I spent four days at the Women of Wisdom Conference last weekend. I had had an emotional time getting ready for it and was doubting whether I wanted to go again this year. I was committed so I proceeded to prepare.

The first day was good, getting to know new people, reconnecting with old friends, selling products and having conversations about wise woman ways. Still I doubted whether I should be there. My life has expanded and changed. My work has grown. I am not the same person anymore. I am seeing how I need new avenues, new venues. So I created the question and the seeking to know what I was doing there.

Women of Wisdom is the reason I am no longer a school teacher. Women of Wisdom is the reason I started on the path of discovering the spiritual path that is mine to take. Before I was seeking but I didn’t know what was available. I learned about the Goddess, fell in love with the Goddess, I learned about Wicca and the earth teachings. I took my first shamanism class. I heard women talk about ancestors and sacred dance. I met Susun Weed and EagleSong, wise woman teachers that changed my life.

Had I outgrown this space that empowers women? I was asking.

I have had a challenge with my hip and walking for the past couple of years. I have dived deep into healing and transformation from this situation. I have learned invisible ways to heal. This journey has led me to transform my entire life. I have taken responsibility for my work in ways that has nurtured it to grow. I have learned to be at peace with money and have taken responsibility for my financial situation. I have transformed my marriage in partnership with my beloved husband. I have been successful in ways beyond what I could dream about.

This time when people approached me and asked how I was doing? What I was doing to heal or when I was going to have a hip replacement? I could speak honestly about it. I didn’t pretend and paid attention to when I was defensive and could stop myself so that I could remain open to connection instead of being right. I felt differently about sharing then I ever have. I felt confident because I am open to the voice of my intuition. I also feel that I have learned to “not have everything figured out”. I have learned that the path of healing is one of vulnerability. Being vulnerable means being honest and comfortable with imperfection. Being vulnerable is letting everything that we are be there with us. Being vulnerable is about self love.

And at the end of the day, I ventured to the snack table to get something to eat and I saw a woman I haven’t seen for awhile who I have known a long time. She came over to me with the look of extreme pity. She said, “I was expecting to see a tantric priestess.” The tantric serpent was awakened in that moment, my energy rose and I said. “That is what you are seeing. You are seeing a woman in her power. You are seeing someone who is not afraid anymore.”

She got it. She looked at me and I at her and we saw each other. We talked about what we are creating.

I realized why I was there at Women of Wisdom. There is empowerment there that, though invisible, is felt by everyone.

What I realized was that 24 years ago, I needed empowerment. I found it through the love and support of powerful women. Now I am one of those powerful women offering love and support to others.

May it be in Beauty.

ice on the ground
cold and quiet
kitties fluff their fur
goats hunker down
in the barn

allowing the darkness in
there is a blessing
the night holds the secrets
of the inner realms

we discover solitude
intuitive epistles
deep revelatory advice

nature offers wisdom
only found during
this time of year

commonality of
all beings found
in listening outside
in looking inward

I am grateful for a good weekend at the NW Herb Symposium. I haven’t been to an herbal conference for awhile where clinical herbalists are teaching. I attended some wonderful classes and especially enjoyed classes by Susun Weed, my shamanic herbal teacher.

What I noticed is that I feel so much more comfortable and so much less intimidated with what others are doing. I am less competitive, I think because I love my work and am dedicated to doing it. I am also seeing how much I am like everyone at this conference, seeking knowledge and loving the plants.

Something that used to happen for me is that I would judge others because I was afraid to express who I am. I don’t do that anymore. I feel comfortable expressing the wild woman within me and seeing that there are many mirrors for this in the world.

My intention is that more and more women express who they are everyday….even if it seems kinda crazy. This is part of being a wild woman after all.

May it be in Beauty.

Today at our Unity church service, the speaker talked about complete surrender. I really like this topic. I think it is radical to let ourselves go into the flow and not be attached to the outcome. I don’t mean to say I am very good at this. I have held on so long to some ways of being that didn’t serve me until I started noticing that I was hurting myself and others, and I still held on.

I have let go of a lot of patterns. I see some of them as addictions. “Its scary, its crazy, its not how I am supposed to act” is what my mind chatter keeps telling me. The shift to another way of acting and being though has been phenomanal. I have become more at ease with myself, my relationship with my husband Tadd is better and I am kinder to myself.

So here is where the rubber meets the road. When we want to change, when we see what requires changing and we want to start on a path to change, we need help. I would not have been able to find a more peaceful and satisfying way of living if I hadn’t gotten the support. Sometimes it was so hard to listen to someone telling me what they saw that wasn’t working for me. And yet, as I listened and started to make changes, things began to fall into place.

Here are some things to work on to create your sacred livelihood:
• How do you want to live?
• What is stopping you? Be radically honest.
• Get help from coaches, teachers, friends, colleagues.
• Spend time outside in a natural setting to set intentions.
• Give thanks for your life right now. Find things everyday to be grateful for.
• Focus toward the world with generosity. Help others.
• Teach what you have learned.

May it be in Beauty.

I am feeling less defensive lately. I have sunken into a more comfortable place with the work I am doing. I am not so afraid of what others think and have come to a more powerful place of setting an example for others of how to live from who we are.

I am not sure what shifted in me to bring me to this place of more ease. I know I have been working on this for a long time….listening as much as possible to my intuition, spending time in nature to receive wisdom, teaching others to live from who they are, doing what I said I would do, tithing and sharing…..as well as eating good food, buying new clothes, clearing out old stuff.

I have been exploring and learning a lot about possibility.  And I am starting to see change. I am seeing that the work I have been doing is paying off.

What I want to do with my writing is to share my transformations. My intention is to share the struggles and the ways I have gotten through them. I see this as part of living a sacred livelihood….to allow life to instruct us, to be honest about who we are, to allow self love to nurture us and to live as we are called to live.

I am grateful.

May it be in Beauty.

“…you can keep refusing the call until you can’t stand yourself anymore. You can refuse the call, but something will keep reminding you…until you step into your destiny.” Jean Houston

Just this week, three baby goats were born in our barn to mama goat Fille Luna. In the past we lost a goat because it had been difficult for mama goat to feed all three since there are only two teats.

This time, remembering this, I began to pray and bless the situation. I said blessings in the barn and in my home that all the goats were getting all the nutrition they needed to thrive.
It is three days later and all three goats are happy and drinking from mama.

This is my calling. This is my bliss.

What I know to be mine to do is to work magic with the animals, plants and the unseen energies on our land.

If I get caught up in doubting my ability to be a shamanic practitioner, shamanic herbalist, and teacher my life gets chaotic and I feel weak.

Each of us has a calling, an invisible thread that is woven for us. When we discover it, we can weave it into the fabric of our lives. It is very strong and relentless.

The way I see this invisible thread is that I am being guided to do what is mine to do at all times. When I follow the thread as it leads me into the future, I see more pathways and I feel uplifted into my destiny.

And I am grateful.

I was out in my garden today and I was enchanted. I went up to this little place I don’t go much because it is so grown over and I found a little maple tree growing. I felt that the fairies are doing
some kind of mischief with me. My garden as you may know if you have been reading my post, is wild and there are many weeds.

I felt happy and free out there and child-like.

I want to communicate with you about your sacred livelihood in this post. What I am seeing about this for me is that I have finally come to a place of having the garden that I really want. It is wild and it is free and it is weedy and it is enchanting.

I can breathe in my garden.

This way of living in harmony with nature and what we desire can really be applied to all of life. Creating the environment so that it corresponds to what our inner desires are brings a richness of life.

Learning the shamanic expansive ways of listening and receiving wisdom from nature opens us to a deeper way of listening to what is within us.

Tomorrow is a very special earth holiday called Beltane. This is the time when the fairies come forth to play with the energies all around on the land. It is the time of the fertility, sensuality and sexuality.

You don’t really have to understand any of this on an intellectual level. You simply need to go outside and see what is really going on.

I invite you out into the earth garden.

May it be in Beauty.

I was outside today with a friend and we were sitting under our apple tree. I talk about this tree a lot because it is a very wise tree, very nurturing. There is such beauty there, with apple blossoms, hummingbirds, barn swallow and bees. As well and native and immigrant plants.

There is wisdom there in that setting. At first we notice the green and the lushness. Then someone might notice that some of the plants may be considered “invasive”. I have learned over the years that plants don’t invade. They come to us when we require them and they teach us in their abundance.

We have an abundance of buttercup growing there around the apple tree and also in the garden. A few years back I was weeding under the raspberries and many of the plants were buttercup. I was frustrated because this plant is a tenacious holder of earth. I wondered why there are is so much of it in our garden. Then it occurred to me that I could ask the plant. I find it interesting that I often suggest to others to ask plants about their place in our gardens, but I had forgotten that I could do this.

I asked the buttercup, “What are you doing here in such abundance?” And she told me. I bring compassion. You require a lot of compassion in your garden because of the work you are doing and we are here to help you with that. She also told me that when I weeded the plant out that the compassion would remain.

And so now, when I see the buttercup in the garden and around on the land, I remember what a gift she is to me and those that come to learn. And I am grateful.

Nature is our teacher. She give what a great deal. She gives even when we aren’t aware of it too. To become aware of her teachings gives us the opportunity to grow in a way that no other lessons can be learned.

May it be in Beauty.

Have you ever noticed how much of your day is filled with “have to”, “should”, “gotta” etc.? This is a conditioned way of being. We often feel like we don’t have a choice and that there is only one way to live that is right. Wrong!

One of the things I have learned in the years of creating my work is that we make up our lives, our days and our work. Everything is made up. Everything!

The way we conduct our business, our jobs, our daily routines, our relationships….we are making up how to do this day by day.

So instead of being a robot to what someone else says we “should” do, let’s drop that and create the beautiful life that we desire. Let’s create the incredible work that will make a difference in the world. Let’s be in relationship with who we want, in the way that we want.

The other thing we make up is how we see what we do. Do you love your life? Do you hate it? It is your choice. What stories do we tell ourselves about how we live? How much do you pay attention to what you are thinking about what you are doing or not doing?

We are free to choose each moment of our lives, how we are to live. This doesn’t mean that unexpected things don’t happen. They always do. And how can we be with these things that happen, these things that seem to drag us down or make life difficult? We are free to choose how we show up in every situations, even disastrous situations.

Yesterday, I wrote about the challenges of growing into a full expression of who I am and how getting help with this has changed everything for me. With help, I have learned to be free.

This is where the plants and the earth have supported me the most. They have taught me to be free, like the river flowing and the flower opening. My experience with shamanic herbalism has supported me to expand my consciousness beyond my mind and its chatter and what appears to be going on in the world. It is as simple as breathing in the oxygen that a plant is releasing and giving away your breath to this plant.

We can spend our lives trying to figure out why we aren’t succeeding, why these things keep happening to us that we don’t want, why we are not happy.
Or, we can find the present moment of breath in nature and see what is really going on.

If you don’t think you are free, because the government/Republicans/”fill-in-the-blank” is making life miserable then you are spending too much time in the mind chatter in your heads. With a clear mind that knows the freedom of expanded consciousness, we can make a much greater impact in the world.

I was thinking last night about whether I am living a sacred livelihood or not because I am offering to all of you to create this from the beauty that is within you. As I write this right now, I see that I am living a sacred livelihood and I think you are too. It isn’t what we do in life…it is who we are?

Who are you? What is really going on?

May it be in Beauty.

“All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy, for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves. We must die to one life before we can enter into another.”—Anatole France

I have had to make some big changes in my life in the last couple of years. I have been growing, in myself and also in my business. I will be honest with you and tell you that it has been difficult at times. I have fought it tooth and nail. Well, I think I would describe it as my ego fighting back against my soul wishing to grow.

I have learned to pray.

I have learn to quiet my mind so that I can hear the voice of intuition.

I have learned to give up being the owner of my business and give it over tothe source of all. It isn’t mine anymore. It belongs to the wind and the rain, the plants and the earth.

Because of this change, sometimes I feel incredibly anxious and even feel terrified.

What happens if I put myself out there and nobody notices, nobody signs up, nobody cares. How will I make enough money to survive being a wild woman, shamanic herbalist, spiritual teacher.

These parts of myself that doubt, that question and think that I will fail…They must die and I feel like I may be left with nothing then.

This is where the help and support comes in. There are people out there that I call upon for teachings, for coaching, for mentoring and for wisdom when I just can’t seem to get my mind on right. These wonderful people are supporting me and see what I have created so far and that I am continuing to create more and more ways for people to connect, love, heal, and see possibility in their lives.

And I call upon my wisdom teachers, the plants, to show me a deeper, more expanded version of myself.

I am learning to be vulnerable. I am learning to see what is really going on with me.
First, I think that what is really going on is so much emotion…..fear, anxiety, sadness…and then I look deeper and see that what is really going on is my aliveness wishing to emerge from underneath this emotion.

I felt drawn to share this with you today because I want you to know that even though it may seem difficult to find your center in your work and in your life at times, that there is wisdom and insight right there waiting to reveal itself to you. Sometimes it just takes a helper to show you the path to it.

It takes courage to ask for help. If we are to do what is fully ours to do, we must have help.

May it be in Beauty.