By Jelelle Awen
Today is the day our book baby is born! As we waited for final approval from amazon, we thought it might be on our 15th wedding anniversary on Thursday, and then on Good Friday, yet, it turned out to be Holy Saturday, the day in between Yeshua’s ‘crucifixion’ and resurrection….which feels perfect somehow!
And today is also perfect to release it as Raphael and I are having a sacred marriage vow renewal ceremony together with our beloveds…to name our intentions in deepening commitment to each other and to our commission (co-mission) of continuing to bring our Divine Self Embodiment consciousness offering to the Earth Plane/Gaia ascending for those soul family members who are resonant with it.
Our book called, Under The Bloated Banyan: Our Sacred Union Journey From False Light to True Love, is now my fifth self-published book and my first co-written with my beloved Raphael. This book has had quite a journey to being born in its current form! I first published it with just my writing/my side of the story in 2013, still feeling in some deeper trauma processing around what I share in it about the former cult-like spiritual group and teacher I/we were involved with (for me nearly five years and I was a facilitator of the work as well). It felt just too vulnerable at the time for parts of me while the group was still active and there was still so much controversy and energectic push back going on about speaking out against it from former friends/followers and my former teacher…so I ended up unpublishing it.
Then, I published my story again in 2018, feeling more settled inside with parts of me around the release of it, as the group had been collapsed for three years at that point after members FINALLY woke up to the abuses going on and fired the teacher/leader of it and collapsed the non-profit altogether. I had been able to process the completion with a couple of my former friends at that time, which seemed to help as well.
Yet, again, it didn’t feel quite right timing and easy inside to have my story (which is mostly from actual journals that I kept at the time) ‘out there’ so I retracted it again from public purchase. Both times I felt a sadness inside too as I had received feedback from people that sharing my story in such a vulnerable way touched them deeply and helped them in their own recovery from similar toxic, yet enlightening experiences with narcissistic groups/relationships.
So, then, about five months ago, Raphael and I were guided by Yeshua and Mary Magdalene to write the story of our sacred union journey over the last 18 years, including the time before we ‘officially’ came together while we were in the group. They offered that it would be a deep service to do this for others, the Christ-Magdalene lineage, and for ourselves/parts of us as well, to share it as a template for what is possible for those who have signed up for the Divine union marriage alchemical journey.
Raphael tuned into the parts of him (Marvin and Wayne) who had been through the several year journey shared about in this book, and wrote about leaving a long-term marriage and Christianity for which he received some pushback and his bravery in choosing his emotional healing and his soul awakening over duty and obligation. He also shares about holding the conscious memory of attraction to me and our Divine Union (as sometimes the masculine partner does) and he brought a few attractions to me before I was finally ready to respond to them (lots of emotional maturing to do on my side to be ready of it and him!).
Now, it feels time finally to share this story, which really hasn’t ever been just MY story I realize, which is why parts of me were uncomfortable to share it alone. Now, it includes Raphael’s parallel experiences in tandem with mine. It is so interesting to see how the choices and challenges we faced as individuals seem to constantly mirror each other, overlap and coincide, often entering and dissolving relationships with others at the same time…….until finally we are ready to choose a shared relationship and timeline together.
And, it is still stunning to feel, once we did, how our true and deep and Divinely guided/supported love dissolved ANYTHING false in our world right away. Within three weeks of our first date. We were accused by our former teachers of ‘faking a sacred union’ and of ‘going too fast’, ‘being codependent’…all of which we probably were in the beginning. Still, it was easy in another way to say ‘yes’ to being together and ‘no more’ to the ultimatum thrust on us of breaking up or staying in the group, which we were increasingly feeling had unnamed abuses and toxicity going on.
It is still shocking to parts of me, literally takes my breath away, to feel how quickly and completely our previous worlds (including my home geography eventually!) fell apart and away once we came together. This is often a signature of a Divine Union counterpart bond and also is the good will and genuine care/love/support for each other (absence of abuse, inability to lie to each other) that has been there between us from the very beginnings of our friendship turned romance. This kind of union calls you to be completely devoted to it, inside and out, as you feel how it is your means of expressing service and your soul purpose in the world.
I so hope you enjoy this first chapter/book of our sacred union journey, which we are now feeling to continue into what feels like two more books offered over the next three years. A sacred union trilogy capturing the phases, the ups and downs, the letting ins and letting gos, of what has truly been a bliss mess ride, yet always feeling held in a bubble of Divine love protection and marked absence of traumatic experiences (after the initial ones!)
Under The Bloated Banyan is a title that came through many years ago and represents the ‘bloat’ of these false light/false God groups and offerings that are offered under the banyan tree (the sacred tree where Buddha found his enlightenment.) So many of which offer deep teachings/gifts in their own ways and esp. in the beginning honeymoon stages, and yet are inevitability hijacked by the leader’s unfelt shadow motivations/aspects and the Matrix agenda/karmic field. These false light offerings/teachers are being exposed, disclosed and collapsing more and more as we outgrow the need for them…esp when we dedicate ourselves to healing our birth family/generational/incarnational trauma and engage in integrative shadow work with parts/aspects of ourselves.
Although, truly, this is not a story about ‘surviving a cult experience’…yet, really, it is and has always been, a love story. A love story about two counterparts reuniting again. A love story about discovering our deep devotional love for and with the Divine beloved. A love story about truly coming to love all parts of ourselves and soul aspects too.
You can purchase this book as a PDF on our shop (including instructions on how to read it on your kindle app/devices), or as in e-book and print editions through amazon. We would love to invite you to write a review if you feel moved and guided to after reading and also to share your thoughts, feelings, reactions, resonances with us here, via PM on Facebook, or email at soulfullhearts@gmail.com.
Links to purchase and excerpt to read from the first chapter are here at soulfullheart.org/https://www.soulfullheart.org/underthebloatedbanyan
Amazon link (it is available in all major Amazon markets/countries so go to your amazon country link to purchase): https://tinyurl.com/3xdyaerw
And special thanks to Kasha Rokshana, who helped edit this book and designed the beautiful cover image for it. She has been a true champion and advocate for sharing this story (including the two previous versions!) and it feels like it wouldn’t be happening now without her love and passion for it to be out in the world!
Thank you for taking it into your heart and soul,
Love,
And Raphael’s writing on this release:
“I am one proud papa to have this heart and soul baby born in the world!
Our story begins in a group that we were eventually ‘kicked out of’, but in truth, it was life, love and the divine itself that ‘kicked’ us out.
What we left with, largely unbeknownst to us at the time, was a Christ child, in embryonic form gestating in our bond. We took it from the light side of the egregore/usness of the beloved group we were a part of. It was like a baton that was passed on to us. We also took a great wound with us that would challenge us and lay our hearts bare, and eventually reveal a much deeper calling.
This story is a great revealing for me of a much deeper heart and soul calling to own and inhabit my own calling. I was allowed to feel and experience so much during these four years covered in this book, that I believe will be part of a key awakening for the men and women who resonate, who share this same calling, who share this same soul family lineage.
I truly hope my story and our story stirs deep within you, a recognition of the specialness and uniqueness of your own sacred calling that begins right from where you are right now. It couldn’t be more divinely appointed. That’s how I feel your and my life story.
It would touch me deeply not only to have you read it, but to hear how it landed and what it stirred for you, even better if you could share it publicly, (even anonymously if it’s understandably too much of a coming out for parts of you).
What a gift it is that this baby was born on this day as Jelelle and I had also planned this day many weeks ago as a day to gather with our current closest beloveds for a wedding vow renewal ceremony!
Thank you, Jelelle for your intense focus these past weeks to handle all the rigours of self publishing! Thank you most of all for being with me into where we go now!
May this story touch you like no other!
Love,
Raphael
SoulFullHeart Experience 