leena colibri – Page 3 – Divine Self Embodiment Blog (Formerly SoulFullHeart)

The day begins.

I wake up to the sound of a rooster greeting the dawn with his crow. It isn’t an invasive call for me, since my room is actually quite far away from where he normally keeps his brood. In fact my sleep, thankfully, is rarely interrupted by the sounds of the animals due to my location. If my sleep is interrupted at all, it’s normally because of an unfelt reaction or something that part of me is trying to work out.

Usually the light is just breaking over the morning as I draw my covers down and slide out of bed. On the average morning my heart feels ready to greet the day and my friends and teachers, knowing and feeling our genuine desire to connect to one another through all events of the day, even if that means feeling through tension and being in conflict at times.

Breakfast is just one of the three meals we share together each day and we either take turns on collaborating or one of us chooses to lead when it comes to the making of each one. Meals are an opportunity for us and parts of us to check in about our processes and what we feel happening within us as we live out the day while also feeling each other. So much happens on an emotional and not just physical level for all of us. I feel this is true for every human being, it’s just about having enough fluidity and space inside yourself and direct support from those close to you in order to really feel it and let it move you. I had almost forgotten about the richness of my inner reality until coming back to live here again. Our personal sharing at the table can be triggering for parts until they learn to lean into it, especially since it is a brand new experience compared to any past attempt to do this sort of sharing at mealtime with birth family members or even friends and to cultivate this level of intimacy with them.

After breakfast is complete I quickly get myself suited up for organic gardening or whatever other task is happening that day. For me so far the task has mostly been gardening, which I feel is good for me on so many different levels. Connecting with the plants is not something part of me ever thought I would be doing as deeply as I have been lately but it does seem to naturally be starting to happen as I take in their needs for water, weeding, and general attention. I feel something coming back to me from them in the form of harvest but also healing energy. There have been moments when I have been alone in one of our gardens and suddenly I feel tears start to surface as I feel the safety and support from the love of nature around me to feel whatever I am feeling in that moment. There is a way that nature seems to move us towards healing at an exponential rate since it seems to have a much greater capacity to give and receive love than even the amazing humans around me can!

I am often in the gardens with Jelayan lately, helping her with replanting, watering, and weeding. It’s time to replant a number of our plants right now so she needs the help and I’m enjoying taking in her knowledge so that I can maybe lead some more in the gardens some day if it feels right. I value having this one-on-one time with her too as she is a woman who has healed so much and yet is also so in her own self. Taking in her healthy templating means a lot to me, and perhaps even more now that I was away from it for almost 10 months. Learning to collaborate together is a big deal and I am working on letting it in, since most of the woman-to-woman relationships I have experienced have been strained by unconscious (or sometimes conscious) competition and energetic bullying. We’ve had a lot to feel through and work out in our relationship but I feel a new opening for us as the appreciation for being in each other’s lives has been renewed. Connection with her is a serious blessing.

Sometimes the morning routine shifts based on our individual emotional needs. Yes, this is valued above all productivity. For me personally, I get that if I don’t take the time to be in my process, then not only does my productivity tend to suffer, but I am less present overall for my relationships with the others and also for life in general. This can actually be a dangerous thing here at our Sanctuary where there are scorpions, snakes, and unpredictable events can happen.

So, that being said, sometimes the mornings are stiller for me in terms of physical activity. I have and continue to have much to feel through as I continue to land here, decompressing, detoxing and de-medicating overall after my many months away. During those months away, I was immersed in a lifestyle that carries only hints of the amount of love I feel here at the Sanctuary amongst the others but also with the trees, plants, and animals that surround me. So, as expected, my emotional body in the form of my parts, has begun to surface to be felt again and I find myself needing space and breathing to just be with me or to ask for space-holding and facilitation from Jelayan, Raphael or Sequoia, since at times that is actually what a part needs. All three of them understand the process of mourning and letting go that I am walking through with my parts right now as the layers over my natural sensitivity continue to melt away with their love and support and that of the Divine as well.

After we have lunch together we usually rest and check in with ourselves some more, or go off to the river or wherever we may want to. Basically it is free time and often we stay indoors since it’s the hottest part of the day. Sometimes I use this time to nap and/or journal or go on an etheric journey to visit and check in with my guides and parts. The other day I used this afternoon time to have a session with Raphael, since a big part of my process lately has been with a very young and vulnerable part of me who needed to feel a loving father-like energy holding space for her. It was a tender process and I have discovered that she is actually a part of me that holds much of my core essence (what makes me who I am in an authentic way). I am still working with this part of me and find that the space and time of being on the Sanctuary is very nurturing for her and actually is what encourages her to come out more.

Later in the afternoon there is a second round of watering for all of the gardens that must be done. After that there is a bit more rest time before dinner prep begins. Dinner is usually also eaten together, though we all stay flexible with our needs, keeping in mind that sometimes parts of us would rather eat alone, depending on what is coming up for us emotionally.

After dinner the day completes and most of the time I retreat to my room for more decompressing, journaling, etheric journeying and/or reading. If I want to I can go for a walk or head up to our garden and our plot of land that we call Tranquila to watch the sunset or to just be. Once the sun sets it gets dark pretty fast and this pushes up some fear for my parts about the wildness around us. I want to face these fears though and find a way to feel more harmony and trust with the wildness that may just reflect an untapped wildness inside of me that parts of me are afraid of. Jelayan started to realize this about her parts’ own fears or inhibitions about the wildness of our Sanctuary and writes about it in her recent book Keep Waking Up!.

Sometimes it can feel hard for parts of me that miss having Netflix or a movie to veg out on, or even a local pub to visit and have a beer at the bar! Yet it surprises me how much easier this has become, now that so many more of my real needs are being met on a daily basis and the need for comforts like these has dwindled considerably.

It felt important to share with you about my average day here at the Sanctuary and what it is like to stay here as an initiate, to paint some picture for you of what your life and process here may look like should you decide to stay with us. All of my current process, I feel, is eventually going to make room to let in more people and their own processes. I want to feel your story as much as I want you to feel mine. I love the connections I have with others and I want more too. This life is not glamorous, though it is beautiful and, if you are ready to let it in, you won’t be able to ignore the truth of this and the truth of the love we live into and embody more of every single day.

Kathleen Calder is an initiate at the SoulFullHeart Sanctuary and you can read more of her writing here on this blog. Please visit SoulFullHeart Sanctuary for more information about staying with us and virtual sessions.

SoulFullHeart way of life asks us to be our biggest selves, yet also gives us room to breathe and feel our way into our next chapters, holding us the whole time.

I made a checklist. It contained ítems that part of me adamantly wanted to remember to bring with me ‘in case’ I needed them. Even with the intention of staying only a week, there is so much to remember to take with you physically in preparation for the off-grid, rural lifestyle. I held some concern that I would have to readjust after being away from it for 9 months and that it might be challenging to jump right back in.

Of course this happened on several levels since the SoulFullHeart Sanctuary is not just a physical existence. Even for the person who is not choosing to be emotionally or spiritually conscious, it wakens something on the inside and catalyzes movements within and without that are maybe unexpected. Though I guess that, based on my own experience of returning there, perhaps mostly everyone who goes there goes with an intention – something they want to find clarity about or something that simply needs to move inside them, even if it can’t be named in the moment.

I could hardly wait to give the gifts that I brought for my friends and teachers. Coming from the city, there is a sense of being able to give abundantly. However, I feel as if the gifts I received from them were worth more…reminding me that being given the opportunity to land inside an open and loving heart is the greatest gift of all. These three people have known me for four years now. We have been through a lot together and not just in a physical existence sense, but in terms of emotional terrain. They are easily the people who know me best. The reason? I can’t perform for them for long. My parts, etheric or emotional, cannot dance in front of my authentic inner reality without being felt and detected. These people will not be duped and they will not stand my shrinking. I could not stand theirs either. SoulFullHeart way of life asks us to be our biggest selves, yet also gives us room to breathe and feel our way into our next chapters, holding us the whole time.

I arrived at the Sanctuary with the intention of finding clarity for my life situation and what I should feel into doing next. I have been in a relationship for the last few months. It has been very loving and with a man I have adored but I have been missing the exploration of my soul consciousness, which I seemed to mostly put on pause after leaving the Sanctuary in April. My romantic partner and I have had different focuses in our lives and that has been good for us as a couple in some ways, but has been hard for us in others. It has also been unfair to him that I haven’t been happy living in Puerto Vallarta. He was the main reason why I wanted to be there. I wanted to inhabit life with him and see where it took us. We moved in together quickly but I don’t regret a single thing about that. It was what we both wanted and I knew from the beginning that it could bring the relationship to a speedier completion, or of course that it might not either.

My years in SoulFullHeart, my templating from Raphael and Jelayan as my teachers and my relationship with Sequoia (he was Christopher at the time), all taught me to go in, in and in, holding any fears but following the love flow in front of me, trusting that no matter where my heart takes me I will benefit and others will too. I’m feeling now how life is not a game of finding something to keep forever. We aren’t entitled to that. Lasting love is possible, as Raphael and Jelayan have found, but it comes with a journey of finding your own love overflow that cannot begin until you authentically love and mate with yourself. All the time in and out of relationships is practice and experimentation. The only formula for keeping love is the one that keeps us in stuck relationships that don’t deepen or evolve and keeps us from growing and healing individually.

In a way, I feel humility when I think about this, but also I feel like I breathe a bit easier. I guess that means that I have held a lot of stress in the past of making a life phase or a romance ‘last forever’ when I inherently know that it may not be meant to and that in some ways I may not actually want it to. I now feel much more open to where life wants to take me next, trusting a bit deeper that whatever happens next will only lead me to more healing and feeling more complete inside myself.

My time with the others, but also my time alone, felt more fulfilling during this week at the Sanctuary than it did in the past. So much so that I feel drawn to live there again. I have just completed all there was to complete in Puerto Vallarta, including the romance that I have held dear. The latter is the toughest part right now. The details of that I will keep to myself for now since it’s pretty raw for both of us.

I feel as if my return to the Sanctuary is a return to me. It is my self-love and my desire to have more self-love that I can share with others and help them heal too that led me there originally and is leading me back there to live. I am born to be a healer, especially during this time of transition for the planet and humanity. I have an emerging self that I have barely tapped into in these last 28 years. I am a complete mystery to myself in the moment and I find that refreshing. I’d rather feel like I am an unfolding story than a book that has already been written and read twenty times. All I have right now are clues to who I could be and am becoming and I can’t imagine another place where I can explore this than at the Sanctuary with the support of my most intimate beloveds.

Kathleen Calder is an initiate at the SoulFullHeart Sanctuary and you can read more of her writing here on this blog. Please visit SoulFullHeart Sanctuary for more.