As 2018 recedes into the mist of our recent past…let me be grateful. I have let my fingers taste textures they’ve never felt before this past year. I glided across a fog-filled field at 4 a.m. while clusters of horses pranced by…one of many otherworldly encounters at Kinnection last spring. I saw myself more clearly than I have perhaps ever, as an adult, before, through my own reflection in the glinty bright eyes of my almost-5 year old. I welcomed my inner child to burrow her head in my chest as I showered her with stardust from all the ages and galaxies and love…and we sent the healing back generations together. I came to see my own beauty, know my own strength, trust myself to shine as magnificently as I was meant to…unashamed, ever-expanding, set free.
I got a chance to see how concrete hard and unforgiving the world can seem when our hearts are shut down…which systems are designed to do… and to live the contrast more fully, to live open-heartedly and softly and fiercely, all at once. I have come to know myself so well. All the tender, broken parts…and the magestic, eagle-soaring power and clarity of my essential self.
So many gifts in this past year. I thank the mountains (Grandmother Pisgah in particular), the river spirits, the ancestors, and all benevolent forces for being with me through my healing process. I thank my friends and family and new acquaintances for all the richness they weave in in their diversity and unique expressions. I thank my friend and daddy to my daughter, Brian Hightower. I couldn’t have done this, this well, without you. (I feel like I’m accepting a Grammy. 😉) And wowwww, my daughter, whose name means “illuminating,” and who has led me again and again to celestial pools of self-knowing to drink. She is always shining in my mind’s eye, bathed in moonlight and beaming. What a generous, gentle soul she is…and it is ever an honor to call her daughter.
May we all welcome 2019 having emptied ourselves again, of the grief, the heartache, the heaviness, the clutter. May we emerge into this new year that much lighter, freer, and oh-so-ready to leap. 💜💜💜
Spiral to the Center 