We are all in the dark right now.

The dark of the Moon as we head into a New Moon. The dark of the Winter Solstice for those of us in the N Hemisphere, which is the “New Moon” of the year. The dark of the Sun being blotted out at the Solar Eclipse (the New Moon).

We are in the dark.

We’re in the dark “Balsamic” of the Saturn-Pluto cycle now ending after 36 years to begin anew on 12 January…

We are in the dark.

Our leaders and bright lights seem to be abandoning us.

We are in the dark.

The spectre of death hangs in the air.

The cumulative effect of all the cycles dying at once is breathtaking. Suffocating.

We are in the dark!

Yet all cycles show us that it is darkest just before the dawn.

After the Balsamic and New Moons, the slimmest crescent appears in the sky and steadily, inexorably grows toward full illumination.

The dark stillness of Winter Solstice leads to the first stirrings of spring at Imbolc. At this time of regeneration, we lean forward into the future to celebrate the return of the Light.

Eclipse Season is a time when many souls choose to go home. As many members of this community are reeling with the news of the passage of Ram Dass, I’ll share again my story of the most profound of my numerous near-death experiences. It taught me that death was not something to fear.

It was the day of my daughter’s birth. I had been pregnant for just 6 months. For 5 days we had been in the hospital with pre-eclampsia and HELLP syndrome. We had been told that in cases like ours, the best bet was to keep the baby in the mama as long as possible—the mother being the best incubator—and then rush in to grab the baby and hope both survived. (The nurse later specified what “as long as possible” meant: until we were both on the brink of death.)

My unborn daughter and I were walking that line between life and death. Each breath in was a prayer, each breath out was a lullaby. As the days snailed by, the line got thinner until it was a razor’s edge. They were planning a C-section for later that morning, but an hour before, the bottom fell out. She was crashing. I lost consciousness as they cranked the bed up and ran us down to the OR.

I regained consciousness 8 hours later, completely disoriented: all alone, belly empty, too sick to be admitted to the NICU to meet this new being whom I had nurtured and loved so much that I was only too ready to offer my life in exchange for hers.

When I was able to sleep that night, I had 3 dreams, all very vivid, all about death. The central one served as the foundation of my business and still informs how I show up in the world as a Love Guardian + Light Bearer every day.

Rewind to 5 days before. I was nearing the end of my second trimester of pregnancy. My unborn daughter and I landed in the hospital because suddenly my blood pressure had tripled, and in an instant my brain was too large for my skull. It was excruciatingly painful. Even if you’re not claustrophobic (I am), your brain being squeezed tighter and tighter and tighter into your seemingly shrinking skull with no way out is f*cking scary as hell. The only reason I wasn’t panicked was the sure knowledge that panic was death in that situation. It took everything I had not to go there.

In Labor + Delivery, I was watching myself from the ceiling as the medical staff desperately tried to get a line in to slow the swelling of my brain and lessen the pain. Team after team of phlebotomists was called in but my veins kept collapsing: all the pressure in my body was in my skull.

Suddenly, there was a voice telling me that no matter what I chose, my daughter would be just fine. She was a survivor. Everything was going to be okay with her in the end. This disembodied voice said that if the pain was too much, choosing to die would not be brusque, or jarring or painful. The choice before me was to leave the stream (it was more like a train, actually) of life and go into ease and no-pain, or to stay on it in the blistering fire of all-pain.

At that point I was in no way emotionally attached to staying alive or having “a future,” and the idea of pain cessation was very attractive but I WAS curious to see her face, so I replied, “I think I’ll stay.” In that instant (of course) they got the line in. From a medical perspective I was no longer speeding towards death. I was on the road to recovery.

But I knew that I HAD died. My old life was over. I was reborn as an intuitive and a mother that day.

I was alone in a small, drab space, sitting on a kind of exam table. The only visible feature in this beige emptiness was a closet with many empty hangers jumbled on the rod. Suddenly the disembodied voice from Labor + Delivery was back.

It said: “The Omphalos is the center of the Universe.” That made sense to me as I knew from my literary studies that omphalos meant bellybutton in Greek, and on the day of my daughter’s birth, the umbilical connection or lack thereof was significant. I also understood viscerally for the first time that the Mother (Goddess) was THE central cosmic force. Before that it had been an idea, not a Truth.

The voice went on to say that I was dead.

No, I protested! I hadn’t seen her face! It wasn’t fair to make me stay around for 5 very painful and unrelentingly dull days (no screens because I was a seizure risk; no reading because the meds unfocused my eyes; nothing to do but count the 13 ceiling tiles in my room for 23.5 hours a day, because everyone would call or show up during the same 30 minutes and exhaust me) just to tell me I was dead without getting to meet her.

In the face of my petulance, the voice shared with me the nature of time.

The voice explained that time is absolutely elastic, stretching or contracting like an accordion to be perfect.

“You know when you’re asleep and it feels like you’ve been sleeping for hours, but it’s only been 10 minutes?” I did know. “And when you think you’ve only been asleep for 10 minutes, and it’s actually been hours? You humans feel like time is consistent, that each second, minute, and hour carry the same weight and value, and can be reliably calculated, measureable, linear. The truth is that time is elastic, expanding and contracting to fit.

“Each life lasts the exactly perfect amount of time. Each soul chooses his or her precise coming and going. Nothing is left to chance. There are no mistakes.”

The voice explained that when a person transitions, no matter her or his age, it’s always a celebration and a homecoming for that soul. The only sad ones are the humans left behind on planet Earth because they don’t know the truth of time. The truth of choice.

There is an incredible agency for each soul, and because of the elastic nature of time, each life feels long, even if from the human perspective of those who live on after, it feels short.

Whether a person’s life can be measured in decades or seconds, it’s always the perfect amount of Earth-presence to experience the desired what that soul came to experience.

And, because on the other side of the veil time exists as a kind of eternal present with cause and effect sitting right next to each other, certain souls wondering if they’re prepared for incarnation on Earth can choose to come to a woman who will terminate that pregnancy. That way they can test the waters without having to commit to an entire lifetime.

In the end, I was convinced. In the face of all that evidence, I realized that it was time to go.

As soon as I acquiesced, I was in the dark. No more exam table in a beige space with an empty closet. No more disembodied voice—I could only ever hear it anyway. Nothing but pure blackness, and then a door outlined in fire in front of me.

I knocked; it seemed the only thing to do. No one answered. I was angry: being dead was NOT my idea! I was willing, but not happy, to go home.

I knocked again, and still no answer. Now I was livid. Why, if I didn’t have any choice but to be dead, did no one open the bleeping door? Why did I have to keep showing my willingness to go if no one would let me pass through the gateway?

I knocked a third time, and now the door started to open. Light started spilling through, but the next thing I knew I was back in my hospital bed and the nurse was entering my room.

That dream taught me the power of surrendering to the darkness.

I was willing to die but was instead presented with a new life.

I didn’t know it yet, but 4 years later I would choose to die to my old life as a professor-scholar to be reborn as an Oracle, doing the work I’m doing now.

We are all presented with mini death opportunities throughout our lifetimes. Each Eclipse Season offers us the doorway outlined in flame. (So much like a Solar Eclipse! Except square instead of round.)

Will we step through into a new trajectory, or fight to stay on the old path? Will the old path even be there if we try to return to it?

If you think I’m advocating for stepping through, I probably am—I have been so grateful at the beauty and wisdom available each time I have stepped through a portal that I don’t look back. And yet, my work has taught me that there are no bad choices; each path merely brings different experiences: some harder, some more easeful.

Dear one, if you want to walk up to the doorways outlined in flame full of courage rather than being dragged kicking and screaming like a victim, I invite you to join me on this adventure. 

This Eclipse Season we will all face at least 3 more: Saturday’s Solstice was one, but before us are the Solar Eclipse on 25/26 December, the Lunar Eclipse on 10 January, and the Saturn-Pluto conjunction on 12 January.

In “Magick + Manifestation Through Eclipse Season” we are riding our flying carpets through the portals. Even though we have only just begun, the experience is so profound already. Last week there was a 2-hour channeling on final-quarter moons (this was the last one of the decade), more about this Eclipse Season, and what role Solstice has in this season of alchemy and radical sudden shift.

I created this experience to help us all sail through these challenging times with open eyes, focused attention, and a powerful and conscious collective with which to travel. Truly. These next 4 weeks may be the most challenging of all our lives! When we link arms and have each other’s backs, we are more empowered, more inspired, more sheltered from the storms that rage.

You can join us for this adventure any time—even after it’s over, that’s how potent it is!—because this is energy work and energy cannot be held captive by the human illusion of linear time. I made it super affordable so that many could join.

These portals we are facing are not just daunting, they are also empowering. We have the opportunity to be cleared of old beliefs, old patterns, so that we don’t have to carry them through the next 32 years.

What kind of life would you like to create for yourself? What kind of world would you like to see around you, for you and the next generation, and the generations after that? THIS, right here, is what’s on offer. Especially with the double portal of Lunar Eclipse and Saturn-Pluto conjunction (it only happens 3 times a century, and almost never with the kind of stellar lineup we’re seeing now!) we are being handed a creative carte blanche.

Let’s come together to build this new world together as we fly on our carpets through these portals of change, scooping up treasure as we go. Find out more HERE.

When my mother chose to transition 2 weeks ago, though in many ways it broke my heart, it was my honor to advocate for her powerful choice to say no to oxygen assistance.

It was my honor to press the medical staff on her behalf to give her more morphine so that the sense of being suffocated would be attenuated.

It was my honor to stand with my father and sister and witness my mother’s final breath.

It was my honor to stand as sacred witness as she stood courageously in front of her final gateway in this life.

…

It has been a huge comfort these past 48 hours to think of her and Ram Dass walking each other home…

Love + courage to us all as we each stand before our own potent gateways. Know that it would be my honor to stand with you if you so choose.

May our winged hearts fly ever free!

Love + Magick + Happy Holy Days,