Reclaim Your Feminine Power | 062

Keri, I'm so excited to hold space with you

and get inside this beautiful tapestry of your life. I want to

ask you about what it was like to be thrust into the modeling

world from small town Nebraska,

yeah, I think I didn't actually know what was

happening at the time. Looking back is a totally different

thing than when I put myself in the position of that 13 year old

girl who flew from Blair Nebraska to New York. And at the

time, I was young, and even though I was naive and very shy,

Oh, bless that little one, I was so shy and so out of my element.

But I had that thing that a lot of young people have, which is

just just fearless like that. You know, the fool of the Tarot,

just like walking off the edge of the cliff, quite happy,

because there's I didn't really know that much, so I quite

happily just, you know, met the moment of that and and was

thrust into a very grown up world that I was not equipped

for. But I really I learned trial by fire, and I learned as

I went. What did you learn? I learned how to survive in a

very, very to use the word inappropriate is, it's not quite

right, but what I'm a mom of four daughters now, so when I

can't help but think back to that version of myself, and I

feel this fierce mama bear one in me, just like loving that

version of myself. And so I from this standpoint, I would say

that's an incredibly inappropriate situation for a

teenager to be in I would never let my daughters do that, and my

my daughter, when was it last summer, she was vacationing in

London with a friend, and she was approached by a modeling

agent and given a card, and she went to the agency. And the

whole time, I was just biting my lip and because I wanted to just

yell no, but I know what the team you have to be, very artful

and strategic, and so all that to say. I did not want that from

my daughters. And so when I think back to what I learned, I

learned. I learned a lot about how to shut down, how to shut

Yeah, how to shut down to kind of get along. I had a lot of

angels along the way. A lot of a lot of really traumatic things

happen along the way, and a lot of incredible if I, if I was a

writer, and I remembered more it would make an incredible memoir,

because there were some just fun and fabulous time champagne in

the morning and like mini skirts and sunglasses and she vivid

West with cokes and being just young and fabulous and making a

shit ton of money and not having a lot of responsibilities,

besides flying around the world and showing up to work on time,

there was a lot of partying that happened in order to, I think,

cope or feel like, feel like I fit in. I really did have that

fish out of water, because I really was, I really was.

And so you said you learned how to shut down. So

what did that look like? And then, how did you open up again?

Well, it's been, it's been a decades long

journey, a hero's journey, so to speak. And again. I mean, I can,

I can name it that sitting from my standpoint now, with the

nervous system, education that I have, and the embodiment wisdom

that I have, I can look back and see, oh, I really had to shut

that feeling part of myself off. There wasn't time or any safe

there wasn't a safe space to be as terrified as I think I was

deep down. You know, I I have a 16 year old daughter in the

house in there, and when I think about her navigating Paris and

Germany the way I was now, I was alone going on, they call them

ghosties back in the time. But all these appointments all

around the city, in the north and then in the south, and then

two o'clock, it's over there. And I was navigating the city

and the subways and the busses, and I had my my Filofax. There

were no smartphones. There was like I had to find a pay phone

and collect call my family if I wanted to connect. And it was a

different. In time, and I was navigating that on my own. So

for at that point, I was 14, and so I think I just had to shut

down a lot of my sensitivity, which I'm naturally a very

sensitive being, but there wasn't, there wasn't space, or

that wasn't really allowed. I couldn't, I wouldn't have been

able to function and survive had I felt all of the things I felt.

So I learned to kind of, I think, on an unconscious nervous

system, way shut down, go along to get along party at night,

because I felt okay then and I happen to, I happen to to couple

with, with, uh, I was in a seven year relationship during that

time with a slightly older man who was much more worldly than

I. And as as much as that relationship had its unhealthy

aspects, for sure, there was also he provided me this sense

of safety and some sort of stability while I flew out

around the world, quite literally, on a plane every two

to three days, which was wonderful on one aspect, like

travel, best education ever. But he I would it was someone I

could come home to. He was always there, always there. I

mean, smoking his brains out, but he was always like, that was

okay with me.

Yeah. And then, what was it like coming out of

that world and then stepping into something that was, I want

to say, more realistic, but I'm not even sure if that's the

right word to use. What would what would you use?

Well, certainly more more real for me, for who I

am, my essence, my soul, my what I know to know as my soul path.

Now I it's really interesting from an astrological standpoint,

it was just at my solar return, at 2929 30, that I closed the

door on modeling. And simultaneously, that's that that

simultaneously happened with me becoming a mother, and at that,

that point, I was really clear, oh, I was done. I was done. I

was, I think, really wanting to close the door on modeling. I

had done it, and I had done it up and down and all around in

every direction, like I did all the things I wanted to do in

that world, and I did it well and and I was done that was

complete. And so it felt like a relief to be done. And being

pregnant and stepping into motherhood gave me a really good

excuse, kind of there was a really good reason to close the

door on that, because all I ever really knew I wanted was to be a

mother, and so it would. It allowed me to fully just give

everything. I didn't have to divide myself. I didn't have to

think about work. I was fully, fully dove into motherhood and

and really it turned and then left that world behind. I'm,

it's, it's truly complete,

yeah. And so as you closed that door, and then

this other world opened up as a mother, what did you step into

there in terms of swimming around with the essence of you?

You know, as you're

speaking, I'm realizing there's all these sometimes I like

things to be really neat and tidy, but I'm realizing, no,

there was a really important overlapping piece that happened,

which was probably like maybe three years before I closed the

door entirely on modeling. My father got really sick. He got

cancer, and I went to take care of him. He didn't have he didn't

really have anybody else in his life at that point, that's a

whole other story. But I was called to go and really heal my

relationship with him. We've been estranged for the better

part of my life, but I took that opportunity to go care for him,

and it was a beautiful, horrifying, just exquisite

experience for two and the last two and a half years of his

life, and taking care of him in a really intimate way, really

healed something for us, and now he's on the other side, and

we're incredibly close, and he's such an ally to me, really

grateful for that time. But what happened during that time is I

fell. Felt there was this deep fulfillment in caring for him

and sort of midwifing, this midwifing him out. And I thought

maybe there's something here for me, because I was had already

wanted out of modeling like I'm kind of done. It doesn't really

fit me. What if there's something here? What if I become

a midwife? No, no. First it was, what if I become a nurse? Like,

I help people like this. I help people who are sick. And I

thought, no, no, no, that's like, too dark and difficult.

But what if I'm on the other side of life? What if I become a

midwife? And so in researching that, I discovered this thing

called doula. And to become a doula, it was a much shorter,

easier path in I realized I could become certified and start

working as a doula quite, quite relatively quickly. So that's

what I did. So the the that initiation portal of my father

being sick and eventually passing opened up this new

place, which was really my first, my first opening into the

body and women's bodies and the stories that our bodies carry,

which you know, if you look at the book many chapters later,

and where I'm at now, I realize, Oh, that was the genesis in the

now it's more metaphorical, like what we're birthing as women,

not necessarily babies, but you know what we're birthing, ideas,

new versions of ourselves and through the body, which is the

field that I work in, is the body. So I realized that was the

that was the beginning. Yeah. So

as you journeyed with yourself and forming this

beautiful relationship with your body and also being able to

intersect with other people on that journey, as a doula, as a

mother, shepherding your father through that transition. What

was the next iteration of that in your 30s, when you worked

with Michaela and really started exploring other parts of of

embodiment.

It's so interesting because I'm noticing

the similarity. And so the death of my father heralded this birth

of this new this new chapter for me. And likewise, the death of

my marriage at that time pushed me into this embodiment work

where I got myself. We spoke about this earlier. I got into

the work. It was David data's work initially, and then I went

on to do the women's work that Michaela was holding, and I got

into the David data sexual polarity, that kind of worked to

save my marriage. But what I really got through Michaela's

work was I really got me. I really got me in a in a deeply

embodied way that I hadn't had before, and that was a big

initiation for me into just feeling myself in a certain way,

giving myself permission in a certain way, and feeling

empowered, getting in touch with what do I need, and how does

that, how does that flow into what my boundaries are, what's

okay, what's not okay, and and then really, you know, really

coming to terms with the end of my of that marriage, which was

so profound for me, because I think most people going into

Marriage don't think that it's going to end, yeah, especially

if you come from, if you're a child of divorce, I think we

have a particular thing that's like, okay, that's, I'm not

going to recreate that. I would never do that. And then, you

know, I found myself there, and I found myself at that, like the

edge of the cliff, about to jump off and realizing, you know,

it's a very layered decision, and I realized that I would be

tearing my family apart and breaking my children and their

broken hearts along with me. So it was a it was, took me about

four years to reckon with that, and but I got myself through

Michaela's work, and that really, really catapulted me

into a new place in my life, kind of a that era right after

my divorce was a real Renaissance. And from I stayed

with Michaela and did that work deeply for many years, and that

kind of flowed into doing. Some more classical Tantra work, sort

of Neo Tantra. And then I found a very, very classical, like

classical old school, like old Tantra teacher, Nita Rubio, and

we'd start to go into the womb and do womb work. And you know,

again, women's bodies and the wisdom and the stories that they

that they hold, and ask me a question to bring me back,

because I'm swimming in my Oh,

I'm swim. I'm enjoying just swimming around in

in these threads that you're pulling together

when you were

in this renaissance and

being a single mother

of these young girls,

and

figuring out what was going on in your body and

giving yourself permission, as you say, to have that experience

while you're role modeling a strong woman or a vulnerable

woman or or an open woman for these young Girls, what? What

was that like in terms of the permission journey? I'm just

fascinated by that, how the embodiment continued to invite

you to lean into that.

Yeah, I mean, I think that permission piece was

key for me in going from I will do whatever it takes to keep

this marriage together to really getting real about, wait, what?

What am I modeling for my children and is who I'm being,

because I know that that's how our children learn everything.

It's it's not what we're saying or the lessons we teach, it's

the lessons we're living. It's how we're being. And I realized

I was modeling like a lot of separation and unfulfillment and

and so that was, that was what allowed me to

really it felt like jumping off this cliff into the unknown. But

what

really also allowed me to have the permission to jump after is

I held this flame in my heart of what I knew I just had a sense

of what I knew a partnership could feel like. And it wasn't

that my marriage was horrible. We didn't we never even fought

in front of the kids. But there was, I wasn't met. I wasn't met

in all the ways I think my deeply, deeply need that some

people, I think, are wired, they're very ambitious in their

careers, or they, you know, are led by their purpose out in the

world. Like for me, I'm a very relationship oriented person, so

for me to not have those intimate needs fully met. I'm

like, walking around, like, limping, like I'm not, don't

have all my extremities, so I let that flame and that knowing

of like, okay, this is, this is okay. I could cut, I could sort

of cut part of myself off, the part of myself that needs this

and this and that, and because there's security here, and he

makes me laugh sometimes, and, you know, but I was so deeply

unhappy for real, and so that flame of what I just imagined or

knew love could be in partnership and finding a mate

that also had me jump off the cliff. And I said, You know what

my my daughters deserve to see me, met in that way and

fulfilled in that way and radiant in

that way. And I don't

know what it's going to look like or if it's going to come,

but I kind of believe it is. And when I met my now husband, which

was a few years after that we met, we met through poetry, in a

way, and he wrote this poem talking about that inner flame.

And when I met him, it resonated with that flame. And I'm like,

Oh, there you are.

The twin flame is, is a beautiful thing. I want to

ask you though about finding that intimate connection with

yourself and being whole within yourself so that you could.

Invite in Amir, who was also on that journey of being whole

himself, so that you could meet in this place of true intimacy

and connection.

Yeah, well, I think that the beginning of that

was having the courage to walk away from something that really

wasn't mine, and I and it took, it was the most courageous thing

I've ever done in my life. It was the one of the hardest thing

by far at that point that had been that was the hardest thing,

the most courageous thing. And I knew it, and I did it. And

there's something that like, there's something that happens

like, Whoa, that that sovereignty and knowing that

Well, I can trust myself to to do the hardest, most courageous

thing, because I value myself and my life in that way. There's

something that happens when you're willing to do that, at

least for me, that was, that was my, my thing, and then, you

know, simultaneously, I'm doing this work of embodiment and

really going into the crevices of exploring my sensuality and

my sexuality that had been something that had been cut off

in my earlier years, so to reclaim that piece for myself.

And really understanding, especially in my maiden years,

there was this idea that somebody was going to come and

bring me pleasure, or do it to me, or something like that. And

what I really understood is no, the pleasure is mine. My

Pleasure is mine. Let me really get to know it, and then I have

it to share with somebody when that time comes common, like, do

me. Like, there's that mentality, like someone's going

to do it to me, give me put no so I got to really explore that

and and have that and then really have that claimed in

order to then share that with somebody. And that's really fun

when it happens that way.

Yeah, but you and AMIA didn't meet, and then

whoosh, we're going to couple up. No no, take me through that

evolution. So

I'm like, which version am I going to tell?

That. So, you know, I'll just say this. I'm sure there's at

least one or two people listening who have been in a

relationship where there's, there's like, you're kind of a

wilting flower dying in the desert, like, like, let's just

say, for example, in the sexual arena, like your your sexual

needs aren't met. Oh, I see

there's more than one or two people listening who

can relate to that.

So I, you know, I walked away from it, from that

aspect in my marriage, and and then it was like, like, let's

go, let the pendulum swing. And so I got into a, I got into a

beautiful relationship that I guess was really, it was sexual

healing, and that was what it was. And that lasted for about a

year and a half. And that was beautiful. And needed to was

like a it was like, Yeah, rain in the desert. But that was,

that was, you know, there's a reason, a season or a lifetime

that was for a reason, and that really was coming to an end. And

that was coming to an end, and that was a process. And as that

was closing, my antennas, or my energies were starting to open,

to even, even be aware of other men or other energies in my in

my field, and Amir came in, and likewise, at that time, he was

ending a relationship, and we met over Facebook. We didn't

meet over Facebook, I guess sort of, kind of, we were friends

somehow, through various overlapping communities. But it

was just at that time, I don't know, the algorithm Gods put him

in my feed, and I he was on a trip, and I was following his

travels. And I think because that relationship was ending, I

was really open to this man who was a beautiful mix of father,

sober man, martial artist, poet, nature, lover. I was just really

taken by him. All the while following his travels, and I

commented when it was his, it was his sober birthday, and I

just snuck in that. I too. At that point, I was not sober. I

also was sober for 16 years, and that was a really beautiful part

of my recovery and getting getting myself. I don't think I

mentioned that part of my reclamation was 16 years of

sobriety and doing a lot of recovery work, but I wanted him

to know that we shared that. So I was, I was very artful in my

comments. And then he posted a thing about a poem, and I I

mentioned, like, Ooh, it was from one of my favorite poets,

Mary Oliver, but I didn't know this poem. And so I comment, I

remember what I wrote. I said, Oh, I'm gonna this is a good one

for my poetry medicine first. And then he the next message was

not in the comments, it was in the DM section. And I think I

sound like a dinosaur right now. Love section.

Oh, god, my teen girls would just

be crawling under the table right now. Anyway, I think we

all know what I mean. Oh, I know what you made. We all know what

you made. What's a poetry medicine purse? I'm like, Oh,

this is going to be fun. So I started to share with him a lot

of my favorite poems that for me are medicine. It's the it's just

the thing that can get in there and touch place in the heart.

And so we started sharing poems, and I started to really, really

feel something for this man, and we were back and forth, back and

forth, but I hadn't quite closed it. I hadn't closed it

completely with this other relationship, and I was feeling

really out of integrity, because I was really having feelings. So

one of my next messages was like, Vulnerability Alert. I'm

we have to stop communicating, because I'm really crushing on

you, and I'm not complete in my last relationship yet. And when

Amir tells the story, he remembers exactly where he was

when he got that message, and he's like, All I heard was she

has feelings for me. Nothing else mattered. And, long story

short, we decided to we were both feeling very real things,

and both wanted to be together in fullness, wholeness and

integrity. So we were at this crossroads, okay, what do we do?

We're both have like, half an arm hanging off. We're not we're

still ending things. So we decided to take a note from this

David White poem called Winter Apple, which speaks about themes

of patience and ripeness and timing. And yeah, there's this

beautiful visual of finally taking the apple off the branch

like a two full months after you should have taken it down. He

says, You do, and you bite in. And he describes just the the

lushness of of the weight and and all that that brings. And so

I said, What if we take a page from David White and we meet in

two months. And so we set the date. He said he's like, here's

the date, Here's my address. See you then. And and then there

were, there was a, there's about a book this thick. I made a book

later. Of all, all that transpired between that moment

and that, that point, two months later, there was many, many

writings. We never spoke, voice to voice. I scoured the Internet

and I found some talk he did to martial arts students their

black belt graduation, and so I could hear his voice, and he did

render me some poems and send me some poems, but it was a very

old school, beautiful courting, where, like almost by messenger

pigeon, you know, we would send notes back and forth, although

it was it was over Facebook. It was not over text. It was all

through Facebook. And I fell in love. We fell in love that way.

So by the time that two month mark came, our was strange. Our

bodies had to catch up with what was already woven together

energetically and through the heart. Um, he was to order it,

and I thought he'd be winning.

Oh, gosh, I I really, really love this story.

And as I've said to you before, when I came to your 50th

birthday party, which you were so gracious. In including me in

the love in your circle of friends and family was so

beautiful, and you really gave a master class in receiving love

and giving it and holding it for all of us. So tell me about what

it's been like to step into working together

and shepherding

an embodied experience for others, for men

and women, and the dynamic change that occurs when you're

doing that together, as opposed to the privacy and intimacy of

your

your relationship. It's one of my

favorite things to do, is it's co creating an experience

holding space and and, yeah, shepherding a journey for people

and an experience for people with my husband built out of the

magic that I think we are somehow blessed to share

together. So I feel like it's it. It's birth. The birthplace

is our love, and whether or not the offering has to do with with

romantic love, which normally it doesn't, but it's, but that's

the birthplace. I mean, it's, it's also the energetic

principle of when, you know, when two things come together in

unity than like this third thing is born. So I feel like when we

when we get to co create together, this third thing is

born, and it feels just so alive and so satisfying to create with

a mirror outside of the home. I mean, we create a lot within our

home, but to do it outside our home and to have our our

community be I really feel like it's a beacon of light, and I

feel really honored to be able to hold that beacon of light for

our community, for whoever chooses to enter that space with

us, and, yeah, to use it, to use that for, for to really be in

service, to really be in service of other people, then whatever

that light does for for other people, and some of that's most

of That's none of my business. I just were able to, we hold the

space, we hold the practices and then the magic and the beauty

and the life and the love and the God that happens within that

is really none of my business. It's my delight, but it's none

of my business, in a way, and it's just so satisfying to be

able to create and paint and birth magic with with my

beloved, yeah, share that with other people.

Birthing it's just such a beautiful image, isn't

it?

Terms of beautiful,

messy and beautiful, you're called to do

things in your life. So what was the calling for you to open

circle, to invite women to sit in circle with you. How did that

calling come about?

Well, so I found myself in a very different place

than when I first became a mother, that place of all I want

to do is be a mother, just feeling it to the entry point.

Bear with me for a second. It was I started to feel as the

years unfolded, being a being a mother, I started to feel this

pull of what is what is mine to share, what is my purpose, what

is beyond being a mother. I mean that is full and complete in and

of itself, deepest, greatest journey of my life, like deepest

spiritual practice as being a mother. And there was this

thing, this like longing to have another aspect of myself be

birthed, to be known. And I spent many years, many

workshops, many retreats with this, this angst, almost of what

is mine, and looking looking around and being so inspired by.

These women that just they're so clear on what their thing is,

but the mirror was very clear. I did not yet know what mine was,

and I spent many years in that not knowing and then, but also,

I've been a speaker and a collector and of information and

practice and collect you just, you know, from body work to

being a doula to the embodiment work to just all the initiations

and the Tantra and the archetypal work and feminine

Mystery Schools. It All. I realized, collecting it all,

collecting it all in this big sort of cauldron. One day I just

realized, oh, I don't need to search for it. It's, it's

somewhat simpler than I think it's just the

amalgamation of who I am that is mine to share and give.

Yes, and so that transposed with this crazy portal that was

COVID. COVID allowed me to kind of get through all the

resistance I had to technology and realizing, wow, Zoom is such

a gift. It's so easy. I just I My house is about 20 feet that

way I want I'm in my little tea room right now. So all I have to

do is walk into my tea room, turn on the computer, invite

some people, and we are we get to be together. So the circles

birthed out of me really really wanting connection and

community, and wanting a space to practice together and move

together and sound together and just like be deep and wide in

all the ways together. And there wasn't a space for that, at

least in the way that I was dreaming it, the way I was

wanting it.

So yes, it really was this, that adage of Be the change you want

to to see in the world, create that thing that you're wanting.

And so zoom and COVID made that really clear to me. And my first

circle was really simple. I invited an amazing women in my

life. And I said, Let's I'm going to try this thing and come

and Let's be together. And it was a really organic unfolding.

I literally just shared all the practices that I was already

doing in my life. So I look back now to that version of me that

was really so angsty for so many years, just wallowing in, like,

what's mine, what's my thing? And it was just, it was there

all along. And I think, I mean, that's such a metaphor. It's

such a metaphor for all of us. And like, really thinking it's

got it's harder, more complicated or fancier, more

sophisticated. It's just, it's all it's all right here, it's

all right here. And that's a really big part of my work is

slowing down, getting still and just really needing what is here

in the moment. And there's so much information and peace and

wisdom in the moment when we can really, really slow down and

dive underneath the chaos into this one of my teachers, Maya

Luna, calls the deep feminine current of reality. It's always

here. But like, how do we get there and and that, that journey

is really fun to take, and then being in, being in that flow,

and the the, yeah, the knowledge, the wisdom, the

pleasure, the aliveness that's available there is,

is fun to play in as well.

It's delicious. So for somebody listening who has

never sat in circle with other women, whether it be in person

or over zoom or at a meeting of any description, what's the

magic of circle for you, when women come together,

oh, man, it's beyond me. It is this ancient,

just this ancient code that I think, that we, that we just

hold. And I often say, you know, we could, we could just all

gather in a room, have, like, no plan, no agenda. In fact, that's

the best way, when I have to do anything, just be together. And

it's like this magic women have. We just know what's needed in

the moment, like we can feel each other. It's that thing that

you know, woman comes over. Over and can look around your house

and just, I don't know, folds a towel or does the dishes or just

sits with you like we just know, and we also have this incredible

permission medicine for each other, which happens less over

zoom, I'll say, but like yesterday, I held an in person

event. And what's so beautiful about women and our permission

medicine is we we free each other through through our own

embodiment. And what I mean is like I was telling the women

yesterday when guiding them through movement, if you get in

your head or you feel lost, or do you feel like you don't know

what you're doing, just open your eyes and look around some

there'll be another woman who inspires you, or is like, Oh,

I'm gonna, I'm gonna try that. Or she looks really weird over

there. Okay, it's really okay to be weird. Or you hear another

woman's exhale or a sound or a moan or a cry, and it's, you can

just feel it. It unlocks something. And it's beyond

anything I can describe with words. It's, it's this felt

sense, this ancient thing that we hold as women, as as the

bears of life, like we are the vessel that life. We literally

change energy into matter. I mean, it's, it's really, really

wild when you think about it. And so there is just this. I

love being a woman. I love it so much, and I love guiding other

women into falling back in love with themselves when they truly

come home to themselves in a really true way beyond what they

want to be, but like what they actually are.

I want to ask you how tea ceremony is weaving

itself into the tapestry of how you're holding space and how

that came into your life and how you welcomed it in.

Oh, tea has been such a beautiful, beautiful ally

for me, the tea itself, the plant, spirit of the tea, has

just been such a beautiful ally. And then the ritual and the

beauty and all the elements of the ritual, it's just been

something. It really held me through again, that COVID

portal. I discovered tea about a year before everything shut

down, I found it through my dear friend Satya, who had been going

to tea for many, many months, if not years, and she would call me

in the car after tea every time so, so consistently. It was

annoying, because she would rave about it and in the back of my

brain and almost roll my eyes, like, okay, it's tea I get it.

What's the big deal? She knew what I didn't know. She knew it.

There was something there for me, and when I finally went to a

tea ceremony with her, partly because I knew I trust her and

like, okay, and partly, probably to just get her to stop calling

me, not really. I mean, you know, you know I'm being silly,

but I walked up the stairs and the the door opened to the tea

room, and it almost it took my breath away. I and I, I started

to cry immediately, which is very good thing. That's my

barometer to I know when something is very real. And I

was so touched by the beauty, by the pace, yeah, the slowness,

the intentionality of every object, and just the space that

the ritual and the tea itself opened up for me to be feel me

to catch up to myself, to catch up to my life. You know, life is

this, this modern day life, it's just moved so fast and, you

know, depending on how your life is configured, you know, for me,

I've got a I've got a lot of people that I that I care for.

I've got a house full of kids and a husband, and this

beautiful life I've said yes to, and it moves really fast, and

it's dense, and it's like, I, I, I sense it a lot as as as the

ocean. And you know when the waves come in and you get up,

and then another wave can tackle you from behind, and you're

getting up again, you're like, Whoa. It's these waves. Just

keep. Coming and ah, to just be able to sit in tea and it's in

its beautiful simplicity, and have the ritual of it. Hold you,

hold me, is a beautiful gift, and something that deeply spoke

to me, and I and I sat with tea every day, similar to how I am

right now. Leaves in a bowl my tea, my tea teacher said, you

know, there's, there's a lot of beautiful teaware. There's these

side handle pots, and there's a lot of, like the kettles are

beautiful. There's beauty. That's part of the healing, you

know, beauty stops the mind beauty, you

know. And I think it's at least for me, I wanted all the

beautiful, fancy tea wear and but my No, you're gonna you sit

with leaves in a bowl, which literally, you put the leaves in

a bowl. And you don't need a fancy kettle. You just need a

rice bowl, and you pour the hot water in, and you sit that way.

And I sat that way for six months every day, leaves in a

bowl, and it's very you get very intimate with it, and it really

helped me. And I learned a lot in those in that time. And it

was, it coincided with the circles. A lot coincided in that

time, and until this point, or until yesterday, in fact, I've

held tea and and my other work, which is somatics and embodiment

and little flair of like archetypal shamanic threads

woven in those kind of journey, they've been separate. And

yesterday, I actually held my first event where they were

woven together, because after the last two or three tea

ceremonies, and you know, we drink about six to seven bowls

of tea in a ceremony. In a one hour time period, you start to

get a little they there's a, there's a term for it. It's

called Tea drunk. And a lovely place to be. There's this,

there's this very calm, alert state that this plant, Camellia

sinensis, creates this calm, alert place. And after every tea

ceremony in the last two or three months, afterwards, it was

became clear that it didn't it wanted to. It wanted to move. It

wanted to something more. Wanted to happen. And it was, it's such

a beautiful thing for me, having these two worlds. I'm like, Oh,

I can actually start to weave them together. What if we'd sit

in stillness with tea and meet all those places within and then

seamlessly go into a more of a somatic exploration, or a

somatic integration of all those places, and so kind of

experimented yesterday with that, and it was really, really

beautiful. There'll be many more.

Oh so exciting. I cannot wait to partake in that

town. It's It's so interesting what you were saying about

allowing yourself to catch up with your life, and inviting in

the stillness and the slow life is so fast and we often don't

value still and slow and then allowing ourselves to be in the

flow of where the movement of our own internal rhythm takes

us, as opposed to being carried by that of others and knowing

your medicine, it just really touches me so following along

from this idea of birthing that we've been constellating around

and inviting in you, giving yourself permission to hold what

is yours and share With the world and birth it and invite

others to swim around with it. How do you continue to share

what's yours when it's not fully formed within you yet? How do

you Yeah,

good question. Yeah. How to do that when it's

not fully formed? I think it requires for me, just a

continued listening. I mean, I know at this point. I mean,

there's so many beautiful things about being 50, reaching,

reaching, this, this. Age. It's so wonderful because there's so

much to look back on and see, see how we're so held, see how I

can see like, oh, all those times I was sure, just sure it

wasn't going to work out. It always does, all those times of

confusion or murkiness or not knowing, given enough time space

and care, it always clarifies. And so I take that into any

moments now, of the not knowing to really just tell myself it's,

it's, first of all, it's okay to not know and slow down that part

of me that I think we probably all have that part that so wants

to know, that part that wants certainty. But there's so much

there's so much juice in the not knowing, there's so much

humility that that's when I'm closest to God. That's or

whatever you want to call that thing that's beating our hearts

and breathing our chest right now, like that's when I'm close,

when I'm when I'm on my knees and I'm not knowing, and I'm in

the mystery, and I'm listening as much as I want to know. I

realized there's a lot of beauty in the not knowing. So it forces

me to listen and slow down. And, you know, I teach that, not

because I'm like an evolved master in it, but because I need

it. I've, I can teach it because I've, I've, that's the thing

I've needed. So I've practiced it and practiced it and

practiced it. So now it's mine to give. I'm maybe a couple

steps along the path, and somebody that might just be

starting to do that. And so I have some some hints about where

I think my work might evolve into really valuing and seeing

the pieces that are mine, like there's pieces from motherhood

and some really, I think, I think my darkest initiations are

the things that eventually turn into the gold from Which to

serve from. So there's been a lot. There's been very

challenging aspects to my mothering and my children. And

because of that, I there's some there's something there, again,

not fully formed, but I I'm listening, and similar to how I

listened to there was something that wanted to happen after tea,

and I sat with it enough and listened. It's like, it's almost

like, oh, you know who talks about this beautifully? Is

Rilke. And there's this quote he says about, oh, I beg you to

have patience with everything unresolved in your heart. Treat

them. What does he say? Treat them like locked rooms or books

written in a foreign language that you can't understand yet,

because it's really yours to live into the question, live the

questions themselves. And I'm butchering this quote, but it's

something like that, and it truly is. It's like a language,

a foreign language.

So just like

you know, I learned French in middle school, and I didn't

practice it much, and I can barely speak it now. So it's

that use it or lose it thing. I say this often, when I work with

women and learning the language of their bodies, it's like

learning a foreign language. The more you listen and give it

attention and practice it, it you become fluent. So likewise,

I trust if I, if I listen to this, this unknown language of

what's evolving and what's next, similar to how I listen to the

tea and what it wants to weave itself into the somatics, I

guess we'll, we'll see what there is to come.

Yeah, yeah. And allowing such an exercise,

allowing, allowing, which I struggle with on a daily basis,

I have to mindfully put myself in that place for sure you were

speaking about being called to share what you need. What is

something that you need right now that is escaping you, that

you're going to be inviting in. Is there something right now?

Well,

since I was little, since the since the

time, way, way back when I was a little girl, and all I ever

knew. I wanted to be was a mother.

I also had this vision.

Had this vision that would come up and when I was in need and in

an emotional need, and I would have this vision, this this

desire, this fantasy of having this this big in my vision, she

was a big, black, round mama, and I would go and I would lay

in her lap, and just she was just soft and ample, and I would

just lay in her lap, and she would just embrace me and stroke

my hair. And there was almost this, this sense of she could

hold whatever I brought, and it was just this sense of it's

going to be okay, baby. And I've always needed that. I've always

wanted that and and I still do. I still want that ex. I would

love to have that experience of that holding. And for me now, I

see her as a, she's a she's she's an elder, she's a mentor.

She's somebody who's who's walked a couple steps beyond me.

She's somebody who has touched deep, deep grief in motherhood.

So that is what I dream about and need. I want to be held by

an elder woman

who has been through it and still dances in the light

and I and I sense I am, that I am also

that to other women,

yes, you are.

But I really want that too. I've been calling her

in for a while.

I want to just rest in her lap?

Oh, I cannot wait to hear about that when she

arrives, because you are calling her in now, I always close every

episode with the same question, and really, as I was listening

to you, you answered it somewhat when we were just speaking

earlier about calling things in but for somebody who has a dream

in their heart, which is all of us, and doesn't feel like they

have what it takes to make it happen, what would you say to

them?

Oh,

gosh. First of all, like, what, what a, what a human thing to

feel.

And,

gosh, do I get it. And, you know, I still, I still grapple

with it. I grapple with it every time, not on one, not when I

work with someone, one on one, that's a very different animal

for me. But when I, when I create any other offering,

whether it's a circle or an event, like I did yesterday, and

it also doesn't happen with tea. But I'm digressing. My point is

it still happens to me years and decades later that that piece,

that self doubt piece, and what, when it comes up, what I

recognize is it's a self it's when I'm self referencing, and

my remedy for that is to remember something greater,

remembering my why? Why am I doing this? Why does it matter?

What is? What do I serve, and who do I serve, and letting that

be the only thing that matters, and being willing to, being

willing to not get it right, being willing to be judged,

being willing to have it be messy, have it be inarticulate,

have it flop. If it needs to, like, give your imperfect your

imperfect offering. And for me, it's, it's it's just

remembering, like I'm serving something greater than me, and

that is, that is really life itself as it, as it moves

through each of us. And May, May, May people, may women,

touch that place, remember that place in themselves. So it's not

and that can come through many different means. And it doesn't

have to be

perfect, polished. It

can be really simple. So it really is that switch from like,

from the me place to that greater field, and being willing

to being willing to look like a fool. And that is no small

that's no small ask, being able to tolerate, even just stuff on

a nervous system level, level, being able to tolerate all that

comes up when. We're putting ourselves in the position to

look like a fool, to crash and burn, to be judged like we're

we're wired for belonging, and to put yourself in that

position, it's a big ask.

So

I just love sharing your imperfect offering.

Thank you for this beautiful conversation and for holding

space with me.

Thank you.