Most of the last 6 months, I’ve been eating a predominately vegetarian diet. While living at the Kipuka temple in Hawaii, we had no meat on the premises, and ate mostly things like greens, salads, beans, homemade hummus, rice & quinoa, fruit, eggs intermittently, and morning smoothies with superfoods. It was very rare that I partook of scant amounts of meat – mostly fish or chicken – at restaurants while in Hawaii – and I ate very tiny amounts of bread. I loved the way I felt on that diet, I felt very clear about my realization that I need to have lots of sunlight and eat lots of vegetables and greens straight out of the garden, but I was rather spacey.

When I returned to the mainland, arriving back in Portland, all of the sudden I immediately started consuming bread products, quite regularly – and I was no longer making my own food most of the time – as I was going out to restaurants. My energy began to crash. This combined with the feeling that I wasn’t happy back on the mainland and I was not feeling financially supported on the mainland, just barely scraping by. I grew quite depressed and spent most of my time on the computer – being hired to build websites for others – which I realized caused me to feel even more spacey and ungrounded and energetically depleted, and it was causing difficulties with my eyesight. I also lived in a strict vegetarian household, and was not permitted to bring any meats of any kind into the house – so I could not prepare my own healthy meat meals, and I felt very guilty every time I prepared eggs (which was infrequent) – because my friend was uncomfortable with them.

All summer long, and during my time in Hawaii, I grew accustomed to eating granola or chia seed cereals for breakfast, combined with various superfoods – such as Goji Berries, Golden Inka Berries and Cacao Nibs, and eating it with Kefir. I thought this was a healthy and affordable breakfast option, but over the course of the summer, I’ve been feeling super depleted and spacey, despite eating “superfoods.” I thought to myself: well, I’m not drinking alcohol regularly, I’m not drinking coffee at all, I’m not smoking ganja, I’m drinking green tea every day – what is causing this chronic state of spaciness and depletion?

There was one day in particular in late July or early August, in which I woke up completely exhausted, could not wake up all day long, it was probably over 90 degrees that day, I ate a chia seed breakfast with kefir, drank tea, and felt completely spacey and out of my body all day long. Finally, the heat was getting to me, as was my mind – which was spinning with depression and feeling that I was totally screwed in life – so I went down to the river and began bathing in the river. While at the river, I prayed and asked for help figuring out what to do to feel better. I immediately received an intuitive guidance to go “eat red meat.” So, after bathing and doing my QiGong practice in the sunlight, I went out to a restaurant and ordered a Taco with Carne – Beef. I immediately felt “back to normal.” I finally felt re-stabilized.

In the month since, I’ve been so excited about red meat. I’ve been eating Buffalo, Beef and Lamb several times a week – whereas before, I only ate it once a month, if that often – sometimes going long stretches of time without eating any red meat of any kind. Typically, over the years I’ve been more prone to choose Fish or Tempeh. I went years not eating any red meat of any kind – and definitely never steak or beef, as I held a stigma to it. I related beef to hamburgers, and related hamburgers to McDonald’s, and McDonald’s to my childhood of growing up eating fast food, Tuna Helper & Cheezits, and related my childhood to depression & being unhealthy. For a years as an adult, the only red meat I ate was lamb, and that was still very rare and a special occasion. Several years ago, I went to visit my Chinese Medicine doctor in Portland, and he prescribed me to eat Red Meat several times a week, and Cucumbers and Seaweed. I immediately resisted and balked at his suggestion to eat red meat several times a week. But that night, due to his suggestion, I ate an amazing organic hamburger with a seaweed salad & cucumbers, and it was amazing.

A week ago, I moved out of the house with my friend – the strict Vegetarian – and have been staying with a different friend who is vegetarian but friendly to eggs. So, I’ve been splurging on eating eggs for breakfast every single day – not once have I desired to eat the Chia Seeds & Superfoods & Kefir breakfast. And yes, I have been feeling amazing since then. I have been absolutely LOVING my egg breakfasts, and the green tea that I drink in the morning. And it provides a solid feeling of energetic stability that lasts for hours – sometimes up to 9 hours of feeling energized without feeling spacey, exhausted or hungry. When it is time to prepare the next meal, I haven’t been so famished, depleted & starving immediately prior to eating.

So, this is really putting in perspective a whole new shift in my thinking – which is about the need to eat meat and animal based proteins. Because, I still eat tempeh & beans regularly, but I never get the same feeling of HALLELUJAH from my body, the way I feel when I’m eating meat or eggs. Years ago, I read some of the crucial information in “The Tao of Health, Sex and Longevity” – a Taoist perspective of building longevity of the body through sexual cultivation, herbs, eating specific diets, QiGong and food combining. One of the tenets of food combining in the Taoist perspective is to never combine meat with carbohydrates, such as Bread. It suggested eating Beef with vegetables & greens. This has always made sense to me on an intuitive level, which is why after my Chinese medicine doctor prescribed me red meat, I began making Steak with Broccoli and steamed greens – and last year I prepared Lamb with kelp noodles, avocado, Broccoli & sauteed mushrooms. These kinds of Red Meat dishes, combined with vegetables & Avocado (fats) seemed to make the most sense to me.

In fact, it was right around this time that I met Cedar, also a Chinese Medicine man genius, whose basic diet that he prescribed to All his patients was: Meat (Red or Fish or Chicken – whatever), with Fats (such as Avocado), Steamed / Cooked vegetables & Raw Greens (such as a Salad.) His ideal meal would be: A piece of salmon steak, a big salad, half an avocado, and some steamed broccoli & beets. He suggested to avoid eating all carbohydrates, especially bread, but he tended towards avoiding even rice, and would suggest to eat very limited quantities of Quinoa (his only preferred grain / carb.)

When I was in Massage School, we were taught that all foods convert to Glucose, and the glucose breaks down into ATP which is what feeds every cell in our body. So literally, everything we eat breaks down into glucose (a sugar) – but what is important is the rate in which the food breaks down into glucose and feeds our body. Protein breaks down more slowly into glucose, and provides a longer lasting period of energy absorption into the bloodstream that is more stable. Whereas, anything with sugar – and that includes Fruits – breaks down fast and is absorbed fast – which is why with sugar-based foods, there is an immediate spike and a subsequent crash. Which was corroborated by Cedar’s dietary suggestion.

Another one of my lady friends, an Acupuncturist, Cranial Sacral therapist, Herbalist & Doula – who also studied Chinese Medicine – advocated the protein rich diet, filled with greens and veggies, with zero bread as well. And she has always been – in my eyes – one of the most solid, grounded, dependable, easy to trust & communicate with Sisters. So, multiple healer friends have independently confirmed & supported this diet. And, my body LOVES this kind of meal, I totally prefer a meal with meat, fats, veggies & greens. It feels like the most ideal diet to my body. Which is why I’m beginning to look at the Vegetarian / Vegan diet as some kind of mind over matter, philosophical trip gone wild, that isn’t Grounded in the reality of the Body. And it seems to me to be sourced in India & Asia in cultures where enlightened / holy people ate vegetarian diets – which was supportive of people not really being “in their body.”

That’s not to say that we don’t need to eat lots of vegetables! I love vegetables and plant-based foods. I just think it needs an integration with meats and fats, at least for me. I will always love eating broccoli and beets and squash and steamed greens and salads. It’s crucial, and in our modern American society, most people are eating meat with bread or potatoes, without any fiber, without any vegetables, and it’s not home-made, it’s not local, it’s filled with hormones and pesticides and often High Fructose Corn Syrup, stripped of all nutritional value, and causes disease. I think more Americans need to eat vegetables and more importantly: Americans need to learn how to listen to their own bodies and how to prepare their own healthy foods that are appropriate for them.

I will never forget my first experimental phase of becoming a Vegetarian while I was in college. It was during my Freshman and Sophomore years of college, and I completely quit eating all meats – and instead ate pizza and sandwiches. My diet became largely carbohydrate based. I drank cheap coffee first thing in the morning, loaded with sugar. And I would get this really fast energy spike, followed by an intense crash and lethargy that would last several hours in the afternoon. I would arrive at my 2pm class feeling like I was hung-over, and hardly able to keep an eye open during class. Over the years, I had to learn that I needed to eat alternative vegetarian proteins – such as Tofu, Tempeh & Beans – and vegetables – in order to stay healthy as a vegetarian. But nobody told me this when I first became a vegetarian. I just thought it equated to eating “no meat.” Over the years since college, I have sought to stay as far away as possible from that phase in my culinary life of eating sugars and carbs and being spacey. Because I have realized that I really don’t enjoy being spacey and ungrounded – it’s detrimental to my ability to be motivated and focused. And it’s funny because I’m the sort of person that when people first meet me, based upon appearances, people just assume that I’m either Vegan or Vegetarian – and people often respond with shock when they discover that I eat meat.

Recently I had two girlfriends who ate red meat for the first time in a very long time, and both of them had intensely ecstatic reactions. One friend hadn’t eaten red meat since being a teenager – so it had been over 15 years for her, and she’d been mostly a Vegan / Raw Foodist for most of her adult life. She ate steak recently and described the experience as orgasmic, with waves of ecstasy washing over her for a half hour, and the most incredible surges of energy that were unbelievable. She wept. My other friend called me last night in a completely ecstatic, freaked out state, after having eaten a steak for the first time in 20 years. She said that until this last year, she’d been a Vegan. And in this last year, she’d only eaten fish, and very infrequently. So it came as a complete shock to her when her body told her to eat red meat, and when she did, she went completely orgasmic, saying it felt like she was on Ecstasy.

This says to me that our bodies have a biological NEED to eat meat, that it surpasses the philosophical / mental concept of not-eating-meat because we don’t want to harm animals. More than a hundred years ago, there was a man named Weston Price, who went around the world documenting the traditional diets of indigenous communities – before their diets were influenced & tampered with the modern Western diets. I have not heavily studied his research, but from what I gather – the indigenous communities he researched all ate meat, all ate fermented foods, all used Butter or Lard, all ate fermented and raw milks (including Goat and non-cow milks), and some included grains such as Millet or Quinoa. Vegetables were used in their diets, but not as much. They were healthy, their bones and teeth were strong. Only after the induction of sugar, breads and alcohol into their diets, did the health of these communities begin to suffer dramatically.

Since then, the Weston Price foundation has promoted a diet of: animal-based proteins – including eggs, Raw & Fermented Dairy products (unpasteurized & local), fermented foods, bone-broth soup, Butter, Olive Oil, Good Fats – such as Avocado, Honey or Maple Syrup for sugar, Vegetables (cooked & in salads), enzyme rich foods, and in general – foods that will spoil (as in food that has not been processed to remain on the shelf indefinitely). (see: http://www.westonaprice.org/abcs-of-nutrition/162-dietary-guidelines.html )

More and more, I look at Vegetarianism and Veganism as the philosophical product of Civilization that is disconnected from the Earth and natural rhythms. Native Americans ate deer and buffalo; that makes sense to me. Vegans never existed in traditional societies. Our ancestors ate heavy foods, and thus it’s healthy for us to eat this because it is what humans have been eating for a gazillion years. We are not meant to eat food out of boxes, pastries, or any heavily processed foods – such as Tofu, McDonald’s or Tuna Helper. It’s unnatural. More and more, I think that true health is only possible when we’re in tune and resonant with the Earth and with the Earth frequencies, which means living naturally. And living naturally for many hundreds of thousands of years has been to eat wild game; it keeps us Interwoven with the Circle of Life – being Vegan takes us out of the circle of life. This is not to say that I don’t love and enjoy healthy, vegan vegetable-centric foods & raw foods – but not as a lifestyle, not as a permanent thing, not as something that I will ever adhere to.

My body wants meat and eggs, and very little sugar. That’s what makes my body happiest. And that is why my choices for my health come not from external systems, but from internally listening to what my body agrees with; what supports the felt sensation of energetic vibrancy.

My Current Favorite Egg Breakfast Recipe:

Pull out the skillet, put in some oil… Chop up: Half a Portobello, Several big pieces of Kale, Half a Zucchini or Squash. Get some kind of Goats milk cheese, chop it up. prepare 2 eggs in a bowl and stir them up before putting them in the pan.

Sautee down the portobello first, with spices (cumin, black pepper, tamari) Oil & Water – COVER with a Lid. After that, throw in the zucchini, and once that’s done, then throw in the chopped up Kale (steam the kale down until it’s wilted..) once all that’s cooked and melted down (keep it still green, not over-cooked) – then toss in the eggs. Cover with lid. Stir it up… Cover. Then once the eggs are cooked… I tend towards cooked half-way or a little more than half way.. I like them still very soft. Then I throw in the Goats Milk cheese at the very end and stir in and cover with a lid. At this point, the heat is off. And I let it sit for a minute.

Then, once it’s done, I either put that on a bed of Kelp Noodles with Chopped up Avocado, or I use a sprouted-wheat Tortilla shell (warmed up)- and put the egg mixture onto the noodles or onto the tortilla, and cover it with homemade salsa and some Olive Oil.

Pretty fantastically delicious!

Yosemite Bear posted a video on Youtube on January 8, 2010 – almost six months ago, entitled “Yosemite Mountain Giant Double Rainbow 1-8-10” – and this video has skyrocketed to well over 8 million views, closing in to 9 million views shortly. At the moment that it happened, it seems obvious that he had no idea what kind of a ‘cultural meme’ he would create by being so authentic and in the moment with his awe, wonder and excitement. In the video, while rainbowgasming over the enormous Double Rainbow, he asks: “What does this Mean?” It seems to me that the answer to that question is revealing itself in the aftermath; an answer that he never could have imagined in the moment he asked that question.

He recently was featured on the Jimmy Kimmel show, and Jimmy asked him: “What does it mean?” And Bear’s response was: “Well, Spirit’s talking to me.” Jimmy asks, “What spirit is talking to you?” Bear responds: “The Spirit of the universe.” Jimmy asks, “What is the Spirit of the Universe saying?” Bear says, “It’s saying that people don’t need Sex and Drugs to connect to Nature and to Spirit; they can enjoy themselves without that stuff.”

Bear stated this publicly and openly on National TV! So when looking at his video in retrospect, and I ask myself: “What does this mean?” I immediately feel that Bear became a powerful conduit for speaking for Spirit on a wide, national platform. He went from a poor man raising chickens living out in Yosemite, to suddenly being on TV, selling Double Rainbow T-shirts on his brand new website, and having spawned possibly hundreds of spin-offs, auto-tune & techno remixes of his video on Youtube. All through the experience of witnessing an incredible Double Rainbow one day in January.

So when I look at this video and witness this man experiencing such a complete ecstatic meltdown over this rainbow, and I ask “What does this Mean?” I look not at the meaning of it in the moment, but the meaning of it in terms of the collective culture in the aftermath. I personally think the reason why it has captured so much attention is because people aren’t used to seeing someone totally lose it, in an orgasmic intensity, over something so benign, simple and beautiful as a rainbow. His extreme ecstatic emotional response in the moment is what people are fascinated with. Either people can identify with that feeling or they find it hilarious. And I think it’s because people want to feel that extreme state of Awe and amazement at the sheer beauty and magic of life, themselves.

Especially as a man, his almost childlike innocence & purity, and soft sweetness in demeanor, evoke a completely different way of being masculine that is rarely seen in the mainstream; that of being in Awe with the mystery and majesty of life, rather than dominating it.

I understand what he means, when his response is “Spirit’s talking to me.” Because I too have received powerful messages from Spirit, from the Spirit of the universe. And I understand that the majority of people in the mainstream don’t understand, but I feel that this video’s popularity is a sign that the Spiritual forces of the Universe are beginning to seep more and more into the mainstream, through many alternative conduits – such as YosemiteBear. And that, soon enough, more and more people in the mainstream and across the planet will understand too. The fact is, he never sought fame, it just happened, through his childlike innocence and purity of spirit and awe. Whereas many people who walk the spiritual path attempt to draw attention to themselves through various means to express the truth of spirit they feel excited they have discovered, which can sometimes create spiritual people who are like a preacher or a teacher. Rather than just experiencing the moment in its totality, in its magical unity with creation, without any pretense, without any need to try to teach anything, but just to be in that state of bliss, heart-expanded love & total emotional release; with nothing to prove. For it is in that moment that we experience spiritual unity with the oneness of life, which is the goal of any spiritual path.

It is understandable that one would have a magical, profound, liberating, ecstatic-bliss experience and try to be a guide to others on how to reach that state of transendence. But truly, as shown by Yosemite Bear, one does not always need someone to guide you into that realm, but we do need to witness each other in our childlike purity, in our awe, in our play, in our total openness and Love for life. Because in that witnessing of another being who has totally let go and is in their state of magical awe and play, a safe space is created where we too are allowed to feel that open, authentic, and in the moment – and That is the most healing experience in the world. And hopefully, in some way, Yosemite Bear’s video has created a safe space for other people to open up to their own uncontrived, authentic state of awe and beauty.

I also feel that, without saying anything explicitly, Yosemite Bear is communicating something subtle yet profound about the momentum and shift as we reach 2012, which is that we each will experience our own personal, totally subjective experience of the magical unity of life, through witnessing the Beauty of Mother Earth. And that by emotionally attuning to our Mother Earth, each in our own way, we will be attuned to the source of Power for the transformational shift during this process, and that emotionally attuning to the Mother Earth’s power during the shift will be ORGASMIC.

Thank you Yosemite Bear for your incredibly real expression of Joy and Awe, and for creating an offering of such pure orgasmic beauty to be gifted to the world. Blessings to you!

As I spent time considering it today, I realized that the people who created this experience, specifically BP, the government, the corporations and their decision making factions, have lived their lives within a very narrow framework of reality, limited by their myopic box of what reality is, and that this event will force themselves to begin to broaden their perspectives and choices in order to drastically transform this problem. It is only when the people in BP, Halliburton and TransOcean come to really humble themselves to the Power and Sentience of our Great Mother Earth, that they will begin to make huge changes in their decisions. Hopefully this event will cause serious pause and a dramatic change of action in their future choices, and will force them to realize that the methods they are employing to clean up the problem are going to need to be radically re-evaluated, and sustainable choices, earth-centric choices will need to be activated in order to make it work. Which will mean that they will quickly approach a point in which they realize that they can’t do it all on their own; they can’t hide behind their media blackouts, they can’t hide behind their cloaked walls and use their antiquated, old paradigm techniques, because they just won’t work. They will have to think outside of the box, and they will have to approach creative visionaries with a sustainable perspective in order to right their wrongs.

For example, let’s look at Paul Stamets offering of using Mycoremediation in order to clean up the Oil Spill. They won’t turn to these “progressive” techniques until the Eleventh Hour, when all else has failed. This will force them to open their jar a little wider, open their tight circle to include the rest of humanity and their knowledge. Thus, this could be a hugely humbling and heart-opening opportunity for all parties involved. Because when they realize that there truly is a higher power at work, orchestrating this entire event, they will come to see that in fact – they created this event and are working on behalf of all humanity to evolve to the next level of the spiral ladder, transforming and evolving humanity as a collective. We will quickly approach the time in which there can no longer be an “Us Versus Them” mentality, of “Us normal people” and “Those Evil, Greedy Corporations”. Because ALL HUMANITY will be affected by this spill.

BP and the other corporations involved will reap an enormous debt, which should hopefully trigger them to re-evaluate their decision making process in the future. Is it really worth it for them to pursue these projects, when there are other options that are so much safer and more sustainable for humanity in the long run? On a financial level, NO, because the risk of losing so much money to lost Oil and the clean-up projects is enormous. And then there is the impact it will make, not only upon the health of all the wildlife and waters in the immediate, but also the impact on the health of their own bodies and those of their communities and loved ones. When people see how the toxic gasses and fumes are carcinogenic and toxic, and the level of toxicity spreads throughout the region, causing a massive health crisis – people will see that these choices are not the best choices to pursue.

We always have a choice in the matter, and ultimately – none of us is an Island, a “Lone Wolf” – we all have loved ones in our lives – even those in the Oil Corporations. And seeing the people they care about suffer as a result of this Oil Spill should trigger a huge wave of compassion, humility and change.

But I see all of humanity as having co-created this event. Not only by buying Oil for our vehicles on a daily basis, but by creating a huge schism in humanity of that separatist, Us Versus Them mentality, in which “We Earth-Conscious, Eco-Conscious, Sustainable, Permaculture” advocates have demonized and separated from those we deem as Evil, Greedy and Corporate. I think that as a collective of Eco-Conscious consumers, we have created this event as part of the wave of energy sent to the Corporations, demanding a change towards a sustainable future, with sustainable energy technologies. We have worked with the Earth to create this event. In many ways, I envision the oil spill as the army of Ents, the trees in the forest all banding together, picking themselves up to fight against Saruman and Sauron, in the Lord of the Rings. We have summoned this wave of oil to gush forth, to fight battle against these oppressive, greedy corporations that have been doing their business, mostly unchecked, for so long. We have summoned this wave of oil from the Earth to bring these people back into awareness of the inherent Power, Vitality and Sacredness of Life that they have been desecrating.

Yes, we all want the Oil to stop gushing, and we want the Marine Wildlife to not be endangered, and we want to send prayers for this madness to stop. But, can we look at the possible Beauty of what the Earth Mother is saying to us all? She has opened a direct line of communication with humanity in this event. This event was preceded by several enormous earthquakes and hurricanes, in which the Inherent POWER of the Earth Mother humbled us, and in which the flawed responses of the Governmental and Corporate powers rose to the surface.

What has not yet been dealt with is the Source of this situation; the underlying patterns that triggered this event. This oil spill was created in direct response to undealt with emotional traumas in the bodies of all those involved who created it. This oil spill will force all those undealt with traumas and angers to rise to the surface and explode, just like the Oil. These people are going mad because they created something so blatantly disgusting to the rest of humanity; we as a collective have to look at this, gaze at it ever so deeply and really see what’s going on, not just on the surface of the glossy, rainbow slick water, but what’s going on in the depths of it.

I believe that dealing with ceasing the Oil Gushing is only one avenue for cleaning this up, but the underlying emotional traumas are so much more significant – because they affect all of humanity at the core level. It is time that we as a people stop ignoring the emotional imbalances in these evil, greedy Corporate people, and really help them to process, heal and transform the underlying traumas that are at the heart of each and every person involved – realizing that they go back to their ancestors beyond them. This is about healing and transforming the legacy of our forebears, those people that taught us to behave in ways that are in blatant disregard for the Earth, for other people, acting with arrogant hubris, having no concern for others but only their own Bank Accounts.

I want to see a sacred space being held for those that are at the epicenter of this traumatic event. I want to see them allowed to truly grieve; to process their emotions, their anger, their rage, their feelings of insecurity and powerlessness. I want to see these people compassionately Loved, despite making such tragically huge mistakes that will effect the lives and health of countless others. Yes, there is much reason to be angry and to respond to them vindictively; to place a curse on their heads and destroy them. But is that really going to transform the root cause of this behavior? Is that really going solve the problem we have as One Humanity? I do not believe so.

The underlying traumas of shame, endless years of stress, abuse & fear of power & dominance, and lack of respect for the Mother – these are some of the underlying emotional sources of these people and their undealt with problems. This event will push all of that to the surface, and some of them will come to realize that. Some of them will come to realize that there is a Powerful, Humbling being that they are digging into. Some of them will come to realize that reality is not just surface level Rock and Concrete and Material to be used and exploited. It is only by being Humbled by the undeniable Power and Majesty of the Earth Mother herself that we will work to live in right resonance with her.

There is a reason why Native Americans and Indigenous people always sought to worship and give offerings to Power Spots and to the Earth, because they rightfully recognized that they were in the presence of a being much more powerful than they. They sought to live in harmony and balance with that power, because they recognized that at any time, their villages could be destroyed by any number of natural disasters; earthquakes, tornados, lava eruptions, drought, or extreme cold.

I now seek to look at this traumatic event through the lens of gratitude, because I know through hard-won experience that most of the miracles and blessings in my life were delivered to me in the most horrifying, disturbing, traumatic package. I have experienced over and over again that on first glance what seems like a huge catastrophe and cause for total meltdown and anger were actually blessings in disguise. Sometimes, though, it’s not able to discern that until the initial wave of shock passes, and you’re able to be with what is, and just surrender to it. Things always happen for a reason, and in my experience, things happen because they are divinely guided. And so, I want to re-examine our response to this Oil Spill from the vision of Divine Guidance, because I believe in total trust of that Divine Guidance – it has given me total and complete fearlessness, because it has taught me that I will always be caught and supported, even in that moment of despair.

And so, I say to you: Why be afraid? Why be worried? I’m not worried; all things change. Change is the only certainty in life, and transience is the way of life. We knew this was coming, because we chose this. And we all know that the old paradigm is shifting and collapsing as we daily walk ever closer to Solstice 2012.

So, I’m coming out of the closet here, and revealing a big part of the undertow of my subconscious self and my programmed, patterned self here. In many ways, my years in Tantric work were a subconsious attempt, guided by spirit, to help unrepress my sexual energy, which was programmed to be very repressed. In many ways, as an adult, I have gone incredibly far in the opposite direction of everything I was raised to model my lifestyle behavior after. Studying Massage and Reiki, Exploration with erotic bodywork, exploration with Indigenous shamanism, exploration with psychedelics, ecstatic dancing, huge hippie festivals, drinking and smoking – all these things fly madly in the face of everything I was encouraged to live my life as, as a child. If I’d followed my programming, I’d probably still be living in Ohio, I’d most definitely be married, I’d probably have 3 kids by now, I’d be sexually and sensually repressed and ignorant, I’d be going to church weekly and I’d be stuck in life, working a job I’d be doing just to survive and grit my teeth and bear it. It’s no wonder my mom was so angry and frustrated in life. I have a lot of compassion for her. Who wants to live a life that fits into a mold that is created for you, not one that emerges from within?

As an adult, I’ve chosen a lifestyle that has completely detached me from my roots and my family, and to be honest, that’s okay with me because my focus in life is about self-mastery and self-knowledge, not about conforming to what will make other people happy (and make me miserable). But, I’ve gone through all my phases of psychedelics, erotic tantric work, hippie festivals, alcohol, marijuana, partying. I’ve done all of that.. And where I’ve been coming to the last few years is; what does my body need in order to live sustainably? What choices do I need in order to be healthy within my body? I’ve been having to choose over and over again to do what my body wants me to do, because I have to live with it for the rest of my life. And it’s hard to make choices that are based on listening to my body, when it flies in the face of what is popular and trendy among all my peers. And more and more these days, I feel like in some ways, the things that I am appreciating the most are the things that are in some ways very simple and based in patterns of my ancestors.

For example, I have a very low tolerance to alcohol. Others don’t, but I do. I could drink one glass of wine and be pretty intoxicated, and have a hangover the next day. My nervous system can’t deal with it, I can’t deal with it emotionally, so I’ve had to learn that I can’t drink alcohol on a regular basis. If I want a grounded, stable, happy body – I need abstinence from alcohol. I will make special exceptions a few times a month, but it always lands me a heavy blow the day after. My ancestors didn’t drink alcohol; I never saw alcohol as a child. I was surrounded by completely sober adults my entire childhood, and my ancestors were predominately sober. I don’t have alcoholism in my genetic line, which makes me assume that according to my bloodline, I’m just not supposed to drink alcohol. I don’t like being around wasted people; they trigger me. I’ve had some very close beloveds in my life who were alcoholics, so I’ve experienced intense alcoholism first hand, and my bottom line is – I can’t go there. And I can only really trace it back to my genetic lineage.

Anyway, more and more these days, I’m finding that my body is demanding of me: immediate and frequent access to nature, fresh, organic foods straight out of the garden, a daily sustainable income stream, less expensive things, a simple and healthy diet, very few parties, no drugs or alcohol. I feel like my body is super sensitive and cannot handle the intensities of the modern urban American lifestyle, my tolerance level is super low for intense, stressful stimuli, and it’s really stressful on my body and makes me freak out. I feel that I need the most grounded, stable reality possible, because otherwise, I’m super spacey anways, and I feel like I’m permanently in a dream state all day long (and all night). Which makes me think that maybe my body and my blood really is dictated by my genetic lineage of conservative, sober, Christian farmers. For years, I’ve been feeling like the only purpose visionary awakenings serve is as a reminder to how we best live in this body, flesh and bone world. And in that regards, it’s how we embody the highest spiritual visions that is important, not the frequency with which we are experiencing them, but how do we embody the service, compassion and love of spirit, in a way that is harmonious with our own form of embodiment; our bodies. In that regards, in listening to my body, my body has told me that my home is in Hawaii – for once it feels complete and aligned there, surrounded by nature, surrounded by Pele, surrounded by so much sun, surrounded by fresh, green living things, surrounded by fresh vegetables and fruits and the amazing oceanic waters. I don’t feel that I can put off the call to my own feeling of being at home. My heart is pounding with Pele.

So, I find it super interesting that I’ve spent the last 13 years doing the full time work of trying to transform and transmute the repressed aspects of my subconscious that were programmed by my familial line, and clear all the blockages psychically that have been stagnant in my family line. And yet, as I come into maturity, I actually am still fully dictated by my body, that has been cellularly programmed by my genetic line, regardless. So, it’s interesting to note that I’ve done an excellent job at attaining self-knowledge and awakening through the process, and yet that doesn’t mean I can run away from the karmic attachments of blood. But it also doesn’t mean that I can’t find a compromise or a middle ground for balancing out both aspects. My body needs a slow, gentle pace, it needs healthy food, it needs nature, it needs plant medicine, it needs lots of sunlight and access to bodies of water. In this way, I feel that my “Amish” blood is helping to ground me by reminding me that I need a slow pace, I need nature, I need to eat food fresh out of the garden, I need to live in a spiritual community – and I see this as a reflection of my ancestors working through my body. But the visionary soul aspect of me knows I don’t have to be limited to what the husband my ancestors would have chosen for me, metaphorically. Feeling now that the self-limiting belief patterns that were instilled from the familial line are beginning to more completely fall away as true illusion that I can see through. I feel more and more freedom and access to unlimited potential. Which means aligning towards the heart and the vision of my spirit’s desire. Being in Hawaii felt like a perfect balance for those two aspects of me; nature-centric, plant-centric, and yet visionary and super creative in a very daily, stable, grounded way. Freedom and Groundedness.

Which is why the path of parties and festivals and intense, overwhelming chaos and energy feels really depleting to me right now – which is why I’m steering clear of it. My body really wants quiet, relaxing environments. It’s probably the result of years of doing bodywork and being in a meditative state with so many clients. I just want soothing, relaxing, soft, gentle, relaxed environments – with lots of SUNLIGHT.

So grateful to see the wisdom of my ancestors speaking through it all, their commitment to living in spiritual community, to being radical Christian dissidents, to living connected to the Earth, to living simply and sustainably, to living without excess or frivolity, to having a devoted sense of purpose to the community and to the family, to staying committed to spiritual values. While their lifestyle choices and theological belief systems are not for me, I really appreciate some of the core values. And I see the need for a next level, visionary re-balancing of the same values, emerging towards unification with where the modern culture is Now, and where the transformational shift is directed towards.

It’s official, my heart has fallen madly in love with Hawaii. Like falling madly in love with a lover or beloved, only this time it’s with the way my entire being and body feels, when in the sunshine, on the sand, in the water, absorbing the steam from the steam vents. I am in love with Hawaii the way one feels when they have finally found home after a lifetime of searching and waiting for that feeling of home.

Not only will I return, but it is very likely that I will be cultivating and gathering all the necessary sundry check-list items in my life so that I can return to move there and settle down for…. indefinitely. I see myself moving there within the next few year. Not 100% sure it will be the Big Island; want to check out Maui and Kauai before I make a final decision. But I feel certain that Hawaii is my home, and I feel it in the cells of my body.

There are a multitude of deep changes and shifts that occurred for me while I was there, that I notice immediately in its absence… They all have to do with lifestyle changes that naturally occurred from being there:

• Pretty much most of the food I ate there was home made, and much of my daily diet came from the garden
• Rarely did I eat food from a restaurant
• Rarely did I partake of alcohol or ganja, and began to decrease the amount of caffeine I took – including green teas
• I spent much much much more time in nature than I do when I am on the Mainland – being in nature was a daily activity
• I spent a lot of time in the sun, drinking in the sunlight like it was food
• My biorhythmic schedule seemed to finally even out and I went to bed earlier and woke up earlier
• I changed the work that I did for my income stream
• I rarely drank anything other than water or tea; having a store-bought Kombucha was a special item
• I got into a largely liquid diet of smoothies and home-made blender soups
• Did a lot of breathwork and pranayama on a regular basis while snorkeling
• Swimming in the ocean helped me overcome a tremendous amount of fear I had within myself
• I found that doing movement and Qi work in the ocean helped me feel more in touch with the natural elements and the fluxuation of elemental powers all around me, and helped me to develop my intuition and strength
• More deeply returned to my chanting and toning practice on a daily, regular basis
• All this combined to bring my bio-energetic physical & energetic body back to a state of balance and alignment. My body feels much more grounded and healthy now
• The total elimination of stress in my life meant that I was fully present and relaxed the majority of the time
• Living in a community setting completely transformed my feelings of preference for living alone, or in a small contained apartment or house, disconnected from others. Now, I would rather live in a community and be in a more supportive, socially open environment
• I feel extremely happy and internally balanced and nourished
• The Urban Environment and Lifestyle is Not for Me. Not anymore.
• I am So Excessively, Endlessly Grateful!!!!!!!!!!

I am at peace with being back on the mainland, and will allow the universe to work its will and magic in my life, but I feel strongly the imminent return to the Islands, within the year. Looking forward to it, missing it deeply already. So So So much gratitude to Robert Silber for creating the safe container of the Kipuka Temple and all the beautiful beings in the community there!! So much love and appreciation to you all! My heart GLOWS!

Let me preface this first by saying: I’m not a native Hawaiian. I have not been studying Hawaiian spirituality for a long time. I have only been introduced to the words and concepts of Hawaiian spirituality recently. I’m a white chick from the mainland United States. I mean absolutely no disrespect, and my understanding presented here is primarily intuitive. I have been introduced to these words and concepts recently through others; through conversations with friends who have lived in Hawaii for a while, through books and online sources.

Last year I met up with Dreaming Bear, and we went for a journey out to the Applegate River area in Southern Oregon for an afternoon spent by the river. There he told me about the word ‘Aina’. He explained to me that ‘Aina’ is the Hawaiian word for the Land, and for the spirit of the Land and Nature. It was so lovely to finally have a word for something that I’ve always felt, but never had a name for in our American linguistics. I love the word Aina, as it gives a name for the energy of the land, and by giving it a name – it is as though consciousness is breathed into it. I spent that afternoon by the river, meditating upon boulders, bathing in the cold, clear waters and contemplating the nature of Aina; the great web of life interconnecting reality in what we know as ecosystems, small and large.

A few months ago, I picked up a book on Hawaiian spirituality written by Sondra Ray called “Pele’s Wish”, and in it she re-affirmed the understanding of Aina, and introduced another new word to me; Mana. The concept of Mana as I have come to understand it is defined as Universal Life Force Energy, that which could be called Prana in India, Chi in China – but in Hawaii, it is called Mana.

So I’ve been contemplating these two words and concepts while on my first foray in Hawaii, and then last week I had an epiphany about the Aina and the Mana. I was at Kehena beach and it was a brilliantly sunny day, bright blue skies, rather hot with lots of sun exposure and the waves were feeling pretty primal. I was walking along the black sand beach, and with each foot step I felt my whole being present – I felt my entire body held by the matrix of life. I felt complete, relaxed, fully present and very energized. Suddenly, I was inspired to sing a song and so I walked over to the boulder tidepool area and perched on the edge and chanted for quite some time, and felt waves of bliss wash over me as swells crashed into white water upon the boulders before me as I sang. When I got into the waters, the waves were high and strong, and yet I felt luxuriously sensualized and caressed by the water as I swam in it. My whole body was sensually titillated; the water was turning me on as it licked my whole body. The lift of each swell caused an exhilirated euphoria, as did the drawing down after each wave. The amount of life force energy and vitality in my body was high, and I felt high, super awake, grounded and exhilirated with strength and presence.

That afternoon, as I walked along the sand, I felt the waves of sunlight penetrate my body, felt the dense boulders that I lay on, felt the luxurious sensuality of the waters titillating me, a thread of insight penetrated my mind. I could feel a thread connecting my feet to the earth, through the earth beneath me, and the same thread stretching to the sun. When my mind was calm, relaxed, meditative and aware; the clouds would part and the sun would begin shining more brightly. I realized that my Mana, my life force energy, is in union with the Aina, and the Life Force Mana of the Aina, land, including the Sun, Stars and Universe surrounding me. I was being fed by the Mana of the Aina, my life force was being restored & rebalanced at the source level. And this was due to the sense of surrendering to full presence and awareness of the Aina. There is a union at work between ones personal energy field and the energy field of nature, of the Aina, that works to create a whole; reality. Time and Space and Consciousness is the result of the weaving together between our personal Life Force and the Life Force Mana of the whole.

For years now, I have been exploring the correlation between where consciousness is at in the moment and the energy of our surroundings, and how the two interplay. I feel that in every moment, there is a psychic wholeness that creates a coherent field in the relationship between where we are at mentally and energetically and the energetic experience of everything around us; other people, our living environments, nature, plants, our pets, wild animals. This seems especially true in events with lots of people (lots of psychic energy) and power spots in nature (lots of psychic energy from eons of accumulated experiences.)

My body is interwoven with the thread of life, just as a tree, just as the water, just as the boulders. We co-create the experience of every moment together through being interwoven in the ecosystems of life force energy. When we are in areas where there is a greater amount of vitality and life force energy present, we begin to be nourished in a way that is different from how we typically nourish ourselves with food. So why is it that in certain areas, there seems to be a greater sense of nourishment from the energy of the environment, whereas in other environments, I feel depleted, sad, drained, confused, stuck, frustrated?

When I was living at Lake Atitlan four years ago, in Guatemala, I attributed this feeling to my sense that the consciousness of the people over an accumulated period of time – say thousands of years – contributed to a feeling of magic and aliveness in the place. Based on reading the writings of Martin Prechtel, I conjectured that their spiritual beliefs were that life was magical and governed by specific spirits to which they prayed and made offerings, and that their shamans were constantly working to repair and make right the energetic alliances the humans had with other animals, power spots, the Volcanoes and the Lake itself. Thus, a magical wholeness was maintained – and thus it existed simply because they believed it to be so.

Thus, as I believe that there exists a magical unity between consciousness and nature, and I sing in power spots to offer up prayers and offerings to the spirits of the energies specific to that place, it is so – because of the intention and direction of my consciousness and my belief. It is what my experience of life has taught me as real, and thus I feel it and embody it. Thus, the belief systems and collective consciousness of tribes of people, along with the energy of the Aina, co-create specific versions of reality.

In the modern American paradigm, we tend to think that reality is uniform and consistently the same everywhere; it is reflected in the attempt to homogenize reality across the United States by being able to expect to pull into the same gas station chain anywhere and get the same fast food anywhere. Despite this, there are regional differences that are palpable, that are specific to the local cultures of each region, and we take this for granted. So, despite our belief that reality is the same across the board, in fact – it is not. It is varied, depending on the local ecology and the beliefs and consciousness of the people of that region. Thus, being in New York City feels quite different than being in Hawaii, and it comes with a very different energy, different sounds, different foods available, different ways of being and lifestyles, different ways of communicating, different economies.

I believe that in Modern America, our belief systems and collective consciousness have mostly destroyed magic and life force from the land. Our rational approaches to life, our beliefs that everything has to be clearly rational and that life demands hard work and suffering, our beliefs that life has to be a certain way have created that reality. There is a loss in the life force and vitality present in the land itself, and a multitude of energetically depleting actions such as mining, de-forestation, pollution, creating permanent towns and dwellings and roads and subdivisions, these have all worked together to drain the Mana from the Aina – the life force vitality of the Land – of its power. The Aina is rich in power and vitality when its ecosystems are intact, when water is clean and pure, when plants are abundant and wild, and when humans live in balance with nature. Living in a society that is disconnected from the Earth and natural rhythms has created a situation where we are energetically depleted, and we end up using substances and food and each other in order to compensate for this lack of life force energy.

This lead me to the realization that when living in natural settings, our life force energy field has a greater opportunity to remain whole and balanced – it is supported in being so, because of the Mana from the Aina, which seems to cradle each individual’s life force. This is supported by natural bio-rhythms in unison with the rise and fall of sunlight, of the predominance of natural and healthy local food, by having a regular sleep cycle, and the predominance of natural sounds – frogs, birds, wind, rain, insects. Whereas, in urban environments, disconnected from the Aina, we end up depleted of life force, and have to get it from somewhere. One of the ways in which we humans supplement our drained life force is through each other; there is a generally unconscious habit of energetically feeding on each other – ie, psychic vampirism. Often times, we give our energy to others knowingly; through performing and sharing our creativity, through working for each other, through giving another person bodywork, or through care taking our friends and loved ones. But as I looked through images from urban parties from afar, it becomes apparent to me that in urban environments where we are disconnected from the energy of the land, and are rushing from one demand to another, it’s really challenging to be fully present and show up, and the use of a multitude of substances and artifice predominates the scene. It becomes really draining on our financial resources, on our energy and vitality, and on our inner peace; stress dominates the sub-current. People are hung over and depleted afterwards, or fraught with having to process a myriad of stressful dramas that came up and exploded during any particular episode. It becomes a perpetual drain of energy that is not sustainable – and stimulating substances are used and abused, in order to maintain the ability to make it through. It creates ungrounded, stressful, and energetically drained people; and it’s unsustainable in the long haul. Which is why we escape to places like Hawaii, to recuperate, get our energy back, feeling re-charged and re-inspired. That’s why I came here!

One of the things I have experienced many times over the years is the sense that Native Americans have left a spiritual imprint upon the land they once inhabited. Despite that their presence has been wiped away from the environment, I have felt in many regions the spirits and the intelligence they left behind in the land, like a message in a bottle tossed to sea. Except, the message in the bottle is tossed into the fabric of time, and was embedded in the place through prayer, song and visions. I have accessed dream songs and dream visions when visiting certain power spots before, and have felt their imprint upon the soil – feeling their souls caught in the rift between time. And yet there are areas where the imprint from the living Indigenous cultures still exists; for example Guatemala, Peru and Hawaii. It is in these kinds of places that a noticeable difference exists in the way that reality is impressed with intelligence. In Peru, their ancient ways are still prevalent and the medicine path has been carried down for thousands of years – it is very real, not in a theoretical way, but in a very real, nuts and bolts, daily life kind of way. It has been described that in the Peruvian Andes, in order to become a shaman, one must develop a real relationship with the spirit of one of the local Andes Mountains, known as Apus. It is through cultivating the interwoven relationship of meditation, prayer, offerings and dialogue with the Mana of the Apus that one gains power as a Shaman. A shaman who has cultivated this power becomes an embodiment of the power of Nature, like a tree, ocean, river, or Apu. And the Mana of the Aina works through the shaman – It is the energy coming from Nature and the Earth that is the power working through the Shaman.

“The key was to gain alliance with the laws of Nature and become Universal inside. The process was to offer praise filled gifts and songs to the impulses of nature, which are essentially, the impulses of human life. For some, this would seem to be an amazing complexity of mysticism. Yet for those who knew it well, it was nothing but the natural way to interact with the environment.” -William Levacyi

Here in modern Hawaii, feeling the spiritual imprints of the people who have passed is more intuitive, less nuts and bolts, for me so far. But I feel a sense of depth; of richness in the matrix of life here. Life here feels so interwoven and connected to each other. As I am in Hawaii, I literally feel my whole being held in the matrix of life force energy the whole time. There’s a coherency in the ether. Before I arrived, people always talked about the “energy in Hawaii” that they could feel but was hard to describe. Now that I am here, I feel it’s so rich here; it’s like my bio-energy body is drinking deeply of the Mana from the Aina as long and as hard as it can to replenish the energy body after such a depleting, draining year. And I feel it is due to the Hawaiian ancestors, and the way they left their imprint on the fabric of the time & space dimension here; through their devotion to cultivating the Aloha spirit, and through honoring the integrity of the wholeness of nature and their part in it.

I met a man the other day, while drinking Kava at the local Kava bar, and he was looking for a local Hawaiian spiritual master to come to his land where he was breaking ground on his new house, and offer prayers, blessings and songs. It was while listening to him that I realized the truth of Andean Shamanism and its focus on cultivating relationships with the Aina; because it is only through devoted, long-lasting connection with the Aina of a local bio-region that a Medicine person will cultivate their power and life force. It is not enough to be connected to the earth and enjoy spending time in nature. It actually requires that you really become a part of the environment and really devote to merging and unifying with the life force of that local region for a committed period of time, thus you gain alliance and power from the spirits of that land. It is thus that you have developed energy medicine to be able to use in the offerings for others.

So, based in this entire understanding, it is not enough to imbibe the energy of the Aina; because a fundamental shift in the way reality is perceived could shift the Mana of the land in North America and anywhere else. All it takes is a shift in belief and consciousness, that of perceiving the inherent life force of the land and honoring it, praying to it and making offerings. I like to pray to the spirits of the Aina through chanting songs; it is my way of speaking to the Aina and the trees and the lava and the water. And I personally look forward to cultivating a solid, grounded home with a solid base in the local Aina and bio-region, for as a mystic, I realize that the ultimate power comes through Nature, and I intend to embody nature in order to be whole and be in service to the whole.

So, what is Shakti? First, I would like to speak from my experience and then from classical Indian definitions and descriptions. I know when I am shaktified – as the feeling of being Shaktified is a decidedly different state than that of regular, daily life – the life of the mundane; being filled with Shakti is the most prized, most special state to be in. When I am filled with Shakti – for me it is a spiritual, ecstatic energy that moves through my whole body – a spiritual, mystical power that liberates me and allows me to become an embodiment of the Divine Feminine and the frequency of the Goddess. This most often happens in relationship to music; chanting, drumming, rhythms, dancing.

My first experiences of Shakti energy predated my ever hearing the word Shakti. As a mystic, I was following the initiatory path of mystical ecstasy through chanting, and was repeatedly being consumed by powerful Shakti energy as I chanted. It became a regular phenomenon of going into intense, ecstatic trance states through chanting and receiving immense waves of Shakti energy through my body as I chanted. The direct transmission of Shakti Energy itself taught me everything about spirituality, enlightenment, the Divine Feminine, Tantra, Kundalini, how to move energy through the body, psychic abilities, etc.

However, most of the women that I know who I believe have experientially tapped into their Shakti energy, and are embodiments of the frequency of the Divine Feminine, are all – for the most part sex-positive and have liberated themselves through the union of their sexual energy and the spiritual shakti energy. In fact, many of these Shaktified women that I know are among the most sexually liberated women I’ve ever met. To my eyes, Shakti is like the deep well that feeds and sustains the life force of women who are Shaktified; it is the spiritual well of essence, vitality and inspiration from which they draw their creativity, their life path, the vision of their career and work; their soul purpose. Most of the women I know who are Shaktified are among the most cutting edge visionary women I’ve ever met. When a Shaktified woman loses connection with their Shakti, and they aren’t able to regularly or consistently raise the energy necessary to sip upon the visionary essence energy of Shakti, then they are in drought and depleted – not in their power. Having recently gone through a severe phase of this, I can say with most certainty that having a regular spiritual practice of any kind is necessary to maintaining the devotion to the energy of Shaktified life force itself. Otherwise, a Shakti embodied woman will be alive but feeling energetically drained and dead inside; because the well of life force is not flowing. Spiritual energy needs to flow through; and if one is giving too much shakti to others and depleting ones well because many, many people want to drink from the well of Shakti energy, especially men, then one will feel disconnected from life itself.

Also, in my experience – it is crucial not only for a woman to maintain consistency with a regular spiritual practice, simply to maintain devotion to the life force essence of Shakti, but it is even more so important to tap regularly into the expansive state of joyful ecstasy. Because it is in those wild, liberated states of ecstasy that we receive the biggest amounts of self-healing and clearing of stagnancy and the biggest dose of shakti energy all in one wild, liberated dose. From a traditional Indian perspective, Shakti literally means power, so the phrase “Shakti Power” is redundant, and to be Shaktified is to be empowered. It is considered the creative power of the Divine Feminine, the Great Mother. This is not an abstract, esoteric concept devoid of reality. This is an authentic power that is to be experienced and known through the energy moving through the person embodying it. And it is absolutely crucial that we devote ourselves to cultivating this power with consistency and with humble devotion; otherwise it can be ripped away from us if misused. And a Shakti woman will never know happiness if life force and Shakti power have been taken away. Thus, on the path of embodying the Mystic Shakti energy and the Divine Feminine frequency, we must be in humble obedience and service to the Life Force of the Divine Feminine Shakti itself – because it is our teacher, our healer, our mystic sage – we are simply embodiments of its power. It bestows us with beauty, abundance and power only when we are in humble devotion to being in service to Shakti.

Several years ago, when I was in an Ayahuasca ceremony in Peru, I received one of my Shakti initiations. I was laying on my mat, having just received a new heart made of a diamond from an Angel, and was feeling as though I was levitating slightly above my body. The otherworldly, visionary energy of the Ayahuasca was beginning to overwhelm me, so I prayed fervently for angelic assistance. Immediately, a series of Divine Feminine beings hovered above me, each one shapeshifting form; from one woman to the next to the next. The woman that hovered above me was shaking and dancing wildly; her hips were undulating as though she were bellydancing and on fire – and she took form from every Indigenous tribal culture on the planet. First she was from India, then Siberia, then she was from Bali, then Mexico, and Guatemala, then she was from Panama, then Peru, then North American Plains, then she was from Africa, then Egypt. Her outfits, her tribal jewlery, her skin and bone structure, her makeup and hairstyles shapeshifted every time she changed to a different culture. Every time her hips shook, a wave or a pulsation of shakti energy was sent from her astral body into my physical body, sending me into extremely intense states of bliss as I watched her shake her hips and shapeshift cultural forms. It was a most exquisite initiation; to realize that the Divine Feminine power of Shakti has been present in every single global culture in different forms, and it is present even now in our Modern American culture – to bring healing, balance, and Divine Feminine Initiation to those that are ready.

I had an experience a year ago, when in a shaktified state of ecstatic dancing at Jai Ganesh, a mystical New Years Eve ritual in Portland, I received a transmission that one of the projects of my life’s work is to awaken Shakti in a thousand women. As I believe that it is crucial that women receive an initiation into their Shakti power in order to become an embodiment of the Divine Feminine frequency, and that I believe the Feminine must en masse begin to re-embody the Divine Feminine in order to bring energetic balance back to the world. We shaktified women have a lot of work to do to clear the way for other women, who haven’t been quite so ready or enthusiastic to step into Shakti; because thousands of years of repression of the body and sexuality and women’s shakti power in Western society have left women deeply energetically traumatized and suppressed. It weighs on the psyche of all women to one level or another. For a woman to come into her own Divine Power and to be moved by it, and to fearlessly follow the heart of the Divine Mother is the goal of this path. And the signs are present that this is the time for this awakening to occur, en masse; now and the times to come. I see many positive signs in our current society, but highest among them is that now there are so many fearless, independent, smart, authentic, liberated, creative, grounded women. And there are already many women who are shaktified and amplifying the levels of Divine Feminine energy in our current society, and many more that are right on the precipice of surrendering to the transformative power inherent within the awakened Feminine power.

Today someone said to me that he sees me as very emotionally detached and reserved. He asked where I was at emotionally, considering I am on the Big Island. He said most people come here to the Big Island and go through a lot of intensity because Pele stirs up so much emotion and fire energy. I then told him about my planets in Fire signs, and that I have a lot of fire energy. I told him that in my best moments in life, I am like the ultimate ADD child on psychedelic fire; I can be a wild, torrential rain of ecstatic Shakti energy – but completely ungrounded and oblivious to everything around me. So, I’ve been forced to learn to temper my flames and ground my energy, because it’s really the only option for day to day living. I’ve had to cool down and focus on relaxing and cultivating a grounded energy body – it’s quite a work in progress, but it’s where my intention is. I’m kind of like Pele, with a lot of intense, fire energy stirring within, trying to allow it all to settle down and become hard, dense stone.

I think as a tribe, we Fire people struggle with self acceptance because we are so intense, and especially in this world of social conformity and socially enforced patterns around how to behave. We have a hard time because our tendency is to be kind of wild and crazy; we like to be passionately on fire – we live for it, it’s who we are when we are in our authenticity. I know that it’s true for myself, and I definitely have seen a similar pattern in most of the Fire Sign women friends I have in my life. But it can be kind of emotionally de-stabilizing; it triggers that bipolar emotional / energetic rollercoaster of super highs and super lows. This last year when I was travelling around the country, going from a few weeks in Manhattan to a few weeks working in Northern California to a few weeks processing lots of emotional intensity in Ashland, I realized that I really get off on intensity in life. I like my friends to be intense, and I like my experiences to be intense. And now I am here on the Big Island of Hawaii. Before I came here, everyone told me pretty much the same thing about the Big Island: “The energy there is so intense, Pele is so active, it’s an actively volcanic land, so you are constantly immersed in active, intense moving energy. It stirs up a lot of stuff for everybody.”

So it was interesting to me that today my friend said that I seem so emotionally detached; he doesn’t know me that well yet, but it was interesting to see me through his lens. It’s almost as though I’m already so naturally at home and in sync with fire energy and processing intensity, that it’s nothing new for me. I told him that I’ve had to consciously choose to cultivate practices that focus on being more embodied, more balanced, more grounded. I’ve had to choose that over and over again, to be committed to it – because my natural tendency is to be a wild child, at least that used to be the case. There is something, though, about the grounded, nurturing earth energy state that really helps me come into wholeness. It would’ve been very easy for me to ride the rollercoaster of life at top speed, but my body has forced me to choose a slower, more grounded (and hopefully sustainable) path. The nurturing earth sign personalities are my teachers, like my dear sister Stacy; it’s crucial to practice being calm, meditative, cultivating the hearth and home, and choosing a more gentle frequency. There is always this part of me that feels, though, that if I’m not in a wild state of ecstatic trance and channelling tribal, funky, psychedelic energy that I’m not really in myself. But, actually I see both sides of the coin as each aspects of the whole, and blending them is the key to wholeness.

I’m grateful for all the reflections I’ve had in my life of all the Fire Priestess Goddess women in my life. There is something so magnificent about the Fire women; they are unafraid to be themselves, they are fully lit, wild creatures of divine inspiration. They fearlessly create amazing realities and lives for themselves. My friend Ruby is an amazing example and inspiration; she is such a Leo mama – and she has created the most beautiful community home in Portland that I’ve ever seen. Having been blessed to live there for over a year during its peak, I really got to witness the peak highs that her Fire mama container was able to hold. With wild a wild, jungle yard in the midst of residential, Southeast Portland, with a hot tub, sauna, and cold plunge, plus an art / living studio in the renovated garage, she had pretty much created one of the most primal, visionary oasises I’ve ever seen in a residential neighborhood in my life. It was a step out of the ordinary, and people came there for amazing gatherings, parties, reiki circles, and backyard sweat & chant sessions. As an artist, she was living the dream, and she is a full on visionary witch priestess. My heart loves her so deeply, and having seen her so fully, I see the reflection of the amazing highs of the Fire energy and the peak lows we go through.

The peak lows of the Fire personality are painful. We feel things so intensely and go through our deep dips so deeply that being in the trough of misery, especially when contrasted with what we know we can experience in our peak high ecstatic fire states, creates the feeling of a soul torn apart. It is only with the grounding rod of supportive community and beloveds, that we fiery folks can come to balance.

We Fire Sign people are known for more than our passion, though; we are known for our ego, for our self-inflation, for our attention gathering skills, which often comes with a lot of admiration, appreciation, ridicule and judgment. But we have to be authentic; it is who we are. We cannot deny our truth, our authenticity, our passionate fire, any more than we could deny that we are alive. But it is a life frought with judgment; both external and internal. The only way seems to be to be consciously mindful of our mind and relax into self acceptance and being with what is. Thus, I have taken steps to focus on a healing path, rather than a performance / exhibitionist path like the archetypal Leo, Madonna. Because the fire within me wants to do something with it other than gain attention, it wants to gain a feeling of a life lived in service to the divine soul purpose.

Discernment, Slowness, Mindfulness, Relaxation and Fewer Distractions; these are the things that are helping me cultivate Balance of my Fire Energies. I’m still working on it, and maybe I will be until beyond death. I do know, though, that my spirit wants to be more grounded, and wants to accomplish things in the material realm to share with other beings in a grounded way, because the spiritual awakening and initiations of cosmic consciousness have already been had, and it’s time to share the gifts. Being blessed with Fiery Hot Shakti energy comes with amazing gifts and insights, but I have come to know over the last few years that to ground that spiritual fire into the dense, physical, material world is the most important work for me. It is there that my insights will arise into maturity. Some people need to find transcendance because they’ve never experienced it; and they don’t even believe in it – they are so stuck in their heads and belief systems. But with this fiery, creative, shakti energy – I have known and experienced the ultimate transcendance – and I know that its gift is to feed to the mouth of the holy within all. Thus, I am in stillness, learning to recalibrate, so that I have something of real worth to share.

Our modern American culture supports people becoming walking thoughts; stuck in mental quagmires of drama, rules, stress, meetings, obligations, and the regurgitation of socially enforced programming. Whether we are driving our car or working on our computer or shopping, our minds are frequently attuned to the ‘what to do’ dial on the radio. In our stressful society, one that encourages us to do so much, accomplish so much, to be driven to take care of all the myriad tasks at hand, where our minds are frequently overwhelmed and scattered by the stimulus coming into our field, our ‘sympathetic nervous system’ is in control – which is regulated by the neurotransmitter Norepipinephrine, otherwise known as Adrenaline. How many people do you know that have said, “I don’t know how to relax. I can only relax when I’m doing something. I’m an adrenaline junkie!”

Having worked as a Bodyworker for several years, I have seen innumerable men who are completely disconnected from their bodies – in fact, it was that realization that made me want to delve into offering Tantric Bodywork as a healing modality – to offer compassion to the masses of men whose bodies, minds and energy bodies were all completely disconnected and un-integrated. In my Tantric Work, I have sought to teach men how to become present and attuned to their bodies; to direct their awareness into their bodies, in order to learn how to become internally energetically aware and be able to move and circulate energy internally.

My study of the Parasympathetic Nervous System versus the Sympathetic Nervous System made me realize that our society conditions men and women towards becoming un-Tantric and sexually dysfunctional by promoting lifestyle belief systems that encourage the Sympathetic Nervous System to be in an adrenaline dominance state, which depletes ones ability to be relaxed, sensual, well-rested, and which creates dysfunction in both the sexual organs and in the intestines. This is a result of adrenaline dominance; the lifestyle of stress, overactive thoughts, do-do-do, go-go-go, the rat race, “I can’t seem to sleep at night,” – the fight or flight system in full bloom, which encourages one to become un-embodied.

I share this with you because having gone through a wave of this sadness and depression recently, followed by receiving loving openness from a beautiful healer who helped me to become more in my body, helped me realize the link between depression and being unembodied, and why being embodied is one of the most important spiritual practices to cultivate for energetic and emotional well-being.

Whether your pattern for being un-embodied is to become overwhelmed and stressful – prone to anxiety attacks and the mind running in a state of overwhelm – or if your pattern is to fall into a frozen state of depression, possibly even using substances to assist in your numbing process, I believe both forms of unembodiment are a result of the ‘fight or flight’ / sympathetic nervous system response. In depression, the mind has taken flight into a spiralling out of control confusion state, wherein the mind is not in the body; the self is fighting against its better self, the wisdom self – the higher mind. In the other form – the overactive, doing state, people are ignoring their body signals, and going and doing, not listening to their feelings and their body, despite all its attempts to make its intelligence wildly known. Both forms of unembodiment are draining energetically, and leave people exhausted and unhappy. And folks, I don’t know about you – but I’m sick of being unhappy, and I’m sure you are too! I want to be happy, and I want you to be happy too! Everybody deserves to be happy, even if you think you don’t. And it’s not until we are motivated to make the life-affirming transformational choices that are going to make us feel empowered that we will be happy, and that requires listening to ones heart’s wisdom – the intuition, the most deeply personal, subtle language of the soul.

But it would seem that the age-old adage that running away from your problems isn’t really the answer either, and isn’t going to solve the unhappiness long term. Running away is another form of being un-embodied; it’s a form of denial, pushing aside what we’re feeling. It doesn’t go anywhere, it’s still there waiting to be worked on.
When I was with my ex-boyfriend four years ago, things were highly explosive at times and I was traumatized by the experience, and in my traumatized state I discovered that I didn’t love myself and that I wanted to die because I felt hopeless and worthless, and I often found myself on a park bench for hours in a frostbitten trance of numbness and sadness, or wandering aimlessly through sidewalks and stores with a vacant, lifeless expression on my face – unable to look anyone in the eye, and if someone did, I’d just start bawling. Finally after some time of going through such an emotionally intense ordeal, I found a way out and escaped the relationship long enough for me to do a little bit of self-work on myself.

I ended up at Lake Atitlan in Guatemala; one of those magical ‘heaven on earth’ places – a warm, sunny paradise filled with bougainvillas, and foot-paths through a small Mayan village where everyone embraced each other with a kiss on each cheek as a greeting, totally disconnected from everything in the United States. It was there that I went into the deepest journey of self-examination and self-healing that I could muster. Inspired by the wisdom of Caroline Myss and her book, ‘Anatomy of the Spirit’, I began processing my physical symptoms on an energetic level and discovered that I was still really sad and depressed in Guatemala. Despite the fact that there was no boyfriend triggering me that I could point my fingers towards, I discovered that the emotional and energetic symptoms were exactly the same whether I was in Oregon or in Guatemala. And thus, I began owning and taking responsibility for my feelings, and realized I had to stop running away from myself and had to stop blaming others for my experience. This was a pivotal moment in my life process of empowerment.

When I was in Guatemala, I discovered the core of my personal embodiment practice and I spent as much time every day as possible practicing it. In the village of San Marcos, along the coast of Lake Atitlan, there is an area just a few minutes walk away from the center of the village, an area known simply as ‘The Rocks.’ An area where white boulders meet the clear blue waters of Lake Atitlan, and every day you would find nomadic global gypsies perched on any number of the rocks, hanging out – usually bathing in the nude, sometimes smoking spliffs, sometimes jumping off of 30 foot high cliffs into the waters, sometimes doing yoga. It was there that we would watch as elder Mayan men would boat around the lake in their hand carved wooden canoes, fishing. It was there that sometimes we would find the women washing their clothes, scrubbing them on the rocks. It was there that as my time in Atitlan progressed, I spent my days doing my own form of embodiment practice – my own, intuitive fusion of sounding / toning, combined with yogic stretching and practicing what I’d learned from my QiGong teachers and praying. Essentially, it was a combination of sound healing and doing yogic meditative movements and focusing my intention and breath; moving on the boulders, balancing my feet on pressure points on the rocks, and intermittently bathing in the waters and drying off on the rocks in the sunlight as I did my movements and toning. It was pretty much the most blissful experience ever. And after some time of doing that, I would feel deeply at peace, simultaneously relaxed and blissed out and yet filled with heightened vitality and energy.

There is something about bathing and doing embodiment practices on boulders next to clean bodies of water that is pretty much my most treasured spiritual practice ever; it initiates a most desirable state of transcendance and happiness. Since that time, I have done those practices on boulders alongside waterfalls in Puerto Rico to creeks in Southern Oregon, from the Rio Urubamba in the Sacred Valley in Peru to the Cenotes in the Yucatan Peninsula. But it’s important to bring our spiritual practices home to the places without crystal clear bodies of water, to the cold, grey lands up North where this energy is rare and most needed – where still most of the people have no embodiment practices and are still trapped in the maze of energetic disconnect and stress. It’s hard to stay replenished and not get devoured by the energy in our American culture, where the global corporate economy reality has stamped its claw into seemingly every soul and region.

With the economy in our society at the heart of everything, and given its current state of recession, it is of no surprise that it is so hard to stay ‘grounded’ and ‘embodied’ – when we’re all scrambling in some fear-based, survival mode to pay rent, afford our bills and make sure we are fed. This has been a transformational, traumatizing year for many, including myself – this has been the year that food stamps saved my life. Whether the transformations and traumas have come in the form of health-related challenges, deaths, financial devastations, losing thousands of dollars along the way to thieves or banks, divorces and separations – I have seen almost no one pass through the eye of this year unscathed.

But not everybody has been as traumatized in the process, which would seem to indicate that it is our way of responding to such situations that determines the outcome, inasmuch as the external circumstances allow. When $4,000 in cash was stolen from my suitcase in October, everyone reminded me that it was how I responded to the situation that determined its affect on me. What I came to realize was that I could not push aside my emotions and be in denial of the powerful feelings of anger and devastating sadness that overwhelmed me as I grieved my loss, but that I also could not let it destroy me – I had to be in surrendering acceptance of it and let it go. I have wept more this year than perhaps any other year of my life, felt powerless and hopeless to the circumstances. I eventually backslid, further and further down a slippery slope, just trying to survive and pay debts off, but shirking my happiness in the process. I just gave in to the pressure to dig myself out of the financially devastating circumstances, which has felt empowering in some way to not run away from my debts, but has left me ungrounded, drained, depressed and in survival mode – as a result.

It’s easy to lose oneself in response to the onslaught of such traumas and circumstances, and to let go of the self-healing tools one has developed because one feels overwhelmed by the experience. But it is through such traumas that they work to dislodge our embodiment, and we have to work against a powerful upstream current, starting again from what seems like scratch, to find the power to re-regulate our empowerment through the re-awakening of our embodiment practices, otherwise we could be lost to the overpowering tide of depression, addiction, frustration, anger and survival based tactics – never getting ahead and never being happy.

Your mind may have a skeptical response to these concepts, you may respond sarcastically – rolling your eyes, or mockingly degrading the entire idea. You may have a hard time believing that there is anything beyond this surface level, body / matter reality, you may think that the idea of God is rolled up into the Christian mythos, you may not believe that there is a God, let alone that you could be an embodiment of such wisdom. But would you really want to give away all your power away to thoughts that would serve to disempower you and limit you, and keep you from knowing yourself at the deepest level possible? The goal of this path is to re-orient your mind’s attention to your body and to your heart, and to listen intuitively to the wisdom emanating thereof, to know by feeling the knowing permeating you at the deepest level possible, from the bliss of the compassion and love pouring forth from your heart. It is not possible to know yourself as Divine through mental constructs, it is only possible to know that when you attune your attention to a frequency shifted just beyond the mundane; the still point of meditation, the clarity of intuitive, listening consciousness.

Which is why it is so important Now to begin learning conscious embodiment practices. This society, this economy, all the concrete and banks and sidewalks and concrete serve to keep us enslaved to an energetically rigid, externally enforced belief structure of reality. When we attune to the wisdom of the Earth, when we listen with our bodies, when we allow ourselves to be permeated by the mystery and the beauty of the Divine, manifested as the Earth, we can begin to re-attune our energetic frequency to our embodiment of Divinity. I have only sat with Grandmother Peyote once, and she shared with me a very important message of our current times. After having gained witness of an enormous altar in front of this massive, Grandmother peyote cactus, upon which thousands of offerings had been placed – I was taken into what seemed like a subway train made of pure light – it was a sort of Celestial, Galactic Public Transportation system. I was informed that this was vision like a movie trailer of a Cosmic Opportunity coming soon to a planet near us. The vision I received was of this Celestial, Galactic Public Transportation system that has a regular route, just like a subway train, but that it circulates energy throughout the galaxy, on a multidimensional, energetic level. It was coming to Earth soon, it only makes its visitation to Earth every 26,000 years, approximately. It said this is why so many people chose to be incarnated at this time on this planet; so many souls subconsciously want the opportunity to awaken and co-create the divine transformation on Earth. But it’s not just the humans who have this opportunity to ascend energetically with the approaching of this celestial subway; all plants & animals & waters & stones do too, but primarily the Earth herself is preparing to make the jump on an energetic level, which will require a release of Kundalini Energy from the Earth’s core. Thus, the vision informed me, it is absolutely crucial that all beings on the planet learn immediately how to be sensitive to their energy body, and how to move and circulate internal energy consciously through their bodies.

Is it any wonder that there is such an intense enslavement and repression upon the planet, by way of the global Financial industry – conjoined with the Pharmaceutical companies, the shadow Governments, etc. There is a great fear that they will lose their enslaving power over so many souls simultaneously. They are consciously and unconsciously programmed to keep as many people trapped and stuck as possible, by creating great dischord in the bodies of every person through creating obstacles for well-being, through unhealthy, toxic, GMO laden food, pharmaceutical drugs, through stressful environments in the work-world, through diseases, through toxicities in our environments. It is through these toxicities that we block unadulterated flows of energy through our bodies, and create diseases which can keep us stuck in a karmic rut. But it is through our bodies that we can gain freedom, learn how to access our divinity, learn how to be attuned to the energy and intelligence emanating from the Earth. Which is why it is absolutely crucial that we learn how to become embodied and cultivate embodiment practices now, so that we can learn how to listen to the Earth as she speaks to us, liberating our energy bodies with her subtle and intense pulsations of her awakening vibrational shift. There are a great many people who will not take the opportunity to be liberated as the Earth shakes off her denser-energy body and aligns to a heightened vibration, there are a great many people who will remain stuck or become devastated by disasters because they don’t know how to feel, don’t know how to be attuned, don’t know how to listen to their bodies, don’t know how to let go, and will remain ensnared and enslaved until the next cosmic subway arrives in another 26,000 years. Maybe it’s all an illusion, but it was the essence of the download I psychically received from Peyote, and it seems that its message has continually been corroberated by all the stories, intuitions and news emerging from a multiplicity of sources over the last 6 years.

Once, when contemplating the Earth’s unique opportunity for Kundalini Awakening and vibrational shift, the realization came to me that in order for the Earth’s kundalini to be stirred and awakened, she must be revelling in an orgasmic vibration of pleasure and release. But what would cause the Earth to experience an orgasmic release of energy, but penetration? But what would penetrate her, and how, and where? Then it came to me; the ‘Earth Mother’ aka Pachamama is feminine & receptive; and historically and archetypally, the Sun has always been masculine, ‘penetrating’, Solar. The Sun has always been equated to masculine force, and an increase in Solar Flares would provide a proper amount of penetrative energy to trigger the receptive, yoni-like qualities of the Earth. Thus, I feel that the rise in penetrating solar flares are going to cause an increase in seismic releases from the Earth’s core, which I perceive to be akin to the Earth experiencing a rippling, pulsating orgasmic release. And who wouldn’t want to live on a planet that is experiencing an increase in blissful vibrations? Thus, being attuned to the heightened, kundalini-activated energy arising from the Earth is at a deeper level the ultimate goal of Being Embodied in these times. Because if you aren’t an Embodied Being, you will be unaware of the vibrational shift approaching and occurring.

This is at the very essence of my soul’s purpose; to provide conscious Embodiment Practices to maintain embodied awareness, learning how to intuitively discern our body’s wisdom, thus staying magnetically attuned to the information being emitted from the core of the Earth during times of transformational Earth changes. Because it is precisely at the moment of transformation and chaotic nodes that we need to be committed to staying Embodied and Grounded, rather than swept into the swirl of confusion and devastation that the chaos could allow. It is very much like Jesus’s parable of being on the ship during the storm, and remaining a pillar of light and calm. Thus, we are able to stay centered and in service to the embodiment and grounding of those around us during times when others are swept into the chaotic swirl. For, the central spiritual truth I have always received is, “Trust: There is nothing to fear, You are surrounded by a supportive conscious universe, you are always supported, relax and stay centered.”

Ordinarily, I wouldn’t post something this informal on my blog on Embodied Being, as I prefer to keep my blog posts here limited to more formal philosophical / spiritual essays. But, I felt called to post this status update, because occasionally I get emails from people from different places asking me to be available for this or that, and to inquire about therapeutic sessions. So, I am sending this update to let people, mostly people who aren’t friends on Facebook, know what’s up with me.

I’m on the Big Island of Hawaii. I’ve been here since the second week of March, and I think I will be here until the end of April, maybe even into May. I am sensing that I will be back in Oregon by the second week of May, theoretically. I may try to head over to either Kauai or Maui before leaving Hawaii, for probably a week, and then head “home”. Although, more and more, I am settling in here and feeling at home here on the Big Island. Although, I am beginning to feel as though I’d rather just stay here for a while and really go deep into a prolonged retreat.

I came here because I pretty much went through the most difficult year of my life this last year, up until right before I made the decision to buy my ticket to come here. I’d say at least roughly from July of last summer to February, I was going through a miserable ride through the underworld. There were moments of good times, amazing community, lots of love, and inspiration, during that seven month long period. But, overall, I was covered in a fog of heavy shadow; depressed, depleted, frustrated, confused, stuck, pissed off, drained. I had my heart severely broken, was in financial ruin, had to move out of my house, had thousands of dollars stolen from me, was doing work that I wasn’t happy doing, moving around from place to place to place to place, and ended up in a solid state of depression by the winter. I cried a lot.

I came to Hawaii to recalibrate. To find myself again, and to find my happiness again. A psychic did a palm reading of me back in January, when I was last in Manhattan, and she said that I needed to really re-commit to my work of healing myself IMMEDIATELY, and really make big decisions to shift the energy I was in, and if I did my work in February and made it to these opportunities in March, I would make myself available for some big shifts in my life and my career for the next 5 years. Big shifts that I have been wanting to make happen for way way way too long, but have been feeling stuck and confused. She said that I really needed to go into a fully self-focused retreat zone, and allow myself to detach from others and be with myself, be selfish, and clear myself out – because I could not give any more to others and spread myself out.

So, I’ve been thinking about what she said a lot. She read my palm like a book, and it was amazing. Since I have been in Hawaii, I came to realize I needed to simplify more and more, and that I am happy with less; less demands, less work, less money, less layers of clothing, less socks. I need to focus on myself, and the simplicity of being on the Big Island is exactly what I needed. I have not been making myself available as a bodyworker or healing practitioner since I have been here, and I came here imagining that I would begin teaching & facilitating my Ecstatic Medicine Vocal Circles again here. But no, I came to the realization that I am in a phase of self-examination, and needing space and energy to myself to process what I’ve gone through. I’m not really available yet, or ready yet, to take on the next phase of my work. It’s really helpful for me right now to not have to show up for others, to be present for clients or for groups, and to have my space to myself. I will know when I am ready again.

So for now, I am only making myself available for Web-based work; web design & graphic design projects. That’s perfect for where I am at right now. Not for forever; definitely not for long term. Ultimately, I prefer working with people, with bodies, with sound and healing arts. Being in front of the computer for long stretches of time is dis-embodying for me; it makes me kind of spaced out. But, I can’t show up for others and be available at this point. So, it’s really good for me to work alone, by myself, in my own space, doing work on the computer. It’s exactly what I need during this time of my life. And I’m keeping my project commitments to a minimum; to what is actually within my abilities to fulfill. I’m definitely NOT making this choice for the money; if that were my goal in life right now, I would be doing other things – but I would not be at peace.

Being at peace and in alignment with my divine purpose in life is pretty much the only important goal in my life, as I see it. Right now, I am in a space of detachment that is allowing me to examine and consider what are my goals in life, what do I want? I have visions; so many visions, inspirations that it overwhelms me. What do I really want? Because, this last year I came to the realization that I honestly didn’t know what I wanted. I was confused. I was really lacking clarity about what I wanted, thus I was all over the place and totally dis-integrated. So, now, the dust is settling, I am settling, and am feeling more solid, stable, relaxed and at peace with the process; still bathing in the unknown as I am.

love ~ sitka

Painting by Francene Hart: http://www.francenehart.com