Divine Design within the Imperfection

I returned from my fourth trip to Vermont Prosperity Training this last Sunday evening. It was a good training this time. Each time I am opened more. This time I really wanted to hide and not open because of disclosing my lack of integrity in relationship with money.

I am even reluctant to share it here. What will you think if you know that I am not always in integrity with money?

We had an assignment to choose four ways of changing. One of these ways was....”from tired overwhelm of a mess that’s chaotic, unconscious, frantic, scatter and make wrong”...to....”energetic actions of order and design making priorities and promises that are focused, scheduled and accountable.” In choosing this one, I saw that I could organize my finances and be straight with what I need to pay. What occurred after this was somewhat of a blur. My teacher Toni Stone proceeded to break-down the ego mind with which I was operating and help me to see that I am not fully in integrity with what I said I would do. I truly thought I was doing pretty well up to that point, that I was doing my best. I discovered that I sometimes pretend to be ignorant when really I am not at all.

Later we talked about witnessing these imperfect ways that we are and accepting ourselves as we are. I am learning from this training and also from my prosperity conversations with students that the goal is not to be perfect. The goal is to be vulnerable, to open ourselves to being ourselves. There is a kind of divine design within the imperfection.

May it be in Beauty.

Bring into the World, That Beautiful Idea

Tadd and I were living in Arlington, Washington about ten years ago. The house we were renting was an old, old Victorian farmhouse that was falling apart. I had returned from my apprenticeship with Susun Weed in New York about a year before that and was beginning the integration period of this life changing experience. I was also just beginning menopause and I felt like I was falling apart also.

I had quit my job as a teacher and was living off of some savings I had and then off of Tadd's income. I already had started a small herbal products business and was selling at farmer's markets and a bit through mail order. I had started writing a column for The Beltane Papers, Journal of Women's Mysteries and discovered I could write about plants.

There was a very, very large managed forest to the east of us. I would climb up behind our house and walk and walk through it. I spent my days walking in the woods and gardening, talking to the plants and wondering what I was going to do with the rest of my life. Tadd wondered that also.

I began to cook all our food from scratch at that time and also made nourishing herbal infusions for us to drink. I grew lots of food for us and made medicines from the plants that were near. I grew very close to one of the Douglas Fir tree up in the woods and visited her almost everyday.
I also remember the Herb Robert and how it helped me feel welcome on the forest trail.



I had some problems with my self esteem at this time. My body was changing and I gained quite a bit of weight. I had shaved my head to celebrate my transformation upon finishing my shamanic apprenticeship and I hated the way my hair looked for a long time.

I sought shamanic healing to help me navigate this strange new life and trained with the Foundation for Shamanic Studies. I started a shamanic practice in my little delapidated house near the woods. In the unseen world of my journeys, I found the home base for my shamanic herbal practice. I began to teach and enrolled a couple of apprentices to come explore the way of the wise woman with me.

Then the world trade towers came down. This marked a significant change in both Tadd and myself. Tadd began to struggle a bit with finding enough work and well, I was hardly making any money at what I was doing. Our chiropractor told Tadd about a woman from Vermont, Toni Stone, who had helped his wife double her income. Tadd gave her a call and started to receive coaching from her.

Within the next year, we had moved to Whidbey Island to rent a little house on the beach. I started to receive coaching also. And within a couple of years we bought a beautiful farm where we now live and work.

It has been almost six years since we moved here to our little farm. My herbal school, Crow's Laughter Mystery School is very successful and my products are helping to heal many people all over the US and even internationally. I have always had within me a beautiful idea of how I wanted everything to be. When I started studying prosperity with Toni Stone and now Gifford Booth and many others, I learned that I could bring into the world, that beautiful idea. And I have done that and continue to paint a greater picture of it.



I have learned that sharing my gifts even when I don't think I have them to give has opened me to a greater sense of life. I have learned that being thankful for what I have been given over and over has trained me to see possibility. And I have learned to give up the easy road and instead, I have found a deeply engaging path that is rich and embodied.

I look forward to growing deeper and stronger into the richness of life and invite any and all of you to join me in celebration of our passionate abundance.

May it be in Beauty.

We Must First Breathe Out

I returned from Vermont late Tuesday night. I spent the weekend at Toni Stone's home in Fairfax at a Prosperity Training. This was the second in a series of 7 weekend trainings over the next year, every other month. I decided to do this training because my life has been so vitally enhanced by the prosperity tools I have utilized and because of the prosperity coaching I have received over the last 9 years.
I always choose challenge. Even when I say I don't like it in the middle of it, that I am going to be easier on myself next time etc. etc. The work that we did over the weekend didn't seem so challenging on the surface. We made books about our season in the prosperity cycles. We studied Feng Shui together and the Chinese Zodiac. We did needle point, we wrote, we colored. We prepared meals together and we had deep conversations about what is so.
I woke up on Sunday morning in a fit of despair. I felt like I was the most inept person alive, that I cannot even get my life together. I laid in bed for awhile in this "seeming" problem and then decided to get up and begin my chores. I thought if I moved my body, I could move my emotional body as well. I met one of my fellow prosperity practioners in the kitchen, Tim, an electrician and stand up comedian. I shared with him about what I was experiencing. He said, "There is no destination we are trying to get to. We just keep going forward, keep practicing." This helped.
We sat down in the large comfy living room/course room to write and have conversations. I shared my despair about being such a fuck-up. Toni said to the group, "Who isn't a fuck-up here? Who isn't inept?" Well, no one raised their hands. I realized that it doesn't matter, all this stuff that goes on in my head about my experience. That spending time in self concern about what my life is like was keeping me from being fully alive. This experience was ego shattering for me. It drew me away from the mind chatter of what I think I am, back into myself and who I truly am.
A shamanic teacher of mine once said that the mind chatter, the voice that goes on and on in our heads is like the out-breath. Just let it go. As the words, the thoughts float through our consciousness, just allow them to be expelled.

Intuition and inspiration are the in-breath.

In order to breathe in the breath of possibility, we must first breathe out.

May it be in Beauty.