“Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final.” — Rainer Maria Rilke
Today is the Summer Solstice.
In the Northern Hemisphere, it is the longest day of light.
In the Southern Hemisphere, it is the longest night.
In the Shamanic Medicine Wheel, the solstice reminds us of Condor medicine — the ability to rise above the chaos and see the bigger picture unfolding above the disorder.
However, they are both two sides of the same coin and teach the lesson that…
Whatever has been illuminated within needs to be integrated.
The solstice has long been considered a threshold moment in many traditions. A bridge between what has been and what is becoming. A moment to pause and ask:
What am I cultivating?
Not what am I manifesting.
Not what am I achieving.
Not what am I acquiring.
But rather…
What state of being am I choosing to strengthen?
As I write this, I am sitting in Greece after nearly a month of travel.
And if I am honest, this journey has not been smooth.
It has been beautiful.
It has been meaningful.
It has also been deeply challenging.
The Fire Horse year has certainly not arrived gently.
It has arrived with speed, unpredictability, twists, turns, and sudden changes of direction.
And of course that is exactly the medicine.
My journey began in running my yearly retreat in Bhutan.
The themes that emerged were profound as participants were shedding old identities,
Letting go of childhood wounds.
Releasing relationships that no longer reflected who they were becoming.
Facing fears of being seen.
Confronting fears of failure.
Questioning long-held stories about worthiness, purpose, and belonging.
Some participants experienced beautiful breakthroughs.
Others were confronted by shadow parts they were not yet ready to face.
Healing is rarely comfortable.
The caterpillar probably definitely isn’t having a spa experience in the cocoon.
And yet, if we trust the process, something new emerges.
Bhutan reminded me that true growth can only begin when certainty ends.
From there, I travelled to Israel.
And the energy shifted dramatically.
I facilitated workshops, private sessions, and medicine work with people carrying immense grief.
People who had lost people…
People trying to understand how to keep living after life had delivered unimaginable pain
At the same time, the geopolitical tension was palpable.
The land itself felt charged.
There was an underlying hum in the nervous system of the country.
A collective holding of breath.
A collective waiting.
A collective uncertainty.
One afternoon, during an integration session, the sirens sounded.
Within moments, we were making our way to a bomb shelter.
I could hear interceptions overhead.
The unmistakable sound of rockets being stopped in the sky.
And so, for the first time in my life, I found myself facilitating a post-journey integration session in a bomb shelter.
Even as I felt a sharp cortisol spike, we kept on going.
In that moment, something in me also became very clear.
Life does not wait for perfect conditions.
Healing does not wait for certainty.
Love does not wait for safety.
We meet ourselves where we are.
Even if that place happens to be a bomb shelter.
From Israel, I travelled to Greece.
What I thought would be a relaxing exhale became something different.
The first two days, I found myself unexpectedly emotional.
The grief I had witnessed.
The stories I had held.
The intensity of the previous weeks.
It all began moving through me.
Yes, I am a facilitator; and I am also a deeply feeling human.
The people’s stories I witnessed moved through me, and now needed to be moved out of me.
And so I spent time doing very little.
Swimming, Moving, Dancing, Mindlessly staring into the sea.
Allowing the body to digest what the mind could not.
And just as things began to settle, the weather turned…
We had to put on our life jackets and prepare for strong winds and rough seas.
A level of volatility I had never experienced sailing on the Med.
It was like the Universe was saying ‘Stay sharp! life is uncertain and you must adapt!’
Again, another reminder of the accelerated Fire Horse energy of this year.
There is absolutely no sleepwalking through the volatility of this year.
Otherwise, the horse will toss you far off its back.
And now, as I prepare to fly to Switzerland tomorrow, I find myself moving toward yet another unknown.
The G7 Summit is underway.
Violent riots have overshadowed peaceful protests.
And there is a wiry unrest in the collective field.
And as I reflected on this, something struck me.
Everywhere I have travelled this year, I have found myself standing at the edge of uncertainty.
Different places, yet the same lesson keeps popping up…
The old way of operating can no longer hold who we are becoming.
Whether it is a person, a relationship, a belief, a government, an institution, or an identity.
The old structures are cracking.
And what we are witnessing globally mirrors what many of us are experiencing internally.
The collective shadow is surfacing.
The old authorities are being questioned.
The old narratives are being challenged.
The old identities are collapsing.
The outer reflects the inner.
And perhaps this is why one of my favourite Tantric Buddhist practices is Tonglen.
Tonglen means taking in suffering and transforming it.
Not avoiding it or pretending it isn’t there.
The practice asks us to breathe in darkness and breathe out compassion.
To become spacious enough to hold what previously overwhelmed us.
Lately, I have been sitting with a variation of that practice especially as I navigate every unexpected challenge…
Every logistical complication.
Every emotional wave.
Every moment of uncertainty.
I find myself saying:
Alright Universe, what else you got?
Not because I enjoy suffering.
But because I trust what it is trying to teach me.
The challenge is not the problem.
The contraction around the challenge is.
And so this solstice, my intention is not to manifest more success.
My intention is simple:
May I become spacious enough to hold whatever arrives.
And perhaps that is my invitation to you today.
Not to ask:
“What do I want?”
But rather:
“What quality of being am I cultivating?”
More courage? More trust? More patience? More truth? More love?
Because life may not give you what you want.
But it will always give you opportunities to become who you are capable of being.
⸻
Upcoming Blue Mountains Shamanic Medicine Retreat
If this speaks to something inside of you…
If you are standing at the edge of change…
If you know there is an old version of yourself ready to be released…
I would love to invite you to join us for the upcoming Blue Mountains Shamanic Medicine Retreat.
Over the long 4 day weekend, we will gather in one of Australia’s most beautiful and energetically potent landscapes for two days of deep ceremonial work, live music, movement practices and profound inner exploration.
This retreat is currently half full.
If you feel called, now is the time to apply here.
The greatest transformations happen when we stop waiting for certainty and begin walking into the mystery.