Last year  something extraordinary happened. During a shamanic ceremony I received what I can only describe as a calling -- a clear message from an entity greater than myself beckoning me to set aside fear and uncertainty and step up my game. 

During this ceremony, I crouched on my knees in the rain in the forest, purging and sobbing. I had been dragged, pulled and pummeled into the river of grief that runs just under the surface of everything. It was as if I was crying for the whole world, the whole planet. My journey pulled me into an emotional torrent, leaving my throat raw and my head pounding. Desperate for relief, I prayed for guidance. "What do I do with my shattered heart? How can I live knowing everything is falling apart around us?"  I heard, or perhaps felt, a clear voice:  Take the art of breaking and mending further out into the world. Create places for people to be with their grief and recover their power. This is your work to do. 

I'm heeding the call and have named 2020  My Shattering Year. I am honored to be offering the Kintsugi Breaking and Mending ceremony several times this year: A one-day workshop in my studio in March, two multi-day retreats this summer in Sonoma County, California, and another multi-day retreat this fall at Breitenbush Hot Springs. It will be my year with the energy of Akhilandeshvari, the never-not-broken goddess. 

"Akhilandeshvari is the somewhat obscure Hindu goddess who presides at the temple in Tamil Nadu in southern India. She is connected to the element of water, navigating the river of the universe atop a ferocious crocodile. Known as the "goddess who is never not broken," she is portrayed with her body divided in many floating pieces, not quite whole and not quite shattered either. 

What is beautiful about Akhilandeshvari is that the very thing we dread the most is the very source of her power; she is in pieces. She is broken, constantly moving and creating new experiences and wisdom out of the broken pieces. She rides a threatening crocodile, symbolizing our fears, to navigate and propel her forward. We are always broken, and to grow we must be. Akhilandeshvari reminds us that being broken into pieces by disaster, heartache, and trauma is an opportunity to re-create ourselves. She intentionally remains constantly in flux, ever tearings herself apart, creating and re-creating herself. 

As much as we wish it were not true, our biggest breakthroughs often involve pain and risk. We cling to routine because it is familiar, no matter how unhealthy it may be for us. Yet you are at your most powerful when all the comforts of routine have been ripped away from you, when you have no other choice than to pick yourself and change. No matter how broken you are, in that moment when you are bleeding inside, when you are on the floor weeping and shaking, you are at your most powerful. In that moment all things are possible and nothing is off the table." (adapted from Dark Goddess Craft by Stepanie Woodfield)

I fell apart during my shamanic ceremony and something powerful was born. My deepest prayer is that the power of Akhilandeshvari is at work in our political, social and environmental systems, too -- that what is unraveling now will be rewoven into something better, more beautiful, more sustainable.  A-ho, Amen, and Blessed Be!