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Millions of us in this country have been raised with no conscious awareness of our need for and connection to the most basic elements of life - Earth. Air. Fire. Water.  And Spirit. If you live in a major metropolis or even a far flung suburb, there can be such a great disconnect from what it is that truly sustains us. But without these elements, we literally would not be alive. Yet we take these things so for granted. I never had a garden. Until very recently. My experience with houseplants included having to be reminded that they do respond positively to watering. I don’t recall having had visceral experiences of earth as a child - other than having been reprimanded to NOT get dirty. But without earth, there would be nowhere to grow our food, build our homes or even to walk.  And air. Inhalation. Every minute of every hour of every day. But unless, for some reason, our air is restricted, it’s certainly not a top of mind thought. Air. Prana. Life Force. We stop breathing and it’s generally the end of things here. Fire. Right now, it’s heating my toes. It is light and focus and energy. It is used to cook our meals. In the form of sunlight, it makes plants and animals and people grow. It is emblematic of passion. Without fire, in all of its forms, nothing would light us up or feed us on any level.  Water. About 60% of our own body. It falls from the skies and flows through our cities. If we’re fortunate, it usually comes out of a tap. We thirst for it. Our plants and animals thirst for it. The earth herself thirsts for it. Water is movement. Water is flow. It is said that water holds memory. We often don’t appreciate this element unless our supply becomes contaminated or our city tells us that there isn’t enough to wash our cars or fill our swimming pool. And then the element of Spirit. Without which none of this would exist. We would not exist. And how often do we remember to express our thanks? Our simple acknowledgement of these astounding gifts. I have just moved to a very small town from the San Francisco Bay Area. This transition has created a connection with the elements in a whole new way. Our home is heated by fire. We go to a natural mountain spring every few days to get the most clear, clean crystalline water. We’ve even jumped on the sourdough starter train to bake our own bread. And while we have a furnace and running water in the house, we’ve made the choice to experience a much more direct connection to the elements, the essential sources of what sustains us. It has led to an appreciation of all that I seldom gave much thought or energy to. It’s been about slowing down and allowing in a way that I never would’ve given myself the space for otherwise. It’s been about the delight of bathing in an outdoor bathtub and having a frog come and visit as I take in the stars overhead. It’s been about the breathtaking majesty of suddenly seeing an immense snow-covered volcanic peak peek through the trees that makes me gasp every time it appears. It’s been about the scent of the trees in the crisp autumn air bringing a smile to my lips as I fill my nostrils with their scent. All of this has served as a reminder to appreciate the presence of these elements in my life far more deeply than ever before. To be reminded of how we are sustained on a daily basis. To express immense gratitude. And to remember the essential nature of these natural elements. To pause and honor them. Before its too late.

Our unfolding - or that of anyone else’ -  is something that cannot be forced. Like the story of opening the cocoon that killed the butterfly, we need the time and experience to build our strength in order to fly. We need to exercise our muscles, to fall and get back up again before we learn to walk confidently in the world, let alone fly. Eventually we don’t even have to think about it. It becomes second nature. Like pushing a river, forcing solutions often comes back to hit us in the face. Whether we’re trying to make a relationship work that simply isn’t, or trying to launch a business before we’re deeply clear on the vision, in most life circumstances we are often far better served in stepping back to breathe a bit before we put our foot on the gas - contrary to what our “just do it” culture often suggests. As a serial entrepreneur, if I wasn’t actually operating a business, I was engaged in the business of trying to create the next one without much, if any, pause in between. Once I attempted a pause by going to Bali after I sold a business and had to come home having caught pneumonia. I suppose touring a country I’d never been to before wasn’t exactly a pause… As we’ve discussed here before, that place of not knowing can feel like being in a large body of water without shore in sight. And remembering to pause and breathe, to re-center, can be the farthest thing from our minds if we’re in a state of near panic. What do we do, when we don’t know what we’re supposed to do??? What do we do if doing is not the answer? How can we possibly just be when there is so much to do? This is the circle I’ve often found myself in - with seemingly no way out. Although I’ve been here before and it has continued to feel like a challenge living in a society when our worth is so defined by what we do, the key seems to be remembering that being requires allowing. Allowing others’ opinions fall away. Allowing our own judgement to fall away. Allowing ourselves to sit with the discomfort and keep breathing. Allowing ourselves to do it all imperfectly. Allowing ourselves to repeat this cycle as many times as necessary until something shifts. Within us. Or outside of us. Something that unfolds and reveals with luminescent clarity what was there all along, but we simply weren’t yet ready to see. Not an easy, or necessarily clear process. But if we’re willing to engage it, the foundation, the strength, the muscle of love, value and clarity that will be revealed will be one that is based on a foundation of our true strengths. One based on a real knowing of our worth. Defined only by ourselves and coming to know the inherent worth and lovability we came into this world with, but has taken decades to uncover and reclaim. It’s in there. It’s under there. But until we can allow ourselves enough stillness to experience it at the deepest levels, we won’t trust it long-term. Sometimes “Just Do It” is a slogan limited to shoes and clothing. Then, we get to stop, breathe and acknowledge how far we’ve come and remember that we are love. We are loved. And we always have been. 

Damascena Tannous and the Aries Full Moon.

In our goal oriented culture, we so often set our sights on some thing: a job, a home, a partner. We do the necessary footwork and we can often accomplish what we have set our sights on. But then what happens when we allow our target to be a state of being? No tangible thing, with no definitive sign posts. Simply a vision of embodying a feeling or way of walking in the world? When framed in this way, I recognize that this has been my path for the past three years. I’ve tried to attach signposts and goals to this path, but nothing has felt as aligned as envisioning myself as simply living in alignment with my truth, with my soul purpose, even though I don’t have a great deal of clarity as to what that is. But I’ve been following bread crumbs. Trusting the feelings and the synchronicities along the way. And in truth, I’ve never felt more serene or joyful as a steady state than I have felt this past year plus. My ego has had big visions and plans for me in my life. The businesses, the cars, the homes, the partners. I set out to manifest those things and have brought them into my life. I can, you can, we can attract what we feel will make us happy, if that is our desire. Using the Law of Attraction we can create what we wish to manifest. But what happens when we open our hands and let go of our grand plans and say show me? Future tripping from this vantage point can be scary as hell. But if we can manage to bring all of our focus to the stepping stone we’re on, instead of the one way over there that we can’t even really see, life can become much more manageable. Far too often I find myself creating so much chaos so that it’s impossible to see or even feel the solidity of the stone I’m standing on. I shake it up. Stir it up. Creating swirl and drama and chaos which can feel so much more familiar than actually being still in the moment. I come back again and again asking why it feels so challenging to be right here. Right now. Without distraction. To breathe. To feel my body. To experience my environment in this very moment. All of the textures and the colors and the shapes. I have so seldom given myself the gift of this kind of presence. As a result I’ve missed so much of my life. I’ve been running. And running. From myself. From truth. From being. In this moment, when we’re finally ready to accept this gift of presence, can we begin to forgive ourselves for what we’ve denied ourselves without getting stuck in regret, in the past? Out of the present moment, once again? It sounds so reductive to say that all of my life has been about bringing me here, now, to this very moment. And, as I slow way down, I begin to truly see that this is all that there is. All of the running. All of the stirring. All of the reaching. All of the yearning. These states of being have been about both avoidance and searching for this place. Right here. Right now. It’s about trust. It’s about breathing. And receiving. And faith. It’s about the knowing that there is a reason and a purpose for all of this. And when we stop fighting and kicking up the muck, the muddy water can settle. The water can clear. We can see ahead and behind and all around. And at the same time know that none of it matters. Except this very here and now. With immense gratitude, we can acknowledge that we have, in fact, arrived.

Balancing our Sacred Rage with Equanimity under this Libra New Moon.

A few years ago at a friend’s rehearsal dinner, I realized that I was sitting at a table with six therapists - actually a fair representation at the time of the percentage of therapists in my overall community of friends. I have no idea what that says about the kind of company I kept, but the point is that I had lots of friends with MFT after their names. Something I found interesting was that when I would bring up the topic of feelings versus emotions, most of them would stare at me blankly and blink. “What do you mean? Feelings and emotions are simply different words for the same thing.“ While I’m not a therapist, I’ve come to know feelings and emotions as two very different states of being. Have you ever had the experience of spontaneously bursting into tears over something, and then when you were finished, you felt clear? Like you had had a cathartic release. And then it was done? And then at another time, you may have had an angry or a sad response to something and the emotionality of the situation felt like an undercurrent that you just couldn’t shake? Even over an extended period of time. You were pissed and looking to grind an ax somewhere… These are examples of what I’ve come to understand as feelings versus emotions. Feelings are clean, spontaneous and complete once they are expressed. By contrast, emotions linger. They are like an undercurrent, or like an undertow. Threatening to take you or someone in the near vicinity down with them. What I have come to know from my own experience is that feelings feel clean because there’s no historical baggage attached. They are a very current response to current conditions. Emotions linger and stick because there’s some unconscious something going on that I don’t seem to be able to shake - until I understand the connection, the tie, that triggered the current emotional state. The original source of the pain point. Usually, once the connection is made and the emotion is released, the feelings can then be clearly and cleanly expressed. It has taken time to recognize and feel into the difference, but once the connection was truly made, I can now delineate whether or not what is coming up at the time simply needs to be felt and expressed - or if there is some baggage that needs to be attended to. The adage, “if it’s hysterical, it’s historical.” is particularly applicable here. If it’s a big reaction, chances are, there’s something else going on. The objective, of course, is to feel feelings, and to be able to parse out when there’s more going on under the surface. And, it’s one of those “simple, but not necessarily easy” things. Give it a shot. The next time a wave of sadness or anger comes washing through, when it passes and you can give yourself the space to take a step back, make a note. Does it feel complete and over with? Or is there still lingering muddiness? A little bit at a time, when we can step into the witness position, we can begin to help ourselves heal. We may still require some $225+/hour assistance. But perhaps a little bit less of it.

Since the age of 14 my appearance has been a source of income and gaining approval from others. As a result, a great deal of my self-worth was derived from what things looked like. From what I looked like. My father recognized this and would sometimes punish me by forbidding the wearing of make up to my high school classes. The level of shame I felt in having to show up bare-faced felt unbearable back then. This theme of “what things look like“ is one I’ve carried throughout my life. It was always essential that my home looked perfect (no more than two weeks after having moved in, by the way). And my home remained that way forever after, at least while in view of others. And in this world of all zoom meetings all the time, you had better bet that if I was meeting with a new group of people, or ones that I felt I needed to impress, my hair, make up and home were perfect! At least in view of the camera. When it came to what I wore, the underlying rules were things like: Jewelry must always coordinate. Silver with silver. Gold with gold. There must always be a consistent feeling theme in said adornment. Leathers had to match, too. Brown shoes with a brown bag. Black belt with black boots. As you can imagine, this all translated into little freedom in terms of dressing out of the norm in anyway. I’m sure you’ve heard the often whispered appraisal, “Wow, she’s really letting her self go.“ Clearly meant as a derisive comment - a comment on weight gained, or greying hair, or a lack of makeup. When viewed through that lens, one could definitely say that I’ve let myself go. While it’s certainly not meant as a compliment when framed in that way, in truth for me, it is something to be celebrated. Sometimes these shifts and changes come from a state of despair and giving up. But when they come from a point of choice: the choice to be comfortable in our own body, the choice to allow our natural hair color to shine through, the choice to show up as we are without feeling the need to alter our appearance in order to be seen by others. This is cause for a huge celebration of release and relief.  As we’re increasingly becoming aware, our deepest need is to be true to ourselves. Our souls yearn in for this. It is why we came here. To return to that essence as we drop away the layers that no longer fit. No longer serve. No longer speak to who we know ourselves to be at a soul level. So that we can then come into alignment with our soul’s purpose in this lifetime. The pain of letting go of our ego’s attachments can be wrenching. It can mean walking into a completely unrecognizable life. And yet there’s a cord that seems to be pulling us in its direction. When we begin to come into alignment with our purpose, it feels as though it’s pulling even more strongly. And sometimes the act of holding onto that cord requires our letting go of most everything else. Often with no idea of what we’re being pulled toward. Letting Her Go is actually the title of a new book a dear friend has written. As I eagerly anticipate its release date, the timeliness of the title’s message seems to be one that is very prominent in the collective these days. This theme of letting go, on so many levels,  is something I’ve been hearing in nearly every conversation I’ve had lately. As someone who happens to be packing up for a move, my awareness of the concept of letting things go is especially heightened. But as the book’s title indicates, letting go is about more than just releasing objects. It’s about releasing old outworn identities, and relationships. It’s a process that can be both painful and liberating.  While I most certainly enjoy the affects of make up on my own appearance, the fact that I no longer feel afraid to be seen without it is a huge victory for me. I love to dress up and get “done up“, but the immense freedom reclaimed in letting go of others judgment if I don’t, it’s such a gift. It’s a

excerpted from: The Pisces Full Mooncast, with Damascena Tannous from Red Moon Revival. “The essence of every single full moon is going to be asking you to look at paradox. To get out of polarity thinking. This or that. Yes or no. But how do I hold multiple truths at once? THE feminine is paradox. Another name for the Goddess could be Paradox. If paradox is there, you can always employ a feminine way of knowing something to get to the truth. Paradox is going to show up and that anytime someone is telling you it’s this or that, it’s black or white, it’s one thing or the other, that’s always a trap. They’re always trying to trap you on one side of a polarity, and truth will always have some nuance and paradox to it.”

Yesterday, a friend found herself in the middle of a standoff between a hawk and a pair of squirrels, culminating with one of the squirrels dying in her arms. Another friend questioned how she would have reacted in such a circumstance. It caused her to ask (for example), “Why am I afraid of a snake? Is it all the signals I received as a child to this present moment? (and) Are those statements and fears true for me?“  "Are those statements and fears true for me?” This is such a perfect question to be asking ourselves right now. Whether the statements are about squirrels, snakes or the squirrelly snakes we encounter day to day. It seems we’ve entrained ourselves with a mindset of fear and we rarely even question it. When it comes to fear, we all have that basic need to feel safe. We need to feel safe in our bodies. We have that instinct to protect ourselves and our loved ones - like the squirrel was trying to do in the face of the hawk standing over its mate. When we aren’t in fear of death by hawk, or whatever might be running through our minds in the moment, we can feel more free to loosen our grip on all that is happening out there. But right now, we are all holding on so tightly because of the atmosphere of fear that has been created and reinforced for so very long. We imagine the hawk with it’s pointy beak and very sharp talons standing over us. When we’re in that heightened state, when we are holding that tension in our bodies. We’re frozen. We don’t even breathe. When we’re not breathing it’s literally impossible to relax. To let go. To trust. To flow. And lots of pieces need to be in place before we can let go enough to trust. Our basic needs must be met. We must not be living in that state of fight or flight or freeze. Or that state of fear caused and reinforced by television and social media… When our basic needs are met and we can get enough distance from those fear inducing sources, we can begin to breathe. When we’ve released the raptor informing our minds and remember the essential nature of connection with nature - the grounding it brings - that ease of breath returns. When we sit on the ground or walk amongst trees. If we pet a dog or hug a horse. These are the things that bring us back to what is right and real and true. From THIS place of being, we can ask ourselves what we know to be true. "Are those statements and fears true for me?” We can truly open our hearts and our minds. We can relax. We can trust. We can be. When I allow myself to go there, my desire for the mind-altering media or any other substance falls away. The adrenalized drug of fear doesn’t feel necessary. Or desired. Staying in that heightened state, keeps us frozen in our fear. We imagine death standing over us even when the hawk is nowhere near. Another wise friend reminded me that we often confuse instinct with intuition. An instinctual reaction is often that one that is reinforced by parents and ancestors. “If it happened to them, watch out, it could happen to you, too…” But, she said, the hawk, perceived through the lens of intuition, rather than seeing it as its instinctual self, is seen as the archetype of the Initiator. We get to ask ourselves, “Where are we confusing a squirrelly, fear-based instinctual reaction, with our intuitive knowing-ness? Can we walk through the fear and recover the nuts of wisdom buried within? Can feel into what we know to be truth?” Feel the difference in your body when you do something as simple as imagining yourself breathing in nature. It shifts. It all shifts. And when, as best as we can, we live our lives from that place, the pandemic state of fear we’ve been immersed in can begin to fall away. Releasing the fear will allow us to build back our immune systems. We will find we have a greater and greater immunity from falling sick with fear. We will no longer need to mask our fear, because the fear will have less and less power over us. When we can b

Back in July, I posted an episode called Burn Your Maps with no conscious awareness of the fact that 90 days later, I would be contemplating literally doing what the closing monologue of the 2018 film Burn Your Maps suggests: Someday, if you’re ever lost, you can find your way home. If that ever happens, if you ever realize you’re not where you belong, don’t be afraid. Pack your clothes and all the things you know. Pack what other people know about you. Then leave it all behind. And come with nothing. Leave your maps behind, too. Rip them up. Burn them. And come.  Even if it’s far away. Even if you don’t understand. Even if it’s only in a dream. One day, you’ll be there. In October, I will be moving nearly 300 miles from where I now live. As I slowly begin packing boxes, I’ve found my self fantasizing about selecting just my most treasured items, only what would fit in my teeny, tiny car… and leaving the rest behind. In fact, I made a little pile in the corner of my bedroom of just those things. A small Persian rug of my grandmother’s. Hand-crocheted mother-daughter bumble bees that my daughter made for me. Some art that she made in first grade. A photo of her and one of 7 year old me. A piece of art that a friend made for me. A sacred rattle and drum and some crystals. There are, of course, the necessities of my birth certificate and car title. Health and hygiene items. Some clothing, shoes and outer and underwear. Oh, and my computer. But I’ve honestly felt torn about what to do with the remainder of my things. I’ve been feeling this overwhelming urge to let it ALL go. I’m happy to give things away. Or sell them. When I ask myself why I’m so torn, I’m often confronted with a “but what if…”. What if I do need the Cuisinart that I haven’t used once in 3 years? What if that is just the lamp that would look perfect in a future home? What if I end up regretting having let go of so much? What if I can’t afford to replace things when I find that I do need them? I recognize that it is a luxury and a privilege to even have these questions to ask. And then I question whether this is about physical stuff, or not. Pack what other people know about you. Then leave it all behind. And come with nothing. THIS is the invitation. Leaving behind others’ opinions of me. Leaving behind who they think I am. Leaving behind who I’ve thought myself to be. Leaving behind all of the masks. The identities. The roles. Which brings me back to what I wrote in July: We have to unclench our grip. Open our hands and our heart. And release and trust. And allow. And accept. All of us. As we are. Shadow and light. In perfect imperfection. To relax. And rest. And be. And from here, we will know what is to be done. Not from a place grasping and doing and trying to figure it out, but from a place of knowing. From gnosis. From listening and remembering. Letting it all go. Standing here naked. Without whatever made us us in the past. Without grasping for the future. And so, in the spirit of teaching what we need to learn, I re-read, re-write, re-speak what I wrote. And get still. And naked. And trust. That in letting go of stuff. Letting go of the opinions of others and old masks and roles. That in leaving it all behind and coming with nothing - We are held. We are supported. Even if we don’t understand.

an excerpt - The New Moon in Virgo, with Damascena Tannous from Red Moon Revival. “What I'm looking at is a bunch of discord and incoherence out in the collective right now. There’re all these different competing storylines and narratives. There’s lots of different things vying for and trying to hook our attention and so I think what this new moon is doing is asking us to really come back to ourselves. And really, what is the felt sense in our body about any of the choices or decisions were making - even in our communication? In our every day communication with our partners or our children, is our attention hooked outside of ourselves? Are we stressed or being influenced by something that's outside of ourselves and interacting from that place? Or are we interacting from our core, our center, from the balance place that's sourced from within?

The Artist’s Way was written by Julia Cameron 25 years ago. It created quite a revolution in terms of waking people up to their creativity and launched a lot of leaps in anticipation of the appearance of the net that she promised. While a leap of faith is required in most endeavors if your desire is to truly take your work to the next level, a lot of beings read that mantra to mean that they were to quit their 9 to 5 jobs to do their art full-time and that the Universe would support them. Despite Ms. Cameron’s cautions, a lot of us leapt and went splat on the pavement. There is a lot of nuance involved here that would be impossible to address for every individual. Now, a quarter of a century later, I’m doing the Artist’s Way again. This time, with far more experience and awareness of that nuance that couldn’t have existed back then. This work holds up extremely well despite some old school “shoulding” regarding the implementation of weekly tasks. With my allowance for less rigidly held “rules“ about how to do it, I found a new level of blossoming and freedom in these weeks of re-discovering my divine child artist self. Eleven of Twelve weeks in, I have become jubilantly reacquainted with the part of myself that holds the keys to the magic. For decades I’d paid a kind of half attention to this creative child-self of mine. Begrudgingly making commitments to Artist’s Dates and creative projects. Unfortunately, that “I’m showing up because I said I would“ energy bleeds through every time. Eventually, this child-self just stopped communicating with me. How could I blame her? This time around, however, something’s shifted. I recognize the truth of the fact that this child part of me is the source of the spark, the light, the play. She got shut down pretty pretty early and never really had the freedom to stretch her wings and explore the expanse of possibilities she held. I’m finally getting how essential it is to honor these young parts of ourselves. Often, they have taken on so much that never belonged to them. Unburdened of that weight, we can begin to soar. This Divine Child-self’s trust of me is still a bit tenuous, but it is getting stronger. To her delight we took a horseback riding lesson this past week. She/we felt like we had landed in heaven. Later in the week, I took a hike. Silently, I was calling out to her asking her where and how she was. And then I recognized in that moment, being on the earth, in a place that I loved, doing something that felt joyful, I was that seven year old. I was she. I am she. Hmmm… Two women on the trail commented about the joy I was radiating. We’ve had a bounce and a smile ever since.