Falling Into Soul

Western culture is rich in ways to keep us chasing the outer dream and pitiful in ways to facilitate the actualization of an inner soul vision. Our ability to dream with soul and bring forth what lies deep within us has been hijacked by the cultural delusion that tells us we can have whatever we want, when we want it, how we want it--an affront to nature.

How to create, heal, and live with soul in a culture that's don...

What happens to the ego through the processes of alchemy?

In this episode let's explore:

• the progression of ego from Tyrant to Team Player
• the job of a healthy, alchemized ego in sacred alignment
• the partnership between ego and soul
• how to navigate the ego disappointment and dissatisfaction that comes with soul alignment 

With love,

M

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Alchemy is a terrible but brilliant series of processes that burn, drown, rot pressurize, and distill every extraneous thing out of the way so you can see what is there. What the fire leaves behind is who you really are. What the fire leaves behind is all the things about you that cannot be left behind. What remains when all else fades is how we know what's ours to live in a new way.

In this episode:

• the threshold ...

Announcing my new book Down from the Mountain: On Being Human after Spiritual and Alchemical Initiation now available for preorder.

In this episode, I go over the table of contents for the new book so you can get a feel for what it's all about.

Whether you’ve read The Second Half of the Mountain and are ready for more or you’re just stumbling upon me now, Down from the Mountain holds its own as a book explor...

What we think we want and what we say we want might not be the same as what the soul wants. The will of the soul is not always immediately known. It's the unconscious continually made conscious through astute listening to body aches, dreams and synchronicities, strange intuitive pulls, deep watery feelings, and life itself. We live in so much mystery, so much magic, so much unknown.

In this episode we explore ways the...

In this episode, Michael DeMaria and I explore the rich, complex, and paradoxical themes of burnout and renewal central to our lives as empaths, recovering codependents (over givers) and creative types.

Speaking from our personal experiences with burnout and how-not-to-burn-out, Michael and I explore: 

• The importance of the soul (water, earth) in tempering the creative fire and air of spirit
• How to honor and be in conver...

No amount of alchemical death and rebirth cycles can change who you are. It can only reveal it. And then the task becomes to live it, to anchor the unchangeable essence of Who You Are into your ever-changing human existence. Wildness and form. Dancing.

So far in this podcast, I’ve talked a lot about what I call the Second Half of the Mountain Journey–the dark nights of the soul, dark nights of the spirit, and distillation. These alc...

The alchemy of inner transformation is not a self-improvement project. It’s a participation in the soul’s evolution. It may not improve your life at all at first. It’s a rather destructive process–dismantling your beliefs, identities, small hopes and dreams, tearing your life at each carefully stitched seam to reveal what’s unbreakable underneath. It gets worse before it gets worse sometimes, so faithless and consuming, leaving you...

"One of the hallmarks of maturity is to let some of what seemed like your best hopes go, especially if the tide of life is actually taking them from you and turning your face in another direction."  -David Whyte, What to Remember When Waking, The Disciplines of Everyday Life

In this episode, I explore:

• When hopes can be helpful and when they can get in the way
• Why following your heart might not be enough someti...

Why is it sooo hard to connect with the worth that is inherent in our existence?  Why isn't awakening to our true nature, to our spiritual and creative gifts enough to heal this wound and actualize our inherent worth? 

And why do I have such issues with how we use the words "deserve" and "worthy" in the trendy spiritual lexicon? 

Let's explore.

In this episode:

• Where the w...

Did I just make a trailer for this podcast after two years of doing this podcast? Yeah, I guess that checks out. It usually takes me awhile of doing something important before I understand it enough to say what it is.

Such is the way of soul. You don't have to understand the magic for it to be happening. And I'm getting so much better and letting it happen and seeing what happens.

With love and dee...

To be a mystic means to want One Thing more than any other of the things. Mystics have an intense and unyielding desire to know and unite with the divine, god, love, beauty, soul, truth, the core of all cores in this life, not in any other life or time. And so, they willingly burn through the fire of any moment to find it.

This is why I say mystics are so fucked and so blessed. The mystic heart can't settle for anythi...

Why do we have to fall into soul? Why can’t we fly or rise into soul? Why is the way of soul paved by disappointment and disillusionment? Isn’t there a way to skip all that? Surely we can outsmart the fall, if we could just tap into our highest and best selves and only act from there, we’d be okay, right? Rise above. Choose love over fear. Light over dark. Afterall, you are only one choice away from a whole different and better lif...

When the maps you’ve been given don’t match the territory you find yourself having to navigate, you trust the terrain itself and your direct, unique experience with it. This is how to honor and live the soul in a world that gives you a million ways not to.

What does it mean to “trust yourself” or “trust your intuition” or “trust the process.” We hear these cliches about trust so often in the spiritual growth and developmen...

"There is a secret medicine reserved for those who hurt so hard they can't hope. The hopers would feel slighted if they knew."  -The Essential Rumi, Coleman Barks

In this episode I explore the dreadful stage of alchemical distillation--the final and brutiful cleansing before the formation of the Philosopher's Stone within.

Signs of Alchemical Distillation

• in a holding pattern, not...

Is it okay to take a break from alchemy and the inner healing work? It's so exhausting and there's always something more to transmute and heal. Does it ever end? 

Let's explore causes for and ways to mitigate unnecessary exhaustion.

1. Piecing ourselves out half-heartedly in too many different directions
2. Giving ourselves to relationships and endeavors that aren't giving back to us
3. Expecting the outer resu...

When we face and transmute fear, we gain confidence. Confidence that doesn’t depend on things happening in a way we are sure they must happen, but confidence that comes from being insecure, facing the unknown and allowing support and grace to find us in unimagined ways, letting go of certain hopes and trusting that what we can’t yet see or know is there to hold us if we take the frightening steps far enough into the dark for it to ...

An alchemist is one who takes everything as it comes, transforming the harmful into helpful, the ordinary into extraordinary, and the painful into beautiful. Not by way of bypass, but by way of engaging in deep and, at times,  disruptive processes. Alchemists turn their back on nothing, knowing that every life circumstance, desired or not, is the critical base matter needed for making gold.

Alchemy can be an overwhelming e...

Allow, allow, allow. Everything, every being, every process has its own wisdom and magic. I am learning to not interfere, to let it be, let it work its magic. I honestly think this is love: space to be. Love is when you let it be. Let it be, allow, receive.

I built this episode around a song I wrote when I left my music career in 2010--specifically the line "I just need some space to be who I am."

I cal...