From dust to dust, a birthday request and a life update ❣️ + roll call for who's going to the Playa and where you gonna be?!

August 27th is my 40th birthday and I'm returning to Burning Man, to the Playa. To celebrate life, to grieve, to dance and practice joy. I'm putting this GoFundMe out into the universe to give myself this birthday gift (crowdsourced - also why doesn't everyone do this? If you do it and I see I've got $5 on it guaranteed : )

It's been a rough couple years, my mama Kim passing two Augusts ago and my birthday is forever connected to her death day, as my life is forever connected to her.

I will journey to the Temple that Burning Man to offer this grief, this loss. To me the Temple feels like one of the most sacred sites that is being created in this country in this age. Place where people go to let go, to grieve, to marry, and then burn it in a ceremony with 50,000 people sharing the moment in silence.

I invite y'all to comment here or send me a direct message with any names of loved ones lost that you would like placed in this Temple and I will carry them to the Playa and to the fire for at least a piece of the grief to be tranmuted.

It has been an inward year for me as I learned and grasped the importance of resourcing, caring for and loving on myself. To fill myself up so that I can give from a place that is full. When my Mom died I feel like I found what it was like to be at 0%. I spent a year trying to continue to do life and resource myself but it didn't really work.

Last winter I pushed away all the expectations from myself or from others and I went to a cabin in the woods (special thanks to my friend Uzi for sweetly offering me that space to be in). I spent the time listening to myself and my needs for maybe the first time ever, giving myself exactly what I wanted and needed.

Slowly my resource began to build again and I was again able to offer to others from a much fuller place after offering to myself. From that place of more resource I was able to hear calls of direction with clarity and feel inspiration yet again.

Yet the waves of life roll through, requiring me to spend the resource, to offer it, and then to work (and play) to fill my cup again.

In April I left Asheville to come to Colorado to support my family in their processes and then to offer some aquatic body work at a hot spring called Cottonwood.

I got the chance to go rafting down the Grand Canyon in July and I'm so grateful to experience the beauty, awe, majesty and magic of that sacred place.

From there I traveled by Hot Springs up to Montana to visit my dear friend Trinity and now I find myself in the Pacific Northwest with the Salish Sea, offering my grief and tears to Mama Ocean.

Next week I will find myself in the desert at a radical event that promotes radical self-reliance, radical inclusion and more and more environmental ethics of sustainability and leaving no Trace, values all of which speak to my soul.

I'll be serving tea everyday to the people at the Keyhaus TeaHouse And supporting people to go deeper into their experience and to find connection (as I do).

I still feel a little unclarity as to how my gifts and being are here to serve people in the planet, but I know the grief work is a part of that, I know music is a part of that, and I know creating spaces for people to feel and heal is a part of that.

My next home also feels a little unclear and I'm open to ideas ☺️ Asheville held me so sweetly but I don't know if it's home home and I sense a little more nomading in my future, offering some more retreats with my Chrysalis project and hopefully organizing some aquatic body work trainings with my teacher in Hawaii at the end of this year and potentially getting involved with/evolving my family's oil and gas business.

For now I'm going to continue practicing joy and celebrating life, while listening to myself deeply and my needs so that I can do those things, be able to hear the callings and stirrings of my soul and of spirit.

Thank you for caring enough to read this far and I welcome any gifts you care to offer, any sweet words of affirmation, and/or any bits of what they call "dark feedback" for me to see my blindspots, know myself deeper and know how I can improve.

Any comment or reaction to this post would be a gift so maybe a few more peeps will see it, If all my friends gave me a dollar I would reach my goal ✨

Bless your life and your journey, may you and we know and tend to ourselves, be resourced and remember that it's really all about love.

Little cost breakdown -

550 Camp dues

400 Van + Renting a Spot in the shade

$120 Bike

Sky diving?

$300 Gas

$300 Party Favors and Snack

$300 low income ticket and vehicle pass

$90 miscellaneous hardware store supplies (tape, air filter, mug! Etc)

$2160