Life is swirling for me lately. Churning and tumbling and rumbling and buzzing.
I've made close friends with change over the years. Years of upheavals, of depression/anxiety troughs, of peak experiences and their aftermaths. I've learned the great extent to which people can meaningfully change. I've learned to love even the changes—to a sense of self, to a sense of purpose, to a sense of security–that feel like utter deaths, yet transform into rebirths. I've learned the promise of adaptation as a fractal law.
In the four days leading up to this post, what I thought would be the content for this newsletter has shifted at least six times.
You see, like any good woodland witch myth: when she make friends with certain spirits (like Change), they tend to take up residence in her home and stalk and flank her with their tricks at every turn!
Window into My World
Here is but a partial list of what is happening in my life:
- Developing a "church co-op" of sorts, called Denver Resilience Hub, on a rapid timeline, that builds on my 10 years' experience as a co-op developer, and can serve as an incubator for many regenerative visions and dreams—including my own!!!
- Partnering with the transcendent priestess Jenna of Venture Beyond to potentially serve some of their clients (while they are booked through September), toward ➡️ a future healers/facilitators collective called Rooted Expansion
- Trying to sort out where I'll get sufficient income for my needs, as I am still forced to take on gigs while trying to sustain focus on Fractal Praxis and the Denver Resilience Hub (both of which are entrepreneurial endeavors)
- Navigating vital, consequential transitions with a loved one who is moving to Boulder from Denver on Aug 1
- Trying to finish up the Fractal Praxis branding process with The Guiding Style
- My friend Maria Talero starting to help me get organized in the realm of Fractal Praxis theory writing and publishing
- Trying to train up in embodied somatic facilitation work with Radical Love Movement
- Feeling squeezed to have the Aug 1 (Lughnasadh) event ready, eek!
In other words... Just any old summer embodying that HOT on-overdrive spirit! 🔥🔥🔥
Being Still In the Slurry
Sometimes it's best to just sit in the slog and slurry of it all. When things are in the process of being digested and reorganized, like the "goo" phase of a caterpillar turning into a butterfly... sometimes all that's needed for is to be present with it.
This takes training. There are several excellent methods like meditation and somatic work that train one's capacity to be with what is, to process what is, and, importantly, to not give into the impulses to react and flail (or worse) under the pressure of uncomfortable sensations or experiences.
Perhaps things are swirling around you in your environment, apart from your will. Perhaps others are in their personal swirls, whose whirlwind edges threatens to drag you into their stew. Or it could very well feel like YOU are the one being digested. Your insides are turning out, your upsides are turning down, and your old reliable maps of meaning are no longer holding, but rather shredding at the seams. Forcing you to let the world in in new raw ways, kind of like when our standard sensory information processing is shook up or disturbed when we ingest psychedelics.
If we don't identify with the storm, then we can stand in it. Feeling all of its sensations with equanimity and curiosity. Letting it be without numbness, without freezing, fighting OR fleeing. Accepting that this is a time in which things are sorting themselves out, and that surely, it shall change.
You can remain with the slurry, the chaotic whirlies, in a soft state of attention, non-reactive, absorbed. Saturated. Both water words.
When the time is ripe for new forms, then you are present, too. Bearing witness and carried on the waves of change, rather than tumbled in its treacherous surf.
Maintaining a holistic mind, one that refuses to reduce or react and instead stays with all the mess as wholes, staying saturated through systemic turbulence, can yield ecstatic clarity, holistic breakthroughs. Because you didn't marginalize any part, you are included in the revelations.
If you have faith in self-organizing systems, so much presence and so much transformation is possible.
Spinning the Central Golden Threads, and Sloughing Off the Chaff
The slurry, or cyclone, is authentic to what my life looks like lately—and, subsequently, it's what my newsletters may feel like. 🌀🌀🌀
I'm no longer resisting this, no longer chiding myself that I should be further along in my sifted, streamlined, structured storytelling. I'm in the slurry. And you're here with me, dear reader!
Still, I wanted to show and tell you how things are changing for the better. Including getting help to get more organized for what I put out here and on FractalPraxis.com. I am seeking and getting help to publish more coherent works, deep teachings that can be applied... and, to serve more clients with holistic-mind-based counseling.
I am also exceedingly excited to keep my attention and momentum going on the new organization forming out of an old church in Denver, at W 29th Ave. and Julian St. I look forward to sharing stimulating news from that project in future newsletters. Meanwhile, I will stay as immersed as I can in this sprint to build it out over the next couple months.
I have also decided to release the plans for the July 31/August 1 Lughnasadh/Lammas event. Cancelled! There are many factors for why this is right. The one that matters most is, while in the thick of my swamp and not having clarity–I am just intuiting that it is right. So this holiday shall this year be spun off and discarded, in favor of the center holding. I will instead engage in a private, solo ceremony on these days.
Fans and followers of the Celtic holiday ritual spaces: Please hold the date of September 22 for Fall Equinox (Mabon).
I keep asking and I keep yielding to what's asked of me, with ever-refining discernment.
My Ask
Consider becoming a paid subscriber to support ongoing community ritual spaces.
Though I've decided to take a breather on an Aug 1 community event (letting it die into a private ritual instead), I am conserving and allocating my resources toward a bigger Fall Equinox event. So please plan for that, and help support it!
My Gift
Here's an unedited snatch of a "channeled" poem I wrote recently for a planned Summer 2022 seasonal zine (a "sea-zine!") I am calling Love Rules and it's all about deeper teachings & preachings on Love.
I hope to develop this piece into something more robust, perhaps an epic poem. For now, enjoy!
***
Here’s the thing about love.
When we are attracted to
being in the presence of one another,
we will go round and round
and dare fight our way through to
meeting them again.
These circuits are our life blood
pumping pleasure into the ether
sending a prayer or a scent or a song
on the air
like ecstatic feathers
post a tussle
we build heart like we build muscle
somatic tetherings of pleasurings like
“hope I can feel that again”
yet it’s dangerous out here
for loss of love’s touch defines fear
and we’re never going to get
to a future of endearment
and not commandeered-ment
unless we make our own flesh the sacrament
and regurgitate our childhood commandments
making whole new culture out of enduring
fabrics of being together, being with
and being here together well.
We can make water again
flow from the hills.
We can make sure the wells are filled again
and our cups overfloweth.
“There is a seat at our table
if you would choose to join us…”
🌞