NEW MOON | Releasing with Gratitude

Meditation and intention for release on this new moon:

May I release anything from my heart that is ready to leave, especially if I’ve been hanging on to it out of fear that I won’t be able to receive it again in another form that is better suited for me. I release with great gratitude and reverence for the gifts and beauty I received from what is leaving. I release, knowing that I have absorbed all of the medicine I need from the person, event or experience and that I do not need to cling to any part. I ask for help from spirit in giving me the willingness to release what needs to leave, in taking what is ready to go, and for making space for something new.

My parents are moving out of my childhood home. The last couple of days have been spent going through boxes of memorabilia -- letters, notes. I notice that I’ve been hanging on, in my heart, to some old loves and experiences that are ready to no longer reside within me. Last night I was going through old letters from someone who I had a complicated but formative relationship with. I have often wondered how I would ever fully let that person go, and before I started going through my things I'd intended to just burn everything that they wrote to me. But as I was reading the letters, it was clear to me that I received such beauty and gifts from that person, in addition to all the pain that came from the relationship. As I named to myself the things I was grateful for receiving from this person, giving reverence to the relationship and how it shaped me, I felt it’s hold on my heart dissolving and space being created there. I feel so much lighter today. It’s funny how I’ve tried to force that person out of my heart for a long time, but really what I needed was to truly honor the gifts I received from them, AND the significance of that person to me. 

Something that this crazy-ass, intense Pisces season has taught me is that it doesn’t work for me to muscle my way out of my feelings. I’ve had a lot of feelings this month that I’ve felt super judgmental of, feelings I’ve wanted to banish. What I notice is really working for me is to honor each one, not by letting it pull me under and overtake me (which is always kind of a struggle for me), but by acknowledging that it is a piece of me that needs to be loved and seen. 

Sending you all love and wishes for easy release on this new moon. 

MY FAVORITE THING IN THE WORLD

MY FAVORITE THING IN THE WORLD is working 1:1 with my clients. I love laughing with my clients, hearing the wild, insightful and truth-bombing things their spirit guides say, seeing the glory and beauty of my clients through their spirit guide’s unconditionally-loving eyes, and holding space for big and deep feelings. I love my work because every session that I’ve ever done is different. Sometimes most of a session is spent channeling big transmissions from a spirit guide; at times this is more of a conversation between me, my clients and their guides. Sometimes there’s less talking and more energy work and Reiki happening, allowing space for big shifts and a feeling of being held.

No matter what the session looks like, my intention is always the same: to be a vessel for the highest good and healing of the person I am working with in that exact moment. To open up to spirit and pass on the exact message, exact touch, suggestion, word or type of space that is going to be the catalyst for healing for my friend at that exact moment in time. So much of my work is learning the balance of stepping aside and letting the messages from spirit come through, and knowing when to add tidbits of my own experience and understanding. In the end, it feels like a collaborative piece of art between myself, my dear clients, and Spirit. 

I’m currently booking in NE Portland on Wednesdays and SE Portland on Saturdays, and am also available for DISTANCE SESSIONS! Come hang out to laugh, cry, and get grounded and feel like the you-est yourself you can be. Just scroll to the bottom of this page to click the "schedule" button, and please feel free to email me with any questions about how I work. 

You deserve to be held

Hey. I love you.

I don’t know about y’all, but I am F E E L I N G this moon and can barely keep it together. So much feels overwhelming. In the personal sphere and the global sphere. Let this post serve as a reminder to you that YOU DESERVE TO BE HELD. We all do. We all have the right to be here, to take up space, and to ask for the love and comfort that we need. 

Maybe the way you need to be held today is by another person — can you ask for that? Or maybe the kind of love you need today is from Spirit, your guides, nature, or the god/goddess/s of your understanding. Their arms are open, they are waiting to hold you. 

Every time I work with spirit guides, they pretty much say the same thing. We are here to love and comfort you, all you have to do is ask. You can ring the doorbell in your heart, light a candle, say some words — whatever. It really doesn’t matter, you can just make the space in whatever way feels good for you. There are no magic words. Just ask, and we are there.

Today, I’m trying to make that space by reaching out to the people I love and telling them how I feel, asking for support. Taking deep breaths and letting myself take breaks, letting the cat crawl into my lap, letting myself cry. Asking to the universe that I feel love, comfort and peace. And I’m feeling a little better. 
Sending love and comfort to you all today. May we all know that we are worthy of love and healing.

New Moon :: Releasing Scarcity and Planting Seeds of Abundance

On this new moon, I’m working on releasing stories of scarcity. This holly plant is so heavy with berries and abundance! It is teaching me. I am thinking about what speaker Ola Obasi said at the plant medicine conference this year. That abundance is our nature, it is the baseline state of this planet and our natural environment. We live in a world that is rich with resources and nourishment. Scarcity is something that we’ve created. This holly heavy with berries is reminding me that. 

I'm working on leaning into the truth of abundance — not as spiritual bypass, not as a way of cashing on on unexamined privilege — but as a way of reminding myself that I am held and supported by my community. That there is enough. That I can take scary steps to do what actually feels right and true with my life and know that I will find and be given ways to support myself. Peeling away the exoskeleton of capitalism and deep seeded beliefs about how we have to suffer in our work to make a living in this world. Planting seeds of fortitude to help all of us remember these truths in a climate that is constantly telling us otherwise.

Happy new moon! Love to you

Thanksgiving day thoughts for folks of settler lineage

Hey y’all. Loving everyone in my community and everyone on this planet today. Sharing some writing here that I did this morning about Thanksgiving, and the continuing violence that surrounds it that our collective consciousness still wants to deny.

My prayer for all of us of settler lineage today is that, if we are gathered with others, we can take a moment to acknowledge and sit with sadness and guilt, not to beat ourselves up but to become whole, to be in truth and to move toward accountability and healing. This poem is for you, with love. A few links at the bottom for orgs you can donate to today. Please join me in doing that, even if it is just a little. 

****

to deny wrong-doing is to evade our humanity.
don’t you want to become whole?

Rev. angel Kyodo williams said that whiteness is not who we are. but people feel threatened as though it is.

i’m learning about the ego’s identification with labels, and how the ego fights back when threatened.

our collective is identified with our label of whiteness and our egos are fighting back.

this morning, i heard —

you’ll see that as you do the work of opening your hearts to listening and understanding, as you divest from your need to be right and your fear of being wrong

that opportunities for amends will come to you.

it takes a lot of breathing and softening.

it is not easy.

bounty, earth, blessing, cornucopia --
labor of hands, labor of the earth, sharing the harvest.
humanity has been doing this for centuries.

our psyches are smart. they detect lies. do you think that you can receive the nourishment from the earth while you are protecting yourself from truth?

In this life, it's always the light with the dark. You may celebrate but in your hearts you will also mourn the ones who are not there. this is the richness of your experience.

when you cut off your guilt, you do a disservice to yourself and to the world. you rob others the opportunity for healing and you keep them underneath you, and you do violence to your own soul.

love does not just start and end with the family or with the people that you know. love extends to all and that love does not have to be cordoned off. this is the illusion of the other.

you can be greedy in love when you create boundaries for it. love is not boundaried, that is not its nature. it is like water. let it rain, let the flood gates open. there is enough.

don’t you want to become whole?

***
donations for orgs that support indigenous people:

Portland: 
Naya: https://nayapdx.thankyou4caring.org/
Red Lodge Transition Center: http://redlodgetransition.org/

National/global:
international indigenous youth council: https://indigenousyouth.org/about/
Earth Guardians: https://www.earthguardians.org/
We R Native: https://www.wernative.org/

Samhain Blessings!

happy samhain, dear hearts.

last night, to celebrate this holiday, i got to participate in a sweet ceremony with some friends at the park. We called in the directions, and when we faced the north, I felt a parade of ancestors and spirits, clanging bells and wearing bright clothing and getting ready to p a r t y! 
Here's the message I heard and felt from them:

It is time to feast, not on heaviness and sadness, but on joy and embodiment. You are so focused on cultivating perfection in your lives that you have become out of step with the pace of the world. The ride of this life is wild and there’s little you can control. Being in a body is strange, wonderful, temporary, and a gift. Enjoy it while you have it! Enjoy and revel in the messy-ness and temporality. You don’t have control and it is OK.

I'm trying to take this into my life today. Not focusing on making everything perfect. Enjoying what it feels like to have a body, to feel pleasure, and listening to my ancestors tell me about the fleeting-ness of life and of the experience we are having here.

Love to you all, and Happy Samhain! xoxoxo