Rewriting Your Myth: How to Unlock Your Creative Medicine

About six months ago, a jaguar started coming to me. First, through an animal medicine card on the summer solstice. Then, in visions. And when I still wasn’t getting the message, it visited me in the dream realm and showed me the part of myself that was murdering it and draining its creative life force.

The dead jaguar caught my attention. At this point, the jaguar was in my conscious awareness, but I still hadn’t fully decoded the message. I sensed it was something about living up to my creative potential and connected to some form of expression. I knew the jaguar symbolized integrity and impeccability and represented the mental body, and that it was an archetype of transformation that revealed its creative power through death and rebirth.

I mean, that all sounded cool, but it still wasn’t adding up. And I knew some part of me was dying, but I wasn’t sure how to revive it. At the time, my life in 3D was in chaos, so my spiritual scavenger hunt with the jaguar was bookmarked for another day. My rational mind put the mystical shit on the back burner and returned to the fires I was putting out IRL.

And here’s the thing, our soul work — our WORK — doesn’t always make sense. There’s never a “good time” for it. It usually defies logic and flies us off the radar. It challenges us to commit to something beyond our daily To Do list. It asks us to make space for a devotional act of sacred expression.

When a soul assignment makes its debut, it usually arrives gently. It nudges us into a different part of the river to see if we’ll catch the current and change course. If we resist or ignore the gentle encouragement long enough, then the invitations turn into swift kicks in the ass. And if those don’t work, well, best get your life jacket.

Recently, one of these soul assignments that I’d been denying finally got my attention. I had to be thrown from the boat and exhaust myself trying to swim against the current before I realized that the river was guiding me in another direction. Who me? Oooooh, I didn’t realize you were talking to ME.

The funny thing was, once I acknowledged and admitted this soul duty, I could trace the thread back about five years. The signs were all there and they were clear. I’d been receiving these messages since 2014. I vaguely knew this idea existed somewhere in the back of my mind, but it wasn’t a real priority. I hadn’t taken this WORK seriously.

It was one of those if / then negotiations where the if kept appearing in different forms and the then never arrived. There was always some mundane distraction or survival game or logical reason that kept me from truly committing to this real WORK. Then five years passed. And I’d drifted so far off course from my soul curriculum that my spirit took drastic measures to get the message across.

First, it kicked up some natural disasters and shit storms in my life to put me on high alert. It brought the alarm bells into my external world since I kept hitting snooze on the inside. Then, it sent a jaguar spouting blood all over my dreams to give my conscious mind a kick in the head. Now, I knew something was up, but I still hadn’t connected the dots.

Luckily, my soul brother is a gifted coach who coerced me into confessing this secret creative desire that I hadn’t even admitted to myself. Once I told him that there was this one thing that I’d always wanted to write but never had, it was over. My WORK was clear. And now I had a witness. No more bullshit.

Unsurprisingly, this confession coincided with a rush of creative energy that flooded through me as soon as I moved that obstinate part of myself out of the way. This story that I had “no idea” about less than a week ago came through almost fully formed in a number of days. The river was flowing again. And I was riding the current instead of fighting against it.

At the time this creative confessional poured out of me and the story came through, I was designing a Creative Alchemy process for my clients. Part of this healing process of using your story as a tool for transformation is finding your myth and then expressing your unique version of it. This sacred expression is less about the form or outcome, and more about opening up to however this universal life force wishes to flow through you.

But this Creative Alchemy journey couldn’t fully come into form until I allowed this story, my own personal myth, to come through me and into the world FIRST. Not after all of my mundane tasks were in order (which means, you know, never). Not after I’d launched the program. Not after I retired on some tropical island. NOW.

I’d found my myth years ago, but that was only part of the equation. I discovered it, did a quick drive-by, and kept moving. Heyo! Nice to see you, Myth. Looks like you’re enjoying life in that cave. Gotta get back to work. See ya!

So, it sat there. Waiting for my return. It was stuck inside of me and it would remain there blocking the flow of the river—my creative life force—as long as I kept my distance. And nothing in my life could move until I created space for this real WORK to come into form.

This may seem obvious as I connect the dots—a “no shit, Sherlock” discovery—but let me tell you this was a REVELATION. I’d dismissed and delayed this idea for so long that I didn’t see any of this coming.

This is why we need each other. We are all mirrors for one another. We need each other’s reflections to reveal what’s hiding in our blind spots. And myth is here as the universal mirror to reflect our Self back to us—to help us find our unique location on the collective map of Life.

Without the skillful questions, loving presence, and fierce conviction of my soul friend, it would have taken who-knows-how-long for me to be honest with myself about this creative desire. Maybe another five years of me flailing in the river, fighting against the current, hanging on for dear life. Maybe longer.

Rewriting my myth was the final piece (or, as another wise friend noted, the final peace) that I was looking for all along.

This is my real WORK.

What’s yours?

Time of Death

Five years ago, my little sister Jennifer was in a car crash on her way home from work. She died instantly. It was three days before her 27th birthday. 

Her death was a threshold for me. It was the beginning of a rapid acceleration that kicked my life and the awakening of my gifts into high gear. Eventually, I stopped hoping or waiting for things to slow down and learned to keep up. 

More significant family deaths followed. My grandpa Bob nearly departed the same weekend as Jennifer but hung on for another 18 months. Then my grandma Mary, the matriarch of my maternal line, died earlier this year. And, most recently, my bonus grandpa Jim, who transitioned this week.

There were also countless endings and personal deaths during this dark night—initiatory deaths. I let go of people, places, and things that had reached their point of completion. And I witnessed so many former selves go up in flames.

And in the ashes of all of this loss, all of these endings, all of these cycles of life reaching their completion through death, LOVE REMAINS. It's been the only constant. It IS the only constant.

The truth is, I experienced a lot of joy and wonder in death. I feel closer to my sister now than I did when she was alive. And my grandma Mary's death was one of the most awe-inspiring, transcendent moments of my life. 

It's an odd thing to experience the joy of connecting with someone's consciousness in Spirit as you sit with the grief of their body's departure from Earth. It's miraculous to be visited by someone's soul as they're walking between worlds on their way home. And it’s bittersweet and strangely comforting to feel the omnipresence of someone you love after they've "gone."

Admittedly, the personal deaths were not as blissful. Those were fucking hard. And painful. And exhausting. And yet I still kept choosing the firewalk. Choosing to surrender whatever had reached its time. Releasing all that was ready to go.

As I walked blindly through this long, dark night, I realized that I didn’t really fear death—I came to befriend it. 

I found that I was much more afraid of life. 

It was more challenging for me to take the leap into the renewal of birth and creation and new life. To fully open to the strength of the light flowing through me. To accept my creative power and OWN IT. To unleash my wild woman and unveil my priestess and conjure my white witch. To live in my fullest expression. To choose myself. 

So, as I arise from the ashes of my phoenix year, I am opening to renewal. I am willing to BE. I am coming back to life. And love is coming with me. 

You Are Invited to Emerge

A celebration of growth and expansion on the Spring Equinox

Growth can be a pain. It requires stretching, expanding, and opening to change. Sometimes remaining in the womb of winter, hidden in the soil of the earth, seems easier than emerging into the returning light of spring. That place of incubation is a safe space for our dreams; once those ideas are born, they feel delicate and exposed. It might be dark down there, but at least it’s comfortable.

The energy of the unknown that accompanies change—whether it’s a new job, relationship, home, or project, or a new version of ourselves—can trigger fear or inspire courage. It can either throw us into the debris of the past and project us into “what if”s in the future, or it can create an opening in the present if we surrender to the ebb and flow of life.

The Spring Equinox brings an energy of balance — equal parts day and night — that invites us into our center, into a place of wholeness that honors the many layers and shades of our being. This is a time to open to the places where we’re contracting, saying NO to life, or resisting growth, and find the places where we’re attached, holding on to what we love out of fear that it will leave us, and gently release our grip. We’re invited to explore our imbalances and examine our contradictions.

Where are we grasping for the light and avoiding our darkness? Where are we turning our face from the dawn and shrinking as the sun emerges? Where are we choosing self-protection and control? Where are we leaking energy by not creating loving boundaries? Where are our thoughts, words, and actions out of alignment? How can we gracefully bless the ending of one cycle and courageously step into the next?

The Toltec tradition associates spring with the element of air, which aligns with our mental/intellectual body, and our thoughts, awareness, and perceptions. When we embody clear perception—observing our thoughts, witnessing our stories, being impeccable with our words—we have the ability to use the mind in service of the heart. If we choose to create our reality from a place of love, then love is what we perceive in the world around us.

Our ancestors lived in harmony with nature. They were connected to the coming and going of each season, the changing moon phases, the celestial shifts, and through ritual they honored the death and rebirth inherent in the cycle of life. They celebrated the endings and the beginnings in equal measure. The arrival of spring brings with it an opportunity to cleanse old energies, from the body as well as the home and the surrounding environment, to create space for the new.

In the process of spring cleaning, as we de-clutter our closets, homes, and desks, we can also bring awareness to our inner world and what’s ready to be cleared out within. What beliefs and limitations are we prepared to shed? What old habits, patterns, and ways of being can we release?

Today is a celebration of the next season of growth and a chance to ring in the astrological new year with intention. Life has cleared the way for us to bring our new ideas, projects, or versions of ourselves out to play. We are invited to emerge from the hibernation of winter and blossom—to open up to living another cycle of life in full bloom.

Grounding in Times of Transition

We're living in times of massive change. The big picture view of what’s next is dimly lit and obscured by fog. Our collective future—as a country, as humans, as a planet—feels uncertain and when our external existence seems threatened, our inner alarms screech in a constant state of high alert. This can be exhausting, confusing, and harmful—physically, mentally, emotionally, and energetically.

My life over the past few years has felt like one long string of transition and uncertainty woven together. I’ve been running this marathon, from change to more change, for years now. I’ve gone through the freak outs, the burnouts, the worst-case scenarios, the attempts to control, the feeling of hopelessness, the fear that I’m fighting a losing battle, and I’ve lost a lot of energy dragging myself through life that way. My current landscape of change includes birthing creative babies, carving a new career path, and a cross-country move back to the west coast after nearly a decade in New York City. There are so many external pieces of my life shifting and transforming, all amidst the bigger changes occurring in our political system, our planet, and our collective reality.

Clearing space for new life and new growth often requires a massive upheaval and it’s natural to feel fear and uncertainty arising during these times. But even when the ground is shaking and the buildings are crumbling around you, there’s a way to remain stable, secure, and grounded in yourself and your connection to Life.

Change is both a destructive and a creative force. Change is not linear; it’s a constant cycle of endings and beginnings. Depending on how you work with those transitions and transformations, it can be an exhausting process or an energizing one. (I’ve tried both approaches and I prefer the latter.) For me, the exhaustion comes when I try to control external circumstances, attempt to change what isn’t mine to fix, hold onto rigidity and expectations, and place my sense of stability in external people, places, or things. The process becomes energizing when I can find strength in flexibility, open my heart to whatever comes (no exceptions), and put my roots down in the safety of my inner home—becoming anchored and grounded in myself regardless of the chaos surrounding me.

When I feel like I’m spinning out, when my energy feels scattered, or when I feel stuck in a mental blizzard, these are some of my favorite grounding practices:

·      Nourishing food + quality time – Even the process of slowing down and cooking a meal (especially for us New Yorkers) can be grounding. Sharing that meal and spending time with people who nourish your spirit is a bonus.

·      Connecting with nature – City folks might need to get a little more creative with this one, but it’s possible! Even cities have trees, grass, birds, and squirrels. And although the sounds of the city aren’t always “meditative,” bringing those sounds, even the harsh ones, into your awareness can be a way to ground you in the present moment and connect more deeply to your senses. For the folks who have more direct access to nature, escaping for a barefoot walk in the woods, or listening to the waves hit the shore, or lying down in a field of grass and watching the clouds pass, are all wonderful grounding practices.

·      Sacred space – Creating an altar or sacred space in your home where you meditate and connect with your body is incredibly grounding (no phones allowed). Even when I’m traveling, I’ll take a little piece of my altar with me—a stone, a photo, a talisman—to connect me to that space when I’m on the road. 

·      Meditation – Connecting to your body in the present moment is the easiest, most accessible grounding practice there is—you can take three deep breaths no matter where you are! You are supported and held by Earth energy, whether you notice it or not, and you can intentionally call on that support whenever you need it, simply by bringing your awareness back to your body and your breath. Meditation guides you back to yourself, connects you to the Earth, and returns you to the stability and security inherent in every breath. Remember that the present moment is your anchor during tumultuous times—it's the one constant you can return to without fail.

On the floor with Osho: the Transcendental Game of Zen

This is a story about a journey within—what I call inner travel. It is a self-exploration, a walk through the shadowy places of my inner landscape to illuminate the source of my creative block: myself. 

READ MORE: Medium