A couple of nights ago, I was listening to Arjuna Ardagh interview guests on his Thrive in the New Economy conference call about the gifting economy. I felt deeply touched by the couple who is teaching free workshops and inviting people to donate if they get value. I woke up the next morning with tremendous inspiration. I have a gift to give, and I’m going to give it away for free!

From this place, I have decided to give away my book, Reclaiming Aphrodite-The Journey to Sexual Wholeness. It is now available as a free .pdf download on my website. I added a “donate” button for those who receive value and wish to contribute, though I am completely unattached to that happening. I adjusted the price of the Kindle version to 99 cents, and I am gifting copies of the soft-cover for shipping cost only from my website. This is not a limited time offer, but a genuine, ongoing offering of my gift to you.

I called right away on my cell, and just as we were about to settle the rebooking, the AT&T network went haywire and the agent could not hear me anymore. We called each other back several times, and although I could hear her, she was unable to hear me. I looked around frantically, remembering that there was a pay phone in this lot. Sure enough, there were two right next to each other. I had no idea how to even use a pay phone anymore, dinosaurs that they are, but this one took credit cards. I was able to rebook my flight for a couple of hours away, delay the rental car, and talk to someone at Hawaii Island Retreat to let them know I would be later than originally scheduled. The cost, I later found out, was over $5 for each of the inter-island calls.

The re-route took me through Honolulu instead of a direct flight to Kona, and the drive to the retreat center was about an hour long. It was dark, and I could not see the scenery along the way, but traffic was light and I arrived at Hawaii Island Retreat around 9:30 pm. It was just as windy and rainy as the weather I had left behind in Maui. I was greeted by Jeanne, the owner, and she showed me to my room, the Peach Hibiscus. She encouraged me to use the bathtub, a gorgeous over-sized oval large enough for me to stretch out my 5’10″ frame easily. I obliged as soon as she left. All told, it was eight hours, door to door for a simple trip to the nearest neighbor island!

I slept soundly, wrapped in organic bamboo sheets and a down comforter, well insulated from the wild wind blowing outside. I left the curtains open so that the ocean view would be the first thing I saw when I awakened. In the morning, I took a closer look around the room. It was created with beautiful, dark wood furniture and floors, all highly polished. The bathroom contained a huge open double shower in addition to the lovely bathtub, and was also furnished in dark wood and marble with tile floors. Everything was spotless and there was an abundance of fluffy towels. I was greeted on the vanity by a baby gecko, who had probably hatched within the last few days.

Mercury continued to play with me as I watched my cell phone battery drop, realizing I had brought no charging cord for it. I was exchanging texts with a dear friend with whom I had had a deep misunderstanding that needed clearing, and I was feeling the emotional storminess overlaying my day even as the wind and rain buffeted the pine trees outside. Mercury would station direct the next day.

I only had a few hours to tour the place before heading home to Maui, so I went down for breakfast. I was served by Jeanne herself, in the open-air dining room. She sat down for a few minutes and I asked her about if she was of Hawaiian decent, as I could feel her connection to the roots of the culture. She replied that she was not by blood, but by heart, and that she had spent many years studying the Hawaiian language and culture, including the dance of Hula. She told me stories of being brought to this land many years ago, before she was looking for property, by her Hawaiian “Uncle”, or teacher. He brought her by boat and showed her the canoe house where the ancient Ali’i (kings) had come to hold council on this land. She did not fully understand why she had been brought to the land at that time, but later it was all revealed when she was brought to the land again and recognized the canoe house. She knew then it was where she was to build this special place.

Steeped in her stories, and having been fed luscious tropical fruits, homemade granola, yogurt and goat cheese, eggs and banana bread, I set out with Jacque to have a tour. The main lodge was a U-shaped, curved around a central courtyard, with an abundance of upstairs lanais and sitting areas. I saw several of the rooms, most of which had the same grand bath tub as the Peach Hibiscus, each room a different color. All the doorways were 9′ tall, with beautiful dark wood doors. Everything was immaculately crafted and kept. On the first floor, the Christmas tree was being decorated, and we peeked into the workshop room, large enough to hold at least 50 in a circle. Two curved, tile staircases took us to the second floor lanai and the media room with its comfy chairs and wireless internet.

Next we wound through the organic gardens and visited the yurt village, and I found the yurts charming and comfortable. Nearby was the bath house, with separate areas for men and women to shower. We then walked toward the spa buildings and pool. Though the day felt wintry and cool, the saltwater pool still looked inviting. From the outdoor massage space, we could see down in the valley that held the council stones, a sacred place on the land marked by ancient rocks in a verdant, green valley.

As the Director of Education, I am deeply excited to be bringing the Divine Feminine-Awakened Masculine Institute to this magical place March 3-10, 2012. I feel it is a great privilege to be held in such a sacred container as we bring the much-needed work of sexual healing and spiritual sexual education to the planet. Those lucky few who will be with us in March are in for the experience of a lifetime… to be so cared for by a loving staff who wholeheartedly supports what we are doing… to be so nurtured by the luxury of the rooms and the grounds… and to be so held by the energy of the Gods and Goddess of the land of Aloha, the place of transformation, creation and destruction, is a rare privilege.

My name, my book, my blog, and my website rule the first 3 pages of the Google search, and they continue to weave through page 9. Page NINE! I found my little self published, home grown tome for sale in India and New Zealand as well as at several online bookstores beyond the ones I was aware of. I was blown away with delight and gratitude.

The book is only a starting place. It’s about my personal and highly successful  journey of healing from childhood sexual abuse and adult sexual addiction. It is written as a journey through the chakra system as a path to healing, from the base chakra to the crown. It contains personal stories from my life that are full of magic and intensity, as well as healing exercises to help people reclaim their wholeness no matter how they might have been wounded. As one review states, “Every reader will gain something from this book.”

Aphrodite is the Goddess of Love and Beauty. As a wounded child, I felt like the ugliest duckling in the pond. The road to self esteem and self love was long and winding, and the journey was arduous, but the gains were boundless. One of the milestones along the way was seeing a glimpse of myself in the mirror and catching my breath at the beauty I saw in my own eyes. Aphrodite reclaimed!

The first steps of my healing journey led me to a circle of women, an initiation of priestesses. We connected with the Goddess energies in ceremony, and these archetypal energies, along with the other women, were my first support system on the road to recovery. Eventually I was ordained as a High Priestess, carrying forward a lineage of the Goddess and the Sacred Feminine.

Sensuality and sexuality are also part of Aphrodite’s heritage, and there is much more to reveal about that aspect of my healing journey… but that is yet to come. This blog is dedicated to exploring all the richness that is entwined in the idea of Reclaiming Aphrodite, and I’ll be diving in at least weekly to weave the tapestry with you. Thank you for the gift of receiving my words.

Aloha

Workaholism comes easily to me. I have drive and ambition and know my purpose on the planet, and there is a never-ending “tado” list. I have a tremendous reservoir of energy, always have, and I can draw heavily on it. What’s been underneath all that is a desperate need for acknowledgment; to be seen as “exceptional”; to be the best at what I do; to earn approval and acceptance; and of course the endless seeking for financial abundance. Time for a new paradigm!

As I traveled in the Midwest this spring, taking my work out on the road with my beloved, Apollo, I declared that it was Time. I busted the endless cycle of “I’ll have time to rest after this trip or project or [fill in the blank]“. If I’m going to have balance, it must begin NOW. What emerged from that was a very old, very integral shadow aspect of myself. She revealed herself and told me her name: GetShitDone Girl. I shortened that to GSD Girl. She had been running my life as far back as I could remember. She is a master of accomplishment; no deadline too short, no project too large, messy, or difficult.

My desire was to honor her place in my inner pantheon and be able to call on her as needed, without her running my whole life. Enter Shadow Work.  While traveling, I had an opportunity to receive a session from Shadow Work founder Cliff Barry and his wife Vicki Woodard in Fairfield, Iowa, supported by my dear friends Joe and Julie, also Shadow Work facilitators. It was a fantastic session, where GSD girl got to reveal her original purpose in my life (to protect me in my unsafe childhood) and she was honored as an important part of me. Although I can’t fully describe the process since I was deeply immersed in it, I understood and embraced the value of working with archetypes and symbolic processes as a way to catalyze inner shifts.

Upon my return home about two weeks later, I could feel the ways in which I was beginning to embody the balance I had called in. I have started consciously implementing new practices, which I will share with you here:

1. I follow my muse. I ask myself, “What do I FEEL like doing next?” instead of imposing the previous protocol, which was to start with the hardest thing on the list and work my way down to the easiest until I finished the list or dropped from exhaustion, whichever came first.

2. I take weekends off. No more work weeks that never end. Just because I’m self employed and work at home does not mean I need to be the worst boss I’ve ever had or live in my office.

3. I soften my focus. I no longer require myself to have a razor sharp edge at all times. When I need a reminder, I watch the 2:36 minute video called Prickles & Goo.

4. I go outside and play. I live in a tropical paradise, for heaven’s sake! Hiking, swimming, camping, backpacking, or just laying on the grass under the stars are all part of what I moved to Maui for.

5. My current growth edge is to ask for help and to delegate. I don’t have to do it all myself, and I truly can trust others to do it as well as I would. (Okay, I’m almost convinced, but not quite.)

6. I remain tuned in to this process that is a constant unfolding. I know that balance is never static, never finished, always in motion. A Dance with a capital D.

When I really need to remember exactly what it is I am here for, I read my favorite quote from Abraham-Hicks:

All is well, and you will never get it done. Life is supposed to be fun. No one is taking score of any kind, and if you will stop taking score so much, you will feel a whole lot better – and as you feel a whole lot better, more of the things that you want right now will flow to you. You will never be in a place where all of the things that you are wanting will be satisfied right now, or then you would be complete – and you never can be. This incomplete place that you stand in is the best place that you could be. You are right on track, right on schedule. Everything is unfolding perfectly. All is really well. Have fun. Have fun. Have fun!

Aloha

I have written and published a book that is helping people recover from sexual abuse, as I have done with so much success. I continue to create, and to evolve ways to be in service to the Divine and the healing of the planet. I am alive during the turning of the ages, the most powerful time of change in the known history of Earth. I am surrounded by overflowing abundance and succulent beauty. I am truly blessed!

There’s more. Oh, so much more. But I’ll leave it at that for now. Thanks for tuning in, and may your heart be at least as full as mine.

Aloha