Transitions & Remembrances

November 1st—

Also known as Samhain (Sauin), or All Saint’s Day, or El Dia de los Muertos (The Day of the Dead), depending on the tradition.

All these Northern Hemisphere traditions rooted in the seasonal shift of autumn--the Earth transitioning from the warm, flowering harvests of summer into the dormant, dark, cold of winter.

The common theme: death

Autumn displays death artfully, as the leaves show their true colors in one last flair before letting go.  

What is death anyway?

It's a question I’ve been asking a lot lately, especially since losing my mother and only sibling within the last 2 years.

Growing up in a fundamentalist/non-denominational Christian home I didn't have these November 1st  traditions. I just had the commercialized understanding of Halloween, a holiday that my parents forbid me to celebrate because they believed it to be "the holiest day on the Satanic calendar.”

Now at 33 years old, having studied several spiritual philosophies, and having lost a significant number of relatives and friends to death, I find myself drawn to this time of year, as nature beckons us to observe the death cycle.

I pull from all these traditions, and others, to help me understand the big picture.

I pull from Samhain, in awe of the seasonal shifting, and how it informs my understanding of God.

I pull from the Catholics to honor my mother who has surely entered the Cloud of Witnesses, and resound the deepest vibrations of love for my brother, that Christ’s Light may guide his trajectory.

I pull from El Dia de los Muertos, and fondly remember the quirks and hilarities of the departed whose hands held and guided me when they were still among the living.

I clean my home, and rake the fallen leaves, getting the message that energy's sole purpose is to keep moving.

When energy becomes stagnant, it moves internal, or it moves on, so that the shells and encasing may be released.

In ancient Chinese philosophy, the opposing forces of Yin (passive, feminine, night) and Yang (active, masculine, sun) balance life.

In Yogic philosophy, the Atman, or the eternal soul, permeates and illuminates all things. It is the Life Force in all things.

A few weeks before my mother died, she said, "I don't know how it all works, but I believe I'll be with God."

"I believe that too, Mama." I told her.

And so I do, so very deeply.

I commune with God daily.

God whispers to me in a Still Small Voice.

I see God best in nature, as the Force that illuminates—the underlying Hum.

Because I see God in all things, and I believe my loved ones are with God, I see my loved ones in all things.

Last year, I traveled to Costa Rica at this time.

I missed the crescendos of colorful leaves, as Central America stays warm and blossoms all year round.

I was still so fresh in grieving my mother, wrestling with the reality that I would never, for the rest of my days, see her again.

There was a large old tree, in the center of the resort where I stayed.

It reminded me of her.

I spent time under its branches, and got up close to its gnarled bits, covered in ants and other microcosms.

I could very tangibly feel the Life Force exuding from the tree.

Surely the Life Force that left my mother's body went back to Source, and Source illuminates the tree. So in a way, my mother was there, tangibly with me, in a new, different form.

Since that moment, I see her in all of nature-- in all trees, plants, and greenery, even when the green shifts to golden.

As we turn towards darker days (from November 1st until the winter solstice's darkest night on December 21st), we have a chance to turn inward for reflection. We enter a Yin phase.

We honor death (or stillness) and the shifts it brings.

We hibernate, slow down, and rest.

Before I get merry for Christmas and Yule, or really feel into the total stillness that deep winter brings, I pause at this threshold, smile, and say a gratitude to my loved ones who are no longer here in the physical,

"Thanks for being here, thanks for all that was, and thank you for this gift of sweet release that allows the energy to continue in motion."

Life's a Flow.
Align and Spiral with it.

Journey Towards Embodiment

My mother enrolled me in dance class when I was 4 years old.

The teachers taught us stretches, plies, skipping, and an assortment of other moves I can’t recall.

What I do recall is stretching to touch my toes and feeling a struggle, while the other little girls, all smaller and thinner than me, folded like spaghetti.

This was probably my first brush with feeling self-conscious about my body.

I felt totally out of place, and quit before my first recital.

I was more mesmerized by the shoes and leotards than anything else anyway.

My family made sure I was well loved—and well fed.

I grew up gorging myself at all-you-can-eat buffets, and thinking it was normal to eat until I was miserable.

At 10, I figured out the art of counting calories, and attempted to go long periods of time without eating, saving my calories for what I really wanted.

This just made me loathe my body more, and go through phases of eating “well”, then giving up.

I hated physical education class, and simply thought that “my talents lie elsewhere.”

I was deeply disconnected from my body.

Enter the college era:
I was 18, “plump” as my grandmother once called me, secretly drowning in self-consciousness, and majoring in theatre arts education.

The other theatre majors talked about “Triple Threats,” performers who could act, sing, and dance.

Somehow, in my naivety, I dreamed of being a performance artist without the physicalization piece.

I thought my passion to convey emotions through my facial expressions and voice would be enough to carry me.

Deep down, I yearned to dance, but I was so uncoordinated.

All these “triple threats” were probably the same kids that could fold like spaghetti at 4 years old.

That wasn’t me.

But then, my perspective changed under the influence of two theatre arts professors, both certified in the Alexander Technique—a mindfulness approach to movement.

The Alexander Technique was my introduction to somatics—a field that focuses more on the feelings or internal sensations of the physical form, rather than just the aesthetic of the physical form itself.

I learned how to FEEL into my body, and use these sensations to awaken ease and bliss, planting seeds for me to cultivate a more loving relationship with my physical self.

My professor Missy (in the theatre department, we called our professors by their first name) led us in experiential movement.

We’d have an anatomy lecture, then we’d walk about the space to physically explore the anatomy we’d just discussed.

She would guide us with words and the gentlest hands-on assists, that sent euphoric waves from my tailbone through my crown.

”Up and free,” she would say.

"Allow,” rather than “do”.

We were unlearning, undoing, getting out of the way, so that innate energy could freely flow through the body—bringing us back to the way we were as babes, before the traumas of life adulterated our finesse.

One class we spent the entire hour standing then sitting down in a chair.

Another class we spent the whole time walking up and down the stairs.

We felt into ourselves to observe the nuanced subtleties of our movement, and observed each other with an outside perspective to see the physical form in process.

I was hooked.

I wanted to do this work forever.

When not in class, I carried my new found knowledge with me everywhere—
while eating, studying, or rehearsing for a performance.

I even learned how to give myself full-body euphoria while standing in line at the grocery store, by making micro-adjustments to my posture and connecting to my breath.

So simple, so exquisite, so yummy.

Even still, my self-consciousness and body loathing pervaded.

At 20, I picked up smoking, and fell head over heels in love with nicotine.
It was the perfect pick-me-up late nights while I stressed over completing school projects and meeting deadlines, and the best companion when friends and lovers couldn’t be bothered.

It soothed my stresses and calmed my nerves, and better yet suppressed my appetite.
I lost weight rapidly—no more baby fat.
I took great satisfaction in this, and finally I got the body validation I’d always craved.

I was discovering my body’s geometry through somatic exploration, while feeding myself on nicotine and hollow starvation.

What a paradox.

As I entered my senior year my lack of time management skills, chronic procrastination, and poor coping strategies finally caught up with me. I graduated but experienced severe burnout, and halted my pursuit of a career in the school system as a theatre arts teacher.

But where to go and what to do?

Most hope seemed lost, except that same year, my friend gifted me a hula-hoop.

It became my beloved dance teacher—the one I had been waiting for my whole life.

With the hoop, I spiraled outward and inward.

I found repetitive movements that calmed me deep in my core—in some kind of way that was beyond the physical.

Much like the Alexander Technique it helped me tap into a current, and move in a way where “I” got out of the way, and allowed my body to unravel.

For the first time, I fell in love with my body.

I fell in love with everything that she could do for me.

I saw her for the first time. I saw the potential in her, and I began to appreciate her.

I began to dance daily, first with the hoop, sometimes for hours at a time, then without the hoop.

I went to hooping retreats (yes it’s a thing).

I met others on their journey with embodied movement and dance.

Beyond flow arts (which umbrellas hula-hooping), I discovered Gabriella Roth’s 5 Rhythms, Ecstatic Dance, acro-yoga, contact improv, and countless other ways to explore movement and flow.

I decided the next step in my professional path would need to involve touch.

If I was going to help people feel into this current, I wanted to be able to touch them.

I enrolled in massage school, acquired a “license to touch,” that is, my massage and bodywork therapy license.

I began playing with this flow through touch, and discovered myofascial release, a modality that gently works with the connective tissue to release stored up emotional and physical tension. I had my first emotional release from bodywork during this training.

My next emotional release from a body-based modality, came during breathwork (which is worth its own blog post).

In 2018, I completed my first 200hr yoga teacher training.

By 2022, after losing my mother, I did a second one. This time, in a 3 week immersion in Costa Rica.

Here, I had my first emotional release from movement.

After our first yoga class at the training, I sobbed.

The movements had opened my body in a way so that I could release my grief.

I had no words—only feelings and a body response.

The energy moved through me, and I allowed it to see daylight, without judgment.

My mind clung to a 1000 stories, yet my body required no such tellings.

She only asked for one thing—full presence. So I sat with her.

My quest for fully embodied presence and mindfulness is lifelong.

There is no perfect destination, and as a wise healer recently told me,
“There is no other place to go besides being here, now.”

“Here, Now,” is the most trying place to be sometimes, but I think it may be the only place we can actually access in this physical form.

My journey towards embodiment has changed my perspective on dance, movement, nutrition, consumption habits, and my relationship with my body.

I’m learning, daily, to love my body— to give her compassion through her every ebb and flow, to nourish her but not restrict her, to weigh her less and dance with her more.

I now consider myself a dancer—not to someone else’s choreography, but to my own internal rhythms.

On my 33rd birthday, with three cakes before me, after setting up to vend at a festival, I listened to the organizer give me a shout out on the mic,
“She’s a vendor, a sponsor, AND a presenter. A TRIPLE THREAT!”

Perhaps she didn’t know the significance of those words, “triple threat,” but I did.

It was a sweet little reminder that the label I once aspired to be, despite feeling unworthy, somehow found me anyway.

I am good enough, and I am allowed to inhabit this body—fully.

In gratitude for this journey and its many dances.

Life is a Flow.
Align and Spiral with it.

Bird’s Eye View

Airplanes—

What lessons I learn from them.

I am terribly afraid of flying, yet I CRAVE travel

—experiencing new places, connecting with beautiful people, feeling varying climate shifts, savoring flavors, tuning into soundscapes of music and language, absorbing colors and art forms soaked rich in the culture from which they emerged.

When I think of these experiences, the flight seems a small price to pay.

So I face my fear—

palms sweating, muscles clenching, heart racing in tandem with roaring engines as we prepare for take-off—

Every. Single. Flight.

My grandmother was deathly afraid of flying, so she never did. 

I want to do the things she couldn’t find the courage to do—so I press on.

Each flight, as I verge a panic attack, I pray, compulsively. 

God reassures me that one prayer is quite enough, and that it’s better to pray for peace than a safe flight. 

But alas my mind frenzies.

And I suppose during that time God speaks a little more in that Still Small Voice.

Besides the obvious life lesson:
“Put on YOUR oxygen mask before helping others,” 
(which is an entire lesson in and of itself), I get more downloads.

The Voice Inside whispers,

“You are not in control of this plane. But you are in control of your response to it.”

I breathe. I attempt to slow my heart. I put on music to entrain me.

I play a game with myself to see if I can actually ENJOY take off.

Fear continues to well as we reach high speed, up, up.

My ears pop, my hands shake.

I fight visions of a wing malfunction sending us into a panicked nose dive. I pray harder. I focus harder. 

I peer from the window attempting to gain control.

I plead with God as my sympathetic nervous system spirals wildly—

God laughs. 

“You are in control of your thoughts and reactions. Be at peace. Be calm. Be still and know…”

As soon as we’re in flight and have stabilized, I peak out to find the most spectacular view.

The topography takes shape and my eyes see from a bird’s eye, what I could not know from ground view. I see a clearer picture.

I’m grateful—grateful for the stabilization, grateful for the grace to find peace, grateful for the loops and panic, which challenge me to trust.

I’m grateful for the opportunity to explore my fears, in something as safe as an airplane.

I’m on my way to that destination, where I look forward to being grounded again.

And yet, this too is a journey, as the pilot comes on to announce,

“Sit back folks, and enjoy the ride.”

Beginnings

Ready. Set. Takeoff.

January 2022, I opened my business, a dream I’d been working towards for years.

It meant being autonomous; exploring every layer of my human-ness through movement, touch, and travel; sharing my passions with others; AND making money!!!

During my first week of business, I boarded my first solo flight to a bodywork seminar.
During my first month, I surpassed my parent’s monthly income.

It was sweet.

I had been handed this business, really.

I worked for my former boss for 5 years, and after some soul-searching and company restructuring, I was the first to spread my wings. My boss gave her blessing and allowed me to take any clients who wanted to go with me. I will be eternally grateful for her and our growth together.
(We can still be spotted together, playing in nature and diving deep with plant medicine—check out her new business endeavor—a fully electric Cacao Van).

I anticipated a full amazing, wild, prosperous year.

What I did not anticipate is that by May 2022, I would lose my closest friend, guide, and confidant—my Mama.

And by July 2023, I would also lose my brother.

Loss and grief are interwoven into our existence.

They are amazing teachers, and they also create immense vacuums that we can fall into, learn to fill, or grow around.

While I thought this last year and a half was going to be about me aligning and spiraling with my ultimate career, purpose, and success, I am actually learning how to hold myself, how to heal, how to grow, how to be more compassionate, and do all the things I really, deeply wish I could teach other people to do for themselves.

I think I’m being given an amazing opportunity for growth, and, if I can continuously come back to gulping the sweet nectar of Radical Grace, this might be the most beautiful transformation I have experienced yet.

This blog is a glimpse of me, where I come from, my tools for self-care, and my process.
It is a work in progress, writing itself by the moment in my lived experience.

Life’s a Flow— here’s me learning to Align and Spiral with it :)

Thanks for reading my first entry!!!