Women’s Wisdom Returns
Intro to a Journey of Self-Recovery

I did it. I made the call.
“I am sorry, but I want a divorce.”
I’d tried, for years, to make it work. I even spent four years trying a “marriage sabbatical” – living in a separate home to see if we could stay married.
I just couldn’t do it. We didn’t fit well anymore and I needed to fly after over 30 years of marriage. Who was I really? I’d spent way to many years in deep, spiritual development, coming to understand, love and enjoy my creative and joyful nature in the hopes of being accepted and loved to keep putting myself in a box because I didn’t feel safe to share the fullness of who I am.
I didn’t know my next steps so I grabbed a blank journal and started writing and painting.
My Path of self & Self Expression
Who am I NOW?
The years of being, growing, receiving
moving, hiding, releasing,
playing, crying, feeling… and not
grieving, and rejoicing.NOW it comes into deeper awareness and BEAUTY
freely moving and dancing with life
As I am called to do.
No one to prove anything anymore.
I love. … I am loved.
That was my first entry. Despite the angst I felt at this rupture in my life’s plan and the hurt my family and I were feeling, a playful and joyful energy seemed to exude on the page.
This colorful energy supported me throughout the difficult year of transition I faced as we renegotiated our relationship and moved towards experiencing a more whole version of myself than I had ever allowed myself to experience.

We are all on a journey towards wholeness, whether we name it that or not. (AND HERE I NEED TO SAY SOMETHING ABOUT THE NEW WORLD… WHAT IS NEEDED OUR NEW HUMAN EXPANSIVE SELF FIND A WAY TO TIED THIS ALL TOGEHTER.)
While we all have our own unique paths to follow, my choice to leave my marriage was a difficult but important decision for me to begin to express myself fully, see my own positive attributes and build a healthy identity that included relying on myself rather than others for approval or direction.
Self-recovery and transformation from being small versions of ourselves to vibrant, expressive expanded versions of ourselves doesn’t have to be as hard as I made it out to be. There are many more people exploring their spiritual identities and providing support for this important work. This is great news! Think about the metamorphosis of a caterpillar into a butterfly.
A caterpillar will eat and eat and then spin the chrysalis around itself when it is time.
It’s whole form disintegrates. It becomes liquid. Inside the liquid are “imaginable cells”, literal cells that have imagined and hold the knowledge of the future butterfly form that will rise out of the liquid.

To express the playfulness and joy that is possible in the midst of transformation, I wrote this poem following a delightful chance interaction I had from a butterfly that landed on my finger for a visit.
On the Wings of Butterflies
Miracles abound, can you see them?Floating in the air with grace Struggling through change with determination and trustTransforming the world moment by moment
Whispers…it’s your lucky dayMake a wish. It’s all possible.Just look at the beauty, the wonder of the worldAnd know, you can be part of that incredible energy – of Love.
It doesn’t promise to be easy.Surrender and be led through the rhythms.The rules will change.Your world will grow dark at times.
And then there will be Light.
Transformation, we do it everyday.Learn from nature – the Master of change.The caterpillar eats and grows, eats and grows,Shedding its former self again and again.
In a final moment of tightness and painIt knows to move on – death to the old,Immense creativity to create the new.From inside out, total reinvention of ‘self’.
It’s time, time to come out!Emerging as a true adult in all its glory,Pumping energy from within.The butterfly takes flight.
On purpose, with grace, confidence and joy,A beautiful part of the great chain of events.Be in awe of the Universe of which you are a part.The butterfly will teach you how.
