Episode 1: “Hi, Shadow!” or, the Art of Incarnation

A new year, a new season. New year, new season, season four of our podcast.

Right? Yep. And never having missed one. Nope. Haven't missed a beat. No, we have been very consistent. Yeah, you know, I think there are, I'm sure all sorts of metrics and algorithms on what is popularly deemed as a successful podcast.

And I think, you know, some folks will try and do all of the edits and planning and marketing to like try and hit those metrics. And, you know, maybe get a season or two out. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Thank And then I kind of burn out of it. But I consider the metric of sitting here with you very excited and joyous to start another season.

Right? Just to have a conversation with you and to be able to share it with others. Like, I'm good with that. I'm also, I'm realizing I'm twisted. My apologies. As I straightened my clothes. There you go. Yeah, it, um, I don't know. You know, we probably could, um, edit and make ourselves more streamlined and take out the ums and the hmm and the silence.

But why? why? Ready? I ask why? Why would we? That's not what we do. You know, we're not like techies.

We have a different purpose. I wouldn't want to lose my energy down that rabbit hole.

Well, and again, my husband, Matthew, has offered to be said techie and has the chops to do it.

He had said, all right, if you keep track of timestamps and you tell me where you want cuts and stuff, we can make that happen. And in particular, you know, as we're looking at maybe a 2026 studio project up in here. That's very exciting. That's a whole other conversation. question. question. don't I know, I know. So there is, you know, a time and a place for highly produced content, and he certainly has a fine appreciation of well-edited… Tell him I'm really sorry to disappoint him.

Oh, he's just happy that we finally figured out kind of how to level our audios because we went… Oh For a while there, we would go back and forth in terms of one of us would be blown out and the other one would be too quiet. Well, okay, so I'm going to make the official apology to all the geeks out there who can, like, barely stand to listen to our podcast because we are not doing it the polished, tech-savvy way. We're doing it the Susan and Cassidy way.

What could I say? No, I agree. There is definitely… That's the time, the place, and I certainly appreciate all the tech wizards out there who invest.

And I know that takes hours. Remember, I did work in technology for a while. I know the hours that people spend editing for good content and making just these beautiful, beautiful, you know, movies, videos, presentations.

And, you know, yeah, that's a whole thing, and I don't know. We're just not there. Well, not there in one, and then also there's something to, I remember when we first got started, and someone told me that listening to our podcast, you know, they kind of like glanced They glanced furtively over their shoulder because it felt like they weren't, they had stumbled across something that they weren't supposed to be listening to because it seemed like they had picked up the line, you know, like the landline and was listening in on a private phone conversation between friends, right, right? And you know what? I invite people to feel like that.

Right. You know, to feel well, or like we're feeling like we are talking directly to them. Sure, sure. know, that they are part of the conversation that they could be just as just as much in the room with us having the conversation. You know, that we somehow become relatable or talk about things.

… … … … That people are thinking about, that matter to people, you know, that they have opinions about, too, or experiences with.

So I hope people get that feeling that we're kind of just like inviting them into the living room.

One of my cats has made himself welcome into the room by sitting on my lap. We'll see if, maybe I'll have to have Matthew edit out purrs in the background. Nah.

Aw, he's such a sweetie. Is that funny? Actually, this one's Serge, you know. Serge! Yeah, you know, that's the thing is like, these, how did I frame it for Spotify? That Susan and Cassidy are ordained ministers, but, you know, rather than have sermons. Once a chapter, once a month, once a lunation, they sit down to have a heart-to-heart conversation where, you know, spiritual wisdom can feel like what the intimacies that's shared between friends.

And kittens. And kittens, you know, I mean, we've shared a lot of laughter and a lot of, like, you know, heartbreak. Oh, gosh. You know, I mean, thinking back to, I was going to say last year, but this is the start of a new year. So I guess it was two stories ago now where this guy on my lap was so sick. So I love that.

I love, you know, when we did Beautiful Resolution at the end of 2025 and getting to see all of your Solar Story titles. on the middle

I was actually surprised when I went back through my notes to see just how many stories we had written over the years and to just do that little creative exercise of putting each title on an actual book.

And yeah, more than I realized. It was definitely more stories than I realized that we had created together.

Yeah. And so if folks are new here for season four, episode one, when we talk about stories that we've created together, together.

Yeah. What Susan is kind of referring to is our solar stories, and how she and I, we began experimenting with living every year as a story, an unfolding story of the soul's evolutionary journey.

Let me add to that in this container that we have created for ourselves of reciprocity and sharing and friendship and safety, like this container of safety where we can not only share the ups and the joys and the, hey, look at me, I did this, aren't I great, but the shadow side and those.

Those really tender, tough moments where life's not feeling so great and we really need the support, we really have created the space for each other and for our clients to come as this whole whole being.

Yeah, I mean, I think it's listed as an official epidemic now, the epidemic of loneliness.

And I certainly spent some time this chapter reflecting on the invaluable value of friendship and true friendship.

And, you know, in our winter to be position, if you joined us for solstice, we had that ocean of emotion and find a safe place to express your true feelings and the nature of what it means to have. Thank you. An inner sanctum, inside yourself, your own inner temple. And then to have that reflected in sacred partnerships, sacred friendships. And I just really, that really has been on the forefront of my heart.

And the line that came to me, and I had told Matthew, said, you know, one true friend is worth easily. One million followers. One true friend is worth a million followers. And it's so integrous and beautiful to me that that's how we got started.

That's where this all began.

And so we're here, we're kicking off another solar story, our fourth season of the podcast, but I think this is our fifth or sixth solar story that we are observing together because we've been experimenting with this for several years now and have been living it as pioneers.

And I'll add, and I'm not ashamed to say that it's been evolving over time as well, that as we have grown and become more attuned, we have been willing to kind of change how we do things, how we view things to fit what we feel.

Well, um, is...

More in alignment. Yes, it has been living this grand experiment, and this careful observation process, and really living the map and the material, and then tinkering and making adjustments and calibrating.

And I feel like, in particular last year, you know, each time there's like this clicking into place, and this kind of, aha, aha, aha. And it really feels like each time something like that happens, that eureka. Yeah. Mm-hmm. So, the part of the premise with which we had set out and started out several years ago was overlaying...

...to Joseph Campbell's heroic journey with what looks like you'll recognize like the Celtic wheel of the year, or the idea, I mean, indigenous societies the world over have understood the wisdom of living by the seasons and cyclical time.

And so last year, part of that clicking into place was like this, the shifting of the status quo and the exciting incidents and moving the solar story stages like one day step back so that winter solstice marks what we call the exciting incident or the inciting incident.

And it's been a very cool process of integrating ancient wisdom with modern life.

Right? So how can we still attune to living seasonally and by the lunar cycles as well, the cyclical living? journey. While still living in modern time. So how that translates, for example, is that we talked about, when does a solar story end or begin? Especially if story is a cycle or a spiral. And so my understanding is in the Celtic tradition, they recognize Samhain that November 1st as what they call Witch's New Year. And for us, we felt intuited that the new moon closest to winter solstice would mark the beginning of a solar story that we'd start at winter solstice around January 1st, which is when the modern world or the modern Western world recognizes a new year.

And it's cool the, you know, in Western storytelling convention, often you'll get the plot kicking off in a novel. So... Or in a film with some type of inciting incident that gets the, gets the plot going. And yeah, it, each time there's just, there has been like a little adjustment year by year, season by season.

Right. And so, you know, what I've, I just, I feel like I want to keep that in a context because I don't want people who pop, either pop in or who are members of our program to feel like there's something wrong if they haven't.

If they don't feel the same rhythm that we feel. Hmm. And, um, what I want to say to that is we didn't always feel. This rhythm either. You know, this was something that after several years of really trying to listen to not only nature unfold, but our own stories unfold.

And to try and take the foot off the gas pedal a little bit to see how life happens.

When you allow yourself to coast a little bit, what the natural rhythm becomes.

And so if somebody's listening who isn't feeling the same rhythm as us, that doesn't mean that there's anything wrong. You know, we encourage a listening to your own innate rhythm.

And... And... And... And... And... And... And... And... And... And... And... And... We have found that there is a greater ease within each of us in this rhythm, and that's what we're hoping for people, that as they find their own inner rhythm, that they're finding that ease, and that's what we're really guiding people toward, is that ease.

And this is the way we have found it in this particular rhythm at this time. I hope that makes sense to people. Sure. Well, and part of what the context that we were looking at was just sort of modern Western arrhythmia, like general arrhythmia, that we're still feeling the impact from the industrial age and industrial work schedules.

And we...

We know that we're kind of out of sync. Yeah, well, and if we keep the metaphor of what I just used before, like the foot constantly on the gas pedal. Sure. Right? Like that need to produce, that feeling like if I'm not producing, then what am I doing? I'm a failure. So, yeah, that's what we're talking about. Sure. And, yeah, you know, you said the word produce, and, oh, there's the clarion call.

know, right? I'm sorry. I obviously didn't shut my phone. It was perfect. It's okay. We won't edit it out. No, that's part of the ceremony of life. You know, I don't even know. It was so quiet. I don't know if anybody in the recording is even going to catch up with Susan's text.- . . Tone went off, and it sounds like, you know, in Sherwood Forest, all of a sudden, a declaration has been, oh, and there goes mine.

See, I got this new keyboard device, and I don't even know how to turn the sound off, so, and it didn't even have the cool effect. Just ask Surge to sit on it. You won't have it anymore. But anyway, I joked that it's the Clarion Call because that's another kind of name that we have for the inciting incident, the exciting incident, the call to action, the call to adventure, the Clarion Call, you know, whatever you want to, whatever you want to call it. So you said the word produce, and one of the things I considered was the, the word productivity, and how our invitation is, you know, not. that. to necessarily just sit on your idols or haunches, you know, until spring, but to begin to have a greater, richer definition or context for what productivity means.

And I loved the article that you shared on our platform with the traditional Chinese medicine, wisdom for winter, and the kidneys, and the restorative nature of rest as productive, that it gives you like the rest, the proactive, productive rest that you intentionally do now is what is going to set you up for your energy reserves and your vitality for the rest of the year.

Right. And I would say that the physical nature of that, the organs and what the body is showing, and I'm probably only saying this because Susan's been teaching me the past several years.

And that reflective in our mental bodies as well, and our heart, and how if we can listen, and we can attend to the visionary tasks and the alignment tasks of aligning with the Galactic Center and the Great Central Sun, and are heeding our soul.

And deeply listening at this start of the year that then, how did I put it that intuition is the greatest leverage.

So it's a it's a different kind of productivity.

It's it's that same. same. same. same. same. It's

I was going to say that part of that adjustment last year was feeling this inclination to look into some of the Celtic tradition with Kathleen Matthews, and more about blood ancestry, ancestral memory and tradition.

And coinciding that with our minimum viable practice challenge and our spiritual practice, you know, and it was during that study that I had come across that, oh, actually, in the Celtic tradition, the cross quarter dates are the start of the season, not as we observe in the modern or Western tradition, the solstices and the equinoxes.

And that was the clue. It was like this. Then it was like, aha. Ah. Ah. Wait, wait, what would happen then if you... Well, and it aligned, interestingly enough, with my noticing. I feel like my life is a little ahead of the curve of what we're sharing on our solar story. I feel a little out of sync with my own solar story here. Right. I do want to also share, you know, let me put out like the little red light here as I say this. I'm not an acupuncturist. I have not formally studied Chinese medicine, but it is a fascination of mine. And I do like to read about it quite a bit and work with an acupuncturist regularly, who I'm always like picking her brain to teach me more and more and to understand what's happening in my own body. So I can just... Really, from an embodied level, understand Chinese medicine, which I think is more important than theory, right?

But my understanding also is, is that in true traditional Chinese medicine, there are more than four seasons and that the season starts like the Chinese season starts much earlier than our traditional Western season.

So much more in alignment with like that Celtic philosophy as well.

So yes, winter started quite a while ago, and the story has begun.

And yeah, but you know, it's interesting though, because, all right, people, I'm almost 60, right?

And...

How would I describe life as as I've gotten older? It's like the roller coaster ride. It gets to be more like the kiddie roller coaster ride. You know, like the the ups and the downs don't seem quite as dramatic and things are a little bit more smooth. Thank God, because once you've done like the big roller coaster ride, it does get tiring. We need to conserve our energy as we get older. And so I am really noticing just how different, how more subtle these things as the exciting incident, you know, how much more subtle they are, how these little points on Campbell's little solar story, how they become more subtle.

As, as we mature, I guess I'll say.

And so personally, I think it's a fabulous thing to look forward to, you know, like, I'm not, I'm not like saying it's a bad thing. I am really enjoying it. And I, I came on to this podcast, first of all, late, because I was so excited about this. Second of all, I came on to the podcast really excited. Because I was having, I know people, I was having this conversation with AI.

Because I couldn't quite wrap my head around, like, I was really having to sit and like, rack my brain and, and try and like, I saw a connection.

this connection. . . Like I knew there was. I could feel it in my bones that there were connections here. But I was having trouble articulating it, and I so wanted to talk about it with you today. So I don't know if you, Cassidy, took a look at the juxtaposition between my Dixit cards for this chapter and your Dixit cards for this chapter.

But I was enthralled by the themes and how they played off of each other.

You know, both of them were like, how would I describe it?

Is fairytale the right one?

They are, right? Like... Fairytale. Little Red Riding Hood. That's a fairytale. Yes, it is. right thing to call it a fairytale. Yeah, I think it's more fairytale than folktale. I also had Wolf and Sheep's clothing, which I think that is Aesop's fable, like a fable.

But I think we'll go with fairytale. Okay. Just to try and get the idea across, right? Yeah. And mine, so you had like the wolf theme in your fairytale cards.

And literally mine was a picture of a book with like telling the fairytale, right? Along with this image of literally being like inside the shark's mouth.

And I realized that .

. . They were really like, they were really telling parts of the, um, not only the spiritual journey, but like the, um, the like human developmental story.

And I thought that was really interesting, but, and so, okay. Yeah. That was interesting, right? That's like one level. But then my mind was blown because then I realized that once you go through like that integration process that your story was talking, like your two images were talking about, cause I really felt like that was a lot about integration, like integrating shadow and things like that.

Like my mind went like emoji time. I'm like, Blowing the mind, because I'm like, oh my gosh. Then what happens is you can go back again around to my card, you know? It was like you could see my card as the phase before and the phase after your card. So I got really super excited about that, how it was like this telling of the human journey between my cards and your cards, which I thought was really super cool and synchronistic, that they were so interrelated, you know, in this chapter.

Mm-hmm. So what I'll do is on the show notes for today's episode, I'll put both of our Dixit cards side by side so that, to provide a visual. A visual. of the cards. And if you're not familiar with Dixit, it's actually considered a board game or a storytelling game. But we have taken these very whimsical, symbolic cards, and we use them to enrich our chapter by chapter.

And actually, another clue got unlocked last year. I was talking to one of our members who said that Dixit is actually a common, right? Blew my freaking mind. We had been using these, just intuitively felt called to use these Dixit cards at the heart of our lunar spread for years now. And so then come to find out, it's a common surname in India. And I get the inkling again, and I start to look into the etymology, and it goes back to Sanskrit, and it has to do with spiritual initiation. And I'm just like, yes! Yes, yes, we had been describing these Dixit cards as the theme of each chapter, you know, kind of like this, but to understand that the theme of each of these chapters is the theme of what the spiritual initiation at the soul level is on the stage of life, and it is this visual aid for integrating the lessons from the chapter, from the cards.

So it blew my mind. Yes. So if you're going to put the cards up, what I want people to really hone in on is these themes of danger, right? And imagine like the dangers that we encounter or think that we're encountering in life, right? And so the way that danger is expressed in my cards, both as like...

Like early on the spiritual journey, but also after we integrate danger, how we can come back around to really embrace danger, and to look at danger through a different lens, knowing that we've already integrated our shadow side.

So I was super excited to see this. I thought it was absolutely fascinating. I invite all of you to have your own interpretation, for sure. I thought it was very cool. You know, it's interesting you mentioned danger, and so preparing to come into this conversation, I too, my mind's eye, for whatever reason, highlighted our Dixit cards and juxtaposing them.

Interesting. Right. Right. Right. Right. And I was thinking about the commonality of, you have the wolf, a tiger, and a shark, and all of these animals being, you might say, dangerous animals, lethal, lethal.

And you had the wolf that was locked away inside the, you have this nesting doll imagery in my card, in one of these cards. And inside the, inside the seeming, like, nice granny dressed with glasses, out comes the, the wolf, and out comes the tigers unleashed.

You know, you see in one image, the tiger's caged, and then the next, the tiger has been let out. And so there's this kind of unleashing. Or letting out of that wild, protective, feral, animalistic nature.

So I saw that commonality there. I love that you saw the commonality with the fairy tale, like having the fairy tale book, and then the fairy tale cards there. And I also, I just was reflecting on, I was looking at a speech by Toni Morrison on Cinderella's Stepsisters. And so I was like, oh, there's another, there's another fairy tale right there, Cinderella's Stepsisters. So there's something about, which I guess is not surprising, that we work with story here. And we're getting these winks about the stories that we live by and the stories that we tell. So there's that. And, uh. uh. And I am really fascinated by the flip and perspective that you have, like, that, you know, there's the perspective of being inside the shark, and you're seeing through the shark's mouth to the sunlight.

And then in the card that is next to the nesting doll imagery, there is the big bad wolf is now a little tiny wolf on a plate, and there is this red, all-seeing eye.

And so the perspective, it's very, like, it's very interesting to me, the perspective of the seeing through the shark teeth or the red eye.

I want to add that with that seeing through the shark's teeth, to me, there is this. let's go. Feeling of, I'm still whole, right?

Like the way you're able to view out the shark's mouth, it's like, I can't be, like I could be taken in, but I can't be swallowed up or destroyed.

You know, that there is this sense of, I may be in the shark's mouth, but I'm still whole, you know? And I thought that was super interesting, the perspective that, you know, there is no showing of like a dead massacred body that I am still whole, even though I may be like in the center of what may be considered chaos.

Sure. Well, and you know, I think, talk about spiritual initiation. I have- I've definitely gotten that Dixit card before, by the way, and so I have meditated on that one before, and so it reminds me of the story of Jonah and the whale, if you remember from your Bible school days. Well, never really had those, but no. I speak to the general you out there. I know, Catholic school for 12 years, and I'm saying I never really had the Bible school days, isn't that funny? And, of course, I'm reminded of the belly of the whale, as in Campbell's heroic journey, right, the whale. Also, Matthew would probably say I'm going to butcher this story, but my understanding is, you know, you can make this connection from the Jonah and the whale story to the story of Masindranoth, who was swallowed by a whale, and while he was in the belly of a whale, he actually overheard, eavesdropped, and he ended up overhearing a conversation between Shiva and Parvati.

And they were having this entire dialogue. And that is the origin of how man was given yoga, and all of these secrets. And then so, you know, he got spat out. then, you know, there's this, it's a one of those beautiful stories or tales. And so, you know, and I think that this is part of what shadow work is all about. And part of what, you know, I really loved how you reframed inciting incident to exciting incident, that when you have gone through these initiations or tests, these moments where you've felt like you're in the belly of the whale, or in the shark tank.

And, you know, you cut you come out of it, whole, as you said, perhaps even more whole than you when you first- And then that informs then, you know, your next steps, your next steps, and so it's a beautiful thing to have this story framework that we're living by, because if you really do get to feel held by the story, you get to feel held in this container that when something does arise, now it has meaning for you.

has a framework, framing. Yes. And it helps you, as I love to say, flip the script.

I, yeah, I loved the, so I had, we had, Matthew and I had these two guarding archangels really for this chapter. Uh, was it Hanael and Zafkiel? So you had like the sacred lover and the sacred warrior. I think I flipped those. think at least Stuart Pearce associated Hanael with the warrior and Zafkiel with the lover, but getting to see then the Dixit cards of Little Red being innocent and loving and then also her transfiguration from this being like little and innocent and loving to also then being giant and having the rage of the dark goddess and having the feminine warrior energy.

It was very beautiful in terms of integration, as you said. So the affirmation of I am the lover and the fighter.

So that's an example of taking, okay, taking these cards and And starting to use them as a lens for symbolic interpretation, integration, and meaning making.

But I'm curious, so you were saying, in terms of a story, you were seeing your cards as both a before and an after. Yes. So, you know, if we look, I don't know if you want to say from Jung's perspective or a psychological, you know, a general psychological model, like we could look at those cards, the lion and, you know, being caged and then that empty cage and this perspective of being inside the mouth of the whale.

We could look at that as threshold or initiatory, right, as these early phases of initiation, you know, of.

Of coming into spiritual development. And I saw yours as, okay, we've already done that. Right? We're past that initial initial initiation. And now we're really working on integration and and I'll call it containment like that, that wolf inside of the inside of the vessel, right? And then that perspective of shrinking the the wolf, you know, to, to what it really is almost like in psychological terms.

Gosh, did we talk about this recently? I'm going to digress for a moment. So help me remember where I was at. But when I was in therapy for many years, my therapist would talk about the little girl who tries to step over the pothole in the road. Right? And appreciate When she's little, the pothole feels huge, but as she grows and develops and goes through those initiations, the pothole may remain the same, but her legs have grown and so it makes it much easier to step over the potholes in life. And so I feel like that's the perspective shift that your cards are showing, like the wolf didn't change size, you did. I love that. Oh, you changed size, you came into yourself, your legs grew, you're able to contain and integrate, you know, both the shadow and the light and all of your personality. But then what I'm seeing is that we could then go back again to my cards after that initial integration happens and say, okay, we're back at this place again at another level.

of the evolution. In the spiral of our spiritual development, post-integration, what do these same cards mean? Again, we're at a threshold, but what kind of threshold are we at now? Before, we were looking to really maybe shore up our ego development, right? This time we're looking to dissolve. know, after we've done the first round of integration, we're really talking about what even Young only in, I think it was the Red Book and maybe in his later writings talked about like this dissolution of ego, of living in liminal space of kind of what we and I, you and I have talked about so many times, like living at this edge of, of life and emergence.

And, um, Knowing that we're whole and complete, and we know that living on the edge is dangerous, but oh hell, that's okay. We can do it. We're whole, and we can see it from a different perspective. That's kind of how I took it, that we can go back into that same threshold, perspective, but with a different attitude and a different feeling about it the second time around.

That we can be in the well, the bellies well, and still feel like we got this, you know, we're still, we're whole, that we can have a different relationship with the unknown, you know, a different relationship.

A with the unknown, a different relationship to the fear, a different question, even perhaps like the first time around, you may be in those in those cards, if you want to call it that with this question of, Oh, my gosh, is this going to destroy me? And the next time around, you just go, well, can I let go of this? Like, can I let go of who I am? Can I let go of expectations and and just see what's what's coming from the moment, you know, even though we have no idea. It's like that same, that same unknown. But I think that the question is different, you know, and I feel like, I don't know, maybe you want to talk about like if there was a question around the fear of the unknown, like what question would you be asking in your cards.

Is it like, oh, can I live? Can I live with this? Is this so it's just okay? Like, can I tolerate this? Do I want to tolerate this? How do I want to live with this?

Yeah, I think, you I'm reminded of, for some reason, the first solar story workshop we, you just facilitated, where we did, I'll call it shadow charades. This season. Yeah, we just did with the so we had in our gift position, if you guys are members, you know what we're talking about the invite the shadow to the party. And if you were there at the workshop, we did, I'll call it shadow charades, you know, this embodying and acting as a service. to one another, our shadow, and witnessing with heart open and with compassion and you know it's something that it almost seems like you you could collapse or it could destroy you to have to just to see it mm-hmm to see it and then to realize what a blessing and a gift it is to be able to welcome it or accept it yeah to take it in and be like hey that is a part of me mm-hmm that's okay yeah what was it I had said something to you I'm gonna look for it do you remember we had talked about the shadow coming out and there was something that I

Yes, yes. Well, I, yeah, you know, in this connects to the whole significance of having sanctum, that I had messaged you and said something to the effect that, you know, how grateful I was feeling for sanctum, the assurance, which was in our my received position, our received position, the assurance that I had felt from having this safe place to voice your true feelings.

And I think in parentheticals, I had said, and I wasn't even that mortified for showing my shadow.

Right, right. I wasn't that mortified. I wasn't even that mortified. Right. And my response to that was, maybe there'll come a time when we're not mortified at all.

Yeah. I think that's what I said. Maybe there will come a time when we're not more defined at all. And I feel like, speaking about the danger, I think that the perceived external dangers are the things that safeguard our psyches and our egos from having to really grasp.

Like, if you were to even conceive of how formidably powerful you are and how dangerous you are, like, and have to reconcile that within yourself.

Yeah.

And to be okay when other people can't handle that. Mm-hmm. Right? And to be okay when other people, like, run for the hill. Or do their own form of misbehaving and have their shadow come out because they can't handle what you're able to hold or exhibit or express.

Absolutely.

You know, there's this little vignette, and I tried to capture it in my retrospective, in my love lesson a little bit, but it felt so poignant that after we had done that workshop, and as I was texting you about not, you know, being mortified about a shadow, there is my daughter. Oh, this was adorable. I'm glad you're sharing this. Yeah. was adorable. Yeah. So, the part I hadn't gotten to was...

So, we were at... And first we went for an evening walk. The sun had gone down. It's winter. The days are short. The nights are long. And my mother-in-law has this very bright sort of floodlight.

And they live in the country, so it's dark there. It's very dark. And so she was walking and Clarissa was ahead of her. And she was like, my shadow. My shadow. It's so big. Because the way that the light cast behind her, you know, she's just this little, like, what, three, two feet? She's tall for her age, but she's a toddler. She's little. But her shadow, that cast, it looked like she was eight feet tall, you know? And so she was fascinated with her big shadow. And then... Later that night, I was getting her ready for bed, and the lights were off in the bathroom because she said it was too bright. The light was too bright, so she wanted the light off. And so then she noticed that the light from the room that shone against her, she could see a shadow of her in the glass door of the shower.

And it was like the same size as her. Mm hmm. And she goes, hi shadow.

Hi shadow. So cute. And then she gets closer and she looks at it and she's kind of like making movements and she's thinking and then she turns to me and she says, I am my shadow. My shadow is me! And I'm just like- Wise little girl. Oh my gosh! If only she knew! Oh wow. I'd also like to give a shout out to Little Bear because there's an entire episode where Little Bear talks to his shadow and actually his shadow animates and so he has like- because you know the imaginative play that they show in Little Bear. So you know she learned about shadows and this imagination of noticing and playing with her shadow from I think from Little Bear. But I just- it's one of those moments that just like wow. Well and what I find fascinating is all of this goes on with your daughter.

Mm-hmm. In the season where our Our cards specifically put, I believe, the shadow in the gift position, right, am I right on that? They put the shadow in the gift position, and I use the expression, they, like it was divine intervention, and that we had just had our shadow workshop, which we had never done before.

I like chose to hone in on that. We had just gone down the rabbit hole with Jean Keys from Human Design, which really focuses so much of the work on the shadow work, and there she is, and my guess is that all of these things that were happening for you and I were not things that were conversation in the household with her.

Right? It's your work. She's not in the room as we're doing these workshops. She doesn't, she doesn't read the cards, right? It's just like the synchronistic event that you have this going on in your inner world. And here she is like expressing it. Yeah. So to me, that's I mean, that is just like synchronicity at its best. So beautiful. So wise. I mean, her words were so remarkable, like with without her even knowing. Yeah, well, and this is like the beauty of the, the magic and the divinity of, of life is that, God, if I if I can pay attention.

Yeah, like life is showing me. Because I think I'd even asked the question to you, or I was sitting with, wow, you know,

And how, you know, how, how do I, how do I invite the shadow to the party?

Like, how do I actually love that, those abandoned, repressed aspects of the psyche that just, that do, um, call to be seen and, and integrated.

And the thing is, is like, that integration is not a head exercise. It's not a psychological essay. It's not. It's not. It would be nice if it was, right? That would be easy. Oh my gosh. That would be so great. Like, give me like a Q&A written examination. Like, I have learned my lesson. I have learned my lesson. But to see like the tone and the posture and the innocence and, you know, innocence was that navigating wisdom, part of the navigating wisdom in our cards, innocence, to see that innocence play out before me.

And so then I did the same thing as her. I looked at my own reflection in the dark and said, hi shadow.

And that when you had asked me that question after the workshop that we did on the shadow, like, okay, now what do we do with this? How do we integrate this? I was like, you already looked at it. You did it. You said, hi shadow. Right? You did. And that was really all that needed to be done. You just needed to see it and be like. Hey, I see you, and yeah, it is not as awful as people want to make it out to be.

Well, and I think, I mean, how many pathologies are, and I'm, look, look, this is the disclaimer. I'm not a, you know, I decided to, you know, create this with Susan instead of getting a PhD,'all, in psychology. So not, you know, there's your disclaimer. But how many pathologies are these unintegrated shadow attributes?

Oh, the inability, it's like the ego safeguard.

It feels like, it feels like danger. It feels like death. Like if I were to look in the mirror, and I were to see myself accurately in all of my ugliness and habituations, then... Then... Then... Then... Then... Then... Then... I, as in the ego, will die. And so instead, I will avoid looking at the thing, and I will tell all of these stories, and I will point all of these fingers, and I will do everything possible to cut myself off from love.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But isn't it reassuring to know that that is also just part of the human experience to write like that this initiatory journey that we're talking about, and all this, like, that, it's, it's not like you have a shadow and nobody else does. Right, and that you're the only one who feels this sense of embarrassment or shame about, about it, right? That, that even that, That is common, is often because if you didn't feel that way about your shadow, then it wouldn't be shadow.

Right. I mean, that kind of is the definition. Right. Right. So that even that is just the normal experience of being human, of this human life.

That, that we want to hide these, these parts of ourselves that either weren't allowed to have expression or we were embarrassed to have expressed these parts that we just somehow weren't, or for some reason, weren't able to integrate fully into our personalities because of the way we grew up.

Um. . You know, I was taken back to the very beginning of our conversation, where we were laughing and joking about not having a perfectly polished and edited podcast, and thinking of, you know, how indicative that is of, you know, this, this very work in this conversation that we're having, and, oh, how liberatory it is that we do not, we not feel the need or the pressure to craft a perfect persona, and in doing that, and in this containment work that we have, we have created a container that allows for the full range of expression, and in doing so, how wildly and abundantly creative to and

We can we can be well and how we have survived. Yes. Yes, we're going on our fourth season now.

And so I have thought in the same way, like I just mentioned recently, I think I may put it in my chapter notes, I mentioned to Billy, like, wow, I really enjoyed this. This person's podcast. I was ready to go on to their next podcast. It was their only podcast. I was like, so disappointed. What happened? Where are you? What happened to your voice? Like, and it made me think about, did they try so hard to make it perfect? Did they try so hard to edit out try Sure. Their shadow, that they just stopped, that they cut their own voice off, one that I valued and found intriguing and interesting.

They just stopped for some reason. And it really made me wonder, like, was it that whole, I need to edit, I need to be perfect, I need to be polished. It really made me wonder whether that was why they only did one. Or, you know, and then there was another guy who only did three, or, you know, half a season to me, you know, it was like just a few. And it's like, they didn't do, like, there's this guy from, uh, what is the name of the organization?

He's so he's super famous. Um, uh, the Sen Jen For action and contemplation. I think it's called Dr. Richard Rohr. He's a, well, he's actually a friar. I think he is a Franciscan friar. He's a priest. And he has done these podcast series. And it's like, when they're ready to end the series, they do a final show, right? You know, it's like, oh, they're integrating, they're doing a review. This is their final show on this This right? And so, like, I'm always looking for that. You know, it's like, oh, let me, like, where's their last show where they kind of do the whole retrospective that you and I do each month, right? Like, where's the retrospective on the whole podcast? And it's like, , these people aren't doing it. You know, it's like there's, it's just like they fall off the planet, you know, and I'm really looking for those and And of integration, like how did they integrate their work?

Why did they stop? Like, why is it an ending for them? I feel like we all miss out. Not only the person who is doing the podcast, but the listener misses out when that isn't done. So that was something that I really noticed in this quiet season as I really delved into TV shows and podcasts.

I noticed this lack of formal thresholds.

So I'm really paying attention to thresholds, the lack of formal thresholds, the lack of formal endings, the lack of being held in in a moment, even if it's a final moment.

Mm hmm.

Yeah, my heart gets into a flurry when thinking about and talking about the creative process and attending to the creative process, it really does, and one of the things that maybe we've talked about on here before, but I know that you and I have talked about is how having this seasonal and lunar work be the axiom from which we then create.

And how vital it seems to me to, if you're a healer, a teacher, a facilitator, if you're a creator, insert word here, I'll time.

Yeah. If you're a human, you could have this value of continual, this discipline, it's a joyful and fun discipline, but it is a spiritual discipline, no less.

This continual, continual bringing yourself back, and I, you know, we're having so much fun here, but it is a rigorous, contemplative path.

And I think that sometimes the playful and whimsical language or the cards, you know, it belies the fact of how rigorous this is.

Well, you know, we don't talk about it as such bull Both of us have backgrounds in it in different ways, but this really is a yogic path, you know?

I mean, it is. We don't call it that, and I don't need to call it that, but as we're discussing this, I realized how much it is, and what made me think of it was the conversation that we were just having about endings, which made me think about transitions.

And I remember in my early years of yoga therapy training, like doing this whole study on transitions, just in yoga postures, but of course, you know, everything that happens on the mat, you know, there is this, this overflow into...

There's the metaphor. And so this focus on the transition from between postures, like, how do you get from posture A to posture B?

Especially, don't get me started on yoga in the Western world. Let's not go there. Another conversation. That's a conversation for another day. But how do we get from posture A to posture B?

What was the process? What did it feel like? How did you move through it? Was there grace? Was there a thoughtful process? Or did you just mindlessly move from here to there? we're. we go. And that's Yoga.

And if there isn't opening, being held, an integration process, a closing, and you know that I have been honing in on our own work.

Like, we did a great course, but right there, we need to go back. We need to go back. Let's make that closing more formal. Because I feel like that's yoga. That is the process of unification. That's how you make something fluid. That's how you mindfully move through life, through an experience.

Just, um, like, can Can you stay in that moment and notice each of those transitions and hold it for yourself, hold it for another, not rush the moment?

I can't help but think about my own life this week and holding space for one of our horses to transition and just how absolutely beautiful that felt to me and such an honor and a privilege to witness that and hold that space and, yep, my favorite word, liminal, the liminality of, like, just being in relationship with the horse, just listening for where she was at in her own process of...

of transitioning, like how, like, we can't control it, like how she is choosing to, to pass on and, and, and die, you know, to let go of this body. Um, there's something when you can just like, hang and suspend yourself, um, and, uh, like be okay with that moment for somebody else or some other sentient being, um, it's like the, it just became timeless.

It was just so beautiful. Um, there's so much richness that we could be having in, um, these moments and these, uh, just experience so much grace if we stay with it, right?

That's. We've talked about this before. Stay. That's like a word of ours, just like a single word, stay. Right? If we could just stay, like what can we experience and gather and gain?

Yeah. I'm seeing in our heart's desire position, there was awe, awe, and how the experience of awe is a doorway or gateway to divinity, and how I think that the thresholds of, the great thresholds in human life of birth and death, the transitioning, the passing on, like, being present for either of those great moments is an awe-inducing one.

It is on-ducing. And, you know, I also, what came to mind was the OM, which some write as O-M, but we'll say A-U-M.

A-U-M. A-U-M, right? Like the three sounds that are associated with the cosmic functions of the entire cyclical nature of the universe in, we'll say, Indian Hindu philosophy, which is creation, associated with Brahma, preservation, associated with Vishnu, and the disillusionment.

or destruction, and the end of the cycle associated with Shiva, right?

So you have, um, That, that cycle. And, you know, we in the West, we really like to start things. We like to really focus on creation and creator culture, but preservation, endurance, staying, you know, maybe.

And let's definitely, and we definitely don't talk about like the end of things or the end of life. We just don't even like. Let's, let's pretend that doesn't happen. Yeah, no, it's true. It's true. It's, you know, funny, you probably saw my conversation when I made notes about my conversation with my father about his dad. So my father's still alive. But he we like had this humorous, absolutely humorous conversation about his impending death.

Um, it was, it was. I will always remember it, you know, because he has really been very thoughtful, perhaps at the prompting of his priest, he has been very thoughtful about his passing.

And he has thought about what he wants his service to be like. He has chosen the songs he wants played at his service, and where he wants the people left behind to go eat.

He has even instructed me, now this really cracked me up, he even instructed me that I was to say nice things about what a great father he was. I mean, priceless, just absolutely priceless, like he has this idea about his death, and the whole thing came up.

This is the funniest part of it. The whole thing came up. The whole conversation evolved from, Dad, you're in pain.

I thought you said that going to the chiropractor and doing this, I don't know, it's like this machine that like stretches your spine, right? I thought you said that helped. Oh, yeah, that helps. I'm like, so tell me, why aren't you doing it, Dad? I don't get it. And he's like, oh, I don't want to spend the money. That's $30. I'm like, are you kidding me? I'm like, Dad, I'd rather have you feel good in the days you're here and the days that you have left, instead of leaving me the 30 bucks. Because I mean, we already know, we've already talked about my father's will, my father has a will, and any money that's left goes to his... Church goes to my sister and I. I'm like, Dad. So his comment is, yeah, well, I'm going to have a U-Haul. I'm taking my money and I'm taking my, he does model railroading, and I'm going to take my models with me.

I'm like, OK, well, you want me to bury you with all that, Dad? He's like, oh, no, no, no, I'm not being buried. I'm like, oh, you want me to send it into the fire with you? I'm like, what are we talking about here, Dad? So, I mean, just an absolutely hysterical conversation with him, all coming out of the fact that the guy is in pain and doesn't want to spend the 30 bucks on the copay. I'm like, Dad, spend your money on your health. Like, take care of yourself. Like, what, what's happening here? But it just. It went down this slippery slope that just was absolutely hysterical. I told him that I was so glad that he had chosen a song for his service, which did not leave my mind for like two or three days, it was really annoying, but I told him, well, I'm glad you chose one because I would have picked Stairway to Heaven.

What got even funnier was that I mentioned it to my sister, who mentioned it to her husband, who then said, Stairway to Heaven? What about Highway to Hell? And he goes, it really tells you something about the traffic over there. I'm like, oh my gosh, like this conversation just got so freaking funny. We really have made light of death, um, which, you know, I feel

Like, kind of normalizes a little bit, you know? Like, listen, I know that death can feel really hard, right? You really miss somebody. But hopefully, you live with no regret, right?

You say what needs to be said. You enjoy the moments that you've got. You really just accept people for who they are and just embrace life as best as you can so that in the end, like, you can really genuinely talk about the life well-lived, right?

And not about what could have been what you wish had been, you know, that you can really just comfortably just hang in those final moments and be like, yeah, like, this is good, too.

You know, a life well lived. it. Yeah, I love that. Earlier when we were talking about shadow and not needing to edit out, at least not all of it, I was thinking about art, right? And contrast and, you know, like when you're painting or doing like fine arts or shadow, like literally the technique of shadow on... It's what makes it an image. Without shadow in an image, it's like this flat thing.

Sort of lifeless, right? I think too that death, and some might call it the illusion of death, but the very kind of real human experience of death, and the experience of time.

It's so too, it does bring this, the beauty...

And so this is just a continuation of my underlying theory that life, your life is a work of art, or I called it in this lunar chapter, called it the art of incarnation.

The art of life itself.

And so, yeah, I feel like that's what we're about here.

The art of incarnation. we're working on, right? It's what we're working on. And actually, I remembered too that in our solar practice MVP course and challenge, we actually do talk about contextualizing our work within sort of a yogic framework.

we're I just, that was a mental note, was like, oh yeah, wait, we did talk about that in one of our courses for our Luminaries work.

So we're about to come to time. I wanted to, speaking about art. I had that Bible growing up. Can I tell you a funny story about this? Yes, please. Hold on, wait, wait, wait. Let me just share. Cassidy is right now holding up this famous children's, called The Children's Bible. It's like a super famous Bible. Like, I don't know if you can, can you still get that Bible? I don't know. But like years ago, like that was the kid's Bible that you could find. Like it was the one. Yes. And so the, what's the copyright? what's as I think it's like 71. Which makes so much sense. Like I was a little kid back in 71. Yeah. So the backstory context real quick for this is that right now we're we've been in the midst of our visionary New Year experience, and I have been collecting inspiration from the divine collage fodder.

And it has been such a joy. I have received so many treasures from the gnomes, old National Geographic and postcards and greeting cards. And it's been absurdly fun.

But so I had this idea I had gotten the National Geographic Mother Mary magazine. And so then I came across this children's Bible. And I actually had a copy of this from my granny. When I was growing up. And I brought it home. And I told Matthew, I'm like, I'm going to use this for my collage. And he said, you are a monster. And he grabbed it out of my hands. And he said, this is mine. And he added it to his ever growing stack of biblical scholarship and Pauline studies and, you know, and I was like, okay, fine.

Then one evening, we decided we popped into a treasure store. And then one of these consignment shops. And while he was checking out, I took Clarissa, and there was another one on the same strip mall. And the lights were out, the door was open, and the woman who owns it was getting ready to close the door. And I said, oh, it's okay. Like. We were just going to have a peep, and she said, here, you come in. Take a minute. It was a small shop, and it was filled floor to ceiling. You could barely get through the aisles with just junk stuff, random stuff everywhere, and the lights were out, and so we take less than five minutes. We just walk in, and you better believe the first thing I see on the shelf is another children's Bible.

And I pull it off the shelf, and I ask her, how much is this? And she said, she gave it to me for free. Oh, wasn't that sweet? She gave it to me for free. She said, I had that when I was a child. And that one, somebody had already cut out the Moses section. So somebody had already cut in it. And so I said, I told Matthew, I said, this is the The one that I don't even feel, I can't even feel bad because, and it just so happened out of the entire Bible, they cut out the Moses section. That's so crazy. I want to know who did it. I know. I want to know them. I know. And so there is a story behind how I'm going to get to cutting my, and you know, y'all, this is how I know God is real. You know, if you, if you, if you, you know, this is the adventure that we are living.

And like just one vignette, just one vignette of how magical life is and sacred life is.

And yeah, I wanted to share that with you. Great story. And gosh, what a blast from the past, that Bible. Right. I saw it and I was just like, whoa. Wow. Yeah. What a blast from the past. I actually wonder whether my mother still has that Bible or not. Sitting on the shelf downstairs. Smelling like mold, but still sitting on the shelf downstairs. Oh, that's great. And I love that you're willing to cut it up. And I really am so intrigued that the Moses section is missing. Like, really, like, super curious. Who cut the section out of the children's Bible on Moses? Requiring minds want to know. I know. Some things remain a mystery. The great mystery. Yeah, a great mystery. Very cool. Obviously, somebody was into Moses. So, cool. Cool, cool. Well, my goodness. I feel like this was full. A fourth season. Here we are. We're on our way. Okay? Or, We have our Visionary New Year coming up.

We have our Collage Day coming up this Saturday. I don't even know if this will be out yet, but it will be out around our Collage Day, which is very exciting, always fun. I haven't decided whether I'm collaging on that day or working on my chalkboard because, you know, I'm like into the chalkboard thing and I have some little, just very exciting little ways of managing my chalkboard this year.

And so, I don't know. We'll see. She says chalkboard, but for context, y'all, it's like an entire wall in her house that is painted with chalkboard paint. It is not like what you're remembering from grade school. Well, it of is. It kind of is, I guess. The whole wall covered in the chalkboard. It's super cool. It's super cool. It's fun. That's like one of my favorite things in the house is that chalkboard wall. It's not huge, but it's a floor to ceiling kind of gig. Yeah. And like the main part of the house. Yeah. main part of the house. So, yeah. So I'm excited about doing that. And, you know, as always, I love the way you and others in our group take the collage and turn it into a journal.

That always comes out so cool. It's so cool. It's so cool. It really is so cool. Um, so I'm looking forward to seeing these, uh, masterpieces and, um, I don't know. Oh my gosh. We're almost at chapter two already. We are on our way. So it's, yeah. So, uh, we did the exciting and. Incidents. We continue, I guess, for a little while with more exciting incidents. And on to chapter two, on a chapter two, and the question, the quest, john, the question, the question.

Yes. Well, in the meantime, as always, to be continued Good to see you.