25 Days of Israel: Day 7 - Wings for the Queens

This is Day 7 in a series of posts I have chosen to write during the time of my current - and last, for a while - trip to Israel in March 2023. My experience of Israel in these last 7 years of my residence has been vivid, inspiring, nerve wracking, debilitating, and wholly, precisely, profoundly the medicine I've needed. Words will not (yet) fully express the treasures I've received from my presence here, but I believe the commitment, challenge, and confidence of these 25 Days of Israel are a beautiful homage to their glory in my life.

Happy International Women’s Day, beautiful souls 💖

Wow, what a beautiful and magical day for me it is. As time has passed, this day has become more and more pivotal in the scope of my year, and lately has functioned as a mighty milestone for the big moves I’ve been making.

Today is truly a new beginning, and a boundary of completion, in so many ways, in so many layers, energetic and physical. Let me describe them.

👑 Today, we complete the Jewish festival of Purim, which celebrates the fearless Queen Esther and the way she saved her people (the Jews) from destruction at the hands of the king’s malevolent advisor, Haman.

While that act is pretty badass all on its own, Esther has become a symbol of the strong and vulnerable feminine and the expansion of the voice of women. As a guide, she offers inspiration and compassion, and is a reference for loving humility - soft and clear, but also active, not subverted. She holds open a path for authenticity for all who wish to walk along with her, and is creative and colorful as a personality.

Personally, I adore her. I’ve always found her accessible, even as a kid in central Virginia where we didn’t exactly have a strong Jewish presence. I usually found myself involved with Purim, and always felt her standing joyfully, bright, available to me whenever I sought her.

Therefore, it’s a no-brainer that she’s a resonant companion on this celebration day of Queens around the world, because she invites us to put on our crowns and wear them proudly. I read a very interesting post by a friend in Israel who offered a few unique thoughts on Esther. Inspired by her words, I will also then add, for those who don’t have a crown - or more accurately, believe they don’t have one - Esther also provides one from her stash, intentional with her mission of celebrating Queendom.

A message from her today: “Sweet lights, yes, run. Run as fast and as far as your free legs will carry you and then launch yourself into the sky. You will find your Wings, and then, you will find your way home. Savor the horizon; this beauty is all for you. I love you.”

👑 Last year on International Women’s Day, I made the decision to go live on my personal Facebook page every day, no matter what, for 21 days. I was, of course, reminded of this because of Facebook, without which I only had the vague sense that I did something important for myself that day.

Indeed, I did. Creating those live videos, which turned into another 28 lives right after that, changed the way I related to myself, to my light work, to my creations, to my interaction with the online audience I honestly love dearly now, to Joy Journeys. A lot of GREAT things happened in 2022, but I think the decision of those first 21 lives was easily in the top three, if not perhaps my best investment in my personal and professional self.

I also know that it wouldn’t have happened the way it did if I was not firmly located in Israel. This decision came just before Berlin seized my life - in the re-emergence of spring, when I felt enamored by breezy spring mornings as I do every year - and I was feeling passion and excitement flowing faster through my veins again as I de-thawed from the winter. The Wings mastermind had only just begun (more on that later), and little did I know that this creative pursuit was the ticket to launching a whirlwind of an evolution thereafter.

Today is a day where I am especially grateful to Israel and its habit of inspiring situational flourishing, because this day one year ago was a GREAT day and so is this one.

I may not be launching a new live video series this time, but look at me, on day 7 out of 25 of a new creative challenge. So much is emerging as so much else is converging. I’m definitely holding the door open for the greatness fit for this queen to come in.

👑 Yesterday, my cohort of 7 amazing women and I completed a year-long journey in the Wings mastermind. It was an emotional, inspiring, joyful, and incredibly loving celebration of the year and all that each of us encountered within its sacred container.

That means that today marks the first day of a new era, the first moment of quantum beginning ripe with potential for each one of us. For myself, I know I have big plans to launch UP and create much More, as an individual and as an embodied member of intentional community.

That starts with this very website, which I’ve worked on for months but hadn’t shared with clear intention the way I did yesterday, today, and beyond. This website is where I’m choosing to anchor my light, my passion, my love, and where I will continue to experiment with enjoying and uplifting my magic and power. I’ve always considered it my temple - that I’m proud to say I built entirely myself, brick by brick - but today, I will also name it as my throne.

I extend my warmest, most loving gratitude to the Wings container and all the inspiring women who made it exactly what it was. It’s bizarre - and so wonderful - to think that they know me as no one else in my world does; that we showed up together, week after week, in the darkest and brightest hours because that is the commitment we made to ourselves and each other. I’ve had no other such potent experience like it, and will feel its absence from my life… but I will also take precious gifts from it.

One of them: my Wings journey started in Israel and, although I’ve spent at least half of this year in Berlin or abroad, here it remarkably will also end. Again, with the weight of all this year has meant to me, I am humbled by and grateful for the space this country has given me to exalt myself. For everything Israel also is, this ongoing opportunity to experience unconditional love and gratitude for it, even now as I complete this chapter, still blows my mind.

Another: This day, around the world, women are encouraged to put on their crowns (and keep them there!), but this year, especially, the 8 of us flying high in the horizon on the brand new wings we created for ourselves 🦋 Let me say, this view is divine.

My Wings angels: You are forever in my heart and with my light 😘 Enjoy those Wings, beloveds. I love you.

Israel: You, too, are forever in my heart and with my light 😘 I love you.

Women of the world: You inspire me and move me and I run on my free legs with my creativity in part thanks to you. Enjoy that crown. You are forever in my heart and with my light 😘 I love you.

Jillian Joy: You are my heart and my light. We’re in this until forever, with a treasury that keeps on growing. I know I don’t need to tell you to spread your Wings, because you’re telling me 😉 I’ll take the hint. I love you dearly 💜

👑 Today is the Hindu festival of Holi, which marks the end of winter and the beginning of spring. Significantly, this festival is a celebration of love and joyful awakening, most famously expressed by throwing colored powder with unfettered abandon. It is a time where it is said the gods turn a blind eye and people are able to start fresh with their inhibitions behind them. It is a time of laughter and connection, revitalizing your relationships, and coming well and beyond outside of your shell.

It is literally a festival of colors and delight, an exaltation of the core pleasure experience of our human lives.

Again, there is a distinction. One way of life comes to an end, and another begins. Wherever we have come from, we now move towards a purer expression of our love and light. Today, this year, when this festival converges with IWD23, we recognize and refresh our capacities for creative, uninhibited living, the way of a feminine flow that can move us all.

That’s precious and colorful 😊 Just the world as I love it.

👑 Not quite today, but the energy remains: yesterday was the full moon in Virgo. Out of all the zodiac, for me, Virgo is the reference and the vision of the compassionate, creative, connected, uninhibited feminine we express we can, do, and will embody through the celebration of IWD. She is at once tender and fierce, perceptive and nurturing, grounded and raw.

I read another excellent post today discussing this moon energy, especially as it occurs simultaneously with Saturn’s transit into Pisces (organization meets chaos - it’ll be an interesting period of prioritization 😉). The key point that stood out was that this is a move back to nature, the move of the wild woman coming back to the heart of the Earth with which she is a master.

Although she, of course, has her place in the heavens, where she has countless allies and friends, Woman has a clear and powerful role right here on the ground, on this planet Earth, that nourishes all of us. Far beyond a binary gender expression, encompassing feminine energy, yes, but also stretching beyond, womanhood is earthy, practical, and alchemical, mysterious but vital to the essential nature of the Earth.

It is definitely no coincidence that this aspect coincides with International Women’s Day 2023. It’s not a time where we need that kind of support more than ever, but rather, I think it’s the reflection of the tangible, actual progression we’ve already put in motion and that we continue to weave as we speak.

In summary, there’s a lot going on today, for me and for all of us. (And even, when I looked at the clock writing this sentence, I saw 21:21 - an angel number for a new beginning, change, and growth.)

I have a strong sense of where I am heading, but I wonder… in which direction do you set your untamed creative spirit now yourself? Towards which visions will you now spread your wings?

Wherever you go, I hope you will enjoy the ride 💖🦋