Free Journey to Empowerment by Maria D. Dowd Page A

have found it to be the most disturbing yet the most fascinating part of my journey. It has been scary, yet it has been the greatest place of my healing. It is the dark dawn before sunrise. Had it not been for the journal, I would have wobbled over and sank deep beyond the shores.
    The wilderness is where your Goddess takes retreat and runs with the wolves. It’s where she lets her hair down, has little or no responsibility and can just do whatever and be whomever she pleases. We must capture her on the page so we can reclaim aspects of ourselves seemingly lost. As you write through your wilderness, your hand will guide you to a sacred well inside of you where you will embark on a journey of the world. Here, in the darkness, your words will dig the trench to find water so you can drink your life back into being. Here, as you continue your excavation, you will discard and release the internal chains that have held you prisoner and your words will guide you home. The woman who runs with the wolves and who can see herself in full f light on the page is a woman who someday soon will not be afraid to live with all that she is. The ancients knew that the wilderness was a place of spiritual cleansing and healing; a place to move closer to authentic self.
    I am happiest when I am writing or curled up reading a book. Women who attend my workshops often comment on not being able to find time in their busy lives to write. One part of me responds silently, “Then you don’t have time to live.” The more compassionate side of me has another response, “Seven minutes of spiritual grace is all it takes.”
    My birth-chart number is seven. Seven, energetically as a number, is charged with a sacred energy. The seventh day has been initiated into the rhythms of the Earth as a Holy day, the Sabbath day, the day of rest. I am very connected to the number seven and its sacred charge. One day, as I wrote in my journal, the following inspiration f lowed onto the page—what if every day we committed to take seven minutes to embrace Spirit in our lives? By practicing this myself, I was amazed at how grace appeared—sometimes softly and other times boldly as I wrote in my journal for seven minutes or went for my morning run in the park with my pocket-size journal in tow.
    I took this inspiration into one of the workshops I run, “Connecting with the Goddess Within.” I simply guided the whole group to spend seven minutes in silence completing a journal-writing ritual. The group was presented with three questions probing into the deeper self and encouraged to write without stopping for seven minutes. The goal is to write past the internal critic and to write right into the center of the authentic soul. This was a place of honesty, and Spirit always honors the honest soul. The results for many were profound. Afterward, they shared the experience with each other, and the air in the room was electric. I affirmed that day that all it takes is seven minutes of spiritual grace to remember your spirit and nourish your soul.
    Since then, I have been preaching the virtues of the gift of seven minutes of spiritual grace. My goal is to perform my seven minutes every day, because when I do, it sets my heart on fire. The mind can cope with a goal or an intention in bite-size chunks. The secret in taking seven minutes is that you naturally end up spending more time than the original seven minutes you set for yourself.
    I have taken the seven minutes beyond the ritual of journal writing. Some days, I spend seven minutes working on a collage for my new journal. On another day, it will be seven minutes spent staring out of my kitchen window across miles of London skyline. Or then again, it may be seven minutes arranging a bunch of f lowers in a vase and soaking in the beauty of Mother Nature. The possibilities are endless, but whatever you do will be a sign for amazing Grace to step right on in.
    So here we are, nearing the end of