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Protected: Why I’m going on a 13-day vision quest and fasting alone in the desert for 4 days in July

Protected: Why I’m going on a 13-day vision quest and fasting alone in the desert for 4 days in July

July 2, 2019July 2, 2019 Tam

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Spikey times...

Cruiser bike adventures along the coast from the Venice Beach Pier to the Pacific Palisades and back again and then picking lemons with @oll_el in her backyard for making lemon squares and snuggles with Zoe the dog. 🍋🚲🌊☀️🏝

I got my first skateboard in 1988 for my 10th birthday. I rode that thing to shreds. Mostly I would just cruise in circles for hours around this basketball court by my house totally oblivious to the b-ball games going on and they just put up with me riding around them. There were some collisions here and there but I just seem to carry on unfazed and unaware of how annoying I probably was to the b-ball players. Skateboarding was such a huge part of my identity until my mid 30’s when I hit a threshold of being injured all the time (concussions, surgeries, sprains, etc). As I began to detox my life in various ways and show up more authentically, I couldn’t figure out how to skateboard in a more casual way without this hardcore self destructive attitude and I got bored. So I just slowly stopped. But I long for that sensation of carving through a deep end of a bowl and the feral competitive enthusiasm of skate culture at its best. Skate culture was one of the first places where I felt I belonged. I dream that I am skating a bowl regularly and wake up from these dreams feeling nostalgic and sad. It’s a strange feeling to fly into SoCal without a skateboard. The only reason I ever flew to the west coast was for skateboarding road trip adventures up and down the west coast between San Diego and Seattle skating all the concrete bowls I would read about in the magazines. Now I come to the west coast as a forest therapy guide and instead of a skateboard, I bring a mandolin. And while these types of identities inform us, they have little to do with who we really are. When we change and do different stuff, it can sometimes feel disorienting, giving the illusion that we don’t know who we are. But I do have a sense of know who I am. I am a middle aged gender variant queer adult guide with wisdom & grief to share. Skateboarding was my medicine until it wasn’t but it will always be a piece of my story. Video is of me skating this little half pipe I built in my friends backyard 15 years ago. This skate ramp then led me to meet my partner of 11 years but that’s another story. Video shot by @cassfrayer #skateordie #skateorlive #themorethanskateboatdworld

“Be Here Now” Ram Dass I read something in a book last year about how Ram Dass kept a picture of one of the most hated people on his alter and when asked about it, he said it was his reminder that everyone is loveable and his practice to work on loving the hardest ones to love. Part of being a guide, is letting go of wrong and right. It’s one of my favorite challenges and it’s why all are welcome in my forest circles. My intention is that so long as you are not causing me physical harm or verbally assaulting me, you are welcome on my forest therapy walks regardless of what your mythology is or is not. Its a different kind of radical and it’s hard af but these are the kinds of edges that motivate me. This is my watch tattoo that my old friend Ram gave me a few years ago and I love it. @fat_ram_tattoo @fatramspumpkintattoo #liminality #beherenow #ramdass #weareallloveable #wayoftheguide #radicalinclusivity

Watched the sun rise yesterday with my favorite human @Oats.and.tea We created and guided a sweet circle of folx for a beautiful day that combined forest therapy, nourishing food and a fun and meaningful winter ceremony filled with magick and capped with some restorative invitational yoga with the humble and tender @shaktihealing Nipmuc Nation #wintersolsticeretreat #winterceremony #morethanhuman #ancestralwisdom #ancestralhealing #circleceremony #forestcircle #winterforesttherapy #lightandshadow #intentionsetting #highmagick

Its been 2 months since Ralph died. A couple weeks ago, my friend Seven took me to this pet cemetery. It was comforting and sad to see see the outpouring of love into these little and some big gravestones of so many beloved animal kin. While parts of me have adjusted to this new normal without Ralph's physical presence, there are other parts that can't quite take it in and the grief hits randomly and acutely. I still hear her, sense her, and imagine her. The grooves of our routines still run deep and I am caught off guard every time I realize I will not be tending to her in a given particular moment. The timing of her slow decline and death with this diminishing light feels poignant. I am bringing all this grief and love and presence to the forest circle tomorrow for our Winter Solstice Retreat and am grateful to be gathering with a full group of folx willing to pause with these rhythms and be in ritual and ceremony together. As I imagine the light returning, I am imagining my heart growing bigger and stronger as I carry all this love and pain with me and keep trying to show up more fully so as to not let this loss dull or mute me. #animalancestorguides