Hi Friend,

I'm sending you this around sunset on Spring Equinox. I've spent quite some time today listening to what it means to be in balance, and I hope you have been able to do at least some of that, as well.

A story has come to me to share with you. A story about last March. When I was in quite a difficult situation.

I still want to preserve anonymity, so let's just say that a series of really difficult things happened in regards to an organization I was closely engaged with, causing immense stress and leading to me ending my relationship with them.

Spring equinox was when I had my last closing conversation with that organization. I still remember it: I had practiced whittling down what I wanted to say until it was clear, gentle, and light.

Almost immediately, I slept way better. My internal balance was quickly restored.

Spring is not just about the pretty flowers and buds on the trees.

Spring is precarious. Birth is uncertain. Lambing season brings death in addition to new life. Snow melt means fast runoffs: prepare for things to be slippery, uncertain, and even dangerous. Mudslides are common. There’s a lot of cleaning out that we often need to do. It can be really, really tumultuous. And yet - there is a pathway for life.

I knew I needed some of my own healing. I turned to the natural world: specifically to horses. I grew up with horses - in some ways, I was raised by a herd of horses. I knew how much healing they offer us humans. I immediately found ways to connect - it turns out I live in an area where there are a lot of horses, and, thus, a lot of opportunities to connect with them.

Re-kindling that relationship has impacted my writing, thinking, teaching, and coaching in ways that are deeply somatic and not always easy to name but immensely powerful.

A year later … Krissy and I just returned from leading a really amazing Circular Time Workshop in the Appalachian mountains in Tennessee that brought together academics, nonprofit leaders, artists, Indigenous ceremonialists, and other folks from the local community. It’s so amazing to have been developing this tool for seven years and now bringing it to people who are so deeply appreciative of it. I’m seeing ways it can help organizations work together across sectors and disciplines in really meaningful ways.+

As part of that, we had a (very brief) moment of reflecting on another Spring moment - March 2020. The beginning of the Pandemic. The ramifications of that moment, five years ago, are still being played out - and the story of what that moment 'meant' is constantly being re-constituted.

As I write this, Krissy has just returned from Buffalo, where she was helping her mom who is entering the next stage of cancer treatment. Things are going as well as they can! Thank you for your continued support! Next week we go to California for Bioneers and at least two in-person gatherings that we are co-leading. Towards that, I'm thinking a lot about how I'm re-Membering the Origins of Democracy (several things are shifting for me in how I'm working with that story). let us know if you will be in the bay area then (end of March)!

Later in April, I'm giving two significant talks to different online schools: one on Doctrine of Discovery x Technology as part of the School of Wise Innovation's Spring Cultivator and the other on Officiating Weddings for a friend's Mystery School which trains priestesses in April. And then, along with two of my elders, I'm leading this years, "If Quakers Were Witches..." workshop in Massachusetts for Beltane/early May.

And we are in the process of gathering together the next cohort for the ReMembering Course! Its such a special time!

I'm so grateful for all of these things - even if they mean I'm pretty busy right now. Krissy can go and support her mom. That in itself is a blessing! In my better moments, I can even appreciate working on my taxes, because a) it reminds me of how far I've come since I started doing this work, and b) of how much I benefit from public goods, like roads and clean water and social services, including education and health care and research into things like cancer care. It is really sad to see how many people have misunderstood what a lot of that money has been going towards. We need more collective support, not less.

Looking back at that experience last March, I learned so much that I continue to reference, and which continues to inform my teaching and my 1-1 work with people like you.

How I am storying that moment in my own mind is shifting, too - I'm focusing less on the pain and bitterness and more on what I've learned/learning - about myself, about our world, about communications, about this bigger work.

There’s a profound way of dancing with life that I keep learning. Including where to lean in and where to withdraw, where to prune, and where to keep a space open for what is coming. About how to hear the rhythm of the Peace that this land offers us.

There's a way of moving with life that acknowledges that we are part of the continuation of life, part of the holiness of life, regardless of how others may try to portray us. It's part of what I keep paying attention to when I work with people like you in both courses and 1-1 work and consulting: what's your dance. What's our collective dance. Where's our balance.

And that dance, that continuation even amidst all sorts of angst, feels like such an important thing to lift up this Spring Equinox.

Last night, Krissy and I co-led a circular time conversation at an organization’s board meeting. Powerful reflections emerged from the group. At the end, I said, our earth is made from cycles and relationality. Keep noticing how time is embedded in those relationships and those cycles.

Just after our call, I looked out the window and there were three deer, wandering through the land we share with them. We’ve been watching for them - this is the season they often come here. I stopped my other activities and just watched them for a while.

Sharing some time-space together. Eating. ReMembering.

Thank you for all the ways you seek balance, even amongst some really heavy and hard things.

Many blessings on this spring equinox,

Sara Jolena

ps - thank you for everyone who came to our recent ReMembering Course Info Webinar! Please let me know if you are ready to register!