life update, thru the lens of the four elements

Hi all! It’s been a minute since I’ve written, and this is definitely NOT due to a lack of things to say, notice, and reflect upon…but rather, due to so many!

This year has been an interesting one, an ongoing shift that makes the ground feel wobbly. We’re in the midst of a huge recalibration - even the astrology of the era is shifting…Pluto is about to shift into Aquarius for the next 20 years.

My family recently moved into a magical, nature-filled space in the city, and from the moment we arrived, it’s been upgrade after upgrade for us. Manifestations can move fast when they’re divinely aligned!

sunrise at the pond

So, it’s normal and expected to feel wobbly during times of change - and this has brought in a renewed focus on What I’m Called to Do with my Life.

I’ve said many times that birthwork never leaves you…but with the way midwifery is practiced in the US, I knew that certifying as a midwife wasn’t for me.

While I’m so glad that freebirth is gaining more exposure and more women are feeling called back to traditional birthkeeping - I also feel that we have a dearth of true elders, healers, and wisdom-keepers in this space. The medical-model takeover of women’s wellness has been so through and insidious.

Recently I was blessed with the opportunity to meet and learn from the elder wise woman, healer, and traditional midwife, Whapio - and I will never be the same.

Taking her 4-day Illuminated Wise Woman workshop was transcendent. This was nothing less than an initiation into her lineage for me, and a potent call to action.

Whapio is the elder whose footsteps I can follow with conviction. She is a wayshower in the realms of undisturbed birth and true empowerment - not from a place of superiority (medical model) or saviourism (doulas and medwives).

There were so many synchronicities, orchestrations, and mystical happenings throughout this experience that it’s too much to write about here! I will go live on my Instagram soon to share more about my experience, so that I can hope to do it justice.

I was also deeply impacted by Inelia Benz’ live Healer’s Class, as well as her Healing in the New Paradigm class - both taken in late Summer.

Inelia’s perspective on healing is so refreshing and empowering. It gives voice to things I innately feel - and also, more importantly, she offers structure and processes around how to approach healing.

Some of my notes from the class:

Illness/ailments/pain/suffering:

• Disables us. 

• Stops us from doing things. 

• Causes self-absorption. 

• Healers can get sick bc they pay too much attn to others…so sickness forces them to pay attn to themselves. 

• Causes special treatment and TLC that we didn’t get before.

• Causes martyrdom (justified righteousness)

• Can cause death. So it’s our ticket OUT.

If healing and helping ppl brings you the most joy - then you’re manifesting a lot of sickness and helplessness in the planet. Righteousness. 

Savior/hero energy has no place in an empowered reality bc if nobody needs saving, then how do you make yourself useful? Collaboration.

Saving ppl means you need victims to save.

Inelia speaks about sickness as body communication - and expansion of our awareness as a foundation, a way of moving through the world and within relationships that is supportive of our sovereignty, our beliefs, and our wellbeing on both subtle and physical levels.

This of course ties into my “charts within your chart” approach to Human Design, which refers to the practice of looking at our Design-body and our Conscious-mind separately…but I digress.

INTEGRATION

The other night, I woke up from a dream with an insight that the things I’ve been focused on this year fit rather neatly into the structure of the four alchemical elements! Air, Fire, Water, and Earth:

AIR
The air element represents intellect, knowledge, and wisdom…and it has a shadow side that can be flighty, rigid, and pedantic.

Our thoughts and ideas need room to breathe, float, and expand, if we want to evolve and stay fresh. I’m a Gemini moon, and I have a defined Throat in my Human Design. This means I’m a talker, a communicator.

Metaphorically - one thing I’ve noticed in reflection on my family of origin is how little space I was given to breathe. Every move I made was questioned. This created a habit of communication where my default was to tolerate the status quo for a bit too long.

I’ve noticed that as I’ve healed my relationship to my voice, not only have I become much better at manifesting - but I find that I’m more comfortable speaking in groups, making new friends, and even being on camera…

On a practical level, this Spring our living situation became intolerable as we dealt with mold in our A/C system and ductwork that was making us ill.

I went the first half of this year with symptom after symptom of weirdness in my body - and at first, I felt anger and confusion…why couldn’t I just be well?

Then, my lovely friends in Inelia’s healers’ group pointed out that my body was clearly trying her best, and that my anger was not at all supportive of the reality I wished to experience (a healed, healthy body). That prompted me to dig deeper, to examine my anger, and to realize that I’d forgotten to look at my body’s symptoms as clear and urgent communication.

Air is the element of information and communication, too, after all.

Our old house was a 14-house in numerology - which tends to be always “crying” (prone to leaks, water damage etc). Mold represents decay, stagnation; it’s an opportunist that moves in and clings tenaciously.

When they finally replaced the A/C and ductwork, I took the kids and spent 4 days at Carrie and Elliot’s place, while my amazing husband worked tirelessly on the remediation.

It’s interesting to note that he’s the only member of our family with a defined Spleen in Human Design. Defined Spleens tend to have more robust immune systems, while those with open or undefined Spleens are more likely to notice and be affected by their physical-body symptoms (a double-edged sword, for sure!).

While supplements, remediation, and fresh air certainly helped us - it was pretty challenging to keep up with a laundry list of to-dos, just to get up to a baseline of feeling okay.

I’m immensely thankful we are no longer dealing with that.

FIRE
The fire element represents passion, action, change, and our metabolism…and it has a shadow side that may be too hasty, or unwilling to preserve the past.

Lately, I’ve gotten really clear that there’s no such thing as a ‘perfect diet’ for everyone, because our needs change as we do. For me - this is the year of butter! I’m eating a lot more fat, more animal foods, and way less rice and carbs.

I have a much smaller tolerance for any processed foods - or processed supplements.

Heavy hitters like methylene blue or zeolites for detox are no longer things I’m feeling called to - my body tells me they are too harsh for her, and I’ve been really attuning mySelf to abide by my embodied knowing.

Particularly, methylene blue is very drying, and it’s not an herb or homeopathic preparation, it’s something typically used in the medical system for marking tumors before removal. I had a bad experience after using it for a few weeks, where I was having crazy dreams, but also manic, racing thoughts. It also aggravated various things in my physical body, because I have a pre-disposition toward excess dryness.

This whole experience caused me to pull back and reconsider how I define “holistic health” - because, is it really ‘holistic’ to use chemical or pharmaceutical products outside of the medical system?

ENERGETICS OF FOOD

I’ve been leaning into more protein and fats as grounding foods, because we might need to balance our deep spiritual work with foods that are very ‘rooted’ in the 3D world - like coffee and chocolate, meats and dairy, and also, root veggies!

I was passionate about vegetarianism for almost two decades - and now, my body craves animal foods. I’ve been learning from women like Dr. Courtney Hunt and my friend Erin Esser - both are wayshowers of the importance of sunlight and our circadian rhythms, mineral-rich animal fats for hormone balance, and meats (and fasting) as healing aids.

Our digestive fire is about metabolizing emotions as well as foods - and I’ve been doing so, so much emotional processing this year as I head into my Uranus Opposition next year. (If you want to get really nerdy with me, we can talk about your life cycle charts in a Human Design consult!)

I’m releasing so many tired, old stories - redefining my relationships, and letting go of what’s ready to burn away.. This has been aided by homeopathy, EFT, and my beloved Bach flowers, as well as some incredibly transformational Body Code sessions by my dear friends Abby and Brenda.

WATER
The water element is about movement, connection, nurturing, flow, and mutability…and she has a shadow side that may get swept up in feelings and douse the fire of action, creating stagnation and rot.

As a 2nd line body in Human Design (I’m a 6/2 profile - the 2 represents my physical body-elemental), I’m realizing that my body’s fluids play a significant role in my wellbeing. This includes circulation of lymph and blood via dancing, jumping, walking, lifting weights, doing yoga, massage, and even sauna-sessions.

When I was a teen, dance class was one of my main lifelines…and my time as part of a bellydance improv troupe was one of the most fun things I did in my 20s!

Learning to play my steel tongue drum is also a practice of fluidity and grace, following the flow and resonance of each note I strike.

my sweet grandbaby enjoys my drum too

Also - I’ve been rethinking my 25+ year rule of only drinking distilled- and RO-water…in favor of spring and high-TDS mineral water. This is thanks to “anti-influencer” Kaleigh on Instagram - she has a boatload of resources on water in her story highlights, very much worth reading thru. In short, her research led me to connect the dots between distilled/RO water and my mom’s kidney issues, as well as my challenges with anemia.

For so long, I believed that only distilled water was safe to drink. However, there’s no such thing as 100% pure water that’s also supportive of life.

In magickal practice and spellwork, for example, distilled water is only used for curses - because it’s dead. I held that cognitive dissonance for a long time. :)

Living water comes from the Earth, and it has minerals in it. Sure, you can add them back in - but there’s simply something different about water that’s been in contact with the Earth for a minimum of 50 years, versus adding back some concentrated mineral drops or sea salt a few minutes before you drink it.

Check out this 6-minute clip of water tasting with Zac Efron (yes really), visiting a “water sommelier” (yes, really!).

EARTH
The earth element is about solidity, substance, anchoring, foundations…and it has a shadow side of playing it safe, staying the same, or choosing comfort over growth.

In Human Design, our environment has many layers. The bottom-left arrow or variable in our chart will give some insight into this. For example, I’m a Mountains environment, which means I crave a space to retreat and observe from.

For Projectors like me, it’s especially important to be in a place that feels supportive, whether that means fixing up your bedroom, releasing friction-filled relationships, or moving countries!

On many levels, when my environment is unsupportive, all sorts of things don’t work well - from my finances to my health. Also, when we stay too long in an extended “freeze-response”, we enter into something called collapse - a state of apathy and disillusion. This is not a good headspace to make decisions from…

Moving into the city where we have friends, work, opportunities, and space to breathe has already yielded so much ease, flow, joy, and expansion for us.

Was it scary to take the leap? Not nearly as scary as the consequences of staying put!

Finally, the Earth element (my native element, as a Capricorn) also has to do with business, wealth, and income. These are important, since we are not just spiritual beings floating around in the ether - we’re here to have a human experience, which includes making, spending, and enjoying money!

To that end, I’ve been immersing myself in the work of ethical marketers like Tad Hargrave and Sam Garcia, to learn how I can apply sustainability and permaculture principles to the work I do.

As a G-authority in Human Design, my work must align with my identity.

My biz isn’t just something I do for money - it’s vocation, soul-purpose, who I AM.
Also, my biz is not just “mine” - it’s meant to empower and inspire every person whose life I touch.

A mission this important is worthy of abundant financial support.

The time of starving artists and wounded healers is over. Lone wolf energy is out, too. That’s so Pluto-in-Capricorn, baby!

So I’ve been reviewing the many things I’ve created, the connections I love making with others, and the gifts I have to offer the human collective…whether that’s via Human Design, holistic healing, or traditional midwifery.

Sharing insight is my passion and my joy, and it’s what I want to be known for.

I’m a prolific creator - but what I really want is a calendar that’s booked with beautiful people who are genuinely interested in my laser-light aura and focused attention.

Please take a look at my current offerings here - and be ready for some exciting changes soon!

Thank you for reading my words, friend. I appreciate you!