The Expansionist Podcast
Shelly Shepherd and Heather Drake invite you to listen in on a continuing conversation about expanding spirituality, the Divine Feminine, and the transforming impact of living attuned to Wisdom, Spirit and Love.
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The Expansionist Podcast
Ancient Remembering As A Spiritual Path
Your intuition speaks, but are you listening? In this soul-stirring conversation, Shelley and Heather explore what they call "ancient remembering" – that profound sense of recognition when something resonates deep within us, awakening wisdom we've always possessed but somehow forgotten.
The hosts navigate the delicate balance between external authority and inner knowing, exploring how many of us feel caught between obedience to religious rules and trust in our own sovereignty. Drawing from scripture, mystical wisdom, and their own spiritual journeys, they suggest that perhaps rules were only ever meant to be placeholders until we could be guided by the Spirit from within.
What makes this exploration particularly powerful is their radical redefinition of oneness. Rather than a vague spiritual concept, they frame oneness as our birthright – the natural state from which we've been separated through religious conditioning and ego-driven thinking. Jesus himself demonstrated this path by standing in solidarity with outcasts, challenging rigid religious structures, and inviting followers into a more expansive understanding of divine love.
The conversation takes a fascinating turn when they discuss wisdom as a feminine presence (Sophia) who was with God from the beginning of creation. Could our world's struggles stem from failing to consult her perspective? Through their dialogue emerges a vision of spiritual practice centered on discernment rather than blind adherence – where true freedom creates blessings that extend to everyone, not just ourselves.
Ready to trust your inner knowing? Join Shelley and Heather at their Wednesday "Table" gatherings to continue exploring these transformative concepts alongside others walking this path of expansion and liberation.
Welcome to the Expansionist Podcast with Shelley Shepard and Heather Drake. In each episode, we dive deep into conversations that challenge conventional thinking, amplify diverse voices and foster a community grounded in wisdom, spirit and love.
Speaker 2:Good afternoon. Heather Drake Welcome. Good afternoon.
Speaker 1:Shelley Shepard. You said hold on, this is going to be a bumpy run, or at least we'll put our seatbelts on and it's full of excitement. So it's a roller coaster ride that we're inviting our listeners on, but it's going to be a good one. It's exciting anyway.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is exciting and yeah, you never know where we're going to land this thing. Sometimes we just start talking and you know know spirit shows up and takes us another direction. But it's always good to have a conversation with you about these beautiful pieces that we hold and also that are shaping us right, like we don't we don't really have this all figured out, right right.
Speaker 1:Oh 100%.
Speaker 2:In this space of remembering. Yes, talk to us about that ancient remembering. I know you're just like ready to Ancient remembering what?
Speaker 1:is that I like the idea of the term an ancient remembering, because there are things that happen and stir in our souls or stir within us. When you hear something or you see something or you sense something, and then it feels like, oh, I remember, I remember that good, I remember that I am supposed to trust myself. I remember that I am supposed to contribute to the flourishing of all people everywhere. It feels to me again like a sacred remembering, like when we go back and rehearse our belovedness, when we go back and remember, through ceremony or through witness or through baptism or through whatever ritual we're performing, anointing that we remember, oh, we are the holders of this ancient story, this ancient presence, this eternal creator, and that we're a part of everything, this oneness that we're called into, that we are called into oneness not to a thing, but to creation, living, breathing, growing, expanding. This is like when we look at the Hubble telescope images it's further and bigger and just.
Speaker 1:We stand in awe of each other and of things and presence and go. Yes, yes, this is not minuscule. What we're asked to be a part of this is expansive. These are the galaxies.
Speaker 2:You mentioned a word oneness and I want to linger with you there for just a little bit. It's kind of a hot topic for us right now, but I wonder if a few weeks ago we did a podcast on laying down sin, and once we lay that down, do we see ourselves as more one with God, with Christ, with Spirit? Is that how that works? Or are we constantly battling between I think I'm loved, but I did these things. I think I'm loved, but I think that way? I think I'm loved, but I just had words for the person in the car in front of me. Where does this oneness trapeze from?
Speaker 1:In my understanding as it is right now, oneness is actually, I think, an invitation into a transcendent thought. That returning to the good, or returning to the source of who we are, that we are made in the image and we are made in the likeness but we are also made from God, that we are love, and when we can acknowledge and when we can come back to the fact that God invites us into God's self and God is this creator, god is this magnificent spirit inviting us back home, back to our true selves. That to me, is the oneness between us and all people. In our very narrow, like short, human brain, we want to know what makes us different and what the spirit is asking us to do is remember what makes us one.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, do. Is remember what makes us one. Yes, yes, remember the wholeness, remember the sacredness, remember the beauty, remember the good, when everything in our life has been given to us to kind of chop up and confine all of the beauty and the goodness and said you can have this but no more. And I think our souls are so expansive and so beautiful and we have to learn how to take off all of the stops and be able to say what is it like for me to understand that my intention to see, to try to see a unity or oneness with all.
Speaker 1:That's what the work of Pentecost is.
Speaker 2:That's what the work of the Holy Spirit is.
Speaker 1:That's what the work of the Holy Spirit is that we could understand each other when we couldn't before. We couldn't remember why what I want to do is different or better than what you want to do, and then go. Oh, I remember that there's one work, and it's God's work and there's one kingdom and it's love's kingdom and we're not building many kingdoms and many empires over here. Our intention is to build love's kingdom so that every single person knows that they are wanted and lives in the freedom and the flourishing of that beautiful kingdom.
Speaker 2:I love that image that you just created for us to see everyone as we're like each other, right, yes, there is no us or them Like. I wonder if the tipping point of Jesus's work, as we know it ourselves, was this oneness, was you know there is no separation. Oneness, was you know there is no separation. And I started wondering also if this was Mary Magdalene's understanding as she walked with him, like she understood that this is really what Jesus is about and you've said this before. I've heard you say this, I think, from the story of John God, make us one, make us all one as we are one. Meaning this relationship that he had with spirit, with himself, with other people, was to point us in a direction and these are your words. I've heard you use them before too is this was our birthright. Oneness is our birthright. This is what we were created for.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. And these are the kind of things when we experience spirit or the presence of light in us, when some people experience it in beautiful times, where music sometimes allows us to enter a transcendence or a portal, and you actually feel the energy and you know that you have had an encounter. Maybe you don't know what the encounter was, but you know that you had an encounter and that somehow some part of you is transformed. And that is the intention or the gift, or what we understand of the spirit. Is transformation that we would become our true selves, our whole selves, that we would remember, that we would wake up, that we would awaken to love and that we remember how powerful we are, but not in a power in any way that dominates or excludes, but a power that brings us together, a power that returns us to our true selves. And to say that there are moments where people can experience it, not only through music, through prayer, through meditation, sometimes being in the presence of another person who is connected to God, and somehow their connection allows you a connection. Those kind of moments in presence absolutely transform us, and I think that they do that outside of our knowing, outside of the thoughts in our mental brain, but we have that deep inner heart, that inner knowing, and I think that's one of the things that I would like to talk about, at least to invite the witness of someone listening to consider that you can trust yourself, that your inner knowing, that place in someone's gut that tells them yes, this is the way, even though a rule would say something different.
Speaker 1:And I think Jesus shows us this path. You have heard it say unto you, but I say and it's more expansive and less rules. And people panic when you say that there are less rules because again there've been straw men and people said, well then you know people are going to run amok. No, no, when we return to love, love is pure and God's love is limitless and we're invited into limitless love. And what would it look like for the whole world if we stayed in this ascended thought that love is limitless. We're not going to outlove someone else.
Speaker 1:There's not less love for me, because there's all love for you.
Speaker 2:You know.
Speaker 1:So this idea of following the spirit, trusting yourself, and if you don't trust yourself or you can't trust yourself, then, you know, get some help, and I mean maybe a therapist, but maybe a spiritual director or someone who can help you. Or sometimes in a good Christian community there's somebody else who trusts their own discernment and can teach you how to trust the discernment, because sometimes what we've been offered is a bunch of people who tell you that you can't trust yourself, you don't know, you shouldn't question.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we have forgotten how to trust ourselves and how to trust our knowing. More times than not, we push that aside, whether it's to intuition or just a thought. We seem to chase it away, maybe as women, maybe as humans. Maybe all of us do a little bit humans. Maybe all of us do a little bit. But I want to read something that a friend of mine on Substack offered today. This is from Esther Joy Goetz and this is a quote from her post. Today I am caught, like so many of us, between obedience and sovereignty, between outer authority and inner knowing, between follow the rules or else and follow your wisdom and see what unfolds. I read that and I was like yes, yes and yes, we're caught, or maybe even stuck in this place.
Speaker 1:You know, yes to what you're saying. But also I don't know if our religious traditions, christianity and whatever a person may be following have given us the rights of initiation. And I think that's where we've been lacking, where we're initiated into a trust. For, you know, I think there's many phases of a human person's thing, where you know at 12 and then at 21, and then we have these rights of initiation where come up into adulthood or come into, you know, womanhood, manhood. There's those, there are some rights. But I believe in our religious tradition we've forgotten how important ceremony is to be able to tell someone you can trust them from that quote. But then it also reminded me of some scripture that said you know the law is was only supposed to be a placeholder. That the law was only supposed to be a placeholder, obedience was only supposed to be until the spirit. You only have to have a rule until the spirit is within you and then the rules no longer apply. But it's easy to keep people in some kind of queue or straight line if you know how to control them, to be able to say to someone be led by your spirit. It's not a free-for-all, it's not saying be led by your ego, be led by your selfishness, be led by the fruit of bad behavior, but be led by who you truly are, to allow the spirit of Christ, that same spirit that went about doing good and freeing all those who were oppressed, that spirit lives in you too. So do good with everything, make choices.
Speaker 1:I love the quote that you read because she said but wisdom, and how does a person gain wisdom? Not just a rule, because rules don't fit every situation, but wisdom knows all things, and so when we have the presence, when we listen to the spirit, when we allow, wisdom knows all things. And so when we have the presence, when we listen to the spirit, when we allow wisdom to guide us, so I think you know somebody listening might say well then, where did I receive my wisdom from? How have I been initiated into following wisdom?
Speaker 2:into gaining wisdom and trusting wisdom.
Speaker 1:I think all of these are beautiful questions. Where did the wisdom come from?
Speaker 2:patriarchal. No right, no, no wisdom there immediately, no heather immediately, no, no patriarchy. However, um, I personally have come to understand and believe that wisdom was with God in the beginning, in the created, an originator of all thought, the deepest part of the universe she held. If you fast forward to who talked about wisdom in First Testament, a lot wisdom in first testament, a lot um a man, of course attributed to uh to king solomon in many ways.
Speaker 2:Above all, get wisdom in all of your heading. Get her, yeah, and she will adorn your neck yeah, yes presence.
Speaker 2:Yeah, shekinah sophia spirit, maybe, maybe that's. I'm just going to whisper this because maybe, if I get softer, people will lean in, but maybe that's why we are where we are in our world, in our culture. Maybe we're not asking wisdom what she thinks, maybe we're not. Maybe our posture is well, I'm just going to go down to the bar, to the local bar, and I'm going to get my wisdom there. Well, certainly you're going to get some kind of wisdom, you know sitting there, and maybe it's from your friends, maybe it's like cheers, you know, everybody knows your name.
Speaker 2:But then where do you take that wisdom? How does that transform you? How does it help you remember with that ancient knowing that you just described here in the beginning? How do we get to that ancient knowing that we've never been disconnected, even when the story reminds us that we've never been disconnected, even when the story reminds us that we messed up? We need to get rid of that story. We need to write a better story, and you and I have talked about that. How do we write a better story than the story of the garden where we lost our ancient knowing?
Speaker 1:We want to pause and take a moment and let you know how glad we are that you've joined us. If you're enjoying this podcast, consider sharing it with a friend, and if you found the conversation intriguing and want to know more about what we're learning or how you can join our online community, visit our website at expansionistheologycom. I think the invitation is to rewrite the story from the perspective of illusion or of loss. I think there's a different always a different point in the story that says you can make the beautiful the story.
Speaker 1:You can return to the good, and I think that's certainly something that Mary Magdalene knew how to do, and I'm sure the mother of James, because she's always in there, and Mary, the mother of Jesus, and I'm sure these women had a practice that reminded them of what Jesus was. Because here's the beauty of what Jesus tells us when people actually hear the words of Jesus, there is an ancient knowing, not a bunch of rules that religion has told them, but the words of Jesus that say are you tired, are you worn?
Speaker 2:out.
Speaker 1:Are you burnt out on religion? Come to me and I will show you how to live. That's really what the Spirit is inviting us into the path of Jesus, shows us how to live and it is in communion with the Spirit. Is inviting us into the path of Jesus, shows us how to live, and it is in communion with the Spirit. It is in full relationship with the Spirit. So we're invited to that same thing that we would have full access to the ancient knowing, to the wisdom that has led not only Jesus but others into the fullness of what God has for them, the fullness of the world.
Speaker 1:Jesus said I'm going to pray and the Father will send you the Spirit and the Spirit will live in you, and greater works will you do than these. Jesus offered us expansion. Jesus offered us the Spirit. I'm going to empower you to live in the Spirit, the Spirit. I'm going to empower you to live in the Spirit, and that means that you might have to use the Spirit to expand the way that you think so that you can see the wisdom of God or join with what the Spirit is doing in the kingdom that is so close, it's even in our mouth, and to give up the rigidity of rules.
Speaker 1:You know, in some parts of the New Testament there's this idea too that says that the rules are just a schoolmaster. When you're an adult you don't need the schoolmaster to tell you anymore. You know, the Spirit will tell us that's unloving. Don't say that. Or the Spirit will show us and be able to say we can't make this law because this oppresses people. You know, you don't have to have something written in on paper or on a rule book when the Spirit has been given to us and has been written in our hearts. So Jesus again offers us this way of saying you have to unlearn. You can unlearn if you want to go up higher.
Speaker 1:This life of repentance means I give up thinking that this is the difference between us and this is why I'm better than you, or this is the difference between us and this is why we have God's approval and you do not. And this idea that the Spirit is drawing us into where we are one is an embracing of the diversity and the creativeness of God among us in all things, of God among us in all things, and the expression that we're not afraid of different expressions, that we actually, by the Spirit, you know, by wisdom's, calling us into a bigger love.
Speaker 1:It's beautiful how, in these moments of conversation, it feels like we could actually solve the world's problems, if only you listened to the wisdom.
Speaker 2:Yes, where's the wisdom? And I think in Esther's piece today on Substack it was the word caught stood out to me, Like we're caught between what we believe to know in our own being. We're caught to believe something else or act a different way.
Speaker 1:I loved the imagery that she used as well. That caught imagery stood out to me because I have been caught. I have been caught in barbed wire, I have been caught in place where I had intention to go somewhere else, but there was an outside, something preventing me.
Speaker 1:And I think what has prevented or what is preventing many of us are systems or thoughts or principalities or ways of believing, and I think what the spirit is inviting us to right now is to give up these limiting beliefs. To find your foot caught in something and then invite the Spirit to come and dislodge you or take off the slave bands or release the fox trap, whatever it is that keeps us there, these ideas of it's not okay or anything that limits us or limits someone else or has us keep someone else in bondage. Jesus came so that we would have life and have it to the full, and the fullness of God's life is not just for us, it's for the whole world. Until we're all living in that fullness, none of us are.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you and I and table participants are reading the Eye of the Heart right now by Cynthia Bergeau, on Wednesdays as we gather and meet, and there were two words conscious laboring and intentional suffering.
Speaker 2:That she says that these two pillars are really the tipping point of Christianity, that these are the ways that we begin to understand what the point of Christ was intended in the world, and not the kind of suffering where, you know, on this earthly realm that we experience, that we experience, you know, sometimes on a daily or regular basis, either through health or social constructs or even family or relationships.
Speaker 2:That kind of suffering is, is part of this world. But this conscious suffering of moving ourself to this ancient knowing, this place that you just described to us, that we have forgotten, sometimes feels like suffering because we are unlearning what religion has taught us, we are unlearning what Christianity has told us, we are unlearning has told us, we are unlearning the way that we thought we knew of Jesus, and there's some kind of intentional suffering of letting that ego fall out, of laying down the religion, of getting rid of these forces of us and them, and sometimes it feels like suffering, but it's the way. It's one of the two pillars, in her opinion, right In her opinion, it's one of the two.
Speaker 1:But I also remind you that, since we are following Jesus, if one would look at his life as what is given to us in account in scripture and again I'm reminded of what John john said of the works of christ that were done the world could not contain all the books, right, that would have to be written.
Speaker 1:So absolutely only this is not all that was done and we can use our holy imagination and go on that. But you would see in jesus's life, intentional suffering, all the time In oneness with the person who is an outcast, by touching the leper, by having conversations with the women, by empowering the women, that is intentional suffering to give up a place of patriarchal ego and say it is in the oneness that I experience the Father, that I experience the family of God. It is in my solidarity with the poor and in eating food with people who are cast out. That is the way of Jesus' intentional suffering since the very beginning. And so the call in following the way of Jesus is it will suffer to our ego, not our spirit, and our spirit in following this way will liberate other people. We are never free by ourselves.
Speaker 1:We're free more of the sons and daughters of God when we ourselves practice this freedom and live in it and think this way and invite others to consider what the Spirit is saying and drawing us.
Speaker 2:So are you also saying that this caughtness that Esther laid in our hands this morning, this feeling of being caught in between, is so familiar to us? We understand it, perhaps because we haven't experienced the surrender or the letting go or the release of something that has kept this ancient knowing from happening like we've. We have followed along the status quo. Cynthia bargeau says we're all just like following world 48. Um, because it is the path of least resistance. We are here, but in order to get wisdom, to follow intuition, to move away from this caughtness of wow, should I follow the rules or should I follow my knowing Like? To move away from that, we have to surrender something that we've been told, something we've been taught and it requires discernment.
Speaker 1:That is a practice. Wisdom itself requires discernment, and I think that there are some wonderful ways to learn discernment. One of them is if it is a blessing for you, it should be a blessing for everyone. Your being free is not going to send somebody else into captivity. Your freedom is not going to make it more difficult for someone else to thrive and to experience the kingdom, and so, for me, those are good things for people to remember. Make it more difficult for someone else to thrive and to experience the kingdom Preach, and so, for me, those are good things for people to remember.
Speaker 1:We're saying, okay, now I don't need a rule, but I'm going to practice by the spirit. But if this is going to cause you to become selfish, that's not the spirit, that is the ego. So to be able to practice that discernment, I think is beautiful when you have a community of people who can help sort those things out, that you can have conversations with, deep spiritual conversations with. But what if somebody's listening? Going, well, I don't have anyone like that now. That's okay, because you can speak to the Spirit and the Spirit will answer, and again I don't mean you'll hear an audible voice, which, again, maybe the church in general needs to remind people. The spirit of god lives in us and it will be a deep inner voice that will speak to us. So the invitation is to practice, to say yes to spirit and to um, to hear shelly, and I given everybody permission just to follow wisdom. And so somebody says to you what, what right do you have to bypass the law?
Speaker 1:and do this oh, there, it is, there it is, yes, Come on, bring it. Permission granted, yeah, by the spirit who said, yeah, death no longer has the final word. Death in all of its forms, its many forms.
Speaker 2:And finding a place like Table on Wednesdays, a community of people that allow these conversations, like we're having right now, to be placed on the table, to unlearn some things and invite spirit, to teach us how to get uncaught to, how to let go, to listen to the voice of wisdom in others who have experienced transcendence, who have moved along a path of Mary Magdalene, who have well even the mystics right. Wow, we could talk about that as wisdom, as a path, wisdom too. So, yeah, maybe finding us on wednesdays at table, um, in in one of the links in the in the show notes somehow. But, um, this has been a beautiful uh place to, to rest with you today but also converse on a topic that I believe is shaping myself and shaping our conversations and offering to others a path to it as well.
Speaker 1:I love you, shelley. I'm grateful for you. This has been an incredible conversation. I love you too. So, for everyone else, think about it. Think about it, allow wisdom to speak to you about it. It's possible that there's so much more. There's a bigger, better, more beautiful kingdom and it's coming and we get to co-create with the spirit who is making all things new.
Speaker 2:And, might I add, I'm looking for the queendom too. The queendom, I mean, you're the queen of love. You know I've tagged you as the queen of love, and so if we just talk about kingdom, it feels patriarchal, lots of patriarchy around it. But queendom Wow, she is preparing a banquet for us to feast, and so let me just add that, give me permission. Thank you, wow, she is preparing a banquet for us to feast, and so let me just add that, give me permission.
Speaker 1:Thank you, see, and that's all it takes. Somebody just ask for the permission and just take it for themselves, please, and thank you, spirit, for permission. We do bless everyone who is listening. May you be blessed with the presence of Spirit. May you have full confidence that you hear the Spirit and you can engage the Spirit and think differently. It was our joy to have you listen to our conversation today. If you would like further information or for more content, visit us at expansionisttheologycom.