As I’ve begun waking up to nature’s patterns etched into the signature of all things, one aspect has particularly caught my eye—the brilliance of cyclical endings,1 and I can’t unsee them. As they nag at me again and again, my fragile yet expensive frame of reality is breaking.

Across the span of two degrees in Finance and Business and fifteen years to date weaving in these ecosystems, I’ve never heard my professors teach about or my colleagues seriously consider in our analyses the idea of endings, “death,” or cyclicality beyond anticipated seasonality from either a macro or micro perspective. In Finance, we learned about and constructed mostly linear growth models, a very up-and-to-the-right-indefinitely perspective that held certain assumptions and variables constant to make the models work in theory. However, no matter which way this wild future unfolds, one thing feels clear to me: we are at the ending of one cycle and the beginning of a new one—a proverbial death, if you will.

As we find ourselves at this crazy inflection point of technology and artificial intelligence, on the cusp of the Singularity, I wonder: isn’t it time to break through the confining constraints of our often linear economic and developmental models to see the larger cyclicality at play? As living, breathing beings, wouldn’t it require less effort from us to follow the living, breathing models we’re designed from and for? And what can we do with this inflection point of our own making, both individually and collectively?

In 2023, as the whisper of AI was beginning to grow louder and I existentially pondered our collective threshold, I designed and ran a workshop titled Let’s Be Humans, Not Machines. The premise was simple: We expect machines to act like machines, but do we allow ourselves to act like humans? What exactly is it that makes us human and what will our role as humans be in this next era?

My theory back then was, and still is now:

We are gifted cosmic consciousness endowed in flesh and blood, not by accident but by intelligent design. It is the great polarity of these seemingly opposite aspects of being that allow for the alchemy between them to birth something entirely more profound together than either aspect individually can. I believe we have both the privilege and the responsibility of using the intersection of these gifts in reverent, constructive collaboration. If we can return to harnessing the wisdom and energetic potential of the body, in harmony with the quantum creation potential of the mind, what then? What ancient future2 frontiers await us from truly embodied intelligence?

What better exploration to return our precious time and attention to than our relationship to the living energies that have been nourishing our conscious existence, intelligently yet quietly guiding the show, and waiting for us to come home to ourselves to find our way forward again? What more noble, practical, and responsible pursuit is there currently than turning inward to reflect and remember who we are as humans on Earth and reimagine who we want to be as creators, leaders, and builders of the next paradigm?

I’ve devoted the last five years of my life to making headway on this quest, and with equal parts relief, gratitude, and awe, I have great news to report. I’ve sought and found ancient practices and ways of being that unlock the intelligence within us and harmonize with the world around us, often off-grid and unplugged from the modern world. Much of the mastery of these organic high technologies was sadly lost to egoic, fear-based campaigns of conquest and the inescapable eroding passage of millennia, but blessedly, not all.

For some extremely brave and incredibly generous communities, the protection of these skills and knowledge was so important that, at great personal expense, they relocated their lives and work to mountains, to caves, to deep underground to preserve these sacred practices…and they succeeded. Intact communities and lineages have remembered and are graciously and generously helping the rest of us re-member.3 Others of us are also spontaneously remembering, integrating, and embracing these esoteric and profound ways of being and applying them together in community.

I’ve only touched the tip of the iceberg of this literally infinite body of knowledge and practice so far, and it has already utterly transformed my experience and my existence. In my quest to remember my wholeness, as I reclaim and integrate all the scattered parts of myself, I’ve fallen in love and become a reverent collaborator with this temple that houses my soul.

You see, it’s our bodies, beloveds—our beautiful, strong, capable, tender bodies—that hold a key to our most thriving future. Our bodies: the intelligent ecosystems that grow and birth new life, heal from broken bones and broken hearts, build shelter and tend gardens, flutter with excitement and fear, make love and melt into pleasure—it’s these sentient bodies that, when coherently aligned with our powerful minds, differentiate us from machines (for now, at least). It’s so easy to overlook because it’s so ridiculously simple and we’re so societally disembodied, but, to say it one more time: we modern humans haven’t even tapped into the high organic technology that is the human body brilliantly partnered with cosmic consciousness.

I don’t want to dig too deeply into the layers of that iceberg with you yet, partially because I honestly don’t even know what we’re truly capable of, but mostly because I don’t want to freak you out if you’re not already familiar with these topics. If the now-viral Telepathy Tapes podcast challenged or blew your mind, then you’re in for a real ride with what lies ahead for us. But, to give you just a tiny taste of what I’m referring to: as we master our thoughts, emotions, and energy bodies in coherence, we can unlock abilities such as “spontaneously” healing illnesses, remote viewing, psychokinesis, and so much more. And indeed, some humans already are! While we may not yet return to widely communal mastering of these abilities in this lifetime, I believe they were undoubtedly part of our species' lost history, are absolutely possible again, and very probably imminent.

Which brings me back to the topic of Death… Are you still with me?

From the Tao Te Ching: “All things flourish, then each returns to its root.” Translation: this brilliant and essential part of the infinite cycle intentionally woven into our existence—Death—is a feature, not a bug. Instead of fearing, resisting, or attempting to skip over Death as we plot to immortalize our minds in the cloud, let’s consider the transformation potential this master teacher offers us. In this monumental moment, let’s acknowledge the ending and the beginning here before us in both body and mind, and all the jewels and gifts that come with it.

There is a subtle and inherent genius in this threshold we find ourselves on the precipice of—to leave one reality, one paradigm behind, and enter an entirely new one we can’t yet truly fathom. At the hand of our own creation4, could the constraint on humanity resultant from the rise of AI actually be an intelligent component of our liberation far beyond just “working less”? Our current existential inquiry is an undeniable alchemical portal—one that leads us beyond the limits of our modern mental models into the infinitely greater potential that awaits us. But which way will we choose to go?

Will we continue to obsess over technological advancements and productivity efficiencies as we watch machines vastly outpace us in both? Or will we return to the quiet hum and rhythm that made all of this possible in the first place, our competitive advantage—our feeling flesh, with all its constraints and gifts? While I am not trying to bypass or diminish what we’ve created with our minds, my point is: What could we create if we didn’t override, ignore, or exploit our bodies or the Earth body to get there? Where would the incarnate web of living intelligence lead us if we truly co-created with it, not at the expense of it?

If we really inhabited our humanness and reckoned with our mortality, I believe we would find that bodies, Death, and even time, are not actually our enemies, but our liberators. The compassionate constraints they provide us allow for high alchemy potential while we are here in this material form, for “alchemy requires that energy be contained so that it can be transformed.”5 Meaning, these limits provide the loving vessel, the banks of the river, for immensely powerful energy to flow.

And so, I’d like to share two especially potent offerings that embodiment and Death generously provide us in this especially potent time. The first one is an obvious yet timelessly wise trope: embracing our mortality and our bright, briefly flourishing human avatars before they return to the root. I believe that we intentionally decided to be embodied in this place at this time, so my perspective is: we might as well play it full out and savor being and feeling everything we can in these “pleasure-grieving meat suits” as my friend Jen Gens calls them, with all their expansive range and their compassionate constraints while we have them. If intelligent soul-level reasoning exists behind our choice to incarnate, what better permission slip is there to go ahead and live this life fully and completely? Enjoy every second, all the ups and downs, of your precious time in this earthly body! Why else are we here, honestly? I am always for that.

The second offering is the subtler connection I’m attempting to steer us towards: if we return to the cycles of nature and the seasons of change for inspiration, we are gifted numerous opportunities to die and be reborn anew while we are still living—to rebirth ourselves again and again if we have to—to liberate and unlock the potential of humanity within us. There is something magical that happens when we consciously choose, with agency, to step into the larger flow of life’s current and allow it to lead us into its infinitely innovative depths, co-creating with it along the journey.

As our modern late-stage capitalism eventually crumbles, in front of us sits the opportunity to transition to living systems models that are wildly regenerative and superiorly sustainable. To do so, however, requires us to face and embrace Death, another key to unlocking a brighter future for humanity. We have the opportunity to acknowledge and receive this era’s ending both personally and collectively, and let it be an intentionally alchemical threshold into the next paradigm—just as it is naturally designed to be. May it lead us into the more beautiful world our human hearts long for.

I’ll be honest: this could be a humbling and challenging path laid before us, and even as I beat the drum of change here, I'm not in consistent internal coherence and alignment for what may lie ahead. To illustrate my point: even as I wrote this post, I was often so engrossed in the reverie of my mind’s work that I barely ate any food one day; so clearly, I have a long way to go to become my own body’s best protector and provider. I also can’t yet say that I’m Death’s biggest fan. (Sorry, Death; my sincere apologies <3) I’ve wrestled hard with Death, struggled, suffered, and slowly, exhaustedly, been opening to respect and reverence for this wildly powerful and transformative teacher.

Luckily for us, our bodies are already way ahead of our minds, with more advanced hardware and operating systems that have death-rebirth cycles inherently programmed into them. They know exactly what to do to regularly self-regenerate and upgrade. It’s our minds, however, that need the software update to let go of the limiting belief systems and outdated perspectives.

So, on this momentous cusp between eras, with “Death” as a synonym for cyclical change and the endings that come before rebirth, I invite us to reflect together on some questions for ourselves:

• Will we choose to co-create with this ending in service of a brighter future ahead that we dream of but can’t yet touch?

• What are we willing to let go of to get there?

• Can we let this be the death of what we thought we were good at and who we individually and collectively thought we were, in pursuit of more visceral, comprehensive, and expansive realities?

• How will we choose to co-create with this pivotal threshold?

• What awaits us on the other side if we lean into our biggest—yet substantially untapped—competitive advantage: our bodies?

Let’s turn inward and rediscover what we’re truly capable of together, beloveds. Will you join me on this epic quest?

Here are a few ways to get involved:

1. I’m inviting you to a private Telegram channel to deepen into discussion: Explorations Into the Fertile Void. I would love to hear from you there: what is your take on the topics I write about, what do you want to hear more of, what initiation thresholds are you currently on the precipice of, and more. I’ll also share workshop invites and other offerings as they emerge.

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Taking inspiration from the beautifully and powerfully embodied Ram Dass: may we courageously, joyfully, and lovingly walk each other home, hand in hand, as we re-member the truth of who we are.

Read This First

The Wrestling

Do you know that scene in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince when Dumbledore has to painfully drink the potion to get to the locket at the bottom of the basin? Or are you familiar with the Old Testament story of Job who has everything stripped away from him? Or the myth of Inanna’s Descent where she has to shed another layer of her power at each of the seven gates of The Underworld? During the first week of my solo retreat, those were the flavors of my experience as I wrestled with my current reality. “How exactly did I end up here?” I kept asking myself.

For years my actions have been guided by the belief that I was intentionally building towards something better: a more sustainable way to work, more vibrant health, deeper connection in community, more harmony with the web of life, the more beautiful world my heart knows is possible. I thought I’d given everything as I’ve walked down this path: all of my energy, my attention, my money, myself.

My questions lately have echoed into the empty sky: “What more could be asked of me?” and “What do I have to show for it now?” Where is my intimate community, my partner to build the dream with, my healthy home in beautiful nature, my thriving work in service to the collective, my financial stability?

Recently I’ve been grieving the end of what I hoped would be a life partnership and subsequently reassessing every aspect of my current circumstances. If I track and locate myself on the map I built for The Unbecoming project, I am clearly and utterly in the proverbial Winter, The Underworld, of this death-rebirth cycle. Given my location, I expected and even welcomed the darkness enveloping me, but as it also seeped into my mind, doubt emerged with increasing discomfort.

As I was journaling one day, I inquired of the Divine with moderate desperation:

“Do I need to be bankrupt, homeless, and alone before I can complete this transformation process and cross to the other side of this threshold?”

Mercifully, the Divine replied:

“Literally bankrupt and homeless in this material realm? No. But you do need to let go of all attachments to things, people, and outcomes. Truly surrender yourself.

Alone? Yes. This final threshold must be crossed alone. No one can go with you or do this part for you.”

And then, the instruction:

“Go to the mountains. Be alone. Be in nature.”

Message received. I packed my bags, booked a flight and a rental car, and headed into the mountains of Colorado for a week of solo retreat to reckon with myself.

As I settled into a loose routine during that week, there were a series of consecutive nights where I would wake at 3:30am again, and then again, and again. I was starting to dread going to bed at night, only to wake up too soon in the silent dark with just myself and my unknowing. Some nights it led to nothing, and after a few hours I would eventually fall back asleep. Other nights it led to crying, and one night even screaming, a release of the bone-deep grief and despair I was swimming in.

In Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), there is a body clock wheel (that I’m obsessed with; it’s brilliant…why was I never taught this?!) that tells you which organ system your body’s Qi is focused on supporting at each hour of the day. So one night as I lay awake at 3:30am, I grabbed my phone to engage in my favorite middle-of-the-night pastime when I find myself unfortunately not asleep: Googling “TCM body clock” to see what’s happening. Unsurprisingly, the 3-5am window corresponds to the lungs, and the Qi is helping detox them. In TCM, the lungs are where the body stores grief.

It makes sense. I’ve been reckoning with everything I thought I knew, questioning every aspect of my life, holding nothing as sacred or off limits to my inquisition: Was walking down this path a giant mistake? Am I on the wrong course? Is what I’m up to really in service to the next paradigm and the web of life? Is it even in service to me or my own sustainability? Do I really believe in this path? No, really?

It’s been a sobering reality check, being willing to really seek the truth and course correct where necessary. My body, mind, and spirit feel beaten into humility by the process.

I was losing my wrestling match with life and incidentally inching closer to a state of almost-surrender during that week of my planned solo retreat, but before the week even concluded I knew I needed more time. One week obviously wasn’t enough, so I changed my car rental reservation, phoned a friend, and extended my trip by another 1.5 weeks.

The Reckoning

The place I was finally beginning to approach and accept was the willingness to walk away from the dream, from everything, and start over. From that place, new questions arose: Can I genuinely sit with myself in presence, without fixing? Would I even be able and willing to do that with others (which would be necessary if I opened the doors and welcomed people into The Unbecoming project)?

The answers that emerged aren’t exactly the bright and shiny ones I would have preferred, but they do feel true from the place I’m currently in:

• Can I genuinely sit with myself in presence, without fixing? Yes, I can. I’m slowly learning this new skill that was never modeled to me in my family system, but wow, is it powerful and so nourishing to receive.

• Would I even be able and willing to do that with others (which would be necessary if I opened the doors and welcomed people into The Unbecoming project)? Able to? Probably, yes. I’m sure I could.

• To me, the deeper question underneath right now though is: do I actually want to hold and support others in this process? In those moments, my most honest answer was: This is brutal to experience myself, and honestly, I don’t know if I want to do this for others.

• As I currently write this, my answer to that same question is: “Maybe…”

It’s nearly impossible to see the future from the dark in The Underworld, but I know I need to coherently answer that last question in order to guide my next steps with this project.

The Softening

The days and nights of my solo reckoning retreat continued to pass. My self-wrestling and despair were exhausting me and slowly breaking down my defenses. As I softened yet found myself sleepless again at 3:30am another night, I chose curiosity and went into an inquiry around my predicament: “Why does the path ahead of me feel so unclear? What’s happening here? Why would bodymind think it’s safer and smarter to question all of my choices?”

As I patiently and spaciously sat with myself in presence and love, an answer emerged: “I can’t make the same mistake twice. I have to get it right this time. I have to learn and grow from my mistakes.”

“Oh,” I gently replied. Some aspects of my current situation do look strikingly, unfortunately, and heartbreakingly similar to my previous romantic partnership ending five years ago and my subsequent blank slate with life. As I sat there in presence with the grieving, disbelieving, and exasperated parts of me, my heart softened, both for current me and for the young parts inside of me that have been running with the “I can’t make mistakes” narrative for thirty-something years, far beyond just the past five.

How much have I actually let myself feel the reality of my humanity so far in this lifetime? Like, REALLY H-U-M-A-N: messy, unsure, tender, and still bravely trying? Honestly, I do my best to skip over the messy and unsure parts, and often even the tender ones, as much as possible. It’s so vulnerable in human form and I’m so sensitive at my core. To touch that place feels like certain annihilation.

My jaw and eyebrows softened, my throat opened, the back of my hips let go of their tight grip. I breathed. I felt. I grieved. I let it all go. I allowed the full range of the human experience to course through every cell of me, so tender in my animal flesh and yet so awake to the larger cosmic truths beyond my body.

With wet, tear-streaked cheeks I smiled, the light from the full moon shining through my windows at 4am, illuminating my aliveness. Deep in my being I knew that I had finally reached surrender because, after grueling months of wrestling, now it was quiet and peaceful within me. I was no longer anxiously asking, “Am I surrendered enough yet?!” I was cracked open to the cosmos, tenderly and humbly willing to receive whatever lies ahead on my path.

I’ve been apprenticing with Death for quite some time now. I’ve practiced dying a lot in ceremony, meditation, and more, but I have to tell you: that 4am threshold still caught me by surprise. The peace, the stillness, the beauty practically took my breath away. It’s true, what they say: Death is the easy part; it was all the suffering that led up to it that was hard. Without my suffering though, the juxtaposition of my surrender would have never felt so sweet. Those moments that night and also the days that followed were the deepest states of surrender I’ve ever experienced mentally, emotionally, somatically.

And, blessedly, with my surrender came my acceptance—of people, situations, things as they are in my life at this moment. A quote for Enneagram Type 1’s I often get emailed kept running through my mind: “Remember the virtue of your type is Serenity. When you are awake and present, you accept reality exactly as it is.”

Serenity. Ahhhh. Fucking FINALLY.

To be clear, this doesn’t mean my desire for something different isn’t also here. I am still longing, often painfully, for the more beautiful world my heart knows is possible. But as I work to accept the current state of things, my fire is now collaborating alongside it, inviting me to create more beauty and harmony in this reality.

I’m learning to let the and replace the or. Heartbroken and heart wide open. Serene and driven. Soft and strong. Accepting the current condition, both of myself and our world, and slowly building the next paradigm. In the world, but not of the world.

As I lay there in bed at 4:30am on the other side of the “aha” and the tears, the somatic release felt delicious. I breathed a sigh of relief, the lungs completing an epic 3-5am TCM detox cycle, as my mind quieted into stillness.

At 5am, as I drifted off to sleep like a feather delightedly floating through the air (I swear I’m not exaggerating, it was that blissful), I repeated my latest mantra to myself: “It’s safe to make mistakes.”

The Treasure

I’ve never been more loving or compassionate towards myself than I have been these last few weeks, softer and more human than ever before. It feels so vulnerable and scary to make space within and let the most tender parts of me get bigger. The scales have seemingly tipped though: it’s becoming more alluring than terrifying to let more of me be here now, to lead from my Yin, letting myself be seen in my current sorrow and tenderness.

After spending decades building and reinforcing an adaptive exoskeleton around my softness to protect it, I’m now shedding it, un-becoming that which was never my truest of true. This death and rebirth portal is reminding me that it’s what’s underneath that makes me, me.

Two weeks into my retreat, I was gifted with an embodied taste of the bigger, fuller version of me that’s currently emerging. She’s soft, sensual, tender, fierce, wise, funny, playful, adventurous, deep, soulful, skillful, passionate, reverent, vibrant, and resilient as fuck; and wow, am I in love with her.

It’s hard not to laugh at myself: “This?? This is what I was fighting against for months? (years? decades?? lifetimes?!?)” It feels like a timeless cosmic joke, how vigorously I was clinging to the latest version of myself and my life, simultaneously not wanting to let go while also not realizing how much more beautiful the potential next version is that’s waiting to embrace me on the other side.

The takeaways, my lessons learned, the treasures from the deep?

• With great love and tenderness, get out of my own way and let go.

• Swan dive into the abyss.

• Remove the armor and unkink the hose that’s been blocking the flow of energy within me.

• Be the vessel, the channel.

• Let life flow through me and trust that something better lies ahead.

I’m entering a new dance with life, letting my Yin lead as I remember the Truth that my deepest desires and longings are holy, the embodiment of divine life force flowing through me. It’s my duty, both to myself and to the web of life that I am part of, to protect and serve this pulse of aliveness within me. To lovingly make space, soften, and listen to my inner knowing. To accept the world and life as it is, and to let my longings for the more beautiful world my heart knows is possible lead my actions to help build it. I trust that this emerging version of me is both the one that will lead me into my most vibrant future, and the one I want to protect and build that future for.

The Emergence

One week post-retreat as I sit here writing this, I unexpectedly receive this message from the Divine: “It’s time to exit The Underworld. Take my hand and step back into the light.” Truthfully, I feel humanly hesitant about this instruction. Yes, in so many ways I feel transformed, born anew, and deeply grateful. But, as excruciating as this process has been, I’ve also become fondly attached to the darkness and solitude that have grown into my comforting companions. It now feels safe and familiar down here in the dark and strangely painful to leave and emerge back out into the bright lights and bustling world, especially considering my recently fresh reconstruction.

So, I return to my trusty map I built for The Unbecoming project (but apparently, for myself really) and search again for signs of my location:

• What’s trying to emerge? Tender shoots of a new pathway in its infancy.

• What’s needed right now? Protection, curiosity, and gentleness as I get to know what’s emerging and care for what wants to grow.

• What location does this part of the journey map to? Spring.

Spring…wow. Just two weeks ago, I wasn’t sure if I would ever get here or if I even still believed in this initiatory arc. But, the signs that map to internal Spring feel hard to deny: for the first time in many months, finally, I’m not dreading waking up to another day. I feel moments of peace and strength recently, actively surrendered to whatever fresh clarity is slowly emerging and whatever aligned actions need to follow.

It’s now 7am. Apparently, the night has passed, by virtue of both grace and grit. I greet the new day with a Joan Halifax (and now also Brené Brown) mantra in my mind and my body: “strong spine, soft front, wild heart.”

I playfully, enticingly offer my heart’s expression back to the Divine: “Show me how good this can get.”

“Please let this be the final gate of the underworld,” I half whimper, half pray.

Don’t pity me, though: I intentionally co-conspired with Death along the pathway that led here, even if I couldn’t fully anticipate the reality that’s now unfolding. I’m grieving the ending of an incomparably deep and intimate relationship in my life, and I intentionally dove into the dissolution with it.

The more I choose to “walk its wild edge,” (Francis Weller, The Wild Edge of Sorrow) the more space in my life this threshold claims. My unbecoming doesn’t want to be bothered with the rhythms and matters of the modern world. It demands its own dimension and I reverently obey. When I’m not drowning in my self-imposed isolation, the solitude and darkness feel true and balanced, like comforting cover.

Death is teaching me firsthand about its brilliant intelligence, its mysterious alchemy. The more I turn towards it, I feel its vibrant life force unfurl and embrace me. This time around, I’m on my knees for it, listening in the dark and learning about its transformative power.

No doubt catalyzed by my studies and practices in expanded state work, a few years ago I began noticing the cycles of life and death everywhere and I couldn’t unsee them. I became curious about our cultural resistance to death and obsessed with the metamorphic portals it invoked.

Obviously, this archetypical cycle of death and rebirth isn’t new—countless tales have been told, songs have been sung, and religions have been built in reverence to it. It felt newly alive in me though and something began brewing within: a communal way to intentionally and skillfully cross these thresholds and celebrate together on the other side, blending ancient rituals and modern practices. I poured myself into this idea with passion and purpose as I researched, wrote, and built. I was preparing to open the circle and welcome others into this immersive experience a few months ago, until Death came knocking on my own door again:

“Hey, this is great and all, but why don’t you take this journey again yourself before opening the doors to others?”

Respectfully, I thought I had enough personal experience with death, metamorphosis, and rebirth to garner some credibility on the topic. My last major threshold moment involved leaving a coveted career, a long-term partnership, and my beautiful home all in a very short span of time. It has been five years since I emerged from that portal, but I was naively confident that I was well-equipped, between that experience and others, to skillfully serve this sacred process.

Death looked at me, chuckled, and said, “You’re cute.”

Fuck.

After weeks of resistance, I blessedly began to unravel with both relief and grief for the loss of this relationship and my dreams for it. My assignment became clear: stop researching, writing, and building; start feeling, breathing, and freshly re-living the dissolution on my doorstep.

I have always been one to walk the walk, and so here I am again, humbly doing just that. I anointed myself with frankincense and myrrh and initiated myself into the underworld.

In my descent, I learned that in order to receive the shining gifts waiting for me in the dark, the keys are to:

1. Orient to this natural process with agency and desire,

2. Intentionally collaborate with Death, and then,

3. Constantly re-empower myself every time I forget.

I’m choosing to play this round full out because I believe in the transformative power of death and rebirth and I dream of the liberation and beauty that await me on the other side. I’m continually asking myself, “What do I need to do to allow this alchemical portal to work its full and complete magic on me?” and, “How do I skillfully and intentionally hold myself and move with each moment, in service to the next version of myself that’s emerging?”

Do I need to allow the sobs to move through me while I’m inconveniently and uncomfortably in the middle seat of my airplane row, flanked by two large men on either side of me? Apparently, yes.

Will I stay open and respond honestly as one of them turns to me and asks, “Are you okay? Are you afraid of flying?” Go for it.

Can I ask to sleep on someone’s office couch for a night when I can’t decide where I want to be in the world right now? Done. Check.

When I meet friends at the beach and they ask, “How are you?” will I reveal my honest expression? Okay, deal, as I jokingly hiss at them, tell them I’m a trash monkey today, and soften into letting myself be just that.

I’m giving myself permission to unravel and unbecome in ways that feel so foreign to me and also so deeply human. The more I remember my agency in this process and actively choose to collaborate with it, the more the outcomes astound me. My authenticity is breeding compassion for myself and genuine care and connection with the people around me.

Even though I knowingly stepped into this, my utter transformation through this portal is still leaving me in awe. I’m gently finding, and lovingly welcoming home, inner child parts of me that I didn’t even know were missing. I’m claiming my work in the world—work that I adore—that I didn’t realize I was hiding from. I’m quite literally waking up in the morning realizing the patterns that have held me back for decades are evaporating (thanks to lots of attuned, skilled energy work with myself, plus expert support and magic from these witches). Even being able to share this story while I’m still vulnerably and uncomfortably mid-process in it is somewhat miraculous…and surprisingly, delightfully, liberating.

This pilgrimage through the unseen realms of death and rebirth is turning out to be bigger, sometimes uglier, and infinitely better than I ever thought possible. As I re-draw my map with fresh perspective from the underworld, sharable resources are developing and replicable capacities are emerging. And, apparently, three nights in that hotel room was exactly the final invitation I needed to find the jewels waiting for me in the deep and begin my return to the surface, profoundly changed.

I am more on fire than ever for this masterful, transformative process and teacher, and immensely grateful for the personal and communal gifts I’m receiving from it. As I am being remade in the fertile void, I can feel the communal threshold rituals also being stitched together alongside me. I am emerging out the other side of this portal with a map and tools to share together in practice as we travel along this pathway.

Does my story resonate with you? Are you also standing at a major threshold moment? Are you closing or selling a business, exiting an executive leadership position, navigating a divorce, grieving the death of a loved one, or faced with a health crisis?

The Unbecoming is coming…

• If you feel called to join this renegade immersive experience, send me a message and let’s chat.

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It was true medicine for me to share this story; thank you for receiving it. I pray that it may be medicine for you, too, and for our modern world that’s so in need of a legendary, alchemical rebirth.

If my words here resonate with you, please reach out to me. I’m inviting you into an intimate circle of business leaders that are ready to radically change the way we operate in the world. Will you join me in birthing a new paradigm? Let’s learn and grow together.

I’ve had a nagging question floating around in my head and my heart for a few years. Sometimes it’s glaringly present, other times it quiets down and fades into the background. Lately it’s been getting louder and louder again:

What if business looked radically different?

What if companies mimicked the cycles of nature? What if business was held with the responsibility of sacred creation?

Sometimes this can feel like wishful, idealized daydreaming to me, but then I feel in my bones the gravity and necessity of this monumental shift in how we engage in commerce. Given everything happening in the economy and world around us, how can we not overhaul our mindset and practices?

Everywhere I look lately, I see the cracks deepening in the old ways of doing business: companies under extreme pressure to meet unrealistic targets, employees more burned out than ever before, natural resources being exhausted and an ecosystem depleted, our financial system strapped with a debt load it can’t support and crumbling underneath the weight.

From every angle, it screams to me: “unsustainable.”

When will we turn our attention to creating a new (but also ancient) way of doing things? Can we be brave enough to turn and face the truth of our current situation in this moment? Can we start building a more sustainable system to transition to before the old one fully crumbles?

To do this requires radical trust in a brighter future and radical commitment to serving the fabric that weaves us all together. It’s a return to the regenerative, circular ways that Earth-based communities have practiced for millennia. It’s an agreement to step fully into the aliveness that’s within and around us. This is not for the faint of heart, yet we have to start somewhere. The promise I see waiting for us on the other side of this transition is more flow, abundance, and thriving when we reclaim our place in the connected web of life.

My wish is to inspire you by painting a picture of what I see is possible, what I long for.

I see leaders returning to their unique, natural rhythms and harmonizing with the rhythms of the Earth. They listen more than they speak, and attune both to humans and to all of life around them. They understand that they are stewards of the creation that is being expressed through them. They are warriors serving the web of life, using and protecting its resources honorably. They lead from the heart, from love, while respecting and engaging the mind as a powerful ally.

These new leaders know that we are deeply interconnected. Their responsibility within groups is to empower, encourage, and elevate the voices and intuition of those around them. They inspire and create from a place of deep fulfillment and humility, not from scarcity, fear, or greed. They ask themselves and those around them questions like, “Does the web of life need this creation right now? If so, how do we create this sustainably? What needs to die in order for this new creation to be birthed? How much of this creation is too much? Where is the balance that can sustain this creation?”

I see teams that are truly in sync with themselves, each other, and the Earth. There is a clear shared vision, a true desire and expectation from each team member to help bring that vision to life, deep trust and respect across the team, and a celebration of each person’s unique gifts, perspectives, and contributions. There is a balance of sameness and difference, knowing the sameness bonds the team together while the difference propels them forward and higher as one unit. Conflict is seen as a gift: there is something present to lean into and explore when it arises. There is love for one another, and a playfulness. The team knows there will be hard times that they will face together, as well as times of great joy and celebration together. Each person knows this shared experience is their personal curriculum to explore their inner landscape and patterns, and grow from. After all, the universe is our mirror and the outer world reflects the inner world.

As a cohesive unit, the team operates with intuition and patience. If a collective gut feeling says, “Don’t take that deal even though it looks great on paper,” it’s respectfully passed on. If the team is saying: “We’re stretched too thin,” everything is reevaluated and their wish to slow down is honored in order to re-enter the flow. If a major decision isn’t clear yet, the team rests and waits, trusting the timing. Energy and inputs from resources and teams ebb and flow seasonally, honoring the cycles of life and death. There is acceptance and appropriate burial when an idea, product line, or company is at the end of its useful life. There is a deeper peace that permeates the way decisions are made and operations are executed. Underneath it all is an eternal harmony — a rhythm between the individuals, the team as a whole, and the Earth.

Operating in harmony is not a fixed state we can attain; It’s a living flow we’ve stepped into. We constantly attune to the ever-changing current within and around us.

I see industries and societies re-membering that we are all part of one living organism working together. Even commerce is alive; can we let it be more wild? Can we expand our capacity to be with its full, natural cycles? Can we be stewards of it, nurture it, and be part of of an interdependent ecosystem with it? Can we be more adaptable to change and agile with risks? Can we be in service to the web of life and its mysteries and magic?

We listen, experiment, and learn from our mistakes within the structures we consciously create. We rise and fall together. We reorient to holy competition that is truly in the spirit of making all of us better individually and collectively. If another organization in the same industry is thriving and most effectively serving the need of the time, how do we get behind them and work together to amplify their efforts? If the natural resources are under stress from over-utilization and under-nourishment, how do we slow down and care for them?

I pray that we remember that we are part of nature, not separate from it. I pray that we embrace, honor, and fully experience the phases of birth, growth, and death in business and in life. I pray that we listen to the lands and resources we steward to hear how they are asking to be used in reciprocity. I pray that we respect and support the Earth-based cultures that have kept this wisdom alive and continue to share it with us. I pray that we ask for guidance in our decision making from the cosmic realms and quantum fields of possibility. I pray that we rest and that we make space to play along the way, celebrating the mysteries and wonder of this wild world and life.

I see a new paradigm where the web of life thrives upon the Earth that sustains us all. Humanity re-enters the flow as part of the inextricably linked and divinely interdependent whole.

I believe we chose to come here to this planet, to these bodies, to this exact moment in time. So, “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with (this) wild and precious life?”

If my words here resonated with you, please reach out to me. I’m inviting you into an intimate circle of business leaders that are ready to radically change the way we operate in the world. Will you join me in birthing a new paradigm? Let’s learn and grow together.

Lately, when someone proclaims themselves a “healer” a big red flag goes up within me. I say this with love because I often fantasize being a healer myself. Honestly, who wouldn’t?! Magical powers to alleviate the pain and suffering of others? Sign. Me. Up. I would be a hero! Unfortunately though, this is exactly the warning sign:

the words “healer” and “hero” read energetically synonymous to me these days.

I find many people attracted to the healing arts, myself included, want to be helpful and want to feel useful. There is nothing inherently wrong with these desires, but as creator of the Drama Triangle, Stephen Karman, explains: for me to be a hero, I have to view someone else as a victim. Now that is a problem.

Healing Arts and The Drama Triangle

I believe every fiber, material and immaterial, of our beings is divinely intelligent and wildly powerful. I also believe life on Earth is innately drawn towards harmony. Taking both of these together means, to me, that we have a profound gift and responsibility to consciously channel the life force that flows through us. Under this belief structure, I agree with Caroline Myss in Anatomy of the Spirit when she says, “You alone can help yourself heal.”

This means, in Drama Triangle terms, you are not a victim and I am not a hero. You are the only being with your unique blueprint to unlock your deepest healing, brightest energy, and highest potential. You are your own healer and highest authority. How can anyone else possibly know your best path forward?

Candidly, when this truth first sank in, I was not happy about it. It’s quite contradictory to the way our society currently operates. I’ve often either unknowingly or willingly given my power away to others, and sometimes still do: to the medical profession or any sort of healer to cure my ailments, to agencies and companies telling me what to feel or buy, to basically anyone I’ve deemed more respectable or authoritative than myself. Learning that I alone hold my ultimate authority within myself means that I now have to be completely responsible for myself, but sometimes I don’t want to be. (Cue Baby Jackie tantrum!) In some ways, it was much easier to passively take the pill the doctor prescribes or book the relaxing vacation.

Astrology, breathwork, sound baths, entheogens, retreats, meditation, smudging, psychic readings, reiki, online courses, somatic practices, communities, crystals — the list of healing modalities and tools today is seemingly endless. Yet as one of my spiritual teachers, Maryam Hasnaa, wisely reminds, they’re all just permission slips. Beautiful and powerful permission slips, but permission slips nonetheless. Some modalities will resonate with you, others won’t, and some will work for a while until they don’t anymore. We project healing power onto a tool, practitioner, or object, and consciously (or more often than not, unconsciously) give our permission to receive energetic influence from these external forces.

Adya Cadden, another wise teacher of mine, says: “Healing isn’t something we do, it’s something we allow.” The process naturally unfolds from within us when the conditions are conducive. This is a gorgeous invitation to be open to receiving support and assistance, and the mindset we perceive it from is the difference-maker. For example, I can receive somatic therapy from a trusted practitioner while believing I am a victim of my body’s current circumstance and that this practitioner or practice will save me. In this scenario, I have no sense of personal power or the innate ability and intelligence of my body to heal itself. Or, I can receive somatic therapy knowing that my body has the innate capacity to heal itself and I’m allowing the practitioner I’m working with to cleanly help me access my own healing frequency. There’s a massive difference, not just in the mindset but also in the physical results when we activate the power within us.

The Role of a “Healer”

The hallmark of a powerful practitioner is someone who is committed to their own healing, forever learning and serving, and operating in right relationship with the energies within and around us. My teacher Marilu Shinn says, “Medicine is what we have healed within ourselves, and how we hold space for others to do the same thing for themselves.” We can only hold space for the healing in others as far as we have gone ourselves. Or said similarly by Maryam Hasnaa:

“A healer does not heal you. A healer is someone who holds space for you while you awaken your inner healer, so that you may heal yourself.”

As Marilu has taught me, serving medicine literally means being in service to it. It is a privilege and a responsibility to create an energetically clean container to lovingly witness another’s healing arise from within them. Everyone in service to the healing arts has their own flavor, their own strengths, and their own shadows. Your job is to discern if this person can help you unlock the thing you seek within yourself. A good practitioner will never take your agency from you and will always point you back to your own inner knowing. As another wonderful teacher of mine, Qiddist Ashé, has said: “I am in service to your sovereignty.” Her orientation to my own inner wisdom signals to me that I can trust her as an ally on my own healing journey.

Which brings me back to the Drama Triangle: there should be no victim or hero in this relational dynamic.

In my experience, the most potent medicine a healer who acts as a hero will serve is the type that painfully points you right back to your sovereignty. The Universe has a funny sense of humor like that.

Personal Power and Responsibility

Caroline Myss, in Anatomy of the Spirit, says: “Energy medicine is a holistic philosophy that teaches, ‘I am responsible for the creation of my health. I therefore participated, at some level, in the creation of this illness. I can participate in the healing of this illness by healing myself, which means simultaneously healing my emotional, psychological, physical and spiritual being.’” While this capability and responsibility can feel terrifying, it’s also incredibly liberating and empowering. You are your own healer! Claim this truth. Don’t externalize your authority or diminish the cosmic life force within you.

I share on this topic to help us all re-member our sovereignty and power, and to ask those around me to continually hold me accountable. You are not a victim and I am not your hero. Please don’t ever let me tell you or myself that story.

I am writing this as I soak in the warmth of the late afternoon sun at the beginning of my menstrual cycle, just before the New Moon. It is said that thousands of years ago, many women bled with the New Moon and honored this time of rest, death, and rebirth. Anita Diamant beautifully and famously portrayed this in The Red Tent: women came together each moon cycle to slow down for a few days, honor nature’s rhythms, and nourish themselves and each other in community. What could it look like if we returned to this, individually and collectively? Can we imagine what we could heal, accomplish, and create from this fertile space?

According to the MyFlo app, during this part of my cycle I have “the greatest communication between my two brain hemispheres: the left analytical side and the right feeling side.” The prompt: “Allow yourself to turn inward to journal or reflect on where you are now.” While I write for myself and share for my healing and becoming, I also invite you in for us to get cozy and dream together.

Welcome, love. This is a tender subject for me to share about; please hold me gently.

I’ll begin with a potentially familiar story. It still feels strangely uncomfortable and vulnerable for me to acknowledge that I am in fact a woman, and I bleed each month. For most of my life, I was relatively disappointed about being female and definitely ashamed of menstruating. Everywhere around me in society I saw messages telling me that being a woman meant being less than. So as a young girl I naturally tried to be more like the boys: more outspoken and confident, less emotional, and definitely never ever weak. And my god, I loathed wearing dresses or being told to do anything that made me look too soft or feminine. My poor mother would have to drive far and wide across the Tri-State Area in the 1990s in search of dress pant outfits for young girls (ah yes, the pre-Google search days). Once I began to bleed, I remember hiding used tampons and pads in the bottom of the garbage, horrified and praying no one would notice. Oh, the pain and awkwardness of being a teenage girl.

After years of subliminally adopting a less-than mindset, it honestly became part of the programming running unconsciously in the background of my mind. I later chose to work in very male-dominated industries, proud of myself for being able to “hang with the boys,” rarely having the warmth or companionship of a female colleague. (A quick side note I want to highlight: I still cherish and heavily rely on my masculine traits. I believe the secret for each of us lies in finding the balance in both. Also, I adore men, and you can read more about my concerns on exiling the masculine, and in doing so isolating men, soon.)

After the thrill of this dream career path faded, I felt lonely, as my body slowly got very sick. While this pattern started years earlier in school, it hit a peak in my work life: I would push myself so hard to perform and my body would push back, telling me to slow down. I often felt my body was betraying me, and I wouldn’t listen to it until it inevitably reached a breaking point. My body would eventually win the battle, and I would succumb to retreating and resting until I felt well enough to blindly jump back into the same unsustainable cycles.

Once I hit a lowpoint of health subsistence and acknowledged that I didn’t want to continue barely surviving like this, the insanity cycle mercifully broke. I finally got a grip and started seriously prioritizing my health. Through what I perceive to be divine intervention at this pivotal point in my health and professional journey, I was invited to experience entheogens.

In ceremony, it was revealed to me that my body had never betrayed me. I had it backwards: it was me that betrayed my body, again and again.

These medicine journeys started me down a long path of reclaiming my female body and its inherent rhythms. I was coming home to myself and becoming more whole. I also started letting my hair down, literally and figuratively. And I discovered I actually loved wearing dresses and the way I felt in them. Sorry it took so long, Mom!

In time I felt newly empowered and delighted to be a woman. I developed a voracious appetite to learn about the Divine Feminine and all that it means to embody this form. This path led me to the Altar of Woman apprenticeship with Adya Cadden and Xochi Balfour. These incredible women introduced me to the energetics of my female body, its life-giving power, our innate connection to the elements, and the strength and magic of women. I received an initiation into womanhood that I never knew I was missing. What at first felt so strange or outside my comfort zone, I slowly began to open to and embody. I had honestly never thought about my womb or connecting to it. When in class we were asked to close our eyes, put our hands on our body, and try to feel into our womb space, I felt numb. This was very familiar for me, but I was nevertheless disappointed. Adya and Xochi lovingly normalized this and encouraged us, and slowly over weeks I began to feel something and to listen.

What I eventually encountered was a raw, primal power that blew my mind, a cosmic creatrix. A fertile void capable of birthing and caring for humans, projects, communities, universes.

I felt like magic was real and I was a goddess. What was possible if I operated with these beliefs? I began to adore playing with little rituals everywhere I could: lighting a candle with reverence, offering my blood back to the earth, whispering prayers into seeds and burying them, burning scribbles of what I was releasing with the Full Moon. The power of reclaiming these long-forgotten ways was electric, and my god, the beauty that the women around me were co-creating when we gathered was breathtaking. I felt alive and awakened, remembering what one of my teachers, Marilu Shinn, calls “the ancient future.” Can you feel it yet, love?

As I continued to explore my previously ignored truth of being a woman, I came across a podcast episode that completely changed my life. Lacy Phillips was interviewing Alisa Vitti, who spoke about infradian rhythms, the potential to feel amazing in a female body, and the magic that can happen when women are in tune with their cycles. I heard a message that was now becoming less foreign to me: it is not a curse to be a woman, it is a gift. Listening to this conversation and learning about infradian rhythms, something lit up within me. My rage and inspiration both ran wild:

How have we women never been taught that there are optimal, specific times each month we can flow more easily with to rest, to collaborate, to complete projects, to brainstorm? What if we were able to incorporate our natural infradian rhythms into our schedules and work? What would be possible not just for women, but for all of humanity in that sustainable cycle? That is a business model I am salivating to help birth.

I want to acknowledge and emphasize the distance we have to travel for all women, especially mothers, BIPOC women, and most especially BIPOC mothers, to be able to fully step into these cycles if they choose to. (A deep bow of gratitude to Qiddist Ashé for helping me see this fuller perspective.) Our current society and structures do not support this and we need to overhaul them. We won’t truly thrive collectively until we all have the support to make these choices for ourselves. I believe women living and working cyclically can be an exponentially powerful shift for our future, our economy, and our health. Isn’t it time we try a new model?

I’ve been privileged to personally experiment with this myself for over a year, and I am finding the more in tune I am with my body and its cycles, the better I feel, the more creative I am, and the more I flow with life instead of trudging through it. I feel inspired and delighted when I notice my body is craving juicy fruit and I realize that exactly supports the part of my cycle I’m currently in to metabolize and eliminate estrogen surplus. I feel like I’m channeling The Force when I’m brainstorming during my follicular phase; the creativity pours from me without my usual resistance. I’m learning when I move with the rhythms of my body, the rhythms of nature, magic ensues.

This weekend, I am thrilled and honored to pass along these re-membered superpowers. I get to gather with dear friends, mothers and their young daughters. We get to bathe together, adorn ourselves, reflect back to each other and ourselves how whole and complete we already are, and reclaim and remember the power of women. As my dear teacher Marilu says, we get to reweave the web of life and birth the ancient future. What will we create together?

I am slowly remembering that I am a child of the earth; I am the earth. My cycles are her cycles, and I move with them.

Death is a topic we all seem to have an unspoken agreement to never talk about in Western culture. Even writing about it makes me tense up a bit, but I’m accepting my discomfort to hopefully encourage what feels like a vital conversation amongst us.

I notice our resistance to death everywhere: a family having a hard time facing a loved one’s failing health, women covering over their gray hair and smoothing out their wrinkles, more money being printed as the economy struggles. Who wants to die? Not me! It’s terrifying; I get it. My primal survival instincts roar to life every time a perceived (and usually imaginary) threat to my existence appears. But…

What if we took a deep breath, summoned our courage, and turned towards death instead of away from it? What if we welcomed it like an old friend?

We’ve forgotten that we are part of nature, not separate from it. We are cyclical beings moving through different seasons every month, year, and across lifetimes. And death, whether we like it or not, is an essential part of this cycle we call “life.” The seasons are a beautiful reminder of this. What could life look like, personally and professionally, if we planted in Spring, grew in Summer, harvested in Fall, and rested in Winter?

It also feels that we’ve forgotten that we are not only individuals, but also part of an ecosystem, a bigger picture and story beyond our small selves. As part of the whole, when we are fed, the whole web is fed. And in our death, we nourish those that feed on us. We live on in those that come after us. I recently heard a friend describe how one mountain lion feeds so many fauna in the forest by hunting and sharing the bounty offered from one deer. Nothing is wasted; everything gets assimilated into a new energy form. I’ll be honest: part of me feels queasy picturing this, but I’m acutely aware of how removed I am from the reality of the circle of life.

In the West we’ve been handed down the fear of death, generation after generation, but we haven’t been taught to appreciate or embody its gifts. The truth that, for this body and identity, for this incarnation, there is an end makes all the moments in between that much more precious. The gift of death affords us the possibility of fully living, blossoming with more energy and vivaciousness and less stagnation and struggling. Even life events we may not typically conceptualize as death, such as moving cities, changing jobs, ending a relationship, allow us to decompose what needs to change, in order to make room for the new.

If we accepted death, not only would that drastically change our daily lives and human experience, but it would overhaul the way we do business in the modern world. How would our economic ecosystem thrived if we worked as interconnected parts of the whole? How different could things be in companies or teams if we acknowledged and moved with the cycles of birth, growth, and death? This exists, as all things do, from the micro to the macro. From as small as an idea presented in a meeting, to the rise and fall of a product line, to the life cycle of an entire company or economy. There’s a natural arc to all of it, with the evergreen promise of newness ahead, if only we’re willing to not cling to the familiar and comfortable. Can we bravely ride the waves, trusting the next set is coming even though we can’t see it on the horizon yet?

I saw a beautiful example of embracing death during my time in VC a few years ago. A portfolio company had recently received a solid round of Seed funding and put the capital to work to prove product-market fit. Within a few months it became clear that the thesis was disproven and the whole company would have to pivot to something very different if it was to continue on. While this is perfectly normal and happens all the time in early stages of startup life, the founders felt that they could not deliver the vision they had sold their investors on. They chose to wind operations down quickly, close up shop, and return the remaining unspent capital to their investors. This could not have been an easy decision for them, but it earned them tremendous respect among their investors, and ultimately it freed them up to follow the energy and aliveness to new projects. They considered their options and chose to bury the old to fertilize the new.

What if we had the courage to do the same? What if we closed down that struggling product line? What if we left the job that we weren’t giving our best to, instead of staying just because it’s “comfortable”? What if the founders and team trusted their gut instincts when they knew the company just wasn’t going to make it?

What if we honorably buried what needs to die, mourned and grieved, remembered the good times, learned the lessons, assimilated the wisdom, and opened ourselves up to the next thing that’s waiting for us? What if we lived full and vivacious lives, both personally and in business, because we were brave enough to practice dying again and again?

What are your thoughts on this topic? I’d love to hear from you and start a discussion. Also, do you know a company that moves with the rhythms of nature? I’m eager to learn more from them.