A Year of Grief~ Gifts from a Heart Cracked Open

I write to you today with a deep desire to share my story. Expression, intimacy and connection are such vital pillars of my well-being, and with the kind of year 2025 has been, it feels more important than ever to share.

Grief has been weaving her rich threads through my world in ways I've never experienced before. This initiation started last year, in 2024, when I became devoted to what I lovingly call "Mystery Studies". I was guided into this immersion through intuition, dreams and blaring signs all around me. I allowed myself to follow the pull to experience as much of The Mystery as possible: recognizing the creative fertility of the unknown, trust falling left and right by surrendering my "plans" so the unfolding of my reality could be birthed not from my mind, but from the will of the Mystery, going on hikes in the dark of night, in the darkness to better know the gifts of the Yin, and so much more.

After a Summer filled with embodiment and experimentation, Autumn came around and I found myself in Guatemala at a beautiful retreat with my colleagues. One of the rituals I got to experience was one of deeply considering, and acting as if, you were mourning your own physical death. I was shook to my core by this experience. The levels of grief that flooded me were tumultuous, all consuming, intense. After the ritual closed, everyone participated in a celebratory dance for life, but I could not bring myself to join. So thoroughly rocked to my marrow, I retreated to the balcony of my suite, I rolled a Guatemalan tobacco cigarette, I lit a candle and wept and sang as the evening rains rolled in...

The winter to follow was eventful; we dreamed up a new home space for our family, and moved in March as the Spring flowers were emerging. We settled, we rejoiced, we nested.

One crisp starry night in April, my husband and I were sitting outside having nourishing talks when I got a phone call. My sister's voice on the other line, I received news that sent my animal body into a visceral shock-response. My mother's husband, and deeply beloved step father to my siblings and I, far too young, strong and vibrant, had passed away suddenly.

Not a week later, one early morning, sleeping next to my mother for comfort and emotional stability, I got a call from my husband that our beautiful cat, Ziggy StarDust had been attacked by a predator, and passed as well.

The next months of 2025 were a trial unlike any I have experienced before. My body, affected by autoimmunity, fully succumbed to the collapse that my heart was already in. I spent days and nights in bed, so tired, endlessly tired, and simultaneously my soul was restless and my mind was angry. My feminine relatives, mother, sister and I, individually and collectively worked through some of the darkest layers of life in these months. We continue to gather strength, remember our joy, and honor our tears amidst the day to day demands of life.

As the mighty teacher of grief escorted me into the underworld terrain of my being, I began to hear a familiar voice call out for me. A demand to see and hear her after a lifetime of denial.

She was the voice of my rage, my despair, my ravenous longing, my bleeding heart pulsing in my hands. I heard her and, in the state of pulverised exhaustion and grief that I was, my usual psychological defenses compromised, I saw her in a whole new light.

She, who had orchestrated a reign of self-destruction throughout my teenage years,

she who lusted for fiery vengeance

and she whose intensity and immensity often scared off friends and lovers.

This one, who in archetypal terms is often called the Dark Feminine, who I have come to know as the Deep Feminine, had been condemned to a reinforced cage inside of me. For fear of her destruction and fear of the pain and heartbreak that followed when rejected by those around me, I had unconsciously attempted to purge the Deep Feminine from my being.

While much of my work had been intended to liberate and integrate her, it wasn't until Grief came to tenderize me that I began to see with new clarity the ways in which I still denounced her. Looking back, I can see that my stifling filters have always been so persistent and strong, and simultaneously my rage and passion and depth has both intimidated and hurt those I love. I've been ruled by a veritable tug of war between the one that clung to the mask of put-togetherness, and the one who raged through the bars of her cage, spitting venom and flames.

As I continue to participate in this interpersonal journey of reclaiming the Deep Feminine, I am called back to the relentless pursuit of what ignites and feeds my inner fire, what gives life to me, and only what gives it.

This notion is wildly confronting, at times scary and even deeper than these, LIBERATING. While I am still very much "in it", (when are we not?), I am at the same time living these codes through my personal and professional expression.

There is a beautiful creative cauldron that I am tending, full of emergent offerings including: recorded audio journeys and podcast episodes, couples work, an emphasis on sociosensual and somatic healing techniques, horse medicine, mysticism and more! If you are interested in learning more about my work, book a complimentary call with me.