Welcome to the Trust Talk Sessions. Join a collective of former guests and I for a 19 day dive into Trust to celebrate 100 episodes of Trust your Sacred Feminine Flow. Each conversation offers an intimate glimpse into the challenges and extraordinary moments experienced in our journey to trust.
Helen Hodgson, author and founder of Transformational Goddess Retreats learned that as caretakers, women are often the last ones to nurture themselves. Helen swore she wouldn’t journey the same path, but as a nurse and massage therapist herself, she experienced the same “over giving” and neglected her own needs. It wasn’t until her awakening with the goddesses through a pilgrimage to the mythical birthplace of Aphrodite in Paphos on the island of Cyprus that she was inspired to not only practice self-love on a much deeper level for herself, but also become an advocate for empowering all women. Aphrodite became the symbol of the sacred feminine in my life, the bringer of empowerment, of clarity and strength.
Helen was introduced to the frame drum in 2015 with no prior experience in drumming and after a six week immersion with Miranda Rondeau, Remo frame drum artist and teacher, she was hooked.
The drum has become an intricate part of Helen’s life with years of continual weekly drum classes communing in rhythm, cultivating a deep relationship and building her skills. Following her dedication and the call to dive deeper, Helen has been enrolled in the Teacher Training for the signature, Introduction Heart of Frame Drumming since Jan. 2019.
Helen has played the frame drum at full moon gatherings, end of life passages, memorials, women’s marches and birthdays.
Helen is here to share the dramatic impact of this ancient tool of remembrance and a sacred lineage of the first women drummers, on our lives today.
https://transformationalgoddessretreats.com/
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Listen to Helen’s Trust Talk Session by clicking the play button on the audio player below
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Read the Full Transcript Here:
Joni
Welcome to the Trust Talk Sessions Beloved. I am your host, Joni Advent Maher, and it is my great pleasure to welcome back to the show Helen Hodgson. Helen was first with us in episode 083 Transformational Goddess Wisdom. And that was just last fall. I think it was last fall, wasn’t it Helen?
Helen
It seems like a long time ago. Last fall doesn’t it? But a lot has happened since then.
Joni
Yes, I was trying to think, is it longer? But no, it was just last fall. So. So let me just say a little bit more about all you bring and what you are and a force in the world. So Helen is an author and she is the founder of Transformational Goddess Retreats. And I would say she’s on the leading edge of self care for women and bringing forth the transformational wisdom that comes through the goddess and the various goddesses. And one of the things that I have enjoyed, both in my initial interview and following her on social media is that she is a, not sure what the word I’m looking for, but she is a practitioner of the frame drum, which hearkens back, and if you listened to our original episode, you can hear a more in depth version of it, but Helen, tell us, remind us what the frame drum is.
Helen
Yeah, it’s the oldest archetypical instrument originally played by women. Women are in charge of holding ceremony and honoring rites of passage and the moon phases on the frame drum along with singing and dancing was the tool of empowerment. And, it represents so much.
Joni
Hmm. The tool of empowerment. I love that. And actually earlier today, while I was on a break, I was on Instagram and you were drumming. And it was so what I needed. It just brought me back, it was very centering and I just needed a boost. So, yes.
Helen
Yes, the different rhythms affect our consciousness in different ways. In the West, we’re so used to the fours and the eights. But in different cultures, they use the odd time rhythms and it affects our consciousness in a different way. So
Joni: Does that mean like the six?
Helen
Yeah, the six is, well the sixes is actually a good one for trancing because it keeps coming back to itself. I like to play the sixes around the moon phases. Know the full moon. Because what you do is when you sit and listen to the rhythm, you, you see the circle. So you see, you see what the circle represents is community. It’s, it’s, um, the sun, the moon, unity, the womb space. And it doesn’t take long before you’re in a trance. And of course, what happens when you’re in the trance is you completely surrender. You’re in the here and now you’re not thinking about your shopping list and your to do list.
Joni: So talk about trust. Talk about trust.
Helen: Talk about trust. Absolutely.
Joni: Surrendering to the here and now.
Helen
Absolutely. For me, trust is all about letting go, letting go of the outcome, surrendering. So that you’re in a position of receiving. If you’re not trusting, you don’t have faith and you’re not, you’re in fear and you’re trying to control what’s going on. The outcome. I mean, look at what we’re experiencing now.
Joni: Yes.
Helen
We don’t know what’s going to happen. We don’t know when we are going to return to our quote “normal” lives. But of course, what we’re realizing in this time is a lot of us don’t want to go back to that. Not to that trial life we’ve come to realize with, I mean a lot of people are calling this the awakening age. A lot of people are calling it the realization age with this sacred cause that we’re in where we’re realizing that we don’t have control and all we have to do is trust.
Joni: Yes, And that it can be safe to not be in control.
Helen
It can be yes, if you trust. It keeps coming back to itself. For me it’s, it’s all about developing the unconditional love of the sacred.
Joni: Hmm. Say more about that.
Helen
Yeah. Well, when you look at archetypal energy of the goddesses and the feminine mystics and they didn’t ask permission, Mary Magdalene didn’t ask permission to lead the other apostles, she just did have faith and she trusted in the divine sacred.
Joni: Yes.
Helen
Hildegard Von Bingen. She was all about embodying the sacred, the unconditional love, um, embodying the power of nature with greening as she called it, her mandalas and her music.It was all about accepting, receiving, letting go of fear, uncontrolled and just embodying it. The sacred.
Joni
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. So what I’m getting just right this red hot second is that it is, uh, there’s like this thin veil until we are embodying it, there is this veil that, uh, it’s, it’s like the what’s underneath the shell on the egg. Like if you don’t peel that it’s, it’s something that keeps us separate where if we’re embodying it, we are held in it. It is holding us. We we, yes, yes.
Helen
Yeah. The Divine Mother, unconditional love. I mean, I’m nodding my head, nodding my head. But it’s, and it’s within, it’s not outside.
Joni: Yes, yes.
Helen
Which you know, is the big difference between, you know, the goddess because it is within, it’s within us all. It’s not an external, and I don’t think it’s until we recognize that, but when we step into the center, once we can let go and surrender and truly receive, receive without feeling obliged to give back. You know, as women, that’s so typical of us, you know, we have to give back immediately even with a simple thing like a compliment, right?
Joni: Yes.
Helen
It’s about taking that, being in receivership and truly owning it. Any expectation or any outcome. Of course you have to be an action. You have to have done your homework and your foundational work first before you can let go and trust. Right? Because I know a lot of people might see that as an inactivity. Sitting back and trust, but no, no, no. I mean, you know, just like you gathering, you know, all these women together, you have to do your work, your foundational work, and what you’ve truly done, all that. Then you can sit back and trust and in the universe and the congruency that you’re putting out that and then letting go of the exception of the expectation because you’ve done your work.
Joni
Yes, yes. It really is that combination of, I would say, the divine masculine aspect and the feminine aspect working together. It’s
Helen: Yes, in harmony.
Joni
Whether it’s doing the work in that way. Or I would also say even just the whole process of discernment and, uh, being mindful just in life in general of who or what is worthy of our trust be, you know, beyond, ourselves or the sacred it, it’s, it’s the difference between maturity and a blind trust, so to speak.
Helen
Yes. And of course some of us have to work hard at that depending on our, you know, our beginning years in the universe acknowledge that and recognize that we haven’t all been in a position of being able to trust.
Joni
Right. Right. Or those of us that trust overly trusted people who are not, who didn’t have our best interest in mind or who were more self-serving than being conscientious of our needs or, or space in their world. So…
Helen
So that brings me to, I’m thinking of like the root chakra, which is your foundation, your trust, and then your heart chakra. I feel like these two chakras are most important in trust.
Joni: Hmm. Can you say more?
Helen
Yes. I mean our heart chakra because it vibrates at such a higher level than any of the other chakras. When you’re fully in trust, you are fully open, your heart chakra is shining out. But it’s, but you have to have your root chakra firm and grounded first. I mean, even before we started this interview, you led, led me on a, you know, a little meditation intention and of course we need to talk about grounding first, right? That’s what I’m talking about.
Joni: Yes.
Helen
But moving that energy up to the heart chakra so that you can fully embrace your femininity and be in the flow. Of course all the other chakras are important, but I’m just thinking of these two particularly that for me resonate. And that’s when I’m in meditation. I’m moving the energy up, and then I put my hands over my heart chakra and I imagine I’m lighting a candle there for it to glow.
Joni: Hm. Hmm.
Helen: Keeping that flame alive.
Joni: Yes
Helen
My setting intentions for the high good vibrating on a high level, and you know, and recognizing that there’s going to be fear and there’s going to be, you know, sort of control issues, but I work through those, until I can fully embody the sacred with the unconditional love.
Joni
Hmm. I love that. And I’m, I’m also aware, so as you know, when I close, I talk about the Hafiz quote or I share that which says to trust what your heart knows. So I, I love that you brought the heart in because I believe that it also has the capacity to know in a way, before other aspects of us, what it is we need or what direction is right for us to go in next. That, that, that is an important resource that we always have.
Helen
Yes. And that’s the femininity. That’s the feminine nature as well. Being in the flow is trusting that intuition because we got into trouble for doing that in the past, you know, over the ages. They would call us a crazy woman because we trusted our intuition. We used the healing power of plants. Because it wasn’t cerebral. It was heart centered.
Joni
Right. And there’s a fair amount of that that’s still in the culture today, meaning the judgment about things that are not cerebral or quote rational.
Helen: Woo woo, yes. Woo woo.
Joni: Right.
Helen
When you step into the circle and you’re really claiming your Divine purpose in the world and doing the work that both you and I do, I know I’ve had to leave. I used to be an RN. I mean it was very clinical, so I’ve had to work through some fear for myself. Absolutely. Yeah.
Joni
Likewise. Likewise. I think we’re still carrying the vestiges, whether it’s through our DNA or a past life memory. If, if that’s something you believe in. Or just the collective consciousness of, of the old ways that women really were not safe to practice living from what they know. And in these days we have much greater safety, but we do have to face into that fear and release it at times.
Helen: We do. I have a lovely poem I’d love to read if we have time.
Joni: Please. Yes.
Helen
It’s called A Sacred Pause.
We’ve all been brought together, joined in a sacred pause.
Now may the world come together in one singular cause.
Our purpose is to love and we’ve gotten way off track
Yet as long as we have life, we can still find our way back.
We’ve had our fill of conflict and consuming with all our might.
We can do so much better by braving what is right.
Let’s pause to find the courage to live a more conscious way
To ask how might I serve and how will I love more today?
Let’s raise up one another and support all those in need.
We can lift human suffering and lessen fear and greed.
Let’s pause to reset policies. And focus on the heart
Bringing more compassion and healing for a start
In this pause let’s awaken and live from the depths of the soul
Listening to sacred wisdom to act for the good of all.
Joni: I think that’s just right. Do you know who wrote that?
Helen: Yes, Her name’s Diane Loomas.
Joni: Mmm.
Helen: Yes. so beautiful for this time.
Joni
Yes. And I would say yes for any time and, and a just right note to begin to bring this to close for today. It’s been a pleasure and an honor to be in conversation with you and I always appreciate the perspective and the wisdom that you bring.
Helen: Thank you.
Joni
Yes. And please tell our listeners if they would like to learn more about your offerings and what you have going on these days, how, how they can do that.
Helen
Sure. My website is transformationalgoddessretreats.com. I do lead retreats for women in the Southern California area and I’m taking the retreats online for now because about current, social distance thing and I have something coming up in a couple of weeks. It won’t be the last one. I’m sure I’ll be doing more online, retreats before we can all get together in person.
Joni
Wonderful. And I want to thank you, dear listener, for being with us today. And as always, the reminder to trust what your heart knows.