Feeding the Flames
A Story on Feeding your Desires, Resurrecting your Creative Force, and Igniting your Passion for Life
Three years ago to the week, I was driving home from my weekly acupuncture appointment dedicated to balancing mysterious body ailments when I was hit with a spark of light that ignited in my gut.
For about nine months prior, I had been having heart palpitations and consistent rashes under my eyes that started the day I moved into a house (that ended up having black mold) with a husband that I, unacknowledged by me at the time, had zero desire to be with.
I never wanted to live in the town we moved to (Mendocino, CA) or even get married in the first place. Deep down, I knew this partner I chose was not the right match for me because it just didn’t feel right. Yet I found myself in a dim, forested treehouse-like home with a man I wasn’t attracted to in life that made me feel small, depressed, and stuck.
My misaligned choices were suppressing my inner flame of feminine desire that fuels my divine artistry, and that stagnant fire in my body not being expressed was creating an imbalance of fire within that turned into an internal rage I couldn’t seem to contain.
So, I did everything I could to fix it. I did the week-long Panchakarma cleanses, parasite cleanses, liver cleanses, energy work, shamanic apprenticeships, plant journeys, medicine ceremonies, ancestralization, trauma healing—you name it. I saw every bodyworker I could find in the small, sleepy lost-cost town I resided in, but it only made my symptoms worse, my fire even more stagnant, and my grief from not being in my full expressed unending.
As I drove home from my appointment that day, I got quiet and listened a little deeper to my inner voice. Standing at a threshold in life and career, I could feel something major bubbling beneath the surface. My first book was due out in just a couple of months, and I could sense new dreams wanted to land, but the soil of my life was not the rich and fertile soil required to birth anything from a soul-aligned place.
At that moment, silently driving along through the fir and redwood trees, I heard loudly and boldly, “Feeding the Flames of Desire.” I recognized the voice instantly because it was my soul, a voice I knew well but had been turning the volume down on to play the role of wife, “good girl,” people-pleaser and homemaker, instead of the deep and wild mystic, seeress, powerhouse, super creator and courageous and bold woman I am. A voice I quieted as I dressed myself up in all the identities that I felt would allow me to be more accepted, loved, and feel like I belonged to someone, something—anything to feel whole.
But at that moment in the car, shaken awake by the power of my own truth, I chose to say “yes” to whatever the seed was that was being planted within me (hint: my next book). I knew claiming this seed of creation meant radically and courageously changing my life to align with it. I knew saying yes would send me down a spiral path of destruction (and creation) as I let the dark goddess within me rise to her potential. But—I didn’t know how deep and wild the spiral would be, how much courage and strength it would require, and how much devotion and focus would be needed.
I didn’t know that I would be sent to my knees, have my heart broken a million times, learn lessons over and over until I embodied them, and be forced into the practice of what it really meant to value my Truth, desires, and creative light. This, I learned, is how you claim who you really are.
Before I got married in the fall of 2019, I traveled all around the world by myself, fueled by wonder, passion, and pleasure. I slept alone in the desert, lived in camper vans, soaked naked in hot springs, swam with sea turtles, went scuba diving in Thailand, and laughed with friends from New Zealand to Italy. I lunched on sunlight and made art under the moonlight. I wrote poetry, always carried around a film camera to witness the world through my own lens, and worked with clients all around the world in service to the feminine flame. I danced joyfully often as if my life depended on it and stayed up late with creative inspiration until I was so satisfied by the pleasure of life that I went to bed just to do it all over again. I dressed in colorful clothing, dyed my hair every shade of pink and purple, and sang Stevie Nicks at the top of my lungs, even though I was told my whole life I couldn’t sing. I didn’t care. I listened to the lands deeply. They taught me about love, creation, and my purpose. I carried this passion for life and expansive ability to dream into my sessions with clients, helping other women unleash and reclaim their passion, desires, dreams, purpose, ancient wisdom, oracular medicine, and Truth to clear the imprints of sacrifice or settling, free their will, and make courageous choices that aligned with their soul’s calling. My work with women has always naturally been about supporting them to attune to their soul’s voice and creative light—igniting the dreams and desires that long to be claimed within and trusting themselves, their inner voice, and life enough to say YES to the flame of soul creation. To free the power of their choice.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Ashley’s Substack to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.