Dear Friends,

Last love note that I slipped into your mailbox I had just returned from dancing with Elissa, the seals and sea lions of La Jolla, and a gathering of gorgeously brave-hearted women. This love note comes softened by a rejuvenating retreat with my eldest daughter and the wild pup to tend home fires. 

Off-grid and on break, this week’s work was wrapped in the sweat of long, hot, dusty hikes to the waterfall of my favorite wilderness; counter-balanced with shockingly longer, sweet, icy swims upon our return in the glacial lake of our ancestors. Yes, I can float, giggle, cry, sing, and dance our prayers, And did. For hours! 

Yes, my hands and body, again, acclimated so instantly to the clear, chilly water that all I felt was the flowing oneness of its movement. Yes, it was much like many years ago when I was danced across the massive granite boulders and was pulled in by the waterfall’s siren song to swim in the snow melt of a pool much farther upstream. With only joy! It was amazing, again.

There are pictures and a little Dancing Hands video this time, too, that will maybe also make its way to you, but taking a vital break like the old days to BE one with all of it—that was the miracle. I don’t think I’ve swam in the lake daily or that long since I was 15 or 16! Or maybe ever.

I dove in. Life IS short. Life is precious. We’ve all been feeling it. So I dove in. Every day.

Just a few, short years ago, firebrands the size of a silver dollar flew from the forest fire that surrounded our lake to land on our deck at my feet. I’d thought they’d lifted the evacuation order, but no, it was still dangerous, and I arrived to ash covering our cabin like a first snow. I then danced with the ashes of transformation, asking the earth and skies if I should leave and if not leave, to show me how best to help with the shifting weather. I was danced. The fires and trees sang through me. I hiked and was being sung by the Language of Love. Soon the winds stopped. The rain returned. The evacuation order lifted the next day. Did I do that? I’d never presume to claim that. Source Energy/God/Creator/Elementals/Angels/co-creators—we are wallflowers/witness to the work OR we dance together, but I don’t know about you, I’d rather be a helper if I can than a watcher. Many hands make LIGHT work. So I dive in. I dance on.

With much of our world on fire, the heat of memory reddened my face again as I dove in and dive anew for cooling, prayerful balance of peace and well-being. In each breath, we all can access support for a safer, saner planet for all the elementals. We, along with all her beings, are well served by cultivating better focus than living by default. 

I take nothing for granted. It is sacred land on which we live. These are divine skies. Those are cosmic fires. We breathe the air of the One Sky. We are stewards of all its care. We must clean up after ourselves and apparently also, the misguided. I was so grateful and happy to feel it all and then feel the merging of everything good and mysterious on this planet and in that lake water to wash and wipe my tears, too.

Away from phones and the Internet, we swapped Mama and twin baby bear stories with our closest neighbor—a 95 year-old doctor who is one of the brightest and bravest women I know, high on the mountain all by herself. After our wild pup chased the bears away from our cabins one dawn, she cheered, tired of keeping pots to bang in the night lest they try to enter her cabin while she slept again. She loaned me cobwebby, thick, history books of this wilderness, pebbled with stories and fading photos of our relatives. The stories! The happily ever afters still in process.

Our cabins are 100 years old and look it. Bent twigs for cupboard pulls, iron latches barely close the snow warped doors, and the scratches and nose prints of all the forest creatures on the bubble-paned windows from their inevitable wish to dance on the stone hearth with us. 

Each night, we drank deeply from the cooled Milky Way skies. Sighing with every winking encouragement, we read long past our sleepy eyes could stay open. I have no remorse that  delight rose as the dawn pushed through the pine trees to our sleeping bags. I didn’t want to miss a single scan of beauty.

Thank you for indulging me a retreat away to hold greater peace in my heart for us all. Thank you for endeavoring the same break for greater peace, deeper love, and strongest appreciation and love for our precious earth-temple, every way we can. Now. Today. Always. Elissa WILL be announcing another retreat in October or November as early as today. Reach back if interested! Or follow us on Instagram and Facebook. (Links below.)

With all this sparkling water washing me clean in my being to a deep, soul-full peace, with an overflowing heart I invite you to this week’s Quanta Circle. The arc of three nights never seems quite long enough for longtime participants or new ones, too. When dancing with our highest and best individual and collective good it is such a joy to open access to All-That-Is/Source/God/Goddess’/Creator/Spirit’s deepest love in you, for you, your own gifts, and all we can dance together. Your greatest expansion on this planet and in our gorgeous community has only just begun! (That’s what I hear about our dancing hands journey, too!) 

Thank you to all who joined us in Richie Dubin’s Breaking Up With Your Self yesterday on Lion’s Gate. It was a gorgeous gathering of finding and acknowledging our Origin Story and revising or reviewing how we can see the divine thread that brought us here together. Humor. Tears, Love. We hope you can join us next week, too!

Thank you all for being here always! We know these times are very, very strange and for many, extra challenging, but while we are in this world together, may we hike, swim, and dive in to find our way to bring more light and more love with the most miraculous hearts we can. 

I love you so and hope to see you Wednesday in Quanta!