Cultivating Resilience and Joy 2025
Cultivating Resilience and Joy – 2025 Circle
For the past four years, this monthly healing sanctuary for women has been my quiet metronome—its steady rhythm keeping me regulated and connected to what is Real amidst the noise and confusion of our time. It is a warm, welcoming space to exhale, connect, receive soul nourishment, and remember our place in the greater rhythms of life. In these chaotic and uncertain times, this circle has become soul medicine, a steadying heart beat, in our lives. Its rhythm restores balance, clarity, and hope when the world feels overwhelming. It is a place where we remember that we are part of the magic of Creation, part of the vast turning of the cosmos and that our lives and loves matter.
This year, as summer’s brightness fades and the long winter months approach, we find ourselves in the very conditions that first called me to start this circle back in 2021. Those I consider my teachers, wiser and more deeply connected than I, have been speaking for years about this time of gathering darkness. I wanted to have a structure in place that could keep us afloat through it all. I wanted to fill my “medicine bag” with healing, soothing balms for the soul. With your help, we’ve built something like Noah’s Ark: a vessel strong enough to carry us through uncertain waters, and spacious enough for deeper self-discovery. We have cultivated a sacred, ritual space for healing.
Tending the hearth fire of joy in the Great Unraveling
The Map
Our compass for the journey is the Taoist Five Element framework—an ancient way of understanding the energies that give rise to all of life. This map firmly roots us deep in the Earth in a way that makes it possible for new life and authenticity to rise through us. The seasons are one of the most visible ways we experience the energy behind Creation: spring energy gives rise to tulips and daffodils, autumn energy to goldenrod and asters. You can’t see the energy, but you can see what it does… tulips and daffodils vs goldenrod and asters. Working this way, we begin to see how patterns in our choices and thinking have given rise to aspects of our lives that may or may or not continue to serve us. Once revealed, we can aim ourselves toward more authenticity enabling us to more fully live the life we have been given.
In the same way, cultural cycles have their own patterns and seasons, and right now, humanity is deep in late autumn, and early winter. The blooms of our cultural ways have fallen; the structures we’ve relied on are withering and composting. Like a garden after frost, no amount of effort can glue the the lifeless flowers back on. We have known that our way of life is “unsustainable”, so of course it can’t continue. We are witnessing the life going out of our old ways We find ourselves in the liminal space between the end of one era and the beginning of the next.
Nature teaches that winter is not the end—it is the necessary season of rest, gathering potential, reconnecting with deep wisdom, in preparation for a new spring. Our work together is to learn how to live in right relationship with this cultural winter: to keep the hearth fire of joy burning, to root deeply into what matters most, and to hold the seeds of a Thriving Life Future in our hearts until they can sprout.
A steady heartbeat of joy and wisdom through the long winter of our times.
The Invitation
If our souls truly choose to incarnate in particular times for the lessons they hold, then we chose this moment—this time of Great Unraveling—for a reason. There is radical learning here, and the possibility of playing our part in what is waiting to be born. In the Cultivating Resilience and Joy circle, we remember that our deepest guidance doesn’t come from the rational mind—it comes from the heart, through love, awe, connection with each other and the Natural world, and the quiet voice of the soul.
Five Element wisdom is our Rosetta stone, helping us see that even in chaos, there are patterns, cycles, and ways home to our deepest truth. We learn to recognize these patterns, work with them, and trust that we are held by something far greater than the noise of the moment.
What to Expect
Over the year, we will gather monthly to explore the Five Element framework through teaching, ritual, breathwork, meditation journeys, and deep listening. We will create space for authentic connection—with each other, with Nature, and with the unseen forces that guide life. Together, we’ll practice the art of learning to dance with and be moved by the energies of Creation—open-hearted and joyfully alive, even in uncertain times. Along the way, you’ll gain simple, practical tools and practices that will weave into your daily life, offering practices and perspectives you can return to in any moment, so the vitality of our work together becomes a living part of your days.
If you’ve been looking for a way to feel steady amidst the storms, to deepen your connection with the living world, and to nurture the seeds of joy and resilience within, this is your invitation.
Starts september 21st
Details
When: 3rd Sundays of each month from 4–6 PM
Where: Camden Whole Health, 91 Elm St, Camden, Maine
How: In person, zoom, or recordings
You are welcome to come to the first gathering to get a sense of the circle before committing—just let me know so I can put out a chair for you.
Join us for this next journey around the sun
Please feel free to email, I always love to hear from you
@resilience.and.joy