5 Keys from the Threshold

Wisdom of initiation to carry you forward

Noun: threshold;

1. a point of entry or beginning.

2. the intensity that must be exceeded for a certain reaction, phenomenon, result, or condition to occur or be manifested.

My work is threshold work.

Through tattoo alchemy I mark skin and light body as a lost rite of passage and remembering of the soul’s true essence and song.

Through mentorship I serve as a death/expansion doula through your creative journey and life weaving.

Through storying and word I guide you through the process of change.

In my work I am the stone anchoring you through the initiatory experience of aligning with your soul’s fullest expression. I hold a mirror to what needs to end in order to receive your highest alignment. I attune you to truth when chaos invades your spirit and mind. I hold the space for you to rise.

To arrive at the threshold is to say yes to your soul, dreams, and desires to be manifested through you.

To arrive at the threshold is to arrive at a point that will change you.

It is a sacred rite of passage we all walk endlessly as living beings on this ever-evolving planet, but we have stopped honoring it as so as a culture.

So we push through, bypass, ignore, move on quickly, and rarely take the time and space these cycles ask of us. And as a result, most modern people are walking around fragmented, uninitiated, unintegrated, and disconnected from soul and spirit.

To honor the threshold is to honor death, and I know it is not easy. But it’s not easy because we have forgotten how to hold death as a culture. We’ve forgotten how to be with one another and not separate through death. And we’ve simply forgotten how to see in the dark.

When was the last time you stood at a threshold in your life, greeting death, the fates, your darkness and your potential?

Maybe you find yourself here right now as the seasons are about to change, a threshold into the expansive light of summer if you are in the northern hemisphere.

The solar season calls us out to be seen, to grow in courage and radiance, to be nurtured by the sun, to create space for more joy, and step up and out to receive our desires.

If we are attuned to the creative rhythms of the earth and stars, we may be experiencing a wringing out of what does not match the evolutionary expression we are being called into. This will cast a light on the shadows that keep up small so that we may integrate our darkness while we are called to cross the threshold into the new.

It is easy to feel lost, confused, stuck, a loss of identity, or afraid in these cycles, when called to rise into a fullest expression of our soul’s light and power. So I am here to share with you 5 important keys to place in your pocket for anytime the dark calls you home.

5 keys of wisdom from the Threshold

1. Your intuition is your greatest guide when you are fulled into the mystery of change. Don’t try to figure anything out or even plan too much. Let your intuition guide you moment to moment, from choice to choice, step by step. Be present and attune to yourself.

2. You must slow, soften, and surrender. There is no point in rushing this process. In fact, often when we rush through the descent we are more prone to accidents and making choices from fear. Give yourself the gift of grace and take each step with mindful intention.

3. Who you are when overcome with shadow isn’t really who you are. Don’t let the face of the dark goddess scare you into self-hatred, self-neglect, or shame, let her guide you into self-integration, bringing together all fragmented pain parts into beautiful wholeness.

4. Don’t give up. You may want to disappear, hide from others/the world, close off your heart, or even at some point carry suicidal ideation. This is the place where you must go just a little bit further to be relieved of the suffering of binds you to the past, in order to liberate yourself to claim your future. In this phase it can be very important to call on support from others, whether that is a threshold guide, healer, trusted friend, mentor, or ally. You don’t have to do this journey alone.

5. There is nothing wrong with you. We deny the darkness, so when she washes over us, our tendency can go into fixing or controlling. Doing this cleanse, reading this self-help book, seeing this psychic to tell us what is wrong, etc, when the medicine is to move through the energy, not outsource it, try to push it away, or fix. The key is knowing you are loved and you are healing. It is ok not to be perfect all the time. Perfectionism is an illusion casted upon on us so we continue to feed our culture and economy with our insecurities. Imperfection is Human.

The upcoming Sagittarius full moon is calling forth expansion for us all.

What is being wrung out? What are you being asked to leave behind? What are you being expansively called into? Where are you ready to get free?

Look to where you have Sagittarius in your chart for deeper insight.

This full moon falls between my natal Eros and Lilith liberating the deepest desires, most sensual, powerful, fiery feminine parts of me, bringing forth volcanic eruptions of emotions, rejection, abandonment (Lilith’s wounds) and radical purging as I integrate my inner rebel and step into my future self. I am in between two big personal ceremonies as I type this, tending to the threshold of a new life awaiting.

Expansion will always ask us to tend to death. Death and life are two sides of the same coin. But understanding the meaning and purpose of death as we swim through the waters of loss and grief can serve as anchors in the storm.

If you feel called to embody the role of Thresholdkeeper, whether for yourself as you move through change, or for others as a sacred space holder, I would love to invite you to the retreat I am co-leading this summer, Thresholdkeeper.

Thresholdkeeper is a midsummer, threshold-crossing respite for healers and medicine keepers in the redwood forests of Mendocino, CA (July 27th-30th, 2023)

A Retreat for the Ones Who…

Hear the unmistakable call to surrender to the wisdom of the Psyche’s song

It’s for those who know that their life's work is to traverse the deep world – the liminal spaces of mystery, death, change, birth, and initiation – in order to gather the ingredients of the medicines they know will serve their people in these times of immense cultural change.

Thresholdkeeper is for those who honor that the path of becoming is not rainbows and fairies, but the daily work of firmly walking upon rich, dark soil of a changing Earth.

We want to talk about the realities of soul-level initiation and feminine psychospiritual descent. We don’t want to bullshit you. We don’t want to high-vibrational, sovereignly embody you to death. We want to meet you in the real depths of what the old women’s mysteries and queer tales know about what it looks like and feels like to stand at the crest between worlds and call forth a future.

There isn’t a single goddess tale worth its salt that doesn’t include a descent to some kind of Hell. There isn’t a single ascension story that doesn’t first include utter descent, loss of voice, identity, belonging, and hope. And not those clean and neat little stories that we leave inside of dusty books and the myths we over-intellectualize. I mean the kinds with real exile, abandonment, betrayal, dismissal, hooks, and nails—real life stories of soul descent. The kind you can’t always be saved from. The kind where the most horrendous parts of us make their way up through the cracks of our bodies, unyielding. The kind where we wonder if all the love, light, and magic we conjured up in former lives was made up in the end. The kind where the Ereshkigals, Father Enlils, and King Dumuzis are the characters we’re most thankful for because they showed us our teeth, vigor, and, ultimately, our surrender.

The kind of psycho-spiritual death where you want to dissolve yourself and disappear. The kind where you may actually not want to live.

These experiences are the secrets we keep about the nature of feminine initiation and rites of passage. These experiences are the things we’re scared to talk about. And despite how quickly our culture rushes to medicate and hyper-pathologize these straits of change, these dark nights of the soul are not places to hide from or be ashamed in. 

These are the places where we are meant to gather. These are the places we begin.

I hope you will join us! Visit threshold keeper.info to learn more and register. Spaces for beds are filling quickly, but we have plenty of forest meadow camping spots left.