Tug
At my heart
A lump

So soft
Like sod

a land far away
—ancient

Tug
So softly loosened
Now to
Flow
Like water
Un–expression
never heard
Breath
Lingering a moment
Gently
Hovering
There
With reverence
And care

Tug
pulls
tendrils
Deep from depths beyond

Un — knowing
Un — doing
Re — membering
A golden glow
Knowing
no need
nor under — standing

Belonging
my being alone

Grandmother drifted deeper into her heart and felt the quiet words whispering through the pines and through her soul. She entered the dreaming world where no limits could be found. Her heart bloomed open as she breathed in rhythm with her soul. Love merging her mind within the rhythm of her essence, she became aware of a signal that was not her own… 

Hello!

And just like that, a shift happened and I am somehow back on track. Creative expression flowing through me rapidly, feeling like floating in the ocean as a new tide comes in refreshing the existing tide. From this side of the shift it feels like another turn on the spiral of creating or a new territory to be discovered.

Truth: there is no, one and done. Creating is a continuous excavation of an order that organizes itself through my hands. It unfolds in its own way and time; you only keep going and show up, honing the truest version of your voice in the moment.

From Yoda: “There is no try; only do or do not.” Yes, please do!

When you begin to create anything, a journey begins. One, fraught with feelings of aliveness and adventure — twists and turns, ups and downs, loss, failure and success. The creative journey is a journey you take with your “self” finding yourself and your courage to allow your creative authority to flow.

Theme for this Moon Cycle

Existence, Authority and Creating

This month’s new moon comes with a solar eclipse. What shall we find when we lift the veil just enough to catch a glimpse of what lies in the deep, dark inner world of our creative authority?

Do we really need to know who we are to become the author of our own story — to share our experiences from our unique point of view?

“That’s because I come from America, which has to be the classic, ultimate, then-they-broke-the-mold incubator of not knowing who you are until you find out. I have never really found out and I expect what remains of my life to be one long search party for the final me.” - Seymour Krim, For My Brothers and Sisters in the Failure Business

Let’s seize this new moon and solar eclipse as a time to create a ceremonial, ritual space to connect with the creative authority within and see what is revealed.

New Moon Reflections

I am because I am or because you told me I am.

I had a dream last night. I was seeing myself in another life — a woman in a yurt, dressed in fur. There in the center was a Shaman/tribal leader, guiding us in a chant which turned out to be a healing ceremony for the whole tribe. The Shaman/leader was my husband. I was so proud of his strength, his power and his ability to lead — I loved him so much it was palpable in my body.

I woke and thought about existence and who we really are. I thought about the roles we play and grow through our lifetimes. And then: Can I be anyone? Or can I only be the product of my environment, circumstances, family, upbringing and my beliefs about them? Is connecting with the authority within about having permission to be the authority or know I am in authority? Is it for only me?

I remember early on in my journey a question my therapist had for me. It was one that showed me how I thought of myself and revealed my belief around self-existence. She asked me: Do you exist because you say so or because you were told you exist? She gave me an example from her own experience as a child thinking that she made the sun rise when she woke in the morning. That was a novel idea that had never occurred to me. In my experience the sun rose and I participated — did I exist? The deeper answer to her question was a revelation: I am here because my father said so. How strange to think that. Am I alone in this thought?

I am, that I am, that I am.

I AM.

How does one become the author and authority in their own life, creating from a belief that their existence is because someone else says so? Am I in your dream, with you dreaming me as a character in your story? Are you in my dream? Both. And?

Can we break through the boundaries of definition — the one’s we were given or the one’s we choose and create beyond them? Something new, rich and deep.

Body Centered

The right and the left of it all.

I was feeling into my body this morning, self-treating — opening the physical while creating space for energy to flow. My awareness opening to feel how my body was holding tension — comparing the left to the right — a vast distance of experience.

A life-time of movement based on a right-side dominant pattern. A life-time of feeling exhaustion throughout while the right side pushed through everything and anything — the quiet holding in the left—silently bracing while I the operator paid no mind and kept striving, seeking, performing to my own breaking point.

I continued to push because, “Hey, isn’t this what we are supposed to do?”

Creating gets me to slow down and feel something more than pushing to get something out. I feel the pressure to churn out work, an invisible task-master just over me tapping her foot and saying, “COME ON! Get your work done. There’s deadlines and what about what people think and…”

That’s where the silence comes. It is uncomfortable. She doesn’t know. She only knows the pain she/we experienced in the past for not getting the work done. Or getting the work done and being wrong about it.

So much safer to not go too deep. To just get the work out - done is better than perfect. But what if it was never about perfect?

When I wait at that barrier, I can feel the task-master only wants to be safe. When I stay with me —the feelings of anxiety, the distractions — I feel them, I move with them and I go deeper into my own creative genius — author-ity.

Stay
Long past your desire
Evaporates 
And your eyes burn
From the stare

Stay while
Your dull brain 
Sleeps
And awakens to something 
more

Stay long enough
To see
Past 
The everyday
Ordinary
no one sees
anymore

Stay even when 
You think you need to go
When everything in your body
Says run

Stay

So long that every urge 
Disappears
Into vapor
So fine
It becomes air to fill your lungs

Stay until 
You think that 
You can't do anymore
Any better
Than anyone else
Ever 
Before
When there’s nothing new 
Under the sun

When repetition 
Comes in 
Stay and 
Stay some more 

Stay 
For the surprise
That is just 
There

Always there
Never gone
Not disappeared
Waiting for 
You
To stay

Movement with the Moon

Let’s create!

Reflection:

Let’s take our body with us to create on a deeper level. No one can ever feel what you feel, nor can they see the world or have the experiences that you do. You, me — we are each a unique window on the world. You create and experience the world in a way that has never ever been known to anyone else but you.

If you could share your view of the world around you, what would you share?

Create a limited amount of time to just stay. Stay past the need to do the dishes, clean the andirons, or scroll.

Open up a field by lighting a candle, or open your altar or mesa and just commune with yourself.

Feel. Feel. Feel. And flow.

Use the above as prompts for:

• A creative mark-making exploration, using color and shape

• An intuitive channeled writing or poetry session

• A reflection with motion — moving your body in ways that expresses energy or emotion — dancing and playing music

• or all of the above!

Upcoming in the Virtual Space of the Lodge

The virtual space is in quietude while summer breaks abound!

Connection with Spirit

Larissa and I are taking a summer break – the first one ever:) She is taking the time to immerse herself fully into her healing journey, while I am exploring the edge and doing some traveling. We will be back in September, you can catch any missed episodes here:

Connection With Spirt Replays

Into the Myst of Creation (paid subscription)

Formerly A Dreaming Orchard

There is a ripening in the creative field of myst as we follow the young Grandmother Red Hawk and her cohort of travelers. Communing in a magical circle of trees, gathered around a fire, they attune to the mystery and await the king and story keeper. (A new installment is in the works — please stay tuned)

New Moon Ceremony

New Moon Ceremony is on hiatus while I travel. I will be opening the space once again in September. Paid subscribers receive unlimited access to these online ceremonial events. Whether you are a paid subscriber or not all are welcome!

The New Moon is a special time here at the Cosmic Dreaming Lodge. It is a time for ceremony, a time for introspection and a time for gathering in community to heal, dream and create in the energy of the new moon.

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Inside the Cosmic Dreaming Lodge

1:1 Support

Sometimes we need a witness to our creative process, sometimes we need support feeling the way there. Whatever you need to deepen your relationship with your creative genius, I can help. Intuitive, guidance and healing to help you find your way back to your original self.

Introductory sessions or longer terms available.

I am interested in learning more

In-person Retreats

Imagine…the red rock landscape, beautiful sunlit spaces, magical healing vortexes, time to pause, time for reflection, time for healing, and time to open to your creative authority.

A soft and safe space where you can connect to your creative and most imaginative self. Explore through the body in an ancestral and ceremonial space that will support and hold you as you create from the depths of your body and reveal what your soul desires.

Heal Dream Create retreats are designed and tailored specifically for you and your dreams, hopes, wishes and desires. Here YOU are first and here you will be supported and encouraged to open to the truth of who you are.

Tell me more

Hello!

I began working on this newsletter you are reading a week or more before the New Moon on July 14. But I never posted it. Try as I might, I couldn’t seem to get it done. Not for a lack of time, nor a lack of skill or any lack of anything.

I began as I always do: feeling. The energy and atmosphere. I felt the threshold — darkness and beginnings, along with my own need to rest and to create. I was beginning to see an irony: pushing myself to complete to make the New Moon deadline. I thought, “How absurd.”

I wrote copious amounts of slop. Deep and thoughtful insights that all seemed to have dead ends. Endless rewrites. Force never works, it only creates an equal amount of resistance. And as my self-imposed New Moon deadline approached, I felt more and more: REST. So I did.

The New Moon came and went; so too did the Full Moon.

I usually release a new installment of Into the Myst of Creation (formerly A Dreaming Orchard) on the Full Moon. For some reason, which I have learned not to question, the rhythm is shifting. And I haven’t the foggiest where this will all go, but I do feel a shift. I am following the same guidance I give to my clients: to find and follow their own rhythm.

Before I let you sit in the uncomfortable feelings of what may seem like confession and failure, let me share: this is exactly what happens as rhythm emerges.

Theme for this Moon Cycle

Rest. Feel. Find your Rhythm.

I could leave it right there as the above says it all. My mentor and wise teacher John F. Barnes would say: I could do this entire seminar without words; but we love words so here we go:

Rest.

I struggled with this. As I was writing this, I could feel a profound need for rest. Exhaustion every time I sat down to write. Part of me wanted to push through and just get this done: “I have a deadline. The New Moon isn’t going to wait for me to feel like writing.” I could feel my body, sleepy-tired, needing rest.

I heard and listened, not knowing where any of this was going. I wanted to find a way to honor both voices, the one that wants only work and the one that wants only rest.

The pusher in me needed to fall in line within a greater system. My feelings about missing a deadline too needed to be felt and released and not used as the driver of a behavior that no longer works. A rhythm of creativity and rest, writing and rest, painting and rest. Even if each activity may have been 30 minutes at a time, I worked and rested.

Feel.

Not only feeling, acknowledging what I feel and acting in accordance with it. I would love to tell you how easy. But you know I’d be lying.

It’s a practice, not a skill. I am not sure if it ever becomes a skill. I’ll let you know, if it happens. I found trust to be a big part of this practice — trusting my high self to guide me through the jungle of emotions and unconscious actions.

Feeling exhaustion and needing to rest is a state of being in a human body — we get tired. I am finding it’s kinda insane to continue pushing past the need to rest — the work definitely suffers and so do I.

Find your Rhythm.

If I could give you the secret formula to this, I would. I don’t have it. It’s something I am continually finding (I hope I am demonstrating this now) it goes back to feel.

Rhythm is not static or predictive or scheduled- it seems at times chaotic, flowing, lively, and silent. Imagine the flow of a river: meandering, circling back, rushing forward rapidly, soft, silky and silent.

And maybe letting go of giving a F#@ck about what anyone says, and that includes the little beasts that occupy the space between the ears.

You are always right on time within your own rhythm.

New Moon Reflections

Movement contains the pause

The heart: contract, relax, pause, contract. Breathe in, pause, breathe out, pause.

Rest. Movement. Rest.

The sun and earth in their dance of light and dark — seeming to pause before they dance again in the opposite direction. Music and dance, sound and motion creating a rhythm; rest is always present.

“The pendulum swing manifests in everything the measure of the swing to the right is the measure of the swing to the left; rhythm compensates.” -The Kybalion

What might we experience when we allow rest to become part of our rhythm?

Body Centered

Nothing exists in isolation.

I sat on my deck gazing up into the night sky. Flashes here and there; rhythmic, melodic and mesmerizing; like eavesdropping on an ancient and ongoing conversation. Watching, becoming more present, I drifted deeper to muse.

‘What if the body is of our soul’s creation?’ I wondered. I had heard this somewhere. The stars reminding me of something old that turned over in my mind to something new.

Thinking differently about the relationship between soul and body — a living intelligence that created an organic complex of systems — working and communicating toward life. All for the purpose of Soul. The Soul’s mission, choice, growth, learning and creating. I wonder again about resting and dreaming, the work of the imagination needing time to rest and dream.

Following the rhythm of love and being in curiosity, where will love take you? Allow your body to feel love emanating from the center out – how does love move?

Movement with the Moon

Let’s create!

The following questions or observational prompts can be used for:

• a creative mark-making exploration, using color or shape

• an intuitive channeled writing or poetry session

• A reflective movement with the parts of yourself that need to express through movement

• or all of the above!

Questions and Observations

Allow time for you:) – five minutes or more

-Breathe - finding a rhythm that feels good and easy.

-Connect with your heart and sink in deeper.

-Feel and explore the space of your heart – what do you sense there? Is there a color, a sound, a feel you can name?

If I am love, what does love do?

In the Virtual Space of the Lodge

Connection with Spirit

Larissa and I are taking a summer break – the first one ever:) She is taking the time to immerse herself fully into her healing journey, while I am exploring the edge and doing some traveling. We will be back in September, you can catch any missed episodes here:

Connection With Spirt Replays

Into the Myst of Creation (paid subscription)

Formerly A Dreaming Orchard

In this moon’s installment we are meeting Atuhwambeh. A young Grandmother Red Hawk and her cohort of travelers find their way to commune in a magical circle of trees. Gathered around the fire, awaiting the king and story keeper. (A new installment is in the works — please stay tuned)

Inside the Cosmic Dreaming Lodge

1:1 Support

Thresholds are real! And when you find you are standing at the space of knowing you need to let go, but are wanting to hold on – that space between who you were and who you are becoming – you may just need a safe space to see yourself and be witnessed. Or just a kind voice pointing you to the place you knew was there, but somehow just couldn’t get.

Through intuitive guidance, creative exploration, and healing practices, I can help. Together we listen to your own knowing, reconnect with your creative spirit, and uncover what’s ready to emerge. Whether you are navigating a life transition, seeking relief from physical or emotional pain, or longing to express yourself more fully, these sessions offer a space to heal, dream, and create.

Available as an introductory session or longer-term packages

I am interested in learning more

In-person 1:1 Retreats

Imagine the red rock landscape, beautiful sunlit spaces, magical healing vortexes, space to breathe and space for you. A time to pause with time for reflection, time for healing, and time to open to your purpose and gifts.

Heal, Dream, Create retreats are designed and tailored specifically for you – your dreams, hopes, wishes and desires. A deeper experience in a compact span of time in the powerful vortex energy of Sedona. Through ritual practice, we create a deeper relationship with yourself, your body, the earth and the cosmos. The Mesa and the land become your stable ground as you step into a fuller version of you. Here YOU are first, and here you will be supported and encouraged to open to the truth of who you are.

New Moon Ceremony

The New Moon is a special time here at the Cosmic Dreaming Lodge. It is a time for ceremony, a time for introspection and a time for gathering in community to heal, dream and create in the energy of the new moon.

Whether you are a paid subscriber or not all are welcome!

The New Moon Ceremony is on pause through the summer. They will resume in September.

Share

No matter how you show up, I thank you deeply.

With Love and Cosmic Dreaming,

Deborah

This month’s installment comes in like a roar of fire! Grandmother and her guides, Hosho and Dardenelle have found themselves at the circle of pines. We are about to go deeper into the Myst of Creation…

Read more

I was an artist (still) then found the body was calling. Art had become a threshold, which asked me to cross. Once over that threshold I found myself in a cavernous tunnel system of endless possibilities and places to discover.

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The discovery through art led me into the quantum – energy forms matter – this was huge and is the undercurrent flowing in all of my work. I was heading deeper into the realms of the imaginal dream world that I remembered from my childhood. The same places that became dangerous for me in this world at that time, because of the restrictions of the linear rules of our educational system. There is a time and a season for everything – ripening can be quick or slow allowing for the journey.

The deep pain and sorrow, always running in the background of my mind. A river of shadow like the River Styx. I must cross it to get to the promised land of my fertile imagination.

I discovered how much of my body was holding on and holding back creative flow. Not just the flow that I use to create images, but the flow of life. Blocking the flow to conform to expectations and societal norms, coupled with a desire to connect and belong, created so much pain in my body. This was not the only factor, but it sure was a big one. And I am not even sure if I have appreciated that discovery until right now, in this moment, as I write these words.

I wonder to myself now, how much of our pain comes from this. The habit that has now become just part of how we live: holding back, holding in, holding on. Gripping so tightly that our body responds by tightening and creating restrictions in how we move and how we perceive the world. Then the stories we tell about that…

The pain we feel becomes the place we speak from – the language of protection creating further distance and separation – not only from what we would love to have as an experience in our lives but from each other. We create buffers for protection from the wounds, tell stories about them, make them real and lived, and we experience further suffering because of how alone we feel. It is a downward spiral asking us to descend.

This descent is the juice. Not fuel for my creativity: creativity itself is the fuel. No, the juice is the shadow. It holds an enticement. I feel myself going down there now, and I am wanting to come out. Up for air and light and love and freedom.

But the river calls and I must cross.

This weekend I am teaching part one of a five-part Apprenticeship series – my very first hoop. I have one brave student and that is perfect and as it is. The lineage doesn’t care or have a rule around how many people are gathered. For even two, the teacher and the student is plenty for a hoop.

I will never be done exploring, growing, learning, discovering. It just comes with the territory of creating. There is a richness of experiences to be had when we enter the shadow realm with the unseen helping spirits, animal allies and guardians of Ayni ( I - nee: sacred reciprocity or exchange).

This proclivity to continue to journey in these realms is a journey of remembering in a world that has forgotten, that makes it so easy to forget. The Pachakuti Mesa Tradition is one way to enter and cross the threshold to remember.

As I prepare to teach, A Call to Heal, I am crossing over a different threshold. With the help of my spirit friend ant, who bit me four times – once on the left hand, twice on the left foot and once on the right foot – and who is showing me something about burdens that I get to lay down, that are not mine and never were mine to carry. My curiosity piques and I allow the lineage to work with me as I prepare

I am teacher and student of this medicine path of the Pachakuti, which comes from a lineage that is between 4-5,000 years old. I will go through the initiations again, deepening and releasing as it is my self-selected path to do so. It’s not for everyone – the lineage guides me, supports me and inspires me as it teaches. The learning doesn’t end because I arrived at an intersection of station: that of student to teacher. The teacher is always the student.

With Love and Cosmic Dreaming,

Deborah

Visit the Cosmic Dreaming Lodge website to learn more about the Pachakuti Mesa, me and all of the creative and healing experiences offered.

I am so happy that you are here and reading this. I have been sitting on the edge of so many things here in the Lodge and it feels good to release them and know that there is someone here to receive.

Creating can, at times, be like living in a hollow place - like a spacious cavern, the voice floating into the void, and there is only the echo of the work coming through you. Feeling this can be lonely and at the same time I remember something my teacher in art school said to us: “Art needs to be seen in order to be art and fulfill its purpose as art.”

And then, there is the two-edged sword of creating: wanting to remain in the cave as you push your edge; and grappling with letting your dangerous and reckless edge-pushing self be seen. It is an unsafe endeavor to the part that likes comfort and control. Often she feels like she’s playing on the edge of a steep cliff where there is no forgiveness if you get it wrong – tumbling head over tail in a free-fall into the abyss. Sometimes it works, and it doesn’t, you land on your face – a crumpled and embarrassed mess and hope that there is some grace out there. And then, there are times you land on your feet, completely unscathed and no worse for the wear. Only growth, and a beaming sense of pride.

And then there is, for me at least– the perfectionist. The part that likes the spit-shine and polish. But this is the part that squeezes the life out of the piece as it is trying to create a feeling of safety. It is a part that cannot be ignored and won’t be. It loves to cast shadows of doubt, “no one will get this… Who on earth do you think you are? Yeah, that was interesting but you better not let them see… total and utter crap…”

We each learn from our experiences that the world is, or can be a harsh place –unforgiving. And at the same time there are those whom we meet along the way that show us something different, graceful and something like love.

Theme for this Moon Cycle

This moon cycle is bringing us to the threshold of something. The place where we get to choose how we will be moving and creating in our lives.

The energy, while feeling wild and creative, can also feel like a massive hurricane moving through the atmosphere. A destructive force of nature that when felt, can make us want to turn inward, batten down the hatches and wait it out.

There is no wrong way. How you create at this time is the focus.

What are you desiring to experience in your life? Now is the time to feel the space of your heart and delight in entertaining your dreams.

It is not the time to figure it all out –ruminating and planning is keeping you stuck. Its the time of letting go of control – allow your wild creative nature to guide you.

And something to remember: you are not alone even when there is no person in the room with you- you have a team, a higher and wiser self that is always working on levels that we just can not comprehend.

New Moon Reflections

So, now that we have found this threshold. Let’s take full advantage of it!

Imagine the edge.

What is it for you? Is it like the edge of a cliff? or the edge where the land meets the sea?

I particularly like the sea, I can float and allow all the feelings of all the fear of letting go of control, perfection, and visibility leave me and flow into the vastness of the cosmic sea. I can feel the support of Mama Cocha (Mother Ocean) buoying me – free from gravity, direction and pure love.

Body Centered

As we drop into timeless, effortless motion, what arises within?

Using our creative and imaginative faculties and our body – let’s first dream and then feel how the body reacts.

You know how when you are watching a movie and there is a scene that gets your heart pumping and your breathing gets rapid? Yeah? Your system is processing an image through your body. A felt-sense experience manufactured by a movie that you are fully immersed in.

We do this with our imagination. When you think about something – like, standing on a stage and maybe singing. The longer you stay with the dream of it, the more you will feel your body’s reaction to that possible event.

Just like that, let’s play.

You may feel desire as a longing in your heart for a certain experience and the fear that comes through the body. Maybe that’s the feeling that shuts you down and keeps you in the feeling of longing, and you keep creating more things to keep longing over.

But, standing at the threshold, we are going to move over the line and allow ourselves to feel the uncomfortable as we hold ourselves through it, and feel the support of the energy of the cosmos supporting us.

It is a walk of blind faith and trust in all that is unknown and unexperienced and only felt with one clearing breath, with each single step.

A poem from the Threshold

Movement with the Moon

Let it flow and move through creating!

Use the following questions as prompts for:

• a creative mark-making exploration, using color or shape

• an intuitive channeled writing or poetry session

• A reflective movement with the parts of yourself that need to express through moving the body

• or all of the above!

Reflective Question: don’t think about it – FEEL it!

Using your imagination see and feel yourself standing on the edge. Ask: What does it feel like in my body? Where do I feel it? What does my body want to do?

Allow the feel in the body to express through you creatively with the suggestions above. And remember: it’s a metaphorical edge;)

Upcoming in the Virtual Space of the Lodge

Connection with Spirit

Larissa and I are taking a summer break – the first one ever:) She is taking the time to immerse herself fully into her healing journey, while I am exploring the edge and doing some traveling. We will be back in September, you can catch any missed episodes here:

Connection With Spirt Replays

The Dreaming Orchard is now Into the Myst of Creation (paid subscription)

The continuing unfolding story of the guides of the Cosmic Dreaming Lodge. Who are the guides, you ask? find out more HERE or become a paid subscriber and follow the journey of Christina as she meets each of the guides as she heals, dreams, expands her creativity and heals her imagination.

Subscribe now

New Moon Ceremony

The New Moon is a special time here at the Cosmic Dreaming Lodge. It is a time for ceremony, a time for introspection and a time for gathering in community to heal, dream and create in the energy of the new moon.

Each new moon holds a particular flavor – an energy unique to the constantly changing cosmos. Together we connect with the cosmic flow and open to the energy to heal, dream and create what’s next for ourselves.

The New Moon Ceremony is part of a paid subscription. Free subscribers and guests are also welcome to join by registering for the individual event.

Our next New Moon gathering will be held on July 9th. Details and registration information will be shared as the moon wanes.

Share

Inside the Cosmic Dreaming Lodge

1:1 Support

Thresholds are real! And when you find you are standing at the space of knowing you need to let go, but are wanting to hold on – that space between who you were and who you are becoming – you may just need a safe space to see yourself and be witnessed. Or just a kind voice pointing you to the place you knew was there, but somehow just couldn’t get.

Through intuitive guidance, creative exploration, and healing practices, I can help. Together we listen to your own knowing, reconnect with your creative spirit, and uncover what’s ready to emerge. Whether you are navigating a life transition, seeking relief from physical or emotional pain, or longing to express yourself more fully, these sessions offer a space to heal, dream, and create.

Available as an introductory session or longer term packages

I am interested in learning more

In-person 1:1 Retreats

Imagine the red rock landscape, beautiful sunlit spaces, magical healing vortexes, space to breathe and space for you. A time to pause with time for reflection, time for healing, and time to open to your purpose and gifts.

Heal, Dream, Create retreats are designed and tailored specifically for you – your dreams, hopes, wishes and desires. A deeper experience in a compact span of time in the powerful vortex energy of Sedona. Through ritual practice, we create a deeper relationship with yourself, your body, the earth and the cosmos. The Mesa and the land become your stable ground as you step into a fuller version of you. Here YOU are first, and here you will be supported and encouraged to open to the truth of who you are.

Tell me more

Read more

I sit and feel the unknown, a place I have been before, yet this time there is something different. In the past I pushed back hard, fear rising within like a horse rearing up and refusing to move. Looping in my mind and thinking I needed direction from a guide or a voice more knowing than my own. And here I am again and it’s different, I am different.

I think about value and worthiness and all the measures that we have that define our sense of self and I think, “does the homeless person on the street hold less value than the one who currently resides in the White House? Or does the stay-at-home mom have less value than the woman who tries to do it all or the one who chooses career over family?”

I think not, yet we all measure, don’t we?

When we measure, we too are being measured. There’s the outside measure - the subtle sense of: this is your place, where you belong based on society’s norm. Then there is the programmed measure, the one you hold deeply within the unconscious mind. This is the program that informs every choice, generates fear and creates the tension within you when you choose to do something outside of that measure.

There’s the feeling that once again brings me back to the threshold.

I feel what is uncomfortable rise within me. I have a choice. I can see I’m looping around the thought of my light shining outward - being visible, my system shuddering at the thought, the knowing that it’s time. It is ok to wait and not know. There is no rush to understand. I can step out of the loop and wait.

I feel a deep sorrow that to belong I must reduce my light, my value. But what if that is only what I learned, and it is not true. What if what is true is this: my light is a beacon.

In my MFR practice, I learned to wait at the barrier – a place of tension that feels like, if I push there will be push back, if I let go there is no change, but if I wait… softening happens. Softening in the space of waiting, like the water wearing down a stone. Over time, the stone surely wears.

The question of value isn’t based on comparison. My value is inherent. Maybe the threshold here is about seeing the value in slowing down, hearing your own knowing, waiting for yourself, your essence and letting your own light shine.

With Love and Cosmic Dreaming,

Deborah

Join me Thursday, June 11th at 4:00 pacific for:

As we enter the dreaming space of the approaching new moon, we arrive at the threshold. The place where old looping patterns meet the vast expanse of creation.

This gathering is to come here to this place where the known becomes the unknown. Where we bless the past and choose a new way forward within ourselves. Softening into the light that we are.

If you’re already a paid member of this publication, there is no additional cost - you will receive registration instructions at the very end of this post.

If you’re not a paid member, you’re still very welcome to join us. You can register for this single ceremony for $17.

Register Here

These monthly gatherings are offered on a consistent basis, each one themed with the energy of the time we are in. Becoming a paid subscriber opens the door to these monthly gatherings and includes you in the deeper layers of the work we do at the Cosmic Dreaming Lodge.

Subscribe now

There’s no right way to enter, only what feels aligned for you.

Join me on Thursday, June 11, 2026 at 4:00 pm Pacific
(5:00 pm Mountain, 6:00 pm Central, 7:00 pm Eastern)

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These are the words that came in with the the guide Atuhwambeh. (pictured below)

I was meditating and using a medicine called Hapé. (Hapé is a sacred Amazonian snuff traditionally used in ceremony to support grounding, clearing, prayer, and deepened presence.) This particular blend was made with propolis, a protective resin made by bees.

Atuhwambeh came in very clear and immediate. I could see him in my mind’s eye and knew I had to capture his image on paper. He came in with a message for me, that was a deepening of a memory. An awakening from a dream which stays and changes something deep inside – sometimes you know exactly what it is and it can be named and sometimes it is just this feeling that stays with you. For me it is the latter.

Creative expansion is like this: a spiral-like movement, a subtle change over time, just as water wears down a stone. Skills, abilities and insights amplify while the mystery of the unknown and yet to be discovered path remains.

In our last Full Moon Edition of A Dreaming Orchard, a younger version of Grandmother Red Hawk meets Dardenelle. He is quite a trickster and serves as a mirror for Grandmother – lightening the mood and offering clarity through his odd behavior.

We are coming to a threshold in the story. Dardenelle is to lead Grandmother through the woods to a mystery where eventually we will meet Atuhwambeh.

And this is where it changed for me as the creator of this story. Or should I say, more aptly, as the channel through which this story emerges. As I connected with the guides, I realized that Atuhwambeh wanted to emerge in the story by creating a change in the Dreaming Orchard.

The Orchard began last year, right around this time. It was a way to tell the story of the guides, within the rhythm of the moon cycles and I found working this way was reflective of me finding my own creative rhythm.

Over the past year, my relationship with my creative and spiritual ritual practice came into a deeper alignment and a purposeful rhythm emerged. I learned that holding a ceremony on the new moon helped me enter the dreaming space to write the story of the guides. Releasing a new passage and practice on the Full Moon mirrored the ripening of the fruit born from the seed planted on the new moon.

As my rhythm revealed itself, small changes became bigger changes and I began offering the New Moon Ceremony for paid subscribers while also opening the space to those who wanted to go a little deeper before making a financial commitment to the publication.

I have found through this process that the winding and spiral path of creating deepens when grounded in a rhythm that is as natural as breathing the air. And feels so much different than pushing endlessly to get this creation out in the world.

We ended last month’s passage with these words from Dardenelle:
“Young miss, I beg, pray we dance through the forest to our destination? Let us make merry on our path singing with the birds, whistling with the wind and shining like the sun. A journey to the deep – what we will find, what we will see, what we will encounter is a mystery…shall we?”

Yes, let us enter the mystery.

We are now moving from A Dreaming Orchard and Into the Myst of Creation…

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If you missed us, please join us in replay by clicking the above video.

Thank you to everyone who tuned into the live! And be sure to keep an eye out for my next live video in June.

With Love and Cosmic Dreaming,

Deborah

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The Dreaming Lodge is a living field of healing medicine where I do my creative work and work with those who come to the lodge for healing and deepening their creative work in the world. This space is a work of art born from love of creativity, creation and play in the dreaming field of the imagination.

I hope to release a new volume each new moon where I will share what is coming through the Lodge to support you, dear reader, in your healing, creativity and remembering.

These volumes may include reflections on the current new moon themes, body-centered healing practices, introspective creative practices, what is moving through the Lodge, and invitations to upcoming gatherings, conversations and in-person experiences.

Theme for this Moon Cycle

New life like a breath of fresh air flowing into a home that has been closed down, boarded up and empty.

The boards are off, the windows open and light is entering the space. The dust is blowing out with the wind and clarity is beginning to bloom. The earth energies and elements support our growth in this new moon as we connect with our sense of value and worth.

New Moon Reflections

When any pattern comes up for healing, I notice the experiences I am having, who is showing up in my life, what I am feeling, and what story is present. I may feel a certain familiar agitation, resistance, tension, or even anger.

This is where my curiosity kicks in. I feel what is familiar and ask myself, “Is this really how it is or am I just making it look that way?

We never work on something once, make it go away and then we’re good. So I remember to let that voice that says, “I already did this!” coexist with the other parts that want to expand into the new space waiting for me. Just like nature we move and expand in spirals and patterns.

Valuing your self, your work, your contribution is not about comparison or competition. However this is where we may get triggered in our sense of value.

Have you ever noticed when you feel envious or even jealous of others when you see them doing something would love to do? Or maybe you are doing it, but you compare yourself to them and judge yourself as less than or not enough?

Instead of making yourself wrong- get curious about that envy or jealousy – what is your system telling you?

Simply noticing your own feelings can move you out of our head and away from self-judgement and into your heart and compassion.

Can you move yourself deeper into your heart and feel a longing? Maybe for an experience you wish to have or a way of living and being that seems to delight you?

What if you could imagine yourself, just for this moment, doing it or being it?

Body Centered

Self-esteem is what powers the action we take in the world. It influences how much energy, confidence, permission and safety we feel when expressing ourselves, taking risks, speaking up or moving toward what we desire. When our nervous system perceives safety, we are often more able to act, create and connect. When it perceives threat, even unconsciously, our capacity to move forward can contract.

What I find fascinating when I see self-esteem through the perspective of the body is how the energetics, the wiring and movement systems intertwine and work in concert with one another – operating on command from patterned beliefs which operate in the background unconsciously. It’s actually quite a brilliant protective system, but can become problematic when we are operating out of an old patterns.

When our solar plexus picks up a threat, either from the outer world or the story we’re telling about the outer world, the enteric nervous system comes on line and sends a signal through the system that something is a possible threat. Our get up and go muscles - diaphragm, abdominals and legs activate. We are in a fear state - all hands on deck! Our breathing and heart rate increase, our body either wants to fight, run, or ball up into a fetal position, curling up and closing us down into a freeze. This makes creative thinking and confident presence impossible.

Even though our body may want to fight, flee or freeze, we have learned that we can’t just get up and run when we feel we need to, nor can we fall to the floor, curl up in a ball, and suck our thumb. We are civilized beings after all, and this is not acceptable.

To get along in the world, we learned to tune out, numb out, brace and make like everything is F-I-N-E, fine.

Meditation, slowing down to breathe, and self-inquiry are some tools we can use in the moment- maybe you have a list of tools you can use to help you move through more challenging times in life. It’s all about remembering to use them!

Movement with the Moon

Let’s create!

Use the following questions as prompts for:

• a creative mark-making exploration, using color or shape

• an intuitive channeled writing or poetry session

• A reflective movement with the parts of yourself that need to express through movement

• or all of the above!

Questions for reflection:

• Where I’m not fully seeing my value, knowing my self-worth?

• What is the evidence presenting to me in my relationships and situations with the outer world?

Upcoming in the Virtual Space of the Lodge

Connection with Spirit

Join me Monday, May 18th, at 12:30 pm Pacific, 1:30 pm Mountain

This month, Larissa and I will be chatting about overwhelm! Social media and well, media in general. Not only for those of us producing content, but the overwhelm for all of us as consumers.

We are talking about digital overload:

• The way we do connection as a culture through social channels, Tik Tok, Facebook, Instagram, Substack,etc. is how we find “our people” and be found by “our people”.

• Burnout is a systemic issue that we can use as a catalyst for a necessary shift from constant production to a more balanced, sustainable rhythm.

• Returning to ‘word of mouth,’ building a local network, working the energetics – all these ways of connecting prior to the digital take over are still viable and a lot more nourishing.

As always, we love to hear your thoughts and love, love love when you share via the chat. It makes for such an engaging experience for all. Also, if you just love to listen in while working on a project, we love that too. However you show up, thank you!

Join Us Here!

[RE]Imagine

Join me as I have re-imagined [RE]Imagine!

We will be LIVE on Substack this Wednesday, May 20th at 11:30 am, Pacific/ 2:30 pm Eastern.

This month’s guest is Jamie McGee of the Southern Mystic.

Jamie is host to The Southern Mystic Podcast (formerly Scheduling Fate), a consulting astrologer, and author of 22 published young adult novels.

Jamie weaves cosmic rhythms with grounded wisdom, helping others better understand timing, trust their own inner knowing, and navigate life’s transitions with more clarity. Beyond her work, she is a mother, grandmother, horse lover, and appreciator of honest conversations beneath wide open skies.

Stay tuned for ways to join our LIVE conversation

Inside the Cosmic Dreaming Lodge

Here are just a few offerings happening at the Cosmic Dreaming Lodge in Sedona, Arizona

Pachakuti Mesa Tradition 5 Part Apprenticeship

A year-long, 5 week-end, deep dive into the medicine ways of this Andean Cosmology. This apprenticeship series offers participants instruction in the creation and cultivation of the Mesa, and initiations to heal our relationship with Pachamama, the unseen nature spirits and remember ourselves.

Held in the beauty of Sedona, we will be traveling to sacred vortex sites during this apprenticeship to practice what we learn and to enhance our ceremonial skills.

We begin on June 19th, space is still available- reach out to me via email for further details. Deborah.epstein.23@gmail.com

1:1 Support

Virtual intuitive guidance and healing is what these sessions are all about!

Introductory sessions or longer terms available.

I am interested in learning more

In-person Retreats

Imagine, the red rock landscape, beautiful sunlit spaces, magical healing vortexes, time to pause, time for reflection, time for healing, and time to open to your purpose and gifts.

Heal Dream Create retreats are designed and tailored specifically for you and your dreams, hopes, wishes and desires. Here YOU are first and here you will be supported and encouraged to open to the truth of who you are.

Tell me more

The Dreaming Orchard (paid subscription)

The Dreaming Orchard is the space for the slow and meandering tale of the Guides of the Cosmic Dreaming Lodge. This creative project in conjunction with my healing practice and ceremonial Mesa practice began in 2020 and has slowly evolved over the years.

We are just about a year into this journey and we have met a few of the Guides through our main character Christina. Each month offers a new passage on the path of inner truth and wisdom with the help of these benevolent guides. Included in each Full Moon Chapter is a creative and ceremonial practice that aligns with our journey and relates to the energy of the Full moon.

Become a paid subscriber and enter the journey of remembering…

Subscribe now

New Moon Ceremony

The New Moon is a special time here at the Cosmic Dreaming Lodge. It is a time for ceremony, a time for introspection and a time for gathering in community to heal, dream and create in the energy of the new moon.

Whether you are a paid subscriber or not all are welcome!
Stay tuned for details on how to join us for the next New Moon Ceremony coming up on June 11th.

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I am not sure where this little essay is going. What I do know is what I am feeling and what I am expressing has been building within me as I watch the current state of affairs in the mainstream media. Anger, disgust…feelings so intense that I have to use my voice and write about it.

There is so much happening now that is offensive. Not only to women or any specific group, but all forms of life who breathe air and need water to live. We can no longer afford to segregate where one group of sentients can claim a greater offense –WE ALL are affected.

No matter what you believe or how you affiliate – what we’re collectively risking is our voice – the loss thereof.

Some groups can argue that they/we never had a voice. We always have/had a voice, we forgot, or it got suppressed to the point that, in order to maintain a level of harmony or life, we had to acquiesce to appease the outer authority - fear of death for using our voice is a real risk!

I may be right or wrong, it’s not about that for me. It’s about using my voice to express my thoughts of what I am experiencing in the macro and micro cosm of a world we each experience.

You see, there is no one way to look at it, or experience it and I think the biggest message I hope to convey is that your voice matters, your expression matters, your way of seeing things matters and it is NEVER about being right.

It is never that, yet here we are in the midst of this circus and that is exactly what is up! This way is right and that way is wrong. And then the pattern of battling to win comes.

How do we create freedom within a world-view that wants to dominate, sway the masses to their side using fear, lies and half-truths. How can we even know the extent of what is really happening when there is so much distortion and biases.

We can’t.

And yet, we can tune into our inner senses, our inner creative authority. This is sovereignty – an inner freedom of expression we can bring outwardly. If we don’t stand in that, we will surely lose it.

What got me on this thought stream turned stream of consciousness essay, was a post I saw from a fellow MFR therapist who showed a comparison of what MFR is to Craniosacral Therapy. It was more than a comparison, it was why MFR is better than. It was a competitive slam against one beautiful form of bodywork to make another one seem better.

This is what I am talking about: I see this pattern everywhere – a microcosm of a macrocosm. We are constantly bombarded with why you should choose this thing over that thing; this one is better because that one is not.

I have been an MFR therapist for just about 20 years now. I have been an instructor for the founder and developer, I worked in his clinic and still do the work to this day. I love the work – it is wonderful, deep, work. And… I have taken a few classes in Craniosacral Therapy among other forms of therapeutic work.

Becoming a therapist was a journey. I began my healing work with art, then Reiki, then Theta Healing, massage, Polarity Therapy, Ryze… I have studied with don Oscar Miro-Quesada, studied the work of Robert Moss, Caroline Myss, Dr. Joe Dispenza, Lee Harris, Paul Selig… the list goes on and there is benefit in it all. I continue learning and deepening because nothing is static. All is in flux as we collectively transform.

I blend all that I have been exposed to with creative expression, MFR and the use of ceremony with the Pachakuti Mesa. This only succinctly communicates all that I do – it is not the full picture of who I am. I can’t help but not express and blend all of what I have been exposed to. Therapeutic work is an art, and like art all that we are leaks through the work. We can not help but bring ourselves.

All that I have been exposed to, healed through, realized, expressed…all these things, make up the uniqueness available to those who come to the Cosmic Dreaming Lodge. It is a journey they take to unravel their inner creative authority and voice and to be supporting in the healing they need.

What is best for you, for your healing is up to you. It is your journey and it begins with a direction – an intention.

There are many amazing practitioners doing an amazing variety of healing work, and it is all good! If it frees you up, empowers you, lifts you to find your own voice and encourages you to be your own best authority, I am all for it!

Join Me on the New Moon in May : RELEASE

There is a new moon coming and I’ll be holding a live ceremonial gathering. This is a ceremonial space to pause, listen, and connect with your inner creative authority and hear your own unique voice.

This is a space to find what is good, what you wish to express, what is rising to the surface – and RELEASE.

If you’re already a paid member of this publication, there is no additional cost - you will receive registration instructions in a separate email.

If you’re not a paid member, you’re still very welcome to join us. You can register for this single ceremony for $17.

I will be offering these monthly gatherings on a consistent basis, each one themed with the energy of the time we are in. Becoming a paid subscriber opens the door to these monthly gatherings and includes you in the deeper layers of the work we do at the Cosmic Dreaming Lodge.

Subscribe now

There’s no right way to enter, only what feels aligned for you.

Join me on Thursday, May 14, 2026 at 4:00 pm Pacific
(5:00 pm Mountain, 6:00 pm Central, 7:00 pm Eastern)

To join this gathering as a one-time participant:

Please Register Here

If you are a paid subscriber, this gathering is already included in your paid subscription.
You’ll receive registration details in your inbox soon.

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When I’m on the edge, trying out something new, it feels exciting and at the same time I want to feel safe. It is a push-pull internally. When I feel this way, I sometimes want to push through it, or breathe through it, but sometimes like now, I have to move into something else. Like writing this to you.

When I know it’s time to step aside, I debate and feel: I could keep working – see what happens – feeling my body, this time she says, “no.” I can dive into writing as I am doing now - body says, “yes” on this one. I could start another piece or work on one I have going - “nope.” I feel like sharing this as it feels just a bit different, something new coming through and it is related to the painting but more.

I feel this deeper, somehow. I sit with myself as I am writing, eyes closed, fingers racing across the keyboard as I try to find the words to describe this feeling and here it comes: I am breaking through something, creatively and in my life. It is a result of all the work I do in ceremony, the intentions I set for myself – wishes and desires working on me and shifting my mind.

My system feels fear and excitement. All the work of transformation, transforming me feels uncomfortable while my mind searches for the need to feel comfortable. The saboteur rises and wants to shut it down. It’s an edge, that if I didn’t know better, would make me want to quit.

I started writing this because maybe you feel this way sometimes – the desire to create change and then feeling the icky and messy middle and then the wanting to quit. I would hate to know that you have stopped creating because what activated in you is the – “who do I think I am” or “I suck” or any other self-talk that ends you and your creativity, leaving you with these feelings of defeat and a need to quit.

Fact is, all of these feelings are normal. Each one of us feels this differently, yet it’s the same. Since we are prone to forgetting while in the messy middle, I thought I would remind you:

You don’t suck. You are in the midst of a transformation.

Just feel what you feel and let it pass and then you will feel something else. Did you know that if you allow the feelings to simply move, your brain moves on after about 90 seconds?! Yeah. Have a listen to Jill Bolte Taylor:

When I step away and then come back, I always feel differently and see things with clear eyes, I breathe and open to the flow, I make choices that bring out or enhance what I am actually trying to say or better yet what the piece is trying to say. Maybe this is my systems sneaky/not so sneaky way of getting me to rest:)

I’m doing more new things and you’re invited!

I am hosting a New Moon Ceremony on Zoom from the Cosmic Dreaming Lodge. This will be something that I hope to continue on a monthly basis – each New Moon.

One of the things I love to do other than write, paint and create is to open my Mesa, connect with the guides of the lodge, and receive the medicine of the field that I tend. It’s even more fun when I have folks here to partake in the medicine; either online or in-person. It is such a great joy to share, kinda like when you make a delicious meal and you just want others to experience all that deliciousness – this is that.

There are two ways you can join- one is to become a paid subscriber or purchase a one time only ticket (links below). By subscribing you will receive all current and new chapters of my Full Moon offering: A Dreaming Orchard. Each month takes us deeper into the story of the guides of the Cosmic Dreaming Lodge and every Full Moon chapter contains a ritual practice that is channeled for that month’s Full Moon energy. These practices are meant to support healing and deepening the imagination and creativity in our lives.

And now…each month we will meet on Zoom, on the New Moon, I will open the field of the Mesa in the Cosmic Dreaming Lodge so we can heal, dream, create and celebrate together. Each month will carry a theme that is congruent with the energy of that month’s New Moon. I am super excited and hope you will join!

This New Moon gathering is on:

Thursday, April 16, 2026

@ 4:00 - 5:30 pm, Pacific (time zone converter)

Please choose an option below to register. If you are a paid subscriber you are already included in circle, no need to register, you will receive an email with the log in details.

Register here for one time only for $17.00

Register Here

Or… if you think this whole thing sounds amazing and you want to be a part of this each month, you can become a subscriber and be included automatically. (The subscription price is $8.00/month or $80.00/year.)

Subscribe now

If you feel like you are on the edge of change, want to create a change, or the nudge to do something new… creatively, personally, or spiritually, this is a space to slow down, listen, and reconnect with your inner rhythm. This is where you can gently explore healing, dreaming, and creating through guided journey and reflection.

No prerequisites, no prior experiences to join – you are welcome exactly as you are.

With Love and Cosmic Dreaming,

Deborah

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When I feel myself going down the familiar path of chastisement because I fell away from a practice, I remind myself that what matters is I brought myself back. Leaning into compassion, instead of punishment – this simple redirection is a way to create trust for myself.

Life can sometimes pull us away from doing the things we love, whether it’s writing, creating visual art, a spiritual practice, exercise, anything that is nourishing to you, and makes you feel good, and that you love. Allowing the release of self-judgement and being easy feels so much better than making oneself wrong.

I know we all learned through punishment, how to stay on the straight and narrow path. But maybe this is where the resistance lies. If you love something, and it makes you feel good when you do it, I wouldn’t think you’d need to be punished for not doing it. Wouldn’t the punishment be in, the not doing it?

What I have learned through my own era of self-beat up is I will tend to fall away even more – avoiding the creative space altogether. After all, who wants to show up for something when there’s some sort of punishment involved?

I have learned through the practice of compassionate wisdom that it’s ok, even necessary at times to “fall away." It seems that taking a breather from the work allows distance and that distance can be just the thing that is required, if you feel stuck.

Introspect, feel, return…

Take a moment with me and imagine a time when you fell away. Feel your body when you enter the cycle of judgement, then guilt, then lack (not enough) and then avoidance. What do you notice in your breath? Did it become shorter, more shallow? What about your body, did it tighten or clench?

Now, let’s shift the story and imagine that falling away was a choice to instead step away. (Give it what ever reason you want or give it no reason at all.) See yourself, feel yourself choosing to skip your practice. What do you feel? Can you feel a return to power because you have choice?

Resting is part of the creative process. Stepping away can be part of productivity when it is allowed, by you. Especially when you remember that you have the power to return any time you wish.

Embrace the absence, feel the empty space where you used to create or do other practices you love and ask yourself, do you feel like playing today?

With Love and Cosmic Dreaming,

Deborah

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P.S.
Wouldn’t it feel good, even great to lighten up a bit? What might you create when you can hold compassion and grace for yourself?

Discover how supportive a 1:1 introductory healing session can be – online, in the Cosmic Dreaming Lodge.

Find out more & Book

Let’s take a journey – a descent into the darkness of the new moon, the ending of one cycle and beginning of the next, as the light of Mother Moon expresses her dark side to us.

Let’s travel to the depths of our heart. What is there in the dark of the moon? I see a light – a single point that expands and leads me to a remembering of abundance and lack. I sense an infinity of movement creating a perceptual experience of feeling. And then I vision a world in abundance.

I feel the world now, as it is – I see lack and abundance in separation. Some experience the world in lack, while others express in abundance. I wonder how this can be, when there is so much available to all?

I see within me the stories I live when I think I am not enough, or I don’t have enough. I see this illusion when I move my system to feel abundance - in the space before form, in the energy of consciousness.

When I look at the world in all its many expressions, I see how we collectively create from a perception of limited supply – generating fear and triggering survival. Then there is abundance – an unlimited supply, enough for all. I wonder: how do we move a collective expression of lack to see that there is enough for all?

There is belief and perception – the drivers of how we move through the world and create. For example, when choosing to ignore the feeling in the heart to create something incredible, yet scary-good, there may be a belief that informs the choice not to follow it: “I am not good enough, I don’t know enough, I am not enough.” It is a belief of lack in action.

There is a part of me that is guiding me as I write this. I feel my higher self teaching my ego self of these things so that ego can let go and allow the flow of harmony and abundance.

When ego gets scared and begins its survival pattern, I notice it and slow down; I breathe, and allow the ego to acclimate. This allows a transition of the nervous system’s survival pattern into a new possibility of creating a lived experience – different from what it knows. It is how I move myself from concept to embodiment, bringing this wisdom into form.

I feel the altar. The wisdom of the lineage guiding me, as I asked to have an experience to learn about abundance and lack – to heal my mind and the way it perceives the world. Ayni, the organizing principle of sacred reciprocity, flows into my mind and heart and reminds me how Pachamama creates.

As I was out walking this morning, I was thinking of these things. How might I write of this? The depth of feelings, as I contemplate this, surfaces and it seems more than I could ever put into words. I reflect on the work I have been doing with the abundance altar I created about a year ago, and it feels related.

And then an image came. Walking in the cool morning air, feeling the sun on my face, my mind drifted, and a scene from the movie Shallow Hal emerged. I hadn’t seen that movie in a long time. The scene that came to mind was the one where Tony Robbins meets Hal in an elevator. Hal shares his troubles, and Tony offers him a gift. Hal accepts, and Tony works with him to change his perception – to see women as only beautiful, their essence. Hal then sees Rosemary, played by Gwyneth Paltrow and sees her as her essence– he sees only her beauty even though we, as the audience, see something entirely different.

“This is what I am trying to say!” I thought. All neatly summed up in a scene from a movie – thank you, imagination!

It is about changing our perception of abundance - not pretending lack does not exist, but seeing everything with a new set of eyes, with an awareness of wholeness. A feeling of abundance – seeing it while experiencing it in a relational yes and heart awareness.

Its a practice that is like a dance – working with the unseen of this lineage that holds the teaching of Ayni. A teaching that is as subtle as water that smooths the rocks in a river. Perceiving and creating subtle changes of how we each see, feel and experience abundance, how we choose from that becomes the medicine that heals the whole.

With Love and Cosmic Dreaming,

Deborah

P.S.
Ready for some deep work with the land, the lineage and your body/mind? Check out the in-person or online programs at the Cosmic Dreaming Lodge

.

I want to feel
more!

More deeply?

No.

Everything…

A shimmer like an emergent dream began to form in her mind. She shifted her body and found herself fully inside the Orchard once again. She closed her eyes, felt the cool grass beneath her and the solid trunk of the tree she was leaning against supporting her. In this moment she could feel the love of the earth holding her in all of her forms of expression. The grass, the trees, the sky and the shadows with dappled bits of sunlight moving with the breeze. Another breath deep and shuddery, the kind of breath that resets the entire system. She allowed for relaxation to wrap her up like a soft, warm blanket as she melted into the moment.

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“Paradigms don’t shift because they’re disproven — they shift because the old one can no longer hold what people are actually experiencing. Until then, anomalies are ignored, ridiculed, or fenced off as “unscientific.” -Thomas Kuhn

It is okay to stop and be in silence.

Silence right now especially seems like the wrong way to go in a world that is filled with horrific events. It is honestly hard to take it in and at the same time be silent.

Silence isn’t running away from the reality of the chaos we find ourselves in. Silence is where the truth emerges.

Meeting anger with anger, aggression with aggression is what we know to do. If we are silent, we are somehow giving permission for the violence to continue. If we are loud, raising our voices to be heard, no one seems to hear us screaming, “Stop!”

The injustice is maddening and fills me with a rage that is deep, Kali-like and raw. And then there is silence.

Is becoming part of the chaos, shouting just as loud to be heard while becoming lost in the noise, the answer to collective healing?

Or is the answer to go within, quiet our own inner shouting, to find the whisper within?

It is a paradox.

Silence.

Wisdom keepers of our planet teach us that the more we go inward and create peace, harmony and love, the more we will create those states in the outer world. When we can allow ourselves to become quiet and feel what is inside and shouting, we can begin to rewire our system to be in peace.

Finding silence in the chaos is where the healing begins; it is where wisdom can flow. Creativity, dreaming and imagination flourish in the silent space between each breath.

Right now, our attention is being pulled by the outer world – look over here at this horror, look over here for this solution, here is the way to be, here is what to do. The wisdom we each hold within is what will transform the whole. We need to pay attention and not hide from it, but it is easy to become overwhelmed and look the other way.

I have this recurring vision. In my vision, I see myself in a room filled with voices shouting and clamoring until all the noise becomes a hum. When I stay with the hum, it becomes silence. It is then I hear a whisper.

I realize it’s me that is whispering – the inner me.

On the inside, I am the one whispering in the room full of noise, and I am the noise too. I am shouting to hook my own attention just as the wiser part is waiting patiently for the hum to become silence. It is an unconscious yet felt battle, from the one deep inside – the still small, voice – whispering for me to turn in and see that the noise is also within.

My system, your system, is wired for survival – we all run on Dunkin’ – it’s more than a slogan. Our collective systems are wired to the larger system of competition over limited supplies, not abundance. We create our lives as if we are running from the tiger.

And even when we name it, know it, shout it - it’s our wiring that rules the show – unconsciously.

We can shout all day, but the system is in shutdown and can’t hear it anyway.

I had a felt-sense awareness today – I finally saw the part of me that is still afraid, still striving, still pushing even when I rest. And I also heard a whisper of truth.

Quietly, patiently waiting for me to truly rest as I write, create and share. The wise part of me who always knew that rest isn’t only a physical activity; it’s a way of being within the system that has been wired to run.

And then I saw this feeling ripple out from me, and I felt a deep longing. So I asked the longing, “What do you want me to know?”

She said, “I wish you were here.”

“I am.” I said. “Now.”

I wish you, dear reader, find your way here too.

Imagine the world. Each of us has stopped running, pushing and striving internally. Having learned from the place of our wise body and high self to easefully, restfully, joyfully do what we love; from love.

With Love and Cosmic Dreaming,

Deborah

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P.S.
Join me tomorrow for Connection with Spirit!
Larissa Russell and I will be LIVE at 12:30 pm pacific; 1:30pm mountain; 2:30 pm central; 3:30 pm eastern.

Click here to join us tomorrow!

(I’ll be emailing a reminder with the link tomorrow just before the live)

In our conversation last week we were chatting about the differences between silence that heals and the collective trauma of silence from fear.

Healthy silence is where we go within to find the wisdom and power to turn towards what is wrong, disempowering and evil to speak with personal authority, empower one another and say NO!

It’s a conversation that can open up the wounds of being shushed and finally heal the fear of speaking up. It’s time we all turn towards it and stand.

A mystery

Dark purple
Magic
Tucked behind closed doors

A wonder of perplexity
Intricacy

The weave of which
Reveals the truth and beauty of the world

Layers
Dimensions
Worlds

And dreams

By those
For those
Who play in the dark

In the dance between living and dreaming there is a space; a place to pause before the action. Sometimes we use this space to create clarity in the message of our dreaming or to figure out what the was the meaning of the dream.

Oftentimes in that space, however, it becomes the place of debate.

Should I or shouldn’t I?
We doubt.
We question.
We talk ourselves out of this dream.
We judge it, or/and make it wrong.

And then retreat back to the safety of the same, mundane, pain of not creating. And not living from our dream.

We employ the status quo to keep us safe from harm against the wild and crazy, who-do-I-think-I-am? dream. When deep in our hearts, we long to be living it fully, abundantly with reckless abandon – if only.

What if we stayed in the pause? What might we discover?

Last Month’s Passage

Christina descended into the dreaming field of her past. Once there, she felt the emotions of the memories of pain and sorrow that she had been holding. These were memories she had not truly felt. It was these unfelt emotions that had been guiding her path.

It is here we move with her as she broadens the field and realizes her strength in the pause.

Read more

In this episode we explore non-violence toward self, the wisdom of restraint, and the shift from pushing to resourcing. We reflect on how authenticity, discernment, and gentleness create more sustainable transformation than intensity ever could.

This wide-ranging conversation weaves together yoga philosophy, healing practice, creative life, and energetic field awareness. We explore Ahimsa as restraint rather than effort, the difference between sympathy and presence, separation and connection, and how resourcing (not pushing) supports real healing.

Join us in this reflective episode on authenticity, compassion, and reimagining how we live and work. We share stories from our practice, workshops and personal experience of illness and embodiment work. We unpack the difference between intensity and sustainability, people-pleasing and discernment, rest and resourcing. We invite you to reimagine what it means to care for yourself with inner authority and compassion.

You can find Claire Here:

Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/cstherapies23

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cstherapies23/?hl=en

Web: https://cstherapies.co.uk/

You can find Deborah Here:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/deb.epstein.5/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/deborahepstein/?hl=en

Web: cosmicdreaminglodge.com

Learn more about Deborah’s Five-Part, year-long apprenticeship in the sacred art of the Pachakuti Mesa Tradition from the Heart of the Healer Mystery School HERE

We begin the journey in the beautiful and sacred red rocks of Sedona, Arizona on March 26, 2026!