Member in the Spotlight: Tara and the Alchemy of Athena

Some weeks the story writes itself. This is one of them.

This week an email arrived from Tara, a member in Lara Lauder’s Thatcham and Theale group. She had just self-published her first book, Born Intuitive, and she felt compelled to write before she signed off for the weekend. What she shared was so full of heart that it deserves a spotlight all of its own.

A book written in the quiet

Here is what happened. Tara wrote her book the way the truest things get made, quietly and one step at a time. It was, in her words, a monumental ask of her. There was no grand plan and no launch strategy. She stayed present, did the next thing, and trusted a quiet inner knowing that whispered everything will be ok. It possibly had not even occurred to her, she admits, that people would want to buy it. She simply knew she had to write it.

Two weeks before publication she still had no launch team.

Thirty seven women who came out of nowhere

Then, on the twenty ninth of May, she popped an invitation into a few WhatsApp chats, some Athena and some other heart-led groups of women. And something rather beautiful happened. Before she knew it she had a thirty seven strong team of women. They came, she says, out of nowhere. Some were close friends. Many she barely knew, and they barely knew her. But goodness me, what a team. She has had tears every single day watching these women show up so consistently to share, post and cheer her book on into the world.

The result. Born Intuitive became an Amazon best seller within eighteen hours, in two strong categories, landing in the hands of the very people who needed to hear its wisdom.

The alchemy of Athena

And here is the part that made me sit up. Tara is quick to say it was not really about the book at all. Having led teams of more than fifteen hundred people across twenty years in senior corporate roles, she knows exactly what she is looking at. What she witnessed, she says, was Athena. It was Lara, and the passion she creates in her region. Lara’s ability to get behind her members and amplify them Tara calls poetry in motion, a thing of pure beauty to witness. Her know, like and trust, next level.

Tara puts something into words that I have felt for twenty years but rarely heard said so well. She calls it the alchemy of Athena. The masculine container, the drum beat, the processes, the consistency. Because, as she so beautifully writes, it is only within a strong container that the feminine can flow, create and weave her magic.

That is the whole thing, right there. It is why we hold the structure so faithfully, so that the magic has somewhere safe to happen.

The roots that went deep in the quiet

There is a quiet mathematics to Tara’s story too, the very thing we have been talking about all week. A book written patiently out of sight. A community built long before it was needed, so that when the moment came, thirty seven women appeared as if from nowhere. They did not appear from nowhere at all. They appeared from years of an RD showing up for her members, and those members showing up for one another, gently and consistently, when nobody was watching. The roots went deep in the quiet. And then, when the season turned, the whole thing stood tall.

So this week we celebrate two women. Tara, for the courage to write her truth and send it out into the world. And Lara Lauder, for building the kind of region where a member becomes a best seller not by hustling alone, but by being held.

Your invitation this week

Think of a woman near you whose quiet work deserves to be witnessed, and go and amplify her the way Tara’s team amplified her. Buy the book. Leave the review. Make the introduction. Say the thing out loud. It costs so little and it changes everything, and as Tara reminds us, one life here in Berkshire has been changed forever this week because a group of women chose to show up.

That is the alchemy. And it is available to every one of us, any time we choose it.

You can find Tara’s book, Born Intuitive, on Amazon.