Transitions & Full Circle: Van Life Returned!

I returned to van life!

After 3 months grounding in a home for the winter,

I decided it was time to transition (more details in next blog!)

The day I decided to move out, I got a call to volunteer at a skill share gathering in the Arizona desert; a spot had opened up and I was on the waiting list. So, I packed up and headed south.

First stop, I am paying a visit to Canyon de Chelley.

~~~

8 yrs since the first time I visited these lands ~

I came here to sit solo in the desert for 4 days & nights without food, to pray.

To shed who I had been and be reborn.

I had just finished a masters as an Art Therapist & Counselor. 24yrs of my life had been in education systems and now I was free.

What next?

Who was I beyond these structures?

No one to guide me but my budding intuition and  career.

In the void of transition, I answered the call to die.

What better way to find one’s self than to surrender to the death of who we were, who we think we need to be or what society and our family enables us to be ~

Dying changed my life.

8 yrs later, I’ve assisted two groups into this canyon, fasted once more and guided one group of women into the desert to die and reclaim deeper layers of themselves.

Learning to die well we live fully alive ~

Now, preparing to gather another group this spring, I return to the canyon which held my transformation. A homecoming to remember and strengthen my why in gathering women for soul initiation and embodiment. To lean into death, rebirth and belonging so they return home to their aliveness.

As I ponder the path I have walked, I feel most alive when guiding others to remember and feel alive. To be close to the earth and its guidance. However, this path is not often valued, acknowledged or supported as it is not considered successful in our culture. To stay directed on this path of the soul takes courage and devotion, for almost everyone is against it. Yet, we stay the course and remember our why when temptations and influences do their work to keep us in old structures of "success".

So I ask...

Is money enough?

I’d much rather have the tree from which it came ~

to shelter me, keep me company, keep me inspired, to make fire.

When will we feel we’ve done enough?

Made enough?

When will we feel we are enough?

Accomplished enough?

Given back enough?

Have enough?

We’re so eager & sidetracked to go

more more more

get more more more

exhausting ourselves of our reason for living.

Distracted from the present presence of ourselves and what we already have.

Perhaps if we acknowledged ourselves more & were acknowledged by others more…maybe then we’d be fulfilled & liberated?

More full

so we could give

more?

So we feel

more successful?

I hope you measure your success by the ways you let go.

Let yourself lean into trusting the sensation of the unknown and uncertainty.

To lean into the arms of the ones you love and ask for forgiveness.

Ask for their embrace.

Ask them what moves them.

Ask them how you can love them better.

I hope you feel success because you cried and allowed yourself to feel it all.

My worth is not set to material gains or how much money I make or who likes what I do… 

it’s by the giving. And we can only give when we receive.

And we may only receive

when we deeply grieve and rage and trust and express joy and embody our pleasure.

We may only receive when we create ~

for creating sake.

With wild love,

Hannah