The little girl asked Grandmother, “Do we all come in with a special cosmic bowl?”
And Grandmother said, “All the children come in with a special cosmic bowl given to them. It’s shaped from the breast of their mother to represent where they nursed off of the Milky Way. Not all children’s bowls are the same or the same size or do the same thing,” said Grandmother.
Dear Ones,
Equinox Blessings to you. Today I am inviting you to take a few moments of pause. To sit with me for a spell. To get a cuppa and just read this story. This email will take about 15 minutes to read – and I will not succumb to the sound-bite suggestions where my emails or videos should be 3 minutes or less to get your attention. If you are reading this right now, I am going to trust that you already know that Red Thread Cafe is an invitation to pause and connect with readings, songs, poetry, creative flow and to just be…
I am sharing a special story with you called the Cosmic Bowl. This is a story of a call for healing, and love. I am very close with a Native Elder in our community that I have worked with for over 11 years. Recently she was ill and it was very scary for me and many of us. My fear was intense. I kept going into ceremony to manage my fear of loss, which I did through ritual and through painting.
On one particular day, I was panicking. I started hearing messages while I painted, some were personal for me like – Don’t drink milk, and then others were direct – Turn on the camera and speak for/as Grandmother.
At the time we didn’t know what was wrong with her – we do now and she is in recovery, praise be! It was a very dangerous passage. She is a woman who has spent her life in ceremony, uplifting the voices of women and girls with a focus on Native women. (Those of you in the Red Thread, know of whom I speak, but for the rest of my community I am keeping her name private.)
I have never done this before, and it isn’t channeling, however, it was a very potent experience. I didn’t start knowing what I was going to say – at all. I just started and then allowed what wanted to come out – to come out. What you see below is the transcription almost word for word with a few edits for readability. You can also watch the original video.
Many of us are now laying down the cosmic bowl we were carrying and learning to carry our wounds, our activism, and our need to serve in a different way. Our bodies can be very taxed by the pressure and stress with all of the insane injustice of women, earth and Native Americans, Black and Indigenous beings. It really feels like a strange time with so much needless suffering, and at times, it can feel like not enough progress is being made. Being raised in a largely activist family and fighting for the rights of women, people of color and a call for justice has been a big part of my own root system.
So today, with her consent, I am sharing the story with you. Perhaps you will find yourself in it. She heard the voice of her Grandmother through this story. We both, in our own way, have laid down our cosmic bowl, and are finding new ways to work with the great turning.
I also want to say that I don’t understand why standing for the rights of women and people of color and Indigenous tribes, is somehow ‘far left’ or ‘this party or that’. Is it really so far to stand for human decency? I feel confused, concerned, and as if I must keep my eyes open.
This new painting, which I am in LOVE with, was the result of our course called Artifact. Over 100 women from around the world created an image of themselves with a new archetypal framework. This is my teaching painting – Constellation of Wisdom, The 12,000 year old woman. She has more to say which will be shared in another letter. We will also have a show with the paintings the women created. This was also our first offering with a culturally specific group for Woman of Color – and that was a powerful feature for us within Intentional Creativity – I am most grateful to our Leaders.
We have a theme in our community of ‘chosen family’ – my teacher and heart mother chose our family and we chose her. And she was chosen by her teacher, Lenore Thomas Straus. And in Intentional Creativity…we choose each other along the red thread.
I have so much more to say to you…but for now…know that love flows from my red thread to yours…Blessings upon you.
~ Shiloh Sophia
Red Thread Letter #822
Cosmic Bowl – Grandmother’s Message
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COSMIC BOWL – GRANDMOTHER’S MESSAGE
You can read the story or scroll down to watch the original video where I speak the story to you.
The little girl asked Grandmother, “Do we all come in with a special cosmic bowl?”
And Grandmother said, “All the children come in with a special cosmic bowl given to them. It’s shaped from the breast of their mother to represent where they nursed off of the Milky Way. Not all children’s bowls are the same or the same size or do the same thing,” said Grandmother.
And the little girl said, “Grandmother, can you tell me about my bowl?”
And she said, “Let me see, child, let’s listen together. Ah, your bowl has been shaped to carry much. You’ll be given this bowl of wisdom and energy earlier than most and you’ll know about it in a way that others don’t. Because of this, there may be times of feeling isolated or as if it’s too much to bear, but don’t worry, grandmothers, your grandmothers will be with you and you will be able to hold it. Every prayer, every ceremony will be imprinted into the bowl, and will be coded into reality through how you carry your bowl of stars and light and shadows throughout your life. This bowl is very sacred and must be treated with tenderness. The bowl can break. The bowl can only carry so much and the bowl isn’t designed for certain kinds of energies.”
“What kinds of energies, Grandmother, won’t fit in the bowl?”
“Dear one, there is a time coming in the future where there are energies that will come that will threaten to break the bowl of many girl children of wisdom. And you will try and you will try to make this bowl anew so that it can be a filter of sorts, for the energy that’s coming through, but it is too much toxicity. The bowl that you have been given is not designed to be a filtration system, is not designed to carry or transmute the toxicity of others. Is not intended to be a place to carry or store pain. This bowl is porous. It does have a capacity for energies to come and to go and to move and to be healed. But at any point, if it becomes stuck or stopped, you must release what is held in the bowl. And if you forget, I will remind you, I will remind you what is yours to carry.
There will also be a time when the bowl that you are carrying is complete with the way it has been carrying. In the old, old times, your grandmother’s grandmothers carried their bowls differently, for it was a different time. There were different levels of things to work with. We knew a time, a great and terrible time was coming where the old magic and the old medicine wouldn’t work in the same way. And those who carry the lineage would do everything they could to bring the wisdom forward and everything they did was more than enough, even if you didn’t see all of the results of all of the prayers and ceremony. Every single thing was imprinted in your bowl and was translated to the cosmos. And every single thing has helped you, so many more than you can imagine, of your kind and of all the kinds of creatures and beings.
You have done your work. When it is time to set down this bowl, your challenge will be to know when that is. It will come at a time when it feels unbearable. You may even be tempted to believe that what you have imprinted upon this bowl of creation didn’t work. But let me assure you, child, what you did to help worked. For without what you have done we wouldn’t have even made it this far. But I’m warning you. I’m telling you, when it is time to set down this bowl, you must indeed not only empty it of all the things that you have carried that do not belong to you and your lineage uniquely, you will have to literally empty it. This can be hard on the body. Then you will set your bowl down and no longer pick up that vessel for transmutation. For now, your body has become the bowl and is not intended for certain kinds of work, which the body is not designed for.”
“How, Grandma,” says the little girl, “How do I set down the bowl?”
“Well, it’s a ceremony just like everything else I’ve taught you. First, you must agree not to carry and transmute the way that you have been. Even if you were capable of doing that in the past. Do you agree?”
“Yes, Grandma, I agree.”
“You must first agree to set down the way you’ve been carrying it. This will seem counterintuitive and yet everything has a cycle and a season and the season for the way that you’ve been carrying and holding is now complete. So you agree for us to set down the bowl? And from here, there is prayer.
We call upon the Spirit of the Ancestors and the Creators of this land and all good people. We call upon the spirit of the energy of the feminine and of those who serve earth in her truest form. We request as this bowl of holding and carrying the pain and toxicity of others is set down that this girl, this child, this woman, this elder is set free. That this would be removed, extracted from her physical body cell by cell by cell, removing toxicity and replacing it with the goodness of star and soil. Removing the toxicity and extraction from the physical body and the cellular structure.
Now we request that the mind, the consciousness of this child, this woman, this elder be cleared of the carrying of anything that is not specifically and directly related to the wisdom she carries and that of her Ancestors. We ask that her mind be cleared of needing to hold anything that does not specifically belong to her as a unique identity. The mind must also agree to no longer carry, hold or transmute the toxicity of an environment which does not have compatibility with the mind of the woman. We ask that the field, that the energy, all of the information that is coded around the physical body and the mind be cleared, absolutely cleared.”
And the Grandmother picked up her giant smudge stick in her owl feather and she cleared and she cleared and she cleared and she cleared.
She said, “Child, Your field must match your body. Your field must match your mind and be clear, be pure, no longer needing to hold on to the stories that do not serve who you are and earth and your people. You hold the truest story as the pure resonance and absolute coherence.”
And the little girl, now an elder, agrees to let go of the way that she’s been working in a sacred manner, as a spirit warrior, laying down the shield and the sword and the way that it has been used and stepping fully into the sacredness of the vessel designed only for her and for her close beloveds and for those that she trusts.
“And now, child,” says Grandmother, “it is time for us to clear your heart. To clear your heart of the past and of the shadows and anything it’s carrying about that old patriarchy, no longer needed. The work that you were here to do is cycling into a new phase of evolution, a new and stronger vessel is being created but you must agree not to use it the way that you have used it before. This is something new. It is something that is needed. It is something that many do not ever arrive at, but you, you have arrived here. You have the capacity to hold the grace and the love and the wisdom without the fight. Not many make it to this place, but you must agree from the wisdom of the grandmothers to let go of the way the warrior has worked within your system and inviting the grace and peace, which is the truth of the mothers of this land and the mothers of the soil and the mothers of the creatures and the mothers of the cosmos.
We are here to support you. It is essential for you to believe that you have done good work, that life would be different without you and that the next work is in front of you and a strengthening of your vessel for the work at hand. You are much needed and we have called you and this ceremony is here now to guide you to the next place here on earth, with your kin who love you.”
And the little girl who became the woman, who became the elder, remembered. And with that remembering the great clearing of her entire system, including ancestral wounds, was cleared. She inhabited fully her own space as a free woman, representing freedom for all women and for all her people. A symbol, an energy, a woman, a teacher, a guide who shows us the way to not overflow our bowls with pain and toxicity, to not transmute the suffering of others and our physical vessel. And to know that the love and the light that we actually carry is now what is being embodied.
The old cycle is complete today and the new cycle, the new threshold on earth is before you. With your feet on the earth and your head in the cosmos and your heart surrounded by the hearts of women. This ceremony has taken place throughout the cosmos, throughout the earth, has been witnessed, has been completed and the next evolution of healing is beginning right now.
Aho, aho. All our Relations, hear our prayer.
Mitakuye Oyasin and Amen.
Speaking of children with special cosmic bowls, here I am celebrating time spent with my Goddaughter, Ella Rose, daughter of Michelle Dench, my precious chosen family.
We started the covidian era with a small group of 10’ish and have been careful. I am glad she is in the circle with me. She was born in December. Blessings upon each of you and your family, blood and chosen.
Cosmic Bowl Video by Shiloh Sophia – Grandmother to the Little Girl
A reminder to VOTE as if your life depends on it, your voice matters. Don’t let the despair of what might happen prevent you from taking action now. This is our human right, to express ourselves, to call forth democracy and to act in accordance with justice. You are welcome to use this image – and share it here on my Artist Facebook page.
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