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Published by New Page Books, 2015

The Akashic Records: Sacred Exploration of Your Soul's Journey Within the Wisdom of the Collective Consciousness, by Ernesto Ortiz

 Your body knows the seasons are changing  before your mind does. Your bones feel the slight chill that hints to the coming of fall can the wind on your skin is colder. As your mind turns to warmer thoughts of bonfires and feasts, the best way to prepare for the coming of autumn and harvest high holidays, is to ramp up the sacred self-care until your skin is actually smoother and much  softer then silk. But, why pay so much for tiny jars full of chemicals when you can whip up a yummy blend of healing herbs and restorative essential oils that is far cheaper, healthier and imbued with your personal magic? What you’ll need:

stainless steel saucepan

We live in the age of anxiety. There is so much stress, bad news and soul-crushing chaos; it is hard to know how to get through each day. But here’s the thing; ancient wisdom is the best way to approach to deal with modern troubles. Try the following tried and true rite. Take a piece of plain white paper, palo santo incense blue candles, paper and a blue pen and have it at the ready. Palo santo literally means “holy wood” and it is a tree that grows in South America and is similar to cedar and copal. It is wonderfully grounding and also clears energy, including tension and disquiet.

Nothing is more relaxing than a massage and it is so good for you- healing and energizing, to be sure.Massage bars should be look, smell and feel yummy, lush and soothing to the skin. Cocoa butter is beloved for the delicious chocolate sweet scent. I also recommend shea butter, grapeseed oil or mango butter as other options for they are also delightfully sumptuous.

May 8, 2018

It’s a surreal feeling sitting at a follow-up doctor appointment with your urologist and she’s talking to a doctor in training about what had happened to you and says “on the ambulance ride here, she went into septic shock. She needed to be resuscitated and that is why she needed to be in ICU.” I sat there in disbelief, still not feeling as if I was that bad off.

While I was in labor with my stillborn baby, I remember telling my midwife that I spent the first thirty years of my life depressed and I would NOT allow this tragedy to drag me back there.  She smiled through her tears and told me I might not have a choice in the matter. 

Twenty years ago today, I self dedicated to the Goddess. Not any one Goddess, or tradition, but simply just The Goddess. The only guild I had was The Spiral Dance by Starhawk. At 16 years old, steeped in the evangelical movement of Christianity, I took a deep breath and inhaled the Goddess' warm embrace of hope and exhaled the patriarchy, shame, and sorrow brought about by the God of Abraham.  Even though I had no formal connection to Reclaiming at the time, and knew even less about 'witchcraft' what Starhawk wrote about in The Spiral Dance resonated with light inside my most darkest spaces. There would still be years filled with nights of terror and dread, there would be more fear, more shame, and yes more suffering. Unlike the faith of my childhood, The Spiral Dance and this Goddess never promised deliverance from suffering in exchange for servitude, rather instead simply offered space. 

Twenty Years after that first reading of The Spiral Dance, my spiritual path has matured and my toolbox is far more expansive. Yet, in a sea of labels, unverified personal gnosis, rhetoric and opinion, I still have no real name for space I share with the the Goddess. I just have the path. My mentor, Rev. Kim Crawford Harvie once said, "there is misperception that arose that if I committed myself to a spiritual path, that I would rise above suffering.  I have come to learn the opposite is true:  If I commit myself to a spiritual path, I will suffer with an open heart and a naked soul. "