There is a thread of truth that flows within me. It flows through all of us. It flows through all Life.

I call this thread of truth my Soul. That is the truest word I have come across to describe it. It is my North Star. It guides my Life towards peace and fulfillment when I surrender enough to allow it.

My Soul wants nothing more than for me to be all of myself. To share all of myself. To experience Life in all its glory.

My Soul invites me to expand into my own wholeness and to create in service to Life. Listening to my Soul is how I make the contribution that I came here to make.

My thread of truth is mine, but it is also Divine. It is connected to all Souls in a giant unseen web. It is Life itself. Alive in me and in you.

My Soul knows how to guide me to live in a way that benefits the whole. If we each follow our deepest thread of truth, we will create a more beautiful world.

I write this poetically, yet I mean this literally, and I live this - my Soul’s truth - devotedly.

As a lawyer and a double air sign I love facts and rational explanations. I used to make decisions for my life based purely on cognitive reasoning. My life was not mine then. It belonged to the stories our culture teaches us about what it means to be successful, and the rats' nest of beliefs inside my head.

Facts and beliefs are stories we've given weight to because they meet certain measures we've decided indicate truth. They are useful, but they can never hold the whole Truth. And they alone can never be our personal Truth.

When looking for guidance on how to make decisions in my life I now look inward more than outward. Beliefs and understandings gleaned from the world outside of me are useful, and I consider them, but at the end of the day, if I want to know what's best for me, I ask my Soul.

Sometimes, the way forward my Soul invites is one that can be explained rationally based on culturally approved facts and stories, and my mind of course loves when that occurs.

Yet other times my Soul will point me in directions that defy reason. Those are the decisions I most resist. I fear that if I cannot understand it or explain it, I won't be accepted and I won't be safe. I have learned over time that those are usually the decisions that are most important for me to make in alignment with my own truth.

When my Soul leads me down a path that appears irrational - one where I know I will be called naive or stupid - that is when I double down on my faith, and I remember: my Soul's truth may not be convenient, but it will never lead me astray.

If I want peace and fulfillment for myself and others (I do) and if I want to be a part of creating a world that serves Life in all forms (I do), I must learn to listen to the deeper thread of truth with in me that knows the best way for me to serve.

We are all connected. Serving ourselves, serves others, serves the whole.

The way we care for each other and the Earth is by following the thread of truth that flows from deep within our Soul.

xo,

Danielle

This is a poem for the Dreamers
The ones whose hearts hold the world
Eyes so deep and piercing
Even stones turn to pearls

This is a song for the Artists
Arcing joyfully across the sky
Painting over the dreary grey
Reminding us colours can fly

This is a rally call for the Believers
The kind that stirs the Soul
Raising your vibration
Lifting the weight that takes a toll

The ocean lives within you
I see it in your tears
Salty wet and carrying the wisdom
Of thousands of natural years

When the world is crumbling
Creators do not despair
Raise your hands to the heavens
Let love hold you everywhere

Now is your time Magick-Makers
To find your voice and make your art
So say a prayer and stake your ground
Your real work is about to start

The world needs you now Dreamers
To take our hate-filled tales
Centuries old and written in stone
On the cusp of the greatest fail

Hold now our hardened stories
In the alchemy of your heart
Transform them into ancient pearls
A beautiful place for us to start

Sometimes I walk for hours. One foot in front of the other. No destination.

I’m wandering. Wondering. Paying attention.

I’m looking for signs. I’m feeling into the world around me.

I’m hoping for the kind of hope that will keep mine flowing.

Sometimes tears come. Sometimes rage. Sometimes desperation.

I keep walking. One foot in front of the other.

Sometimes I walk through the forest or along the ocean. But those are usually times when I’m looking for peace, not hope. I go to nature when I want to be held; when I’m aching for reprieve from the busyness of the world. Not when I’m looking for hope.

Nature is eternally hopeful and full of magic, but I know I won’t see it when my faith in humanity has left me feeling heartbroken and undeserving.

So, when the darkness of our systems and our consumerism and our greed and our violence and our hate weighs me down and my shadow begins to whisper “there’s no hope” “just give up” “its not worth it”, I tie up my laces and walk right smack in the middle of the city.

When I feel myself reaching the brink of despair, I turn to face the busy streets where concrete reigns and I walk and I walk and I walk until I see the magic that still exists, there.

I walk until I retrieve my lost hope from the place that stole it from me. I demand my hope be restored from the very things that took it from me. In that way I can still believe it exists, here.

Most often, its owls I look for. I’ll walk block after block keeping an eye out. Hoping against hope. Sometimes pleading or bargaining for a sign. Just when I’ve given up, I’ll round a corner, and I’ll see her. Beady eyes staring up at me from a blue and yellow sticker on the corner of a shop window. The “Provident Security” logo. I know its only paper and glue stuck to glass, yet relief floods me. It gives me hope.

In a residential neighbourhood, sometimes I’ll get a streak. A barn owl perched on a wrought iron pole scaring the crows from a garden, a wise horned owl wind-chime, a decorative snow globe housing a snowy owl on a windowsill, a majestic wingspan painted on the side of a brick wall.

I feel the weight lift from my heart. I skip a step. I smile. It helps me to carry on with all of it. I have hope.

It may seem silly to you. My looking for signs. My wandering ways. It may seem absurd, or even insane.

How can a walk in a random neighbourhood and a trinket in a stranger’s yard lift my spirits and help me to keep having faith?

I don’t really know, other than its something I’ve chosen to believe in. Something I allow to make a difference for me. Something that I give my faith to when my faith in everything else has left me.

There’s no magic in it until I believe, and because I do, the magic is there.

I have to believe in something.

We all do.

I choose owls and long walks and writing. And if you took those away, I would choose something else. That is how I maintain my faith when my fear of the human shadow threatens to take over.

Can we trust that love will win? Can we trust that we are going somewhere? Can we trust that we are evolving? Are we really on the brink of a revolution that has the possibility of transforming everything for the better? Is there really a more beautiful world? Will we ever get there?

Is there any reason to have faith that human consciousness and free will are good things?

The curse of being a dreamer by day is darkness sleeps in my bed. The paradox of humanity is not lost on me. The weight of that responsibility may very well bring us to our end.

Yet most days I believe. I see – I FEEL – the deeper thread.

There is wisdom in Life. There is wisdom in Death.

We don’t get to control how this goes, but, moment to moment, we do get a say, and we do get to choose. Will we show up to the conversation a believer, placing one foot in front of the other? Or, will we deny ourselves our own magic, shut the closet door, and simply tell the world we’ve put away our shoes.

The reality is, either way its you who gets to choose, and the consequences of that choice are considerable.

Choose wisely.

Xo,

Danielle

Happy Thursday friends!

Today I want to share a live video I made last Friday wherein I discuss a few topics that are near and dear to my heart:

• Why our systems are failing (all of them - from our ways of creating and relating to ourselves... to the ways in which we relate to each other, other species and the Earth);

• How to create sustainable change (through the lens of how I overcame my eating disorder and how we can apply this process of change to other areas of our life, our systems and world) ; and

• The thing that most often stops us from doing it (hint: its not lack of discipline).

I invite you to check it out HERE (or click on the photo below).

System Failures, Sustainable Change and the Thing that Stops Us

Leave me a comment here or on Facebook! I’d love to hear your thoughts!

xo,

Danielle

Talking about intuition, trusting yourself to fail and taking the next step.

Dear friends, 

Welcome to the first video installment of Thursday Tips and Tools for Soul-Led Living.

Last Friday I was coached live on Facebook by a friend and colleague Adam Quiney (https://adamquiney.com/). 

If you are interested, you can watch the video re-cap of him coaching me on Adam's Facebook Page here.  

What came out of it was a commitment by me to be more visible in sharing myself and my work with the world. He challenged me to share three live videos online this week, and I agreed. 

Monday I did my first live video. You can check it out here. It was a little rough around the edges, but I did it. That's the most important thing when it comes to following our soul's truth: that we take the action, not that it's perfect. 

Yesterday, I did my second live video. Its the one I'm sharing with you in this post. You can watch it by clicking on the animated photo of me above, or by clicking HERE. I hope you give it a listen!

In it I talk about listening to our intuitions, trusting ourselves to fail and taking the next step. I also share with you the story of a dream I had and the message it had for me that inspired the video.

Key take-aways from the video are:

1. If you trust your intuition you will be prepared to step where you have not stepped before, where you will likely fail, but you will be prepared to handle it.

2. In trusting yourself to handle failure you can keep going, and that's when the Universe/Source/Divinity within you shows up and starts to co-create with you.

3. You have to actually take the step first.

4. Your inner truth will always only ask of you to take the next little step.

5. The next little step will be scary, but also one that you are adequately prepared for and can navigate and come out to the flow on the other side.

My question for you is: Where in your life are you avoiding taking the next step?

Check in with yourself. And then take the step.

Trust yourself. You can handle it. 

I hope you enjoy the video. Feel free to comment on this post and let me know your thoughts! I'd love to hear from you.

And, if you are interested in tuning in for more of my live videos I will be doing another Facebook Live this Friday at 9:00 a.m., and every Monday, Wednesday and Friday next week also at 9:00 a.m. (and possibly beyond)! Come join in the fun!

xo,
Danielle

I eat the stars
Bright white and foreign
Sharp
Electric

I am not used to such
Exuberance in my esophagus

The twinkling
Is a fire
Like no other

A perfect jolt for my restless and long-silenced
Voice

I eat the stars
Those crunchy
Truth-tellers
Creating small explosions in my mouth

Reminding me that I have taste buds for a reason
Those detectors of the delicious

Awake now and demanding once again
That I bite into something juicy and salivating

I eat the stars
And for days
I am literally
On
Fire

I tell you this
As I run shrieking and streaking with delight
The heat is simply too much for my regular attire

I eat the stars
Bright white and foreign

So that I can remember
What it was like to be alive
In the heavens

Shining hope
Into the darkness
Of a deep black night

Dear friends, 

It's Thursday! (For those of you who have, for better and worse, lost all track of the days of the week and of time.)

This week I hit a bit of a slump. The recent changes to my day to day life, and the uncertainty in the world caught up with me. I have been allowing some older patterns of avoidance and self-criticism to occupy my time and my thoughts. 

I am noticing both how draining it is to not have compassion for myself, and also how far I have come in transforming that deep set belief of not good enough. It used to take me out almost daily. Now it only shows up in times of large scale trauma and uncertainty. 

The truth is we are all facing our fears right now on some level, however they show up for us. We are facing the fact that we have so little control and so big an impact. The responsibility of it can be crushing. The pull to avoid and numb out can be strong. 

This is why my practice this week has been radical self-love. Simply expanding to allow myself my experience even when its hard. Especially when its hard.

When the judgment and the shame shows up, that's when I love myself harder. All the way down to the core where my inner child is throwing a tantrum. She just wants to be picked up and held. She just wants to be told that she will be safe and she will be loved, no matter what. 

Practicing expansive love for myself is something I have complete control of. No one can take that away. This is the place I return to when so much has been swept into uncertainty. 

In times of transition it is the small step taken in a new way that makes possible the large scale transformation. If you want a more kind and loving world for yourself and your loved ones when this is over, practice loving yourself and your loved ones that way today. 

If you are panicking, if you are scared, if you are grieving, if you are lost, if you are so angry your blood is boiling, just pause. 

Step outside yourself for a moment. Don't shame yourself or beat yourself up. Don't make yourself wrong. Hold yourself like you would a child having a tantrum and let the emotions run out. They will run out. And you will find yourself on the other side, holding yourself lovingly still.

You will find that you not abandoning yourself in the times when it is hard, is actually the miracle you are looking for.

When you love yourself in the face of your fear, you take back your power from the fear, and from those who would use your fear to hurt you. When you love yourself in the face of your fear, you cannot be controlled. You cannot be manipulated or coerced. You cannot be tricked (even by yourself) into behaving in ways that harm yourself or others.

When you love yourself in the face of your fear, you regain a sense of sovereignty over your own being, and you realize that it is this sovereignty that you were missing most, even more than visiting your friends, a regular paycheck or eating out.

When you can trust yourself to love yourself in the face of your fear, you regain a sense of peace. You remember that you can still choose, and you are still free.  

With love,

Danielle

The Kingdom of ordinary time has left us.

Leaving us in this
in between world.

Things aren’t as they were,
yet, they aren’t
as they will be, either.

We sit here and wait
grasping at the way it was
in our darker moments;
willing it to return.

Willing the sedation of ordinary time
to ease the anxiety of this unknown.

Death is coming.
We know.

How we will face her,
and what will rise from her ashes,
is what is we don’t.

This is always the case with death.
She is always coming.
She always is, where life is.

What is the death that is here, now, then?
That is the question.

Is it death of our freedoms?
Is it death of our heath?
Is it death of those we love?
Or is it death of the destructive systems that have been suffocating us, and the Earth?

Do we get to choose?
Do we want to?

Death always feels the same,
no matter how it looks;
no matter what greater truth it serves.

Still, to me, and my hopeful heart,
the kind of death we are in matters;
as does the kind of phoenix that will return.

And so, I sit here,
wet-eyed and wild-hearted
in the 3 a.m. light of the moon.
I ask her: Do I get to choose?

Yes, she whispers back,
but only for you.

Only, for you.

The Queendom you seek is within you:
the beauty and the peace.

You get to choose for you,
what kind of death this is,
and what kind of life will be.

You get to choose for you,
but not for everybody,
the kind of world that will be.

One thing that I am noticing about this time is that we are being invited to face how powerful we are, and to take responsibility for that power.

The invitation is a strong one.

We are living in a time when standing too close to your neighbour could result in their death, or the death of someone they love. On the other hand, choosing not to join one single group gathering could save numerous lives.

We are being asked to face the fact that our individual impact is. that. huge.

Life or death.

I am that powerful. So are you. And so is every single human being out there.  

There can be no denying it.

We impact each other. We always have.

The only difference is now we can see it. The stakes are raised. The consequences are front and centre. We cannot pretend like we are separate, self-contained individuals. We cannot pretend like our personal actions do not matter.

At least not right now when they so obviously and excruciatingly do.

This is often what it takes for us to be willing to take responsibility for our actions and to make a change. We have to feel what it is costing us. In real time.

Right now, the pain of changing our behaviour to a slower, more solitary life is less than the pain of continuing on with the busyness.

Rarely do we have this kind of mirror put in our faces showing us the impact of our everyday grind.

Usually the impact of our busy lives is only the potential of burnout, failed relationships, and regret some time in the future. While the consequences have been getting closer (i.e. burnout, drama-filled relationships and existential crises are happening at all ages, not only death bed, or mid-life), it has still been possible to say: “Not me, I’m different. I can do it all. I can hack it.” Not anymore.

We can no longer believe the lie that this culture of busyness is working.

The thing about viruses is that everyone can carry them. While some may not be hit as hard physically, we can all be silent killers. Not one of us gets to say “not me, I’m different”.

For many of us this level of personal responsibility is a hard pill to swallow.

Yet, that is what is being asked of us. We are being asked to acknowledge the power that we all have as humans to impact each other and the Earth in life and death ways, and to take RESPONSIBILITY for it, by acting in ways that take into account our personal impact.

Paradoxically, we are also being asked to face our powerlessness to the unseen forces of Truth and Justice that flow through all Life.

A more sustainable future is coming, whether we like it or not.

Transformation of the status quo is coming, whether we like it or not.

We cannot control the Covid-19 pandemic in the ways we would like to. We cannot tell it to stop, or to go away, or to leave us alone. When it showed up, we had no way of killing it off, or otherwise preventing it from harming us. In many ways we were powerless to its impact, and its spread.

We have now tried many ways to control it, and we may eventually succeed in developing some measures that keep it check, or limit its ability to harm us.

But so far, the measure that has worked the best has been for each of us to take responsibility for our own power, and to act in a way that benefits the whole: to stop, self-isolate and limit the spread.

I do not think this is a coincidence.

We are being asked to remember that while we may be powerless in the sense that we often understand power (the ability to exert force over and control), this is not the true definition of power.

We are being asked to remember that true power looks like taking responsibility, not exerting force.

So no, we do not get to control this pandemic, but we do get to choose who we will be in the face of it.  

This is the choice we each have, and each of our decisions matter.

Will we take responsibility for our personal power and begin acting in ways that take into account our impact on each other and the Earth?

Or will we choose to go down fighting against forces more powerful that us, for a status quo that imprisons us more than it serves?

Will our choices bring about our own destruction, or will we surrender to the deeper thread of Life and find a way to create a place for humanity in the more beautiful world that is being birthed?

These are the questions that we need front and centre in our conversations about how to approach Covid-19, and other global crises, going forward.

We are ready for this transformation.

Whether or not we think we are, whether or not we like it, and no matter how scary it may seem. We must leap.

We must leap into the uncertainty and find a new way. A new way to listen. A new way to make decisions. One that takes into account our true power, and the impact we have on each other and the Earth.

We must learn to tap into our own truth. We are not separate from the deeper thread of Life, that is asking for our transformation. It is a part of us.

If we are willing to pause and to go deep within ourselves and listen, we will find we already know just what to do. We know how to take responsibility for our own power. We know how to take our impact on all Life into account because we are connected to it.

We know how to choose differently. But, will we? Will you?

This is the question that each of us gets to answer for ourselves in the quiet of our own hearts.

Will you make a commitment to yourself here and now to align your actions with the deeper thread of Truth and Justice that flows through all Life?

Will you devote yourself to your own personal transformation?

Will you learn to trust in your own deepest truth?

Only you can answer these questions.

That is the gift and the curse of being human: we always get to choose.

So, if you are willing, get really quiet now. Go deep within yourself.

And ask yourself: What do I choose?

Xo,

Danielle