When people ask me why I believe so deeply in immersive experiences, the answer isn’t theoretical. It is personal.

Looking back over my life, I can trace the most significant turning points not to moments when I learned something new, but to the times I left my everyday world behind and entered a different one. I traveled somewhere unfamiliar. I stepped into a container held by someone I trusted. I gave myself permission to become a student again. Each experience changed the direction of my life.

The first was in the early 2000s, about eight years after my mother passed away. Grief had transformed me, but I knew there was something deeper I was being asked to understand. I wasn’t looking for another book to read or another weekend workshop. I was looking for something that could reach beneath the surface. That search led me to Caroline Myss and her Sacred Contracts program.

What was originally designed as a two-year journey became three years of traveling to Chicago and Austin, Texas, several times each year. I immersed myself in the study of archetypes, symbolism, mythology, and the deeper architecture of the human psyche. More importantly, I immersed myself in my own life.

Those years invited an extraordinary amount of self-reflection. I began to understand the unconscious archetypal patterns that had quietly shaped my choices. I discovered parts of myself I had never fully met. I healed pieces of my story I hadn’t even realized were asking for attention.

I also found community—people who were asking the same profound questions I was. We learned together, challenged one another, and witnessed each other’s becoming. Caroline remains one of the two most influential teachers of my life.

But perhaps the greatest gift of those years was something I could never have predicted. Somewhere along the way, I began to recognize the first whispers that I was being called into practitioner work in the healing arts; something inside me remembered.

Years later, that path led me into the Sonoran Desert. While studying with Caroline, I met a Yaqui elder who taught in the program (Don Lorenzo Archuleta). Something about him stayed with me. Years later, I reached out, traveled to Arizona, and spent time learning from him in the desert. That experience shifted something even deeper. My second greatest teacher. It moved me beyond spiritual concepts and into living them even more deeply. It awakened a relationship with the Earth that felt ancient and familiar. It rooted me in ways I didn’t know I had been longing for. It deepened my connection to ceremony, to lineage, to my own ancestral inheritance, and to a way of knowing that cannot be taught through information alone. Many of the ways I sit with people today have their roots in those days.

Then, a year and a half ago, I found myself boarding another airplane. This time, my destination was the Peruvian Amazon. I spent time in the jungle working with plant medicines, getting to know Grandmother Ayahuasca. Again, I stepped completely outside the familiar, entered a world that asked me to surrender. It was an immersive experience of ego death. Not the destruction of who I was, but the unraveling of who I believed myself to be; I returned home changed.

Although each of these journeys looked entirely different, they all shared the same thread. Each required me to leave behind the rhythm of my ordinary life and to enter an environment intentionally created for transformation. Each surrounded me with teachers, community, nature, and experiences, making it difficult to remain the person who had arrived.

Distance has a way of creating perspective. When we temporarily remove ourselves from the responsibilities, identities, habits, and environments that continually reinforce who we have been, something remarkable becomes possible. We begin to hear ourselves again. Not the version of ourselves shaped by obligation or the version performing for the expectations of others. But the quieter voice beneath it all. The one that has patiently waited for enough silence to finally be heard.

I’ve come to believe that this is one of the great gifts of pilgrimage. Whether it takes us to a classroom in Chicago, the Sonoran Desert, the Peruvian jungle, or anywhere else that calls our soul forward, stepping outside our ordinary life creates space for something extraordinary to emerge.

It is not only the location that changes us; it is who we become because we were willing to leave what was familiar long enough to remember who we really are.

Every one of those journeys prepared me for the life I live today and has become some of my greatest medicines of all.

In my next essay, I'll share why these experiences have forever changed the way I believe transformation is supported—and why I am offering private immersions of my own.

Aho.

I have arrived at a place on my spiritual path where the questions I ask myself have changed. For years, they sounded something like this:

What should I do next?

What else should I create?

How do I serve more?

I believed growth meant becoming more, creating more, offering more, striving more, as though my wholeness could be found in what I added to myself. But lately, a quieter question has been finding me.

What wants to remain?

Not what else needs to be built. Not what more I should become. But if everything unnecessary were allowed to fall away, what would still be standing? It is a deceptively simple question, yet it has been reshaping every area of my life. Over the past several months, I have found myself moving through deep layers of fear. Some were obvious. Others had been quietly living beneath the surface for years, subtly influencing my choices without my even realizing it.

Fear has many voices. The voice that tells me I should do more, offer more, become more. The voice that convinces me my safety depends upon constantly striving, planning, proving, or controlling. For much of my life, I believed those voices deserved my attention. Now something different is happening.

The voices still arise from time to time, but they no longer carry the same authority. I hear them, yet I no longer feel compelled to follow them. I no longer mistake fear for wisdom or urgency for truth. Instead, I am learning that freedom is not found because fear disappears. Freedom begins the moment it is no longer the loudest voice.

There is an extraordinary peace that comes when we stop organizing our lives around the possibility of what might go wrong and begin listening instead for what feels deeply, quietly true.

For me, that truth has not come through dramatic revelations. It has come through slowing down, long moments of silence where nothing needs to be accomplished, through sitting in ceremony with Hapé, playing my drum, or listening to music that speaks to my soul.

In those spaces, life has gently been asking me to notice what naturally remains when I stop trying so hard. I recently spent time reflecting on the year ahead and the work I feel called to offer. At first, my mind wanted to ask the familiar question: What else should I create? But Spirit seemed to answer with an entirely different question.

What wants to remain?

The answer surprised me in its simplicity: The medicine work I am called to:

• Retreats

• Hapé ceremonies

• Private immersions in Baja.

• Ancestral Sound Journeys

• Shamanic Healing

• Deeper dives with clients.

These remain.

Not because I am holding onto them, but because they continue to feel deeply alive within me. Other things, however, feel complete. They are not wrong. They simply no longer belong in the same way they once did. I think this is one of the quieter forms of spiritual maturity. Not constantly asking what more we should become, but having the courage to let what no longer belongs gently fall away.

There is a tendency in our culture to equate expansion with accumulation. More experiences. More success. More offerings. More noise. Yet nature teaches something entirely different. Trees do not cling to every leaf. Rivers do not carry every branch downstream. Even our own bodies are in a continual process of releasing what no longer serves life.

The soul works this way too; growth is not always about adding, it is about refining, distilling, returning to essence.

The deeper I go on this path, the less interested I become in building a life that looks meaningful from the outside. I long instead for a life that feels true from the inside. A life where my decisions arise from presence rather than pressure. From trust rather than fear. From love rather than obligation. This has become one of the unexpected gifts of my recent journey. Not that fear has disappeared, but that I have stopped allowing it to decide what stays.

And in that spaciousness, something beautiful begins to reveal itself. What is essential rarely shouts. It waits. Patiently, quietly, and faithfully, until we become still enough to recognize it.

So perhaps this is the question I leave with you.

If you stopped asking what else…

If you released the expectations, the striving, the endless list of “shoulds”...

If fear no longer had the final say...

What would remain?

My sense is that whatever quietly rises to meet you there is not something new. It is what has been waiting for you all along; it is what the soul has always been asking..

What wants to remain?

Aho.

There are moments on the path when a single insight rearranges everything we thought we knew.

For the past several months, Life has been showing me something through the language of my own body.

Again and again, fear would arise—not because something outside of me was threatening, but because something within me was asking to expand. During a recent medicine journey, that experience reached a profound intensity. Every instinct wanted to contract around it, to contain it, to make it stop. It felt as though something inside me was pressing against my walls of protection. My body interpreted it as danger.

I have spent years teaching that fear is contracted Life, yet there I was, meeting that contraction in myself.

I knew that this experience was not an isolated moment. It was the continuation of something Life had been revealing to me over the past several months. I knew I was encountering a survival response within my nervous system, but I hadn’t yet seen the deeper invitation. It wasn’t simply asking me to move through fear. That contraction was something altogether different—a vastness asking for more room than I had ever allowed myself to inhabit. It was asking me to become more permeable.

As my awareness expands, as my consciousness deepens, and as more of my true nature awakens and remembers itself, I am being asked to grow alongside it. Spirit is not only inviting me into something greater; it is inviting me to become spacious enough to carry it. Yet my body was registering that expansion as fear. I began to see that my nervous system was sensing an increase in life force long before my mind could understand what was happening; what I had interpreted as danger was actually love, joy, freedom, and power asking for more room within me.

The following day, I wasn’t trying to understand what had happened. I wasn’t searching for answers or trying to overcome the experience. I remained present, allowing the sensations moving through my body to exist without resistance.

Then, quietly, a teaching I have shared with others returned to me as though I were hearing it for the very first time:

Fear is power rising in the body.

In an instant, nothing had changed, and everything had changed. The sensations were the same. Only my relationship to them was different. And there it was. In that moment, something inside me relaxed; the meaning had changed.

We often believe that healing means learning to eliminate fear, but it is far more profound than that. Healing is learning to recognize when what we have called fear is actually Life asking for more room within us. Not every fear is disguised power. Sometimes fear is wise. Sometimes it protects us. But there are moments on the spiritual path when the body begins carrying more life force than the identity has ever known. The nervous system feels the increase. The mind labels it as danger. The body contracts. Not because the power is dangerous but because it has not yet learned that it is safe to embody more of it.

That realization also brought me back to something I’ve been contemplating in my own healing.

Recently I learned that the physical pain I had been experiencing was caused by congestion, dilated veins, where blood had begun to pool rather than move freely.

Blood is Life. Blood nourishes. Blood is movement. Symbolically, my body was revealing something beyond the physical. Blood carries life force throughout the body, and congestion interrupts its natural flow. In the same way, fear creates contraction, and contraction restricts the flow of life force within us. The life force itself is never diminished; it is held, waiting for enough openness and safety to move freely once again.

Not because something is broken but because something has been holding it. Isn’t that what we do with our own power? We feel something beginning to rise like joy, truth, creativity, freedom, love, and then the nervous system whispers. Too much! And so we tighten. Not because these qualities are dangerous, but because they ask us to become someone we have never allowed ourselves to be.

There is another initiation that comes: learning to hold radiance. Many of us have become remarkably skilled at carrying suffering. We know how to survive, endure, and organize our lives around limitations. But can we carry joy, freedom, love of our own magnitude?

Those questions often feel far more unsettling than learning to survive hardship because suffering preserves the identity we have known. But power changes it! Power quietly asks, “Who are you if you stop organizing your life around limitations?” That question can feel terrifying. Not because we are becoming someone new but because we are remembering someone ancient. The deepest spiritual work has never been about becoming. It has always been about remembering.

Lately another word has been finding me. Permeability. I believe it may become one of the defining words of my own work. When I speak of becoming more permeable, I do not mean becoming emotionally porous or absorbing everyone else’s pain, quite the opposite. Permeability is not the absence of boundaries; it is the presence of living boundaries. Life depends upon that intelligent permeability.

Becoming more permeable is not the same as becoming open to everything. It is to become more available to Spirit. It is the quiet willingness to let truth move us, love soften us, wisdom guide us, and Life flow through us without meeting it with constant resistance. We are not asked to absorb the world’s fear, opinions, or projections. We are invited to cultivate an intelligent openness—a heart that can recognize what nourishes the soul and gently release what does not. Permeability is not the loss of discernment; it is the deepening of it.

A river offers a beautiful teaching. When water meets a boulder, it doesn’t argue with it or become less powerful by yielding. It simply continues flowing. Its strength is not found in resistance but in movement. The same is true within us. We can feel grief without becoming grief. We can feel fear without becoming fear. We can experience joy without clinging to joy. We can love without needing to possess.

Experiences move through us because we no longer insist on holding them. Power begins to flow where contraction softens. Perhaps this is why so many wisdom traditions speak of becoming an empty vessel. Not because we disappear. But because a vessel filled with resistance has nowhere for Life to enter.

We are not here to manufacture power; we are simply learning to stop obstructing it. The measure of our spiritual maturity is not how much power we can generate; it is how much power we can allow to move through us without contraction.

As I reflect on these past weeks, I find myself wondering if there is something even deeper beneath what I first recognized as power. Power is not the destination; power is what love feels like when nothing is resisting it.

So maybe the next time fear rises within you, rather than asking,

“How do I get rid of this?” you might gently ask, “If this were power instead of fear… how would I meet it?”

I have a feeling your body already knows the answer.

Aho.
All my relations.

I speak of the Sacred Return because I believe we are witnessing something deeper than political division, cultural unrest, or the endless noise of our times.

We are witnessing a profound forgetting. Beneath the anxiety, outrage, the constant striving, and endless distractions, there is a deep pain that humanity is carrying. It is the pain of separation from one another, the Earth, from Spirit, and most painfully, separation from ourselves.

The personality of humanity—the fearful, reactive, egoic nature—has become so loud that the deeper voice of the soul is not heard. We have become captivated by the noise. We have mistaken reaction for truth, speed for progress, and accumulation for fulfillment.

Yet beneath all of it, something ancient remains. Something patient. Something holy. The soul of humanity has not disappeared. It has simply become difficult to hear. We are one living web; we belong to one another, and all life is interconnected; it is time to acknowledge something that is not always comfortable.

What we see outside ourselves is not separate from us. Humanity is not happening “out there.” Humanity is happening through us. The fear we condemn, the division we judge, the anger we witness, the lack of compassion we carry. All of it belongs to the human family, and therefore all of it belongs to us, not as blame but as responsibility. And because the outer world is a mirror, what we see invites us into deeper questions.

What within me is being asked to heal?

What shadow within me do I judge when I see it reflected in the world?

Humanity will not be saved by louder voices, stronger opinions, or waiting for someone else to change. Humanity is transformed one heart at a time, a nervous system that remembers peace, a person who chooses compassion over resentment.

One woman. One man. One soul willing to return!

The Sacred Return is not a journey away from the world. It is a journey back to ourselves so that we may meet the world differently. The greatest service we can offer these times is not to lose ourselves in the noise, but to become so deeply rooted in what is true that our presence itself becomes medicine. The Sacred Return is not about becoming someone new. It is about remembering who we have always been.

And here is what you can do:

Return to the body, the breath, to stillness. Return to the wisdom that patiently waits beneath all the distractions; the Earth still speaks, Spirit has never left, and beauty still heals. Silence is not empty. Beneath all the striving and proving, beneath the old stories and inherited fears, there remains something whole, something innocent, something ancient that still knows the way.

Humanity is being invited into such a return. The path home has never been lost, only forgotten. The season is asking something simple, though not always easy. To pause, listen, and place your feet upon the Earth to remember that what you seek is not somewhere else. And to understand that the healing of humanity is not separate from your own. For in remembering yourself, you become part of humanity’s remembering. And in coming home to your own soul, you help light the path for others to find their way home as well.

Humanity is saved not all at once. But one sacred return at a time.

Aho. All My Relations.

While sitting in ceremony today, a simple truth rose from somewhere deeper than thought. Not as an idea. Not as a teaching. But as a knowing.

“I have everything I need.”

The words arrived quietly, yet they carried the weight of something ancient. Something I knew before and somehow forgot. Because there are still parts of me that reach outside myself. Parts that wonder if there is one more teaching, one more sacred item, one more ceremony, one more answer that will finally bring me to where I want to be. And while there is beauty in learning, in growing, and in seeking wisdom, I saw something clearly in that moment:

What I am searching for is not missing.

The sacred is not somewhere else.

It is here.

It has always been here.

Beneath the fear.

Beneath the doubt.

Beneath the stories that whisper that I need to heal something more before I can trust life.

So much of life teaches us to look outward. To seek validation. To seek certainty. To seek someone who knows more than we do. Yet every meaningful path eventually turns us back toward ourselves. Back toward the place where Spirit lives, toward the quiet voice beneath the noise, back toward the wisdom that has been patiently waiting for us to remember.

This does not mean I know everything. It does not mean I never need support, teachers, community, or guidance. It simply means that what is most essential cannot be given to me by another.

It already lives within me, and perhaps that is what remembering is—not gathering more or becoming more, but uncovering what has always been there.

Since that ceremony, these words have become a prayer. A prayer I am returning to whenever fear convinces me that I am lacking. Like when uncertainty tells me I need something outside myself before I can take the next step, or whenever old patterns urge me to search for answers somewhere other than my own heart.

I will pause, breathe, and remember. I have everything I need. Because the sacred that created me also lives within me.

The guidance is here.

The wisdom is here.

The medicine is here.

And perhaps the path is not about finding what is missing.

Perhaps it is about remembering that nothing essential ever was.

Thank you, Grandfather Hapé, for guiding me.

Aho.

A Gentle Invitation

If this reflection speaks to something stirring within you, I invite you to consider joining me for You Are the Medicine Feb. 2027 in Baja California Sur.

This retreat is not about becoming someone else.

It is not about fixing what is broken.

It is a sacred journey of remembering what has always been within you.

Through ceremony, community, time on the land, and deep listening, we create space to reconnect with the wisdom, medicine, and sacred presence that already lives inside.

Because the truth is simple:

You are not searching for your medicine.

You are remembering that you are the medicine.

Registration for February 2027 is now open.

Today, while moving through the endless stream of information that passes before me, I came across something that stopped me. It spoke of those moments when the world reaches for your Spirit with both hands. Not gently. Not quietly. But asking for your attention, your fear, your anger, your voice before your heart has had time to speak.

There are moments when it seems as though everything is asking for something from us.

Our attention.
Our outrage.
Our fear.
Our immediate reaction.

The noise comes quickly before the heart has spoken. Before the body has registered what is true. Before we have had time to notice what is happening inside.

I feel the deeper work of this time is to remain awake enough not to be taken by the noise. There are some forces in life that will test the steadiness of your inner fire. Not because they are evil. Not because they are wrong.

But because they are asking:

Will I remember who I am?

Will I remember my center before speaking?

Will I remember my heart before reacting?

Will I remember my humanity before projecting?

Some things arrive not to destroy but to see if you will forget yourself. And this is where the practice begins, not in suppressing anger or bypassing what is real, but in listening longer than the noise, feeling what is moving through you, and letting the first wave pass.

Can you allow the body to speak before the mind creates a story?

Can you witness what rises without immediately becoming it?

And then asking:

Will the words or actions I choose next destroy?

Or…

Will I move in the direction of light?

In the ways of medicine I have been taught, fire is sacred. Fire is a teacher. Fire is medicine. It has the power to warm, illuminate, and transform. Fire is tended, prayed with, sat beside, and listened to.

This is also true within us. For within each of us lives a sacred fire. Fire is sacred; it gathers people together. But fire can also consume.

Left untended, it can move through us as reactivity, blame, ego, and the impulse to strike before we have listened. It can burn through relationships, scorch trust, and leave behind things we never intended to damage. Not because the fire itself is wrong, but because we have forgotten how to tend it.

The medicine has never been to extinguish the flame. The medicine has always been to sit with it long enough to remember what it was given to us for: to carry warmth, to tend to life, to bring light where fear asks for darkness, to remain in “right relationship” in moments that tempt otherwise.

The world may ask for your anger. But your Spirit still gets to choose what it offers back.

And that choice is one of the greatest medicines of all.

May your fire illuminate more than it consumes.

Aho.

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The Earth does not ask us to leave our humanity behind. She asks us to remember who we are while standing fully within it.

There is a question I have been sitting with lately—both in my own reflections and in conversations with those I guide:

How am I weighted down in this world?

Not physically alone. But emotionally. Energetically. Spiritually. How am I tethered to the stories, fears, identities, obligations, expectations, wounds, and inherited ways of being that keep me bound to a version of myself that no longer feels true?

We are living in a time where many speak of ascension. Yet I wonder if what is happening is not that we are becoming something higher, but that we are remembering something deeper.

Remembering who we were before the noise. Before survival became identity. Before fear became personality. Before we learned to hide.

Because something unmistakable is happening:

We do not get to hide in the same ways anymore.

The places where we abandoned ourselves… the beliefs we inherited… the ways we stay small, distracted, disconnected, overextended, unseen, or unexpressed, they are rising. Not as punishment but as an invitation.

Some experience this consciously and call it awakening. Others experience it as anxiety, restlessness, grief, exhaustion, a sense that life no longer fits, or an unshakable feeling that something is asking to change.

Yet beneath all of it, I believe the invitation is the same:

Remember.

Remember what you are. You are of this Earth. Born into bodies and m of breath, bone, water, memory, and stardust. The answer is not to transcend the Earth. The answer is to remember ourselves within it.

To stand upon the Earth without becoming weighed down by what is not ours.To be rooted, but not bound. There is a paradox here. The Earth is not what weighs us down. The forgetting does.

The forgetting of our nature. The forgetting of our belonging. The forgetting of the light we came carrying. And perhaps this is why the world feels so intense right now. Because the places that once allowed us to remain asleep, hidden, disconnected, or fragmented are no longer holding us in the same way.

The weight is becoming visible. Not so we suffer beneath it. So we can finally set it down.

There is another question underneath all of this:

If we long to see more love in the world… more compassion… more consciousness… are we willing to become the spark ourselves?

Not perform it, but to live it, and to embody it. Because perhaps our work was never to become the light. Perhaps our work was always to remember that we already are. The spark has always been there. Beneath the fear. Beneath the conditioning. Beneath the forgetting.

You are not becoming.

You are remembering.

Aho.

Reflection

• What feels heavy because it no longer belongs to who I am?

• Where have I mistaken survival for identity?

• What part of me is asking to be remembered?

• What light beneath the weight is waiting to emerge?

Each sweat lodge carries its own medicine. No two are ever the same. The prayers that are spoken, the hands that tend the fire, the people who gather, the spirits that arrive—everything shapes what unfolds within that sacred space. Even if you have sat many times before, you do not enter the same lodge twice.

This one met me in a way I had not experienced before.

The heat built slowly at first, as it does. The rhythm of the rounds, the sound of breath and prayer, the darkness that invites you inward. There is a way the lodge begins to close in around you, not in harm, but in intimacy. It asks you to be with what is present, without distraction, without escape.

By the third round, something shifted…

My heart began racing, immediately catching my attention. Not just elevated, but rapid, almost disorienting. I could feel it pulsing through my chest, louder than the songs, louder than the silence. There was a sharpness to it. An intensity that felt different than the usual edge the lodge brings.

And in that moment, an old pattern stood up inside of me.

The voice that said, “You're ok.”

It’s a familiar place—one I know well, as a former triathlete and one who has suffered in the name of emotional healing; meeting intensity with more intensity was second nature. So, overriding my body for devotion to the ceremony would not be an uncommon choice.

But something else was present at the same time. Instead of gripping, a curiosity arose—I’m in a place I’ve never been before. It wasn’t dramatic. Rather than reacting or moving into fear, I listened. And through that listening, a softening emerged. It was subtle… but clear. A quiet turning toward the body instead of away from it. A willingness to listen rather than override.

And what I heard was simple.

Enough.

So I quietly stood up and stepped out of the lodge.

The air met me. The space opened. My heart rate was still racing. It took some time to settle down. What moved through me was not failure. It was clarity.

As I sat with it, I could feel there was more to what had happened. Not just the external heat of the lodge, but something internal—something in my own system that had reached its edge.

In Ayurvedic understanding, we might speak to this through Pitta dosha—the fire element within the body. The force that transforms, digests, and processes. It is essential. It is powerful. But when it becomes too strong, too uncontained, it can begin to tip the system into overwhelm.

The body heats.
The heart accelerates.
The nervous system activates beyond its capacity to handle comfortably.

And suddenly, what is meant to be transformational begins to feel like too much.

I could sense that in myself, not as something wrong, but as something real that needed to grab my attention physically. My internal fire met the external medicne heat of the lodge, without enough space for me to regulate between the two. And this is where the teaching revealed itself.

Surrender is not pushing through.

Surrender is not staying when the body is asking for something different.

Surrender is the willingness to soften, to listen, and be curious.

There was a time when I would have remained inside, convincing myself that leaving meant I was missing something, or not going deep enough into the work. But I know that the deeper work was not in staying. It was in leaving, in choosing a relationship with myself over the conditioning that overrides true nature. In trusting that the medicine is not found in how much I endure, but in how honestly I respond.

After some time, my system began to settle. The intensity moved through. And I was able to return, not from a place of force, but from a place of regulation. That, too, felt important. Because this is not about avoiding intensity. The lodge is meant to bring us to the edge. It is meant to show us where we grip, where we resist, and where we hold on so that we can purify and rebirth. It is a womb.

The lodge showed me how to be with my edges differently. Not through force. But through awareness. Through listening. Through the kind of softness that is often misunderstood as weakness, but is, in truth, a deeper form of power.

When I look back on that moment, I don’t see it as stepping out of the ceremony. I see it as stepping more fully into it. Because the real ceremony was not just happening in the lodge. It was happening in the choice.

Aho.

At the end of February, before leaving Baja, I sat with Kambo. Kambo is a traditional Amazonian medicine derived from the secretion of the giant monkey frog. This secretion is naturally toxic—something the frog uses as a defense in the wild—but in a ceremonial setting, it is applied in very small, controlled amounts. The secretion is collected respectfully, without harming the frog, then dried and later applied to small points on the skin called “gates.” Through these openings, the medicine enters the lymphatic system.

What stays with me most is not the intensity of the experience itself, but what remained afterward. There is something powerful about ceremonial sacred medicines that continues to work long after the ceremony ends. Not just in the body, but in the subtle spaces within me, what has shifted, what has softened, and what has been left behind.

That morning, there was a quiet awareness in my body, as if something had already begun. I could feel the medicine approaching even before we arrived. I went upstairs on the terraza to drum and sing, to meet the medicine before stepping into the ceremony.

When we arrived, we were in a beautiful setting where the desert met the ocean. The vegetation was abundant, the breeze was steady, and there was a presence in the wind that felt like a teacher moving through the space. I sat on a large pillow on the patio, taking it all in, aware of the elements at play—water and fire, already in relationship.

We were given liters of water to drink as part of the process. By the second liter, my body began to respond gently, needing to use the bathroom and release. By the third, the medicine woman began opening the gates on my arms. These are small points on the skin, opened with a heated stick, creating tiny burns that allow the medicine to enter the body. I chose to work with four gates—two on each arm—focusing on the rings of power above the waist, with the intention of clearing and integrating both masculine and feminine energies. My partner sat with me in this experience as well, receiving his own set of gates based on his body and intention.

As the Curandera applied the kambo, tears rolled down my face, not from pain, but from something that felt sacred. There was a humility and reverence in the experience, a recognition that I was in relationship with something ancient and intelligent. I found myself internally offering gratitude to the medicine.

Within less than a minute of receiving the medicine, I could feel it fully arrive. My face felt like it was beginning to swell. A little freaky, I will admit. Then came the nausea—strong, immediate, and undeniable. I was guided to purge into the earth, releasing the water I had consumed and the toxins in my body. It felt like a faucet had been turned on inside of me, as if something deeper than the physical was moving through and out. The purging continued, accompanied by waves of discomfort and a growing sense of surrender.

The medicine woman stayed close throughout, singing, using the rattle and drum, and gently supporting my body by patting my back and stomach to help the release. There was something profoundly comforting about being held in that way while my body moved through the process. I was encouraged to continue drinking water to support further clearing, and as I did, more was released.

After about thirty minutes, I could feel the intensity begin to subside. I was invited to lie down, and that’s when my body began to shake. It was a full nervous system response, teeth chattering, body trembling, until, gradually, it settled. There was a sense of completion, yet still a feeling that something powerful had occurred.

The ceremony closed with Hapé, which brought a feeling of grounding and clarity. What remained afterward was not depletion, but a surprising sense of lightness and softness. I felt more open, more gentle with myself, and more present in my body.

Kambo is described as a purge, and it certainly is that. But what feels more important to me is what comes after. It is what is left behind when the body releases what it has been holding—when anger moves, when old stories begin to loosen their grip, when something dense gives way to something more spacious.

That is the part that stays with me.

It wasn’t just about what was cleared, but about the quiet, sacred softening that remained in its place.

One thing I want to share, almost as a quiet afterthought, is that before the ceremony began, I was asked if there was anything physical I wanted to release. While my intention for sitting with Kambo was not centered on my physical body—my focus was on the deeper emotional and spiritual layers—I did mention that I had been experiencing sciatica for at least a year. It had been persistent, something my body had been holding for a long time. Since that ceremony, now two months later, I have not experienced a single flare-up. Not once has the sciatica returned. I offer this not as a claim or expectation, but simply as part of my experience—another layer of what, for me, was left behind.

Aho.

There are moments in ceremony when the medicine does not come as vision or revelation, but as a quiet, unmistakable knowing.

This came to me while sitting with Grandfather Hapé—the sacred tobacco medicine carried through indigenous lineages of the Amazon, offered in prayer and in right relationship. Held in stillness, breath slowed, awareness turned inward, I entered the space not to seek, but to listen.

The medicine moved not in images, but in words that did not feel like my own. Not something I was thinking, but something I was hearing… and being spoken through.

It was simple. Direct. Undeniable: You are the medicine.

And from there, something deeper began to speak.

I am the medicine that the medicine speaks through.

Not mine, or something to claim or hold. But something that moves when I am quiet enough to listen. When I am open enough to let it come.

There is a place where the voice changes. Where it is no longer the mind arranging words or the self trying to understand. It becomes something else. Ancient. Clear. A remembering.

This is what I was shown:

Let the medicine speak.

Do not reach for it. Do not try to shape it. Do not make yourself the source. Become the space.

You are the medicine.
I am the medicine.

Not as identity, but as relationship. Not as possession, but as participation. There is a humility here. Because it is not you who heals. It is not you who knows. It is what moves through when you are willing to soften enough to let it.

And there is also a responsibility. To tend your body. To listen to your nervous system.
To clear what distorts the channel. So that when the medicine comes, it can move cleanly.

My voice has medicine.
Your voice has medicine.

Not because of what we say, but because of what is carried when we speak from truth. This is not something to learn. It is something to remember. So when you sit, when you listen, when the stillness opens…

Let it come. Let it move. Let it speak.

You are the medicine.

Aho.

When I look back across my journey with plant medicine, what I see is not a series of experiences. I see paths of initiation.

Each time I sit, I am not simply entering a ceremony, I am being ushered across a threshold. And every threshold carries its own landscape, its own teachings, its own way of revealing what has been hidden, what has been waiting, what has been quietly calling me deeper.

Each one opens a new door. A door into the mystery of myself, a door into the mystery of life, a door into something far greater than both. And what I find myself being drawn into, again and again, is what I can only describe, for now, as the consciousness of creation.

Some call it God.
Some call it the Universe.

But even as I try to name it, I can feel how inadequate language is.

Because this… is not something to be defined. It is something to be entered. Something to be felt. Something to be remembered.

And with every medicine I have sat with, I am brought closer, not to an answer, but to a deeper intimacy with that living presence.

My true initiation began in Peru. Not because it was my first time sitting with medicine, but because it was the first time, I understood that I was being initiated.

Through Grandmother Ayahuasca, the doorway opened. From there, the path continued to unfold, each medicine arriving not as something I chose, but as something that met me when I was ready.

Peyote | Grandfather
steady, ancient, grounding me into the lineage of the Earth.

Kambo
purging, clearing, stripping away what my body no longer needed to carry.

Hapé and Rapé
Grandfather again, in a different form, quiet, direct, anchoring me back into the body, back into truth, back into presence.

And what I have come to see…
Is that none of these experiences stand alone. They are all interwoven. Each ceremony connects back to the first. Each opening deepens the last. Each step forward is also a remembering of where I have already been. There is a continuity to this path. A sacred thread that runs through it all.

And as I continue walking…

I find myself seeing more. Feeling more. Becoming more alive. There is a deepening gratitude that arises, not because everything is easy, but because everything is alive. Because I am alive within it. And what feels most true in this moment… is that I no longer need to know where I am going. There was a time when I searched for direction. When I wanted clarity before I moved. But something shifted. Now, the path reveals itself through the walking.

Each day lays itself at my feet. Each moment becomes the next doorway. And I follow. Not blindly, but in relationship, in surrender. In a quiet devotion to something I cannot fully name, but can feel moving through me, as me, and all around me.

And as I sit here now, there is a deep love for what is. For the life that surrounds me. For the path that continues to unfold. For the mystery that does not need to be solved, only lived.

And that, more than anything, feels like the medicine.

Closing Prayer: Honoring the Medicines

To the Grandmothers,
to the Grandfathers,
to the spirits of these sacred medicines

Thank you for the ways you open the door,
and for the ways you do not let me look away.

Thank you for what you reveal.
The beauty and the truth.

Grandmother—
you who hold, who show, who weave,
and who can also be fierce in your clarity,
uncompromising in what you ask me to see,
I honor all of you.

Grandfather—
you who ground, who steady, who clear,
who bring strength, structure, and directness,
I honor your presence and your guidance.

To the medicines themselves—
I honor the intelligence within you,
the lineage you carry,
the prayers that have been spoken through you long before me.

May I walk in right relationship with what I am given.
May I meet each experience with respect,
not taking, but receiving.

May I be willing to see what is shown,
even when it is not easy.
Even when it asks something of me.

May I remember that this path is not always comfortable but truthful.

And may I continue to walk with humility,
with reverence,
and with deep gratitude
for the mystery that continues to unfold.

Aho. Para todos mis relaciones.

Yesterday, I was sitting in meditation with Grandfather Hapé, reflecting on my life.

Not in any particularly dramatic way—just allowing my mind to wander through the years and noticing the many paths that have shaped me. The traditions I’ve walked through. The teachers who have influenced me. The experiences that changed the direction of my life.

As I sat there, I could see how all of it—every philosophy, every teacher, every ceremony, every question—has woven itself into the fabric of the place I stand in today.

A place I’ve never been.

When I look back across my life, that is exactly what it has felt like.

Again and again, I have found myself stepping into territory I had never walked before—new questions, new teachings, new ways of understanding the world and my place within it. Each season of my life opens a new doorway, inviting me to remember something I had not yet fully lived.

I was raised a Catholic, which shaped the structure of my early life. I received my First Holy Communion, was confirmed, and attended twelve years of Catholic school. And yet, even as a young girl, something inside me questioned what I was being taught in quiet confusion. Many things never rang true in my heart, and yet I was curious to understand.

When I finally graduated from high school, I felt a sense of freedom from the religion. I lived that way for many years, not realizing that this early exposure had quietly opened the doorway of questioning that would eventually lead me to seek my own answers. I also did not yet understand that the rituals I once stepped away from would, in time, reappear in my life as the ceremony I now feel so deeply drawn to. The gathering of people in intentional space, the reverence for something greater than myself, nature, the rhythm of prayer, song, the drum, and presence; the very elements that now feed my Spirit daily.

In 1992, my mother became sick and passed away, and that is when something inside of me opened. Grief has a way of asking the deepest questions. I found myself asking the same questions I had while in Catholic School: Is there a God? What happens when I die? Is there really life after death?

Those questions began my search.

One of the first places that the search took me was into Buddhism. I studied the teachings and the philosophy, and for a time, I thought I had found what I was looking for. But over time, I realized that no single system could contain the fullness of what I was discovering.

And so the path continued to unfold.

Each teaching became a thread.
Each teacher another strand in the weaving.

One of two influential teachers in my life was studying with Caroline Myss. Through that work, I began to understand myself through the lens of archetypes, energy medicine, and the deeper patterns that shape my life. Her teachings changed me in ways I could not have imagined at the time.

Years later, another teacher came into my life differently. During that time with Caroline, a Yaqui Indian who had been giving the morning talks, I was always intrigued. So I eventually sought him out. His name is Don Lorenzo Archuleta, and through him I was introduced more deeply to the wisdom of the earth and the indigenous ways of understanding life.

Spending time with him in the desert opened something inside me that felt both new and ancient at the same time. It brought me back to something deeper in my own roots.

My father used to say, “Never forget where you came from.”

My grandparents, on both sides of my parents, immigrated from Mexico to the United States in search of a better life. I always carried pride in that heritage, but for many years, I did not yet understand the deeper spiritual connection that lived inside that lineage. Don Lorenzo opened that door for me.

Through ceremony, prayer, song, plant medicine, sweat lodge, and temazcal, through sitting with the land and learning from it, something inside of me awakened.

Not something new.

Something remembered.

Now, when I sit in a sweat lodge,
when I sit in temazcal,
when I spend time in Mexico,

when I spend time in nature,
when I sit with plant medicine, I feel two things happening at once.

I am learning. And I am remembering.

And the deeper I walk this path, the more that awakening unfolds.

Through teachers.
Through traditions.
Through grief.
Through questions.
Through the courage to keep walking even when I do not yet know where the path will lead.

And I know that if I stay open to the unfolding, life will continue to place me exactly where I need to be—

again and again—

In a place I have never been before.

Aho.

There is something I have been watching closely among those I sit with and in the tone of the conversations I am hearing.

There is a heightened tension moving through the collective right now. Even when we are not directly affected by a specific event, the body registers it.

A subtle bracing.
A quicker reactivity.
A readiness for impact.

The nervous system does not separate “mine” from “the world.” It responds to the atmosphere. And what I am noticing is this:

Anxiety is not only personal right now.
It is collective.

And if we are not conscious of it, it begins to move through us—shaping our perceptions and our relationships without us realizing it.

But anxiety not only disturbs peace.
It quietly steals joy.

Not because joy is absent.
Not because life has no beauty.
But because an unregulated nervous system cannot receive what is gentle.

Joy requires presence.
Joy requires enough safety in the body to soften.
Joy requires that we are not bracing. An anxious system is always bracing.

It scans.
It anticipates.
It prepares.
It rehearses what might go wrong.

And when the body is scanning for danger, it cannot relax into delight.

We often believe anxiety is about circumstance.

The relationship.
The money.
The state of the world.
The future.
The unknown.

But more often than not, anxiety begins in the body long before the mind assigns it a cause.

The nervous system tightens.
Breath shortens.
The jaw sets.
The heart rate subtly increases.
Muscles brace.

And then the mind begins searching for “the why.”

This is an important turning point, because the mind does not like sensation without explanation. So it creates a story.

“It must be this. It must be that. Something is wrong.”

But what if nothing is wrong in this moment?

What if the body is simply operating from an old survival imprint — a pattern of vigilance that once protected you?

Anxiety is often an outdated strategy still running in the background of the nervous system. And when we don’t recognize that, something else begins to happen.

Projection: Anxiety’s Favorite Survival Strategy

When the body feels unsafe but cannot locate immediate danger, the mind will project that discomfort outward. Projection gives anxiety an object.

“It must be him.
It must be her.
It must be the job.
It must be what they said.
It must be what might happen next week.”

If the feeling can be attached to something external, it feels more manageable.
At least then we can try to fix it. But projection keeps us turned outward. It keeps us in hypervigilance. It keeps the nervous system activated.

And joy cannot root in a system that is scanning for threats!

This is how anxiety quietly kills joy…

Not dramatically.
Not all at once.
But slowly.

You cannot savor the meal because you are thinking about tomorrow.
You cannot fully receive love because you are preparing for loss.
You cannot rest in success because you are anticipating collapse.

Anxiety tells you it is protecting you or that things you have projected it onto. But prolonged vigilance becomes a cage. And the body does not know the difference between a remembered threat and a present one.

The Tender Work

This is not about shaming anxiety.
It is not about forcing positivity.
It is not about pretending there are no real challenges in the world.

It is about understanding that anxiety is physiological before it is philosophical. The nervous system heals through experience — not through argument.

Slow breath.
Feet on the earth.
Rhythm.
Sound.
Safe connection.
Intentional pauses.
Moments of orienting to what is actually here.

When the body begins to feel safe again, projection softens. The mind stops searching for enemies. The heart stops bracing for impact. Joy begins to reappear — not as something manufactured, but as something uncovered. Joy was never gone.
It was simply inaccessible to a body in survival mode.

Asking a Different Question

Perhaps the deeper inquiry is not:

“How do I stop being anxious?”

But rather:

“What would help my nervous system feel safe enough to soften?”

Because when the body softens, joy returns naturally. And maybe anxiety is not an enemy after all. Maybe it is an overworked guardian that never learned when the danger had passed. When we teach the body safety again, joy does not need to be chased. It comes back on its own.

A Closing Prayer

May the parts of me that learned vigilance
be met with compassion.

May my nervous system remember
what safety feels like.

May I notice when I am projecting
and gently return inward.

May joy no longer feel unsafe.

May my body soften enough
to receive the sweetness that is already here.

Aho.

There was a time when I believed I was searching.

Searching for clarity.
Searching for peace.
Searching for purpose.
Searching for God.

Over the course of my searching, I came to a quiet realization one day… that what I had been chasing was not lost — only buried beneath noise.

Behind the noise of the world —
behind the headlines, the outrage, the urgency, the endless commentary —
there is something quieter. And it is not lost.

It is simply waiting beneath the distortion.

The world right now is loud.
Not just audibly loud — but physically loud.
Emotionally loud.
Energetically loud.

There is a constant pull outward:
React.
Choose sides.
Consume.
Fear.
Fix.
Fight.
Perform.

But underneath all of that, there is a deeper current. And it is not frantic. It is not demanding. It does not shout to be heard.

It remembers.

The volume of the world right now isn’t random.
We live inside systems designed to capture attention. To trigger a reaction. To keep the nervous system activated. Outrage spreads faster than stillness. Fear holds attention longer than peace.

In that sense, the noise has structure. It has incentive behind it. It feeds on engagement.

And distraction isn’t neutral because it shapes consciousness.

What we repeatedly give our attention to begins to sculpt our inner landscape. It trains the nervous system. It conditions perception. It determines whether we live in reaction or in remembrance.

It costs something.

It costs presence.
It costs depth.
It costs access to the quieter intelligence within.
When we are constantly reaching outward, we forget to turn inward.
When we scan for answers outside ourselves, we bypass the ancient knowing that lives in our bones.

Remembering does not happen through effort.

It happens through stillness.

It happens when the nervous system softens enough to feel what has always been there.
It happens when we sit long enough to hear beneath the static.
It happens when we stop trying to become something…
and allow ourselves to return to what we already are.

The remembering is not dramatic. It is subtle.

It feels like:
A soft exhale.
A familiar warmth.
A quiet yes inside the chest.
A sense of “Oh… there you are.”

You are not here to chase your wholeness.

You are here to uncover it.

Underneath the noise of the world
is the truth of who you are.

Underneath the distortion
is your original design.

Underneath the distraction
is your sacred remembering.

This is not about rejecting the world.
It is about refusing to be consumed by its volume.

We are being invited — gently but firmly —
to turn down the outer noise
so we can hear the inner signal.

No more seeking.

Sit.
Breathe.
Listen.

Remember.

Aho. All My Relations.

I was sitting by the ocean again today.

Not doing anything.
Not trying to understand anything.
Just letting myself feel what was already there.

As I sat, I noticed a familiar current moving through me — the same feeling that had been present days ago, and again as I made my way toward the ceremony with Grandmother Ayahuasca a couple of weeks back. A feeling that keeps returning, unannounced, unforced.

It feels like humility — but not the kind that shrinks.
It feels soft, tender, and vulnerable — but in a deeply powerful way.
Sacred. Quiet. Alive.

Today, as it moved through my body once more, I became curious. I wanted to listen more closely. Not to name it too quickly, not to flatten it with a concept.

I asked myself:
Is this peace?
Is this calm?

But those words felt too small. Too thin. Too mental.

So I stayed.

And what revealed itself beneath the humility — beneath the softness — was gratitude.

Not gratitude for something.
Not gratitude with a story attached.
Not gratitude that can be explained or itemized.

Just gratitude.

A deep, wordless gratitude living in my body.

I feel it in my belly.
I feel it in my heart.
I feel it moving through me like a quiet truth that doesn’t need language.

There is nothing in particular I can point to and say, this is why. My mind wants to search for a reason, a cause, a narrative. But this gratitude doesn’t come from the head. It isn’t the result of analysis or reflection.

It is simply here.

And it is changing me — even as I write this.

There is something profoundly humbling about gratitude that has no object. It softens the need to grasp, to define, to make meaning. It invites a kind of surrender that is not collapse, but reverence.

In this state, I am not trying to become anything.
I am not fixing or healing or striving.
I am simply allowing myself to be touched by life.

This gratitude feels ancient — like something remembered rather than discovered. As if my body knows a truth my mind has been chasing for years: that there is a way of being in the world that does not require explanation to be real.

It asks nothing of me except presence.

And perhaps that is its most significant power.

Not loud.
Not dramatic.
Not performative.

Just a quiet, embodied yes to being alive.

I don’t know how long this state will stay. I don’t need it to stay. I trust that it will return when it is meant to — because it already has.

For now, I let it move through me.
I let it soften me.
I let it change me.

And I offer it here — not as something to understand, but as something to feel.

Prayer

May I stay long enough to feel.
May I not rush to understand.
May gratitude be allowed to do its quiet work
in my body,
in my heart,
in my becoming.

May this quiet humility
remain a teacher.

There is a knowing held in the body—older than thought—that recognizes how quickly the nervous system responds to what moves through the collective field. Without seeking, without choosing, the body feels the shift. Breath grows shallow. Muscles draw inward. Attention is drawn to urgency before understanding has time to arrive. This is not imagination. It is the body reading the atmosphere.

In times like these, a quieter inquiry opens: How do we remain awake without becoming agitated? How do we stay present without allowing the nervous system to be overtaken by forces that move through speed, fear, and division?

Fear travels quickly. It does not pause to ask what is true. It moves through the body like a command—tighten, brace, react. In this state, discernment becomes difficult. The nervous system is no longer listening; it is obeying.

This is why regulation matters.

A regulated nervous system is not passive. It is internally governed. It can feel without flooding, witness without collapsing, and stay present without being commanded. Regulation restores choice. It brings time back into the body.

When the nervous system is dysregulated, people become easier to move, herd, and divide. Urgency replaces wisdom. Certainty replaces curiosity. The body contracts, and the mind follows. Even actions born of care can become distorted when they arise from fear.

This is not a failure of character. It is physiology.

And it is also why tending the nervous system is not withdrawal from the world—it is discernment. Staying embodied in charged times does not mean you do not care. It means you care enough not to abandon yourself.

There is a difference between witnessing and absorbing. Between being informed and being consumed. Between staying awake and staying agitated. Awareness does not require a constant state of alarm. The body is not meant to be a battleground for forces it did not create.

To slow the breath, to feel the feet on the ground, to return attention to what is actually here—this is not avoidance. It is orientation. It is how sovereignty is restored.

Internal governance, practiced quietly and consistently, is what allows clarity to emerge. From that clarity, action can arise when needed. Not reflexively. Not from borrowed outrage. Not from fear. But from choice.

You are allowed to pause before responding.
You are allowed to feel without reacting.
You are allowed to step out of the fear field without turning away from truth.

In times like these, steadiness is not indifference.
It is preparation.

And it bears remembering:

You are not required to react in order to be awake.

Prayer:

First Ring Invocation — Earth / I Stand Sacred

May I return to the Earth beneath my feet.
May my body remember its weight, its place, its belonging.
May my breath move like soil settling after disturbance.

I release what pulls me from my center.
I release what rushes me before I am ready.
I release what asks my body to brace instead of belong.

I root downward rather than reach outward.
I choose steadiness over speed.
I choose discernment shaped by gravity and time.

With my feet on the ground and my breath in my bones,
I remember where authority lives.

I am here.
I am rooted.
I stand sacred.

For All My Relations.

Click Here: A First Ring Teaching on Standing Sacred in The Body

We are standing at a living threshold.

The way of Water—which has shaped our inner world for a long while now—has been teaching us how to feel, how to dissolve, how to soften, how to listen beneath the noise (Saturn and Neptune ending their time in Pisces). Water has been initiatory. It has asked us to slow down, to sense the undercurrents of our emotional body, to witness where we collapse, avoid, numb, or merge. Water dissolves structure. It reveals truth by eroding what was false.

Water does not ask us to change who we are.
It asks us to feel what is already here.

And when we stay long enough in the waters—when we allow ourselves to be saturated rather than rescued—something ancient begins to stir. What rises is not new. It is instinct. Memory. Survival intelligence is stored in the body long before language. This is where the Snake enters—not as an element, but as the archetype that moves through Water’s depths, revealing what still coils in the nervous system, what reacts before we choose, what remains even after we believe we have healed.

This era has asked us to slow down and sense rather than push forward. To feel what was previously bypassed. To sit with grief, confusion, longing, tenderness, and uncertainty without immediately needing resolution. Water does not provide answers — it provides contact.

Water reveals through saturation.

In the way of Water:

• Emotions became messengers rather than inconveniences.

• The nervous system spoke louder than the mind.

• Old wounds resurfaced not to punish us, but to be acknowledged.

• Certainty dissolved, even when we wanted it to stay intact.

Many have felt unmoored during this period — less able to define direction, identity, or next steps. That disorientation was not a failure. It was an initiation.

But water is not meant to be the final dwelling place.

We are moving toward Fire—and Fire does not ask permission. Fire moves. Fire ignites. Fire demands clarity of will.

This is not a gentle transition. It is a metabolic shift—from introspection to propulsion, from feeling into doing, from gestation into emergence.

The Time of the Snake: More Than Shedding

We are still, cosmologically and archetypally, in the time of the Snake.

The Snake is often romanticized as a transformation through shedding skin—and yes, that is part of its medicine. But there is another layer that must be honored if you are to move forward cleanly:

Venom.

Snake medicine asks you to examine not only what you have shed, but what still lives in the body as toxic residue:

• Old survival strategies.

• Unconscious defense patterns.

• Nervous system reflexes formed in fear.

• Reactive habits that once protected you but now poison your forward movement.

Venom is not “bad.”
Venom is concentrated information.

But if it is not metabolized consciously, it leaks sideways—into relationships, into projections, into self-sabotage, into cycles that repeat even after you believe we have “healed.”

The Snake asks:
What venom remains in your system?
What reactions still happen faster than your awareness?
What stories still bite when you feel threatened, unseen, or uncertain?

This is the work of Water—deep, honest, somatic, and often uncomfortable.

Enter the Horse: Fire, Momentum, and Direction

And now—the Horse approaches.

Horse medicine is movement with power.
It is momentum, velocity, stamina, freedom, and direction.

The Horse does not analyze the terrain endlessly.
The Horse runs.

This is where Fire enters the body.

Fire amplifies whatever is already present.
It does not discriminate between shadow and light—it mobilizes them.

This is the essential teaching for the year ahead:

The Horse will take what you have been carrying and run with it.

If you have been doing conscious inner work—tending the nervous system, metabolizing fear, integrating shadow—then the Horse becomes a direct channel forward:

• Clear movement

• Purposeful action

• Embodied confidence

• Aligned courage

But if venom remains unconscious—if reactivity, unexamined fear, or avoidance still govern the body—then that same momentum can become:

• Chaos

• Burnout

• Conflict

• Spirals of urgency without grounding

The Horse does not create the chaos.
It reveals it at speed.

Fire as a Nervous-System Initiation

Fire does not live in the mind.
Fire lives in the nervous system.

This is why the coming year will feel intense for many—not because something is “wrong,” but because Fire requires regulation, not repression.

A dysregulated nervous system experiences Fire as a threat.
A regulated nervous system experiences Fire as vitality.

This is the choice point.

Not conscious vs. unconscious as a moral judgment—but as a somatic reality:

• Can your body hold energy without collapsing or exploding?

• Can your system move forward without abandoning itself?

• Can you ride momentum without being hijacked by old reflexes?

The Question the Horse Will Ask You

As Fire rises and the Horse begins to run, the medicine becomes very simple—and very honest:

What path have you been walking?

Not what you say you believe.
Not what you aspire to someday.
But what you have been practicing in your body.

Because Fire reveals practice, not intention.

The Horse will ask:

• Are you present enough to guide direction?

• Are you regulated enough to sustain speed?

• Are you conscious enough to choose where you’re going?

This year will not wait for certainty.
It will respond to clarity of alignment.

Mantra:

May I ride the fire awake, carrying only what has been made conscious

Closing Prayer

May we honor the waters that have softened us.
May we metabolize the venom we no longer need.
May we meet the fire without fear.

And when the Horse begins to run,
may we be awake in the saddle—
hands steady, breath present,
heart aligned with the path ahead.

Aho. For All My Relations

Lately, this question has been standing in front of me like a mirror I can no longer look away from.

Not the image I consciously curate.
Not the one I speak about in prayer or intention.
But the quieter ones — the subterranean images that still live in my subconscious and subtly steer my choices, my tone, my confidence, my hesitation.

When I listen closely, I can hear them.

They speak in different voices, yet they all carry the same root frequency.

One says, “Who do you think you are?”
Another whispers, “Be careful. Don’t take up too much space.”
Another tightens my chest and murmurs, “There isn’t enough. You could lose what you have.”

They wear different archetypal masks — the Doubter, the Scarcity Holder, the Inner Judge, the Protector who learned fear early. Each one has its own language, its own posture, its own way of tightening my field. And yet, beneath their differences, they all echo the same ancient refrain:

I am not enough.
I am not ready.
I must prove myself.

These images are powerful not because they are true — but because they are familiar.

They were formed in moments when safety mattered more than expansion, when belonging mattered more than authenticity, when survival required shrinking, bracing, or performing. At one time, they served a purpose. They kept me attentive, careful, and responsive to the world around me.

But now, they cost too much.

Because every image I unconsciously give power to becomes a lens through which I experience reality. It shapes the frequency I emit. It determines the decisions I delay. It decides how boldly — or cautiously — I meet life.

And here we are, standing at the threshold of 2026.

The cosmos is not whispering.
It is burning.

So much fire energy is moving through the collective field — not as destruction for its own sake, but as clarification. Fire does not negotiate with distortion. It does not entertain old stories out of politeness. Fire asks one uncompromising question:

What is real, and what is ready to be released?

Fire reveals where I am still fragmented—where I hold multiple images of myself that cannot all come forward at once. Fire asks me to choose which self I am willing to energize, feed, and embody.

Because here is the truth I cannot bypass:

Every archetypal image within me is constantly asking for power.
Power through attention.
Power through belief.
Power through repetition.

And power is not neutral.

As I move toward 2026, I feel the invitation to become exquisitely precise — not in perfection, but in coherence. To align my inner images with a clearer frequency of who I know myself to be now, not who I had to be then.

This does not mean banishing the old archetypes. It means no longer letting them run the ceremony.

It means recognizing when the voice that speaks is not the voice of truth, but the echo of an outdated identity.

It means choosing, again and again, to give power to the image of myself that is rooted in presence rather than protection…
in trust rather than scarcity…
in embodied knowing rather than borrowed doubt.

Fire asks for honesty.
Fire asks for courage.
Fire asks for a single, unified flame instead of scattered sparks.

So I return to the question — not as judgment, but as devotion:

What image of myself am I giving power to today?

And even more importantly:

What image am I now willing to feed with my breath, my choices, my voice, and my belief — as I step into what is coming?

May the fire ahead refine rather than consume.
May it clarify the image I carry.
May it burn away what no longer belongs to my becoming.

And may I walk forward, not divided by old archetypes, but anchored in a clear, living frequency of self.

So it is.

Lately, this contemplation has been running very deep inside me.
Not loudly. Not dramatically.
But steadily—like something ancient stirring beneath the surface of my days.

I keep coming back to this quiet, unmistakable truth:

I don’t have time to be a victim.

Not because pain hasn’t shaped me—it has.
Not because life hasn’t wounded me—it has.
But because time is sacred. And it is moving.

I feel it more clearly now than ever before.

So much of life can be spent rehearsing old stories. Revisiting wounds. Arguing with the past. Waiting for someone else to change, to see me differently, to make something right. We often call this healing, or processing—but I’m noticing how easily it can become something else.

A way of lingering.
A way of postponing life.

Victimhood for me now is subtle. It doesn’t always look dramatic. Sometimes it looks like explaining. Sometimes it looks like remembering. Sometimes it looks like holding on far longer than what is truly required.

And all the while, time keeps passing.

I’ve been feeling this truth in my body, not just my mind. The way the days move. The way the seasons turn. The way moments arrive and leave, whether I’m fully present for them or not.

Life is not waiting for me to finish resolving everything.

When I stay in victim consciousness—even quietly, even internally—I place my power outside of myself. I make my joy conditional.

But what is available for me is responsibility—not as blame, but as liberation.

Responsibility for my thoughts.
Responsibility for the stories I repeat.
Responsibility for the conditioning I inherited and the shadow patterns that still surface.
Responsibility for noticing when pain has turned into identity instead of information.

This contemplation has been humbling. And clarifying.

I’m not here to deny my wounds.
I’m here to honor them without building a home inside them.

There is a difference between respecting my story and living inside it forever.

When I step out of victimhood, something shifts immediately. Energy returns. Choice becomes visible again. Joy feels earned. Not because everything is resolved, but because I am present.

I begin to see beauty again.
I begin to feel gratitude alongside grief.

Time sharpens this awareness for me.
It asks me what truly deserves my devotion.

I want to spend my time awake.
Available.
In reverence for being alive.

I don’t have time to be a victim—not because my pain is small,
but because my life is sacred.

And I can feel that this contemplation is not happening in a vacuum.

The days are shorter now.
The sun leaves earlier.
The light doesn’t linger the way it does in summer— this has never been my preference.

Cold settles in. Darkness arrives sooner. And I can feel how deeply my body and nervous system are affected by my environment.

This is where I’ve noticed my victim beginning to whisper.

It sounds like resistance to the season.
Like wishing the days were longer.
Like longing for warmth, light, and ease instead of honoring what is here.

And yet—even here—I see the teaching.

The season is not doing anything to me.
It is simply revealing what still wants my attention.

Winter has a way of slowing everything down enough for these patterns to surface. It asks me to notice where I resist what I cannot control, and where I give my power away to circumstances instead of choosing presence.

This, too, is part of the work.

To acknowledge the impact of my environment without making it an identity.
To feel discomfort without turning it into a story of injustice.
To meet the season as it is, rather than arguing with it.

I don’t have to love the shorter days to live consciously within them.
I don’t have to prefer this season to learn from it.

Even here—even now—I can choose responsibility over resignation.
Awareness over complaint.
Reverence over resistance.

And in doing so, I reclaim my time.

For all my relations. Aho.

There is a stretch of days that rarely gets named.

They arrive after the turning of the Solstice, when the light has already begun its return, yet before the collective rush of declarations and resolutions. These are the days between — quiet, unclaimed, and often misunderstood.

Nothing is asking us to decide anything here.

And yet, everything is still speaking.

After a year of intensity — personal, collective, ancestral — the nervous system does not reset on command. It unwinds in layers. In pulses. In subtle releases that happen when we finally stop asking it to perform.

These days are not about momentum.
They are about settling.

You may notice a deep fatigue that has nothing to do with sleep. Or a softening in your breath when you stop trying to name what comes next. Perhaps a tenderness in the body — as though something has loosened without your effort or permission.

That is not laziness.
That is integration.

So much can shift without force.

We don’t always feel these changes in fireworks or breakthroughs. Sometimes we feel them as neutrality where there once was a charge. Sometimes, there was silence where there once was urgency. Sometimes, it’s the simple truth that something no longer needs our attention.

This is listening season.

Not the listening that waits for instructions — but the kind that notices what is already here. The subtle ways the body recalibrates when it is no longer being asked to prepare.

The body, after all, keeps its own calendar.

It does not recognize January 1st as a mandate.
It recognizes light, darkness, rest, safety, and time.

It knows when to pause.
It knows when not to rush meaning into form.
It knows when the soil is still resting beneath the surface.

In these days between, the invitation is simple — though not always easy:

Listen instead of plan.
Sense instead of decide.
Rest without justification.

Let what has already changed reveal itself slowly.

There will be a moment — not yet — when clarity naturally rises, when movement returns without pushing, when direction feels organic rather than imposed.

For now, it is enough to be here.

To let the year finish its work through you.
To trust that nothing essential is being missed.
To honor the quiet intelligence of your own nervous system as it exhales.

These days are not empty.

They are alive with completion.

For all my relations.

A Quiet Prayer

May I honor the quiet work happening beneath the surface.
May my body be trusted as a keeper of time and wisdom.
May I rest without needing to know what comes next.
May what has already shifted continue to settle into truth.