The Council of the Grandmothers: 

The Empowerment of the Feminine

 By Sharon McErlane

 Little did I know one September day in 1996 while walking my dog beside the beach near home, that my life would be forever changed. Appearing to me literally from out of the blue, was a group of women of all cultures and dress, regal, loving, wise, and NOT like anything I’d ever before seen in Laguna Beach! Although their appearance was startling, in their presence, I felt power and compassion, and as they spoke I heard wisdom, but most importantly, they spoke Truth. They called themselves the Great Council of the Grandmothers.

At one and the same time, two very different worlds intersected. Here I was standing in the middle of the pathway with my dog, waving to my neighbors as they walked by, while at the same time these beings, the Grandmothers, were encircling me.   It was surreal, and yet so very real I could not deny it was happening.  Then I began to feel something come down over me like a garment of light, but with heft to it.  They said it was a “caul,” which would reawaken me to the power of yin, the energy of the feminine principle of creation. “We have come at this time in history to save planet Earth,” they said, “to bring the energies of yin and yang back into harmony.” 

I came home that day full of wonder, more filled with peace and contentment than I could ever remember – a changed woman.  I was happy but also bewildered.  “Who were these old women and why had they come to me?” Although I tried to find them again and waited for them to return, they didn’t.

Not knowing what to do to find the Grandmothers, I began to pray for help.  I pounded hard on heaven’s door and it wasn’t long before I was led to a shaman who taught me a method for reaching the Grandmothers.  From that point on, an amazing journey began and for me, life would never be the same.

I became the Grandmothers’ student and they my teachers.   In lesson after lesson, they placed me in situations that were foreign to me, shocking my mind, shaking up my view of life and forcing me to learn something new.  I had lived a pretty tame life before the Grandmothers appeared.  I was and continue to be a simple woman who never expected her life to be so disrupted and gloriously altered by a group of old women.  But the Grandmothers are master teachers and as I said before, they are on a mission.  They thrilled and captivated me from the first moment I met them.

 They say, “Today yang, the masculine, active principal of energy, is dangerously over extended while yin, the steady holding of the feminine principle, is depleted.”  Yin and yang are out of alignment, and this is what is causing the present imbalance in our world, from the dissolution of the family, to the abuse of the helpless, to addictions of every sort, to a horrifying escalation of violence everywhere.  This imbalance has reached such proportions that today yang is running wild while yin grows weaker and more depleted.

One day the Grandmothers showed me how the run-away energy of yang looks.  Taking me to the edge of a cliff, they pointed into the distance and told me to “Look!”  I looked to where they were pointing, but all I could see was a moving cloud of dust.  As the Grandmothers brought me in closer, I saw that an animal was creating the dust.  Racing back and forth, a bull threw up a cloud as it raced in a frenzy, straining to break free of the tether that held it.   Slobbering and snorting while steam rose from its back, the bull’s eyes were wild.  Crazed with the frantic effort to free itself, it flung its body from side to side.  Frightened, I jumped behind the Grandmothers as it thundered past.  The rawhide tether that held it looked ready to snap.

“What we are showing you,” the Grandmothers said as I stared at the beast, “is the energy of yang as it is on Earth today.  Wild, increasingly frantic and run to the end of its tether, the energy of yang is unable to stop itself.  Without the intervention of the steady, holding energy of yin, yang is out of control.”  As I watched the red-eyed, bull I saw what they meant.  The animal could not calm or restrain itself.  All it could do was charge back and forth in panic.

The Grandmothers say that at this time in history all forms of life--women, men, animals, plants and minerals--are suffering.  Everything is out of synch, out of harmony with everything else.  There is no one to blame for the chaos on our planet; energy is simply out of balance. But although no one is to blame, the first step toward correcting the imbalance of yin and yang on Earth belongs to women.  “It can be no other way,” the Grandmothers declare; “for women are the natural reservoirs of yin.”  The Grandmothers have come at this critical time to awaken the presence of the deep feminine, to bring men and women and all life back into harmony.

 I hadn’t worked with the Grandmothers long when they directed me to call women together.  I was to pass their empowerment on to others.  The energy of yin needed to be infused into the Earth.  The Grandmothers would call those who were ready to receive this gift, and I needn’t worry about who to invite or how many to expect.  I was to leave everything to Them.  Eleven women came to that first Grandmothers’ Empowerment Ceremony.  From that time on, women told one another about the Grandmothers’ Empowerment, and whenever I scheduled a ceremony people simply showed up.  Although I didn’t advertise the Grandmothers’ work, and didn’t charge a fee for it, when I stopped counting, several thousand women had received the Grandmothers’ Empowerment.  After the Grandmothers’ book, “A Call to Power: the Grandmothers Speak” was published, women in different parts of the world began to form Grandmothers’ groups, passing on the empowerment to their sisters. 

The Net of Light is one of the Grandmothers’ pivotal teachings.  “The Net of light,” they say, “will hold the Earth together” during the upcoming times of radical change.  As the energy of yin and yang shifts and then comes back into balance, the Net will provide a loving structure of support for the planet, holding the earth and all life, steady.  The Grandmothers say, “The Net is lit by the jewel of the heart and held primarily by women.”  All people are welcome to the Grandmothers’ work but They explain that it is mostly women who will hear Their message, understand the importance of the Net of Light and use it to help others.

Today planet Earth and the life it sustains are in jeopardy; the energy of yin and yang is and has been out of balance for several centuries.  As this imbalance increases, fear and violence hold sway, horror escalates and loving sensitive souls find themselves depleted and running on empty.

Desperate times call for something new.  As humans stand at the edge of the precipice, the winds of change blasting our backs, the universe throws us a lifeline. Help has appeared before us in the form of wise old women, the Great Council of the Grandmothers.  “The present imbalance of energy on Earth has placed all life in danger,” the Grandmothers declare.  “It is time to return to balance, and for this, WOMEN MUST LEAD.  Women must be empowered.  This is why we have come.”

Sharon McErlane is a psychotherapist from Laguna Beach, CA. received a vision that changed her life.  Sharon has been sharing the Grandmothers’ message ever since, traveling the world and spreading the Grandmothers’ message. She has written “A Call to Power: the Grandmothers Speak.”  To learn more about the Grandmothers, please go to  www.grandmothersspeak.com.