Come Join Us!

SPRING EQUINOX CEREMONY

Saturday, March 20 • Abiquiu, NM

See Events for more information: www.pathwaysforhealing.net

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WEAVING

A few years ago, I became enchanted with a spider who emerged every evening to weave an elaborate web. Intrigued by this gifted weaver and her natural artistry, I spent many sunsets watching her.  She initiated each weaving suspended upside down on a single thread. Swinging side-to-side in the air, she came to land on the tip of a leaf far below the rafters.  There she attached a long grounding cord to anchor her web to the earth.  She crawled back up the thread to build the intricate framework, stretching fibers out in all directions like the rays of the sun.  Returning to the center, she crawled around in small tight circles, then further outward, weaving a spiral. The glistening threads she made were sticky, the web’s geometry magnetic, all designed to attract and to hold what was nourishing for her.

One night, unable to sleep, I made my way through the dark house, irresistibly drawn outside by some mysterious calling. Wrapped up in a blanket, I rested in the hammock near the spider’s web.  I watched the long-legged weaver ride on the breezes that fluttered through her web.  So vividly aware, she quickly crawled to investigate anything that touched the fibers.  I feared and admired her attentive aliveness, her instincts and wildness, all of which compelled me to stay with her through the night.

When the sun began to rise, I was abruptly awakened out of my dreams. There at eye-level, right in front of my face, was the spider floating on the air on an invisible thread. How had this small silent creature so boisterously called me out from my sleep? The spider dangled there awhile making sure I’d awakened enough.  I wondered what it was she wanted me to see.

The spider crawled fluidly back up the thread and suddenly somersaulted, cartwheeling into her web. Glistening fibers broke apart. Delicate threads came undone. The elaborate spiral design imploded as the bottom half of the web collapsed in on itself. I watched with wide-eyed amazement as the spider deliberately dismantled the rest of her web, reaching all around with her multi-colored striped legs.

So intentfully, she unraveled her own weaving which apparently had completed the purpose for which it’d been made. With playful grace, she untangled all the old attachments. Then Spider crawled away into the rafters to rest among the wooden beams and peeling bark, waiting for the evening’s sunset, preparing for the weavings to come. She lived with unshakable clarity that she had what she needed to manifest what she wanted when the guidance from within and the rhythms of the earth indicated it was time.

Manaole U Manaole ~ from my heart to the heart of the mother earth to your heart,

JoAnne Dodgson

www.pathwaysforhealing.net

LIVING IN BALANCE FROM THE HEART • with JoAnne Dodgson

www.pathwaysforhealing.net

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WISE WOMAN RADIO

JoAnne was recently interviewed by Susun Weed on Wise Woman Radio. Click here to listen: JoAnne Dodgson on Wise Woman Radio

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COME JOIN US

For more information:  see Events or contact JoAnne

• Healers’ Circle ~ February 13 in New Mexico

• Women’s Gathering: Nourish Your Spirit ~ February 26-28  at Crones’ Cradle Conserve in Florida

• Workshops in San Diego, CA in April (details coming soon)

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DREAMING A NEW DREAM

for your life

for all life

for our planet

Dreaming a new dream – that’s how we’ll change the world. The first step toward change is simply to dream. What do you really want…for your life?…for all life?…for our planet?

Our Inner Landscapes Shape the World

Our inner worlds are filled with beliefs about life and pictures for how we’re supposed to live it:  What we should and shouldn’t do given our gender, age or race.  What our bodies should look like.  How relationships work. What’s ‘food’ and where to get it.  How money is to be made and spent.  How to treat the animals, plants and waters of the earth.

We absorb beliefs from the social culture surrounding us – the media, our families, government, religions, schools.  When we adopt others’ beliefs and social mandates as our truths, these become the foundations for our inner world.  And our lives are built upon what we carry around inside. Collectively, generation after generation, we’ve constructed a world filled with wars, fear, discontent, toxic wastes and disease.

Dream Your Dreams

Change begins on the inside as we untangle from old mindsets. New dreams are the key to creating a new world and for making sought-after changes in our personal lives. If we stretch our minds and hearts to think beyond the box of assumptions and shoulds and supposed-to’s, we open up a universe of new potentials.  What do you really want?

Claiming your dreams is a passionate, creative quest. If you want more love or abundance in your life, if you want peace on the earth, the dream-quest involves feeling what that feels like, imagining what that looks like, envisioning everyday life with the abundance or love or peace that you seek.  Dreaming your dream is the seed which holds the blueprint for building a new way of life.  It’s all there inside the dream.

Nourish Your Dreams

Dreams, like all seeds, need nourishment to grow.  Let acceptance and love rain down upon your dreams.  Feed them with curiosity and respect.  Cultivate your dreams with wild fertile space to grow.  Give them some light – keep thinking about them, talk about them, feel the feelings, awaken the details, get the pictures crystal clear.  Your dreams will take root inside you and ripple out beyond you.  Your inner landscape shapes the world.

Share Your Dreams

One of my passions is to offer gatherings for Visioning Ceremony, often held during new moon.  There is a palpable shifting when people focus their attention inwardly, listening to the callings of their heart, searching for and giving voice to their visions and dreams.  But we don’t have to wait for ceremonial gatherings to explore our dreams.  We can talk about new possibilities and potentials anywhere anytime in the everyday moments of our everyday lives – in our homes, at the workplace, in the grocery store line.

Share your dreams.  The awakening of new potentials and the building of energy in the direction of change will expand exponentially. We can learn from one another, consider things we haven’t thought of before.  With our sharings, we inspire each other to dream more freely and openly, with joy, creativity and clear intent.

As we dream up and dream in a new reality for ourselves and the world, we weave a tapestry of purposeful change.  Each dream is distinct yet connected with all the others.  Each is essential to the whole.

Dream a New Dream

The very moment we give voice to what it is we really want, our dreams take their first breath of life.

So what are your dreams?…for your life?…for all life?…for our planet?

LIVING IN BALANCE FROM THE HEART

with JoAnne Dodgson

www.pathwaysforhealing.net

Dear Friends,

In celebration of the vast potentials the new year holds, here’s a story to set you off on your journey to manifest your visions and dreams.

Manaole U Manaole –

from my heart to the heart of the mother earth to your heart,

JoAnne

MAGIC of MANIFESTING  •  JoAnne Dodgson

My bundle of sage was dwindling. This particular sage plant offers vital medicines for smudging ceremonies. I’ve heard it called Indian Sage, Buffalo Sage, Dakota Sage, but the sage labeled with these names in herb stores was not the plant I was looking for. What I love about this smudging sage is the way the dried silvery green leaves can be crumpled into a ball and once lit, they gently burn like an ember. On the burning sage ember, other plant medicines can be added – cedar, sweetgrass, osha, juniper, white sage, tree resins. This allows for a natural smudging ceremony, similar to the old ways, as close as I can get anyway in places where hot coals from a smoldering fire are not readily available.

To find a place to wild-harvest the sage, to replenish my herb bundle, became a passionate quest. The lands near my home in New Mexico are abundant with desert sagebrush, an intriguing yet distinctly different plant. So my search ended up taking me across state lines into the mountains of southern Colorado. Intuitively I headed toward an ancient rock formation which holds stories of indigenous peoples who lived there in centuries past. I sensed I’d find sage in the wilderness lands surrounding the sacred site.

Walking among the towering pines, I shared a gift offering with the land, plant nations and spirits to request their help in finding the smudging herb. I’m- looking-for-Sage became a silent chant, a drumbeat setting the rhythm for my explorations around the land. I found feathers. I listened to the ravens call and watched turkey vultures coast high in the winds. I shared quiet companionship with rabbits and deer. I welcomed the sight of the ancient crumbling rocks, feeling embraced by the presence of my old friends. But the sage was nowhere to be found.

Late in the afternoon, beginning the hike back to my car, my mind got consumed by distracting chatter. Had I come all this way only to return home empty-handed? I should have talked with an expert who really knows about plants. Am I just wandering around following my heart, aimlessly getting off-track?

Slowed by depleting tugs of doubt and disappointment, I stopped and stood still in the middle of the path. I breathed in the pines. I felt the earth beneath my feet. I remembered what I had come there to do. “I’m searching for Sage,” I spontaneously said aloud to the trees. I took a few steps into the meadow. “And Sage is searching for me,” I said with a smile, playing around. But I loved the feeling of this new possibility: I’m looking for Sage and Sage is looking for me. Instinctively we now were joined in the hunt, both seeking and searching, reaching out to meet up.

I walked on through the meadow, moving in rhythm with childlike curiosity and renewed intent. Something lying on the ground near a tree caught my attention – a collection of bones bleached white by the sun and nestled in the earth. I leaned in to take a closer look. And there by my foot was a sage plant, graceful stems of tiny mint-green leaves reaching out in all directions, soaking up the sun. I glanced around and discovered yet another plant and then a whole cluster and then even more. Sage plants were flourishing in the meadow. How had I not seen them before? We crossed paths in the closing steps of my journey, coming full circle, not far from where I’d started my search.

Sage taught me something essential about manifesting: It’s a mutual thing. It’s embodied in connection. What we seek we will find when we know (without a doubt) that it too is seeking us – be it a plant or a friend or abundance or love. Manifesting is a birthing, a calling-into-existence, an intimate weaving of the choice and intent of everyone and everything involved.

About a year after my wild-harvesting adventure, I noticed my bundle of smudging herbs needed replenishing. I wasn’t sure I’d have a chance to travel across state lines before the first frost to gather more of my beloved sage. Hiking the mesas behind my house, I looked around for other medicinal plants to gather up for a fall harvest. I walked along the pathway of the dry riverbed I call the Mama Arroyo. She’s a wild curving passage through rocks and desert soils shaped by rushing waters from thunderstorms and snowmelt. All other tributaries branch off from and connect back with her.

I stopped to rest along the banks of the Mama Arroyo at a confluence of pathways I’d wandered through countless times. Lying down on warm soils beneath turquoise blue skies, a particular shade of silvery green caught my eye. There among the wildflowers and gnarled tree roots was a sage plant – graceful stems of tiny mint-green leaves reaching out in all directions, soaking up the sun. I looked around and found another plant and then a whole cluster and then even more – an entire communal gathering of Sage. How had I not seen them before?

Sage magically appeared to help me awaken a knowing I hadn’t quite fully grasped: Manifesting is an easeful and natural thing. It’s an organic unfolding. It’s deeply rooted in gratitude for all that already exists. Like a wild river, manifesting naturally flows from the source of fertile passions – remembering what we love, what we want, what we’ve come here to do. Relaxing into our dreams, trusting ourselves and the universe are vital nourishments for the quest. Self-imposed pressure, stress, force and fears will distract and misguide us, box us in and keep us stuck.

Though seemingly magical, our natural ability to manifest thrives inside the knowing that anything, and everything, is essentially within our reach. Sage showed me that what we are searching for is often much closer to home than we think.

JoAnne Dodgson is a healer, writer and teacher in ancient Peruvian medicine ways Ka Ta See, ‘living in balance from the heart.’ www.pathwaysforhealing.net

Come join us!

Healers’ Circle – beginning in January (in New Mexico)

Many Mothers’ Circle – January 20 (in New Mexico)

Women’s Gathering: Nourish Your Spirit – Feb 26-28 (in Florida)

~ See Events for more information or contact JoAnne Dodgson ~

WINTER SOLSTICE

honor the darkness in the heart of wintertime

welcome the returning of light

JoAnne Dodgson  •  www.pathwaysforhealing.net

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In the northern hemisphere, December 21st is the Winter Solstice – this particular alignment with the earth and sun marks a turning time, the longest night of the year, a seasonal shift into the winter’s cold and quieting on the land.  In the Southern Hemisphere, this is the Solstice of Summer – the beginnings of a new season, the longest day of the year, the heat and blossomings of summer.  Such an intriguing constellation of energies and changes unfolding all at once in our world.

The Solstice has been revered by humans for eons.  Among indigenous cultures and diverse traditions in all regions of the earth, there are ancient sites, stories, art, ceremonies and celebrations related to the Solstice. This reverence is rooted in our enchantment and awe in sharing life with our planet and our star. There’s a collective hearts’ calling to feel and celebrate our connectedness with the vast mysteries and magic of life, with the everflowing cycles of change.

The Earth and her rhythms are sacred. This knowing is woven in the vast web of life and throughout human existence across great expanses of time.  This ancient regard is innately part of who we are.  It runs through our veins.  We can feel it in our bones. So when the sacredness and magic of life on earth feels hidden or out of reach, it’s simply then a time for remembering.

The Winter Solstice invites us to honor the darkness on this longest night of the year.  In the ways of the earth, darkness is essential, just as life-giving and beautiful as the light. Night creates balance with day. All that takes place in the dark fertile soils of the earth is vital to the growth above ground. Yet we’re so often taught to be afraid of the dark.  Winter Solstice offers an invitation to renew our natural kinship with the darkness  – creating safety, embracing the stillness, nourishing inner resources, receiving the gifts of rest and restoration and replenishing the darkness provides.

Winter Solstice is a pivotal time, a shifting in the earth’s rhythms into the returning of more sunlight.  Joining up with this dance with the earth and the sun, we can bring clear and conscious attention, more and more light, to our inner world, to the dreams we want to hold, to the changes we want to manifest in our lives and in the world.

Wishing you a beautiful Solstice, filled with joyful celebration, boundless peace and love.

Heart to Heart, JoAnne

WINTER SOLSTICE CEREMONY – Sunday December 20

HEALERS’ CIRCLE – Monthly Gatherings beginning in January

WOMEN’S GATHERING: NOURISH YOUR SPIRIT – February 26-28 at Crones’ Cradle Conserve in Florida

See Events page •  Contact JoAnne to reserve your space

Dear Friends,

For those welcoming winter in lands north of the equator and for those south of the equator moving into summer — may the shifting of the earth’s seasons be woven with rich nourishment, the manifesting of dreams, abundant laughter and love.

Heart to Heart, JoAnne

SHAKING DOWN THE SEEDS • JoAnne Dodgson, Ed.D.

www.pathwaysforhealing.net

Wintertime has settled into the red rock mesas of northern New Mexico.  The blue skies have quieted since the geese and sandhill cranes have flown by boisterously celebrating their migration to the waters farther south.  I rarely cross paths these days with coyotes and jackrabbits.  There’s a hush among the lavender since the hum of bumblebees has grown silent.  The yucca and prickly pear cactus simply hold their ground, no new fruits or pods or blossoms, no visible signs of growth since the frosts.  The quieting on the land and shortened hours of daylight have brought my winter homing instincts into full bloom – to be home by dark; to settle in and embrace the quiet; to focus inwardly, like the trees, toward the core of my being and my roots.

Jasmine, my beloved canine friend, blends her wild romps on the mesas with long hours sleeping on the land – luxuriously stretched out in the warmth of the sun, her nose touching the ground, breathing in the earth.  The winter ways of the canines reveal the extraordinary that exists in the ordinary moments of life.  Like taking a nap.  Deep inside the stillness we discover the rhythms of our own hearts.  Breathing in the earth and soaking up the sun intimately connect us with immense celestial beings, our planet and our star and the healing medicines they freely share, the remarkable knowledge they’ve gathered up through the passages of space and time.  It’s all there in the soil and the sunbeams.

Jasmine breaths it in and soaks it all up – a wide-open welcoming of the gifts being shared, a grateful giving-back with ease and contentment, a natural weaving of connection with all that’s alive within her and all around.  The lushness of the sharing between the canine, earth and sun has gotten me to wondering what it’d be like to so generously give and so warmly receive the diverse and extraordinary gifts of life – in all the ordinary everyday moments, with each and every breath that I take.

The songbirds enchant the winter season with an ingenious feasting dance.  Bouncing around on golden tufts of dried flowers, the petite winged ones jostle the delicate stalks and blossoms until the ground is peppered with tiny morsels.  Hopping down to the sandy soil, the birds chirp with delight while gathering up the delectable seeds one by one.

Nourishment rains on the earth when songbirds shake down the seeds.  A universe of potentials and vast volumes of information are held inside the body of each tiny seed.  There within lies a living matrix of what is and what has been joined by innate, empowered knowing of when and how and what and who may be.  The seeds taken in by the birds and those left resting on the earth nourish life with the sacred promise of generations to come.

Winter offers initiations into new cycles, a passage into stillness that feeds the birthings of spring, a readying for the awakenings to come.  In this time on the earth so potent with change, I feel the whispers as I walk about the land:  Nestle in the stillness.  Breath in the earth.  Soak up the sun.  Shake down the seeds.  There’s an irresistible calling to join in this sharing with the earth and sun and moon and seasons, with the four-leggeds, plant nations and winged ones.  Nestle in the stillness.  Breath in the earth.  Soak up the sun.  Shake down the seeds.

If we seek it, we will find it for it too is seeking us ~ the exuberant dance of life we’re innately a part of.  The vibration of ancient rhythms will be carried up along our roots.  We’ll feel the hum and soon find ourselves humming along, sharing our voice, finding our rhythm, dancing on rich fertile ground.  Nestling in the stillness.  Breathing in the earth.  Soaking up the sun.  Shaking down the seeds.

Nestling in the Stillness.
Breathing in the Earth.
Soaking up the Sun.
Shaking down the Seeds.

Nestling in the Stillness.
Breathing in the Earth.
Soaking up the Sun.
Shaking down the Seeds.

Thanksgiving – the name of this holiday offers us an invitation.  Wherever we are, by ourselves or with others, we’re invited to join in a communal giving of thanks – honoring and enjoying nourishing gifts from the earth, celebrating the abundance of life.  Sharing gratitude weaves fibers of connection between us.  Being grateful is an openhearted receiving, an honoring of the givers and the gifts – of nourishing foods, friendship, healing energies, creative ideas, hearty belly laughs.  Giving thanks opens space for beauty to be seen, for love to be felt, for the extraordinary to come alive in the ordinary moments of our everyday lives.

In the spirit of Thanks-Giving, here’s a sharing of the discovery of unexpected gifts on a wintry morning several years ago:

CRYSTAL TAPESTRY   •   JoAnne Dodgson, Ed.D.

www.pathwaysforhealing.net

As the orange glowing sun rose up over the horizon, a hint of magic filled the air. A chattering flock of ravens surfed wildly on the winds.  They soared to the ground to hold council in the frozen meadow beside the house. I wondered what they were up to besides calling me out to play.

I ventured outside and into the woods, delighted by the beauty of the vibrant green forest dusted with sparkling white snow and embraced by the brilliant blue sky.  Jasmine, my canine friend, romped passionately through the underbrush.  She stuck her nose inside animal tracks imprinted in the snow to see just who had been by and how long ago and if there still was a chance of catching up.

When I stopped beside a creek to breath in the deep woodsy silence, I noticed the thread of a spider’s web swaying slightly in the breeze.   Hanging in a graceful arc between the branches of a cedar tree, the delicate fiber was lined with snowflakes.  Each individual snowflake was clearly visible, such intricate starry crystals of diverse sizes and shapes gathered along a shimmering thread.  Enchanted by this discovery, I looked around with more discerning eyes to discover the woods was filled with snowflake-lined spider webs.

Sparkling threads were strung from broad cedar branches to the tips of the neighboring pines.  Glittering fibers were woven around the spindly bushes beside the icy creek.  Ornate strings of tiny snowflakes stretched all the way across the path, crystalline fibers reaching out and connecting tree to tree to tree to tree.  Immersed inside the weaving of this tapestry of life, I reached out with shimmering fibers like those among the trees, connecting heart to heart to heart to heart.

CALL ME ON MY (HEART) CELL

~ JoAnne Dodgson

www.pathwaysforhealing.net

I don’t have a cell phone.  I don’t even know how to text.  I get the feeling I’m almost the only one left with a landline telephone, not to mention dial-up internet.  Despite the apparent conveniences, a cell phone is something I’ve chosen not to have — there’s the health risks; there’s the damaging effects of cell towers rising up in our neighborhoods and wild lands; there’s the harms done to people and the planet in the desperate race to mine crystals for computer technologies, to keep up with skyrocketing consumer demands for something more and newer and faster.

Yet I have to admit there’s one thing I love about cell phones:  I can drive down the road alone in my car talking to myself.  Nobody thinks I’m crazy.  They just assume I’m plugged into some kind of mobile device.

Cell phones have become permanent fixtures attached to our bodies, gripped in our hands, stuffed in our pockets, always somewhere within reach. Friendships, love and commitment are now getting measured by how quickly and frequently text messages are sent. It’s rare to find a place where loud ringers aren’t ringing, where people aren’t talking on the phone or incessantly checking messages instead of engaging eye to eye, face to face, with those physically present. We’re visibly chained to our wireless gadgets.

People without cell phones are becoming extinct.  And so is the stillness, that rich and vibrant space for the quiet inside us, between us and all around. To an outsider looking in, it seems that cell phones and texting have become all-consuming habits.  The never-enoughness of calls and messages; the thrill of the next text quick-fix; the belief it’s our lifeline - it’s got the flavor of addiction.

And buried inside any addiction is something essential, beautiful and true seeking freedom to be expressed.  Our ceaseless high-speed communications show how much we yearn to connect.  We want to know we’re not alone, that they’re thinking about us and we’re thinking about them, that we’re loved, that we really belong. There’s nothing inherently wrong with modern technology and what it can offer us.  My concern is more about what’s been left behind in the addictive, distracting, quick-fix, disembodied rush.

Because it’s simply and naturally an unshakable fact of life:  we are innately connected, person to person, heart to heart, with all beings in the extraordinary web of life.  We can feel our belonging anytime, any place, and connect with anyone, anywhere, with our thoughts, loving regard and healing intent. All that’s available 24/7.  No batteries or satelite dishes required.  Giving and receiving along these invisible energy lines instinctively woven between us, we can feel our belonging, nourish our relationships, expand loving connections beyond time and space and words.  No one is ever out of range.

Most people are perplexed when they find out I don’t have a cell phone.  After a long puzzled pause, stumbling for words, they question how I could possibly survive.  Just call me on my heart cell – that’s what I like to say.  And if you listen inside the stillness, I promise you’ll feel me call you right back.

Finding our balance in the midst of change is an art – a creative moment-to-moment dance, a journey filled with unexpected twists and turns, with endless possibilities and new discoveries.  There may be times we feel lost along the way. Listening to those inner callings, we all have the potential to find our way back home.  It’s right here, inside our remembering.

HOMING INSTINCTS • JoAnne Dodgson  www.pathwaysforhealing.net

Blue Heron walked along the riverside, the callings for home growing stronger inside her.  She dipped her long beak into the river for a drink and noticed lights shimmering in the water.  With her piercing gold eyes, she looked underwater to see where the light was coming from, but the source didn’t seem to be there.  So she raised up from the water, looked overhead, and saw three full moons rising, glowing on the horizon.

Blue Heron stood at the riverside, reveling in the beauty of the moons.  She spontaneously started to hum, softly and discreetly at first.  Her humming grew louder, more colorful and creative, with lively rhythms and elaborate melodies.  The musical vibration inside the blue heron’s throat kept growing and expanding until her radiant song could no longer be contained and held back.

With joyful abandon, the heron exuberantly sang out her blue heron song.  She passionately danced her blue heron dance, splashing in the river, leaving playful tracks along the shore.  She sang to the moons, celebrating mystical wildness and beauty.  She danced rhythms of peace to the black and blue ants.  She sent shimmering waves of compassion to the emerald fish, honoring the extraordinary diversity of life.  She sang to the caterpillar she’d met on the hill, weaving musical notes with fibers of trust in the potency of magic and fearless, self-empowered change.

And there inside the rhythm of her blue heron song, she felt whispers of sweet rememberings – the soft rustling of feathers, the majestic sensation of winds beneath her wings.  She stepped to the river’s edge, boldly opened her wings, and lifted up into the air to fly.

Blue Heron flew for many days and many miles, following the instinctual knowing she carried deep within.  As she crossed the great waters, a storm blew into her path.  She soared with the winds racing in from the north.  She sang gratitude to the showering rains.  She danced with the lightning and rolled with the thunder.  When the storm clouds passed by, there just ahead, filling the sky, were herons as far as she could see.  The blue heron joyfully joined up with her flock, passionately weaving her way into the flowing tapestry of undulating wings.

UnLeashing Love

It was clear from the start there was a wildness in her that wasn’t to be tamed.  Despite what they say in dog-training manuals, Jasmine had no interest in following along at my heels or coming when she’s called or obeying commands just to hear me say “good girl.”  Jasmine wasn’t here to live by the book.  She wasn’t born to be leashed or caged.  She’d come to run wild in the woods on impassioned, instinctual hunts.  And reach her face toward the sky, catching the scents blowing by on the winds.  And roll around with joyful abandon on the earth, adorning her body with rich pungent smells.  And teach me about opening up my senses – listening, feeling, communicating without words as we walk among the trees intrinsically connected as a pack.

With Jasmine, I’ve discovered something magical about love.  I can smell it.  An indescribably sweet smell emanates from Jasmine’s body when she’s happy and content – when she’s getting a belly rub or rounding me up to go outside for a walk.  I call her enchanting fragrance “Puppy Love.”  The exquisite beauty of Jasmine’s Puppy Love stops me in my tracks.  I want to soak it all up and bask in the feeling, breath it all in and share some back.

Imagine a world filled with Puppy Love.

Imagine UnLeashing Love.  That’s the dream I like to hold:

Creating a world filled with love so tangible we can even smell it.

We can taste it.

We can feel it in our bones.

It’s an honor and delight to be a contributor to We’Moon 2010 – a yearly gaia rhythms calendar, a co-creation of global women’s culture.  Here is an excerpt from Tumbleweeds published in the We’Moon datebook:

Touching the world of the tumbleweeds has allowed me to feel what it’s like to naturally embody change.  These wild nomads of the desert readily transform and playfully tumble around in their dance with life and death, all according to their unique, ingenious design.  Tumbleweeds know about rooting themselves only when and where it’s nourishing.  And they intentionally move on from what-has-been when the cycle is complete, when that purpose has been served, honoring it all with their ease, lightness and quirky grace.  Tumbleweeds have shown me how to call in the winds to let old attachments go.     – JoAnne Dodgson