It is the much anticipated time of the year again during which I teach in-person events. For many years we toured year round, but since the lockdowns there’s a fresh sense of specialness and excitement to each trip.

I love the many well honed rituals of long distance travel, the moment of stepping into an airport and boarding the plane, and most of all the landing.

When the plane sinks through the clouds and the landscape below reveals itself I always experience a giddy rush of happiness. My phone contains hundreds of near identical photos of airplane wings against sunsets, sunrises, dramatic clouds and the approaching ground, all of which were taken to commemorate this very distinct blissful feeling.

Every landing feels poetic - no doubt heightened by the relief of having (almost!) made it and the inevitable weepiness that seems to be the staple of having spent many hours hurtling through the air in a metal tube at 36,000 feet.

The green patchwork of fields that precedes the view of London, the long sandy beaches and estuaries of the Algarve, the dry grasslands and urban sprawl of Melbourne, the orderly barley fields and sunflowers of Munich airport, and the majestic Alps of my hometown, Salzburg. Wherever I land the joyful feeling of adventure bubbles up as we taxi towards the gate.

I love teaching retreats. More than ever I am grateful for every time we gather in person. But, there is just one thing…jetlag!

There have been many afternoons during teaching in Amsterdam when despite coffee (a beverage I only ever use in extreme emergencies ) my eyes would close and any attempt to open them resulted in a woozy cross eyed state of utter desperation. 

Then there was the time - now a humorous part of our teaching folklore -  when Steve and I went to Melbourne for the first time and landed at 6:30am after a 16 hour flight. Staying awake all day proved a herculean feat which resulted in a strange hallucinatory sleep during a wild thunderstorm. 

At some point the wind lifted a corner of the roof of our airbnb - which was really just a glorified shed in someone’s backyard - and rain sprayed into the rooms through the roof. I was so jetlagged that I simply covered my face with the comforter and fell back into delirious sleep. The next morning I wanted to commiserate with Steve, but he never even woke up!

Nowadays my travel is almost completely jet lag free. At some point during the pandemic I learned about deliberate sun exposure as a means of regulating the body’s circadian rhythm and this has been an absolute game changer!

It’s incredibly simple. Getting sunlight as early in the day as possible sets in motion a cascade of processes that help the body with everything from sleep to physical and mental well being. Watching the sun go down has similar beneficial effects.

Turns out, this particular protocol really cuts down on jet lag. While I sometimes roll my eyes at the “optimizer” movement, I’ve gotten quite disciplined with my morning sun exposure because it’s made such a big difference in many aspects of my life. This was not an easy shift as I have never been much of a “morning person”.

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Nowadays it’s an essential part of my morning ritual. Regardless if I am home or
traveling, I’ll make a pot of tea, grab my journal and my Oracle cards, and sit facing the rising sun. While I enjoy the morning sun I’ll write and contemplate, drink tea, and pull a few cards.

When we arrive at a retreat location we often sit together to watch the sun rise. We drink tea or coffee, chat and laugh, pull cards, and Steve might recite some poems. This is my favorite part of retreat prep - sitting with good company and enjoying the dawn.

Just as important as the benefits for good sleep and the prevention of jet lag is the poetic beauty of each sunrise and sunset. The same way those airplane landings inspire a sense of awe and bliss, the rising and setting sun fills me with a deep connection to the natural world.

The simple act of sitting long enough to watch the sun come up behind a mountain, or sink into the ocean reminds me of how intricately we are linked with the rhythms of nature. Listening to the birds, seeing clouds moving and water rise and fall with the tides holds a special kind of magic. A moment to feel the bigger picture and allow the heart to relax.

It’s also a potent reminder that we are of nature, a part of a much greater natural world, dependent on the sun and its rhythms. Even more than the intellectual understanding of the benefits of sunlight and the detrimental effects of the light emitted by our various devices, the feeling of awe and the connection with nature have allowed me to cut down substantially on scrolling in bed or being on my computer till it’s time to sleep.

This morning, while admiring a particularly red sunrise over Venus Bay, Australia, I realized that something has happened that I never thought possible… I have become a morning person.

During my Christmas break I read a great many Substack articles, enjoying the luxury of time to sit with cups of tea and dogs cuddled around me and enjoy some incredible writing.

One article that stuck with me was “Throwing the Pants in the Fire”. In it she tells the story of gathering with friends around a bonfire and burning items and pieces of paper of everything they wanted to let go of.

One friend had brought several boxes of fire offerings, the highlight of which was a colorful patchwork pair of pants worn at festivals and by its wearer deemed a suitable fire sacrifice to banish the old iteration of himself.

I’ve always loved a good fire offering! I first learned an elaborate and formal ritual of  fire puja from my first teacher and have since used it regularly for both myself and in my work.

There is a special magic to gathering around a fire. An activity that connects us with the line of our ancestors, to the beginning of time. Deep in our bones sits the memory of those ancient gatherings - to stay warm, to cook, to gather or to perform rituals and sacrifices. When we gaze into the flames, our instinctual nature comes online and with it a deeper connection to the natural world and our own place in it.

Add to that the obvious cleansing quality of the fire element and you have a potent way to let things go - literally as in those festival pants, or figuratively as in written notes and prayers we can watch go up in smoke.

When we gather around a fire at the end of one of my retreats, I always tell the same story my teacher used to narrate as she stoked the fire. 

In the Hindu pantheon of gods, fire is represented by the god Agni - who is equally the sun, domestic and sacrificial fire, digestive heat and lightning. He is invoked and tasked to carry the messages within the fire offerings to the gods. 

Agni often is shown with two heads - one with the benevolent expression of bringing warmth, sustenance and blessings, and one with the menacing face of swift destruction. 

Agni has a consort, the goddess Svāhā. And while it is Agni who carries the messages, requests and offerings to the gods, it is his wife we invoke when we ritually throw things into the fire. 

At this point my teacher would gleefully cackle and say “ When you want to make sure it really gets delivered, you have to ask the wife!” and with that the offerings were energetically tossed in the flames with a joyous “Svāhā!!!”.

I love telling this story and feeling my connection with my teacher and through her the entire lineage of women who have stoked fires, made offerings and invoked the fire god’s wife to make sure the job gets done.

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Throwing things into an actual fire, seeing them burn with nary a trace left is a powerful statement of letting go. Once the item is gone, visually and factually destroyed, the memory fades - both through the ritual and by no longer having that item remind us of what they are connected to.

Items are a powerful anchor of memory and a portal into landscapes of experience. The shell on our desk is not just a shell, it’s a portal into a romantic windswept walk on our favorite beach with the person we love, or the symbol of exotic travel with dear friends. The heirloom we use everyday is not just a thing we received upon the death of a beloved grandmother, but a direct reminder of her and our connection to ancestry.

Offering items into the fire wipes the slate clean - with the anchor gone, the memories don’t load up as frequently and are replaced by other mementos and memories. The ritual aspect of it serves as a powerful notice to the psyche that we are actively ready to move on. The cleansing is palpable and often profoundly freeing.

I experienced a grand version of a fire offering a few years back, when a raging wildfire consumed my entire home and property - cherished possessions, buildings, animals, trees and all my books were gone in an instant. 

By the time I got there, all that was left was a thin layer of ash with a few warped metal items and the old rock walls sticking out of the wasteland.The fuller lessons of this fire will have to be written about in a separate story, but within this context I can say that having lost all anchors, all things, all mementos - including all heirlooms, photos, clothes, books and art was intensely painful and disorienting, but also somehow freeing when seen from a safe distance of a few years. 

I would often worry what will happen to some of my most beloved possessions when I die. Who would cherish the items passed down to me or given by teachers and loved ones? I would hold on to clothing that no longer fit because it reminded me of good times in my life. I had drawers of “good” silverware and “special” china and jewelry too precious to wear.

All that went in the fire and with it I was loosed from the moorings, no longer reminded of my past selves, past loves, past losses, and past patterns.

Everything needed to be freshly acquired and with it came new ways of being, seeing, and moving in my world. And while I still mourn some losses within that experience, I am much more “up to date” within myself and my life. I’m also much more resilient knowing that I made it through the harrowing experience of having lost it all and emerged the stronger for it.

Needless to say, I now use all the “good china”, I no longer hold on to things for later, and I am much more willing to let go of items, memories and relationships without the sentimental need to be reminded of obsolete anchors to the past. 

Most surprisingly, with the visual anchors gone, I have laid to rest old betrayals, grief and memories of relationships that had long taken their course. Sometimes I search for that old pang of anger, sadness or betrayal, but it has gone - somehow cleansed by the big pyre of all things.

Emily’s friend knew this - by offering the festival pants into the fire he wiped the slate clean. A fresh iteration of him could enter the new year - released from sentimental ties, outdated beliefs and old ways of being. 

So go ahead - light some pants on fire!  Write down grievances and unspoken communications. Gather wishes and prayers on a beautiful card. Throw them all into the flames with vigor. And as you do so, whisper “Svāhā!” and let the fire carry it away.

Traditional Austrian Copper Smudging Vessel - Card from “55 Flavors Oracle & Practice Deck” - Photo by Mariana Schulze

Happy New Year!

We are already a week into 2024 and after some time off I’m happily back to Substack writing, podcast posting and workshop teaching.

While January is not naturally a month within the cycles and rhythms of our bodies to start something new, the turning of the sun on Winter Solstice and the collective energy of the New Year can provide a useful spark towards new practices and intentions.

For me personally, the days between Winter Solstice and the 6th of January have always been a time for ritual and reflection and a chance to focus on letting go. This begins as an invitation - a creation of available space - for whatever new wants to arise. 

I grew up in a part of Austria which to this day maintains a great many of its folkloric rituals. During this time of year, the most important of these is the Rauhnächte - the nights between Solstice and Epiphany, during which the veils are said to be particularly thin.

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There are many great rituals to draw from. There is the practice of Losen (after a word for listening), where people go to remote places and stand at the crossroads or ley lines and listen for the sounds of what’s to come. It’s a beautiful practice of tuning into the messages of nature.

Smudging plays a significant role within those days, traditionally a burning ember is dropped into a special copper container and resins are sprinkled on top. Frankincense, copal, and local herbs and spices produce a strong smoke and the container is carried through each room of the house and, on farms, into the barns and animal housing.

This practice which cleanses away the old and wards off evil spirits and negative intentions is often combined with a blessing of the threshold on Epiphany on January 6th. First the old  is “smoked out”, then the threshold is sealed with a sigil of sorts, a chalk inscription on the lintel or frame of the entrance doors to be renewed each year. 

To this day you can find those inscriptions on many doors throughout the Alpine region, often drawn by men walking from door to door singing and dressed as the 3 Magi.

My personal favorite of all the myths and stories has always been that the animals can speak at midnight during the Rauhnächte. As a child I desperately wanted to communicate with my various pets and tried my best to stay awake for that magical moment. 

Nowadays, living on a small ranch with many animals I think of that little girl fondly, appreciating my deep love for all creatures from a young age and smiling at the magic and wonder available through the communion with animals - then and now.

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Regardless of what your desires, intentions and resolutions for 2024 are, this is my invitation to take a moment and listen to what is ready to let go first.

There is a gentler, less forceful way of calling in the “new”. Making space, creating an invitation, using the principles found in nature to bring forth sustainable habits and practices. Listen to your body, your heart, your mind and heed the call from within. 

Letting go of old beliefs, outdated ways of being, long held artifacts of different times will naturally allow for new aspects to arise. From there, small changes and practices can point you towards what you truly want, for yourself, your body, your life.

I’ve listed a few free resources for you below.

May you enter into this new season with joy and an appreciation of the beauty that can always be found in nature!

Michaela

If you would like to hear more on this topic and receive journaling prompts and embodiment practices you can find the replay of my free “Calling in the New Year” class here. 

As part of this call I offered a coupon code for a free hour long “The Non-Linear Movement Method®” class of your choice, where I will guide release practices for all of January. You can find the classes here and enter free_NLMM_2024 at checkout.  

On the call I am explaining a writing protocol for health I personally found very useful in supporting the “letting go” process this year. Here is a link to this incredible free resource.

The 55 Flavors of the Feminine Practice & Oracle cards are back in stock! We started shipping them this week and I could not be more excited to see this fun project going out into the world!

And finally, in this weeks podcast Steve and I cover some themes related to this article and discuss my explorations of the writing protocol.

Dear Friends,

This time of year always poses the interesting conundrum of reconciling seemingly opposing desires and requirements.

On the one hand, my body yearns to slow down in accordance with its natural rhythm and enter into the winter period. On the other hand there are the holidays, with added social activities and beyond that, the New Year with its promise of resurgence and new beginnings.

While I’ve always felt a strong connection to the cycles and rhythms that guide our internal experience and with that our external connection to place and nature, nowadays I find myself engaging more than ever with the practices that align with those natural forces.

Over the last few years I’ve experienced the real benefits of utilizing morning light exposure and winding down in the evenings with low light to deepen physical vitality, mental clarity and better sleep. 

While intellectually understanding these mechanisms is one thing, being able to feel the beneficial impact from adhering to these practices has been a game changer in its simplicity and efficacy.

With this deepening connection to daily rhythms comes the heightened awareness of the winter period as a time of rest, replenishment and contemplation. Traditionally the fallow season offered a respite from the demands of working the land and a chance to go inside - spatially and spiritually. 

For nature, this dying off and resting is crucial, the dormant period of vital importance for the new growth and fertility that follows it. 

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Last weekend, during the final session of “12 Facets”, our year-long immersion into archetype and myth, we explored the story of Persephone and Hades. A significant teaching aspect within this myth is the correlation of her location - her place - with the seasons. 

Persephone’s stay in the underworld begets fall and winter in the world above, her emergence and return brings fertility and growth. The cornucopia of harvest is followed again by her descent into the land of the souls where she reigns as a guide for the souls and as their queen. 

In the Northern hemisphere this innate archetypal and bodily wisdom towards dormancy nowadays stands in stark contrast with the hustle and bustle of the Holidays: bright lights, extra demands on body, emotions and mind, multiple social engagements and for many a time of stress, loneliness or excessive spending. 

Originally meant as a period of contemplation and celebration with rituals, candles and fires adding depth to the turning of the light cycle on Winter Solstice, the present day holidays don’t offer much respite or slowing down. 

The New Year - regardless of whether you observe it on Winter Solstice or January 1st -  signifies the first signs of rebirth, still underneath the surface, and the gathering of life force. Renewal and growth is soon to come. 

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While I don’t want to offer authoritative advice on how you “should” navigate those seemingly opposing forces, or how you personally might want to approach the quickening of life force in the form of resolutions or changes, I can share some principles as well as some of my personal practices with you here as a means of support.

1. Engage in rituals that make this season meaningful to you.
   Find simple ways to take time and connect with your senses without interruption. This could be lighting a candle, drinking a hot beverage, sitting in front of a fire or taking a walk in nature. Engaging with your senses anchors positive experiences in the body.

2. Retreat - even if it is just for a few moments.
   Find some time to step away. This could be just a few minutes away from the phone, computer or people. If you can set aside a longer time, a few hours, half a day or even more, plan your retreat ahead of time. What does retreat mean to you? Perhaps it's a long hot bath, or watching a movie without interruption. Perhaps it’s engaging in a practice, journaling or just laying around and taking a good nap. Retreat does not have to be spiritual or productive, the most important aspect is that you took time away from “the usual”.

3. Look back at the year before you plan ahead.
   Take some time and review this past year. Look at your calendar, scroll through your photos, perhaps even your balance sheet. Note the highlights and the challenges. Detail your best experiences and accomplishments. Look for areas that could use improvement, but resist the urge to make big declarations of change or feed self-criticism.

4. Be of Service.
   There are many good reasons for engaging in charitable acts and giving of yourself for the good of others. Asides from making a positive difference in someone’s life, the act of extending yourself beyond your own personal needs and comfort activates circuits that regulate your nervous system and deepen empathy.

5. Let something go.
   This is an excellent time to release and de-clutter. This might be as simple as cleaning out a drawer, going through your closet or purging your files. It could also mean a releasing of old grudges, a giving up of an outdated belief or having a clarifying conversation. 

6. Embrace boredom.
   Letting your mind go fallow is essential for new creativity and goals. Very rarely do we allow ourselves to have a pause. There is always a feed to scroll through, a text to answer or an article to read. There is courage in embracing boredom and allowing it to become the substrate of new growth.

7. Get as much sleep as you can.
   You’ve heard it before, but it can’t be said enough. Getting 7-8 hours of quality sleep is the best way to counteract stress, regulate hormones and your nervous system and support mental health. This is even more important in the winter when we tend to use more artificial light and as such can throw our sleep cycles off.

8. Spend some of your evening in the dark.
   Winding down before sleep supports the body in falling and staying asleep. Turning lights low, using candles and red light lets your body know it’s time to unwind and rest. The less bright light you get in the 2 hours before bed, the better your sleep will be. It also sets you up for the next evening, as bright lights will shift your next sleep cycle as well. And, no - it’s not enough to put blue blockers on while scrolling in bed.
   

For me personally, this time of the year brings the end of one teaching cycle while already preparing for the next one. Teaching and traveling for a living means booking, planning, announcing and creating events way ahead of time.

Taking all I’ve written here into account, for the first time this year we have planned out and announced the entire 2024 schedule of in-person immersions, weekend and day-long events, live online classes and teacher trainings already! (You can find the full list of In-person events in UK, EU, US and Australia and online time streams to accommodate those time zones here.)

While this took quite a bit of focused time and attention the past month, it means that now I will be able to take some time off to rest, reset and nourish, with the seeds of the next cycle already sown and gathering life force.

I’ll be taking this time to do my own personal retreat as the year turns. I will be mostly offline and there won’t be any new posts here until January.

On Thursday, January 4 we’ll start a new teaching cycle with 2 free classes for “Calling in the New Year”, where I’ll be guiding you into embodiment practices to gather vitality and creating a personal ritual.

These calls are scheduled to accommodate most time zones and there will also be a replay. You can sign yourself up here for the UK/EU/US class and here for the US/Australia/Asia class. We’ll dive into the exploration of the embodiment of renewal beyond resolutions and checklists.

In the meantime I’d like to thank you for subscribing to this publication! I started “The Temple of the Body in the World” as a means of exploring themes of my work in a more long-form format and have enjoyed the opportunity to share with you in this way tremendously.

There will be weekly articles on the intersection of intimacy, relationship, myth, archetype and ritual again after this time of retreat in January. 

Wishing you a season of joy and renewal!
Warm regards,
Michaela

A few Wise Woman Flavors from “55 Flavors of the Feminine Oracle & Practice Deck”

A few weeks ago I posted an article about the TV show “The Golden Bachelor” and as a result received quite a few emails about the Wise Woman Archetype I discussed.

The article even made its way to a member of the show’s production team, who wrote to affirm that indeed even in the midst of this being a network TV show, he felt there was an element of the Wise Woman expressed by the contestants.

Both in my work and for me personally the questions around entering into another stage of life, regardless of actual biological age, have loomed large recently. We all experience landmark moments in which we realize we have entered a different stage in life. Who we are, who we are perceived to be and what we want to express and create shifts. Sometimes noticeably, sometimes subtly.

Birthdays are signposts of such transitions. So are promotions, births and deaths, new relationships and breakups. And for those of us who have female hormones coursing through our body, the rhythms of our bodies provide clear lines in the sand.

From menarche to menopause we find ourselves in cycles which determine a great deal of our behaviors (and mood!) on a daily basis. When those cycles diminish and eventually stop, the change becomes very apparent. After 30 plus years of tending to our cycles the behaviors and habits are deeply woven into the fabric of our life. Menopause is a massive transformation beyond the obvious physical changes into explorations of purpose, boundaries and mortality.

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In every transition it is extremely useful to have guides who have been there before. We need role models who can provide insight into, incite opposition against, and offer “grist for the mill” of our exploration.

But it’s complicated. Role models are sparse when it comes to this major transition into and past menopause. These are nuanced personal inquiries, which are often shortchanged by tropes, agism and beauty industry propaganda.

Should we “age gracefully” or engage in every anti-aging procedure we can afford? Should we let it all go and claim being a “crone” or avail ourselves of hormone treatments and various rejuvenation laser procedures. Should we go gray or go blond?

Then there are the emotional aspects. Do we use our lived experience to claim a place for ourselves, or succumb to the trope of “angry menopausal hag”? To whom do we turn when we search for our next phase, our next expression? Who do we become, not by social judgment or demand, but through the arising of our hard earned wisdom?

In my book “The Wild Woman’s Way” there is an entire chapter on the Wise Woman that explores these themes. While there may not be many role models in popular culture, there is much wisdom to be found in archetypal explorations.

We can resonate with those archetypes, feel their expression in our bones and let them inform us on a deeper and more personal level. The Wise Woman is such an archetype.

Here are a few excerpts from the “Wise Woman” chapter:

“In a society where female youth and beauty are valued almost above all else, becoming an older woman is difficult, even for the most robust and fulfilled woman.

Even though many women I spoke with have expressed great relief and reported a sense of renewed energy and freedom after menopause, most report that the transition period proved challenging as they adjusted to a marked change in the way they were perceived and treated.

How much women are affected by this transition depends on how strongly they were identified with their looks as a form of validation. Women strongly identified with being sexually desirable and using their attractiveness to navigate life had a much harder time with the inevitable transition.

We are told that what men value in women is youth, fertility, and radiance. The beauty industry is geared toward supplying us with products that aid in radiant skin, glossy hair, and shiny white teeth. Bras and compression garments provide help with the perfect figure, plastic surgery offers a solution for any kind of sagging, and now almost everything can be resurfaced by lasers.

Regardless, at some point the looks will go and what is left depends on how much the women have engaged in their inner lives. The deeply attractive qualities of “a woman of a certain age” are confidence, substance, experience, and an inner radiance that comes from a life well lived and a heart well given.

The deeply attractive qualities of “a woman of a certain age” are confidence, substance, experience, and an inner radiance that comes from a life well lived and a heart well given.

In indigenous cultures, elders are revered for their experience, their insight, and their ability to offer a bigger picture view of life. Often, the matriarch of a family or tribe is consulted and makes decisions on all important matters.

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Part of claiming the Wise Woman is “having to find things to source from other than beauty, sexual attractiveness, and youth. When those things go, as they inevitably will for all of us who are privileged to live long enough, there have to be other skills and attributes on which to rely, such as humor, gained from the knowledge that some things, as hard as one may try to influence them, will never change; or relaxation, from knowing that not everything needs to be done perfectly and that one’s worth is not connected to how much we get done; resourcefulness and flexibility; fortitude, from having our hearts broken and still deciding to love again and again; vibrancy and confidence; sexual maturity, from having relaxed enough to feel our own bodies deeply; generosity, not as a martyr but because, why not!; aliveness and, wisdom, gained from having survived as long as we have.

The Wise Woman is an interesting archetype to consider. When we look at representations of the archetype across different cultures, we see every role, from a leathery old granny to a wildly powerful shamanness. To me, the Wild Woman naturally develops into the Wise Woman.

With experience, all the open, connected, and intuitive parts of us come into full play within the context of passing on wisdom and well earned knowledge.

With age comes acceptance. With acceptance comes a certain relaxation. Anyone who has engaged in life long enough has encountered the inevitable moment when things, despite all our best efforts, fall apart. We experience breakups, death, illnesses, and failure. We are confronted with the inevitability of everything coming to an end. Regardless of how much we try, things don’t always work out.

There are also sudden touches of grace, luck that comes out of no- where, miracles and ecstatic moments that sear themselves into our hearts. There is no way of telling what is what, so eventually we realize that everything is the gift of being fully alive.

At the moment of surrender, a whole new landscape reveals itself, full of possibilities and connections that bring everything into a new, sharp focus, with a heart both tenderized and open, ready to engage with whatever may come.” - Excerpts from “The Wild Woman’s Way” by Michaela Boehm

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P.S: A great Substack Publication providing voices and rolemodels for transition at every age is .

Dear Friends,

I am writing this on a beautiful crisp Autumn day from Devon, in the South of England. This is a place of incredible beauty, especially in the Fall. The vast Dartmoor is blooming with yellow gorse and purple heather, the sun is low enough to create dramatic shadows in the old growth woods and the meadows are dotted with fluffy white sheep.

We’ve been here for the past week, first teaching, then spending some time planning our 2024 teaching schedule (the first new events are already up on the site!) and as the final part of my trip spending time with friends discovering the magical aspects of the moor and listening to some epic stories.

Over the last few years I’ve brought one of my first loves - myth and archetype - more fully into my teaching. I’ve enjoyed the deeply creative pursuit of bringing archetypal characters and stories to life through the body, combining storytelling with my embodiment and movement practices.

Gathering to listen to great stories of the ages always feels like a special treat. To simply allow myself to be transported into the story, to feel the many emotions evokes, to remember the losses and loves of my own life while also feeling the greater lessons of the human experience feels like a precious gift.

A good story transports us, both evoking our own exploration and reminding us that our experience is not unique - something that is both humbling and relieving at times.

All characters and archetypes are part of our own story and the engagement with them informs us personally and beckons to both examine and expand who we are within the context of our lives and beyond.

These are explorations that unfold in layers, over time, with the body lending its own wisdom to the inquiry.

I’m leaving Devon feeling both nourished and inspired by the gift of great story and I can’t wait to dive back into teaching for this last part of the year!

What are the stories, folk tales or epics that touch and inspire you? Leave a comment, I’d love to hear from you!

Below you will find some news and events for this month, I’m looking forward to connecting with you here on Substack and perhaps in an online class or in person somewhere.

Sending you my regards from the road,

Michaela

P.S: I’ve received quite a few messages about last week’s “The Golden Bachelor”. Thank you! I’ll be posting in details about the Wise Woman next Sunday.

Next up on our schedule, starting on October 21 is the final season of “12 Facets of Union”, which offers an embodied deep dive into the story and relationship of “Persephone and Hades”.

This is the last story in this live online series, where we will explore themes of the erotic and what it means to individuate and find one’s unique gift. This is one of my favorite myths and this season goes beyond the apparent content of the myth into the deeper, subversive and erotic aspects.

As always these sessions include storytelling, self inquiry, lectures, talk processes and Q&A’s. We will teach this course in two time streams to accommodate UK, EU, US and Australia/Asia time zones. Join me for this last Archetypal offering!

The boxes with my limited edition “55 Flavors of the Feminine Oracle and Practice Cards” are currently wending their way from the printer to California. There are a few decks left, if you’d like to order one, they will ship the end of October (we ship internationally).

I recently taught the first of the workshops for which the deck was designed and really loved how each partcipant was able to personalize their engagement with the material with the support of the deck. We also engaged with the Oracle portion of the deck and I can’t wait for these decks to make their way into homes and onto altars and into practices spaces! (I’ll write a post about the use of flavors soon).

Soul so close, whatever you think of I know,
but I want more convincing proof.

Do not arrive and say, Now I am here.
Our closeness is not like that.

I am a support column in your house,
a waterspout on your roof.

I share with you the secrets
that others will tell on their last day.

This is no ordinary friendship.
I attend your banquet as wine is passed around the table.

Like lightning, I am an expert at dying.
Like lighting, this beauty has no language.
It makes no difference whether I win or lose.

You sit with us in a congregation of the dead,
where one handful of dirt says, I was once a head of hair.
Another, I was a backbone.

You say nothing.

Love comes in saying,
I can deliver you from yourself in this moment.

Now lover and beloved grow quiet.
My mouth is burning with sweetness.

Rumi by Coleman Barks

This week I came across an article announcing the new version of “The Bachelor” – a long running reality TV show in which 22 women vie for an eligible bachelor’s attention for a chance to get a proposal. Needless to say, this kind of set up lends itself to the best and worst of human behavior – and makes for compelling watching if you are into this kind of thing.

This new and heavily promoted version features a man in his “golden years” looking for another chance at love. Intrigued I jumped into the rabbit hole of linked articles, all elaborate features to promote this new iteration of the franchise.

When I emerged a good twenty minutes and several trailers and articles later, I needed to take a walk around the block in order to sort through various opinions and emotions.

My first thought centered around this show perhaps being a step in the right direction, away from the well-trodden tropes of “old” people’s desires and sexual activity being cringeworthy or somehow disgusting. Perhaps this was a sign that progress was being made against ageism and it’s assorted companions.

Considering that this is a major network show and a big money machine, the motivations are probably considerably less altruistic and more driven by the fact that the “Boomers” – the generation from which the dating pool of this show is drawn – are a major market with lots of available cash to spare.

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This must have become apparent to even the densest network executive through the immense popularity of Netflix’s “Frankie and Grace”, which humorously addresses the joys and woes of “Women of a Certain Age”. Frankie and Grace famously design a vibrator for older women with arthritis, discuss the pitfalls of dating and sex and at some point Grace marries a much younger man. Of course, the “Golden” in this new show hearkens back to their enormously popular, yet much less sexualized predecessor, the “Golden Girls”.

While it’s most definitely nice to see mature adults featured in the pursuit of love and intimacy, the presentation and promotion was rather unsettling me.

There is the “Golden Bachelor”, a well-chosen specimen ticking all the right boxes for network TV.  A widower – meaning he doesn’t have an embittered ex-wife coming out of the woodwork just as the show kicks off – who lost the love of his life after 42 years together and now, 6 years later is ready to find love again. His two loving daughters and his granddaughters want to see him happy and beam adoringly at him in carefully posed promo pictures.

He is tall, just the right kind of weathered, slight scruff of facial hair making him pleasantly rugged. You see him being outdoorsy and active and he has an adorable designer mutt who loves him so much that in the photo he has his paw draped over the leg of this kind looking soon to be suitor.

He is positioned perfectly as a man we can cheer for – not too aggressively manly, not offensive in any noticeable way, just a happy grandpa playing pickleball, yet just virile enough to woo the ladies as he finds “happiness for the last part of his life” as it is not so delicately explained to us.

He is 72 and his complexion in the official photos is somewhat puzzling, reminiscent of competitive bodybuilders in the 70’s with a strange artificial tan, lots of pale concealer around his sparkly blue eyes. His hair is skillfully dyed, an almost salt and peppery blond with grey – read sophisticated – temples.

In the next article I find out all about the 22 ladies age 60-75, “who will be vying for the heart” of this widower. I look at them, presented one by one, with photos, their age and a few “fun facts”.

Two things strike me simultaneously – 1. How available, kind, experienced and humorous they all look as their eyes meet the camera and 2. How relentlessly homogenized and constricted they are depicted for the show.

Yes, I know, it’s a TV show and loads of make-up, perfectly blown out hair and all the Spanx, Botox and fillers a “glam team” can acquire must be used, but it was still shocking to see that what is billed as a show for “mature audiences only” apply such aggressive techniques for making the woman look like grown up Stepford wives.

Now, mind you, I have no strong ideological opinions against plastic surgery, fillers, Botox, microblading, hair extensions and whatever else it takes for any woman to feel good about herself. It should be – like any other choice concerning the body of a woman – a sovereign personal decision.

I am certainly sympathetic to and aware of the enormous challenges and pressure of dating – at any age. Add to that the aging we all experience, the changing of our bodies, coloring and texture of skin and it’s a daunting prospect to go on a date, or even more so, get intimate with someone, especially in front of the camera. I certainly would want all the help I could get in that circumstance!

But with all that said, I still found this entire display quite unsettling from a Zeitgeist perspective. Shouldn’t dating in the “golden years” be more about the hard earned sense of self, the fullness and confidence of knowing who we are? Should there not be an allowance made for the changing of our bodies, the fact that at some point other things matter a lot more than looking “hot” in a tight black dress?

As I pace around I want to ask those who created and are promoting this show what they think will happen when “Golden Bachelor” and the “Former Cheerleader” whose “fun fact” is that “she doesn’t enjoy fishy tasting fish” are alone together, looking at each other with all the make-up caking in the well-earned creases of life experience?

Will a man who watched the love of his life die and a woman whose eyes say that she has experienced both grief and joy in her days assess each other based on their looks? Will they be attracted to each other solely on the basis that they “look good for their age”? Will they really decide to “spend their remaining years together” because some fillers, hair color, compression garments and stylish clothing has seduced them into believing the “forever young” illusion and made them temporarily forget what a real relationship requires?

I certainly hope not! So, why then is the emphasis so heavily on the looks? Why is there nary a grey streak, and only a few woman with actual white hair? Why does everyone look like slightly age progressed Real Housewives? For a show about finding love at “a certain age” there is an awful lot of work put into everyone looking “not their age”!

The promo piece is a treasure trove of contradictions, alternating between statements meant to hit all the right notes of heartwarming understanding for its viewership’s late in life romantic plight and displaying the ugly ageist truth that one must hang on to a youthful display to deserve such a second chance.

“The women arriving at the mansion have a lifetime of experience, living through love, loss and laughter, hoping for a spark that ignites a future full of endless possibilities.” says the article, summing it all up before each contestant is displayed in her flattering black gown and thick shimmering make up.

Here I can finally pinpoint the source of my unease. A lifetime of experience, living through love and loss, reduced to a glamour shot and 3 “fun facts” about each woman.

It’s the power of the Wise Woman reduced to a shallow facsimile of her potency, imprisoned by already questionable youthful beauty standards, frozen facial muscles disguising the depth of available feeling and bound by compression garments that make the corsets of yore feel like leisure attire.

And why? Hope! Hope “for a spark that ignites a future full of endless possibilities”. A sentence encapsulating the entire conundrum. We do want to love and be loved, we want to have romance, spark and excitement regardless of age. We yearn for a full life of meaning and belonging, shared with someone who sees us and loves us for who we are.

This sentence also holds the chilling insinuation that without a partner the future is bleak and devoid of said endless possibilities. And that very sentiment lurks underneath this show and makes us look at a 60, 70 or 75 year old women who disguise their depth, experience and potency under a showy veneer and compete publicly for a man who describes himself as a “grandzaddy”.

And said man consents to be groomed and primped, caked in bronzer, his hair – in candid shots previously a nice salt and pepper – now colored and styled to make him look distinguished, so he can experience love again. All the while being the center of the age old blood sport of having women ruthlessly compete for his favor.

There is so much more to say and unpack here, but for now I am left with the fervent wish that at some point in this show we get to see something else, something deeper, something that sparks the first glimmer of a change in how woman of any age are seen – and seeing themselves – in the context of the inevitable changes that aging brings.

I’m hoping that one of the contestants “cracks” and shows her true depth, wisdom and the uncompromising attitude that is the true expression of a Wise Woman – a woman who has lived long enough and has loved and lost enough to no longer abide by the ideas of who she “ought” to be.

My idea of a fairy tale ending here would be that she who shows her true depth inspires our “Golden Bachelor” into seeing beyond the golden shimmering make up into the soul of true relationship – a place where two people simply meet to love each other, warts and all. A place where all facets of the human experience are celebrated in it’s fulness.

The Lady of Contentment Surveys Her Land - from the 55 Flavors of the Feminine Oracle and Practice Deck

Just a few hours ago I finished facilitating a 6-day residential retreat in Portugal. There is not really an adequate way to describe what teaching such an intense and focused event feels like, except to say that now, after everyone has departed, I’m feeling a mix of giddy scatteredness, utter exhaustion and quiet fulfilment.

Satisfaction is not an emotion I typically associate with the end of retreat teaching. Traditionally I am more focused on refining the material for the next event and debriefing what could have been done differently.

But alas, this time my post-workshop state is much more relaxed and - dare I say - content. An odd sensation for this usually rather intense Austrian!

So, while I was searching around in the crevices of my somewhat frazzled mind for the possible reasons for this unusual mood, it occurred to me that it might be because of the past few years.

I never quite knew how much I cherished teaching in-person events until they suddenly disappeared. Now, every event feels fresh, exciting and full of possibility. I am genuinely happy to be with actual people in actual rooms. I treat every event like an adventure and a gift.

But more importantly, what to my focused Austrian mind felt like a relaxing of drive, is actually the arrival of ease.

I’ve taught so much and for so long that I have arrived in a place of not having to push so hard to facilitate. I’ve learned how to manage my energy and my expectations of myself. I prepare better. Thanks to Steve, there are actual outlines, prepared up front (and mostly upended quickly once I start) which allow me to be more creative in the moment.

It is an unexpected feeling and with that I am spending the rest of my day immensely grateful and happy for this gift of ease.

Posted above is my favorite card of the deck, which I especially created for this retreat. Below you will find the Oracle description I wrote to accompany her.

The Lady of Contentment Surveys Her Land

There comes a moment in any woman's life where she realizes that there are choices to be made. Things will have gone wrong, there will have been losses, betrayal and grief. 

Out of these experiences she can choose to be bitter and withdrawn, or she can focus on what is good and right. 

The Lady of Contentment is an invitation to choose goodness, regardless of where you are on your path. You can look out over the landscape of your existence and see the beauty, the learning and the joy, or you can turn inwards and contract over those losses. 

Look at her body and feel how relaxed softness allows her to be appreciated, how each line on her face tells a story, how she is adorned as an expression of who she truly is - an offering of beauty for herself and those who see her. 

She is the place of inner and outer contentment, neither contracted and withdrawn nor overly in your face or demanding attention. Hers is the message of the middle path, not out of convention, cowardice or resignation, but out of the knowledge that she is walking the razor's edge of opposing forces, with a relaxed open heart.

It’s been an action packed week, with travel across continents, several countries and time zones. At the end of it, this beach felt like the perfect reward.

One of my favorite quotes of all time by Karen Blixen applies here perfectly “The cure for anything is salt water — sweat, tears, or the sea.”

No matter the jet lag, no matter the demands on my mind or body, the moment I step onto a beach and into salt water all is forgotten.

This is a coast of rugged beauty, with few tourists and pristine, clean water and sand. A place to merge with nature and enliven the senses. And this post is meant as a reminder to step into nature, no matter where you are.

You might not have access to a beach, or woods, or mountains right now, but somewhere around you is a patch of grass, a tree, a sunset that calls out your name.

When our bodies connect with the natural world, when we connect with the sheer wonder and awe that a sunset invokes, we also align with the ancient rhythms which to this day guide our body, health and sleep. 

We are teaching a retreat here starting tomorrow, our second time in Portugal. I’ve fallen in love with this rugged West coast part of the country, the Alentejo region, which harks back to a simpler time. Slow living, not as a lifestyle choice to counteract the daily hustle, but simply a slower, gentler, more nature connected way of life.

As I am preparing for the week ahead, this is a short post for today. I’ll leave you with a poem from one of Portugal’s most revered poets Eugénio de Andrade. (For the Portuguese version scroll down )

É urgente o amor

Love is urgent.
There is an urgent need for a boat upon the sea.

It is urgent to destroy certain words,
hate, solitude, and cruelty,
some laments,
many swords.

It’s urgent to invent a joyfulness,
multiply kisses and crops,
discover roses and rivers
and glistening mornings.

Silence and the light impure fall upon
our shoulders until it hurts.
Love is urgent - it is urgent to stay.

É urgente o amor

É urgente o amor.
É urgente um barco no mar.

É urgente destruir certas palavras,
ódio, solidão e crueldade,
alguns lamentos,
muitas espadas.

É urgente inventar alegria,
multiplicar os beijos, as searas,
é urgente descobrir rosas e rios
e manhãs claras.

Cai o silêncio nos ombros e a luz
impura, até doer.
É urgente o amor, é urgente
permanecer.

Dear Friends,

As I am writing this first monthly newsletter here on Substack, I’d like to be begin by expressing my gratitude to you for subscribing, commenting and responding to my articles!

When I wrote my first post here in the beginning of July, my intention was to explore - and enjoy - writing in a less marketing and algorithm driven way. It’s been incredibly joyful to play with ideas and content and as a result my summer has been creatively rich. I’m so happy to be writing regularly again. So, thank you for reading!

Not only am I entering this next teaching seasons with new material for the upcoming workshops, but also with a tangible result of this summer’s creative exploration.

It all started when we created a new event series, “The Wild Woman’s Way Flavor Immersion”, which supports the embodied expression of a wide variety of “Flavors” as a means of widening human as well as erotic capacity.

Like spices in cooking, embodied flavors spice up our life - as increased capacity of expression, as remedy for feeling stuck or stunted and as the variety that creates and renews erotic attraction and play.

The concept, practices and material of Flavor exploration combine embodiment with my background in Jungian archetypes and deity yoga practice, as well as my relationship work around erotic attraction and keeping the spark alive.

Since human bodies learn best through resonance, I decided to make a series of visual “props” for the practices in preparation for teaching. This lead me down the deep rabbit hole of text to image rendering, which I really enjoyed because it is basically “painting with words”.

5 weeks and 1400+ images later (did I say deep rabbit hole?), I narrowed it down to 55 Flavor images that would best support the explorations.

When those were done, I decided I wanted them printed for every attendee. Then I figured I could make them available after the workshops. Next I decided I might as well write an instruction booklet. From there I spent a blissful weekend naming the cards and writing a meaning for each, so they could not only be used for practice but also as an Oracle.

All those steps led to - Ta Da!!!! - The 55 Flavors of the Feminine Oracle and Practice Deck. The first prints arrived in time for the Portugal retreat and I could not be happier.

I’ve just ordered a limited edition batch which is available for pre-order now. On this small run I will happily sign your copy before we mail them out, just let us know whom to dedicate it to in the notes. I hope you will enjoy them as much as I do!

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Now that this deck is done, I am already planning the next one which will be dedicated to Wise Women. Both in my teaching as well as in my personal explorations I have found only a limited range of available role models for transitioning into midlife and beyond. There is still so much dogma, taboo and fear when it comes to entering into that part of life.

Someone who I have found hugely inspirational for many years is Angela Farmer. She is not only an accomplishished Yogini, but has pioneered her own body of work and at age 84 still teaches with incredible depth and wisdom.

A while ago I had the incredible pleasure to be on the Guruviking Podcast with Angela Farmer as she spoke about her personal journey into embodiment and staying in the body while being injured.

I love watching Angela speak and move! She carries incredible strength and vitality. Have a look at this interview and let me know what you think.

And finally, we are starting the final season of “12 Facets of Union”, an Archetypal exploration of mythological figures and their relationship. This last season introduces us to Persephone and Hades and their relationship. These sessions are held live online (+ recorded for later viewing) in 2 streams to accommodate UK, EU, US and Australia/Asia time zones and start October 21.

Join me for a rather subversive deep dive into this quintessential myth of individuation.

Wishing you a joyful and adventure filled September!

With warm regards,

Michaela

P.S: The in-person Flavor Immersions will be offered in Portugal, September 18-24 and in Australia and California in 2024.

It’s been an eventful week up here at the Moondog Ranch. Last weekend we prepared for the first Hurricane to come through California in 84 years. This involved some advance preparations like anchoring the Goat Shed, digging trenches and climbing up ladders to take down sun sails and windmills.

When the heavy downpour started, I smugly settled in bed with a cup of tea, feeling quite pleased about having prepared so well. My grand plan for the afternoon was to enjoy the rain by reading, taking a nap and having a bath. After all, a rainy Sunday afternoon in August is a novel experience.

Suddenly the entire house moved upward with a sharp bang followed by rattling, swaying and shaking. I made it out the door just as the tremor stopped. My phone screeched with an emergency earthquake alert prompting me to mutter “no shit!!!” as my heart was racing.

The next few minutes were a flurry of activity as I simultaneously put my clothes back on, grabbed my “go bag” (yes, I had put all important documents, money and supplies in a bag in preparation for the Hurricane - more about that later) and calmed the dogs. 

While I looked up information about what just happened, my phone started its emergency notification screech again - this time with a Flash Flood warning - all the while aftershocks rattled the covered porch, where I suddenly found myself straddling the potentially unsafe inside and the potentially unsafe outside. 

In the aftermath it’s always interesting to observe how the nervous system deals with potential survival situations. It’s one thing to know about trauma, de-escalation and how these things work in the body - something I teach about regularly - and an entirely different matter when the tunnel vision and insanely fast pulse are a reality.

While we all hope that we don’t find ourselves in emergency situations, it’s important to evaluate and prepare for those moments, knowing that when the survival mechanisms kick in there might be some unwelcome surprise reactions.

I found that out the hard way many years back when a random stranger with a sledgehammer started bashing in the front windows of my West Hollywood house at 1am, while I was home alone (there were bars on the windows, so he didn’t manage to get in, and it turned out he had mistakenly targeted the wrong house - it’s a crazy story).

I always fancied myself tough and able to deal with tricky situations, but as the glass started breaking I was reduced to a quivering mess. All I could do was huddle in the shower screaming at the 911 dispatcher in terror, barely able to convey the necessary information. 

In the aftermath I realized that I didn’t do any of the things I should have done - like put on shoes and some clothes, grabbed a kitchen knife and locked myself into the sun room which had heavy barred doors and windows.

But alas, I went into total panic - neither able to fight or flee, I became utterly unable to navigate the situation - save for being able to dial 911 for the first time in my life.

And here is the interesting thing - even though I was in full on panic mode I knew who to call. Why? Because I had seen it many times, in movies and on TV. I had a go-to mechanism, rehearsed somewhere in my system through witnessing it many times over.

The human nervous system is built for survival. Sympathetic and Parasympathetic Nervous System - also known as “Fight or Flight” and “Rest and Digest” (sometimes also aptly named “Feed and Breed”) elegantly work together to allow us to survive as well as thrive.

When it comes to an emergency scenario - regardless if it’s a real threat or even just a perceived one - fight or flight grants us the best chance of survival by firing up all systems needed to either fight as hard or run as fast as possible.

This means faster breathing, higher pulse rate and increased circulation to supply us with oxygenated blood, narrowed, focused vision and increased tension to give us the proverbial fighting chance. Adrenaline rushes through our system and rational, strategic thought is replaced by pure instinct.

There is also another survival strategy called “freeze”, a mechanism that proved useful when early humans had to “hunker down” in the tall grass of the Savannah or the back of a cave, when fleeing or fighting was not an option.

In the “freeze” scenario our system immobilizes. Our lower body and limbs become heavy and still, our face barely moves (sometimes referred to as “flat affect”), we hardly blink and our gaze becomes wide and unfocused - that way we don’t attract attention through facial motion as well as being able to see the widest view possible.

In addition to the external “freezing”, our internal system eventually goes into “standby mode”. We feel emotionally stable (read: numb) and our heartbeat, breathing and metabolism slows down. Handy when you have to sit somewhere hiding for a long while, not so good when sudden action is required or the freeze goes from acute to chronic.

That all said, when we go into survival mode our rational, strategic thinking goes way to the back of the queue. We are not able to properly evaluate or navigate the situation when our sympathetic nervous system takes over, hence I didn’t do any of the things my rational mind later determined would have been good to do.

So when an earthquake hits, or a flash flood washes out the road, or severe wind downs a tree on top of a house, our reaction will be purely instinctual - unless we have previously rehearsed or prepared responses. 

While the instinct will give us the immediate action for survival, it often does not give us the ability to make the next decisions crucial for managing a more complex and longer duration emergency situation.

This is why firemen, rescue crews as well as elite military and police teams train under the most realistic conditions possible. It takes practice (and guts) to go beyond the built in survival responses and make good decisions while under threat. 

Only by acclimating to danger are we able to assess, function and navigate effectively.

Not everyone needs to train themselves to be able to enter extreme threat scenarios, but it is definitely worth considering, preparing for and mentally rehearsing potentially dangerous situations.

When we have been made aware of procedures that support an emergency, like “Drop, Cover, Hold On” which is instilled in any Californian child in school, or the “Don’t take the elevator in case of a fire” we see posted on every floor of a building, or the ever annoying “In the event of a loss in cabin pressure” on a plane, those procedures, very much like the dialing of 911, are stashed somewhere in the back of our mind ready to surface when needed.

So, back to what around my neighborhood is now referred to as the “Hurriquake”. Once the shaking had stopped, I was able to execute a series of actions I had previously considered and prepared for.

I grabbed the “go bag”, put the dogs in an area where I could easily gather them, put on sturdy shoes and a waterproof jacket, pulled the truck out of the garage and let my family know I was ok. Once that was done I checked on my neighbors and friends and did some basic de-escalation movements (and withstood the urge for a stiff drink!).

Turns out this wasn’t my “first rodeo”. A few years back my entire property, including house, stables and dogs had been destroyed in a wildfire. Since then I’ve been acutely aware that disasters don’t just happen to “other people” or “somewhere else” and with that I have managed to create some awareness and procedures I can fall back on when the going gets tough. 

And while I still felt pretty shaken up - pun definitely intended - I was able to function enough to support my animals, friends, neighbors and eventually de-escalate myself. 

That’s where the “other half” of our nervous system - the parasympathetic system - comes in. Once the threat has passed, the body has sophisticated means of releasing the tension, adrenaline and trauma responses. 

Equally important as good preparation is our willingness to let the body release - by shaking, crying, fidgeting and connecting/sharing with others. Because we are not only built to survive, but also to thrive. 

If we can allow our body to see through the entire sequence and not clamp down on the release, we can achieve a state of recovery - even if it’s just until the next aftershock, wind gust or downpour.

And yes, I did have a drink and a good debrief on that storm lashed porch a few hours later with my friend Dawn - because community and shared experiences allow us to cope in the midst of whatever disasters happen.

If all goes according to plan the “55 Flavors of The Feminine” Practice Deck will arrive just in time for our September “Flavor Immersion” in Portugal.

I’m wildly excited about this deck and will post a preview as soon as it is finalized.

So, while I am writing the booklet to go along with the cards, here is a random selection of things I’m loving at the moment. I hope you’ll enjoy them!

Regular articles will be back next Sunday. Until then!
Michaela

A Sudden Crepe Myrtle Explosion

Nourishes the bees and provides awe inspiring beauty.

The Hunter and the Fox Woman

Pre-Pandemic, we would spend a few weeks at a time in Amsterdam teaching our workshops. One night Steve pulled this video by author and storyteller Martin Shaw of The House of Beasts & Vines out of his extensive “post-workshop de-escalation” library.

It’s one of my favorite stories and ever since I watch it on occasion to savor one specific line - like a great song it always delights me freshly. Can you guess which one?

New Album Obsession

I’ve loved Meshell Ndegeocello since hearing her very first album. Way back when - what feels like a lifetime ago - I lived in walking distance to the Viper Room and would go to see her live. Her newest album is my current evening wind down soundtrack.

A Rediscovered Poem

My desire
is always the same; wherever Life
deposits me:
I want to stick my toe
& soon my whole body
into the water.
I want to shake out a fat broom
& sweep dried leaves
bruised blossoms
dead insects
& dust.
I want to grow
something.
It seems impossible that desire
can sometimes transform into devotion;
but this has happened.
And that is how I’ve survived:
how the hole
I carefully tended
in the garden of my heart
grew a heart
to fill it.
Desire ©2011 by Alice Walker

Photo by Simon Berger

I love a good proverb! In my twenties while living in Vienna, I had this incredibly talented writer friend, whom I adored. We used to go on walks by the canal and amuse ourselves by holding an entire conversation using just stock phrases, proverbs, idioms and tropes. 

The game was to see how long we could keep the conversation going and whoever broke the thread lost the game and had to buy the post walk coffee.

I can still feel the exhilarating joy of these walks while writing this. We’d stop to catch our breath from howling laughter, we’d argue over the correct use of a phrase, we’d heckle each other, trading insults - still within the rules of the game and often we’d end up discussing the finer points of some proverb - or insult - over drinks at our favorite Viennese Coffeehouse. 

I’ve always been a voracious reader, but in the lead up of these walks I’d scour my books for ever more outlandish phrases and buy collections of proverbs and folkloric sayings (this was pre-internet - so no easy google research on the way out the door).

While I admit some of that exhilaration came from spending time with my friend - I’ve always had a soft spot for smart, well spoken writers - most of it came from the pleasure of playing with words and meaning and the resulting “mental workout”. 

So to this day, I do love a good proverb. In a sense, proverbs are archetypal expressions, distilled insight rising from the collective unconscious and informing us in a simple, often visceral way.

The “boiled down” wisdom of a proverb, while often stereotypical, can be used as a prompt for inquiry and a hint towards the common ground that connects us in our human experience.

Often such a commonplace proverb can reveal a deeper truth. One of my favorites when it comes to working with relationships is “A Change is as Good as a Rest”.

Originally coined during the British Victorian era as a means of encouraging productivity within the workforce, nowadays it holds an expanded meaning into all manners of life activities.

Beyond the obvious truth that new activities revitalize us and save us from getting stuck in a rut, this proverb can prove useful in the relational realms.

A friend of mine once used this phrase to contextualize his need for multiple “flavors” of  experience, a relational palate cleanser of sorts.

While not everyone wants to engage in multiple dating or relationship experiences, the concept of changing things up to revitalize a relationship definitely holds true.

“A Change is as Good as a Rest” not only enlivens the erotic aspect of a relationship, where routine and comfort are the enemy of desire, but also in the wider relational context when mediocrity and boredom lurk behind well established routines and rituals.

We know this instinctively, which is why vacations, new locations, different outfits, haircuts, role play, harmless (or not so harmless) online flirtations and the likes are commonly used to create some freshness and renew excitement.

When we apply this knowledge consciously, it can become a potent relational support.

As a matter of fact, this concept has been an important tool in my couples counseling toolbox for many years.

It’s such a simple concept - so obvious that it’s almost humorous. If you want to feel different, do different things. And I don’t mean complex behavioral changes. Just a slight shift to your routine.

Order a different coffee. Take a different route for a walk. Brush your teeth with the other hand. Go somewhere else for Sunday Brunch. Sleep on the other side of the bed. Dress in a different color. Try a new activity. Read something new. Listen to someone else's playlist. Hell, live dangerously and switch the direction of your toilet paper roll!!

I’m not talking about life shifting change, I’m simply suggesting you slightly alter your everyday routines and rituals -  enough to shake you awake. 

Once you are no longer sleep walking in the rut of daily activities the possibilities are endless. When you have gained an embodied understanding of what slight changes do to the entire system, you can apply that knowledge everywhere. 

You can introduce new activities, new conversations, new ways to connect, new adventures and new erotic explorations into your relationship. It doesn't really matter what it is - some ideas are abject failures - the only thing that matters is that it is different. It’s simply the change that revitalizes and inspires everything.

And, that brings us back to my writer friend. Our walks were different, a far cry from my usual interactions with friends and when dating. A different part of me came out to play. For days after I would be filled with vibrant energy, creative focus and sometimes bubble over with mischief and glee. A change that even as a memory fills me with vibrant joy and energy.

So go ahead. Change something. Feel what happens.

Next week:  “Variety is the Spice of Life” - how we can embody different expressions to enhance our relational experience.

When it is Summer here the temperature fluctuates between barely tolerable and scorching, which means that whatever grows or lives at my ranch needs to be watered. All. The. Time. 

Since Southern California Summers have only one gear - sunshine every day, all day - this means that without fail I’ll end my day the same way. No matter what activities happen during my workday, the early evening is dedicated to “The Watering”.

As all good rituals do, “The Watering” has its specific props and follows a well practiced form. 

It starts with donning the ritual garb: a threadbare spaghetti strapped old linen dress, chosen for it being the lightest outfit I can get away with while still looking halfway decent when my neighbors stop by unannounced.

Next come the essential ritual ingredients: the battered straw hat, gardening gloves and extremely unflattering but super functional barefoot shoes that a friend once called my “gorilla feet”.

From there I make the rounds, turning on irrigation, filling up water troughs for wildlife and barnyard animals, checking on my vegetable beds, filling up the turtle pond and finally as the crowning finale, rolling out the long hose that reaches all the way around the outside of my house.

At this point the sun has set, the light has shifted into that moment before twilight and the temperature finally starts to cool. The first bats appear and the woodpeckers make some crazy bedtime racket.

Gloved hand aiming the nozzle on the rainshower setting, I’m making my way along the same path I take every night. And, as it goes with all good rituals, the well practiced form allows for body and mind to relax. 

My senses are fully alive now. I can feel the texture of the rocks underneath the thin soles of my now soaked shoes, the sunset breeze on my shoulders, grit and sweat on my skin. I’m listening to the sounds of the birds and the running water, tending to new growth and dried up leaves of each plant, inhaling the scents of the herbs as my mind wanders and relaxes.

Memories of conversations, to-do-list items and creative ideas all form themselves and disappear again and at some point, without fail I remember the warm Summer evenings of my childhood. 

It’s a visceral memory, coming up through my body. I remember my mother standing the same way I do, nozzle in hand, watering. I remember the smell of my most favorite scent - water on warm earth. I can feel the satisfaction of a Summer day well spent roaming outside and the pleasure of the balmy dusk.

During those school vacation weeks I’d be allowed to stay up late and once the sun was down, I would read in bed with the windows wide open, while my mother performed her version of “The Watering”. 

In this moment of remembering, I’m both the girl enjoying what felt like an endless summer of freedom and fun adventures and at the same time my mother engaging in this satisfying ritual of nourishing both beauty and sustenance. 

It’s a flash of merging, the sensations and emotions arising within me and leaving a pleasant residue of love, gratitude, yearning and belonging. 

Sometimes I hold on to it, sometimes it passes through. But always with the knowledge that “The Watering” will recall those moments again the next time.

Summer has officially arrived. For those of you not living in Southern California, it’s worth saying that - yes - we do have seasons here, even though the shifts are way more subtle than in Austria where I grew up.

The shift from Spring to Summer is easy to perceive as it is directly connected to what is called “June Gloom”, a persistent marine layer that keeps mornings cool and overcast and burns off later in the day.

Sometimes it’s more May-and-June Gloom, which makes for pleasant temperatures but stunts the growth of my vegetables and makes us whine about getting Seasonal Affective Disorder - as if!

Then sometimes in September there is an almost imperceptible shift in light and a freshness in the morning air with hints of sweaters and cozy socks. But not yet, first come a few more scorching weeks until suddenly the water levels in the creek rise - the sign that the trees have decided it’s time to hibernate and pull less water from the ground.

Finally, there is Winter - yes, it’s California Winter - which doesn't really count in parts of the world where by now snow falls or several layers of wool and down are required to leave the house.

But, it’s winter nonetheless - we finally get rain. After many months of no cloud in the sky we have cool temperatures and everyone breathes a sigh of relief.

In my neck of the woods this means neighbors excitedly comparing their rain gauge readings and everyone having the official watershed rain totals bookmarked on their browser. After years of drought, praying for, celebrating, and discussing rainfall is a mainstay of social interaction.

But why am I telling you all this? Because it’s Summer and I live on a small ranch, far enough away from the next village to plan carefully when shopping because “quickly getting some milk” necessitates a proper outing, which I’d rather avoid.

This means I get to live in and with nature. No light pollution, no sounds at night, except the hooting of owls and howling of coyotes. I can track the path of the rising and setting Moon and Sun throughout the year. I’ve learned the rhythms of the nesting crows, when the locusts come to eat my vegetables and the time of the year when tarantulas on a mating mission casually walk through the house. (Now that is a story worth telling another time!)

Being able to detect these subtle shifts and getting intimately connected to all aspects of this piece of land has been a great lesson in how the body and nature inform each other.

I write about this in my book “The Wild Woman’s Way”, in the context of “Rewilding the Body” - the act of connecting back to the wisdom of our bodies, our own rhythms, our own original nature - the place where body, heart and mind can align.

Beyond the rich explorations around embodiment and nature, there is also a consideration around “Place” - the instinctive sense of belonging, the connecting back to those who lived before us, both our ancestors and the original people of a land.

Earth - both as the element and as the land - never forgets. Dig down and you’ll find strata of previous existence - layer upon layer of lives lived.

Whenever our body, nature and land align there is the potential for deeply felt mythological, magical, ancestral and shamanic unfolding.

Connecting to “Place” takes many forms - for some it’s the place they grew up in, for some it’s their ancestral lands, for others it’s the country of their myths.

For me it’s this land, where my body gets to connect to nature - all parts, not only the sublime.

It’s a harsh place at times. When it is Summer here the temperature fluctuates between barely tolerable and scorching, which means that whatever grows or lives here needs to be watered. All the time. 

Then, just when the temperatures drop in the Fall, the wind kicks up. Crazy, dangerous wind coming down the mountains. Whipping up dust and fanning any random ember into a flame. Downing trees, fences and sometimes power lines.

When it rains, it doesn't just pleasantly drizzle, instead we get an insane deluge aptly named “atmospheric river”. It’s drought or deluge and we’ll have to deal with it.

But that’s the thing - nature here makes me have to face things, earn things, overcome things. There is a deep satisfaction in having managed to grow my food and flowers under difficult circumstances. A sense of adventure in having to go out and dig trenches to divert the flooding pasture. A pioneer spirit of sorts when I have to grab a chainsaw in the middle of the night during a storm or defend my chickens from marauding coyotes by building a higher electric fence. 

There is a strong sense of aliveness. A deep sense of connection. I can feel the people who have lived here before me having done the same. I can also feel my own ancestors, who even though they didn’t live in California, had to persevere through nature's endless challenges.

Place takes us to the Archetypal, to the Eternal, to the Mystical where humans and the natural world have always intersected. Place connects us to epic adventures and abysmal catastrophes. 

Place is where we take our seat - our part of the human experience and within it is a deep sense of home, of belonging.

The quick and dirty answer is “Later than you want, earlier than you do”.

This requires a bit of fleshing out, but as I do so, let me first take you back to the question I posed at the end of last week's post Dearest Gentle Reader.

“How do we navigate the belief that our relationship should follow the template of a fairy tale?” 

In last week's post I discussed the templates of love stories in fairy tales and myth and its potential positive influence on the capacity of the heart.

There is another side to the “happily ever after” - a shadow of sorts, which is a steadfast belief that our relationship should feel like said fairy tales. 

Then of course there is its even darker cousin - the belief that a relationship should serve as a crucible for personal growth - but that insidious idea deserves an entire post by itself.

The two most common themes I’ve seen arise over and over again when working with people - both in private sessions and in workshops are:

1. A relationship should be easy, pleasant and feel like a “happily ever after” fairy tale.

2. Every relationship is worth saving just because there is love.

These are nuanced themes, so forgive me for painting a broader picture as a means of coming back to the break up question - eventually….

Many relationships start with that magical time of getting to know each other - a heady and exciting mixture of late night chats about each other's lives and electrifying erotic exchanges which produce feelings of excitement and gooey positivity.

At some point, those early encounters either lead to a solidifying of the relationship or they fizzle and everyone moves on.

When the relationship progresses, there comes the inevitable shift from getting to know each other with all its excitement to the phase of settling in for the “Business of the Relationship”.

Contrary to what the fairy tale idea portrays, the business of relationship is mostly the arduous yet rewarding work of actually relating. Relating to a partner as a separate, cherished other, a human with their own likes and dislikes which we accept and enjoy and with whom we want to experience and co-create a full life. 

This is where it gets tricky. The business of creating a lasting, sustainable relationship is not for the faint of heart. It requires the willingness to get on the same page - finding commonalities - having common values, defining common goals and cultivating the ability to communicate kindly and successfully.

While aligning those goals and communicating one's needs are one of the key ingredients for a lasting relationship, it’s not exactly sexy.

What makes a relationship sexy is an element of unpredictability, the spark created by opposites, which demands that we don’t merge into potentially codependent sameness, but retain an element of individuality. 

This is easier said than done when two people spend most of their time together doing things in the “commonality” terrain, while expecting that somehow the discussion about bills and who takes the dog to the vet miraculously segues into an exciting erotic encounter.

When it comes to having a good relationship the applicable proverb is “ Birds of a feather flock together”. But when it comes to what in my work is called “Erotic Friction” - the spark that makes the erotic hot - the phrase is “Opposites attract”.

There are many ways to bridge those seemingly opposite tenets - I wrote about this extensively in the “Relationship” chapter of “The Wild Woman’s Way”, if you’d like to go down that rabbit hole.

But for the sake of this post, we are fast forwarding to what tend to be the most common relationship breakdowns:

The top of the charts in my office has always been “The spark is gone”. Where is the promised fairy tale ending? Why has passion waned and been replaced - at best - with a “at least we are best friends” and - at worst - infidelities, complaints and seething resentment?

It’s tempting to want to leave the relationship when the attraction goes and self doubt and blame kick in.

Another common therapy couch theme is the realization that there are just not enough commonalities - that love does not always conquer the gap between a vegan and a BBQ lover, that different ideas about money, religion or politics create the bad kind of friction and the only sex being had is makeup sex.

Then there is the less explosive yet deeply saddening recognition that two peoples’ goals no longer align. Perhaps one partner still wants to travel the world, the other yearns to settle down and have a child. Despite therapy, good communication skills and mutual love, things no longer align and the nature of the goals does not allow for a compromise.

And here we come back to the considerations around  “How do I know if I should break up?”.

I am leaving the apparent therapeutic considerations around codependence, abuse, toxic behaviors and other assorted pathologies out of this consideration. Obviously those aspects go beyond the scope of this article and require separate support and attention.

But when we look at the themes mentioned here, we can come back to the template of a good fairy tale. Every epic fairy tale includes trials and tribulations, which the lovers must overcome. While in many tales the obstacles are evil stepsisters or societal barriers, for modern star crossed lovers the obstacles are often in the realms of lacking erotic chemistry or misaligned expectations. 

The question I always pose here is “Can this be overcome by acquiring better skills or communicating differently?”. If the answer is yes, then this is the “Later than you want” moment, where it’s definitely worth a try - especially when it comes to “the spark” or differences in communication. 

Good relationships and satisfying erotic connection are not taught to us - we are supposed to know what to do without having received proper education - with most people simply having inherited the relationship imprints of those who raised them and the erotic skills gained by fumbling about during one’s first experiences.

Gaining insight and learning skills together is a way to deepen a relationship and turn obstacles into profound connection. It can lead to a bond deeper than the initial chemistry and a true alignment born from not only attraction but dedication and devotion.

But what of those uncompromisable misaligned beliefs and goals? What of the realization that there is just not a good match? What about putting one's deepest yearning on hold while waiting for a partner to change? What about hoping that the partner with “good potential” will finally live into it?

This is where we have to consider going against the fairy tale belief that every relationship is worth saving just because there is love.

This is also where we have to consider leaving earlier than we do tend to. Because to preserve the love - for self and other - it is sometimes better to leave before resentment and blaming sets in. 

Sometimes love dictates that we move on. Sometimes love is to end the nagging, accusing and pushing of the partner to become who we think they should be and instead set them free to be who they really are. Sometimes parting ways is loving ourselves as much as we love the other. 

It’s never an easy choice, and less so when children are involved. Yet, sometimes the happily ever after necessitates that it is experienced separately.

And beyond the idea of a “Relationship”, there is simply relating to what is actually happening, for both partners involved.

And while the relationship might end, the love that is always who we are can remain. 

As the gifted storyteller and author Dr. Martin Shaw often ends his stories:

Never give up on Love!
Never give up on Love!
Never give up on Love!

And for that, sometimes we have to give up a relationship so love can be freed to transform.

via @artmemescentral sent to me by Kaitlin

Does this salutation catapult you right back to those pandemic days spent binge watching the first season of Bridgerton?  

If it doesn’t, you might have had other more pressing things to do, or mercifully were able to live under the proverbial rock (Netflix named it the most watched TV series ever), unaffected by this new iteration of the classic romantic fairy tale.

And, if you did watch it - all episodes, plus Queen Charlotte - you do know first hand the strong effect this new, yet classic story holds on body and heart.

The romance! The gorgeous outfits! The smoldering look of The Duke of Hastings! Need I mention the steamy love scenes?

There is something so compelling about the archetypal story line - the script for all love stories through all ages:

Yes, this is the stuff of Netflix shows, Hollywood movies and Romance novels (remember those?), but it goes way back past antiquity into the creation myths of early civilizations.

As a matter of fact, one of the great classic stories of romantic love “Eros and Psyche” the earliest source of which is found somewhere around 180 AD in a book named “Metamorphoses” by Apuleius. 

The book was later on referred to as “The Golden Ass”, a truly more inspired title, I would say.

This epic tale contains all the ingredients of a great romance:

So why are we so attracted to love stories? Why do we identify so strongly with the hero and heroines of these tales? 

Ah yes! How delicious is it to disappear into a good story! Even I, dearest reader - who is closer in age to Lady Danbury than to Daphne Bridgerton - identify with her agony of love and desire, feel her body as mine with all that this entails and rejoice in her happy ending - all cynical considerations take a momentary backseat when in the thralls of a good story.

The simple answer is, because they feel good. Because they allow us to feel the longings of our heart and remind us of the part of us that loves to love. 

But look a bit deeper and you can see the archetypal threads that span from Eros & Psyche, the Arthurian legends, fairy tales and folk stories of all cultures all the way to Bridgerton.

Archetypes arise from the collective unconscious, a term first coined by the famous psychotherapist C.G Jung - meaning the lived experience that connects all humans through all ages. They represent our shared human experience, our trials, tribulations, losses and triumphs. As such they allow us to enter into our own experience through the backdoor of Story.

We get to learn the lessons, make the mistakes, conquer the demons and “get the girl/guy” without it being too personally confronting.

We experience the journeys of the heroes, the grief of mothers, the throes of young love and it informs us, teaches us, transports us.

All epic love stories have an element of individuation - the need to grow up, the coming of age, the loss of innocence, the fight for love - which might show up as a subtle, almost overlooked aspect, but is actually the single most important lesson which we all have to grasp. 

It’s the ultimate act of individuation - the ritual leaving of parents and the village to prove ourselves as individuals - which we are no longer afforded as a coming of age ritual. We can live this initiation through our protagonists and our bodies remember its potent message.

Through their fight against the odds, through their claim of love and freedom we learn how a boundary asserted feels in our body.

In the end, we have learned about ourselves, assimilated exalted heroic traits and recovered the belief that love conquers all, and with that our hearts can open more fully.

A good story creates a state experience. We expand beyond our regular reality, merge with the protagonists, allow ourselves to get swept up in the emotions and lessons of the tale. We resonate and assimilate. We weep, we laugh and in the end, we feel nourished like after an incredible meal. 

While the state might not last, the expansion does - we become a bit more open, a bit more compassionate, a bit more daring. The tendrils of the story inform our lives and subtly express themselves in our actions. 

And perhaps most importantly, we have taken our rightful place amongst our human family.

I recently told the story of Eros & Psyche as part of “12 Facets of Union”.
You can find the full recording below. 

My suggestion is to pour yourself a cup of tea - or beverage of your choice - and let yourself be transported into this epic love story. Don’t analyze or try to glean the lesson, but rather like watching Bridgerton, become part of the story and allow your body and heart to participate in the tale. Enjoy!

And then there is a questions for another post: How do we navigate the belief that our relationship should follow the template of a fairy tale?