The Diamond Heart Descends
A Retreat Story in Two Parts
In the manner of women who remember their wildness
“Within every woman there is a wild and natural creature, a powerful force, filled with good instincts, passionate creativity, and ageless knowing.”
— Clarissa Pinkola Estés
Part 1: Into the Wild Stillness
PART TWO: The Diamond Heart Rises
Days Eight Through Twelve
The Two Black Cats: Bast Arrives
During my Expression Soul Art journey, I had gone into my kitchen briefly to refill my tea. In the hallway outside my door, I heard distressed meowing. A black short-haired cat sat there alone, clearly looking for her people. I went to her, spoke softly, asked where her humans had gone. She came to me for comfort.
Then, trotting down the long hallway, a second black cat appeared. Long-haired, elegant, moving with purpose. I had seen these two before—walking with their owners on a winter morning, more intelligent and connected than ordinary house cats. There was something wild in them, something ancient.
That night, I was drawn to watch the film Catwoman. And there it was—the story of a woman killed and resurrected, breathed back to life by an Egyptian cat who served the goddess Bast. The woman had been identified as a suitable vessel before her death. And when the sacred cats came to her body on the shore, the divine breath entered her, transforming her into something neither fully human nor fully divine—but both.
I recognized the pattern. The spiritual death I had been living through these past years. The gathering of witnesses and guides. The breath of feminine lineage entering my being during these days of retreat.
The two black cats had appeared at the threshold of my creative emergence, carrying the energy of Bast—ancient Egyptian goddess of protection, of pleasure, of the fierce and graceful feminine. They had come to mark the moment. To confirm what was happening.
The Feast of Fire: Vajrayogini’s Blessing
On the morning of the feast, I ironed my red Tibetan shirt with the care I would have used preparing garments for a Rinpoche. I washed the shrine vase until it gleamed. I set up the feast offerings with precision and reverence—it was my first Vajrayogini feast in a year, my first in this new home.
The hot water had failed in my building that morning. I had to heat my own water on the stove for my ritual bath—and in that inconvenience, I found a teaching. The vessel heating its own contents. The feminine fire arising from within rather than being provided from without.
The feast practice lasted hours. Deep ritual immersion. Mantra. Visualization. Offering after offering made and transformed. And at the end, when my phone died and the timer never sounded, I found myself in extended meditation—longer than I had intended, pushed beyond my comfortable boundaries by trickster grace.
When I finally emerged, night had fallen. I carried the feast offerings out into the dark woods, placing them beneath the trees. I put my hands on the bark of an ancient one and asked for the blessing of the tree network upon all that had been accomplished.
Walking back to my apartment, I noticed I felt lighter than I had in all the days of retreat. The weight of the sacred depression had not vanished, but something in it had transformed. Something had been offered up and received.
The Sacred Marriage: Grandmother’s Juniper and the Rigden King
My maternal grandmother died years ago, but I still have a small stash of the powdered juniper she made for me from the trees in her backyard. I keep it for special occasions—the way someone might keep a very old, very good bottle of scotch.
As I transitioned from the feminine practices of the first week to the masculine practices of the second, I decided: if there was ever an occasion for Grandma’s juniper, it was now. I burned it in the lhasang ritual, letting the smoke rise and carry her blessing into the masculine work that was beginning.
This is what I mean by the sacred marriage. Not a romantic partnership, but the union within oneself of the awakened feminine and the capable masculine. The rose needs the stem. The diamond needs its setting. The fire needs the hearth that contains it.
My feminine had been awakened and blessed in the first week of retreat. Now it was time for the masculine to step forward—not to dominate, not to diminish, but to serve. To protect. To create the structures that would allow the feminine fire to burn safely in the world. The werma practice of my second week of retreat brought a different quality: upliftment, confidence, the energy of the warrior who fights not from aggression but from the clarity of higher perspective. And I understood that I was not choosing between feminine and masculine but learning how they could work together within me.
The Diamond Heart Emerges: A New Name for Old Medicine
Somewhere in the midst of the business discernment work, a name crystallized: Diamond Heart.
It captured what I had been trying to express for years. The diamond clarity that sees through illusion. The heart that remains soft and connected despite all the cutting it has endured. The integration of fierce wisdom and tender compassion. This was not just a business brand but a recognition of who I have always been.
I thought of the purple heart that had appeared in my Soul Art—scarred by lightning yet still beating, still open, still capable of love. I thought of the rose with thorns—beautiful and protected, soft and boundaried. I thought of the diamond being from my galactic origin, who had been waiting all this time for me to stop fighting against my own nature.Diamond Heart Leadership Coach. Yes. This was my true name in the work. The name that honored both what I have survived and what I have to offer.
Sacred Commerce: The Priestess Meets the Marketplace
There is a teaching from ancient Egypt about the original role of the priestess in the marketplace. Before commerce became merely transactional, before the sacred and the economic were severed from each other, the priestess brought blessing into places of exchange. She ensured that trading was conducted with integrity. She held the energetic container for honest dealing and mutual benefit.
This is what I mean by Sacred Commerce. Not spiritualizing business in a superficial way, but recognizing that how we exchange value is itself a spiritual practice. That leadership rooted in integrity creates ripples far beyond any single transaction. That the marketplace can be a temple if we approach it with sufficient reverence.
The six-month business plan that emerged from this retreat carries both streams: the Diamond Heart work of leadership transformation, and the Sacred Commerce work of building businesses that serve both prosperity and purpose. Both are needed. Both are mine to offer.
The Sacred Crash: Wisdom in Depletion
On the tenth day, I crashed.
The intensive work of the day before—a full day of channeling and planning for my Saramanju offerings, going deeper than I knew I could go—had left me utterly depleted. I woke with a headache, with a body that felt wrong, with energy so low I could barely function.
There is no avoiding this part of the story. Transformation is not tidy. The deep work does not leave us glowing and refreshed—at least not immediately. Sometimes it leaves us unable to rise from the chair, watching sunlight move across the floor, wondering if we will ever feel like ourselves again.
But here is what I learned in that depletion: even on the days when I could barely function, I was still myself. The diamond clarity was still there—perhaps more accessible than usual because all my defenses were down. The work I managed to do that day was good work, careful work, work that honored both my vision and my limitations.
The crash was not failure. It was information. It told me something essential about the rhythm my life requires, about the necessity of rest after intensity, about what sustainable practice looks like for someone with my particular gifts and wounds. This too is wisdom. This too belongs in the story.
The Sacred Harvest: What Grew from the Dark Soil
On New Year’s Day, energy began returning. I woke after nine hours of deep sleep, my body finally restored by protein and rest. And for the first time in the entire retreat, the day felt enjoyable. Not just meaningful, not just productive—but actually pleasurable.
I convened my inner Wise Women Meditation Council—that gathering of feminine guides who advise from the depths. They confirmed what had been planted. They spoke of protection for the emerging work, of timing, of patience. They reminded me that crystals form over months, not days.
A six-month plan took shape that afternoon. Not forced or straining, but unfolding naturally from all that had come before. A rhythm emerged that honored both my capacity for fire and my need for rest. A structure emerged that could hold the sacred work without crushing it under weight of too many demands.
The container is built. The vulnerable parts can rest. Saramanju’s fire has a home.
These words arrived as completion. They spoke of what the retreat had accomplished—not solving all my problems, not resolving every grief, but creating the sacred structure within which transformation could continue at its own pace.
Coming Down the Mountain: The Return to the World
On the final day of intensive work, I gave one more heroic push. Hours of discernment, of planning, of creating support structures for my divine masculine so he could step into the world with confidence. By evening, I was running at full speed and needed to find my way back down to ordinary human functioning.
The transition out of retreat is its own sacred passage. You cannot descend from the mountain too quickly. The body needs time to adjust. The soul needs time to integrate what it has learned. The wild woman who ran with wolves in the deep forest must find her way back to the village without losing what she discovered there.
I lit my grandmother’s candle and spoke a statement of closure. I felt the flutter of anxiety about how much work lies ahead—and also the steadiness of knowing I had created the container to hold it. I reached out to a dear friend to schedule tea for the weekend, beginning the gentle process of re-entering human connection.
The garden is planted. Tend it with presence. Trust the growth.
Epilogue: What the Wild Ones Taught Me
The stag at my window. The stag in the forest. The two black cats at my threshold. These were not coincidences. They were confirmations.
The wild ones come to those who enter the forest with an open heart. They come to mark the initiations we are undergoing, to witness the deaths and rebirths we survive. They do not explain themselves. They simply appear—and something in us knows that we are being seen.
I did not emerge from this retreat fixed or perfected. The sacred depression still lives in me, though something in its quality has shifted. The mother wound has not vanished, but it has been touched with new medicine. The diamond heart that is my essence no longer feels like only a burden—I am beginning to see it also as a gift.
And the rose—the wild rose with her deliberate thorns—she continues to bloom in the painting on my wall. Reminding me that I am allowed to be both beautiful and protected. That boundaries are not contrary to love but essential to it. That the feminine can be fierce as well as tender, guarded as well as open.
This is what the wild ones taught me during those twelve days in the winter wood:
You have survived impossible things. You carry gifts that are real. The gravity lines are here—you can trust them. The container is built. The vulnerable parts can rest.
Trust the growth.
~ The End ~
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