ENTERING the SECRET

"Is there a spiritual science grounded in the knowledge that transformation for women can happen in accordance with our nature as women? Yes, it exists. It is an ancient science as old as human consciousness itself. And for some women it is the way home."

Angela Fischer

STEPPING INSIDE

Angela Fischer and I are sitting by the woodstove in her living room laughing. We have been talking about spiritual transformation in women and our seriousness has given way to elation. I find myself on continually shifting ground as I try to understand and conceptualize what comes so naturally to her, and she tries to explain a way of being that is beyond explanation and beyond conceptualization. So we end up laughing — again and again — at each other and ourselves as we cycle from bewilderment to concentrated effort with a willingness to work together until something essential within her heart has been revealed and recognized.

Angela communicates from within a spiritual terrain that is often unfamiliar to me, describing a process of transformation that is in its essence a way of being. Organic and sometimes deeply hidden, the path to God as Angela lives it draws a person fully into life, includes a nurturing and instinctual relationship with the physical world, and reveals the divine in the most ordinary things. God seems to come to Angela, a wife and mother of four children, in the sigh of her child as often as in the depths of meditation.

This path of transformation, this way of living, is infused with joy and driven by love, has little or no outer form, and relies on a continual state of inner attention and receptivity. There are no goals and no expectations; rather one offers oneself to what is Real by relating to what is present within every moment. It is a path of surrender, in which one embraces the wholeness of one's own being rather than striving for anything beyond oneself.

As Angela tells me, awakening this wisdom within the collective consciousness of the world can bring a new balance to our lives and reveal how God is present in His creation in this particular moment. It is an ancient path as well as a path suited for the specific needs of our world today. And for some women it is the way home, a way of transformation that recognizes and values elements of being a woman that our Western culture and its spiritual systems have largely ignored.

I spend almost two weeks at the end of the summer with Angela in the small village in northern Germany where she lives with her family, talking about her life and her relationship to God. One of those weeks is set apart for a retreat with fifteen people, mostly women, from nearby cities and towns. I stay with two friends of Angela who live next door and I spend much of my time with them, with other women from the retreat, as well as with Angela and her family.

Angela and I meet for at least a few hours every d