Pebbles in the Stream, Ripples in the Cosmos

I have always been called to serve other people. When I was a child, I wanted to be a minister or a missionary and was both devastated and indignant when I discovered that my church would not allow a woman to be ordained. With that dream shattered, I had no idea what to do with my life. Even at age 50, I had no idea what I wanted to be when I grew up.

Today I turn 73, and while I was never a minister in the traditional sense of the word, I have been a servant leader all my life. Through my work in blood banking, I have saved countless lives of people whose names I will never know. I have been a mentor and confidant for the many women who have come into my life. I have served as an advocate for children, and I continue to work in my own small way for the betterment of my community. I have been a loving and supportive wife, mother, and grandmother.

Until recently, nothing that I have done seemed enough. In my mind I always could have done better or done more. I always felt like I had to earn my way through good deeds and self-sacrifice. However, as I go deeper and deeper into the depths of my Soul, I realize that I am enough just because I exist. I realize that when I am being – being patient, loving, trusting, yielding, grieving, raging – that I become the pebble in the stream, sending out ripples that affect the whole.

It is in my being, not my doing where I become the whole person that I long to be. It is my being, not my doing where Goddess and I become one. It is in my being, not my doing that I am able to feel the whole range of my emotions without judging myself as good or bad. It is in my being, not my doing, that I am finally able to connect my head and my heart into a radical acceptance of myself as worthy and enough.

The Patriarchy has taught me that I am never enough within myself, that I must always be striving toward better and more, toward a perfection that I cannot reach. The Divine Feminine teaches that I am enough, simply because I am a creation of the divine. When I finally allow that fact to permeate my being, I become the Soul that I was born to be. When I become whole, I open the doors for others to do the same. The ripples of my existence radiate out into the universe touching places that I could never imagine and people that I will never meet.

If you are reading this blog, you are being touched by a ripple of my Soul. I invite you to send out your own pebbles of being, to create ripples that can change everything.

Barbara Garland
December 20