navigating liminal space; opening march books
While I am no longer in fight or flight mode, I am in a liminal space — an uncomfortable, tricky, confusing, wondrous, and fertile place to be. I am left with questions about how best to be in relationship with and locate myself within this land I now call home. A part of me who craves certainty and resists change wants to force answers, dismissing this in-between as a moment to quickly push past. Another part of me feels stalled and anxious for clear directions.
honoring our grief, nurturing our imagination
There is so much to say about movement, displacement, change, land stewardship & right relationship with the earth, safety, agency, dignity, disaster preparedness/responsiveness, heartbreak, care (mutual & equitable care, preventative care, networks of care), home. I wonder much about how to honor and metabolize our grief, while nurturing our imagination — so that we may better prepare for, respond to, and thrive in the face of the climate crises we will continue to witness and experience in our lifetimes.
cradling heartbreak, changing shape
Lately, this Ada Limón poem has been resonant for me as I cradle myself through deep heartbreak(s) — personal and collective — and, simultaneously, nurture a big personal change. I am in a crucible of sorts and, without a doubt, changing shape.
meeting the moment with reverence & care
I am trying to be in the present. I am trying to slow down. I am trying to be very mindful.
Of course, there's a voice that scoffs, Who has time to be present, these days? These are dire times. You need to be everywhere, at once. Everywhere except here.
desiring to remember
How to work with the element of heat, of fire? Heat has many degrees and dimensions: a fever, a fight or flight response, a detonated bomb, for example. Faced with literal or emotional flames, we might react with panic, fear, exhaustion, haste, denial, or detachment.
Heat can also indicate a source of light. If I steady my focus, I can feel a small, precious flame glowing in the deep, dark hearth of my belly. How can I nurture this brilliance with the utmost care?
event: breathing room, a workshop and soft space to share & process our feelings about covid
Take a moment to notice: what stories and feelings surface in you at the mention of covid?
feeling your feelings
The more I exercise “feeling my feelings” in this way, the more space and flexibility, safety and trust I can find within myself. The deeper I can exhale.
keeping grounded when things get stormy
I wonder: what things or which people keep you grounded when things get stormy? Is it a tree in your neighborhood that offers you shade and silence? Is it a flower whose color sings to you? Is it a friend or lover you can call or text at a moment’s notice or who gives you the space you need? A hot herbal tisane that soothes you? A song you have on repeat while you shower? A bite of chocolate cake? A moment to scream?
musings of the heart
What if we imagined our hearts as fierce, radiant, and discerning rather than fragile and in need of shielding and armor? What if we listened to and moved with the rhythm of our own heartbeat? What if the strength of our pulse, our inner song, was its own form of protection? What if the flow of harmony was stronger than the stagnation of pride?
working through jealousy
Remembering my own humanity, beyond the jealousy “demon,” I realized that much like the courageous, tender-hearted people who ask for my support, I too, deserved to receive support.
deeper listening, allowing things to come to light
What do the words ‘begin, rest, healing, structure’ mean to you? What are you allowing to come to light in the next six months? What things might you be prematurely forcing into focus? Pause and listen. Where can you listen more deeply in your life? Where is there dissonance? Where is there harmony?
unlearning a language & weaving a different one
What language(s), beyond words, are you currently enacting? What language(s) can you weave through your senses, your body? What narrative(s) are you / can you unlearn?
shifting my relationship with anger
What emotion are you not allowing yourself to feel? Or perhaps, what emotion do you not feel safe to feel in your body or feel safe to express with others?
yearning for, seeking more generous possibilities
Boggs suggests that we need to “change the cultural images or the symbols that play such a pivotal role in molding us into who we are…Art can help us to envision the new cultural images we need to grow our souls.”
Hypnosis, while no panacea, is a highly creative practice that encourages us to use a resource and technology inherent to us all: our imagination. It offers a compassionate auditing of the beliefs, stories, and habits that may be limiting our ability to embody the change we seek. Hypnosis helps us to unearth the poetry within, revealing ideas, possibilities and solutions that might not have been as previously apparent to us.
Event: Finding Ground, Guided Trance & Workshop with Blavk Jewelry (Virtual)
This month, my friend Rebecca Lee (Blavk Jewelry) and I are teaming up to host a virtual workshop and guided hypnosis experience. We'll discuss and experience through trance and our imagination the grounding and protective energies of gemstones and sacred adornment.
Letting the earth have its way
YES. Let earth have its way with me, in the most sensual ways possible. Let it turn my to-do lists and screens into flowers, fungi, roots, and cloud formations.
Shifting, reconfiguring, reconsidering
The deeper I move into spring, the more I desire to slow down. I am shifting, reconfiguring, and reconsidering my approach to and rhythm with, well, everything — including my practice.
Event: Finding Ground, Guided Trance with Self Love Tribute (Virtual)
For this month’s Finding Ground I spoke with my friend Elia Diane Fushi Bekene about their work as an artist, healing practitioner & creator of the Ancestral Healing Tarot Deck. We talked archetypes, tarot, imagination, co-creating with spirit & ancestors, finding home/belonging amid displacement and alienation, and SO much more.
Event: Finding Ground, Guided Trance (Virtual)
How are you doing? What are you feeling in your body? What thoughts are preoccupying your heart and mind, these days? And what stories are materializing from these thoughts and feelings?
Observing our thoughts, finding space within tension
Where do you currently notice tension within you? What parts of you are at odds with each other? Are there automatic thoughts / beliefs charging this tension? Can you challenge these automatic thoughts? If this tension could speak, what would it share with you? What if each moment was an opportunity to pause, observe and adjust? What possibilities are you imagining? Do they restrict or nurture you?