Deborah Meints-Pierson, LMFT

Deborah is a master therapist (licensed for over 35 years), spiritual teacher, television host, author and 3rd generation intuitive. She has helped transform the lives of thousands of people around the world. Her pioneering approach bridges Psychology, Spirituality and the Mystic Tools. Deborah is a sought out authority in the field of psychology and has served as a Palm Springs psychological expert for TV, radio & print. She wrote and Co-Hosted the popular television program "It's A Family Affair" on Time Warner Television for over a decade. Deborah has been featured in numerous shows, radio programs and publications including NBC, ABC, K-News Voice of The Valley, Desert Sun Newspaper, Desert Woman magazine and Health & Spirituality magazine.

When Deborah is not transforming lives you can find her hiking in the beautiful desert, music jamming with friends, dancing, practicing yoga, reading, & writing poetry. For more: https://soulpathsessions.com

Brenda Littleton, MA

As an educator & counselor based in social justice, personal literacy, eco & depth psychology, Brenda has worked with thousands of students and clients in their wholeness journey. She holds a graduate degree in education, post-graduate studies in counseling, and depth psychology at the doctoral level and is certified in coaching, trauma and psycho-biotics. Blending modalities of attachment theory, somatic healing, active imagination, dream work, restorative education, & place-based learning, she empahsizes the link between the mind-body-spirit-earth relationship for the healing.

Brenda's has served as a university program director of graduate studies, a clinical counselor for domestic violence & trauma recovery, a behavioral specialist in schools, & is a successful coach of executives, creatives and entrepreneurs. She is a reiki master, writer, speaker & continues in a lineage of Druidic animistic prayer circles. For more: https://www.brendalittleton.com

Acknowledgments:

Original Music composed by Zach Meints

The Soul Path Sessions Podcast is produced by Homeless Betty Productions

PLEASE SUBSCRIBE ON YOUR FAVORITE PODCAST APP TO LISTEN TO FUTURE EPISODES. THANK YOU...AND REMEMBER TO FOLLOW YOUR SOUL, IT KNOWS THE WAY!

Episode 5 Description

The Greeks believe that time had secret structure. There was a moment of epiphany when time suddenly opened and something was revealed in luminous clarity. There was a moment of crisis when time got entangled and directions became confused and contradictory. There was also the moment of Kairos. This was a propitious moment. Time opened up in kindness and promise. All the energies cohered to offer a fecund occasion of initiative, creativity and promise. Part of the art of living wisely is to learn to recognize and attend to such profound openings in one's life.

Initiations, invitations and epiphanies are usually life altering events that invoke some kind of revelation. In this week's episode, Deborah and Brenda share personal soul stories of their own initiations that framed and informed change in their lives. As with most of life's changes, crossing a new threshold involves chaos, risk and fear, none of which outwardly appear to be under any one's control. However, as is often the case, there lies a deeper intelligence at work. A process that one can learn to trust if they choose to be open and recognize the initiations, invitations and epiphanies that come their way. The goal of this first of two episodes, is to not only affirm their own initiations, but also to encourage those who may be wanting to remember their own.

Chapters & Links

00:02:01 - Remembering

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epiphany_(feeling)

00:11:53 - Kairos: A Time of Opportunity

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kairos

00:20:03 - Pan Saves The Day

https://www.encyclopedia.com/science/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/tarnas-richard-theodore-1950

00:30:44 - In The Middle of A Vortex

https://dictionary.reverso.net/english-cobuild/a+vortex+of+emotions

00:35:32 - The Pu'uloa Connection

https://scienceviews.com/islands/puuloapetroglyphs.html

00:41:24 - The River Cannot Go Back

https://www.awakin.org/v2/read/view.php?tid=2422

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Original music by Zach Meints

The Soul Path Sessions podcast is produced by Homeless Betty Productions

Announcer: (00:08)

Welcome to the Soul Path Sessions podcast with Deborah Meints-Pierson and Brenda Littleton. Brenda is an educator and counselor rooted in Jungian and eco psychology. She helps her clients understand the importance of the mind body spirit, and earth relationship for healing. Deborah is a licensed psychotherapist and has been trained in traditional and sacred psychology, exploring from the ground up what makes our human experience meaningful, wholesome, and enlightening. Deborah, and Brenda invite you to accompany them on a soul path journey as they explore the possibilities of living a more soulful life as therapists, seekers and lovers of fate.

Deborah: (00:50)

So welcome back everybody. Today, lovely Brenda, and lovely Deborah, are going to explore initiations, invitations and epiphanies. And what's so interesting to me is that we are here on Easter, Ramadan,

Brenda: (01:10)

Full Moon, full moon, Passover

Brenda: (01:13)

Earth Day

Deborah: (01:13)

Earth Day. Geez. It's a lot of stuff to celebrate and all the roses are blooming and the plants are singing like a Disney film. It's so happy. So we thought we'd share some stories and see where it goes from there.

Brenda: (01:29)

And initiation. Even from just looking at your beautiful rose bush outside coming in, announcing that the spring is here. I was away for a couple weeks and came back and there had been a dove nest with eggs, and when I got back, they were all gone. So I know that this transmission of birth and into spring is in full bloom.

Deborah: (01:55)

Flew the coop.

Brenda: (01:57)

I felt really, really good.,

Deborah: (01:57)

Little shells.

Brenda: (02:01)

So, initiation. We talked last about going into our own soul journeys, our own history of when we knew when we crossed our path into initiation, where we knew that we would not, not know anymore. Starting from young, young little girls to going into adolescence to then becoming women. I know we have varied paths and lots of experience. And the whole goal here is to not only reaffirm our initiations, but also share with those who may be also wanting to remember their initiations.

Deborah: (02:45)

That's so true because I think it gets kind of filed back in the place like, oh, that's weird stuff that happened to me and yet why do we file it away?

Brenda: (02:59)

Well, part of my work is remembering. I I've shared with you this turning point, this pivot I had, where I'm so tired of working in the world of healing and the journeying out and becoming, as opposed to remembering and being whole. So when you brought up that idea of initiation, I thought, oh, this is the beginning step. This is really inclusive of understanding who we are and remembering who we are,

Deborah: (03:27)

Right. On our soul path, right. I guess I'll go first and tell my story. Okay.

Deborah: (03:35)

One of my first things that happened is extremely weird. My dad was an executive. He moved us all over the country and I ended up in Houston, Texas as a senior in high school. I was not happy about it. And I cried the entire summer. I mean, it was a bummer, right? Bummer summer. I gave up the lead in the senior play. I mean, I finally got into my groove. My junior year. I found my path. I loved to dance. I loved drama. I was so involved in all that stuff. I had to leave my dog and cat. Everybody had to be left behind, boyfriend. So I cried buckets. And I basically said to my parents, My dad goes like, please stop crying. Seriously. It was filling up the rooms coming out the windows, I would not stop. So I said, I don't know. I think I might go back to California. And I had a friend, Honestly, she wasn't even that good a friend, but she offered to, let me go back to California and get all my stuff back, all my friends, graduate with my class at Glendale High. I was really tempted. And I told my mom this and my mom was devastated, because really it was hard to lose your daughter to that. And she didn't really know these people, but I was pretty headstrong. And so I went off to school telling her, this is my last day.

Brenda: (05:03)

So, you left?

Deborah: (05:03)

No, I went to the school, Westchester high in Houston, Texas. And I was seriously out of place. I'd been on a drama track and they didn't have one. They had a science track. I mean, it's Houston. And I was in beginner math. I was in geometry and I'm a senior because I didn't do math. I just wasn't doing math. So I'm just sitting there, minding my own business. And the announcements come over, you know you listen to the announcements in the morning. I was in first period, geometry class, with a bunch of ninth graders. A big doofus. And all of a sudden I heard this guy, one of the students said, don't be, it was like a little homily, like don't be so busy looking at yesterday's rain that you ignore today's sunshine. That's all he said. I mean, so what. But what happened inside of me I can only describe as if you've seen the movie Powder. You will know what I experienced. I suddenly couldn't see, my whole body exploded into white light. There was no Deborah. I just exploded into white light. There was nothing there.

Deborah: (06:19)

I didn't really have time to assess the situation. I just wasn't a 17 year old sitting in geometry class. I had disappeared and exploded.

Brenda: (06:29)

Tell me more.

Deborah: (06:30)

So yeah, the story's over. So I came back into my body and I was like, I'm going to stay in Houston and I'm going to sign up for the school play. I signed up for clubs. I got the lead in the senior play in Houston.

Brenda: (06:49)

Houston, we have contact.

Deborah: (06:51)

In one day I'm going to be part of the glee club. I didn't even like these things. I joined things I didn't even know about. I just joined everything. I tried out for the senior play. I went out to the car, my mom picked me up and she was already, and I told her what happened? I go, we've got to go by the yardage store. I've got to get special buttons for this shirt I'm wearing. She's like, you're staying. And I go, yeah, I'm staying. And she said, oh, she goes, I was on my hands and knees and I was praying for you. My mom was a really strong Christian and she said, I just gave you to the Lord. And I said, Lord, Debbie, as I was known those days, Debbie's gonna leave if that's your will. But I just pray. I prayed with everything. And I prayed for like, I go, were you praying like around seven-fifty or eight o'clock this morning? She goes, oh yeah. Let me tell you what happened to me. So that was my first thing that ever happened. It changed me. I was reset.

Brenda: (07:57)

So did you feel akin to what your mother's references were?

Deborah: (08:03)

Oh yeah. I was like, that's coincidental.

Brenda: (08:06)

But did you feel Christian-like? I mean, were you in...

Deborah: (08:09)

Well, I shouldn't say no. That wouldn't be fair. I think I felt, see there's there's a thing like you can be a Christian and call yourself that or you can have an experience like Christ had. My mom was really invested in trying to Really understand what Jesus was saying, and my family were big on prayer, but I ignored a lot of that, I was a kid. But when this happened, I was like, wow.

Brenda: (08:40)

It makes me wonder if your mother was projecting or feeling like you were acting out her feelings about being yanked. I mean, she was yanked out of her life too and dumped in Houston and, and having to be a role model for you as far as, this is what we do in this family. We move and we make our life whole and we move forward and here you are acting out the sense of melancholy and just total loss. And I'm wondering if you represented that part of her as well, that was having those hiccups a little bit.

Deborah: (09:19)

Oh yeah. We were really close. So she told me, but she just wasn't 17. She did her own stuff.

Brenda: (09:28)

That sense of watermarking then, of being that white light and then making the pivot and saying, I'm here, and this is what my life is going to be.

Deborah: (09:38)

Mm-hmm

Brenda: (09:39)

What I'm intrigued of is that it became you. So did you rely on that point, were you able to go back there to that place often and recall upon that sense of empowerment and becoming white light and realizing that whatever it is that you're facing, you're able to go through it? Was there a sense of renewal that you...

Deborah: (10:03)

Think I was just young enough to go, like, that's a thing that happens.

Brenda: (10:08)

Deborah: (10:08)

And nobody understood it. I still to this day don't know what happened and it's happened to me two times. So the second time it happened was when I was really sick and I couldn't get well. This was years later and my doctor just said something to me, my physician, my general practitioner and the same thing happened. And the light went on and I was completely healed. What he said to me, because I had the blood profile of an aids patient. He said, do you not want to live? And I'm like, well, I think I do. I was raising a couple kids. Of course I wanna live, but I just couldn't get well. But he said, well, your blood doesn't look like this. So he took me by the hand, shows how powerful healers can be, teachers, doctors. He said,

Deborah: (10:58)

You know, when you're young and you play the violin, they give you a really clunky violin, so you can drop it and you don't need to tune it. But if you play the violin for a long time and you get really good, they might give you a Strativarius and you have to tune it every time it plays or it plays worse, then a beginner, violin. Then he held my hand and he said, you, my dear, are a Strativarius. And I kind of went into this trance state. I went out to my car. I sat down and the white light went on, my whole body disappeared. I went back the next week and I had no sign of illness. I got rebooted. If you can explain this, let me know. It's powerful, but it let me know. There's something bigger.

Brenda: (11:50)

And the molecules were responding.

Deborah: (11:53)

The molecules are responding and I had an epiphany. So that's, that's a spiritual word. I'm looking at John O Donohue and he talks about the Greeks believe that time had secret structure. There was a moment of epiphany when time suddenly opened and something was revealed in luminous clarity. There was a moment of crisis when time got entangled and directions became confused and contradictory. There was also the moment of Kairos. This was a propitious moment. Time opened up in kindness and promise. All the energies cohered to offer a fecund occasion of initiative, creativity and promise. Part of the art of living wisely is to learn to recognize and attend to such profound openings in one's life.

Brenda: (12:50)

Miraculous.

Deborah: (12:51)

If I said that like John O Donohue it would've been better because he has an Irish accent.

Brenda: (12:55)

But he's also dead.

Deborah: (12:56)

Well he's right here.

Brenda: (12:57)

Yeah. Beautiful. Spontaneous.

Deborah: (13:02)

Epiphany is the best word I can come up. It was light. So that's my story, Brenda, I'm sticking to it.

Brenda: (13:09)

I love it. I like the way that it returns. That was kind of the original question I had, how does it live in your life now? Can it be recalled? The reason I ask that is because I have, in my own initiation, there's these moments that return. A couple of podcast has to go we spoke of the imaginal cells and how it seems to have its own design for us and one can't predict, but it does return. So with the imaginal cells recurring with your, how did you phrase it, this moment of light? You left your body the moment...

Deborah: (13:55)

I didn't have a body. I became light. Like that movie powder the guy just pffft. I've always had this sense, and my spiritual name means lover of light: Jyotipriya is the white light from heaven or that comes down, the column of light. And that is my way of seeing God, is light, not solely, but that's really a powerful connector. Light is mentioned a lot in the Bible and in all holy books.

Brenda: (14:35)

And the fact of the white light and the healing properties where your blood was turned to light.

Deborah: (14:44)

It was. It definitely was. And you know, the doctors use light nowadays. They use different colors of light to heal cancers. So I had my own healing and there was no way to turn back. How do you explain it? I turned into a puff ball and I exploded. No, I wanted to stay in high school or I was sick yesterday, but today I'm fine.

Brenda: (15:07)

Well, it's a personal testimony to the belief that miracles do happen in the sense of the personal, the initiation of the personal, that this is a sacred, personal initiation into your own truth. Like you will never not believe it.

Deborah: (15:26)

I'm not really into believing things. When things have happened to me and I've gone backwards, like, okay, that's weird. Well, Paul, on the road to Damascus, he got stricken I knew about that, but it happened to me.

Brenda: (15:40)

And because it happened to you, you can sit with clients as well, who will come in and you'll have that capacity for them to explore what they may not be able to articulate.

Deborah: (15:51)

Yeah. That was my like first really conscious, weird thing that happened. And I'm very comfortable with the weird, because it's weird.

Brenda: (16:03)

Deborah: (16:04)

Even talking, you know, listening, talking. It's weird.

Brenda: (16:08)

Have you shared this often?

Deborah: (16:11)

When necessary, I usually don't just say things out of the blue. When it's necessary. If somebody needs me to tell them that I get what they're talking about, light has come. And also when I know some, how do I put it? I see auras. So sometimes, I mean, don't you? Okay. So you can tell your own, but when I met my husband, who was my second husband he told me we were going to get married. I'm like, I don't want this this marriage, a little hippy girl. And I looked at my hand and I put my hand on my hand on my womb and my womb was bright yellow with golden light was coming out of my womb. And I'm like, that's really weird. Turns out I had beautiful children with that man. That was supposed to happen. And my husband now, first time I saw him, that's another story I won't go into, but he was opening a door and he his aura was just in golden light. And I didn't think a thing of it,

Brenda: (17:13)

You and light. Light is a factor. I mean, for the idea of turning into light, seeing light, having the aura be more of an enunciation, like the typical classical art. When you have that aura, when you have the light, it's the enunciation of healing and spirit.

Deborah: (17:33)

Yes. Yes. I'm all over it. Thank you. So, Brenda, this is share and tell.

Brenda: (17:40)

Deborah: (17:41)

You get to tell the story,

Brenda: (17:42)

Well, I'm still sitting with you poofing being light and really trying to track that and feeling it in my own body, what that must have felt like. So I was really enjoying the sensation. So, thank you. My initiation is not so much the somatic space. It's not located in the body. It's having points outside of the body, from starting as a very young girl, like four years old and being lost in the forest. And having this experience of me asking, is this it? Having the wherewithal to be lost and to be four years old and to sit down on a log and say, is this it? Is this the end of my life? And to receive clear instructions that no, you have a choice. You don't have to go, you can stay here. And remembering in my body, the empowerment of the body really locating itself and saying, okay, then if I'm going to be here, then I'm going to find my way out and everything will be fine.

Deborah: (19:05)

Was it a voice you heard from outside of you or did it feel like it's inside of you?

Brenda: (19:10)

It was inside, but I don't think I was dissociated. I mean, if I was to do an analysis of a personality, I would be very tempted to say I was at point of dissociation. But I recognized it later on and I've had multiple experiences where my life was on the line. And really faced death in moments. One experience, I was 18 driving up in my car from LA to Big Sur. I had been living in Canada and I was driving this French car, a Peugeot. And for what ever reason I was leaving my parents' house in LA, going up to Marin to pick up two girlfriends and we were to continue to Vancouver island. I decided that I was going to enjoy the coast one more time.

Brenda: (20:03)

So I was traveling up PCH right before Esalen, I wasn't going fast and it wasn't raining and it wasn't a landslide, but for whatever reason, three of my tires burst and I spun out and as I was spinning and I was spinning and there was no one on the road, the front left tire went over the guardrail and I pivoted. And so the other tire, the rear tire was over cliff as well. And so I had two tires off the cliff and I could feel the car kind of teetering. And I very gingerly climbed over to the passenger side, got out. And I saw that I was hung up, that there was no way the car was going to go over the cliff, but I realized I have to get myself out of here. I have a date in Marin. This was before cell phones and I thought, okay, I'll just walk down to Esalen.

Brenda: (20:58)

So, I truck on down and I knock on the door, the wooden gate, and here comes this guy with this little baby goat. I felt it was a very pan moment. I realized afterwards many, many, many years later that the person who had answered the gate and was helping me was Richard Tarnas. I didn't know that at the time, could care less who Richard Tarnas was.

Deborah: (21:22)

Well, tell the audience who he is.

Brenda: (21:24)

Well, 30 years later I was in Pacifica, doing a PhD in depth psychology and my guest lecture for the semester was Richard Tarnas. And I realized at that moment that he was the guy that helped me get off the cliff. But that's not the end of the story. He helped me get the auto club and we got the car on the road.

Brenda: (21:50)

We got the tires switched, and it's late in the evening and the sunset's happening, I have to get through San Francisco to get across the bay, to go to Marin to find these ladies. I hadn't really eaten. I'm sure I was dehydrated and kind of came down off some endorphins and highway one goes through the city to get to the golden gate, and so you're dealing with a lot of Hills and steep Hills and lots of lights, and it was dark. I was looking, I was focusing on the wrong light so when I saw a green light, I would go through it, but really my own stop light was red. So I just charged through an intersection in downtown San Francisco at 10 o'clock at night.

Deborah: (22:37)

This is on the same day?

Brenda: (22:37)

Same day.

Deborah: (22:38)

Oh Lord.

Brenda: (22:39)

And I get spun around and I'm spinning and spinning and spinning, and I don't get hit. I it's just kind of like clock work. And I end up and I'm facing the right way. Instead of stopping and getting out and apologizing all over the place, I gun it. I go up to the next light. Same thing happens again. I see green light, but I'm at a red light stop. And I go through traffic again. And this time I spin around and I'm saying to myself, is this it? Is this it? Am I dead? And I hear the voice that says, no, you have a choice. You can stay. As soon as I hear that, no, you have a choice, I choose life. And I know that I've chosen life. And so I'm not going to die. So if I'm not going to die, get that hell out of here and get yourself through it and accomplish the goal. It happened one more time. So it's three times at the red light.

Deborah: (23:38)

Same trip?

Brenda: (23:39)

Same trip, same. And it's like, no, you have a choice. So going off the cliff, meeting Richard...

Deborah: (23:46)

Roger Rabbit is driving this car?

Brenda: (23:48)

I get to Marin. And off we go the next day. There's other episodes along the way in my life, several, but the most recent one happened five years ago where I unexpectedly go out late at night, I was hosting a guest horse. I had three horses at the time. They were my family of 24 years. We had this innate communication and this guest horse could hardly make a decision for herself. She did not know how to walk out of a stall on her own accord. She had to be let out. So she had been with me for a couple days, and I went out late at night just to check on everyone. And I opened the gate to let this guest horse out and she bolted unexpectedly and pushed the gate open. I fell back and I scared her because I normally don't fall down, especially in front of her..

Brenda: (24:47)

She pivoted, she freaked out and as she was turning around and I was on the ground, she stuck her hind hoof right on my chest and pivoted and pivoted and pivoted. So her hoofs were all over me. And again, I left my body and because it was just so much pain. And I said, is this it? Because I knew my body was broken and I wasn't going be on some life support and linger. And I said, if this is the time for me to go, please tell me because I will do so willingly. And again, the voice said, nope, you have a choice. So, whoomp, back into my body.

Deborah: (25:35)

Were you out of your body? Where you looking down at it?

Brenda: (25:37)

Yes, and I was in so much pain. I ended up by breaking my back in three places and breaking three ribs.

Deborah: (25:43)

That was fairly recently?

Brenda: (25:44)

Was about four years ago. I knew that I wasn't going todie. So I had to get up off the ground and I had to get back to the house and get some help. Each one of these episodes, in reflection, the last one didn't take very much reflection and I talked about it before where I was not acknowledging my choices in life. So the body, the somatic work, the psyche, what you choose not to acknowledge becomes fate, was becoming fate. So my initiation involves deep, deep fear. Life threatening situations where I don't know how I learned it, but I remember being a very little girl saying, is this it? And being told, no, you have a choice.

Deborah: (26:42)

What? A big question question for a four year old. I mean, I'm just going back to that one. Do you have any idea why that question was there for you?

Brenda: (26:49)

Well, it was a very arduous trip. I was in the backseat of a car going from Port Albernito to Tofino, which was at that time on a logging road, full of logging trucks. It was pouring down rain, horrendous, torrential, rain, low visibility, windows were up to keep the heat in and my, both my parents were in the front seat smoking like chimneys and I was in the backseat having ears, nose and throat contamination and cranky and screaming. My mother just couldn't handle it. Just, that's it. I had been screaming for three hours and they stopped the car and my mother put me outside.

Deborah: (27:29)

Oh, see, there's a backstory. Important.

Brenda: (27:31)

I just said, fine. You're going to put me out here. I'm going to walk away. And I walked into the forest. And that's where I met this voice, this self.

Deborah: (27:44)

You were ready to go, like, you guys going to treat me like this I'm out of here.

Brenda: (27:47)

I was sick. I was really ill.

Deborah: (27:51)

So trauma can drive you out of your body.

Brenda: (27:53)

Trauma drives me out of my body and also nature provides sanctuary. I was a very young girl realizing I'm not getting in this car. I'm not driving on this frigging logging road. I'm going into the Bush.

Deborah: (28:06)

Yeah.

Brenda: (28:07)

And take sanctuary. So I've always had great relief.

Deborah: (28:11)

How did they get you out?

Brenda: (28:12)

Well, I was at the beginning of my punishment. Like I was beginning to punish people. I felt fine. You're going to put me out. You're going to smoke up the car. I'm going to go and sit in this bog with skunk cabbage and look at the fairies. That's where I found, and ever since then, it's always been nature. If I have anything to work out, anything in my body, my heart, my soul, my mind is go into nature and I have great relief. It's similar to your moment of deconstruction where you become light. I actually entrain myself with the heartbeat of the earth or the tree or the whatever is there.

Deborah: (28:53)

I get you.

Brenda: (28:54)

And it just envelopes and soothes me.

Deborah: (28:58)

Me too. But I, I hear that, like that moment of trauma, that's Mother Nature. There's a name for Mother Nature, you know, she embraces us and she kept you here.

Brenda: (29:10)

So it does give me pause. If I know I'm not paying attention to choices that are made out of compensations or out of defense mechanisms, I realize I can only do that for so long. It will allow me to maintain an existence up to a point, but then I have to really let go and reassess and readjust and to claim what I've tried to avoid. I've been conscious of that the last five years. And it does keep me whole, it does allow me to work toward being whole. So that it that's the benefit.

Deborah: (30:02)

So my follow up question is, when you were on Mr. Toad's wild ride and you went down by Esalen and all the spinouts and the pivots, a lot of pivots, what was going on?

Brenda: (30:13)

I love that part of the world. I spent quite a bit of time at Julia Pfeiffer State Park and along the Creek and I felt so pure and creative and loved just by that space without anybody and I was a bit conflicted in going up to Vancouver, back to Vancouver island.

Deborah: (30:44)

Well it sounds like it. Seriously. You spun out three times or so four times. You met pan..nature god and then you kept spinning. Do you think you're trying to turn around, go back?

Brenda: (31:01)

To me it was more of a vortex. I tend to work with vortexes. So whenever there's an emotional war going on in my life, it's a vortex. And so that's the energy I work with, chaos. I wrote a thesis on chaos and about the predictable unpredictability and from that work, I launched a whole new life, which carried me up until now. And so I've learned to be open to those vortexes and those patterns, and I'm not afraid of them. I enjoy them actually,

Deborah: (31:50)

Really? Wow, that's exciting. I mean, how do you enjoy them?

Brenda: (31:56)

I like the energy. I like being in the center of them. I like observing them and I like understanding the transitoriness of it. I live in a place where I get 40 mile knot winds often. And I look at and say that soil on the ground over there is here today. And then I look out tomorrow and it's soil from Torrance. You know, it's just transitory. And it's allowed me to feel okay without being contained. Most of my path, since my twenties, has been feeling secure with insecurity, being comfortable with the uncomfortable, and not so much inviting it and having to have that chaotic life. But knowing that that 401k isn't going to be security for me. There's more.

Deborah: (32:58)

Your in flow.

Brenda: (33:00)

Yes

Deborah: (33:00)

Flow state a bit more.

Brenda: (33:04)

Yeah.

Deborah: (33:04)

You trust the process.

Brenda: (33:06)

I do trust the process, even though I may not dance with it as gracefully as others, but I do trust it. And I am also very curious now, as I'm in the last third of my life, I'm wondering how many more times I'm going to be asking that question.

Deborah: (33:21)

I know. Like how many more things like initiations.

Brenda: (33:26)

How many more initiations do people have?

Deborah: (33:34)

I go through periods of intense initiation where I really feel like I can't stop it. It's just going to keep happening. I know I'm in this sacred spot, like you are talking about. People probably don't want to stand next to me when it's going on. I know something's going to come down now at this age. I know something's going to happen because the rugs pulled out from under me, Completely pulled out and I'm falling. And I always fall towards God, every time.

Brenda: (34:13)

Is that a choice or is that a natural reaction?

Deborah: (34:16)

II just go to God. I'm like, okay, God, take it, take it away. Take it away. Calgon. Take it away God. However, I picture God, I cling to God. I feel like I sail through the cosmos holding unto God's ankles or feet, but I feel safe in God. That's just the way I am put together. I feel like this world is very scary for me. A lot of times I love the natural world, but I'm aware that things happen here and my flesh is scared of those things happening. I can't get away from that. Like I said, early on, I wanted to leave the physical and be in the meta and just be with God all the time. And then I was like, just being mean to people. I can't be mean to people. Is that what I came here to do? I've got to raise my kids. I love my kids. But this idea of balancing heaven and earth is really important and loving the natural world. But when it's really scary, it's nature and calling. So it's, for me, it's like calling the heavens down to earth. It's just a natural instinct.

Brenda: (35:32)

I think there are places that we can attend to that have that natural frequency anyway, to show us that it is possible to have those moments here. As you were speaking about calling the heavens down, it just activated the memory recently, I was on the big island in Hawaii and going down this very long road in a state park national park at the volcano. A place I hadn't been before. Took me down from the volcano down to the ocean and there is a petroglyph park there. You have to park and walk, and it's a ways. I didn't quite know what to expect, but when I got there, there were the signage showing and explaining where we were, what was going on, what had gone on.

Brenda: (36:34)

There were 23,000 examples of petroglyphs that had been identified of which 16,000 of them were these little holes that were carved into the lava from an earlier time. What it was, people, tribes and families had been affiliated and associated with the land for centuries and eons, and they would come after a birth of a child and they would bring the umbilical cord of the child and they would carve into the lava, holes that would contain umbilical cord. The idea was that, from the heavens came this spirit, this young child and the umbilical cord was the bridge. Then they took the bridge, the umbilical cord, to this place, the sacred place, and offered the umbilical cord to the planet, to the earth as an offering, but also as an insurance policy that this planet, this earth, this place where they were living, would also then embody and hold and protect this, this spirit, this young child.

Deborah: (37:56)

That's beautiful.

Brenda: (37:57)

It was absolutely phenomenal. And then later I went to a place that had books and there was this one book on the petroglyphs. It was all documented from the university and the one petroglyph that has stayed with me was actually in the book. It was just my anchor, and talked about the umbilical cords. Being in that place, walking around and you're up on a boardwalk, so you're not disturbing the Petroglyphs, but you have a really good view. You're looking down and you can see where people were sitting and how they carved them in. Some of the sections had like eight or nine holes, so that you could tell they had a large family, some only had one, and there were these little icons of people.

Brenda: (38:51)

And I just thought, I'm looking at what was here? I think part of this podcast is also part of how we are documenting our legend, our sense of our legacy, because I don't have a little hole in a lava that has my umbilical cord. I don't really have that place that these people did and it really infused me with this sense of being connected to place. Again, that is a theme that comes in my life often. So I came home really wondering and curious about what is my umbilical cord to this earth during this time.

Deborah: (39:38)

Oh, sweet. It's beautiful. I love the image of the tree for that reason.

Brenda: (39:44)

The roots below and the branches above.

Deborah: (39:46)

Like we we're reaching in with our roots and we're reaching up with our branches. My tattoo, that's what it is, the Tree of life. As a child, like I played outside a lot. I was in trees a lot. I felt safe away from people. I felt safe with my animals. Kids could be mean. I grew into having a deep love for people. As a healer and as an artist it's fun to interchange, but my favorite place is my kayak or in the ocean, sitting, feeling the heaven and earth together. I think coming back to life that way is really important. When my mom died, I was just so devastated. I lived in a beautiful place where I could sit in the canyons and I could just wail or I could just lay down and let the sunlight of love, come to me and say, how do I live with this loss? She was a wonderful, we were so close. The question was so big. How could I ask it of anyone? But the one who brought me here, sustain me. The one who brought me here, you are the one that must help me. I always got help. Went through dark periods, but never did not get it.

Brenda: (41:24)

I think the message of our podcast today is that there is great darkness. And as our listeners might relate to some of the bits and pieces of our story, the idea is that there is a choice and that there is a support, the idea of fear and doing it anyways. That's always been my thin lip of hesitation as well. It's enough to keep me from not doing it. I have a poem here from kahlil Gibran. I think it speaks to the sense of and doing it anyway. It is said that before entering the sea, a river trembles with fear, she looks back at the path she has traveled from the peaks of the mountains, the long winding road, crossing forests and villages. And in front of her, she sees an ocean so vast that to enter there seems nothing more than to disappear forever. But there is no other way. The river cannot go back. Nobody can go back. To go back is impossible in existence. The river needs to take the risk of entering the ocean because only then will fear disappear because that's where the river will know it's not about disappearing into the ocean, but of becoming the ocean. Thank you.

Deborah: (43:08)

Thank you.

Announcer: (43:17)

And that concludes this week's episode of the Soul Path Sessions podcast with Deborah Meints-Pierson and Brenda Littleton. If you'd like to hear more about living a more soulful life, please subscribe to our channel on your favorite podcast app, and be sure to check out the show notes and links below. For more information from Deborah visit soulpathsessions.com and for Brenda, brendalittleton.com. Thank you for listening, and remember to follow your soul, it knows the way.