Shineology

( 7 months + the magic appearing )

Today is 7 months
And this magic appeared…

I’m the wild horse - you’ll always be my protector.

- I love you Nancy -

Today I miss you like none other + the energy all around me showed up.

Torrential rain
Washed out roads
Surprise visit plans delayed
And nature abounding :
Leaping deer
Galloping elk
Roaming wild horses
Eagles on edges just barely visible
Roaring water
Unending visions of mountain meets water and green pastures galore
Trees that touch the sky

Heaven
In the Ya-Ha Tinda
Back to our momma + our western roots - you ride with me today big sis. And the cowgirl really showed in me.

Laughs + hugs + tears too with my best buddy - thank you for being you SD in all 42 years of friendship + for bringing me back home to me

And today, angel - Nancy - you showed in all the splendor.

I am so blessed.
And I am you.
You’re here.
This magic - I felt it all…

( one year ago, today at this very moment )

To hold wisdom that is best to not be shared.

To hold truth that would dampen any light

To hold space when you’re being crushed alive.

To live with knowledge + not share.

To anyone

And mostly to your own heart.

There’s SO much talk about brain and being and bodies telling stories. My body my brain and all of my being is feeling the crush of one year ago today. The day all the signs became evident to everyone else that I’d been holding. Anchored in belief and hope and trust. That she’d make it. She’d pull through. She’d dance about this one

Nope

All the pieces of me are so incredibly sad today - all truths not need be revealed. And the body doesn’t lie. And the brain knows threat. And the pain is a cycle.

And a nervous system safe is heaven.

So - I curate micro joy in macro grief

The day the truth seized + the pieces starting tearing apart

One year ago today my beauty full best friend, my big sister confident and cheerleader - your brain finally told everyone else what I already knew to be true

I am sad today. A deep kind of sad I can’t express shake or let be.

And I am grateful beyond.

Dancing for you today Fancy Nancy. And keeping the legacy of love alive

• stretch •

Ask me what it holds. A video in all of this will come out soon. DM if you want a love story.

( 6 MONTHS )

…there’s so much to say, and yet there are no words

Grief is such a place of love just having nowhere to go and right now I’m really still feeling deeply filled with gratitude and appreciation. But a profound missing. Like I keep forgetting something. And flashbacks so strong I feel gutted often. Smells. Sounds. Sights. Rememberings. All so fu***ng beauty full.

However, the moments seem to be more macro grief with these delicious spattering of micro joy…

I found those words a little while ago.

And I’m staying golden : and I’m staying in the golden practicing something called bless + release by It’s truly amazing the things the heart and the mind can do when they work together!

A forge forward in a living legacy. I fully stepped into my exercise science background with yoga therapy as my facilitated construct of how I help humans and it’s grown a brand new place called.
• stretch •

Please feel free to follow along there

It is a complete honor, to honour my sister

It allows me to shine in the places and spaces she always loudly said I should be. That I am. And do now I have my whole life that I didn’t realize would add together in one of the most precious moments ever : the love I shared in family and how I bring it into Community.

Nourishing people, like Dad. Strong, discerned + no BS like her.

All the right words just won’t come to me right now.

I’ve been told by people when is the old Ann coming back?

Never

I’m the best version of myself that I’ve ever been. It’s because I’m also graced in the space of her energy.

Anyhow, on this beautiful Sunday evening, I’ll go walk the sunset beach + be in her big purple jacket. You’ll see it in my stories.

This post has nothing but a purpose of journaling and sharing something that we all commonly share

Human suffering
Resiliency
Strength
Grief
Grit

And, as I was very kindly reminded, I am grace.

Thank you to all those humans that know that you’ve been there for me. I’ll still need to lean on you a little bit.

To all those that haven’t reached out honestly don’t bother. I’m doing great.

I love you, NANCY

Yep, I’m dancing in the dance we talked about!

( Kali )

This beautiful queen

…just a few weeks ago, I had to put my beautiful girl down. It was heart wrenching. It was also unexpected and it was so veryfast.

How appropriate on international women’s day, that my little girl Kali was born! Today Kali would be beginning her 15th year!

In dog years that’s incredible; in any life that’s incredible!

And Kali was just that kind - she was absolutely amazing.

Kali overcame quite a few things in her life : and all of those places and spaces, she taught me how to be resilient, joyful, gentle observant, and lead in action.

And isn’t that what we’re all here for together? To be loving and strong together; to help bear, to help celebrate, to help be, to help expand, to help stretch ourselves!

I’ve lost so much this past year and I’ve gained even deeper gratitude. What remains is a profound connection of soul sisters and community.

Thank you to each and every one of you.

Today, though I really have to think of my Kali.

It’s absolutely too much to talk about my sister

And do, to all those queens in my life - you know who you are! I love you and I wouldn’t be getting through all of this without you

Thank you.
💛

( I’m also beginning to realize that those very same soul circle of women also wouldn’t be here without me. I’m finally truly seeing my worth. Both Kali and my sister must be rocking that lil piece of awesome! )

( limbic system + love )

and then there were two…

Pain is real.
Bearing it and acknowledging.
Being with what is…

“When broken, the correct response is to be broken”

In my lived experience + growing body of knowledge (help from Megan Devine) : grief
* poignancy is kinship
* it’s evidence of connection
* we are made to love
* love is the answer

And,
my sharp mind is not necessarily my friend, right now. So I’m embracing my equanimity. ( clear calm attention in the face of truth + a “0” BS radar with a vomit metric )

There is such power in witnessing pain : only the stars are large enough to take it on..

SO be kind to yourself ann • grief requires kindness…

All this in just 6 weeks …
a lifetime unforgettable

Fancy Dancy Nancy | 43 days

( forging forgiveness )

There is a moment, and only a moment in that dripping down of golden hour. The sky heavying and starts to turn a violet; the shade of sinking into the beginnings of periwinkle. The day being kissed into goodbye. Dusk is starting to settle all within this vibrancy of goodness, like a luxurious draping of honey; a lavender elixir. And I look across the farm, with rolling hills and fields, the resident evergreens clinging in coats of fresh white snow. I couldn’t help it - I gift myself a moment of forgiveness.

And all in that moment grief bathes me. It arrives with uncertainty and a hugging kind of rage. It plays me in a profound sense of appreciation and gratitude. I know I actioned while she was alive. A bond of love unbreakable through anything.

What I ask for is to be able to hold her and tell her that all again! I know this is humanly selfish; my matrix now feels more aligned with her now that she’s gone, than ever before. She is me. Her life is me. My life is because of her. And there in this one moment of the moon, so bright + hanging like a fresh drop of nectar in the sky, ready to be pour from its presence - I found a moment. This moment that forged forgiveness. A place for it to be vast.

I give myself forgiveness. And that scent of the full moon stimulates a deep settling in my bones. The physical is concrete. This beautiful spiritual is just beginning. All in a moment forging.

• this commences my begin to sharing in substack - find more of this me, there…

( celebrating the life of Nancy )

the day is arriving :

[ SAT NOV 29th 3-5 pm
Steckley Gooderham ]

we are ready to hold the space in our hearts for you to come help us celebrate Nancy

her life was magnificent
remarkable
and irreplaceable

and you were a sweet part of it!

you must wear your white kicks
(In her honour)

your black + your white

+ definitely — don’t forget your dash of pink!

i still can’t comprehend how to move on in life without my big beauty full presence of my sister - her laugh, her intelligence, her heart will never be replaced

my best sister
my best almost mum
my best friend

so let’s keep the dance going + sing her home in fancy dancy nancy style…

(In other words we don’t know how to let go but we sure are ready to shine her light!)

friends + family see you there…

💕