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You see, the sacred cauldron of possibility is here. The expansive potentiality of the darkness, with undetermined timelines swirling, the dreamscape weaving itself into a shapes yet unknown. This is the time between death and birth. A sometimes uncomfortable time, when the old has died and the new is yet to be born, we get the privilege of sitting with the unknown. Feeling. Sensing. Listening. Opening to what might be, but not grasping or knowing the next action quite yet.

Are you taking time to tune into yourself during these dark and tender weeks? How about we take a pause together right now?

The darkness is here. Samhain has officially opened, and we have been claimed. Claimed by the dark mother who wraps us in her cloak of love, inviting us to rest. Inviting us to dream. Inviting us to take refuge from the blaring light of striving, and rest in the descent. Surrender into the unraveling. Surrender into the death of the year.

Although Samhain officially lands on November 6th this year, marking the official halfway point between the Autumn Equinox and Winter Solstice, Samhain is not just a day but a season of time that opens us up to the thinning of veils between physical and energetic, the material and spiritual. Can you feel it upon us already?

Back in 2009, when I first moved to Portland and first began to put myself out there as a fledgling massage therapist, I started to develop some right upper leg and hip pain. I didn’t think a lot of it, and it would come and go over the years, sometimes screaming at me loudly and other times quiet and in the background. It was pretty silent for a few years and then started up again maybe 8 years ago, so loudly that I was concerned.

Right now, so many folks are feeling that calling from within to meet this moment, but aren’t sure how to live it in the world. So many of you feel that spell dissolving, but it’s being met with lifetimes of protective mechanisms stored in your body, built to keep you safe. And keep you small. This is the Witch Wound.

Regardless of how something is broken, forgotten, or separated, the process of healing is almost always a slow and intentional one. Stitch by stitch, we mend something back together. Breath by breath, we remember to come back into relationship with a part of us we’ve discarded. And through this process of repair, what has been broken or separated weaves itself back to wholeness again. Remembers its true form.

Do you know the story of Chiron? The wounded healer? Chiron, a master of the healing arts, was accidentally struck by one of Hercules’s venomous arrows, causing him incurable, excruciating pain. As he was immortal, he was subject to live with his pain in perpetuity. Yet, as a healer himself, Chiron’s wound allowed him to cultivate empathy and understanding for those he served. His pain allowed him to develop strength of character, and offer compassion to those he would help

Are you healed enough yet? Healing holds many paradoxes, and I believe the healing path invites us to hold these paradoxes as part of the healing. So what I want to explore over the next few weeks here are the nuances of healing, the beauty of healing, and what gets in the way of our actual healing.

One of the core tenets to my work is that our own healing, and our own somatic experience can never be extracted from the living Earth body. For when we try to “heal” as individuals, or when we try to balance our nervous systems while leaving out the integral piece of inter-relationality, we are always missing the mark. So many of us are seeking healing. Seeking clarity. Seeking purpose. We long to feel whole, to know who we are, and to remember what we’re here to offer.