It was 2017. I was visiting Turkey and decided to meet up with two of my dear friends. One of them had just lost her father. Through habit, I checked her chakras silently as soon as we met. Her chakras were what I call beyond open. Beyond open chakras not only rotate beautifully, they are the chakra state of pure love. It is the kind of love that fills you and pours out of you. As my friend was talking about her pain of loss, I could see the beauty of the love pouring out of her. She was activated to be a beacon of love for her family. Her love made her shine. Her love made her beautiful. (I talk about it in this interview.)

I recently came across this excerpt from a mindfulness teacher that I love: 

“In the Lakota/Sioux tradition, a person who is grieving is considered most wakan, most holy. There’s a sense that when someone is struck by the sudden lightning of loss, he or she stands on the threshold of the spirit world. The prayers of those who grieve are considered especially strong, and it is proper to ask them for their help. You might recall what it’s like to be with someone who has grieved deeply. The person has no layer of protection, nothing left to defend. The mystery is looking out through that person’s eyes. For the time being, he or she has accepted the reality of loss and has stopped clinging to the past or grasping at the future. In the groundless openness of sorrow, there is a wholeness of presence and a deep natural wisdom.” ― Tara Brach, True Refuge: Finding Peace and Freedom in Your Own Awakened Heart

If you or someone you love is going through intense grief, look them in the eye and tell them how extraordinarily beautiful they are. Tell them how lucky you are to witness them. If they are not ready to hear you in words, speak to them silently heart to heart. If this is you, extend the same kindness to yourself. And know that as long as you love, you are in service to all life.

With love and light,

Damla

As we are getting closer to the Winter Solstice on December 21st, the days are getting shorter and temperatures colder here in the Northern hemisphere. It feels like days will always be this short but they won’t be, there will be more and more sunlight coming in soon.

Finding out what we are made up of happens at times like these. Just like the seasons, we go through our own life’s cycles where the light may be dim or non-existent. It doesn’t always give you hope to know that light and sunny days exist while you are in the middle of a cold winter.

I invite you to embrace where you are in life and the season you are in, in all its colors and perhaps dimmed light. Perhaps there are visions to be had in the candle-light of grief instead of the sunlight of joy. Perhaps you are meant to discover the quiet treasures in you as opposed to the louder and more obvious ones. Perhaps what you are going through right in this moment has a gift for you even though it may not be in a pretty package.

Here’s what is giving me a lot of joy this season:

​This artist’s video all about the beauty of the sunlight in all seasons​

​This yummy vanilla flavored warming tea​

​These snow plow names selected by school children (My favorite is Jennifer Snowpez 😄)

​This website that lets you find out local places to recycle plastic film and bags (in the US)

​This electrolyte drink supplement that tastes amazing​

​This underwear brand with Baby Yoda, Christmas, and Game Of Thrones design selections (You’ll get 20% off your first order with this link)

​This book that explains Buddhism and what it means to be enlightened​

​This fun addition to my daily intuitive check-in tools collection​

With love and light,

Damla

In Tarot, the second card in the deck is The Magician, coming right after The Fool. The Fool enters life without any assumptions and dives into the adventure that awaits him without any hesitation. Then he becomes The Magician with tools in front of him: his mental faculties (the sword), his feelings and emotions (the cup), his inspiration, courage, and life spark (the wand), and the physical abilities and resources that life presents him (the pentacle). He now has to take all of these and create magic with them.

How does he do it? How does he create magic? He has his right hand towards the sky, the Divine, the quantum realm with an added staff to make sure he doesn’t miss any goodness coming his way. This is his intuitive antenna that he knows how to wield. His left hand reaches down with his index finger pointed down like God in the painting of Michelangelo. There’s no point in receiving all that cosmic goodness if you don’t transmit it down towards the Earth for everyone to benefit from. This way he becomes the receiver and the giver, as well as the transmuter and alchaemizer, using all that he has at his disposal (Divine juju and the Elements of Earth, Fire, Air, and Water).

I had the good fortune of watching Whirling Dervishes live when I lived in Istanbul, Turkey. Whirling Dervishes carry on the tradition of ecstatic dance (Sema) started by Rumi in the 13th century in Turkey. These dancers wear a long skirt and dance to the traditional music of the Mesnevi, spinning, spinning, and spinning without an end. Their spin is a representation of the rotation of the planets and the particles, the cycles of life, and the continuous change we all live in. They start the Sema with both arms folded over their heart, creating the number one with their bodies, which represents the oneness of all beings. The number of The Magician in the Tarot deck is one (The Fool is zero). While they turn, just like The Magician, they point their right hand up and left hand down to indicate being a conduit between heaven and Earth.

What does all this mean for your healing journey? It means that you get to be a Magician too. You get to dance with what life throws at you like a Whirling Dervish, ecstatic from the beauty of it all. You get to take what life has given you, all of it, and make something with it. You can make a new thought, a new conversation, a new dress, a new meal, a new connection, a new you, and whatever else your heart can imagine. It means that you are not helpless. There is a divine spark of opportunities, resources, love, connection, and joy wanting to reach you if you just open your receiving antenna and reach out your hand. You are surrounded by resources (just like the ones on the table for The Magician). You also have inner resources: your healing story is one of them and what you have already learned transmuting into goodness is another. You are not a helpless creature, you never were. You are simply learning the magic of your life in all its colors, shapes, feelings, sensations, emotions, music, and dramatic beauty.

Take this in, breathe with this truth, and today, start creating some magic.

If you would like to experience your own private Tarot reading and healing, reach out to me.

With love and light,

Damla

P. S. 1 The Magician card picture is from the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot Deck created in 1909. It is considered the most traditional Tarot deck.

P. S. 2 Below is a feminine representation of The Magician from The Muse Tarot. Can you see the traditional elements in this new rendition?

P. S. 3 Here’s the story of my Grandmother and how she practiced magic and created beauty with her very limited resources.

How many times have you felt disappointed and not appreciated, loved, and understood by the people around you? How many times have you found yourself in a conversation where you felt you aren’t getting what you need or you aren’t being heard? How many days and nights have you spent overthinking, overanalyzing, and over-ruminating about your conversations, relationships, and encounters with others?

Here’s what comes to my mind when I think about this. My daughter had a picture book when she was a toddler. There’s a lost duckling looking for her mom. She keeps asking everyone and everything she meets (including a dog, a chicken, and a bulldozer) the same question: “Are you my mother?”. Isn’t this what you are doing when you ask someone for compassion, love, understanding, and connection?

Here’s the difficult part: someone who is malnourished and not compassionate with themselves cannot nourish you or be compassionate with you. Talking to someone who hasn’t given themselves the nourishment and care that they need is like talking to a wall and hoping that they will see, hear, appreciate, and love you.

We all have a responsibility to meet our energetic needs and heal our wounds with or without help. This is your basic and most human responsibility. When you do meet your needs and take time to nourish yourself, you become the mom you have been looking for and no longer need to keep looking for love where there isn’t.

Let’s chat to figure out your next nourishing and healing steps.

With love, light, and compassion,

Damla

We all wish it, we wish that we could be free from uncertainty. We wish that when we go for something, things could unfold exactly as we envisioned and expected. And that life could follow a pattern we approve of. Yet it isn’t so. Life can treat us in a million unexpected ways.

Freedom from uncertainty means that you allow, accept, and roll with it all. You don’t escape from the randomness, you celebrate it. You get deeply involved in it. You decide to treat everything as a gift and in turn, everything becomes a gift.

You realize that even when things feel like they are out of control, there is one thing that keeps you anchored to what matters, it is your attention. Your loving and allowing gaze can shift and transform everything into a blissful adventure. That is what I call healing.

With love, light, and gratitude,

Damla

I wrote about my favorite non-fiction book club selections in this blog post for Seacoast Moms Blog. The selections may surprise you!

READ HERE

2014. My daughter is two years old. I am in my parents’ house with her in a small Turkish town visiting for the summer. She is still nursing and I am exhausted. One of my go to replenishments is reading. One night I finish reading Thomas Ashley Farrand’s book True Stories Of Spiritual Power. In it he talks about greeting a new born baby with the Jnana Mudra, the hand gesture of wisdom and the spiritual understanding that the Divine and you are one. The baby he meets for the first time puts her hands in this mudra for a few seconds. Thomas feels that this was his sign for proving him the existence of past lives and soul memory.

The next morning, my parents and I take my daughter to a public playground. As she climbs on the slide another little girl catches my eye. She is about 4 years old, gleefully lingering at the top of the slide. For an eternal moment, she looks deeply into my eyes, smiles, and holds her hand in jnana mudra. I smile back at her. In this little town where there has never been a yoga studio, this little being has just greeted me with the eternal sign of oneness. At that moment I am certain of two things: I have a soul connection with this being even though I have never seen her again, and to quote Shakespeare: there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy.

With love and light,

Damla

Herr Schwarz (Mr. Black) was the manager I worked with while I wrote my Master’s thesis as a Business Process Re-engineer at a well-known German truck plant. In his 60s, he always opted for an apple and multivitamin powder mixed in a glass of water instead of regular lunch. ‘I am saving my appetite for a really big dinner!’ he would say. Our desks were across from each other. Through the office gossip, I knew that he had turned down being a Senior Manager multiple times. He wanted to live simply and with little stress. He was the first person I met who had chosen his own definition of success instead of climbing an invisible ladder.

One day a young woman working in the same office came by his desk. It was her birthday and her officemates had surprised her with a birthday cake and a celebration. She said to Herr Schwarz ‘This is the happiest day of my life!’. Herr Schwarz looked at her straight in the eye and said ‘You have no idea how much more happiness is waiting for you!’.

I remember his words often. Here he was, cruising into his 70s, consciously choosing what his life looked like, and talking about anticipating unbelievable happiness.

In the midst of all that we are going through as a species and all the bleak news, I want to remind you: you have no idea how much more happiness is waiting for you!

With love, light, and gratitude for all my life teachers,

Damla

Here’s a quick update on what I have been doing and what I love this month:

I am continuing to write in and enjoy my 40 Days Of Gratitude Journal. She is patient with me as I find my way through feeling into the questions and pages. I am on day 14 and loving having a moment to discover the nectar in my day before I go to bed.

I am sharing more and more of my daily moments at my Instagram stories. Follow me at Instagram to join me through my day.

I am diving into this beautiful book together with a friend. For some reason I keep hugging the book. I am sooo excited to read her!

I am so happy to have discovered this brand of natural deodorants. So far this is the only natural deodorant that I came across that actually works! You can get a 10% off discount with the code ‘adropofom’.

I discovered this amazing podcast where the poet reads his enchanted life healing poems. His words are nourishment, medicine, and fresh water on a hot hot day.

I loved watching this documentary, especially because I live close to all the places they mention in it.

My recent private clients include adults, an IT Department going through restructuring, a teenager with screen time issues, a beloved dog who was experiencing anxiety, and an energetically blocked corner cubicle, all with beautifully felt and seen results. If you feel like a part of your life or someone you love needs energetic support, clearing or better flow, reach out to me.

With love, light, and tons of gratitude,

Damla