a moment of contemplation

When I first starting sharing my work online, I was a new mother. I had just come out of Los Angeles with a brick and mortar business (a small storefront yoga studio and apothecary) and sporadic jobs doing music PR and journalism and marketing writing and none if it really made sense anymore. So I left it all and we moved to the desert. And I started writing with 2 small babies at my breast living in a new city, a cheaper one, one that was hot as hell and I knew nobody. I was writing every night after the kids were put down and my husband and I shared a spliff. He got to making music and I sat there next to him with an open word doc. 

I wrote about curiosity of my new role as a mother, staying at home, and the larger role of mothers universally, of raising kids in unfamiliar places, without support, without childcare, without the kind of enclave I was raised in. I wrote of longing for ritual and community. I was writing of belonging. 

That was 18 years ago. 

I wrote freely, and in that writing, community started to weave. I met a friend who literally built me a blog. We began finding each other. Friends and writers. People who wanted to read my writing, writing that was personal narrative, weird prose, strange syntax. I was kinda blown away that people had any interest in what I wanted to say. But I was also finding other mothers who cared so much about the written word, self expression, pushing the envelope, edging deeper into creative life.  It was such a blessing to have this. This new online world, self-publishing, sharing the magic. 

From there I moved into creating writing courses for the new community many of us were weaving together in this new virtual world. I began curating and holding more and more classes,  inviting people in to prose and express. Creating writing collectives online. Then 2 of my beloved and myself began putting together a print magazine. It came out once a season for exactly 5 seasons. It was a magazine on earth-ways and seasonal being-ness. It had collections of stories, articles, DIYS, prompts, beautiful, stunning photography, spells, and magic within it. That was in 2011-2012ish.

During that time I began sharing my love and life long practice of reading oracle, tarot in particular, a practiced passed on to me, that lived in my bones.  I wrote about the cards, the moons alignment with the cards, the magic and ancestral stories within the cards. I began reading but then finding such joy in teaching others, or really, holding space for other's to learn about their own oracle, their own stories within the cards. 

It all started merge together and I began realizing so much of what I was writing, creating, sharing, teaching, comes directly from my radici, my roots. Deep down. And I leaned more and more into that magic. More and more into the lineages that have passed on to me my work through my dreams. Through the wind. I remembered so much of how I was raised, and who I came from, and found it impossible to disconnect from there, something in that was such magical. 

My work started focusing on remembering ancestral wisdom, creativity, magic. My practices deepened. My senses heightened. There was so much ancestral healing that needed to happen. And there was so much ancestral magic that was begging to be remembered. I lived that for a long time. 

As then began bringing folks together for sensory awakening and ancestral remembering experiences — rooted in my own personal practices and what I learned from many teachers— and I offered in person workshops all over the country as well as online courses.

After a decade of prayers and planning and connecting with family and community in Sicily, I was lucky enough to begin offering gatherings on one of my most recent ancestral lands, an island held by the waters of the Mediterranean. And community came. People gathered. 

I have been able to learn so much from that island (the people, the ancestors, the spirits there) and being able to pass/share some of that wisdom on as been a dream. 

It has all been an enormous blessing.

I have been doing this a long time. And at each stage of this, I allowed for changed to take hold of me. I had some agency, but a lot of what I was moved to created and share was a whole lot of surrender and listening. 

I find myself at this point again, where there is a whole lot of surrender and listening. 

I am not sure where to go with it all. What to continue. How. Where. Why. When. And I don't ask these questions in anxiety. Just in pure mystery. 

I am in the... what is next? And what is sustainable for me as I age? As different responsibilities arise? As I am more and more aware of my own limitations and more and more aware of my own brilliance. How do I move into a more an honest version of my self and my art?

Who do I not box myself in, I want to run a business, but I don't want to be stuck inside a system, or way of being. 

Grief from lifetimes. And grief from this year— they are a perfect summer storm to rock my boat in just they way it needs to. To stop me. Make me pause. And sense into what it calling for me. 

I am not looking for growth. I am more interested in depth. 

I am especially drawn to more intimate ways of being, of finding the place within the ground to earth deeper, longer, holding, breathing, being. I want to go down. Not wider. I want to get thicker, not thinner. I want to write longer, not in boxes.

It is all a process. 

A contemplation. And I figured, why not just write this out. Like a prayer. Like a spell. Like dropping this moment of words in time, right here, on this online home I have with a pretty photos of me that may or may not represent the depths of the work I do, but they look nice regardless. 

I'm more of a philosopher than a teacher. I cannot tell you anything. But I can happily hold space for us to question and ponder and wonder and twist in turn in all things that are being born and dying within us. 

More of an artist than an information slinger. I am not an expert at anything at all. What does that even mean?

I don't know anything and that is really my most precious skill.

I am more of a private person than not. Writers used to be able to hide and write from the cave and send out the words and go back into hiding. It is not the case anymore. Now we have to make reels. Angle the camera right, get the filter to be smooth, and put the stupid song on behind it all. And dance like a little monkey. Lol not lol. OMG. It is what it is, but I am here literally to be part of something else. 

I just don't know what the fuck it is. 

I love changes. I love shifting. I love keeping things new and interesting. I am true Sagittarius- keep moving along now.  Also a Scorpio moon  - keep me in the slow mystery. 

This reality for me has not always been easy to follow as far as business is concerned. I am not a great person for "business" — but alas. Working and "making a living" is essential (isn't that phrase so weird: making a living. Isn't living a right/rite, that we shouldn't have to fund, we should be able to live, freely). 

This contemplation has me wondering how long this website will even be here, as it is. How long any of my work will be available anymore. What am I doing? Who am I reaching? What is this all about? What do I do next? Something else is asking me to meet them, asking me to listen. I am here for the changes and strange as they might be.

I typically have just anchored in what I love, what I have spent a lifetime devoting myself to. But how does this all translate into "work"? I am not especially interested in working harder, either.  I am interested in slowing down. I am almost 50. I am interested in mentoring. In learning how to be an elder. In Being. Creating. Sharing. Being the medicine. And so this leaves me in a season of wonder. A portal for change. 

Which I am here for. It's a crossroads. 

When you know you need a change, but you also know you need to keep going- because of the culture we live in- to keep chugging along. In order to see what is head, one really needs to have a stop for a second. We all deserve to take a breather here and there. And wouldn't it be nice to not worry so much on a daily basis about all the "things" (survival things) while we give ourselves that pause? I pray that comes for all of us.

I am trying to slow down enough, not a full stop, but to pay attention to the winds, and where they want me to surrender to. To where they want to change my form and shape. The trees dance in direction. The birdsong is a map. Learning the names of the beings of plants on this land I am on — is shaping me.

I think the death of my dad has spurred some new interests, forced me to evaluate and has asked me for new ways of presenting my devotions.  New ways of writing. He had creative and entrepreneurial DNA. But his hustle wasn't always healthy. It wasn't sustainable. And I think he wants something different for me. He is telling me new stories from beyond. I want to write them. Live them out. 

Grief will soften you to all the questions in your life if you let it. It will help digestion. It will aid in changes your body needs. It is a great transformer. As is death. It really allows you to bury a lot of things that no longer serve you.  And in the dirt, prayers can be cried and fertilize what is coming next.

So in this transition, I am just here. Living. Making whatever happen. Preparing to leave for Sicily— I am full of all kinds of emotion and magic and again- contemplation. Listening. What's next?

And with all that said, I am here to get some of my past classes out there in accessible and self-paced kinds of ways. I figure there is a lot of things I've created. Maybe you might be interested in some. Maybe one of them is exactly what you need.

If you have wanted to do some of the "work" I facilitate, I am sharing a a few courses—  and if you feel called please check them out...

here, here, and here.