Blog Archives
Gratitude, Rest, Assimilation & Blossoming ~ My Birthday in the Desert
I wanted to express my gratitude to everyone for all the beautiful and loving messages and wishes sent for my birthday over the last few days and for the magickal and thoughtful gifts received both in the mail and simply in the presence of your friendship and hugs – virtual and in person.
I’m grateful for each of your threads woven into my life, this journey, and grateful to each of you for choosing to show up at this time on Earth.
This year I chose a simple way to experience my birthday, although did gift myself a few small treasures that aligned with what felt most supportive to me right now.
This included a sweet little rose quartz heart ring, which felt to be nurturing that love from the inside out and about falling in love with myself and nurturing my heart’s joy in a whole new, but most natural way.
And also a sparkly sandstone bracelet with “tree of life” charm. Sandstone is a stone of creativity that encourages truth, promotes clarity, balances one’s reality and facilitates ease of movement and change.
As well as a new Tarot deck – likely my last for a while now.
It’s so precious how the gifts I received from others were so perfect for me too, including a tiny gold dragonfly necklace, a magickal unicorn horn necklace, a colorful tapestry pouch (perfect for my Tarot cards), sweet hemp flower hair pins, and a couple of tops including one that said “Trees”.
My birthday morning kicked off with a Great Blue Heron coming to visit us on the beach in front of the RV just before we left.
And it was a lovely birthday weekend that unfolded from there, which I chose to experience quietly and immersed in the energy of the desert and self nurturing and a lot of love shared with my little family of loves including these sweeties.
I’m not a celebrator in terms of parties and gatherings, preferring to be within my own experience in ways that feel most aligned with my energy and don’t like having a big deal made out of my birthday.
So seeing some friends the days preceding my birthday was a nice way to say farewell for now, since we’re not returning for a long time, and a way to see people without specific celebrating. Although during a dinner right before we left I was surprised with a little birthday candle fun to make a wish. That was very sweet.
Last year on my birthday I was being in the purity of Iceland’s beauty, which called to my own innocence and essence within.
This year it was returning to a place I loved as a child and frequented often with my parents – Palm Desert.
The desert couldn’t be a more beautiful way to relax and reflect on the year behind, the year ahead, and the integration of both in the now, while doing a lot of nature connecting and self-nurturing.
There is a purity and sacredness to the desert that feels supportive of receiving clarity and standing in the raw nakedness of my personal truth.
And like the starry skies of Iceland, the desert also offers a beautiful night time Cosmic landscape to get lost in.
And relaxing is just what I needed and need right now, as I have found myself getting very energetically tired by end of the day and needing to sleep a lot and get in bed early.
My body and soul are going through transitions to support all that is changing quickly.
I can feel all that I’m rapidly assimilating with the big shifts in my life and that my birthday cycle heralded in. I’ve been allowing the desert energy to work its magick, while giving myself even more with self nurturing pool time, massage, and just soaking in sun therapy and rest.
It’s important to allow ourselves to integrate all that we work on and process so that it can fully root and blossom. Doing what seems like nothing is doing something and it’s important. It will help keep you balanced, healthy, and support those leaps.
And speaking of blossoming, the desert here is already in bloom! It’s Spring early and that also feels quite reflective of what I’m feeling internally.
Desert blossoms as reflections of all that is blossoming within.
And I felt like a desert blossom on our gentle hike yesterday, wearing my tangerine red sparky strapless dress with gold threads and hat. I’m a big proponent of hiking in dresses and flip flops or open rugged sandals.
I’ve also seen more animals and insects mating right in front of me than I ever have in the last few weeks. They literally are drawn to me and going about their uniting – be it ducks, pigeons, several variety of insects, geese….
I’m seeing it as that divine igniting and creation flame I’m channeling along with falling in love with life in a whole new way.
It’s a whole new love story emerging.
And speaking of love…even the place we stayed at this weekend, arriving on my birthday, is called Emerald Desert Resort, which perfectly aligns with my business named Emerald Bridge, which is all about the heart chakra energy and that wonderful healing and nature emanating green glow of brilliance and warmth.
It’s been a gentle transition into my 43rd year of this life considering all of the transitions I’ve been making, having concluded my sound course on my birthday as well (which has been hugely and deeply integrative), and shifting out of one way of living and sharing of my services to completely different ways.
Other than the needed rest to assimilate, I’m grateful for the ease and grace that is taking place with everything, as I know not everyone is experiencing flow. I know this has also been a time of intensity and challenge for many.
My hope is that by continuing to hold the energy of what is possible in the face of immense changes, as others are doing along with me, that we can assist each other into a more gentle experience of ever-greater potentials that are available.
My life hasn’t always been easy, as I shared in my post on the 25th: A Selection of True Awakening Experiences
Yet, there is light available to us all within the darkness. Darkness can be the sweet spot of immensely beautiful possibilities and you can learn to have clarity of vision even when it appears there is no light. You will find that light was always within your heart and can “see” you through anything.
Like the desert can be deceiving with its harsh way of life – seemingly barren, dry, and challenging unless one is resilient and resourceful, there is also much beauty, abundance, and life is plentiful and blossoming – as it learns to adapt and renew itself within each season of change.
Some Time With Me In Joshua Tree
“There are several ways to react to being lost. One is to panic: this was usually Valentina’s first impulse. Another is to abandon yourself to lostness, to allow the fact that you’ve misplaced yourself to change the way you experience the world.” ~Audrey Niffenegger, Her Fearful Symmetry
“One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things” ~Henry Miller
As I shared in my November newsletter, I was away this long weekend in Joshua Tree National Park, enjoying the high desert and breathing in the beauty and ancient energy there. The photos throughout are of my time spent there.
I mentioned that I’m going to be focusing on a lot more personal time and travels than what has become usual of recent years, which is why my work has been shifting focuses to incorporate more time and energy to do so.
This comes at a time when I’m feeling much more inner than usual and very much wanting to be in the silence within as much as possible to experience and delve into things in a new way for what I feel is to come.
Being in the desert was perfect for that.
I love the desert, having spent so much time in Palm Springs and Palm Desert when I was growing up and living in the high desert of Sedona and Reno, each for a couple of years. Everyone has their own preferences and conditions that make them feel good, but for me it is dry climates, as opposed to humid ones where I feel most suited. I prefer dry heat and dry cold over wet heat and cold for sure. That said, I do enjoy exploring everywhere, but I just know what works better for me for the long haul. I also happen to be a high altitude-kinda-gal. 😉
I hadn’t really spent much time in Joshua Tree before, only really remembering twice that I’d visited – once last year for Bhakti Fest and another time about three years ago when it was winter and quite chilly, and having not prepared for it, didn’t bode well for much exploring.
So, I was excited to spend more time and also to get the chance to visit the Integatron for a sound bath (please visit the link to learn about this amazing historical structure and see photos of the sound chamber). I had no idea that the Integatron was so well known around the world, but so many people I know all over the place have heard of it, if not in fact have visited it.
This sound chamber (also a whisper chamber where you can hear anything said, or any noise from someone directly across from you, as if it’s in your own head clearly) that you climb up vertical, ladder-like large steps to, one at a time, gave me chills throughout my body the moment I set foot inside and the crystal bowl sound bath received was like being in an energetic womb or cosmic journeying. I definitely didn’t want to leave and could have lingered in the vibrational frequencies indefinitely.
Lovely visions of ethereal faces and eyes came to me and at the end, while integrating the experience, a white owl just lingered with me, looking straight into me and then opened its wings.
Again, that white symbolism, like the white jaguar and the white conch from my dreams.
The way this white owl lingered so long and stayed with me (I get chills now writing about it) feels very important. I just briefly decided to look online if anything pops up around “white owl symbolism” and just stumbled upon this: Legend of the White Owl ~ Messenger of 911.
Along with embodying all of the general owl symbolism, white owls are also considered messengers of the gods or underworld, messengers of change and transition, appear as a sign of things to come, ability to see past illusion, to see in the “dark”, and see what is hidden to others, and can mean you’ve been given more wisdom and that you’re evolving/maturing.
Interesting things to reflect on indeed and grateful for the message.
But back to the Integratron – it is located 20 miles north of Joshua Tree National Park, in Landers on a beautiful piece of land that has an outdoor sanctuary space to welcome visitors while they await their time in the structure.
Please explore the links under “What is it” here to learn more: About the Integratron
I know I am still integrating this experience, as well as the all of the time spent hiking among the stunning rocks and Joshua Tree forests of the park.
I was even gifted some Coyote medicine, as you can see in the photo below, as one was crossing right while coming through. Such a sweet one he was, although with ears down, as I looked in his eyes, he was looking quite submissive.
There are some amazingly beautiful hikes throughout the park, each with different vegetation and terrain in many cases. I really loved Hidden Valley and could definitely spend a lot of time just “being” there on those rocks.
Other hikes explored included Barker Dam, where you also came across some cool petroglyphs in a cave (as seen in the photos at the end) and Lone Horse Mine (also seen in photos at end) and then some back trails to the park as well.
The higher elevations were definitely more abundant in varying vegetation, which was found on the longer Lone Horse Mine Trail, taking you through areas of lava rock and with view of a dormant volcano.
I did every hike, no matter length, in my flip-flops, which is my preferred method of hiking always unless it’s very cold and/or extremely challenged conditions. I find it a way to let my feet breathe, which is so important to a Pisces like me, as well as a way to feel the Earth more intimately when my feet get immersed in dirt and such. Fun!
The desert is rich with its own symbolism and felt to be a perfect place to be right now for me, having spent so much time at the ocean this year. I feel that I might possibly end up spending more time in the desert again this month because it is nurturing of my personal processes.
The desert feels like a place symbolic of:
- purification
- the sacredness of being alone as opposed to loneliness
- getting lost on purpose in order to change the way you perceive the world, your life, everything
- limitless possibilities and rewards that can be obtained through overcoming obstacles and challenging hardships
- survival and Root Chakra energy which is so vital
- brutal honesty and harsh realities when all things are stripped away (symbolic of the wide, more barren vistas) and you have your core soul revealed
- no distractions in the way of communing with your soul
- clarity
- purity
- a place for accessing divine revelation
- personal will
- wisdom
- enlightenment
- self-nurturing from the abundant well of life within self to support you
- simplicity
- barren lands that are so removed from the normal comforts of life that it then becomes almost holy and a place where it seems only the spiritually sacred is influencing things
- stripping down and nothing in the way of yourself
- a place or bridge to cross into a new way of life
- the promise of something more fulfilling or the manifestation of dreams – the process of the mirage actively “becoming”
- the raw beauty as you stand in the nakedness of your truth
Everything is always in divine alignment indeed. And I am continuing to slowly transition back from returning. Feeling a beautiful stillness inside and incredibly penetrating peace, despite, and because of, all the changes taking place inwardly.
It’s hard to tell in this last photo, but at the center of the sky appeared this rainbow in a completely vertical, short line on the last full day, as viewed from the dining table while eating a very late lunch. Perfect!
