Category: Archetypal activation

Archetypal activation, Personal Power, Uncategorized

Protect Your Territory

Adrian E Sparrow

Lions know their place. How well do you know yours?

Knowing your place means being 100% clear on what you own. What’s yours to care for, what’s yours to protect, what’s yours to influence …in any given moment or circumstance.

Knowing your place. How well do you know yours?

Lions patrol their territory constantly. Over time, through instinct, habit, and trial and error, they know the where their kingdom ends and where another begins. They roam the invisible boundaries of their vast grasslands for hours on end, ceaseless. Alert. Marking the grass with their scent to remind intruders that “this is my house” and roaring to connect with their pride and let them know “I’ve got this.” They take an aggressive stance – fight when necessary – to keep rogue lions out. Not everyone is welcome here. I get to choose. I am in charge.

Lions know their place. How well do you know yours?

Lions don’t own every square inch of the grasslands, nor would they want to. Taking care of all that? That would never work. Each pride has their piece of the pridelands that is theirs to care for, to protect.

How big is your territory? Do you know where it ends, and another begins? Who is your pride and are you fulfilling your duty to them as leader, as protector, as guide, as influencer?

Knowing your place means being 100% clear on what you own. What’s yours to care for, what’s yours to protect, what’s yours to influence … in any given moment or circumstance.

Patrol. Know your territory, inside and out. Scan your environment, and be aware of what’s coming in and going out.

Protect. Fight for your boundaries. Keep your territory yours. 

Does it sound like grueling work? Lonely, harsh? What’s cool is that lions don’t do the work alone. They usually have at least one other male lion to help them keep the land and pride in order. They’ve got company on those long patrols in the hot African sun, a brother who’s got their back.

brothers

Nah, they’re not alone. It’s not hard work to them, it’s natural. It’s necessary.

Protecting your territory doesn’t have to be exhausting or hostile. In fact, you’ll feel a peace, a power, and a certain “rightness” in knowing your place. There’s more joy to be experienced. More opportunity to be had. It’s natural. It’s necessary.

Lions know their place. How well do you know yours?

 

 

Images sourced from Google images. Main image credit: John van Beers’ 

Archetypal activation, Personal Power

See for yourself

Adrian E Sparrow

My 9-year-old daughter was about to take a shower. I started the water for her and was almost out of the room when she yelled, “Is it warm yet, mom?”

“I don’t know, babe, put your hand in it and see.”

I could have turned around and walked back, tested the water, adjusted the temp, and gave her the all clear. Instead, I empowered her to see for herself.

Tiny example but what a great analogy for the bigger things in life! See for yourself! Take your power back. Stop asking for permission or wondering if the time is right. Put your hand in and see.

Too hot? Add a little cold. Too cold? Add a little hot.

You’re smart. You know what to do. You don’t need to ask anyone to check the temperature for you. Trust yourself. Just put your hand in and see.

Questions for reflection:

Who are you asking or waiting for permission from? Who are you asking to test the water for you? Who do you need validation from?

And what are you scared to jump into? What “just right” temperature are you waiting for? What can you do right now to adjust the temp so it’s ready for you?

LIONGIRL action:

Take a shower. Get the water temperature just right and step in. As the water pours over your head, let it wash away the people and old beliefs that you can’t do it or figure it out by yourself. That you aren’t smart enough, capable enough, worthy enough… Let this shower – and all future showers – be a cleansing ritual to rid you of powerless thoughts. Step out clean and ready to take on the world.

Archetypal activation, Conservation and Causes, Uncategorized

LIONS AMONG US: Estero, FL, USA

Adrian E Sparrow

Featuring LIONS from around the world. Real places. Real people sharing images and experiences of their everyday encounters with the lion archetype. Send yours to adrian@liongirl.org.

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Don’t mess with me, I’m having a peaceful moment!

-submitted by LIONGIRL pride member Jen Harper

“I run past this fountain when I do my morning runs at my mom’s place in Florida. I love seeing it as anytime I see a lion, whether it be a statue or picture or words of expression, it speaks to me…mainly because I love being a Leo sign.

“This fountain is so pretty because the water has a rotation timer. The flowers surrounding the statues are always so beautiful. I love how the lion’s expression is ‘Don’t mess with me, I’m having a peaceful moment!’ LOL!”

Adrian @ LIONGIRL Comments: This picture reminds me of the entrance to a sacred lion temple! I love the masculine lion guarding the entrance to the feminine waters…Stability and flow all in one. Protection, service, guardianship as well as beauty, mystery, and receptivity. I would love a sunrise run and meditation here! Thanks for sharing, Jen!

Archetypal activation, Conservation and Causes, Personal Power, Uncategorized

See the World Through a Lion’s Eyes

Adrian E Sparrow

Man must make two connections. He must reconnect with the earth and he must reconnect with the stars. 

– Credo Mutwa, lion priest and guardian of Africa’s sacred knowledge

I cannot pretend to know what it’s like to be a lion. I cannot pretend to know what they think, how they feel, or how they see and experience the world.

But I can imagine.

And it starts by reconnecting with the earth and with the stars, as high priest Crudo Mutwa explains in the quote above.

The earth and the stars will always bring us home to our hearts — to that place of peace and surrender and humility, where joy is imminent and everlasting.  The place where time stops racing, anxiety and fear cease. Where audible exhales give our overloaded nervous systems permission to relax.

Your inner lion (or lioness), who is deeply connected to the earth and stars, is longing for a relationship with you. Will you step in a bit closer and get to know the world through his/her eyes?

LIONGIRL has created a free, 8-week virtual SOUL SAFARI to help you reconnect with the earth and stars and, in turn, awaken your brave, courageous, and oh-so-powerful lion heart. As we roam the inner wilds of our sacred pridelands with other lionhearts, we will begin to activate a new kind of spiritually-grounded power that will most certainly open up a new world of possibilities – for your own life and for the world.

Warning: You may never see the world in quite the same way again! Let’s journey together! Click here to get more details and save your spot in the Land Rover.

Developing a beloved relationship with one’s inner Lion enables you to see, feel, touch, intuit and imagine the world in a deeply connected and sacred way. I believe this is how we save the lions…by first saving the lion in us.”

– Adrian Sparrow, found”her” of LIONGIRL

Archetypal activation, Personal Power

Catching the Christ: A dream I had and a dream I have for humanity

Adrian E Sparrow

I had an intense dream two nights ago. As dreams go, I can’t remember all of it but a few potent details remain burned in my consciousness, haunting me…I feel like I’m meant to DO SOMETHING with the dream. So for now, I will write it down and we’ll see where it goes…

I was with Mary during the birth of Jesus. She was in labor, struggling during the hardest moments of transition. She was naked, dirty, barefoot. We were outside in some remote deserted town, and it was nighttime. I could see a fire burning in the distance. She was walking around, squatting, moaning, bleeding… I was trying to calm her, encourage her.

She told me, “I need you to catch him when he comes out.” I started to come closer, but in her next gasp, the baby came rushing out of her. She caught him–I was too late, it happened too fast. However, she immediately put the baby in my arms. As if it was somehow mine as much as hers.

I specifically remember how big the newborn was. A large, heavy, healthy baby boy. I remember how proud I was to hold him. I also remember the “sigh” I heard when she caught him. It was a loud collective sigh of many people – so much relief that he was here and safe and everything was going to be ok. There was also this sense of amazement and wonder at the strength of Mary. She caught her own son as he was coming out of her. Such a warrior-queen. I’m pretty sure Mary was a LIONGIRL. : )

The imagery in my dream was so obviously Mary-Jesus-Bethlehem-esque but it didn’t feel like “back in the day.” It felt current, like it could’ve happened yesterday. I remember being shocked by her dirty nakedness…by the raw, primal intensity of her labor process out in the open at night. I was a little scared to be witnessing it. I was the only one there…just she and I. And then when the baby came and she handed him to me, Mary drifted from my awareness and it became just him and I.

Who is this miracle baby she handed to me? Jesus…a symbol of hope, light, and a new kind of divine leadership that is grounded in love, service, compassion and justice. Unconditional love, embodied courage – the kind that can save humanity. It’s in my hands. And yours. This baby born from the stars is all of ours–ours to nurture, ours to learn from, ours to share. Want to hold him?

mary and jesus

Doesn’t matter if you subscribe to a Christian worldview or not, the mythic symbolism in the dream is what’s important. Every day as humans we have the choice to take the light in our hands and do something good with it. In fact, it’s our greatest privilege and responsibility.

LIONGIRL, as an athletic brand, is more importantly an activation of a new kind of power – a spiritually-grounded and divinely enacted power that comes from our connection to our One Creative Source. LIONGIRL power is gritty and raw and sweaty and also sparkling and royal, like diamonds. It dances to the drumbeat of the earth and knows the language of the stars. Like Mary, who completely surrendered to her calling as Mother of the Messiah, we, as a LIONGIRL pride, are boldly surrendering to our Great Calling each and every day as we choose to step into a life of power, service, and leadership. (I can hear the collective sigh again.) May we all be supported as we birth light into the world, and be there to catch it for each other.

Visit the LIONGIRL pridelands on Facebook. Join the community and conversation, where we’re talking about lions, humanity, and real power.

humility-RA

Archetypal activation, Personal Power

To Grow You Must Let Go

Adrian E Sparrow

“To grow you must let go.”  This was my 3 a.m. wake up call. From somewhere in dreamland, my higher mind was busy.

I knew it was good, and I wanted to remember it…But it was 3 a.m. and I didn’t feel like crawling out of bed to find a pen and paper to write it down.

The dream voice kept going…”The bigger your dreams, the bigger your surrender.”

Lordy, that is good.  Groggy, I stumbled to my office, found a pen and paper and jotted down these messages.

With each letting in, with every vulnerability, there is a contraction, then a release. ..

When you are approaching a greater expansion and expression of your true essence, there is that moment of terror, that moment of “what will people think?” You’re opening up risky territory…there’s a chance for rejection. A chance for failure.

I felt this yesterday when I published the LIONGIRL Company Facebook page. I was inviting friends to the page and felt part of myself resisting. I felt the contraction, the terror of exposure. The terror of being seen (and maybe not liked, God forbid).

This morning at 3 a.m. I wrote, “It’s OK. Be willing to risk it. You’ll never know if you don’t try.”

Letting people in, letting people see the REAL YOU is kinda scary sometimes. Bless the fear and contraction that comes and then let it go like a giant gorgeous exhale. In, out, in out. This is the natural way, the only way perhaps.

As if this middle-of-the-night-full-moon revelation wasn’t enough, my little girl who was sleeping in bed with me sweetly mumbled to me when I came back to bed, “Face in toward me for awhile, mom. (I had been sleeping with my back to her). This is how I will live my life. In for awhile, then out for awhile.” She literally said this and then blissfully went back to sleep. 7 years old. 3 a.m. Who is this child?

Guess I’m being called to “face in” for awhile. To let go, to grow, to surrender big.

When I visited the royal White Lion pride in Timbavati, South Africa last November, I remember seeing them look up a lot. Maybe they were watching vultures soar overhead…but there was something about their surrender and connection in that moment. Something more mystical and beautiful. As if they were releasing every part of their experience in that moment to their Divine Source and filling up with new energy, new power, new light.

Thank you LIONGIRL for helping me grow beyond myself, so that I can step into a life of service and leadership–and for showing me what true power feels like. It’s not big. It’s not showy. It’s subtle and natural and humble. It’s looking up and exhaling. And then doing it all over again, except from a higher place of freedom.

looking up To grow, you must let go…

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Archetypal activation, Personal Power

“Walk in Balance with the Passing of Each Glorious Sun”

Adrian E Sparrow

majestic-lion-king-wallpaper

Lakota Prayer

Wakan Tanka,
Great Mystery (Great Spirit),

Teach me how to trust my heart,
Teach me how to trust my mind,
Teach me how to trust my intuition,

Teach me how to trust my inner knowing,
The senses of my body,
The blessings of my spirit.

Teach me to trust these things
so that I may enter my Sacred Space
and love beyond my fear

and thus Walk in Balance
with the passing of each glorious Sun.

Lakota Wisdom

Honor the sacred
Honor the Earth, our Mother
Honor the Elders
Honor all with whom we share the Earth

Four-leggeds
Two-leggeds
Winged ones
Swimmers
Crawlers
Plant and rock people

Walk in balance and beauty.

Aho!  Amen.

Prayer in Practice

What does it mean to “enter your Sacred Space”?

From a LIONGIRL perspective, Sacred Space is a place within your physical body where your spiritual power is anchored. It’s the holiest of holy grounds because it’s where God enters you and lives through you… Your Sacred Space is somewhere in the center of your being that is limitless, creative, divine, and eternal. Maybe you feel this radiating golden power in your heart. Maybe you can feel it in your belly. Maybe you can feel it roaring in your throat or pulsing in your lower chakras. Maybe you feel it like a royal crown on your head. Maybe the power flows and can be accessed in different places at different times. Doesn’t matter. What matters is that you touch into it, are aware of its power, and learn how to work with it as a force for good….

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“The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of people when they realize their relationship, their oneness with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize at the center of the universe dwells the Great Spirit, and that its center is really everywhere, it is within each of us.”

― Black Elk

What does it mean to Walk in Balance?

To Walk in Balance is to have heaven (spirituality) and earth (physicality) working together in harmony. To be able to hold both with grace and wisdom. This is the way of LIONGIRL spiritual warrior – SHE WHO HOLDS HEAVEN and EARTH in HARMONY. There is no greater power than this.

LIONGIRL pride members are highly conscious spiritual beings grounded in the sweat, rawness, and grit of this physical human existence. We’re coming down from the temples, coming down from the caves and monasteries, coming off the meditation cushions and running into the fiery world. Taking up arms, using weaponry of the heart, to blaze a new Path of Light–So bright and real and beautiful that no one/no thing can deny its glory.

lions running

The cross on the LIONGIRL logo symbolizes the balance/fusion of spirituality and physicality. In the center of which is the sacred source of your divine power.

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Archetypal activation, Athletic, Conservation and Causes, Personal Power, Uncategorized

Who or What is LIONGIRL? What’s it about?

Adrian E Sparrow

LIONGIRL is an emerging women’s athletic brand with a highly sacred social mission–to activate the archetypal power of lion in your personal life and in the world. Through our lion-inspired fitness wear, high-powered adventure events, and connected global community, we aim to activate the highest expression of your physical and spiritual power so you can roar more boldly in your life and make a positive difference in the world.

humility-RA

LIONGIRL is a brand + a community + an archetypal awakening in the hearts of humanity. LIONGIRL stands for true strength and using our POWER FOR GOOD.

It’s not just about wearing and “showing off” your physical strength and spirituality on the outside; it’s about ENACTING your spirituality and deeper strength that’s embodied and radical and evolutionary.

“As a LIONGIRL, I feel stronger and more empowered to do the things that are important to me and that matter to the world.”

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The strength of one amplified by the strength of many. This is the power of the pride.

Sign up for our mailing list if you want to activate and amplify your power with other lionhearted warriors! We’re in the early phases of design for our apparel so sign up so you can be the first to know when our hats, hoodies, and tanks are ready to wear!

***Your purchase of LIONGIRL apparel and support of LIONGIRL events will contribute to the well-being of lions in the wild, particularly the protection and return of the majestic White Lions to their heartland territories in Timbavati, South Africa through the noble work of the Global White Lion Protection Trust.

Facebook Group Cover Photo

Join LIONGIRL pride on Facebook.

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Archetypal activation, Conservation and Causes, Personal Power, Uncategorized

Part of Me Remains in Africa

Adrian E Sparrow

I’m back now, but not completely.

Part of me remains in Africa.

If you look in my eyes, forgive me if I seem aloof, distant – I am still seeing the red earth of Mother Africa under my feet, heavily pregnant zebras carrying the promise of summer and a new life, herds of antelope and wildebeest sharing holy ground with the lions—intimately aware of every movement, every sound…white-backed vultures perched in leaf-less trees and circling high, high above—sacred alchemists purifying that which is dying and done.

Part of me remains in Africa.

The radiant golden sun rising and setting, rising and setting, rising and setting over the bushveld time and time again. Time passes. Time stands still. It is all the same. I remember this now.

I rise with the sun, I sleep with the stars. I am one with the Earth. She is me, I am Her.

If you ask me how it was or what we did, forgive me if I have no words. There are some experiences so intimate, so soulfully-rich, so mind-blowingly mysterious that to explain them would strip the meaning and purity away. I can only offer you a new experience of being in my presence. Perhaps you’ll feel it. Perhaps not. I’ve surrendered that, too.

I am less than I was before I went. Lighter. Dreamier. Quieter. Softer. So much of ME has been dissolved, allowing for so much more of WHO I AM to shine through.

Unraveling, dismantling the parts of ME that clung so tightly to life, to timelines, to responsibilities, to stories about what’s important and how things should be done. I have forgotten why those things mattered so much. I have forgotten why I was so stressed out. I have forgotten why I was so resentful and angry. I have forgotten why I pushed so hard.

I have remembered peace. I have remembered beauty and the perfection of stillness, of patience, of not needing anything from anyone, not needing anything from myself. Contentment.

I have remembered my place in the whole of Creation. I have remembered the song of the stars. I have remembered what it is to love deeply, untethered to expectations, unattached to outcomes. To Love for the sake of Loving.

I have remembered that it will all be okay.

I have remembered how to dance–barefoot around the fire under a full moon–to the primal pulse of my own heartbeat. A new rhythm, a new pace, a new blueprint unfolding…

I can see the Lions’ tracks in the dusty red Earth, they’ve been here through the ages and will be here forevermore. They are here to stay. They will not leave us, and I will not leave them. I will walk beside them into eternity…together, we will weave and dream and dance and roar a New Earth into being.

Diamond stardust tracks in red earth. A river of gold flowing underneath and above and within.

Part of me remains in Africa.

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