Grief & Joy
Two Sides of the Same Coin
As I’ve been pausing within the in-breath of this in-between time, something sensitive re-surfaced from this recent Full Moon in Cancer:
Grief
As it turns out, this is the one word I would use to describe 2025 as a whole.
The kind that sits behind your eyes with a well of tears ready to release their flow at a moments notice.
The kind that softens your facial expressions and your sensitivity to the world around you.
So much so that you find more comfort within the wild waters of Mother Nature than within your own friends & family
Slower, more simpler things.
Because there are some places where you must go alone to sit in the silence, places and spaces that are between you and God.
People may hold space for you, but you alone must meet the day-in and day-out silent spaces of the void.
2025 was the kind of grief that makes you question life as a whole.
How you’ve been showing up
What you’ve been tolerating or what you’ve been co-creating with…
And at the end of the day, what’s really worth fighting for
This year I felt like I had to fight to find the home within my heart because it was so utterly shattered and strewn about.
Like a house whose walls and foundation had fallen away.
The sense of safety and warm roar of the fire lost in the turbulent rain and swirls of the storm.
Having to touch and tend all of my broken pieces in order to put them back together, albeit never the same.
It is still quite a work in progress.
To stay, not flee.
To trust my instincts instead of numbing them away.
To speak up & shift the pattern instead of staying safe & stagnant.
To know the subtle sensations and emotional fluctuations that flow with the wave of the Third Way.
Where sensitivity meets strength
Creativity meets courage
Where resilience meets reverence
2025 taught me to surrender to the shedding that is taking place even amidst the loud objections of my ego or the confusion of others around me.
To patiently listen to the subtle sensations of the home within my heart.
And wait…
There has also been so much gold within the wells of grief I’ve been tending to this year
As I continue to discover:
grief and joy are two sides of the same coin
Grief for touching the unbearable parts of your heart
Joy for welcoming them home
A common thread that’s weaved its way throughout this year was returning home to The Great Mother.
The way I continue to understand this is through spending time with Mother Nature.
To even begin to count the number of hours spent exploring the Talladega Mountains this year would be a all-too consuming endeavor.
Let it be known that I sure love this tailend tip of the Appalachian Mountain Range.
This space held me through one descent after another, specifically The Talladega Mountain Spring.
Gifting me songs, water blessings, and so much more.
I know it can seem crazy in our modern world to personify Nature, but we’ve been doing it since time immemorial.
If you’re curious to learn more about this concept, I wrote an entire email about it here: https://walking-wildlight.myflodesk.com/s0wcvy814i
During Spring 2025, I also sat with a lineage of shamans from Q’eros Nation, Peru and was gifted an attunement to their unbroken lineage of Earth wisdom.
To be clear, their medicine is completely earth-based and non-entheogenic.
This attunement paired with my womb-wise plant-taught Sophianic studies has nurtured a deeper intimacy with Life in so many ways beyond any words I could ever share here.
Illuminating the way through each tower of destruction and unknown twist and turn of the journey.
For my birthday this past year, I went to the Wild Medicine Conference and met and learned from the famous Rosemary Gladstar as well as many local herbal superstars like Joanna and Trevor Mann from Walden Farmacy.
This year I’ll be starting my herbalism studies with them, which I’m really looking forward to!
During the summer, I worked with the wisdom of animal medicine by crafting my first-ever deer rattle with Jane Mayer, Richard Wade & Nissa from Free-Range Humaning.
I am still deeply integrating from this experience, especially as I recently broke my rattle and am still “oracling that shit” as Nissa would say lol
This past fall, I discovered a new door of opportunity entirely when I was invited to cook at a women’s wellness retreat. While it was a huge task with many logistics that my mind truly loves to solve, it also was an enormous labor of love to provide nourishment in an artful way with a nod to all of my ayurvedic and shamanic studies.
Now, I’m in the process of fully walking through this door of opportunity while I continue to weave the foundation of Walking Wildilght in a sustainable way that can support a life-long legacy… and beyond?
While there has been so much heartbreak and grief and letting go this past year, there has also been so much gold and so much to be grateful for.
Grief and joy are two sides of the same coin.
All of that being said, if you made it this far, you’re a real one.
Thank you for coming along on this wild journey of life with me.
I trust there’s something from this story that sparks something within you as well ♡
Many blessings through this next chapter and spin of the spiral!
♡B
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