August Newsletter

Dear Beloveds,

I write to you from a place called Chugiak, Alaska. I am here on a girls trip with my mother, surrogate mom – the woman who watched me from the time I was an infant to an adolescent – and her daughter, who was like my kid sister as a child, a few years younger than me.

It’s been so fun and interesting to reconnect with these people that I shared daily space with as a child. I have been reminded of many old feelings and memories of them and what it was like to be in their “family.” Many things that make me laugh and are humorous, other things that haven’t changed at all, and new things they’ve picked up through their life. So interesting to see what’s changed and what hasn’t after a 20+ year hiatus.

Alaska is beautiful, and to be honest I hadn’t ever really thought about visiting here. I love to travel and am always thinking about the next place I want to go, but this one just seemed so far off in my mind. But then I got the opportunity when my kid sister came on my Guatemala retreat earlier this year and proposed it to me. I immediately jumped at the invite and we began planning.

What I’m most present to in Alaska is how much space there is. To help you gauge, the Kansas City metro area is about 2.34 million people in 7,952 square miles. Whereas the whole state of Alaska has a population of 731,545 in 663,300 square miles. Alaska is big! Alaska is bigger than Texas, California, and Montana combined. My mind got blown by this comparison, and it really had me start thinking about how much different it feels spatially when I’m in KC, vs here.

Being here and staying at place that I’d call “out in the country” where I’m surrounded by trees and nature, it feels very expansive and open, and my energy body follows that of my environment. I have naturally started to unwind and settle into a slower pace. I’ve slept like a rock here for the most part and my breath has been full and deep.

There’s a silence here that I can’t even put words too, and a stillness that can’t be achieved, it just is. I’m able to access this super stillness when I really slow myself down and tune into the ever present moment of now. This place is calm and my mind has completely harmonized with my being. From this place a natural state of bliss arose where I was excited and ecstatic for the moment. A joy rose from within and a happiness of being. Being here. Being now. Being me.

When I settle into these places of deep content, it feels like the moment could go on forever. Time erupts as my mind has known it and the ever-present-ness of the moment feels ever-expanding. It feels like a retreat into myself without needing to go anywhere. This is the experience of the inward journey. The movement into oneself where everything and no-thing exist. The place that has all the answers, which I’m finding are a series of the same answers each time, yet feel new each time. A few I’m experiencing…

you are the peace that you seek
you have the love that you desire
you are not the anger
you are not the stories
you are the fullness of life
you are no different from the other
you are the teacher that you seek
you are connected to source energy
you are of the same essence of All

These are sayings we hear over and over again on the consciousness path, yet actually experiencing them in a felt sense is totally different. These aren’t concepts I’m trying to convey. They’re witnessing’s of my
I-AM-ness of the moment. Can you tell the difference? Drop down from your head and read the list again from your body.

Giving ourselves space is required to access these truths. They are always there, but in the heavy distractions of modern day living, they can be easily missed and seemingly difficult to experience.

I am grateful to you Alaska, for all the space so that I may remember the truth of my essence. What a wonderful reset this has been.

Aho