, Philly Baker, Alex Emmerman, and John. I am nothing without your help and the visions I see do not happen without you!