A GODDESS GIFT FOR YOU

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1 A GODDESS GIFT FOR YOU Leonie Dawson

2 This book Is filled with treasures for you: Stories that will heal your spirit Affirmations from my book 73 lessons every goddess must know for you to print out + colour And a How To Make A Nature Mandala poster. May these light you up, Make you whole Take time today to play with the gorgeous spirit inside you.

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4 SOMEONE WHO BELIEVED IN ME When I was nine years old, I had a teacher named Miss Collins. She had eyes the colour of amber hiding in earth. She was tall and thin, with a long elegant neck like a goose. And she saw something in me. A writer. A soul begging to shine. A girl who preened under kindness (as we all do). And she preened out her white goose wings, and enfolded me in them. Large white feathers enveloping my limbs and lungs. Come to Writers Class, she said. And so I did. They were Wednesdays, during big lunch. While all the other kids played, I got to climb the stairs back into the quiet of the classroom. I got to shine as who I was. I'll always remember Wednesdays. They were my favourite day of the week. I'll always remember the gift of a goose woman giving me a pen and a page and saying simply: Write. I'll always remember what it felt like to be so invincible: to have someone believe in me with their whole, fumbling, translucently lovely heart. I see so much of what I do now is thanks to Miss Collins and her white winged love. It is all I can do now to surge my way around on my own kingfisher blue wings, whispering to every glowing woman I meet: I believe in you. Here is your space to be alight.

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6 HOW TO SEE YOURSELF BEAUTIFUL I'm sitting watching the street pour down with rain. What can I tell you dearest, that you would need to know right now? What can I tell you that is true about Sex and Self Respect? I try to think of stories to tell you. Of how I felt undesirable as a young woman - unglamorous and uncoordinated and invisible to men. Of nights sitting outside clubs as two men cried over their infatuation with my friend. Of how I wondered what made other women glow and not men. Of how I eventually realised that it had nothing to do with me. Of how I wasn't invisible to the man who loved me and saw the beauty in me. But they are all stories. Stories of men and confusion and trying to carve my own way in the world. They are not the story of Sex and Self Respect. They are not the truth. And darling - if there is one thing I want to tell the story of - it's the glowing, light-soaked truth. The one that makes me beam, the one that sets you alight like a star-hewn sky. That's the kind of truth I want to tell. So. Sex and Self Respect. What do I know for sure? What I know for sure is this: They have nothing to do with men. They have everything to do with us. We women? We have a world of magic and mystery and glow inside us. One that we can choose to switch on and switch off. One that we can dive into and let the wonders inside us flow out. It's got everything to do with us.

7 So I left school. Fell in love. Stayed in love. Moved cities. Made art. Wondered and wandered. And then one day, just like that, my life changed. A shining, heaven-scented woman at my work invited me to her women's circle. What the heck is that? I asked her. Just come, she said. You will see. We sit in circle and we talk and share. It is good. I resisted, of course. I couldn't understand how that could be a good thing. Besides, I much preferred to circle with boys and talk their simple, easy talk. But the light inside that woman kept me wondering. I wonder what secrets she knew. And I had a feeling that her women's circle may just show me the way. So one November night, I arrived at a plain suburban house, and walked into a plain, suburban room where women shone. They sat in circle, talking together. Each looking so familiar, so beautiful, so iridescently alight. They were women who walked through their lives conscious. With spirit. Making choices that made them whole. Where the topic of conversation was not How To Land A Man, but How To Love Beautiful, Beautiful You Even More Deeply. That was their Holy Grail, that was their destiny: themselves. The wise, precious, joyful Goddess that lived inside them. My life changed then, of course. But of course. How could it not? To meet women who became instant sisters. To find mentors and examples of what it is to live in this world as a Goddess. To learn at last how I could move through this world with joy and love, knowing just how valuable and precious I was. This was the time my beauty came through. This was the time my beauty emerged. A school friend exclaimed when she came to visit me: Leonie, you look so beautiful! I mean you always were beautiful at school

8 and everything. But now? You are really, really beautiful. And she was right. Love came. Love went. Love stayed. And all through it, my beauty was the same. The story of finding my beauty? It had nothing to do with men. It had everything to do with me.

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10 THE INCREDIBLE JOY OF LOSS When I was 14, my brother gave me the best gift he could have possibly given me. He died. Of course, I did not think of it as a gift right then, right at that moment. The most searing memory I had of that terrible afternoon was standing atop the wooden cattle yards, calling out wildly for my Dad between the avalanche of sobbing. I looked out over the long fields searching for him, out to the burrowed mountains. He was not there. And as I stood there, looking out over the land I loved so much, I had a fierce, sad, sodden realisation that my life had just been taken from me. That I would and could never be happy again. Of course I wouldn't call it a realisation now. I'd say it was just a feeling, a thing that passed. But then? There in that moment? It was as real as a realisation can be. I was angry. Yes. Fierce and stricken. And recklessly, awfully sad. My Dad arrived home not long after. He sank to the floor and cried. My brother was gone. At 25, he died in an accident at the farm he was working on.

11 And not for a long time afterwards either did I see it as a gift. I blew snot bubbles at his funeral. I returned to school. I walked through the rest of Year 9 like a gun blast had ricocheted through my world. A refugee, forced to leave behind my beloved country of Life Before He Died. I cut my hair short. I spent a lot of time crying in outside, between hay bales, nestled up to my dog. We played Bohemian Rhapsody a lot. My sister and I continued to drive in cars with boys to eat fresh bread and giggle in paddocks. Days passed days. Gradually, the searing, fierce pain softly, almost imperceptibly softened. This is the path of grief. This is what it has taught me: It hurts a lot. It continues to hurt. It gets lesser. Than it gets replaced by deeper. Softer. Rounder. Easier. Wiser. Occasionally waves rise up to take over again, but for the most part, grief is linear. But I am here to tell you about the joy of it. The gift of it. I haven't gotten to that yet, have I? In time, sweet time. A few months after He Died, there was an ordinary kind of afternoon. I needed to drive his little blue car to the shed for the night. It was sunset. As I opened the door and got in the driver's seat, there he was. Sitting in the passenger seat, smelling of cigarette smoke and sweet lollies and umber deodorant.

12 Hey Clinty, I whispered. I miss you. I know Boney, he said. I am here. That was all. That was all we said. All we needed to say, right then, right there. And I put the car into drive, and we slowly drove down the long gravel driveway together. More time, more days passed. I began talking to my brother. I'm just here, he would say. I know. I just want to hug you, I would say. I know. I grew my hair again. Decided to go to boarding school. Studied a lot. Had a boyfriend. Rode horses. Lost my dog. Made art. Kept writing. I would turn to him for advice. What should I do?

13 You know what to do. Ya reckon? Yup. Don't give me the shits, Boney. You know what to do. When things got hard, I would write him letters. And I'd hear his answer inside me. I know things are hard, Boney. It's okay. I'll take care of it. I'll take care of you. I believed him. I left boarding school. Got a job. Found a new boyfriend, fell in love. I wish you could meet him, I said. I have, Boney. I left town. Moved towns. Moved again. Moved across the countryside. Grew up. One night, I made art with my love as we listened to the radio. There was a clairvoyant on the radio. Call. Call now. A voice told me. And so I did.

14 I was the next caller through. Your big brother wants to talk to you, she tells me. What are you calling me to talk to him for - when you can just talk to him yourself? He says to speak to him through the stars. And that he'll always be your brother. I cry. I tell my sisters and brother the message. They take my baby niece and nephew to visit his grave. As they leave, the children burst into song: Twinkle twinkle little star How I wonder what you are Up above the world so high Like a diamond in the sky My sister and brother cry. He has spoken through the stars. I grow my hair longer. I keep talking to my brother - the one that lives in the stars now. One night, my belly aches. I am newly pregnant. I worry that I will miscarriage. My brother appears at my window. Don't worry, Boney, he grins. I helped bring her here. You will give birth. She is here to stay. The moon waxes and wanes, nine times over. And on a day in March, a little girl

15 is led from the stars by my brother and into my arms. And so the days tumble. They cleave and they open. They bloom new shoots, they wean old ones. They shift and grow. And the grief? It turns from an all-encompassing sadness into something else entirely. An iridescent depth, a rich and faithful love of life, wider arms and an open heart to accept all of it. For the last fifteen years, I have loved and been loved by my brother deeply. Truly. Delightfully. Joyously. Our relationship hasn't ended - it has continued and shifted and grown and blossomed in all of the very best ways. My brother showed me how to love through all the doors and windows. How life & soul & love stops not at beginning and end. My brother gave me a gift. He died. I thought he was lost. I thought I would never be happy again. I thought it was all a mistake. But he showed me the truth: I was wrong. There is nothing we can ever truly lose. Where love once was, love truly remains.

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17 About Leonie Dawson Leonie Dawson is a writer, blogger, retreat leader, globe-trotter, visual artist, mama, and vessel of wild creativity & cosmic prosperity for the 20,000 Goddesses who orbit around her virtual altar each month. Leonie s strategic musings & practical wisdom have been featured on Problogger, Tiny Buddha, in spirituality magazines like Goddess, Spellcraft, Life Images and Spheres, and in three of SARK s best-selling books on creative fulfillment & freedom. Purposeful, passionate & unendingly prolific, Goddess Leonie published her first book at 22, held her first art show at 23, launched The Goddess Circle a subscription-based women s community for creatives of every color at 25, and has guided 3,000 women through transformational Circle experiences over the past 3 years. She s also released 15 e-courses including her signature workshop for entrepreneurs, Become A Business Goddess 4 meditation kits and 2 workbooks into the digital ether, building a multiple six-figure business in the process. Leonie has walked labyrinths in the moonlight, wept atop mountains in the middle of a storm, danced with a baby in an old cow shed as a Filipino tribal chief sang, and once married herself in a public commitment ceremony witnessed by maidens of honor that she d met on the Internet. No stranger to praise, applause & offerings of gratitude, Goddess Leonie has been called an "illuminated creator," "inspiring, wise, kind and oh-so-talented," a "healer, guide and sacred teacher" and she's here to help you bring your soul-stirring dream into reality, and become the Goddess you were born to be.

18 Swirl into her world at: LeonieDawson.com