Balance Isn't Juggling. I Want To Be Free.

On sacred geometry, helping, and finding your way.

Sep 25, 2024

Before you read any further (and thank you if you do), I’d love to see you at Writing with the Moon in Libra on Tuesday, October 2. If you want to find or create your own version of freedom and symmetry, join HERE. If you are unable to afford the full cost of this monthly offering, please contact me. I’ve created these rituals as community spaces where everyone is welcome regardless of financial circumstances.

“How can I help?” This is the question our mothers, our teachers, our country wants us to answer. We are expected to be of service. It’s also the great entrepreneurial question. Marketing gurus are always asking me: “How are you helping?” For years, I lived with these questions and couldn’t find answers that made sense to anyone but myself. As someone who has never fit the norm, I didn’t see how my weird ways were ever going to help anyone.

Since I’ve never been capable, as John Lennon sang, of “playing the game,” pain, separation, exclusion, and outsider-status became the themes of my early life. This led me straight to the blank page where I poured out my complicated feelings and started to fall in love with the rhythm of words. At the same time, I absorbed the music of the world: everything from birdsong to my mother’s voice to full-length albums by my favorite artists. The final piece fell into place when I attended my first yoga class in my early 20s, which then led to somatic embodiment in many forms. The realm of the body is beyond words yet it contains music and story and…the answers.

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So…how do I help in my own weird way?

This is how: I tell my story over and over again. I extract my words from my intuitive imagination and embodied experience of life, not particularly caring whether or not that makes sense to the more traditionally-minded folks. By doing this, I offer the invitation: you can write, sing, dance, embody your story, too. It matters. One of my favorite ways to “help” is by creating environments where women can come back to their bodies as a source of wisdom. We write together. We move together. Inside the container of ritual, we answer our own questions.

Intuitive Collage by Me

And you are not alone if you don’t feel able to help all the time.

Sometimes, despite finally knowing my sacred answer…I’m not up to the job of helping other women or myself. More than 10 years ago, I began journaling as a way of exploring and evidence-gathering. I didn’t do it everyday, but I felt like I needed a record of my life, something I could use as a map moving forward through another big transition: midlife. When I looked back at what I wrote, I discovered this truth: late-July through the first part of September is rough on my sensitive body and complex emotions. When everybody else is out jet skiing or dancing their way through the final delights of summer, I’m trembly and dry, achy and anxious. I mean, I love autumn, but the seasonal transition knocks me completely off balance. I’m not a very good helper in late-summer. The last few weeks have been pretty rocky, so I’ve retreated out of necessity for the most part.

Honestly, my last two to three years have felt like one big autumnal transition. Caregiving with and for my parents has made me more brittle and anxious than I ever believed possible. I so often feel helpless even though mom and dad thank me for helping. I’ve helped so much that everything else in my life including the work I love most in the world has been burned away, stripping me from my kindness and the woman I had fought so hard to become. Lately, I’ve been seeking what I thought was balance.

And, but…

It took me a lifetime to realize that balance isn’t about juggling responsibilities or squeezing in self-care between work and school and sacrifice. Sometimes, balance means freeing yourself from human expectations and taking a cue from the natural world. As I sat gazing out my open window in the early September mornings, I watched the world soften: the autumn light, diffuse and golden, the autumn air, cool in the wee hours and warming at the height of the day. What I felt in my body along with the trepidatious transitional energy was a settling that would finally come on the first day of Libra season, the autumn equinox. I knew this would happen because I’ve taken notes. I’ve collected evidence of my own embodied experience year after year after year. I have a record, and it says that my body and spirit need EXTRA care in August and September. I need to embrace asymmetry, so that I can find my way back to balance, harmony…and freedom.

In the chapter dedicated to Libra in the phenomenal book, New Moon Magic, authors Risa Dickens and Amy Torok, invite us to “consider geometry as a tool for seeing the vastness, for keeping our gaze fixed, and for retraining our alignments.” In other words, the sacredness contained in the geometry all around us is a way to access balance, beauty, and harmony.

Student artwork from Golden Valley Charter Schools

As a sensitive empath/serial caregiver, I’ve often made the mistake of spending far too much of my time and energy trying to “figure out” other people’s stuff. As a result, I have seen my own symmetrical, divine mandala transform into a lumpy, stained blanket sagging halfway off the bed morning after morning, month after month. The only way I have ever found to come back to balance is to break free. I MUST feed the little outsider artist who lives in my heart. I MUST stop trying to fit in and come back to a place of belonging within myself. I also need to clean my own house, wash the linens, sanctify the ceilings, and sweep the floors. I must clear space.

How I’m Finding Balance During This Autumnal Transition

A Self-Care Day: I blessed myself by participating in a daylong retreat with two dear teacher-guide-friends, Michelle and Kim, and a group of tender-hearted women. We spent the day expressing deep pain and gratitude, nourishing ourselves with grounding foods and dropping into luxurious yoga practice focused on the sacred feminine pelvic portal.
A Writing Practice for ME: I’m committed to a four-week series of The Caregiver Project, a brilliant offering for and by writer-caregivers. I am so grateful for the people who create this space every week. Genius idea. Truly.
My Morning Rhythm: I’ve been reveling in my morning ~~routine~~ rhythm which often includes a meditative practice (in stillness OR movement), a candle and perhaps some incense, a tarot pull, and connecting to my inner voice through writing or song. The latest addition? A cacao ritual inspired by finding the glorious Cacao Cafe* in Nevada City.
Writing with the Moon: I’m devoting myself to the ongoing offering of Writing with the Moon because it is my sacred work. These monthly new moon embodied writing rituals are quiet yet powerful ways to connect to the energy of the astrological season and your own creative, intuitive voice. I’m not a professional astrologer, but through a deeper study of the art and science of it, I am feeling a deeper connection to my familial roots. Soon, I’ll tell the story of how the greatest gift my parents gave me was modeling spiritual exploration and always encouraging me to find my own path.

Here’s how I can help now:

My way might not be your way of coming back into belonging with your own heart. I encourage you to find your own formula, your own answer especially if you are feeling overburdened by life. I’ve been where you are–confused, convinced I was too busy, believing that doing what I loved instead of working to help others all the time meant I was a terrible person. I understand that these patterns of belief can keep you stuck.

Let’s get unstuck together. Writing with the Moon is a place to process, a place to dive deep into your own desires and find the answers that arise from your own heart. The process of expression and embodiment is THE magic for me. And I love sharing it with you. If you are a sensitive woman, a caregiver, someone longing to connect more deeply to the seasons and cycles of the moon, or if you just want a place to reconnect with yourself once a month, please come. I’d love to hold sacred space for you. It’s how I help. It’s how I find balance and, hopefully, create beauty.

Hermit-y Ritual for You

If you prefer to find your balance on your own (the great tradition of all my sensitive introvert friends) The Rhythmic Ritual is a practice you can do daily, weekly, seasonally as a way to reconnect with yourself and what fascinates you. I hope you find it to be as magical and grounding as I do.