***What is your question (or mantra) to guide you across the threshold? (and an invitation to explore it in community retreat)***

Blessings. And a big exhale.

Today is Inauguration Day in the United States.

I am deeply aware of the energy stirring among our people in the US (and around the world) today – of relief, of hope, of grief and tension being exhaled and released with all that has built up and the wounds that have been activated in all that has been.

Today feels like a moment where we are crossing a threshold.

A threshold. A place or point of entering or beginning, a crossing over from where we have been to where we will go.

In my healing work with clients, there is a Medicine Walk process I guide people on, to explore – in partnership with Mother Nature – a question that they define, a question essential to their journey of healing and transformation.

Before beginning the quest, they must choose the beginning, a threshold to cross over. It may seem like an insignificant piece, but it is essential.

For it is at this point where they choose to enter the space of deepest inquiry that will guide them to their own greater evolution and healing.

This happens in birth as well – this crossing over – from pregnancy to holding baby in arms.

As the mother crosses this threshold, she leaves behind all that has been and opens to a new way of BEING in the world, one that is no longer what was, but one that holds the wisdom, knowing, pain, struggle and hope of what was.

And without the capacity to know all of what lies ahead, she begins the new journey, taking with her all she has gathered before, into the unknown, into her becoming.

This happens in the Medicine Walk. This happens in birth.
And now, this morning, we undergo this collective experience of crossing over this threshold as a nation.

We are changed. Individual and collective wounds and pains and unhealed parts as a nation and a people have been brought to the surface. We continue to move through pandemic, isolation, separation and losses, racial injustice and rising up, insurrection, and our planet crying out for change… with so much made visible that was not previously visible.

We cannot know all of what lies ahead on this journey, and still, we have within us the wisdom, knowing, hope and possibility that has existed in us, in our shared and separate lineages, for generations and generations.

My question to you, to us, is, how do we step across this threshold with intention, wisdom, courage and hope?

If you were to take yourself intentionally across this threshold with a question of deep inquiry, of how you want to go forward, what would you want to ask of yourself right now?

What question would help guide you as we move across this threshold together? (and this can be for whatever has your attention, in addition to the collective shift taking place – social justice, rebuilding what has been disassembled, healing cancer, opening to love, terminating a relationship, or finding your own next step in your path)

How do you (we) want to do the next days, months and years? WHO do you – and we – want to BE? The question helps to define the journey, and to guide us as we step into the unknown, and all of the possibility, of what is next.

If you watched the Inauguration ceremony, you likely witnessed the amazing Amanda Gorman, first ever National Youth Poet Laureate, speaking her poetry (so powerful).

She was quoted in an interview, saying, “One of the preparations that I do always when I perform is I say a mantra to myself, which is ‘I’m the daughter of black writers. We’re descended from freedom fighters who broke through chains and changed the world. They call me.’”

I invite you to let this 22-year old call you forward and ask, “Who and what calls YOU”?

I’d love to hear your guiding question, or your mantra.

And essential to our quest is support and community.

If you’d like to release what has been and step across the threshold into this next phase intentionally and in community, I invite you to come join for our half-day (virtual) community retreat, January 31. Learn more or register here.

If you feel called, you’ll find a healing and supportive place to listen to your own inner wisdom and to connect with other amazing humans. Here you can deepen into your question or mantra to guide you into what’s next – 2021 and beyond.

In closing, I share some words from Amanda, from the poetry she shared today, for y(our) inspiration…

We will rebuild, reconcile and recover
and every known nook of our nation and
every corner called our country,
our people diverse and beautiful will emerge,
battered and beautiful
When day comes we step out of the shade,
aflame and unafraid
The new dawn blooms as we free it
For there is always light,
if only we’re brave enough to see it
If only we’re brave enough to be it

For now, big breaths (a bit longer on the exhale), courage for this journey, and many good wishes to you.

With love,
Kelly

P.S. And if you should wish to join us for some radical self-care and finding a way forward, here is the January 31 retreat information again.

Kelly Lubeck, MPH, RYT