Me practicing to do my own hair which is always poker straight. Evolution. :)

What do I think?

What are my views?

These are questions I have avoided answering, avoided asking even of myself.

The main reason of course for my avoidance is that - as I’m sure you all know and have likely experienced directly - there is no real room for discourse anymore. Emotion is at an all time high, and, as a result, compassion and objectivity is at an all time low.

Justification and blame seem to be the only common ground these days. On both sides of any topic there is no shortage of either.

I admit that I am no better in my avoidance. I know that my avoidance is fueled in large part by the fact that conflict makes me uncomfortable, and that when I have expressed my opinion in the past it has cost me. But on a deeper level, my avoidance stems from the knowing that if I did pay attention to all of the arguments on both sides (and I have, some), that I would not land on one side or the other.

As a result, everyone will hate me - either finding me a cop out, or weak, or just plain wrong - for failing to stand strongly on one side or the other.

Honestly, I believe we are engaged in the wrong conversation. There is a deeper conversation to be had - one at the evolutionary (or soul) level - that would actually move things forward, momentously. But the willingness to have such a conversation is not there in the mainstream. Righteousness precludes it from happening.

There are several people whom I follow who try to engage a bigger conversation, and I admire them deeply for their courage. It is courage I wish I possessed. It is courage I hope I am growing into.

I am not yet there in my own evolution, but I am working on it.

I come from a lineage of silence and people pleasing. Holding it in is the way of my ancestors.

To be honest I admire their strength in doing so, as much as it frustrates me that I have to struggle so much to find the courage to have a voice.

I know that their silence was necessary for survival and therefore I cannot have any judgment about it. I am here because they did what was necessary for me to be here now, with the privilege that I have.

However, silence is not necessary for survival in my life, at least, not yet. Though I believe the stakes are getting higher.

This trajectory we are on as humans (pitting each other into extremes) is not really novel. We have as a species lost our way many times before. Just look at all those societies that have crumbled.

Loss of village. Loss of connection to place. Loss of values. Loss of knowing who we are. Loss of knowing how we are meant to contribute to the world. I strongly believe these losses - which operate at the core, or soul, level - are what has created such disfunction and destruction in the world.

Reconnection to soul is the answer I offer to any disagreement or political debate. My offering to the conversation is therefore outside of the conversation. I am unwilling to pick a side or call anybody wrong. As such, I am not welcomed by any side. I do not belong in the conversation as it is framed. So, I have for the most part stayed silent.

The problem with staying silent is that it is having a negative impact on my health. Not in big ways, so far, but in small ways. I can feel the ways the avoidance is impacting my body. Heaviness. Depression. Defeat.

Can my voice really matter? I don’t know.

I don’t know.

But, I can no longer not speak.

My soul is asking me to engage. Denying the request will only hurt me. This I know.

And, the one thing I am unwilling to do in this life is shut down to my soul.

I will lose everything and everyone in my life if I have to if that is what being true to my soul requires. That is simply a fact of my life. That is the level of devotion I have to my soul’s truth.

So here is what I have to say, today. The conversation we are having is the wrong one. It is too small. It will only result in more of the same blame and pendulum swinging, which will ultimately lead to our demise. We need to engage the conversation at the soul level. We need to transform as a species, but we must be willing, and that is where the uncertainty lies. Are we willing?

Will enough of us become willing before it is too late?

That part I don’t, and can’t, ever know.

But I must speak. And I must say that I am here for you. If you are feeling like there is a deeper connection you would like to have with your own soul. I am here for you if you would like to know why you are here at a soul level. I am here to help people to write their life in accordance with the truth in their soul. This I know.

I have avoided this knowing for a while because it is challenging. It is political. It is, in my view, the answer to everything. Find your soul’s voice, and follow it. We will create a different, more beautiful, world.

That is my opinion.

Will anyone care? A few, maybe. I can’t know that.

I suspect most will likely find my views frivolous and unworthy of their time given the “high stakes” of the “real issues” to be discussed.

All I know is that I must, for my own sanity, speak.

In these times, my friends, my advice is to tap into your soul’s knowing. I don’t have answers for you, and neither will the news. Only your soul will know the truth of how you are meant to show up and what you can bring to the table.

These are times of upheaval. Peace is not possible externally, only internally. We must ground in the knowing of who we are, and what we are brought here to contribute at a soul level. Anything less will only create anxiety and noise to be numbed out - and my friends, we cannot afford to be numbed out.

That is why I am speaking. This is my contribution.

My greatest hope is that you know yours.

xo,

Danielle

The magical path I am on.

It is interesting that I write most about writing.

I also write about not writing. I write about wanting to write more, intending to write more, committing to write more and forgiving myself for not writing more.

I write about writing a lot.

Because writing is who I am.

Writing is the language of my soul.

I know this.

I was fortunate to discover this early – in my pre-teens, and then, again, with more conscious soul level awareness in my late twenties.

I will never lose the pulse of who I am in this world so long as I am writing.

I have tried other creative things.

Painting. Dance. Drawing. Cooking. Baking. Gardening. And probably others I am forgetting now.

Each has resonated for a season or two. Some still resonate now. Some may resonate on some level forever. But each of those things are just things I enjoy or that serve a purpose in my physical life or in my growth. None of those things is who I am.

Writing from my soul is who I am. It is my purpose in this life. I say this matter of fact-ly, and I mean it with the full weight of the words.

Writing from my soul is both a healing exercise for me and a gift to others.

Just the same as how who you are and what you need to liberate yourself, is the greatest gift you can offer to others.

It is not an accident that I support myself emotionally, intellectually, spiritually and materially in this world by – primarily – writing.

Writing empties my brain of its clutter and its daggers that I would otherwise turn on myself and others. 

Writing guides me, and inspires me, and allows me to experience nirvana.

Writing allows me to craft arguments or poetry or other passages that help and heal others.

Writing is something that I know I will never stop engaging in on a regular basis, in some form or another.

Though it is only soul writing or being a soul writer that is my purpose.  

It is a tall order to figure out what your purpose is in the world at a soul level – and an even taller order to live it.

Both require immense amounts of faith.

At the beginning of the year, I was feeling disconnected from my soul and my practice of soul writing. So, I made a commitment to reconnect with my faith.

I have to say it wasn’t really a commitment in the traditional sense. It was more of an awareness and allowance of a deep resonance in my body that informed me that I am ready to express my soul voice again, and that it is time.

Awareness. Allowance. Action. These are the three As that guide at a soul level any major decision or turning point in my life, and sometimes smaller choices too.

A couple of weeks after making the commitment to renew my faith, I was feeling stagnant and bloated. After a few days of feeling that way, despite eating healthy and regular exercise, I recognized the familiarity of the feeling of heaviness and puffiness – it was something I had experienced before. It was caused by holding in too many words, not food.

So, I sat down to write. In less than 10 minutes I had written 1,000 words. My soul had been wanting to speak with me.

The question that came up in my writing almost immediately, was – Do I really need saving? – and the answer was an immediate full body resonance: NO.

After a few more minutes of writing the full impact of the message hit me viscerally. It was this: The heartbreak that was holding you back is healed. Now, it's only fear.

The message was powerful, complete with goosebumps and tingling sensation throughout my body. I started writing a blog post about it, but I was not quite ready to share.

Tonight, I was feeling stagnant again. Bloated with words and a building ache for freedom from the refuge my fear has created.

So, here I am.

And here is the truth.

I don’t know who I am becoming. But I do know it is someone who speaks frankly. Someone whose words are sometimes sharp, but always spoken with love.

I can be gentle too. That part comes easy. It is the sharpness that scares me.

The exhaustion caused by holding back too many words for too long is helping me to get over the fear. It is humbling to acknowledge this overcoming of fear is equal parts necessity and courage.

The truth. The truth. Speaking the truth scares me.

But the truth is I have reached the point where I am even more scared of who I am becoming in my silence.

So I must speak.

I must share my soul’s voice through this written form, and others.

It is impossible for me to live a life of conformity to the mainstream culture. It has been impossible for me to do so for at least 10 years now – since I first made contact with my own soul through writing. I know this, yet I have continued to try to, at least, not stand out.

I feel like I need to say - given my past history of extremes - that none of this means that I need to quit my life. It does not even mean that I want to change my life, at least not in big ways.

I love my life. My life as I have created it was and is guided by my soul. My soul knew – knows – the kind of foundation I need in order to have the capacity to fulfill my purpose. The life I have created brings me joy and love on a daily basis, and has allowed me to arrive here, heart healed, with the capacity to share again.

Tonight I am thinking back to the renewed commitment to faith that I made earlier this year, and I am realizing that - while the soul level intention was there – consciously, I did not understand it quite right.

I am now realizing that I never lost my faith. I have had faith this whole time. If I did not, I would never have made it here.

It was only my courage that wavered in response to past disappointments and heartbreak, and in the necessary pause that followed, my fear stepped in, and I ceded to its eternal message: stop.

I am human, after all.

Perhaps at a deeper level the pause was all a part of my soul’s design, as the growth that happened in the interim, was also essential to me arriving here. Perhaps it was not really a pause at all, but simply a necessary stage in my soul’s journey.

I don’t think I will ever know all of the answers to the questions I have about this path I have committed to following.

But I do know this:

I was born to be a soul writer, and I am immensely grateful to have a conscious appreciation of my purpose in this life.

Xo,

Danielle

Sometime a desire to be someone else creeps in.

Slowly. It is subtle.

So subtle that it gets away with it for a while. It tricks me into dissatisfaction.

Its a form of dysmorphia. It makes me want to exit my life and get a new one. It makes me want to give up. To quit. To admit defeat. To throw my hands up at my commitments and walk into some other life somewhere else.

It says. This isn’t want you dreamt of. You dreamt of something else. Something more magical. Something more easeful. Something less stressful. Something with more recognition and rewards. Something with more of the spiritual and less of the mundane.

I am someone who wears many hats easily. With little effort, I am capable of almost any endeavor. Not only that, with moderate focus, I am good at most things.

I am not bragging when I say this. Having things come to me relatively easily has been both a blessing and a curse. A blessing because when I try something new, I quickly excel beyond mediocre. A curse, because I get bored easily and have a hard time seeing anything through, and because, I will never be the best at any one thing.

It may be rich coming from someone who is good at most things she tries, to be complaining. It’s true, I have very little, objectively, to complain about. I’m good at being a lawyer without having to work painstakingly hard at it, and it brings in a good income. My basic needs are easily met.

Don’t get me wrong. I do often work hard. Sometimes I work long hours. Sometimes the task at hand requires me to apply myself at least 70%, 80% or 90%. Occasionally, my job maxes me out and I have no juice left when I get home. But, often, I’m able to get the job done, well, with brain power and energy to spare.

This means that I have energy for other projects - like working on the novel I started a few years ago, and the self help book, too, or tending to a small acreage and hobby farm, and growing a garden big enough to feed a family of five, despite its just me and my partner, and the only child we have is a German Shepherd named Nikita. So far, we haven’t been able to convince her to eat veggies.

Why do I sound like I’m complaining, you ask. (Good question.)

I’m not, but, I am.

Let me explain.

Have you heard the saying, Jack of all trades, master of none?

Well, that might be me, to a T.

I can bake reasonably well, and, because there is no professional in my neighbourhood, I am the go-to baker. For example, I recently made over 300 dainties for a friend’s funeral.

I can start and tend to a fire, and, so long as there is no real girl (or boy) scout, or a pyro, in the circle, I will be the go-to fire marshal. I can cook hearty home cooked dishes, and follow a recipe well, and, so long as there is no chef in the vicinity, everyone will look to me to make the meal.

I can garden, and, so long as there is no true green thumb, thumbing around (HA!), everyone will come to me for gardening tips and cures. I have tended to animals and crops, and despite I’m no large scale farmer, people will often ask me questions like “do pigs really eat anything” or “do cats always land on their feet” or “what kind of damage can hail do?”

I can do bookkeeping and basic accounting - having in the past done my own taxes while running multiple businesses for years - and, of course, I can do legal work.

I’m not bad at truth or dare, charades, board games, or pool on the right night. I’ve run a marathon, and many half marathons, and, though many people have asked me for running tips, I will always say I simply get my base runs in and wing it, and defer to someone who has actually dedicated themselves to the craft.

I’ve won beer chugging competitions, and keg stands. I enjoy fine wines and scotch. I’ve made and served my own cocktails. I’ve even on occasion been called the life of the party. But I’ve never done hard drugs, and, if the plan is to party for multiple days, I’m definitely not the expert.

I meditate and do yoga. I had a fairly regular ecstatic dance practice for quite a few years. I do tarot and write from my soul and connect with the divine, on a fairly regular basis. I’ve overcome an eating order, insomnia and other mental, emotional and physical health issues. I’ve trained and practiced as a life coach. I’ve created courses and spoke to lawyers and law students about overcoming stress and addictions. I’ve had people look to me for guidance. But I’ve not dedicated myself to any methodology or practice. I’m no Guru.

I could go on and on about the things I’m relatively good at - or at least ok at. For example, I play piano. I made it to Grade 10 Conservatory growing up, and competed at regionals and provincials. I figure skated at the same level. I can change the oil or a flat tire on a vehicle. Once I even changed the alternator on my car, though my dad helped me with that one.

I’ve travelled to well over 20 different countries. Many times alone. I’ve bungee jumped, Skydived and scaled a building. I’ve won a fishing derby. I’ve been a lifeguard. I’ve organized fashion shows and designed and sewed my own clothing. I know how to preserve vegetables, fruits, herbs, flowers and other elements of nature, for food, tea, medicinal purposes, and all kinds of crafts.

I’ve created a few paintings I’m proud of. I have taken pottery and woodworking and made many things, from plates, wall hangings and vases to working with a planer and lathe to create a table and footstool, and using finer tools to create my own jewellery box. Though, I wouldn't call myself a painter or a potter, and I’m definitely not a carpenter.

I practice kickboxing and can punch pretty hard despite I’m not the most coordinated. I tan fairly easily, rarely burn, and at 37 (almost 38) still look pretty good in a bikini.

I’m a poet and a writer. I’ve written two books and hundreds of blog posts over the past 10 years. I have connected to my ancestors in visceral ways, with my toes in the mud at 4 a.m. under the full moon.

Blah, blah, blah, you say.

I’m rambling on about all of my talents and accomplishments as if they are a bad thing.

They aren’t, of course. Laying them all out as I have in this post does make me feel a certain sense of pride.

Like I said, many things come fairly easily to me.

You may be annoyed by now. Or think I’m bragging.

Maybe I am, just a little. But I think that’s ok. I think we should all appreciate our own talents, and the things that make us unique.

The thing is, the thing that makes me unique is not one thing. I’m no maestro or artist. I’m no master baker or gardener. I’m no model. I’m no top tier coach. I’m no best seller. I’m not even at the top of my field as a lawyer. I’m good at all of it, and great at some of it, but I’m not number one (or even number two, five or ten) at any of it.

That’s the thing that gets me sometimes. I think - if I could only focus on one thing - I could master it. I could be the best, or at least close to the best at it. If only I didn’t get bored when I try to commit to one thing. If only I didn’t spread myself so thin. If only I didn’t branch out or quit entirely before I truly mastered something, maybe I could be known for something. Maybe I could matter.

It really does get me down sometimes.

That I’m a Jack of many trades, master of none.

I do acknowledge how much I have accomplished, and I do appreciate how much I have experienced. I do recognize that my disappointment is learned, not innate.

I am learning to re-write the story of success for myself in my own mind. It is challenging because our culture tells us that if we are not the best at something, we are a failure. Being mediocre, or even reasonably good, at many things is unremarkable - unworthy of attention, praise, recognition, or love.

I have known for some time that the journey my soul is on right now, is one of holding it all.

What I have only recently realized is how radical an act it is to not seek to be the best at one thing - to not seek to win, or to set a record, and to instead seek to allow life to expand me in all of the ways, and to encompass all of the things, that would satisfy my soul.

I admit I have tried to fit my soul’s journey into our culture’s paradigm. I find myself at times trying to be the best at holding it all. Yet this is an impossible ambition, and laughable, really, because my all, will be different than your all, and different than every other soul’s all.

There is no comparison possible on this journey I am on.

Today, I am grateful for that fact.

Today, I am grateful that I am on a journey of rewriting.

Sometimes the desire to be someone else - someone passionate about mastering one thing and being the best at it - still gets me.

But today, I am grateful that I do not need to be in competition. Today I am grateful that I get to simply show up to what my soul is craving.

A little of this.

A little more of that.

Nature. Love. Work. Play. Law. Writing. Depth. Light. Dirt. Fire. Quiet. Creation. Connection. Letting go. Grief. Joy.

Wearing all of my favourite hats, and trying a few new ones on for good measure.

Today I am grateful I can see the purpose behind my soul’s calling.

Today I am grateful for my commitment to my soul’s fulfillment above all else.

Today I am grateful I can feel the effect of re-writing our culture’s story of competition in my own life:

Peace.

Today, I desire to be no one else, but me.

xo,

D

It is 2:26 a.m. and I am awake.

I have tried all of the usual ways to relax myself. I have tried laying down to sleep.

Something in me is too awake, I think to myself. No, that’s not quite right.

Something in me is too alive. Yes… or, too turned on. Yes! That’s it. Like a light switch.

My body is buzzing, and not in an anxiety-filled way. Though it is similar. It is close.

I can tell that if I do not presence myself, and give this energy my attention, it will easily spill over into a full body feeling of anxiety.

So, here I am.

I am listening. Butt in the seat. Fingers on the keys.

I am here.

Here I Am.

Yes.

I can feel my body relaxing. Releasing. Grounding.

Tapping in to the energy and letting it flow out of my fingers and into this space.

I do not know what I am writing about beyond the present experience I am in. There is no strategy. No predetermined narrative. No searching for words and trying to make it fit.

I spend all day writing those kinds of words in my work. Each one carefully chosen. Written and re-written. Strategy upon strategy. Sentences stream out one minute and are deleted the next to be replaced by a better way of saying the thing, or a better strategy, or sometimes, nothing. A pre-determined outcome guiding the whole process so that it is more like a stop and start, than a flow.

It is an art that form of writing, but it is not free.

I have been longing for the kind of expression that is free.

This kind.

This sitting on a chair and letting the energy direct the flow of my words.

This letting my heart speak.

This letting my soul voice shine through.

I will not perfect this piece for you. I will not ensure my sentences are complete. I will not police my own grammar. I will not because this writing is for me.

This is my soul’s expression right now.

Claiming this space in this way again scares me. It has been a while since I have allowed myself this.

It has been a while since I have let my soul speak.

It is less of an ecstatic experience than it has been in the past. Slower. More grounded. Present.

Perhaps, this slowing down is because I am older now. I have experienced more, and I know the courage it takes to write without strategy and rules.

Perhaps, it is because it has been a long road to get here and I am still weary of moving forward in this way.

Or perhaps, I have finally busted through the last hold on my wall of resistance, and I find myself on the other side, in an exhausted surrender, following a new soul impulse that is both setting me free and keeping me safe.

xo,

Danielle

My Little Blue House

There is a song I listened to on repeat when it first came out.

It was called: Making All Things New, by Aaron Espe. Look it up and have a listen.

It was released in 2015. The first time I heard it, my heart ached with a searing pain, which didn’t make sense, because, by all outward appearances, the song is happy.

The lyrics are full of love, and the melody, while not really upbeat, is uplifting.

It is a song about being grounded in a home and a partnership filled with love, and opening to new light and possibility. (My interpretation.)

It begins…

I leave all the windows open
Let the light come through

It is a song that could be described as warm, wistful and breezy.

Yet, to me, it has always been a sad song. More than once I have cried and felt angry listening to it.

I would tell myself that the song tugged at my heartstrings because, at that time, I did not have what the artist was singing about. My relationship was unstable, and I longed to create a home with a partner where I would feel grounded in love, and where I would feel safe to open my heart.

On some level I knew that wasn’t the whole picture, however. There were many other songs I listened to during that period of my life that directly mirrored my experience of romantic heartbreak and longing, and I could tell this ache was something different. It was something that touched a deeper place in me, one I was not yet ready to visit.

Today, it began playing as I was listening to my liked songs on random rotation on Spotify, and, again, I felt that familiar heavy, angry ache in my heart.

As I now have what he is signing about, I could not brush it off as simply triggering personal longing.

I did think, briefly, maybe its just nostalgia - taking me back to that time when the song first moved me - almost 10 years ago now!

But, a deeper knowing surfaced again. This time, I got curious enough to read the artist’s profile. As I did, something inside me began shifting.

The artist was someone who had quit his traditional schooling before completing it to pursue his creative passion - a career in music. He had travelled all over finding ways to make ends meet while trying to “make it”, but, he had stopped when mental health issues made him reconsider the way he was trying so hard to pursue a music career. Now, he is first and foremost a father and a husband, with a large garden that supports his family. He makes his music in between his regular everyday life.

It was not until he settled down and began home recording that he really hit his stride as an artist.

I can relate in many ways to his story.

In 2015, when I first heard this song, I had quit my traditional career as a lawyer, and was finding creative ways to make ends meet while trying to “make it” as a writer and thought leader. There were high highs and low lows, and no real stability in any aspect of my life.

Even back then, some part of me knew that I would not succeed by trying so hard and giving up everything for my dream, but I was not yet ready to admit it.

The fall that inevitably did come felt 100% like failure, and 100% personal, and the heartbreak and despair that followed was dark and deep and all consuming.

Ironically, the thing that got me out of it, was the thing that got me into it in the first place: writing.

It has taken me years of working through resistance to admit that I have to rethink the way I pursue my writing in the public sphere.

The past nine years have been humbling, and healing.

To be honest, I am not really on the other side of the rethinking part.

But I am getting there.

Today, another piece of the puzzle shifted into place.

I now understand the heartbreak underlying this song. I understand the strength and healing it takes to get to a place of being willing and able to create art from a grounded, stable, loving environment, instead of a place of chaos and volatility.

I now understand the ache I felt when I first listened to this song was a kind of kinship and a foreshadowing of the journey my soul knew it was already embarking on.

I have been feeling for some time now the pull to be public more regularly with my writing, and to begin offering writing workshops again.

In order to do that, there is still some healing I need to do. I need to release the remaining heartbreak of the past “tries” that did not work, and the lingering shame and judgment I have towards myself for “failing” to make it big in the all or nothing way that is idolized in our culture.

I need to allow myself to begin again Making All Things New in my creativity.

I need to allow it to look differently. I need to allow myself to create in moments dotted throughout my ordinary, grounded, and stable life. I need to keep my loving partnership and home at the centre of my world, while I step out into the public arena with my creations.

As I expand, I need to remember what Aaron Espe so honestly sings:

Home, where my heart is

Home, where my love lives

Home, my beginning and my end

Home

xo,

Danielle

Photo by Megan Alcock

After all these years, I still come back here, to this blog, to come back to myself.

There have been many days I have told myself: just let this blog go. You are not consistent enough. You don’t have enough time. You aren’t engaging enough to make it worthwhile.

Enough. Enough. Enough. This story is core to me.

Likely because of this, something always prevents me from pulling the plug. Year after year I pay the domain and hosting fees for this site. Year after year I find myself coming back to write.

To you.

For me.

Maybe for you, too.

This past year my life has been in a time of rapid expansion. It has been, and still is, a lot.

The thing that keeps me choosing it (all of it) and going for it (all of it) is that the expansion feels aligned with my soul. It is constantly asking me to access parts of myself I have neglected or discarded long ago.

Which brings me to this:

When I was little I was bossy.

I know it’s hard to believe. Anyone who has known me as a adult would say I am quite the opposite of bossy. I am a quiet peacemaker. Passive. Submissive, even.

Yet. There is a part of me that is a leader. In charge. Decisive.

At 8 years old I was all of those things. The club leader. Miss popular. Perhaps even a bit of a dictator on the play ground and the snow banks outside our school.

That all changed by the time I was 9. By the end of Grade 3 I was ousted from the popular seat, I fell from stardom, and honestly, I felt like I’d never get back up.

It’s taken me decades to rebuild my self worth. For real. Childhood rejection and exclusion has a big impact on a girl.

But I have come a long way since that feeling of defeat. I have grown stronger in myself more and more every year.

As I have done so, I have also learned that the child version of me that was bossy, was just that - bossy.

I was not a true leader back then. I did not have self worth, or I would not have crumpled at the first rejection.

Why do I reminisce on all this now? Why go back to that place?

This past year has made me realize that I left a part of my soul back in Grade 3. A vital part of who I am. Though I may not have been ready to be an authentic grounded leader at the age of eight, I did have that spark within me; I had vision, and I had the urge to lead.

What I have realized this past year more than any other year is that leadership goes hand in hand with responsibility. Just as any commitment does. And the more I say yes to myself as a leader, the more I must say yes to myself each morning, and the more I must show up as the woman I know I can be, though that woman feels awkward and uncomfortable and often just out of my reach.

So I challenge myself to tap into that bossy side of me. To permit myself enough grace to blunder in my own authority. I know that this time I will be different. How could it not be? For I am different, now that I am grounded in compassion from my own rejection and decades long rebuilding of my own self-esteem.

I believe allowing this part of me to emerge fully will result in powerful wholeness, and not the brute force of a bully I so did not want to be. I know there is another way to be a leader. I know there is another way to access that dominant part of me.

I see it more each day. It is coming to be. I am becoming the woman who is brining it to be.

I believe in words as a power and I declare: I am a leader.

I am not just an owl in the night with visions that make your soul stir, I am a lioness prowling mid-day, making her kingdom hers.

xo,

Danielle

Early spring time at Little Blue House and Nikita in the background. She also brings me joy.

Sometimes I feel like my tongue is tied up in tiny little knots creating a lumpy boulder in my mouth.

What would it take to un-knot it?

What would it cost for me to un-tie myself, and to speak?

Something happened during Covid that had me tie myself up. To withdraw from the online world of sharing. To retreat. To reserve. To cease to speak.

In part, it was because the online world became quite hostile. In larger part it was because I did not know what to say or what to think of most things that were happening. I had feelings, that is for sure. I had beliefs in the moment of what was right, and what was wrong. But, I also felt early on that I could not speak for anyone else.

I did not know the answer, though it seemed like most people thought they did.

I spoke out on a few issues at the outset and it cost me a friend. We’ve tried to mend the bridge between us, but the trust and care and admiration that was once there has not come back.

It’s ok, I know. Not everyone is everyone else’s cup of tea.

Yet, I built it up in my mind into something more. Maybe it was. Maybe I needed to ground myself. To humble myself. To retreat.

I have learned a lot from withholding my views from the public space. In some ways it has been amazing. I have learned to connect more deeply with my surroundings - the people and things and places that I interact with on the daily get more of me, and I of them.

These are good things. Especially for someone like me who has the ability to disconnect - to be there but not really there.

I have had to learn to engage more; to be fully present in my life as it is in each moment. This has been hard for me, yet rewarding.

I have realized that I actually prefer living here, now, in my life and in this world with all its messy faults, beauty, uncertainty, joy and disappointment, than in the world I create in my own mind where all my dreams are manifested in perfection.

Yet, I do miss it. Writing. Visioning. Creating. Sharing. Escaping to an other world of my own imagination.

I’m not really sure how to do it in a way that is safe to be honest - and safety is important to me now. I’m not willing to sabotage what I have created in this world for a moment of blissful indulgence into the ecstasy of my visionary inner world. But, I do long to indulge a little. I do believe that I, and my close circle, and also the world in general, would be better off with my creative spark and my joy lighting me up just a little bit brighter.

So, I’m reaching for something familiar to jolt me back into my imaginary inner realms - a writing challenge.

I’m not going to take it to the extreme as I have I the past: like 40,000 words in a month, or waking up at 4am every day to write for 2 hours before work.

Instead, since it is national poetry month, I am simply committing to writing three poems in each of the next three months, and sharing them with at least one person.

Who knows, maybe I will finish my next poetry book after all.

My heart does feel lighter thinking about the possibility of releasing a new creation into the world. Maybe it is time.

Thanks for being on this journey with me. My first poem is for all of you: a spring haiku!

That musky spring smell
Has me hopeful even though
The flowers aren’t out!

xo,

Danielle

I am writing my life, to write my life.

I declared these words to myself seven years ago looking out at the ocean from the Granville Street Bridge.

My next journey is holding it all. I declared this too, not really knowing what the journey would entail, just knowing it was mine to walk.

I am on it. Still. That I know. Will I ever arrive? I can’t be sure.

Just like I can’t be sure that I have arrived at the end of the journey I was on prior to writing my first book in 2015: I am Enough.

There are still moments, when I come face to face with that old wound. The healing continues on new layers. But that is not what I am here, writing about, today.

I am here to write about Holding It All.

What that means to me now, some years into the journey is different than I thought it would be when I started out.

Let me tell you this: it is harder than I thought, and richer.

There is less time for escape into magical realms, yet, somehow, more magick in the every day life I am living.

I still struggle with the three Rs: responsibility, resentment, and rejection. I still have deep emotions, and moments of doubt.

But I am getting good at choosing my engagement points.

I am doing it - Holding It All. I am getting there - if there is a there.

I am holding many things: a legal career, a retreat-like property, the romantic relationship I always wanted, an upcoming wedding, a dog, friends, regular bonfires on the weekends, and a condo that is mine, with the responsibility of a mortgage. A beautiful life. A beautiful little family. Interesting work. A paradise to retreat to.

I have in recent months been doing less writing, and running. Things do come in cycles, I know.

What do I want?

It is not what I thought I wanted. That much I have learned on this journey.

It has been humbling.

I have learned that the spotlight is not what I was craving. I don’t want the responsibility of being on display. Nor is a deeply spiritual existence, where I escape the drudgery of normal everyday existence. A part of me does still wants to be special - to make a change for the better in this crazy world.

People tell me I am already doing it. Just by being in the legal profession, and carving out a path that works for me, I am already creating a change to the system. I am making a change for the better just by being true to my own soul, in a world where most follow external guidance.

Is that enough? Can I be ok with that subtle behind the scenes difference?

My ego gets up in arms some days.

Most days, though, it is enough. I am enough, as I am.

I am at peace, because I am aligned. While I have made some decisions the past couple years that appear conventional, it is not because I have given up on my soul path.

To the contrary. I am accepting that my truth is not to reject the old way, and create a new world. It is to be me, fully, in the world, as it is, and let my inner light ripple out, and spread.

I am also accepting that, while I will not likely be recognized or praised for living my ordinary-yet-soul-aligned life, the silent rewards of my inner transformation and expansion, make the journey one that is worthy of my trust.

So I keep trusting. I keep clearing the ashes and stoking my inner flame. I keep listening inwards as I let my light expand outwards. And I know that right now the path that I am on is the right one for me because my light keeps shining brighter. On some days I burn as bright as the bonfires I light on the weekends (example above ;).

I trust that a time of increased writing, or perhaps other creative work, will come for me again. But even if it does not, I trust that the light of my inner fire will be enough, no matter the task I am engaged in.

My wish for you for 2023 is that you take time to tend to your inner fire. That you don’t forget to listen inwards, before expanding outwards. And most importantly, that you know, that whatever soul journey you are on, your light is making the difference this world needs.

New Year’s blessings to all!

xo,

Danielle

I need to write a blog post about Magick. A dragonfly told me so.

I need to write it for myself, but maybe you need it too.

I often doubt that magick exists, in the ordinary.

In that state of doubt, I feel resentful that I am not living an extra-ordinary life. I tell myself that I am missing out.

Those thoughts I know are fears. They are simply not true.

I am writing this post as a reminder.

I hope that I will come back to it, many times, every time, I feel the doubt creeping in.

The truth is, I live surrounded by magick. You likely do too, though I can’t know whether that is true – or, even if it is, whether you are willing to allow that truth to be real for you.

To experience true magick we must be vulnerable to life. Its no wonder most of us fail to experience the extra-ordinary, the wonder, the awe-inspiring beauty – the magick of life – most of the time.

I include myself in the ‘most’. Though I’ve always been a secret believer, and an indulgent escapist into the realms of magick, living open to the presence of everyday magick is something I have not quite mastered.

I have in the past few years, in response to heartbreak and other consequences of living heart-wide-open, resisted my knowing and experience of magick, on the every day. I have been living happy, and mostly fulfilled, but not ecstatic.

You may say that if I am happy and mostly fulfilled, that is more than a person can really ask for.

Well, that may be true, but I have experienced more. My heart and soul know that there is more to this life. There is desire. There is passion. There is creation. There is…

Magick.

So I am writing this post as a reminder.

Magick has always been here. I am just often closed to it. I dismiss it. I am unwilling to feel it, and so I do not experience it, even though it is right here beside me; with me; in me.

I have always wanted an oasis. A retreat. A place where I could offer sanctuary not only to myself, but to others – a place where healing could occur.

I am now living in exactly such a place.

We have five acres – four of which are forest which has been untouched for many years. We have abundant blackberries, salmon berries, raspberries, cherry trees, plum trees. This fall, I made my own jam for the first time since I was a little girl. It was good. But more than that, it felt good to create it.

This oasis did not come ready made, and it is not really “ours”: we have had to put sweat and blood into the land to create something special, and, we are renting. I use these facts to discount the magick of the place. It is not exactly how I pictured it so it’s not real, I tell myself.

On some level I am still waiting for the perfection of my vision to arrive on a silver platter.

This is how my mind tricks me into resentment, and keeps me from seeing and from dreaming.

Tonight I was walking out back in the alcove we have created for community gatherings around a fire, and I allowed myself to dream a little.

I saw an archway under the treed canopy. I saw rows upon rows of people we hold dear, and I saw myself, walking arm in arm with my father, out from under the twin cedars on the island further back, over the bridge my lover built with his own two hands, looking up the aisle, between the smiling faces, seeing that same man looking at me like he’s the luckiest man on earth.

To dream is to be vulnerable.

To want your dream to become your reality, even more so.

To dare to pursue it. There is no greater joy, nor heartbreak.

If you know what I’m talking about, then, you are my people.

And, I know, that you know about magick, too.

The truth is: Magick is always right there – here – in the ordinary.

If only we are willing to open our hearts enough to allow it.

Xo,

Danielle