Discover your Brilliant System

Back in 2020 I stopped blogging anything of substance not because I had ceased to learn and reflect on my personal evolutionary dynamic, but because I had started studying astrology, which was showing me was just how exquisitely unique each of us is. When I first emerged from the period […]

The school of Mystery & Mastery is back in session, and there is so much I want to share about it, beginning with the guidance that came in right before our inaugural gathering. When I asked what was important for me to know or share with the group, I got […]

I was a bit surprised to see the word “devotion” pop out at the end of my last post because it’s not something I choose to write about often. Maybe I’ve mentioned it once before, but devotion feels quite intimate, so I tend to keep it under wraps. Yet soon […]

This is how you know you’ve really established a strong, solid connection with your center: you are able to remain in balance through transition or come back into balance relatively quickly and easily after major change. This is why I keep telling people this is not merely about relaxing or […]

When I first started my practice I focused on breathing into points or what you might call the chakras. Yet as my practice evolved, all the points started connecting into one and eventually I realized that this central pillar of light that I’d been building, day after day, breath after […]

Been thinking a lot about the supremely paradoxical balancing act it takes just to be your Self: balance between receptivity and creativity, between release and expansion, between action and doing absolutely nothing. It requires the double-sightedness of regarding yourself as forever a work-in-progress, yet one that is nevertheless always already […]

I’ve been feeling this message building for some time now but it’s taken me awhile to get around to it because it feels so weighty, as if I could write endlessly and still not fully transmit the essence of it. Yet this morning I woke up with the knowing that […]

Yesterday morning the first thing that entered my consciousness was a blast of mixed emotions. The next thing that entered my consciousness was the fact that I was still in dream state. As pure awareness, I was traveling the world and experiencing the thoughts and feelings of the collective. Here […]

With the changing of the seasons I’ve been spending more time tending my houseplants than my garden. I’ve been watching—with utmost patience—fallen leaves form new leaves from the wound. I’ve been seeing how new growth unfurls in a spiraling motion. I’ve been marveling at how new life depends upon the […]

t’s been an intense last few days. On my heart and mind has been the idea of breathing more space into restriction, and just the other day, as I was cleaning up my rock garden, I spotted a really long snakeskin. My husband and I had just been remarking how […]

When clients ask me about forgiveness, my response is almost always “Don’t force it. When the time is right you will see there is nothing to forgive.” To get to this point, however, you have to come to a place of neutrality—that strong, stable, yet expansive space within. From your […]

Lest I give the impression that being a memory keeper is some out-there, abstract, esoteric thing, let me ground the learning by showing how to work practically with these vibrations. Last week I shared how a very old trigger was activated and the wounding of my teenage self made it […]

Yesterday I started sharing a recent download on being a memory keeper, centering around the notion of the divine Self in all of us. Today I am continuing the transmission by spiraling back to where I began, with the question of destroyer, preserver, and creator energies in the context of […]

A couple days ago we went hounding for herkimers, and as I was silently moving mud around, searching for treasure, I started mulling over my place in this very strange world. Specifically, I was pondering the fact that all of us come into this planet with various mixtures of divine […]

The hardest part of weathering the drama of the last week was waking up each day feeling not myself, and thus being unable to hear my inner voice. When I connected with my Akashic Records, I found paradoxically choppy but stagnant waters, and I couldn’t find the flow. There was […]

Once upon a time, without any warning, I never went back home from summer vacation, and was placed at the very last minute as an international student at an American boarding school. It was a rough first year, but sometime along the way I lost my accented English, found a […]

Yesterday while rockhounding in a wooded quarry, I felt myself suddenly pulled by a maple. It wasn’t the grandest tree in the place, and there really wasn’t anything about it physically that stood out, but it just felt different to me. I usually describe being in the heart field of […]

Earlier this spring I asked the deva of deer to help me find balance and harmony with their booming population. We purposely grow enough veggies to share, and I try to do the same with my hostas by planting offerings on the margins. Used to be that they munched a […]

Been listening and observing and reconnecting and conversing and recentering and learning and processing. All I will say for now, to keep it brief, is that as a brown-skinned immigrant, I always felt somewhat like an outsider to US history and the country’s interracial dynamics. Yet in these past few […]

It’s taken me awhile to gather my thoughts on the killing of George Floyd because his death has brought up a lot of stuff and I didn’t simply want to add obvious anger to the public conversation. I speak only for myself, so don’t take this as my opinion on […]

“What comes after ambition?” This is the question I held in my fields last year when I started feeling myself being purged of ambition. The answers I got and continue to get are multi-layered, but divesting myself of authority is one of the more recent developments. Who am I without […]

Over the winter my learning around balance found new ground in our community yoga practice. Even in Vinyasa classes, where transitions are important, most yoga teachers tend to focus on getting students to experience the fullest expression of an asana their body is able to find on any given day. […]

Long, long ago I got confirmed in the Catholic Church on Earth Day, and at the time I felt there was something significant about the coincidence, but it’s taken me decades to come to it. Last year, when I felt the call to build a garden—I mean a food forest […]

I may have mentioned before how the Hermit card regularly comes up for me, signaling or confirming an instinct to turn inward for an extended period. Yet surprisingly, the card I’ve been drawing with startling consistency during lockdown has been the High Priestess. She taps into the magic that lies […]

Last year I started teaching a process of graceful change and expansion that I have been doing for myself since 2015. I call it “manifestation mantra” because that is the name that came to me from Spirit, but to be honest I find it a bit misleading. Most people see […]

Earlier this year my 2020 manifestation mantra came to me as I was chipping old paint off a door: “A heart like the sun.” It came in on rays of yellow and orange, so I set up a crystal grid with those colors, including a tarot and oracle card that […]

Yesterday I had the joy of sharing breath and heart space with two magnificent beings: a pine tree and my Gramps. What a heart field this pine had. I could barely speak while feeling its energy. I could feel it even 20 feet away, and it was very hard to […]

This morning in that liminal state between sleep and wakefulness I felt myself join the waters of planet, but in such a way that I sensed their connection and their wholeness. I felt, in other words, how the sweet waters eventually flowed into the salty depths of the ocean, only […]

About two and a half years ago I wrote about how challenging it was to stomach the mounting stream of natural disasters around our planet. Yet what kept coming back to me was this recurring vision that always gave me very odd comfort: a young woman sitting in the rubble […]

When I want to set a stronger intention for walking my highest path and I am not sure what that looks like, I connect with what it feels like. The easiest way I have found to do this was something that the Akashic Records taught me during a client session: […]

2020 was the year my Instagram friend Lee and I hoped to meet each other in person, yet who knows when we’ll all be free to travel once more. The other day she mentioned she was going to spend time with her trees and in popped inspiration we both thrilled […]

Yesterday I wrote about the idea of simply showing up to life as a way of escaping the survive/thrive duality. Today I want to get very concrete about how to ground or integrate this energy in your life. Obviously, if you are truly in a survival situation—and I mean one […]

Looking back on so many of the strange and surprising lessons of last year—learning I had not consciously called in but which came to me loud and clear anyway—I see how few of my external 2019 “goals” turned out because my energy took a sharp turn inward at the start […]

I shared this tool yesterday with a group of people who seemed happy to receive it, and I realize that I missed writing about it when it originally came up for me. A few months ago I got into a weird situation where I felt an energetic imbalance arise with […]

Last year the infinity symbol started coming into my meditations and with it a surprising thread of learning on paradox and polarity. It was another one of those situations where I had no real context for the lesson—I hadn’t consciously called it in—but it was interesting and enjoyable nonetheless. Early […]

At the start of the year I set an intention for heart expansion, and yet what kept coming in as my deepest paths of learning were breath and balance. It wasn’t totally out of left field because breath and balance are foundational to my work and personal practice, but these […]

It’s funny to witness so many people at a loss as to “what to do with themselves” these days because it’s like, welcome to my life. Yes, there is a pandemic, but this is pretty much life as usual for me. Brian and I both work from home, unless he […]

[I wrote this IG post last Sunday, while still in NYC, though I didn’t have the energy to post it on this blog, with minor edits, till now.] That experience I had last Monday on my yoga mat was contextualized this weekend. It had been practice for me to recognize […]

[I wrote this IG post on the train ride down this past Friday, but didn’t have a convenient means to post on this blog till now.] After months of being kind of hermit-y and not going into NYC to work and visit friends and family, I am right now on […]

Yesterday I had a really interesting learning experience with my breath. I got to my restorative mat yoga class still sore from a TRX workout that I hadn’t been to in awhile, plus I had a pinch in my neck from sleeping on my pillow funny. I was really looking […]

There are many paradoxes to breathing, one of which is it is the most natural thing in the world, and yet we so easily forget, for very long stretches of time, how to breathe in the way our bodies are built to breathe, easily and deeply. And if we get […]

There was a moment in college I still distinctly remember when I was hit with the full force of the thought that I would never be anyone other than myself. This was not an uplifting thought. Being 20 at the time, it felt like looking down an endless gray corridor, […]

This morning I had a short and sweet session with a client who was feeling stuck and frustrated with work and feeling like “the goal posts keep getting moved.” All this person felt was the upward slog ahead, which left him stuck in resignation. Whenever you lose the thread of […]

When I am too wound up and heavy-hearted to hear my inner guidance, I take to the trees and bring my favorite tree communicator with me. He found this funny birch that spoke of beaver energy—or should I say BEa-ver energy. I had been putting a lot of pressure on […]

A new client came to me for an Akashic Records session, but I was guided to begin the process more as if it were a Brilliant System session—meaning to take our time really connecting into the central pillar of light that contains everything we need (to know, to experience) at […]

There truly is something magical about gratitude practice. Years ago I survived a particularly bleak period in grad school just by writing down one positive thing I experienced every day for 30 days. Some days I really had to reach for that thing. I am most humbled by the entry […]

A lot of people find their way to me because they are exhausted by their work trying to “change the world.” Sister, I’ve been there. And the way toward balance is not more “self care.” Neither is it running the other direction to bury your head in the sand or […]

Yesterday a question about balance popped into my mind, and it was interesting enough that I intended to carve out some time to sit with it, either in meditation or through the Akashic Records. Yet as soon as I started typing it out into my question journal—If balance always IS, […]

Here’s an interesting exercise from the Akashic Records that came through last fall when some folks started talking to me about managing anxiety. I held back from sharing it more widely because the timing didn’t feel right, but now with the trees talking about worry and fear, the timing feels […]

Spent yesterday with some trees, and it really felt like the woods were thick with knowing. There were some spots where the energy was so sweet and intense, I would just pause to take it in. There was one tree growing by a creek that I felt drawn to. Its […]

Yesterday’s message was “You can breathe light,” and today’s is “You are the river.” At heart they speak to the same truth. But maybe one will resonate for you more than the other, or perhaps each will awaken different knowings and corners of your being. The image of the river […]

Late last night I received a text with news about a passing in the family. And recently folks have been talking to me about quitting their jobs and not having a plan. You can say 2020 has made quite a dramatic entrance. Last month I started writing about this expansiveness […]

It’s commonplace advice in certain circles to “love what is” by being in the present moment and opening your heart to whatever is alive in your reality. Easier said than done, right? It can seem an impossible task if we feel as if we are just suddenly supposed to love […]

Yesterday I started writing about what the grounded peace of engagement feels like, and today we’ll unpack more about what it means to ground more fully into yourself. Earlier this fall I shared that I was starting to feel more roominess than usual, and that even though I felt very […]

Yesterday I shared how I finally discovered what comes after ambition, and promised to unpack the admittedly elliptical answer that it was “peace.” One of the things I find most interesting about this peace is that it isn’t in the detached sense of “it’s all good, man, whatever happens, happens,” […]

You might recall how I’ve been sitting with the question “What comes after ambition?” At the time of asking, I honestly had no idea. I was simply befuddled by its absence and wondering at my so-called indifference to all the things that used to preoccupy me, some of which I […]

When a friend mentioned the other day that we were coming to the end of a decade my jaw virtually dropped. I obviously knew we were approaching a new year, and I had been looking back on this year doing the sort of reflection we are all prone to doing […]

Yesterday I spent much of my day scraping off paint, a rather monotonous task that nevertheless gives me occasion for mindfulness practice. As I worked through several layers of paint, I was noticing various thoughts and feelings pass in and out of awareness. One such thought was how this year […]

If you’ve been reading along, we’ve been practicing some of the things that can happen when you take a conscious breath. Yesterday I shared how to find the steady energy of self trust so you can go deeper into your exploration of the Self while sitting in uncertainty. Today I […]

Continuing with our investigation and experiencing of what it really means to “take a conscious breath,” today we’re practicing how to work with the mind so we can begin tapping into our other centers of knowing. After we take our first conscious breaths, turning inward, really holding (not rushing to […]

If you’ve been following along, we’ve been going into the visceral experience of mindfulness practice to see what the big deal is with “taking a breath.” Why do we do this and what “actually” happens? A couple days ago I invited you to see if you could hold the experience […]

Last week I posted a nudge to find something that triggers you and to take a conscious breath around it in order to notice what you notice. This is to give you a direct, visceral experience of why “taking a breath” is such a common piece of advice, and also […]

A couple weeks ago a piece of guidance dropped into my consciousness as I was washing dishes (there is something about water that facilitates this for me). “For your next gathering, why not look into the energetics of mindfulness?” Now there was an interesting idea. And as the download began […]

Several days ago I promised a post about service from the head / heart / gut and I have been wondering why I haven’t written it yet. All the pieces are in my mind ready to be written, but another part of me knew something else needed to come forward […]

I’ve been sitting with a bit of a mystery this week, where words / images / feelings related to “cocoon” or “birth canal” will pop into my consciousness during meditation or daily life, as if I needed reminding that I’m in a hermit phase. I go into these phases periodically, […]

Lots of folks in Mystery & Mastery are currently moving through transition, so last Thursday it felt best to open a pop-up Akasha with the energetic landscape of our lives and see what happened. The Records had us start off imagining ourselves as a grove of trees, standing in a […]

A couple days ago I posted an image of a circumpunct, the symbol of a circled dot given to me in my Akashic Records a few years ago, along with the guidance that I needed to be much more focused on centering. This winter when the spiral cycle of the […]

Yesterday I shared how, for me, centering is an essential part of doing nothing. By now I hope it’s obvious that I’m not referring to a sort of escapist version of “doing nothing” that gets romanticized as dolce far niente. This isn’t about “enjoying life,” treating yourself, taking a break […]

I’ve been writing about the pitfalls I encountered while learning the art of “doing nothing.” Today I’m sharing what actually worked for me. If you are finding that you are spending your days listless and unsatisfied with how you’ve accomplished “nothing valuable,” there are a few things that need attending […]

There was a time when I would lament—and by that I mean cry like a baby—that I wasn’t a cat. It’s a running joke now, but I‘m serious. This was early on in my dark night of grief and burnout. I would look at these two magnificent creatures who wandered […]

A little over a month ago I pulled some sacred geometry oracle cards to see where the energy was flowing for me. I got Universal Love and Earth and was all, “Yeah, yeah, tell me something I don’t know.” (Meaning, if things are going so well for me, why the […]

A year ago yesterday Brian and I moved out of NYC, our home of 20 years, to our place upstate. Right before the move I found a book about a woman who retreats to a hermit’s life in the Adirondacks after some time in NYC. Snatched it up but didn’t […]

As I was working through my “stuff” a few years ago, I would periodically ask to see my Shadow. It’s a good skill to hone, being a shadow whisperer. As with feral cats, the shadow must be coaxed persistently yet gently. It always appears of my asking, but in its […]

This morning I woke up with a little nugget of clarity: I am currently spinning the biggest cocoon for myself that I have ever spun in my whole life. I knew that I’d been sitting in the mystery for some weeks now and had long passed the usual phase of […]

Yesterday I wrote a bit about the One Breath and One Heart, and I wanted to emphasize, if it wasn’t clear, that these experiences are available to you—to anyone—if you invite them in and open to them. I am not special for this, or no more special than you. Becoming […]

A couple of years ago I started experiencing the One Breath that animates All That Is, and then I started feeling my heart joined to the One Heart. It is a little different from connecting to the heart of Source, because for me it is the feeling of being joined […]

When I did my deep dive into forgiveness practices a few years ago, I dabbled with an abbreviated version of the Ho’oponopono clearing and prayer, but to be honest I didn’t see what it could give me that my Akashic Recordspractice couldn’t. My voice teacher recently taught me the song […]

What a funny few weeks it’s been. I felt such an influx of energy, knowing, and inspiration during the first quarter of the year, and then some time in May I felt myself go back into the Void. In this quiet space I just wanted to do two things. One […]

Still deep in my learning about paradox and yesterday another one came to mind and brought a visceral experience with it. I’ve been taking voice lessons for the past couple of months, and my teacher was coaxing me to a high C. I wasn’t sure if I could hit it, […]

Wasn’t sure if it made sense to have a Mystery and Mastery gathering this month since everyone’s schedule conflicted, but we rolled with it and ended up having an intimate group Akashic Records experience where everyone brought forward wisdom on moving past duality and living in the heart of paradox. […]

Here’s another paradox that started rearing its head in grad school. Back then it was dispiriting. It was more like, “The more I learn, the more my ignorance becomes apparent to me.” I was trying to fill myself up with knowledge because not knowing felt like the worst thing in […]

Do people even say this any more? No idea, but when I went inward to ask for the energy of living in paradox to make itself clearer for communication purposes, this is what playfully stepped forward: “I AM ALL THAT and a bag of chips.” It makes me giggle and […]

In an exchange with @lauraleerussell on my last post I remarked how my encounter with the swallows and the eagle the other day evoked something my Akashic Records asked me years ago about why I kept choosing to be a hummingbird when I could also choose to be a condor, lord […]

Like a seedling waiting to be put out after the last frost, all spring I’d been craving a day warm enough to spend fully outdoors. Yesterday I finally got my wish, and as I was staring at the sky admiring some swallows, I caught sight of a huge blur in […]

I’ve been wondering why it’s been so challenging for me to get this post series out and yet feel the need to do this now instead of waiting for the flow, as I usually do. There is something here tied to what I’ve been going through and which also harkens […]

try to move forward to piece together everything I’ve been sitting with for the last couple months, but I find myself circling back, spiraling again, around an idea of then and now. I keep saying how 2018 was something of an inflection point for me. One of the biggest pieces […]

For the last month I’ve been struggling to put into words how odd it’s been with my manifestation mantra process this year. Yesterday I mentioned how I started off years ago from a place of wanting to fix what seemed broken or fill what seemed missing. Then last year I […]

We’ve rounded out the first quarter of the year, and I’ve been taking stock of what my manifestation mantra has brought into my awareness and life thus far. My 2019 mantra is “to align myself with Source,” and it’s been been surprisingly different working with it. Not sure why I […]

A few weeks after my dad died Spirit started whispering “cat” into my heart. I broached the idea with my husband, who just about did a double-take because he too had been thinking it would be nice to live with a cat once again. We were both going through tough […]

Last year I started getting nudges to host “pop-up Akasha” events, and to be honest, I ignored them because I didn’t want to figure out the how and why—forgetting that that wasn’t my job. Last February things came to a head and I couldn’t ignore the call any longer, so […]

Not here but in private, in long form, and in a way I haven’t written in years. In doing this, I’ve been thinking back on all the time I spent learning to get out of my head and into my heart and body, and how in the midst of that […]

Boundaries for me are kind of like forgiveness: If you’re doing it right, they are a non-issue. If it feels like a chore involving all sorts of mental and emotional acrobatics, guess what? It’s an invitation to find your center. I used to be a mindfulness tool collector, so I’ve […]

Yesterday I addressed the false belief that centering means being able to come to a point of comfort after shifting out the pain. From my perspective that is not centering. That is jumping the gun to release something you haven’t yet fully looked at. Centering, at heart, is being with […]

In many respects, centering can feel like coming home. But there are cases where that doesn’t hold true. Yesterday I shared how I instinctually knew what I had to do when I was knocked off center with the news of my dad’s impending death. I didn’t know it then, but […]

Yesterday I shared collective wisdom from the brilliant system on what we do when we come to center. Centering is often natural and easy. E.g., think of when you take a breath to gather yourself and get into “work mode.” Centering is decidedly more challenging when we are faced with […]

I’ve been clearing some misconceptions around centering, and yesterday I invited you to practice being aware of what it is that you do automatically and instinctually when you center—not just externally, but energetically in the subtle realms of your brilliant system. In no particular order (for this is not a […]

I’ve been clearing some limiting beliefs that get in the way of centering, and today I’m building off yesterday’s post on Be-ing to show you that you are actually doing a lot more than you think when you come to center. And, yes, you know how to center. We’re just […]

I initially envisioned this post series on centering as a simple how-to, but my first post came out rather pointedly around a limiting belief, and when today’s topic came to me this morning, I realized that before getting to the meat and potatoes, I need to keep giving folks the […]

Yesterday I opened a series on centering with the common limiting belief that being “self centered” is a moral failing. And for me the programming was so deep that when I had finally established a reliable, repeatable way to find my center no matter what, part of me wondered if […]

Many of us grow up with the message that being self centered is a moral failing, that we must put others ahead of ourselves. So-called navel gazing is for the privileged because look 👏 at 👏all 👏 the 👏 problems 👏 in 👏 the 👏 world 👏. Look at all […]

For our third gathering of the year we finally put a conceptual frame around the work we did in January (attuning to fields of light) and February (pop-up Akasha with sound healing). After a quick overview of the brilliant system, we covered: 1. how all our challenges can be reframed […]

Yesterday I mentioned that for each phase in the spiral path of the brilliant system—centering, surrendering to mystery, and stepping into mastery—you have a divine ally, namely, balance, grace, and genius, each of which is waiting for you to show up in full partnership with their support. When I say […]

Yesterday I mentioned that we can reframe every challenge we face as an invitation to engage our brilliant system either by finding our center, surrendering to mystery, or stepping into mastery. As free will beings, the choice to take the first step is entirely ours, but we are not alone […]

I’ve been writing about the brilliant system as the innate intelligence of everything in creation. No one is left out of this. We are all equally and uniquely brilliant. You might be thinking, “Well, if I’m so brilliant, why is my life kind of a mess? Where’s my brilliance now?” […]

I’ve been mentioning to others how last week I felt knocked out by a really intense energy, and some responded with how this was happening with that planet or the moon or whatnot. Maybe. I don’t discount the wisdom of astrology, but I also don’t necessarily feel the need to […]

Yesterday I launched my post series on the brilliant system, a phrase that started entering my awareness at the end of last year, and which I started writing about almost in spite of myself. (See my manifestation mantra series.) Back then it felt like “What the heck is the brilliant […]

Within each and everything in creation, animate or “inanimate,” flows a luminous stream of divine wisdom. It is the brilliant system that gives plants knowledge of where the sun shines and where the waters flow. It inspires the creatures of land, sea, and air to live and move in perfect […]

Lately I’ve been sharing a client’s learning edge (showing up for life energetically crouched over, apologizing for her existence) and her mantra (“I’m here”), which shows her she doesn’t need to strive for anything and fills her with the feeling of freedom in flight. To round off her manifestation mantra […]

I’ve been sharing a manifestation mantra process where someone saw that she was showing up to life in an apologetic, crouched position. Her Higher Self brought her to the top of the Himalayas and told her, “You’re already here.” She got that “I’m here” was the mantra she could use […]

Last week I shared how someone started off her manifestation mantra process by connecting to her Higher Self for her learning edge, which showed how she was showing up for life hunched over, apologizing for her existence. I then had her feel into the gap between her Higher Self and […]

I’ve been having fun helping people bring in their manifestation mantra this past month and I asked permission to share a case study. This individual was new to my work but had read through the entire mantra post series and really resonated with the idea of manifesting a higher state of […]

A new client mentioned that she loves my blog because she feels this “divine energy” overcome her when she reads it. I reminded her, as I am now reminding you, that whenever you think you are feeling someone else’s good vibes that is actually your energy that you’re experiencing. What’s happening […]

Several years ago when I started my garden I was surprised how much energetic support I had for it, considering the long line of indoor plants I hadn’t managed to keep alive. But once I opened to the idea of a hosta garden in our shady backyard, I found seemingly […]

Still processing what happened at yesterday’s Mystery and Mastery gathering. There is no comfort zone for me right now in how this work is coming through, and I have been relying on my manifestation mantra to stay centered and aligned. Mystery & Mastery is about being absolutely stable in your energetic center and coherent […]

The clearest intention I held going into this retreat was simply to see where my inner flow would take me. Frankly, I wasn’t prepared for the strength of the inward pull and merely thought I was taking advantage of a coincidence of external circumstances that made this retreat possible. (As if life doesn’t deliver just what […]

This lunar cycle has been super intense for me. I am not usually so keyed into the moon but right after the eclipse I felt my energy withdraw sharply from the external world. I tend to live on the knife’s edge, meaning I don’t spend much time planning. I take each step […]

As I stood outside last night under the blood moon I wasn’t inspired to do any rituals. I had been feeling a bit off and kind of fuzzy around the edges the last couple days, so I held an intention for rebalancing and opened to the moon, the stars, the wind, […]

Yesterday I wrote about compassionate boundary-setting as an alternative to wall-building, and how it takes great gentleness, compassion, and self-compassion to trust in the process and timing of everyone’s spiritual evolution, including your own. Later in the day, this message around walls (or, rather, not walls) and gentleness was driven home again. During an energy attunement session […]

Yesterday I shared my simple way for clearing other people’s energies from your field and setting up appropriate boundaries—not via shielding or protection or (ahem) wall-building, but by knowing and maintaining your divine center. Perhaps the trickiest part is letting go of outcomes and trusting that the other person will find his/her own way in perfect […]

One habit that keeps us constricted, weighed down, or closed off to possibility is the tendency to take on energies in the form of beliefs, opinions, judgments, and worries that are not ours to begin with. This is especially true when it comes to loved ones or clients (if you are […]

I have been feeling and experiencing an influx of supporting energies streaming in for myself and my clients for the new year. All you have to do is ask and open to receive, clear, and align. I’ve been getting some thrilling reports on folks who are trying out my manifestation mantra process […]

One of the greatest barriers not merely to a meditation practice, but to the Self, is the inability to connect with stillness. Here is where we can clear some misconceptions quite easily:When we “try” to meditate, we often go into the experience with the feeling that we are totally alone in […]

A little over a year ago I received the nudge during meditation to shut down Dreamers & Schemers for no apparent reason. Trusting my inner guidance I let the group go and underwent a year of deep learning. Less than a month ago, all signs pointed to reconvening, but from […]

When I was in grad school I learned how to ski and totally fell in love with the sport because it forced me to drop all my anxiety and focus on the here and now. When I picked up flying trapeze, I noticed a lot of flyers said the same thing, that they loved flying […]

For the last two weeks I’ve been sharing a gentle, accessible process for transformation and manifestation of new states of being as an alternative to the comparatively harsh, effortful, and dispiriting practice of New Year’s resolutions. At this point it feels right to warn you that though this process is simple, its power should not be […]

This past year was the fourth year running that I worked with a paired mantra and intention for manifesting and transformation, and it was the most magical by far. If you’ve been following this series, you’ll have seen how I gently stair stepped my way from the darkest period of […]

Photo credit: Brian Rowe I’ve been sharing the details of my own engagement with this process of using a paired mantra and intention for manifestation and transformation because I want to show how it all arises organically from one’s life circumstances. This isn’t about the mind deciding what seems “good” or impressive or convenient to have, […]

Since the paired mantra and intention process worked so well for me in 2015, I gave it another go the following year. When I leaned energetically into my learning edge what I noticed was that there was quite a disparity between how others saw me, how I felt when I […]

The very first year I was inspired to work with a paired mantra and intention was 2015. In 2014 my dad died and I worked myself to burnout trying to cope with my grief. I knew my learning edge was to figure out self care as a matter of survival, but I had no idea […]

Before Christmas I shared my process for manifesting magnitudes of transformation in your life without feeling like you have to reach for something outside yourself or having to engage in all the mental gymnastics of the Law of Attraction. I used to wonder at the magic of this process, which arose organically from my darkest […]

I’ve been sharing my my new year’s transformation process which requires no striving to become something you aren’t, no forcing yourself to do things you think you “should,” no “trying to motivate” yourself to bring about your soul’s deepest desires. It involves three very simple, gentle, accessible steps, and today I am […]

This process I have been sharing of using your Brilliant System to bring about huge transformation is simple, gentle, and full of grace, but it takes a truckload of trust to really commit to it wholeheartedly. Especially in the beginning and during challenging times, your mind will up the ante […]

If you’ve been following this series, you will have already learned how to connect to your brilliant system with conscious breath and let your Higher Self take an energetic account of how you are showing up for life. Your learning edge is where you sense a gap between full presence—full connection with your […]

Yesterday I promised to share how to call forth a mantra, but this morning I was guided to explain what I meant about doing it from the place of “where you stand and how you are showing up for life.” So take a breath to connect to your brilliant system and […]

Yesterday I shared how taking a conscious breath connects you to your brilliant system and brings you more in touch with your inner flow. So if you have been thinking that my process for transformation is only for those who have deep meditation practices, or are naturally intuitive, or are not struggling in life, you […]

I’ve been sharing a gentle, soulful way of bringing about magnitudes of transformation while coming from wholeness. This post series are not merely informational; they are energetic transmissions. And I am helping clear some countercurrents while building the energetic foundation for the process. So take a breath before reading on […]

Yesterday I started describing my annual process for setting a mantra and intention (not a “resolution”) for the new year. I have taught it cursorily before to Dreamers and Schemers, but the profundity of it opened up for me recently. And so this morning I realized that I will be spiraling around the topic […]

When you develop skills in channeling the flow—whether that looks like intuitive readings, healing, yoga, creative / performance arts, etc.—you learn to strike a perfect balance between the masculine and the feminine, acting and receiving. You show up with a question or intention to learn or move in a certain […]

I was so inspired by a conversation with a new friend the other day. She had a lifelong career as an environmentalist, doing work she was passionate about. Yet upon retirement she realized she had somehow missed the mark in terms of fulfilling her purpose: “There’s a difference between doing […]

I have a visualization exercise I love to do, sometimes just in meditation, sometimes with the support of the Akashic Records (where I learned it). I simply ask for my energy system to be represented as a tree, and receive a ton of information around the type of tree, the […]

This was a meditation I did in real life inspired by Willa Hillacrissing, and it was so delightful that I brought it into the Akashic Records to share with the Akashic Records Study Group. I’m pleased to report that everyone seemed to experience very similar benefits to the ones I felt doing it outdoors! […]

Image is the Star from the Rosetta Tarot. When I asked the Akashic Records for a definition of love, they said it is feeling “fully seen, heard, and held.” And when I asked about sacred space they said it’s “anywhere you can come into the fullness of yourself.” The two concepts struck […]

I used to be really resistant to affirmations (blame it on Stuart Smalley!) until the Akashic Records showed me how to work with them effectively. It’s not about choosing an aspirational affirmation–pretty words, a motivational phrase–and “using it.” Mantras are most effective when they choose you, and you allow them to work […]

Excerpt from Louise Penny’s latest Inspector Gamache novel, Glass Houses. “Progress not perfection.” Here’s a phrase—apparently with roots in AA—that gets bandied around to inspire people to take things one day at a time, moment by moment. Instead of pushing for a perfect end goal, we rejoice in our micro […]

All healing is self healing. I say this a lot because it’s true on both sides. The deeper I dive into my own healing process, the deeper my clients are willing to go in their work. The more I work on releasing my fears, the more confident I am that my clients will […]

Here’s a cliché that’s so often misunderstood. “Follow your heart” does not mean hold onto the people who break your heart because you love them and deep down you see the goodness of their soul. “Follow your bliss” does not mean “do what makes you happy,” or that you have […]

I still don’t really know how to talk about this fully, but I experienced a tremendous, miraculous shift recently in one of the most important and most challenging relationships in my life. This is something I have been working on for decades, and we’ve both been in therapy individually and […]

  I had definitely underestimated the gravity of moving from the city to our place upstate. The move happened so quickly and easily and it just felt right. House and garden projects have kept me busy as a happy bee, but over the last two weeks it got increasingly clear […]

  Lest anyone think from yesterday’s post that working with the Akashic Records is all love and rainbows, let me nip that misconception in the bud. Holding a space of non-judgment and unconditional love does not mean sweeping wrongs under the carpet. That would amount to spiritual bypass, a lesson […]

Along with beginner’s mind and clear intention, the third pillar of an Akashic Record reading is trust—trust in the support of Spirit and trust in myself. Once I attune to the Records and feel the supporting energies, I know I am not alone, left to my own devices to figure […]

I’ve been silent in this space for a long while, partly because I’m in the middle of moving from NYC to upstate New York. In this time I’ve been grounding myself. I’ve stopped going to fly class and I’ve returned to gardening. I really needed to get my hands and […]

Late last November I was sitting in meditation and had the distinct feeling that I should drop everything I was working on and clear the decks. For what, I had no idea. This had been a growing sense at the margins of my awareness for a some weeks prior, but […]

Sometimes in that twilight space between sleep and wakefulness a voice speaks to me of things I need to learn. Recently it transmitted a word I haven’t used since my days in academia. “Interstial! Pay attention to the stillness and silence between words and sounds, to the spaces between the grains of rice.” […]

Yesterday I began to write about the initiatory experience I had with a tree in my neighborhood park. Today I’d like to share a bit of how I communicate with it, because it doesn’t look anything like how I’d imagined it would be. To me it still feels extraordinary, but […]

At the end of January and early this month my sleep schedule went out of whack. I’d either find myself sleepless until 3:00 or 4:00am, or if I managed to fall asleep at a reasonable hour, I’d inevitably wake up around those times. During that period I had been feeling […]

Last night I had the puzzling feeling that I shouldn’t sign up for my usual Tuesday trapeze class. This morning, my intuition hadn’t changed, but I decided to check the class schedule anyway, and found that the last remaining spots had been taken between the time I went to bed […]

  I repeatedly tell my clients that an Akashic Record reading—at least the way that I offer it—is not predictive. The readings I offer call for your own engagement in the process, and to have any real effect on your life you will have to walk your path consciously, by […]

Here is the audio of the extended version of my call to the four directions. (9:55) You may want to strip it down to the essence and/or build upon this framework, swapping out aspects of it (e.g., using a different set of power animals, adding sacred plants, assigning different symbolism […]

Upon returning from my trip to Peru, I started a practice of calling to the four directions because doing so engaged my heart, got me immediately grounded and centered, and made me feel embraced in a very supportive atmosphere. I got really curious about it because I noticed that the […]

I recently came across an article by mindfulness and meditation teacher and author Jon Kabat-Zinn that really resonated with me as I started looking back on the two years of sharing a whole variety of meditation techniques and mindfulness tools via Dreamers & Schemers. My tendency is to try anything […]

  For those of you digging Anodea Judith’s framework, here are the basics on the crown chakra: Color: purple (or clear/white) Element: thought Orientation: self knowledge (of the divinity of self) Purpose: to understand (higher consciousness) Identity: universal Rights: to know, to learn Demon: attachment

Sometimes it seems like we are randomly gifted by peak experiences, when we feel indubitably connected to something bigger than us all, something that gives us a glimpse beyond the veil, something that enables us to transcend the hustle and bustle of the everyday. These moments can feel truly life-changing, […]

Broke my two and a half weeks of almost complete solitude and quiet (save for fly class) with #dreamersschemers. We learned about the #crownchakra and on different ways to bring in and anchor the feeling of spiritual connection in our bodies. Sending extra love to @soulhandles at this time. #meditation [...]

I had this great list of things we could do in our intuition “playshop,” but all anyone wanted to do was draw cards. So here I will simply list all the other ideas I had, and then move on to my tips for working with oracle/tarot cards in the easiest, […]

  3D Magic Eye images are computer-generated pictures that contain hidden three-dimensional images beneath a surface of really busy patterns. To successfully see the image, you have to be able to shift your focus to a more relaxed gaze and see “beyond” the surface into its depths. I used to […]

This is a restorative meditation that is great to use when you’re running ragged and feel you need to slough off other people’s energies and all your worries and concerns so you can come back to center and fill yourself back up again. It is similar to the Personal Sun […]

  Getting to know you This month we checked in on our intuition journals (or just what we noticed about our intuitive connection) over the past month. One thing of great note was the one of our participants noticed that she had gotten an intuitive hit about something, but then […]

As human beings, we have a lot of ways of knowing, and it can make life a whole lot easier when we can figure out how we know what we know, and tap into the most appropriate channels of knowing for every context we find ourselves in. Earlier this summer […]

  The third eye is the sixth chakra, and it is located in the spot right above the middle of the eyebrows, though many also associate it with the pineal gland in the center of the head. Its color is indigo, its element is light, and it is the energy […]

Agreements and getting to know you It was such a thrill to welcome back a couple Dreamers & Schemers who had been away for various reasons (maternity leave, summer schedules). I took my time this month going over the three agreements holding up our sacred space. I also tossed out […]

This was the closing exercise we did to unwind from the previous exercise. This is inspired by something I did with my friend Jennifer Urezzio in a workshop called “Voicing Your Vision.” I posted about this on Instagram, but am reposting here. The full exercise involves taking the second song […]

This exercise involves answering a question from the heart in order to get to the truth of who you are. When I did this with my friend Jennifer Urezzio, I was in a roomful of strangers, raw and tearful because I had failed to get through the main exercise of […]

  Four years ago, when my work with Minds On Fire really picked up momentum, I realized that I needed a new way of speaking my truth in the world, and I turned to Naaz Hosseini to help me. I call her a voice coach, but she is so much […]

  AGREEMENTS Even though everyone who showed up this month were Dreamers & Schemers veterans, it was really important for me to go over the agreements given the sensitive nature of the work we were going to do around the throat chakra and speaking our truth from the heart. I […]

  I wanted to ground—if not super-scientifically, at least in terms we can visualize and better understand—what we mean by resonance. It is with great trepidation and amusement that I am bringing math into this blog, but I am doing it for good reason, so please bear with me. What […]

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REBLOG: I am republishing this post from June’s gathering with an audio file below where I assume the role of partner 1 (asking the questions) so you can respond as partner 2. This is in intuitive tool adapted from the work of Sonia Choquette. It’s a really effective way to distinguish the […]

This meditation is to help connect with your heart energy, which you can then use as a guide to any question you have in your life. To feel into this connection, bear in mind that we are not feeling for the beating of our physical heart. Rather, we are trying […]

We had a bit of a late start with this past gathering, so given the OG composition of the group, we went over the agreements quickly and dispensed with “getting to know you” questions. Had we had time for this reflection, the questions would have been: When do you speak […]

The tools I share are really effective in helping you shift your energy in one way or the other. Some are really handy (many of my meditation tools can be used while you’re out walking to the train or are actually riding the subway), while others require more quiet and […]

Though some people experience excess energy in their fourth chakra, I think the majority of us have the opposite problem of shutting down our heart chakra. Here is a list of ways to open your heart that is by no means exhaustive. Feel free to chime in in the comments […]

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This tool is adapted from Leta Worthington. It’s a helpful exercise for instantly clearing any emotion that you’re experiencing, whether or not it’s yours or you’ve picked it up empathically. Even though it’s called the “Blue Ribbon” exercise, you can imagine any color that feels right to you, or you […]

This is adapted from the book, Many Paths, One Mountain. Preparing to work in the Akashic Records requires the ability to step away from the critical mind and drop into the heart space. This is a simple practice that you can do at any time of the day, but I find I […]

This is in intuitive tool adapted from the work of Sonia Choquette. It’s a really effective way to distinguish the difference the feeling of being in your head and being in your heart. Through its use, you are able to see circumstances in your life in a new light and gain clarity […]

Can you think of a more common piece of inspirational life advice than “follow your heart”? So many of us heard this growing up, and perhaps we’ve even passed it onto our young people, but just how much do we trust it? Is it trite or true? I’m going to […]

Since returning from Peru I’ve been opening sacred space for myself by performing a smudging ceremony accompanied by some version of a prayer to the four directions. A “prayer to the four directions” is a bit of a misnomer because just about every version I’ve seen involves calling out to […]

  Smudging ceremony Since June’s gathering was full of veteran Dreamers & Schemers we skipped over the agreements and “getting to know you” and opened up the circle with a smudging ceremony. Since getting back from my trip to Peru, I have been opening sacred space for myself with a […]

One of my favorite sources of tools is the Akashic Records, since they come tailor-made for the recipient. This tool is one I actually channeled for a client, but as it is often the case in readings, there was something in it for me, as well. I felt resonance in […]

I am a big believer in working the question “Who am I?” regularly, and from multiple angles. This is a great personal inventory tool that was inspired by Byron Katie‘s “four questions.” I call it “spring cleaning” because it involves the same process of discernment that you could use for […]

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This is one of my personal favorites, which is why I keep bringing it back to the group. I use the Personal Sun meditation when I feel scattered, depleted, and need to bring my energy back together. It’s great to do before or after an event that requires you to be fully […]

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Last year when we worked on focusing we used the technique pioneered by Ann Weiser Cornell  in her book The Power of Focusing, which was my own personal introduction to the method. It was a great introduction to noticing how the body communicates to us something we need to know […]

We did this meditation with the Higher Self because I wanted to show how easily accessible it was to connect with this aspect of ourselves. You can look up online how other folks suggest connecting with the Higher Self, some of which involve detailed visualizations or energy work, but I […]

This month, Michele Théoret provides us with guidance on how to connect with our second chakra through yoga asanas. From the grounding position of mountain pose, we can choose to move into what she designates as “moon pose/chandrasana.” (Note that this is NOT the version of moon pose where you […]

I consider shielding a vital, basic energy management skill along with centering and grounding. In April we did an overview of basic practices to protect us from being unduly influenced from outside energy. WALLS / SHIELDS First we experienced what the energy of walls were like. We all know people […]

To continue solidifying the lessons of February and March around the root chakra, and also to put April’s material into perspective, we compared several features of the the first and second chakras. [table id=2 /] While the predominant theme of the root chakra is foundations: safety, security, belonging, and abundance. […]

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AGREEMENTS For the May gathering we welcomed a new member to our circle, so I took my time with the agreements. Because we were talking about personal power this month, I underscored the policy of not offering help to anyone unless they ask for it. It may seem counterintuitive, but […]

  [Links to exercises will go up next month when I get back, but in the meantime, enjoy the minutes!] AGREEMENTS This year I’ve been putting much more thought into our three agreements. Last year, when I was much more in the moment with Dreamers & Schemers, I said whatever […]

THREE AGREEMENTS Dreamers & Schemers kicked off our March session, as always, with an overview of the Three Agreements that uphold our sacred space. This month, since we were about to delve into the topic of fear, I really wanted to emphasize the importance of honoring the self by being […]

For the last two months I’d been wondering why integration has been such a challenge for me this year. I experienced this most acutely in my Akashic Records work and in my aerial work and training. I knew I was making progress, but it didn’t look like the sort of […]

Scientific study has shown that we inherit across generations, not only through our psyches, but deep in our genetic makeup. Our genes are literally shaped by the experiences of our grandparents. Chew on that for awhile. Reflect on your grandparents’ lives. Are any of them survivors of war? Of childhood […]

The Monster Celebration is perhaps the most famous guided meditation comes from Amanda Owen’s book, The Power of Receiving, and it comes to me via my cherished friend Steph Cowling. I really dig visualization exercises such as this because in addition to being powerful and effective, they are also fun […]

This practice of sitting mindfully with fear is inspired by the work of psychologist and Buddhist meditation teacher, Tara Brach. She teaches that fear is the root of all negative emotion, including those that manifest in ways that do not seem or feel fearful, such as anger, addiction, compulsiveness, and […]

The Way of Rest by spiritual teacher Jeff Foster is a treasure. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve referred to this collection of little writings, some of which read like poetry, and find just what fits my mood. I’d bookmarked work #33 a couple weeks back because it […]

WHAT IS SHIELDING? Earlier this year we went over grounding and centering as basic meditation and energy management practices. This month we added shielding to our tool belt. What is shielding? It’s something I believe we all learn to do instinctively when we are young. There are many ways to […]

This year I’ve decided to structure our gatherings along with the seasons and the chakra system, so February was the time for us to “make like plants” by turning inward to feed our roots (and root chakra) in preparation for spring.

This is a process that will help you lean into each area of your life and decide for yourself whether (or in what respects) it is nourishing or draining you. As with any tool, please take what serves you and modify or adapt as you wish. The goal is to […]

Last year we learned how to listen for our body’s YES and NO. This will be a review of those methods, but I will also be offering one more tool at the end, which everyone found to be quite fun to use! By memory: Think back to a time when […]

This is a very basic way of grounding and centering yourself, using both the energy of the earth and the energy of the heavens. Turn inward and begin to feel yourself standing by a tree. It may be a tree that you know in real life, or a tree that […]

There are countless ways to connect with your ancestors, and I encourage you to explore other methods and eventually come up with your very own way(s) of doing so, but here I offer a brief guided visualization exercise that I adapted from my own work in the Akashic Records, where […]

I admire yogi Michele Theoret for many of the same reasons I admire Noah Karrasch: both are on a mission to increase awareness around the mind body connection, so we can move through life with grace, vitality, and equanimity. I brought Theoret’s book, Empowered Body, to our last Dreamers & Schemers […]

Freeing Emotions and Energy Through Myofascial Release, by certified Rolfer and CORE practitioner Noah Karrasch, is intended for bodyworkers, but I found it to be a terrific resource for bringing awareness to different parts of my own body. Karrasch includes exercises that individuals can do themselves to increase mobility and […]

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We didn’t have as much time to share the many different ways of grounding, so here is a list to get us started: feel your feet / seat / whatever is touching the surface supporting you basic grounding / rooting meditation balancing between heaven and earth G.A.P. (grounded, aware, present) […]

Last month I had everyone “turn inward, ground, and center.” I purposely did not give instructions on how to do this, because I wanted everyone to instinctively figure this out for herself and experience what that felt like without any conceptual clutter. This month, however, I felt it was time […]

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[For my Dreamers & Schemers] A lot of people ask me how I get my meditation and yoga practice “off the mat.” Today provided a really good occasion for me to break down exactly how I do this multiple times throughout my day, and for that I’m truly grateful. This […]

This is a tool that I recently got from my spirit guides as a way to kick off my new year. It is an exercise in drawing your boundaries, holding the energy of your values steady, and infusing your life (or any aspect of your life) with that energy. Here […]

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I’d been doing a version of these minutes in our private Google group, but today I woke up and felt like blogging. It’s been months since I’ve been compelled to write, so I’m gonna roll with it. Running Dreamers & Schemers is one of the best things that I do, […]

Everyone I’ve ever encountered who discusses “home frequency” treats it as if we each have only one frequency we call home. Even if we think of this (as intuitive healer Penney Peirce does) as “the highest, most natural personal vibration you can attain,” or the feeling of “soul-in-body,” I personally […]

You can jump right into this exercise or walk yourself through any other steps you like to take when you “turn inward” (centering, grounding, releasing, etc.). Imagine a gold sun about a foot above your head. Imagine that it’s magnetic and it’s calling back your energy from all corners of […]

[Again, for my Dreamers & Schemers] The practice of keeping a question journal has transformed my approach to life in so many ways. Not only does it strengthen my ability to open to receive, but at its very root, this work supports my intention of approaching life as eternal inquiry. […]

[This post is for my Dreamers & Schemers, who expressed an interest in learning about my question journal practice at our last meeting.] One of the lovely outgrowths of my Akashic Records practice is my question journal. It began simply as a way to keep track of the questions I […]

The topic of identity keeps popping up in conversations with people in different areas in my life, which signals to me that it’s time to pen my current thoughts on it. Two questions drive this investigation. The first from friends, peers, and colleagues on the brink or in the midst […]