Have you noticed a hyper-amplification of the sheer volume of opinions flying around recently? If opinions were those airborne car-spaceship things in The Jetsons, the skies would be one endless traffic jam, with each opinion trying to honk louder than the others, or maybe even blast opposing opinions out of the sky altogether.

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Do you have an inner critic? And if so, whose voice is it?

​The inner critic tends to be a combination of personal and transpersonal voices; that is, a combination of a person or people in our lives, usually from when we were very young, alongside an expression of the predominant socio-cultural conditioning that us humans are inherently deficient (when the exact opposite is Truth.)

Without going into the ins and outs of the Nature-aligned, cosmogonic-mythic-celestial cycles of mapping time, and the archetypal-elemental qualities of different ages, 2025 is going to be the ‘landing point’ of sorts to a new aeon. 2020 marked our collective departure from the previous one. These interim years have been a bridge if you like, taking us over what felt like some kind of abyss much of the time.

​Once upon a time, in a faraway land, a powerful Faerie Queen looked out over her magical domain and sighed the deepest, most mournful sigh.

​Her speckled owl daemon sat perched next to her. He could feel what was weighing on her heart. Magic is fading from the world, she said.

​It’s true, observed the bird.

The last few years for me, and perhaps for you too if you’re feral, have been an unequivocal divesting from the ‘side’ to which I had previously felt a natural belonging for all my adult life; a departure that came from the felt-sense cognition that, while form and context were different, this ‘side’ was essentially running the same energies as the ‘other side', to which my natural dissonance was still very much intact.

The presence of the Egyptian goddess of Justice + Balance, Ma’at - symbolized by the balancing scales of the Libra glyph - is also palpable during the season of autumn. She’s the female counterpart to the scribe-god of magick, the natural sciences, commerce and communication, Thoth.

What in the world do I mean by committing to digestion in the Information Age? Here’s some initial context.

​In energy medicine, a healthy, robust and resilient energetic and nervous system rests on having a cool head and a warm belly.

This also aligns with the ancient Indian system of Ayurveda, where the overall health of the body-mind is crucially dependent on the state of our agni, our digestive fire.

​Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) also places much emphasis on the digestive fire’s power in governing the health of the whole human. The symbolism for this in TCM is beautifully alchemical: a cauldron or pot resting over the flames of a fire which is not too strong and not too weak. The discerning precision of balance that creates the regulating thermostat of a warm belly required for robust body-mind health.

​So with that said, let’s zoom out to take a look at what’s going on in our bodies, nervous systems, psyches and energy bodies in this Information Age.

These days, ‘embodiment’ has become something of a buzzword - which I’m actually pretty thrilled about because that means there’s more awareness around it. However, what I’m also seeing is a lot of thinking about what embodiment is and ‘how to do it properly’.

Suddenly, a haboob as if from nowhere comes blowing in, engulfing my calm, happy beingness in this wondrous nowness with screeching words of stinging punishment in my ear: Who do you think you are?! You are doomed, cursed! You’re going to fuck it all up and die alone! You have no business being so happy and peaceful, look at you, you're a disgrace! Shame on you!!

What does money mean to you?

​Outside of the artificial, centralized and exploitative systems that have been constructed around money, outside of any generational trauma and childhood imprints received from family and culture about money - what does money mean to you?

It’s that time of the month where I turn towards that most misunderstood and misused resource: Money, and its inherent spirit and energy.

​(From a decolonial lens, all phenomena are animate and ensouled, with an indwelling spiritual essence that we get to be in evolving relationship with. This includes all beings - human and more than human - Nature, seemingly ‘inanimate’ objects, our bodies + sensations, and yes, even…money.)

(A reminder of what you already know)

Glimmers are the opposite of triggers.

They’re those brief moments when we attune to the glimmers of beauty, joy, delight and wonder in our environment, and allow the time and space to feel them in the body.

The word ‘narcissist’ is flung around quite liberally these days.

Phrases like “they’re such a narcissist” pop up frequently in conversation, often about someone I don’t know and so have no first-hand reflection of.

And while it’s true that narcissistic traits are being seen and named more clearly in others, what’s not happening quite as much is the awareness that if we recognize narcissism in someone else, and are triggered by it, there’s a strong chance that we have our own disowned inner narcissist waiting to be met and tended to.

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Decolonizing our relationship to money involves bringing an animist, relational lens to our practice by learning to relate to the energy of money through sensation which is the body’s language, and by extension the Earth's.

Spring is here and this desert is shamelessly alive.

Last week, three Green Mojave rattlesnakes in two days (or potentially the same one) that Oli, my husband, wrangled and relocated. Each time, he came back a bit wiser and more attuned to dancing with primal fear: snake medicine.

​The gentle desert tortoise is out and about too, feasting on wildflowers.

Let’s talk about fawning, aka people pleasing.

You may already be familiar with the Sanskrit word dharma. Its meaning has nuances depending on the context. On a cosmic level, dharma speaks to the evolutionary process of Nature’s order and balance that emerges out of primordial chaos. The laws of Nature, if you will.

This spring in Root + Rise, we’re journeying with the Indian Goddess Lakshmi, and the story of churning the great cosmic ocean of primordial consciousness, known as Samudra Manthana.

The tale is multilayered and multidimensional - an invitation to explore, among many things, the nuances of balance, which is what Lakshmi’s auspicious energy is ultimately a symbol of.

Rooting into our values as the nutrient dense foundation of how we live our lives gives us access to authenticity - a word that has sadly become pretty trite and hackneyed these days.