Herein lies stories, each a legacy of transition, beauty, pain, and lessons for us to find more and more of who we are, to be in service to love, light, and truth. We are warriors finding our strength, wisdom, and guidance to live our lives in alignment with our highest purpose. We are each on this life journey, all interwoven in the tapestry of each other, connected in ways we cannot even fathom, bringing to light the highest version of our warrior self.

“I don’t want to do this.” “I want to go home.”

“I want my Mama.” These words are written on my first mandala* during the Spiral Path: Cycles of Change segment of the month-long SHIP. You can see that I had a lot of resistance initially going through this initiation process. These three sentences were coming up for me as my spirit/soul/psyche lead me to do the deeper work of excavating lifetime (and lifetimes) patterns I had developed to feel safe and to avoid feeling the pain and even delight of being a human.

If we truly want to know who we are, we must understand not only our journey but the journey of our ancestors. The stories of those who came before us give us perspective and meaning. Change is held in a cauldron of past, present, and future. Each timeline affects and is affected by the other in a co-creative process. Alchemy. Growth. Change. 

In 2017, a friend from Australia invited me to join her and another woman facilitator on a journey to the South Pacific Island of Tonga to connect with Humpback Whales. The Tongan waters are birthing and mating grounds for a specific population of humpback whales. Every year the females come to give birth, nurse, and raise their young until they are strong enough to make the trek of their migration. This is one of the few places humans can swim with the mother humpbacks and their babies.

Death and Rebirth......

To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven; time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted....

Many are sharing with us that we are at a new beginning astrologically. With this shift of Pluto into Aquarius, with many of the planets at 0 degrees, along with Mars which just moved into Cancer, a zero degree Aries new Moon, Saturn just moved into Pisces, and Jupiter just moved into Aries. It is a time of new beginnings of historic proportions catapulting us into a new era of consciousness for humanity.

Life is just plain hard sometimes. There are so many challenges to face that are confusing, sad, painful, and overwhelming. I feel like I am seeing it with new eyes and not just seeing it but experiencing it myself.

What calls you to the Mystery? What old story keeps you from connecting to your deeper knowing? Keeps you from trying something new because someone told you that you couldn’t, or you told yourself you couldn’t. As we meet the part of ourselves that yearns for a connection with the Mystery but doesn't feel worthy, we can transform it. We can return to right relationship with ourselves and nature.

What touches you? What calls your soul? May you listen with new awareness to what brings tears to your eyes, what cracks your heart open just a bit during this new 2023 year. 

As we enter this season of darkness and renewal (here in the Northern Hemisphere) let us each find time for ritual and ceremony to stoke our inner hearth, to feed our hearts something good, to nourish our body, mind, and soul during this time of incubation. In tending to our inner world, we can slow way down and remember who we are, connected and one with Spirit. This can bring balance in our lives and a renewal of life force.

In our world right now, it may be hard to find Hope with so much devastation, alienation, division, and upheaval. But during all this chaos, something is happening that is quite magical. We are beginning to remember our ancient history. More and more messengers are reminding us of our connection to nature, the sun, moon, stars, earth, water, fire, air, and spirit.

I love the ocean! It stirs something deep inside of me (and many of us, if not all of us), a remembrance of my origins. At several times in Earth’s evolution, there was one land mass. The first was called Vaalbara. It was surrounded by oceans, essentially salt-water amniotic fluid. It was like an embryo, growing and gestating, reaching for new birth. The salinity of the ocean is the same as the human amniotic fluid as well as the same as our tears and blood.

We hope you are all doing well as we enter the harvest season here in the Midwest. We can feel the changing of the seasons in every cell of our body, an ancient knowing that informs us we are preparing now for going inward.

More and more, we hear people talking about the integration of the masculine and feminine. It is like the hundredth monkey principle. When energy is in motion it can travel across miles in the collective field as a wave.

These are incredibly challenging times that were predicted long ago, times of great change and upheaval. A time when old structures would fall so new ones could be built that are more in alignment with being in right relationship with each other and nature.

My office in the Heartland Healing Arts Center recently moved from its location on Clocktower to 4211 Westgate Drive in Springfield, Illinois. During this move, several folks noticed my burnt orange and black wall hanging as it was trying to find its place in my new office.

Ok, folks, as you are reading this newsletter post, we would like you to put both feet planted on the floor, sit erect, straighten your spine, shoulders back, belly open, close your eyes, take a deep breath through your nose.

Do you feel as if things are chaotic? What was true yesterday, is not true today? That you are not even sure what truth is anymore? We all are learning to navigate change