As one story goes, Aeos was a mythological flying horse who helped to pull the golden sun across the sky. You need not be familiar with this story to know the darkness that dwells in the hours before dawn. It is human to know such darkness.
For thousands of years, Spiritual Teachers, Counselors, Healers, and Artists have lit their torches from the mantle of Love and Light and fiercely carried them blazing into the darkest and unknown scary places. I am here to carry this torch for you.
This is not something that is done to you. This is a voyage we take together, at a pace that suits you, in a space you can feel safe to be yourself in. This safe space is created energetically, physically and emotionally from the trust we build with each other. For many of us, being able to trust another person, in itself is a major triumph.
As a Spiritual Counselor much of what I understand about life and existence reveals itself to me in images. Channeling these expressions of Spirit and sharing them with others is the heartbeat of my life and this is my Life's work.
"Through the eye of a Needle", 2022, Mixed media painting & collage
The mixed-media painting above came through during a meditation on what this Spiritual work is about. The animals navigating the tapestries represent 4 primary human reactions to stress: Fight, Flight, Freeze & Fawn.
Which animals in the painting do you relate to?
Have you ever been the frozen rabbit stuck in place...burrowed deep under layers of cover, hiding out on life? Or one of the wild hooved creatures galloping frantically away from it all...Or batting their lashes in agreeance? Or perhaps the fiery blood thirsty beast out for payback?
I have been all three many times over. Watch the videos below to see how these stress responses can manifest.
Over time, throughout our lives these adaptive survival reactions become stuck energetic patterns repeating in us, even when danger has passed. Often, we bring these old patterns with us into everything new we encounter. These survival patterns, much like the tapestries in the painting come in many different combinations and forms and are unique to our own genetic make-up and life experiences.
I am now able to recognize and accept these reactions in me often when they come up and I'm much more likely not to get stuck in them. It is through this radical moment-to-moment acceptance that I have learned to trust, hold and even love myself more.
Unlike most animals, human beings have an extraordinary ability to choose their patterns and change their stripes.
With our Higher Powers guiding us, we can work together to begin untangling these old stories that limit who we truly are and who we are Becoming. Feeling into the body and Accepting all that is going on inside here now, even as you read these words, is where we'll begin. Deepening the breath as we ground with the earth, opening, and expanding our hearts, softening what is rigid, shaking what is stuck, opening what is closed, lightening and loosening up as we journey together to the places inside that long to feel OK.