Good morning, friends! I wanted to share the welcome poem from my first book, The Halfway House for Writers. I included this poem in my book, but I wrote it for myself-- to name and assuage the fear, dread, pressure, anxiety and horror I felt about writing--the one thing in the world I most passionately wanted to do! Can you relate? What would you add? Are you ready to start the exquisite lifetime journey of trusting yourself?? Welcome to the Halfway House You know everything you need to know. You have everything you need to have. Nothing has been wasted: none of your writing and none of your time. Even lost years and lost manuscripts were necessary to bring you where you are now. All that’s lost can be salvaged. You bring with you the most sacred and the most profane. You bring wisdom and humor and a broken, healing heart. You bring your living body and your limitless soul and enough stories, thoughts and dreams to fill a thousand books. There is no hurry, there is no pressure, there is no wrong way to do this. There is no rule book, there is no map save for what’s inside of you. You know now which voices to trust and which to lay gently aside. There is nothing you have to prove or solve or figure out. There is no timeline or deadline. You can trust the words that come. You can trust yourself. You were brought here for this. You were led to this. This is why you are here. Welcome home. (Here are 3 friends I've found over the last few days at the river....they want to welcome you, too!)

Hi friends! In case you weren't able to join Valley on Monday, I've just uploaded the recording for the Full Moon Activation here. Enjoy ☺️ The next Moon Activation is coming up on July 14, so be sure to check out the calendar https://www.skool.com/writing-fire-circle-7709/calendar

Hello beautiful humans!! I wanted to share a piece I wrote in a Writing Fire workshop this morning....raw, primal, messy, true. HOW DO THE ELEMENTS SPEAK TO YOU?? Air, let's start with you. The deep and delicious inhale, the fierce winds of change, the tornadoes and hurricanes of upheaval, the gasping for breath, air dripping with humidity. Breaking through the surface after a long swim, gulped air more delicious than any taste on earth. The clouds encoded with our dreams. Standing at the edge of my driveway, asking for a gypsy caravan to come and carry me off with the wind, my hair blowing around my face like the snakes of Medusa. Earth. And here we have the dirt and the grubs, the earthworms in the soil. The deep red clay that shapes and holds us, our nutrients, our bowls and mugs, our ancestors' caves carved with our first drawings and words — the birth of language into rock. The family of trees and forest, the gnomes and dwarves, the root spirits, the subterranean story networks reaching through the vast and mysterious depths of this great craggy rock, this beautiful, outrageous mother. The gems and crystals, the pebbles and sticks and stones, the mountain and the valley creating our earthly human home, our own hollow bones. Water, oh my blood, my tears, my sweat, my juice, my body. Bathe me, baptize me, dunk me, and then let me swim away, a mermaid with a powerful thumping tail — you cannot lock me in a cage or aquarium! The Epsom salt soak drawing out the toxins, the body's ills swirl down the drain. Salt-crusted skin in the ocean, the wildest home we've ever known. The rivers and creeks and waterfalls, the ponds, puddles, and lakes, moving water like the pulse of the womb until the water breaks, the flood comes. We are born. And fire, my love, when did you learn how to strike a match and gather kindling — were you a very young girl? The circles around the campfires in the Blue Ridge Mountains, the leaping flames always signaling that we were in ordinary waking reality no more. The comets, the fireworks, the steady glow of a candle flame, the torches illuminating the great feast halls in the castle. The fireflies and fire tenders and drum circles in cave gatherings, the dance that gets wilder and wilder with the roaring of the flames.

During the Full Moon writing circle, I wrote from the perspective of the main character of my current WIP; her name is Ophelia. The prompts were about what she would want to get rid of from her room, and what would replace those things she had shed. ---------------------------------------------------------------- The room was utilitarian as it stood, the walls white, the silken threads of spider webs denying access to the corners. A single bookshelf, decorated with a cardboard box that had long ago lost its structure, was a display of dust and a cracked bowl filled with hair ties. Sitting in the east corner, the bed was the only thing with any color; Ophelia had been somewhat limited in her choices of bedding, causing her nest of pillows and blankets to be a mismatched pile of different hues, textures, and patterns. The riot of color did little to add character, however, to the space. While the flooring had once been hardwood, it was now carpeted in clothing, rejected empty shells she had shed after long forays into the Pit. It was a space she spent many hours in but hardly saw anymore. But seeing the loving space Kael lived in made her suddenly take notice. It took a whole hour just to pick up everything from the floor, pulling forgotten pairs of jeans, white shirts with coffee stains down the front, and undergarments up off of the honey-glow of the hardwood and into the laundry basket Blair had gifted her ages ago. The next to leave were the spider webs, the dust bunnies, and the other dirt-made critters haunting the corners of the room. The plastic trash bag hastily hung over the window was next, allowing the soft glow of the night to brush the edges of her space with silver. Taking a deep breath, Ophelia threw open her closest doors, her breath catching in her throat as the tiny space was exposed to her eyes for the first time in nearly ten years. Boxes covered in dust filled it to the top, each a memory, each a loving reminder of her past. The first to be exhumed were the picture frames. Her fingers dusted over the photos, tears piling in her eyes as the ghosts of memories filled her. But she hung them anyway, careful and straight on the blank walls.

I was flat ironing my curly hair. I was a tantrica, starved for touch. I was a mystical wanderer with a big mortgage and a bigger house. I was a free spirit with ankle weights, credit cards, china platters of cheetohs and ho-hos to dull the ache of living in the half-life. I was chasing windmills of love in locked up rooms without any wind. I was the heavy t-shirts and yoga pants from box stores I hid myself in, horrified by the silhouette of my own body. I was the shadow hiding beneath the brilliance of my soul. Then, the breaking. I split, I fell, I bruised, I bled, I excavated, I broke open, I grew. I discovered my wings and not only my wings but my tail, glimmering like a mermaid slicing through the furious ocean, the dragon serpent soaring with the wind. Now, I am in my warrior queen era with tight black bodysuits, lightning in my ears, sticks wrangling my wild curly hair. Now, my heart is a candle, a firework, a bonfire. Seen and loved, caressed and adored, lit up from inside out and the outside in. Now, my heart is my signature, tender, glowing, a fierce flame of love and creation. Now I love the flesh of this human woman body, the mountains and valleys, the curves and boulders, the creaks and crevices, the delights of the goddess. Now, I am in my medicine woman era, living with and talking to and making art with the spirits and the trees, mounting the spirit horse and taking the reins. I am squeezing that rich, powerful flesh between my thighs and digging her hide with my heels. Giddy up girl....now it's time to fly! (Written and shared in last night's True Story circle! What is YOUR then and now??)