One Year on Substack: A Celebration & Reflection

a journey back into my very first post and the portals between eclipses that held me then and continues to guide me now

Mar 30, 2025

One Year of Release: Then, Now, and What’s Next

One year ago, on March 26, 2024, I shared my very first Substack post, To Release—written in the wake of the Libra full moon eclipse, a moment of endings, surrender, and making space for what’s to come. And here we are today, on the Aries new moon solar eclipse, standing at the threshold of another transformation.

Reading these words again, I feel the weight and wisdom of what I knew then, but I also see what I could not have known yet—the ways life would continue to ask me to release, to trust, to burn away what no longer belongs so I could step more fully into myself. Because release is never just one moment. It is a practice, a devotion, a willingness to clear the way for what is calling us forward.

This eclipse feels different. Aries is fire, action, initiation. It’s not just about letting go; it’s about what we are now ready to claim. And for me, there is something deeply personal about this moment. My mama was an Aries. And I feel her here—just as I have felt her so many times before, but perhaps now with even greater clarity and closeness. The more I trust, the more I receive. The more I listen, the more I hear. The more I release, the more I realize how Spirit is always near, guiding me through the noise, through the fire, and into the nectar of my worth—which is all our worth, too.

And we need this remembering now more than ever.

Because we are living in a moment where fire is being used in a multitude of ways. Some burn to destroy, to devastate, to erase. But fire, when honored, also makes way for new growth, new worlds, new ways of being. We are in a moment where breath is being taken—through force, through oppression, through the suffocating weight of systems that do not serve us. But breath, when reclaimed, when honored, becomes the very force of life, the clarity of knowing where we can expand and where we cannot remain.

So I ask—if we are in spaces, relationships, or beliefs that do not allow us to breathe fully and freely, what are we doing there? What are we cultivating and creating if we do not honor the breath that is life itself?

And darkness—how often have we been taught to fear it, when it is the very womb of creation? The contrast to light, yes, but also the doorway into the depths within us all. Without the dark, there are no stars. Without the unknown, there is no becoming. This is the moment to sit in that space—not as something to escape, but as something to enter, to embrace, to be reborn from.

This moment is asking us to move beyond the holding patterns of the past and into the lives, the love, the liberation that is waiting for us—if we are willing to take the step.

So today, I want to share “To Release” again. To honor the journey of this past year. To reflect on all that has been shed, transformed, and transmuted. And to invite you, dear reader, into this portal with me.

What have you released in the past year? What are you ready to step into? What fire is waiting to be fed?

Let’s breathe it in. Let’s remember. Let’s move forward together.

Here is where I was then. And here is where we are now…

To Release (originally written March 26, 2024)

What does it mean to leave something behind?
What does it entail to truly let something go?

Waking up to the post-full-moon-libra-eclipse and feeling the scales of balance and brilliance fueling and guiding the way.
A time for change.
A time for release.
A time to get clear on what is calling me (and us) forward…
With understanding that before we take the step, before we take that leap, before we move into the next season and pages and maybe even an entirely new story, we/I must make peace with the release of all that may just be holding us/me back… but, how do we do that in a world and culture that promotes the holding on and never really has shown us what it is to let go?

For me, the opportunity has presented itself in a magnitude of ways, all deeply felt and found in discomfort, and allowing all that is uncomfortable to be with me as well as within, to guide and greet me, to teach and transform me, knowing the uncomfortable and unpleasant is not there to annoy or aggravate me, it is there to challenge and change me, from the very inside out…
From the personal story that is mine to the waves and collisions of our collective experience, there is so much within me and my very reach that is in support of this letting go and feeling my way—our way—forward…
And I have to remember, we have to remember, transformation is not something that is neat and nice, it is not something that happens when we think it should happen, it's a natural process that can only be supported by our own surrender to… our own surrender to the discomfort felt within and the knowing that is growing more strong, more clear, and maybe even with more excitement, that this is not how it has to be, that this is not how I have to be…
That is how I am feeling right now.
From my professional life to my personal life, there is an excitement of energy that is applauding me along this journey of continually letting it all go… letting it all fade and fall apart, even allowing myself to crash and burn and rise from the flames again and again, letting the doors that need to close, close and even the dreams that brought me here to die.
All of it for me.
Never against.
And in the surrender,
I too must feel and follow faithfully that same suit:
Be for me, not against.

I find it no accident that one week ago I had the blessing and opportunity to see my mom’s best friend, a connection with about 10 years of space in the making. Some of you know, and some of you have yet to know the pieces and parts of my story that have fallen and fragmented away all so I could be in this space I am now. Some of you know, and some of you will begin to… the thing is, we all have depth, and we all have story. We all have heartbreak and we all have moments, be it singular or completely saturated in pain and shame and hurt and harm… and yet, very little of this world and the patterns we have inhabited, allow us to surrender to the story, the depth, the darkness, as well as the brilliance, all in hopes of not getting more stuck or trapped in the horrors of what is and was, yet in a way to clear, cut, cease the very cords and conditions we have placed upon ourselves and another that keep us in a loop of misery, madness, and any ideas that we cannot be free, as we construct the new world and ways within ourselves and out for the whole world to see.

The timing of connecting with Pam, my mama’s best friend from birth to death and beyond, and being in a place where I could invite in all that was ready to be shared with me, feels like big universal energy all in support of my own release…
Our time together gave me the knowledge of what their relationship held from a best friend's view and vantage point. And it isn't like I didn't have some sort of awareness of the shadows and demons that haunted and hurt them both, I mean obviously there was great dysfunction and untended-to pain, I mean, things do not just happen… my dad didn't take my mother’s life and then his own because things were fine and flowing with truth and support, it was an explosion of all the parts of them that never got to be held, heard, loved, healed…
And I was ready… to meet that moment, to meet those truths, and in the spaciousness of these seven days, a new perception and practice of what it means to not absorb, yet, just to hold with love and let it be felt, freed, and to go.
Lots of tears, lots of time spent journaling, lots of time with my oracle cards and talking to Spirit and Source. Lots of anger. Lots of sadness. Lots of love… and all without the need to hold as my own, because I know that is not why this information found me, not to latch on yet to live through. And I just feel if life has prepared me for this next big release, how is it also preparing you?

We are in a moment—I am in a moment—where the discomfort of this human experience and all the heartbreak we/I ingest on a daily basis is being paired and partnered with the cosmic alignment of planets, and moons, and suns, and stars, all in support of guiding us from a more Divine and Higher power to wake us up, to remind us we can shed the molds and models that may have made us who we are now, yet, now is their time to be released so the new ways we can be and become are able to be realized as well as within our very resources and reach.
But, if our hands are full, if our hearts are stuffed, and our minds are in a perpetual loop that keeps us in a pattern that never allows room for release as well as resurrection, well, nothing will really change… not you, and not me… and I gotta question, is how it is now how we want it to always be?

I know my answer, and that is no.
I only can hope to take forth the wisdom of every shattered soul and heart experience, of all the suffering that made me as well as all of the Sacred juice, nectar, and nourishment that found me when I didn't even know I could find myself.

So, what does it mean to release?
What does it mean to let it go?
What does it mean to get free?
It means more to me than a single sentence could ever say or show.
It is the prerequisite to freedom.
It is the action of love.
It is courageous to surrender the clasp, grip, and any and all ideas of control, and release…
It's paramount in becoming all I've come here to be. To love something, to detest something, to be so MF confused by something—and instead of ingesting it more deeply, I will do the bravest thing and simply witness, breathe, hold it without it ever needing to hold or hollow me, and when it’s time, I will set it in my palms and wrap it in my prayers, and hand it off to the Source of Love and Divinity and Conscious Power, my God of my understanding…

I am ready to welcome in change as my only constant.
I am ready to release the roles, relationships, responsibilities, patterns, dynamics, contracts, ideas, and more that no longer allow me to breathe… that no longer allow me to become… that no longer belong in my bones, and struggles, and story, and heart.
It means I trust what is coming and do not need to fear any loss.
Every loss has led me to gains I never knew I was worthy and able to receive—yet they found me—it always finds me—especially when I am finding myself.

To release is to surrender to the unknown—the not yet clearly seen yet it’s there… on the horizon… on the very tip of the tongue, nose, next step towards and to… beyond fear yet held in absolute trust and timing.

And how do we do this incredible act of release?
By simply choosing to.
By remembering there is so much more awaiting me—welcoming me—encouraging me—loving me—and if it's all there for me, well dear one, it is all there for you, too.
I don't want to be the reason for it, or I, or you to have to wait any longer…
I'm ready.
To let go.
To let be.
To release as much as I can—
So I can move more closely and clearly to all that is ahead of me.

With Great Purpose by Keri Kenney

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