thoughts from wildFire

A good performance makes me want things that I didn't know I wanted. Or more properly, a good performance reminds me of my desire to reach beyond myself into limitless possibility, there to become a conduit and to shine as incandescently as the soul I see before me, with gestures burning at the edges of memory and imagination, shining new light on some very old part of human understanding. Inspiration has wings born painfully from the destruction of my restrictive self, the critic that keeps me on the sidelines. I am rocked by sharp pangs that accompany the razor-bright illumination of my feathers unfurling. The crumbling of the inner life that once bound me now brings me both a sense of loss and a sense of release from the safety and limitations of my incubation. A good performance shatters the smooth eggshell calm of my unfulfilled potential.

Cool event happening nearby:

The Northeast Healer's Symposium is October 3rd, in Johnson, VT. Check it out!

Offering Healing Sessions & Tarot Readings

Hi folks,

Most of you know how concerned I am with the fate of the environment and with the large social rifts that keep our society separated from nature. I have been developing tools that I think can be applied to help heal the environment, to heal individuals and to heal wounds in our communal psychology. In addition to finishing my formal schooling for conservation and ecology, I have had the privilege and the good fortune to be in the exact right place and time to receive instruction in Plant Spirit Healing from an excellent teacher, Pam Montgomery, and in permaculture design from Starhawk through Earth Activist Training.

The courses I have been taking have been amazing, and I'm eager to share and explain and geek out to anyone even half-interested. AND: I have mostly paid for the tuition for these classes, and I could use a little help making ends meet.

Here's where your support can help me:

I offer to share my services in these new skills I am learning, and you can support me in two ways: by asking for my help, you will give me a much-needed opportunity to practice, and in exchange for my services I am requesting donations to go towards paying the balance of my tuition.

I am offering consultation sessions in PLANT SPIRIT MEDICINE. This alternative healing modality gently and powerfully works on an energetic level to heal the spiritual and energetic causes of illnesses. I am just learning these techniques, and I would be delighted to work with people who understand that I need practical experience and who are open to healing in whatever form it may take, even simply an honest dialogue. I will of course remain completely confidential.

I am ALSO offering TAROT READINGS for those interested. Tarot is a divination tool that reveals how to bring into balance the symbolic archetypes that are influencing your life. More than simply reading your future, tarot maps the forces converging on your soul's path, and can shed light on how to navigate those forces.

Typicaly a professional healer charges $60 per hour, or they may have a sliding pay scale, and a professional tarot reader charges $40 for a full reading. Because I am in training and I view this as a learning opportunity for myself and a charitable act on your part, I suggest donating whatever portion of the fee that you feel is feasible, but I would really appreciate $20. And keep in mind that donations will be used specifically to pay for the healing courses I have described.

You can contact me by email: daniellemarielaberge@gmail.com, to arrange a meeting, or to arrange a time for a phone conversation. Please do not feel shy about asking me, and thank you for your support.

Keep shining!

Love and Thanks,

Danielle

It's just another task, another tidying up.
Like pulling up last season's weeds,
Ripping out the eyes I saw with in
the summer, waving on their long stalks.
This movement is a turning, an effort
around the axis of the year, as I
balance an egg-shape of transformation--
of space inside me. If hope's a
feathered thing, I cannot yet tell
whether this shell contains a bird.
But my first inclination is to
another realm, glittering, airy
with the carapaces of insects
irridescent in the day that dies.
Who kept the long memory of ages
would know the fields of autumn
and call them with their truest title:
birthplace of the dragonflies.

Dream:

Either I was a girl or her beloved. I opened the door... or I proposed-- in this way-- I made a pun about zoo animals, then said 'Will you marry me,' placed her own ring on... my finger, I was disappointed that it wasn't new. And then ...I grabbed her breasts and walked her back into the apartment, murmuring. We sank down onto the couch... It felt good so I didn't stop him, but the door was open so I went to get it to close it. Then I said, I'm pregnant... and as she talked I felt a huge disappointment, (This is not how it was supposed to go, by any measurement.) We abruptly changed places.
In my dream, the couple goes on to find and then escape from a meeting of the KKK, led by Starhawk, who says, "And if we don't catch them, oh well."
My rationale: I feel like I am a surprised young couple not ready for committment, rushing into things, not knowing how to show I care for myself. I am being chased and dogged by my missing convictions.

In a time of great change and upheaval, fear is my inheritance, my shadow-self clinging and dragging at my feet, my belly, my throat. Fear is my keeper. I miss more than I see. But I see the great old tree at the bottom of the garden.

Waking to my disconnection I have nowhere to go but into myself, yet I flee. I may be on the fast track, but it's not a smooth ride.
And today I have been reminded that everyday life is the extra-ordinary one that I seek, and instead of seeking to intensely change and shape my life every day, I might find it intensely changed simply by experiencing it in the moment. Who or what might I fall in love with? The irreplaceable, vulnerable beauty of strangers' self-conscious postures on the subway, the way they carefully avoid making eye contact with me. The world is so big and so beautiful, I used to cry. Where is there room for me when even the smallest feather crumpled in the gutter shines, when each brick laid is laden with significance? Reading each nexus of power and information, reading the city, reading tiny details, reading the lines, and the newspaper flapping its way down the sidewalk, would I ever arrive anywhere? Or would I simply stay frozen in a moment's observation, of wood grains, of graffiti, of rain in rivulets, and the smell of new pavement, a sea of wobbling umbrellas? I will be examining an old locket, a cat, a faded flyer, the nearest mural, and the shoes of passersby. And if I examine enough cups of tea, perhaps I will look up to find some new revelation has settled around my shoulders. The world is big enough for me.

trust the water

What can I meet you with, holding out in my open arms? If you told me, would it be as freely given, or as highly prized? I could open my flowers for you, and you could feel the saffron-threads of my tender joys. Love the light, I love. My love. But not any exception keeps you from meeting. Lovers interrupted in a half-grove of moonlight and attention, vying for significance in each others' hearts, still very much a dance, two roles, the moon and tide, but no question as to who responds, who sets and wanes. In an instant I am moving beyond the better part of doubt into knowing that a certain center of the self is always present, watching, a voyeur in the game of love until the undulating body prudently closes its eyes. Unbeknownst, unknowing, it waits balanced like an egg, to fall on either side. The better part of valor is hope. And each encounter makes one more sure that the beginning is time well spent. How can something end if nothing ever begins? Has the courage to begin? wet.