I remember when I was 24, watching a talk online by an artist. She had slides being projected up front as she spoke. I don’t remember her name. I don’t remember the topic she was speaking about.
What I do remember is that at one point, she projected a photo of one of her first paintings. And she made fun of how “bad” it was, cringing to the audience, expressing embarrassment at everyone seeing this early work as she skipped ahead to the next slide. Audience members laughed as the speaker expressed her distaste.
My body recoiled.
It felt so wrong to turn on a creation and belittle it. A creation that your body brought into existence, in a context of a time past. A creation through which you explored, became, were changed, and thus affected the entire Great Web.
I knew then, in my bones: I will celebrate the first!
The playfulness, the curiosity and exploration. The courage, when it’s required, to try something you’ve never tried before, and see what it feels like in your body.
***
Not having an audience helps me be more present to my experience, to playfully create, listen to the whispers, and have Many Firsts! And, for the purpose of the message, I’ll gladly share:
My first time playing with watercolors as an adult, in 2015:
The first face I ever tried painting with watercolors, 2016:
My first weaving, completed a few weeks ago. My intention was to explore this new medium and play (and never show the result):
The first bulb I ever planted in soil (this February) and watched in utter glee as it changed day to day! (Here’s a photo from today!)
I know that the result/visible-to-human-eye evidence is never the same as the lived experience. And, many firsts don’t have a physical “result” that can be shown in a photo.
The first time I used the mini-excavator at my last job, in 2023.
The first time I led a song in a singing circle, Fall of 2022.
The first time I tracked a sensation in my body and pendulated to a neutral-to-pleasant sensation, and then back again (2021).
The first time I shared a song with a tree.
The first time I called a dear friend when my body was experiencing too-much-too-fast-too-soon, even though calling felt uncomfortable, as it was new. Trusting being seen in that texture, strengthening the web, allowing myself to be seen and held by others.
The first time I practiced sending energy healing to someone who was not in my physical surroundings.
The first time I had a ceremony on my birthday – though I might not have called it that. A walk up to a lookout on a nearby trail. A candle. Cards. A journal. Intention. Gratitude.
***
Here’s another first that’s being called to be shared today:
I remember the first grounding meditation I ever led for other humans, on Thanksgiving in 2023. I was a Workaway volunteer at the time, and we had a group chat thread among the women. I posted the invitation the evening prior.
That morning I rolled up two of my rag-rugs alongside a cushion, and carefully packed them into a bag along with a grounding roll-on oil. I took the stairs up out from the cabin where I slept, then headed down to the open meadow where we’d meet. I wasn’t sure who would come. I unrolled a rug and sat on it, soaking in the morning sun and centering my energy best I could amid the nerv-cited anticipation as I waited.
Two fellow volunteers came up the hill that morning to the meadow. I didn’t know them well.
I led them through a 10-minute or so meditation, similar to the Intuition Medicine style I’d been practicing since learning with Caroline Lewis for a year and a half.
*
A few months later, I led my Story Mammal group on a 10-minute grounding visualization during our monthly virtual call. I had been unslept and felt a lot of emotions that morning, almost skipping the call entirely. But I showed up just as I was, tears and all. And when it came time, I guided the group through a grounding.
I received positive feedback; some wished they had a recording. It was my intention to make one at some point, if it felt right, but I never had capacity / Right Timing called for my attention to be elsewhere. Then came winter/spring 2024, a very challenging personal season.
After landing in the east this past fall, and gently stepping back into the world, I could sense a part of me wanted to share publicly again. But ugh, another Substack? Each platform I pondered brought up internet uck feelings. A too-fast environment. Exposed.
I didn’t push it, didn’t force it. I trusted the unfolding.
A few weeks into November, I noticed I was missing my daily grounding practice, and that I wanted the structure of a guided audio to support those roots. On November 20, I bought a year’s subscription to Insight Timer, an app I had used during Flagstaff time, but not this year. With a subscription, I could download for offline use.
At the end of that month, in tandem with increased capacity to do so, I started going to services at a local Unitarian Universalist church.
I wondered what I would say, if I were to give a weekly sermon.
How would I weave together what I’m noticing and experiencing in my life, sharing my lived experience such that others might benefit.
By the Winter Solstice, my body told me to stop going to the church services. I did a 13 Sacred Nights practice, ever attuned to the subtle whispers. 2025 began. I was still on-and-off searching for a second job, trusting what arose each day, staying true to my capacity.
And, this desire to create publicly continued to rise.
Then, one day, I was searching for a just-right guided visualization on Insight Timer. While there are many beautiful options, I was struggling to find what I was looking for with the search mechanism. I’d start listening to a guided track and abandon a few seconds in. There’s a particular style and energy that resonate with me, and I wasn’t finding it easily.
Then the spark: What if I created on Insight Timer?
What about sharing grounding meditations and talks and songs?
There was definite energy here. A curiosity. A nervous excitement. A doorway which hadn’t been there before. An opening. Expansion. Possibility.
A sliver of doubts became present. But they were from an old paradigm that had been losing power all these years, thoughts like I don’t have any “trainings,” just [just! haha oh the mind] two Reiki 1 certificates, two and a half years of practicing Intuition Medicine and Can I call myself a meditation teacher?
With my deep roots, I could witness those thoughts, which floated through, as I knew they were from my decades immersed in a culture which valued trainings from “experts” over lived experience. I have years of lived experience being with emotions, connecting with the Great Mother, developing spiritual practices, being with uncomfortable-but-tolerable sensations (SE), attuning to subtle energy, living cyclically with the seasons, studying trauma healing from a variety of lenses, nurturing my Inner Child, shedding old identities, being fully human.
I felt into a stronger pull, a curiosity: As someone familiar and comfortable with the written word, what would it feel like to create and share in this new way, vocally?
Who would I become by sharing in this way, being seen expressing my true essence?
I wanted to find out.
It felt aligned. And the container felt safe—the people here were seeking spiritual connection.
I let the idea marinate, allowing space to become clear on my intention, until one day my body took action and filled out the application to be a teacher.
I was welcomed to my teacher account on February 11. A little more time went by before I recorded my first “something,” using the Voice Recordings app on my phone.
I uploaded the audio and submitted my first track for publishing. Then, I waited.
About a week later, I received an email with feedback saying the audio quality was too low, the track could not be published.
I celebrated the first attempt, and learned how to make the audio better with an online program. I resubmitted.
A week later, I received news that my first track had been approved and was now published!
The past two months I have joyfully been dedicating time to this “secret project,” not telling anyone in my tactile life about it, such that I could have the space and freedom to explore. I’ve been creating at a loose pace of around one track every week. Coming as I am that week/day, even if the conditions aren’t “ideal.”
Through practice here, I’ve been growing a new muscle—which could be called “Share Now, Trust, and Onwards We Go.”
I record once. There are always things I would change, ways it could be “better.” The program I’ve been using to improve the audio quality of my phone-recordings tends to cut off my “s’s.” A spoken “your legs” on a body scan becomes “your leg” in the final audio. Sometimes I’ll go into GarageBand, find an “s” sound elsewhere, trim it, and copy paste it into the place with a missing “s.” And sometimes I skip it; I cannot relisten to all 20 minutes and fix every “s” the technology deleted! I am not being precious.
My body has been well-trained in the colonial paradigm which teaches that perfection, high quality is value. That my value is the value of my creations, my work. As follows, this body knew well the feeling of anticipating judgement. Anticipating being put in a box, trapped, frozen into a view by onlookers which is not my True fluid self.
And so, I am consciously practicing a new way. Allowing what is. Slowly shedding old protections of appearances. Allowing others to view something made through this body and have their own judgements, to see me some way which will never be my Full Fluid Self.
My body is changing, and I can feel it! It’s wild. It’s incredible. It’s been the deep roots I’m growing (we’re growing) into the Earth and her web which is teaching me the value in full humanity, allowing what is, our Spirits. Growing deep trust in the Spirit I am, the Spirit we are, the Truth that can’t be taken away, no matter what others project or perceive. (And, largely thanks to SE practices/somatic awareness.)
A year ago today, it was a genuine celebration, deep gratitude & amazement that my body was able to be in a grocery store for one hour. (Someone else drove me there, dropped me off & picked me up.) That was a new growth-edge for my body’s capacity at the time, something I hadn’t been able to do for 8 months during that life season. Today, I’m reborn. Capacity continuing to expand. But that’s another story.
In the spirit of Celebrating the First, and to celebrate my 36 years, today I am sharing with you the existence of these vocal creations. These meditations, talks, and songs.
There is a part of me that would like another 6-12 months to explore without eyes. To hone. To learn what I like making.
And, I like to make the journey visible. The unfolding.
Zooming out to a timeline of millions of years, of 5 previous mass extinctions on this planet, I joyfully share these tiny creations as they grow me, transform me, into someone more aligned with my True Essence.
I wonder what collection of resources may be here a year from now, five years from now—should this path still feel aligned.
Sending much celebratory joy to any Firsts out there in your lived experience.
Much love + light,
Rebecca