A personal update
On silence, entering the cave, and reigniting the spark.
Greetings Dear Human,
It’s been good to be quiet.
(I realize there is an expectation to make offerings hee often. So, to the members of The School, thank you for your patience—and I pray that when there is nothing to say, silence can be the gift.)
I have been dreaming of swans.
And young men in trouble.
And diving from the deepest diving boards in the world.
This has been a year of massive transition: leaving my home of eight years, leaving California after eighteen years, and the death of a parent. It seems obvious now, but at the time, I didn’t know I was heading into the chrysalis as the great dissolve of change occurred.
Moving to Maui was not an escape — it was to live among the ashes of an island alive with grief and loss. Then this year, a massive flood arrived with forty-four inches of rain in five days.
As the land I lived with morphed and changed, so did my internal world.
Seeking shelter, I entered the cave, where the only thing to do was take a deep dive into a soul inventory.
I won’t lie and say it was joyful or easy to look at what I had been avoiding.
Now in my fifties, the chapter of blame was behind me—but I still had to walk through the valley of shame about some choices I had made.
There, I met tar pits filled with self-loathing and a few flying monkeys throwing spears of self-sabotage that required a couple of fancy Raiders of the Lost Arc moves.
And while in this place of listening, looking, receiving, and reviewing, it was right to be quiet.
You don’t tell the story when you are inside of it.
Because some stories only reveal the truth of what they are really about after the chapter is complete and the gift of 20/20 vision is with you.
And at the center of this story was the threshold of love.
And learning to love what had been banished.
While in the cave, I stopped teaching. I stopped developing new content for The School of Sacred Storytelling, and turned toward working with clients one-on-one.
There, I discovered a newfound joy in being able to spend focused time together.
As the fires burned, I was in a recording studio, recording Sacred Storytelling for Sounds True. The experience made the crucial role of the sacred storyteller even more real.
The Los Angeles fires ignited my words again. I returned to myself as a writer.
After years of teaching and being immersed in the administration of it—too much of my writing energy was succumbed by promoting classes—
Now in the writing again, I felt and witnessed the role of the sacred storyteller in times of crisis —while lost in a sea of information, with arrows pointing our attention in a million different directions — The storytellers provide a place to alchemize and settle the dust of the difficult times. Writing did that for me this past year— through the chaos and loss of the year, writing was the anchor, the buoy, and the place of home when the world was shifting around me.
And a shift happened from writing the stories— to changing the story.
The move to Maui brought the launch of The Whale Council where we are bringing together a global community of scientists, activists, healers, artists, and storytellers to meet this moment. This has been a profound place of inspiration and is a place to put prayers into action as we witness what is happening to our whales and water.
Meanwhile, I taught what I thought would be my final class for a while.
But when we reached the end, the students refused to go— we had just struck gold, and they weren’t done. So the renegades went deeper.
Deep Story
Deep Story is for people who are working on one story—that is also working on them. It is for those committed to bringing a story all the way across the threshold to publish, share, or perform.
In these small groups, we tend both the creation and the creator.
We stay with the story long enough for the story within the story to reveal itself as we uncover the wisdom, medicine, alchemy—and sometimes hilarity—into a story that can serve others. The next Deep Story cohort begins in September.
There are four spaces available.
Bringing Soul Stories Home
It has been a delight to return to the powerful world of Soul Stories and explore the evolution of this oracular storytelling practice.
It felt as though the lineage of storytelling itself was knocking on my door, asking me to give this work the time, devotion, and energy it deserves.
For the past sixteen years, I have told over 300 Soul Stories to individuals and groups.
These stories reveal a person’s living mythos: the images, archetypes, landscapes, beings, and unseen dimensions of the self moving beneath the surface of everyday life.
What I have discovered over the years, is that receiving the story is only the beginning.
Because when the mythos discovered through the receiving of a Soul Story is embodied, the story stops being something you were told and becomes something you call upon and live with. It’s akin to driving down a street filled with gas stations, and not knowing that you have free access to all of them.
The unseen aspects of the self become known—and can be consciously called upon as sources of energy. An archetype within the story may help you establish a boundary. An animal ally may restore an instinct you abandoned long ago. A forgotten or banished part of the self may return carrying a gift you need for the life you are now being asked to live.
When you work the story — it begins to enter the body and your way of life through your choices, relationships, creative work, leadership, and the way you cross a threshold.
I discovered people needed time, space, structure, and accountability to truly work with their Soul Stories—not simply to understand them, but to embody them. And when we do this in community— it was pure magic to get to experience and learn the teachings from each other’s stories.
So then came…
Luminary Circles
Luminary Circles are intimate, small-group journeys for people standing at a significant threshold.
They are for those who want to deepen in, find the gift in the challenge, bring forward their genius—— but not by themselves. And they are looking for more tools than talk therapy. There’s no easy way to say this— its for those who are showing up for themselves and others— and ready to burn through what is in the way so their light can shine (sorry for the cliche, but there is a reason we use them).
The next Luminary Circle begins August 18.
A participant from the first circle shared:
“I reached a point towards the ongoing ending of my marriage where I was literally freezing and experiencing panic waves. That was a real turning point. My Soul Story came at a perfect timing as those symbols helped. The length of the program was helpful because I wouldn’t have done it otherwise. Something rested in me with the story, with having those symbols and its story framework. Also, unlike a dream, all the details were there, not blurring off on waking.” —Jacqueline
And so I stand before you:
Weathered.
Whale-songed.
And present to what it takes to cross your own thresholds.
I am curious to hear from you:
What story are you living inside of during these times? What threshold are you crossing, approaching, or flirting with?
For those ready to enter more deeply into the story that is working through you, it would be a delight to share Deep Story, Your Soul Story, or a Luminary Circle with you.
Here’s to going through the cave, and learning how to light it up on the way out,
With the warmest regards,
Leah
PS: Big news coming next week. This is just the preview to change….