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Video Summary: Another aspect of this time of introspection over the winter is that it's a really opportune time for healing. When our heart is open, and we're allowing energy in, we may get triggered or spun out. We go into our stuff. We may get angry, scared, reactionary, or judgmental. You could think of it as we're allowing energy in, and it hits a wound. When someone says or does something that hurts our feelings, rubs us the wrong way, or offends us, it may be an indica

About 30 years ago, we gathered to do a ceremony during the Summer Solstice. We often begin such retreats sitting around the fire, doing a sharing circle, pondering such questions as, What's in your heart? What have you been experiencing? Or, what are you hoping to awaken during this retreat? At this gathering, however, our teacher just looked at us and said, "This year I want to know something different. What do you bring to ceremony this year?" We were a bit taken aback as

Video Summary: I want to share a spiritual inquiry that I've been working with. Spiritual inquiry or self-inquiry is when we ask a question to our higher self, spirit, inner consciousness, or intuition, and then wait for an answer. When we allow the answer to come to us, we might experience it in a number of ways. Some of you may know I've been exploring the Australian Dreamtime. In fact, the spring retreat I’m offering in March this year is going to have a Dreamtime theme. T

ideo Summary: In my tradition, coyote medicine shows us the things we don't want to look at and the things we don't want to accept in ourselves. The coyote is the trickster in that he tricks us into seeing things we do not want to see in ourselves. So why would we not want to accept something about ourselves? One reason is that we attach to an emotional transitory state and make it a statement about ourselves. So if we’re experiencing fear, we go to, "I'm a fear-based person,

Video Summary: I want to talk about another dimension of wintertime, which is the time of introspection on the medicine wheel or the wheel of life. The life energy of nature is going inside of us and into the ground. The animals are hibernating and going into the earth. The energy of the trees has moved from the leaves to the trunk and roots. In the wintertime, nature is hibernating and dormant. Its movement and momentum have come to a stop. And that can happen for us because

Video Summary: I've been noticing a tendency for us to evaluate ourselves based on how other people respond to us. This really becomes critical when we're being honest, speaking our truth, being vulnerable, and having a new view of something. When we offer this new view, we look into people's eyes and at their facial expressions to see if they agree that the idea is good. The challenge is that our most innovative and powerful ideas and expressions of our authentic selves are

Video Summary: I've been working on finding the flow of my life in my personal spiritual practice. I work part-time at the emergency room in Bend, and as it turns out, working in the emergency room can be a really good indicator and teacher if I'm in my flow or not. Yesterday I asked a nurse for a hand with a patient, and she simply looked at me and she just said, “No”. I was a little surprised and taken aback, but I just kept moving and found someone else to help me. Later,

Video Summary: I want to start with the possibility that you are way stronger than you realize. True strength is accessed when you go inside yourself and find your connection to life. You are in alignment with life, and life can flow through you. I want to contrast this with what I'm going to call contrived strength or manufactured strength. And while true strength is accessed by going inside, contrived or manufactured strength is sought outside. It's the strength of having p

Video Summary: All the conditions are here for it to be a very emotional week. We had the time change this past weekend, and it’s election day, a full moon, and a lunar eclipse on Tuesday, the day this blog comes out. I'm told it's a beaver blood moon?! I'm going to focus on the time change and the going into winter part of this. I want to talk about the time change and going into winter in terms of the Medicine Wheel or wheel of life. The Medicine Wheel is a ceremony and a w

Video Summary: I want to talk about noticing that someone is in your sacred space that you do not invite to be there, or you could say, when someone invades your sacred space. I listen to so many of my clients in sessions and sharing circles, and notice that there are these uninvited people in their sacred spaces. And I can’t help but wonder, why is this person in your sacred space, carelessly talking about or belittling something that's so precious to you? Why do we allow th

Video Summary: I want to start with a story that happened many times in my work with my teacher. I would be voicing a complaint to my teacher about how someone that I was relating to was not reliable, responsible, or whatever else. totally listen, get this big smile, and say, “Well, what were you expecting?” It was a nice way of saying, “Well, duh, of course, that's what they did.” And at the time, it didn't seem very compassionate, but he was trying to help me shift somethin

Video Summary: The bear is the Spirit Keeper of the West in my tradition. The archetype of bear medicine is pure strength. When we do a ceremony, I call in the bear medicine in the west. I often say, "The bear has no natural enemies, so it can be the clown of the forest." In other words, it can be itself. It can be purely genuine and vulnerable. And by having no natural enemies, it needs no defenses. Since the bear has nothing to be afraid of, it can be true to itself. This i