Truth baby.

Truth :: Some of my favorite words to hear are, "You've lost weight."

Truth :: I used to thrive on seeing how much I could control my weight through practicing lack.

Truth :: My weight has consumed more time in my thoughts than I can quantify.

Truth :: Making rules around food for me has been my constant, that thing I can count on to keep the rhythm of my day.

Truth :: Every cleanse I would run or go on was always about losing just a little bit more.

Truth :: I find myself at my highest weight outside of pregnancy.

Truth :: Rules no loner apply but I am constantly catching myself saying things like "I'm paleo."

Truth :: I feel sexy, not so much from a physical sense, but from this inner confidence that has come after years of body shame, and from having a partner that desires me and devours me.

Truth :: When the weight first started showing I had a really hard time being out in public, even going to the grocery store was hard for me, it was like this crazy social anxiety I hadn't felt in years.

Truth :: After letting the rules go I can often feel untethered, like what do I have to hold onto?

Truth :: At 42, I wish that this one thing that consumes my thoughts could start to be replaced by something else.

Truth :: I would like to tell you that I'm over it, that I am now an intuitive eater who is so in love with herself that there is a calm and peace that you can have too if you just do A, B, C...

Truth :: Women completely captivate me, the beauty, the sensuality, the fears, the way each body is different, the curves, the colors, the way we choose to dress, the way we love, the softness, the way we change.

Truth :: I need to be here, in this place with my body, as I have grown into my 40's and a true sense that my hormones and my shape is changing.

Truth :: As I am starting to move my body more, after a long break of being still, I'm in awe at how quickly we can lose our strength which is so connected to a strength in our spirit; sweating and laughter are essential.

Truth :: It sucks to not fit into your old clothes but it feels really delicious to let yourself buy a few new things that fit you NOW.

Truth :: Having someone say you are sexy, gorgeous, beautiful, amazing and loved cannot be underestimated in how it changes our own thought patterns.

Truth :: There is a freedom in not wanting to be who I was at 26 or 39 and just freaking allow myself to love up this year of 42.

Truth :: When I started my journey into sexy and sanguine living I was exploring my sexual self in new ways, taking chances, opening to new experiences, learning to flirt again, looking myself in the eyes, opening to the fact that I am a highly sexual/sensual/sensitive person.

Truth :: No matter how hard it feels some days, I still stand in the mirror naked every day and find my way to adoration of my physical self.

Truth :: When I fall back into the obsessing about how I look I feel like I've somehow failed on this journey and as soon as I feel failure I know that it means I am doing the work and will never stop wanting to iterate into my next becoming. 

Truth :: I adore the sexual self that inhabits this body, I adore my spiritstyle, I adore my magic, I adore my exploration into my edges.

Truth :: Writing about sexuality and teaching others how to feel into their bodies as I am learning to heal my past body stories is an unbelievable honor. (Yes, Sexy and Sanguine is coming back!)

Truth :: I'm going to go have a truth vulnerability hangover now, make some lunch and curl up and listen to the rain fall. 

Return to the lake.

Rain every day and temperatures that have me wishing I had brought my sweaters. (Always bring sweaters lake side, always.)

A bathing suit that hangs on a hook, waiting for the heat of summer to remember to visit us.

A lake deepening from rain water, a list of projects that occupies our thoughts.
.......

A few years ago I sat on a dock on a lake in Maine and I said, "I'm going to manifest a lake house." 

I was renting this house and cabins on the lake for my retreats and I knew that I needed to have a space that was mine. I knew it would be on a lake. I started scheming a thousand different ideas for how it might come to be. 

On that lake in Maine I first discovered loons. The crazy coyote bird that scared me as I heard their song in the dark of the woods.

Months later I sat on my light brown couch in the Loft next to a man who was showing me Lake Monomonac and telling me about this house. One he had been dreaming of since he was 8 years old and the story of how he was able to buy it a few years ago.

I sit typing this to you on the light brown couch that sits at the magic lake house. The house that is my heart home.

.......

We packed up all the kids and this is where we'll spend the summer, they go to camp during the day, swim in the lake in the afternoon.

In July I'll welcome 4 women into the house for our first Lift Up of the season. I'm dreaming of how I could have a big retreat here soon. I can feel the pull again. It is strong. But different. New. It is something that hasn't yet been conceived but I can feel it wanting to come forth.

So. I sit. And listen. I pray over the water as the rain drops hit me this morning on the deck. 

Yesterday was wild and I felt on the verge of tears the whole day.

Chloe and I getting lost and not finding the antique store and getting her an omelette instead.

Barbecue sauce all over the rug and ceiling and walls.

Picking up a million sticks from the grounds.

Telling us they need Star Wars costumes for the morning with no warning to get supplies.

Two of us working from home and realizing that this summer will not hold my usual alone time and space.

Scrubbing two bathrooms on my knees.

Filling the truck with garbage, recycling and donation.

Watching the couple down the way walk each morning, he holds her arm, they both wear hats, and I can feel their connection.

Feeding the fish and feeling a bit off from one another.

Finding our way back, putting them to bed, setting the coffee pot, making tea.

Feeling off again. How shitty that feels and makes every breath feel.

Breathing.

My jaw locked so tight as I think about the amount of work we have to do and the transitions that are beginning again.

Post bleed. Not sure what it is, but I feel it.

This morning we walked together. I was so tender from feeling off and my lungs were fighting as we went up the long hills. We were inspired by their walking, the two of them, each morning.

.......

We had only been together for a couple of weeks when he asked if I would come with him for a night to the lake house. It was April, cold. He told me there would be no running water and our heat would be a wood stove. We would arrive in the dark and leave early in the morning as he had a class to get to. 

I didn't see the lake until the morning. I remember standing naked in front of the window and feeling my heart  attaching to the water. 

Our paths criss cross in the past, we both spoke the words to leave our marriages the same month, almost the same day, before we knew the other was out there. Before we believed the other was out there.

The day he looked at the lake house he saw a loon on the water. The real estate agent said that was rare, they almost never saw them. Now the loon is our daily song. She lets us bring our boat right up to her side. 

He told me the loon was the sign that I was coming.

.......

This morning turned into omelettes and more rain.

Coffee on the couch in awe of the 4 of them getting themselves ready for camp with only a few cues from us.

Plans to try to find the antique store again.

After camp we'll get in the truck and drive them back to their other homes. Transitions in full glory.

.......

"Don't get too excited about it. It is just a small house on a lake, but I love it. I really want you to spend time there."

"I'm going to manifest a lake house."

.......

And so it is.

Frustration inside of inspiration.

I wake up to pee around 5:30am. The wake up leaves me restless and I feel annoying to my love who has no trouble sleeping after his pee wake up.

I grab my phone and do the Instagram check in. I fell in love with Instagram a few years ago because stories and photos capture my heart.

So, I'm scrolling through and I can feel myself start to get agitated. 

I hear all the time how so many people have a reaction to their social media feeds because of all the negativity.

It seems I might be having the opposite problem. There is so much positivity in my feed. Inspirational memes. Women who do similar work who are sharing quotes or programs or advice. Normally doesn't phase me.

This particular morning I couldn't find many stories. You know the ones that remind you you aren't alone. The ones that make you see your life in a new way. The stories that are so real and raw and alive.

I was getting twitchy and it felt like a thousand things were wrong with me and that I wasn't doing anything right.

This reaction to the inspiration really struck me. What was that about? Why was it rising up so fiercely? 

I think it is because I don't want to be fixed. I don't believe I'm broken. But sometimes we can very subtly convince ourselves (even from positive shit) that we just aren't quite right. A little this or that would change everything.

I fall into it. You fall into it.

A few minutes later that stories start to show up. Or maybe I just manifested them into the feed so I didn't get lost in the inspiration. (I know, that sounds stupid, but there I was.)

And it reminds me over and over again that this is how I teach. This is how I learn. This is how I grow. This is where I find my shadow and my light.

Our stories. Dave calls them #thestoriesofourlives each time I post something about our family.

My take away. I want to remember to share more, not for social media, but for my own need for sharing. I want to get lost in your tales and the pictures when you look into your own eyes. 

I will never get tired of seeing your cup of coffee in your hand each morning or the selfie you take to remember that you are so beautiful and valued.

There is something so at peace inside of me right now and I honestly don't know what the hell to do with it. I've spent the last year letting all the voices around me fade so I can connect to the spirit of Hannah.

I like her. I'm in love with my man. I'm head over heels for my family. The magic making circle is the most kick ass version of whoa and wow. I'm about to welcome women to #themagiclakehouse so we can lift each other up. 

My 14 year old daughter spent her entire day helping me with tasks for the 50th anniversary party I am hosting for Dave's parents. Her whole day. She even learned how to make the clam chowder so I could do other things.

Right now Dave and the kids and his brother are downstairs letting me have space to work and write and moving boxes and cleaning up because I will probably be up till 2am with my list of things to do.

And the rain. Did I mention that the forecast is for rain at the exact time of the outdoor formal dinner party I am throwing? 

I really hope that that is not a story I am sharing with you tomorrow.

The tables will be set with the kantha quilts I have been saving. Mixed matched plates and silverware wrapped in cloth napkins with a glittery napkin ring will be at each place. Every water glass that has been collected from years past will sit by a plate. 

The flower decorations and the bar and the dessert tables and the photo booths all tell a story of how important details are.

I'm off now to make mashed potatoes for 40 people, set up a kid station outside, prep the photo booth, practice the table arranging even though they say rain, order pizza for dinner, get rooms ready for out of town guests, plant geraniums and a couple or a couple or a couple more things.

I love it. I'm in love with it.

I'll post my clam chowder (gluten free) recipe after the party because it is so crazy good we are having a hard time not eating it before the party!

Sending love and hopefully a story or two,

Sensuality of gray. (A video)

Dancing in the gray. from Hannah Marcotti on Vimeo.

When you feel like an asshole.

We have a huge yard now.

I am from the city where we dig up the patch of grass between the sidewalk and the street just to have a garden. Seattle is famous for its gardens growing everything from artichokes to edible flowers in such spots.

And now I feel somewhat lost in all this space. I know how to garden in small spaces, how to tuck lavender along the edges of a garden box and how a butterfly bush will in a few years take up more real estate than you imagined.

I went out to attempt my first moments in the earth here. I had some cat mint and lavender, simple.

My new gray felt hat was on and the grass was wet from the rain the night before. I knelt down on my kneeling pad and started to dig. I could smell the dirt, the time that only earth can hold in scent.

I looked down and my shirt was covered in ticks. The big ones, the lentil ticks.

About 7 ticks in a clump.

I jumped up and ran inside pulling them off and drowning them in the toilet. Then I saw them crawling up my legs towards the others. At least 4 more. 

I was kind of freaking out. I know we have ticks here. I've pulled off three on the boys so far.

But this was like a hostile take over of my body. I was in the grass for all of 3 minutes before this happened.

As a kid I would have nightmares about these little creatures with crazy legs.

I got in the shower and prayed that I had found them all.

I spent the rest of the day itching every time my skin felt the slightest sensation.

.......

I posted something about getting the yard sprayed for ticks and other bugs on Instagram. It never occurred to me that it would provoke any feelings from others. I just was telling part of my story, which is how I stay connected with my tribe, especially in times when I am inside of a long program and feeling a bit hibernated with them.

There were some automatic feelings that I was doing something wrong. There was also some really good discussion around what people use themselves to spray or put on their kids.

The thing was, no one asked what we were spraying with. Maybe the majority assumed chemicals, I have no idea. But regardless, it was a rather crazy opening of thoughts from others.

I love engaging in social media conversations that teach me and teach others.

I will admit, I don't like to be told what to do or not do or feel judged.

Both were swirling.

I had this moment of clarity of how easy it is to shame or assume or judge based on a few words and a photo. Without asking. Without letting the other person have their space, even if it is opposite of what we believe.

This is why I never talk politics.

This is why I don't engage in debates around things that are crucially important to both sides of an argument. (I used to, I was a wildly opinionated teenager.)

This is why when our 5 children who all have different faiths and religious or non-religious beliefs talk about God I remind them God can be for one and not for another but that we are all born to love and to allow others to have their own mind. And then I tell them that I have believed everything and nothing and the woman I am today is built upon that journey.

.......

But wait, the story gets better. 

I have this feeling after feeling kind of lectured and accused of doing something I wasn't even doing, this feeling that the women I work with have expressed.

This fear of social media. Of being judged. Of being shamed. Of the small itsy-bitsy things they share being taken as offensive to others and then feeling like crap about that.

I understood the vulnerability that these women feel when they try to share more of their life (as I ask them to) on social media so that they can build trust and love with their tribe.

I have worked for 9 years to create safe boundaries around social media and I take for granted the beautiful pink bubble of safety that surrounds my space and my sharing.

Being struck by this vulnerability and seeing how easily something we say can make someone have such strong feelings without them asking for any clarification, I wrote another post.

About just that.

.......

I am a pleaser, or reformed pleaser, but honestly, I really do want the people in my life to feel happy, good, amazing.

It would have been easiest for me to let it pass, to not care about it.

Confrontation makes me weak in the knees, and not in that I've got a crush way.

I decided to talk about how some of the responses made me feel.

How easy it can be to make these assumptions about someone or push our beliefs on someone with so little information.

And then...

.......

People who had simply been interested in what I was doing, and actively engaged in a beautiful conversation around treating and dealing with ticks thought that I was upset with them. 

Assumed that they had done something wrong.

Oh, my gorgeous Highly Sensitive Tribe. I could not love you more.

More assumptions were being made. On yet another post.

My heart started beating fast. I had a panic attack.

I felt like an asshole.

I used to blog 3 times a week and write a newsletter. My sharing was deep and wide and now it is smaller in the public eye but crazy wide open in my courses.

There is so much vulnerability and truth telling through my work that I forget I am not telling it all to the world.

I forget that saying a few sentences about something is not enough.

And yet, isn't that enough? Isn't that OK?

Isn't it OK if you don't agree with me?

Because I may not agree with you but I can still love you and honor you.

I can still blast you with silent love even while holding true to what I believe.

I'm sorry if I made anyone feel bad with my post. That was so not the intention.

My intention was to remind us all that we don't know the full story, ever. These sharings are a glimpse into someone's inner world.

And I will still adore you even if you spray your lawn with chemicals so that you have no ticks (which I don't choose by the way, we are using organic essential oils, a little detail that I was happy to share if asked). 

I choose to teach through my learning and through what sharing feels good.

This taught me so much about assumptions and how quick we are to push our opinions on someone else. To assume that we are right, that everyone else is wrong.

Doesn't this past Presidential election alone highlight how terrifying it is to know that not everyone agrees with us? And fear is powerful. 

My sweet friend illuminated this all for me when she said, "a mama's gotta do. and whether its w chemicals or ess oils or straight vodka.... we should just offer one another the space and freedom to do as she damn pleases.. amen, amen."

Thank you sweet friend. Being Mama is an incredibly powerful and exhausting and loving job, a little space to be who we are inside of it feels like freedom.

We can fight for the earth, against chemicals or whatever else it is we believe in by using love and compassion as our guiding mantras. 

Amen.

I'm off to have a Bloody Mary and think about how we can all find more love, compassion and empathy. It starts right here. 

Future you and me. (A video)

Magic Making Circle 5.0 - Future You and Me from Hannah Marcotti on Vimeo.

Five.

I am scrolling through the group, reading introductions. Some women are newer faces, others have spent years circling together.

As is typical, my eyes start watering. They are sharing the words that reveal why they are choosing this for themselves. They are sharing the magic that has infused into their lives from the past circles.

They are sharing why they chose to trust this time with me, with each other.

One woman, after years of this work, is now stepping into the iteration of her life that she has been dreaming and working towards for the last few years. Her superpowers are blazing. She is doing it. 

Things burn down when a dream is ready to fully manifest. It can be painful. We are forced to release. Often things look different than what we thought.

There is this crazy swirling of the dream, the action, the faith and the release.

A joy based life is not without pain or fear. A joy based life uses the pain and fear as motivation to find deeper joy. And then deeper joy again.

The women started to introduce themselves with 5 things they felt were important to share, in intimacy and vulnerability. I love the number 5. I have 5 kids. We dream in 5 in the circle.

And here they are, sharing inside of 5.

On Instagram someone quotes me saying, leave some spaces for the woman you are becoming.

I think about the list of the 5 things that are in our past, our now.

Then my mind sees a blank list. With numbers 1-5.

The list that comes after the 6 months of work.

The list we can't possibly see what will be written on it, or who we will be.

It is the spaces we must leave blank for the woman we are becoming.

We will be creating vision journals in our 6 months together. I imagine the last page holding this blank list, this list of our becoming. 

The holding of space.

6 months ago I was dreaming of a home together with my love and our kids. In two days we move into that home.

In two days I will fill in a blank space on my list of my becoming. I'm not sure what it will say or who I will be.

As I write the words and the space fills with the one I am now a brand new blank space opens, on another list, in another journal, as I begin my becoming again.

.......

My favorite journals are Moleskins XL Cahier, but anything works.

Each page is a blank space of possibility. For the work. For the visioning. For the dreams. For the action.

And the last page holds our becoming. The one we will be. Or maybe it is a sticky note numbered 1-5 or a beautifully decorated list on the fridge, every day reminding you of the space to be.

Today see that list. Or start that list somewhere.

Close your eyes and imagine all that space that is yours.

Close your eyes and feel the iterations of the woman becoming.

This is her love note.

Who creates the bad stuff?

A question came to me from a beautiful woman-mama-light up the world kind of woman.

She is triggered by manifesting because if the thought is that we are creating our reality, then this assumes that everything bad or good is being manifested by us all the time too.

I really had to sit with this. Because yes, if you are fully sinking into the belief that our thoughts are in constant co-creation with the Universe, then how can we not feel responsible for the shit that comes our way.

And why does it seem so easy to pull in the bad, rather than call in the income we want or the pregnancy or the man of our dreams?

I used to joke that I was the most brilliant manifestor of drama and negativity.

Teaching and being a student of magic, teaching and being a student of thoughts and feelings, has given me access to more hours of thinking about manifesting than I could log.

Here is what I believe, and what I teach.

Everything that comes to us is our opportunity, a possibility.

I don't look at things as bad or good. Think about money. It is energy. And that energy can be felt by one person as amazing and abundant and felt by another as scary and as lack.

One person may be healing a money story that started with their parents. And their work is all around understanding what part of their belief inside of money was planted in them at a young age. Their 'lack' is an opportunity, a possibility. 

I was that person. It was one of the hardest times of my life. I learned forgiveness. I learned how to start a business. I learned how to stop spending without thinking. 

I also had some knees to the floor sobbing conversations with God. I had less than $20 in the bank and 3 kids. 

Was I drawing in poverty for myself and my kids because of my thoughts?

Nope.

What I was calling in were the things I needed to heal before I could ever get right with money. 

I was desiring freedom. I was desiring the deep knowing that I could follow that call toward freedom for myself and my kids.

The way those things showed up for me weren't winning the lottery or getting some inheritance.

It was my dog breaking my computer, my then husband breaking my heart, my bank account drained, my knees falling to the floor in surrender.

And then I started the healing, the forgiveness.

It was all part of my journey to freedom.

.......

Dave, my lover, travels a lot. Like a crazy lot on airplanes.

Each time he goes I can feel it in my body that he is getting further and further away from me.

I worry about something happening to the plane. Then I freak out that thinking about that could actually make something happen to the plane. Because I have anxiety.

When those fears come up and I start to loop into the panic, that is where my opportunity, my possibility rises.

It is a chance for me to sit with deep anxiety and sit still with my heart.

Those moments are when I realize how incredibly blessed I am to have fallen in love with this man. Those fears are my love addiction which still likes to show up and challenge me to move through them. 

Am I somehow sending out a message to the Universe to make something happen to his plane?

No, no, no, no, no, no.

I am opening up opportunity, a possibility for a new way to feel. To show myself I can move through the anxiety, better than the last time.

When 'bad' shit happens, it sucks. It breaks our hearts. It is the knees to the floor surrendering to God that changes us. That leads us to where we are going.

When you are raising kids you don't tell them they are bad or good. You use each moment as an opportunity for them to understand their actions and the consequences and help them navigate their feelings around it.

You are helping them to see the possibilities of who they can become. And who they were. And are now.

I don't want to talk to Dave about what will happen to my life if something 'bad' ever happened to him because that scares the shit out of me to pull into my thoughts. I know people who don't get life insurance because they are afraid it will mean something will happen to them.

We can make ourselves crazy trying to avoid certain 'bad' thoughts.

Then we get stuck in a life without dreaming because we are so focused on all the negative things we don't want.

.......

I want you to dream. I want you to heal. I want you to forgive. I want you to desire. I want you to surrender. I want you to exhale so deeply that you are a body filled with possibility when the inhale comes.

Magic Making is all of that. It will change your life. It will challenge you, maybe even trigger you a bit. It will ask you for honesty, and time.

It is hard to put into words what the circle is. Because truly it is opportunity. It is possibility. 

It is you. It is the women who are choosing to show up, to say yes.

If we erase bad and good from our experience and simply let this life be a journey into ourselves, it starts to feel like magic.

And that is what we will make. Together.

Sinking back in.

2016
.......

She stood next to me while I put on my make-up. It was Easter Eve and the presence of God/Source Energy, the God in everything, was swirling around us.

"How do our prayers go where they need to and get answered? How is that possible?"

I could feel my body light up. These questions are pure delight.

She then turns around and runs out of the room, "Never mind that is a stupid question."

I walked out to the living room. I told her that this was not a stupid question. That adults think about this, write books about this, are in constant wonderment and awe of prayer.

I spoke a few words about energy and allowing. She was embarrassed by her own wonder and wasn't ready for a big discussion. As though she should just automatically understand prayer, while all the adults around her are searching for their own understanding.

Why do we pray?

.......

Last night I fell apart. I contracted. I went deep inside of pain and fear.

I felt like a fraud. Like I was letting everyone down. I was triggered out of my sense of calm and a recently found deeper empathy for myself into the belief that I was going to lose everything. Because of criticism. Because of the last year of chaos and unknowing. Because my unworthiness was being splayed out for me to see.

My love and I started fighting. I pushed. And pushed. My tears felt like they were taking over my body. I readied myself for him to leave. To prove to me that I was losing everything, including his love. I was embarrassed and vulnerable and scared.

I was sobbing with my head down in my arms. I heard him grab his keys and walk out the door.

See, I am losing everything. I contracted deeper into the pain. I would just feel it all tonight. I've been here before. It has all fallen apart before.

Why do we push away what we love and want and need the most?

A few minutes later he walked back in, grabbed a beer and sat down next to me.

"Are you done pushing me away yet?"

.......

When we were talking about money stories in my business circle I asked the women what motivated them? Money is never the actual motivation, it is simply the currency we use to manifest the desire.

My past motivations have been freedom and adoration. Those drove me to create, to write, to connect, to find answers, to manifest this business that feels larger than what I can understand yet.

Both motivations were found from a flip of what I lacked into what I knew was already in my future. The lack, the falling apart, the falling to my knees on the kitchen floor in surrender, in sending out the prayer so I could find acceptance for what was to become new.

To take the pain and fear that was and allow it to tell the new story. One that does exist in vibration and energy and the God in everything. One that is already held in a truth that comes from its telling.

After feeling the truth of the story that you no longer wish to hold true. After the prayer. After the acceptance. After the push. After the place the story started and into the one you now write on the blank page, on the mantra stone, in bullet points or list form.

Of freedom. 
Of adoration.

And now of safety inside of love.

The new motivation born into a future self. The motivation that will bring me to her. That already is. The woman whose currency is now safety inside of love. Who believes she can have abundance and love at the same time. Who knows that her superpower is loving. And who receives all the beauty that she puts forth.

The story becomes a shift in vibration, like a magnet attaching me to her and I feel my cells literally change as I close my eyes and integrate her into my being.

Safety inside of love.

.......

2017

.......

Each year when a new circle begins, I begin again.

I teach to learn, to become a better teacher, to understand and explore what I most desire. This circle gives me a chance each year to understand the magic of the Universe on that next level vibration. 

I am integrating her. The one that came before, that is aching for new discovery.

The integration piece is one I prefer to skip. 

So here I am. Sinking back in. 

The circle opens.

You know the best time to launch a new circle?

When all 5 kids are on school vacation, in the midst of packing your house to move, inside of boundary work with behaviors that are causing you great anxiety and then they start puking all night with fevers.

There is never going to be a right time for most anything. It will never be convenient. It will never be perfect. If you are like me, you'll probably already be tired tomorrow when you wake up today.

And you do it anyway. Or because.

Because change isn't something you schedule into your life in perfect little boxes on a calendar with washi tape labeling each move.

Choosing it. 
Doing it.
Claiming it.

The magic. You. Your yes. To you. To this life that holds so much possibility.

Blessing who you are now while you become the one that is starting to emerge.

Knowing the kids won't be sick forever and the boxes will be packed and that choosing you is the most important choice because your vibration changes those that you love and nurture.

This is what I repeat to myself. This is what the ones who love me tell me.

This is what I want to tell you.

There is never a right time. 

So choose now.

Choose you.

Grab your magic, feel the possibility.

I'll see you in the circle.

xo

“HANNAH HAS A GENTLE WAY OF SHAKING UP EVERY FIBER OF YOUR BEING BY OPENING YOUR EYES TO WHO YOU TRULY ARE AND HOW YOU CAN BRING YOURSELF FORWARD INTO THE LIFE (AND SPIRIT) THAT HAS ALWAYS FELT JUST OUT OF REACH. SHE TAKES YOUR HAND AND GUIDES YOU HOME, TO THE BEST POSSIBLE VERSION OF YOUR TRUE SELF. ONCE SHE HAS TOUCHED YOUR LIFE, YOU WILL NEVER BE THE SAME AND YOU WILL THANK THE UNIVERSE EVERY DAY FOR GUIDING YOU TO HER.”

Guiding Home.

everything will change

do you believe in luck

how much is spirit
how much is you
and are they woven

everything my love will change

you deserve this
you were born for this
everything leading up to now was drawing it towards you

and if you believe in luck how do you define it

if you are lucky what path have you dusted off

how much is chance

how much is every moment you stung sung drank pleaded grasped prayed dreamt let float away

leading up to this gift
this gift that you are drawing forth

you

everything baby will change
everything my sweet will change
and i will hold space for you
protect you
guide you

and the ground will expand
and we will breathe

the exhale the inhale the blessings

everything sweet one

will change

Four Quarters.

I've been thinking about a cigarette. Not an entire one. Just a few drags. A quarter of its whole.

When I first moved into the Loft I would go out to the deck late at night and smoke a quarter of a cigarette. Often early in the morning I would smoke another quarter.

Eventually the quarter turned into a half and it started to become something I looked forward to. At some point I had to stop, which only smoking one to two cigarettes a day was incredibly challenging.

I remember one night a friend of mine joined me outside. It was 2am. The snow started falling. We blew the smoke into the cold air as our hats were being covered in little flakes. I remember him saying he was the happiest he had been, right there, in that moment. I didn't want it to end.

There were more moments like that. The morning after I was asked out on a date for the first time. I was crazy excited and I went outside to have my quarter cigarette and I felt butterflies of my becoming. My longing for love.

It was never about the cigarette. They were this thing I started doing before I had the courage to leave my marriage. Almost like this weird way of attaching to freedom and doing something 'bad' so that I could prove to myself I wouldn't blow up the world if I didn't follow the rules, if I acted in a way I wasn't supposed to.

The cigarette was my way of easing into this new life that I didn't think I deserved. The cigarette was the transition into the fear of what was next. The cigarette was that tiny head rush sitting on the porch, knowing that the courage was gathering and it was going to happen.

The cigarette, it was part of my magic.

I also started running.

I was barely eating and my body was slimming down fast.

That transition was not all kale and bee pollen.

It was the quarter cigarette as I gathered my strength to step into my next iteration.

Today as the sun was shining outside I thought about the cigarette, as I've been thinking about it for the last few days.

The culmination of the last thing I was manifesting has come to be. Last year during Magic Making Circle I was manifesting Dave and I buying a house together. A home where we could raise our kids, where we could have space, where our next chapter together would come to be.

I tell the women who circle each year in that circle that we do the work in our 6 months together but then it is in the seventh, the eighth, the ninth month that you better get ready for the magic to sink in. For the Universe and you to start lining up to the vibrations you were calling forth.

And boom. I'll get the emails, the messages.

They are like me, kind of like, "Holy Shit, this really happened."

That is usually when I want the cigarette. As we now have manifested the home. The place of my next iteration.

I went for a run. I took my vitamins and drank my greens. I had cashew yogurt with paleo granola. 

I felt angry. Unsettled. If I could just have that quarter of that whole cigarette this would all feel better.

Because what often doesn't get talked about is that once your dreams realize, there you are. 

Like being naked in your life. Raw. Real. It is usually when the work happens. 

The emotions will pour into each box I will pack and wrap in tape and label for the rooms of this life that I actively chose to manifest.

This last circle of the magic was all about manifesting home, safety in love.

I don't need the cigarette, as much as I think about it. I don't need to risk the addiction to something that will hurt my body.

I can't have it now because it wouldn't fit into who I am now, who I love now, who I chose to be as mama and lover and friend.

But then. Back then. It was a lifeline into my future self. She would sit on the porch after they went to school, after she ran. She would pour her coffee and smoke her quarter cigarette as she meditated all the feelings from her past keeping her trapped.

And then. On that deck, in the snow with him, in the sunshine waiting for her becoming, then she needed it.

She had so much to say good-bye to. And that cigarette saved her, held her, protected her.

In the first days of our love I would try to hide the taste and smell from my kisses to him. He always knew.

He patiently waited for me to be ready. 

To be ready to say good-bye to that quarter of a whole. To no longer need that to feel safe.

He wanted to be my safety. I fought it, pushed. 

And now, today, when I'm thinking about the cigarette, and I'm so freaking crabby, I go outside and sit on his lap in the sun. I kiss him. I'm terrified. And I am safe.

There is part of me that is terrified with what I drew forth. Which is the story within all the dreams I call forth into my now.

I really didn't want to tell any of you about the cigarette. Which typically means it is exactly what words need to be written.

Dreaming is messy. Manifesting is exhausting and triggering and so damn hard because it is asking you to make peace with parts of your past so that you can release the she who was. It asks you to trust. It asks you to believe. It asks you to get more vulnerable than you want to. It asks you to look beyond all you think you are worth into the magic that is you.

And it works. And it is the most real thing I know.

The quarter of the whole is only in my memories now, dancing into my longings that want me to remember how to ease the fear. 

But there he is. The one I manifested from the magic. And there is our home. And there are the someday dreams that will come after the integration of this life I grew from the seeds of the work.

Magic is the whole of all the quarters of our dreaming and feeling and desiring.

I've been thinking about a cigarette and I trust myself to no longer need the quarter of the whole.

This is who I am. (Except I don't know)

She used to tell me that after time at the Loft she would leave feeling sexier, more desirable.

Everything about the Loft oozed sexy. Disco ball hanging from the ceiling and twinkle lights wrapped around the stairs and vintage shot glasses lining the wall of the kitchen.

The Loft was born from a moment in time when it all needed to change. I needed to find my life because the one I was in was hiding my true self.

The feeling of sexy was because at the Loft, it was about your essence, your shine, your exploration, your simply showing up as you, no walls, no judgement.

That is sexy. Confidence and other women lifting you up fosters that feeling of loving who you are in your skin.

.......

We had agreed to separate and he didn't feel like he was emotionally in a place to be the one to leave.

I woke up at 4am and I saw the space. I saw the brick wall. I knew that it was where I was supposed to be.

I found it the next day. Exactly as I had seen in my vision.

The Loft held my (re)awakening. It was super charged with the decisions I was making to become the woman I was growing into when I was 19.

The same morning I woke up with the vision of the Loft I saw a circle of women. They would travel to this space, retreat in this space, become along with me in this space.

My business would co-create with my life, as I transitioned so would the journey of my practice.

The Magic Making Circle was birthed for this space, from this space. The Lift Ups, where 4 or 5 women would gather for a weekend of intense vibrational shifting, were born for this space, from this space. 

The woman in that photo above was born for this space, from this space.

.......

We didn't let the kids know what we were going through for almost 3 years. When we decided to legally separate the kids came to live at the Loft with me. In a few hours I transformed it from retreat-awakening-woman-space to home.

We all slept tribal style in the basement. The kids skateboarded in the long concrete hallways. I always felt sexy there. I was a woman becoming and my body was tingling with sensuality and a chance to be better, to give us a playful, fun, beautiful life.

I used to wake them up playing a song, singing and dancing. We had fancy mac and cheese candlelight dinners. There were always people around. Hosted dinners. Sitting on the deck with neighbors. Walking to get the mail and flirting with people on the way. 

I still look back on it and think, holy shit, I did that. I dreamt it. I made it.

It made me.

.......

The Magic Making Circle was born because of that space. 

I always felt sexier at the Loft. My work vibrated differently there because I was held inside the walls of my work as my life as my teacher. 

I miss the woman in that photo because she has gone through a shit of muck. She lost a lot of hair. She gained weight. She spent months terrified that she would be homeless. She became a single mom. She lost friends. 

When I look in the mirror there is a new face looking back and I have been trying to wrestle up compassion for her because I keep trying to see that other woman. 

The one who felt sexier.

The one who was so brave.

The one who was falling in love.

The one who ate potato chips for lunch naked.

The one who had this ridiculous energy of freedom inside of her.

As I've tried climbing back into her she continues to be in my past, no matter how I grab back at her image.

When I was working on launching the Magic Making Circle for the 5th year I kept wondering if maybe it was time to let it go. I couldn't feel that woman anymore. 

My intuition guides every decision I make and there was something churning me up, telling me that something needed to be new.

I am just now climbing out of the hardest year of my life and I am still looking in the mirror trying to understand who I am now.

I looked at the sales page from last year and one of the month's work is called 'Beautiful Dreamer' and in seconds I could hear a song playing in my head from when I was a young girl. It was like I went back in time and was sitting near my record player singing.

You, you're different
You go your own way
Come what may
You seem to do, what you should do
And nothing ever gets to you

You're special
They wrote a song just for you
Beautiful dreamer, that's your name
And I wanna be the same way too

Beautiful dreamer
Share a dream with me
You beautiful dreamer
Dream on and on
Through eternity

Some may all you foolish
But only those who don't believe
They can't conceive that dreams can come true
But I do cause I'm a dreamer too

Beautiful dreamer
Share a dream with me
You beautiful dreamer
Dream on and on
Through eternity

You, you're different
You, you're special...

From Fame. The show that I would dream could become my real life. The one that took me into the world of acting.

And that song, I would play over and over and over. I know each word as though I wrote it.

And boom. Just like that. I could understand what I have been feeling.

That song is me. 

Each repetition that I played as that little girl infused my spirit. Charged me.

I am a beautiful dreamer and that is what I teach.

The work inside of Magic Making Circle isn't just a course, it is my life. In circle we dream together and create together and learn who we are.

Year one I manifested the Loft and this gorgeous circle which continues to take my breath away. 
Year two I manifested my awakening, sexually and inside of freedom.
Year three I manifest the man I love, who has shown me safety inside of love.
Year four I manifested home, the Magic Lakehouse for my retreats, the urban farmhouse, the someday home for our huge family.

Year five I feel empty of a dream.

And I'm a dreamer.

And how can I teach a course about creating magic in your life when I have no idea what my next dream is because I still don't recognize who I am in the image looking back at me.

And then. I read this...
 

“WHAT YOU DO IS TAKE WOMEN WHO DON’T EVEN KNOW HOW TO BELIEVE IN WHAT THEY ALREADY ARE, DON’T KNOW THAT THEY SHOULD, AND YOU GIVE THEM HOPE, GIVE THEM THE TOOLS, INTRODUCE THEM TO A WAY OF LOOKING AT THEMSELVES, THE WORLD, EACH OTHER – THAT ILLUMINATES, ILLUMINATES THE PATH THAT WE FAILED TO NOTICE WAS BENEATH OUR FEET ALL ALONG.”

Year five.

Year five is the integration of all the magical manifestations that have come from my beautiful dreams so that I can learn who she is. The one looking back at me. The one with so many stories to tell. The one who needs to rest and plant and make home and love. The one who has been begging silently for the chance to catch up to her own self. 

To look in the mirror and know her.

I remember the song. The dreams. The women. Dorothy and the slippers. The path. The work of magic, which is the beautiful dreamer who goes her own way, come what may...

Walking in ashes.

I've been in that place that entrepreneurs go when they know that change is coming. 

It is the desire to burn it all down around you so that from the ashes the rebirth can rise.

This place is confusing and frustrating and you spend time in waiting.

For the download.

For the communing with Spirit.

For the magic.

For the words that channel into you.

It has been a hard. I've been here before.

You sit with yourself in the uncomfort and you find stillness.

.......

And then a message on Facebook from one of the women who has brought crazy amounts of joy to our circles...

I’ve spent a lot of my life wondering where my people were, and maybe more specifically, where my women were. When I was first introduced to Hannah Marcotti by a friend and colleague, I knew I had found a kindred spirit. While I might not have understood at first glance what Hannah did exactly, I knew she was a unique and important soul for me to know.

The first circle I signed up for was her “Being Mama” course, and holy crap ladies, it changed my life. It wasn’t a fast shift - but from the first email prompt I knew. (I had that stomach flip that happens when you know you’re about to see everything differently).

.......

And then Ruth.

She left a voice message from Australia for me.

She told me about a coffee date she had with a women she had met virtually 5 years ago during The Joy Up,  a program I used to run 3 times a year that connected women from all over the world. The Joy Up created friendships and support for hundreds of women.

Ruth reminded me that this was the power of the work, she wanted me to remember what this work has brought to her, to the woman she had coffee with, to so many.

I sat in my mini van listening to her voice (I miss you like mad, this world traveling friend of mine) and I started to cry.

The last time I felt this same way, knew that change was coming, I burned down the core of my business to the ground. I let The Joy Ups go so I could make room for a deeper magic.

The last time I felt this way, it was because I needed to go deeper. 

Magic Making Circle was born from the ashes. It saved my life. It gave birth to the woman I became, the one that risked everything to leave her marriage so she could once again become the mama-the lover-the free spirit, her essence of love and nurture. 

And since the first Magic Making Circle I could write 4 memoirs. Each about a woman becoming.

I probably should write at least one of those books, perhaps one will be born of the ashes.

I am ready to go deeper again.

I am craving it.

It is time.  

I am ready to walk in the ashes.

I am a woman becoming.

Walk with me. Throw off your shoes, and let's explore this ground together.

Crazy bored with myself.

There is this thing that happens in the online world. 

It changes. Fast. Lightening speed.

Just when you think you've figured out Facebook, boom, Facebook laughs in your face and forces you onto a Facebook page. 

Just when you think you've figured out the Facebook page, boom, Facebook laughs this time a bit more evil like and tells you now you have to PAY for anything to be seen.

Just when you think you are over Facebook and will use Instagram (insert social media of your choice), boom, they decide to do exactly what Facebook is doing and you won't be seen by many of the people who follow you any more.

It happens fast. And you have to adapt. It isn't a big choice, you just do or you don't.

.......

I used to be madly in love with so many women who worked in similar circles as I do. Like hard core, crush, love, give me give me give me.

I used to be madly in love with my work, with the way I could take a piece of my life, my story and turn it into an offering, a teaching, something that could lift and provide a path towards the beautiful iterations we get to be inside of in this life.

Something happened. The cozy community, the networking inside of ease, the smallness that existed inside of something huge, shifted. Saturated. Got so noisy. Busy.

My inbox is filled with emails, newsletters, words, poems, prayers, lessons, gifts and sales.

The conference where I used to gather with all these women who I lust after, lost its enchantment, and slowly we all stopped attending.

Many of my women friends had babies, got married, moved.

And I got separated and divorced.

I miss them. 

I miss the passion for this online world.

I miss my big retreat lakeside each year.

I miss deeper connection in person and through online community with women.

I am bored of myself. I am bored of doing it the same way.

Not because I don't think I am pretty cool, but because I feel I've lost this really fucking important piece of who I am inside of this call to keep adapting and making paid ads and make things shinier and bigger and more wow.

.......

I want to iterate. Again. But not because it is being dictated by sponsored posts or how many people I can get to watch a Facebook Live.

All of that is fine. Learn it. Understand it. Choose what you like.

But that is not what motivates me. That is not what keeps me interesting and likable. That is where we get lost and become just another email, another email people don't open. 

My motivation for the last 8 years has been my freedom and my happiness.

Not my joy, I have joy that sits in my belly and visits my heart and feels gratitude.

I knew that to be happy - those moments when you giggle so hard you cry, when you cook a meal and the first bite someone takes brings on the words that fill you up, the moment you wake up your kids and they put their arms around you for a snuggle - to be happy I would have to seek out my freedom.

.......

Happiness. Freedom.

And I did. I found it. All. Both. More.

I am free. I am happy.

And I am bored with all that was because something new is brewing again. 

A new motivation. A new passion. A new force.

I am so pissed off because I keep waiting for it. I've made space for it. I've slowed down my business. I've thrown my heart into my family and home.

.......

I have mastered the art of separation and divorce and single parenting and falling in love. Not everyone loved this chapter of my life. But it saved me. It gave me freedom and happiness.

And kind of like the miscarriages I had, I can be there for the women who are going through this and it is impossible to know what it feels like unless you have been inside it.

That is not judgement, just the truth of shared experience of loss.

I've manifested the shit out of my life.

I get scared by it, of it.

The speed, the intensity, the way things show up looking totally different than I expect but bringing me the desires and changing me once again on a cellular level, kind of like when you stop eating crap and make some kale and homemade chicken stock cellular change.

I'm close. Truly close to finding my next why, the thing that creates the next level of magic.

The Magic Making Circle will be back, but I am chatting with it, and listening, and I know that it will be new. It craves that something that I'm feeling in my soul. The motivation for its birth has come to manifest and now I want to take it deeper. I'm listening.

.......

My tether right now is home. The part of me that I don't feel bored by is the way I show up as nurturer. As lover. As mama.

In this transition time for me, because the iterating has been like whiplash and the quiet hermit mama has needed her space, in this space the one who wants to create and connect is the nurturer. 

The one who is less ambitious and starving, the one who is safe and wants to love and give.

She is the one I am communing with, getting soft with, opening to.

I've been side by side with women who judge themselves for all of it. Who think they should be making more money by now, who think they should be crying less tears and feeling less pain by now, who believe that they should weigh less by now, who are berating themselves because they should have left by now, who are afraid to live because they should be something something something that they aren't right now.

.......

You. And I. We are where we need to be and it will change fast, so for now, can we (even if we are bored with ourselves or judging ourselves) just be here. Here.

It is a new dialogue, these emails, the social media, the offerings, the websites, the asks.

Being new is trusting in the future. Being new is faith that when the cells rearrange it will someday feel good, blissful. 

Because it will.

When your leggings are tight.

I bought a pair of leggings in the next size up. Just to have something that felt normal on my skin. It was a moment for me when I wasn't admitting I had failed my body, my insides, but I was opening to the truth that I needed to feel comfortable while I figured out what was going on.

Gaining weight, not fitting my clothes has sent me into a hermit state for the last few months. (OK, well, more of a hermit than I already am!) I was avoiding getting my hair done, not wanting to be social. I wasn't recognizing the person looking back at me in the mirror.

I've got this man who loves me. Who fell in love with me when I was at one of my favorite states of my body.  I felt embarrassed in front of him for the first time in two years when I was naked, trying to hide myself from his eyes. He continued to use his words of love, telling me I was sexy and beautiful and how lucky he was.

But I couldn't feel it. None of it. I felt shame.

Shame is what happens to me when my body gets bigger, bloated, unlike what I am used to.

In that shame I become ungrounded. My moods are inconsistent. My thoughts become consumed with how this happened, why this happened. Leggings stretch, mine were stretching out.

|| Rooting In. Lifting Up. ||  It grew from this place of not fitting my leggings. Of knowing that I was not planted, rooted in what I know brings my body freedom, my insides joy. I didn't want to talk about this part of it. I sketched out ideas for a new circle, a devotional circle. Something that would feel like a Lift Up born from the connection that women make when they are inside of a common intention. 

I wanted to feel the ground, in circle. I was craving the practices that healed me, that started it all, that allow my freedom of spirit.

I was struggling to talk about the program, to write about it, to share it. Not my normal state of being inside this work.

I circled back to shame. The hiding. The hermit. 

And of course, the whole reason that I needed to give words to something new. Because I am new. In a new body. Making a beautiful plan to feel rooted in again. To feel my beauty again. To stop hiding.

The circles that come together inside each new offering change me. The women change me. They teach me. They take the work and they grow it, blossom it, make magic within it.

Two weeks ago I started the work of rooting myself back in to the devotion I feel for my body, my spirit, my home, my love, my kids, my dreams. I cut my hair. I welcomed back the way of eating that adores my body and mood. I drank extra tea when I was mad at water. I'm often mad at water.

I pulled my leggings on and they feel right again. I am standing in the mirror and not using the words that were hurting my soul, those words I would never say to another.

This morning I stood in the rays of sun streaming onto the wood floor and I could feel the earth rising up into my skin. I felt the opening of self back into the world. 

My devotional practice letting the shame melt into my past self. So I may lift into the woman who takes up her space on this beautiful earth. 

The leggings that helped me find my words around the magic that is inside of this circle that called me to find it, to grow it, to know it; those leggings on my body, ready for these days together. 

When shame melts and rooting begins. When shifts are daily space makers. When the sacred infuses into the everyday and becomes walking prayer.

I am ready. In this repetition of time, of change, of acceptance, of speaking a truth that allows for this devotional to unwrap.

A note from Valentine's Day

I was explaining to Dave last night on Valentine's eve why Valentine's day is important to me. 

Other than the fact that there is a day all about showing and sharing love. I mean, ignore the flower and diamond commercials, a day about love!

When I was married, I shared a birthday with my husband. And because I love to celebrate and make things special I usually was making the cake and dinners for our birthday and anniversaries. 

I didn't have a day that was just mine, since meeting him at age 19. I wasn't resentful, I just had this little girl part of me that longed for that special day.

So, one year I asked him if Valentine's could be mine. I wanted to claim my day as the day when the world was glowing under a giant glow of love bubbles.

Mostly it stuck. It never really became Hannah day, but the intention was there. And I had asked. Which was super hard for me, still is, but holy-wow am I getting better at it.

I do have a Hannah day now. Dave and my girlfriends have made it crazy special and loving. I don't technically need to steal Valentine's day anymore as my day. I can probably let it go.

.......

This year all 5 kids spent three days making Valentine's cards for their friends and teachers.

Our 11 year olds made Valentine's from their giant stuffed animals who are apparently in love. (The cheetah and the tiger, the tiger played hard to get for a while there, we weren't sure how it was going to play out.) Then they came up with their own designs for their closest friends.

Our 7 and 8 year olds had completely different approaches. One powered them out in batches. No nonsense style. The other I had to bribe with hot chocolate and lollipops after getting through a few at a time. Neither of them ever wanted to write their name again after 30 handmade Valentines!

The 14 year old artist who blows me away every year with what she comes up with, ended up printing funny photos of each of her friends and then writing clever little memories on them.

Our house was covered in pink pompoms and glitter heart covered doilies. 

I don't have many memories from a young age. I do remember making Valentines. The table filled with supplies and colors that just feel good inside. I remember going to school and wondering what each child would bring and sometimes looking for those extra special words tucked inside the one the boy-crush would give.

The taste of candy hearts after giggling about the messages like little fortunes of love.

The anticipation of the giving and receiving.

The day of love.

.......

I actually don't want to give it up, this day. I love this day. Adore this day. 

I know that there are people who just don't like this day. Who struggle to look past the ads to spend money on shit we don't need or the way it has become about buying rather than making or who have hearts that have been hurt.

I know what it is like to have Valentine's day come and have no one's arms to fall into. To have no one to wake up next to to kiss.

I also know that a day that is on our calendar that is all about love is nothing to take lightly. I could honestly care less about Columbus Day, but I try.

But a day about love? I don't have to try. We can't ignore this one. We need it more than ever. This day.

.......

I'm so in love with my man I have trouble wrapping my brain around it. We were fighting last year on Valentine's day and my stomach felt sick being alone, away from him. We were really stupid for a long time, constantly pushing and punishing each other. 

This year we are smarter. We have more fun than I thought possible. More sex than I thought possible. More intimacy than I thought possible. More joy and excitement for our becomings than I thought possible.

All of those day's of love, when I asked for it to be my day, when I was alone with my heart longing for love, when we were fighting and hurt, when I am blissed out; all of those days were part of the circle of love.

That is what love is. The struggle. The hurt. The faith. The longing. The anticipation. The kiss. The devotion.

This day is all of it.

Root in today. Deep down. Root down into love and feel it from the earth up into your feet, rising up through you, lifting you, surrounding you in a soft pink glow and a vibration that is the connection to love. For love. Of love. 

This day is ours. Crazy special magic that feels sensual and open. Love.

Just a little something I wanted to say today, on Valentine's day, my super special day.

Lost on a Mountain.

I started jumping up and down as hard as I could when he went inside to get the two who had come down the mountain settled in the ski lodge. He tells me when he comes out if the others aren't down he is going to climb the mountain on foot to find them.

It had already been so long in 10 degree, wild blowing wind weather that I was numb despite a lot of layering. I kept jumping. 

We had let the big kids each take one of the Lucas' up a mountain they had never been on before after a ski lesson that left the two of them completely confident that they could ski down with their brother and sister. The instructions were buddy system. Pairs of two. Be patient. Careful. Do not take your eyes off of them.

Later when Dave and I talked about it, both of us knew one of them was just not ready yet, but he is an incredible sales man that kid. He can convince you of just about anything. We were taken in by his deep desire and bravery of wanting to go on the big mountain.

Mostly, we just didn't want him to be the man out in the tribe going up the ski slope.

I see a guy coming down the mountain helping a kid. He has the medic symbols shining bright red on his jacket. I know right away it isn't our kid but after he settles the boy back with his parents I go over.

I let him know that we have two boys still on the slope, no sighting of them and far too long after the others had come down. Dave gets back. I can feel him ready to pounce up the snow to go rescue our people.

The medic tells us to stand with him and wait a little longer. A few stragglers come down. Not ours. I just want this guy to go up and get my kids. 

Then we see it. A man holding our Lucas in front of him, helping him ski down. Eli by their side, skiing down slowly next to them.

Dave gets to them first running through the snow to meet them as fast as he can. The dad who found them and helped had kids of his own, and apparently had found them walking down the mountain, Eli carrying both of their skis. 

.......

I'm new to the ski parent role. I kind of really love it. Watching them go from falling down every other second to riding lifts and mastering each lesson they take is thrilling for me. It is a lot of work with 4 kids on a mountain. So much stuff and time and patience needed.

The lodge we go to is almost always packed so I carve out space to lay out each kid's boots, pants, jacket, helmet, goggles, gloves and mask. I try to get them to understand the order to putting it all on. We usually get about half way there before Dave gets back from packing the truck and goes to work fastening all their boots. 

You have to check in and ask them who needs to go to the bathroom about 5 times. It usually isn't until they get their pants and boots on that one or three need to go. So we pause the process and they stomp down two flights of stairs to the bathroom.

That morning as I was wrangling three of them stomping down to the bathroom an older man comes up to me and says, "I just have to stop you. I've been watching you. I want to tell you you have the most amazing amount of patience with this herd of yours." He touched my arm and smiled at me as I laughed and told him how much I needed hear that.

We kept walking and I realized two of them didn't even have to go to the bathroom, they just wanted to go with me. Which cracked me up and I shooed them back to the bench to finish the gearing up.

During their lessons Dave and I get a break from the freezing cold and go to the bar. He has a beer. I have a Skinny Girl Margarita (which is seriously so good). We sit and talk and thaw out. The last time we had 2 1/2 hours to wait. I told him we would most likely run out of things to talk about.

.......

After we thanked the father who helped Lucas down and brought the kids into the lodge they told us the story of what happened.

Lucas couldn't do the side to side movements down and kept falling. Eventually he just gave up. So Eli carried both of their skis down the mountain for a long time before they got help. I could see Eli's nervous system was shot. He was exhausted and a bit faint as his body warmed up. 

He told us he carried all the skis because he didn't think they would ever make it down otherwise. 

We were crazy proud of him. Them. 

I watched as he did some self repair on his nervous system, closing his eyes, resting his head in his lap as we waited for Dave to go get the truck. I made him eat some cheese its. 

.......

Just when we think we've run out of things to talk about, we lose our kids on a mountain for long enough to realize, again, how in love with this family we created we are. To jump up and down on the earth that roots us, that holds us. To collect more stories of our lives. 

We get home and I make them little pizzas and we let them watch tv. They tell the story over and over.

.......

And. There is no mountain we would not run up to find each other. 

Being Mama || A pay what feels good program

{Being mama}

A 20 day practice in nurturing attachments, making home and becoming all the love.

When :: April 1-20

Cost :: Pay what feels good.

The four of them pile into the car and I hear them talking about planning a camping trip after their hike. The little voices are telling of how they want to rough it and bring only basic needs.

"I need to bring an apple though, can I bring an apple?"

"Oh totally, we should all bring apples."

"I want pistachios, can I have pistachios?"

"OK, pistachios and apples, but the rest we hunt for."

"Tacos. I am totally bringing tacos."

Being mama is the drives to camp, the wiping of tears, the band-aids, the stories, the amazement.

Being mama is the creation of a vibration of self turned into another. And becomes the setting of love.

We went out for dinner on the one year anniversary of our first date. He told me what surprised him the most about me was that I was like a Mother Earth, that my mothering and nurturing were my superpowers. He said that it wasn't just the way I mothered our kids, it was the way I mothered everyone. How deeply important taking care of people was to me, how it made me who I was.

All I ever wanted was to be a mama. To have a big family. To learn how to love inside of nurture, attachment and freedom.

When I met him I had healed so much inside of me that allowed my mothering to flow again in the ways that brought me and the kids alive. When we are lost, our mothering can become strained and broken. 

When I met him I had found that place again, the one that could see myself through his eyes, and know that I was once again being mama.

Being mama was not what I expected. It lifted me up, shook me out, challenged my knowledge of who I was.

Being mama is a journey I am constantly learning, adjusting and in awe of.

I fell to my knees crying in the kitchen. The kind of cry that rips you out from the inside and the noises primal and aching. The child who had challenged me for years mixed with the heartbreak inside of a marriage threatening to fall apart left me yelling and losing it. A mother lost. A woman longing for herself to come back. The result, pain and screams and melt downs and anger.

He came into the kitchen. He told me the truth. That the mother I had always longed to be, the mama that was born inside of me, was no longer there. I was lost. She was lost. What was left in her place was someone who had no idea who she was or what steps to take next.

And her heart was ripping. And on the kitchen floor, filled with sobs that became prayer she knew that all she ever wanted was to be mama. And she would do everything she could to find her way back to joy so she could adore once again being mama.

Being mama is becoming empathy for the one who will crack open as she is no longer just herself.

Being mama is finding our woman-self who will rise inside of the mama and love deep, hard, strong.

As I was learning to parent in a home as the only adult, we would have mac and cheese night when they would return to me from their dad's house. I would set the table with candles and use our beautiful blue platter with a little chip in it to serve. I could feel myself growing back into the mama I used to be. Inside of magical rituals. Waking the kids up with dance parties. Adventuring on road trips. Reading The Alchemist in the big bed together. Playing best thing/worst thing. Creating chore charts. Laughing after the lights go out and meditating to avoid homework.

Being mama was now led by pure joy, even inside of the devastating loss of a marriage. The middle one, the one who had brought me to my knees on the kitchen floor put his arm around me one day and said, "Mama, we are better now. I can feel it."

Within a year his melt downs and the anger that was inside of him started to ease. Being mama is believing that when we are our amazing woman-selves, we can create practices and attachments and the love that allows them to become completely themselves.

That is the beautiful work of being mama.

The stories, the learning, the play, the failures, the tantrums, the snuggles - all are being mama.

"Dear moon, when I splash the water on me could I please be able to fly?"

Their favorite rituals are around the moon. Full moon magical water, their crystals soaking up the energy and the little love notes. One of my boys always knows the night before a Full Moon, his body becomes wired and alive and he will feel sleepless.

"Mooooooooooommmmm, is it a Full Moon, my body is so crazy right now?"

They make New Moon wishes around the fire. Hang their wishes on the Dear Universe tree. The rituals and ceremonies and celebrations that allow me to infuse myself with my spirit gift them with honoring their rhythms and feel deep gratitude for their choices and feelings.

Each week we find a reason to have a celebration. These days it is celebrating on Thursday nights when my love returns to us for the weekend from his work in the city. They blow up balloons, plan dinner and cook it, pick out a dessert (because dessert). 

What I have learned from the other mamas in my life is invaluable. They have taught me how to make home, to deal with transitions (especially now with parenting after divorce), to handle a tantrum that lasts for hours, to make the every day special, to celebrate just because.

Being mama is the inspiration and connection to the tribe of mamas who circle us, teach us, become the everyday shamans of nurture.

Being mama is creating the simplest bits of magic for our little ones and creating beauty in tiny corners and moments.

The five little ones called a family meeting. I gave them each an ice cream cone, knowing that when our mouths are distracted just a bit, we listen that much better.

One wanted to talk about how he feels like his brother is being a bit mean to him and it is hurting his feelings. Another wanted to talk about getting positive attention rather than negative attention. And then there was the one who wanted to make us all laugh because she so loves when we all laugh. 

I told them I was starting to feel like a maid, that I needed more support around the house to keep things in rhythm. 

"Well, mom, here is the thing. You feel like a maid because you walk around cleaning up after us, picking up every little thing. If you stop doing that, you might not feel like such a maid."

Wisdom from the babes. 

"So I think you are right. Who will be cleaning up then if I stop being one step behind you?"

"Um, usssssssss I guess..." (And then he emptied the dishwasher in full amazement that I do that every day...)

Being mama is intuition, open hearts and ice-cream-cone wisdom.

Being mama is learning to guide them in picking up their banana peel and returning their shoes to the shoe corner and leaving the lunch box on the counter each day after school, especially when it is so much easier to just do it ourselves.

This year I will turn 43. 

Often I still wonder when I will grow up. And how I got here.

The three pregnancies I lost before my daughter was born. The colic she had for months as we learned to become parents inside of the chaos of a little body struggling to find peace. The decision to stay home with her and learn how to eventually create my own business. The surprise baby years later. 

Co-parenting with their dad who supports my new life and theirs as he stepped into his. Witnessing the way he has dealt with his grief and is creating space for surprises and joy for all of them.

Co-parenting with my love, who we manifested into our life. The man who teaches us so much and gives us play and adoration and safety. Kids who call each other 'bonus siblings' as we blend our families together inside of our love. We are in awe of how blessed we are and the gems of wisdom these kids are teaching us about ourselves.

Watching them grow and change, learn to swim, have a first girl (or boy) friend, honor their needs while creating boundaries.

My love calls the moments we are inside of with these little ones, the stories of our lives. We are trying to write them down, record them, honor them, hold them tight as days pass and more are written.

Being mama is letting go of expectation of what it will all look like or feel like or become because there is no way we could ever have known how hard, how much love, how all of it will unfold.

Being mama is the wonder and magic of time and tooth fairies and endless laundry piles and all the stories that become memories to anchor us together.

20 days of practices and stories and a circle of mamas

• the magic of ritual
• the woman-self inside the mama
• making home
• every day celebrations
• the love language of food
• sensuality of being a mama
• deep truths of the struggles
• prayer as morning coffee
• who are you now
• the woman that came before the mama
• sibling dynamics
• rhythms that flip it all around
• tribe support
• healing our hearts
• story prompts
• playful creativity
• photos that capture the stories of our lives
• mamas nurturing mamas
• beauty in the everyday
• honoring our needs and desires
• all the magic and joy and gifts of being mama

Each day for 20 days

• a morning prompt will arrive in your email inbox
• a private Facebook group will hold all the mamas in our tribe
• we will share the stories of our lives through words, photos and deep truths
• support from other mamas in every space of life
• the village of mamas to lift, witness, inspire, hold, adore and inspire you
• a virtual tribe swirling with all the magic of being mama

A 20 day practice in nurturing attachments, making home and becoming all the love.

When :: April 1-20

Cost :: Pay what feels good

Being mama is the drives to camp, the wiping of tears, the band-aids, the stories, the amazement.

Being mama is the creation of a vibration of self turned into another. And becomes the setting of love.

Being mama was not what I expected. It lifted me up, shook me out, challenged my knowledge of who I was.

Being mama is a journey I am constantly learning, adjusting and in awe of.

Being mama is becoming empathy for the one who will crack open as she is no longer just herself.

Being mama is finding our woman-self who will rise inside of the mama and love deep, hard, strong.

Being mama is this beautiful work.

Being mama is all the stories, the learning, the play, the failures, the tantrums, the snuggles.

Being mama is the inspiration and connection to the tribe of mamas who circle us, teach us, become the everyday shamans of nurture.

Being mama is creating the simplest bits of magic for our little ones and creating beauty in tiny corners and moments.

Being mama is intuition, open hearts and ice-cream-cone wisdom.

Being mama is learning to guide them in picking up their banana peel and returning their shoes to the shoe corner and leaving the lunch box on the counter each day after school, especially when it is so much easier to just do it ourselves.

Being mama is letting go of expectation of what it will all look like or feel like or become because there is no way we could ever have known how hard, how much love, how all of it will unfold.

Being mama is the wonder and magic of time and tooth fairies and endless laundry piles and all the stories that become memories to anchor us together.

Rooting In. Lifting Up. A 20 day devotional circle.

.......

A 20 day devotional circle :: grounding rituals and practices, walking prayer and the raised vibration that comes when women lift up together.

When :: March 1st - March 20th

Cost :: $59

.......

When we moved into the urban farmhouse that manifested with such grace and gratitude I decided that I wanted to hang vintage gold ornaments from the ceiling along with our little twinkle lights. 

I hung only one to begin with, next to our lace curtains in the bedroom. A little reminder of a project that I wanted to take on when space opened up in the chaos of moving.

A neighbor came over one day as we were lifting boxes out of the truck and she told us her brother had once owned this house and that it had over time become known as the Christmas house. The perfect yellow farmhouse in the middle of the city with lights in each window at Christmas.

The urban farmhouse or Christmas house, is my year of retreat into practices of grounding after years of feeling like there was no surface below me to catch me, to hold me, to give me the anchoring my nervous system was crying out for.

.......

Inside my Magic Making Circle I noticed that I was not alone. Of course. We draw towards us what we are vibrating. The women around me needing to find the ground, the earth, the rooting in that feels like home.

I started grounding in small ways. Root vegetables and feet in the earth. Shifting spaces in my home. Deeper understanding of each part of who I am. Letting go of anything blocking my freedom inside of my space. Connection with the women in my circle in different ways and heaps of truth telling and feelings heard, seen, witnessed. 

It started to feel like each day was a walking prayer. A moving meditation. 

A daily devotional to spirit.

Watering the plants, touching the leaves, letting my fingers dip into the soil, scavenging perfect spaces where the light would glow through the lace of the curtains. 

Egg shells piled up in a bowl on a white countertop that holds the stories of the mamas before me, as each fried egg became a sandwich for little hands to hold for breakfast.

The pale lime green of the walls that hold their beds safe, the navy stars and gold hearts on sheets covered with gray fuzzy golden blankets topped with the fuzzy furry giant bears and cheetahs and tigers they cuddle at night.

The way his body feels when we fall into bed each night, naked, lips promising a tomorrow filled with deepening safety inside of our love.

We root in by making space in our life, through rituals that feel gorgeous and filling and by letting each feeling that comes through us have a place of safety.

We root in by putting our bare feet on wet cement, hot dry sand or the first grass of spring.

We root in by letting go of stuff, of old stories, of chaos that breaks our connection with the ground.

We root in by letting each of the parts of us become honored and work as a beautiful system of who we are. 

We root in by becoming walking prayer, meditative trust and the beauty those bring.

.......

And then we lift. 

The connections of ritual. The sharing of stories, fears, photos. When another woman simply says...

...me too. 

...what if?

...how does that feel?

...I honor you.

...you are so beautiful.

...thank you.

In circle we will lift.

20 days together ::

• daily emails with story, photo and simple prompts so we may root in; in the physical and spiritual
• a circle of women; the heart of the magic of lifting up
• rituals of making home; beauty and space
• the sacred kitchen and table; service and feeding
• safety in our hearts; reverence and adoration
• shifting of space; release and opening
• the parts of who we are; feeling and being seen
• walking prayer; faith and repetition

The gift of words from past circles ::

“What you do is take women who don’t even know how to believe in what they already are, don’t know that they should, and you give them hope, give them the tools, introduce them to a way of looking at themselves, the world, each other – that illuminates ILLUMINATES the path that we failed to notice was beneath our feet all along.”

“She has a magical balance of ferocity and gentleness that speak directly to your heart while not leaving your mind out of the equation. Oh, and she rocks.”

“There are moments in our lives when someone extraordinary comes into view, bringing with them great spirit and the power of transformation. Hannah Marcotti’s deeply rooted authenticity, gentle love and soft caress, creates beautiful spaces for knowing and a safe place for revealing our most authentic dreams and wishes, guiding you toward a realization and manifestation of your true hearts’ desire.”  

“Hannah is honest, real, a storyteller, authentic, magical, passionate, gentle and tough all at the same time…”

“This group, you all…this work, is the emotional scaffold I rebuild my spirit upon~”

.......

Any questions? Please send me a note at hello@hannahmarcotti.com