(the following are past reflections without the accompanying pictures)
The Connective Tissue of October
On rivers and seasons converging, gateways, storms, the land we find ourselves on and breakthroughs.
On a road trip back from Montreal I experienced my annual awe at the bold colors of the changing leaves. My family loves to poke fun at me gasping at the splendor of this season change. We came upon this river to put our weary feet in.
20 years since graduating with an MSW in clinical social work from NYU and I found myself back near Washington Square Park with my sound healing instruments to be a guest speaker for a class called “The Art of Listening” (special thanks to the talented Annie Garlid for the opportunity). Returning to the arch, this gateway felt symbolic and like an invitation for me. It stirred some new ideas for the pursuit of being of service, more on that to come…
Whenever I travel with my instruments I jingle while I walk which feels magical and right. The students at NYU were curious and engaged. Breathwork, sound healing, Kundalini, and energy work create openings for us to remember what it feels like to be deeply connected—to ourselves, to one another, and to the living world around us. These ancient, embodied practices invite us out of our heads and back into the full felt experience of being human: sensing, listening, moving, breathing, belonging.
They nurture our beautiful human nature.
This is the kind of world I want to help cultivate—a world with deeper listening, profound aliveness, stronger connection, and more room for the mystery and creativty of being human.
I have been loving working longer-term with humans who are brave enough to engage in this type of deep listening, core-wound healing, and soul work. These virtual sessions with individuals and groups are profoundly powerful and I am grateful to witness, nurture, and support their growth, evolution, and connection.
Find out more about a potent six-session healing journey here. Please reach out with any questions.
This photo was taken before the storm. We faired well but some of our beloved trees and our fence did not. September’s Nor’Easters remind that nature always bats last. This nor’eater was a powerful one for our community and our land.
Speaking of gateways, storms, breakthroughs and the in-between seasons. I’ve been really feeling this quote from Brene Brown lately. She talks about what mid-life seems to be saying to us:
“I’m not fucking around. You’re halfway to dead. The armor is keeping you from growing into the gifts I’ve given you. That is not without penalty. Time is up.”
The quote (and mid-life) are kind of intense. I think of it as a reckoning, not a crisis. An opportunity for reflection, taking stock and aligning our actions.
Midlife feels like it asks us to look at what we’re still carrying and wonder: Is this protecting me, or is it keeping me from becoming?
The armor that once kept us safe can eventually keep us small—the conditioned, pleasing, proving, performing, keeping-it-together parts of ourselves.
And there is a cost to staying the same.
I don’t think “time is up” means we’re running out of time. For me it means I’m running out of willingness to spend it pretending (or I no longer have the capacity to waste my energy on pretending, or staying “safe”).
The work now seems like it is to lower the armor, open the heart, have gratitude and celebrate all of the ways I survived but also allow the things I am longing for to come all the way through. I hope I can meet it with softness and I find it also calls for a fierceness of spirit.
The walks I’ve been taking seem to be my most profound meditations these days. On Lenni Lenape ground. In the Lenape language, the name Mantoloking translates directly to "frog ground" “sandy place” or “land of sunsets” and the town I live in, Point Pleasant, as the “land of tall timber”; reflecting the marshy coastal environments where these specific bands hunted, fished, and gathered for ceremony. To me it is all of those things. This is to say, I love taking walks in whatever natural spaces are left and giving thanks to all who cared for, cultivated, protected and blessed them before I arrived. I am living my spirituality (like John O’Donohue and Celtic Philosophy) as a project of recognizing the godliness in the material world - that heaven is available to us in the trees, the water, the mountains, in our own bodies and with each other.
I help people remember how to listen—deeply to themselves, the environment, to one another, and to the work they are here to do. From that place of presence arise courageous action, authentic expression, meaningful connection, and lasting resilience.
My work lives at the intersection of psychotherapy, transformational breathwork, sound healing, movement, creativity, art, and spiritual listening. Each session is guided by what is present for you, with an emphasis on safety, embodiment, and authenticity.
Clients often describe feeling more alive, more at home and peace in their bodies, and more connected to their inner voice and sense of meaning and purpose.
Wanna go deeper? Schedule a powerful six session coaching package, The Unfurling, here.
You can listen to the music I’ve lovingly created on Spotify here.
In honor of our tree and the hubris of building fences, breakthroughs are always teachers.
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The Soft Light of September
marks a beautiful, atmospheric shift as late summer gently transitions into autumn. This phenomenon occurs because the sun's path sits lower in the sky as the autumnal equinox approaches, causingsunlight to travel through more of the Earth's atmosphere.
August was full of connecting with friends and family. Some very special friends came to visit one of our favorite places on Mt. Desert Island in Maine. Later in the month, my youngest sister, her husband, and my almost-two-year-old niece joined our extended New Jersey family for a glorious stretch of cousin time.
My husband, Jeff, and I also celebrated our twentieth wedding anniversary with a Roaring ’20s party—a little speakeasy, a temporary refuge from the world’s current woes. We dressed up, gathered close, and toasted on the hour with the sound of my Jupiter gong.
As the night went on, our friends and family requested more and more gong (because it is THAT good of a vibration) until the gong became the evening’s unofficial collaborator. A two-hour sing-along spontaneously unfolded, with gong replacing words like song, long, mom, and even thong.
It was completely organic, ridiculous and delightful.
I have always been more comfortable than most at thresholds—the places where worlds overlap, edges become blurry and something new can emerge. It takes a fair amount of courage, a little grace, and usually some awkward laughter to cross them.
This gathering felt especially sacred because some of these people had stood beside us twenty years earlier at our wedding, while others were newer friends, already deeply adored and cherished. And somehow, miraculously, they were all dancing, laughing, and singing together.
Sometimes, in the middle of laughter and song, the ordinary world seems to open and let a little magic through. To me it feels holy,
“Everything is on fire, but everyone I love is doing beautiful things and trying to make life worth living. I know I don't have to believe in everything, but I believe in that.” -Nikita Gill
Is there anything better than spontaneous singing, dancing, and laughing with friends?
If August brought nourishing personal gatherings, September brings the return of routines, children heading back to school, and long twilights steeped in golden honey. There is a particular softness to evenings at this time of year—a lingering light that seems to illuminate whatever it touches.
It reminds me of friendship: the way our people’s light can soften our edges, expand our sense of possibility, and make us feel more fully ourselves.
I am deeply grateful for friendships, trusted relationships, and the strange and beautiful collaborations that emerge when we bring our particular gifts, curiosities, and visions into the same space—with humans and with our more-than-human kin.
My brilliant friend and beloved collaborator, Dr. Emily Bessemer (pelvic floor physical therapist and so much more), created just such a space in 2021: an in-person community haven for teaching, movement, healing, strengthening, art, and connection, as an extension of her thriving Holistic Pelvic Care practice.
I was introduced to Emily by a mentor and friend—artist, dancer, and psychotherapist Lisa Verni—who seems to possess an uncanny ability to recognize a potential constellation before the stars have even met. She had a feeling Emily and I might have some magic to make together.
Lisa was right.
After meeting, being treated by, and eventually working with Dr. Emily, I began walking down the only dirt road in my town to the EmBodied Physical Therapy studio, where I found an extraordinary galaxy of teachers, healers, seekers, artists, and inspirational humans.
I taught Sound Practitioner Trainings, held space for powerful group and individual Transformational Breathwork sessions and Soundbaths, guided Kundalini Yoga, and created experimental art and healing offerings. I cannot express how dearly I came to feel about the amazing clients I worked with. But just as importantly, I was an appreciative student and participant—from Reiki master teacher trainings to goddess and herbalism workshops, yoga, strength-building, meditation, and art.
I found support. I found my people.
I was inspired and awed by others bringing their visions into form, offering their particular gifts back to the world. And I was reminded that community changes us—not because we become more like one another, but because we become more fully ourselves in the safety, play, and presence of others. People like my talented artist, therapist, wise, and long-time meditator friend Alison Zilai.
I am forever grateful to Emily for creating that space.
She is moving her flourishing practice a little further down the road—continuing to shine—and I will miss that golden season we shared. But I am grateful for the gift of having had it at all.
It existed because Emily was willing to share her magic—and the invisible, behind-the-scenes labor that all magic entails. Her courage, hard work, vision, generosity and magnetism created a place where other people could become more themselves.
She reminds me that when we choose to become more liberated, we create more room for others to become free, too. Sometimes one person’s willingness to shine makes it possible for an entire constellation to appear.
Lately I have been reading Togetherness: Symbiosis and the Hidden Story of Life's Greatest Collaborations by Rowan Hooper, whose bibliography seems to contain many of my favorite books about nature. If you know me, you know I am enthusiastic—perhaps excessively so—about lichens, mycelium, mosses, fractals, spirals and the improbable symbiosis of the fig and the wasp.
Nature's wisdom is the miracle of interconnectedness.
No one is really doing it alone. We are all more connected than we can imagine.
Perhaps this is why I am longing for more intentional collaboration in my own life:
In deepening relationships that allow life-giving sunlight to travel through my atmosphere.
More places where my gifts can mingle with someone else’s and become something neither of us could have made alone.
I think of my talented artist, teacher, and art coach Jenny Santa Maria, and how we might encourage others to create through play. I think of the on-going songwriting and art-making with my children and the hybrid writing pieces I’ve been working on . I think of upcoming coaching and retreat collaborations I’m dreaming up with my creative and talented husband. And I think of the people I have yet to meet, the ideas that haven't arrived, what else might be illuminated by this kind of warmth and cooperation.
There is something exciting about not knowing yet what else will emerge. It is how I feel when working with individual clients as well, that third space where we honor becoming, where I witness healing, self-realization, evolution, and courageous crossing of thresholds.
These reflections feel like September to me: a saturated golden hour, pouring a little more honey than expected.
Like the earth saying:
Linger a little longer with each other in the soft light.
Feel the beauty of what we make together.
And I am honored to bask there.
Shannon Hawley, I usually leave you with a song but this month I am sharing a new weird little piece of writing on substack, enjoy the snail videos:)
You can read about the songs on “a different kind of progress” and “STARTHROWERS” on substack.
I have been returning to this favorite spot in Maine to listen to the ghost pipe, lichen, mountain rock, glacial lakes, trees, mushrooms. loons and the atmosphere for 26 years. They have been some of my most gentle and nurturing teachers and collaborators.
I help people remember how to listen—deeply to themselves, to one another, and to the work they are here to do. From that place of presence arise courageous action, authentic expression, meaningful connection, and lasting resilience.
My work lives at the intersection of psychotherapy, transformational breathwork, sound healing, movement, creativity, art, and spiritual listening. Each session is guided by what is present for you, with an emphasis on safety, embodiment, and authenticity.
Clients often describe feeling more alive, more at home and peace in their bodies, and more connected to their inner voice and sense of meaning and purpose.
Wanna go deeper? Schedule a powerful six session Coaching Package, The Unfurling, here.
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August’s Trace
A moment to reflect on intentional communities and leaving a trace.
I recently was asked to facilitate breathwork and teach Kundalini yoga at an event called the Arcadia Leadership Experience in the Valley of the (Wild) Flowers in Montana. The co-founders (who happened to be married) had envisioned and then created the kind of all outdoor “non-conference” they would want to attend. Sam and Jason Yarborough are pioneering something beautiful ( Arcadia ) by creating an intentional community and intentional events that they themselves needed (and they are finding that other people need as well).
I almost didn’t go because logistically it was challenging but also it was also exactly the kind of convergence I had been longing for. I’m so glad I decided to figure out how to get there. I had to ask for help from family and friends which is uncomfortable and humbling for me and important. In all journey work, you get what you need (not necessarily what you want) and it doesn’t look like you might expect. I am so grateful for intentional communities these days. In the United States, perhaps due to our loss of culture, these containers of intention can hold us through growth, help us slow down and listen, to reflect, celebrate, and serve as ceremony. Photo by David Gray
The event began with a married couple, Steven Davis and Merritt Grace , members of the Blackfeet Nation (and Choctaw tribe respectively), setting the tone and immediately teaching us how to build a lodge. With the incoming rain we all listened and moved swiftly together. Humans thirsty for experience, for building something. I grabbed the long lodgepole pine (which was heavier than I thought it would be) and loved the weight of holding this piece of the structure that still looked like the tree that it used to be, carrying and with help carefully placing it to create shelter. We listened deeply in that lodge over the next few days. They spoke about many important aspects of how to live and ancient wisdom from their people. Something that resonated deeply for me was the modern concept of “not leaving a trace” which is impossible in the real sense of the word. We are here to leave traces, we are here to repair, we are here to weave our dreams, our relationships, our work, and our lives as we co-create the world we want to live in.
Our legacy is our willingness to be deeply present to our life, to our body, our energy, our spirit, our soul, to each other, to our more-than-human kin and ultimately to the planet we are lucky enough to live on and with.
We glamped in tents and sat by the creek. Some people hiked, learned how to fly fish, practiced archery and experienced breathwork and kundalini yoga. Everyone was in conversation, grateful to experience the beauty of Montana. The workshops about leadership were more inspiring because of the environment. (photo by David Gray)
I began practicing kundalini yoga when I was living in Los Angeles. It helped me to learn about paying attention to my own energy and nervous system and gave me ways to shift it, let it flow, and come back to resonance through; breathing techniques, movement meditation, reflection in stillness, and using my own voice. I know in my own ancestral lineage movement, breath, and song has been used for these reasons and in community to remember aliveness, heal and celebrate together. These practices have also been considered a type of human technology.
A brave group of people engaged in a powerful breathwork experience. I witnessed and held space for courageous humans willing to surrender to the unknown, to release stuck energy and emotions that blocked their light, to re-member who they are meant to be. They breathed new life into their deepest hopes and dreams. It is a practice of intimacy with self while feeling support from the universe to take care and tend to your one wild and precious life.
There is a snippet of a podcast episode from Track Your Life with Boyd Varty that lives rent free in my head. I can hear Boyd’s voice echo in my mind. I loved it so much I transcribed it, wanting the wisdom to come through my own body by writing it with my own hand. I am sharing it here “Charles Eisenstein, a philosopher, had this idea of the three seeds. The myth goes that long ago the elders knew that this time would come. Humans would forget how to be human. We would be disconnected from food, from our nature, from our cells, from the earth. So they sent three seeds down through time to remind humans how to be human.
The first seed was the mystical traditions. The yoga, the medicine, the meditations.
The second seed was the stories and myths. In those stories were codes, feelings, and archetypes, that people would recognize themselves in. Reminders of the human heart.
And the third seed was native people themselves, those whose essence was a living memory, of the earth. Indigenous wisdom, is part of a library of human culture.
Human memory, human heritage. Humanity.
Without it - something profoundly important would be lost. If we lost the whales and the birds our spirit would be lonely.
If we lost our indigenous knowledge we’d cut our ties to the mother with our species.”
The text he quoted comes from Charles Eisenstein’s essay "The Three Seeds," which outlines how ancient elders foresaw humanity's crisis of separation and planted three cultural transmissions to guide us back. The Three Seeds Framework
First Seed: Mystical traditions, yoga, medicine, and meditation practices.
Second Seed: Stories, myths, codes, and archetypes that mirror the human heart.
Third Seed: Indigenous peoples and native wisdom as a living memory of the Earth.
Being with Steven and Merritt Grace and all of these wonderful inspiring humans I was reminded of this framework. I was reminded of so much in the Valley of the (Wild) Flowers in Montana, this beautiful land that remained because of the fierce human spirt of the Blackfeet Nation to risk everything to protect and honor it. We were all listening.
There was also a palpable urgency in reflecting on artificial intelligence and what it means for humans. In conversations we were acknowledging how important it is that we remember that we are in relationship with the land, with each other, with our more than human kin AND with this new technology. There have been many technologies in many human civilizations and they have helped build pyramids and industry and changed the physical world. Perhaps more important is the pause to remember we are in relationship with these tools. Perhaps the technologies are also tools (similes) for us to realize we are always and always have been shaping and reshaping the world we are creating. We are not separate from it but it is a living conversation and we can choose how to engage.
As we continue to wrestle with certainty and control, I hope we realize we must surrender and respect all the parts and pieces of ourselves, of our history and the history of humanity as well as the parts of pieces of the universe. In the Valley of the (Wild) Flowers we enjoyed the beauty of things beyond our control. I love the idea that the resilience of beauty will save us again and again. We can learn from the plants that take care of us, from the wisdom of indigenous cultures, from each other and from our own spirit. We can survive harsh winters and witness the evolution by remembering we are in relationship to it all and ,if we are lucky, to have intimacy with our own aliveness.
On a personal note Steven said something that sent shivers through my body. “To leave the world a little better than we found it “(not without a trace). My father, when he was dying, carried around a little poem that I had forgotten about. He was a stockbroker in the 1980’s but as he got sick he expressed his longing to work with plants and so he got a job at a local flower farm. He and my mother had five children together. Before he died he was determined to work with the flowers and he did.
He achieved success who has lived well, laughed often, and loved much;
Who has enjoyed the trust of pure women, the respect of intelligent men and the love of little children;
Who has filled his niche and accomplished his task;
Who has never lacked appreciation of Earth's beauty or failed to express it;
Who has left the world better than he found it,
Whether an improved poppy, a perfect poem, or a rescued soul;
Who has always looked for the best in others and given them the best he had;
Whose life was an inspiration;
Whose memory a benediction.-Bessie Anderson Stanley
To pay attention to the relationships, the messages, the lessons, the beauty. To give your attention, which is the most important currency to your aliveness. To take care in whatever trace you most certainly will leave.
I was reminded of all of this in the Valley of the (Wild) Flowers in Montana because two humans had a vision for a convergence and they saw it through (and because generations of humans cared for and protected the land I was on and saw it through) (and because my loving husband of 20 years thought I and the work I do would be welcomed there and implored me to leave my own trace and saw it through) (and because the humans that attended, attended with their whole hearts, willing to deeply listen and fully express themselves and saw it through) and I am grateful.
My work is shifting to bring breathwork, sound, creativity workshops, singing, and kundalini yoga to retreats, conferences, and teams and intentional communities. Please click for more information here.
What I wish for me and for you:
A devotion to deep listening.
The courage to live in alignment.
The audacity to express your whole self.
And enough humor to hold it all with grace."To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.”- Bessie Anderson Stanley