A new era can began when a critical number of people change their perceptions and behavior.  Jean Shinoda Bolen and I will talk about the power of woman’s circles and how the sacred circle can bring strength and energy to feed activism and fuel change.  If you can’t make the live show this Wed then you can get the MP3 published a few days after by subscribing to the show or following the Fire it UP with CJ page on Facebook   SHOW HIGHLIGHTS Link to Segment 1 The Goddess in Everywomen: What is the inner Goddess that you most resonate with? Jean Shinoda Bolen discusses how knowing your Goddess archetype can help keep you on your life path and open up personal growth areas. Link to Segment 2 Energizing the Women movement: Is the women’s movement dead?  What are the successes we’ve had to-date? How could women circles energize the women’s movement? BLOG POST FROM OUR GUEST Never doubt that small groups of committed women can change the world: we did before, we can do it again! — Jean Shinoda Bolen  CREATIVE ACTS OF EXPRESSION—CATALYZED IN CIRCLES BY JEAN SHINODA BOLEN, M.D. I know, as so many of us who are fortunate to be in one know, how supportive a sacred circle can be–as an incubator-womb space in which the courage to be authentically ourselves leads to creative acts of expression. This may include what is usually meant by expressive arts—writing, painting, sculpture, dance, theater, films—or political and personal activism, transforming relationships to others, or changing institutions. Inevitably, perhaps because experiences of the sacred are so deep and deeply personal, creative acts of expression are expressions of awakening that begin with trusting our own feelings and perceptions, of realizing it is up to us to be real and act on the premise that what matters to us, really matters. This is soul knowledge that becomes soul work when we take steps to bring what we know into our personal world and into the world.  At times of crisis, what we do — or not, can tilt a situation in either direction. In the silence of undirected inner reflection, prayer, or meditation, which is an element in this kind of a circle, we tap into a center in ourselves that is also at the center of the circle. In Jung’s psychology, this is the archetype of meaning, the Self.  By meeting as a circle of women, we invite the sacred feminine to come into our midst. This form is archetypal. It connects us to suppressed sources of women’s spiritual power, much as an aquifer lies below the surface until it is tapped into, bubbles up and flows. We tap into an awareness that goes back in time to when divinity was worshipped in many forms, as female, as the Great Mother, Gaia. In the last third of the twentieth century, Merlin Stone’s When God was a Woman got archeological support from Marija Gimbutas and other archeologists who literally dug up evidence.   Scrolls that had been hidden and preserved by the dryness in Egyptian caves near Nag Hammadi, were found in this same period. These became known as the Gnostic Gospels through Elaine Pagels. These early Christian writings were rich in metaphor and included Sophia, the Sacred Feminine.  Gnostic churches were egalitarian rather than hierarchal in form, leadership was shared: who did what—the sermon, communion, greeting newcomers, could be chosen by lot. Everyone was welcome. Women served in all roles. Once the Church at Rome had the power to condemn heresy, the Gnostic Christians were persecuted, its gospels destroyed. Our only knowledge of them came from the church fathers, which systematically had destroyed all previous copies of these gospels. This time, it was different. Circumstances had changed. Through the influence of feminism and the women’s movement, there now were women scholars in all fields including theology. In the United States