Healing Journeys: Embrace ~ Heart Soil

Last of 2017’s posts for the Nourishing Storm community.  Go see what’s new and good over in their neck of the woods.

I sat with my soul in the midst of its storming once. I went deeper inside, to the eye in the middle. Surrounded by the chaos of which I held no control, I rooted into my core. I held still and listened. And this is what I heard:

Embrace it all. Every bit of it. Of everything that is your life. Gather it all in and hold it. Allow it all into your heart. Let it all break you open so your heart can do its work.

Embrace who you are where you are. Embrace all that has happened. The joy and the pain. Embrace your journey. Every step you’ve made towards your dreams. And all the slips and falls. All the stories that have just begun to tell their tale. And all the stories that ended before their tales were told. Gather it all and hold it dear. Even your suffering. Let your storms wound you. Be soft in the spite of them. Let them cut into your heart and turn its deeper soils as only those pains can. And trust the heart’s gift of transforming what we allow it to accept.

Do not shy away from your life. Not a single second of it. Own the space you occupy so you can take care of it. Do not deny even a single speck of your own dirt your stewardship and your love. Let life till the heart’s soil instead of scar its surface. Let it dig all the way to the soul. Then keep the heart open so the soul can flow through.

Embrace all there is and ever was of you. Accept all of it. So you can live with integrity. Do not filter your story if it is true. Share it however you may or not at all, but own it within yourself. Let your soul speak of the raw ugliness and the divine beauty of your adventure. Let your life speak of your heart’s truth. It is the totality of your experience that has brought you this far. Honor your path by recognizing the wisdom it offered.

Life is large. Let it be that way. Let it be wild and wonderful, terrible and beautiful. Let yourself fall and rise and hurt and love. Open up wide to embrace it all. Do not deny yourself the bigger picture. The one with the space for the whole of you, and with room left yet for you to rise. You were born to shine like the moon in all its phases. To sing like the wind through all life’s weather, its breezes and torrents. To show up to the main event, which is Every. Single. Second. You. Are. Blessed. To. Live. Embrace it all. So you can bring your whole damn self to everything you do. Embrace it all and give yourself the freedom to be unapologetically you.

“Humanity rages like a tempest, but I sigh in silence for I know the storm must pass away while a sigh goes to God. Human kinds cling to earthly things, but I seek ever to embrace the torch of love so it will purify me by its fire and sear inhumanity from my heart. Substantial things deaden a man without suffering; love awakens him with enlivening pains. Humans are divided into different clans and tribes, and belong to countries and towns. But I find myself a stranger to all communities and belong to no settlement. The universe is my country and the human family is my tribe.”
– Kahlil Gibran – A Poets Voice XV

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Girl Empowered – Passing the Torch

A piece I wrote for Psychicsforetell a while back during the Harvey Weinstein headlines.  Still relevant 😦

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With all the talk about Harvey Weinstein, I feel compelled to write about sexism in our current culture.  And I’d like to state that while I know women are not the only victims in these types of cases, this post will be from an apologetically female perspective.  I also know it isn’t new age-y.  In fact it is quite old.  Sexist attitudes back in the day were blatant and generally accepted.  Today it exists in a different, quieter way.  An energetic way.  A way that is difficult to confront as it has become tolerated.  But it looks like America is finally ready to talk about it.  Or so I hope.

When met with voices that say that sexism (or insert just about any -ism) is alive and well, I’m surprised by how many don’t see it.   Just because sexist comments aren’t spoken openly in most common settings, doesn’t mean the feelings they were born from are gone.  That energy is alive and well and it can manifest at any time to its fullest potential when harnessed by someone who believes they are untouchable.

All of the ism’s are about power.  About people who feel they have a right to full control over every situation including other people in the situation.  The biggest perpetrators seem to usually be the most insecure people or the most self absorbed.  Any person in their right mind knows that real power does not come at the expense of another.   Truly powerful people are not threatened by someone else’s strength or independence.  And they do not threaten others who are not strong or are not free to make their own choices.

But we are not talking about truly powerful people. We are talking about people like Harvey Weinstein who think their money affords them privileges that don’t exist.  Like the right to require the bonus of sexual favors from female cast members.  Of course, as this comes out, everyone is on the same page that this is wrong.  Most seemed unsurprised.  A few even said so and got a bunch of grief for it.  But who really was surprised?

I think it is safe to say there wasn’t a woman in the world who was surprised by this event.  Even those women  with no idea who Harvey Weinstein is.  And I am sure there are those that agree with my assumption above yet still don’t see sexism as a real problem.  And that’s without mentioning that those actresses who were harassed or assaulted by this disgrace of a man were also paid way less than their male co-stars for the trouble.  I’d be willing to wager no one is surprised by that either.  It is just the way it is.  Right?

Apparently.  I mean the leader of our nation believed an appropriate response to sexual assault allegations was to make a joke of it saying, “she would not be my first choice.”  As good as saying we can discredit a woman’s accusation by her looks.  Like that is how assault works.  It was an irresponsible, condescending and asinine statement that I would have gladly smacked him in the teeth for if I was his mamma.  But hey, it got some cheers.  Maybe even from some women.  Presumably good looking women who have never been assaulted.  But still,  it isn’t his fault things are this way nor is it the fault of anyone who cheered.   They are just perpetuating and giving a face to what has been existing around us all along.

While it is heartbreaking hearing so very many of versions of the same horrible story, all of this attention is giving  women a platform to speak up and speak out.  And that is a good thing.  This issue needs a larger voice because sexism, like all the other ism’s, thrives in silence and is destroyed by the light.  That silence is now broken and now it’s time to bring the noise.  Because, yeah, it’s better than it was in a lot of ways but we still have a ways to go.   If not for ourselves, then for our daughters.

Do not be afraid to tell your story if you’ve been suffering in silence.  Though also do not feel pressured to tell your story if you are not ready.  Sometimes in sharing, you become the voice for those who cannot speak.  I know it isn’t easy.  It requires some painful truths to dealt with inside and out.  And to those men in the media calling this all a “witch hunt” – sorry fellas.  We know how hot it is in the flames.  Haven’t you heard? “We are the granddaughters of the witches they could not burn.”  And we will be the grandmothers of the women who know their own power and worth and the men who know how to respect that.

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Weight

One from two falls ago for the peeps over at PsychicsForetell.

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When I am at a corporate massage gig, I get a lot of people asking if they can help me carry my things.  I usually have two bags, my purse and my massage table.  I always say no.  Usually followed up with something like, “I have a very particular balance I’ve worked out.  One thing out of place, and it throws me off.”

It’s true that I have it figured out.  I know just how to lean forward enough to grab doorknobs without falling flat on my face with the table on one shoulder and my bags on the other.  I know just how to walk without causing too much of a sway that will throw off my gait.  I know just how to squat to put it all down without throwing my back out.  But when I do put it all down, I can feel the effects of the terrible position I’ve put my back in to maintain that “particular balance”.  I know it is too much weight to lug.  But it just doesn’t feel right to not carry it all myself.

So much like life.  It’s hard to put down the weight sometimes.  Even when it is hurting us.  We found our way to balance it.  It’s become a comfortable contortion, carrying all our familiar pains and fears.

Maybe it’s season that inspires me.  The falling leaves.  The darker days.  The energy shifting down to the unseen roots.  There is a rhythm we must honor.  And sometimes to do so requires us to let go.

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Healing Journeys: Rise ~ After the Fall

One from the fall of 2017 for the amazing folks over at Nourishing Storm.

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I’ve been working with my breath lately.  Breathwork is powerful.  Without the breath there is no life.  And it is so much like life with its rhythmic draw and release.

As I sat with my breath, following its rise and fall, it offered me a story.  Inhaling, I paused at the top, holding the breath there, holding life within.  Feeling gratitude, feeling full.  Feeling alive.

Trusting I will feel its fullness once again, I let it go.  I let it fall.  I followed it down.  Down into my roots.  I let it all out.  And I sat within my emptiness. And I listened from that stillness.  I was less comfortable at the bottom of the breath.  When can I breath?  I feel so hollow.

I listened for my answer.  It was so quiet at the bottom.  And from this place I heard that small shy voice that brings the world down to its size.  I cannot tell you what it said to me.  It spoke a million words through the silence.  Through the slowing beat of my heart, I listened until I felt at peace with my emptiness.  Until I was ready to accept my own dark hollowness.  Until I learned winter’s lesson of holding that quiet space after each fall, listening and waiting for life to fill me again.

I was ready to inhale.  I was ready to allow my lungs to expand with life, to rise with the truth of fullness I now understood.  My breath held a lesson of self compassion, for all the times I have fallen and all the times I will feel empty again.  Life will take me to its darkest depths over and over yet still I will heed the call of the heights I have yet to reach.   And so I will rise.  Again and again, I will rise.

“There is something moon soaked and dawn flavoured about her. Something kissed by the wild and loved by lightning. She looks like Artemis after a night of storm hunting. She looks like the sun as it rises after kissing the dawn.”  – Nikita Gill

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Healing Journeys: Gonna Kick it Root Down

A post from last fall for the fantabulous folks at Nourishing Storm.

I have changed. Life has changed me. I am moved with each new year, new season, new moon, new day, new experience. Sometimes it hurts.

I allow what has been painful to cut into my soil and make way. Make way for my roots to break new ground so I can find water from a deeper source. One that quenches a deeper thirst within my soul. One that longs to know who I am beyond myself, without my self.

My roots travel the spaces of where I have been, owning who I have been. Finding who I am now. Now that my higher ground has shifted. My roots take hold of it all. Expanding my base so I can grow into the fullest expression of my life. So I can surrender to the winds of inspiration and let my seeds fly. So I can let my leaves fall and still feel strong. Still feel beautiful. Rooted and true. Rooted in Truth.

“Surely a man needs a closed place wherein he may strike root and, like the seed, become.” Antoine de Saint-Exupery

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Collective Evolution: Finding Our Heart

A post from November of last year for my fabulous friends at PsychicsForetell.  

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Lately it seems that everyone I speak to is feeling a shift in energy.  Some feel it is a global awakening.  Some read it as apocalyptic. Some think it is just a byproduct of our current political climate.   Whatever it is, something is shifting.

The more I study the Vedic philosophies, the more I believe we are in the process of a collective energetic evolution.  I believe we are moving into a more heart centered place, leveling up from the solar plexus.  It’s crazy that to get to the heart we would find ourselves in such crazy times.  I believe these are our growing pains.  We need to move through it or stay small.

If you are familiar with the chakra system, you know the root is the first chakra, at the base of the spine, near our coccyx (tailbone).  It is the energetic center of our survival instincts.  It is the place of all of our basic needs to live physically.  It houses the drive to secure food and water, to find shelter and to keep ourselves from harm.  It is the only place that fear can serve us in a positive way, by alerting us of actual danger and stimulating a response in our bodies that enables us to protect ourselves.

Once we have that down and are feeling secure and grounded, we move to the next chakra, the sacral chakra.  It is located, as the name suggests, in our sacrum or pelvic area.  It is the house of our creativity, both artistic and sexual.  This gives us the drive to take ideas and manifest them and the drive to procreate.  (So both the drive to conceive  concepts and children.  Not a coincidence in language!)  It is the seat of our passion and gives us the motivation to create what we desire to have in our lives.

After the sacral chakra, we have the solar plexus.  It is the center of our idea of self.  It houses our individual identity and personal power.  It is the seat of our self-confidence and it is here we establish our boundaries and our own self-worth.  It is where our ego resides and where we usually need to go to address our egos when they get out of hand.   It is also where I believe we are in our collective evolution.

We know how to physically survive – we got the whole finding food and shelter thing down.  We know how to create  – look at all the technology, innovations and people in this world!  We have established ourselves as individuals as we all go to work on our careers and work on our own individuality and authenticity.   But I don’t believe we have completely balanced ourselves as a whole in this area – which is why I believe we are resisting the next level.  We have far to many that seek to take up more space than is their own and to strengthen the divides instead of seeking upward movement for all.

The next jump up into the heart chakra is a doozy.  It requires a very healthy and secure sense of self, but one that allows for the greatness of others.  Living in a society that has more of a competitive, dog eat dog mentality, makes it a bit hard to not feel threatened by another’s success.  And that’s what we need to get beyond if we want to level up.  If we want to get to the next stage of our evolution.

The heart chakra is the gateway to our subtle being.  It is the chakra that connects our physical existence to our spiritual one.  We’ve become collectively distrustful of spirit.  It has been connected to religion which has been  bastardized and corrupted like so many institutions so we discredit it.  Of course it would be hard to collectively make the leap to a more spiritual existence.  We’ve divided Spirit (aka life force, the divine, God, Buddah, Allah, the Schwartz – whatever you want to call it!) into teams and actually fight and die over this great source of everything that is and ever will be.  We acknowledge we are of this one energy, so in that we are the same,  yet we kill over our individual interpretation it.

I think enough people are now sensitive to our greater oneness which is what is allowing that next level shift to start pulling at our cores.  But it feels we have a long road ahead to make the leap.  We’ve been taught to equate sensitivity as weakness and have also created hypersensitivity in response.  We’ve become defensive and closed to those who challenge us, instead of opening to the growth waiting behind our defenses.  We don’t understand what real unconditional love even looks like collectively.

I’m not sure how we create a path to the next level together.  Especially in a place where we can’t seem to allow everyone equal footing on the level we are currently find ourselves.  Where systematically we seek to oppress instead of embrace in the names of our gods. I know we each have the power to make the leap and I suppose that is where all change needs to start, isn’t it?  In the hearts of each of us?

I am hopeful we can all make the shift to a place of unconditional love but I am not naive enough to think it will be easy or painless.  Getting over the ego and learning the lessons compassion brings rarely is easy or painless.  And I think we are seeing the effects of these lessons everyday in the news.  Maybe the root cause of all this chaos is our unwillingness to accept our parts in its creation and to do the work around correcting it.  We need to check our egos to make sure they leave space for everyone at the table.  Then recenter ourselves in the heart and do what we can to maintain the integrity of that space for all.  We make the next level together.  And I know I have work to do.

Do you feel the shifting energy?  Do you feel an unnameable restlessness that speaks of a better way of life for us all?   If you do, what do you believe is at its root?  And how are you working towards listening to its call?

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Healing Journeys: Trust ~A Work in Progress, Working the Process

A fall post for the wonderful wanderers over at Nourishing Storm.  Go see what’s new and good.

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I have always had trust issues. It wasn’t until very recently that I fully understood it was a lack of self-trust at the root of them all. I suppose most issues are self-issues at the root.

I’m indecisive. I can see things from multiple perspectives. I think that is a good thing and it is for keeping an open mind. But I need to delineate my own true perspective from all the others and make decisions from that place. I know this.

It is not easy for me. I have been wrong so many times before about so many things, so many people, so many feelings. But if I am honest, most of the times where I’ve been wrong it was in my lack of trust in my own process or my lack of boundaries protecting that process. Sometimes it is just easier to do what is expected of you instead of what is true of you. Until it isn’t.

My personal definition of trust is having faith in the outcome of following my Truth. I stumble and doubt and fear but I keep going when it feels right. My trust is my process. I apply this process by checking my direction, my actions, and my feelings against my truth. If it jives, I move on. If it doesn’t, I re-calibrate. My path isn’t determined by the destination I seek mostly because I do not have a fixed destination. Allowing the end to be open has been the biggest test of courage and trust in my life.

I exercise my trust by being authentic. I seek the ever-evolving integrity of my flawed being. I walk my path with my heart as my compass and Love as my true north. It isn’t always comfortable despite how romantic I just made it sound.  My heart is my compass and Love is my north.

Pretty words. But in reality some truths of this world are not gracious. Some would leave me broken if I didn’t find a way to accept them.  These ugly truths of the life offer their grace in their forgiveness.  As much as they cut, I’ve found they carve the heart more deeply to make space for the fresh faith we need to go on.

I can’t ever know what really lies ahead no matter how much faith I have. I’ve been knocked off my path more than a few times. And I’ve wandered off and chosen wrong just as many times too. I may not be walking a path that anyone else can understand. What I do know is that I will never regret the steps I take and decisions I make when they are rooted in honesty and unconditional love. Not ever.

So that is my process. I fuel up on grace and inspiration in whatever form they offer themselves to me in each moment. Then I keep going in the direction of my heart. I trust that is enough. I trust I am enough.

Like the flower gives a fragrance, give yourself a chance, just a chance, to trust yourself, love yourself, and be yourself. Now close your eyes, raise your right hand, place your left hand on your heart, and take a vow, repeating 3 times: I trust myself, I love myself, I am myself. —Yogi Bhajan

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Unlimited Potential

Another fall post I wrote for the folks over at PsychicsForetell.  Go check out the future 🙂

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It is interesting to me how collectively we are so mistrusting of the expansive possibilities in this world.  But tell us something to fear, well, that we find a bit easier to believe.  Sometimes fear paralyzes us.  Or, it does that to me anyways.  But I’m working on trusting the possibilities and seeing through the fear.  I’m tired of being programmed to accept limiting beliefs and being guarded when it comes to limitless potential.  Even if it means I’m crazy.

Every living thing is of the same energy.   Some say it is in the center of each of us.  Like the core in our Earth and the sun in our galaxy.  It is the energy that enlivens everything and has an infinite number of ways to express itself.  And here we are, each having a slice of this energy and free will to boot.  We have the amazing opportunity to experience living during this particular expression of life.  Maybe we have other chances at it, infinite expressions of ourselves. Maybe some in this particular form already.  Maybe we get glimpses of how else this life has played out in our imaginings, past lives in our daydreams, alternate realities in our night dreams.

I know.  It does sound crazy I guess.  But try to imagine infinity – no boundaries, no endings.  What can be impossible where there are no boundaries?

So if we can accept there might be an infinite source or if we believe we have everlasting souls or if we can understand that energy cannot be created or destroyed only transformed (which has been proven – yay science!), then mustn’t we also accept that nothing is too crazy in this limitless space, especially things that can be imagined by our limited minds?

There is more to this place than we can possibly fathom.  More than we may see in this lifetime.  But the stuff our souls are made of  is beyond the container of time and space.  And I believe the world needs us to start thinking beyond those limits.  Anyone agree?

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Breaking Patterns

One of last fall’s post for my friends over at PsychicsForetell

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Our thoughts have patterns.  Our thoughts can be made manifest when given our attention and energy.  Everything made by man started out as a idea.  A formless idea.  Our thoughts hold the potential to become something measurable through our actions, our words, and their effects can be seen in our health. Lately I’ve been working on breaking the patterns that don’t serve me well in thought, deed or health.

I have noticed I have a tendency to go a certain way mentally with certain triggers.  I’ve slowly been able to identify these triggers as I’ve upped my awareness game through meditation.   I’ve learned a lot about myself in silence.   I can be quick to anger and overly competitive. I perceive things as a personal challenge even when they aren’t meant to be a challenge (or personal!) at all.  It is how my mind works.  Anger is just my go to emotion.  Maybe it’s just that Aries thing.  I take things to a different level in my mind, a level way out of line from the actual situation.  I have sometimes feared for my sanity because I go that overboard in my mind.  And my anger usual settles into some form of anxiety when left unchecked.

When my mind begins to play out scenarios that get me ready for an imaginary duel or an act of vengeance, I have started to break the pattern using mantra.  One of my favorite mantras is Sa-Ta-Na-Ma from Kundalini practice.  Sa-Ta-Na-Ma is from Sat Nam or truth is my name.  I chose this one as Yogi Bhajan has taught that this mantra can help realign our thought patterns to be consistent with the truth that is the universal consciousness.  But I could really do just about anything to redirect my thoughts.  I just have been working on truth and integrity so this fit.  I recognize the trigger patterns and emotions arising and I begin my mantra, silently or out loud, until I am no longer present with the false emotion.  Sometimes it just takes a couple rounds.  Sometimes I need to be with it for a little longer.

I don’t want to waste my imagination and mental creativity on imagining ways to beat someone at something or getting ahead of something that may or may not be real.  I’ve lived long enough in this body on this earth to know that is a fantastic waste of a precious resource.  When I start feeling the anger and competitiveness creep into my internal dialogue, I pause and sit with it for a second.  Is it rational?  Usually it isn’t or at least not to the level that my Ram brain has taken it.  If there truly isn’t a need to feel anger, I’ll start my mantra.  If it is a protective anger, I look to use it to ignite an action but nothing more.  Anger and I have gotten too familiar in the past so it is important for me to know when the welcome is worn.

As I practice this, I am getting better with simply redirecting as soon as I recognize it.  But sometimes I’m stubborn (Aries!), and so there are times I still have to force the redirection.  It is what it is.  But I have noticed I am much happier than I was when I allowed myself free reign with my anger and the anxieties it brings with it.  Since most of the affronts were perceived and not really out there, the anger I’d let grow wouldn’t have a real outlet and would trickle into other areas of life.  I’d be a little sharper with the next person I encountered.  I’d unconsciously try to pick a fight elsewhere so I could let it out.  Or I’d keep it inside and actually feel sick.  It is a vicious cycle and a needless one.  So I’m breaking it and this is what has worked for me.  I’m curious, what has worked for you?  Please share below.

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Healing Journey: Flow the Ebbs

One of last summer’s posts for the fine folks at Nourishing Storm

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There is a rhythm to life. A divine order to all the movement in the universe. We share these rhythms with the universe and we each have our own. We find our heart’s song when we find our flow within these rhythms.

The way of our world doesn’t always go with this flow. This world wants to move forward on warp speed and has us thinking that is how our journey should look as well. But when we look to the natural rhythm we see we don’t move on a linear path. Nature and our souls flow on a spiral. Circling around while still on the path of evolution.

We experience these ebbs and flows much like our natural world. The waves and tides rolling like our breath. The waxing and waning of the moon, the rising and setting of the sun, the choreography of the stars across the night sky like the phases, cycles and seasons of our own lives.

Unlike our natural world, we try to control our ebbs and flows. We usually pay more attention to the ebbs. Where we feel like our progress is halted or reversed. That downward spin of the spiral, we resist. We resist the waning period of our lives. We resist the the dark times. We don’t swim in the low tides.

The cycles and spirals are the way of life. Always moving towards adapting and evolving with the new energies at play. The universe, the galaxy, the Earth all constantly contracting and expanding like our lungs, like our pulse, like all our vital signs of life. It is no coincidence that we share these rhythms and no coincidence that being in nature can call us back into rhythm. Yet still we resist the ebbs. We forget that even as they pull upon our hearts, we are still moving within a greater flow. That is the flow we must connect with. That is the flow that carries us through to a greater awareness and sense of purpose and order in our lives. It is subtle. It is almost imperceptible, especially in the midst of what feels like a spiritual recession. That there still could be a stream of abundance found in the waning periods and new moons of life seems impossible. And it probably is if we only look for a linear path to self actualization or if our progress is only measured against fixed, external mile markers that we had no hand in making.

But that is not how life works. And we know this. There must be an up for every down and a give for every take. When we resist our contraction, we limit our expansion. We can move through the downs with grace when we allow our soul to be unbound from the rigid limits of a linear path. When we remember we don’t move that way. When we dance along the infinite spiral, we see there is always a flow.

“Dreaming, dreaming, sleeping, awakening –
Rhythms of darkness and light.
Day and night, night and day, wondering . . .
Who am I? Who AM I?

Who is morphing through this
Ever-shifting flow?
Beloved, wake up!
Dance in your true body before time,
Shimmering energy without end.”
Radiance Sutras – Lorin Roche

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