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The Sacred Feminine & the Divine Mother
Excerpt from the book I am a Woman: Creative, Sacred, and Invincible
"Your inner concept and your outer projection have to be in absolute balance. From beginning to end, you must act as a woman in absolute grace." –Yogi Bhajan
The archetype of the Divine Mother and the Sacred Feminine is as old as time, deeply embedded into every cell of a woman's body. As a woman, she must keep both aspects of her nature—woman and mother—in tune and alert to the world around her.
As an embodiment of the Sacred Feminine, she balances her commanding nature, her sharpness, with compassion, rhythm, and grace.
As an embodiment of the Divine Mother, she takes tiny seeds or ideas and nurtures them into full-fledged creations—poetry, painting, cooking, children, formulas, theorems, corporations—even nations. She makes things happen. She uses her intuition and awareness to guide her decisions, and guard and protect herself, her family, and her interests, even as she's able to call upon her Divine Feminine to elevate and transcend those personal interests and cultivate relationships that serve everyone's highest good.
A woman's capacity to nurture and her longing to merge with the Beloved are hardwired into her Arcline. But our culture has taken our essential nature and created a hook: telling us that we need something or someone outside ourselves to complete us—to be whole. So, we often mistake our longing for the Beloved for that someone or something in the material world, which leads to attachment, pain, and heartache. Instead, we must remember that our longing is for the Beloved within us. The Sacred Feminine embodied within us is the essence of wholeness; and the more we honor our sovereignty—our Adi Shakti—the more we have to offer the world.
There's a shabad which tells of a woman who has fallen in love with her husband and children; her attachment has led her away from her true Beloved. She cries out to be saved from her attachments and be brought back to the One. Most women who've looked into the eyes of their lover or a newborn child can probably relate to this experience. Now imagine looking into your own eyes with this same devotion. These teachings are simply a reminder: your identity is more than your relationships, your husband, your children, your job, your family. You are the Divine Mother, the Sacred Feminine; you are a woman—and that is enough.
When that feeling of attachment overwhelms you and that sense of longing blinds you, Yogi Bhajan's teachings give you the tools to relax, breathe, and remember who you are—and come back into relationship with your soul and your Self. Throughout a woman's life, she must balance these roles and relationships, along with her hormones and her body's changes.
These teachings on woman give you an opportunity to ground yourself in your values, explore the role that intimacy plays in your life, and gather the tools you need to manage the polarities, yet remain always in Ang Sang Wahe Guru. You will come to see yourself and your vastness as the molders and shapers of your life and the lives of those around you. Cultivate your virtue and know your value. Rest in the knowledge of your worth—'a woman's worth.' Express your longing by merging in your identity as Divinity and embody the Sacred Feminine and the Divine Mother to all.
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We are a group of women moving from grief and Loss towards our rainbow babies. We have been together for a while now and we think that it is a good idea if we can stick together through thick and thin and hence, the need for this group. Most of us would have not be living or sane today had it not been for the wonderful support we shared/share as a group. We started just a few, and today we are many and many more are still coming. This s a group of ladies/mamas willing to share their experiences about not only successful pregnancies, but also about their past losses. Its a group for encouragement as we all all look forward to our rainbow babies while holding on to those little sweet memories we shared with our angels be it for a day or longer. The group is open to anyone needing support for anything regarding every day life like, venting, DHs, happy moments, bad days, MS, food tips, nursery themes, nursery ideas, baby clothes, baby developments, friendships, family and friends. The list is endless. We hope to stay in touch even after we have had our babies. Some of the group member currently have not gotten their BFP yet so dont be shy to join as long as it suits you or as long as you are on your way or hoping for a BFP soon.
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"Romulus will rule, and build the walls of Mars
And he will give his people his own name:
Romans. On them I lay no limits.
I set them free from distance and from time,
I have given them an Empire without end."
- Aeneid
Two thousand, seven hundred and fifty-seven years after its founding, the city of Rome sits at the heart of an empire that covers more than half of the globe. From the coast of California and the western edge of Hudson Bay to the Himalayas, the Roman Empire rules supreme. It has become technologically advanced, arming its legions with jet aircraft and tanks, but at heart it is still rules through the application of power and capital punishment. Immense mechanical crosses on the banks of the Tiber and the Thames slowly execute those who have defied the will of the people, and the Empire's economy is still based on the toil of slavery. The Empire needs to be strong as its greatest rival, the island-empire of Nionia, expands its power and influence on the Asian mainland and begins to amass troops in its holdings in North America.
When the Emperor's youngest brother and heir Leo dies, a great state funeral is held, but his son Marcus learns that the death was an assassination. Leo's oft-mentioned plans to reform the Empire and abolish slavery were deeply resented by some in Roman society, possibly within the imperial house itself. Marcus vows to fulfil his father's plans, but another assassination attempt soon puts him on the run, and he flees into Gaul. At the same time, two young slaves, Una and Sulien, are forced to escape from London when Sulien is falsely accused of rape. Meeting in Gaul, the three runaways learn of the existence of a secret refuge in Spain, where they can find succor, but Marcus knows he must eventually return home and expose the conspiracy that threatens the Empire.
I'm a sucker for a high concept, and Romanitas' premise is decent. Basically, the Roman Empire never fell. Instead it expanded to cover much of the globe, with only the rise of the Chinese and Japanese empires in Asia managing to successfully stave off its advances. There is a lot wrong with this theory, not least the fact that if Rome never fell the Dark Ages probably wouldn't have happened and human technology could well be four or five centuries ahead of where it is now. Instead McDougall paints the world pretty much as it is now in terms of science and technology, which is rather conservative to say the least. But I'm guessing she wanted to simply have our world with the Roman Empire overlaid on it, so I'm willing to swallow a bit of disbelief to have that work.
The story rattles along pretty well for a debut novel and it covers a fair bit of ground. The writing is a bit stodgy in places, and it's clearly the work of a relatively inexperienced author (it was McDougall's debut novel). For all of that, it's a decent read. Some of the imagery, such as the great mechanical crosses on the banks of the Thames slowly tearing people apart, is incredibly vivid. The use of a modern media society in a Roman context also works quite well: the newspapers are state-controlled, obviously, but the government allows them free reign in gossiping on the imperial family's scandals to distract the people from the more serious matters of government. The unfairness and ruthlessness of slavery is also well-depicted (although, again, sociological development over the intervening centuries would probably have seen slavery abolished at least several centuries earlier, but we can live with that) and the characters are, if not huge compelling, able to carry the story reasonably well.
On the minus side, the writing isn't always as strong or focused as it could be and whilst some elements leap off the page, others don't. The substitution of 'longdictor' and 'longvision' for telephone and television is also quite irritating. Other modern words are used, so why those aren't as well, I don't know. Also annoying is the revelation that several of the main characters are telepaths, which comes out of nowhere. So rather than just being an alternate history, Romanitas also has other SF elements. This would be fine, if there was a solid story reason why telepathy is in the plot. Whilst this may come out in the sequels, in the first volume it feels like it's a plot device solely there to get the characters out of dangerous situations that the author couldn't deal with any other way. It's also a bit of a head-scratcher, as the novel's blurb states that, "This is the Roman Empire. Now." Well, it should read, "This is the Roman Empire. Now. With added psi-powers!" The concept seems a bit out of keeping with the rest of the book.
Romanitas (***) is a solid enough read which never seems to really get to grips with the full possibilities of the premise. As an action-adventure novel, it's enjoyable enough and there's certainly enough about the concept to make me want to read the sequel, Rome Burning, which I hope to get to in the next couple of weeks. The book is available now in the UK from Orion Books and in the USA via Amazon.


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Stephanie Lazarus was a dedicated police officer with the Los Angeles Police Department. She began her impeccable career in Hollywood as a patrol officer before quickly moving on as a supervisor of detectives. Eventually, she landed a prestigious post as an art-theft investigator, responsible for all thefts and burglaries targeting fire art. She and her partner appeared in the LA Weekly's 2009 People Issue where she was described as a "serious Tyne Daly look-alike à la Cagney & Lacey."
Over her 26-year career, the married mother of an adopted baby girl won numerous citations and awards by her peers who commended her outstanding abilities, sense of humor, and her "strong moral values."
Today, the former cop, now 51, sits in a Los Angeles courtroom, accused of the vicious slaying of a romantic rival that occurred when she was a young rookie on the force.
Prosecutors believe that Lazarus was so overcome by being jilted by her lover that she bumped off his 29-year-old wife of three months, Sherri Rae Rasmussen, in a fit of jealous rage, and then used her skills as a policewoman to cover up the crime.
"[Lazarus] had special skills," said Deputy District Attorney Shannon Presby in his opening statement. "She knew how crimes were committed, and investigated. She was trained as a locksmith and she knew about picking locks. She knew about fingerprints, how to lift them and not leave them behind. She knew guns make a distinct sound so she wrapped her gun in a blanket and while Sherri was on the floor she fired."
To ensure that the critical-care nurse at Glendale Adventist Hospital didn't survive, Lazarus made sure the last shot was made with the barrel of the gun jammed against her victim's chest, Presby said. "It was not about her acting in the line of duty… It was personal."
Presby said Lazarus got away with the horrific crime for almost 20 years until a saliva sample from a bite mark on Rasmussen's arm that was found in a coroner's fridge in 2005 linked her to the slaying.
"Sherri Rasmussen wore the white wedding dress [Lazarus] believed was hers," said Presby. "She was beginning a future with a man Lazarus loved. Sherri's beauty was disfigured, obliterated, blotted from existence by three close range shots to the chest. A bite, a bullet, a gun barrel and a broken heart—that is the evidence that Lazarus murdered Rasmussen because Rasmussen married the man she loved."
The body of Rasmussen was discovered by her new husband, John Ruetten, on the floor of their townhouse in Van Nuys, Calif., on Feb. 26, 1986. She was wearing a red bathrobe and was lying on her back with her hands frozen in the air, as if she were trying to protect herself from one last blow. A rope was found nearby, indicating she had been tied up.
There were signs of a ferocious struggle. She was bleeding from a head wound. She had been shot in the chest three times at close range with a .38-caliber weapon, and there was a human bite mark on her arm. A blanket with bullet holes lay nearby. Police theorized that her killer used the blanket to muffle the sound of the gunshots. Crime-scene investigators gathered a saliva sample from the bite mark and sealed it in a plastic tube.
At the scene, detectives discovered video equipment stacked up on the living room floor near Rasmussen's body, and her car and wedding certificate were missing. Cash, jewelry, and valuable items were left behind, and there was blood on the walls.
Ruetten told detectives that his wife, a fitness junkie, had called in sick that morning after straining her back in an aerobics workout. He left for work around 7 a.m. He told police he called Rasmussen around 10 a.m. but she never answered the phone. He arrived home at 6 p.m. and noticed the garage door open. He saw glass on the driveway, and the new BMW he bought his wife as an engagement present was missing.
"He saw his bride of four months lying on the living room floor," said Presby. "He looked into her eyes and knew she was dead."
At the time, the lead detective was convinced that Rasmussen was killed in a botched robbery. "[The detective] knew from the moment he looked at the crime scene what happened, so for 20 years she got away with it," said Presby. "But there was one thing he didn't know—a tiny piece of Stephanie Lazarus was hiding in the bite mark of Sherri's arm."
Rasmussen's death remained unsolved for close to 20 years until a Los Angeles Police Department cold-case detective found the saliva sample from the bite mark buried in the basement of the coroner's office and had the swab tested for DNA. What he discovered astonished him. Although they didn't have a name of a suspect, they did have a gender: the killer was a female. Still believing the original theory that the killer was a burglar, the detective began looking for female suspects.
The case went nowhere until another detective picked it up and "decided to forego the previous theory and looked at it with fresh new eyes," the deputy district attorney said.
The detective looked at the crime scene and quickly deduced that it looked staged. He called Rasmussen's parents and interviewed Ruetten. He learned from Rasmussen's father that a female LAPD officer—who he didn't know—had been harassing his daughter. Rasmussen had told her father that she came home one day to find the woman, in full uniform, standing inside the home she shared with Ruetten. On another occasion, Rasmussen's father said the same police officer showed up at Glendale Adventist Hospital in uniform and threatened Rasmussen, stating, "If I can't have John, nobody can."
The detective discovered that Lazarus and Ruetten met at UCLA, and the two dated off and on for a few years until he met Rasmussen.
At trial, Presby read a letter Lazarus wrote to Ruetten's mother shortly before the murder that read: "I'm totally in love with John and the past year has really torn me up," it said. "I don't think I'll ever understand his decision."
"For John the relationship was buddy-buddy," said Presby. "For Lazarus it was different. It was unrequited love … They dated for a while, but she was not for him. She was not the one. He found the one in Sherri."
Presby said that shortly after Lazarus learned of the engagement she contacted Ruetten and "begged him to see her."
"She was emotionally distraught," he said. "She told him she loved him. She wanted a future with Ruetten. They had sex. At the end he said I care for you, but I am going forward with my marriage to Sherri."
Thirteen days after the murder, Lazarus reported to the Santa Monica Police Department that her car had been broken into and her .38-caliber weapon was stolen from the trunk. "To this day it has never been found," said Presby. "She knew a comparison between a firearm and bullets could be conclusive. So it disappeared."
With the DNA results and new interviews with Rasmussen's parents and Ruetten, detectives suspected that Lazarus was most likely the killer. Undercover officers began to tail her and followed her to a Costco, where they saw her drinking from a cup. She dropped the cup in the trash and officers picked it up. Presby said the saliva from the bite mark matched the detective's to the possibility of one in 1.17 sextillion.
For her part, Lazarus has denied any role in the killing. Her defense attorney Mark Overland painted a remarkably different profile of the former cop. He rejected the theory that Lazarus was a tormented lover and argued that Ruetten was the pursuer of Lazarus before and after he got married.
"It was not just an obsession, a one-sided romance of unrequited love," said Overland. "They had sex 20 or 30 times during their relationship. She wasn't obsessed with him." Overland said that at one point Lazarus approached Rasmussen and asked her to tell her husband to "stop bothering me."
After Rasmussen's death, Lazarus did "zero, nothing to pursue Ruetten. She never contacted him or called him. It was he who initiated each and every contact between them," the lawyer said.
Overland believes Lazarus is a victim of mishandled DNA evidence and that an unidentified fingerprint and palm print on the wall near a blood print of Rasmussen's as well as hair evidence found at the crime scene point to another killer.


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Fuel Efficiency Standards Live On After 1973 Oil Embargo
This is the 40th anniversary of the Arab Oil Embargo, which triggered a seven-year energy crisis. The results of the energy crisis are still with us — both in the political fault-lines in Washington and in the cars that are on our roads.
This year is the 40th anniversary of the OPEC oil embargo - an event that has shaped our nation's politics and the cars we drive ever since. In 1973, the Arab world decided to cut oil exports to punish nations that supported Israel during its war with Egypt and Syria. While the embargo only lasted several months, it triggered an energy crisis that lasted for years. NPR's Richard Harris reports on the ways we are still feel those effects today.
RICHARD HARRIS, BYLINE: Forty years ago, the nation was dealing with high inflation, the Watergate crisis, and on top of that a growing energy problem. Domestic oil production had peaked in 1970, and the nation was becoming more dependent on imported oil. Then in October of 1973 came the Arab-Israeli war.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: This is NBC "Nightly News," Wednesday, October 17th. Reported by John Chancellor.
JOHN CHANCELLOR: The oil producing countries of the Arab world decided to use their oil as a political weapon. They will reduce oil production by five percent a month until the Israelis withdraw from occupied territories.
HARRIS: President Nixon put it bluntly.
PRESIDENT RICHARD NIXON: We are heading toward the most acute shortages of energy since World War II.
MEG JACOBS: So the signs were all evident of a crisis in the making and yet Americans were very much taken by surprise.
HARRIS: Meg Jacobs is a history professor at MIT, teaching at Princeton at the moment as she finishes a book on the energy crisis.
JACOBS: The question really was what to do in the wake of the embargo, where you had a roughly 10 percent cut in American supply.
HARRIS: The price climbed sharply, but even worse were the shortages. Lines at gas stations sometimes stretched for miles - that is, when they had gas to sell.
JACOBS: What you see happening in response to the Arab embargo is the imposition of even stricter government regulations, both on price and allocation.
HARRIS: Nixon created an energy czar who exerted great control over the supply and price of oil. Congress also imposed a national speed limit of 55 miles per hour, and year-round daylight savings time to reduce energy use. All that together triggered a sharp and sustained debate over the appropriate role of government regulation.
President Jimmy Carter maintained many of the regulations that President Nixon's Republican administration had put in place.
JACOBS: When Ronald Reagan runs in 1980, he is able to say here's an example where the government is a problem rather than the solution.
HARRIS: Jacobs says the energy crisis laid the groundwork for the fundamental partisan divide that persists in Washington today. Energy shortages came to an end during Reagan's time in office, due primarily to a global recession that reduced demand.
The 55-mile-per hour law was eventually abandoned, along with price controls on gas. But one law enacted during the early days of the energy crisis is still going strong. Dan Becker, who heads the Safe Climate Campaign, points to fuel-efficiency standards.
DAN BECKER: Ironically, it was the Ford Foundation that empanelled a group of experts to try to figure out how do we avoid future oil shocks. And they came back with a recommendation that Ford Motor Company hated, saying let's adopt mile per gallon standards that require auto companies to put better technology on their vehicles.
HARRIS: As a result, fuel efficiency climbed from 13.5 miles per gallon to 27 miles per gallon. Hybrids and compacts from Japan swirl around us as we sit in a Washington DC park - tangible reminders that those regulations have shaped our automotive fleet ever since.
BECKER: The fact that we use two million barrels a day less oil than we did a few years ago is indirectly due to the OPEC oil embargo.
HARRIS: And following a 2007 update to that law, fuel efficiency in cars is slated to double again by the year 2025. Chances are in that year the nation will still be debating the appropriate role of government regulation. But at least will be burning a lot less fuel. Richard Harris, NPR News.
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• billet-doux •
Pronunciation: bee-lay-du • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Noun
Meaning: No, today's word does not refer to nice lodgings for soldiers (but see the Notes). In fact, it is a term meaning "a short love note" or "love letter" used by die-hard romantics.
Notes: Today's romantic word is so fresh from French, it still uses not only some of the French pronunciation but also the French plural: billets-doux, pronounced [beelay-duz]. Remember, only the first element is pluralized in writing but the second element is pronounced in the plural. The pronunciation remains close to the French, too, unlike that of older billet "lodging for soldiers", which has endured long enough to assume the sounds of English, [bil-et].
In Play: When "love note" is simply too harsh a phrase for the tenderness of emotion involved, it is time to call in today's Good Word: "Wade always included a billet-doux in the bouquets he sent Tiffany Lampe, the light of his life." Unfortunately, this word has remained so French that it is usually used facetiously, "The hickey Tiffany left on Wade's neck is quite a little billet-doux from her, too."
Word History: Today's word is a French phrase made up of billet + doux "sweet". Billet today means "ticket, receipt" in French but it originally meant "a short note". This billet is not to be confused with the military billet mentioned in the Notes above. That billet originally referred to the document ordering a building be used to lodge soldiers. It comes from Old French billette, a corruption of bullette, meaning a small bulle, a seal or sealed document. This word is heard today in the phrase "Papal bull", an official document bearing the seal of the Pope. Doux is the French variant of Latin dulcis "sweet", which also became Spanish dulce and Italian dolce in La Dolce Vita, the movie that brought Federico Fellini to the world's attention.
P.S. - Register for the Daily Good Word E-Mail! - You can get our daily Good Word sent directly to you via e-mail in either HTML or Text format. Go to our Registration Page to sign up today!


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Senator Savino Secures Funds to Send Local Youth Football Champs to National Championships
*********Media Advisory for December 3, 2009************
Senator Savino Secures Funds to Send Local Youth Football Champs to National Championships
Community joins in effort to support the Staten Island Hurricanes
(Staten Island) – Senator Diane J. Savino (D-North Shore/Brooklyn) will announce a successful campaign to send local champions, the Staten Island Hurricanes, an all-volunteer youth football organization with four different weight divisions, who qualified for the National Championship Games in Orlando, Fl, from December 5th to the 12th. The team, part of the American Youth Football League has strict standards for its team members, requiring the kids to be in good academic standing and to volunteer in their community. The coaches act as mentors to the players, providing tutoring and assistance with homework, as well as teaching teaching self-respect, responsibility, and civic engagement.
The team, made up of over one hundred kids, mostly from lower and modest incomes, were unable to pay for the cost of the trip—approximately $400 per child—over $10,000 for the entire team. Senator Savino began a joint community fundraising effort, raising $10,700, thus allowing the team to participate in the games.
WHO: Senator Diane J. Savino, Staten Island Hurricanes Assistant Coach, Jay Sullivan, team members and parents, Hurricane cheerleaders, and community, civic, and elected leaders.
WHAT: Successful fundraising drive to send Staten Island Hurricanes to National Championship Games in Florida
WHEN: Thursday, December 3, 2009
WHERE: Senator Savino's District Office
36 Richmond Terrace, Suite 112
Staten Island, NY 10301


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Webcast: The Global Threat of the Muslim Brotherhood
Join Hillsdale College online, Friday, October 7, for a free webcast featuring Andrew McCarthy speaking about the global threat of the Muslim Brotherhood. Click here to register.
Members of the Muslim Brotherhood operate on a global scale and seek through the primacy of sharia law the supremacy of the Islamic State. McCarthy will discuss how it has shown itself to be successful in the West and how it can be combated.
Andrew C. McCarthy is a senior fellow at the National Review Institute. For 18 years, he was an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the South District of New York, and from 1993-95 he led the terrorism prosecution against Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman and 11 others in connection with the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and a plot to bomb New York City landmarks. Following the 9/11 attacks, he supervised the Justice Department's command post near Ground Zero. He has also served as a Special Assistant to the Deputy Secretary of Defense and an adjunct professor at Fordham University's School of Law and New York Law School. Mr. McCarthy writes widely for newspapers and journals and is the author of two books: Grand Jihad and Willful Blindness.