Greetings Dearest One,
It’s been many months now since I’ve shared my musings. I’ve spent the past nine months deeply immersed in healing. When I began this process back in January, I really had no idea what I was getting into, what it would look like, what I might learn, or how it would all turn out in the end.
What I learned is that there is no end. No finish line of completion. No finisher medal. Not even a tee shirt.
What I discovered is the vastness that is Me. The infinite and never-ending beauty that is life. The amazing inter-connectedness of everything in our universe, from the smallest cell within my own blood, to the vastness of dark matter in the depths of the cosmos. We are all intertwined.
I discovered deep sisterhood and the intriguing beauty inherent when women come together to heal themselves and to heal each other.
I read a meme the other day that said something like it’s easier to grow whole children than it is to repair a broken adult. And I wondered…is it even possible for any child to come into adulthood without wounding of some sort? No matter how small that wound might seem?
My life has really been a good one. My parents loved me. I was never abused. I grew up relatively free and unencumbered. I had opportunities and did many fun and adventurous things. But I still arrived here in adulthood with wounding. Mother wounds. Father wounds. Self-inflicted wounds.
And what I’ve learned is that these wounds can be healed. The things in our lives that get buried, or that we turn away from, or that sometimes we just simply don’t see, can be revealed. Often, these things that are so difficult to describe, tend to cause us to repeat old patterns in our lives, or cause us to make the same choice over and over again to the detriment of growth or expansion, but they are actually visible, when we learn how to see differently.
Until I embarked on this expedition towards wholeness, I had no idea that one of my biggest challenges was simply to speak my truth. To speak what I really feel. I’ve spent decades guarding and protecting my truth. Not revealing it. Talking around it. Never wanting to offend anybody, or have to defend myself. So I’ve kept my real voice hidden, buried deep inside to the detriment of myself. What an amazing thing to discover!
And guess what, I have healed this. I cleared away the constraints that were put in place and that prevented me from telling you exactly what I believe or feel or know. This was life changing for me. Mind blowing!
How could it be that I could reach the age of 44, and still be afraid to talk openly and honestly because I didn’t want to offend you or have you think that I was really weird?
I mean seriously!
The interesting thing about this journey of healing (and this example of using my voice is really just one of hundreds of things that were revealed to me and that have been healed and cleared from my system), is that I didn’t actually start out in adulthood this way. In my late teens and very early 20s, I was very much living on purpose, and very much tenacious about it.
I went to the very alternative The Evergreen State College for school. My first year there was really the breaking down of all that had been constructed for me during my childhood. I had to relearn learning. I had to discover my own motivation and passion. And it took a good few years. But by the time I was in my 4th year of college, I was living fully and passionately as ME.
I was immersed in herbal medicine, nature, cycling, writing, and martial arts. I was living and breathing my love for plants, words, and the outdoors. I followed my heart most of the time. I was unafraid to speak my truth and to share it with others.
What I discovered is that ever-so-quietly, though, I began to shut the doors on my heart and my passion. Somewhere in my early 20’s, I began to believe the lie that I had to “do the right thing,” and “be responsible,” which became twisted into the idea that to do what I really wanted to do meant I had to give something else up, or that it was going to be hard. The fact that I began to believe this untruth while still so young and full of so much possibility is mind boggling to me.
When I had nothing to lose, I lost my passion. I lost my bravery and courage to follow my heart. I tamped down my desire with ideas of “when it’s the right time,” or “when I get more settled.” And time just slipped on by. The passionate, heart-driven me was left behind, abandoned on the road of possibility, and buried by layers of time.
Thankfully, though, I’ve rekindled my relationship with this earlier version of me. I re-traced my steps, threw off the layers of time, and took her in my arms and held her and hugged her and brought her back home to me.
This life, all of this, this is our own creation. You are each and every day creating your own life. Is this the life you want? Are you creating the life of your dreams? Are you living the way you have always wanted to?
For years, I have worked in a job that has no heart and soul, at least for me. And for whatever reason, I convinced myself that this was okay. But how can that be okay? I’ve put off living the life of my dreams because I somehow felt constrained to putting in my time being the good girl, doing the right thing, and being responsible. But how has this been responsible?
When we put ourselves aside for whatever reason, we are doing nobody a favor. It might look like we are, because our egos have a way of helping us to justify our choices so that we can live with our decisions. But what I’ve learned is that by doing so, I was really just killing my passion and my interests even more.
And so here I am. Poised on this threshold of potential; standing in the portal of my own becoming.
And what a journey it has been to get here!
For those of you who follow astrology, you are aware of the intensity the cosmos has been steeping us in. I’ve felt this intensity on every level—physical, spiritual, emotional, and mental. There is not a part of me that has not been affected. As I made a commitment to myself to strip away parts of me that were no longer working, my physical body came in to reinforce their removal. A severe allergic reaction to eggs landed me in bed for 2 weeks, unable to do anything but be with my own self. Be with. Be still. Be silent. An incredible and agonizing experience that has somehow left me clearer, more aware, and free.
And it seems there is not a person I know who has not been going through some serious shedding in their lives. It’s as if we’ve all been thrown into the hopper, and what comes out will be only the purest, most basic parts of who we are that’s left—all inessentials peeled away so that only our raw, most vulnerable parts remain.
And it’s almost as if the Earth is the one doing the shaking—demanding that we wake up and begin to see with new eyes, and to hear with new ears, and to feel with new skin because time is of the essence and life is short and we are not here for no damned reason.
We are here to do the work we are meant to do on this remarkable Earth. And while I’m pretty sure that all Mama Gaia needs to do is belch a few times to make do with humanity, it feels like she really just wants us to wake the fuck up.
Whether you are an artist or a scientist or a spiritual light worker there is no doubt that we’ve been fouling our nest. And it’s time for this nonsense to stop. While I don’t believe there are any quick-fixes, I do believe that when we do the work to heal our own inner selves that process radiates outward and impacts the healing of our Earth and all her wondrous creatures.
As a medicine woman, I’m feeling this call with profound urgency. I can no longer stand in the wings or hide in the shadows. It’s time to bring all my gifts to the world in order to heal the world. No small task, to be sure, but with a rekindled passion in my heart and a bonfire in my soul, I am here to do this work.
Let’s walk this path together…let’s heal ourselves and heal our planet. There is much work to be done.
