Diamond Girl
The Lesedi La Rona diamond. Photo by Seth Wenig, Associated Press.
As women, how can we discover our hidden wisdom and worth, not dependent on status or wealth? Why is finding the unique gifts we came here to share now more important than ever? How can we inhabit the life that we came here for? To show up fully, and to fully shine.
On summer afternoons, on the very top of the hill of my childhood home, I would escape for hours to sit alone. Alone, but really feeling all one, for I was the queen of all I surveyed. I felt sovereign unto myself, and this was my place. Here was my throne. The ridge upon which I was born was a great dragon - a Tuatara. And he was my Guardian. I would sit in this eyrie looking out at my Queendom. Not a single dwelling could I see. Only the harbour and the hills. It was my Turangawaewae, my place to stand, though I didn’t know this word at the time. The place on the earth where I belonged. The place that held me rooted to the land. In this place I knew my Name and my reason for being. I was a young girl who was also Queen, connected to a vast sky of stars above this ridge. And the bracken-covered Earth looking out over the harbour entrance loved me back. I was virgin unto myself. Then along came men. Young men from whom I learned kissing and feeling inadequate - not their pedestalled image when undressed. And I began to forget my diamond-crowned Self, in the need to fill and perfect the not good enough place. Until the journey back at 42, to that same hill to live with my two children at the end of my second marriage. I had, since my 20s, lost myself in relationship, searching for a diamond on my finger to complete and protect me. Forgetting the dragon who was still ever at my side, and the sovereign within.
Until that moment.
The moment of return.
Soon after I found my first mentoring client, and, teaching best what I most needed to learn, I helped her become her True Self again, in the fractured face of her father wound.
We found again the Diamond Girl within - the one who began to love the bright gems in her own Crown.
Girl Lost and Found
“Dirt in the Winter, dirt in the Spring,
Who’s gonna wear your diamond ring, who’s gonna spend your money?...
I don’t want to be your diamond girl now,
I don’t want to be your honey,
I don’t want to ride passenger side,
I don’t want to spend your money…”
– “Diamond Girl” by Abigail Lapell, from her album, Hide nor Hair (2017)
Marilyn Monroe once sang a love song to diamonds. A seductive, diminishing song that placed women’s power outside of themselves.
The song yearned and purred for diamonds, as it hypnotically drummed into the female psyche of the 50s that “Diamonds are a girl’s best friend.” And it suggested to women at that time, disadvantaged and disempowered by a dominant patriarchal system, that the way to acquire them was to find a man rich enough to deliver them.
The liberation movements of the 60s began to challenge that, and by 2020 we now see clearly how patriarchal power structures and paradigms have enslaved or subjugated so many of us. As these structures break down, we face their effects: interrelated crises of climate, poverty and pandemic. And yet we are also breaking through to an awareness our individual and collective power, and our shared purpose.
These times require each of us to show up and share our gifts. And for each of us to know our unique contribution. To help people understand what their offering is, is the work I’m called to do. And it’s based on knowing that we each have another kind of brilliance – our daimon[1]. She’s the keeper of what I call our immortal diamond. The one we already have and hold – for richer and poorer. We were born with it, this multi-faceted jewel, but so many of us have forgotten we are that.
We still feel it sometimes, when we remember what She really feels like. It’s that spontaneous joy that lights you up when you’re doing what you came here to do. When you’re doing what you love. Your Daimon, some call Her your Soul, She has never forgotten it… And she wants you to live the radiance that She knows you are.
This diamond has eight or so facets – and each of us has our particular cut. Each of those facets is a jewel in itself. Imagine them… eight jewels and one at the centre. The Ninth Gem. I like to think of this as our crown. And when you mine and polish each of these unique expressions of yourself, your life begins to truly shine. Because this is the rare beauty you are. And have always been. This is the brilliance of your life aligned with your Soul’s purpose, with your Daimon always guiding the way.
After finding this diamond within you, any rock on your finger becomes optional. We remember what truly makes us shine.
There are ways to reclaim that inner light. I named mine Navaratna, after the Sanskrit word meaning nine gems. The inspiration for this name came to me during the Hindu Festival of Navaratri, The Nine Nights of the Goddess. These nine faces of the Divine Feminine spoke to me of something I have always known. That we come as shining sparks from Spirit or Source, our Souls each carrying at least Nine sparkling facets of that Source Light. They are our distinct and unique expression of the Divine in the world, in us as us. Our Nine Gems are our unique combination and contribution, our gifts and offering of our fullest selves to those we love, encounter, and to the planet herself.
Nine Gems is a pathway I first walked myself, examining my core wounds as the firstborn daughter of two Polish orphaned war refugees. In my 30s, after the post-natal trauma associated with my son’s birth, I was driven to research into near death experiences, spirituality, psychology and dreams. It required inner excavation and deep mining; there were cave-ins and discoveries, as I began to remember how those rough gems felt in my hand. I began naming and polishing my distinctive facets, sitting with and accepting my particular shadows, or ‘occlusions,’ and then learning, finally, to love even these, by holding them up to the light; finally noticing how they, too, made my unique qualities shine brighter along their chiaroscuro edges.
The central symbol of this work is the Starburst. The light emitting from our centre. I have seen this since I was three, after a near death experience. I have seen its signature everywhere along my life’s path, but only in my 40s did I recognise it for what it was. It is how a Soul fully comes to earth. Trailing “clouds of glory,” inhabiting and animating the body that so yearns to radiantly express it.
I also know now that this process of Soul Mining doesn’t need to take a decade. I developed this guided journey because I didn’t want the people I work with to have to struggle to reclaim this beauty and their truth on their own.
With each session I help you get closer to finding, naming and claiming each of your Nine Gems, all the facets of your Diamond Self. And then we practice together as you begin to live them as a fully embodied Soul. This is the life we have all felt is waiting for us, in which we show up and fully shine.
Session One begins with a self-portrait, to honour the name I first received for the work that I now do. If you choose to venture into your deepest, brightest, most beautiful and unique self, we’ll begin the journey of self-uncovery, and, in the process, reveal your Soul’s Purpose. It is your Ninth Gem.
With each session and the ensuing time between, you reclaim a little bit more of your light. Each week you become more radiant. The shine is liberated from within. Together we’ll realise that it never depended on having “a girl’s best friend.” You become your own true one. A Diamond girl who becomes a woman unto herself. Your own crowning glory. And a power and beauty to behold!
[1] Activist, Mythologer and Storyteller Michael Meade talks about the daimon. “There is an old idea that at the core of each individual lives what the Greeks called the daimon, and the Romans referred to as the genius.” The ancients believed in a ‘spirit’ that accompanies us through life. That it has been with you since birth. It knows the best of you, and your destined path. Our task is to bring this daimon within us, this divine gift, into the world. “The inner genius is a force of nature seeking to manifest through us. Whether it is called an inner muse, guardian angel or the daimon within, this resident spirit can protect, inspire and motivate us. The genius holds the blueprint of our lives and the key to our true purpose. With the future of the earth so much in question, the sense that each person has a genius nature and is subject to a meaningful calling is needed at this time.”
Photo credit: Photo by Jared Subia on Unsplash