Dear one- thank you for taking the time….
Late fall 2019 was a bumper crop for Grandmother Apple Tree. Maybe it was me, as I had moved onto the property 6 months prior and into the tiny 250 sq foot hobbit hut, as people called it due to its otherworldly feel and charm, with my prayers and daily hugs and womb blood blessings at the base of her trunk. Or the way I climbed, curled and cooed into her branches to watch my land mate build his sail boats that boosted her prolific fruiting. Whatever it was, even the overpopulation of deer couldn’t keep up with all of the apples.
I was committed to not letting any go to waste. This led to a meltdown in my tiny kitchen, arms deep in gallons of apple sauce with 3 more 5 gallon buckets of apples to process. No one wanted them. There’s an abundance of fruit trees in this neck of the peninsula; everyone was in the same predicament. All of this food and people are starving. I called out to the land -“What can I do?”
“You are going to bake a pie and climb to the top of Tamanowas rock and give it to the Ancestors of the land.”
Of course I am.
Now, I have learned that when the spirits of a place, the Ancestors, the Fairies etc, ask something of you it is best to accommodate the request. (Just watch Eurovision). I have placed gifts and blessings everywhere I’ve lived and traveled for over a decade for feeding, housing and guiding me. The Ancestors and spirits (the wise and well of them) of a place whisper their wisdom through nature and the elements of the ethereal landscape. They are invested in connecting with me as it strengthens sacred reciprocity, which enhances the livelihood of all beings. It’s all a matter of whether I have the ears to hear.
~In late summer 2017 I collapsed physically and emotionally. My healing arts business in Seattle closed in a matter of 24 hours after a series of initiations, setbacks and then a full tear in my right shoulder rendering it impossible to massage or touch another person much less set up a massage table etc.
This had been culminating since the beginning of my abrupt spiritual awakening at the end of 2011 from addiction. I had my slate wiped completely clean and marched full force into a new life without much slowing down to integrate what had just happened to me.
I have been guided in mysterious ways every day since the awakening. I have listened to the wisdom that the omnipotent presence in my life provides as much as my old patterns, stories and traumas have allowed. It has been a decade’s long tearing off of the stickiest, stuck to 7 generations of thick skin and fine hairs kind of band aid ever.
Healing takes time and right timing. Both are 90% not dictated by me. It has taken many initiations to understand I cannot push my soul’s flowering towards its due date faster than my precious body can integrate and sustain the birthing.
I have gained this wisdom by losing much function and livelihood in my body over the years. I have been forced to slow my roll in order to step into the roll that the divine has had planned for me all along- which will continue to shapeshift in subtle ways. When I resist Her I am wrestled to the ground to remember God again- rise, praise and evolve.
That collapse in Seattle set into motion my move to Port Townsend. I sold a large one bedroom apartment’s worth of stuff and moved. I landed in the room of a house with quite peculiar people, then the hobbit hut, then a free place and another free place, Mexico and other travels in between, and then another room in the house of a dear friend and finally a large one bedroom cottage.
Rather than take pause at that pivot in Seattle and let the collapse guide me to the deeper healing of rest and repair my precious body has been seeking for so long, my fear took hold. I set out to be something. To be known as a “healer” in this community. To make money (which is valid) rather than trust that the little bit I had could sustain me until I could really sustain me. I tried to do what I was doing in Seattle with a broken arm, bewildered heart and life threatening depletion.
This theme has been on repeat because it is not a small confrontation that lives within me, and it’s not only mine. But it has accumulated within me so it is mine to make medicine from.
I have had many profound initiations, travels and synchronicities, all of which have allied my buoyancy through this. There are no accidents, it has all been a part of my journey for a reason, yada yada. Yet, for the most part, I have been serving others and pushing myself with tremendous pain in my body while ignoring the voice screaming in the background due to my fear of confronting it.
If you have been a client, please know how hard this is to say. There are many tender layers. So much of me loved being in service in the many ways I have, and there was a part of me that hated every moment of it and that part needs tending and transfiguration.
~I asked a friend if she had an old glass pie plate that she didn’t care to ever see again and I began to slice apples. I made a buckwheat crust. I don’t have white flour in my house. It was the most beautiful pie I have ever made.
The day was cold and drizzly. I placed the pie in the bottom of a cloth shopping bag that could sling over my shoulder and headed to the sacred site of Tamanowas Rock.
*tə̕ ménəwəs means “spirit power” in the S’Klallam language. The place itself holds power, and Native peoples went there to discover their guardian spirit, the spirit that would guide them through life, aiding them in times of trouble, and giving them particular strengths and power in their lives. A spirit quest included three days of fasting at Tamanowas Rock and cleansing one’s body in Anderson Lake. To this day, S’Klallams make offerings and prayers of thanks when they visit Tamanowas Rock. (more below)
I traversed the maze of trails to the base of the giant rock formation where someone long ago fashioned a climbing rope for such occasions. This would have to be a mostly one armed climb, barefoot- to really get a grip on the stone, and I never wear shoes inside a temple. An act of insanity to put my love for The Path above my own life? I can’t separate the two, so it’s what I do. I follow a call and I have never been dropped.
“Alone”, I hoisted myself, pie in arms, up and onto the top of Tamanowas Rock. I laid down Tobacco, said a prayer and fed the pie to the Stone People. I often wonder if anyone climbed up after me to discover a half eaten apple pie or an empty, slightly weather beaten glass pie plate. Blessings to the land. May all be fed.
~Here I sit on my last day in this cottage with another Grandmother Apple Tree outside my window and I am saying goodbye to this land. My few belongings packed into storage, I close down another 4 walls to reinforce the foundation of the home within me.
That old life theme finally brought me to my knees. After crossing some thresholds this last year in Mexico and Peru, I was shown that nothing could be the same. And yet!- that old pattern was still gripping at me just enough when I returned “home” and the Universe was not havin’ it anymore.
HOME Heart of my everything Heaven on Mother Earth Happening on Mother Earth Harrowing often madly exciting Here original medicine exists Healing of my exterior Hurt original matriarch ecstasy Helping order move energy Halo of mulitversal entities Harvest of mycelium excellence Huge orb moving elliptically Happiness over my ego His orgasmic moaning expression Her organic moaning expression Hilltop overlooking meandering estuaries Hidden oracular monuments everywhere How ordinary my existence Hilarious oasis mutlidimensional existence.
My body has undergone some very challenging “setbacks” this summer, rendering a full surrender of all {most} of my me-isms. She has done the very best she can under the circumstances that this blessed life has delivered for me to turn into love. She is tired. She can no longer lift that life anymore. She has been through enough fighting and she has received enough scrutiny from me to last 7 incarnations of karmic repentance.
I am midwifing my past into a worthy, regenerative compost. As old structures disentegrate, my body has become a metamorphic mush pile. Did you know that the Caterpillar screams/wails during metamorphosis? I could hardly walk for months. People were getting my groceries. I cannot create anything that looks like anything that once was. I am on the couch. I am in bed. I am laying under the apple tree in the rain or praying to the stars. I am standing barefoot in the wind wailing. I am undoing.
I am very fascinated by fear and its many faces.
There is a strength I have never accessed, a wisdom I knew was living in me but lay dormant under fear. Through being with -not fixing or fighting- my body, my pain, the grief that I may not get out of this one, and how will my life be now and can I love myself here?!- I have been shown things about healing and regeneration that defy the reductionism of our current medical frameworks. I have regained my connection to other forms of Universal Life that have far surpassed any psychedelic journey or quest. And, this would all not be possible if not for all of those many journeys and quests.
In the midst of an emotional release one night, I felt a presence upwell from the land as though every Cedar from the peninsula had congregated outside my window. I heard a voice. It was that same voice that wanted that apple pie.
“Granddaughter, we did not call you here to fight for your life. We have been trying to get you to surrender into the very arms you so lovingly feed with your prayers and your commitment to Love. But you keep pushing. Your work has been seen by more than human eyes. This is us, here with you, telling you we love you, to let go now and move on. The lessons you needed to learn here will ally you now. It has been done. It was never about being a thing, but letting yourself be loved as you are and receiving our blessings. Thank you for the pie and you are welcome.”
I am saying goodbye to a way of being that served me and laying down blessings as it dies around me. I am beginning again, but with the wisdom I carry. My love is the medicine I have been seeking for this life. It is the only medicine that can resurrect the spirit bird too long caged with the key in her hands- oh, the insanity, the self loving, sobering realizations of what fear can do.
I am taking a leap of faith into a vision of myself that is terrifyingly beautiful. I am willing to be made a fool for following it. The invitations, synchronicities and beautiful connections already abound as I head to far-away lands, so I know I am onto something.
Coming to this decision has been a bewildering process. Will I hurt myself? Will I die? Will others die? Will I end up back in this place again? Am I delusional? Will I be destitute? Is this me pushing or is this the new pattern guiding me? Fortunately I have learned to differentiate the voice of fear from the voice of faith. It’s a process.
The intoxicating voices of fear have been reassigned to the back seat. They yell at me and throw spit wads at my head. It’s ok. They are scared of losing control of their position. I just breathe. Thank them for their service and protection and flood them with compassion until they quiet down.
I have turned it over from all angles and every which way says- it’s time to move along the path. I don’t fully know what this is about, but a harp will be in hand, a prayer in my heart and my ear fully open to that voice screaming in the background all of my life. Why this could not be like it is until now is because it could not be until now ;). It wasn’t yet safe enough inside of myself to believe that…
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. You're playing small doesn’t serve the world.” -Marianne Williamson
This gorgeous, Cedar drenched land has provided deep healing. I have shadow danced and faced some of the most challenging wounds of my life. I have made lifelong connections here with people that dearly love me and are supporting my every step. It seems wild to leave something so good. That is the new pattern.
I am no longer fleeing homes in pain for survival. I am choosing to walk my path and that path is guiding me towards a new horizon. I am letting go of a way of life that does not match my dream even thought it is so good in so many ways. Big change, big dreams, require making space. My body is my medicine basket, my treasure and tool chest. I have all I need.
I bless every single moment in every corner of the world I have laid my prayers, tears and fears- it’s all a prayer. All of this knowing that there will always be a Grandmother Apple tree out there to feed me as I have fed my Ancestors by hearing their call and stepping towards that familiar old song.
Blessings,
Shira Starfire
(becoming a paid subscriber greatly supports my journey, thank you)
P.S-the history of the Chimacum people and how to help resurrect their voices can be found here through my friend Naiome’s beautiful mission to reclaim her ancestral presence by building long houses for the restoration of indigenous wisdom on these sacred lands.
*Tamanowas Rock is a geological formation – an immense monolith with caves, crevices and cliffs, formed 43 million years ago. The ridge of rock between Chimacum and Anderson Lake grew up from the sea floor, and is a rare combination of adakite and volcanic breccia. The rounded indentations and smooth-walled caves are the result of gas bubbles in the molten lava while the rock was being formed. Large crevices were formed as the rock ridge moved and cracked over the millennia. Several outcroppings that once were a part of the rock are visible near the main monolith. (Jamestowntribe.org)
Oh I’m not leaving this space dear Sage. And yet I will take my time with this tending. Thank you for your support. 🙏
Shira Shira Shira 🔅.... sending love and care and energy and more and so much more. I will miss you 🌙
One word comes out for me 𖧷 SURRENDER 𖧷