Connecting With the Divine Masculine

Originally published on Medium Nov. 7, 2017

The divine feminine doesn’t make any sense without the divine masculine. The balance between the two isn’t exactly about men and women, or about gender of any sort, although it is at the same time.

Because biological females bring souls through our bodies into the world. Sacred? Yes. Esoteric? No. It may sound crazy, but that’s only because of how divorced we are from our own reality.

Let’s get one thing clear. Sex is about so much more than our bodies. It’s about the creative life force of the universe. Every. Time.

We get to honor and protect that space. With integrity. With consistency. With rigor. Sometimes with sacrifice. We don’t get to be small, or play small, or pretend we don’t know what’s been given to us and where our responsibilities lie.

Everything we need to know about everything is already in our bodies. That’s why yoga. That’s why movement. That’s why breath and feeling in and healing work. That’s why sexual healing and trauma therapy. That’s why nature.

The responsibility is monumental and the work is real. When we treat sex and intimacy like a game, we all pay. When we treat women like anything other than the sacred, the masculine distorts itself into a world of entitlement and a mentality of objectification and property.

Here we’ve lost the true connection to land, our bodies, and ourselves.

The divine masculine honors the space. Of transformation, of cycles, of child bearing and child rearing. Of intimacy, sex, birth, life, death, and grief.

We all have both masculine and feminine in our bodies, but in suppressing and disrespecting and harming and denying the feminine, the true masculine in us all has become confused and lost. We’re all off center.

Let’s make one more thing clear. The masculine is not the Patriarchy. The Patriarchy is a lie, long told and currently on full display for all to see, in all its gore and bluster. Understand what is and what is not.

This discussion is about power, but not in the way we normally think of it. Remembering our inherent power, power derived from being in flow, draws it back from these illusionary systems into our bodies and our awareness, where it belongs.

The Patriarchy would have us believe that the way things currently are is the way they always have been and ever will be. So we must be practical and work within the existing systems. Work at the edges. Save for retirement.

But actually, we must remember the most obvious truth, that there’s nothing impractical about the interconnectedness of all things, including ourselves. There’s nothing impractical about fighting for the survival of our species. There’s nothing impractical about eating and shitting and making love and making babies and knowing what that means.

Looking at the world today, the only practical, rational thing to do right now is to remember who the fuck we are and what we are all about.

Going to work every day and saving for “your child’s future” when we have sixty harvests left, and the oceans will be 70 percent more acidic in 35 years, is not exactly practical. Coolness, social climbing, retirement funds, and image may seem as important as ever right now, but we’re hanging on to outdated notions of normalcy as systems built on lies crumble around us.

Charlottesville. Vegas. Texas. Harvey. Irma. Puerto Rico. Northern California. Health care. Taxes. Sexual assault, repression and oppression. Everything is not fine and nothing is normal.

The infinite truth is staring us directly in the face, all day, every day.

So what do we do? As always, we start where we are.

Start a practice. Start a conversation. Start your book. Talk to your partner. Meditate, for a moment, on the creative life force of the universe and all that means. Breathe in. Breathe out. Own your spirituality. Own your voice. Take a step. Take a stand. Hold space for the masculine. Hold space for the feminine. Stop playing around the edges.

Every bit of power we take back matters.

How to Work With Moon Phases

As published on Medium November 3, 2017

You don’t have to believe in magic to believe in the moon. Friday, November 3 we have a full moon! Look up at the big, glowing orb in the sky. Here’s a beginner’s guide to working with phases of the moon.

Image source: https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/4537

Before we worry about all the moon phases, let’s get the basics down around the full moon and the new moon.

The ancients saw a giant seed metaphor in the moon: the new moon is the undeveloped seedling under the dark earth (we can’t see the new moon), and the full moon is the plant at its fullest expression. In between are the birth and the death/decomposition cycles.

Birth, growth, full expression, death and waning, decomposition, emptying out, returning to dark, nourishing the soil and beginning again. Round and round and round.

On the new moon, the moon is at its greatest potential, and this is when we set our intentions. The best way to do this is to write a list of intentions on the new moon, and keep it during the lunation cycle.

On the full moon, the moon is at its greatest expression, and is ready to empty. This is the best time to let go of things that do not serve. A great way to do this is to write a list of things you want to let go of on the full moon, and then burn it. The full moon is also a great day to clean, get rid of physical things you don’t need, and even reset intentions in relationships that may not serve.

To review:

1. Set intentions on the new moon.
2. Release things you want to let go of on the full moon.

See, not so scary! Setting intentions and letting go with the moon is also a great way to hold yourself accountable. The moon doesn’t lie, it’s always there, and it’s always on time.

How to Connect With the Divine Feminine

As published on Medium, Oct. 25, 2017

I thought I was writing a book about the relationship between soil health and climate change. It turned into a spiritual memoir. Now I realize that my work is primarily about connecting with the divine feminine.

Photo Credit: Katie Doner Photography

I had no idea my work would take me all the way here. I started out studying Urban Planning, made my way to climate change, found the soil, and it brought me to the feet of the divine metaphor: the fertile soil is female. Compost is transformation through the life/death/life cycle. The harvest, and the cycles of menstruation, move with the moon. Regeneration is about life, death, transformation, and rebirth.

For the last several years, I’ve been writing about how healing the soil could save humanity by combating climate change. But actually, it goes much, much deeper than that. We’ll only reverse climate change and save humanity by bringing natural cycles back into balance. The science is clear: the carbon cycle and the water cycle are way off balance and it’s killing us. We have sixty harvests left in our world’s soil.

And I believe that our efforts at policy and systems change to correct these problems will only stick if we actually do the inner work necessary to transform and reconnect with ourselves, each other, and the planet.

Yes, we broke the system when we invented industrial agriculture very recently. But we broke another, deeper system, all the way back around 500AD. Goddess worship, the Earth Mother, and agriculture went together for tens of thousands of years, honoring the cycles of fertility, childbirth, menstruation, the harvest, and the birth-life-death cycle.

Ancient cultures all over the world for hundreds of thousands of years have stared at the sky and moved with the cycles of nature to honor the passage of time, grow food, mark life rites of passage, bring children into the world, and honor the passage of death out of this world.

I’m embarking on a personal journey that involves the super woo all the way to the mundane. It all matters. I’m embracing my inner hippie witch, embracing the fact that I fail all the time at living a more sustainable life, embracing my learning process, and summoning the courage to share it. I’m good. I’m alive. I’m ready.

Where do we start? We start where we are.

Here are three primary steps forward in connecting with the divine Her, and a number of places to start within each:

1. Connect with nature :: Food. The outdoors. Cycles of nature: moon, seasons, day/night. Cycles of the body: breath, menstruation, life/death.
2. Connect with the self :: Therapy. Spiritual practice: yoga, meditation, rituals. Physical practice/exercise. Creativity and creative practice. Intention setting and letting go.
3. Connect with others :: Community. Public policy. Activism. Personal spending and behavior choices. Art.

I’ll be writing more about all these things, in an effort to walk the walk and help others to do the same. And to unveil some of the beauty that I’ve encountered along this way.

The answer is in balance.

I’ve found that now that I know her I can’t unsee her. She’s everywhere, all the time, finding her way back from the subconscious to the conscious. She speaks through symbolism, metaphor, dreams, images, colors, music, shapes. She’s always in the pulsations of the body and the drumbeat of the heart. She’s the gentle teacher in our deepest grief. She’s walking with us, drawing us on our paths, inspiring our creative work, and she’s always, ever, guiding us home.

The Cry of All Women

The sign I created for the Women's March in January had two sides. One side says, "love," and appears in all the photos of me from the march. The other side was a little too intense for everyone at the time. It said, "hear the cry of all women." Woah. I know. But today, it's feeling a little more appropriate, a little less ahead of its time.

The line came from a passage in my book:

"I was talking to a friend of mine who sat in a similar spiritual ceremony to one I had, and she asked if I had heard any screaming. I hadn’t thought so, and she was like, 'Oh. I heard this one woman scream. It was the cry of all women.' I’ve never physically given birth, but I have some innate sense of what exactly that meant. In fact, those words have been burned into my psyche henceforth, and the notion continues to reverberate through my spirit.

The cry of all women."

- Grounded, p. 81

There's something about this line that has moved every woman who picked up my book. The men, interestingly, not so much. I knew it was about childbirth, menstruation, miscarriage, sexual harassment, sexual assault, sexual identity, and oppression. What I didn't fully understand is that the pain and rage boiling in the collective subconscious is thousands of years old.

And is potentially the most potent force for good that exists on the planet if we choose to heal it. 

That phrase has taken on new meaning after new meaning, and today it's unfolding our history of violence. Of violence, not just toward women, but toward the Other. Toward people of color, people with disabilities, people of non-conforming gender and sexual preferences, low-income people, and on it goes. Physical, psychological, and emotional violence. And it ties directly into our collective violence against nature -- the fundamental place at which we cut ourselves off from that which we are a part. In brutal essence, this is about a history of violence against ourselves, as a part of nature.

 

The soil itself is a giant fertility metaphor. 

It brings us back to our ancient relationship with the earth, the sacred, and the feminine.

And the moon, sweetly, is a giant seed metaphor. One that illuminates the embedded cycles in all things, including life and death, the feminine and the masculine, the conscious and the subconscious.

"For most of us, our roots are unconscious influences on our behavior, linked to elements from our past. To bring muladhara to consciousness is to bring awareness to our roots, to uncover the past, to examine it, to delve into it. Everything that grows above branches out into infinity, growing more complex. Going down to our roots brings us into a singular simplicity, and anchors us into the commonality of the collective unconscious. It brings us home to earth.”

– Anodea Judith, Eastern Body Western Mind

I'm learning that everything matters.

Every thought we have, every action we take. It affects the whole, and that is an awesome responsibility. The sooner we can summon the courage to face into our darkness, and embrace the impermanence of everything except love, the sooner we can bring the world back into balance. 

A Place to Start: Heart Healing Meditation

Grief invites us to drop into our hearts. 

It invites us to feel what's there. 

It's exactly in the moment that we want to turn away the most, that we want to recoil from the pain, to shun it, exile it, and cut it off, that it's asking us to feel in and listen to its message.

As a culture, we have collectively denied, shunned, cut-off, exiled, and numbed our pain. 

We're at a point now where we can either let it snap back at us and hit us when we're not looking, or we can consciously choose to face into it, let it rise, and heal it with care. Each of us can do our own work through therapy, meditation, yoga, or any number of healing modalities that are designed to bring light to the darkness and reintegrate the denied parts of ourselves.

This matters. And we are big enough to do this.

Gently, gently. Inviting healing in that can radiate outward into society. If you're looking for something constructive to do to make the world a better place, this is a good place to start.

It will also help you feel much, much better.

(music by bensound.com)

Let current events not be our new normal. Let this be our wake-up call and our invitation. To step up. To step in.

Gently and mindfully, this is how we rise.

Where to Start When it Hurts

It's not always easy. Devastating hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, neo-Nazis, threats of nuclear war. The outer reflecting the inner. Our fraught history, and all the decisions we've ever made, collectively bubbling up. 

Trauma, grief, love, and healing are up right now. 

 

Yesterday I came across one of the best and most clarifying podcasts I've ever heard. (It's worth the entire 2 hours. Please be aware that it starts with a trigger alert. To hear the whole thing click here). It's about spiritual trauma - what happens when harm is done at the most fundamental place in our soul, the place that is supposed to be our way home to ourselves. But it goes deeper - it's about everything in a way - about healing and hurt and holding space and authenticity and alignment. 

What it brought up for me is the fact that this kind of break happens across the spiritual spectrum, from organized religion all the way over to new age gurus and cults. Wherever the authentically spiritual becomes co-opted by people to control others, harm is done in the most fundamental part of our human psyche. And we pass that along, generation to generation. The expert on the show argues that, in fact, all trauma is spiritual trauma, because it manifests in the body and is recognized and stored at the most primal physiological level.

And it can only be healed at that level, starting with the breath, and working with the body. 

 

It points directly at the mind-body-spirit connection and the power of having a spiritual practice that affirms our personal power, boundaries, and innate wholeness, independent from anything external. 

It also brings up the shadow. Because we can only heal by facing our own darkness. We can only end cycles of violence and oppression and denial by bringing the subconscious into the conscious. By bringing light to the dark. Individually and collectively.

We change the patterns of damage in front of us by ending the patterns of damage within us.

There are two paths here: 1) avoid and deny the pain, and repeat it, or 2) face the pain, heal and resolve it. Only from path 2 can we truly move forward. And, real talk: here on earth, we don't have a lot of time left to keep denying and repeating our pain. It will just get louder and crazier until we face it, heal it, assimilate it, and move forward in peace. As a dear friend said the other day, "grief wants her voice." Grief is a profound teacher. She touches us all and she won't be denied in the long run. Our hearts are built to take in all the pain, feel it, alchemize it and expand with love. We are big enough to meet our pain with compassion.

In the coming year, I'll be sharing more about my personal spiritual journey and sharing the tools and resources that I've learned along the way.

Today, I'm sharing three things. The first two are the books handed to me when I first walked into therapy in 2010. For those who believe therapy is for the weak, I can tell you, it became my very first practice in telling the truth to myself. My practice before I had a practice. I realize it's a luxury - I have happened to have wonderful health insurance and have been blessed to be able to sustain it all this time. I wish the same for everyone. These books changed my life forever for the better. They are:

 

1) Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness by Sharon Salzberg

2) Waking the Tiger by Stephen Levine

And finally, this forgiveness ceremony is one of the most powerful I've ever encountered. Think of it less as forgiveness and more as clearing a space, releasing ties, and freeing yourself and others of negative baggage. It is unabashedly spiritual and incredibly practical. You can find it here: 

Ho'oponopono: A Powerful Way To Forgive

Breathe. Go in. Breathe.

"The cure for pain is in the pain." - Rumi

If this has been helpful and illuminating for you, please pass it along.

If my work supports you, please feel free to support it here:

TIP JAR

5 Minute Meditation

I Did Three Good Things Today

I bought my dream reusable mug from Patagonia (no more single use coffee cups!) and red bean chili that I think is sourced from regenerative sources. I watched An Inconvenient Sequel. And I got whole food groceries at the Santa Monica Co-Op.

I did these things in the wake of the horrific news in Charlottesville (the town where I went to college), and paused hard before posting about what feels like the most bougey white people shit ever: Patagonia, Al Gore, and the Santa Monica Co-Op.

In the face of abject racial violence, that feels pretty pathetic.

But it's not. It's not because, 1) I took my shitty feelings and turned them into ANY positive action for the world and the people in it (I'm doing what I can today), 2) all of this is connected.

I watched Chasing Coral two nights ago, Chasing Ice last night, and An Inconvenient Sequel today, all back-to-back-to-back.

One thing is clear: violence against nature is violence against ourselves is violence against each other.

The same fear that voted Trump into office is the fear that fuels Neo-Nazis is the fear that threatens the Paris Accord is the same fear that threatens care of our health. The biggest drought in recorded history in Syria is connected to the war, which is connected to climate change, which is connected to what WE in the "developed" world choose to eat each day.

And I know. Many days I have not even come close to doing all the bougey white people save-the-earth things. Even though people expect that of me. Many, many days. I've used many, many single-use coffee cups because I so wanted that damn coffee because I was exhausted and just needed fuel to keep going.

So, so many of us are lost and do not know the answers. Even people who want to do much better feel stuck in this web of systems that feels impossible to break free from and do better. 

Nobody actually knows, and nobody is going to give us a downloadable guidebook on how to get this right.

There's a moment in the movie where Al Gore says he's working to affect policy change and policymakers because "that's what he knows how to do." The photographer in Chasing Ice hiked and photographed on glaciers through knee surgeries, so he can answer his children when they ask: what did he do when he knew? He did everything he knew how to do.

I'm sitting down and writing this tonight because it's one thing I know how to do. And I'm recommitting to get a whole hell of a lot louder every day, for the rest of my life. I'm not stopping. I'm not backing down. I'm leaning in harder and harder, into the face of the most seemingly intractable problems the world has ever known.

25 years until the oceans are so hot the coral reefs will be completely dead. Humanity will not be ok if the coral reefs are dead, FYI. I'll be 62. It'll be on my watch. If I have a child in the next 5 years, that child will be in their early 20's. Early. 20's.

What the F do we do? I believe we engage the new(ish) economy with both hands and build and build and build. Build everything we can within our reach and beyond it. I believe any answers that come from the top will be demanded or created to keep up with what we build. This includes our democracy. This includes our agricultural system.

We get to build into the parts that are failing us.

And each of us gets to figure out what that means to us and what it is that is everything we know how to do.

We start by reigniting our spirits so we can imagine what's possible.

Here's one place to start: Rebecca Solnit's Hope in the Dark. She writes: 

"Mushroomed: after a rain mushrooms appear on the surface of the earth as if from nowhere. Many do so from a sometimes vast underground fungus that remains invisible and largely unknown. What we call mushrooms mycologists call the fruiting body of the larger, less visible fungus. Uprisings and revolutions are often considered to be spontaneous, but less visible long-term organizing and groundwork -- or underground work -- often laid the foundation. Changes in ideas and values also result from work done by writers, scholars, public intellectuals, social activists, and participants in social media. It seems insignificant or peripheral until very different outcomes emerge from transformed assumptions about who and what matters, who should be heard and believed, who has rights.

Ideas at first considered outrageous or ridiculous or extreme gradually become what people think they have always believed. How the transformation happened is rarely remembered, in part because it's compromising: it recalls the mainstream when the mainstream was, say rabidly homophobic or racist in a way it no longer is; it recalls that power comes from the shadows and the margins, that our hope is in the dark around the edges, not the limelight of center stage. Our hope and often our power."

Now that I think of it, I've done more than 3 good things today. I also visited a friend I haven't seen in a long time, I reached out to a friend who was struggling yesterday, I gave 10 bucks to a young homeless woman, and I wrote this.

 

Small acts. All imperfect. Building into bigger acts. Bit  by bit, decision by decision, I'm working to to transmute the darkness to light.

Sometimes I am Terrified

In fact, often I am terrified. I know my writing can be big and feisty. Even in broken down or vulnerable moments, I still come around to a strong and centered place. But it occurred to me that it might be useful to admit just how effing terrified I am sometimes. About many things. About the state of the world. Politics. Climate change, clearly. About love, family, facing my own fears. About relationships and honesty. Trust. Communication. It's all terrifying. I think pretty much for everybody, all the time, if we're honest. Connecting to other humans and risking being hurt. Putting our work out there and risking utter rejection. Doing our work at all and admitting, in so doing, that we might want something greater than what we have, to be someone greater than we are. To admit, even in a whisper, that perhaps we may actually aspire to greatness. Because dear god what if we fail. What if our stuff isn't actually that good and we're actually just flawed humans who should have played it safe and stayed in bed?

And hilariously, I don't have answers to any of this stuff. Other than keep doing the work and keep loving. Which is about all anyone can do. And sometimes we'll fall down and faceplant. Other times, much less gloriously, we'll lose track and just play small for a while. Or forever. We'll hide in a relationship or hide in a job or hide in any situation that keeps our full light obscured from view. 

A funny thing I've just discovered is that people can still see us. We just look like a person that's hiding. Ha! It's so cruel. What kind of sick joke is that? Often the people who come knocking on our door to tell us how great we are, are the ones we're most afraid of. Because we are actually afraid of being seen and heard and understood, even though we desperately want to be seen and heard and understood. Even those of us who are doing quite well are often goddamn motherfucking terrified to make it to the next level.

 

Because then we would have to keep owning it.

And keep going. 

I can tell you one thing. My own work terrifies the shit out of me. I love it. I'm committed. I'm doing it. It makes me happy and feeds my fire and my life. It's joyous and fulfilling. And utterly life-affirming. And it truly terrifies the shit out of me every day. It's all those things.

I don't know. This post wasn't meant to be motivational. Fear costs us so much. It can cost us everything. And at the same time we are absolutely human and this is the process. The ego is a tricky, slippery motherfucker, and I'm pretty sure we are pretty much always grappling with our fears. One simple rule of thumb, I suppose, is that if we give in to our sheer terror of ourselves and our own light, we are guaranteed to create the exact thing we were terrified of in the first place. So we might as well at least try to lean directly into the fear and go against it. At least that way we have a shot. Easier said than done, but that's the point.

Every Glass of Wine Tells a Story

Last November, I took my Level 1 Introductory Course with the Court of Master Sommeliers. As is the case with almost everything I do, I did it because I felt intrigued and drawn. Something about wine was calling my name, other than its general deliciousness. Writing about wine may seem like a bit of a departure from what I've been up to, but actually I had a truly great aha moment that brought several threads together.

The single most important thing I learned about wine is this:

 

If you ask it, the wine will reveal itself to you.

It's made to reveal itself to you. But you must ask and you must know how to listen. That's what winemaking and wine tasting are all about. Wine is, in fact, about storytelling and our relationship to the earth.

The wine tells its story visually (brightness, concentration, color, rim variation, and tears), through smell (intensity, age, fruit, organic wood, and earth), through flavor (fruit, organic earth, and wood), through structure (sweetness, bitter, tannin, acid, alcohol, body, texture, balance, length/finish, and complexity). Ultimately it reveals which part of the world it's from, its grape variety, country and region of origin, quality, and vintage. The wine is in direct relationship with its makers and the place from which it came, and is designed to reveal its story to you. What beauty.

 

It's like living, evolving, organic poetry.

"The Earth has her own erogenous zones -- a few places of harmonic convergence, where every facet of the vineyard and every nuance of the grape fit together like chromosomes on a DNA helix. In these rare places, grapes and ground are transformed into thrilling wine.

 

Vit, the Latin root of the word viticulture, is also the source of vita - life itself.

During the last three decades of sweeping technological advancement, wine-making -- not viticulture, the science of grape-growing -- has often claimed most of our attention. But if machines have sometimes seemed more sexy than dirt, it is only because in the history of wine, dirt has been a constant while machines are fascinatingly new. No thinking winemaker anywhere, however, would suggest that a vineyard plays any less important a role in wine than a mother does in the birth of her child."

- The Wine Bible by Karen MacNeil

The history of wine is one of human resilience, celebration of life, and adventure. Wherever travelers landed and could make wine, they planted vines and made wine. And wherever vineyards were destroyed by war and pestilence, people replanted and started anew. Winemaking dates back to the ancient world, and has been created from at least the Neolithic Era through today. 

 

"Fermentation and civilization are inseparable."

- John Ciardi, American Poet

There's a process and a great, slow reveal here. It's a dance and an art and a celebration. A ceremony and a business. A partnership and a conversation. It's about time and healing and sunshine and all the small things. Every sip unveils the journey. And in its greatness we find distinct character, integration, expressiveness, complexity, and connectedness.

Resistance.

"Resistance is first of all a matter of principle and a way to live, to make yourself one small republic of unconquered spirit."

Rebecca Solnit, Hope in the Dark

2017. Three months and 15 days in. Bombs are dropping. The environment is under attack. Women's health is under attack. Many of us feel bludgeoned, but continue to love and live. We continue to create, bit by bit, piece by piece. Connection by connection, hand over hand.

For me, 2017 has been profoundly healing, which of course is not a new theme in my life. The book is out and about, calling in its "soulmate agent and publishing team" (in the words of author Linda Siversten). In the meantime, I've secured several foundational pieces of my life that hadn't been secure in years. Which is allowing me to open in new ways; inviting in the next chapter.

I'm finding that the sheer heaviness of world news is calling for both a focus and a lightness in me, which embodies the feminine and what it means to be a grown-ass woman. I look at the current administration and see a giant orgy of fear-based, ignorant, patriarchal, aggressive authoritarianism. I often have to blink my eyes to check in with myself as to whether or not it's real. Every new attack calls for a return to center, balance, and clarity.

 

Grace under fire. Light in the darkness. 

For me, the only way forward is to celebrate life and continue to exercise gratitude. Gratitude for the lessons, the challenges, the gifts. It's a little maddening to want to do so much more and not know how in the immediate term. But I'm getting there. 

In a moment of joy, I found this: Beer saves the planet. At least a little bit.

Long roots. Carbon sequestration. Beer.

There's a place where remaining fully alive and present aligns with the long game. My current practice is finding these places where the threads meet. Where the simplicity of breaking bread and having a drink meets with the complexity of protecting the planet. The places where we can smile knowingly in the face of belligerence. 

The Number One Thing We Need to Start Doing to Stop Fucking Up the World

Say no. That's the message arising from my depths.

I've learned something in the last few months: I can have compassion, feel empathy, see the divine light within someone, and still tell them no. I can even tell them fuck no.

No that is not acceptable in my space.

No I will not tolerate being treated that way.

No I do not accept your shit.

Making excuses for other people's shit is not our responsibility, and making excuses for other people's shit is not empathy. It's not being a "bigger person." It's being an enabler. It's bleeding of boundaries. Us highly empathetic hippie lovers of all things big and small are the worst offenders. We see the other person's pain. Or even when we don't, our friends rally around us to remind us of how much pain they must be in to be acting that way. They don't know better. They are insecure. They are hurt.

Fair enough. We can deeply, authentically empathize, and at the same time say no. Because saying no cleans up our own space. Which is our own responsibility. Saying no upholds our value and honors our healthy boundaries. 

If you come into my space and act a fool, I will not tear you down. I will not retaliate and lie or undermine you otherwise. I will not even wish you ill, in fact I will (genuinely) wish for your highest good. I will forgive you. I will take responsibility for what I called in and I will forgive myself. I will do a whole damn Hawaiian forgiveness ceremony to free us both.

 

But I will tell the truth and I will tell you no.

Still.

More than once if necessary.

Because I don't accept bullshit. Period. I can't control whether or not it lands with you or anybody else. I can't control your past, present, or future behavior. I can't control whether or not some other person rewards your shit behavior. But I can take a stand in my own space and I can tell you no. Because my space is sacred.

And if the truth reflects poorly on someone, that's on them. This is not about people getting theirs, it's about us defining our own space. Stating to the universe and for all to hear what is and is not acceptable in our space. I say no because I am not a victim and I am not here to absorb anyone's bullshit.

 

"You show the world how to treat you — and the world will respond accordingly." 

- Danielle LaPorte

Why does this matter in a world where democratic institutions are under threat, the Arctic is melting, and nobody knows what the hell is going to happen?

Because we have to say no.

The people at Standing Rock said no.

Saying no is often unpopular. It can be difficult. Calling bullshit out will often result in some kind of retaliation. People really do not like to have their shit exposed. It could come in the form of direct attack, or it could come in the more insidious form of lying to save face and pretending not to know what's going on. Or worse, pretending not to understand what the big deal is. The normalization of bullshit creates a culture of bullshit and it is not ok. Not at home, not at work, not in society. You can put a dress on it, and it will still be bullshit.

Accountability and responsibility are adult territory.

 

We are responsible for our own bullshit and our own emotions. We don't get to make excuses for expediency, or give up because we believe the system is rigged, or just try not to make waves. We don't get to hide our voices because we're afraid of admitting that we care. We don't get to pretend we don't know what's going on because we are afraid of what might happen if we call it like it is. And we don't get to shy away because exercising our healthy boundaries may inspire discomfort in someone else.

The truth exists, and it matters more than anything that we be our word and keep our intention to the light as best as we possibly can. And when we mess up we get to own it, apologize, take responsibility, and course correct. Each individual can only clean up our own space, and it's our own responsibility to do so. 

 

I hereby clean up mine.

If you encounter someone who wants to smile while they kick you, tell them no. Hold them at their highest. Because they're better than that. Because you're worthy of that.

There is no winning outside of our own integrity.

As above, so below. Send a clean message to the universe. Because it's listening and watching. 

 

 

 

36 Things that are Beautiful About Being a Grown-Ass Woman

1. I know that my light is my own. It's non-transferrable. It can't be taken or given away.

2. Incredible sex.

3. Power. Actual power. That comes from vulnerability. Truth. Spirit. Love.

4. I know the difference between vulnerability and weakness.

5. I am strong enough to trust. Myself and others.

6. I have confidence in my opinions. Because I know they're well-informed.

 

At my age I'm entitled to have strong beliefs. I'd be a ninny if I didn't.

-- Teresa Heinz Kerry

7. Permission to do whatever the fuck I want. Granted by me.

8. Style.

9. Grace.

10. Comfort in my skin.

11. Zero fucks given about anything that I choose to not give fucks about.

12. Humility.

13. A deep relationship with joy.

14. I'm done apologizing.

15. My path is my own.

16. I know how to feel, listen to, and trust my intuition. I trust my inner voice.

17. I know how to fall and get back up. I'm no longer afraid to fall because I know how to navigate the unexpected.

18. I know I'm supported.

19. I've put my money where my mouth is.

20. I know I'm on my path. I know what the fuck my path is and I've done the hard work to find it.

21. I know that life is short and life is also long.

22. I play a solid long game because I've learned the art of patience.

23. I'm not competing with anyone over anything, ever. Including myself.

24. I've learned how to forgive (myself and others) and not take any shit at the same time.

25. I know how to ask for support.

26. I know I'm worthy of support.

27. I know I'm worthy of all the love in my life and infinitely more.

28. I know that love is everything. It's the only thing.

29. I know there's a true north and a path for all people.

30. I know where I came from and where I'm headed.

31. I believe profoundly in the interconnectedness of all things.

32. I speak my truth. I support my own heart. I have my own back.

33. I honor my healthy boundaries. I know my value.

34. I know who the fuck I am.

35. I know what love is.

36. I am my own.

Something just cracked open in me

Several days this month I've wept on my way to work and had to pull myself together. About climate change. About hatred. About oppression of peaceful peoples. About threats to individuals and institutions of integrity. About fissures in families. About complete lack of understanding between people. 

Heartache. Fear. 

Today it got me pretty good. Small problems. Big problems. So many problems. But I know better. I know it doesn't serve to feel helpless. I know how to find my way back to center. To put my hands back on the wheel and get back to driving. I sat down and wrote this:

Tonight I'm feeding my soul.

Tonight I'm grateful.

And I started listing things I'm grateful for.

The simplicity of hard work. My friends. God bless my friends. My family. The fucking best. The brave souls holding their ground at Standing Rock. The millions of people standing up and pushing back to the hatred that has reared its ugly head. My home, my landlord, my neighbors. By bedraggled car that soldiers on in spite of what I put it through. Luna cat. My physical safety. My financial safety. Food. Wine. Wine class. Dukes. The things that tie people together. Breath. California. Love and connection. Education, and in particular my education. Compassion. Yoga. Health. Tears. My body. Healing work and healers. Prayer. Writing and art. Music. My supporters. Focus and discipline.

And I started weeping. Again. 

Something cracked open in me. I could suddenly feel the pain and fear of the people whose positions I don't understand right now.

And then I wrote this:

It's all connection in the end. Everything is about connection, as disconnected as we can feel.

I guess the truth is I feel heartbreakingly disconnected from other humans. But I just remembered that they're all in pain...in our pain we destroy ourselves. That's the only thing that explains the destruction of our planet.

It's my job to be a lighthouse. That's what I'm here to do. That's my role. To stand here and remind everyone who is willing to listen that we are all deeply, profoundly interconnected. The fear that keeps us from our light is an illusion. It feels painful. It's not even real. It's here to teach our souls.

I gave myself the reminder to sink in. And I wrote my intentions for this new moon.

Be the lighthouse.

Lean into the fear, feel it, and learn from it.

Grow.

Love more fiercely than ever.

It's my job to be the lighthouse. That's my only job. The fight in me makes me strong enough to stand here. To speak out. To uphold integrity, be my word, and not take any shit. To hold my ground, and remember who I am so I can remind us all who we actually are.

 

Stand here and be the light.

heart waves

After a year and a half of traveling, moving, crowdfunding, deep personal-working, writing, and finishing my book, I'm blogging again. As in, writing out, instead of in. It has taken me 2 solid months from conception to execution to even post something because I've been agonizing about how to start. So I decided to start the exact same way I've started everything important in my life.

 

I said fuck it. Let's do this. Come what may.

I have some shit to say, and it involves soil and curse words and bartending.  And I'm going to start with author Elizabeth Gilbert and her medicine man. He passed away earlier this year and she posted this:

"Rest in Peace, Ketut Liyer:

19?? - 2016

Dear Ones -

I received news last week that my magnificent old Balinese medicine man, Ketut Liyer, has passed away.

I wanted to take my time before I spoke about him in public, so I could just FEEL him in my heart for a while. 

He was a healer, a mystic, a time-traveler, a world-bender, a mind-shaper, a compassion-expert, a flirt, a comedian, a bozo, a hustler, a magician, a trickster, and a fully ascended spiritual master. On the morning after he died, an earthquake rocked across Bali, as the earth said farewell to one of its greatest masterpieces. He will not be coming back to this world.  His work is done. 

As for his work on me, it was perfection. When I met him in 2002, I was a fucking wreck of a woman — shamed, skinny, terrified, lost, and trapped inside a mind that felt like a caged and starving wolf. He pretended to read my palm, but that wasn't even the point (it never was with Ketut; many of you had palm readings from Ketut over the years, and you know he was kind of full of bullshit, right? Guy was so blind, he couldn't even SEE your hand, much less read its detailed lines.) No, he looked into my spirit, and he was like, "I'm taking this one." 

He told me that I was destined to come back to Bali someday, to live with him for a few months, and to that he would teach me healing arts, and I would teach him English. (Again: total bullshit. I am just as incapable of learning Balinese healing arts as Ketut was of learning English, but he said what he needed to say, to get me back there, where I needed to be, to meet my destiny.)

Then I spent the next two years transforming my life because of ONE SENTENCE that an old turtle of a man said to me on his porch one night. He told me to come back; I came back. And he had no idea who I was (in fact, he NEVER had any idea who I was, no matter how many times I cam back) but it doesn't matter. The shit worked. Everything changed because he spoke, and I responded.

Listen to me now.

I'm passing this along not only from me, but from Ketut, who is burning inside me right now, like the fierce lantern he always was.

When you are searching for a path in your life, and you see no options, and you just want to die, and nothing make sense, and you want to stab everyone at the office party, and somebody throws a crazy fucking idea in your face that makes even LESS sense than the abundant lack of sense your life already makes? DO IT. You have to do it. 

You will know the call of your destiny, because it will sound insane. 

The call will not make sense. The call will not fit into what your culture and your history suggest that you are supposed to do. The call will cost you money and time. And relationships. The call will not please your tribe.  The call will ask you to do something you have no training in, no talent for, no safety net about. The call will want to make you wet your pants in fear. The call will put all order into danger and disarray. The call will make you say, "Why the hell did I leave my marriage, and quit my job, and sell all my belongings, and get on a plane, and move to Indonesia, just because a possibly mentally unstable medicine man who doesn't even know my name told me to do that two years ago, while he was fake-reading my palm?" The call will demand stupid amounts of courage — and by that, I mean to say that the call will require the kind of courage that literally makes you look and feel stupid. 

Do it. 

That's your LIFE calling. 

We are not messing around here anymore. We do not have time for anything less. What do you seriously think we came here to do, you guys? Be good? Be nice? Be responsible? Not make waves? Obey the patterns and the structures? Concentrate on getting exactly the right fixed-rate mortgage? Make good contacts? Keep things filed away neatly, and focus on flow-charts? Find a cleaner for your bathroom tub that scours without scratching? Collect Delta Sky Miles?

 

Or did you come here to walk across the miles of sky that constitute the dangerous, weird, ridiculous, messy, ecstatic, magnificent, mystical journey that is the once-in-an-eternity experiment of the universe that is called YOUR LIFE? 

 

Ketut showed me how to start sky-walking, and I have never looked back. 

You live that way, and I promise you this — when you die, the earth will shake, too. 

I bow to the master. 

ONWARD,

LG"

In the words of Joseph Campbell,

 

"The big question is whether you are going to be able to say a hearty yes to your adventure."

I've said yes to my adventure. In a big way. And it involves working on my feet and looking people in the eye. And exposing my heart and my thoughts in writing in a way that leaves me naked over and over. And I wouldn't have it any other way. 

The story of life in the soil is one of those ridiculous rabbit holes that, if you follow it down, will leave you on your knees, clutching your heart and laughing at the sky.

You're invited to join me here, if you'd like ride along.

my healing journey

wow what a journey it has been so far. my book started pouring through me on May 18 of last year, on the plane ride to Bali. it shot through me like a lightning bolt, and sent me on a path to healing myself, holding space for the healing of others and the world. almost exactly a year later, it is almost complete, and I'm raising funds for the very last leg that will help me bring my work to the world.

to me, this is not a cause, or a nice thing to donate to. it's the story of everything. it's the story of our inherent interconnectedness. the interconnectedness of all life an all things that is the path to healing. it's the healing power of the mother. the unifying power of the sacred feminine. this is our way home.

we've brought the planet to a place where our oceans will be 70% more corrosive in 35 years, and the shells of baby snails and oysters are dissolving because of ocean acidification caused by imbalance in the carbon cycle. as dire and fucked up as ocean acidification, desertification, biodiversity loss, water shortages, nutrition depletion, and climate change are, everything points to a way to heal.

we heal by turning inward and looking below. by understanding and healing the place in our systems that can't be seen with the naked eye. we heal by coming to understand the symbiosis of microscopic life within us, and the threads that hold everything together and in balance.

my purpose and my calling is to tell this story in every way I can, and to call on you to pick it up and carry it forward in whatever way you can, and to call on others to do the same. please join me in telling this story in any and every way you can.

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/grounded-healing-our-connection-to-the-soil

30 days of abundance // day 30: where I've been and where I'm going

day 30. wow what a run it's been of late. I definitely felt like I was trudging through at a snail's pace at times over the last few months, but in retrospect I've actually been rocking along.

reading over my writing, it's remarkable and a little bit hilarious to me how much I need to take my own advice, and be constantly reminded of the same things. I started the run with this sentence: abundance in all things, I believe, flows from nourishing the body and the soul.

2015, I'm ready for you.

 

I just moved for the fourth time in 15 months. my stuff is finally out of storage. I have a south facing room and can smell the ocean every day. I have a pool that I'll jump into after yoga. every day.

over the holidays I ran a small crowdfunding campaign for my book and blew past my goal, so I'm starting the year ready to roll. the last 6 months of work are in place. all I have to do is teach, write, and practice. to continue to cultivate and maintain abundance.

I've been working my way up the chakras throughout this writing project...and we've arrived at the seventh, the crown chakra. it's about higher consciousness.

I've spent some solid time in the last year exploring what this might mean in my life. 2014 was a year of:

gratitude. humility. perseverance. friendship. love.

I sat with the source here and there. it said I'm ok. it said keep learning. it said love myself and I am loved.

and keep doing my work. keep going. keep going. keep going.

 

to a 2015 of deep shining abundance, of grace and passion and light. thank you for coming along on this journey with me.

30 days of abundance // day 29: the urgent vs. the important

boy, am I in the middle of this one: 

not letting the urgent be the enemy of the truly important.

 

differentiating between the urgent and the important is absolutely critical to living well and being well (google urgent vs. important and you'll find all sorts of resources on the matter). but it's both extremely difficult to do, as well as extremely difficult to stand by.

 

important: climate change.

urgent: your to do list.

I learned while writing my dissertation you can fill your day with "urgent" things, like making money and grocery shopping, and never actually get your big work done. now, clearly making money and feeding oneself are important things to do. but if they do not directly contribute to your big work, your calling, they can be merely means toward survival and getting by.

important: writing your book.

urgent: paying bills.

 

but identifying what's truly important and what's merely urgent is not easy. urgent stuff seems important enough. which is why so few people ever write their novel from start to finish or start their nonprofit. we can fill up our entire lives with the urgent and never actually get to the important.

once you know what your truly important, central work is, keep that front and center, and work on it, every day.

 

that does not mean ignoring the urgent. by all means, make a living and take care of things. but make sure the important stays in the center of the rotation, and doesn't get drowned out by the daily cries for the urgent. 

30 days of abundance // day 28: the law of increments

my doctoral advisor gave me some of the best advice I've ever received about how to be productive. in facing what seems like a monumental task - like writing a dissertation - where it's impossible to know where or how to start, much less how to design a path forward, there's one way to get going: do something.

his advice was: do an hour of something related to the project/task every single day.

 

if something is important to you, you can find an hour each day, whatever else you have to do to make money, etc. at first, it might be just an hour of getting organized, brainstorming, creating physical files or files on your computer. then he said something like:

when you get to a place where you have 8 hours, you'll know what to do with them.

 

and it worked. it's the law of increments. that's how you write a dissertation over two years. bit by bit, day by day. it's how we get in shape, it's how we get out of shape. it's how books are written, and how we get good at anything. it's how we raise children, and generally how we get rich or go broke.

another time, I found myself in a sticky situation, and I pulled myself out of panic by realizing,

"I got here by making a series of decisions, and I'll get out by making a series of decisions."

 

reminds me of a quote from an article that just crossed my path: "change enough of the little pictures and you'll find you've changed the big picture."

30 days of abundance // day 27: 3 surprisingly effective ways to cut anxiety

everyone always tells us to breathe. that's a good one, but what about when we're so caught short that we can't actually breathe deeply yet. we're in the shit. stuck, frozen, paralyzed. these are a few somewhat oddball approaches that have worked to actually slice through anxiety in a way that leads me back to breath and movement.

1) laughter. 

 

my best recommendation is to have a stupid video or picture on hand as an emergency panic button. something that will make you laugh out loud no matter what is going on. something about hard laughter is a fail-safe shake-free from spiraling anxiety/panic. it works really, really well.

2) aromatherapy. 

surprisingly effective. I've heard about it, but it's always sounded kinda half-assed in the face of real anxiety. but I discovered there's a lavender mist spray that I get from whole foods that works like a charm. or add a few drops of your favorite essential oil to a glass spray bottle with water.  

3) sage.

 

if my anxiety is linked to someone else's life, using sage and clearing myself of their hooks and ties resets my center. even just the power of calling myself back in and letting go of other people's crap is enough to cut through layers of anxiety.

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a few other tricks include Rescue Remedy (you can also buy it at Whole Foods), a shower, and of course breathing and movement once you can get to that phase. calling a friend can also work. remember that you're not alone, anxiety is normal and strikes all the time. even just having a few go-to tricks up your sleeve can help keep it at bay in the first place.