God introduces Herself.

The first time I absolutely knew (without a shred of doubt!) that there was an energy at play larger than just little ol’ me down here on earth, I was standing on a stage in Costa Rica, clutching a plastic candle to my chest and chanting wait wait wait wait waitwaitwait… (without a shred of clothing on, either…!)

🤭😆

Before that, I was happy enough letting other people believe in Spirits and God and Ghosts and all that hippy, witchy, woo woo shit… but had never had my own lived experience of it myself, so I couldn’t honestly tell you I really believed believed. You know??

I was open to believing, I suppose.

But I just didn’t have any embodied knowledge of what that might actually feel like. And, not having been raised in any sort of organised religion (which mostly feels like a blessing, considering all the stories I have heard from peers who have been irrevocably damaged in some fashion by it…) I hadn’t seen many examples of people believing, either.

So I didn’t know, at first, what was happening when She first let her presence be known to me. I thought it was just an idea I had. I thought it was a simple, easy choice to help a friend. And I didn’t know that in choosing to act on that idea, that I was accepting an invitation from God herself. And that a flood of follow up invitations were about to be rocketed towards me in rapid succession.

It was just a little idea…….

But it was actually an invitation.

And I said yes.

♡

The invitation came while I was in the jungle of Costa Rica for an 8-day embodiment retreat with my mentor, Layla Martin. Half-way through her yearly coaching certification called VITA (Vital and Integrated Tantric Approach) she offers all current students an optional retreat to go so deep into their own growth that they know they can hold the space for others as they grow, too.

This whole week was such a pivotal part in my journey of growth! Not only did I meet God/dess, I uncovered my life path, met a woman who would become a true soul-sister and even work partner (turns out… we were friends in a past life when my father helped her family hide from colonisers…. wait… does that sound too crazy…?? Oh who am I kidding, we’ve left the TOO CRAZY station a loooong time ago!! We’re committed to this path now…. let’s keep going, yeah??? Nothing is too crazy here! I give myself permission to share all of me.)

You can read more in my book, How to be Naked

♡

One thing I can say for Layla Martin, who has made a name for herself in turning a spiritual based business highly profitable - a spiritual sexuality business, no less! - is that she knows how to go deep. And that she also teaches with deep integrity. I inherently trust any space she holds or anyone who has been taught by her. Throughout the year we were exposed to classes on trauma, tantra, colonialism, gender, racism, wealth consciousness, pelvic floor health… to name but a few! Along with the actual work on learning the skills to become highly valuable and sought after coaches. This is a well-rounded program (which means it produces incredibly capable and well-rounded coaches, too)! And the week in Costa Rica was no different.

We were invited in… and then in some more… until we passed all the edges I thought I would have held for myself. (By invitation only, of course! Nothing was forced here… it’s not a cult!! 😆)

Naked in a room with 100 other women and gender expansive beings? Check.

Stomping in Anger and rage as I fling metaphorical balls of fire out with my hands? Check.

Weaving my hips (they don’t lie!!) to Shakira as a golf-ball-sized disco ball swings majestically from the crystal egg ensconced with love deep into my vagina?! Check, check, check!

Oh…. and let’s not forget meeting Goddess herself!!

It was towards the end of the week that it happened.

Before lunch every day Layla would demo the upcoming activity for the afternoon, then we would pick our partners and come back after enjoying a local lunch of fish or steamed vegetables with cooling glasses of tropical-fruit infused water to complete the exercise ourselves. We did breath-work, energy practices, workshops designed to heal the sister wound and help us access and recognise our own inner beauty, and the strength to be found there. It’s easy for me to say that these practices have changed my whole life.

On this particular day, Layla sat perched on the small platform in the middle of the room, just one foot or two above the wooden floor the rest of us were sitting on to watch and absorb her instructions and her wisdom. She sat perched on her bottom with her knees slightly bent, leaning back upon another of her instructors who sat just behind her to lend support. (Each exercise came with two roles: one of us would go through the process, the other would support, and then we would switch places!)

The first thing I noticed was that it looked like Layla was in the sort of position someone might give birth in. And the second thing I noticed was that Amanda, sitting at Layla’s back, had nothing to support her back - and I knew from experience, that she was going to start hurting reeeealll soon!

“She needs something to support her back,” I thought, with what I thought was my own voice… later I would question who it was that actually came up with that idea.

I knew I couldn’t step onto the stage to offer her a pillow to lean on, this isn’t about you, my next thought said. (Again… me? Someone/thing else…?) Stepping onto the stage would draw energy to me, and this wasn’t about me. That part was clear. So I needed some way to support Amanda without distracting or detracting from the process Layla was simply meant to be demonstrating for us, but that quickly turned into something more.

Suddenly I found myself standing up from my spot on my yoga mat, walking around the outside of the circle of women, and sitting down again at an angle where I could support Amanda’s back, who was still supporting Layla’s. I stretched out my arms to simply imagine that I was pouring a dense stream of energy towards her so that she could lean back upon it.*

Game on.

I was soon participating in what would become the weirdest form of hide-and-seek and scavenger hunt turned divine mission ever!!

There was an alcove in the wall that held a small stage behind me, and soon the voice was encouraging me to switch on all of the candles on it (but not that one! It’s not ready yet!) before firmly directing me to place a water bottle on the west side of the stage, and cover a small potted bush on the east side of the stage with Deepa’s sarong (“makes sense,” I remember thinking, “she’s from India!” Of course, I have no idea why this makes sense now! But it sure did at the time!)

Then back to the candles in the middle of my little alcove. Pick that one up.

Take off your clothes! You have to be naked!!

Faster! Faster!! You’re missing it!

And as I struggled to peel off my shirt and kick off my shorts, which got stuck on my toe as I was trying to fling them off quickly, the sense of urgency kept buildling… go go go, do it now!! Wait wait wait I’m not ready!!

Okay. I’m ready.

I breathe deeply and just stand there. Calmly, firmly, clear on my purpose. Layla is here to do something, and that something is happening right now. And as I stand, rooted in place, I realise that it doesn’t feel like I’m 100% alone in my body anymore. It’s not that anyone/thing else is in here with me… it feels more like there is a trap door on the ceiling of my consciousness I didn’t know was there, that has now been flung open; revealing a wide blue sky dotted with fluffy white clouds on the other side. The voice that guides me enters through here. It’s not a voice though, so much as an inner knowing that rises within me, but still - it does need an entry point.

So now I’m standing in the middle of this stage, totally naked, clutching an unlit candle to my chest, and crying actual tears as the overwhelming sense washes over me oh my god, she’s doing it!

But we’re not done yet!!

Layla, meanwhile, is still leaning back in Amanda's arms and writhing and moaning as obvious amounts of energy course through her body. I have no idea what’s happening for her, only that it’s something she had been trying to do for a long, long time.

Next, the voice tells me to throw the candle off the balcony! But it is plastic… not wax… and I am a little concerned about hitting someone below the third story of this resort building perched on a mountainside in the Costa Rican jungle…

As fortune would have it… Mia Magic, the only self-proscribed Witch I’ve met (and Layla’s friend / my fellow retreat-guest, who had just the night before hosted the full moon ritual that changed everything for me!!) was sitting between me and the open door to the balcony, I know she is a steward for the forests (and has made a deal with the Earth to never buy an article of new clothing) so I trusted her to be able to give me permission.

“Mia, I need to throw this candle off the balcony, do I have your permission?”

And Mia, with her brow furrowed instantly in an obvious scowl, replies, “absolutely not!”

“Ok,” I say, “then can you take it from me? I’m afraid I’ll still throw it.”

Mia takes the candle, and apparently at a loss of what to do next, I sit down beside her to watch. At one point, another wave of energy washes over me, and I start slapping my knee and Mia’s knee, encouraging her to look up from her computer - she is using the demo time to furiously finish the manuscript for her book, Intuwitchin.

“She’s doing it! Don’t you want to see her doing it!!” I clap and cheer like a little girl.

Before long another invitation comes my way. I follow the Knowing and step outside to the balcony, where I simply marvel at a hawk soaring majestically past. I don’t know how long I stay out here for, I feel so joyfully caught up in the flow of the universe that hours could have passed and I would have had no idea. Probably though, it’s just a few minutes.

At one point, the voice inside my head says, “stay here. Stay out here.”

I laugh in response and reply, “all night? No way!” The invitations are only ever that - invitations - I always have full control over whether or not I say yes or no to them. I always have access to my own free will.

From inside the open door, I’m pretty sure I hear Layla say “Omg I did it!” But I can’t be sure.

Not willing to stay out here all night, the Knowing lets me wander back inside, where I simply stand innocuously beside a small potted tree for a few minutes. There is a sea shell sitting in the dirt next to the tree, with a small cone of incense or something sitting in it. I get the sense that had I already contained the knowledge on what to do with this shell and this incense, I could now do something with it. But I don’t know that. So I don’t.

I walk back over to sit down next to Mia against the wall again.

And the energy in teh room and in my body is still building - I suddenly go from feeling calm and clear in purpose to slightly frantic with a rising sense of frenzy in my system.

I’m having a hard time staying anchored in my body.

I think probably I say a few things to Mia that may not make much sense, as my limbs bounce erratically and I have trouble sitting still. “She’s doing it Mia! She’s doing it! Doncha wanna see?? hahahahaaaa!”

Recognising this is starting to get a little out of my control, I reach down to wrap one of the pieces of yarn from Mia’s fringed cardigan around my finger and immediately feel my pulse and breathing slow down. Thank the goddess for the witches and their connection to the earth!! Mia’s presence helps ground me. Feeling back in control, I turn to Mia and say, “Hey Mia, can I have that candle again?”

“I swear to FUCK, Cara,” she angrily whisper-shouts at me, “you canNOT throw this off the fucking BALCONY. Absolutely fucking NOT!”

“It’s okay,” I smile gently at her, fully aware that I had been balancing on the edge of out-of-control just a few moments ago, but trusting that I’m back and able to handle some more instructions from the Universe, “I’m not going to throw it. I just want to light it. It’s ready to be lit.”

Mia reluctantly hands the candle over, and I know she has no qualms whatsover about full-out tackling me to the floor should I pull a sneaky and run to throw it from the window…. but I just walk back to the stage, flick the switch on the bottom of this white plastic pillar, and set it down with the others. In the perfect spot I didn’t even realise I had left for it.

Then I gather my clothes (yup… I am 100% still naked! I’ve done all of this totally nude!! ha) and walk slowly back over to my seat, where I simply lower myself back down to my yoga mat, and watch as Layla Martin finishes her process, and comes back into her body. I feel momentarily stunned that no one seems to have paid any attention to what the crazy naked lady was doing in the back of the room, ad begin to feel a little put-off by the fact that my role in the… whatever this was… will never be recognised or celebrated. I feel like I’ve just pulled something quite major off… even though I have no actual idea what that was.

But I hear the gentle but firm voice remind me, once again - this isn’t about you.

♡

In the hours and days that follow, I can’t quite seem to find the words to describe what has just happened for me or through me. I take a stab at it to Cory, one of the co-instructors who is there as a trauma therapist in case anyone needs any support, this is deep deep healing work we are doing! She has no insight on what happened either, and just uses her time to make sure I am grounded in my body. Like all good leaders, she trusts me to know what to do next (after having first used a series of guiding questions to determine that I am, in fact, okay, and making sure to let me know that if anything changes, to come back and see her.)

Nothing like this has ever entered my sphere of consciousness. I lack the awareness to say what this was, and the language to even be able to talk about it concisely.

I float through the rest of the day on a cloud, feeling wildly different, cracked open, a little uncertain and unbalanced, but so irrevocably real and filled with life… it’s obviously a feeling that is hard to explain.

And for the second part of the day, when it’s time for me to step back into the room to support someone else as they go through this same process, I bow out of the room, and take the sloping path through the jungle and down to the beach instead. I’m good, I’ve already done that.

I dive into the cool water and float on my back, each wave reaches up to say hello to me, and the flock of sea gulls that fly overhead ride a current of energy that I can feel deep in my body. Somewhere long forgotten, but now found.

Hello, God.

It’s super nice to meet you.

xx Cara

♡

*Ever had a doubt that this sort of thing actually works? That our energy can impact others in a way they can feel?? Well, we know that sound waves alone can shatter glass, yeah? - so of course energy extended from my arms, from my heart, which produces our bodies largest electromagnetic field, can lend a fellow human support! In a way they can feel. Makes perfect sense!!

Note on Gender: I’ve heard some people say that God is definitely male, which I super believe and respect for them. In this experience, She felt undeniably female. And truly it wasn’t even a presence I willingly called God Consciousness until a few years later. I struggled to put this experience into words before now. But as time passes and I gain more experiences similar to this one, it’s quite clear to me: This was God asking if I wanted to play. And I said yes. She had a role to do, and needed someone to do it. I have no doubt that the invitation went out to several people, and maybe even some of them said yes, too! Maybe there was a team of people supporting Layla through this…maybe it was just me! And now, sometimes God is female, sometimes She is male, sometimes, I probably couldn’t even tell you what, if any, gender they feel like. It’s just a presence that has different qualities depending on what it needs from me. SO yes, to me God is male. He is also Female. She is kinda everything, anyhow.