Rise Sister Rise

by Rebecca Campbell

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  THE UNBINDING

  My whole life I had this knowing that there was something at the depths of me that was longing to be uncovered, released, expressed, unbound, unleashed, and set free. A potent force and ancient memory destined to be given a voice. For decades it scared me and so I devoted much of my life to keeping it (She) contained. Controlled. Submerged. Hidden.

  As the years progressed, I could feel Her bubbling beneath the surface of my consciously created life. Beckoning for me to give up control, to allow Her to speak, to let Her roam wild, ecstatic and free. It was in nature that I heard Her most.

  I could feel the lifetimes devoted to keeping Her bound up, hidden, and silenced, dormant for centuries. Unpredictable, inconvenient, relentless, inevitable, and powerful. The returning and rising of She.

  The following pages describe my journey of remembering, reclaiming my voice, unbinding my power, unleashing the sacred wisdom within, surrendering to the cyclic nature of Life, and being held by the Mother. Like all things feminine, it will not be linear. But in my experience, rising never is.

  THE WISE WOMEN

  From an early age I was acutely aware of a yearning for the passing-down of wisdom, and soon began collecting older ‘wise women’ as best friends. Hungry for what they could teach me, I longed for their stories of heartache and adventure, inhaling all that their experiences could teach me that my years had not.

  First came Angela Wood, who lost her daughter suddenly at the tender age of 15, the same age I was when I met her. Then came Sheila Dickson, who lived two doors down from my parents, 22 years my senior. Many more followed. I would listen for hours to their stories of womanhood and motherhood; gratitude and surrender; parenthood and adulthood; great love and loss; life, birth, and death. Soaking in all that I could, knowing I was learning much more from them than I ever could at school or university. A willing student, I decided that I was putting myself through my own Masters of Life.

  I felt so at home around these women. With them, there wasn’t the same distrust, uneasiness, and competitiveness that I felt with some of my peers. With my wise women, I could share my deepest dreams and greatest fears. I was able to show my whole self without holding any of it back. To discover and unleash my truest nature without trying to fit into a box. It was in conversation with these women that my soul’s voice had the courage to speak.

  Riding the bus home, listening to my yellow Walkman, I watched the world go by, as I dreamt of bringing them all together one day. All of these amazing wise women who had guided me, circled together in one room.

  My mum was amazing at accepting these seemingly odd relationships. A compassionate, stylish, driven, selfless, strong woman, she intuitively knew that these relationships were somehow important.

  When Mum first dropped me off at Angela’s house, she walked me to her door and, in a single glance, Angela knew that Mum was handing me over to her while silently but fiercely saying, ‘I am trusting you to look after my daughter.’

  Last year, when Mum was going through her treasure box, she pulled out some old letters she had kept (I would often write letters to her when I was angry or upset, allowing my words to express what my voice could not). One read:

  I know you don’t understand my relationship with Angela.

  I don’t either.

  But we both need to trust it, because it is important.

  And in years to come we will understand why.

  Looking back on my life I see how important my relationship with Angela was in informing the work I do today.

  Just as in ancient times, in the days of the ‘red tent’ (when a woman was raised by a community of women and made all the richer for it, when I look back at these women – and so many more who along with my own mother played such an important role in my growth – I am humbled that they were there to guide me, and most deeply that my mother was able to see the importance of that.

  WORK BABY

  Born almost a month early, I was seemingly impatient to get on with what I came here to do; the day of my birth also marked the first day of Mum’s new company. An award-winning fashion designer, she worked out of the garage with me in a cot beside her. When she secured the first factory space, my cot followed.

  Working in an age when a woman’s earnings weren’t taken into consideration by banks and maternity leave in the private sector was non-existent, Mum was one of many women who forged the way for the next generation. She was ahead of her time, as was Dad – a schoolteacher who supported her wholeheartedly. One of three boys, raised in a family where his mother did absolutely everything, Dad made considerable leaps and bounds when it came to cooking, cleaning, and looking after my brother and me.

  A true feminist at heart, Mum was determined that she could juggle it all. Be an amazing mother, as well as a highly successful career woman while always putting everyone else’s interests ahead of her own – as so many women do. When traveling interstate or overseas, she would stay up until the wee hours making organic baby food and expressing milk. When saying my prayers before bed, she would remind me that I could do anything I wanted to, as long as I worked hard enough. I know I chose her for that.

  I remember always being so proud of her for being such a successful businesswoman and, like most daughters, modeled myself on her. I’ve always been a natural empath and when Mum dropped me off at school, I could feel how her success and amazing outfits triggered some of the other mums. And how their presence triggered guilt and longing in Mum that she could spend more time with my brother and me. A double Virgo, determined to deliver her best at all times, every birthday I’d have homemade honey joys and chocolate crackles for my entire class. The evenings leading up to my birthday, you would find her at the sewing machine and, come my birthday morn, she would present me with the most amazingly crafted birthday dress, with a matching miniature one for my Barbie, My Child or Cabbage Patch Kid.

  Each year she took on making costumes for the dance eisteddfod. Costumes so sequin-clad and impressive that if nominated for a Tony, they would surely win. Her efforts to give 110 percent at all times were both breathtaking and exhausting.

  When Mum was a teenager she got pregnant and was sent away to a Magdalene-style convent for six months to have the baby. Only a handful of people knew. When she spoke about deciding what to do, she said that she knew in giving up her baby, she was giving her the best chance. Kylie, my half-sister, came back into her life 21 years later when I was 11, after her adoptive parents helped her track down her birth mother.

  When Kylie asked Mum to make her wedding dress, she slaved over it for months on end. Each night after a long day at work, you’d find her armed with needle, thread and two pairs of reading glasses stacked on her nose, so as to hand sew thousands of the most intricate encrusted beads to the bodice. Meticulously pouring herself into that dress, almost in an effort to make up for what the years, times, and fate had not allowed.

  SHAKTI RISING

  ‘Shakti is the energy of the consciousness,

  The divine creative energy, which creates an entire cosmos.’

  MUKTANANDA

  My first experience of Kundalini Shakti rising was in 1994 when I was 13. One of my schoolteachers started hosting a lunchtime meditation class. Instantly drawn to it, I showed up.

  Lying on the floor, the teacher led the meditation by inviting us to let our bodies relax. After allowing my body to melt away and my spirit to connect with the Earth and Universe, I felt a powerful ecstatic energy rising through my body from the base of my spine and out of my head. I had never experienced anything even remotely like it and it made me uncomfortable – like I was about to burst. I had thought meditation was meant to feel like l
ying on a fluffy, cloud-like bed. My legs shook and my body jolted, and it freaked me out.

  That night after school I told Mum about it, saying. ‘It made me funny inside, like a wave made of honey moving through me and an electric shock.’

  Overnight my art projects and creative stories began to take an ancient and spiritual turn. I found myself searching for this indescribable thing, this knowing, this remembering, this deep yearning and connection to the hidden sacred meaning of life. A Catholic schoolgirl, I prayed to Mother Mary to help me work it out. My prayers led me to a spiritual bookshop near my home where I spent hours on end.

  I lied about my age to get my first job to support my crystal habit. Earning $3.13 an hour, I couldn’t afford much, so would just hang out there running my hands through the buckets of crystals and reading as much as I could without buying the books.

  I remember pulling You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay off the shelf and in that moment I knew with conviction that I was here to create a body of work just like the authors that filled the bookshelf. I saw myself speaking on stage and sharing my thoughts, feelings, and visions with audiences around the world. The thought of it both scared and excited me.

  I tried bringing some of my friends to the shop and sharing my awakening with them, but no one seemed to understand and they looked at me like I was crazy. It triggered a fear in me of being cast aside for my beliefs, so at this tender age I made the conscious decision to step into a spiritual closet and began living a double life. By day I was a normal teenager, by night I would inhale all that I could about the journey of the soul and ancient lands. I longed to share this part of my life with people my own age. Every now and then I would reveal this part of me to those few I deemed safe. That was where my wise women came in. With them I could express my thoughts, visions, and feelings freely.

  IMRAMMA: BRITISH ISLES

  ‘Imramma: The crossing of the deep waters, the wonder

  voyage, where we don’t know where we are going, only

  that we are on our way somewhere our soul needs to go.’

  LUCY CAVENDISH, LOST LANDS

  When I finished high school I deferred starting university and took three jobs to save up enough money to get me to the UK. I didn’t know why I was going, only that I must and had to do it on my own. After reassuring my parents not to stress, I got on the plane and it wasn’t until I landed that I realized I had absolutely no idea what I was doing.

  Setting down roots in Dublin, Ireland, I worked as a part-time nanny for a distant relative and spent my spare time on a solo pilgrimage of the sacred sites of Ireland, England, and Scotland.

  At Newgrange my connection with the light was initiated. In the Scottish Highlands I had my first physical spirit experiences evidenced in my photographs. On the Isle of Skye I felt the presence of the mystical veil between two worlds lift, and in London I discovered how it feels to be truly anonymous. Journeying to different towns, cities, sacred sites, stone circles, and cemeteries that nature had reclaimed, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was retracing my steps. Collecting memories my soul had planted. Some came as past-life visions, others as familiar knowings or feelings – like recalling a dream just after you awaken.

  I arrived back in Sydney with a photo album packed with Celtic crosses from overgrown graveyards, megalithic stone circles and Celtic triple spirals – all symbols and patterns that seemed so familiar to my soul. I knew with conviction that something significant had been ignited and that someday soon I would return.

  Five years and four flights later, I landed back in London, with a university degree and my entire life on my back. I made my way to my new flat in Stockwell, working visa in hand and a heart full of hopes and fears, doubts and dreams filling my body and mind. Once again, I had no idea why I was here, only that I needed to be. Something about this land was beckoning me. It would take me several years to discover what.

  MAKING IT IN A MAN’S WORLD

  Getting my first job as a junior creative felt like the best day of my life at the time – like I was finally going somewhere and could begin to contribute my unique ideas to the world. While my spiritual life was of utmost importance, I had made the decision to go undercover as a Lightworker. I chose advertising because I could see how many ads bombarded us each day, and thought I could put good energy into these spaces rather than manipulation. Looking back I see how I was really just too scared to do the work that I do today. But also how this career was a brilliant training ground for the work that I do now.

  The industry was exciting, extremely competitive, and exhausting, with deadline after deadline and no downtime in between. It was here that I learned to endure and strive. As the years went on, I forged a successful career by squashing my empathic nature and drawing on my masculine reserves to make it in a man’s world. I remember consciously deciding to change my behavior and even the way that I dressed in order to be taken seriously as one of the guys.

  I cringed when older male colleagues apologized for swearing ‘in the presence of a lady,’ and so joined in with my own language, in order to make a point of being more like them. I forced myself to work ridiculous hours (way longer than my male counterparts) in an effort to prove myself and not appear to be ‘weak.’ I pushed down my feminine power, sensitivities and innate intuitive wisdom, in order to climb the linear ladder. Ignoring my body’s natural rhythms in favor of endurance.

  Weekends were spent in recovery mode, desperately trying to refill my well in time to do it all over again come Monday morning. In a constant state of adrenal overload, I kept myself going during the day with bucketloads of black Americanos and in the evenings chased it all down with a fat glass of red. In my spare time I trained in the intuitive and healing arts and was blown away by how much it energized me and lit me up.

  I didn’t respect my monthly cycle, keeping myself propped up on a monthly diet of heavy-duty painkillers and trips to the disabled toilets where, some months, I would lie in the fetal position when the cramps got too much to bear. I was so invested in being the ‘hard worker,’ the ‘dedicated soldier,’ ‘the endurance runner,’ the ‘good girl who never complained,’ always finding a way to keep on pushing on. Of withstanding and shape-shifting my way through life.

  I measured my input in a linear fashion, often the last one in the office, believing that effort equaled output. When people would ask me how I was, I would respond with something along the lines of ‘super busy’ or ‘exhausted, as I’ve been working super long hours,’ as if being in demand and stretched defined my worth. My ego felt important but my soul was completely parched.

  I reached my long-term goal of becoming a Creative Director of a London advertising agency before 30. It felt like nothing. No one made me do any of this. I had chosen to do it, to fit into a system that did not fit my soul. Something needed to change.

  Listening to Her whispers, two girlfriends and myself packed our bags for a sacred pilgrimage from Istanbul to Cairo through Turkey, Syria, Jordan, and Egypt. Backpacks checked in, we had no idea that our lives were about to change forever.

  IMRAMMA: PETRA

  It is dark. I can’t see further than a few steps in front of me. I am walking through the desert in Jordan down a winding candlelit path. Every few minutes I pull my camera out to take a picture, in an effort to capture all of the emotion I am feeling. The flash lights up the rock formations above me, giving me a glimpse of ancient carvings. I look down at the screen on my camera to discover each picture is filled with an ocean of orbs. A heartening confirmation that I truly am in the most memorable place my human body has trodden. With every new step I am remembering. My soul is drinking it all in.

  It was 2010 in the ancient city of Petra. After about 60 minutes, the path opens up and I enter a rose-colored rock carved out like a womb filled with a sea of tea lights. My eyes focus on the ruins of the ancient library before me and my soul feels like it has finally come home. I had visited this place so often in my dreams, without ever knowing it r
eally existed. Every time I envisaged the Akashic Records* in my intuitive sessions or personal journeys, this is the place I went to in my mind’s eye.

  I returned the next day in the light to retrace my steps under a great blue sky. Remembering and praying in her cool caves, carved by the winds of time. With every breath, lifetimes spent on this land flooded my heart. Long-forgotten threads of the tapestry weaving together with each new moment. Old poems etched in my heart whispered to me, as my soul stretched the threads that joined the worlds. It felt as though I had been journeying to get here for lifetimes. And, as happens with sacred spaces that our soul knows more than our mind, something was activated in the ancient depths of me. A seed planted long ago, was finally ignited. Now, at last it was time.

  * * *

  * The Akashic Records are the collection of mystical knowledge that is stored in the non-physical plane of existence – the æthers. Akasha is a Sanskrit word meaning ‘sky,’ ‘space,’ or ‘æther.’ Also referred to as The Book of Life, the Akashic Records are an account of all that has been, is and ever will be – past, present, and future.

  IMRAMMA: WADI RUM

  Lying there, in the dried-up, ancient ocean floor that was now a desert as vast as any, I could still hear the ocean whispering tales of changing times and forms. Under a canopy of the brightest stars my eyes had ever seen. Ear to the Earth, my heart shown what my soul had come here to remember – the sea of women who had trodden this path and all who will continue to come again. A sacred force of sisterhood, weaving their medicine and light in every corner of the Earth. Linked together by a luminous red thread woven from heart to heart. I closed my eyes and continued to remember and awaken as I drifted off to sleep.