Note From Kendra

Dear Friends,

I love being able to walk into a room full of people and getting a hit on whether this environment will feed my spirit or detract from it. I pay attention: Does the room make me feel uneasy and agitated, or do I feel calm and can breathe easy? The more time you spend creating space in your day to engage with your spiritual self, the more you will be in tune with what works for you and what doesn’t.
 
Our environment and surroundings play an essential role in our well-being. Our setting impacts our thoughts, emotions, and sense of self and self-worth. We can consciously choose with whom we spend our time. After all, it’s the people we’re with who fill our surroundings and environment with energy. And it’s that energy that creates the negative or positive impact on our well-being.
 
Now that the holiday season is upon us, we may feel we need to be in places that do not feed us or add to our happiness and well-being. It is always a good check-in to ask yourself, “Just how connected am I to the environment I am in? And how deep is the impact on me mentally, emotionally, and physically?”
 
You may feel the pressure of obligations and worry about hurting people’s feelings, but sometimes you have to give yourself permission to do what serves you. And that might mean turning down an invitation to a place that diminishes your well-being. By doing this, especially in difficult situations, you honor your self-worth and spirit. You learn to speak your truth no matter what. Is it true? Is it necessary? Can I put this kindly? Unfortunately, there is no one else that will do that for you. You are called to take care of yourself.
 
This season, try to check in and honor your well-being and health. Rituals, yoga and meditation are a few wonderful tools to help you engage with your spiritual self. In the long run, this practice will serve you, and those around you, by creating an authentic model of being and not just doing for the sake of obligation.
 

With love to you and yours this season of Thanksgiving,

Archetype

Femme Fatal
(Black Widow, Flirt, Siren, Circe, Seductress, Enchantress)

The female counterpart of Don Juan sometimes adds the twist of killing her conquests as an expression of her ability to dominate, thereby reversing the conventional sexual stereotypes. As with Don Juan, the Femme Fatale represents highly refined skills at manipulating men without investing personal emotion. The Femme Fatale is both a sexual and a financial archetype and either comes from or is drawn to money and power. Seducing men with money and power and for the sake of personal control and survival is a classic part of this archetype, although Femme Fatale is not looking for a home in the suburbs and the pleasures of family life.
 
As with the Don Juan archetype, the positive aspect of this pattern is the opening of the heart, which often occurs when the male object rejects the manipulations and dependency of the Femme Fatale, as Rhett Butler rejects Scarlett O’Hara at the end of Gone With the Wind.
 
Films: Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity; Linda Fiorentino in The Last Seduction; Theresa Russell in Black Widow; Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes; Kathleen Turner in Body Heat; Elizabeth Taylor in Cleopatra.
 
Fiction: The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain.
 
Religion/Myth: Circe (in Greek myth, a sorceress/seductress who could turn men into animals with her magic wand); Potiphar’s wife (in the Hebrew Bible, when her attempt to seduce Joseph failed, she had him thrown into captivity. Her name is Zeleikha in Islamic tradition); Tapairu (Polynesian nymphs who inhabit the water that lead to the underworld; the goddess of death employs them to seduce men away from the earth); Lorelei (in Teutonic myth, a beautiful maiden who drowned herself after being spurned by her lover and was then transformed into a siren whose hypnotic music lured sailors to their death). 

Myss, Caroline.  Sacred Contracts: Awakening Your Divine Potential.  New York: Three Rivers Press, 2002, 2003. 385-386. Print.

Symbology

Contributed by Anne Barton

Feeling Awe…
In a short article from our Sunday paper's magazine, author Paula Spencer Scott says that "feeling awe may be the secret to health and happiness." I'm not surprised by this. And it also felt appropriate to share this as we approach Thanksgiving because it seems to me that our ability to feel awe ultimately comes from a place of feeling gratitude…
What is awe? "Awe is the feeling of being in the presence of something vast or beyond human scale, that transcends our current understanding of things," says psychologist Dacher Keltner from UC Berkeley.
A few facts:

• 75% of awe is inspired by the natural world.
• People feel awe an average of 2.5 times in a week.
• Awe binds us together. It's probably why we're wired to feel awe.
• Awe makes us nicer and happier.
• Awe alters our bodies.
• Walking in nature or looking at art has been proven to bring students to life who previously weren't engaged in the classroom (or in life).
• In a study where veterans were taken white water rafting, their stress levels dropped by 30%. 
  

1. Drop devices and gaze at the clouds or stars.
2. Visit a local, state, or national park.
3. Take an Awe Walk in your neighborhood, noticing things as if for the first time.
4. Describe to a friend or write about a time you once felt awe.
5. Visit a museum or planetarium.
6. Get up early to watch the sunrise.
7. Play amazing music. (Beethoven’s “Fifth” comes up often. Or Alison Krauss’ “Down to the River to Pray” and Carlos Santana’s live “Europa.”)