The Lion - Just Show Up.

The Lion card from The Wild Unknown Animal Spirit Deck.

When I’m a crumpled ball on the floor, 

eyes puffy with tears, with only whimpers discernible, 

I show up. 

To the grand dramatic play of raw emotion. 

To the mirage of blame and pity and self-destruction. 

To the cutting truth of my wounded self acting out like a toddler. 

I show up. 

When I’m boldly standing on a hilltop,

my mane of fire shining gloriously,

I show up. 

To the courageous circle of stories told.

To the steps taken in equal parts fear and excitement. 

To the epic journey of the mythic fool.

I show up. 

When my bank account is drained, 

along with my mental capacity and perspective,

I show up. 

To the severe drought of self-confidence. 

To the lack mindset I’ve jumped into for the billionth time. 

To the doubt that I will ever be worthy. 

I show up. 

When the opportunity for abundance presents itself,

with its challenges to rise, rise, rise, 

I show up.

To the reckless fun of imagining a dream. 

To the old beliefs butting up against the new. 

To the creation of something beautiful and interesting.

I show up. 

When love dies, 

and reality shifts to accommodate the loss of future, 

I show up. 

To the strangeness of wondering what ever was. 

To the game of lost chances and wrongdoings. 

To the aloneness of being oneself. 

I show up. 

When new love shows up, 

with the fluttering dismay and giggling shadows,

I show up.

To the meeting of minds, hearts, bodies, and souls.

To the endless spinning web of delirious potential. 

To the unbridled joy of the senses, grounded in the sensuous touch of earth. 

I show up.

When I fear for my safety, 

and I fear for the safety of my friends and communities, 

I show up. 

To the hopelessness caused by the few in charge. 

To the terror of our most basic rights being torn away. 

To the longstanding pain and suffering we can no longer be blind to.

I show up. 

When we come together, 

united in hope, with a force that’s unstoppable, 

I show up. 

To the linked arms of everyone I’ve ever known. 

To the spectacle of millions of snowflakes creating a storm that shuts the whole goddamn thing down. 

To the victory that all can share in.

I show up. 

The lion feels like showing up. It feels like the potential for anything to happen, good or bad, and it urges us to be present. Be present for all of it. All of the joy, all of the suffering, all of ourselves. Every piece of ourselves we love, every piece of ourselves we’re ashamed of. Just show up.

This Is My Body.

There are days I wake up with golden beams of light streaming out from between my legs like the coming of the dawn. I am Goddess. I am pleasure. I am Venus hanging out in a clam shell. I am a Renaissance painting, with my seductive soft edges strewn across a fainting sofa, creating a dramatic silhouette of unspeakable glories.

“I dare you to resist me, mortals,”

I announce to no one in particular as I lift my head for the bunch of grapes that should surely be hanging above my lips that very moment. My body is a juicy, juicy peach that is positively overripe with sensuality and my curves are intoxicating. I hold endless power in my womb and the world is my playground for my strength and curiosity. I look at myself and see cups of wine, dripping honey, floral garlands, mossy earth and absolute transcendence. I have a GOOD body. My walk is an irresistible dance… my hips sway like delicate branches in the wind and the roots of my sex simmer in exotic spices. 

But this isn’t every day. 

And no matter how many times I draw a heart with lipstick around my reflection on the mirror, no matter how many times I start my day with an affirmation of “I am a beautiful magickal creature,” I still won't have juicy days every day. Some days, I just won't get there. 

On those days, I wake up inside this prison called a body. Every movement is torturous. Every thought is heavy. I can accomplish nothing. My skin is crawling and I would give anything to break out through the top of my head and escape this ugly fleshy burden. I look at myself and see abuse, eating disorders, pain and crippling fear. I have a BAD body. My spirit is restless and I cannot stand another moment trapped inside this dense mask that hides my soul. No one sees me. No one knows me. This is crushing. This hurts. 

We have been taught to weigh the worth of our physical bodies on a scale that has only two options: good or bad. If our body falls on the good side, we are made to believe that we have value, we have everything. If our body falls on the bad side, we are made to believe that we do not have value, we have nothing. We have been conditioned to swing wildly between these extremes based on fleeting emotions or comments from others.

And while most of us now know this is bullshit, we still operate from the binary thinking of being "good" or "bad." We changed and expanded the definition of "good" and what that includes, so we can all be a part of it. This is body positivity.

But how many days have I demonized my body in my efforts to shove it all into the "good" category? How many scars, folds, and marks have I cast aside as unwanted, as undesired, when I couldn't shift them into this expanded definition of "good" so easily? How many times have I hunched over, clenching my fists against my chest, willing my body to shrink and compact and disappear against the mirage of beauty that I couldn't force upon myself? How many times have I pushed my body away, disconnected from it, refused to claim it on account of its “bad”ness? How many times have I consciously connected with my body, how many times have I consciously CLAIMED my body, only when I was feeling juicy? Only when it was praised? Only when I was feeling like it was doing “good” things? 

No more. I cannot live in this dissonance, employing my self-abandonment whenever things get tough, whenever I can no longer pretend my feelings are all in the "good" category. Sometimes, the pressure to be body positive all the time is too much. 

When we say to our friends, "Ugh, I'm feeling so ugly today," the typical response is, "No, don't say that! You're beautiful!"

But why do I have to be beautiful? Why can't we acknowledge our real gritty feelings on ugliness as they arise? Why can't we guide one another into the root of our feelings, discovering that it's never really about being beautiful in the first place? Why does our body have to be one thing or another at all times? 

I just want to have my body. I just want to live and love and work and travel and just fucking have a body. Can I just have my body? 

This is not just about body positivity or body acceptance.

This is about self-ownership. 

I am not ugly. I am not beautiful.

I am beautiful. I am ugly. 

I'm everything. I have to be everything. I have to claim it all, all of the "good"ness and the "bad"ness, until it all becomes one large picture of existence that simply IS and is neither one nor the other. Chugging a superfood green smoothie doesn't make my body good, as much as indulging in pizza and ice cream doesn't make it bad. Feeling insecure in bed doesn't make my body bad, as much as feeling like an irresistible sex kitten doesn't makes it good. In every single case, it is still my body, and it still deserves to be recognized and loved without being rewarded or punished. 

I know I will have lots of feelings about my body as I embrace my wholeness. It won't be easy, but I will claim them all and break this incriminating pattern of reward vs. punishment. I'm going to have really easy days, and that's cool. I'm going to have really hard days, and that's cool too.

When my body feels ugly, I will claim it as mine.

When my body feels irresistible, I will claim it as mine.

When my body feels broken, I will claim it as mine.

When my body feels unstoppable, I will claim it as mine.

This is MY body. Every day. I own it. I am responsible for it. I make decisions for it. I will not abandon it anymore. It is neither bad nor good, and yet, it is both. And everything in between. Every day, I will claim my body and claim myself. Every day, I will be aware that my relationship with my body is just that: a relationship. An ever-evolving rollercoaster of ups and downs that requires patience, unconditional love, and constant work. 

Only by claiming my body in its entirety, can I connect with it. Only by claiming myself in my entirety, can I find liberation from the subtle oppressive forces that attempt to split me into pieces on a daily basis.

Sometimes liberation is “Fuuuuuuuuck!” screamed at the top of   your lungs, on the top of a mountain, your naked tits shaking like thunder at midnight, and watching your divine rage move the tops of the trees below. 

Sometimes liberation is a soft sigh settling into the body, in a warm quiet corner of a dark night, after a long day of exhaustive grief and self-punishment.

And I choose to claim it all. 

This is MY body. This body is MINE.

[[[as a reminder, in case there is any confusion, here is a running list of who my body does NOT belong to. And as my body does not belong to them, they can neither claim ownership of it, nor can I willingly give them ownership of it. 

• society

• politicians

• men that I know

• men that I don't know

• my parents

• my husband

• God

• my past lovers

• magazines

• my employers

• clothing companies

• women that I know

• women that I don’t know

• teachers (of any kind)

• beauty companies ]]]

Cry of the Millennial Witch

I feel a divide growing within the spiritual movement. 

It has been growing slowly, almost imperceptibly. Like a frog swimming in a pot of gradually boiling water that hasn't realized the danger he's in.

Here it is, dare I say it: The realm of the mainstream spiritual has become shallow and dogmatic. 

In an effort to reach divinity, enlightenment, and guru-status, we’ve banished and demonized the “negative” and the struggle of the human experience. We’ve lost touch with the glorious bittersweet medicine that our pain and suffering offers when truly acknowledged by the Self and the community, and subsequently integrated with compassion and love. 

I tried. Fuck, I tried. I did the meditations, I did the training, I did the work. I focused on the positive, I focused on the light, I focused on letting go of my darkness. Just release, they said. Don’t even bring attention to what it is, they said, just release it. I advanced in my healing skills, in my awareness, in my intuition. I worked deeply with clients doing soul retrievals, secretly reveling in the shadow of the underworld. I knew that there were those in my spiritual community who did not approve of my work. But I worked anyways, because I saw how deeply I could connect with my clients. I saw and acknowledged their pain. I focused on the integration of their experience, rather than the denial of it. I cried tears of joy when I heard of how much my work was helping them heal themselves. And at the same time, I was jealous. Why wasn’t the work healing ME? Why wasn’t I feeling better? Why wasn’t MY shit releasing? 

That growing awareness backfired. More and more, I felt I was wading in the shallow pond of the world while my spirit was so deeply imbedded in the dark muck of the earth, in a place no one wanted to look. I was not offering the same sense of acknowledgment to myself that I offered my clients. I was still trying to uphold the notion that I was supposed to be a certain way, that I was supposed to be zen and happy all the time if I was going to be a healer. But nothing was in balance. I didn’t feel real. I didn't feel authentic to myself. I was trapped between the the worlds...I was too spiritually minded to be a muggle, but I wasn't the right kind of spiritual for the actual spiritual community.

So I said Fuck it. 

I am part of a generation of witches rising up to say Fuck it. A generation of witches that has been burned too many times, and refuses to silently wither away in the flames again.

Don’t bring your attention to the fire, they said. Just release it and let it go, they said. 

But not this time. This time, we are taking those flames inside of us, acknowledging them and respecting them and feeling their searing pain, and letting them transform in our bellies so we may breathe out the fire of an awakened dragon. As awakened dragons, as millennial witches, as priestesses of the moon, as unpredictable beautiful bitches, as wild wolf women, we have a list of demands and decrees: 

-Our sexuality will be honored as spiritual, sacred, divine, and primal. It is communication with the divine, it is a link between heaven and earth, it is pleasure for pleasure’s sake, it is the human experience. It is a force all its own and won’t be controlled or belittled. 

-And yet, our spirituality will not be sexualized, fetishized, or infantilized. The Priestess is not a fetish.  The days of gurus sexually manipulating and abusing the Goddess are SO over. We’re not buying what you’re selling. No one gets to tell us how pure or impure we are, and what makes us that way, and whether we need to change that or not.

-We don’t want our spirituality to taste like candy. We don’t want rainbows and unicorns and sugary sweet confections of relentless positivity and the law of attraction. We want our spirituality to taste like dark chocolate; deep, rich, a little bitter, a little sweet, sensual and complex. We want it real, we want it deep. We won’t accept anything less. 

-Many of us swear. Like, we really swear. We fucking swear a fucking lot. Deal with it. What’s a witch who doesn’t curse? (Not to mention it’s good for your brain—google that shit.)

-We will not be shamed. For our sexuality, for our lifestyles, for our choices, for the shortage of fucks that we give. Our lives, our power, our choice. Get on board or get out.

-You will not tell us to simply “let go”, “clear”, or “release” our feelings and issues by way of ignoring them. We don’t just release; we integrate. We take our darkness and stew in it, letting our unique human experiences mingle with our divinity, creating a powerful form of alchemy that’s whole and complete. We know the light is only half of what makes us powerful. Once integration is complete, what is no longer needed naturally releases as a byproduct of the process.

-We do not live in binaries, so don’t categorize us in them. Don’t tell us what’s “good” and what’s “bad” because we know better than that. Don’t tell us to live in the light to banish our shadows. In fact, don't tell us what we are or what we should do at all. We are fluid and becoming more so. Gender fluid, sexually fluid, socially fluid, spiritually fluid. 

-We hold a deep respect for social and cultural issues. We won’t use “Namaste” as a substitute for “goodbye” just because it sounds spiritual. We won’t wear a bindi on our foreheads just because it’s cute. We won't discount another's experience and point of view just because it's not ours. We realize that our individual path is not more important than an entire marginalized culture’s. We listen. 

-“Omg I can’t say anything without someone getting offended and everything has to be sooooooo PC nowadays.” <—Nah. We don't see it like this. We see a generation coming into their own, attempting to own their view of the world and how they’d like it to be. Clearly, there’s a growing outcry for more sensitivity and change. You could stubbornly fight it or try to understand why it’s happening. Change won’t happen without conversation, so be open to the conversation, even if you don’t see it the same way.  

-Be aware when you respond to our feelings. There's a tendency, when someone admits they are feeling something other than complete joy or satisfaction, to apologize and suggest ways to be rid of that feeling. F that noise. The only cure for feelings is to feel them. Completely. Sink into them and allow their wisdom to wash over you. We don't wallow, but we do feel. Everything. We refuse to repress or push our feelings aside just because they make us (or you) uncomfortable. (P.S. We hardly think "You should meditate on it." or "Have you tried going gluten free?" are appropriate responses to anything. And this is coming from someone who both meditates and is gluten free.)

-The second you use any of the new age buzzwords— manifesting abundance, the law of attraction, meditation, energy healing, authentic, etc etc— our discernment kicks the fuck in. It’s not that we don’t believe in manifestation and meditation and energy healing, we definitely do. Manifesting is our middle name. But without the realness of our human and divine darkness acknowledged by our teachers, coaches and mentors, the spiritual movement becomes oppressive and dogmatic dressed as light and love. And not to mention, manipulated for profit when the actual authenticity is not behind it, considering the growing trend. We will search you, hard, before we will work with you.

-Maybe the most important of all, we know that Truth is found in paradox. If it’s not a contradiction in itself, we are wary. If we are not contradictions in ourselves, we are not real. 

We will not accept less than what we are. We will not be only partially ourselves because it's prettier or happier. We will be gritty and raw and beautiful and whole. We love fiercely. Love is at the core of our beings, but we know that sometimes love is the awakened dragon burning down the bridges that no longer serve us.

Sincerely,

the witches you love and fear

**As nothing is just black or white, I acknowledge and appreciate the spiritual teachers and mentors in my life that have never oppressed me and have always wanted me to be myself. You know who you are and I thank you from the bottom of my fiery heart. 

Check out my book, I Don't Want To Be An Empath Anymore, now available on Amazon!