Our use of wrong, bad and evil seem absurdly imprecise.

Language is power. We gamble when we flippantly use words carrying such moral weight. Our lack of specificity results in unconscious judgements cast out with an iron sword.

I practice something I call Word Purge—a conscious removal of certain terms or phrases. This isn’t exactly a purge of “bad” or “wrong” or “evil” but it is a call to more refinement and precision. We use bad and wrong especially without giving much thought to the actual sentiments, assumptions and energetics behind them.

We could say these are simply semantics. Does this really matter?

Hear me out, then decide for yourself.

Wrong

As we know, “wrong” makes appearances all over the place. Your baby can do no wrong, you can get a math problem wrong, and if your friend seems upset you might inquire, “what’s wrong?” These are all common uses that may or may not properly acknowledge the undeniably moral connotation of this word.

From late Old English, “wrong” comes from twisted, crooked, wry; to turn or bend.¹

This etymology led me to dig deeper on “wry” which similarly means bent, twisted, crooked, or abnormally out of shape; to deviate from a straight course.²

Fascinating. Right out of the gate, a pattern.

We consider wrong the opposite of right. And in a sense that’s correct because at its root, “right” comes from latin rectus literally meaning straight, not bent; direct, being the shortest course; moving in a straight line.³

Evil

About a year ago, I started praying the rosary. I am definitely not a Christian but this practice called to me. With trepidation, I began my study. Knowing very little, I included the rosary, in its most holistic, earth-based, goddess-honoring orientation, into the curriculum of my Rose & Sword annual group mentorship. Together with 9 students, we handcrafted our own rosary strands and embarked on a journey of devotion to the rose and Our Lady.

Speaking the words of the rosary prayer tripped me out. I rumbled with what felt genuine. And I made a few adjustments.

In the contemporary Catholic iteration, the ‘Our Father’ beads are coupled with the following prayer:

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day, our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

Whoa. Pause. Deliver us from evil?

I don’t buy it.

I decided to alter this final line to “And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from illusion.”

THAT I can get behind.

“Evil” is scapegoat terminology for morally judging something (more often someone) as bad or wrong. One hundred percent of the time, evil hides no small amount of substance. If evil is the stone we cast, there’s an entire living ecosystem dwelling underneath. Will we bother to look? To get curious, even compassionate?

Devil

The Devil archetype in the tarot isn’t “evil” but a reflection of our own lower aspects we consciously or unconsciously choose to empower.

The classic Rider-Waite-Smith image shows a devil holding chains that loosely wrap around the necks of a man and a woman. The two supposed victims simply stand there, willingly shackled. At any moment they can make a different choice. Any moment, they can slip easily out of their binds and liberate themselves. In these images, the Devil himself often stands on a strangely narrow platform, pointing his torch or hand toward the ground. This symbolism is often interpreted as an indication of his overidentification with matter and materialism, altogether ignoring the higher aspects of self, Spirit and the Cosmos. When we pull the Devil card, we’re asked to consider how we bedevil ourselves—causing distress, choosing challenge, utterly and unnecessarily confusing ourselves.⁴

What we call “evil” transpires in all the places we humans imprison ourselves.

The etymology defines evil as “anything that causes injury; anything that harms or is likely to harm; a malady or disease; conduct contrary to standards of morals or righteousness.⁵

Ladders cause injuries. Are they evil?

I’ve harmed people who I love, respect and deeply care for. Am I evil?

Poison oak causes a lot of bodily harm. Is it evil?

Is the common cold or the coronavirus or a cancer cell evil?

Safe to say, this definition is seriously faulty.

Wicked

Synonyms include bad, vicious, ill, wicked. Obviously this brings me to the book-turned-play-turned-film where we experience firsthand the painful betrayal and critical misunderstanding behind the overly simplistic facade of the witches of Oz.

Stories like this gratify and entertain us, portraying the human tendency to judge from a place of ignorance. How many times will we vibe with schadenfreude while continuing to throw stones in our daily lives? How do we fall victim again and again to a loss of empathy for the human condition?

From where I’m sitting, “evil” seems like a white-people term.

According to Etymonline: Evil was the word the Anglo-Saxons used where we would use bad, cruel, unskillful, defective (adj.), or harm (n.), crime, misfortune, disease (n.). In Middle English, “bad” took the wider range of senses and “evil” began to focus on moral badness.⁶

Breaking binary: a Quechua lesson

According to my teachers and mentors who’ve schooled me on the Incan cosmovision and the Quechua language, “good” and “bad” are completely optional concepts. In that ideology, the binaries of good or bad, right or wrong, are illusory, perhaps even delusional. For certain, we know about density and levity, shadow and light. We know the sun’s rays shining on a mountainside change throughout the day. We know that by evening, what was shadowed comes into light and what was illuminated grows dark.

I take issue with the finality of the terms in question here today. To call something (or someone) wrong, evil or bad throws them into a scary black hole with no chance of return. Do we really want to write our permanent moral and ethical judgements in stone, declaring change impossible? Seems like a self-fulfilling prophecy. In the highest of all high truths, change is always possible. In fact, change is one hundred percent guaranteed; the most real and constant thing about this life.

And while it’s tempting to speak about the “wrongs” of the world; how incredibly fucked up things are; how wrong they are to commit violence, hatred and worst of all indifference; to use these terms is, in a purely linguistic sense, inaccurate.

Or shall I say, incorrect.

Correct

My new favorite word.

The accuracy is pure medicine.

Just look at these roots: move directly in a straight line. From Latin correctus, past participle of corrigere: to put straight, attempt to make (a crooked thing) straight, reduce to order, set right. To bring into accordance with a standard.⁷

In this case, straight isn’t emphasizing linearity but highlighting the opposite of crooked. There’s no one inverse of straight— curved, round, circular and queer all fit—but the obvious opposite of crooked is straight.

You could say that 2+2=5 is wrong. More accurately, it is incorrect. There’s an error in the calculation. Morality need not apply.

Correct can describe a math equation or how to properly change a flat tire or how to cook chicken to a safe temperature for human consumption. These are matters of correctness.

There’s also the matter of personal correctness. This is where I lean in.

What is correct behavior, speech or action FOR ME?

Personal authority and no small amount of agency are required to answer these questions. I know when I’ve acted, spoken or thought incorrectly because I feel the resulting dissonance. When I talk about a friend in a way that suddenly feels more like gossip than relaying details, that is incorrect. When I slip into micromanaging my husband’s behavior, that is incorrect.

When I focus my attention on what is correct, I immediately stop focusing on trying to prove something to the world, my peers, my parents. I stop focusing on what I’m afraid might happen. I also stop focusing on how any given action might make me look or what someone might think of me.

Instead, I am hyper, laser focused only on reducing to order that which is mine to do.

Choosing correctness means I am choosing alignment. Literally.

Revolution

The accuracy, specificity and elegance of correctness speak directly to the codes of truth binding the universe together.

I am not the first to enjoy this revelation.

From Hexagram 49 (Revolution) in “A Guide to the I Ching” by Carol K Anthony:

Receiving this hexagram tells us that although preparing for revolution occurs on the unconscious plane, the actual revolution requires making a conscious step. For example, we consciously choose to let go of a habit which has its origin in fear; we choose to suspend our disbelief in the power of the Unknown, or we dispose of a fear, sacrifice pride, or disperse an invading doubt. In giving up old defenses against the Unknown, we risk trusting it to lead us past the difficulties in question. Instead of contriving a response we take the risk of relating to the problem by keeping our inner attitude correct.

Receiving this hexagram also means that as a consequence of growing, a revolution occurs in our relationship with others. Through tolerance, withdrawal, and adherence to our path, we bring the process of Revolution and growth to them. They will make the “next step” towards improvement if we continue on our path, allow ourself to be led, make sure our motives are correct, and require, in our inmost thoughts, only that which is universally just. Victory is assured through the power of inner truth.

Dear ones:

May we be correctable.

May we be willing to doggedly track our incorrect thoughts, words and actions, pursuing the scent of refinement.

May we devote our persistence to pristine motives that bring forth impeccable action.

And so it is!

Sources

1. https://www.etymonline.com/word/wrong

2. https://www.etymonline.com/word/wry

3. https://www.etymonline.com/word/right

4. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bedevil

5. https://www.etymonline.com/word/evil

6. https://www.etymonline.com/word/evil

7. https://www.etymonline.com/word/correct

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🎧 I recently sent a “Growth Edges” survey to my email list to get a sense of what folks are working with right now. The second to last question asked “Anything else you want me to know about your personal curriculum as you are navigating this year of the fire horse?”

Someone responded to this question with, “I read that as ‘year of the fire hose!’”

I snorted out loud. Then I pondered. Then I marveled.

Misinterpretation into revelation.

What makes a fire hose so metaphor-worthy?

True urgency. What a rare thing. A fire hose in action is not the overflow and abundance of new age manifestation-speak. It is sheer force, come to the rescue, knock-you-over, douse-a-four-story-building-burning-to-the-ground magnitude.

Not a plaything.

Hat tip to all the fire fighters reading this. We are grateful for you and the many hours of arduous training required to wield such a tool.

I see three aspects of this fire hose year.

Perhaps you’ll identify a few I missed?

1) The fast pace of “life.”

I put life in quotes because this is a misunderstanding that needs correction.

It is not the pace of life we’re stifled by, but the pace of technology. The pace of modernity. The pace of life is sustainable, cyclical and spiralic. The pace of modernity and technology create an upward, linear trajectory. As we can see from the multitudes of humans not feeling so well these days, this pace elicits scramble, stress and overwhelm because we actually cannot keep up. But we try. And fail. And feel badly for failing. And so we try harder. And fail. And feel even worse.

This isn’t to say that modernity or technology are bad. Apparently they’re part of life’s plan, because they’re here. But the truth is most of us don’t know how to live in balance. We love the efficiency, the convenience, the swiftness of getting our tiniest whim fulfilled in an instant, for free (or very cheap). But it’s not free. The toll is taken from our attention, our energy and, of course, our planet’s resources.

In my survey, there was a clear through line in the responses. Here are a few excerpts from the question “what’s your number one struggle this season?”:

Finding enough time to decompress and look ahead and just generally stew and putter around. I’ve cut most everything non-essential out and I am still struggling with being too busy to provide myself the time to dream and create.

Taking care of myself. mentally and physically. I fill my days up with so many things I don’t often have time to check in with myself and tend my needs.

Too much stuff, not enough time, too many goals, not enough focus.

Trying to slow down and actually rest.

Life in the city seems to be moving too fast. The people I know are busy and it’s hard to gather together. I feel loneliness and struggle when I try to create the type of community and home I desire here.

Balancing availability for work with being a primary parent and being present for my kiddo.

Finding the balance between taking care of myself, my home, serving others and nurturing my marriage, family and friendships.

Balancing rest and movement.

This is modern life in the global West. I know I’m preaching to the choir here. I don’t doubt anyone reading this commiserates. If you’ve found a way around this predicament, you are a rare bird, indeed. Tell us your secrets! But don’t give us a list of productivity tools or efficiency hacks, please.

2) We are invited to be more discerning with input.

I don’t know about anyone else, but my input has started to overshadow my output. I’ve been taking in a certain amount of information (books, pods, courses, films, card decks, etc) and sense that my creative output has become far less than what I take in. There are correct seasons for this. We each experience these seasons uniquely. They may or may not correspond to the actual season in our hemisphere at that time.

For some this might be laughable. For me, it’s so real. My perpetual studentship has become deferral. It’s time to eliminate some of the channels that used to serve as nourishment but have become psychic static.

Right after I made this oath, it was tested. One of my most beloved teachers literally asked me to fill out a survey answering which curriculum I would prefer to take next; what date I’d prefer that curriculum to be offered; and which date would I prefer for an in person retreat? For each question, there were two date options and a third option which said “I am not able to or interested in attending this offer.” Seriously? I couldn’t even bring myself to check that third box. I AM interested! I AM able! But I will refrain.

Is it sad to admit I’m hoping these offers will get pushed to next year so I can join without breaking my oath? Maybe. And, my oath might get extended. This is what they call fear of missing out. The muscle of resolve feels literal and weak in the face of FOMO.

I’m also training myself to pause every time I consider turning on the TV. Not because TV is evil or choosing to spend my time thusly would be wrong. I pause to ask myself, is that really how you want to use this time? It’s okay if the answer is yes. But this is a choice I’m making. Conscious or unconscious, we are choosing constantly. I want the former. I want to be powerfully at choice. Every yes is also a no. And every no is also a yes. A yes to TV is a no to playing guitar, going on a walk, pulling weeds, watching the clouds drift, frolicking with my cats Misqi and Chispa, reading a book. Sometimes TV is the exact medicine I want and need. It becomes a problem for me when it’s not medicinal, but a distraction.

3) A time of rapid transformation is upon us.

These past months I’ve moved a massive amount of energy. Breakthroughs are coming faster than I can even process them. It seems I’m being asked to relax back as insight is hurled in my general direction. Is it possible to be pelted with wisdom? I feel a bit bruised. And grateful.

Perhaps the astrologers would tell us exactly what in the holy heavens is impacting us right now. All I know is that describing the nature of these insights feels futile, so I’m not going to try. What I will share are a few splashes of memory from the past 60 days which contribute to this generous and somewhat perplexing overflow:

• An offering of magenta rhododendron flowers to my Quan Yin statue propelled by a big unexpected sob.

• Manifesting a new slate blue velvet sofa, which resulted in moving a bunch of furniture and a complete feng-shui-uplevel of my house and my psyche on May’s full moon in Sagittarius.

• A snot-dripping-from-my-nose, full-on bawling therapeutic deep dive with Claude.

• Spending June’s new moon in Gemini in conversation with my ancestors while facilitating a group of 19 women on retreat in adoration of the rose.

• An impromptu Vedic astrology reading that was shockingly, overwhelmingly, on point.

• Two group Kontomblé divinations, whoa, one of which ended with me diving naked to the bottom of an 18-foot swimming hole to give an offering bundle to the water dragons.

• An impromptu burial ritual where I put to rest a scrap of paper inscribed with, “here lies Britta GreenViolet who…” with about eight phrases I’ve repeated for the last three years and am finally done uttering, thinking and proliferating.

• An I-Ching reading that has me re-examining my relationship with the word “clinging” and delivered the bitch-slap I needed to wake up from my “when will change come?“ stupor and realize change is here.

Change is here.

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Camellia is first to arrive. At our house, she shows up in a pale, bubblegum flouncy skirt. She’s espaliered against the east side of our home, tucked under the overhang, nestled into a foot of soil and rock between the siding and sidewalk. Her tight buds peeped the first hints of pink in December. Wait, what, we thought? Too early, Camellia. The party doesn’t start until spring. It’s not even Christmas. Those early threats were merely suggestions of what was coming. A preview. In late February, she burst into full fluorescence. I’ve seen her kin around town, often revealing a darker shade that’s hard to nail down… sort of a deep coral-hinted pinky red.

Around here, Camellia—Camellia japonica—is always the first to arrive.

Next popped the cheery white snowdrops—Galanthus nivalis. They stay close to the nearly-frozen ground but provide some much needed pep in a long Pacific Northwest winter.

The Hellebores—Helleborus orientalis—have also burst onto the scene. They never cease to enchant. Nicknamed the Lenten or Christmas rose, Hellebores are technically a flowering plant but don’t have classic petals. Instead, what we think of as petals are actually sepals, which function to protect the small reproductive flower within. But their false “petals” don’t make me love them any less.

It’s around this time that the festivities really start popping, a barrage of party-goers rolling in the door simultaneously. Who can say who came first? The early plum and cherry blossoms—Prunus mume and Cerasus serrulata, respectively—explode from their dormancy. The purple and unexpected white Crocuses—Crocus vernus—add their flare to the mostly bare soil. The Hyacinths—Hyacinthus orientalis—push their first nubs from the underworld, with the promise of sweet fragrance in our future. And, of course, our dear friends, the Tulips—Tulipa gesneriana—have made their presence known. Their leaves, a quintessential spring green, offer a preview of the dazzling rainbow to come.

*

It was only last year that the face of the annual clock changed its appearance for me.

Where numbers once stood, flowers appeared. What time is it? It’s Lupin o’clock (Lupinus perennis). What month is it? It’s Apple Blossom month. Rhododendron month. Hydrangea month. (Malus domestica, Rhododendron macrophyllum, Hydrangea macrophylla.)

This cyclical, nature-based calendar, defined first and foremost by what is or isn’t emerging from the soil, is at last making sense to me. I bought my home 2.5 years ago, and I’m finally beginning to glimpse what it means to steward a piece of earth. My husband Ben, a weathered horticulturist and landscaper, borrows a saying he once heard: The first year, they sleep. The second year, they creep. The third year, they leap!

What a privilege to, as they say, “own land.” What a joy to put down roots, and watch them grow up to be adults. What grace to be in one place long enough to create relationship with the holy green ones all around.

A decade before we bought our home, it was only a spark of inspiration, whispered over cups of coffee under the shade of a big grapefruit tree in the backyard of our east LA rental. Even then, I remember the longing in Ben’s voice. One day, he mused, he might be so blessed as to plant tiny trees, and watch them grow tall and strong in a bright open sky.

And here we are. Planting baby trees, and watching them inch their way upward. Planting white, pink and deep purple hyacinths in the soil that marks the final resting place of our beloved cat Chuckles… Delighting when they return again, year after year, to bless us with their rainbow aroma.

It’s not quite Rose o’clock. But like any good party, I’m enjoying every moment of preparation, anticipating the arrival of the next honored guest.

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It’s mid March. While my friends in LA are getting a heat wave, I’m watching my husband shake the blossoming plum tree so its snow-slumped branches won’t break under the weight.

It’s been a rare, busy season. In the past 7 weeks I’ve sung with humpbacks in Hawai’i, discovered that collage works really well as a research method at a local artist residency, and revived my love for sketchbooks at a 10-day creative retreat with my mom in Oaxaca.

Rather than attempting to recount the delights and miracles of these three expeditions, what’s emergent are some lessons—or rather, remembrances—on the paradoxes we get to embrace as beauty-makers.

1. Too much preparation gets in the way of creating.

Many superb artists address the danger of so-called “necessary” preparation before they go about creating. Brilliant creative minds such as Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés speak to the myriad of excuses made by artists…

First, before I begin: I need to tidy my desk; I need to find my favorite pen; I need to put on the perfect focus music playlist; I need to walk the dog; I need to put away the dishes; I need to light a candle; I need to clear my inbox; I need to put on my lucky socks…

I’m all for ritual, and yet this kind of self-imposed fanfare is a blockade to beginning.

2. No preparation at all creates inner chaos and incongruence.

I’m not convinced that crashing through the door of our office or studio and getting right to work is much better.

The upside is that some work gets done.

The downside is the absence of conscious intent.

Choosing to forgo any energetic preparation at all leads to a mess, and not the good kind.

More often than not, we simply burst forth and start doing. This approach is beneficial because it starts our engines. But it can also backfire, depending on the flavor of energies taking up space in our mind and body. Eagerness and despair lend very different palettes to our work. This isn’t to say that dense energies are a hindrance to making art; they are woven into the human experience and clearly deserve a seat at the table. Furthermore, great works have come from dark moods. But I’m wary of the “suffering artist” trope. It is not the only approach.

An alternative doorway into the act of making begins with a pause. With a breath, or three, or ten. Giving a bit of space to the moment of transition allows the unexpected. Rather than unconsciously burdening the emergent work with expectation, this option suggests we might surprise ourselves. The humanity and emotion of the artist’s inner landscape won’t be lost. Taking a beat before picking up the brush or pen or laptop isn’t a bypass. It’s simply a chance at spaciousness.

More room to think.

More room to not think.

3. As artists, we often want the process to be tidy and contained and precise.

Usually, it is not.

Often, it’s entropic.

A chaotic mess; on the laptop, the easel or in the mind.

Exactly as it should be.

Art is about process just as much, if not more so than product.

We process emotions. We process trauma. Through words, tears, breath, and yes, through art, we process what’s hard and irreconcilable.

Non-linear, zigzagging, spiralic processing.

4. Sometimes “flow” is actually a lack of discerning participation.

In “Several Short Sentences About Writing” author and professor Verlyn Klinkenborg suggests that writing in a so-called flow state produces what he calls automatic sentences. In his view, these sentences didn’t require discernment to claim a spot on the page. He might say, this isn’t necessarily art-making, nor does it produce particularly good writing. Just because the words spill easily from the psyche doesn’t mean they’re good, or that they came straight from The Muse, or that they are worthy of your reader’s generous attention.

This surprised me, frustrated me, then nudged curiosity.

This is the pause—frequency first—in action.

5. Just because the work doesn’t flow doesn’t mean it’s bad.

Somewhere along the creative path, I downloaded the programming that art-making—if it’s good—will flow with the ease of a gushing spring. Thus if it isn’t flowing, it must be shit.

It brings me comfort to consider the opposite: wholehearted, high-quality, earnest art is a form of work. Alchemical work. Delightful work. Privileged, blessed, divine work! But work all the same.

It won’t always flow. It won’t always come easily. Clearly, it won’t always be good. In the iconic sentiment of Julia Cameron, you have to be willing to make bad art in order to make good art. Every dreamy-eyed seeker who’s read “The Artist’s Way” knows this. But we still loathe making bad art.

6. Good and bad are constructs.

I’ve been a student of the Quechua language and the Incan cosmovision for over a decade. One element I adore about their way of life is the rejection of “good” and “bad” dichotomies. There is density, and there is levity. No need to make a story about it.

I’m also a student of qigong and gongfu. I only need look around the natural world to see the irrevocable truth of yin and yang. Shadows are cast on one side of the mountain as its opposite face receives the sun. By the end of the day, what was shadowed is now ablaze in sunlight, and what was illuminated is now thrown into shadow.

The more I deepen into these traditions of wisdom, the less inclined I am to fight for making “good” art.

Can’t it be enough to simply participate in the act of making beauty?

Can I be that brave?

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Each new year, I teach my Annual Planning Challenge where we contemplate the energetics of the year ahead and make some “plans.” One of my favorite aspects of this challenge comes on Day 2, where we create an Annual Theme.

Your Annual Theme becomes your north star for the year. When done well, all you need to do is think of it, and it’s as if you’ve been struck with a tuning fork; ringing through you like truth down the bright, lustrous halls of the cathedral of your heart.

This year, my theme is “Heaven Line”—by far the most esoteric one I’ve ever chosen.

My friend Alexis uttered this phrase during a Theta energy session several weeks prior. Marveling, I repeated it back to her, metabolizing this new combination of words. I was enamored. And though I wasn’t totally clear what they meant, a similar term came to mind.

Physical alignment: a pursuit of less pain

Google told me that a plumb line is “a tool consisting of a string with a weight (a plumb bob) attached to one end, used to establish a perfectly vertical line, perpendicular to the ground. It relies on gravity to ensure accuracy in construction, surveying, and, metaphorically, in maintaining righteousness, as described in the Bible.” (Fascinating, that last bit.)

According to Traditional Chinese Medicine, the plumb line represents a central vertical axis whereupon the body can come into optimal alignment. I’ve gotten to work with this principle in my qigong practice. Imagine a string from head to floor, with a weight at the bottom to maintain equilibrium. Now shift from left to right, front to back, slightly tuck your chin, let gravity sink your tailbone, and gently lift the crown of your head.

You’ll know when you’ve found it by a sudden and blissful sense of ease.

A decade ago, I took a 200-hour yoga teacher training, where my instructor clarified that when our bones stack as they are designed to, unnecessary muscular stress dissipates. It turns out we don’t need to work to hold ourselves up. That is, in fact, what bones are for. And our constant over-efforting is evidence of the fact that we don’t pause to align our skeleton very often in our daily lives.

It’s this walking through life crooked, off center, out of whack, which not only gives us headaches and backaches, but also heartaches.

Metaphysical alignment: a pursuit of more ease

When I am posturally aligned, it’s not only my physical body that benefits. My energetic body can also relax. When I’m relaxed, I can open. And when I’m open I can receive, or channel, any instruction which is trying to find me. This is opposed to wandering through my day in various states of contortion and contraction, where any and all intuitive guidance effectively ricochets off me.

All of this matters because I’m investing a lot of attention these days in being guided, which is a huge leap of faith for an overachieving, strategy-is-God, enneagram type 3 like myself, who is used to driving the bus. The conundrum is that I can’t simply decide to ‘be guided’ and then make it into a S.M.A.R.T. goal on my quarterly planner. It can’t be forced. Like good posture, it’s less about doing, and more about undoing.

You know how when you listen really hard to a far-off or subtle sound, you might crook your neck to one side, lifting your ear to more fully access the sonic waves? Well, when trying to catch the so-called sound of your inner guidance, twisting your neck won’t help. It will only send you to the chiropractor.

I’m learning that the key is listening for that guidance through my whole body, not just my ears.

The great hoodwink: from the top down

I’m also unlearning. It turns out that catching intuitive whispers, whether internally or from a divine source—is there a difference?—doesn’t necessarily come from above. Apparently the mythological heaven-on-high as a hierarchical home where God hangs out still very much exists in my psyche. But what’s even more true—here comes some totally unplanned Jesus talk—is that “the kingdom of heaven” always was, and continues to be, right here. Which means no wisdom is going to drift down upon the top of our heads. More accurately, wisdom spontaneously blooms within and around us. If we are malleable, it might even penetrate our minds and our senses.

This is actually the legit definition of “channeling.” We strengthen our intuition by listening to it, then following it, and in effect the volume grows louder. Guidance comes through different channels in the body. In psychic traditions these are the 4 clairs, categorized by the sense used: clairvoyance (seeing), clairaudience (hearing), clairsentience (feeling, often in the gut), and claircognizance (knowing). These are not supernatural gifts—they are common everyday abilities that we all possess, but perhaps haven’t taken the time to hone or even respect.

Clearly, there’s no need to crook the neck or turn an ear, because the “sound” bubbles forth from an internal wellspring.

That said, I’m not the only one who’s mistaken up as the direction where guidance originates. The apple falling on Newton’s head is the ultimate cultural exemplar of ideation. The abrupt arrival of a great idea can be described as “lightning strikes!” Inspiration simultaneously refers to grand ideas and also the biological function of breathing, which represents the air element, which naturally leads us to look skyward, even though oxygen is found (almost) everywhere, not just in the sky above.

There is no thinker: the teaching of non-self

Dig a bit into current meditation trends and you’ll find those who are devoted to the ‘headless’ path, a method that seeks to topple the bridge we’ve unknowingly built between our heads and the totality of consciousness. Sam Harris has extensively covered this topic in his Waking Up app, which I love. However, I admit that after practicing quite a few of these headless meditations I still feel lost. I got pretty disgruntled with this approach and had to walk away. Later, while reading Zen and The Art of Saving The Planet by Thich Nhat Hanh, I came upon this beautifully succinct phrase that seemed to describe the same phenomenon, and… lightning struck!

“When Descartes said, “I think, therefore I am,” he was saying that, during the time he’s thinking, he is the thinking. The Buddha said that there is thinking going on but that it’s not certain there’s an “I” behind the thinking. The thinking is going on; that is something we acknowledge. But can we say there’s a thinker? If there’s a painful feeling, we can say for sure that there is a painful feeling going on. But, as for the person who is the feeler, that’s not so sure. It’s similar to saying “it’s raining.” The rain is something certain; it is raining, but there is no rainer. You don’t need a rainer for the rain to be possible. And you don’t need a thinker for the thinking to be possible. You don’t need a feeler for feeling to be possible. That is the teaching of non-self.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh, Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet

2026: the Year of the Magician

Here’s a very cool synchronicity I did not plan (because, you know, you can’t plan synchronicities): When I chose “Heaven Line” as my annual theme, I was thinking of both the physical and metaphysical alignment aspects. About a month later, while discussing an early draft of this article with my friend Anna, I described this line as a connector or conduit between heaven and earth, which immediately brought to mind The Magician from the Tarot. And wouldn’t you know, 2026 is a year 1! (2+0+2+6=10, and 1+0=1.) Which means that, numerologically speaking, this is the year of The Magician.

(It’s also a year 10, represented by The Wheel of Fortune—more on that and other 2026 archetypal themes can be found on this episode of my podcast.)

The Magician is the archetype of creative manifestation, bringing spirit and matter together, bridging the mystical and the mundane. In the classic Ryder-Waite-Smith deck, The Magician stands with one arm raised to the sky and the other pointed toward the earth. At first, it’s the hand holding a wand and aimed at the celestial realms that grabs your attention. But follow that line down to the other hand, and you see a finger pointing at the good green earth. Which makes me wonder… perhaps it’s not the wand that is directing energy downward, but the earthly connection that directs energy upward? Haven’t we all imbibed enough Harry Potter to know the wand isn’t where magic is received, but where it’s emitted?

Of equal importance is the fact that The Magician card shows us another iteration of the Heaven Line, diagonally traveling through his body. Perhaps it’s time to align the ‘4 clairs’ with the Heaven Line and broaden our linear understanding. If we’re always thinking that guidance, wisdom and inspiration comes from above and travels down to find us, what about the energy we gather from the earth? What about the intuition and knowing that materialize from our gut, or a sudden picture in our mind, or a feeling we can’t even locate?

Armed with this awareness, we could say that Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man is positioned upon a grid of heaven lines. We could meditate—or trip out, quite frankly—on an image of the Sri Yantra, gazing at the mathematically mindboggling beauty of all those heaven lines, symbolizing the union of masculine and feminine divine energies and the totality of the universe.

Beyond the straight line is a curved universe

Like all lines, a Heaven Line must have a point A and a point B, but I think it’s now safe to say that the Heaven Line does not exist strictly on a vertical channel—hell, it doesn’t even exist strictly as a straight line! The universe is full of curves, and why should curved lines be any less valuable? Richard Rudd has a lovely riff on this matter, which leads me to answer my previous question with because we are a patriarchal society that prefers linear over cyclical, and has elected the straight line (preferably an upward trajecting one, like an erect penis or rapid growth financial report) as GOD and the curved line or circle (like, I don’t know, breasts, or ovaries, or triple spirals) as EVIL.

Alignment as practice: the ultimate devotion

Have I muddied the proverbial air? Have I taken the straight and true essence of the Heaven Line and twisted it into spiralic knots?

Perhaps. No matter. What counts is a felt sense of true alignment, in your body and in your life. That is what matters.

The shape of your Heaven Line is not predetermined, though starting with the plumb line is a logical and kind place to begin as a human in a gravity suit.

As you place yourself there, you become a conduit between heaven and earth, like The Magician; you become a bridge between all dimensions, a connector of space and time, like the Andean Chakana.

Quite simply, you become aligned—oriented upon an invisible, sacred geometric grid that exists to streamline you in the best and highest way possible, so you can experience the least amount of stress and the most amount of ease.

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This morning, I sat down with my new 2026 Magic of I journal, but couldn’t bring myself to fill out the 10+ pages detailing my most important intentions for the year ahead.

Instead, I opened my email (I know) and read Austin Kleon’s “100 things that made my year.” Probably like many of his other readers, I felt inspired.

Ala Austin Kleon…

Here’s a list of 50 things that made my year in 2025.

1. Started new year’s day by swimming in the frigid Salish Sea with my Water Witches community—most of whom are 70+. The group meets twice a week at a local boat launch all year long to get in that cold, glorious water. I usually head over to my folk’s place afterward to sit in their hot tub and share a cup of Earl Grey.

2. Went to the Big Island and practiced guitar for nearly 3 hours a day. Other highlights: eating a tropical breakfast everyday while gazing at humpbacks breaching in the ocean; going up to Kīlauea crater to see fire spewing from the earth; eating as much fresh poke as possible, swimming naked above a waterfall with my friend Caitlin.

3. Devoured the entire “Sita’s Fire Trilogy” in less than one month, and the joy of letting all of my self-care practices go in lieu of finding any excuse to sit down and read. Holy shit. (Side note: I recommend the physical books b/c the illustrations by the author’s mother are exquisite). Someday, I’d love to run a yearlong book club where we deep dive on the archetypal union + division between divine masculine + feminine though the “Sita’s Fire” trilogy, Sophie Strand’s “The Madonna Secret”, and Riane Eisler’s “The Chalice and The Blade.” (lmk in the comments if that sounds up your alley!)

4. Learned Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” mashed up with Gui Mendonça’s “Ilumina” on guitar.

5. Memorized a bunch of sea creatures in Spanish (morsa, mantarraya, ostra, foca…)

6. Started my “Frequency First” Substack and published 11 articles, including a few I am truly proud of.

7. Bought myself fresh bouquets of flowers regularly (usually roses).

8. Went with our friends Luc, Anna, Wendi and Siobhan to Olympia, the capitol of Washington, for a “No Kings” protest. It felt good to be with so many other people willing to peacefully express their discontent, and also I really enjoyed checking out the innovative signage.

9. Ben and I signed up for a membership to our local YMCA on Valentine’s Day, and worked on getting strong and fit together. For the first time since high school, I don’t cringe at the mention of the gym… instead, I relish it.

10. Related: read “Outlive” by Peter Attia which was illuminating; then found Dr. Stacy Sims, a godsend for middle aged women. I’m learning how to strength train all over again, and the instructions are VERY different from the “lift lighter weight with more repetitions” nonsense women have been fed for decades.

11. Celebrated when Ben bought us a Makrut (aka kafir) lime tree and then made an epic Tom Kha.

12. Went to Tucson to support and MC our friend Marty’s end of life celebration. They had a gorgeous black and white portrait of her printed on cardstock for everyone, with her words, “Life is short, but really wide.”

13. Not beating myself up for literally not touching my watercolors once all year after becoming obsessed in 2024. Another reminder that creativity is cyclical.

14. Read “Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet” by Thich Nhat Hanh and had to reread the section on the Diamond Sutra three times because my mind was so blown.

15. Made The Peaceful Mind Protocol, which is a real gem in my collection for helping people know how to navigate anxiety and experience less of it.

16. Experienced the first year of flower micro-seasons on our land which is my new favorite way to tell time: there was Hellebore season, Camelia season, Tulip + Hyacinth season, Lupin (!) + Azalea season, Magnolia + Rose + Rhodi season, Lavender + Hydrangea season…

17. Found Brea Fisher / Quan Yin Gong Fu, where I’m learning qigong, gung fu and jian sword form, all of which are changing my life. Posted a practice video of 16-style, just for fun.

18. Sported earrings from my friend Allyson’s shop all year, received a ton of compliments, and finally coaxed her to launch her new earring subscription so other people can experience the magic of her personal styling.

19. Spent the early part of the year curled up with our cats to watch “All Creatures Great & Small” on PBS, and spent the end of the year doing it all over again because it’s so damn good.

20. Binged the 10-episode Gene Keys series on Gaia while Ben was out of town.

21. Took guitar lessons for a year with Lauren of Little Whale. I’ve learned a handful of her original songs and played several of the not-so-easy ones in ceremonial settings, including Tejedora Cósmica and Corazon del Mar. Here’s to doing things that scare us.

22. Met my 1st-tier goal for our emergency fund and have a big pile of money sitting in a high yield savings account, just in case. I love earning hundreds of extra dollars every year doing nothing.

23. Received a super classy lingerie subscription from my beloved for my birthday and added some truly epic undergarments to my wardrobe. August was a really good month.

24. Birthed Rose & Sword, which is my favorite thing I’ve ever created. Already have the 2026 dates on my calendar and can’t wait to run it again!

25. Fell deeply in love with the rose and experienced new levels of awe for a plant—tended my first rose in my garden; found a divine hydrosol made in WA state I use on my skin and imbibe ceremonially; studied the mysticism and history in depth; put rose water in any and everything possible.

26. Hosted my brother-in-law Nick and father-in-law Tony for a weekend of feasting, adventuring and chortling. Got a sweet text from Papa T afterward that he missed waking up to our vista.

27. My longtime client Cat came for a 3-day in-person immersion which ended up being a deeply healing experience around the pain some of us carry regarding our birthdays.

28. I healed the monthly excruciating pain I was experiencing around my cycle, thanks to two dear friends who are doctors (an ND + a TCM) and who charge me little to nothing for their remarkable care and services. I am a rich woman.

29. Qigong fully healed whatever imbalance was throwing off my cervical spine and causing chronic pain for over 16 months.

30. Had a girls’ weekend with 3 x longtime friends at my home, which was well balanced with ritual time, great meals, shots of tequila, discussions on hemorrhoids, beading and microdosing beach walks.

31. Stopped giving any fucks about how often I post on my Instagram, and only did it when I wanted to. Not one regret.

32. Went to Victoria BC with my mom, dad and Ben for my cousin’s wedding. Made time to visit the legendary Butchart Gardens, and we even saw a huge whale breach right next to us on the ferry ride back!

33. Inspired by my friend Coco, I bought a Keith Haring sweatsuit at Costco and felt very cozy all autumn.

34. Bought a session with a pet communicator, then hired a pet behavioral specialist, to get help with our cats peeing where they shouldn’t. Hiring help feels good.

35. Befriended a local artist Drea DiPrete who has also become our trusted cat + house sitter—Ben and I are both SO grateful and impressed by this extraordinary human. Knowing your pets are well cared for in your absence is a luxury I will never take for granted again. I also came home from one of our trips to the most unexpected mystical birthday portrait.

36. Bought my first round of high quality textile dyes and did an epic family ice-dying bonanza.

37. Hand-crafted my first ever rosary, made some edits to the traditional prayer so I could fully get behind it, then began a new relationship with Mother Mary.

38. Also, learned “Let It Be” on guitar and I really appreciate that The Beatles gave us a devotional song to Our Lady.

39. Had a good few consecutive weeks of Monday in-person co-working with my friend Anna Brones, which reminded me how much I love body doubling, especially next to someone you really adore and admire.

40. Had 24 students sign up for my end-of-year Annual Planning Challenge for Bewildered Humans after doing a full re-brand and glow-up to the curriculum.

41. Discovered the word “pragmagical” which is now part of my copywriting strategy. Thanks, Allyson.

42. Ended the year obsessively listening to Danica Boyce’s Big Fat Solstice! playlist and watching “Harry Potter Fireplace” on repeat on HBO (already mourning that HP fireplace is leaving the platform today, sigh).

43. Got commissioned to make my friend John a simple wooden mala necklace; after stringing it simply as requested, I took it apart and made it again with knots in between each bead, because beauty and form matter to me. He loved it. Many months later, he sent me yet another voice message to gush over how much he still loves it. Also, the joy of crafting that necklace on an airplane was priceless.

44. Related: made another friend a “Dark Mother” mala and seriously wondered about abandoning my coaching business to start a prayer bead shop.

45. Found a new Indian restaurant near me which is divine—considering I live in the sticks, that is remarkable.

46. Rediscovered my love for cold ramen salad. I like Lotus Foods noodles, and recommend pulling them off the stove, draining, rinsing with cool water, then dousing generously with toasted sesame oil and furikake. Toss on top of some greens and add whatever sounds yummy. I like smoked salmon, hard boiled egg, bok choy, avocado, cilantro, shredded carrot, pickled ginger, wasabi, sriracha, and definitely some of this DELICIOUS Japanese BBQ sauce—condiment of the year!!!

47. Put out a post on TBM’s community forum looking for an accountability buddy, then got messaged by Kaylee Cole, who I met years ago in LA! Turns out she lives 35 minutes away from me, and is a total badass. I’m so stoked to be her friend and also her TBM accountability buddy. She and her husband released an incredible kids album this year called Alphabops—highly recommend.

48. After searching for the perfect pair of sustainably made barrel-leg jeans for over a year, I finally found a pair I love… at Target. Not stoked to support them, but really stoked on these jeans which I wear almost daily.

49. Fell more in love with my cats, Misqi and Chispa, every day. They are ridiculously adorable.

50. Right at the end of the year as it started to get actually cold, I pulled out my dad’s fully lined wool Vietnam jacket which I fought to keep (he wanted to get rid of it ages ago). I’ve been rocking it—it’s so warm, and I like giving new life and honor to a truly horrific time in his life. I also put a Scottish Thistle pin on the lapel that I got in Edinburgh on my honeymoon, which makes it feel like mine.

Surely this is an incomplete list, but it does feel good to make a list of wonderful things that already happened!

Reminds me of the magic of an “already done” list, which is arguably just as important as a “to do” list.

Here’s to an abundant and expansive year ahead, my loves!

In your corner,
B

Every Autumn, I start feeling the inevitable swirl. You know the one. The disbelief that only a few precious months remain in the calendar year… the haunt of holiday season already stalking you at your nearby Costco… and all the unfinished projects you had the best intentions of completing this year.

Well friend, you’re not alone, and it’s not too late.

In fact, now is the perfect time to clean up a few creative cobwebs.

I wish creative cobwebs were as easy to clean as the cobwebs that collect in the corners of our rooms. Alas, it’s gonna take a bit more effort.

A creative cobweb is a repellent, dusty vortex of stuck energy left as a remnant in the corners of your psyche when you leave your creative projects unfinished.

You know the ones.

• The book proposal you started and abandoned.

• The pile of clothes you cleared from your closet this summer but have yet to actually take anywhere to donate.

• The pile of papers on your desk that scares you away every time you consider sitting down to write or paint or practice.

• The instrument you bought in eager anticipation that you have picked up to practice exactly one time.

You get the idea.

I think we underestimate the power of creative cobwebs to distract, dissuade and sabotage our creative power. This not only affects our mood, vision and daily productivity—on a more subtle level, it subconsciously weigh us down.

Though we might not be able to put our finger on it, our uncompleted projects and commitments stop us from taking new action. Even worse, they stop us from believing in ourselves, in believing that we are capable of crossing the finish line like a champ.

Just like how a physical cobweb traps and collects dust, a creative cobweb traps your creative energy and holds it hostage until you exert the effort to clean it up.

In the spirit of encouragement, and in the spirit of aligning your energy with the season of Autumn we’re entering here in the northern hemisphere, I invite you into some creative cobweb clearing.

This can be a very small project, or something large in scope. When in doubt, start small, so that you can celebrate the win. You’ll be amazed at how even a small cobweb cleared will free up creative space in your psyche!

Here’s how this process works:

1. Identify at least 1 unfinished project or “creative cobweb”

Choose something that is completely attainable to complete before the end of the year.

Write it down.

2. Write out all the steps to complete it.

Identifying all the steps is crucial.

Write out each unknown you need to solve, including if you need help, recommendations, suggestions or support.

3. Choose a deadline, and put it on your calendar.

Remember to also schedule specific times when you’ll actually do the work.

As Marie Forleo says, “if it’s not on my calendar, it’s not real.”

4. Tell someone in your life, so they can help hold you accountable!

Keeping our commitments in silence and isolation rarely bares fruit. Ask a friend, mentor or ally for a check-in to make sure you’re still on track with your goal.

Let’s be clear. This project might not be easy. You might feel all kinds of resistance rise up to haunt you, or a chorus of internal critics chiming in to inform you how much of a loser you are that you haven’t already finished this project, and that it’s not even worth the bother.

F those voices!

You’ve got this.

In order to be a masterful creator, you’ve got to be a masterful FINISHER.

It starts here, with getting clear on where we’re avoiding the finish line, then creating a strong, defined process for crossing that finish line.

So dear one, what creative cobwebs are you gonna clean up?

Pick one.

It can be small, and it should be doable.

Put it on your calendar.

Show up and make the choice to clear it.

Then observe what happens to the creative space in your house and your brain!

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These last majestic days of summer have me thinking about death.

Last August, I saw the most epic sunset. Truly, it was one for the books, and considering I grew up on the Salish Sea facing the western Olympic mountain range, that is saying something. The sun rays shone across the sky like cosmic headlights, casting shadows on the clouds. You and I both know that photographs never do sunsets justice, even with an awesome camera… but because I know you’ll ask, here’s the best I could do:

Swan Songs.

Sunset. The swan song of the day.

One last hit of unspeakable beauty before darkness falls.

May it be so for us in our final days and hours, whenever those come.

Death is on my mind, because one year ago today, our neighbor Marty died. A friendly 59-year old quiet fellow, he was the one in our neighborhood closest to us in age and the person whom we related to most closely… a sensitive, artsy, weirdo hermit, with two adorable cats named Oofta and Pickles. We really liked him. He died suddenly one early morning of a stroke while getting ready for work. Without knowing yet what had happened, we watched the entire scene unfold in his driveway: the arrival of the fire trucks, then the sheriff, then the departure of the trucks, making way for the coroner.

It was sad and sobering.

And yet there were some sparkling details, shimmering through the griefly dark.

In the two weeks before he died:

a) he went to visit his father whom he had not seen or spoken to in 10 years

b) he completed a series of big paintings that his late wife had started but not finished before she died of cancer 3 years ago

c) he went on his first date since his wife died. Apparently, it went well, and they were excited to see each other again.

What can we say about these timely completions, except that they are miraculous?

To know that he tied up these emotional-relational-creative loose ends before he departed somehow makes his story simultaneously more tragic, and also more uplifting.

May it be that we have the wherewithal and the courage to tidy up our loose ends before we go.

The trick is not to finish everything.

It takes wise discernment to prioritize what’s most important from the tangle of loose ends flying wildly about our lives… There’s no shortage of unfinished projects or longings!

When I think of wise discernment, I remember an exercise I learned from Warren Buffet:

1. Make a list of the top 25 things you want to do and accomplish in your lifetime.

2. Now order them in priority, 1 being most important, 25 least important.

3. Focus all your life energy on the top 5 items, and avoid the other 20 like the plague.

This advice is confronting.

In an age where FOMO is as big a complaint as high blood pressure, we’ve got some serious attention span issues.

How do we reconcile the fact that our attention and time are limited when the desires of our heart are so palpably real, beckoning us in so many directions at once?

The real mastery is to know which projects are deserving of our attention NOW.

Because we never know when the time will come to make our exit.

If you knew you were going to die one year from today, how would you spend your time?

What would you drop immediately?

What would you pick back up that you've abandoned?

What would you begin?

Who would you spend most of your time with?

How would you choose to spend those final precious 365 days?

Call me macabre. Call me a stoic. Or call me one who is working on making friends with Death. I’m not alone.

Alua Arthur’s TED talk, "Why thinking about death helps you live a better life" provides further evidence that Death will always be our #1 master teacher.

Of course, we can’t know when that time will come for us, but we can lean into the archetypal “life-death-life” (h/t Clarissa Pinkola Estés) cycles that the seasons provide.

As we move into the next season, let us call forth clear vision and wise discernment. Here in the northern hemisphere, that means saying goodbye to summer, and hello to Autumn.

Autumn’s invitation: make peace with what we have and have not accomplished

For me, Autumn is about making decisions, pruning dead limbs, and turning our good completions into new beginnings. Here in the PNW, this is the time of year when everyone gets creative with the plethora of apples falling off our trees.

What will we do with the abundance of summer’s harvest?

How will we use that harvest to sustain ourselves as we move into autumn?

This is the dance we get to learn—through the seasons, through the cycles, we get to ritualize our days, use our time wisely, and then make peace with what we have and have not accomplished.

Because at the end of the day, at the end of the season, at the end of the year and at the end of our lives, what are the things that really matter?

Summer’s End Journal Prompts

• What decisions need to be made?

• How am I postponing or avoiding those choices?

• What do I need to come to a conclusion?

• What summertime projects or goals will I prioritize completing?

• List 3 reasons to look forward to Autumn

• What kind of energy or archetype am I excited to step into this fall?

Sup the last of summer's nectar

Some of us mourn the departure of summer, while others cannot wait to see it end. If you're in the grief camp, I see you and I feel you. (Leo rising over here.)

For all my summer’s end mourners, I recommend intentionally weaving extra play, joy and pleasure into the next few months to ensure that you continue to have something to be excited about.

Maybe it's time to read an obsession-worthy fiction novel you can't put down (like this one I devoured last year, or this trilogy I read in a single month this spring). Or plan a solo weekend getaway to work on a creative project. Or get in some late summer sunbathing, or set up a weekly phone date with a friend you adore but don't talk to enough.

These simple action steps can help us stay buoyant and inspired, even as the days begin to grow shorter and darker.

A closing invocation

Beloved, I envision you and I both moving into the upcoming season with hope in our hearts, and clarity in our third eye.

Your legacy is inevitable.

Don't stress.

Relax, and tune into the wisdom of your body.

Ask your intuition for guidance.

Then make moves, one baby step at a time.

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On the spring equinox, I attended an online ceremonial practice with a qigong teacher one of my friends recommended. Within the first few moments of being in her presence I was struck by an intense wave of seemingly paradoxical emotions. I felt enraptured and awed by her mastery, and simultaneously mangled by envy.

You’ve experienced this too, I presume?

What exactly is happening in our psyche as we gaze down the bottomless well of comparison? How do we avoid falling in? And what gems are shimmering at our feet as we become willing to get curious?

Envy is inviting us.

Are you jealous or envious? It’s time to know the difference.

Jealousy and envy often get confused and conflated as the same thing. Chances are most of us are incorrectly labeling our envy as jealousy, because it sounds better Apparently we’re not super excited to admit to a deadly sin.

The etymology of jealousy has everything to do with rivalry and feeling possessive or suspicious over an object of desire, often in the context of romance. Its root is late latin zelosus, from “zeal.” It actually makes a lot of sense that the intensity of jealousy derives from “great energy or enthusiasm in pursuit of a cause or an objective.”

According to Century Dictionary,

Aha! Fear versus covetousness. Very helpful distinction. Jealousy is “I’m afraid they are going to take that thing that I have or want, therefore I will no longer be able to have it.” The belief is that we cannot both have the object of desire. If they have it, I cannot also have it.

In Atlas of the Heart, Brené Brown lays out the distinction between envy and jealousy beautifully:

Envy occurs when we want something that another person has.

Jealousy is when we fear losing a relationship or valued part of a relationship that we already have.

According to researchers Richard H. Smith and Sung Hee Kim,

Envy typically involves two people and occurs when one lacks something enjoyed by another. The target of envy may be a person or a group of persons, but the focus of envy is that one lacks something compared with a specific target, whether it be a target individual or target group.

Jealousy typically involves three people and occurs when one fears losing someone to another person. Envy and jealousy result from different situations, generate distinct appraisals, and produce distinctive emotional experiences.

So when a friend says “I’m going to Bali for 2 weeks!” and you say “OMG, I’m so jealous!”...

No you’re not. You're envious.

And when a colleague says “My coaching practice is full and I’m more financially abundant than I’ve ever been… and I haven’t even been marketing!” and you joke “wow, peanut butter and jealousy!”

Nope. Not spread with jealousy. Drizzled with envy.

(Too much sandwich metaphor?)

Let’s circle back to fear for a moment. If jealousy necessitates a state of fear, that explains why jealousy has everything to do with relationships and romance specifically. Let’s say I see a woman wearing a dress that I’m absolutely obsessed with and want for my own. Is it fear I’m feeling? No, I’m not afraid. I’m covetous. I’m a human with desires and I want that thing! I’m envious, but I’m not jealous. In contrast, if my husband were to develop feelings for that woman in the amazing dress, I’d be hard-pressed to not feel some genuine fear for what I might lose.

Strangely, now that I lay it out like this, I think we’ve had it totally backwards. We’re so worried about labeling ourselves or coming off as envious because it has a sinful stigma, but jealousy is the truly fearful sister of the two. Now that I understand, I’d choose envy any day.

Envy’s two faces

Brené goes on to say in Atlas of the Heart that envy can be attributed to one of three overarching categories:

1. Attraction (physical, romantic, social standings, popularity…)

2. Competence (skills, intelligence, mastery, knowledge…)

3. Wealth (financial status, class, lifestyle, material possessions…)

Furthermore, she discusses that some envy comes with hostility, and some doesn’t. This adds more complexity. Often we not only want something that someone else has—we consciously or unconsciously don’t want them to have it, and maybe even want them to suffer or get taken down in the process. This kind of envy is pretty ugly, from the outside and on the inside.

You know whether you’re feeling the hostile or non-hostile type of envy. Hostility has a particular flavor of fire to it, and if we’re willing to get really honest with ourselves, it’s pretty easy to tell the difference.

My friends Martha and Don Rosenthal were couples counselors for many decades, and offer a simple question for helping us get real with ourselves in times like these:

Am I wishing them well?

When I think of the person who is the target of my envy, I can ask myself this question and listen for a genuine response.

If I’m not wishing them well, I’ll know it by some feelings that will require further reckoning, like resentment, fear, anger or judgement. I may even experience shame, though on its own that may not mean I’m not wishing them well. That might simply be my own inner critic beating the shit out of me as I compare myself to other people.

If I am sincerely wishing them well, then I can move to the next phase of letting envy invite me to uplevel.

Fuel for refinement: 4 questions to flip envy into inspiration

Here’s what I asked myself after my envy attack with my new qigong teacher. These quickly allowed me to transmute that envy into clarity.

Question 1: What exactly am I envious of?
Focus on the what, not the who, behind the envy. In other words, what is it that I desire that I see so clearly manifested in this person or group?

Question 2: What is this person mirroring back to me?
What is the lesson or direct invitation this feeling of non-hostile envy is offering me?

Question 3: If I could frame this envy instead as inspiration, what action am I inspired to take?
In the face of whatever quality, characteristic or material aspect I desire, what if I could easily flip my envy into inspiration? What might transpire and what steps do I need to take next to walk toward that desired outcome?

Question 4: What is this person or group showing me is possible?
This is what Lacy Phillips of TBM would call “expansion” which is when you see that something is actually possible through the actions, lifestyle or presence of someone else. Seeing is believing, and while we may in theory believe that we can have that thing or quality that we desire, seeing someone else with it is incredibly powerful for our unconscious mind. It can make all the difference between our ability to manifest it, and our lack of true knowing that this reality is possible for us.

Envy under the microscope: my own case study.

In case you’re wondering, here’s what I discovered through these questions.

#1)
It took me sorting through some feelings to decipher what exactly I was envious of. True, she is exquisite in her mastery of her craft, and precise in her quality of presence. However, those are things I feel I embody at times and have received similar feedback around, so that wasn’t quite it. As I looked deeper, the answer emerged with crystalline clarity. I was envious of her specificity.

You see, I have the gift, which can also feel like a curse, of being extremely versatile. There are a great many things I can do and have done professionally—and while that has served me in many ways, seeing her inhabit a body of work that felt tidy and clearly in its own lane sparked a deep insecurity. The “I want that!” reaction wasn’t about the topic or the way she holds space, although those aspects were notable. It was about the simplicity and clarity of her offering.

#2)
With no hostility present, the reflection coming back to me was an invitation to simplify my own body of work. To remove the fluff and carve away everything extraneous that has started to feel like noise in the background. While I may not ever have her level of innate specificity in my body of work, it’s become clear to me that streamlining is in order.

#3)
Since this realization, I’ve started to strategize.

• What platforms am I continuing to pay for but not using to their full potential?

• Which parts of my tech stack drive me crazy or feel overwhelming?

• Why do I have courses on my website that once felt relevant but no longer align with what I want to teach or who I want to work with?

• How would it feel to narrow down all my private client work to ONE single offer?

These questions may seem obvious. But since opening my business in 2017, complexity has gradually snuck into my business plan, like a mouse who crawled into the pantry and then died there. It reeks. I don’t like it. And I’m ready to clean up.

The steps forward feel a bit daunting, but also exciting. Tighten up my site, offerings and business plan. Be ruthlessly honest with what sells vs what doesn’t, what’s aligned vs what’s not, what inspires me vs what depletes me.

#4)
This teacher is showing me that simplicity is not only possible, it’s the recipe for success. And when I say success, I not only mean a business plan that works by delivering a valuable service that generates money, but also that simplicity itself is soothing. When I contemplate what it would be like to cut 75% of the offers I currently have and refocus on the most potent 25%, my nervous system responds with a sigh of relief. That is what I call abundance, and will inevitably attract more abundance.

A message from the Muse

It’s in our nature to compare. And, I refuse to allow my inner critic to scold me into believing there’s no place for my gifts alongside those whom I admire. This is the trick of the ego, and at the heart of envy. If we feel envious but don’t transmute it, we essentially consent to dwell in lack and scarcity.

In The Four Fold Way, anthropologist and author Angeles Arrien speaks about the warrior archetype, who knows the right use of power and embodies their “original medicine.”

Many indigenous societies believe that we all possess “original medicine”: personal power, duplicated nowhere else on the planet. No two individuals carry the same combination of talents or challenges; therefore, when we compare ourselves to others, native peoples see this as a sign that we do not believe that we have original medicine. This belief affects not only ourselves, but extends into the world. Not to be “in our medicine” or bring our power into the world precludes healing from coming to Mother Nature, and all her creatures.

I like the reminder here that comparison arises when I don’t believe in my own power or medicine, and that dishonoring my own gifts is detrimental to society, nature and the world.

Standing next to extraordinary people, I can either feel horrible about myself, or I can see them as mirrors, showing me precisely where my soul is asking to go and grow next.

In those moments of comparison and envy, I pray that the Muse reveals her glorious self to whisper in my ear,

“Darling! Use this as fuel. This emotion is here to show you where you get to practice and where you’re ready to refine. It’s as simple as that. No comparison needed.”

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My peace of mind is a priority—one which I’m willing to stand in, take action on, and fight for. And yes, I will need to fight for it.

I know.

Fight... for peace?

It's an outrageous oxymoron.

Yet I keep hearing this truth as a whisper, clear as a bell. Try as I might to talk myself out of this paradoxical conclusion, it keeps haunting me.

Some days, the fight to maintain my inner peace feels like an all out brawl… that I lose.

This is a battle to protect my mind—not some soft spoken, passive request. I’m talking about the bold, tenacious intensity of Kali Ma. That is what you’ll need in order to defend your peace from the onslaught of forces—malignant, benign or friendly—vying for your attention.

The Wrathful Protector

Kali is but one face of the divine mother goddess. She’s easily recognized by her blood-drenched protruding tongue, the garland of skulls she wears around her neck, and a weapon in each of her four hands. Like all deities, her story is epic. Kali emerged from nothingness to do the dirty work that others could not, tasked to destroy the demon Raktabija—each time a drop of his blood touched the earth, that drop became a copy of him. In the battle to defeat him, he multiplied, gaining power with each attempt to strike him down.

A worthy metaphor for fear itself.

Called forth into existence by the Hindu gods to destroy the demon (who, of course, the gods were responsible for creating in the first place, eye roll), Kali’s solution was simple and effective. As she slayed the army, she drank the blood of each demon, one at a time, until only the original remained. With a final righteous blow of her sword, he followed the same fate. The battle was over, with not one drop of blood spilt on the ground.

We often think of wrath in its Christian context as one of the seven deadly sins, containing no moral clout. And yet why does this story, and others like it, inspire the hearts of billions around the globe?

I’m learning to appreciate that wrathfulness is an essential quality of the archetypal protectress—it has a noble purpose when wielded with virtue and integrity. This feels like a cooling balm at a time when “good vibes only” memes contradict the broiling frustration I feel every time I read the news.

Destruction is generative

Most images of Kali portray her standing on the horizontal, bleeding body of a man. This man is Shiva, who happens to be her consort. Shiva is one of three Hindu gods in the Hindu Trimurti, which encompasses the three primal universal forces: Brahma is the Creator, Vishnu is the Preserver, and Shiva is the Destroyer.

Kali standing on Shiva holds rich symbolism. First, this victory stance clues us into the fact that although the two are well-matched destroyer deities, Kali’s power is supreme. The divine Shakti or feminine essence is the ultimate force, besting even the almighty Shiva. Second, some narratives suggest that Kali was on a rampage when Shiva laid down his body as a sacrifice to calm and disrupt her fury, preventing her from destroying all of creation.

Most of us shrink away from destructive energy. We love being in creation, and maintenance essentially epitomizes the comfort zone (who doesn’t like to hang out there?) Destruction is often viewed as the problem child. But let’s pause to appreciate that no plants would grow without the decay in the soil; our gardens thrive on compost. Destruction is as much a part of the creation cycle as creation itself, just as life would have no meaning without the looming presence of death.

Future-tripping, hindsight trauma

Let’s look underneath Kali’s wrath.

In Sanskrit and Pali, Kal means time. Kali is the mighty destroyer—of malevolent forces, illusion, fear, and time. Because time, as it turns out, is where fear resides.

Consider any situation that genuinely instills fear, and chances are high that this fear brings you either into the future or the past.

We fear what might be coming. We future-trip. We worry and attempt to plan for the worst case scenario that hasn't happened yet, effectively creating an active hostile environment right now in our sympathetic nervous system.

On the other side of the spectrum, we relive past traumas and haunting memories. We ruminate on what has been, or attempt to stuff it down into our psyche, which inevitably creates shadows in the mind and disease in the body. This too creates havoc in our nervous system, activating flight, flight, freeze or fawn, the four manifestations of dysregulation.

Yet if we are utterly, totally present: can fear persist?

It’s often said that all fear is the fear of death. And yet isn’t the fear of death a form of future-tripping? Whether by a cancer diagnosis or demonic threat, might it be possible to imagine a reality where true presence is the ultimate antidote even to the fear of death? And might it also be possible to imagine that inside that experience of true presence is the only place we can experience peace?

This is our ultimate incentive to be present. Because from that place, fear can rapidly dissipate, allowing us to meet any situation in front of us feeling resourced, grounded and wholeheartedly there.

Devotional rage

I recently attended a “Hands Off” demonstration at the Washington State Capitol in Olympia. I saw a number of signs that read something to the effect of “if you’re not angry, you’re not paying attention.”

I don’t want to shame anyone who’s not feeling rage right now. Life is full of light and shadow, and there’s a lot of glorious things happening at this moment outside the sphere of violence and hatred so blatantly on display.

In fact, to disrupt anxiety, ask this powerful question:

“What’s everything I’m NOT noticing that’s NOT that?”

The conscious mind doesn’t know what to do with this question, and any neural activity lighting up one area of your brain will instantly disperse, taking your anxiety with it.

That said, it’s difficult to imagine how someone could not be feeling some level of anger, rage, or fury right now… all of which are forms of grief. And we grieve because we love. Our capacity to love and grieve are mirrors of one another. This is why it’s so terrifying to love someone with our whole heart and soul—they become our biggest threat. Our vulnerability to being hurt opens the gates to love, and vice versa.

This is why I honor my rage, and I honor yours. It's because I fiercely love the earth and her creatures that I feel anger for the violence perpetrated against her. It’s because I love the expressions of life on this planet that I feel anger for the indifference to the destruction of our ecosystems. Indigenous wisdom is directly responsible for my unshakeable faith, and for helping me find my soul family in this lifetime—which is why I feel such immense rage at the flagrant disrespect and disregard for the lives, land and well being of indigenous people.

There’s nothing wrong with our emotions, and there’s nothing wrong with rage. In the words of my teacher Anuttara Lakshmin Nath, who inspired much of this discourse,

“Emotions are not inferior to reason. In the full potency of our emotions, we actively meet the divine. Dullness of emotions means we aren’t fully alive.”

We pursue refinement not by feeling less anger, grief or disgust, but by more skillfully expressing those emotions in healthy ways.

Is your fear healthy or unhealthy?

We’ve all experienced both healthy and unhealthy expressions of rage. Most of us know on a deep intuitive level which is which; but I think we’re woefully lacking practice in articulating the difference, and skill in pivoting when we’re stuck in unhealthy patterns.

Healthy fear serves as a clear guidance system. It’s a compass, issuing warnings when we’re in real danger; throwing up red flags when we ought to be suspicious; sounding sirens when we’re about to step into a proverbial minefield where there’s a real potential for harm. This includes people, places, and situations that trigger our sensorial, biological impulses for survival. Healthy fear is appropriate and in service to our longevity and holistic protection.

Unhealthy fear does not serve our true safety, but rather keeps us within a stagnant comfort zone. It instills a false sense of safety, keeping us small in self-imposed limitations. Unhealthy fears are delicate to tread, because they arise out of past traumas, core wounds, oppressive narratives and collective conditioning. The pain of their origin is real, but the cost of continuing to compensate for them is great. These fears will not actually keep us safe, but instead keep us confined and in hiding, like a child who believes they become invisible by putting their hands over their eyes. These fears are the ones to overcome.

Remove the thorn

In his book “The Untethered Soul”, author Michael Singer gives the metaphor of a thorn that is lodged in your body.

Instead of doing the painful but effective job of removing the thorn, you protect the thorn, guarding it from being touched or jostled.

Then you seclude yourself in a house which you never leave so as to not cause more pain.

Then you design a marvelous contraption for your body to avoid physical contact with others altogether, which you then market and sell to the masses so they too can avoid the pain of having their thorns jostled.

Meanwhile, the simple and direct path to real healing is, of course, to pull the damn thing out.

I think about this metaphor often.

And while healing a core wound isn’t perhaps as straightforward as removing a painful shard from your body, the lesson is clear.

Do the work, free yourself of the thorn.

As Lacy Phillips of To Be Magnetic says,

“Claim the wound, or it will claim you.”

A closing invocation

May we be unafraid to confront, claim and alchemize our unhealthy fears.

May we be unapologetic in setting healthy boundaries.

May we be courageous in claiming our sacred space—to create, work, or just sit—even from those most dear to us.

May we remember we are the sole guardians of our minds.

May we respect that our phones induce a trance state—and make wise choices accordingly.

May we never forget that our most valuable resource is not our money, or even our time, but our attention.

May we choose our battles, wholeheartedly.

And may we wield the sacred sword, with unflinching discernment for who, and what, gets access to our precious life force energy.

Om krim kalikaye namaha!

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Today is Earth Day, and in honor of Gaia—thought by some to be the living organ of the divine mother creatrix herself, and undeniably the great mother of all us earthlings—I’m inspired to share some expressions of the Divine Mother to inspire your heart and your life.

May these practices, songs, contemplations and invitations be a portal into a deeper experience of what it means to be a human born of Mother Earth herself.

[Song] Mother by Gaiea Sanskrit

An unspeakably beautiful mantra honoring the many faces of the goddess.

jagadambe: Mother ("ambe") of the Universe ("jagat")
mā/mātā: Mother.

Listen. On repeat.

[Playlist] Springtime Healing

In The Four Fold Way, author and anthropologist Angeles Arrien presents the archetype of The Healer as the key archetype for Spring. I’ve created this playlist for this divine season of the springtime. May it bring playful, light and heartfelt tidings of healing to your heart and body. (If you want to go deeper into the archetype of spring, check out this pod ep.)

[Podcast] The Emerald: For the Divine Mother of the Universe

Wow. WOW. wow.

I can’t sing the praises of this podcast enough. But I’ll keep trying.

If you’ve already listened, listen again—because it’s been re-mastered, and because wow.

[Book] The Mother by Sri Aurobindo

The sections on prosperity in this tiny little book will shake your entire understanding of money and capitalism. I happily accept any invitation to integrate my understanding of the divine mother into such things as my bank account.

Here’s an excerpt to wet your whistle:

“Money is the visible sign of a universal force, and this force and its manifestation on earth works on the vital and physical planes and is indispensable to the fullness of our life. In its origin and its true action it belongs to the divine…. Some even put a ban on money and riches and proclaim poverty and bareness of life as the only spiritual condition. But this is an error; it leaves the power in the hands of the hostile forces. To reconquer it for the divine to whom it belongs and use it divinely for the divine life is the supplemental way for the Sadhaka [spiritual practitioner]. Regard wealth simply as a power to be won back for the mother and placed at her service. All wealth belongs to the divine and those who hold it are trustees, not possessors. Make no demand but accept what you receive from her And use it for the purposes for which it is given to you. Be entirely selfless, entirely scrupulous, exact, careful in detail, a good trustee; always consider that it is her possessions and not your own that you are handling.“

[Practice] Earth Offerings

One of the simplest ways to connect with The Mother is to make daily offerings to the earth. With these offerings can come silent, spoken or sung prayers. It feels really, really good. Make it simple. Don’t overthink it. Find a quiet spot, a patch of grass, the base of a tree, a sprinkling of sand. Bring along flowers, create earth mandalas, shed tears, offer water, strands of hair or tobacco, speak prayers, sprinkle spices, pray with herbs. What you offer matters not. What matters is that you do it wholeheartedly. Hold your gratitude and awe for our divine mother in your heart, and you can’t do it wrong.

🌎 Blessed earth day, dear one! 🌍

Make some time today to put your bare feet on the soil, the grass, the sand, in the water.

Feel the pulse of her heart.

Listen to her birdsong and the breeze in the trees as her breath on your face.

Feel the wind across your cheek as a gentle caress, reminding you of your deepest, truest belonging.

You are held. Literally.

You are loved.

Jaya ma!
Victory to the Mother!

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A true (common) story

During one of my weekday work periods, I tumbled unexpectedly and suddenly into a dark well of despair.

Slowly but surely, I went from feeling focused and energized to feeling hopeless and depressed.

I could dive into the nitty gritty of what caused this energetic stumble, but that’s besides the point. It happens.

Maybe a night of broken sleep catches up with you, or you get an worry-inducing text that your brother just lost his job, or you’re worried about how your brilliant-and-neurodivergent kid will do on their test today, or you read an unsettling article about the latest act of tyranny in the White House. Any of these things can throw off our sense of equilibrium, causing us to careen out of control before we even know what’s happening.

Ultimately, this is a story of awareness. Because what’s important to share about this sudden onslaught of despair is that I suddenly became aware of my quickly waning mood—and in that moment, I made a quick decision to do something to shift my energy.

The 5-second pivot

If you Google “the 5-second rule” you’ll get a lot of results which may or may not align with this principle. So I’ve decided to call it “the 5-second pivot” instead, to avoid confusion with the work of Mel Robbins and potentially others using a version of this phrase. I heard about this idea in a talk on Stoicism, and I found the simplicity inspiring.

How it works:

When you find yourself reacting to something, do everything in your power to notice and redirect your attention in the first 5 seconds.

The idea here is that if you can catch yourself before you fly off the handle, you’ve got a decent chance of being able to circle back to that trigger feeling more resourced.

Example:

You open your News app, and read a particularly troubling headline. Your throat constricts, your eyes widen, and you feel the fury begin to rise. Incredibly, this all happens in the span of 1-2 seconds. You suddenly become aware that this is all happening, and that you’re falling down the well of reactivity. This is when you’d pause, and make a powerful split-second decision to head off the reaction in the first 5 seconds.

Side Note: this would be a stellar time to use any of the “STOP” tools from Phase 1 of my Peaceful Mind Protocol.

Need a super simple tool to stop the reactivity in it’s tracks?

Take 3 deep breaths, where the exhalation is twice as long as the inhalation.

Or:

Stand up with your arms reaching straight above you, jumping up and down 10 times.

Either of these will redirect your attention immediately from the trigger and allow you to drop into your breath and your body, which will bring some immediate relief along with a chance for a perspective shift.

Once you’ve pivoted your attention and come into your body, you will very likely feel more resourced, and chances are you can meet the headline with a broader perspective. Even if you feel sacred rage or waves of grief in the face of the news—why wouldn’t you?—you aren’t hijacked by your emotions and left in a swirl of panic or anxiety.

I am not advocating that you bypass your emotions. Your emotions are not bad or wrong, and displays of emotionality do not indicate that you are spiritually un-evolved. Indeed, emotions are biologically wise, powerful messengers showing us where our work is. And, we cannot do that work if we are totally incapacitated.

This also brings up the importance of having safe spaces to cry, wail, scream, and grieve. If you don’t have safe spaces and intentional outlets to express your feelings, I recommend you put some energy into finding some. If emotions don’t move through us in a healthy way, they will become toxic agents of destruction inside our very being. See this or this article I wrote on grief if you need somewhere to begin.

The shift

Back to my story. Once I made the snap decision to escape the foreboding shadow of despair no matter what, I got up from my desk. I closed my laptop, took off my blue-blocker glasses and left my office, heading for the kitchen. There, I proceeded to eat some chocolate, followed by some coffee ice cream (yep, I did that) while sitting on a step outside in the crisp winter sunlight.

Taking deep breaths of the cool air, I resolved to get my juju back, or else resort to a nap—because honestly, sleeping is preferable to attempting the rest of an afternoon in that horrible mind state.

From there, I did a short but rigorous bout of cleaning in my kitchen, put on my essential oil diffuser with lemon and a doTERRA blend called Elevation, and drank a quart-sized glass of water with a capful of raw apple cider vinegar.

After doing all of that, I miraculously felt ready to sit down in front of my computer again. Thinking that perhaps I would shift my focus to a different task than what I was working on previously, I brought my laptop to the kitchen table for a change of scenery.

And what do you know? I ended up diving back into my prior writing project for several more hours. It ended up being a delightful, pleasurable, productive and fruitful afternoon!

The moral of the story

This little blip of a story is a true testament to the fact we can shift our energy anytime, with a bit of intention and awakened action.

And it’s also important to normalize that we humans sometimes experience unexpected waves of grief. Nothing is wrong with us.

When I reflect back to the precise moment when things began to turn around, it was the simple acknowledgment of and surrendering to my suffering. Rather than fight it or push myself to keep working through the feelings, I let the feelings win.

Et voila! In that allowance and relaxation, a path of relief revealed itself.

Test the method

Here’s how to test this method in your own life… and I hope you will! Because nothing is as satisfying or empowering as anecdotal evidence.

1. Make a list of 10 things you can do that are fail-proof morale boosters.

This will be deeply personal to you. It might contain specific foods or beverages that hit the spot; a garment that sparks joy; a quick call to a friend that always makes you cry-laugh or knows exactly what to say to talk you off the cliff; a particular spot in your home or nearby in nature that will ground you; and so on. Keep this list tacked up on a wall next to your desk or in a note bookmarked on your phone so you can easily access it.

2. The moment you notice your prana start to drain, reach for your list.

Don’t hesitate! Practice the 5-Second Pivot like your life depends on it. Start training yourself to remember and reach for your most effective tools in challenging or triggering moments.

I won’t sugar coat it. This step is the hardest part. We humans usually fall immediately down the well of becoming identified with our emotions; and in those moments of total identification, we draw a blank on how to pull ourselves out again. If you’re willing to train yourself to spring into one of the actions from your trusted List at the first sign of deflation, you’ll be amazed at the results.

3. Release all expectations of the outcome—give yourself permission to feel everything that's arising.

Grief comes in waves, often at very unexpected moments. Our bodies and hormones are constantly in flux. Practice the art of imperfection. Tell your Inner Critic to pipe down, and invite your Higher Self to step forward. Put your hand over your heart and take those 3 breaths. Give yourself full permission to simply feel what emotions are passing through you. Listen to this 12 minute practice by Richard Rudd while softening your face and relaxing your shoulders. Not even sure what you’re feeling? Use an emotions wheel to clarify and name what’s actually happening.

4. Instead of identifying as your emotions, become aware of experiencing them.

Pay careful attention to your language in moments of contraction or reaction. As you allow yourself to admit what you’re feeling, create some distance between yourself and the emotions. For example, instead of saying “I’m disappointed”, shift your language to “I’m experiencing disappointment.” From there, you might even befriend the emotion by saying “It's okay that these feelings are here. Disappointment is welcome.”

5. When in doubt: Take a nap.

If you’ve given the above steps an honest try and still feel meh, fuck it. Grab an eye mask, set your alarm for 30 minutes, turn your devices on Do Not Disturb and take a power nap. As you drift off to sleep, offer a little invocation: May this nap refresh my spirit and refill my cup, so I can show up and do the work that’s mine to do today.

*

My friend, this is a game of awareness. We’re becoming spiritual warriors, you and I. And so we get to hone our reactivity radar.

We get to strengthen the muscle of wise action in moments when our avoidant, cynical self would rather let the well swallow us.

We get to flex our navigational superpowers.

We get to feel it all and gather our resources as we learn to navigate the needs of our body, mind and heart in a time of great upheaval and momentous change.

I’m with you each step of the way.

[Listen to this article as a podcast on Apple or Spotify]

I’m a big fan of Kim Krans, creatrix behind “The Wild Unknown.” Several years ago, I purchased her Archetypes card deck, and while reading the introduction in the guidebook I was delighted to learn about her process behind the deliberate omission of The Hero.

“I returned to the question again and again with disbelief. How can an archetypes deck not have a hero card? Blasphemous!? Ridiculous!? The hero is the protagonist on the journey! It is an omission, a failure from the start! To the skeptics (and my skeptic within)... perhaps it is time to find the hero in every card.”

Before we dive deeper, let’s clarify the meaning of archetypes.

Universal patterns

An archetype (arche + type = the first symbol or first of its kind) represents a universal pattern. They can be personifications as well as symbols, initiations or phases of the human experience. When you read stories, whether mythic, factual, or a combination of both, you’re navigating the language of archetypes. The films we watch, books we read, big experiences we have, and every fiction or non-fiction story that captures our attention speaks the mother tongue of archetypes.

While archetypes entertain us from pages, screens and legend, they also give meaning to the ebb and flow of our daily lives. I love looking through the lens of archetypes (which is what I do on The Sage & The Song) to gain insight about the dynamics in my business or marriage, assess my creative strategy, brainstorm marketing ideas, or countless other areas where I’m seeking a fresh point of view. Archetypes are valuable because they pull us out of our stuck and too-small narratives, and offer us a different point of view that’s less of a personal affront and more of a cosmic wink in our direction.

Perhaps the most famous of all archetypes is The Hero. Many of the best-known stories of our time use the classic Hero’s Journey framework, developed by Joseph Campbell in 1949 in his book "The Hero with a Thousand Faces." Campbell labeled this the "monomyth", an unfortunate choice of words considering there can be no singular myth. For better or worse, his categorization of this narrative pattern points to the prolific nature of its use, found in tales across time, space and culture. Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Harry Potter, and every Marvel comic ever made portray classic hero’s journey cycles.

And yet, aren’t these stories a bit predictable, for all their appeal? Don’t we essentially always know what will happen in the end?

Bored of heroics

I’m not alone in feeling fatigued with heroics. Because despite the promise that the superhero will always save the day, the truth is the hero can exist in every archetype. In all of us. And not always in the big, showy moments.

True heroics happen mostly in tiny, quiet corners: When I’m able to relax my shoulders and actually listen with genuine curiosity to a neighbor who voted for Trump. When I can respond with receptivity rather than react with impatience to my husband’s feedback. When I can admit I didn’t speak up during yesterday’s meeting because I was afraid of looking stupid.

I recently heard an interview on the SAND podcast with legendary teacher, ritualist and psychologist Michael Meade who said “we don’t need heroics, we need genius.” I couldn’t agree more.

In the interview, Meade says our obsession with the hero is part of the global crisis we find ourselves in, and it needs to be left behind:

“As long as I've been alive, there's only been one myth that has made any penetration into the modern culture, which is the myth of the hero. And it's a great myth. But unfortunately it's the only myth right now. Myth by its nature is multiple. I suggest that we replace the hero's myth, or keep it where it's appropriate, but don't have it be in charge; because it is too masculine, its tone is too outer-directed in attitude, and it leads to things like superheroes, which have taken over Hollywood and people's imagination.

We don't need heroics. We need genius. Genius is a Latin word, which literally means the spirit that's already there. The best myth for a modern person, I think, is to realize that we're in a story in which we're expected to find our own inner gifts and our own style of living and giving those gifts. If that was the understanding rather than heroics, then no one has to be heroic. And everyone—male, female, in between, it doesn't matter—everyone would have a unique inner genius that is their companion. Once you get the sense that everybody has a genius, it's easy to realize everybody has a calling in life. And once people find their calling, they don't have to heroically go saving people. They just have to creatively become themselves.”

The Savior Complex

The word hero is suspected to have come from the Proto-Indo-European root -ser, meaning "to protect" or “to defend.” A hero dons their cape and jumps into action to save the day. And while there’s usually a sincere desire for humanitarian service at play, it’s undeniably more complex. When we apply heroics to everyday modernity, we often get ego-driven action. Trying to be heroic innately leads to saviorism. Ironically, we think the hero is all about saving the world, but it’s nearly impossible to escape the shadow of individualistic self-interest baked into that very notion.

We all know damn well that one person cannot save the world, the planet, or our human race. As Anne Marie Bonneau says, “We don't need a handful of people doing zero waste perfectly. We need millions of people doing it imperfectly” (h/t to my friend Colleen Collins, professional organizer and zero-waste enthusiast, for turning me on to this quote). But despite this knowledge, it’s easy to get swayed by the idea that we could be a savior for someone, for some cause…. that we could be the solution.

We all love to love a hero. We might not admit it, but we’d all love to be someone’s hero. And we will probably deny to the grave, even if it’s true, that what we’d love most of all is to be saved—for our own hero to swoop in and rescue us from the job we loathe, the manuscript waiting for a publisher, the salary that doesn’t cover all our comforts. Many modern women would shudder to identify as a “damsel in distress” archetype, but wouldn’t bat an eyelash to admit they’d love to attract a super wealthy partner, or for their current partner to suddenly see a windfall of financial abundance. There’s a disconnect here, and perhaps it’s subtle. Because who wouldn’t appreciate a sudden relief from the monthly monetary stressors? Meanwhile, what happens to our innate but not-yet-revealed potential, our soul’s heroic journey to locate our gifts, battle our (money) demons, and follow our own winding path to our unique form of success? You might say the “hero” was a boone that saved you, or you might just as well say the “hero” stole something from you on a dharmic level.

We want to be discovered. We want to be justified. We want to be needed and important.

Those desires are seeds watered by every Disney film and heroic tale out there. And they reveal precisely why The Hero has become rather problematic.

Altruism vs self-importance

The line between sincere, compassionate action and ego-driven action appears nuanced from the outside. Only through honest self-awareness can we hone our own bullshit alarm as it relates to ourselves and our behaviors. And, of course, with ourselves is where honing awareness happens. It’s easy to hear the BS siren go off in the presence of someone with an inflated air of self-importance, but how do we fine-tune our ability to recognize and shift our own need for self-aggrandizement?

We’ve all known people operating from a savior complex—but by its nature, the savior complex is cunning, and can be hard to differentiate from an honest desire to be helpful. I have a friend who always seems to date women in vulnerable states, and another friend who will always stop to help someone with a flat tire or stalled vehicle. In both circumstances, these are good people with good hearts. I can see the honest-to-goodness desire to support a fellow human being in need. And in both circumstances, if I zoom out and view the recurring behaviors over time, I can also see repeating patterns of needing to be needed. There’s a distinctive, albeit subtle, thrill from swooping in to save the day.

What’s important to remember is that repeated patterns, not singular circumstances, are what create an archetype. Perhaps the only difference between true compassionate service and ego-driven saviorism is self-awareness. And perhaps we can only know which path we’re treading over time, by looking backward to see the trail of our own actions and the patterns we’re weaving with those actions.

The Victim, Villain, Hero Triangle

We often think of the hero as the “good guy”, but Stephen B. Carpman’s ‘Drama Triangle’, developed in the 60’s, challenges this notion. It reveals a classic and oft-repeated 3-way dynamic we unknowingly witness and participate in within our communities. I recently read about this triangle in The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership, which jogged memories of learning about this triangle before.

From “15 Commitments”:

“Victims see themselves as “at the effect of.” “It” is being done “to them” by someone or something out of their control. Typically they complain, either overtly or covertly, subtly or loudly, that “this isn’t fair.” Underneath all their words and actions is a tone of whining.

Villains find fault and place blame. Sometimes they point the finger at a person, at themselves, ro at the meta-cause, but they deal with fear by looking for who’s to blame.

Heroes hate conflict, pain and tension and seek to temporarily relieve their discomfort without really dealing with the issue. They habitually over function and take more than their share of responsibility. A good number of the leaders we coach have made successful careers out of behaving in this way. In fact, heroes in many organizations are promoted, compensated, and enshrined as examples of doing “what it takes” to get the job done. Yet we believe that heroing is a primary form of unconscious leadership. It is toxic because it leads to burn out, supports others in taking less than their full responsibility (being victims), and rewards behaviors that ultimately lead to individual and team breakdown.”

What I love most about the drama triangle structure is the fact that it’s easy to throw stones at the villain or victim, as they are so obviously imbalanced roles. But the Hero is a less likely suspect.

I feel lucky to work on a small team of extremely conscious people. And even on our team, I recognize these dynamics at play. I recently bought 5 copies of this book for all my coworkers, inspired to cocreate a work environment and organization that’s devoted to dismantling these toxic unconscious behaviors that plague even the most well-meaning leaders.

Spiritual heroics

If you look at my bio or check out my website, you’ll see the phrase “spirit-led.” I realize this repels some folks who might not resonate with the word “spirituality”, but who may well be essentially aligned with the values behind that phrase. To me, spirit-led implies the opposite of ego-led. To embody this principle means that any ambition I have to do good comes from direct, divine guidance in the moment, not a strategy of success to attain external validation, perceived importance or an inflated sense of value. To correctly navigate the dance of heroics, I aim to be spirit-led, which is to say that my instruction to offer support has to come from something beyond my own desire to do so. Desire, as it turns out, is ripe for spiritual debate… which is an article for another day.

Several years back, I had an immensely challenging psychedelic journey that left me legitimately traumatized. I’m blessed and privileged to have had very few run-ins with trauma in my lifetime, and this experience was humbling—it required new levels of spiritual resilience as well as somatic rigor as I navigated physical symptoms of PTSD in the years to follow. For the first time in my life, I had to learn, quickly, how to tend to a dysregulated nervous system that resulted in an inability to function at a basic level, at very inconvenient times. Along with filling my new nervous system toolbox with calming and regulating practices, I also had an unexpected and synchronistic connection with Green Tara.

Originating in Tibetan Buddhism, Green Tara can be traced back to ancient goddess worship. One of the 21 emanations of Tara, she’s known as ‘the Mother of all Buddhas’, and the ‘Protectress from all Fears’. As the story goes, Green Tara came to full realization as an enlightened being in her lifetime among solely male peers, and defied patriarchal beliefs that only a man could achieve enlightenment. She vowed to remain in female form through all her incarnations as a Bodhisattva henceforth, devoting herself to the awakening of humanity by transcending emotional, physical and spiritual suffering.

She is a powerful deity to call upon in moments of sheer terror and massive uncertainty, as her specific medicine is to help humankind transcend the viral energy of fear and awaken from the illusion of fear-based separation. According to author and scholar Rachel Wooten, PhD, her mantra, “om tare tuttare ture soha” roughly translates to “Come on, Green Tara! I need you NOW to come and wake me up from my fear, suffering and illusion!”

To call upon Green Tara is, in essence, to ask for help. She’s depicted sitting on a lotus throne with a blue lotus in her left hand, and her right leg forward with a foot on the ground. This stance symbolizes her readiness to leap to our aid the moment she is beckoned.

Reflecting on Green Tara as an avatar, I can see her as a certain type of hero. And yet, her core mission is clearly selfless. Tara, or Dolma in Tibetan, also means “Savioress, She Who Liberates, the One Who Brings Us Across.” Her ability to help us navigate the stormy seas of doubt and fear makes her an extremely practical ally in times of need. I chanted her mantra regularly for several years, and have a statue of her on my altar to this day. She can teach us much about how to identify and trust benevolent saviorism, especially considering her lack of privilege as a female and her unbound service to any and all beings who call on her.

Breaking the pattern

Quite simply, we get stuck on the hero—creatively, spiritually, romantically, professionally.

Our popular films are nauseatingly chock full of white, masculine, ableist savior stories. Saviors who love to save when it benefits them, when their saviorism is selective and exclusive. Only recently do we begin to see divergence from these old narratives that able-bodied white men are the gold standard Hero—remember the three stories I listed at the beginning of this article?

Going beyond The Hero is not only a spiritual matter, but a cultural one. If “we are the culture-makers” as my colleague and mentor Kelly Diels says, then we’ve got work to do in shaping a culture where The Hero is a quiet, subtle texture woven into every other archetype, and not someone we put on a pedestal.

The Heroine’s Journey, by Maureen Murdock, is a beautiful nod in a positive direction, taking Campbell’s classic cycle and adjusting it to a feminine perspective. I especially loved the chapter about the underworld, where we meet “the dark mother.” Yes, that.

Meander, Spiral, Explode: Design and Pattern in Narrative by Jane Alison was recommended to me last year by some fellow writers at an artist residency. For us story-enthusiasts, it’s refreshing and valuable to remember that there are many ways to frame a good story beyond the typical hero’s journey cycle.

These resources, Kim’s decision to omit The Hero from her deck… Meade’s commentary on genius over heroics… these are the winds of change, my friend.

The weather is shifting.

We, as a people, are shifting.

And as we inhabit the cycles, rhythms and seasons of our own real-life stories, may we embrace a new narrative with open arms.

In the words of the one and only Clarissa Pinkola Estés…

“I hope you will go out and let stories, that is life, happen to you, and that you will work with these stories... water them with your blood and tears and your laughter till they bloom, till you yourself burst into bloom.”

[Listen to this article as a podcast on Apple or Spotify]

Pedestal (v): to idealize, deify or hold someone in high regard without adequate perspective of their humanity; to deeply admire someone while unconsciously holding them to unreasonable expectations.

Though it’s likely obvious, let me be clear and claim the above definition as one of my own making. As a leader, and as someone who studies the realm of leadership with fascination and curiosity, I’ve thought a lot about this topic in the past decade. If I’ve got a motive for this particular piece of writing, it would be an attempt to spare you some of the pain of pedestaling another human being, or likewise an attempt to spare you the ache of being pedestaled by someone else.

Because here’s the thing about pedestals—after you put someone up on one, there’s only one realistic outcome. And typically, that fall is not a graceful one.

A dual injury

Like most of us, I’ve pedestaled other people. Parents, teachers, peers, friends, celebrities, mentors. Perhaps it's an inevitable lesson we’ve all got to learn in the Planet-Earth Curriculum. After all, finding someone we admire is a gift. What would we do without our beloved teachers and role models? If we’re lucky, those people in our lives who manage to shape us are conscious enough to get our consent along the way, and to keep reminding us of their humanity, snapping us out of our childish idealism when we forget they are actually fallible.

Not surprisingly, the nature of leadership is dualistic. Not only does The Leader have both light and shadow qualities like all archetypes, but leadership comes with the added complexity of positional power. And whenever we’re rumbling with power dynamics, it’s best to be a bit wary. What I didn’t fully understand until my mid to late thirties was the fact that not only do I terribly compromise my own well being when I pedestal someone; I also put them in an impossible position that’s doomed to failure.

I began to see the underbelly of this harmful behavior when one of my own mentors fell from grace in my eyes. At the time, I was completely stuck in victim mentality, feeling I had been deeply wronged. I can say with certainty that the “fall” of my teacher presented one of the more rare forms of anguish, where I could simultaneously access sincere love and undeniable disdain. This phase lasted longer than I care to admit, and from what I’ve witnessed in communities around me, it’s not an uncommon story. However, it appears to me that this is often the excruciating and sometimes necessary moment when teacher and student split apart and go their separate ways.

Individuation, you might call it.

I also suspect that many of the student-teacher individuations happening across the globe in countless professional fields play out and “resolve” in unhealthy ways. In other words, people choose to walk away—often resentful and full of judgement—rather than invest more energy in hopes of a healing and holistic resolution. Even in the depths of my grief during my own maturation process, I was somehow able to hold on to one golden thread of truth; I knew that if I walked away with my heart closed, the relational wound would never fully heal. Worse, I would fail to learn the profound lesson this relationship was clearly offering me. And I would certainly lose one of my closest, most intimate friendships.

These kinds of individuations often leave metaphysical scars, but I’m not sure that’s such a bad thing. Our scars are, themselves, teachers—visible and tangible reminders of where and how we injured ourselves in the past. If we’re careful, wise even, we might avoid similar injuries in the future because of these permanent reminders of our past follies.

Then the day came, some years later, when someone pedestaled me. In their eyes, I fell from grace, and I was on the receiving end of the victimization, the accusation, the blame, the simultaneous love and disdain.

Ohhhhhh, I realized. So this is what it’s like.

What my teacher did or didn’t do, and what I did or didn’t do, is besides the point. We do this to each other by creating ideals that are unsustainable, unfair, unreachable.

We unknowingly put ourselves, and those we admire, in harm’s way.

Is it possible to avoid such behavior?

I’d like to think so.

Tips for avoiding the pedestal

In order to sidestep this landmine, we’ve got to be willing to take full responsibility for the role we play in whatever power dynamics are present. Where there is pedestaling, there is unacknowledged ego, unchecked expectation, or both. Whichever side of the power dynamic you find yourself on, the swiftest and most peaceable resolution will be reached if both parties take responsibility for their own actions or lack thereof.

With that in mind, here’s some tips to get the wheels moving toward friendlier common ground in our power dynamics.

For the “student”

• Assess your relationship to those you most admire.

• Admit if you’re pedestaling someone.

• If you’re in real relationship with them and they are genuinely interested to hear about your process, come clean. Tell them you’ve been pedestaling them. Give them the chance to collaborate in a gentle dismantling of the pedestal. Perhaps the two of you can dissolve the power dynamic together and alchemize it into something healthier and more mutually respectful.

• Practice seeing whomever you’re pedestaling as a real human who makes mistakes, breaks promises, and is guaranteed to shatter your idealistic expectations of them. Give them grace before they fall off the pedestal. If you bring them down from the great heights at which you’ve placed them in your psyche, perhaps you can both avoid emotional injury.

For the “teacher”

• Educate yourself on the role power plays in your work and communities. Look for trusted educational sources that can shine light on the vast spectrum of ways that power dynamics can show up across race, gender, wealth or economic status, mental or physical abilities, and specifics to your unique field.

• Get comfortable talking openly about power dynamics, with your peers and especially with those who look up to you. Encourage ongoing discourse on the topic, and invite feedback around any blind spots that could cause harm between yourself and your people.

• If you’re closely connected to someone and suspect they may be pedestaling you, invite a candid conversation. If you have your own story of someone falling from grace, this might be a great time to share it to whatever degree feels appropriate. In Brené Brown’s words, be, “awkward, brave and kind.”
  

Power is a slippery fish

As a longtime student of The Gene Keys, a modern adaptation of the I-Ching developed by Richard Rudd, this topic inevitably brings me into contemplation of Gene Key 7, which is all about the nature of power and leadership. This key (based on the 7th hexagram of the I Ching) happens to be a central feature in my personal Gene Keys profile, and makes the journey from the shadow of division to the gift of guidance to the siddhi of virtue. One excerpt in particular from this chapter runs through my head often:

“The mark of a true leader is one whose main interest is in empowering you to lead yourself rather than binding you to them. Ironically the false leader always tries to hold onto you whereas the real leader always tries to get rid of you!”

Without taking this article in a decidedly darker and more opinionated direction, I’ll simply say that there’s no shortage of examples where people who are given power soon find themselves abusing it.

To be fair, power is a slippery fish. By its nature, it’s a gift that comes with massive temptation. I can’t help but think of the iconic line that defined the Spider Man story, “with great power comes great responsibility.” Perhaps it’s simply painful for us to admit that most human beings aren’t up to the task. Maybe we didn’t have enough role models showing us alternative models to the power-over dynamic; maybe we’ve digested too many superhero/villain stories which shaped our psyches; maybe we aren’t mentally or emotionally mature enough to be given great power; maybe we are sorely lacking in spiritual discipline; maybe we’re simply not evolved enough as a species. Whatever the reason, it’s inarguable that the wake of harm left by some of our most historic and notable leaders continues to lap at our memories and threaten our futures.

Gurus, predators and cancel culture

I recently watched the recently released HBO special “Breath of Fire”, a documentary about Kundalini yoga, the rise and fall of its originator Yogi Bhajan, and the similarly eerie rise and fall of his student, Guru Jugat. As a white-bodied woman who used to teach yoga, I probably would have found the documentary fascinating regardless, but was all the more keen to watch it given that I passionately practiced kundalini for several years with Jugat. Indeed, I was saving funds to go through the teacher training offered through RaMa Institute, Jugat’s studio, when the massive story broke in 2020 about Yogi Bhajan’s sexual assault allegations.

That same year, my friend from college, Seth Powell—who got his PhD in South-Asian Indian religions, Sanskrit, and yoga from Harvard—happened to publish this podcast episode featuring an interview with Phillipe Dislippe (featured in B.O.F.). Upon listening, I knew I couldn’t go through with the teacher training. In the months and years that followed, I’ve continued to grapple with my relationship to the practice of kundalini.

Clearly, our actions have repercussions, and someone’s misdeeds are likely to soil their name and spoil their reputation. There’s no question as to whether or not Bhajan failed the virtuous-leader morality test. And, of course, this story is not new. Roughly five years before Bhajan’s fall, the yoga world suffered a similar wound around Bikram Choudhury, founder of Bikram yoga. These and many other so-called spiritual leaders have left trails of trauma and generations of confusion for the communities that supported them and perhaps continue to benefit from the practice..

Do the malevolent choices and abuse of power (predominantly against women) cancel out any genuine good that came from their work? This is a hard question to reconcile. To be sure, the practices developed by both Bikram and Bhajan have carried on, and continue to be a source of physical, mental and spiritual support for practitioners. Personally, the practice of kundalini itself never did me any harm—to the contrary, I always felt incredible afterward, and have retained a handful of practices for which I have a profound and lasting appreciation.

This is where things get a bit more complex. I only ever dabbled in the practice of Bikram (or hot yoga, as it’s now often called so as to retain the practice while removing the emphasis on the man who popularized it), so I’m no expert on the subject. But Bhajan’s story carries more notable question marks concerning lineage, appropriation and lies. He appears to have essentially made up Kundalini yoga, weaving together several pre-existing modalities without giving them explicit credit, adding his own narrative and instruction, then putting it all under the religious umbrella of Sikhism and calling it an “ancient technology”... essentially, a cobbled-together mishmash, dressed up as a revered lineage and legitimate religious practice.

More than the misdeeds of the man—which, sadly, I’ve come to expect from men in power, despite or even especially in positions of spiritual leadership—I’m troubled by the lack of authentic lineage and disrespectful appropriation of the Sikh religion for his own purposes. I’m sure I’m not the only Kundalini practitioner now wondering if it’s okay for me to chant the “Kundalini” Sikh mantras I learned with sincere devotion? I’m not sure. If I were to play it completely safe and avoid anything potentially problematic, I’d probably say no. Then again, under those conditions, there’s a lot that I might altogether avoid, like the practice of yoga in general, or chanting Hindu mantras, or, or, or…

Admire no one. Love everyone.

I began this exploration with my personal experience on pedestaling and it ended with tyrants and guru-predators, which is a pretty terrible progression. But I suppose this reveals the wide spectrum we explore as leaders, and the legit risk we face when we don’t openly and humbly acknowledge the allure of power that’s present in our lives and our work.

So let’s end on something a bit more uplifting, yes?

Last year, I read “The Laws of Success” by Paramahansa Yogananda—who happens to be one of the only spiritual gurus who, to my knowledge, remains free and clear of any sexual abuse accusations, thank goodness. (In the name of all that’s holy, please let there be more than a few men who can hold spiritual power without abusing women or other people in the process.) Here’s one of my favorite quotes from the book:

“Many people excuse their own faults but judge other persons harshly. We should reverse this attitude by excusing others’ shortcomings and by harshly examining our own. Sometimes it is necessary to analyze other people; in that case the important thing to remember is to keep the mind unprejudiced. An unbiased mind is like a clear mirror, held steadily, not oscillating with hasty judgments. Any person reflected within that mirror will present an undistorted image.”

This feels like a balm in the wake of so much abuse. Because it's easy to focus on all the people out there who have failed miserably at walking the path of power and leadership with morals intact. But perhaps the true work is to learn from their mistakes, so that we might do better.

By definition, an ideal is unreachable. Like the horizon line, it will continue to move further and further away, a fixed state far off in the distance. (H/t to “10x is Better Than 2x” for that helpful metaphor.) So while I desire more than what we usually get from those in power, I also want to refrain from wagging my finger.

In my own spiritual work, I’ve become a student of Incan wisdom and the Andean Cosmovision. “Yachay” is a word in Quechua which I’m particularly fond of, meaning both to teach and to learn. In that cultural paradigm, there are not separate words for these two modes of being, they are one and the same. As a teacher, an eternal student, and someone keenly fascinated with the gifts and shadows of personal power, this innately humble approach to leadership scratches an itch.

Because it's undeniable that we teach what we need to learn; the moment I think I’ve arrived as a teacher is probably the moment I should back away slowly.

May we be courageous enough to take ourselves off the pedestal, holding our own grandeur and magnificence in balance with our humility.

And please, beloved. Do yourself, and your heroes, a favor. Don’t pedestal them. Remember they are real, fallible, human people.

As my friend Alexis said to me in a recent Theta session, “Admire no one. Love everyone.”

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1)

As 2024 neared completion, I pulled “Zen and The Art of Saving The Planet” by Thich Nhat Hanh off my bookshelf. After years of sitting unread in my collection, it was simply the right time. Twenty pages in, I was dazzled by the profundity of Hanh’s description of The Diamond Sutra, one of the most ancient Zen Buddhist texts. Originating in the northeast of the Indian continent sometime between the 2nd and 5th centuries, a physical version from 9th-century China is the oldest dated printed book, and is on display in the British Museum.

The sutra is described in Hanh’s book as “the world’s first treatise on deep ecology.”

“In the Diamond Sutra, the meditator is urged to throw away, to release, four notions in order to understand our own true nature and the true nature of reality: the notion of “self,” the notion of “human being,” the notion of “living beings,” and the notion of “life span.” In the sutra it says that, if you are still caught in these notions, you are not yet free and you cannot be a real bodhisattva, an awakened being helping to relieve suffering in the world. But, if you can break through these ideas, you’ll have the insight, understanding, and freedom you need to help save the planet.

It takes insight and courage to throw away an idea. If we have suffered deeply, it may be because we held on to an idea we weren't able to release. Throwing away is a very strong term. It’s not just “letting go.”

As I read detailed descriptions of each of the four notions, I found myself mesmerized, able to understand concepts I’ve struggled to grasp before. What a miracle to find teachers, writers and channels who are able to craft their words just so, in order to help us understand the ineffable.

The first notion of “self” dives right into what we spiritual practitioners know theoretically, but struggle to embody in thoughts, words and actions—that we are not separate from anyone or anything. Hanh highlights this notion with the belief “I am not you. That is your problem, not mine.” If we were to throw away the notion of self, then “it’s not my problem” would become obsolete. Discarding this notion also reveals that we are not our body, feelings, thoughts, beliefs, senses or anything except pure consciousness… which, of course, is shared.

The second notion of “human being” points to our “inter-beingness”, where a human being is actually made up of non-human parts. Separating ourselves from anything outside of “us” creates an illusion of not only division but grandiosity. Since we are made from decidedly non-human elements, then it makes sense that “to protect non-human elements is to protect humans, and to protect humans is to protect non-human elements.”

The third notion of “living beings” speaks to the debate around animate vs. inanimate “objects.” Upon closing a recent circle, I offered gratitude to all the instruments in the room, calling upon them as animate beings which breathe life into us, just as we breathe life into them. Again, we are made of non-sentient elements, and our molecular energy will eventually merge with “non-sentient” elements. The so-called inanimate things are quite alive.

The fourth notion of “life span” addresses the illusion that what the future generations will confront is, again, “not my problem”—it invites us to reconsider the belief that after birth we were suddenly here and when we die we will suddenly be gone. If there are no realms of being or non-being, perhaps was or will simply is.

It is one thing to contemplate these ideas, and quite another to know them as truth.

One thing I know for certain?

Across time and space, the wise sages all say the same thing.

2)

In the last few years, I’ve become quite taken with Samaneri Jayasāra, a Buddhist nun and teacher with a soothing voice and a passion for reading wisdom texts. Recently, I’ve been listening to her read “Who Am I?” as I get into bed each night. The text is by Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi, in which he poses that same central question Thich Nhat Hanh explored through the wisdom of the Diamond Sutra.

First thing, we find again a lengthy description of everything we are not—the gross body, sense organs, mind—followed by the obvious conclusion that we must be what remains after all of this is set aside.

I’m particularly enjoying the pointed observation in this discourse that we cannot escape the suffering of the mind through overcoming or controlling it; this even includes mastery of the breath, which has been my go-to solution. And while I’m still a firm believer in the value of mastering the breath for it’s many mental, emotional and somatic benefits, Maharshi has me intrigued to keep going.

“The thought ‘Who am I?’ will destroy all other thoughts, and like the stick used for stirring the burning pyre, it will itself in the end get destroyed. Then, there will arise Self-realization.”

3)

“The Truth” by Velma Fry is a sweet, simple, yet potent song that continues to resurface in my community. Every so often, I'll weave it into a singing set with the shruti box, sometimes right on the heels of my Oshun song, which ends with repetitions of “I am you, and you are me.” How perfectly on topic.

4)

Singularity, by Marie Howe
(after Stephen Hawking)

Do you sometimes want to wake up to the singularity
we once were?

so compact nobody
needed a bed, or food or money —

nobody hiding in the school bathroom
or home alone

pulling open the drawer
where the pills are kept.

For every atom belonging to me as good
Belongs to you. Remember?

There was no Nature. No
them. No tests

to determine if the elephant
grieves her calf or if

the coral reef feels pain. Trashed
oceans don’t speak English or Farsi or French;

would that we could wake up to what we were
— when we were ocean and before that

to when sky was earth, and animal was energy, and rock was
liquid and stars were space and space was not

at all — nothing

before we came to believe humans were so important
before this awful loneliness.

Can molecules recall it?
what once was? before anything happened?

No I, no We, no one. No was
No verb no noun
only a tiny tiny dot brimming with

is is is is is

All everything home

To asking the most important questions,

Britta

PS. Get Maharshi’s full “Who Am I” text in written form, or read by Jayasara (without music on YouTube, or with a beautiful soundscape on the Waking Up app, part 1 + part 2). If you want a free 30-day pass to Waking Up to listen to it daily as I’ve been doing, here’s a link. I also just found this hour-long guided meditation by Jayasara on the same topic.

PPS. I intentionally did not link “Zen and The Art of Saving The Planet” by Thich Nhat Hanh because, in lieu of the topic, I hope you’ll call your local bookstore or order it from a sustainable source. That said, I see it’s cheaper on Amazon, and so be it. This is the conundrum of our times. How to make sustainable choices when we’ve become accustomed to prioritizing convenience and spending less time, energy and dollars to learn about how to be sustainable?

PPPS. I always love to hear from you 🙂 Feel free to leave a comment and let me know how these contemplations landed for you today.

Yes. I dare.

Here it is:

“I’m willing to be…”

I was instructed to finish the phrase with the #1 dualistic thing I had been running away from, trying with all my life force energy to avoid at all costs.

This phrase is to be followed immediately by “and I’m even looking forward to being…” adding that same dualistic thing to the end of both sentences.

I love proving myself wrong, and I’m always game to see a blind spot.

So I gave it go.

And here’s what emerged.

I’m willing to be unimpressive.

I am.

Am I?

I think I am.

Let me say it again.

I am willing to be unimpressive.

It didn’t take long for me to land on this sentence. And ever since, I keep chewing on it. Slowly, deliberately, a sacred cow ruminating on the cosmic cud.

There are many things I want to understand about this sentence, and why it's so easy to say but represents such gigantic spiritual shoes to fill.

Defining “impressive”

For starters, what exactly does impressive mean?

Is it how many opens my emails get, or the number of views on my IG reels?

Is it my social media following, or my monthly/quarterly/annual revenue?

Is it year-after-year financial growth?

Fuck, there it is. That last one.

In truth, it is all of those things. Plus a bunch more I haven’t said regarding the size and shape of my body, my knowledge of politics and social justice issues, my proficiency on the guitar, and, and, and…

But if I’m really, brutally honest, it’s that last one.

Year after year financial growth.

Despite decades of earnest self-improvement; despite being a devout student of many wisdom traditions; despite hundreds of plant medicine ceremonies with really strong psychotropics; despite wholeheartedly committing myself to “dismantling” and “decolonizing” ambition, here we are.

I bit the hook. I took the bait.

Like so many others who may or may not admit it, part of me has actually come to believe that my value as a leader, service provider, business owner, human, is directly reflected in the amount of year-over-year financial growth I do or do not experience.

And no wonder last year hurled me down a blackhole of humble and sometimes painful quietude. It was the first year since I opened by business 7 years ago that I did not achieve financial revenue growth from the year prior.

And no, it was not intentional. It was not due to a thoughtful sacred pause or a virtuous and much-needed sabbatical.

I’d love to be able to say that I simply took it in with grace and a smile, but the truth is that beneath the sincere niceties, I felt shame. Like a failure as a business owner and entrepreneur. Like a fraud who teaches and preaches about the virtues of true prosperity, while constantly fretting about my own ability to build and maintain wealth.

It saddens me, and also sort of floors me, how momentous a feat is it to overcome the dualistic, materialistic illusion of success as a human being on planet earth right now. It feels like an untenable mountain to climb. And I admit to feeling deeply skeptical of anyone who claims they are actually at peace on this mountain. Those who say they’re at peace with it must only be able to say that because they have “enough money” and they’re continuously experiencing year-over-year financial revenue growth… right?

Except, of course, the staggering statistics that show us over and over again that there is no real correlation between wealth and happiness.

So where does that leave me?

Pensive.

On my worst days: pessimistic.

On my best days: amused and willing to keep climbing.

Impressive… to whom?

During a conversation with a friend of mine, I spoke this phrase which is tugging so efficiently at the strings of my identity and self-worth…

“I am willing to have a small, quiet, unimpressive business. I am willing to be unimpressive.”

She guffawed, assuring me,

“Ha! You’ve failed miserably! You and your business are very impressive.”

What a perfect reflection to receive! Because it opened up further understanding for me. I appreciate that sentiment, especially coming from a dear friend who’s known me since I was a naive 19-year old, but immediately I noticed that her reassurance made not the slightest dent in my overachiever armor.

Ohhhh, I realized. It’s not about anyone else! It’s not about how anyone else sees me. It’s how I SEE ME.

Which brings us back to the beginning.

It doesn’t matter how many subscribers, followers, likes, clicks, views, or buys I have, because that will always circle back to how other people perceive me.

Besides, impressive is an inarguably subjective word, doomed from the beginning to be changeable.

What ACTUALLY matters is

a) How I, myself, define “impressive”

b) Whether I will continue to feed the part of my psyche that places value and weight on being impressive

According to the Oxford dictionary, “impressive” means “evoking admiration through size, quality, or skill; grand, imposing, or awesome.”

Huh. No wonder it’s so problematic to debate my own impressiveness. If finding myself impressive essentially means to admire myself, then I suppose we could say that finding oneself impressive is innately narcissistic.

I don’t think of myself as such, though what is narcissism but a dark shadowy corner of the human ego that's unchecked, overgrown and rejected?

This is helpful, because now what I would say about “impressive” is that if I were to use the term honoring it’s true definition and also honoring that I’m not actually a narcissist, then the only logical conclusion is that I’d only use the term to describe others, and never as a description for myself.

This clarity also directly supports the second part of the above equation. Armed with this new knowledge, I see that it’s almost an oxymoron to attempt to be impressive to myself.

If I can hold onto the understanding that to try and find myself impressive is absurd, and if I can also simultaneously hold that others finding me impressive actually doesn’t move the needle either, then HA!

Stalemate.

It’s a paradox.

An impasse.

A liminal womb of unknowing where logic undoes itself.

Welcome to my world.

Welcome to Britta GreenViolet.

Welcome to what it means to *actually* live a spirit-led life.

It’s laughable how much I love contemplating these ideas, and then how one simple phrase can send me down an existential wormhole, bringing me to my knees as I offer it all up to something infinitely wiser than I.

And not that you necessarily care, or that your life would come apart if it were otherwise… but to assuage any concerns you might be feeling— don’t fret. I’m not going anywhere.

In fact, I’m just getting warmed up.

Want to play?

Complete the sentence “I am willing to (fill in the dualistic thing that terrifies you)”

Then leave a comment or send me an email at info@brittagreenviolet.com and give it to me. Let’s dance with paradox together.

It’s time to pick up your sacred sword.

Because somewhere in your life, a decision is waiting to be made.

Somewhere in your life, you’re on the fence, putting off a choice to which you already know the answer.

Come with me as we explore the archetypal energy of The Sacred Sword, which is the ultimate symbol of wise discernment.

First, let’s be clear: a sharp blade is a life-saving tool in the hands of a surgeon, or a violent weapon in the hands of an unhinged attacker. How we choose to wield the sharp blade of discernment is entirely up to us. And while I endeavor to walk the path of non-violence, I also acknowledge the holy nature of this timeless symbol.

The sword can be wielded as a weapon to end human life. It can also be wielded to cut through karma, slice through illusion, and slay the demons of doubt, fear and malice living in your psyche.

But first, we need to understand how to use it.

Autumn: a time to decide

Each season contains codes of wisdom, pointing us toward virtuous action or non-action. Autumn has a particularly potent medicine around making decisions. The etymology of the word decide contains “to slice”; it is literally a process of separating your ‘yes’ from your ‘no’ with a clear cut.

Autumn is the season of the harvest, when the final grains of the year are cut, and the last food harvested. We bid farewell to the verdancy and richness of summer’s splendor, and turn our gaze toward the darker winter months ahead. For those of us blessed to live in ecosystems with deciduous trees, we also have the pleasure of watching the leaves morph through a rainbow spectrum before releasing from their branches and dispersing like burnt gold confetti over the wet grass and puddled pavement.

In late autumn and winter, my beloved Ben gets to work pruning. He’s a master gardener and landscaper, and has studied the art of pruning. He knows to use precision and discernment in each snip as he prunes an apple tree, rose bush or hydrangea, all of which require completely different techniques. From time to time, we’ll drive by a tree that has been badly pruned and he recoils in disgust, a pained look on his face, as if he’s seeing a dear friend for the first time after they’ve had their limbs hacked off by a ruthless bandit.

Pruning is a necessary act of maintenance, made of many tiny decisions. It requires skill, and is necessary for optimal health in humans and more-than-humans alike. Just as the ends of our hair split when we’ve put off a cut, our nails break off in painful jagged ridges when neglected, and the beard needs a tidy trim; we are beings who benefit from a good pruning. In addition to the physical pruning, our schedules, overloaded calendars and overzealous list of commitments also beg for a good pruning.

Let us not put off any longer that which we know needs our attention and action.

Pick up the sword.

Choice points: a honing device

Yogi Berra famously said, “when you come to a fork in the road, take it.” Let us call this fork in the road a “choice point”, which represents the liminal state at the very moment you are on the precipice of making a decision.

When faced with choosing one direction over another, a a helpful question to ask is, “how is my nervous system in this moment?” If you feel regulated, calm and rooted, chances are you’ll make a good choice that serves your future self. If you feel dysregulated, flustered, overwhelmed, stressed, anxious, fearful or ungrounded, chances are you’re about to make a questionable decision from an unstable place—you’d be better off waiting until you’ve regained your footing.

Another helpful question is "where is this decision honestly coming from?" If you're truthful, you may be able to identify that the decision is coming from your intuition, a good hunch, or from an array of aligned factors. Or, you may realize that the decision is coming from wanting to please someone, a desire to fit in, needing to prove yourself, wanting to look successful, or any other origins that don't actually align with your authentic inner wisdom.

Need some examples?

Here are some choices I’ve made and the state from which I’ve made them, which ultimately led to suffering, regret or uncomfortable reckoning:

1)

• When I chose to launch another round of my mastermind

• Because I felt like I should, desired the financial benefit, and a coach I had hired suggested I do so

• Even though I didn’t want to and felt unclear

• Which resulted in my pulling the offer after I had already spent energy, attention, time and money on creating materials, assets and marketing emails which I will now never use
  

2)

• When I chose to eat the second half of my sandwich

• Because the first half was so delicious

• Even though I was already totally full and happily satiated

• Which resulted in feeling like shit
  

3)

• When I chose to send an email to a potential dream client

• Because I was excited about the inspiration of working with them

• Even though I hadn’t sat on it for 24+ hours or done sufficient proof-reading

• Which resulted in an unfortunate typo that sent me into a MAJOR shame spiral

Try out this illuminating framework! Not only have I learned invaluable lessons by looking retrospectively at my choice points—always proof read 3 times, wait 24+ hours to send an important email, never take action because I think I should—but I’m also building more trust with my ability to choose wisely by taking the time to reflect on my past regrets and painful decisions that led to extreme discomfort.

AND: There are no mistakes, only learnings.

I say “regret” because I do regret those decisions. I think we vilify regret too much, sort of like we vilify guilt. But regret and guilt are tuning forks. Some wise person I can’t recall said something to the effect of if you get to your death bed with no regrets, then you were playing it way too safe. And there is a difference between regret and mistake. While I regret sending that email prematurely, I’ll never see it as a mistake, because the searing burn of that moment gives me confidence that I will never ever do that again! Blessed be.

Let us look back at our choice points, and use our learnings to do better moving forward.

Pick up the sword.

The Diamond Blade: myth, song and story

Earlier this year, my friend Joe sent me a song called Black Willow by Loma, the chorus of which says,

And I'm wild enough
I carry a diamond blade, I'm livin’ on
All defenses down, and when I walk
I carry a diamond blade, when you said serve you
I will not

This song landed so hard for me that I immediately looked up the chords and learned it on guitar. It was one of the many songs courting me into learning B minor this year, which I did an entire podcast episode about.

I’ve always been drawn to minor chords and gritty songs like this one. Hauntingly beautiful, it feels like a sultry, quiet declaration of battle. I can feel the Warrior in me stir when I hear it. Contemplating the diamond blade, I think of Joan of Arc, propelled into battle with God at her back. I think of Will and The Subtle Knife in His Dark Materials, drawn by destiny toward love (the HBO series is epic—Ben and I have watched it twice and I’ve bawled my eyes out through the final episode both times, even though I knew it was coming.)

I think of the bodhisattva Manjushri, whose flaming sword of wisdom cuts down ignorance, illusion and duality, and is a timeless beacon of Truth for spiritual devotees across the globe. I think of Kali Ma, her ten arms each holding a weapon, called forth by the Goddess Durga specifically to deal with the demon Raktabija, who was beyond the power of all the Hindu gods combined to defeat. He multiplied each time a drop of his blood touched the earth, an awesome metaphor for the way hatred and fear tend to proliferate. And so Kali, in her wise discernment and fierce devotion, sliced the heads off each one and drank the blood, until only the original remained. With her sacred sword, she beheaded him, draining his blood into a skull cup and drinking it down before a single drop could touch the earth, saving not only the divine beings, but all humanity. I love this story because not only does it dismantle the patriarchal narrative that masculine power and wit will always save the day, but it also highlights the fact that Kali Ma did not hesitate. She knew what needed to be done, and leapt into righteous action. May it be so for all of us.

When it is time, may we pick up the sword.

The Ace of Swords: tarot and the mental body

Several years back, my brother Max and I did a yearlong study on the tarot. We created our own curriculum and spent 12 months in contemplation of the major and minor arcana. Each of the four suits—cups, wands, pentacles and swords—correspond to an element and a season, and represent a different aspect of the human experience. Swords relate to the element of air and represent the mental body. Whenever you pull a sword from a tarot deck, you are invited to consider the quality of your mind, the impact of your thoughts, and the weather in your current mental landscape.

Those familiar with tarot know that the sword suit is particularly brutal. In the classic Ryder-Waite deck, only three of the 10 suit cards might be described as relatively peaceful. The rest portray swords piercing a bloody heart, or stuck in the back of a lifeless corpse, or being carried away by a mischievous thief. And with good reason.

The human mind is the ultimate sword; the ultimate tool that can be weaponized, or wielded for peace and liberation. We get to choose, every day, how we wield this sacred resource of the mind. We get to acknowledge the vast power our minds hold, and the responsibility we must take of how we direct it, understand it, and cultivate its most optimal state.

Here’s to making swift, powerful, wise decisions this season, and every season.

Here’s to mining your choice points for golden reflections and necessary refinements.

Here’s to trusting your intuition as much, if not more, than you trust your brain.

Here’s to picking up the sacred sword.