Hello Mavens
Welcome to my cottage here on Substack. It’s a small cottage but filled with wonder, awe, humor, snarkiness, warm blankets, safety, sacredness, and books. Lots and lots of books. Oh and art supplies, fiber, fabrics, drums, plants, and altars everywhere. That’s what a Maven’s house looks like. Did I forget shoes?
If that is what your house looks like, then you too are a maven. And you are welcome here.
What is a maven you might ask? Well I love words and etymology, and I speak in metaphor and here is what I found:
OLD- An expert or connoisseur. For me that means connoisseur of all things mystical, animist, sacred, and shoes and beautiful fibers.
Merriam Webster- One who is experienced or knowledge. I have spent multiple lifetimes weaving together knowledge and experience from many ideas, topics, and perspectives. A wise teacher once said. Knowledge becomes wisdom through experience and practice. That is my devotion and on a lot of subjects.
Yiddish etymology: Maven comes from yiddish mavin, meaning “one who understands.” Maven often connotes a female expert, and so be prepared to confuse or jar your audience (of course some prefer this!). I prefer it. I prefer to stir shit up and blow your circuits, all with love. I am also a fiercely loving truth-teller. I would say I am an expert in everything and nothing. I tend to see all perspectives on things and believe everything and I mean absolutely everything in this Universe is connected and inter-dependent which means sometimes I shake up everyone. Intense is a word frequently used to describe me. But when us Mavens find each other, it is life long fractal family. I am also a Virgo Sun, Aquarius Ascendant, Leo Moon. IYKYK
From Linked In: a specialist in finding ideas and sharing facts with others but will rarely engage and interact much beyond the initial sharing of information. These are the people you ask whenever you want to know something about anything — they're always the people in the know. They're builders, engineers, process folks, and system folks. It's all about the ideas and the information.
I have learned from various leadership and strengths assessments that this is one hundred percent true.I am a process and systems person. I was in my corporate life and still am in my mystic and mentorship life. Everything we do and every space we inhabit is a system. I love to share, initiate, plant seeds, and then let you do your own work to go deeper with what resonates. When I worked in corporate I took the ideas, created the processes, trained the people in a human centered way but abhorred managing the day to day. I do however, connect and engage because without that information is grounded in nothing. Community adds meaning. I am a weaver at heart and besides weaving fiber I love to weave people together, weave information and knowledge into life affirming practices, and weaving all the information overload into context that applies to your sacred and soulful life.
I created this Substack to share and exchange ideas and hopefully to catalyze and light a spark for my readers and community members to dive into their own souls, do their own inner work, and ultimately the outer work of impact no matter how big or small. One of my favorite quotes from the sublime Mark Nepo is “ Half of the souls job is to just be, the other half is to be of service.” I write about all kinds of subjects so don’t look for a theme or Goddess forbid a NICHE from me. Souls don’t have niches. I write based on nature’s rhythms and what I am feeling in my inner realms and what I am seeing in the outer collective archetypal energies at play. I give you a view into my world, knowing I am not alone in my thoughts, I give context for the shitstorm out in the world, and I generally give YOU a call to action designed to connect you more deeply to yourself so that you can connect more deeply to the world around you.
Spiritually speaking, I walk the path of the Divine Feminine and the alchemical marriage with the Sacred Masculine. I am an Omnist and seek the truth and the lies in all spiritual paths to create my own. I follow the mystics in all traditions and see behind the veils of the traditions they followed, often because in their time and place they had to. But they were the sacred rebels. Some call me a witch. I don’t do dogma or hierarchy, and I definitely don’t do patriarchy and yet know I have benefitted from some aspects of it. And at the same time will release benefits those if it means patriarchy would disappear tomorrow and elevated all beings both human and non-human. Because at my deepest levels I am an Animist.
So I hope you join me down this meandering path back to our souls.
Because I love to connect with other Mavens and to create woven, wisdom sharing communities I also run the Dreaming and Scheming Circle for my paid subscribers. All of the details, gathering dates and benefits are listed on that page.
The support I receive from subscribers here allows me to give back to young adults and elders in my community through mentoring for I Could Be and sharing of inter-generational wisdom and the elevation of Grandmother/Grandfriend voices for the Grandmother Collective as a volunteer chair on their Story Gathering committee. I also give back through my primary business Maven and Sage Consulting to those women in need who would like mentoring but cannot afford it. Because it is a core value of mine that mentoring, coaching and soul companionship should not just be reserved for the privileged.
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