Spirituality v. Grief

Hey everyone,

My grandmother passed away on 8/17. My sister's father in law passed on 8/19. You can't make this up. My families lost two generations of grandparents in two days- a great-grandma and a grandfather. WE ARE NOT OKAY AND THAT IS OKAY! But we are okay because we have each other and that's weird too! We buried my grandmother on Wednesday 8/20, and Niko on Friday 8/22. On Saturday, I attended my sweet friend Marcy's offering; a grief retreat that I had registered for weeks before specifically for my neighbor. Never dreamed I would be in terrible need of it. I couldn't be more grateful that Spirit had put it on my path and very grateful for Marcy for holding such a safe container that I could scream, cry, grieve and release all the stuck energy that I have been harboring for years.

After I got home on Friday from the funeral and sitting shiva essentially all week, I spoke with a dear friend of mine who reads past lives. We had already started discussing my past lives last year, but really decided to hone in on how many I have lived. She mentioned that a previous life of mine on this land was in the 1400's and that I was one of the Mound people at Etowah village, which is now in Cartersville, GA about 271 miles away. So after I got out of the retreat on Saturday and got home at 2:30pm, I packed, got a babysitter for the farm and left on the road at 4:20pm. There were numerous things that happened on the trip down that made me feel safe and pointed out I was on the right path. Once I got there, I checked into a hotel and signs continued to happen. The energy of the place felt amazing- I felt as if I was home. 

On Sunday, 7 days since my grandmother had passed- I woke up early, had coffee in the hotel room, meditated and watched the beautiful scenery outside of my window. I got dressed and headed to Etowah Indian Mounds Historic Site. Once I got there, I asked for the guide that I spoke with and trauma vomited all over. Once Lucy came to the front, I started crying. I thanked her for being so kind and patient on the phone with me. She informed me that people often come to Etowah for healing and I told her a little of why I was there. We exchanged hugs and I headed to the mounds. I took pictures of everything at the center without reading it, and then stepped onto the land. I walked tops of Mounds A, B, C and the river bank barefoot. I was met by a butterfly at the beginning and the end of the journey through my Native land. I saw many more signs on the way back home that confirmed I was divinely protected. 

I recommend visiting Native lands, national and state parks while they are still funded and taken care of. Suffice to say, I found Spirit out there. 

Spirituality 3.0

I'm going to be real honest here and tell you that I have set the Bible down. It's been sitting on my coffee table last two weeks just looking at me. I have made it to Numbers. When I decided to read the Bible cover to cover, I knew it was going to take a lot of focus for several reasons. I wasn't a huge history nut when I was younger, I watched my family do dumb shit and justify it with celebratory Catholicism and was made fun of for going to church and Sunday school. So.. not a big fan of religion already and then I come to the US and saw all the money poured into churches but not homeless shelters, and I had enough. Religion just has never been my cup of tea, and I was familiar with a few of them; while I believed a little of each I just never belonged in any single one. I was a little bit Catholic, with a hint of Muslim and a pinch of Jehovah's witness, and add some Buddhism 101 on the side. 

Fast forward to now, I have searched long and hard until I reached spirituality which to me was believing in all of the religions, in all of the Gods and Goddesses, deities and saints. Everyone is right, every God is the "one" and everything you believe in that is good is great. I don't argue anyone over my views being right or wrong, and I don't push the way I believe onto someone else. Not anymore. It's just simple peace, in my head, in my heart and my soul is learning to relax daily. My nervous system has always been in a war zone, but this year it's learning to breathe, be still and become what it should have been all along- regulated, efficient, loving.

So back to religion and God. My beliefs are different than most people's. I think God is in each of us, I think Heaven and Hell are right here on Earth, and I think that many Messiah's have walked this Earth and potentially some would be considered "schizo or crazy" now in our modernized societies all over the world. I also believe in magic and things that religion, God, spirituality, science cannot explain and don't have a word for besides magic or woo-woo. You can go ahead and take me out back, hang me or stone me because I will stand by my beliefs. I feel them deeply. I feel the magic in my skin every time I hear a good song. I feel it in my hands the moment I enter a room filled with heavy energy. I feel it in my belly when someone I like looks at me in that way and compliments my existence in their life. 

So yeah, magic is everywhere. In you, in me, in them, in it. Our Creator is good all the time, magic is a big part of it. Anyway, I'm going to sign off on this short and sweet post by saying I choose to keep my childlike magic alive every day and it's a very hard job. The lack of whimsy in adulthood is disgusting and I recommend you to go outside and frolic in some grass today and see if your ass doesn't feel like magic. You can't be sad, mad, or unhappy if you're skipping. Toodles!!

Your brain

BRAAAAAINS!!! We all have them, not all of us use them, but its main function is to keep us alive, NOT happy. Because of my own struggles with my own brain, I have often read books on the wonder of our brain- how it thinks, what chemicals do what, where the secret doorways are and how to make more neurons! Because of my fascination with the brain, it always made me wonder what makes us great humans, but also what can make us go tick tick BOOM! I've been fascinated with serial killers, and the dark abyss of the world for a long time on the account of that curiosity. 

As we have all seen in Inside Out 1 and 2, our brain has chemicals which do certain things, and those little assholes can sometimes get their information wrong. When they do, they wreak havoc. We think thoughts that are not like us, we get super tired or scared for no reason, and we tend to blow up at the smallest situations because our bodies think they're at war. Fun. It's so much fun being a human being. Wow! And then to be a man or a woman. Our hormones cycle every 28ish days. As a cisgender man, your cycle is daily- how great for you all. We get to feel 34 feelings before breakfast and you get to press reset at night. Just genius. Our creator definitely has a tremendous fun time making us. Anyhoo, back to the brain.

I started researching and looking into neuroscience because I was tired of people telling me to just think positive. And the terrible diagnoses like MDD, anxiety, C-PTSD and ADHD just felt like tainted labels which the capitalist patriarchy was charging me for. Or worse yet- comparing whatever I was going through only to claim "it wasn't that bad". I was sick of feeling like something was constantly wrong with me. With a little bit of reading, I realized my nervous system was doing its job, but its job was only to keep me alive, not happy. In the meantime, my nervous system was so dysregulated and dysfunctional, it would make me complete all 7F trauma responses in a safe situation. I constantly have to soothe and talk myself down from a ledge; it's exhausting but it's getting better. Things like plant medicine, meditation, sound healing, yoga and Reiki, work for me in the healing space, among many others things. It's what helps me get by on a daily basis. Call me your witchy godmother.

In September of 2021, I discovered Buti yoga because I was plummeting into a depressive state, and needed a way to get energy out of my body. A friend suggested it, I went to a class and fell in love. In March of 2022, I became a Buti yoga instructor. In 2023, going further on my yoga journey and developing my personal practice, I started my 500 hour yoga teacher training including meditation, breathwork and somatic therapy which I graduated from in March of 2024. My YTT broke me open. It put me face first with some very uncomfortable situations, while going through a series of unfortunate events and just wanting to belong to a community was kicking in the fawn response like crazy. When it broke me open, it also gave me the tools to put myself together and slowly but surely is what has been going on the last couple of years.

As of last month, I was attuned as a Reiki 1 Practitioner. I have used these modalities to keep myself from going insane when life decides to life. I've also use these healing modalities to regulate my nervous system, develop healthy relationships with myself and others, and sink into shadow work to heal some traumas. I realize now, happy is in my hands.