Denise Colby Integrative Wellness

Dia de los Mu***os is fast approaching. The farmers market flower stand was practically bursting with marigolds, and just like last year, I’m kicking myself for not remembering to plant marigolds in July for October cutting. Mine are leggy and small, all but wrapped up for the year. I can see the appeal. Their bright golden color and honeyed scent could wake even the sleepiest of the departed. My home is filled with their intoxicating fragrance.

Every year I look at the celebration with fresh eyes, and every year it remains complicated for me. I buy the marigolds to join in the festivities, because who doesn’t love a good spiritual party, and because I know that there’s a deeper truth here for me that I haven’t quite gotten to yet.

Last month, I sat through a lengthy workshop where the facilitator shoved down our throats that we needed to be 1000% grateful to our ancestors and to everything that has ever happened to us because without them, we would not be sitting here today. I find these kids of facilitators mildly insufferable. There’s a certain truth to what they’re saying, but the presentation is beyond unhelpful and when held up as a sort of gateway to spiritual deliverance, it is little more than a recipe for bypass.

Yesterday, I sat in a different kind of circle. One with more spaciousness and less certainty. One that held room for the deep pain and fracture that some of our bloodlines carry. A circle that held a deep respect for simply contemplating the question of how to honor complicated ancestors. A circle that acknowledged that sometimes the supportive ancestors are 10, 20, 30 generations back. They’re unknown to us, and yet, if we close our eyes and get very quiet, we can feel their breath as the breeze in our sails. We can still hear their wisdom as the compassion in our own hearts.

When it was my turn to share, I spoke of my contemplation on what kind of ancestor I hope to be. Am I weaving a life that my children might someday joyfully share at a circle such as this? Am I being a friend, a mother, an auntie to everyone in my web? Maybe some of us come in when lineages have gone too far off course. Maybe we come in to see it for what it is and then weave something new from the wreckage. Maybe in that weaving, we leave the door open for anyone in the line to join us in the healing and in the new way of being, but we can’t make them cross the threshold. We just open up the doors and scatter the golden honeyed petals to light the way and soothe their journey. But the path is up to them. And maybe I line my own heart with golden petals each year, applying the medicine I have yet to find anywhere else. Maybe I use them to light my own way home.

Blessings to you all, regardless of how beautiful and complicated your ancestry might be. Go find some marigolds, and breathe them into your own heart. 🍯 🌼

“This a crucible, endless ritual
circled by fire, not asking to be saved and
in your crucible, all is touchable
burn away, only you remain.”
- Ayla Nereo

Are we all feeling that full moon?! Yikes. The Libra-Aries dynamic heightened and strained by the Mars-Pluto cross - if you weren’t at least a little uncomfortable, congratulations, you found a very nice rock to hide under.

In the next few weeks, Pluto will traverse the final degree of Capricorn and make its final entrance into Aquarius, remaining there for the next 24 years. On the national stage, it feels like we’re all holding our breath, waiting to see what the new era will ask of us. It is similar for me personally. As Pluto leaves Capricorn, I feel the intense gravity of completion, as well as that twinge of fear at the uncertainty of the next phase.

The 16-year transit of Pluto through Capricorn was nothing short of a gauntlet for me. A crucible that asked nothing less than total surrender as everything I thought I knew and trusted burned away. The transit ripped through my first house and dipped into the second, upending my sense of self, and then in the last few years, destroying all that stood between me and my self worth. Pluto 1st house transits are always a doozy, but this one was off the charts as it would spend the whole time squaring my Libra stellium of Jupiter-Saturn-midheaven-Pluto. All of this learning would come through a take-no-prisoners reckoning of all of my relationships.

Capricorn is ruled by Saturn, with themes of structure, foundation, law and order, righteous justice. The transit kicked off with legal proceedings arriving at my door, setting straight some of the abuse I endured in my childhood. The wound was unceremoniously ripped open, the reckoning had begun, and nothing, least of all me, could ever go back to the way it was. Years of intense personal work later, Pluto made its way to the final degrees of my first house, coming into an exact square with my natal Pluto on its way out. This was the worst stretch of time of my entire life. I had two kids and to save them and myself, I had to sit in that crucible with my eye fixed singularly on the truth of myself, and surrender as all else burned away.

As Pluto made its way into the second house, things got better, a little bit lighter. But it was still in a square with my natal Pluto, and as its final act, sent me through a deep dark night of the soul, asking that I descend into the depths and recover my self worth from the hands of those that I had granted the authority to determine it for me.

We’ve still got a few weeks left, but already I’m seeing the signs of new life. The crucible has cooled and I can begin to discover this new form. As Pluto enters Aquarius, it will harmoniously trine my sun, Venus, and Mercury in Gemini, and all of those Libra planets. I have a lot of hope for the future. I’m extending that hope to our collective future. May we all learn the lessons of the past and come into a more harmonious future. May we all be unflinching in our courage and strength. May we all come to rest in the arms of each other and the collective. All seasons end, and there is always a new beginning right around the corner 🙏🏻💖 🌕

🙋‍♀️🙋‍♀️

Most of the time, the playground taunts and dramas that my children report are shockingly similar to the ones I experienced myself at their age. Surprisingly little has changed in playground politics in the last 40 years. But a few days ago, the “UNO Reverse” arrived on the scene. It seems to be their equivalent to our “I am rubber you are glue…” except so, so much better. The card itself is held up like a talisman as its bearer exclaims “UNO REVERSE,” immediately sending the taunt straight back at its source. Our attempts at shielding had so many words and took so long to spit out that the bully was already well on their way, satisfied with their victory, before you could even get halfway though. But this is fast, immediate, and for now on the playground, incredibly effective.

The card isn’t even necessary- you can invoke its powers through words alone. I watched one of my kids wail and crumple into a frustrated little ball of disempowerment because his brother kept “UNO reversing” all of his zingers. I watched that same kid (the one who had crumpled), sneak a card to school that day and brandish it like a shield around the playground, deftly deflecting any playground trash talk that came his way. He even defended a friend with it now and then. When I picked him up from school he told me all about it, and said that one of the kids got mad and went and told the principal that my son had brought a card to school, knowing that cards are against the rules. I asked what the principal said and my son shrugged and said, “nothing.” I hope the principal laughed as much as I did at the irony of the situation.

The use of the card is completely genius in a way that only these young ones could have imagined. In two short words it says, “the negativity you are flinging at me says more about you than it does about me.” Or “that’s not mine, you can have it back.” Or “I am nothing but a mirror for your own inner experience.” Genius.

I wonder how it could have been if all of our inner children could have had their own “UNO Reverse” cards when they needed them. If my own child self could have held one close to her heart and been granted the authority and wisdom to wield it against her mother, against a culture that would give her a million reasons to hate herself. How different everything would have been.

Maybe it isn’t too late for all of us to bring this talisman into our toolbox, both for our younger selves and our current self. Rather than absorb and confuse who we are with how we’re treated, to stand up and say, “No. That’s not mine. You can have it back, thanks.” Take a cue from the young ones… they’re really onto something here…

I asked the roses if I could pick some, and before I’d even finished the question, they enthusiastically answered, “Oh my goodness, where have you been all summer, you have not picked us enough! Please, take some and come back more often!”
I asked the ancient white sage, and she answered, “…only what you need…” So I gathered some leaves that had already withered and dried on the branches, and returned a few days later with a bucket of worm compost and a bucket of water.

Make your life a prayer. Your reverence weaves the medicine. You become the medicine. 🙏🏻🩵🌿🪷

Fall has come to the garden. California has an exceptionally long growing season, and so fall is an interesting mix of flowers and foliage dying back while still harvesting cucumbers and tomatoes and squash well through October. The chard and greens that struggled with the summer heat are now bountiful as the climate returns to their comfort zone. I’m usually planning my winter garden around now, pulling out what’s ready to be released to make room for the rugged and frost-hardy winter crops. But this year things are a little different.

These past few years, the garden has been my teacher and my Eden. A place where I experience reciprocity most naturally. I plant so much for the pollinators, spiders, and birds. I leave vines around just to give the lizards somewhere to scamper. I use organic compost, making some of it myself, and I never spray for pests. Nature usually takes care of itself just fine. And in return I get all the beauty, as well as a bounty of vegetables and fruit.

But this year, my Eden was breached by small tunneling rodents who seemed not to eat a single thing from my garden, but who just love to tunnel the dirt away from the roots of mature plants, causing the entire plant to die. I overplant and compost heavily, so the garden still mostly did just fine (though I couldn’t share as much with the neighbors as usual), but still, losing one mature plant that I grew from seed after another was disheartening.

We tried everything to discourage the rodents, but they were unfortunately only too happy to find their Eden within mine. I have a value system around not killing things as part of making my way back into right relationship with the earth. To distance myself from the capitalistic imperialism of a culture that sees nature as only a resource to take from. To move away from the idea that to be human is to somehow be more divine or more important than all the other living beings that exist.

And so here I have been (and continue to be) with these rodents destroying the beauty and my food. Reminding me that it’s not so simple. If I let them overrun my garden, then I’ll have to buy more from the farmers market or even the grocery store, and I’m completely delusional if I somehow think that those choices are more humane than trapping a few rodents in my own garden. Also, I do eat meat as my body becomes frail if I avoid it for too long, and while I try to be as humane and sustainable in those choices as I can be, I also have to face the hypocrisy in getting this torn up over trapping a couple of rodents when I probably consume about a whole chicken a month…

Mindfulness without bypass is a real beast sometimes…

So this winter, we will take the time to dig up the beds and install wire mesh, the best possible deterrent. And hopefully next year, my husband and I don’t have to struggle through an existential crisis around whether or not to trap the rodents 😂 An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

The lesson from the garden this season was a good one. There’s no one right answer or right response to the challenges we face every day - it’s more complicated than we like to admit. How do we live according to our values when rigidly adhering to one value would violate another? The kindest choice you can make isn’t always a neat, linear equation. The variables are infinite. I spent a whole summer weighing the complexities of interdependence and never got to an answer that felt any better than, “just do your best.” The experience made me kinder and more compassionate for people who struggle to live in alignment with their value system. Sometimes it’s just complicated. Just do your best.

As the garden of your life also winds down, what lessons have you learned? How have they changed you? What are you looking to change during this season of darkness so that you can bloom better come spring? Just keep doing your best 🍂🍁🍂

Self help spirituality is rife these days with what feels like “get fixed quick” schemes and people promising you that they know the simple secret no one else is telling you. I see books and podcasts and trending articles featuring a dizzying array of “life hacks” so you can be rich, live forever, make your dreams come true, get people to do what you want them to do, never get sick etc etc etc… I don’t know when “spirituality” became the desperate grasping at control over what was always uncontrollable, but I do know that it makes me feel tired. It’s the same old story in a new costume. We’re afraid. And we drink the snake oil that promises to banish our fears and deliver us to eternal safety, but there is no such thing. And our fear of our fears just gets ever more amplified.

I don’t want to hear about how you’ve “cracked the code” of life. I want to hear of the depths you traversed and the years that you languished there. Tell me what it taught you. Tell me of your Mariana Trenches, and I’ll take you to the deep mysteries of mine. Tell me how you get up each day, in all of the uncertainties it holds, and look for the beauty. Tell me the beauty you see. Tell me how often your heart breaks, and mine will break for you in the witnessing.

Tell me your greatest fears, and I’ll hear the story of your courage.

What if instead of bending life to our will, we let life bend and shape us? Would we become wise and beautiful like the trees? Joyful like the hummingbirds? Would we learn, finally, to sing with the sun and moon?

The Fall solstice is upon us. This year, I’m aware of the balance between dark and light in a way that isn’t always true for me. Generally, to me the autumn solstice signals the descent into darkness, the turn into our inner world, the shift towards letting go and release. Deep in my bones, I feel each of Persephone’s steps as she makes her descent to the underworld, taking the light with her as she goes. At the same time, the sun lingering on the horizon, rising low and slow, creates an ever more dazzling display in my office as it catches the cut glass crystals in the window, and I’m reminded that there is always beauty, even in the darkest of times.

But this year I feel the pause. I’ve been deep in my own seasons of change, an apparently longer cycle than the circadian ones we’re used to. I said the other day that I feel like I’m in the “primordial soup” phase of whatever cycle I’m in - much has been broken down, but only shadows of what’s to come drift beneath the surface. The start of a wing here, scaffolding for an expanded heart there. I feel Demeter’s mixture of grief and joy; such fullness, and such loss.

The pomegranates arrive, reminding us that there is jeweled sweetness here. Bringing light to dark places. So it is in my soup as well. While it’s uncomfortable to feel so deeply unknown to myself, there’s also a kindness and spaciousness that comes when nothing can be known. I find a snake skin, an owl feather, and take them as signs from the divine of my eventual reassembly because why not? We make our own magic.

May you make your own magic today, and may it carry you well through the dark unknowns. May you feel the balance of darkness and light that is in us all. May this time of transition serve your highest good. 🙏🏻🌈 🍁 🍂 🐍 🦉

Poem credit: Nayyirah Waheed

INVITATION by Mary Oliver
Oh do you have time
to linger
for just a little while
out of your busy
and very important day
for the goldfinches
that have gathered
in a field of thistles
for a musical battle,
to see who can sing
the highest note,
or the lowest,
or the most expressive of mirth,
or the most tender?
Their strong, blunt beaks
drink the air
as they strive
melodiously
not for your sake
and not for mine
and not for the sake of winning
but for sheer delight and gratitude –
believe us, they say,
it is a serious thing
just to be alive
on this fresh morning
in the broken world.
I beg of you,
do not walk by
without pausing
to attend to this
rather ridiculous performance.
It could mean something.
It could mean everything.
It could be what Rilke meant, when he wrote:
You must change your life.
Mary Oliver
American poet Mary Oliver was born on this day in 1935. If she were still with us, she would be 89 years old.
What did Mary Oliver do with her one wild and precious life? She survived a difficult childhood. She loved a woman for 40 years. She wrote poems that will stand the test of time. She touched us. (Thank you Maggie Smith)
Kudos to the photographer(s)...

What’s everyone working on these days? Personally, I’ve been taking a very deep dive into internalized misogyny, internalized shame, the internalization of a culture that is loudly blaring at you every second of every day that you’re flawed, disgusting even, and definitely not “enough” in a constant attempt to get you to buy something, anything, that promises to fix you. And you better get yourself fixed quickly before someone notices…We live in a culture that judges ruthlessly and the most obedient, those with the most cooperative bodies and opinions, are rewarded well. The split inside our own selves is highlighted currently on the national stage. Judging and hatred of anything straying from the old guard versus at least an attempt at making peace. The patriarchy won't go down without a fight. I stay out of politics and focus instead on the war within. The one we truly need to win if we hope to ever find peace out there.

I’ve been on a path of making peace with myself for over 20 years. It feels somehow crazy to say that out loud. And yet, this last year or two has felt like some of the most difficult and confronting work I’ve done over the course of those decades. I grew up in a household that did little but twist the confusing knife of culture even deeper and further. My mother would constantly go on about how much better women were than men. How useless men were. And then when I was preparing to go to college, my parents would not let up on the trope that I was only going to school to get my MRS (Mrs.) degree. How confusing. This was actually a very old trope, before my time even, but as my parents saw me rising up, they couldn't help but find a way to shove me down. Themselves victims of a twisted system, my success was a threat to the precarious foundation of their selfhood.

In recent days I’ve turned a sort of a corner in this work, unwinding a few more sources of self-judgement that I’d known about for years, but just hadn’t known what to do with or how to resolve. I’m grateful for the people in my life who somehow know to say just the right thing at just the right time so that I can finally see through to the other side. I’m grateful for the deep alchemy I enter into together with my clients. As I help them unwind their knots of pain and contraction, my own soften as well. Sometimes we can see so clearly in other people that which our survival fears blind us to in ourselves. We allow in others what we cannot allow in ourselves. I remind myself daily that I am no exception to the beauty I see all around me.

When I go to ceremonies or retreats, I am always so touched by a community of people, all dedicated to making peace with themselves and their loved ones. We are not alone in the fight for peace. There are so many unique and beautiful ways to be in the world. There are a thousand ways to kneel and kiss the ground. (Rumi)

The journey continues, always. May we all find our paths to peace. May you know always, deeply in your heart, that you are a part of the beauty in the world. There was never even a question.

-Nayyirah Waheed

“Attention is the beginning of devotion.”

It’s one of my favorite Mary Oliver quotes, and one that’s been on my mind a lot lately. Every so often, I do an exercise with a client where I help them generate a list of things they value - ideas, people, things, belief systems etc - and then (with courageous honesty) we compare that list with how they’re actually living their life. It’s a way of evaluating whether you’re actually walking the walk, or if it’s just all talk. If you’ve never done this kind of exercise before, you might be surprised at the chasm between your stated values and your behaviors. We all like to believe that we live value-centered lives, but as soon as it becomes mildly inconvenient, and especially when no one is watching, we see how well the rubber really meets the road. As we deepen into a culture of distraction, self-centeredness, and shrinking attention spans, it feels like it takes more and more effort to both recognize and close the gap.

I find devotion to be the highest organizing principle of my being, and so I spend a lot of time thinking about it. We are all devoted to something, whether we choose to see it that way or not. Once I got through the muck and mud of my childhood, my prompt next order of business was to figure out how to be a kinder human in this world, starting with my closest relationships, which, while we hate to admit it, are always the hardest. Devotion was the single most transformative energy of that time. It is our devotion that drives our choices when things become inconvenient or when no one is looking (which, frankly, is most of the time). It is devotion to honesty and love that asks us to look at our behaviors and do better, rather than justify and excuse. If we do not do the work of focusing our devotion, our habit patterns will do it for us, and so we’re well-served by paying attention to our attention.

Over the last 6 weeks or so, I’ve been going through my own kind of reckoning. A deeper and deeper honing of my commitments to open-hearted presence, kindness, and truth. Becoming more aware of the places where I cut corners, numb out, or justify little deviations from my values when life becomes inconvenient. All the ways in which I poison my own well. And so I’ve returned to watching my attention, back to the very basics of Buddhist training. Holding myself accountable for the thousand tiny choices we have in just a day of this one precious life. We can do hard things. We can do beautiful things. And it all starts by paying attention 💖 💫 ☄️

“Here on the earth, I see so much beauty.
My mother, she shows it to me.”

-scenes from the summer garden. I planted seeds with the pollinators in mind. The seeds are bearing fruit 🥰🐝🥰

Welcome summer, though I’m posting about it a little late! I welcomed in the solstice and the Capricorn-Cancer full moon on Kīlauea, sleeping in a cozy home tucked into the cloud forest, pulling us close to nature in her misty stillness. As we ascended up the mountain, I could feel the medicine of Pele growing, and I felt her strongly with me as we moved into Cancer and welcomed the first full moon of summer. By nights, my dreams were intense; Pele arriving to show me my shadow and the places I need to straighten up and fly right, capitalizing on that Capricorn moon energy. By day, I experienced a renewed connection to my husband and children. Love and nurturing came easy, and we all basked together in the Cancer sun.

We’ve come down off the mountain and are now back with Nāmaka, spirit of the ocean, Pele’s older sister. To me, Pele is a fierce teacher who doesn’t mince words, while Nāmaka is nurturing, kind, and effortless (though still not one to be trifled with). My communion with the ocean is an easy one, and I walk the waters, marveling as the glassy waves create, just for a moment, a flawless window to the ocean beings she holds. I see the kaleidoscopic fish (and even a turtle!) dart and play, and my heart feels at peace. The Pacific Ocean of northern California is a different sort - formidable and fierce, I boldly enter her turbulent waters once a year as a renewal of my vows, and the rest of the year only hesitatingly. It’s hard to believe this is the same ocean, the same waters. They’ve mellowed and become warmer, more inviting. A little like my heart after all these years of turbulent waves.

Sending you all a tremendous wave of Aloha, and wishing you a power-filled start to a summer of love. 🌴 🐠 🌋 🌺 🌊

Everyone who’s ever had a baby knows about the evening witching hour… But there’s a lesser-known window for those of us who rise early. The 5am witching hour. When I creep around the house like a tiny mouse, knowing that any creak is likely to rouse someone, and then I’ll have company in the early hours and an underslept kid all day.

But amid my disrupted reading time and derailed meditations, there’s also something sweet about a still-too-sleepy kid coming out to join me. The scent of their hair in the thin morning light. Learning together how the world wakes up, slowly, gently, and then with gusto.

Sometimes I think I need better boundaries or more rules so that I get my space and they get their sleep. But there’s something sacred in these moments together that the boundaries and the rules would rob us both of. Some expansion of our hearts as we make room for each other. As we breathe with the rhythm of the morning and remember that this giving and receiving will always guide us home.

What a complicated holiday! Tremendous cheers to everyone out there that has a straightforward relationship to motherhood! And for the rest of us, stay strong, my sisters and brothers. May we all have hearts spacious enough to be with all the complexity at once 💖🦋

It’s been a heavy week for me. It kicked off with a seemingly minor interaction that ripped at the scab of my mother wound, reminding me that there are still some spaces that have yet to heal over. My womb felt heavy. Literally. I could feel the weight and the gravity of it in my body. The physical discomfort serving as a nagging reminder that all is not quite well.

As I sat on my porch early this morning, I closed my eyes and listened to the birds and buzzing of hummingbirds coming to visit the flowering sage they love so much. And I felt the grief rise and fall in my heart. The tears welling and drawing back like waves lapping at the shore. Grief for what, I don’t even know. Something old. Something primal. Something that spanned lifetimes. And then my 8-year old son came out, thumped his belly and then pointed to it 😂. Whatever ethereal moment I was having vanished as I returned to the daily duties of motherhood, which never rest, even on Mother’s Day.

My journey into motherhood has not been easy. It has dissolved the walls of my heart in ways I thought would break me, but instead made me stronger, more loving, more compassionate. My children have sanctioned me into being. What I have learned from them is that there is as much love in the world as you are willing to let in and let out. Love is reciprocal, love spirals and expands and grows the more you allow yourself to receive and offer it. What I could not share with my own mother, I discovered in my children, and with the many fierce sisters who have mothered me into motherhood. I love you all. And I feel your love radiating back.

This is the gift and the heartache of today 🪽🪽🦋🦋🪽🪽

On April 20th, Jupiter will come into full conjunction with Uranus, bringing growth and expansion in unexpected ways to some sector of our lives, depending on where these planets show up in our charts. The planets have been dancing for awhile, but things are starting to get a little more acute these days. If you’ve noticed a certain pull to think, move, and act outside of your usual box, you’re feeling the call. For me, they’re in the 5th house of beauty, creativity, play, and joy. In an impulsive way that’s really quite unlike me, I’ve taken up the guitar.

For years, I’ve nursed a certain envy of people who could sing and play the guitar. A jealous longing deep in my heart. This was embarrassing. Spiritual people aren’t “supposed” to feel jealous, it’s one of the lowest poisons, and if you do find it, it should be swiftly dealt with. This kind of shaming attitude had me pushing it down into the shadows over and over again…

Many years back I had the privilege of doing private work with a really wonderful Diamond Approach instructor. I wasn’t seeking this approach at all, the universe just happened to deliver me to her, as it has done so often in my life. She was exactly what I needed at the time. The thing that I hold most dearly from our time together is that she taught me that there is no feeling that can not be embraced and understood and loved. It felt counter to the sometimes judgy or shameful or dismissive tone of more Buddhist instruction (but by no means ALL Buddhist instruction).

So once I finally decided to stop feeling ashamed of the jealousy that kept roaring to the surface only to be exiled back to shadow, I began to just let it be there. To neither be bothered nor particularly compelled by it. I befriended it. And slowly, it began to speak. It told a story of how unfair it was that I never got to develop certain sides of myself because I was forced to focus on survival and achievement if I wished to rise out of my childhood circumstances (which I sincerely did wish to do). It felt victimized by a lack of support and community, a lack of opportunities, of space and time and freedom.

As I listened to its tale, I heard how much it wanted something more and different. Something creative that wasn’t just about achievement or getting to the next step. I honored the choices I made with my life as the wise ones. They did exactly what I intended them to do. And now there’s room for something else. Good job.

So one day we sat down and had a chat. Instead of being jealous of others talents, I had a couple of choices. I could either sit back, relax, and enjoy the beautiful gifts that others have spent their life energy cultivating and bringing to life, or if that wasn’t enough, I could start dedicating my own life energy to cultivate my own gift. It’s not like the guitar was out of reach - I would just have to accept being bad at it for a good long while (which was a whole other exploration that I won’t lengthen this lengthy post with…). I had to let go of the story that I was too old, it was too late, I wasn’t the right kind of person for it, etc…

So here we are. So far I can sort of play the chords to a single song. What used to be jealousy is now my creative child buddy, who finally has a parent to take her to music lessons.

Where are you feeling the call for growth? What old pains need befriending? You have the support you need. It’s time 💖