When I started this journey a week, I will admit that I had expectations and preconceptions along with my intentions about what this journey would look like, and how it might unfold.  The first day went as  planned, and also the second day.  And then…

If this was an actual walking pilgrimage, it would be comparable to walking on the path, getting the rhythm of your days under you, and then unexpectedly getting sick just and having to stop, just as you were getting going.  And then not just having a cold or a fever, but throwing up, feeling horrible, and having it go on for more than 24 hours, even more than 48 hours. It feels like you're pulled off the path almost as soon as you got on.   

But what if getting sick isn't actually getting pulled OFF the path, but is actually a necessary part of the journey?

That is what these past six days have felt like to me.  Not at all what I thought or expected them to look like, but somehow a very necessary journey in and of itself.  Getting sick last Saturday evening, throwing up for over 36 hours, and then after not feeling at all right has made for a long week of sleeping, being in bed, not doing much, seeing a couple of alternative health practitioners, and contemplating what the gifts are from this experience.  Because I know that it's all good…there is a wisdom and a "rightness" about this time of feeling so strange in my body.  

Something is being brought up to my conscious awareness from deep within my core so that I can see it, name it, release it, and heal it….

And it has taken this process and this timing for it all to converge and reveal itself.

I am so curious about what is coming up to be revealed and healed…

It's something to do with my gallbladder and its associated out-of-balance emotion - resentment.  

I wonder what wants to reveal itself.

I feel as though I am coming out of a long, dark tunnel.  It's now Wednesday evening and I am just starting to feel better for the first time since Saturday evening.  What a journey!  I woke in tears last night, threw up one more time, and felt so much pain in my stomach.  

I have been asking myself, "what am I not able to stomach?"  And I realized this evening, in participating in Marianne Williamson's The Alignment of Body and Soul class that there is a point at which I separate from Spirit and do not believe that I can trust Spirit to do the work through me.  So, I take over, and start generating what I think should happen.  I miss the moment of opportunity to allow Spirit to work though me.  

This is what I can no longer stomach.  This is what no longer works.  Choosing fear when I can choose love.  Every time, I make this choice, it only limits what I create and actually takes it out of alignment with divine source.  

This is what I wrote after the class:

Marianne said, "God is doing the work through you - it is not generated by you." That opened up something for me. I think that I always have to be the one generating and making it happen. It may be what I think it is alignment with God's will, but still, I do the generating. This is where I separate from God, out a lot of pressure on my body, and don't trust. Wow! And I imagine, that this may be where I separate from my body, don't trust or like it, judge it, and feel like I have to work really hard to do anything, including lose weight, exercise, and not feel shame. What if it really is all about "going for God" and releasing the separation?!!! And knowing that I can send God ahead of me!

I am wondering if this is the same moment I separate from the flow of wealth and abundance in the Universe and the Earth…

Any where and everywhere that I feel that I have to be in charge and make it happen, generate the results I am looking for, am I willing to uncreate and destroy?  Yes, I am.  RWGBPPA9SB&B.  That's the abbreviation for the clearing statement from  www.accessconsciousness.com

...AND LOVING YOURSELF UNCONDITIONALLY.

I am still feeling nauseous and queazy in my stomach…I am not felt like this before. I have read things along the lines of these being symptoms of evolution and transformation.  I sure hope so!

Feels like a lot is moving on this journey.  As I wrote in my daily journal this morning, I realized that I am no longer connected or attached to thoughts of money being dirty, mean or evil.  I recognized them as thoughts that I have had in the past, but are no longer current or real for me.  As I move fully into embracing that Money is Love, I wondered what the reflection for my own self is…and where I went was this.  If Money can be Love, even more…if Money is Love, then I can be Love too.  I am Love.  I am Love.  I am Love.  And if I am Love, then I am loved, simply because of who I am, not because of what I do, how I look.  Simply because I am Love.

And then again, aren't we all simply Love?  What if we were all to take in and receive this simple truth - that we are each, every single one of us, no matter what choices, decisions, good or bad, right or wrong, we have made?  We are, I am, You are LOVE.

And if this is true, which I know it is, then we can only fully love, accept, express our selves, because there is actually nothing else to do but love!!

From a Facebook post my Walking My Talk:

Each of us is in a different place in our spiritual journey. Some of you may be farther along, and some may be seeking guidance and support. One of the lessons that took me a long time to learn, was the concept of change. For many years I tried to change myself into someone other people would accept. No matter how hard I tried to change, I never found the kind of acceptance that made me feel good about myself. That's because we cannot change who we are. We can change the way we think about things. We can change what we believe. Most importantly, we can change how we feel about ourselves. 

From my experience, I would define "change" as the evolution or expansion of who you already are. It's accepting and playing with your own unique quirks. Be more of who you already are, do more of what you already love, and give more of what you love giving. The joy that comes with that, will bring the self-acceptance and social acceptance you already crave and you won't have to sell your soul to do it.

I am slowly starting to feel better.  I threw up for what I hope is the last time just after 6am.  Yuck.

On Thursday I get the very clear directive to go on this pilgrimage, and by Saturday night I am flat out, throwing up, and feeling miserable.  It was all centered in my stomach.  What can I or am not willing to stomach?  And, as my friend, Sharon, pointed out on the phone this morning, stomach is the seat of action.  Where am I out of right relationship with action?  What actions have I been taking - or not taking - that are not aligned with my higher purpose and intentions?

I felt fine all day Friday and Saturday, physically anyway.  On Saturday morning, I talked with my wise friend, Ingrid, who also was a major catalyst in my going on the journey to reconnect with my taproot.  She played the catalyst role very powerfully again on Saturday morning.  When I shared with her what I was up to with this journey with Money, she challenged me.  Threw the gauntlet down and upset my neat package.

Gulp.  

Interesting that I just used the word "gulp."  A very descriptive word that uses the digestive system to swallow, and here I've been - throwing up everything I had swallowed and could not stomach.

There is most certainly truth to what Ingrid shared with me.  By the way, Ingrid has my permission to speak so directly to me, and what I typed here is the synopsis of our much longer conversation.  I trust her implicitly and know that she deeply loves and cares for me.  It is out of this trust and love that she knows she can cut through the chaff and go straight to the heart of the matter.  I just saw a great quote on Facebook:

What Ingrid said to me touched something very deep and repressed in me.  

I do not remember giving myself permission to be myself since I was a very young girl.  I quickly developed habits to look outside of myself to know what I wanted, what I should wear, how I should act, what I should do.  Somehow, I told myself it was not okay, I was not okay, to be truthful about my dreams, desires and feelings, and I developed a finely tuned, externally based system to figure out how I should look, act, feel and think.   I believe I said this somewhere before in my blog, but I gave away my connection to my core so that I would be loved, so that I could and would belong to my parent, my family, my friends, my peers, and now again, my immediate family.  I have a very strong will and have used it to make sure that I always do the "right" thing, or at least just enough of it to get by.

Truth is, I am terrified by what I want, what I long for, and who I am.  I am terrified because I have made up a very convincing story that if I honor who I am, be myself, be truthful about what I want, that I will be all alone, and nobody will love me or include me.  I will not belong anywhere or with anyone.  I will be all alone.  

So, to belong and to be loved, I have been willing to not be truthful with myself and to be my authentic self.  

And instead of taking responsibility for this, I have always found someone, or something else to blame - my mother, my upbringing, my environments, and yes, Money.

I have used Money as my scapegoat, bully and saboteur rather than confront this truth that was lovingly and directly reflected to me this past Saturday.  

I would rather have been "poor me" and the victim than take responsibility for my lies and deceit, and become the heroine of my own journey and my life.

Big deep breath.

Yuck.  As I write that, it feels like what I have been throwing up for the past 36 hours.  YUCK.

So what if what I have been projecting onto Money is actually the aspects of me that are the bully and the tormentor?

What if I take those words I wrote the other day and retrieve them, and own them for myself?

I feel like throwing up again.  My stomach hurts.  My throat is choking.  I feel sick to my stomach.  

So this is what I do…every time I have a desire, thought of my own - I judge it, and myself, very harshly. And I say these mean and horrible things to myself, and then I take that desire and put it through my "outer acceptability filter"  and rework and morph my desire until it becomes acceptable, until I become acceptable, and know that I will belong.

I am my own saboteur and bully.  And, I have projected all of this meanness, bullying, unlovingness onto Money, and made him wrong, bad, uncaring, unloving, and so of course, have not wanted it really.  Made just enough to still play victim, "poor me", I can't do what I really want, I'm stuck, I'm unsuccessful, I'm worthless, I am not enough.

And Money has accepted this, and allowed me to project all of this negativity onto him.  Because Money is Love.  Money was willing to play any role that I chose to project onto him, because ultimately, he - it - knew that I would recognize that despite all my best efforts to make him the bad guy, that he was always here for me, patiently waiting for me to take ownership of what I do to myself, so that he could show up in his essence and in his truth.  This is the ultimate of being in service, isn't it?  That we are willing to play the dark and maligned roles in someone's life so that they can actually come back full circle into the truth of love.  Because the truth always is Love.  

Over the weekend, as I was being with all that Ingrid and I had talked about, I wondered about the possibility of the words I had "heard" from Money and the condescending and unloving tone that I had imagined him to use.  What if I had turned and manipulated the tone of this voice to fit my story about being excluded, unloved and not belonging?  What if he actually said those same words but with a loving tone?  What if it was his way of reminding me that I am not here to belong to anyone else but myself?  I am going to take those same words and interject them with other words that I may have cut out with my own internal editing.  What if he was actually trying to tell me exactly the opposite of what I heard?

Because Money is Love. 

In Barbara Wilder's words from her book, Money is Love, 

I mentioned the work Financial Alchemy™ in a previous blog.  Financial Alchemy is a coaching process that has you get very clear about your relationship with money through personifying "who" money is for you, and to give you the opportunity to create a new relationship.  In my experience, the shortfall of this process is that once we identify our "Money Monster", we are told to just get rid of our it/him/her through breaking up with or firing him, and that just never worked for me.  The habitual monster bully just kept coming back into the picture, and reluctantly, that's who I've been in relationship with, despite all the inner work, the workshops, and positive affirmations.   That's like telling someone to breakup with an abusive partner and to now, just like that, get into relationship with someone who's truly loving and respectful without the inner work to make the changes.   Also, it missed the deeper piece of recognition and compassion that this negative being has actually served a very great purpose.  In my more enlightened moments, I can recognize that the even most challenging people or presences in my life are actually there to serve me and my spiritual and emotional growth and transformation.  Without them, I would have no grist for the mill, nothing to work with or push against.  In this instance, Money has deeply served me by allowing me to project the saboteur and bully onto him, knowing that ultimately, I would take responsibility and own these feelings and projections.  This then allows for the possibility for me to fully accept, and love myself.  Without Money, I wouldn't have some "one" to help me to recognize the beliefs, patterns and behaviors.  I actually feel much gratitude and compassion for money in its willingness to carry all of our fears, angers and greed.  What an enormous gift and generous role it has played for all of us for all of these thousands of years.  

In the work I have done in Financial Alchemy™, I created a new Money that resonated with my core and my purpose.  He is Green Man, the timeless archetype of the wild man who lives in the natural green and wooded world.  He is fully masculine, embodied, sensual and passionate.  He loves unconditionally and he is very rooted in the natural world, trusting in the abundance and beauty of Nature.   Trouble is, I have kept him at arms' length and have been unable to fully relate to him for these past five years.  I have known that he is there, waiting patiently for me to come around to the truth of who he is, rather that always relating to him as the monster perpetrator villain in my "woe is me" life story.  Even more, he is patiently waiting for me to come to the truth of WHO I AM.  I now feel ready to invite Green Man to walk with me.  

Green Man is the embodiment and expression of money that I want to walk with and journey with.  He is my mirror and my guide.  He is the bridge for me between the spiritual and material worlds.  He is who I walk with on this journey of coming to fully love and accept myself.  So why don't I just walk by myself, with my essence?  

If this journey is really about me and my self-worth, self-expression and self-esteem, why am I walking with Money?  

Because for whatever reasons, Money is the direct reflection of my willingness and capacity to love and accept myself, and to create my life from within, nourished by my gifts, dreams and desires, guided by my soul's purpose and path.  I am here to contribute and serve, and my willingness to step over the stile and fully onto my soul's path of contribution is the key to unlock the blocks and fears that stop the flow of financial prosperity.  As I allow myself to receive my Self, Money as Green Man shows up to guide me, call me forth, and support me to shine my brightest light.  

Today is St. Mary Magdalene's Feast Day - July 22nd.  And I am clear that I will not waste what I initiated and received from this journey I have walked by myself on the Mary Michael Pilgrims Way. Mary and St. Michael are within my heart, guiding, providing and protecting every step of the way - even now as I am home in the US, with my family and re-entering to integrate and receive all from my experience.  Today, I read a quote from a group that experienced St. Michael up on Brentor, which is on the Mary Michael Way in Dorset.  The quote from the Bible that was opened to this page at the St. Michael Church that day gave them a message about the following:

Just as St. Michael guides, provides and protects me along the path bearing his name, so too does Green Man.  Perhaps somehow they are connected and are reflections of each other.  More on that another time.  I trust him and know him to always reflect the truth to me.  As we journey together, we heal each other and serve to reconnect the material to the divine, and also the divine to the material, and to shine our lights brightly and boldly, and be the bridges to create Heaven on Earth.

Matter matters, the divine matters. It is all the same thing, just different sides of the same coin, after all.

Solvitur Ambulando!

Day 3 on this journey and I have been literally sick to my stomach all day, throwing up since 2am last night...interesting and totally unexpected.  I am wondering what it is that I can't stomach.  Hmm...

Yesterday I was confronted with a possibility that I had never considered before.  What if I use money as my scapegoat and my excuse to not tell the truth about who I am and what I want?  Is this what I can't stomach?  Or perhaps am I actually clearing out on such a deep level to make room for this truth?

This is all I can write tonight...the journey continues.

Solvitur Ambulando.

Yesterday was the aligning of myself fully with my intention and decision to go on this journey with Money.  Crazy eh?  To go on this journey with one's nemesis, captor and bully.  Yet, that is why this is so imperative.  I am committed that through this journey together, that I will come to experience Money for what it really is, and through Love dissolve the negative energies that have become attached to money - not just by me, but also by a collusion and agreement throughout societies and cultures around the world.  Where do you know that money is experienced as love, support, kindness, creative, expansive, an energy that wants to partner and co-create?  Sounds crazy to want to put these qualities on money, right?  Yet this is what I intend from the pilgrimage with money.

To start out my daily pilgrimage, I am going to spend 20 minutes just writing about "What does money mean to me?"  I am going to write with a pen in a notebook and allow myself to just write non-stop about whatever comes up as I answer this question.  This is where I am going to let the gunk out - all the stuff that lies below the surface, below the positive affirmations, below what I want to experience with money. It is what needs to come up to be revealed and released.  It is actually the stuff that has been driving my relationship and experience with money.  It's the stuff that I have tried to deny, heal, pretend is not there and get involved with the next project, business, venture, only to have it come right back to this stuff.  The unconscious, somewhat conscious feelings and beliefs that I hold and honestly, really believe, about money.  This will not all get included here in the blog, but will help to clear the lines so that I can write here!

Then I am going to practice some meditations and clearing exercises to release and clear the stuff that comes up.

Say a prayer to come into right relationship with money and to experience that Money is Love.

Practice "shringing" 108 times and also other practices to call in the energies of abundance and prosperity.  I learned about shringing, and some of these other practices from Barbara Wilder's book, Money is Love, and she describes it as "an ancient mantra to the Hindu Goddess, Lakshmi.  As the embodiment of abundance, Lakshmi represents all the Mother Earth has to offer."  I actually have a mala bead necklace with 108 mala beads from a dear friend, Karyn, who owns Bali Mala, www.wearpeace.com.

I am not especially connected with the Hindu gods and goddesses except for Lakshmi so I am happy to call her in through shringing.  I am also open to other suggestions for calling in other deities from other faiths and cultures, especially associated with the British Isles and northern Europe.  Please let me know if you have any suggestions.

And then write here.  The writing will be where I am baring all to myself about my daily experiences, challenges, breakthroughs, awarenesses, triggers - this will be the heart and soul of my journey with money.  I can feel very alone and often very ashamed in my relationship with money and wonder, actually berate myself as a 54-year old woman who still does not have it together around money.  Yet, in my more open moments, I know that I cannot be the only one.  Too many people around the globe struggle with money, making ends meet, being stuck in jobs that they tolerate or actually do not even enjoy, putting on hold their real dreams until that day when they have enough money or time or both, and being actually bound in their relationship with money.  So, I am taking this journey not only for myself, but for all people who want to be free of the shame, worry, and feeling hostage to money, and live a life of freedom, abundance, prosperity, creativity, authenticity, expansion and joy!

That said, I realize as I step out onto the path with money, that I experience money as a bully and even more, like a kidnapper.  It is a masculine energy, that looks down at me, with his finger pointing at me, and with a  very condescending voice tells me that "You will never be one of us.  No matter how much money you have, you will never belong.  Ha!  You will never be enough, have enough, know enough.  Who do you think you are?"  

Intense, right?  Yet somehow, out of my experience of growing up in the wealthiest area of Cincinnati, Ohio, that is the essence of the experience I grew up with.  We lived in a very small rented house in the middle of Indian Hill, a very wealthy area where most people did not have less than an acre of land.  Our house, while small and with only one bathroom, was in the middle of 16 acres with the most beautiful barn in the world, an old orchard, a dilapidated greenhouse, a stream, and also a 26-room mansion on the other side of the driveway.  Wow.  I had the perfect playground right outside my door!  Yet, somehow in the midst of all this, I got that I wasn't one of them, wasn't good enough and never would be.  Truthfully, I wouldn't want to be "one of them" - not if this is how they see and treat other human beings, yet what I took away from this is that I would never belong - there or anywhere.  

I became consciously aware of my experience of money as a mean bully about 5 years ago, and I have worked with this, and done much inner work to release, clear, "break up with" this horrible Money Monster that I hold in my mind and belief system. I worked with the concept of money as a person through a system called Financial Alchemy and even became a certified Financial Alchemy coach back in 2008.  So while I have gotten away from it at times, I feel as though I have been on a rope that only lets me go so far, and then I am yanked back into this nasty, abusive relationship all over again.  I have felt hostage and prisoner to this dynamic.  At times, I can feel so hopeless and despairing and I just want to give up, and go live in a hole, and give up, give away all of my creativity and ideas for what I want to do with my life and how I want to use my gifts.

[To be totally transparent here, I want you to know that I am  married, and I do have a husband who makes good money and enough to support our family of four children.  I am so grateful and blessed to be in this situation.  Thank you, Steve.  Yet, while this does provide me with being taken care of financially, it does not give me the empowerment I deeply want to experience within myself.  I am totally dependent on my husband for my financial support and stability. A blessing, yes, most definitely.  And now it is time, as my children grow up, for me to become a sustainable income earner in my own right, as my own right.  I deeply desire to experience financial empowerment and freedom from within and without.  I want the experience of financial abundance and prosperity in my life and work, in full contribution of my gifts and service.]

What triggered this pilgrimage is that last week, Steve and I were meeting with our financial coach and advisor.  It was our first meeting after my return from walking and being in England for a month.  I had paid for much of this trip out of my own earnings, but there was about $1000 debt on the credit card for my portion of my airplane ticket, bed and breakfast's, car rental, petrol, train travel, etc. I had paid off other portions of the expenses, knew exactly what I owed and for what, and so had rationalized these extra expenses, and was feeling quite good about the whole thing.  Then, I was confronted by exactly how I was going to pay it off, and then to add to the challenge I was already feeling, it was suggested (again) that I check out "Underearners Anonymous" and use some of the tools that they offer.  What I heard and experienced in that moment was that "You're not good enough.  You do not earn enough.  You are incapable of earning enough. You have great ideas, but no follow through.  We can't count on you.  You are out of integrity. You're worthless.  You will never earn enough, be enough, have enough."

I left that meeting in shock, and hurt and anger.  I was totally triggered.  I didn't speak to Steve - or anyone for that matter, for three days.  I pulled way in to myself, isolated myself, devised my escape plans.  Thank god I took a walk, and pulled weeds in my garden.  I also attended an in-person UA (Underearners Anonymous) meeting in Denver that afternoon. I drove down without telling anyone where I was going or what I was doing.  I was so humiliated, ashamed, hurt, and angry.  I also attended a phone session on the Saturday night when I was home alone, because of course I cancelled all my plans to join anyone to do anything.  I was in it - the hurt, pain, shame, blame - full on.  Yet, somehow, even in the midst of this, I did attend these meetings, I did take a walk and I did spend time in the garden.  

I slowly started to speak with Steve again on Monday, letting little bits out about attending these meetings.  I picked up and read Barbara Wilder's Money is Love. I got to teach Nordic Pole Walking on Tuesday morning, working with these amazing seniors, teaching them how to use the sticks and getting to witness them bring walking back into their lives.  I loved it.  I had a moment to get out of myself and step into contribution and joy.  

Out of all this, I realized that I have been trying to figure out how to live without money…really.  I so hate how money makes me feel about myself, and my life, and what I am capable and not capable of.  I feel like such a worthless victim.  That's weird - as I typed worthless, I mistyped and wore came out and I read it as "whore".  Is that it?  Do I feel like a whore around money?  Carolyn Myss says that we all have the "prosititute" as one of our core inner archetypes.  Have I been unwilling to connect with her and explore who she is and what her price is?  Hmmm.  A topic for another day on the Journey with Money.

So rather than explore this, or rise up to Money, and become empowered, I had been putting all of my energy into how to get rid of it.  How could we/I live without money so that this didn't have to be an issue and a challenge in my life?  I was putting so much energy into living without money - whether through ascension, wishful thinking, whatever, that it was taking me away from being here, in the third dimension.  I was back to hovering.  I wasn't able to fully engage here, on this Earth plane, with my family and other people I love, doing the work that I love.  

What if there was another option?  Especially given that it would be like moving a whole mountain range by myself to get rid of money.  What if there was another possibility that I hadn't considered?

And then I read Money is Love.

In reading Money is Love, I realized that like me, Money has been cut off from its roots.  It has lost its connection to who and what it truly is and its spiritual roots, and has become a monster and taken on the worst of all of our thoughts, beliefs and fears around being enslaved, imprisoned, limited, and controlled.  Yet I actually began to imagine and wonder, what if Money is Love? What becomes possible then?  For me?  For the world? For everyone wherever they live?  Whatever their external circumstances? 

What if Money truly is Love -- just like all of us?

And this is the question that then led to the impulse, invitation, command to talk a journey with Money.  What if through journeying together, one step after another, we can both come back and reconnect with our roots, and align with and embody the essence of who we are as Love, and experience each other as Love?  

What's possible then?

Solvitur Ambulando!

I am beginning a new pilgrimage today.  This is perhaps the hardest one for me to walk, and the one that has been inviting me, beckoning me, calling me for my whole life.  This is the one that I have ignored, avoided, pretended to take, sort of taken, toyed with taking.  This path doesn't have a title, or a map, or a destination.  It doesn't even have a route, a path, yet it is the journey that has demanded that I take it, walk it, write it, NOW.  

I know, I just got back from my walking the Mary Michael Pilgrims Way, right?  How dare I take off on another journey as soon as I get back with my family? Yet it is my walking the Mary Michael Way and completing it at my spiritual home in Lostwithiel and Restormel that has given me the container for this next journey.  What do I mean by that?

Well, I walked the Mary Michael Way as a completion to my first leg of the Celtic Camino.  I needed to complete the journey from the root chakra in Santiago de Compostela, in Spain, to the sacral chakra in Toulouse, France.  I began this healing and transformational journey of the chakras in 2009, and walked from Santiago to St. Jean Pied de Port in 2010, and then from St. Jean to Auch, a sacred city eighty kilometers shy of Toulouse in 2012.  To complete this journey, I was guided not to walk from Auch to Toulouse, but to walk in the land of my ancestors, Cornwall, England, by myself.  

I have just completed this journey in June 2013.  I walked the thirty mile Saints Way from Padstow to Fowey with my cousin, Karen through the area where our grandparents and ancestors lived, worked, married, and had their children. Had our parents.  I then walked by myself the twelve mile "Cornish Camino", most commonly known as St. Michael's Way, across the narrowest part of Cornwall from Lelant to Penzance, in view of St. Michael's Mount.  I then walked, again alone, the first one hundred miles of the Mary Michael Pilgrims Way from Carn Les Boel, near Land's End, through Penzance to Lostwithiel and Restormel Castle. 

These pilgrimages have been very physical.  I walk on footpaths, roads, and coastal paths, along cliffs and through dark woods, through towns and villages, across fields and streams, and over hills and along verdant valleys.  I walk eight to twelve miles a day, or roughly twenty kilometers.  I carry a pack with twenty or so pounds of clothes, tents, sleeping bag, toiletries, food and water.  I use walking poles to assist me as I walk.  One step after another.  For hours each day.  And I love it.

These pilgrimages are also very internal, rich, deep and transformative.  With each step, with each thought, I experience all of who I am - my fears, my hopes and dreams, my concerns, my longings, my willingness to receive and be open - or not, my confidence, my connections, my aloneness, my belief in myself, my gifts, my path, my service and contributions, my life.  

To walk a pilgrimage is a commitment - to oneself, to the path, to a journey that will transform you in ways known and unknown, and catalyze changes wanted and unwanted.  It is to step into the unknown, and to invite transformation and change with every step.

So, here I am - back at my house with my family, my husband and children, my loved ones, my dog and my cats.  I notice that it is hard for me to say "I am home".  Yes, I am home with my family, but my soul's home is Restormel.  It makes no sense, I know.  Believe me, I know.  With as much clarity as I experienced in Lostwithiel, I come back and am with my family and I also experience a "being home" with them.  Actually, truthfully, I want to experience even more than I do.  I am also aware of experiencing a feeling of being on the outside, not quite as at home as I would like to feel.  Perhaps it is because I have been away for a month, but it is also that I am now more then ever connected to the core of me that is English and longs for extended family, rich, green verdant woods, old buildings, ancient history, funny signs that are so literal in their wording, driving on the left side of the road, cliffs, cloudy days, moist and colorful gardens full of flowers and soft green grass, cups of tea. I LOVE ENGLAND.  I do.  I do.  I do.  And my soul longs to be there more and more frequently.  I am nourished and fed by the land, the people, the accents, the architecture. the food, the ciders, the teas and coffees, clotted cream, cousins, aunts and uncles, family, old family friends, London, Lostwithiel, Bath, Box, Dorchester, ancients stones and stone circles, Celtic crosses, old stone churches and graveyards.

And yet, my family is here, and very, very American.  As my twelve year old daughter says, "I am a Nashville-ian", which she has declared after her trip to Nashville with Steve, her dad, aunt and cousin.  She loves it there. She loves it here in America.  All of my kids do.  Fortunately, my sixteen year old son, Michael, who joined me in England my last week there, certainly relates to England and the English within him, and has even declared that he wants to live there and go to university there.  So there's hope!  But I am also aware that what I long for, deeply desire, is diametrically opposite of what most of the members of my family want, and are connected to.  

What will it take to reconcile my deepest longings and connections with my connection with my children, my family, and being a part of me, and not excluding myself from, my family?

Quite a diversion from where I started.  Back to my next pilgrimage.

I have shared all of this because it creates the context and sets the stage for my next journey.  Well, almost.  One more piece to share from my Mary Michael pilgrimage.

As I mentioned, I walked this journey to complete the first stage of the Celtic Camino, and to heal my first chakra.

To heal my root chakra so that I would actually be able to hold and contain my creations, my wealth, my Self.  My experience has been that I leak out and lose all of this, so that while I may receive inspirations, have wonderful, creative ideas, receive money, I simultaneously leak it out, often times more quickly than I receive it.  I have felt like a sink whose plug has been pulled out.  The water may come into the sink, but it goes out and down the drain with a velocity that does not allow the level of the water to build or rise.  All of the beautiful, clean, clear water goes down the drain.  

My intention for this pilgrimage was to reconnect with my core taproot and literally, plug it back into my root chakra and create a cohesive and beautiful container, womb, from which to build, create and enjoy myself and my life.  

And given my experiences on the path, and especially at Restormel, and the confirmations I received, I know that I accomplished this.  Completely.

So, now that I am back at home with my family, what worked before, or perhaps more accurately, what I got by with, no longer works.  Period.  My coping mechanisms of leaking out energy, intention and integrity through avoidance, ignorance, disconnecting and armoring myself, are no longer permitted, no longer work and are actually now spilling over and coming back at me full force and actually creating waves of havoc, isolation, unhappiness, and poverty.

Like I wrote above, to walk a pilgrimage is a commitment - to oneself, to the path, to a journey that will transform you in ways known and unknown, and catalyze changes wanted and unwanted.  It is to step into the unknown, and to invite transformation and change with every step.

I am a pilgrim.  It's who I am.  It is one of my essential archetypes and an integral aspect of my soul's contract.  I move and grow, transform and welcome change through pilgrimage.  So instead of being a pilgrims only when I am walking a sacred pilgrimage path, I have invited and chosen to walk a pilgrim's path each and every day of my life.  I am a pilgrim even when I am "home", or perhaps especially when I am at home.  When I disconnect from my "pilgrim", I tend to become stagnant, lethargic, and complacent.    My pilgrim is the aspect of me that is committed to my soul's evolution in this human body.  She brings the two aspects together for me.  I have a habit of existing in the spiritual worlds and I am challenged by the physical, material world.  Walking and even more specifically, walking a sacred path, whether is a sacred path such as the Camino, Saints Path, St. Michael's Way, the Mary Michael Pilgrims Way, or a labyrinth in my back yard, actually serves as a bridge for me to be aware of walking on this beautiful planet, in the material physical world that can be both so beautiful, nurturing, and alive and at the same time, so challenging, demanding, hard and unfathomable.  I have been told that I am like a "blue light that hovers above the earth, above the material plane, that looks down and says 'it's awfully dense down there'."   So often, this is how it feels, and why I have chosen avoidance, ignorance, isolation and disconnection as my tools to survive a world I don't understand and don't necessarily want to be a part of.

Yet…yet.

My soul's insistence that I walk is actually serving to bring me down to Earth and to invite me to connect with abundance and joy of this material dimension. It is actually more insistent than an invitation. It is a command, an invitation that does not accept "no" as a response!  

No journey is a straight line.  You may think that you are going from point A to point B, yet the journey is a path of spirals, and twists and turns, that gift you with more than you can ever imagine, in ways that you never thought possible, all in its own good timing.  

So here I am, after four years of walking sacred pilgrimages, of walking with a group, three different partners at three different times, and by myself, and over one thousand kilometers of walking under my feet, and I feel as though I have just turned the first curve of the spiral and fully stepped into the core purpose and intention of my being a pilgrim.  

And to be able and willing to do this, I had to walk by myself and heal my root chakra, and plug into the core of myself, my tap root that is connected to the Earth, the Stars, and my authentic Self.  All of the miles before this were to get to me to this so that I can truly walk my soul's journey.  To do this, I have to tell the truth, confront my demons, acknowledge my secrets and shadows, all that I have previously avoided, and come out into the sunlight, and walk and to take the next step, one step at a time.

Matter matters.

This is the core of the next leg of my journey.

Matter matters.  My body matters.  Money matters.  The Earth matters.  Matter matters.

It may be dense.  It may be uncomfortable.  It may be demanding.  It may be ugly.  It may be beautiful.  It may be scary.  It may be mean and unloving.  Not the matter itself, but my experience of this dense realm with mankind's crazy and destructive ways of interacting with it, taking from it, having dominion over it.  My intention is to allow all of it, and to nourish and feed the beauty, joy, love that is here.

I get to contribute the beauty, joy and love that does exist in this material plane and nourish it so that it can expand and evolve, and that that "matter matters" becomes the dominant paradigm for every one everywhere.  

I get to be the bridge between the spiritual and the material.  Not only get to, but I AM the bridge.  

And to fully embody and embrace this, I am choosing to use the tool of MONEY.  What more of reviled, misunderstood, abused, manipulated aspect of matter could I ask for as my partner?  

I am choosing to partner with Money. Money that has been the bane, challenge, villain, bully of my existence.  Money that I have avoided, ignored, disconnected from, isolated from with all of my energy, willpower and very convincing, lofty, and spiritual arguments.

Money, will you partner with me on this pilgrimage?  Will you join me on this journey?  On this journey where I will want to push you off the bridge and do it all by myself?  On this journey where I am terrified of you joining me on it?  Where I would rather do anything but have you join me, but recognizing that doing it, actually anything without you, only gets me so far, and truthfully, only gets me in more debt and bondage?  

Somedays, I may walk with you by my side.  Other days, I may walk as far away from you as I can.  Most days, especially at the beginning, I may not even want you there.  But will you walk with me anyway? And will you walk with me out of an intention larger than me and you?  Will you walk with me out of our commitment to Global and Personal Prosperity - for each and every person on the planet, so that everyone knows - no matter where they live, who they are, what they "do" - that they can receive and experience financial freedom, empowerment, abundance, and the most loving, reciprocal, supportive, creative relationship?  

Will you walk with me, please?

I want to build and create with you.  I want to work with you.  I want to release my old programs around money and contribute to creating a new relationship and paradigm with you.  I want to experience, and know that You are Love, just as I am, and to know this in every cell and in the core of my being.  This is my intention.  And the way that I know to do this is to walk, to walk a pilgrimage with you, Money.  Pilgrimage is the way that I invite and embody change, transformation and evolution, and I invite you to join me.

Will you walk with me please?

What does this mean?

Every day, I write, share, expose, tell the total truth about my relationship with you, take full responsibility with it, and allow you to inform, relate, guide, connect with me. Everyday you walk with me, and guide, inform, relate with and partner with me, and you do not allow me to ignore, avoid or disconnect from you.

How do you do this?

That when I honor our relationship, you show up - physically for me, in the form of money - however you choose to do this.  

And to honor our relationship, I begin my day with you, writing, walking, and asking you what you want from me, for me to do that day. And I do it.  One day at a time.  One step at at time.  And I write and share it all every day.  No masks.  No hiding.  No making nice and presentable.  I share all of this journey - in open and complete vulnerability.

And that when I don't honor you, or our relationship - you don't show up.  Simple.  No money that day.

I walk through writing.  I write this Journey with Money everyday, and share the gifts, challenges, vulnerabilities, wins and successes, all of it.  I expose myself, my shadows, my fears, I break all of my rules around money, I expose all of my crazy behaviors and beliefs around money - all of the things I have kept hidden in the deep recesses of my being and not shared with anyone out of shame, blame, and fear.

With the intention to know that who you are is Love.  And just as I have reconnected with my taproot, of who I truly am as a deeply spiritual being who is also deeply rooted in this Earth, and that contact point for entering the Earth realm is Restormel, I also will contribute to your reconnecting with your taproot and your spiritual roots so that a paradigm shift occurs with the planet's and its peoples relationships with you.  That no longer can you just be a material entity with no heart and feelings, and be scapegoated as the villain.    That you get to be the Hero.

That together, we become the Heroine and the Hero of our own stories, lives and in embodying this, we literally turn the global relationship with you, Money, right side up.  Together.  We are FINANCIAL TRANSFORMATION AND EVOLUTION.  Together, we right what has been distorted and wronged for so many thousands of years, and reconnect you, and me, with our roots in the Earth and her sacred being, and once again, belong and be an integral part of what is sacred, right, beautiful, and joyous in this amazing world we live in, we live on, and are a part of.  

You in?

I am in.  You in?

I am in.  I am on this journey fully.  Two feet on the path of this pilgrimage with Money, Prosperity, Abundance, and Walking into Right Relationship with Money, Abundance and Financial Alchemy.

Lostwithiel 7.

Thursday morning. 

I leave Cornwall today and head up to Wiltshire to see and stay with Liz and family for the next few days.  I am sad to leave, but also my intention is that it is temporary, and that I will be back for several months next summer.  I have wondered if I am rushing it, leaving before the Solstice, but every time I check in around that, I know that I have been here for the perfect amount of time.  18 days. That's actually a long time to be anywhere that is not home.  But this is home.  And while I may not have been in one place in Cornwall, I spent my most time in this area, and now know that this truly is the area where I want to settle.  The one area that I haven't explored or walked is between here, and the sea at Fowey.  Mmmmm...I must do that!

I could walk the Saints Path between here and there.  I just saw myself leading groups on the Saints Path, as well as on the western portion of the Mary Michael Way! Love this.  Thank you.

Am I complete?

Giving myself yesterday to write, exploring my thoughts, awarenesses and downloads through writing, and I wrote for nearly 6 hours - yes!

Making pots of tea and drinking cups of tea while I wrote - yes!

Loving the rhythm of spending the morning writing and drinking  tea - yes!

Getting to walk into town on a sunny afternoon and get a cappaccino and a cheese scone at Duchy - yes!

Getting to connect with, and say thank you to Ricky both by phone and then in person as I walked back up the hill to my lovely home, Heaven on Earth - yes!

Staying at "Heaven on Earth" for these past 2 nights - yes!

Sitting in the sunny garden while I facetimed Gracie -yes!

Choosing to walk a very short distance over to the Golf Club to eat dinner of fish and chips, along with a Rattler cider - yes!

Thoroughly enjoying the clear and sunny view across the valley of Restormel, and also while the sun set - yes!

(This view was the opposite of my view of home 31 years ago. I now was sitting in the view that I had seen! Even the other day, I noticed something driving up a field quite quickly and then figured out that it was a golf course and that was a golf cart zipping up the hill, and then here I am, staying just next door to the Lostwithiel Golf & Country Club, in the extra room of the couple who owned and ran the hotel and club for the past 15 or so years.  Something quite auspicious about all of this.)

Getting to truly be on my own these past few days and really, really enjoying myself, how I choose to spend my time, how I choose to eat, my rhythm, where I choose to stay, how I take care of myself (even in not getting the early 8 o'clock train to Liskeard, but giving myelf a longer morning here to get showered, packed, write, and eat breakfast -I don't feel rushed) - yes!

Having the experience of being comfortable in my own skin and body - yes!

Coming home to myself, my dreams and desires - yes!

Being at peace with myself, my dreams and desires, my path - yes!

Accepting, allowing myself and all of who I am - yes!

Enjoying OM time last night with myself - yes!

Fulfilling my intention for walking in Cornwall --- yes!

Experiencing a profound healing of the split through and in sacred wedding and union of the sacred feminine and divine masculine - yes!

Now moving into the marriage and the longterm work of the marriage,bringing the sacred union home and allowing it to infuse and inform me every second of every day so that I live into it, from it, through it, as it.

I am SACRED UNION IN BODY, THOUGHT AND ACTION. Everything about who I am, what I choose, what I create, my actions, words, thoughts and feelings are aligned with, connected to, rooted in, expressed through SACRED UNION, LOVE, LIGHT AND LIFE.

&

&

&

I now live in, embody, embrace and express the &, the "both/and".

I am whole.

I am home.

I am complete.

I give thanks.  I give thanks.  I give thanks.

And so it is.  And so I am.  

Amen.

I just have to add an addendum to reveal the cosmic humor of it all.  Lostwithiel.  In English, it sounds like "lost" - yet here I have found myself.

And actually, Lostwithiel is Cornish "Lost Gwydyel" -  the place at the tail-end of the forest."

Yes it is.  And here I am.

And, Anita just came with milk for myself.   She was wearing the most beautiful silver spiral on her necklace, with a gorgeous deep pink stone in the middle and made in Wadebridge.

Of course.

xo

Restormel is a 12th century castle in the round that sits on top of a hill overlooking the valley about a mile outside of town.  At the risk of repeating myself, I had bicycled to Restormel 31 years ago, and much to my surprise, had an unexpected and unusual experience that changed me forever.  Perhaps it even diverted my path in the most positive of ways! As I've looked back on this experience, and I have many, many times, I have called it my first mystical experience.  I was standing at one of the openings of the castle, looking out across the valley, when I knew from deep within myself, that I had spent many hours looking over this very valley from this very window. I knew this place, this landscape intimately. I experienced in a moment the feeling of being home. For the first time in my life, in every cell of my being, on every level of my existence, I experienced being home.  

Not one who was used to such experiences, I wasn't quite sure what to do with it.  So I walked down and away from the castle, altered and opened.  The herd of cows came to meet me and surround me as I retrieved my bicycle, as if to let me know that they knew, and that they too recognized a kindred soul.  I then went back into town, to do what any good English person would do under the circumstances, and had a cup of tea at a local tea shoppe.  I actually opted for cream tea, and while I was waiting for the scone, cream and jam to come (and probably David to return from the bathroom), I looked at the painting on the wall beside our table and saw that the artist's name was HOSKIN. They say it happens in threes, and there, in a span of at most an hour, I had my threes that changed me and my life forever.  Obviously, it didn't happen overnight.  It has taken me thirty years to return, but the feeling of home, of something bigger and greater than me, and of something inexplicable has stayed with me, always nudging, guiding, and prodding me.  This experience never allowed me to get too comfortable, too weary, or too casual about myself, my choices  or my life.

So here I am, 2013, and I am back in Lostwithiel, and on my way to Restormel Castle.  Yes, I did come back briefly last  fall with my father, stepmother and husband, and while wonderful, that visit was not about me.  It gave me just what I needed, which was the desire to return on my own very soon.  And here I am, only eight months later.

It was important to not put too much pressure on this visit, and yet at the same time, be open to and invite in the magic.  The fine line of being open without being attached to expectation. As I paid the Heritage Society to visit the castle, the woman remarked that I had the castle to myself, and how unusual that was. I stopped at the little bathroom on the way to the castle, and begin to connect with my reason for being there.  I am reminded that I am here, at this spot, this castle in the round, to  reconnect with my tap root, my core. I am not here to retrieve an aspect of myself, but to retrieve and connect with my Self.  I became the aspect of myself and somehow split off from my core, and left her behind, all those lifetimes ago, at this very sacred spot.

The time was now to reconnect with Her, with me, with my Self.  I actually had no idea "how" to do this!  So I started by giving thanks and acknowledging that I was meant to be here, at this time, on my own.  I walk a full circle around the outside of the castle, as if casting a sacred circle for the ceremony that is about to take place.

The entry way comes out of the circle of stones to invite and welcome me in.  I walk into the center, on the green lawn peppered with small white daisy flowers. I stand and turn in circles, in awe and gratitude that I am back, I am here, and I am home. I ask for my angels and guides to hold me, support me, and direct me what to do.  

I ask to heal the split, and to reconnect and be reconnected on all levels, lifetimes, and dimensions of my being with my taproot, my Self, the core of my being and Soul, for now and forever, and to never be separated again.

I root down through my feet, and connect with the crystal core at the center of the Earth. What is important is that I am connecting through this particular place on the surface of the planet, here at Restormel.  Rooted in Earth, I simultaneously connect to the Sun, stars and heaven. Sacred Feminine and Divine Masculine in me, through me, as me.  I am then directed to walk a spiral out from the center. I walk slowly, deliberately, giving thanks, being open and receptive. I walk around, and around, and around, until I am at the base of the inner walls.  I walk next to the walls, and touch the stones with my left hand as I walk around. Just as I am completing this last round, I hear the noises of a family with young children.  Perfectly timed, they come in and enter my chalice.  Two young children, a young girl of age 4 or so, and a little boy, nearly 2 years old, their parents, and two grandparents. I walked up the stairs and proceed to walk around the circular walk at the top of the castle.  I often stopped to take and receive the view of the surroundings, especially of the valley.  I asked this family's presence and joyful children's voices to contribute my experience.  I spent quite a bit of time "upstairs" to soak in the view, the presence of the stones in the castle, and my presence and experience in the castle. I didn't want to rush through it.  I had walked too far, and waited too long, to rush through this experience now.  I had to practice returning to center, into my core, in spite of and actually because of, the presence of others. How perfect!  I then came downstairs and walked around the inner base of the outside walls and went into the chapel where I asked and gave thanks for all that was happening, and for my reconnection to my Self.  I especially gave thanks to Mary and Michael, Sarah and Green Man, in this sweet chapel. I felt myself root deeply into the Earth as I opened up to the Sky.

I went back to the center of the grass in the center of the castle, expressed my thanks and gratitude, and went back outside. I was then called by two trees to eat a snack and drink some water. I believe that the bigger tree had been where the cows had come to surround me in recognition thirty plus years earlier. I knew that I had done something powerful in the castle, I knew something had happened, although I didn't know what.  I wasn't even sure if I was feeling it, or just thinking it.

Knowing that I had to trust my experience and be open, I somewhat reluctantly knew it was time to leave.  I was hoping to find something in the store that would be the confirmation that something had happened, but no, there was nothing that spoke to me.  As I walked back down the hill, and past the gate for my final view of the castle, I got the image of the circle of stones with the vertical stone in the middle.

It was the stone in the middle that has puzzled and challenged me.  What is the stone in the middle?  What is the true nature of the masculine?  Where was the masculine at Restormel? Obviously, the circle of stone was present.  I had stood in the center, wishing that I had a sword to plant in the middle.

And then I got it.  My desire, longing to return home, to come home, to be home is the stone in the middle, is my stake in the ground.

I WANT TO COME HOME.  I WANT TO BE HOME.  

This is all I have ever wanted.  So simple.  So obvious.  So clear.

And here I was, home at Restormel, yet walking away from it, without putting my stake in the ground, that this is what I want and all I have desired for as long as I can remember.

I DESIRE WITH ALL OF MY HEART AND SOUL TO LIVE AGAIN IN ENGLAND, AND TO BE VERY SPECIFIC, TO LIVE IN LOSTIWTHIEL, IN THIS VALLEY, NEAR THIS VERY CASTLE.  I am home here.  I deeply, deeply desire and long to come home, be home, live at home.

I have wandered and been a Bedhouin only because I got cut off from my roots and I have been looking for home.  And here it is, all along, even making itself known to me all those years ago.

I became alive with this recognition and awareness, and immediately turned around, went back up the hill, and back into the castle.  There was an older man sitting on a bench with his golden retriever, but no one was going to stop me from doing what I came to do.  I turned my back on him, sat down and faced the other way.  I had been directed to get out a penny and to pick up a rhodadrendrum flower on my way in.  I actually chose my oldest twopenny piece, and declared my desire and intention to return to England, and Lostwithiel/Restormel to live (all the while being open to how this unfolds and in the highest good of all concerned) as I dug a small hole and planted the penny in the ground!

I placed the flower on top of the planted penny, turned in three circles and stomped on the ground three times with my walking sticks!  I laughed, gave thanks, and walked out of the castle in joy, completion and delight.  

I felt so happy, so joyful, so in love!  I knew that I had completed the ceremony and that it had met me completely. The energies were moving, and celebrating with me as I just about skipped down the hill!

And then, in asking what else was possible and opening myself to receive even more, I stopped and stood in the presence of the most magnificent tree I have ever seen in my life.  The grandmother of all trees.  An ancient oak, whose trunk was thick and round, whose roots were fed by the stream of holy water at her base, who limbs wound down and around in spirals all around her, whose leaves created a luscious, green canopy above her.  I had walked right by her on my up, and hadn't even noticed her.  Now, on my return from Restormel, I was stopped by her magnificence and asked to receive her presence in the core of my being.

I am the grandmother of all trees.  In the core of my being, I AM this beautiful, magnificent oak tree, who grew from a tiny acorn into the beautiful, ancient, alive, rooted being. 

She holds a gate in place with her trunk, the rusted nails cannot wound her, the cave at the base of her trunk provides a safe haven for small animals, and her sacred waters provide ample nourishment right beside her.  She stands tall and proud, in conjunction with the Restormel.  One is man made.  The other watched the men build her. They stand for and with each other, each an auspicious display of Magnificent Manifestation. One created by Nature.  The other created by Man. 

I sat next to the gate across the lane and drew her with my pencils, wanting to remember her graceful limbs, her powerful trunk, her ample roots and her beautiful presence. I felt such a profound honour to see her, to feel her, to connect with her.

She embodies MAGNIFICENT MANIFESTATION.  And she was stopping me, and asking me to embody, embrace and receive MAGNIFICENT MANIFESTATION too.  She has waited a long time for me to return and to share in the message she stands for, and now it is time, for me to fully become this, and to share the message of MAGNIFICENT MANIFESTATION with the world.

The time is now for all of us to be in right relationship with creation and manifestation, and for each of us to step into being the Divine Co-Creators that we are. 

Thank you, Grandmother.  I accept fully your invitation and receive fully to become the MAGNIFICENT MANIFESTOR that I am.  I am here to show others the way, to provide the map, and the path. 

I am the Tree of Life.

We are all the Tree of Life, and Creation, and Sacred Manifestation.

Thank you.   Thank you.  Thank you.

My pilgrimage is complete.  Restormel is my Holy Grail.  She is my destination and my reason for walking. I have come home- to myself, my wholeness, my purpose, my path.

I chose to stay in Lostwithiel rather than head on to Liskeard.  Liskeard is my father's home.  Lostwithiel is my home.  I had been attracted to a quiet place on 

airbnb.com and contacted David, the owner, when I returned to the Chatham Pub to collect my backpack.  Sure enough, he could have me stay as long as I could wait until 

7pm.

So here I am, in my sweet, quiet, open, sunny room across the valley from Restormel.

How does it get any better than this?!

With my nearly six hours of writing today, I am completing this phase of my journey and get to move into the next phase.  I spend the day with Maureen, the Grand Bard of the Gorsedd tomorrow, meeting her at the train station in Liskeard and heading up for a walk on Bodmin Moor, before taking a train tomorrow evening from Plymouth to my cousin, Liz's house near Bath.  I will spend a few days with her and family,and then head to Celia's outside of Bristol for the Solstice, then Diana's for a few days before picking up Michael and Malie on Wednesday morning. Gears will start shifting quickly tomorrow and I am so grateful for this time, space, and quiet solitude to write today.

Thank you!

Solvitur Ambulando!