men my gramma didn't warn me about

I just went for a walk.  I know it’s dark out.  I needed fresh air. So I tucked my keys in my fist... (all females are nodding right now, they know this maneuver) and walked anyway.  My gramma taught me that.  She told me to be alert, look around, check the backseat of my car before I get in it, keep my car doors locked when I was in the car... She told me not to accept drinks from strangers, or to ever leave my drink unattended.  (Thus I have never allowed someone to buy me a drink) 

She warned me about strangers, that men are dangerous, and that only bad girls get raped (and unspoken implication- molested)    She taught me this when Boise was still a safe small rural town, when the mall was a cow field, when we had just a handful of stoplights. 

It made me kind of paranoid honestly, always wondering what predators could be lurking in the dark hall in the mall at night, or walking across campus, or getting the mail after dark, or carrying groceries at night. 

Know what she didn’t warn me about?  The men who aren’t strangers.  She didn’t warn me about drunk step dads.  Or the boy in college who would trick me, lure me down the hall to show me something, push me into a dark room and force me up against a wall, groping and kissing me.  Or bosses who would give more sales to the girls who showed cleavage.  Or give raises to girls that would make out or sleep with them.  She didn’t warn me about how to navigate an abusive partner.  I don’t often sleep with keys in my fist...  Never even considered that.

It could have been much much worse than it was.  I never told her anything.  Even though I trusted her, and as a woman, she might have understood.  I didn’t want her to think I was a bad girl, or that I hadn’t been alert enough, or that I was naive and gullible. 

I don’t own a tv, but I know enough of what’s going on in the world.  This isn’t just about men harming women, and women being afraid to speak, then getting judged when the speak.  The whole paradigm needs to shift.  Men AND women need to feel safe from attack.  Men AND women need to feel safe speaking out if they are violated. 

I’m sad all this is stirred up, not just for me, but for many.  The old ways need to be done.  I’m grateful people are talking, getting fired up, having conversations.  This is how we will speak our truth, hear each other, and figure out better ways to be humans.

tree forest meditation

Come with me to the forest.  The forest is thick, lush, green.  The sun dapples through the leaves, breeze rustles the branches.  We lean our backs against a tree, sitting on soft grass. We see mushrooms growing, wildflowers, dragonflies, butterflies around us.  There is a stream flowing close by, the water meanders and we can hear it trickling.  Upstream is a waterfall, we can hear it's crash in the distance.

The ground is warm, loamy, alive, vibrant.  It begins to rain lightly.  Rain drops plop on our skin, hair, face, bodies.  The rain trickles off our skin and into our skin, and through our bodies, inside.  The rain becomes a stream inside us, flowing through our veins, refreshing warm water washing away old memories, emotions, wounds, until we are pure.  Our skin is translucent, we are just streams of flowing water over rocks and pebbles.

The rain lessens and stops, our skin is warm and drying in the sun.  Sunlight fills our bodies until the sun is inside our bellies, glowing out of us from the inside.  Hot sunlight flickers and radiates inside, it feels good and we laugh.  The flames tickle and burn away what our bodies no longer need, illness, pain, aging... until we are pure light, and only ashes remain of the old pains.

A breeze picks up and blows through, through our hair, our skin, through our bodies.  It blows the ashes away until we are clean and pure and new again.

We feel free, and marvel at our skin in the sun.  We wiggle our toes in the dirt.  It feels so good, we stretch our toes deeper into the soil until little vines and tree roots grow out between our toes, our toes become roots.  The vines lace around our toes and feet, it feels so alive and tingly.  Our roots reach deeper, stronger, and stretch deep down to the nutrients in the soil, deep until we can feel the heartbeat pulse of earth.  Ah yes, the heartbeat of Gaia, and our heartbeat matches the thrum pulse, we are one with the earth, with the sun, with each other.  We become trees too, in the forest. 

Sunlight filters through our leafy hair, our branches are strong and fluid, graceful, flowing.  We are alive, pulsing with aliveness.  Grass grows over our toes, moss creeps up between the bark, butterflies and birds flicker and twitter in our leafy branch hair.  We are one.  This space is home, it always exists, waiting for us to return.  

Now we are leaning against the tree again.  We touch the ground with our fingers and feel the heartbeat still, and feel it in the trees around us. We are nourished and connected.  

click below for my live recorded tree forest meditation:

https://youtu.be/mAsPHn15LuI

star child receives Reiki

I received Reiki from a friend this week.  I was moved to tears by his Reiki.  It was exactly what I wish for, gentle, safe, and powerful.  He is doing more than just Reiki for sure, and it's so much like my Reiki, it felt like home.  His touch is like starlight?  It's hard to explain in words, so I found pics.

He took me/allowed me to journey to the same places as when I do holotropic breathwork and spirit journeying.  The places that are expansive, more than myself, where everything is inside out, and stars are cells and my body is made of galaxies and nebulas. I've never before experienced that everything-ness during touch and definitely not with other people.  So in a way it gave me hope that I'm not the only one here like that, a lonely one on the planet.  There was so much light coming in, it felt like my body could open and breathe.  Out of body, openness that I don't often feel with my body, especially with touch.  I usually feel heavy, dense, contracted, and honestly, lonesome here as a human...

When he put his hands on my heart, these are the colors/feelings/sense of home, wherever the heck that is. When I do Reiki on others, this is where the energy seems to come from too.

At one point I was floating above lots of trees with leaves gently rustling.  So many trees, I  was floating through the leaves.

Then I was far away again. Stars and electric light connections coming through his hands.

And the connections turned red, which felt like heart warmth or life connection, not just stars

I've always known I'm not from here (nobody is really, most are just checked out, they don't even realize.  I'm definitely a star child.  Without sounding cliche or creepy, it was like my body lit up with his Reiki, like he was making love to my energy (not sexually)

belonging

Vulnerable thoughts today. I’m on vacation, traveling with a friend, staying with her family. It has been challenging because they are all extroverted and want to spend a lot of time together. They are uncomfortable with how laid back and quiet S and I are. We don’t expect to be entertained or doted on, we enjoy quiet time.  In addition, I just went through a traumatic experience, relationship suddenly ended, and I moved just a few days ago, so I am in shock, feeling out of place in general.

  

They asked what traveling with my family was like, what family time was like for me.

  

I never had that. Family.  While I had many people who cared and looked after me, I never really had home, family, closeness, belonging.

  

This is a deep wounding for me- triggers. I have never really had family or home or felt like I belonged.

I feel like both an orphan and a child of the universe. Free, a little bit wild, independent, and an outsider looking in.  Observing and finding moments to enjoy and meaning, and also quiet grieving... while learning to feel at home in my own body.

i'm not just a hairstylist

✂ I am not “just a hairstylist”. 

I am your friend.  In cosmetology school, the instructors said, "You run a business.  This is about business and money.  Do not become friends with your clients, it's unprofessional."  Well then.  Guess I won't be "professional" because it's not just about the money for me.  I don't want strangers in my chair.  I want people I would consider friends.  To build trust and rapport, to share and work and grow together.

These are my clients...  

I know what lights you up, what makes you smile.  I know what you love about your partner and hate about your job.  I probably know your personality type.  I know your kid's names, your pets names, and your favorite music, whether you like tea or coffee or wine when you come in, and whether or not you've skipped lunch, working hard at your desk and checking in with your kids at home. (and I have snacks for you).  

I am the first person to cut your children's hair.  I meet them before they are even born.  I pause doing your hair so you can nurse.  Down the road, I hope to do their hair for prom.  I go to the nursing home to cut your dying mom's hair.  I hold her hand, and touch her face and sit with her while you go eat for the first time today.  Next month I will hold you in my arms while you grieve her death.  For a year.  Maybe two.  We will cry together and share memories of her.

I drive to your dad's house to help trim his toenails, he can no longer reach them.  I bring the whole deal, he gets rose petals and foot soak and foot massage too.  He is so pleased.  What a kind stranger I am.   He's known me since I was 11.  This week the doctor diagnosed him with Dementia, you are upset and overwhelmed, and we both know I'm not really there for feet.  

I carefully wash your hair the first time after head surgery.  I will get nauseous seeing the staples on your tender scalp, and I'll have to sit down when I turn pale.  You will have to dry it yourself.  I would be a lousy nurse.

I do your hair for free while you are in chemo.  Or when you lose your job.  Or when your husband files for divorce and leaves you.  Or when you are a working single mom having a rough month, I will cut your children's hair for free.  And I tell them I won't color it unless they keep good grades (cuz I'm on your side).  I accept payments of garden produce, bartering, kitchen appliances and gift cards you don't want, pay me later, honor system...  It's not about the money.  It's about our friendship, and how you feel when you come in.  You can get a "haircut" anywhere.  

I am not just a hairstylist.  I am also a healer.   And I am your friend.   

I have extensive education, college degress, plus continued certifications. I am ordained, trained in healing touch, counseling, coaching, reflexology, reiki, Native American healing, certified ESL instructor. 

I run every aspect of my business myself (scheduling, appts, supplies and ordering, bookkeeping, my website, advertising...)

I have no insurance or retirement, no benefits. Except I love what I do.

reiki saved my life. really.

Why Reiki?

Reiki saved my life. Really.

  

Suddenly abruptly divorced after an abusive marriage, after barely surviving a violent and traumatic childhood... I was on empty. Truly I was lucky to be alive. But was I really alive? Thriving? No. I was not thriving. I was barely hanging on, in perpetual fight or flight. My body was depleted, adrenals shot, hair falling out. And I was terrified to be alive.

I discovered Reiki while caring for a friend who had major surgery. Someone came to do Reiki on her. I had never even heard of Reiki. I was skeptical and protective of her. Yet he was so gentle, honoring, tender, sacred. He held her gently; he cradled her, and held her hand, and comforted her. I wept. I had never been held safely and comforted. Counseling is nothing like this. I need this. We all need this.

  

I started going to him for Reiki. The first few sessions he just held me and let me grieve while he did Reiki over me. He let me mourn my childhood, my ended marriage, and grieve being a strange sensitive soul in a big world. He gave me a safe, sacred space to begin healing. Over time he started showing me how to ground myself. He taught me to center and connect to my own energy with my hands, and how to unplug my brain and be calm. How to breathe in good and breathe out negative. He taught me different techniques for calming myself, mindfulness and meditation, and be more observing of my emotions (rather than being consumed by them). He helped me connect with my inner child. My divine wise self. The earth. Source Energy. He showed me how to breathe in the energy of the trees, of stars, of everything.

  

He helped me transform anxiety, insecurity, and stress into self-confidence. Each session was empowering, healing, and safe. He has been my mentor and teacher for years. I have studied and learned under his guidance, and he has given me the tools to heal myself. To trust myself. To trust my inner knowing. And that is what lights me up. I want to share this knowledge and healing with others.

we are exhausted

This is traumatic and emotional, 
and my old tools aren't working for this. 
Levelling up... but feels like being pulled down.   
I have been in constriction, fighting, struggling.  
Feels like one step forward 
and plummeting many steps backwards.  
I thought I had already released all this?

I hear this is the big one. THE BIG ONE.  
The big purge. 
It's not our own shit. 
It's not necessarily our lifetime stuff. 
Ancient cellular shit coming out. 
Hopefully for good and forever.

We are exhausted. 
Tired of purging and healing our own shit, 
plus doing it for the collective too.

I had a download/epiphany while working 
with a sensitive 14 yr old girl 
who is an empath, gifted, connected, and overwhelmed...  
she asked why we have to feel it all if it isn't ours...

Hmm
Well this energy can't stay here, in the Earth, 
in our cellular memories, consciousness, Gaia...  it has to get out. 
But it needs pure souls to go thru to channel it out safely. 
That ancient dark energy would be dangerous in the wrong hands.

And we have to feel and process it, 
but only the pure souls can do that without becoming corrupted.

I think when the dark comes thru and out, many will wake up. 
Men and women will start showing up. And the younger generation!

And we are setting the standard and the vibration for them to match. 
When they wake up and they flounder, they can anchor with us 
(the first wave of healers and light workers)

We’ve already done the work we came to do. We don’t have to keep struggling. 
We are already awake and holding a higher vibration for them to come home to.

The younger generations don't seem to have the baggage and karma, 
they are already awake, and they are displeased with the state of the world. 
They are waking up, getting pissed off, and going to do something about it. 
There are millions of them. And here we are, ready to show them the vibration to match. 
Feels like turmoil, but boy it's gonna be good .

reality shift

This feels like another reality shift, a catapult.  
Contraction and then launching?
I feel change crawling in like fog,
I feel it before it gets here.
what I know and see.
I feel it coming in advance,
and that's hard to understand 
or describe to others.
Big me trusts.  
Little me is weary and frightened of letting go, 
endings, less structure.
I'd like enough stability 
that I didn't often feel like 
I was falling down hills in the dark
and waking up in new unfamiliar places.
The old reality is flickering?  In and out?
It's static, then vivid, and then fading...
yes flickering.
And overlapping new reality?
I can feel both,
like two stations at the same time.
Wonder why I feel grieving...
I expected celebrating and breath of free-ness-
not grieving.  Who is mourning?
So many on the planet are mourning...
It hurts my heart to feel it all.

He says "you have not completely let go.
You're real close.  
Jump time lines with me please?"
Hold hands and jump?
Or fly?

I'm sensing a lot and it's all 
entirely different than ever before.
I'm sensing things I can't see, 
seeing things I can't hear,

 

this book looks intriguing

hearing things that haven't happened yet.
Perhaps I sense I am losing my mind 
and everything else,
and I don't want you to see it too.

except I died

Wow.
Everything feels surreal, ethereal...
I think I just lived 12 lifetimes in one week.
Except I died.
I shattered completely to smithereens.
To nothingness.
Obliterated.
And from nothing, there was stillness.
Quiet.
And then awareness and clearness.
And now, the perspective can be so opposite from spun out,
not-self-care, not taking reflective time,
to after- quiet, grounded, connected time.
Duh!
I know this!
Every day I must do this!
It feels like madness,
feeling so sure and clear one day,
and entirely the opposite the next.
When I reflect (meditate)
the answers get bigger from outside of me,
instead of small from inside of me (fear).
The answers come in from the universe
when I get still.
So I would like to make this a daily practice (again)
meditating, being still and quiet.
I forgot.
I'm so sorry.
I forgot who I was and what I need for balance.
And I got lost (again)
And am found (again)
with bigger awareness, and more love.
I wish for this knowing to stay clear
and not get clouded or pushed aside.
I wish for my balance to stay grounded,
no matter what is going on or who is around me.
I wish for my heart to stay open
so the guidance is clear.
Thank you for helping me to remember.

big shifts

Stop!  My head is so full I am uncomfortable.
Shifts, new info, knowledge, 
dream-journeying (whatever that means)
I have a traffic jam of information
and I'm holding all these pieces 
and don't know where to put them.
I am full!
I am asking specific questions to my partner,
so I can see the bigger picture, 
so I can put the pieces down until they make more sense.
And he gives me more pieces.
I'm frustrated to tears, 
and don't know how to communicate differently.
I don't know if I'm not communicating clearly,
if he isn't hearing me,
if he isn't understanding me.
if he thinks more puzzle pieces will help me....
I don't know how to explain better.
I'm full on every level, I don't understand the big picture,
I don't know how to sort and assimilate-
these intense planetary energy shifts, downloads, info.
I'm hungry for the information and understanding,
the understanding doesn't happen well 
if I'm a traffic jam and so full I'm tense.
(it must be entirely frustrating for him to witness as well)
Every part of my body-
my thoughts, senses, energies, understanding, 
connection inside and out
are being re-wired and I'm f***ing confused.
I don't know how to communicate it or find relief.
How can I be a big being if I have so little comprehending 
and awareness of what's going on inside myself?
Plus creating a new world?
While functioning in the current world?
Manage all this (and pretend I'm fine, normal, sane)
and interact with other humans
schedules, work, jobs, chores, plan and dream my future,
be a present mom 
(friend, daughter, partner, companion, teacher, healer)
omg it's laughable yet I want to cry.

I need a stunt double.
Wait.  I have one, or many (my higher self and angel guides)
I don't know what they are up to.
Who is coordinating all this anyway?
They are all parts of me, 
I am exhausted just sensing all that is going on.
There must be a simpler way.

down the rabbit hole of fear

Vision or dream in the bathtub after a spectacularly frustrating couple of days...


Ow.
Ow!
That doesn't feel good.
Does it hurt?  (Higher Self)
Yes.
Was it meant to hurt?
I don't know.
Could it be something else?
Maybe...
Is this new hurt or old hurt?
I don't know.

Gawd!!  Stop putting up bricks!  I can't breathe in here.  
You're closing me in and I don't have any room or perspective 
to zoom out and see what's going on.

No!  I can't move the bricks.  If I move them, I will fall out.

Just move some... a few.  Here, let me help.

No No No!  I am falling out and I'm scared! 
Ow I'm falling and this cold air hurts, it's dark.
F*** I'm down a rabbit hole. 
It's deep in here.  And dark.  Echo-y. 
I can hear whispers and scurries,
I have no protective skin, I hear ghosts. 
I don't know where I am. 
Echos and ghosts, from everywhere, all over the world. 
If I'm even still on Earth.  Help!  Can anyone hear me down here?

Echo-y far away distant voice-
Hey, while you're down there, let me help.  
Here's more stuff for you to figure out.

And an echo memory of my father's voice saying
"just pull yourself up and get a real job."

No!  I'm still falling,
don't give me more heavy stuff to hold, I'll fall faster!

Distant voice:  Well what do you want?

(me responding in echo whisper scream that you can't hear,
dream words that don't come out...)  Please help me!

Distant voice:  I don't want to go down there.  
It's dark.  Let me know when you figure things out.

(me dream screaming that doesn't come out...) 
Please give me a hand.  I'm so frightened down here.
(But the words don't come out in this dimension.  
And in the falling I can't tell if you are pushing me down 
or pulling me up, and I'm screaming and fighting.)



I could just have a little light... a match.  Crap.
Now my toes are on fire, and my dress, my legs.
Yup.  I'm on fire.
Burning up in flames, consumed by emotions.  Again.
Really??

I've burned up entirely,
and I'm just floating now, no body, just dust of consciousness.
Not falling, not feeling, just floating.  Now what?

And I wake up in the bath tub, thinking hours had passed.
I got up so fast to journal that I almost passed out.