Life Is a Mess, But Let’s Celebrate Anyway
Dear You,
Here’s the thing: the world is a mess right now. Wars are raging, floods are swallowing entire towns, and our own government seems determined to fund the worst of it. It feels like the planet itself is groaning under the weight of all this craziness. And yet, here we are—still making our beds, feeding the dog, taking our vitamins (sometimes). Honestly, it’s ridiculous, and it’s also kind of miraculous.
And in the middle of all this mess, I think we’ve got to celebrate. Not in a “let’s pretend everything is perfect” kind of way, but in a “yes, it’s hard, and we’re still here, and that’s amazing” kind of way.
A Celebration Tour—Want In?
So, for the next three months, I’m going on a bit of a “Celebration Tour.” No, I’m not about to sell out stadiums or wear a glittery bodysuit, but I do have a camera, and I have a heart that wants to find the good and capture it. And honestly, I want you to join me.
Maybe this means being out in the desert, letting the sun kiss your skin, and reclaiming your body—because as you know, I love that kind of shoot. Or maybe it’s something quieter, like capturing your family’s messy, magical moments. Maybe it’s an editorial shoot to celebrate your artistic soul.
Whatever it looks like, let’s celebrate it. Because here’s the thing: we know the other side too well. We know the heartbreak, the loss, the deep dark nights that feel endless. We know it all. And it’s that knowledge that makes celebration an act of defiance, a radical choice to say, “Life is still good, and I’m going to honor it.”
Why Celebrate Now? My Personal Triumphs
I want to share a little bit of my own story, because it’s worth celebrating, and maybe it might encourage you to find the places in your life that need a spotlight.
For most of my life, my central story was that I was sad and alone. I was created in a womb flooded with the tears of my mother. She cried every day for the fact that she would hav to give me away once I was born and my existence was a testament of her shame. Throughout my life, I’ve had to become very intentional with my thoughts in order to transform that belief. Two years ago, I did just that, I transformed my life from an overwhelming feeling of sad and alone into my dream of feeling safe and supported. (If you would like guidance on how to change your core story please reach out.)
Recently, I did a three-month experiment—one simple goal for three months. The goal was to get our house ready to rent out on Airbnb, so we could move to the desert and live a life of freedom. And we did it. It changed everything. Now we’re living that life—frolicking in the desert, rafting down rivers, watching the sun dip behind mountains. Life is free and wild and, frankly, incredible. We split our time between Salt Lake and the desert just as we had set out to do three months ago. It feels amazing to know that we accomplished our 3 month goal and now we can pay the mortgage with half occupancy rentals and explore the desert during those times. My life has shown me over and over, you get what you focus on.
And Now, I Want to Celebrate With You
I’m telling you this because my eyes well up with tears of joy these days. I’ve gone from feeling small and alone to feeling expansive, supported, and grateful. And I want to share that energy with you. It’s time to celebrate your journey, your moments, your love, and your freedom, whatever that looks like for you.
Let’s Get Real—Let’s Celebrate
Maybe you want to mark a big milestone, or maybe it’s just celebrating the fact that you’re here, still putting one foot in front of the other. It doesn’t have to be perfect, and it probably shouldn’t be. If you want to celebrate, if you want to make art out of your life, I want to help you do it. I want to hold up a mirror to the beauty of your world, especially the parts that might feel too small or too messy.
Life isn’t perfect, but it’s still worth celebrating. And I think, sometimes, that’s the point.
So, if you’re ready to say, “Let’s celebrate,” I’d love to hear from you. Let’s make something beautiful together.
With gratitude and a lot of joy,
Carrie
Do your beliefs live inside your body?
Are they in your mind?
Or are they in your soul?
I believe they line in all three.
“Sometimes you no longer recognize yourself. You want to overcome it, but it overcomes you. You want to set limits, but it compels you to keep going. You want to elude it, but it comes with you. You want to employ it, but you are its tool; you want to think about it, but your thoughts obey it. Finally the fear of the inescapable seizes you, for it comes after you slowly and invincibly.
There is no escape. So it is that you come to know what a real God is. Now you’ll think up clever truisms, preventive measures, secret escape routes, excuses, potions capable of inducing forgetfulness, but it’s all useless. The fire burns right through you. That which guides forces you onto the way.
But the way is my own self, my own life founded upon myself. The God wants my life. He wants to go with me, sit at the table with me, work with me. Above all he wants to be ever present. But I’m ashamed of my God. I don’t want to be divine but reasonable. The divine appears to me as irrational craziness. I hate it as an absurd disturbance of my meaningful human activity. It seems an unbecoming sickness which has stolen into the the regular course of my life. Yes, I even find the divine superfluous.”
-Carl Gustav Jung, The Red Book: Liber Novus
My compass was busted, spinning in chaotic circles.
I was sick. Clogged up with the clay of the world. My body had become a receptacle for shame and fear. Discarded and abandoned.
My desires were no match for the grief stricken memories that played out in loops under my skin. They exercised their sabotaging powers with a veracity that I was powerless to protect myself from.
I’ve lived a wild life. I spent much of my early 20s dancing and drinking my way through China and southeast asia. I went on to create a small fitness empire in my mid-20s. I’ve always wanted to help women feel worthy and loved. Funny how we give to others what we most crave isn’t it? All of that would end in fire and fury after a reality show aired. I was still caked in the clay of society at the age of 28. Painted with the exploitative money hungry brush of dramatized television, I was crucified on social media and youtube.
I closed my gyms, left my home and fiancee of 8 years and spiraled into a deep and dark depression. I attracted not one, but two toxic and abusive relationships. I believed I was a terrible person who deserved to be abused. I believed I was not worthy of care or safety. As a child, I had been sexually abused for years at the hands of my primary teacher. The halls and closets of church were my personal hell. I was vulnerable, a loving and tender child enraged with a longing to be kept.
Where did the cruel fire of self-sabotaging beliefs live within me?
How would I ever express the ocean of grief that stood between me and everything my heart wanted?
How would I learn to trust when my childhood had been a minefield of trespass?
My body, a vigil to violation.
“The moon is dead. Your soul went to the moon, to the preserver of souls. Thus the soul moved toward death. I went into the inner death and saw that outer dying is better than inner death. And I decided to die outside and to live within. For that reason I turned away and sought the place of the inner life.”
― C.G. Jung, The Red Book: Liber Novus
Those who have experienced complex childhood trauma know the ache of longing for their own innocence. Many of us turn to substances in an attempt to connect with our souls. The cloud of trauma can feel like a thick poisonous metal. For many of us, myself included, our bodies become divorced from feeling.
Through forgiveness, we become real.
Forgiveness walks with self-protection.
Two years ago I embarked on the spiritual path inward. I gave everything away. My life was becoming an epic of love and loss. Heartbroken, I couldn’t bear the thought of another external dream being ripped away from me.
I desired to see, to hear, and to feel.
I longed to know a love built on trust, safety, support, and protection.
I wished to taste and realize the song of my soul.
I yearned to live a life I didn’t have to be stoned to live.
I longed to breathe easy and to wake up with excitement for each day.
My life at the time was so incredibly far away from this dream. I had no idea how I was going to get from hell to heaven. All I knew was that I wasn’t going to wait until I died to find it.
It’s a sobering moment to realize that intelligence and creativity alone aren’t enough to change one’s life. My good intentions were continually usurped by the sabotaging grief and anger of the abandoned child within.
So, with tears running down my cheeks, snot on my whaling lips, and humility in my heart, I did something that changed the course of my life.
…
I hadn’t prayed in a long long time. I was raised fearing the wrath of the Western narcissistic God. This controlling, jealous, and patriarchal God was not my God. A seasoned escapist, I received my education in the world as I traveled the globe seeking belonging.
In my early twenties I saw the prayer of the Chinese elders every morning in the green parks at 6 AM. The faint sound of the erhu hung in the mist. As the sun ate the moisture, I watched their delicate dance with energy. I saw the serenity on their faces. Their weathered bodies flowed with a fluidity I hadn’t seen before.
In Luang Prabang, Laos, I watched as locals gathered at sunrise lining the cobble stone streets. Every morning, the monks walk through town in their saffron robes punctuated by hazy blue light. Their walk is a daily call to alms. I was amazed by the Laotions who lived so simply, yet offered what food they had every morning. I saw the peace in their prayer of giving.
When I was 18, I took a greyhound bus to Atlanta GA. I learned about chance and opportunity as I knocked up and down that town selling security systems. Countless African American families took my hand in a prayer circle in their living rooms and driveways to ensure I was graced with safe passage.
I saw God in the face of my dying Grandmother. A devout Mormon and temple lady. She died on her own terms, in her bed. In perfect peace. She was ready to go. I watched as she held the hand of everyone who came to visit her in those three days of grace before she went on to reunite with her Ernie again. She looked deep into the eyes of everyone she knew, she said, “I love you, I will always love you, and I will always be there for you.” It still makes me cry. She was between worlds during those three days. I know she is with me. And somehow with the countless others who pray to her for comfort. I don’t know how to explain it, but I know she is with me.
I have felt the buoyancy of grace on a bus plunging through the Himalayas near Okhaldhunga Nepal. We were packed in like sardines, certain death was 2 mm away. As our feet left the floor, I was suspended body to body in a free floating nebulus of humanity. The peace I felt in that moment, knowing that if we died, we died together was indescribable. That’s what it feels like to live life suspended on a razor’s edge. The humility that floods in when you realize your life is not your own is breathtaking.
I have seen God in the alleyways and the temples of this world.
I have found God in the gutters of Bangkok and the eyes of orphans in Cambodia.
And so when I prayed, I prayed to the amalgamation of all of these Gods. In time, I came to think of God as Mother Earth manifest in countless and infinite forms. I see her beyond human morality. She gives and takes in ways that our little human minds fail to understand.
I would love to share the miracles I have experienced in my life since I started praying to Mother Earth. I would love to share all the tools I have learned and practices that have brought transformation to my life. But that would likely become a novel. Simply put, I have received everything I’ve asked for. Though it rarely comes in the way I think it will, it comes no less. The most miraculous change of all has come through releasing the seemingly infinite barriers to love. In discovering trust and surrender, I have yielded to love like a river bends to absorb a mountain.
This is not intended to be a novel.
So I will leave you with a simple prayer and practice to invite the powers of transformation to guide your life.
Practice and Prayer
Go to nature. Sit down in a comfortable place, ideally, near water. Find safety in the fact that you are utterly alone and completely connected all at once.
Close your eyes and visualize your root anchoring deep into the earth. Visualize the depths of the earth, notice the multi-faceted layers of time’s emblazoned memories.
Notice the carcasses of countless creatures that lived before you, silently informing your roots.
Thank them. Thank the earth for offering you everything you have and will ever have and ever know in this life. Remember, the earth is your mother. Take peace in this. Remember she is always here to listen, to hold you, and to offer her endless support.
Allow this peace to reach all the cells in your body. Invite your cells to reprogram themselves with support and safety. Allow yourself to feel trust in the magnitude and sturdiness of the earth beneath, around, and above you. Remember how small you are compared to all that is. Take peace in this.
When your heart swells with love, listen. If you have a question, ask it. Trust that your message is true. In time, as you practice acting on the messages you receive, your connection will grow stronger.
PS- Remember, trust is a very tricky thing for many of us. Trauma loops can easily sabotage all of us. Learn the difference in the way it feels when you make a trauma informed decision and when you make a courageous decision rooted in trust.
Cowards judge, criticize, and shame others from a hole in their heart.
Trust is always present when you are acting courageously with your whole heart.
As always, I am here to witness women in their transformative journey. I have witnessed hundreds of women in this journey as they reclaim their bodies, hearts, and minds from the poisonous fearful lies of others. Msg me if you’re ready to release the clay and cry sovereignty.
I’ve been witnessing women on film lately and I couldn’t be happier with the way the ineffable translates through an analog expression.
I am open to offering support to others who are going through transformation and seeking support on their journey. If you would like support in excavating your heart from the clay of society, send me a message.
10% of profits support our OG Mother Earth.
PPS- if you haven’t yet signed up for my Substack, I’d recommend doing so. It’s for the soul seekers who are walking the poetic pilgrimage of transformation.
Have you noticed, the way we treat women is the way we treat the earth?
The way we fear the chaos of her beauty. The way we exploit and take from her without reciprocity. The way we treat her as a receptacle for our waste, shame, and fear.
The way we treat the earth is as grotesque as the way we treat the Goddess.
The sacred becomes profane when trust is lost.
Many of us never developed a healthy sense of trust in our childhood. Without being patterned with trust, our lives were unconsciously dreamed and created by anxiety, fear, shame, and worry.
Trauma begets trauma.
Unaddressed trauma can easily ruin and sabotage your life. The abandoned and abused parts within me sabotaged my life for a long time. It takes a tremendous amount of courage and accountability to move from the victim to the creator of your life. With trust in yourself and the invisible forces of this planet and your soul, your life can and will change.
Today, the moon is ripe in Aquarius.
To get into sync with the unseen, reflect on these questions and say a prayer to the full moon tonight.
How can you cultivate a relationship of trust and reciprocity with mother earth?
What can you do on a daily basis to honor your body?
Do you know what your soul’s calling is?
Are you watering it daily?
Go to the earth with bare feet. Place your hands in the soil or grass. Say a prayer of gratitude, ask for support, and listen.
Don’t forget, the groove is in the heart.
Personal note:
As the super-moon rises, I, along with the collective, am examining my relationship with trust.
When I was eight I started receiving conflicting messages regarding the sacred and profane nature of my body and sexuality from my primary teacher. Additionally, I never understood why the making of me was considered profane and so I was discarded at 5 days old. Yet, the making of others was considered a sacred act.
I have spent my life trying to find my identity beyond the shadow of shame. I was created by the daily shameful and discarded tears of my mother. She was told that by giving me away she could atone for her sin. I was sacrificed and trafficked as a baby by the LDS church. They followed the traditional model of religion, shame leads to profit.
My art is a heretical love note to all that was shamed in my line of women. I have long asked the question; where am I sacred and where am I profane? In a recent breakthrough, I have been learning to stay present during intimacy with my partner. This might not seem like a big deal to some, but for me, it has been my Mount Everest.
Through this deepening of trust and intimacy, I’ve discovered that everything becomes profane when trust is broken. The trust that inhabits my body disappears with memories that register when my body is touched. It’s nothing my partner did, and yet my past, a past that occurred when I was just a child, has robbed me of experiencing true intimacy for my entire life, until now.
This new discovery (at the age of 36) has ignited a desire to extend the sovereign sessions experience to couples. I have shared this experience with a few couples prior to this date. Those experiences have been deeply transformative. It is an artistic conversation that notices your relationship with each other and with trust.
All experiences open with a ritual calling in the invisible forces. You will each set your intentions as we discuss and define the boundaries of the experience. For the experience to be transformative and the photos to have that je ne sais quoi, everyone must feel safe and embodied. I am extremely sensitive to noticing when others are dissociating. There are many ways to move the energy when one finds themself caught in freeze as their soul leaves their body. I have numerous ways of supporting you as we call you back in.
If you and your partner are wanting to deepen into the layers of intimacy that come from being witnessed in your primal and authentic selves as you freely express your feelings for one another, send me a message. The feelings might very well extend beyond love. There could be unexpressed anger, grief, or shame that needs to come out. We create an experience honoring what has been, as we water the seeds of a healthy, playful and passionate love affair with one another.
Additionally, I am as passionate as ever about facilitating this experience for women.
Your life is waiting for you. My life was waiting for me. I know that decolonizing my body from the shame of religion, predators, and oppressive systems of governance has been life changing. It is my sincere hope that those who walk through this experience can deepen into their soul’s gifts to create the dream of their hearts.
