It’s hard to live in the world right now, and it’s only getting harder.

It may not be immediately obvious on the surface of things. But there is a quiet unraveling underneath.

You can see the signs of it everywhere if you’re paying attention.

It’s in the dissolution of relationships that have been stable for years.
It’s in the loss of institutional protections that we had come to take for granted.
It’s in the decay of the international order that has governed our world for decades.

We have crossed a threshold that we will never be able to return from. We have entered territory of genuine danger:

Danger to our minds. Danger to our bodies. Danger to our communities. Danger to our land. Danger to our sovereignty, our spiritual integrity.

Danger to us in every way.

In the Indian mystical traditions, they speak of the different Yugas, different ages that mark different destinies for the world.

There is one Yuga that is considered the most difficult and painful of all: the Kali Yuga. All order falls apart, and we are as far away from the sacred, from beauty, and from truth as we could ever be.
This Kali Yuga lasts 432,000 years, and we are about 5,000 years in.

Yet there are also many who teach of this moment as a particular opportunity.

A moment when a doorway opens—a window into a more beautiful world.

There is the legend of the rainbow warriors, the prophecy of the eagle and the condor, and Dolores Cannon’s story of the new earth—to name a few.

Whatever the case, we are living in a moment unlike any that has happened before.

Destruction and depravity surround us, seemingly growing and looming on all sides, while simultaneously, the age of enlightenment rises right here in our midst.

But the window will close.

It will abandon us if we don’t take it while we can.

Those of us who believe in love, in beauty, in peace, in truth, can find our way to the more beautiful world.

But only if we act.

The Kali Yuga is like inertia.

And that inertia leads squarely toward the depths of depravity, destruction, violence and war.
Control. Misery. Hatred.

But we needn’t go there if we so choose.

The world of goodness and beauty is waiting for us, but each must follow our own path.

There are no signposts pointing us.
The guidance lives within.

It is only through our impeccability, our integrity, our ferocity, our faith that we will find our way there.

But to trust in our truth, we must find it first.

If there is one evil assailing our world more than any other, it is deception.

Not only the willingness to deceive others for selfish gain, but the willingness to succumb and swallow the lies we’ve been fed.

We have all swallowed those lies:
You as well as I.

We’ve accepted those silver tongues that told us that we would be safe if only we followed their way:

They who divided the world into black and white, good and bad, right and wrong.
They who told us who to trust and who to treat with disdain.

We accepted their lies because it was easier than the alternative.
But that alternative is now the only way.

This is how we cough up the bitterness of the lies and surrender to the truth we know.

Not the truth of neat and tidy mental categories, but the trembling, ecstatic, agonizing truth of the flesh.

This body.

With its aches and its longings,
with its anger, its fear,
with its sorrow, with its desire,
with its spontaneous, unrelenting dance.

This body.

This is the one thing their lies cannot control.
The one thing, the one place that cannot deny the truth.

This is our compass, and this is our way home.
This is our North Star to the world we know is possible if only we have the faith to be true.

To be true, to be aligned, to be in integrity, is to resonate with the world of truth.

We know truth.

It lives in us every day.

There is no denying the truth of the body.

The trembling that is fear. The heat that is anger. The sorrow that is grief:
These do not lie.
They cannot be lied to.

The lies we’ve been fed are compelling only to the mind that accepts them as fact, turning from the body’s truth.

So, if we are to free ourselves and find the beautiful world waiting for us, we must reverse the devil’s bargain. Here we abandon the delusion of certainty and surrender to the spontaneous truth we can feel.

In the bodies of geese is the guidance to cross oceans, to fly thousands and thousands of miles to the place where the food is good.
In the bodies of salmon lies the longing for headwaters, spawning grounds, even when the way before them is blocked.
In the bodies of monarchs who travel a journey lasting three generations, some of whom spend their whole lives journeying toward a place they will never see.
In the bodies of buffaloes who still to this day head toward plains their ancestors inhabited long ago.

And in you, and in me: we, too have an inexplicable longing for a place we have never known.

Like those salmon, like those butterflies, may not get there in our lifetimes.

We may only get close enough such that our children and grandchildren might arrive.

But you know this place.
I know you do.

It lives in your bones.
It haunts you in your dreams.
Your body hungers for it.
Just like mine.

Your body that cries out in horror at the injustices of this world.
Your body that feels terror for the horrors that might arrive.
Your body that knows and cannot be deceived into believing that this is how things ought to be.

It’s not.

Your ancient intelligence balks at this, whatever we’ve been taught.

There is a more beautiful world waiting for us if we have the courage to answer the call.

The window may be closing.
So we must act now.

Now is the time to come home:

To come home to the body.
To come home to the breath.
To come home to the only truth that you’ve ever really known.

It is not easy.

It is not comfortable, and it certainly isn’t safe.

But it is honest. It is heartfelt. It is intimate.
And it is true.

You will not be deceived by this body.
You will not be led astray if you have the heart to feel what your body reveals to you.

While it’s not an easy path.
It is the path that leads us home.

I am going toward the land beyond the mountain, to the valley where we are truly free.

I will not wait around for the train to leave the station.

This is our moment.
We must act now.

If you join me, I will share with you the very best I have to offer.
The difficult, honest path that guided me home.

COMING HOME is the program I’ve developed to attune you to the truth of your ancient, ancestral memory:
the truth that lives in your bones.

find out more

Along the way, you will heal your wounds.
You will find your wholeness.
And you will discover what brings you most alive, burning in you like an ember, a tender, humble flame.

This flame will guide you to your destiny.
And to beauty, if you allow.

You do not need to earn this.
You do not need to perform.
You need only to let go.
Into your heart and your body’s embrace.

Coming home is your birthright.

Your body will accept your love.

COMING HOME starts Tuesday.
I hope you’ll join us there.

And we will go without you if we must.

Register here

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Pleasure. Aliveness. Safety. Trust:
These are your birthrights as a human being.

Your capacity for goodness has been handed down to you by thousands of generations that came before.
You didn’t come into this world to struggle and suffer.
You came here for enjoyment!

But of course you do struggle. All of us do.
And that is not your fault.

We’ve been raised in a culture that denies our earthly beauty.
We have been taught to mistrust our flesh.

But your body is not an enemy.
It is your precious home.
And with a little bit of help, you can soften into that trust.

Many of us spend our whole lives searching for something that will help us feel whole.
But your wholeness is not out there.
It is within you, waiting for you to let go—
into the arms that would hold you.

Pleasure. Aliveness. Safety. Trust:
These are your birthright.

You don’t need to do anything to earn them. They are the gifts offered to you simply for being alive.

It is time for you to reclaim them.

So consider this your invitation to come home.

COMING HOME: A Somatic Return to the Feeling Body is the fruit of a decade of earnest somatic work—
as I struggled and learned, and developed trust in my own body.
I will share all I can with you, so you can embrace your own journey—
bouyed by the beauty that was always yours.

Register now

COMING HOME is a six-week journey of weekly calls:

You will receive the knowledge of your body that they failed to offer you in school.
You will experience guided somatic practice and meditations that will help you find peace on your own.
And you will be gifted the opportunity to book one-on-one somatic support sessions at half the rate I would normally charge.

Because this wisdom doesn’t belong to me.
It has always belonged to you.

So come.
Reclaim your birthright.

COMING HOME:
Six Tuesdays
Starting August 11.
4:30-6:30 pm Pacific Time

If you register by July 31st, you will get a significant discount.
$333
$277

Register now

Will you continue to suffer from the distrust seeded in you by our culture?
Or will you reclaim the birthright that has been yours all along?

COMING HOME: A Somatic Return to the Feeling Body starts in less than two weeks.
I would love to have you there.

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EMBODIED EVOLUTION
free two-hour workshop
July 28th, 4-6 pm Pacific time
Register here

Humans have been suffering for countless generations, causing harm to ourselves and to one another, burdened by the curses of shame, blame, and punishment:
at war with ourselves because we know not who we are.

Yet that memory lives within us, if only we will embrace it.

There is a profound intelligence living in your very bones.
In the tapestry of your fascia, the patterns of your DNA—
in your blood vessels, your brain, your heartbeat, your breath

lies ancient wisdom that you cannot be without.
It lies in wait, a living memory:
the wisdom of your ancestors inscribed in the matrix of your flesh.

What would your life be like if you trusted your body’s wisdom?
What would become possible for you if you could rest in that?

What if you didn’t have to navigate your life through pain and tension?
What if you allowed your body to care for you and carry you through life like a dance? With pleasure. With the spontaneous aliveness of making love.

You can wake up to this possibility.
It is your birthright.
You do not have to earn this.
It is a gift passed down by those who came before.

The wisdom of their lives:
their successes, their trials, their strength, and their tenderness
have been handed down to you as a gift of love so that you might live fully from their grace.

In this way, the power and the freedom you’ve always longed for have been waiting inside you all along.

Register for EMBODIED EVOLUTION

A bird finds rest upon the branch not because she trusts the branch to hold her,
but because if the branch broke, the bird knows she can fly.

Yet, we have been taught (you and I and everyone we know) to distrust and deny the intelligence of our instincts.
Culture and conditioning have drawn us systematically away, turning our attention to the outside, imagining that true authority, true strength, true sovereignty lives somewhere else.

Thus, without knowing it, we give our power away.

We wrap ourselves in a shroud of tension, shame, and fear.
We force ourselves into roles and boxes that are far too small.

Yet our salvation is right here if we will only turn toward it!
And turning toward it might be the most courageous thing you will ever do.

Fortunately, you do not have to do it alone.

Register for EMBODIED EVOLUTION here

There are many who have walked this path before us.
They left a trail of breadcrumbs to help us find our way back home.

Thanks to the work of many great explorers, we can now place ourselves in the grand cosmic narrative, the dance of survival—of life and death.

We know the names of our ancestors, those who first lived with bony spines.
We can read about those oceanic ancestors who first made their way to the land.
And with the luminous power of the imagination, we can experience that journey for ourselves.

In doing so, we can know for ourselves.
We can remember the intelligence of our body.

This allows us to soften.
Then we can let go and receive the gift of this vibrant living vessel in which we live.

We have long been alienated from our body’s wisdom.
Healing that relationship takes time.

But the moment we begin to open to that wisdom, healing begins.
And we reap its blessings at every step.

EMBODIED EVOLUTION is not a gathering for those who want to fix their bodies.
It is a gathering for those who are ready to begin the humble, heartfelt work of coming to trust it again.

In just two hours together, you will receive the full download on the structure and function of your nervous system—
followed by a guided deep imagery journey where you will experience that truth for yourself.

When we truly understand the way the nervous system operates,
and understand our ancestors’ journey with our hearts;
new possibilities of compassion and liberation are unlocked.

Then, the body begins to feel like an ally,
its mysterious movements a gift, not a threat.

EMBODIED EVOLUTION
free event
Tuesday, July 28th
4 to 6pm Pacific Time

You can join LIVE for free or pay to keep the recording for life.

If you have been longing for greater ease and freedom in your life,
if you long to truly love your body,
this is a powerful step.

I would be honored to have you there.

Register Now

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What if I told you that in your least flattering moments, ancient intelligence was keeping you alive?

What if I told you your instincts were alive and well, pulsing in you at every moment, filling you with radiant aliveness that you need only to remember and embrace?

What if there is a path to that remembrance?
And it’s closer than you ever dared believe.

People come to me all the time because they are struggling with their body: anxiety, numbness, rage.
They come to me hoping that I will help free them from the burden of their animal form.
I don’t.
I do the opposite.

Rather than deny the spontaneous movements of their body, I instead teach them to dance with its love.

I don’t deny the difficulty of being at war with one’s flesh.
I have experienced the suffering of depression,
the tumult of fear,
and I intimately know the burning overwhelm of rage.

And I’ve learned that within every reactive expression is life force in service to you.

These reactions often emerge from our most human longings:
A longing to be free,
a longing to live fully,
a longing to express what is most honest and true.

You can embrace this vital, wild intelligence if only you understand its intent.

Imagine the same anger you struggle with on the daily—fueling a passionate, dignified life.
Imagine the same tenderness you feel in your grief—utilized to connect with those you love.
Imagine the same terror that keeps you up at night—urging you towards your heart’s desire.

People come to me because they want to manage their reactions.
But the medicine is in surrendering to them—
so that your life is radically transformed.

The first step in this process is embodied understanding: recognizing the wisdom from which these come.
This kind of understanding engages the body as well as the mind.

On Tuesday, I’m hosting a free offering where you can discover that for yourself.

EMBODIED EVOLUTION is a somatic, imaginal journey through the ancestral, evolutionary journey of your life.

You will experience firsthand the exquisite intelligence of your ancestors and the wisdom they embedded in your bones.

You will see how the same reactions you struggle with every day are the very vital essence of your life.

And once you experience this reality firsthand, you will never see these reactions the same.

EMBODIED EVOLUTION
Tuesday, July 28th
4-6 pm Pacific Time

Come live and experience the magic of the journey.
Or pay to have the recording as long as you want.

Register here

EMBODIED EVOLUTION is not just an offering.
It is a reminder of the noble heritage that is yours.

See you there.

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It is time we, in America, made a different choice. One that’s never been made in our lifetimes.

I mean those of us who have seen this train wreck coming for a long time—those who never believed the saviorism of Trump to begin with. Those who saw his racism or misogyny and recognized him for what he is: a power-hungry, narcissistic, self-centered man.

To people like us, the war in Iran is not a surprise. We never believed his peace platform. We never believed in his “law and order” diatribes. We could see from the very beginning that what he peddled as safety trampled the vulnerable underfoot.

But what of the others? Those who didn’t see through the lies?
Those who earnestly believed Trump would bring about a better world.
Are we caring for those people now?

Many of them are just beginning to wake up. To see what we’ve seen all along.
Will we allow them to wake up with grace? To maintain dignity enough to admit they were wrong?

Because this was never about liberals versus conservatives, left versus right, racists versus multiculturalists. It was never even about gender.
We have been manipulated by those who hold power for a very long time. They found our wounds, rubbed salt in them, and pointed the finger towards our neighbors, our family, our friends.

They pit us against each other.
And it worked.

For those who have been tracking the relationship between global banks and the war machine—recent events in Venezuela, Iran, and Russia were predictable—regardless of which president was in charge.

Had Kamala Harris won the election, things surely would have gone differently. Her attack would have been more subtle, more subversive. But we would be no friend to Iran, to Venezuela, to Russia. Those MAGA supporters would most likely be smug, pointing out the global imperialism of the Democratic Party.

But global imperialism is not about the left or the right.
It’s a curse we’ve been carrying for a long time.

Many MAGA supporters are waking up it for the first time: that Trump is not their savior.

I just saw the highest gas prices I have seen in nearly 20 years—and it is guaranteed to climb. I remember the Joe Biden stickers years ago, pointing his finger at the price at the pump, saying “I did that”.

Thus, I see Donald Trump’s impenetrability beginning to crack—whether the far right admits it or not. Donald Trump is clearly not the hero. His actions obviously hurt the working class.

It has always been so.

Now, perhaps, there are those who will see that Trump is not their hero. If we will see that the Democratic establishment was never ours.

What is needed now more than ever is a unified social movement for true reconciliation and justice. One that recognizes the pain and suffering of minority individuals—racial, ethnic, religious, gender—and also the suffering of the poor working class, mostly white Americans. There is much more that unites us than separate us.

So it is time for us to rise:

To revoke our consent to the elites. Revoke our consent to play their games. Revoke our consent to fight one another while they steal from us all. Revoke our consent to use our power, our energy, to play their stupid game—where we are always the losers and they will always win.

We need each other if we are to revoke our consent. None of us can do it alone. But together we can do anything.

We must do this now because those who hold the power are approaching the endgame. Multiple groups are frantically racing toward the end. They hope to create a disaster too quickly for us to stop. That we will be too distracted and distraught—fighting with one another—to stop their reckless plans.

They might be right. But it’s a gamble. It is up to us to make them wrong.

That requires our humility. To drop our own guards.
Your racist neighbor is not your enemy. They have simply been fooled.
In that way, we are just like them.

We, too, have been fooled, haven’t we?

Who among us — with these terrible revelations, the Epstein files, systemic child abuse — hasn’t felt like something terrible is being revealed? Like we’re beginning to see something awful that we did not see before, didn’t want to see before.

Our own terrible realization is happening lockstep with theirs.

Imagine, for just a moment:

You were raised in the country—close to the land, growing food perhaps. You were taught the greatness of America and the gift of this land. You’re told of a wonderful, abundant, glorious land of freedom.

But what do you see around you?

Alcoholism. Abuse. Farmers suffering, losing their livelihood beneath their very feet, becoming poorer and poorer each year.

Imagine having your very way of life insulted and degraded on late-night shows. Imagine being shamed by the media for having backwards views—always being the butt of the joke. The foolish redneck who doesn’t have a clue.

Meanwhile, your very way of life is ripped away—and no one seems to care.

Finally, a man steps up who will not be shamed in that way.
He is strong. He is bold. He speaks what you’ve been afraid to say.
He says he sees you and he has the answer.
Finally, someone cares.

Imagine believing that man with your whole heart, fighting for him, defending him when the whole world seems against him.
Imagine believing that no matter what, he will win.
Imagine he is your only hope.

Then imagine the horror, the heartbreak, the hopelessness, the devastation
when you discover he never cared for you after all.
You were used.

What would you do then?

There are men and women just like what I describe all across America. Millions of them.

They live right next door.
Some of them are flirting with exactly the kind of realization I describe — one that carries with it a sense of betrayal, agonizing loss, terrible hopelessness, and perhaps shame most of all.

There is a part of me that would love to gloat about being right about this or that. I’m sure you have that part, too.

But that would be at the expense of our brothers and sisters who are going through a terrible awakening right now.

If we want them at our side—if we want them in our movements—we must extend them an open hand.
This doesn't absolve them of accountability, but affirms their humanity and offers our kinship:

“You made a mistake. I’ve made mistakes too. But that doesn’t matter now.
We need you here. We need all of us now. The fate of our world is at stake.”

What if we welcomed them in?

“I will not rub your nose in your failure if you will walk with me.

Please walk with me.

I have missed you for so long.

You, my brother. You, my sister. You, my father. You, my son. Aunt and uncle, cousin, friend—you.
It’s been too long.

Yes, it is terrible what’s going on in the world right now. And I don’t know what to do either. But I would rather face it together—hand in hand, arm in arm. For we have a lot of work to do.”

I don’t know how many would accept such an invitation. But if there is a way for them to join us, this is the best chance we have.

If you have a friend or a family member or a colleague who has been a Trump supporter for a long time, perhaps they are suffering right now.

Before you seek to make yourself right, ask how they’re doing.

Find that genuine humility in your heart that says I am just like you.
From that place, go find your people who have been lost in the illusions for so long.

For now, they need your hand. They may not get out on their own. And none of us may escape the consequences of the war that is raging if they don’t.

Now is the time to extend the hand.

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PS: I recognize that what I’m inviting is powerfully bold and extremely challenging. It is hard to meet another with compassion when you see their actions cause harm. But if there is a way to bridge the gap, this is the essential skill. It is spiritual strength and somatic intelligence that allows us to bridge such a range.

I say this not because it is easy, but because it is right. And I am here to support you.

If a loved one came to mind as you read this article, but you don’t know how to approach, please reach out to me. Through somatic coaching, we’ll work through the activation in your body so you can approach a loved one with an open heart.

If you’re interested, set up a free call.

The Epstein files reveal a web of deception, corruption, and abuse.
The war in Iran threatens to tank not only the American economy, but undermine the world order as we know it.

Yet, life for many of us in the US is basically the same.
These four walls look the same. I still have the same job. Folks still need to feed their kids.

Meanwhile, the war machine marches ever-forward—using our tax dollars to undo the world.

If you’re anything like me, you fluctuate through cycles of anger, fear, grief, and numbness.
And you’re not sure exactly what to do.

If there is a path forward, its impulse lies beneath the conscious mind.

I recall the story of Malidoma Somé, told in his book Of Water and Spirit:

Kidnapped from his home as a toddler, he was taken away from his tribe. He was forced to submit to abuse and forced “education” (i.e., brainwashing) by the very same people who had desecrated his homeland and laid waste to his tribe years before.

Before long, he forgot how to speak his own language. He was forced to think in his captor’s tongue. He learned only what they taught.

He knew the names of great French colonists and philosophers, while forgetting his traditional knowledge. Slowly, his tribal identity faded away and with it—any sense of freedom beyond his captivity.

Meanwhile, he thought what his captors wanted him to think.
He wanted to be a priest. He thought sex was abhorrent.
Just as they had taught.

Yet, the abuse, the neglect, the longing, and the torture fed a growing fire in him. It grew into subtle acts of defiance. He met with fellow dissidents in the cover of night, smoking forbidden cigarettes in the dark.
But they still showed up to their studies the next day, fearing retribution from their teachers.

His defiance did rankle the seminary priests, such as his play that made a mockery of French colonists. But even this didn’t earn him freedom. Nor any great wisdom or insight.

Indeed, his mind could not guide him to freedom at all.
What did was more primal, dangerous, and wild.

It was a normal day for the most part. His teacher was being cruel. Yet somehow he had lost all tolerance for the cruelty, and something within him snapped.

His body flew from his seat before he knew it. Violence erupted from his hands.
When he came to, he stood before the whole room—fists clenched, heart pounding, with broken glass upon the floor. His teacher lay outside the window on the ground, bruised and bloodied by Malidoma’s hands. The students in the room stared at him with shock and horror.

And just like that, his seminary life was done—unwittingly destroyed by his own hand.
In a moment of raw impulse, with no conscious decision, he did something he could not revoke.

It took him mere moments to understand his situation. There was only one thing left for him to do.

He fled.

He left the seminary for the first time since childhood and began the hundreds of miles walk to return home.

Later, he would be reunited with his people. He would be initiated, honored, and celebrated.
But he knew none of this at the time.

In his moment of action, he knew nothing but rage.
As he walked towards his homeland, he felt doubt, confusion, and shame.

He considered his outburst a mistake.
How could he not?

That outburst made him ineligible for the only world he knew.
He lost access to clothing, to food, to shelter, to his friends.
While he walked aimlessly toward a world that only existed for him in vague memory, in longing, and in dreams.

It would take him some time to realize the reality:
What appeared as his greatest failure was the single act that freed him.

When he returned home, he was able to see this:
He was guided by his ancestors.
It was his grandfather’s guidance: his voice, his wisdom that helped him survive the abuse intact.
It was they who gave him the spiritual strength to seek his own freedom—even when his conscious mind did not.

Are we not like Malidoma in our own way?

We are caught in a world that provides comfort as it contains us,
taught our language, our history, our way of thinking by the same system that keeps us controlled.

We may think of ourselves as Americans, but where do we really come from?
Do you remember your ancestors? Those who lived intimately with the land—those who honored their own ways?

At what point did the empire come and destroy your people’s culture, pulling them into a machine that seeks to make you its cog?

What do you feel at this moment as you read this?
Is there stirring in your body, in your heart?

Do you long for something familiar that you’ve never consciously known?

I know I fear the destruction of this world. I know it is coming—the total collapse.
There was a time we could ignore it, but it’s hard to miss the signs now.

Still, accepting this doesn’t make it easier. I fear it every day.
I fear for my own safety—for that of my family and friends.

There will be much suffering. People will die.
Many people already are:

Children maimed in Gaza in full view of the world.
A school bombed in Iran—twice—killing over 170 children.
And even here, in America, people die every day for lack of medical care, food, or basic human dignity and love.

There is no halting the descent into chaos.
But we can journey through it—together.

There is another part of me—and perhaps you.
This one isn’t only afraid.

He looks at the walls of his bedroom.
Something wild and feral in him growls.
A dragon swirls and spirals in his gut.

The walls seem paper-thin—fragile, hollow, and fake.
He longs to tear those walls down. To liberate his animal self.
To liberate all of us from the small identities we’ve worn.
To destroy the world that makes him feel small.

He knows, like Malidoma did, that this is not the way we were meant to live.

It’s been many generations since I lost my ancestral life ways.
In a vision, I saw my own village burned 12 generations ago.

No matter how far I walk or what support I may have, there is no longer a village to return to.
We must build it here.

There is a fire in me.
There is a longing.
I am ever-stirred by my dreams.

We can never return to our ancestral villages—but we can remember our new way.
You carry the wisdom of 1,000 generations.
You can access it if you have the heart.

I will not say it’s straightforward. It is not an easy path.
But it is simple, like Mary Oliver says.

“you only need to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves”

But to do only that is to stop doing the thousand other things you’ve learned to keep you safe:

• saying “yes” to people when you really mean “no”.

• performing duties that make you feel dead inside

• suppressing your emotions to get through the day

• ignoring the stubborn ache in your chest

The animal body loves what it loves no matter what. It is we who have been taught to deny it.

There was a time when we had to suppress this instinctual knowing to survive our captivity.
But the cage is crumbling now.

The part of us that fears is the part that is conditioned.
But our inner aliveness knows the new way.

To survive now, we must return to our roots:

That one place that remains always beyond colonization—
the wild that still lives in our hearts.

When we remember together, we can remind one another again.

As you remind me, I might remind you—
and together we can meet the world again.

We need not only fear the chaos around us—for our instincts hold the intelligence to move through it.

This is the core of all the work I do.

It’s why I learned Somatic Experiencing®—to help folks reclaim their embodied intelligence.
It’s why I’ve gathered together a cohort in UNBOUND.
It’s why I dance, why I sing, why I pray under the moon.

And it’s why I reach out to you, here.
I have an offering for you.

The Awakening Instinct Coaching package is for the first three to reach out:

Three 80-minute coaching sessions to be utilized within one month.
$600 for the bundle.

If you feel stirred by the world right now but don’t know what to do with it.
If you long for a place to be seen in this aliveness.
This is for you.

I can’t tell you what you’ll find in these sessions. Your instincts are unique to you.
What I do know is that intelligence lives powerfully inside you.
And when you touch it, you will feel more alive.

You are here for a reason—there is wisdom in your mess.
Whether grief, anger, terror, pain—
I would be honored to meet you there.

Message me “INSTINCT” if interested.
This offer ends on the equinox: March 21st.

And if you want a free taste,
do the UNBOUND meditation here.

When we awaken together, we rise.

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Final note.

You’ll notice I changed the name of this newsletter. Wild Soul Rising will be the name going forward. After multiple name changes, I expect this one to stick.

The energy is the same—it is the signal being amplified.

As the wild souls in us rise, we will need a way to find each other.
This is in service to that.

Why is it that even now:
as pedophiles continue their abuse behind closed doors,
as bombs rain down in Iran,
as runaway inflation makes basic needs a struggle—

do we fear surrendering to our grief?

I don’t ask this from outside of it. I know it well:

the focus on work, to-do lists, responsibilities;
the numbing of food, screens, sugar;
waking with a leaden weight.

Bill Plotkin says that what we call depression isn’t the same as sadness. Depression: when feeling numbs and the color is drained out of life.
Depression isn’t the result of sadness—
but the consequence of denying it.

Perhaps you know this. I certainly do.
Yet I continue to witness myself lying in my bed, deadened eyes staring at the screen.

And then there are those moments—those radiant, ecstatic moments.
Finally, the grief surfaces; it emerges from the deadening fog.

Then, my body radiates with aliveness.
Sobs shake my whole body.

Yesterday, I called a friend. Within 20 minutes of talking, we both found ourselves praying through our tears.
Wild, honest words passed through both our lips.
I was shaking, crying so hard that no sound would come out.
For a moment, I knew who I was:

A being who cared,
a being who aches for the world,
a being who knows there is something else possible.

Then the call ended:
“Goodbye,”
click.

And once again, I was alone.

The tears slowed, the sobbing softened.
And I lay leaden again in my bed.

From the radiant aliveness I just felt with my friend, these four walls felt like a cage.
My to-do list felt like a lie.
I had felt something honest and real in that phone call that I couldn’t find reflected in my space.

This is why I think the grief is so frightening.
That burst of aliveness—that wild, heartfelt truth—
makes the rest of life less bearable.
In the flash of color grief reveals, the rest of life seems gray.

Some would say I’m just depressed. After all, so many others seem fine.

Fine, somehow, while our president murders children, and folks file their taxes to offer more of their money to that cause.

I know firsthand the beautiful power of grief.
I have experienced it, witnessed it firsthand.

I know, also, the cost of denying it:
it is a turning away from what is real.

This is why I do the work that I do.
I do this work because I need it.

We all do.
The world is unraveling at an alarming rate.
We need each other more than ever.

None of us can adequately respond—let alone process the emotions—
of terrible things that assail us each day.

There is much we need to do if we are to create a more beautiful world.
And we must do it together.

To do it at all, we must grieve collectively—for this will return us to our hearts.

In that prayer with my friend, I knew a more beautiful world is possible.
But I couldn’t access this knowing alone.

Wisdom, intelligence, resilience, compassion—
they’re best held within relationship.

To hold the nuance together, we must meet together in grief.

Only then can we hold together what none of us can hold alone.

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Resources:

If you’re a man local to the Pacific Northwest, I highly recommend Grieving Man as a way to grieve in community. Here I’ve found the most robust, honest, and heartfelt community of men that I’ve ever seen in this world.

If you’re a woman in the PNW, I hope there will be something similar for you soon. In the meantime, there is Northwest Grief Tending for regular co-ed grief rituals.

And I know many of you don’t live in the Pacific Northwest and may not have access to in-person grief circles.
I do offer 1-on-1 somatic coaching. This is a tremendous place to process grief. Even a single person is helpful. It would be my great honor to support you.

And if you’re interested in an online circle to support you in this space, please do let me know. As I imagine my next offering, it would be great to know exactly what you need.

Be earth now, and evensong.
Be the ground lying under that sky.
Be modest now, like a thing
ripened until it is real,
so that he who began it all
can feel you when he reaches for you.

“Onto a Vast Plain”, Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by Joanna Macy

Breakdown is sacred—this is something we all know:

That the egg must be broken for the baby bird to emerge.
That seeds must crack before sprouts can reach the light.
That every new beginning begins with an end.

Yet, in order to embrace the sacredness of endings,
they must be held with love.

Loving endings doesn’t mean feeling good about them in the moment.
It’s not spiritual bypass—it’s not ecstatic bliss.

Its presence, patience, acceptance, grace.

This allowing is not separate from anger, pain, grief—
it’s the space that holds it all.

UNBOUND is that space. That’s why it exists—
informed by my own breakdowns and the breakdowns of those I love.

It is a field of compassion, of courage, of presence—
so that you can be met in your messiness.

Breakdown isn’t like other moments in life.
We’re not “at our best”.
We’re a mess.

But when we don’t have places to hold us, it’s also when we’re most alone.
But it’s not meant to be that way.

Breakdown has us at our most tender, most honest, most real.

This is how it is sacred—how life emerges from there.
All art, every vision, every dance, every song—
has a great breakdown at its core.

If you join UNBOUND, it won’t be because you have it together, but because
you’re ready to be met in your mess.

We have wasted too much time, too much energy trying to keep ourselves in control.

The world seeks to humble us with her grace and with her beauty.
She finds us in that space of collapse.

This is not a space for solutions,
but the bravery of being human.

So we can finally feel the world again.

If this sounds like you, join us while you can.
The first call for UNBOUND is tonight.

12-weeks together
Wednesdays
5-7 pm Pacific

It’s $2000, but
Scholarships are available.
Please don’t let money hold you back.

If you’re feeling the draw, there’s no time to waste.
Reach out to me, and we’ll hop on a call.

And to the six of you who have already said yes:
Thank you.
I look forward to being together soon.

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This is my heartfelt invitation—my mythic invocation—of all you will find in UNBOUND.

Here is the recording, exactly as it emerged from me this morning.
Or you can read the written version below:

Within you lies the seed of something the world desperately needs.
We are standing at the precipice of an entirely different world.

I know you’re scared and overwhelmed.
I know you grieve with the weight of everything that’s going on.
I know part of you wishes we could just go back to the way things were.
Some part of you wishes you didn’t have to see what you do.

But you do see, don’t you?
There is no going back to the way things were.

The Tower is falling.
With it, our sense that we know what’s going on—both personally and collectively.

We are being thrust into the unknown.
I will meet you there.

This is not an accident.
It is not a mistake that we are finding ourselves collectively at this moment.

It is not an accident.
The old order is crumbling because the old order was built upon sand.

What we thought was democracy,
what we thought was a liberal world,
was naked power hiding behind a facade.

Naked power.
Rampant abuse.
Disguising itself as democracy.
Disguising itself as a just world that cared for who we are.

It is very painful to realize we’ve been deceived—
that the world order we’ve counted on is a lie.

But we must not stay there.
There is much more to feel.

For in the most horrifying revelation
lies the opportunity for freedom—
the opportunity to choose for ourselves our own path.

Now that they have revealed themselves for the power mongers they are—
willing to torture children to assert their own rank—
there are only two ways to go.

Either we allow ourselves to be dominated by those who care little for love.

Or we recognize, once and for all,
that the power was always ours—
and we embrace the responsibility of creating our own world.

To do so is courageous.
And it is tender.

It is also exactly what we were born to do.

Either we do it together—
or we abdicate our power to those who care only for control.

If you’re ready to be part of a heartfelt revolution,
where we follow our own promptings,
where we live from our own truth,
and step fully into this moment—

this container,
this initiatory rite—

so you can cease to be bound up in lies and deceptions
and begin to live from your unbound heart—

UNBOUND starts tomorrow.

This is your last chance to register.

Will you embrace the opportunity to step into your power?
Or will you let the Tower crush you as it crumbles apart?

For your sake, and for the world,
I hope you choose the former.

UNBOUND is here for you.

I’ll meet you there.

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Fortunately, we don’t have to. We are not alone in this.
We have each other, we have the Earth
and we have the ancient stories.

These stories encode the wisdom of our ancient ancestors—
the ones who knew hardship, grief,
who knew how to embrace change.

Here we explore the Death of Baldr, norse myth of a changing world.
Here, maybe, we can find a way to orient

as the world goes through collapse.

We touch on personal loss, identity transmutation
as well as the earth-shaking revelation of the Epstein files.

You won’t find answers here,
but an invitation into the Mystery
where we might find ourselves again.

If after watching, you’re interested in the larger Rite of Passage,
I’m still taking applicants for UNBOUND: Freedom through the Heart of Collapse.

Our 12-week journey starts this Wednesday, 5:00 Pacific time.

So if you’re on the fence, now’s the time to reach out.

Feel free to message me or read more about the program below.

Find out more about UNBOUND

Either way, I wish you both tenderness and courage as you face the realities of this time.

Blessings,
Daniel

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Through myth, we find the garments that help us navigate the Mystery.
May it serve you well in the unknown…

Rainer is currently exploring the myth of Parsifal in the School of Mythopoetics.
You can learn more about that here.
I intend to be there, maybe I’ll see you!

And for those interested, the free gathering I mentioned happens
Embracing Collapse as a Cosmic Gift.
Monday at 1 pm Pacific
Link here.

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ICE agents terrorize Minneapolis. The Epstein files reveal systemic abuse among the elite. The US government meddles in other countries’ affairs as if they were pieces on a board.

That’s just the US.

Authoritarianism reigns in China, Russia, Turkey, Hungary. Protests swell in Iran, Greece, Nepal, France. Sudan struggles with civil war. Global debt at an all-time high. Economic strain everywhere you look.

As the global order unravels, it’s mirrored in our personal lives. Many are experiencing profound personal changes:

Relationships ending. Health crises. The end of long-time careers. Loss of housing. Breaks with family. The quiet, fierce conviction to stop lying to oneself.

These are not structural shifts.
They are shifts at the foundation.

The world order will not last another ten, twenty years.
Personal identities are ending right now.

This is painful and scary, certainly.
But it is also our liberation.

For only in death are we reborn.

It is normal to feel fear, to feel anger,
to grieve the depth of this loss.

It is not only normal, it is necessary.
Otherwise, we fall into the popular trap of trying to restore a sinking ship.

What is ending is meant to.
It is not a mistake.

The mistake is holding on when it is time to let go.

This is the reason for UNBOUND: Freedom through the Heart of Collapse.
Our fetters are collapsing, so we might be reborn—into more honesty, freedom, and power.

We must journey through this portal of chaos
if we are to reach the beauty on the other side.

This is our duty to ourselves, our children, our world.

To do so is courageous, and it is also tender.
It is the most noble thing we can do.

UNBOUND is not a place of comfort or avoidance.
It’s where we listen deeply for the truth in our hearts.

Amid the world’s chaos, there is also a song.
It’s subtle, but it’s been with us all along.

For this, the world breaks down:
destroying everything that doesn’t align with the radiant aliveness of this song.

It sings of a world more honest and beautiful.
And it seeks to make use of your form.

UNBOUND is a place for those willing to do so.
It is not a place to escape.

Here, we will hold each other.
Here, we will be brave.
Here, we will honestly face the dissolution of ourselves and our world.

We do this for ourselves and we do this for the future:
the ones who are yet to be born.

They are counting on us to birth the more beautiful world.
Let us live so we can look them in the eye.
To say, in all honesty, that when the choice was upon us,
we did not look away.

If you feel the call of this—of honest, tender truth—
then lean in and join me in UNBOUND.

Monday, I will host a free live gathering—a small taste of what you’ll find in UNBOUND.

free live gathering — Embracing Collapse as Cosmic Gift

On Monday, 2/16 at 1pm Pacific, I’m hosting a free 90-minute UNBOUND call on Zoom.

Together, we will let ourselves feel the honest impact of this moment.
I will share a mythic framing, helping us orient to these times not as cosmic offense, but cosmic gift.
And we will hold one another in this space.

The future will be birthed by those of us willing to die for it.
If you are one of them, I’ll see you there.

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I want you to know who UNBOUND is for:

You are someone for whom the old world won’t work anymore.

Maybe you see the world irreversibly changing.
Maybe you yourself are changing in this way.

And you are so committed to living authentically
that you are willing to face the dissent.

UNBOUND is not just another 12-week program
where you show up,
get some fancy information,
and then go home basically the same.

It is a rite of passage.

It is a portal of initiation
where you are held,
where you are bound long enough
to feel your own depths.

Because there is something inside you waiting to wake up.

It has been bound for too long,
and it longs to live fully.
And you want to live with it.

We live in a culture that prizes answers—certainty.

Whenever there’s a crisis,
we desperately clamor for any certainty we can find,
even if that certainty is a lie.

The result of that habit
is the world we see crumbling around us right now.

Some of us will continue to cling to old certainties
until they are ripped from our hands.
And some of us have heard
the quiet howl of something more real within.

Those of us who heed that call
will be the ones to give birth to the new.

For within that call
are the seeds of a new world—
based not on certainty,
but on honesty, authenticity,
aliveness of heart.

Diane di Prima says it well,

there is no way out of a spiritual battle
there is no way you can avoid taking sides
there is no way you can not have a poetics
no matter what you do: plumber, baker, teacher

you do it in the consciousness of making
or not making your world

You are either involved in creating the new world,
or you are still feeding the violent impulses of the old.

If UNBOUND is for you,
you know the truth of these words.
You’ve felt the old way ending
and you don’t want to go back.

You would rather persevere through the mystery
to find what is most honest and true.

You know that to do so
requires both tenderness and courage.

And you are ready to embrace the responsibility of that.

You are ready to be held
in a community of others
who are also listening to the depths.

And you are ready to be held and bound
just long enough
that what has been hidden within you
can emerge.

For it is the unbound
who plant the seeds of the new world—
one that is more honest and free.

So if you’re ready
to show up with tender courage,
to be honest with yourself
and with the world—

if you are ready
to surrender to that which seeks to birth through you,

then UNBOUND was made for you.

True freedom is found
not by avoiding collapse,
but by allowing ourselves
to be reborn through it.

Reach out to me directly if you know this is for you.
Or read more about the structure of it here.

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I’ve wrestled with these demons, been wrestled by angels, to clarify for myself—what am I to do?

UNBOUND has arrived as that answer.

Most people use healing to become more comfortable inside a life that’s quietly killing them.

Most activists engage in political activism to avoid their own pain.

Both are half the equation and perpetuate this dying world.
The only true way forward is a marriage between the two.

UNBOUND is that way.

It’s a 12-week mythosomatic rite of passage for people who are ready to stop seeing themselves as victims of a collapsing world—and start living as leaders in the world that’s coming.

This isn’t about “feeling better.” It’s about becoming someone who can’t betray their purpose anymore.

Who UNBOUND Is For

UNBOUND is for you if:

• You feel the spiritual battle of this moment. You know you’re either feeding the culture that’s destroying the world or helping birth something new, and you want your inner work to be aligned with that.

• You’re in some kind of deep shift — a relationship ending, a health crisis, burnout, disillusionment with your work, or a vague but undeniable sense that “I cannot go back to who I was.”

• You are done using healing to keep your life basically the same. You know that real healing will disrupt your patterns, relationships, and politics.

• You’re willing to bring courage to your healing, not just gentleness. You’re available to be challenged, not coddled.

You don’t need the “right” spiritual language, politics, or background. What matters is that you feel, in your bones, that your life is not just yours alone—and you’re ready to start acting like it.

Who UNBOUND Is Not For

This container is not a fit if:

• You are looking for a “gentle, comfortable” process that won’t confront your avoidance.

• You primarily want symptom relief — to feel less anxious or less overwhelmed while keeping your life mostly the same.

• You want healing that stays inside the session room and doesn’t touch your relationships, work, or politics.

• You are in an active suicidal crisis or need acute clinical support. (I can help you find more appropriate resources, but Unbound is not that space.)

UNBOUND is a sacred, serious space. I’m not interested in helping you become better adjusted to a life that’s wrong for you.

What We Do Inside (Structure)

Over 12 weeks, we will meet for one 2-hour session each week in a small group container.

Inside those sessions, we will:

• Explore world events through mythic frameworks that help us contextualize and orient to this moment from empowerment, not despair.

• Use somatic work to track how your body has been organized around victimhood, appeasement, or collapse — and reorganize it around sovereignty, courage, and clear purpose.

• Work with dreams and imagination as direct messages from the deeper intelligence that’s trying to move you into your true role.

• Do shadow work to reclaim the power you’ve been unconsciously projecting outward.

• Enact concrete actions in your life each week (conversations, boundaries, creative acts, changes in work/activism) that embody who you are becoming.

This is not theoretical. Every week will involve both deep inner work and specific outer actions.

The Core Shift

By the end of UNBOUND, the goal is that you have:

• Stepped out of the identity of “someone life happens to” and into the identity of “someone the future depends on.”

• A felt, somatic sense of your particular place in the larger story — not a vague “purpose,” but a real role you can describe and act from.

• Made at least a few irreversible changes in your life that reflect your new alignment (in relationships, work, or how you show up in the world).

• A personal set of practices and rituals you can carry forward, so this isn’t just a 12-week high.

Logistics & Investment

• Format: 12 weeks, 2 hours/week, small group on Zoom.

• Start date: February 18th

• Investment: $2,000 (sliding scale available)

• Spots: Limited and by mutual fit only. I’m looking for a small group of people willing to treat this as a rite of passage, not a class.

How to Explore Joining

If you’re feeling the pull, here’s the next step:

1. Send me a message with the word “UNBOUND” (reply to this email/Substack, or reach out to me via any other path)

2. I’ll ask a few questions and we’ll have a short call to explore whether this is really your rite of passage, right now.

If it’s not the right fit or timing, I will tell you. This work is too important to fill the group with “maybes.”

Here, we are going to depth.

Subscribe now

(written with the help of AI)

Tomorrow I’ll be hosting a Substack live with a brilliant, heartfelt woman named .
Her work has touched my heart, moving me to tears more than once.

More than that—she’s grounded, empirical, intelligent.

She weaves together threads that are too often kept apart:
science and spirit,
healing and politics,
the head and the heart.

Perhaps most importantly, she speaks honestly of the messiness that comes with the healing path.

In a world when we’re pushed to performance—
Linnea keeps it real.

When Healing Gets Messy:
Presence, Performance, and the Power of Doing Nothing

Tomorrow, February 3rd, 9:00 am Pacific

As the world becomes more dangerous—
this realness keeps us sane.

If that resonates, I’d love for you to join us.

Join the call here

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It’s what is most real in you,
most abundant in you,
most personal,
most alive.

It’s where you are most sensitive.
And vulnerable.
And perhaps even most afraid.

It’s the place you keep to yourself much of the time.
The place you tuck away to get by.

This is the tender place
that cares so deeply,
and wishes to give it all.

I know you have this in you.
I know you know it too.

And I know how terrifying it can be to bring it forth.

In this time of global turmoil,
as fascism rises and suffering spreads,
it can feel like this tender heart-flame
isn’t important.

But it’s the most important thing of all.

This flame is the source of all music,
all dance, all prayer,
every act of love.

From this flame, people have sparked revolutions.
From this flame, broken hearts have been mended.
From this flame, whole worlds have been imagined into being.

This flame burns in you now.

DEEPEN is not a support group,
though it is supportive.

It is not a place to endlessly rehash the past.

It’s a place for you to embrace and honor
the beauty in your ache.

Every spiritual lineage I’ve studied returns to one truth:
what you seek is already within you.

The world is suffering.
I know what it’s like to feel lost and powerless—
to search desperately for answers outside yourself.

But like the salmon whose migration
feeds the land,

like the honeybee,
whose love for the flower allows plants to thrive,

like the lesser long-nosed bat
with tongue long enough to reach the base of the saguaro blossom
and in doing so allows the cactus to live,

so too do you carry something
made for,
inseparable from,
this world.

You won’t find it by looking outward.

It is within you, waiting to be found.

If you can find that,
feel that,
trust it deeply,
then you can do what is yours to do.

You cannot solve all the world’s problems.

But there is something only you can do.

It lives deep inside you
like a barely remembered dream.

But you can remember this place.

Our wounds are doorways.
Our pain is a path.

In DEEPEN, we follow that path inward—
to the place where beauty flows.

If you’re ready for that,
for yourself
and with others.

This is the place for you.

Talk to me if you know it is.

And if you’d like a small taste of this work—
especially if you’re feeling overwhelmed by these times—
join us for SOFTEN this Thursday.

A free gathering:
February 5th , 3:30 pm-5:00 pm Pacific

Register here to learn more.

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It began as quiet mutterings, muffled conversations.
No one would say it too loudly for fear of making it true.
But word spread quickly in the Standing Rock camp.
Soon enough, everyone heard.

Disbelief gave way to disorientation.
We were angry, lost, confused.

Some of us left jobs, traveled thousands of miles—
to be a part of something sacred.
To us, the elders' act felt like desecration—
like being taken out at the knees.

The elders never announced what their action meant.
And like many others, I didn’t ask.

All I knew is we were now without a center.

The sacred fire of Oceti Sakowin, was gone.

Within a day, some younger men lit a new sacred fire and carried on as if all was well.
Most of us were relieved. We wanted to continue.

But something had changed in the camp.
And it continued to change.

When I first arrived in late November, a vibrant spirit was alive.

The movement was growing. People had bonds.
But something else was growing too.

Trauma.
Anger.
Pain.

We were there as “Water Protectors.”
Signs reading Water is Life and Protectors, not Protestors were everywhere:
affirmations of who we believed ourselves to be.

At any moment, a person would shout Mni Wiconi!
The whole camp would respond.
Water is life.

We affirmed this to one another,
to ourselves,
to the river each morning as we processed there to pray.

Months later, the atmosphere had shifted.

Few of us prayed to the water.
We didn’t shout Water is Life.

At least not as often as Black snake killers! echoed through camp.

We had succumbed to the mentality of war.

I say this without judgment.
I was not separate from it.

Though I didn’t shout those words
I carried plenty of spite of my own.
I forgot to pray, too.

I have compassion for those who hardened most.
Many had been there far longer than I.
They had been shot with rubber bullets, tear gassed,
sprayed with fire hoses in the freezing night.

Some were physically wounded.
But the true wounds were psychological.
Our spirits were worn thin.

Slowly, almost invisibly, we lost ourselves.

Long before the state flooded our camp and burned our structures,
they had already won.

They won the moment we forgot we were protectors,
and joined in the logic of war.

I’ll pause here, because some of you are upset now.
Your hackles are raised,
expecting some naive call for passivity.

That’s not what this is.

There are times for battle.
Even times to wage war.

Most mornings, I wake before sunrise to train in hand-to-hand combat.
Not for health or brotherhood—
but to protect my people if the time comes.

I am not arguing for passivity.
I’m not saying to lay down our arms.

When the fight comes to our doorstep, we must be ready.

At Standing Rock, the war was at our doorstep.
Corporate interests were desecrating sacred land.
We were right to stand.

But there is a crucial, important difference between a protector and a protestor—
even when they’re both prepared to fight.

The difference is focus.
Intention.
Energy.

The protector keeps attention on the water.
The protestor notices the enemy above all else.

This was the power of Standing Rock in its early days.
I remember watching from home, feeling moved—
a whole movement rooted in prayer and in ceremony.

Where the focus wasn’t on winning,
but keeping the water safe.

This is why so many of us traveled from so far away,
why people came from all over the world.
We gave our lives, body and soul,
to something we knew was worth believing in.

I believe this was the intention of almost everyone there.

But unhealed trauma made us vulnerable.
Unmetabolized pain made us easy to control.

We gathered for actions with the word peaceful on our signs.
Yet before long—under armed glare or quiet instigation—
we were throwing rocks, hurling insults, faces red with rage,

unaware we had abandoned that sacred word.

Symbolically, we lost the moral high ground that gave us strength.
Worse, we lost our foundation—our spiritual strength.

The water.
The land.
The sacred nature of care.

This, I believe, is what the elders saw.

This is why they extinguished the fire.

Many of us blamed them for betraying the movement.
But we had betrayed the fire first.

We had forgotten how to tend it.
We stopped offering our prayers.

So the elders made visible what was already true:
the heart of the sacred had gone out.

Some will be angry with me for saying this.
Especially those who were there.

I speak without condemnation.
I was lost too.

It took me years to understand that the elders had not failed me—
it was I who failed them.

And yet, there is hope.

I write this not to condemn,
but to inspire another way.

The fight is not over.
But we must fight in a good way.

A way that includes the heart.
A way that includes healing.
A way that preserves love—
especially in the face of those who deny it.

Many ancient cultures understood this.
They held purification rites for warriors returning from battle—
to help them release the heat of war
and soften back into life.

They were bathed.
Fed sweet foods.
Surrounded by music and ritual.

They were helped to let go.

Because war wounds not only the body, but the soul.

We have been in that battle, you and I, for a long time.

If we are to be liberated, then we must heal.

For me, healing is a political and a spiritual act.
Through it, we reclaim our autonomy from fear and control.
Through it, we can imagine a better world.

DEEPEN was born from this understanding.
Freedom through the Heart of Collapse.

The old world is breaking apart.
People fight over the scraps.

Still, another world is possible.
One dreamed forth by those rooted in heart.

Like Gandhi.
Like Martin Luther King Jr.

A world shaped by those who stand firmly against injustice
without surrendering their humanity.

DEEPEN is a container for us to cultivate that strength together.

A place to soften.
To heal.
To remember why we fight.

Only from here can we create a world worth living in:
the world born from the love in our hearts.

To join us in that,
find out more about DEEPEN below.

DEEPEN

As well, we will hold SOFTEN again next week.
It’s a shorter, free gathering with very much the same intention.

February 5th, 3:30-5:00 pm Pacific.
Register here.

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I cried a lot as a child
and I was bullied for it.
The neighborhood kids would call me a crybaby and laugh.

I sought comfort from my mother.
She would apologize,
saying, “I’m sorry you’re like me.”
As if my sensitivity was something wrong.

But it’s not.

Through this sensitivity, I feel the world deeply:
the touch of the wind, the warmth of the sun.

But I didn’t know this for a long time.
I thought I was weak.
Not the world; hardened and cold.

I know better now.

Some still see my tenderness as weakness,
but this doesn’t bother me much anymore.

I’ve been held long enough by those who love and accept me
to recognize that my tenderness is a gift.

I’ve been met by loving eyes and caring hands
who’ve called my gentleness forth.

I’ve spent hundreds of hours in circle—
In this field of compassion, of love.
Here, I show my heart.

I’ve had people approach me
and thank me for my vulnerability—
for the ways that it helps them feel safe.

I want you to feel safe.

I want you to feel held and to know what I know.
That your tenderness is not weakness.
It’s the place where beauty lives.

In your tenderness is your care.
In your tenderness is your love.
In your tenderness is your courage to feel and be felt.
It is the deepest intimacy you can have.

Yet, this kind of
radical, tender courage.
Cannot be found on your own.

Its very nature rejects the false notion of the individual.
It brings us back into remembrance
of the intimate interdependence of life.

We can build a brighter world together, you and I.
But we have to start from here:

When we hold one another,
when we see one another,
here we discover our gifts.

I didn’t learn this by thinking my way there.
I learned it by being held.

I found this within intimate, loving circles,
like the one I’m inviting you to now.

It’s called DEEPEN: Freedom through the Heart of Collapse.
It’s an opportunity.
An experiment.
A prayer.

We come together in this way to see what might emerge.
We welcome each other’s tenderness
and the mysteries it holds.

In this world that asks us to be hard,
that asks us to hurry,
DEEPEN is an opportunity to move slowly,
to touch the intimate depths of ourselves,
and to see that in one another.

The pain you feel is not only pain.
It is love, asking to be held.

DEEPEN is not a solution for pain.
It is a welcoming of it.
An honoring of it.
A cherishing the beauty it carries.

When we stop hiding our tenderness,
and begin to hold one another well,
something quiet and powerful happens:
We begin to remember ourselves.

If you’re not seeking escape,
but a place where tenderness can breathe,
you’re welcome here.

We begin two weeks from today.

Find out more about DEEPEN

Until then—

One week from today, I’ll also be holding SOFTEN again:
a free imaginal journey into the arms of the Earth

It’s a simple place to rest.
To be met.
To remember.

You can read more about that here.

I hope to see you—
in whatever way feels right.

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It was so beautiful.

Before I knew it, I was singing:
A soft, wordless melody, as if to cradle these men with my voice
and honor the radiant beauty of their hearts.

We’ve been gathering this way for years now:
In a way few could even imagine.

Yet standing in that room, seeing the hearts of these men—
after hearing stories of loss, of terror, of ancient ancestral pain
this was the most sane thing we could do.

It is the most sane thing we can do.
Any of us.

I grieve even now for this world we’ve created—
where there are so few safe spaces to cry.
To be seen. To be held.

The world is on fire—loss lives in every heart—
yet in this world, we “keep it together”
or risk rejection, expulsion, or shame.

Is it any wonder we’re so sick?

I feel so grateful to have found “Grieving Man”:
this intimate circle of men who gather regularly in ritual
to tend to the ache of our hearts.

Join the Next Grieving Man 2/13

And it pains me how few men are here—how many still suffer in isolation.
That what we’re doing isn’t the norm.

I hope it will be.
For men and women, too.

If not for my friends and loved ones
who tend to my tenderness with such care
I would be callous, despairing, or lost:
alone in a dangerous world.

Instead, my tenderness is met with love
and what ails me helps me find hope.

There was one man, Rainer Baumorr, who shared a potent question over the weekend.
He is a storyteller, a bard, and has recently been dancing with the story of the Holy Grail.
He spoke of elements of the myth, which you can explore with him next month:

He told us how a boy’s failure to ask a certain question sent him on a dangerous journey across the land.
In the pivotal moment, he failed to ask the question of the wounded king:
“What ails you?”

How long have we failed to ask one another?
How long have I failed to ask you?

For years, this newsletter was filled with desperate attempts to make sense of things.
So lost was I in this way that I failed to make contact with you.

I’m sorry for this, my friend.
I didn’t know what I was doing.
My brothers have helped me. I’m finally ready to ask you this question now:

What ails you, my friend?
What ache do you carry in your heart?

I would meet you there—
with tenderness and care.

I will not try to fix you,
I will not run away,

If you long for this, you’re welcome here.
I’d love for you to schedule a call.

For this week only, I’m offering free heart-tending calls.
These are simple, spacious conversations—no fixing, no agenda.
Here, you share what has been ailing you
and I will listen with an open heart.

Schedule the free call here

It may not change everything, but for a moment at least,
you don’t have to be alone.

I care what you’re experiencing.
To hear your ache is medicine for me, too.
For in the chaos of the world, what better medicine is there
than finding one another’s hearts?

Soon, I’ll share details about a larger container called DEEPEN—
where we might explore our tenderness together.

But in the meantime, you can contact me.
It would be an honor to witness your heart.

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