Seed, Essence, Original Form
I am:
The Eternal Face

Graft, Adaptation, Conform
I am who you say I am:
The Traditional Face

Hybrid, Resistance, Reform
I am not who you say I am:
The Modern Face

Gardener, Renewal, Transform
I access the power to be who I am:
Shakti – The Face of Spiritual Power

My spiritual alarm clock went off when my partner was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Michael and I had been together just five months at that time and we were only together another five months before he died. However those next five months expanded to embrace a lifetime, or perhaps many lifetimes, of experience. From the two of us living a ‘party life’ in the entertainment industry, our lives transformed overnight.

During the final five months we learned meditation, we ate well, got up at 4am instead of going to bed at that time. We came to ‘see’ a life neither of us had ever seen before. We came to ‘feel’ a world that we hadn’t known existed. A veil was removed from our senses and we came to life… even as Michael was dying.

It was an extraordinary time in which I learned truly what commitment means, what love is and how important compassion is in a world without mercy. Of course there were difficult moments, but overall we were blessed.

Ten days before Michael died I realized it was over, I couldn’t save him or keep him with me. It was my ‘rock bottom’ and whilst falling apart I finally surrendered, knowing that I couldn’t control things, I couldn’t fix ‘it’ no matter how strong my wish or my will.

As I sat upstairs in our friend Judy’s meditation room, with physical pain in my chest, sobbing my eyes out, I remember saying to God ‘Alright God, I don’t know who you are or what you do for a living, but this is too hard, I can’t do it anymore, you have to do it!’ And in that moment I was born to another knowing. All sorrow ceased – the pain, the sobbing, the fear. In the letting go I was washed with the most exquisite love I had ever experienced. In surrender, I was caught, held, in the gentlest and most potent peace possible. And then I was given guidance…very clearly. The thoughts were as if someone were speaking directly into my mind. “You don’t own this soul, you are like two actors who have come together to play a scene. You don’t have to know the next scene, you just have to play this one the best that you can. And the way to do that, is to find the joy in every moment.”

This was my first ‘experience’ of God, of something Divine and ‘beyond mere belief or doctrine. When I shared this experience, there were some who tried to tell me that it wasn’t ‘God’ rather it was the best of me. That was very generous of them, but I know the best of me had already emerged in the months prior to this point. So I knew the difference between what emerged from within, and what was a gift of grace from without.

And the gift transformed my life forever.

When Michael left, I was privileged enough to be lying beside him in our bed at home. I felt the gentle grace surrounding him as he gathered up his light from within his failing body. His last breath…a moment that expanded to contain eternity as he held still to love me one more time…then from my heart the word ‘fly’ emerged …and he did.

The weeks that followed were mostly blissful. Grace had entered my life and It remained. Occasionally I found myself deeply sad for the possibilities which had been snatched away with an accompanying thought of “it is not fair”. I didn’t entertain this thought, usually dismissing it as un-useful thinking. I had shared this one day and one of my sisters said “Don’t you think you’re in denial?”

Oh my God, I thought, I’m in denial! So the next time the thought came, I decided to follow the path of the thought. Within two minutes I was inexorably, emotionally tragic. It took me hours to recover, and what did I achieve? It wasn’t real, it was a constructed experience from a series of thoughts that came from a very powerless state. What was fair anyway. Life is. It happens and if you want to, you can find the magic. Besides, I was not powerless.

Michael had given me an extraordinary gift, perhaps even greater than had he stayed with me. We both knew we were lucky, even in those last months we would connect so deeply through the eyes and marvel at how lucky we were. And we really were.

His physical unwellness gave us both a window to the unseen, a doorway to spirit… as he left, he handed me a path to my own truth and empowerment.

I still feel lucky. My life today is so radically different from the life I lived before I knew Michael that people often ask me how I ended up where I am…a seemingly quantum leap from where I was twenty years ago. Now that I understand the Four Faces, everything makes sense – the spontaneity, the hope, the sorrow, the strength, the struggle, the surrender, the freedom, the power, the love, the grace – it is the journey of the soul. I came to see that while many things happen in life, they are not separate from me, they are not random. I started to understand the relationship between my inner world – my thoughts and feelings – and the results that showed up in my outer world. This was both challenging and empowering. Challenging because I could no longer blame anything or anyone for my circumstances and empowering because I realized that my life was totally in my hands.

I even reframed the feelings of hopelessness, restlessness and discontent… they were no longer categorized as depression. The voice of my spirit was waking me up, calling out for a return to my own self, my original true nature, my Eternal Face.

What are the Four Faces of Woman?
These faces are ones that we all know. They live within us and through us. They give us beauty and strength, love and compassion, freedom and the promise of freedom, security and the illusion of security.
The Eternal Face whispers to us of our original self, the seed of who we are – authentic power, innocence, pure love, peace and joy.
The Traditional Face convinces us that safety and success come from defining ourselves through the eyes and beliefs of others.
The Modern Face finds the courage to reject the imposition of others, seeking to return to the truth of who we are but often finds itself lost in struggle.
The Shakti Face – the face of spiritual wisdom and power – is the key to return to our true self without the struggle and cost of the Modern Face.

Over the next few months we will investigate these faces in depth, offering you a chance to see them for yourself, know them in yourself, choose more consciously for yourself.

Extracted from The Four Faces of Woman by Caroline Ward
The Four Faces Of Woman is available www.eternityink.com.au or your local bookstore.
Workshops on The Four Faces at www.bkwsu.org/au/retreats