A Letter From The Creator

Julie Russell Beebe

in issue four
Scintillations
Purple Bikini
Saraswati
Change In Air
Sarah's Gift
Fairy Chimes
Real Dreams
Xena
Writer?
Younger Self
Fledgling Artiste
Goddess Poetry
No McD's In Cuba
AF Photographers
Goddess On Phone
Moody Girl
Met The Goddess
To My Mother
Life Changing Books
Girl Crushes
Universe Spoke
Visualize This!
Contributors

take me back
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to contents page 

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future issues
Issue Five: Bravery
Issue Six: Friendship

previous issues
Issue One: Change
Issue Two: Balance
Issue Three: Spring

I went through a phase a couple years ago where I signed all of my emails "Julie - Goddess In Training." I am still not sure what led me to do this - perhaps some deep down part of me was acknowledging I could be a Goddess - I just wasn’t there yet. Nobody really noticed and after a while I gave up the moniker with the thought that it was too self-promoting.

I remembered this when a tribe member came up with the Goddess theme for this issue. I struggled with this since I was still struggling with the idea of calling myself a Goddess. The rest of the tribe loved this idea. I seemed to be the only one who didn't know what to say about Goddesses. I knew it was it time for me to come to terms with being a Goddess but I didn’t feel ready. I felt like I had to speak eloquently and wear a long flowing white robe before I could be a real Goddess. Fortunately I was wrong – a good thing since none of my normal clothing stores carry flowing white robes.

Shortly thereafter, I found myself in the hands of my intuitive chiropractor easily saying that I acknowledged the God within me, but struggled to say I acknowledged the Goddess within me. My chiropractor joked "We think lots of men don't know their female sides - but there are a lot of women that don't either!" I had no problems recognizing that the male-God side of me got things done – but what did my feminine-Goddess side do for me? What is the difference? I didn’t really know myself. All I knew was in my career, where every peer is male, I didn’t get things done by wandering around being a Goddess.

Now I know better. The difference for me between a masculine-God-energy and a feminine-Goddess-energy is this: Male energy allows us to get things done outside of ourselves – to chase after things and catch them. Female energy allows us attract what we want without physically chasing anything. And really, as humans, we need a balance of male and female energy within us. For the moment, I’ll leave you with this thought, and trust I’ll say more about this in a future issue after I learn a few more things.

So here we are at Issue Four!  The growing Be Real Magazine Tribe has collaborated again to bring you another phenomenal issue – this time about Goddesses in all shapes and forms.  We welcome two brand-new male writers to our tribe - Michael Palmer and Mike Robbins!  In this issue Mike Robbins questions his ability to write and Michael Palmer tells a creative myth about a Goddess named Sarah.  This issue also brings an abundance of beautiful pieces from our regular contributors - Kristin Morrison writes about a scattered woman who turns into a Goddess in her psychic training class, Jocelyn Weiss paints a brilliant portrait of Cuba, and Jodi Helmer musters all of her courage and jumps into a bikini.  There’s more, of course, and I’m not going to spoil the surprise!

We also welcome poetry to this issue!  Kirsten Ogden and Circe join us as our first (and hopefully the first of many!) contributing poets and bring us four poems about Goddesses.

Remember that we welcome writers and photographers of all levels to join our tribe.  Our editors (we think of them as “writing coaches”) are really, really gentle and love the process of helping you to truly bring out your voice.  The theme for our next issue is Bravery - a great time to test out your bravery muscles and send something in to "submissions at berealmag dot com".  We want more photographers to contribute to the next issue!  (Remember the due date for rough drafts is September 15th!)

Treasured readers, thank you for your continued support of our creation of love.  The last time we checked the web statistics there were over 1600 visitors from all of these countries: USA, Canada, UK, Australia, South Africa, Netherlands, Switzerland, Saudi Arabia, Finland, Mexico, Japan, Singapore, Belgium, France, Israel, Luxembourg, Sweden, Brazil, India, Bulgaria, Ireland, Lithuania, Malaysia, and Spain!  Thank you so much for spreading the word!

And thanks for reading our pride and joy.  We're glad you're here.

all my best,

Julie Russell Beebe
Goddess In Training

P.S.
We're playing with the idea of creating a printed compilation of issues one through four.  What do you think?  Would you buy it for $12?  If so, a quick click of the mouse on... 

would help us out immensely!