Emergence

My how the wind does howl...

I’ve been trying, mostly in vain, to center in stillness. The world does rattle us, urges us to engage more, be more productive, and it is quite relentless. The synchronicity of the coyotes howling in my backyard circling is not lost on me.

For quite a few years, I’ve attuned myself to the seasons of the ancients, and the rhythms of nature, attempting to be more conscious of how my body moves, but has colonial dissonance embedded in these pathways.

And so, I endeavor to unlearn what the more recent ancestors engaged in, and seek a more grounded connection with the ones who were free from modern machinations. Deadlines and taxes be damned. I could go down a rabbit hole speaking to how the perfectionistic pressure of colonialism and Earth disconnection places undue harm upon our psyche. But let’s, for the moment, pivot to the antidote.

The way is through embodied ritual. Seasonal changes bring initiations. Cycles of renewal that are often not marked in a profound way, a sacred pause, an intentional devotion, create a culmination of unfinished business surmounting often in what I often refer to as existential crisis or a profundity of ennui. What is more, I think that the current oligarchical structures of classism and capitalism prefer that we stay dissociative in this way, crunchy autopilot.

Journal Prompt

Let’s try something different. Let’s mark the seasons with intentional initiations. Let’s notice in a held way, what happened to us and what is to come. In the past season, what are your disappointments, and what are your hopes? What needs a reckoning, forgiveness, and a holy closed door? What do you dare to dream, to step out into our bravery unabandoned, and assert a cobbled-stoned pathway to your well-deserved joy?

This is your monthly newsletter. A call for you beautiful, beautiful people to answer the call of your own heart’s imagination. So grab your pen, and paper, your colors, and your songs, and create the antidote to shaking off the wintery blues. I’d love to hear from you about what you discover.

Happenings

If you’d like to mark the season’s passage ceremonially, I invite you to intentional collective healing on February 1st, 2023. Just click on the image to learn more.

• Also, a great shout out to several friends who are joining the Shift Network for many liminal pathways to the Ancestors: You can join the summit free at this link: Ancestral Summit

• Robert Moss is also teaching an incredible new dream workshop via the Shift Network which you can explore here: Robert Moss: Dream Divination and Synchronicity. The registration closes on February 2nd for this one.

And of course, there is still room in Forces of Nature. If you’re seeking to enhance your ritual skills and connections with bigger powers, both new and seasoned ritualists are gathering here for a connective learning experience.

Enchanted

Below are the pathways that have pulled me through the last few weeks of the bone cave. I hope they leave you humming and visually grateful.

Sound

My latest earworm has been none other than the posthumous David Bowie. At the threshold of the New Moon in Aquarius, he came in like as an astral muse. And without knowing, of course, he did. His ascendant is Aquarius. Our Star Man. I’ve effectively smitten for him all over again, not that it ever ended, perhaps it’s just more because he wanted to dance.

If you say run, I'll run with you
And if you say hide, We'll hide
Because my love for you, Would break my heart in two
If you should fall into my arms, And tremble like a flower.

Sight

If you haven’t heard of Meinrad Craighead, I invite you to explore the mythos and lore she wove into her generous body of work. She is quite simply my favorite artist. She truly was in touch with the holy as she brings the liminal realms into beauty for us to explore.

Words

I follow the pathways of curiosity. When in the face of abject fear, I try to remind myself to move to a neutral state of curiosity. When fixed upon an idea or a way, I try to imagine all vantage points so that I do not dig into a fleeting thought or pervasive view. It not only brings empathy to an otherwise polarized world but also a bit of levity.

It’s good to bring this way of viewing to your experiential practices, your meditations, or liminal imaginings. I get this one thing a lot from folks who are new to the work “What if I’m making it all up?” You may be, and it’s right of you to be a humble skeptic.

If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.

René Descartes: Principles of Philosophy

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and I leave you with this one last thought: So perhaps you are creatively making up liminal stories, pathways, peoples, and connections, but I’m curious… why did you choose those stories, pathways, and peoples? Why not others? To me, the energy of the thing is in the balance.