It’s hard to believe another year has passed. What a year! I gained new awareness around my physical health, completed a year of Courageous Crossing with Maria Yraceburu, reconnected with my inner child, went on pilgrimage to New Mexico and received a new hoop drum, Brian and I celebrated our second wedding anniversary, 
we moved across town and let go of a lot of physical possessions, I started the long-awaited Temple Priestess program, celebrated two years of Journey Circle, three years of Shamanic Trance Dance, nine years as an energy healer, I began teaching Tribal Belly Dance again … so many blessings and more…
I spent much of last year deeply entrenched in working on myself. With help, working on body, mind and spirit, I sought to release my fear of judgement and become a better me. Who else would I be, you might be asking? Yes, indeed. I didn’t always feel free to be myself. In times past and today in other parts of the world people have been imprisoned, killed, and tortured for holding my spiritual beliefs. Most of us spend our lives, to varying degrees, hiding who we are, not comfortable in our own skin. We get caught up in who we think we “should” be, what we think we’re “supposed to” do with our life. Are we afraid of what people will think about us if we go against the grain? Afraid we’ll wake up alone, unloved? Not possible, I tell you.
You would think all fear boils down to fear of death and dying, but the truth is, most of us really fear living more than dying.
In the Spring I went on a vision quest atop Mt. Palomar with the intention of facing death and facing my greatest fears. Exhausted from a long day of ceremony, as I settled in under the stars 
to try and get some sleep, I invited my fears to join me, so I
might learn from them, and release them.
I awoke in the middle of the night to the sound of my bag crashing on the tarp, behind my back. I was frozen in fear thinking it was some wild animal I wasn’t prepared to deal with. Telling myself there’s nothing to be afraid of, didn’t really help alone in the dark in the middle of nowhere, countless hours from daylight. I couldn’t breathe, my leg began to cramp, and I was suddenly engulfed in pain all over. My spirit guides (annoyingly) played right into it. “You don’t wanna see, you don’t wanna know!”
“Do I want to spend the rest of the night like this?” I asked myself. “No, this
sucks.” Okay, then. How am I going to deal with this? Obviously this is part of my experience, I’m meant to deal with this. I don’t know what possessed me, but I began to sing. Out loud. Songs my community sings in ceremony together and songs I sing when I’m driving or in the shower simply because I like to sing them. After several verses, I became aware that the tension in my body and my mind had let up a little bit, and I rolled over onto my back and I could see there was nothing there. Still feeling largely paralyzed, I sang another song, and relaxed enough to fall back asleep.
Sometime later I awoke to the sound of something crunching through the brush coming my direction. I didn’t know what it was. I thought to myself, worst-case scenario, it’s a large skunk and my carpool will have to drive back down the dirt road with the windows rolled down. Still, I didn’t want to know what it was. Perhaps it was a mountain lion wanting to snuggle up with me for the night. I sang to it. When I was certain it had passed me by, I looked up and saw a brilliant shooting star overhead! Confirmation from Spirit, “Yes, this is how you deal with fear! Sing to your fears, dance with them!”
This shifted the whole night for me. I began to see the beauty all around me. I was no longer afraid. Noises that had triggered a fearful “oh, what was that?” turned into a curious “ooo, what was that?” and I couldn’t get enough of my surroundings. I wanted to savor every moment of being in the wilderness, in the darkness!
At some point well into the morning hours I realized I had knocked my bag over, I had slid down the incline I was on, and slid right into it. Then I realized the creeping sound I kept hearing under my tarp that I imagined was a snake, was actually just my tarp sliding down the grasses.
The moon rose casting a glow over the land and I could see tiny leaves raining from the trees all around me. The breeze tickled my neck with the loose hairs that had freed themselves from my braids, and it felt good to be alive! And in those moments, I could feel the energy all around me, and I knew I wasn’t alone. Beyond my spirit guides chattering at me, the rocks were alive, the trees were alive, the land was alive, there were so many stars, and two bats in the oak tree above me … I was not alone. Then I heard a sneeze from a fellow quester some distance away, and was reminded I truly wasn’t alone.
So much happened that night, so many amazing lessons, but these were among the biggest truths I took with me from the experience: I create my own fear, shifting my perspective can change everything, and I am never alone in this world.
Fear has played a large roll in all our lives, for the last few thousand years, so it’s no easy task to release it all. As we peel back the layers, new fears are discovered and we are able to release more. And we don’t have to go through this process alone. We are connected with All That Is, whether we like it or not. We are loved by the Sacred Parents Mother Earth and Father Sky, unconditionally. We are surrounded by our spirit guides, angelic helpers, and ancestors, whether we know it or not.
I’m still a work-in-progress. As old habits die hard, I’m still practicing living without fear of judgement (which is really self-judgement). But I have awareness, and that is huge. And I remind myself, life always ebbs and flows, there is no static place called “perfection” that eludes me, I am perfect just as I am right now, in my imperfectness.
My work for the year ahead is already shaping up with more priestesses ready to come forward and claim their power, a new dance schedule, paring down physical possessions even further to clear space for new forms of abundance, and my allergies rearing their ugly head presenting an opportunity for deep physical healing … life is never dull, and I find myself somewhere between anxious and excited by the endless possibilities!
I wish for everyone, as well as for myself, much grace and ease,
and more dancing this year!
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