In early October, a dear friend came to visit our tree sanctuary/retreat space. It was a beautiful crisp day with leaves making their shift to green veined yellows and rusty brown oak as they fell. The leaves of the wild
Managing holiday triggers
There is so much that can be triggered during the holidays and it varies for each person given your own family of origin and trauma. In this fragmented society alot of what we are collectively grieving is the dissolution of
mobile sanctuario
We finished building our Temazcal this weekend, so many warm, caring helping hands came together to lift stone upon stone, tie together vine upon vine weaving wood, earth and stone to create a place of reconnection, rest and purification with
how we tell the story
By the time I reconnected with my mother around age 13 through visits, I had lost nearly all of my Spanish, and most of our connection. I struggled to know what to talk about with her, so we mostly just
the ancestral is not new
One of the moments that woke me up to the fact that so much of what we seek through holistic and alternative health, spirituality and earth practices are literally reclamation of connected practices of our ancestors…was in a conversation with
Mi Mami
I want to share a picture I have of my five year old self sitting with my mother somewhere underneath the fluorescent lights of a JcPenney (or something like it). Just me and her. When I find it I will.
On Managing Deep Pain
The other day my good friend was surprised when I told her that sometimes I get, “I want to die” low. And her surprise, surprised me. I thought well, yes, I have experienced deep pain and learned to move through
Healing the Hurts of Our Past
Because we are in Maui, three hours behind on the mainland, we indulged my daughter’s request to ‘stay up until the time I was born!” Nine years ago, at 12:15am, our little Maya burst her into watery tub and my
A Missing Key to harnessing The Power to Create Your Reality
“You have the power to create your own reality” is a phrase I have heard often…and often because I grew up with people who were oppressed by very real things in life, such as domestic violence, sexual abuse, POVERTY, mental
Real Love is Messy sometimes
It was messy…. Although the afternoon began well, with my daughter giving me the sweetest Valentine’s card ever…melting and opening my heart… a few very small conventional candies later (that I allowed from the bag of way too much sugar