On moving.

Another email, I don't hit reply and you are important, crazy so.The kid's haircuts, forgot. The middle one can't see past his bangs. The exit, drove past it, dreaming of fantasies in my belly. Piles of dishes that would devastate me if you walked in the kitchen and saw.

The stuck takes over the impulsive woman who runs her business and family on her desires and whimsy. .......

You run out of gas but decide not to put any gas in so you can just sit there, in the middle of the open road that stuck took you towards and be the eyes of witnessing.

You watch the other cars drive by and hold the power to join them, but you want only to sit inside of the truck with your windows rolled down, naked and longing and feeling the warm air soothe the bits of you that try to infuse the guilt.

The guilt will flow through and the child who grew into the words that defined her life become a pulse of story that plays on with new words and so she sits and watches.

And this is what we say to her...

Hey sweet love.

It is time now. It is time.

Get out and place your feet on the warm ground.

Feel it, let the heat go from pavement into soles.

Lift your head up to the sky and thank the Goddesses who hold you who know you who become you.

Now without thinking love, start to move.

Dance or run or skip or fly or devour another, but move.

Go.

It is time now. It is time.

Don't worry how. I will show you why.

As soon as you move.

.......

From Thursday morning love letters, dropped like feathers into your inbox before your coffee starts to brew.

On becoming a runner.

On becoming a runner. At 39.

First you must run. It may only be 25 or 30 paces. Then you walk. Catch your breath. Run again.

If you are carrying more weight than your body is used to, you can think of it as a weighted vest that you will be shedding over the months. Weighted vests make you stronger.

You will hear that everyone felt like you when they started, huffing and puffing and mostly walking. You may not believe them. Especially when they tell you now they can run 5 miles rather effortlessly. Yes, that's when you won't believe them.

There is a good chance you'll do a ton of things wrong. Or not. But if you do, it is the way we learn. Watch a little babe learn to walk. They figure it out by trying, failing, going back.

The first time feeling the runner's high will change your life. This is not an exaggeration.

You will receive a shit ton of advice. Listen to it but don't take carry it all. Take what you need, excuse the rest. This is your journey.

Find shoes that feel like joy.

Get an app on your phone to track your distance and pace. Let it talk to you each mile and encourage you. (You may still not believe you'll run a mile or more, but you will. No need to believe me yet.)

Track your progress and workouts with that app so you can find the trends that work for you. A running plan is a guide, find yourself inside of it.

Rest days. Once you've felt the high you won't want them but they change the game.

Things will hurt. This is how they get stronger. Let your body heal and be challenged in safety and love.

Don't run on the sidewalk, stay in the streets or on the paths. Your knees will thank you.

Buy a few running clothes that make you feel gorgeous. Everything you do can be done gorgeously. Even, especially, sweating.

Running and yoga clothes come with cute little zippered pockets now to hold keys and phones. Those will become your favorite.

Don't just run. Have a yoga day. Do planks after your runs. Devote one day to core. Lift. Lots of pigeon pose. Rest.

Notice the days when you are running away from yourself. They will hurt. You will feel pain. These are the days that you are pushing.

Notice the days when you find home, which is you, inside of your run. They will feel like joy. These are the days that you are in your body. And this is gratitude.

Drink water. After your run add a little sea salt and lemon and hydrate.

To become a runner you must run. There is no other way.

Since starting to run 6 weeks ago I have become a runner. After 14 days of running extremely little, mostly walking, I was left useless with pain in both knees. I could barely walk down stairs. I waited for my knees to heal and spent the following 3 weeks doing kettle bell swings so I wouldn't lose my momentum.

I felt like a failure. I kept my patience and let myself heal. Then I began to run again. I followed those bits of advice that I had collected and I have no knee pain.

My longest run is almost 3 miles at about a 12 minute pace.

6 weeks ago I would have laughed if you told me after a few weeks of running I would be able to run 3 miles. I would have said, "But I am not a runner."

I was just asked to join a half marathon for my 40th year. I just might.

My whole life I longed to be a runner. I watched my father run as though it was his religion. I always felt so jealous, not of his time running, but of the way it made him feel, like it was moving prayer aligning his brain and body. I seem to share a similar brain and yes, it is moving prayer.

I have watched my Instagram feed fill up with women starting to or returning to becoming runners. It overwhelms my heart. To feel my movement become sacred inside of another's movement feels so good.

When my knees had to stop I had women telling me that they were inspired to run again and that they would run for me while I couldn't. I believed them. I felt it. I was there too.

I run because it brings me back to me, back into my body.

I am a runner. At 39.

"The tension is here Between who you are and who you could be Between how it is and how it should be"

I Dare You to Move, Switchfoot

(Please note this is simply a story about my last few weeks learning to run. It is in no way a running plan or fitness advice. Again, this is my story.)

When you don't want to write your newsletter.

"Who are you writing your newsletter to?"

"To me. I write to myself."

I hadn't realized this truth until a crazy smart woman asked me a couple of years ago.

"And it is my favorite thing I write. It's a love letter. First to myself, then to my circle. It is fully my voice, my heart, my stories."

Every single week I don't want to write it. I talk myself out of it. I play games. I make up stories about how I have nothing left to say, I'm dry, barren in the word department.

Every single week I wait all day, all day, then I finally sit down during the kid's tech time (5-6pm every night, oh yes) and I pour a glass of wine and open my screen.

I pull up a blank newsletter. I sip. All day thoughts about what I will write have been dancing inside of me and they all suck. Because it isn't about the idea, it's about the voice of me, sitting down and talking to myself.

It is the texts from friends, my sanity. It is the run or the memory or the way I try to pretend I don't do that thing, that thing that makes me crazy.

Today it is the stories. The ones I create, based not in reality, if I even wanted to look at reality. It is the ones I create out of false safety based on only the pieces I choose to include and the ones I make up and the ones that have come before (most of those not even mine).

The stories that trap. The stories that hold the heart hostage. The stories that fuck up the path into vulnerability because vulnerability only speaks the language of full truth because of that place where you move through fear.

So I listen. I ask. I cut through the crap of my own exposition and rants and expectations so I can find the questions.

Then I feel my heart flutter like it will fly out of my chest.

I practice hearing the words that I receive without placing my own story on them. Holy shit, I don't have to create a fantasy?

I can just listen. Hear. Receive the words. Let them have their feelings and observe myself having mine and come clean about all the stories, all the stories that I hold onto because holding them means I don't have to let go.

I want you to be different. I want this to change. Here, I wrote the script, it's in my head, could you memorize it please? Could you play this character just a little bit longer so I don't have to evolve, let go, move on? Please, just one more line, one more pretend story in my head?

Just. One. More. Time.

The addiction of the story, the fantasy.

I don't want to write my newsletter. I don't want to hear my voice, which then I give to you.

It is only the promise that it will become your voice that allows the words to find their way to the page.

I sip. I hold. I let go. I hit save. And so it is.

.......

From Thursday morning love letters, dropped like feathers into your inbox before your coffee starts to brew.

Wild woman wrapped around the moon.

the sand crept up beneath her thigh and between her fingers

she lifted to the sky as though a lover from a past that needed to be inside her to free his head

and she counted the stars that spun around her skin

never having seen an existence filled with milky ways and truth

she wanted the stars to tease her skin, mouth, pussy, goddess spirit

breasts swollen from the moments she had grown into a woman because now she was

and her sex was alive as the ocean sounds traced her body then became the moon she couldn't see

so she wrapped and the ocean spilled out of her while the moon persuaded her touch

i am wild she mouthed to her universe

i claim this piece of me

stop leaving me over and again

i am wild, she said in vibration with the moon

i am thirsty

i am wild

i am energy bringer

i am becoming

i am my lust

i am characters i play

i am missing you

i am you

i am dust of stars

i am dreams

i am fucking beautiful

i am rebirthed

i am moist

i am magical

i am soul's message

i am fierce in my wander

i am stories made from living

i am wrapped around the moon

i am wild she showed her universe

her feet never touched the water and her eyes never saw the moon

so she became faith in intuition and cycles and space and the quiet that can bring chaos

lifting her skin now bare with raw truth she is open to receive contracts of the heart that manifest in release

and the fantasy of the penetration as a wild soul's longing

she whispers once more

i am wild

Their becoming.

They came with presents that smelled of lavender and chocolate and fresh flowers. It was their weekend, showing up as almost strangers who held an already deep love for each.

They come in threes.

Three is my magic number, for their prompts and their lifting, in all the ways I want them to discover themselves. Three.

Each came to be lifted, women hearing one another, listening with parts of them that have been surrounded by noise. They came to be seen and in their becoming be witness to the others as they moved into places that opened them while allowing the letting go of stories clung so tightly to, no matter how difficult it seemed. The old stories no longer their safety.

Our time was magazines being ripped and cut to make way for dreams and longings, it was sitting in the white thrown of a chair with the fuzzy brown pillow nestled behind them as they spoke and let a few tears roll down. Our time was about being nurtured, wine poured, soup warmed and served with fresh basil, white crisp sheets to hold the work of the body and the sense that in peacefulness they could both do the beautiful hard work and release all together, as one.

When they leave I feel my energy shift deep into myself. I take the bits that I have carried with them and of them and I allow the work and the knowings and the flutters of what I can so clearly see coming for them move through my nervous system and integrate. I am a space holder. This means I know when to do very little, just enough or nothing at all. That is my set of three.

I am a guide, they are my anchors.

We listened. We lifted. We circled in the way that only almost strangers full of love can circle together.

They still go on.

Before the first sip, I am intoxicated by the smell of red clinging to the sides of glass as I tell myself to wait for seconds before the taste.

Before your touch, in my mind I feel the pleasure and the memories and the lives lived before, I am tempted to remain there.

Before the plane my insides are tangled waiting for adventure but longing for the safety of every item to squeeze in the bags and give me promise of belonging.

Before the iteration begins anew I am the Universe as she surrenders in prayer for our name.

Before fresh ink the uncertainty of forever and the illusion that control is a player.

Before I bite into the stew that simmered for hours I am the ritual of love and the promises that nurturing souls desire.

Before the clothes are on there is only naked, searching for the eyes that see what I see and the deception that it can be held in memory.

Before the reach of what is coming I need to move, force my legs to walk from the hold of knowing I loved you before.

“That's when I realized that certain moments go on forever. Even after they're over they still go on, even after you're dead and buried, those moments are lasting still, backward and forward, on into infinity. They are everything and everywhere all at once.They are the meaning.”

~Lauren Oliver, Before I Fall

Creating lipstick colors and somewhat unuseful thoughts.

In High School I had a shit ton of downs. The lows. The times when he doesn't like you, the friend drama, the failures in math class, the people you love moving away (because you went to an overseas school) and because you have no idea you are a highly sensitive who feels the world in ways that are just a bit more dramatic and heightened and a little bit crazy (good crazy but a little bit crazy none the less), it can feel like too much.

I had no tools with which to get through the lows, the times that felt like I was somehow dying from the overwhelm of feelings. So I bought lipstick. Lots of lipstick. I mixed the colors and made new colors. Somehow a new tube of lipstick that I could transform into a hot color on my lips felt magical and a distraction from the reality of the downs that threatened to eat me up. My favorite was a deep red mixed with a brown that made the most scrumptious early 1990's color.

It was no zoloft, but it became one tool in my tool box. Part creation, part thrill of the new thing, part focus on beauty.

I am talking about lipstick, somewhat unuseful, a memory that floated up to me today. I had some hurts and there in the mirror, I stood mixing.

.....

In Spirits of Joy (join us in July!) we have a prompt around finding your spirit guide. I've taken this prompt and expanded it for my Magic Making Circle and one of the prompts we did was to take selfie's while infusing our Spirit Guide's essence or mantras into us. You can find pictures to use as posing inspiration or feeling inspiration.

My spirit guide is a four year old girl named Magic. What I know about her is that 'they call her happy.' Magic is helping me find the daily moments of happy in my life. So my photo shoot for today's lipstick post was inspired by Magic. It was fun. I felt happy.

I played. I have been craving play like a thirst. It's deep. I adore laughing.

.....

I also crave falling back in love with my blog. Which means getting back to the open place of sharing somewhat unuseful thoughts that can turn into their own magic through story and sharing.

It's time.

Of wanting, of being, the sacred.

The earth has disappeared beneath my feet,Illusion fled from all my ecstasy. Now like a radiant sky creature God keeps opening. God keeps opening Inside of Me.

~ Hafiz

I will forever be curious about feeling like two separate women, one born post ovulation, one born post the female bleed. Their needs, cravings, givings, abilities and heart strings belong to them entirely as though not connected. They share one spirit that flows through the happy and sad of living and choices and some unknowingly fierce female bond of light and shadow and the surprise of becoming reborn.

It is a sacred experience to be a woman. To know the depth of feeling and mood and cycles like moon and tide.

It is a sacred experience to be a woman. To find honor in the craziness, the lack of permission and the flow of the river.

It is a sacred experience to be a woman. To understand deserving as a practice and the fire stoking of stillness.

It is a sacred experience to be a woman. To love men as a woman, to love women, to hold love like a spinning top.

It is a sacred experience to be a woman. To trust the threads that form circles and let our bodies rebirth each month, twice. Or more.

It is a sacred experience to be a woman. To dance in wildly open secrets, words and touch mingled inside of daily rituals.

It is a sacred experience to be a woman. To want to feel holy, be holy, while riding horseback naked and exposed.

It is a sacred experience to be a woman. To feel herself, touch herself, cry with herself, be with herself and explode into the connections that keep her alive.

It is sacred. Holy.

Surprise me today. Surprise me.

Spirits of Joy ~ A 30 day course to creating a vision book

Two years ago on my birthday I created Spirits of Joy as a celebration towards my becoming and invited women from all over to join in and start to create beauty and change in their lives and spirits.

I now have a shelf of vision books. Some filled and popping, others only used part of the way and released when I knew the work in them was done. My life is guided by these pages, by these feelings inside of these pages. My life is guided by my willingness to sit down and do the work of visioning and then by getting up and releasing any expectations I hold around any of it. My visioning has become secret messages, spirit guides, beautiful dreams, crazy surprises and manifesting of happiness in my life.

The course has shifted gorgeously over these two years. I've learned how specific to be (or not be), how to create prompts that pull out huge surrpises and joy and I have discovered that sharing my stories and other women's stories is at the heart of this soulwork that is visioning.

Spirits of Joy, 30 days to creating your vision book

July 1st we begin.

$59.00

Soulwork is about connection to self, to the now and that future woman we see and want to flow into.

As we start to make what become vision books, powerful shifts starts to happen. Parts of our lives that have been stuck, stopped, lost, come alive as we find a part of ourselves that have been longing to come out. These prompts not only become part of our books, but our daily thoughts, and allow our writing practices and businesses and love lives and mothering to expand and gain depth.

Through ritualized vision work we can allow each day to guide us towards living joyously, even (especially) when things are hard or challenges arise.

Know yourself. Use these prompts to spend time with yourself. To light up in a new way. To discover a you that may have hidden out, buried by the stresses of daily living.

Create pages filled with words and visions and feelings that surround them. As you do this you harness the true magic of the Universe. You vibrate in a new way. These books become a way for you to align what you want with what you have. They create manifesting magic in your life.

Visioning allows you to love this life now while creating a future of your dreams.

Prompts each day that will invite you to play, explore, have fun, go deep into your spirits, fly inside of magic and create books that are so beautiful you'll want to carry them everywhere.

• Color stories
• 'I am' which is the prompt that will become a ritual of change and acceptance
• Beautiful dreams
• Wantings
• Desires
• Awakenings
• Words of spirit
• Healing
• Joy
• 30 days of prompts sent to you through your email, filled with story, photos and some videos from myself and some of my friends who have been won over by the beauty of visioning

New prompts added, like the secret message cards that have become my new favorite!

Spirits of Joy, 30 days to creating your vision book

July 1st we begin.

$59.00

"I am missing Hannah's daily emails, it had become part of my morning ritual. I would read them on my cell phone before getting out of bed every morning. Then lay here quietly reflecting on them before beginning anything else."

"I have had so many little insights into me & my joy. I appreciate you and the tribe more than I can say ~ Namaste ~ Love to all " ♥

"Hannah, this beautiful journey has grown through love. Your love, that you share with all of us."

"I have included reading my prompts and taking the time to process your beautiful words in my ritual. So inspiring and a lovely way with a cup of tea to start my day. Please don't let me miss the next program. Thank you for changing my mornings. xxx"

"It is my turn to thank you (and everyone) for the tasks and gracious love that is here in this tribe."

"Thank you, dear soul...this month has been life changing for me."

"I am a believer now. A believer of visioning."

There is a closed Facebook group just for those of you working through these 30 days. You can share pictures, thoughts, aha moments and see the daily journey of soulwork from others who are going through the days. Totally optional but a beautiful way to connect and share stories.

I've been visioning since I was young. As a highly-senstive child (who never knew that term) I had a brutal time dealing with my feelings. I felt overun by sensations and sadness and joy and every possible feeling you could have. One of the ways I learned to 'see' those feelings was to cut and paste. To go into a magazine and let the words and images talk to me.

Visioning is how I find center. It is how I allow myself to play into my dreams. It is how I manifest from a feeling into reality. It is a safe space to receive messages and words from the Universe through these magazines and let myself feel without fear that those feelings will consume or weaken me.

Each time I complete a new page I want to stare at it for hours, sometimes I make free pages and hang them on the wall.

Vision books help us write new stories, chapters and pages for our lives. We don't have to stay stuck or in fear. We can step into our light. Maybe it seems crazy that a little book full of magazine cut outs can help us heal and create beauty in our lives. A little crazy never hurt! Let's play...

Questions you might have::

Is this a journaling course? Nope, I've never been good at keeping a journal so I wouldn't be the one to guide you to that. But I do love prompts, writing exploration, vision board work and art books. I love cutting and pasting and exploring. This is about creativity and using our right brain to deepen our joy.

What if I'm not creative? What if? Hm, I think you might surprise yourself.

I've never been able to fully participate in long e-courses. What if I can't keep up? I don't keep up with the pace of others either. I do things at my own pace. You'll have all the emails that come to save and use for any time you'd like. Take your time, read the first 5, join in at the end. Whatever works for you. It is your 30 days.

Can I participate without keeping a book? Sure thing. Sometimes just being present to the thoughts and prompts is all you need. This is about you. Not me or them. What feels good to you? You can also create a vision board, a big huge poster of your thoughts and cut outs, a piece of art to hang on the wall. The beauty of creation is all yours.

What will I need? A blank book, I like this one, I love the gray and the kraft color, this one has a pocket to store your little cut outs for later and they come in many different sizes. Scissors, a glue stick and lots of magazines and old cards, quotes, etc will be needed. A little time and space that you can carve out for you. If you have kids have them be part of this, get them each a book so that if you are short on alone time, you can still do some visioning each day.

I have taken this course before, is it the same? Yes and no. It will follow many of the same prompts. My intuition always lets me know what needs to be added or changed. What I can say is that every time I go back into my book and do my prompts again, the new layers appear. I am amazed at how quickly I can manifest the feelings and the visions. And of course, each group that comes together provides the magic that a course never can on its own.

What if I whispered instead of yelled?

Everything in the Universe has a rhythm, everything dances. ~Maya Angelou

"I'm here now."

He climbs into bed next to me at 6am, munching a granola bar, leaving the last little bit. I put the rest on the nightstand and he wraps his arms around my belly and breasts.

"I'm going to snuggle for about 5 hours." Then he falls asleep.

......

I untangled and got up to grab my coffee from him. I had feelings of regret about how I handled an interaction at night. Was I taking responsibility for his feelings and not letting him have them out of my fear of not being in control or just trying to explain and justify because I couldn't say what I really needed in the night?

I sip my coffee. Climb back into bed.

......

I went running on a knee that should have been rested. I ran until the pain was so deep because I just wanted to be out of breath, pushing. I am so pissed that this thing I have chosen is hard in ways I didn't imagine.

I thought I could just run my way into my happiness. As though happiness meant I wouldn't feel it anymore.

Grateful I can take a day off of showering after my run because I didn't sweat.

I push. Even (especially) for happiness, I push.

......

He woke up when he heard Pokemon (Digimon? Something obnoxiously-mon) on the tv. They get to watch a show at 7:30 each morning so I can have 25 minutes of stillness around me and make breakfast and lunches.

Up on the couch as close to his brother as he can get without sitting on top of him, his sleepy eyes go right into the fantasy world.

I see how relaxed he is. Chocolate granola bars, mama snuggles, Pokemon with his best friend, scootering around the living room.

My insides scream at The Universe in prayer, "I can't relax, please let me push. I am really pissed at you right now. I just started."

.......

And what if I whispered instead of yelled?

What if I packed each day like a picnik on the beach?

What if I closed my eyes and cried while they listened?

What if I stopped waiting and plunged into cold water?

What if my moment now became the next moment of pleasure?

What if ease was not a concept but a daily practice as I unwind from bed each morning?

What if the green sharpie replaced the dried up black one?

What if I openly let them be who they are, making space for the magic of who I am?

What if I stopped believing that their behavior is how my happiness is created or torn?

What if I gave them space enough to be themselves, fully and wholly their own self and decided only my own self?

What if I let five minutes each day only be about receiving the vibrations that are pure happiness?

What if my emotional core let me run in the rain while writing lists of things I love in my head?

What if vows fell away so that finally I could feel my own skin, and let them feel theirs?

What if my practice of ease let back in delight and truth and me?

What if my vision of connection meant believing my feelings?

What if the New Moon in its dark sky opened it up so that it could be so, already was so, is so?

......

I told him I was sorry, heard myself list excuses and reasons. The truth was I had just needed to stay with myself and didn't choose it. I pushed through, fearing my alone, he would have accepted it openly. The alone feels stuck, not free. I have to re-learn, in newness.

I make the list in my head... if chocolate granola bars were eggs benedict, if mama snuggles were hour and a half long massages, if Pokemon was a romantic comedy, if scootering around the living room were a walk on the beach.

......

Yielding in pigeon pose I feel my hips open and my knee relax. I set my timer on the phone for three different pick up times, for three different kids. I use the stop watch function to time plank pose.

If I make it to 50 seconds I'll let myself have a second cup of coffee.

The story of a woman, not running.

What I know from this lesson (and really didn't want to know) was that I struggle to let go of control. I am a supreme wanter of control.

In learning to work with the Universe you learn to tap into how you want to feel (I teach this and practice this through visioning), know what you want, get as damn specific as you can and then you have to let the details go. If you try to control the details you are stuck in the crazy-pants place of expectations and those expectations can do damage to our hearts. And spirits.

I started to run because I wanted to feel happy as part of a daily practice. I wanted the sweat and the, yes, control over being happy.

Then as it was rushing into my life, I had to stop. That day of being stopped brought me to an edge. I cried that day. In front of people, my kids, as much as I wanted to control my tears I couldn't. I cancelled plans to go out. I cried some more. It wasn't just about the running, it was about having made a beautiful decision to choose to sweat, to feel happy after hiding some deep pain inside of my cells, in my body. Other things happened that day that pulled me inside of sadness and I was pissed.

I found myself in a complete lack of control. I felt sad. How was this working towards my happy plan? And on the day I ovulate and everything feels more, bigger, stronger, so damn hormonal?

The light and the shadow. The happy and the sad. The full and the new. The bleeding and the ovulating. The run and the rest. The water and the wine. The high and the low. The wild and the safe. The yoga pants and the high heels. The doing and the asking. The giving and the receiving.

That is how it is part of the happy plan.

The story of a woman not running is the story of a woman who decided to feel happy and then opened to beautiful gifts that the Universe started to send because she kept believing it was time.

In her skin, an open chat with you.

I sent Mara a text. "Want to do a weekend at The Loft all around sensuality and sexuality with coloring pages of penises and vaginas?"

"So in." (I don't really remember her response, but it basically was that.)

And will you write erotica? And can we do mirror selfies? And can there be raw chocolate peanutbutter cups? And we might need some way more prolific magazines for visioning...

"Let's jam on a Spreecast and talk about living sensually in the everyday since the workshop can only be for 10 people?"

"Um, yes. Perfect. Done."

(That was your glimpse into how things get created and launched around here!)

Join our FREE live Spreecast on Wednesday, May 28th at 11 am Eastern

We will be hopping on Spreecast to jam about Sensuality in the Everyday. This call will be girlfriend style – an open chat about our real stories of struggles and openings around our own sensuality practices.

You’ll be invited to chat along with us in a live chat feed that requires only your computer and fast typing fingers. Join us to ask questions, share your practices, and be a part of a circle of women who are serious about feeling alive and glowing in their skin.

We will be talking about (among other things that you all will bring up in the live chat) ::

• How to honor our body as temple each morning when we wake. Mara loves action steps and she'll share how she cycles in and out of the honoring of herself and the impact that it has on her body, spirit and business.

• Sensuality at different ages, I might be thinking about this a ton as my 40th approaches. How does living sensually change for us over time?

• How we can start to vision around sensual living and we will share some of our pages with you.

• What keeps us from connecting to our sensual everyday? What keeps us stuck?

• The missing pieces that allude us from fully being inside of our sensuality. (And once we discover them, are they really that simple??)

• Our five senses and for a bonus round the sixth one that we love so...

• Glowing. Knowing the feelings and actions that are behind that glowing.

• The difference between sensuality and sexuality and where they intersect.

• Why sensual living quenches our thirsts, feeds our hungers and lights us up.

This conversation is what so many of us have been waiting in quiet for. Sign up here to join us live (and get a recording if you can't make it) on Wednesday at 11am Eastern Time.

Transitioning my body. {With giveaway}

Warm weather always brings me face to face with my body issues. The way I see myself and the way I feel in my skin become my obsession. I like 3/4 tight sleeves and skinny jeans and boots. Letting my skin face the air is hard. I struggle with the change of season.

Last year I wore jeans and yoga pants all summer. It was hot. I was sensitive. This year before it gets smokin' hot I decided to transition my body slowly, the way I would ask my five year old to take on.

I went shopping. I tucked some feelings in my pocket.

happy.

fun.

sexy.

Building a summer wardrobe on happiness, fun and that feeling of super sexy inside your skin; ba-bam. This means facing some demons lurking in the summer shadows. And so happy is my guide.

When do I feel the most beautiful in my skin? When I am happy. When do I feel sexy? When I am confident. When do I have fun? When I am happy and sexy.

I've got lots of new layering tanks that I buy inexpensively at TJ Maxx. This sweater to throw over on these inbetween days or at night around the fire pit literally jumped off its hanger and into my hands. I adore it.

I even bought some crazy short shorts that stretch on my waist to throw on for the beach trips, car packed with quilt and picnic.

Summer is to me big jewelry. Bright. Stunning colors on glowing sunkissed skin. Loving this and this and this.

I mixed some inexpensive items, like tank tops and shorts with some pieces like this skirt from Anthro where I invest a bit more.

Here is the biggest key to all of this. I got rid of all the summer things that I had that feel awful on me. That fit wrong. That aren't me. That I just bought in panic and desperation. I filled a garbage bag of them. They don't serve me. They keep me so down about who am I rather than allowing me to celebrate the shit out of who I am now.

This summer my thirst is for feeling delicious in my skin. For emobodying happy. For glowing under the sun in my short shorts.

I found this beautiful kimono that I thought would make a perfect summer wake up robe for sitting on the porch sipping my coffee (hot as long as possible before I start to ice it) with bare legs and a long tank top, watching my garden grow bigger each day.

I got one for me and one for you. Well, one of you. It is a size M, it is generous, quite free flowing and open. The colors are a bit out of my color story but the black won me over.

Here is the way to enter the giveaway which will close 5/24/14.

Just leave a comment on this post telling us what summer is guiding you towards...a word or phrase that holds what you most want to feel this year as the sun shines just a bit hotter down on us.

Then I will grab a random winner on the 24th and send the kimono, with probably a few other surprises out.

The hush of a woman in business.

"I need to feel myself in my skin again," the woman said.

......

I couldn't remember the last time I baked cookies in my kitchen.

All the baking sheets caked with grease and needing replacing. The walls smaller. The white paint turned grey from the living of little hands, boy dirt (quite unique stuff) and neglected cleaning supplies.

Realities of three children readying for the next stages of development (she is babysitting and menstruating, he is making his own noodle packets and talking about girls, he is scootering around the block and eating every 5 minutes and laughing manically). Holding onto the snuggles of the last one who still feels almost baby like to my body. He leans into me and twirls my hair.

Watching my hands present light brown age spots.

I make a truly fine chocolate chip cookie.

......

Her friends came and the celebration wasn't. She could feel the end of what was, making space for the next. Doorways hurt her in places she doesn't realize she has. She knew that each had carried the other to the place where freedom and love release the old bits.

They all felt the fear, gave it voice and expanded.

Her needing was replaced with longings for a new edge.

......

The quieting of my voice, my fingers always typing it as fast as the moments revealed, became my prayer. The quieting so I could hear something greater than my ego. I don't need an answer. I feel the truth of decades of women looking down at the spots on their hands and knowing that the wisdom is to quiet the questions and feel the day, if just for moments.

Laundry asks no questions. Cookie dough forming into balls pressed onto cold baking sheets asks no questions. Fresh white paint is creation and calm. The meditation of morning coffee as an act of service. A love language. A reminder to stop asking what will happen and just sip.

The little just asked me for more food. After granola bars, peaches, toast and milk. I am his answer.

......

She said, "You never said that to me before." Then the woman fell back into questions, reached her hand into the deep, deep pockets sourced with pleasure.

......

All my visioning circled around movement, peeling and the rise.

She couldn't feel herself in her own skin but I must. Can the words "I'm sorry" release pain into new desires? As summer teases and the wardrobe starts to change, more skin revealed from the layers, will the feeling be of touch?

......

"My fingers want to type my heart again." She had sipped her tears in the hush and the words once again felt like the happiness of the sun.

Mirrors.

I have a favorite mirror in a funky hip part of town in a bathroom in a restaraunt. A place where I grew up over the last year, where I had my first 39th birthday toast (there were more than one) and where I can bring my friends and feel so comfortable (hsp's love returning to the safe places). And this mirror is round with old repurposed wood. The lighting is quite horrible, but you can get around that. I take a picture almost every time I visit. I sometimes leave little bathroom secret messages on it for someone to find later in the night. When I look back at each of the mirror pictures in this one place I see myself in time. I see where I have come from and I see where I am. Every so often I take a picture and I know that it is my guide to where I am going. I notice how I have started to loosen up in the picture, playing and posing, just for myself.

I spent some time, probably a couple of years, avoiding mirrors. I had no full length mirror. I had to learn to feel who I was inside of my body and stop making a good day about how more or less bloated my belly was. I started to just look at my face, my neck, my breasts and my hair in the mirrors until over time I could slowly look at all of me. We are not only what we see in a mirror and yet it is the only way we will ever truly look at our own physical self. Isn't there something incredibly powerful in that?

When I ran Sexy and Sanguine I knew that we would need to spend time looking into mirrors and the mirrors of our cameras. There is an intimacy with yourself that happens when you see yourself and photograph yourself that doesn't happen with another person. You learn to slow yourself down and look at the places that you have been afraid to see. My prompts were gentle but insisted that the pieces that we try to hide from were brought to the mirror for our own eyes to stop fighting and start seeing with truth. I witnessed these women fall in love with their own bodies and skin in a way they had been searching for in years of dieting, hiding, addictions and stories that weren't their own.

Some days I need to turn around. I am in so much pain that looking into my own eyes throws me to my knees. And so I let myself turn around and I find a new way of seeing myself. I'm still there. Not hiding just hurting. And hurting and sadness and pain are as much a truth as is joy. The day Kate Moss, also 39, had her Playboy spread come out I stood in the mirror, looked straight on and said, "This is my 39. I feel more confident and sexy than I ever have." Looking into the mirror, capturing that moment in time always brings me back to the memory of claiming my number, my age, my lived experiences that are adding up to stories that keep getting more rich and luscious and filled.

This time in the mirror, the photos that follow are my daily practice of seeing who I am today. I am never the same, always changed and flowing and my own Satnam. When I share them it is permission for you to see yourself as goddess as feminine source as truth as passion as joy as healing wounds as sexual as seen as growing sensuality as expression as pure physical beauty. As I heal I pass on the permission for you to heal. And to be seen. And to be beautiful and claim that knowing of beauty. And to be even more beautiful because of that time you spend seeing yourself as intimately as if your lover gave you his eyes.

You may play. Smile or not. Be naked or not. Each day look at you. Find your own eyes and shape and make silly faces. Take the pictures. Create a collection of your beauty and travels and favorite places. Write the story of you growing up into your feminine truth rather than holding onto a belief that you aren't worth your own beauty. We are life and love inside these bodies. Look at them. Adore them. Devour them with your own eyes and let the rawness of your sensual self start to be your new definition of who you are. Stand in the mirror and look.

......

Join us for more sensual living for 10 days of The Making Space Cleanse {For the sensual woman} starting April 21st.

Feel me.

There are days when the sadness and old pains start to wiggle around and grab hold of the parts of you where they like to get stuck inside. Our job is to feel them, love them the fuck up and let them move.

And we choose.

I choose to be the eyes of sensual living; look into them and feel me. Feel me. As I am feeling the sadness wiggle around replaced by my smile.

And we choose.

I choose to stand fully naked, body opening, my skin mine again.

And we choose.

I choose a shower so hot my sweat runs with steam.

And we choose.

I choose time alone without the guilt of who else I'm supposed to be and road trips where the anger drops away with every mile behind the wheel.

And we choose.

I choose to rub your feet while you tell me your stories. I want to keep listening and make the clock stop. While you talk I can feel me.

And we choose.

I choose each word and they add up to paragraphs that reveal the pieces of me that want to be felt and held and laughed together; and they become written.

And we choose.

I choose to feel me in my skin in my sadness in my pleasure in me in you in my spirit guide of becoming.

And then we choose again.

we are for eachother: then

laugh, leaning back in my arms

for life's not a paragraph

~ e.e. cummings

.....

From Thursday's Making Space love notes. Sign up in that box at the top of the page and on the right. Each week a little note of inspiration, poetry, prompting or challenge will float into your inbox.

The making space cleanse. {For the sensual woman}

 

• 10 days of Making Space for the sensual woman inside of you, through connecting with home, body and spirit
• April 21st - April 30th
  
• Soulwork, challenges, prompts that allow you to feel space and sensuality and carve out crazy amounts of beauty
  
• All leading up to the New Moon on April 29th where we celebrate the spaces we've created
  
• All new daily videos and some yummy recipes
  

On April 21st I will be taking my Magic Making Circle through a 10 day making space cleanse that I've designed just for our magical journey. Here is your invitation for 10 days of the sacred and the sensual along with us.

Join us $44.00

How do we get from where we are to where we want to be? We make space for joy in our now and watch the magic unfold.

It seems to happen without noticing. My drawers start to become tight, stuffed. Shoes spill all over my closet and none of my socks have a match. I start having more 'stay in jammies' days and less time feeling myself in the world. I gain weight. I have trouble seeing myself. Clutter finds me in piles of papers and kid stuff everywhere.

Home and body are temple. Our temple is sacred and calls forth our sensual self to nourish.

I remind myself that my life and my process are never linear. I will always be challenged by space and stuff and and a body that shifts under stress or joys. And when I start to feel so disconnected to my home I feel it in every part of myself. I see it in the corners, the piles, the tight fitting jeans and the groceries that don't seem to prepare themselves.

So I take myself back into the process of making space. It is slow. It is guided. And it is sensual.

Last year I tattooed the word home on my foot. I was claiming home inside of myself. I can feel and see when my physical homes, my temples (my house, my body, my spirit) need more from me, when they are calling out for time and nurture and space. This is when I need to be led by my sensual self through time as beauty increases around me.

This is only the beginning of inviting the magic in and dancing inside of rituals that feed our spirits and trusting that we are not only enough, but if enough could spill into overflowing, that is what we are.

Our homes, bodies and spirits are all a part of the journey. Focusing on those, we can then step into the loving task of finding our flow through our sensual nurture.  Making space is seeking out ritual and beauty, knowing that you will fall out of alignment as part of life's dance and developing the skills to ease back when you do. A sensual woman has a sensual flow with space and the sacredness it holds.

Inviting the sensual woman out to play...

• One letter each day with a making space prompt :: visioning, photography, clearing and creating beautiful space
  
• Small, simple gestures that you can take on at your own pace
• Look at why you hold onto things or have trouble letting go of stuff, thoughts, habits
• 10 days of learning how to listen to yourself, through reflection and day dreaming meditations
• 10 days of setting aside soft space each day for dreaming, watching and simply being in your space
• 10 days to tease out your sensual woman by taking on simple rituals, space clearing and time that is about you and that temple of yours
• A online FB group of women going through the 10 days with you

Space for sensual eating, playing, living and feeling...

• Never once will you be worried about breaking a rule
• Daily recipes, straight from my kitchen, very few ingredients, gluten-free and mostly raw
  
• 10 days of starting each day with softness and ease for your body
• 10 days of learning that you are enough as you unearth your sensual woman
  
• 10 days of watching your body release the habits that are making you exhausted, frustrated and full of anxiety
• One letter a day for 10 days with a prompt to make more space and fill your cells with love and healing

 

Be improbable, beautiful...

• Anyone who is ready to celebrate their homes, bodies and spirits through a clearing and creation of sacred space
  
• Women who are feeling overwhelmed by the clutter in their home and body and wanting to make more space and create living spaces that are inviting, cozy and beautiful
• Holistic business owners looking to connect to a deeper understanding of themselves, developing a deeper rhythm of self care and create space for their beautiful work
• Mamas needing a support system and guidance in creating more rituals in the home and looking to connect to their beautiful sensual side that may feel lost inside of young children
  
• Women who are ready to make more space and allow their spirits to feel empowered sensuality

Before you sign up, please know...

• This is not a food cleanse but each day I share recipes that open up space and joy in my body
  
• This is about creating space in your life, opening up, expanding and connecting to your sensual woman
  
• This is about creating beautiful sensual spaces in your home and a feeling of space and freedom in your body and spirit
• This is about you, your process and timing
  

 

Ready to make some space like these amazing women?

"You can't ask for a more uplifting, motivating and spiritual cleanse! It was better and more inspiring than I ever imagined. You'll wake looking forward to a motivational email. It is all done in baby steps and achievable changes." ~ Sarah Rich

***

"I would recommend this enlightening, soul enriching experience, to all who believe there is more to this life that so easily becomes a rut. slightly resistant, I allowed and trusted in Hannah, one of life's angels (whom I had never met) and on this journey I evolved in so many positive ways." ~ Toba Dadd

***

"A favourite quote of mine is from The Buddha – Do not believe just because wise men say so. Do not believe just because it has always been that way. Do not believe just because others may believe so. Examine and experience yourself.

I experienced for myself the changes which occurred within me and my thoughts to myself and my home after the Making Space Cleanse and Hannah’s soft and beautiful wisdom. You will learn how making your bed with linen you love can become a sacred ritual. How de-cluttering your home and releasing those old toys and books can release you from old emotional patterns and ways of being. I learned that by de-cluttering my daughters old toys I had created a space that allowed me to prepare with ease and grace her moving away from home to University.

Yes, the simple act of releasing clutter from our homes can be that powerful. Through this connection, you will find new connections to your home and yourself. Do not believe, just because wise women say so, examine and experience yourself – welcome to the journey.

Love and Blessings to you" ~Debbi Jackson

  ***

"I loved Hannah's Making Space Cleanse. In this beautifully-crafted program, Hannah nudges you to make simple, gentle changes that give you room to breathe and feel more present in your daily life. This space-clearing doesn't feel like a chore and won't overwhelm you with more for your to-do lists. By adding simple, nurturing rituals to your routine, Hannah helps you to see the clutter that's occupying your physical space, dragging your energy down, and preventing you from inviting beauty and joy into your life.

I cleared a lot of clutter during the cleanse, and somehow this felt light and easy to accomplish. The more I moved away, the more energy I felt. I also discovered that I'd been storing some personal baggage in a place that felt stuck for me... a wedding album from an unhappy marriage stashed away in my office. I created a sacred space and stored the album there... I'm honoring the journey I've been on, with all its twists and turns, but now I've created the space to move on and allow new and wonderful opportunities into my career and personal life. I'm looking forward to seeing what comes next." ~ Eithne Egan

2014 The Making Space Cleanse ©

Paper Altars. a how to, recipe for tipsy cherries and giveaway.

I had a beautiful evening. Watching these women create and dream and leave with pieces of themselves captured on paper reminded why these gatherings are vital for our souls. The making, the circling, the giggles, the moment when someone discovers their ability to create something beautiful; it is change and joy and magic. And I got to see some of my Magic Making Circle members in person and they are stunning.

 

I knew the event would be called Paper Altars as I looked around and saw how much of my altars included secret messages, textures, fortunes, cards, vision pages. I just had no idea exactly what we would do. Enter Bernadette (pictured next to me above) and her creative ways. Bernadette made these paper altars that held three sections for us to work in.

 

Our prompts were around our past self, she was (but only about 6 months back) and our I am and our becoming, the self who is guiding us and shaping us. I asked everyone to bring a picture of themselves that they loved, that felt a bit like the spirit guide of self. The creation of the altars felt like prayer mixed with girls night. Bliss really.

 

Here is how you can create your own paper altar ::

 

 

Photo #1- We used an 11” x 14” sheet of poster board.

Photo #2-Fold the poster board in half 11” to 11” side.

Photo #3- Rub the folded edge to create a crease.

Photo #4- Using a ruler, draw  2 lines: 2.5 “ from each side edge, 3.25” long from folded edge.

Photo #5- Using scissors or a ruler with an X-Acto knife, cut along these two lines. Be sure to cut through both layers of poster board.

Photo #6- Open poster board and pull center cut piece towards you, reversing the existing crease on itself.

Photo #7- Keeping center piece on the inside, refold poster board on its original crease.

Photo #8- Rub on new fold to create new center crease.

Using words, images and textures we played with color story and where we were being guided. There were flowers and glitter and messages from past self to present. The altars are gorgeous.

There were also tipsy cherries. I found a jar of maraschino cherries with no food dye in them and drained the liquid from the jar. I replaced it with bourbon and let them sit for about 12 hours. Then I took the cherries and placed them on parchment paper. I drizzled melted dark chocolate over each one and then placed in refrigerator until we gathered. It made the perfect one bite treat as we circled at the end of the night with story, laughs and maybe a couple of tears.

Bernadette and I have a special surprise for 2 people. Your own paper altar form and a bag stuffed with fun fabric and texture and paper to start to create your own paper altar. I will include the prompts to play with also.

To enter the giveaway here is what you can do ::

Leave a comment on the blog, down below. Tell us three words or phrases of who you are becoming. Let your self that is in the future be a guide, spend time with her, listen and dream together.

I will choose the winners on Sunday, April 6th. xo

Becoming hydrated.

Starting with 2 liters. Increasing my bathroom visits like crazy. I can actually start to feel the hydration under my skin like when they hook you up to IV and you feel the cool liquid start to absorb inside of you.

It feels like a thousand breaths I had forgotten to take. I think I am smiling more.

It feels like a return to a body that understood how to be nourished.

Dehydration was a life-line. A bladder that stopped working during a time in my life that was an emotional trauma, although a bladder that never really could hold much, even as a young girl.

When I met my husband 20 years ago, one of the first things I asked him to promise me was if we were ever in a car together and I needed to pee, that he would pull over as soon as he could. He agreed and always has. The little girl quite afraid of her bladder.

A bladder that in 2000 worsened after a surgery for a miscarriage. Urgency increased, it was constant.

And so my bladder wasn't working. So I stopped drinking water. I drank herbal tea and my morning decaf. I would have wine. But water. Water goes right through me. Bathroom becoming a full time job. I didn't have time. While I always have a mug of something in my hands I rarely ever finish any of them. Tea gets dumped out, coffee goes cold. (I usually finish the wine!)

If I held back my water I still over used the bathroom but the sense of constant urgency wasn't there.

The urgency is fear. Fear wasn't where I wanted to land.

Becoming hydrated was a huge decision. I am day 5. I feel fucking amazing. I look in the mirror and I feel like I am glowing. Dreams are full of water and waves and movement that only water can bring.

It came with the shift in my life that I set up over these next 6 months. Less stress, less computer and more movement. My body and I are falling back in love.

She was so desperately thirsty.

Each day I flow and sweat through yoga, I drink water, I take a nap. (I know. I nap.) Becoming hydrated comes with a practice far beyond water. Taking the kids out the other day to the mall for Pokemon cards I needed to go twice in a short amount of time. I yielded to the bathroom stops. It was fine. I was fine. I drank more water.

I had become so swollen and insatiable for salt. My rings didn't fit. My body was crying out for me to move through the fear of the urgency. I used to joke that I wished I could just be hooked up to an IV once a day, I was so terrified of those glasses of water.

Simple things we take for granted. Becoming hydrated.

So I will be the one in the restaurant that goes to the bathroom many times. I will be the one who has to time her long walks so they happen during a water break. I will be the one who trusts her bladder enough to hold her hydration.

And so I will drink. Because I am so, so thirsty.

Loft Event :: Paper Altars. Who are you becoming?

Date: Friday, March 28th 7:00pm - 10:00pm

Cost: $45

Space Limited: 15 people

Live event: Creating and receiving paper altars. Exploring who we are becoming.

As I looked around at my many sacred spaces filled with altars I noticed the textures, the papers, the secret messages and the gifts that I had received as blessings from those who surround me with love, often in the form of cards and words. I hang mixed media art and vision pages, cards with dreams and little bits and pieces of magic that find their way to me.

In Magic Making Circle we are creating altars, exploring who we were, are and will be and allowing them to infuse into our altars. I am lit up and guided by the who I am becoming. She has become spirit guide and my wisdom. She knows where I am journeying and keeps sending me people and messages to walk with me.

Rather than feeling frustrated that we aren't where we want to be, we will be using the wants and needs and desires inside of us to become guides, to teach us. The who we are becoming holds the wisdom of the steps we must start to take to become them.

During this beautiful gathering at The Loft, I will prompt you through several projects using paper and photos and special bits that I'll have for you as you start to listen to the self that you are becoming. We will create little altar offerings for our sacred spaces.

(These prompts will be part of the Magic Making Cirlce, so you'll get a glimpse into the gorgeous work we are doing together virtually in person.)

What to bring: a sacred photo of yourself (face or part of your body), any clippings from magazines that you wish to use during the evening, special cards or words from others and byob. I will have lots of snacks and sweet things for us to enjoy during our time.