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Video Summary: All the conditions are here for it to be a very emotional week. We had the time change this past weekend, and it’s election day, a full moon, and a lunar eclipse on Tuesday, the day this blog comes out. I'm told it's a beaver blood moon?! I'm going to focus on the time change and the going into winter part of this. I want to talk about the time change and going into winter in terms of the Medicine Wheel or wheel of life. The Medicine Wheel is a ceremony and a w

Video Summary: I want to talk about noticing that someone is in your sacred space that you do not invite to be there, or you could say, when someone invades your sacred space. I listen to so many of my clients in sessions and sharing circles, and notice that there are these uninvited people in their sacred spaces. And I can’t help but wonder, why is this person in your sacred space, carelessly talking about or belittling something that's so precious to you? Why do we allow th

Video Summary: I want to start with a story that happened many times in my work with my teacher. I would be voicing a complaint to my teacher about how someone that I was relating to was not reliable, responsible, or whatever else. totally listen, get this big smile, and say, “Well, what were you expecting?” It was a nice way of saying, “Well, duh, of course, that's what they did.” And at the time, it didn't seem very compassionate, but he was trying to help me shift somethin

Video Summary: The bear is the Spirit Keeper of the West in my tradition. The archetype of bear medicine is pure strength. When we do a ceremony, I call in the bear medicine in the west. I often say, "The bear has no natural enemies, so it can be the clown of the forest." In other words, it can be itself. It can be purely genuine and vulnerable. And by having no natural enemies, it needs no defenses. Since the bear has nothing to be afraid of, it can be true to itself. This i

Video Summary: I want to talk about a pattern that came up during our Sharing Circle on Thursday night. The pattern is to withhold who we really are, and then we get hurt that people don't get us or know us. The things we may withhold include our true feelings, how life feels to us, speaking our truth or opinion, disagreeing with someone, and sharing the sweetness of life and what brings this joy. It may include what we're afraid of and what we're sad about. We've been condit

I want to talk about what's actually happening when we smudge. One of the misconceptions is that all the power and magic are in the smudge. And yes, sage and earth energies are very powerful, but we can't just light the smudge and expect the smudge itself to do its magic. It’s much more powerful if we understand that smudging, like all forms of healing, is a partnership between us and spirit or life. You could say that spirit is providing the energy, and we move that energy.

Video Summary: This is the second of a two-part video series on smudging. Last week, we talked about how effective smudging is a partnership between you and Spirit. Spirit provides the energy, magic, and healing energy, and your intention directs and moves that energy. I want to continue with that this week by talking about two different elements of smudging. The first and most commonly known aspect of smudging is to cleanse and purify. You might light some smudge to cleanse

Video Summary: This Thursday, September 22nd, is the Fall Equinox and also the first day of fall. In many spiritual traditions, especially aboriginal, earth-based traditions, this is celebrated as a really powerful time to tune into yourself and the earth. One way to talk about the Fall Equinox is in terms of the Medicine Wheel or wheel of life. In my tradition, the Medicine Wheel begins in the east, which represents springtime. This is when things are being born, the birth o

Video Summary: We're conditioned to view the most important parts of ourselves from outside of ourselves. We look to other people, experiences, and our culture. We look to see whether we fit in or not, and if people are happy with us. And we look to whether we’re successful or not according to the terms of our culture. And we evaluate ourselves that way. And by the most important parts of ourselves, I mean the beauty and true value of our being, our worthiness. Are we enough,

Video Summary: This video is about receiving guidance from your feelings on how to move through the world. These feelings often come to us early on in an experience. It’s accessing that first, pure feeling before we think about it- that initial, gut feeling. I want to talk about three different types of pure feelings that can guide you about whether a situation or space is a good place for you to go. The first is a feeling of being drawn toward. It could be a feeling of attra

Video Summary: I want to talk about turtle medicine. So first of all, what do I mean by medicine? The Native American traditions offer one of the clearest depictions of medicine. Native Americans and all aboriginal cultures were very connected to the earth, nature, and all the animals in nature. They saw that each animal in nature had a gift- something to teach them. It had something that it had mastery over. And then by connecting with that animal, they could evoke that turt

Video Summary: I want to work with a metaphor of a river flowing through us. When we walk with our hearts open, we allow ourselves to be emotionally touched by more things. We're allowing the energy of various experiences and relationships into our hearts. In this way, a river of life energy is able to touch us at a deeper level. And as the river flows, it encounters boulders in the stream. Extending my metaphor, the boulders represent wounds. They're incomplete experiences.