From my tender and grateful heart, I greet you again, Friends.

Happy Autumn!

Take a moment and touch your heart. Now, tap your first eye. Can you feel it? Take a deep breath…and let it out. What do you sense in this shift of seasons? 

Here, right now, outside, there is a cool sprinkling from a voluptuous raincloud. The leaves are just beginning to edge out to gold here in N. California, but back East, my heart blushed crimson wonder from the new Source fires lit in our dances. Something special happens when we honor these seasonal changes with focus, chosen family, and friends. While facilitating seasonal circles has been my practice for three decades, a week ago, I was told it was time to bring new and old love work together in Rhode Island. And so, we did. We blended our ancient alchemy with the softest air kiss of Source. 

Tucked in the middle of a historic American island, under massive sheltering trees and beside a beautiful old church named Trinity, we shared our intentions before we shared our names. Our circles always celebrate the mandala of people, beliefs, prayers, and active intentions supporting the best and highest good of one and all, individually and collectively. Yet this time, as I stood on either side of the seasons’ threshold with a great circle of souls before we began, the joy in welcoming the sacred, compassionate, and collective heart was the entry point, rebalancing with what so many of us have been missing–harmony in the community to bring out the best of each soul gift. My hands will always dance with everyone to infuse the individual’s divine support. Yet here, we jumped straight through to something sacred and new together. And if you didn’t know it then, my friend, you are part of this mosaic by the very nature of you reading this. I hope you feel the delicious wrap of love still floating for you and all who tap into divine light.

There was no doubt this trip would be full of joy and surprise. I love the supremely generous and talented beings co-facilitating and those I knew who RSVPed. Extras are to be expected. Plan A’s twirled to Plan Bs, and Plan Cs wanted in on the dance, too, but with breath and trust keeping it fluid isn’t such a stretch. It’s an allowing. A fine focus. This dance of Source’s gift is often about profound listening, sweeter holistic connection, and getting our ego out of the way so we may flourish with Source/Creator/Love Force. Every shift only meant I/we might have to dance in a new way. What else is new? All good, for goodness’ sake. 

The portal of my heart stretched open wider. Gravel rising from old, buried wounds would need cleaning along the way—mine and others, but this is heart maintenance—fall cleaning. There is always a new spiritual salve. I shared last week that while blissfully strolling with my old love, summer, tears broke open like a sudden storm, washing away my ability to speak what was amiss. Instead, I needed to feel this broken edge. My compass was spinning, and all I could do was wipe my tears and look at the steadier horizon over the waves. I needed to let go of this past season. Saying goodbye to what was and releasing that which could no longer serve made space for the harvest. What tools would I now need for this? I have a tree in my backyard that has grown so magnificently that it needs pruning and steadying for the coming winter. We all need to strengthen our most excellent alignment with purpose from time to time. And it was time. I sank my feet into the cool, refreshing, incomings tides of autumn and music rose. Change gonna come, and come it did. Time to dance.

Sweet Evan, our facilitator in New York City, came to support our beloved Newport sister, Diane, in facilitating. (Thank you, both!) We had gorgeous old friends arrive in blanketed hugs, porting dishes of autumn for our feast. Another bright and shiny clutch of new healers joined from out of state while others walked from just down the cobblestone street. (Thank you, new and old friends!) Many had never circled in any way before, but we all dove into the newness of change. We lit the island candles floating in the water and then stoked our inner bonfires as we shared the intimate beauty of this elegant shift from our hearts. Wisdom, song, and poetry wend through our roots. Even bells rang from the steeple as if on cue for ecstatic punctuation and laughter. We fed peace, appreciation, love, faith, protection, harmony, and more into the circle and the land, and with each pass, the prayers and blessings grew. To feel the sound of hearts rising into the night and weaving together for grace with potent harmony and collective gratitude for pure life—such heaven on earth!

The old streetlamp was high, but cast amber low over our glorious sunset Autumn Equinox Circle in the square city park of Newport. Our participants glowed. It was a similar gentle light at the private Dancing Hands Circle for Eric Lutes’ fantastic acting class and friends this past Monday night, too, yet everyone from circle to circle to circle to circle seemed independently lit. The library ladder climbing shelves two stories high of books was the backdrop and the perfect inspiration for free-flowing new information here, too. 

My cheeks are still rosy with joy, drawing heat from Source’s newly lit gifts. With one young woman, we saw two of her new family coming to support her as angels from the other side. With another woman, following our private dance after the circle, I saw balls of dried rose petals emerge from the “hundreds of books of wisdom” that lay under her (still) quiet hand. As I danced in real time, I saw the petals revive in “All-Time.” I’d never seen such a thing. I told her of the ice cave and tablets of my visions–that these petals seem to contain codes of information, like the tablets and scrolls that are often rolled out to me. She then told me that she used to work with the Roses of Jericho from Mexico, a special plant also called the Resurrection plant that can be revived even after seven years without water. And these two stories were just two of so many not yet ready for the ears of others. Each emerging story feels transmuted with such grace. Even the broken piece that made me cry as I tried to dance around history in the sand was now akin to beautiful sea glass, surprising my dancing fingers, saying, “You’re not an abandoned shell. You are a piece of evolution!” We’ve all been tumbling in the wild sea storms of the world. Rest here in your beauty now. Even in the dark, see how you glow.

It’s been four long years since I’ve crossed any bridge to Rhode Island. Yes, tears flowed as I met, hugged, and danced with old friends for the first time in such a long spell, but it also felt like a spell was broken. Tis the season to speak of such words, but tell me, does it feel like a mist coming around our world is more like an animated cartoon to you, too, than real? Are we back? Are we here? Have we changed? How are we dealing with the mists of the world? How are you? 

Last year I carefully traveled in the safer spaces of the pandemic with friends and family around the UK and France, then returned with small groups of Dancing Hands friends to Glastonbury and later to Hawai’i Island, all in 2022. Last month, I was in the Pacific Northwest for the first time in four years, and the month before that, I was in Texas, but as always, I must be honest–it still feels precious—all of it. Many have confessed they don’t feel brave enough to be in a community yet. But others know that the world is radically different and are adamant that we get on with living. We all wish to live as healthfully and compassionately as we can. How are you feeling? Are you ready to fly to Texas for Mo’ Light Mo’ Love at Mo Ranch? Feeling the excitement of joining us in Peru and/or Ecuador? I’m being called. Are you?

Too much? Too soon? Someone this week said my newsletters were too optimistic. To this soul, while I believe I always share my tender heart truthfully and deliver what Source encourages me to share to inspire or uplift, I hope we all reach higher on the stick of joy more than focus on all the contrast. 

But am I immune from contrast? No. I’m not. Case in point, this very week, I met some startling upset. After a glorious stay at one hotel in Newport recovering, I decided to move closer to my departure point for my last night. Here, I was yelled at by a man at the front desk for politely asking another front desk person if I could check out and have a refund after being at my hotel for 15 minutes. I was having an allergic reaction to the air conditioning that seemed to have mold. His response was so extreme, so shocking in his denial that there was anything wrong with the air that I knew it wasn’t about me but about his fear. As I shared my vulnerability and my humanness again, that I had only kindly asked for compassion and a refund, he refused to acknowledge any problem and further yelled he’s already labeled me as a “bad customer,” and then amplified in tone and volume that I would never be allowed here again, that it was in “the system now, (as he pointed to his computer), that everyone would know I was a “bad customer” and no one would believe me if I dared to leave a bad review.

It would be laughable if he weren’t attacking me for asking for compassion. Maybe it was about the money or the reputation of the hotel. But I think it’s that mist that’s crept in these last six years, and it’s part of how so many have suppressed their heart. Some have lost their very humanity. We are seeing this playing out on the world stage with greed and why people are now stepping up asking for their fair share. While many are trying the ugliest versions of affirmations, that it must be true if we declare “it” repeatedly like a spell, we must step into our communal integrity. We all know better. We are in this world together. We must play better for the best and highest for one and all on this playground of life. Our planet and many of her people are sick or challenged; we must do better for one another and ourselves. Of course, this is a much longer story, but even when I’m dancing for good, contrast comes to say hello to ensure I’m on my game and walk my talk. How do we stand up for compassion in our universe? How do we keep our focus? This was a good lesson for me to check. I stand up for others, but do I stand up for myself?

Another man who had witnessed both times I’d asked for compassion in that lobby came across the rainy parking lot to me as I loaded my luggage and asked if I was alright. He looked confused that anyone would yell at a customer, let alone a teary-eyed 60-year-old woman asking for compassion. I was fine. I had already said, “God Bless you, Sir” to both men. It was only a lesson my work wasn’t done. I thanked him and I drove to the ocean letting my sighs stack like a prayer cairn on the rocky shore. Then, I watched the wet wind snap my purple scarf against the grey sky like a hand dismissing the mean, aggressive ego, the fearful child that chastised me for asking for compassion. And off the pain went. Breathing outside in, I felt peace with the rolling waves as they rose higher and higher.

Go to your heart and see where the shifts are happening within you for good. Feeling the texture? Take the time to settle into that heart and harvest what you need to keep and what needs to go.

I know we do this work together. I am but one voice in the gifts that are here to help, and with every fiber of my being, I know we are better, stronger, healthier, and happier when we collaborate with the best of ourselves and our sacred communities. I am so happy for the kindness and shifts that are coming when we dance with sacred love. I hope you will join me soon.