Dear Gladys,

It’s been over a year since I’ve seen you at the pub; you know, life and COVID and such. It was our conversation last year that inspired me to dip my toe into the dating pool after years of being single. Call me curious, I wanted to know if you were right that the dating world changes at a certain age (ahem; the forties are amazing, btw.). So, I signed up for two dating services for one entire year to see what would happen. (yes, pandemic and all).

You were right. The dating game at forty is a totally different ball of wax than it was in my early thirties when I was floundering around looking for a mate. The only trouble is, I am also a different person—so the problem has changed into a whole new complexity of variables.

Back then, I was looking for a partner, someone who could meet me step for step and not slow me down or derail me from my mission. They didn’t need to be committed to my mission and goals, just not actively working against my dreams. If I even got a whiff of it… I just quickly moved along. After a time it was just more energetically efficient and a much higher level of happiness to avoid dudes all together. A sad but true testament, because the ones that smell yummy and speak well are so entertaining to be around. Alas.

At the end of a year of dating as I close out my accounts this is what I’ve learned: the men I met and or chatted with were men I would have sold the farm and re-arranged my life to be with fifteen years ago. Nice guys. Decent fellas. Sweet and genuine as can be. Worthy and wonderful gentlemen, all.

But as much as the dating game changes in the forties—I am also completely revolutionized in what I am interested in or willing to pair myself with now. That old bar was set a lifetime ago. I hate to say it, but if I’d matched with any of those guys and sold the farm and re-arranged my life to mesh into theirs… I would have evolved out of them eventually if our relationships hadn’t been able to evolve along at the same time.

Because I am no longer looking for, or interested in a mere boyfriend, or companion, or partner. I’ve set my new bar at an “engaging empire collaborator”.

Whoa, Gladys, whoa. I know. I bet you didn’t see that coming. I didn’t. It caught me completely by surprise. Like, blindsided with my mouth full of bagel one morning while I was staring out the window with my journal kind of surprise.

Whaaaat? I’m open to the idea of matrimony again? What? The idea of family open to negotiation? World travel? Re-settling? All of it… the toggle popped and there was really only one thing I had an absolute about.

Happiness within to collaborate happiness with another.

I know Gladys, I know. It should always be about internal happiness. Obviously. But how many people are aware of what that actually means to them and what they have to do to make it real for themselves SO THAT THEY CAN GIVE IT FREELY TO ANOTHER?

Radical trust and collaboration, especially in terms of partnership and romance, means if you don’t have it to bring to the table—you can’t offer it in collaboration. You can trade for it, sure, but when you’re talking about the foundation of happiness: happiness cannot be given to you by anyone BUT you.

The love has to be within you and FOR you in order to give love with genuine and powerful freedom. If you give love you don’t have… what is that?

Really nice gentleman who could offer me their worlds, enable my dreams and support my future have all sat at the table with me as they spoke with language and vibrations that ached, ACHED with self-loathing, regret, and fear. (In the many ways that lack mentality shows up in energetics and material manifestations) They have been wonderful. Truly. Worthy of great bounty and dreams, all of them. They are humans having a human experience, right? We all are.

But as a collaborator looking for a collaborator—I’m looking for conversations and energy that are wired to possibility, potential, Yes+And, to build, develop, and create=create=create. 

I’m not too ashamed or embarrassed to say, I plan to build an empire, and I think it would be marvelous to have a fellow builder along for the adventure. Imagine the worlds we’d manifest!

I know who the collaborators are not, when they roll their eyes at that statement or put qualifiers on what I can bring to a table. I know who the collaborators are when they engage with Yes+And.

Dear Gladys, not one of the nice gentlemen this year was an active collaborator. That’s not to say he doesn’t exist. I know for certain he does; we met in the dream world. That’s pretty real, right? Anywhoo, all joking aside, I owe you a great thanks and a few beers.

Without you asking the questions, and seeding the curiosity, I wouldn’t have gone looking. I wouldn’t have stepped out of the wilderness to pause at some watering holes and take in the new views. Without the experiences, I wouldn’t have realized where my new collaborative bar sits, or what I can and will bring to a negotiation table. I wouldn’t have realized the old fears no longer rule me, and the old desires no longer hunger.

Without venturing into the dating desert, I wouldn’t have known for myself how much I’ve changed, and how much there still is to create or experience—and that finally... I'm ready to dance.

Spring is coming early with sugar ants and eager daffodils. It’s pushing my winter creative thoughts into preparing the property for the work that needs to be done. Will I be adding bees again this year? More chickens and ducks, or fish? I don’t know. To be honest, this feels like the first time in four years since settling in, that there’s a change needing to happen. My inner season has shifted.

My garden starts popped up in a hurry, so my window sills are overrun with plants hungry for more light than the season has to offer. I feel it, too; the thirst for light, the hunger to be in a larger pot. I don’t know if it’s cabin fever from a year of all years, or if it’s a legitimate need to move my roots. Good questions to consider.
In the meantime here’s a little update: The Creativity Workbooks are nearly mapped.

After four years of research and rabbit hole diving, I’ve finally finished the premise, process, and arc of the workbooks; and rather than one as I imagined it at the start, there are now four, and likely more to come.
So, before I finish prototyping, I’ve decided to implement them in my life to see how much they impact a creative in motion. While I understand the biasness of the experiment, I’m still somewhat blown away by the ferocity of the creative surge. It has, to put it mildly, fucking overrun my life.

Here’s the interesting part though, it hasn’t overrun my creative works or projects, it has, quite literally rearranged my actual life. Implementing “holistic creative choices” in facets of my daily life which support my creative works and focus, has essentially hijacked my day-to-day brain and has re-structured my commitments, relationships, desires, and even my financial situation.

My creativity has never been in question. I’ve been a high-functioning creative for decades in one medium or another. What HAS been in question is the quality and consistency of my other life toggles, levers, habits, and energies that have been spotty and gummed up. When that flow gets sticky up it certainly impacts my creative productivity.

I had a breakthrough in September 2020 when the application of “active creative and holistic choices” in the workbook suddenly applied to literally every part of my day, not just the four hour window I have blocked out for my craft. When that clicked into place—the workbooks split into brackets, and the process evolved into something much more useful, much deeper and essentially much more spiritual and revolutionary.

So, the life reboot may have something to do with that sense of an internal seasonal shift. It’s been refreshing and much needed. My creative works barrel on, and my energy reserves are easier to refill and keep topped off with the changes made from the exercises in the workbooks. Huzzah!

That said, I’ll be working on the drafting the workbooks into print and getting them up for the public in the near future.
​
I hope this updated finds you all healthy, safe, and keeping on keeping on.
Xo,
Athena

Beta Chapter One for Plague of Gargoyles is now live in the storefront! Thank you again for all your patience as I work thought publication issues. #savethemuses #Pillarsofdawn #chooseyourstory

Dearest Beloved,

I’ve always known you. I’ve always known you would never hurt me. I’ve always known I am utterly safe in your hands; that you see me as I am, and as I wish to be. Still, you take all of me deeply, repeatedly, powerfully.

Last night when we met in the ether, I felt you like never before. You’re so close. The shape and weight and warmth of your touch radiated on my flesh hours after waking. My figure glowed in all the right places as I made coffee and sat near the window to journal. You were still very much inside my body, my breath, my mind. How do you do that? How is that possible when we’ve never met?

If I were a good Catholic girl, I might think I’ve been possessed. I’d worry it was the work of evil spirits; the way you draw my voice from my lips when you cup my spine and pull me toward you, the way I melt and bend around your frame as though I am cast in molten copper just to fit you, every part of you deeply, repeatedly, powerfully.

My enjoyment of you goes beyond having a hunger satisfied. The electricity of your touch, your smile, scent, and even the rough tenor of your voice—it is synthesis, fusion. It is the harmony of Universal precision, and I cannot seem to pull away.

As entanglements go, it is delightful. When I fall asleep at night, you’re there waiting with a cheeky grin and outstretched hand. We adventure through the dreamscape and gallivant across galaxies. It’s often with a reluctance that I return to the 3d world at dawn. 

I wake up pulsating and mystified, glimmering with an afterglow of your soulful caress. Being intertwined with you is the most intimate and liberating part of my unconscious world. I’d dearly love to know what you feel like in real life. Are you flesh and mortal—enchantingly imperfect? Wondrously flawed and yet emblazoned with passionate curiosity and hopeful creativity?

I see you as a man in collaborative league with himself, in the most humble and discerning way. I see you as you are, and as you wish to be, and I gratefully welcome all of you within me deeply, repeatedly, powerfully.
​
What am I to you? Am I earth to your roots? Oxygen to your fire? Are you gravitationally locked to me in the same way I am tidal gripped by you?

I pass the time thinking of you with whimsical interest and lustful memory. Then I return to my daily habits, smiling. The world with its clutter and noise is a simple distraction. The hours stray and the grind is met. At last I close my eyes at dusk and sink into you, filling you as you fill me—deeply, repeatedly, powerfully.

And there is peace.
​
See you on the other side, Lover.
B. Unbidden

This creativity coaching service is designed to Be-Muse you. If you’re in the entertainment industry, technology innovations, or business management fields, this (w)holistic creativity process is for you.

Those of us who work in entertainment/innovation can often feel depleted, dehydrated, or even run down by our outputs and creative works. While there is no limit to the toolbox of life and all the wonders of our creative professions, it can sometimes feel like we get rutted into the same types of projects or circular patterns. We begin to feel locked in, trapped, and empty. Ideas and motivation become slippery…out of reach.

The Quantum Creativity Process is about integrating all areas of your life into your creativity, THEN learning to allow those areas to continually nurture and empower your creative projects, works and outputs. This prevents the exhaustion, and ensures new tools, risks, and personal developments continuously provide new leverage into stuck areas and help you gather momentum to rapidly evolve your craft. Go quantum!

Using creativity in your personal relationships, parenting, brand management, business management, public outreach, community development, and personal exploration (yes, even parenting) will result in a new influx of energy in those sectors, and flush much needed circulation back into your creative sphere. By learning to keep all the centers active, engaged, and pulsing with ideas and vitality—your creative well and professional innovative platforms will never run dry. Indeed, the boost in multiple areas will elevate your own energy to a new altitude where fresh ideas, concepts, and collaborations wait for you to engage.

Please grab the free consultation from the market. This will allow me to schedule a phone or email chat to discover your needs and customize your approach.
 

New creative outputs and collaborative options will be rolling out on the site this year.

New offerings:

1. Booster Creativity Coaching (for creative professionals in industries related to entertainment, innovation, and business)
2. Creative Team Development (for businesses with creative teams, think tanks, product development pipelines and entertainment groups)
3. Memoir Ghostwriting (or coaching) For individuals with larger-than-life stories, and story medicine with the potential for global impact and humanitarian improvement. NDAs required with down payment) This offering is very limited. I will likely only choose one ghost project every 18 months or so, depending on the size and scope of the work. The consultation is free. Fill out the form on the item website here with your pitch, and I’ll schedule a consult if I’m hooked by the Universal potential in your proposed memoir. Thank you for understanding my limited capacity and time, and the desire to choose my project involvement with careful intention.

Memoir forms, videos, and processes will be made available at low to no cost on the website for all other projects or folks with interest.

How to know if your story is a larger-than-life Universal memoir?

As humans we’re attracted to the stories that inspire, educate, motivate, and innovate. We are drawn to the torches in the darkness; those rare Promethean feats of stealing fire from the gods, or traversing the underworld to return with treasures of the deep soul evolution.

Everyone has a story. Everyone has a good story. Every story is worth telling.

The larger-than-life story is that leap through circumstances the average person wouldn’t find themselves in; a set of events, opportunities, or challenges that 90% of the world would never find themselves confronted with, much less figure out how to navigate. Still, it’s a relatable story on a human level.

Memoir is not an axe to grind, a he-said-she-said voice to take to court. It’s not a recounting of divorce, illness, death, or loss. It’s not a banner to call out bad childhoods, or abusive relationships. While all those things can and do happen in memoir—the medicine of story is really about the transformation of the ordinary human trial into the extraordinary human accomplishment.

Memoir inspires us because it calls out achievement—even if that achievement is simply surviving against all odds. It frames the human condition in a way that gives something back to the reader.

The larger-than-life-story takes that foundation of memoir and elevates it to a new level of atmospheric potential. It provides an axial shift to a social structure, an economic paradigm, a global environmental matrix when this big story is told.

Everyone has a memoir; not everyone has a larger-than-life memoir.

The best way to know for sure  is to ask yourself these questions:

1. Will my story inspire or help only those people with similar challenges, or difficulties? Will my story alleviate the suffering for a few pockets of readers with specific needs? (Returning from an Underworld journey)

OR

1. Can my story inspire the greater human potential in all of us regardless of time, place, situations and status? (This is a larger-than-life story—A Universal memoir.) Will my story potentially alleviate suffering or inspire anyone of any human condition with its light? (This is a stealing fire from the gods for all humanity kind of story.)

While I believe all stories need to be told, I am focusing on the later because of limited time and availability. These are the projects I want to help co-create and collaborate into being for the greater human catalog. So, I am choosing my project involvement with care. Thank you for understanding.

If you want to write your memoir, no matter the scale and scope—do it. You have a story. New forms and videos will be available soon. Please help yourself to the process flow materials and get your story out there.

I made a wish this year. A wish that was shortly answered with an unexpected call from the Universe in the form of a premonition to prepare myself.

On the whole, I dig my enchanted little life. I adore my cottage and wilderness living, but I also recognize my season is changing. Any good witch knows…you can’t fight the seasonal shift. You can’t push it back, or run away from it. Seasons are a part of our nature.

My new season is loitering the garden gate. It’s time to put down my gathering basket, find some shoes (I think I have some shoes around here somewhere) and venture forth. To where, I don’t know. How long? I’m not sure. I only know the feeling of being asked to surface into the harsh light, and release a song, or word, or some kind of…flare? I don’t know yet. It’s unclear.

For now, there is enough time to prepare. There’s a transition window that is allowing me to pack and ready myself for this new sojourn into unknown realms.

The packing should be light. As I set about pondering what to take, I realized my life has become so simple, so uncluttered of old baggage that there’s not actually much to take with me—save a few relationships, and those could use some fine tuning and work before the journey. Mind, I’m still not sure where I’m going, but better relationship awareness is never amiss.

I sat on the deck hypnotized by the forest and closed my eyes. The creek burbled. The mossy maple limbs swayed and groaned. A crow cawed on the ridge above my glade.

It’s time.

I sat with it for a while. I have been truly happy here in the Elder Glade. I hope it will remain my haven for many years come; even as I venture out and touch the world again. I hope the glade will be mine to return to, snuggle in and recover as needed. There is a sadness in the shift, in the call to a diamond world I don’t understand yet. When I send my senses out to query the journey, it feels cold, hard, brittle and sharp. Each time I reach out to try and touch the path forward, I yank my hand back with concern. The diamond world is everything I am not. Why would I be called to that? I don’t know, but the pull is insistent. The calling is clear. It’s where I’m supposed to venture next.

The healing and whole-ing I’ve been able to accomplish during my enthrallment with this space has brought the most fulfillment to date, the most creative inspiration and output; the longest surrender and most delightful lullaby of soul. I hope this seasonal shift will allow me to remain connected to this sanctuary. It’s the first home I’ve felt havened by since leaving the wild Northern lights.

But the diamond world is calling. There’s a mission to be accomplished. The diamond world is not my world. I don’t know exactly how to get there, or what exactly I’m supposed to do when I arrive—but I’ll pack and be ready anyhow. When the wind blows open the garden gate and the full moon shines upon the wintered herbs—it’s wisdom to put your tools away and pull out a travel bag, else the shift will catch you unawares and leave you scrambling to catch up.

All I’ll be able to take with me are my inner and outer relationships. At first, I assumed I’d need a very small bag, but as I began thinking about it…perhaps a bag of holding with a bottomless space to fit all my loves—and there are many.

I love so many things, people, places, ideas, and dynamics that I cannot fit them all in a material space—only in my emotional carryon. I cannot fit my fairyland acreage, the mystical trees, my muddy boots, and my meandering mushroom trails in the sack, but I can fit my love for them and my treasury of memories within the pockets of my jacket, tucked in my bra, and stitched into the lining of my purse.

I will need them in the diamond world. More importantly—I feel like the diamond world needs that love and connection to these marvels of the wildwood. If I am to be venturing onto the cold sharp lines of diamond paths, I will gladly be leaving mossy trails and fern patches in my wake. My disruption will likely be noticed, and looked upon with mixed expressions as I lay lichen and snail trails, and scatter seeds to grow flowers and call in the bees.

My relationships to my people, my body, my spirit and creativity, my animals and the habits I sustain…all part of the light packing. Those relationships will continue to be nurtured, tended, and grown as all wonderful relationships should be. The perpetual caretaking of community will still be a priority.

However, my relationships to unhealthy habits need to be purged, released, and left behind. They should be dropped in the forest like so much mulch to be churned into the nutrient of the next cycle. Such is the way of the wooded life.

So, I expect in the not-too-distant future, I’ll be waiting calmly by the garden gate with my carryon full of relationship treasures, and my animal familiars. I don’t know what the ship will look like that’s coming to fetch us, but I’ll recognize it when I see it, no doubt.

I’ll try to clean up a bit, so as not to startle the diamond worlders with my unkept appearance, and shaggy shape. I’ve let myself become a bit overgrown, and ragged. I’m sure I have shoes around here somewhere? Do not let my adaptation fool you. Even if I manage to blend in, my eyes are full of wildwood promises, and my heart beats with the evergreen pulse of untamed trials. My song is ever the song of this little pocket of hinterlands. My words will ever be laced by the joys of this lingering dream.

It may be a journey of miles, or just of thought—but a journey it will be. It’s strange, I had a dream once, perhaps 15-16 years ago. I only just now remembered it. I was leaving the busy hubbub of city living and stumbled onto a dark and overgrown path into a forest. Everyone warned me not to go, that I would die and be eaten by feral creatures and digested by thickets overgrowing my flesh. “I have to go,” I told them all. “I have to. My future is in that dark unknown place.”

I ended the dream walking into a dangerous timberland Mirkwood. I knew I had to go it alone. I knew it was part of my becoming, even if it meant death—of ego or all that I claimed as myself. It was the path I couldn’t ignore.

Ten years later I did just that, wandered into the forest alone. Against all better advice and the fears others had for my safety. I dropped my stilettos and gowns, and handbags off at the secondhand store, and purchased seeds, and gardening tools, chocolate, and wine.

It’s funny now, looking back. I didn’t know I would be hiding out here for so many years, or that I would find so much bliss in the becoming. There was a lot of myself dying—but not of anything that I lamented becoming rid of—and there was far more birthing and anchoring, and blooming. I remember the girl who walked into the woods—but she’s like a fantasy, a memory of another world.

I don’t feel like I’m “leaving” my glade forever—but the land is no longer a Mirkwood. It’s no longer dark and scary and ready to devour me. This forest is an extension of my connection to etheric worlds, the conduit to peace and tranquility. It’s my source of happiness.

But last year, as I was wrapped in overgrowth, buried in moss, and trailing my fingers in the creek as I daydreamt and magicked my way through the ethers—I cast a wish up to the new moon, smiling at the idea of its seeding. What a wonderful adventure that would be, right? No sooner had I yearned, my eyes fluttered back to dreaming and the alders bent, the firs stepped aside and light broke through the canopy revealing a trail out of the bracken.

I sighed, and lamented…but not yet, right? Just a little longer, please? I’m so happy here.
The path resealed, and my dream continued, until the night of the storm when the garden gate blew open, and the full moon shone on the winter herbs. “It’s time, Athena.”

It’s my fault. I cast the wish. I knew it would come eventually. Once is an invitation, twice is a premonition—thrice is a shove. Wisdom lies in moving before being shoved.

I wondered if it was too late to retract the wish and go back to sleep in the bramble. I knew it was too late. More truthfully…I didn’t really want to go back to sleep. There’s an invitation, a calling beyond my boundary lines, just over the borders to the sea. An adventure stirring across the horizon that whispers to me promises of yet more magic to come. That magic is hidden though, in the diamond world, trapped like a bee in an amber prison. It may take a bit of woodland charm to set the poor creature free; nothing a little fairyland enchantment can’t fix, I imagine.

And so…I’m packing. Singing the songs of relationships to keep, and magics to take with me, and wondering what this new adventure will bring.

It was impossible to predict, plan or even project through 2020. Hot damn if I didn’t try, though. I even hosted a 2020 planning workshop last January. Go figure. That said, I was in good company with much of the world scrambling to re-structure, re-think, and manage the almighty pivot. During the quarantine I wrote, sculpted, and plotted new creative community collaborations. Those should be rolling out in the near future. Until then, Happy New Year!!

May this year bring love, light, and all sorts of new and wonderful adventures for us all.

​XO
Athena

Warmest holiday wishes, from my little cottage to yours! 

May your longest night be full of peace and light.