10 ish years ago, in a journey, I saw myself, anciently old, lavender-haired, with iridescent eyes and luminous skin, walking through a desolate earth. There was no life…just dusty, mineral-depleted Earth that stretched as far as you could see.
I walked and walked, and every now and then, I would come upon a crater in the Earth. Down in these craters were ghost towns. I would descend into towns, gather all the children, and bring them to the land (from the underworld to the middle world).
Eventually, I had a line of children marching behind me, accumulating more and more children from these sunken towns along this barren Earth.
After a while, we came upon a single tree in the middle of this empty, lifeless desert. No water source or other plants were around, but this tree was old, happy, and healthy. I understood it as the tree of life, what appeared to be an old Ash tree. The children gathered around me as I read them stories beneath this tree, and more and more life, imagination, vibrancy, and lightness were ignited within them.
For many years, I thought I was destined to work with children because of this prophecy vision, and perhaps that is still a piece of my purpose to come, but I more so recognize it as resurrecting the inner child, the creative spirit, and returning them to the tree of life, the bridge between heaven and Earth—The Great Mother Tree.
For years, I have had similar prophecy visions and past-life journeys. In them, I have taken children across the bridge to heaven on journeys home, saved them from plagues and swarms of fear and destruction, and protected their purity and innocence timeline after timeline. In some cases, it required more fighting and use of my voice, and in others, it was more simply done.
I even had a past-life memory of Walt Disney once. When we have past-life memories as publicly known people, our ego doesn't need to attach to that person's identity because when we do past-life regression work, we are often connecting to the collective oversoul (like a library of infinite past, present, and future memory we all have access to) and remembering a fragment of our soul's consciousness that is just not as linear as the human mind likes to analyze. So, roll with me here.
In this lifetime, Disney was in a dark room with a single drafting table, desk lamp, and projector, creating his characters. But he was completely spinning out with stress and anxiety. All his characters were like apparitions circling behind him as he spun in circles with his hands over his head. He eventually fell to the ground in despair and sat curled up in a ball in the corner of this room. I understood that he was overwhelmed by the pressure to create—the need to keep producing to feed humanity's hunger for the whole Disney empire (lots of hungry inner children! Disney is STILL feeding the inner children of millions, if not billions, daily.)
Then, his wife comes out of the kitchen, where she is peacefully cooking, and brings Disney in to sit at the kitchen table to eat. She then turns into his mother, and he turns into a little boy. This timeline was a beautiful reflection of how the artist, without the divine nectar and nourishment of The Mother, just can't be fed enough to create from an embodied and whole place. And that nourishment keeps the inner child well so that the spark of divine imagination can weave worlds into form.
This timeline also clearly reflects how commodifying the creative spirit to feed the collective displaced child (and capitalism) has robbed many divine artists of the pure pleasure and soul food that creation provides, which I can relate to with my work with Soul Tattoos, which is why I often need to take long breaks and eliminate all pressure, hunger, or even the need for it to bring in all my income around this sacred expression that cannot be produced on a large scale.
In this memory, I recognized my essence in both the masculine and feminine subjects as a reminder to keep feeding the inner child so my artist can heal and create from a place of ease and pleasure. This is foundationally woven into so much that I teach. Feed your joy, pleasure, heart, body, and soul so you can create authentically! You are not a machine, but a sacred, delicate, pure organism of divine light.
Another memory that is relevant to this theme: right before I signed my book deal I had a vision of a past life in Europe in the Middle Ages where I was writing a book of channeled messages from the "little people" (elves, gnomes, etc). When I finished this manuscript of vital information to return humanity to its true essence in connection to the Earth and magic, I went to share it with printers/publishers so it could reach the people. But they laughed in my face, called me crazy, and kicked me out. Sad and defeated, I handed the manuscript to a child I knew as he was the only one who could receive the message and carry it forward. I told him that when humanity is ready, he must share the teachings.
The common thread in all of these visions was the child's essence (the creative, imaginative spirit) being separate from The Mother, the source that feeds our dreams. This separation creates chaos, fear, and a desolate earth void of life, the very essence children bring.
As a writer, artist, and teacher, I have often experiences this misplacement of my expression, feeling like humanity doesn't yet value (remember) the medicine and the wisdom of our innocence within and the sacredness of new life, a dream, and creation.
I remember after my first big viral video of Soul Tattoos, many internet trolls came through my Instagram and emails telling me that my art looked like that of a child. While I was of course a little hurt because I am human, I just I didn't understand why creating like a child was an insult meant to shame another when children carry the wisest and purest expressions of creativity! Children know how to create real, authentic art, naturally.
For much of my career, I have been reminded by others of how young I am and was dismissed early in my career because of it. When my book came out, many people would tell me it must be for young adults! That wasn't insulting; it just didn’t make sense to me. If grown adults can go to Disney World, play video games all day, or worship games with balls, why can’t grown adults read a spiritual book about tending the sacred creative-divine spirit through an ancient artform of ritual?
The other week, I had a similar dream about this theme. The Earth was desolate, and all that was left were a handful of middle-aged men/women, but I seemed to be the youngest by a good 5-10 years. Drones flew around collecting data from anything still living and took some of its life force in the process (sound familiar?). At one point, I hid low to the Earth to attempt to be undetected by the drone, but it chose to land on me over the man I was walking with and mine me of my creative life-force “data” from the back of my heart.
In the small pod I was a part of, a child appeared. They must have been there the whole time, but it took me until then to recognize that she was a small child, maybe 7 or 8. She was covered in makeup, wearing a wig, and dressed promiscuously and maturely.
I went up to the mother, water welling in my eyes and deep grief in my heart, and asked her why she was putting this red plastic wig on her daughter's precious crown and covering her face with a mask so no one could recognize her purity and innocence. The mother was oblivious and didn't react; she just laughed and said it was because she liked it,.
This is a reflection of a foundational issue within our collective consciousness: the severing of the child's connection to their purity and divine light (at the time they are the most open, rooted in love, pure, and connected) and masking their innocence to grow up too fast, which ultimately disconnects humans from their creative light and the dreams they came here with. They are taught to value growing up over the joy of being a kid, often because they don’t even have a safe place to experience healthy childhood to begin with, and at least growing up means they can be independent.
Bottom line, the children within and without are not protected.
Children and the child essence within are bought, sold, trafficked, killed, shamed, blamed, abused, denied, starved and everything else in between because of a deep and dark hunger that wants to devour the precious and pure light of the divine.
And it’s not the parent's fault. This is collective and generational and has been happening for thousands and thousands and thousands of years. I have seen so many timelines of history repeating this same story over and over through my work, but all you have to do is open any history book, and it’s all laid out. Or just look around you. Of course, we see this on a larger, more traumatic scale in our world's addiction to war, killing of children, and disregard for the other, but it starts when that child's connection to the divine is severed within us all.
When completely severed from your innocent light, you cannot recognize and value it in another. This is the severing that creates wars, abuse, addiction, and so much suffering. When there is separation from our divine wholeness, one easily loses compassion for the other and no longer recognizes the other as love.
And when children are robbed of their innocence by growing up in a cold world disconnected from The Mother, the love and abundance they are naturally born from and with, they lose connection to the dream seeds they are here to plant and steward in co-creation with the earth. They lose connection to their ability to imagine new worlds, which this world desperately needs. They just want to find their way back to love and will do anything they think they have to to feel that belonging to the divine love they know once again.
Innocence is quickly rejected and shamed in the patriarchal age (both from within and without), yet we must dig within ourselves to remember and embody those pure, light, innocent energies that young children naturally exude—like wonder, a wild imagination, nonsense, play, and most of all, magic, to align us to our creative power and truth in a world that is dis-eased in disbelief and disregard for the light.
More than ever, reclaiming and protecting innocence, what is pure and sacred, is crucial to hold steady the pose of light as we draw down more love to face the hollowing dark night of fear and awaken the dreams to birth a new world.
This is why I work so much with spirit baby energy, too. Like the inner child, I recognize this energy as seeds of pure potential. Whether or not you decide to have a child in this life, I believe spirit baby energy surrounds us all, seeding dreams into our hearts and expanding our creative capacity. I see spirit baby energy around those who wish to call in children, but just as often around those who want to call in new life of any kind. Often, spirit babies will travel with us for a long time before we even conceive of a child or a dream, especially if you are an artist/connected to the creative spirit.
Next time you are around young ones, maybe even you have young children of your own, let their innocence, imagination, and wonder help you reclaim those parts of yourself from a world that tells you you are bad, starting pretty much from the moment you take your first breath as that open, pure little one who holds a great wonder and potential for this world. Let the children remind you how much curiosity would save this world and the separation born from preconceived notions, judgments, and fear. These energies of purity, wonder, lightness, innocence, and imagination are the most natural states for any soul to embody on Earth. Yet, protecting this part of you requires vulnerability, connection to one's own light, practice, and great devotion. But in doing so, you feed your deepest hunger and start feeding this world.
Just for a moment, imagine a world where we look at our fears, mistakes, shortcomings, or judgments with curiosity rather than control or shame. Imagine a world where we are delightfully curious about people who think, speak, and believe differently than us, wanting to learn more, asking questions without reserve like children do. Imagine a world where our curiosity drove us to align more closely with nature and the natural order of this life. Imagine a world where people were playfully curious about what cannot be seen, understood logically, or controlled. Imagine a world where people pause curiously to learn from happenings in their lives and expand the possibility to perceive something new. Imagine the slowness of the child within being nourished and the softness of being loved. Imagine gentleness, pure expression, and honesty. Imagine the beauty, color, and inspiration! Let yourself imagine, and you will find the child within.
This is the world I dream of most of all, where innocence is protected and the child within is brought home to the wisdom tree. It is here that I know beauty, magic, creativity, sweetness, new life, and light will blossom all over this planet once again, restoring life to Earth.
To connect to our innocence, purity, imagination, and uncorrupted creative expression, we must remember the divine child lives within all. It is the child starving for light and care, but so easily fed by magic and love that we all carry. It is the Divine Child within who plays a foundational role in awakening the memory of our innate magic as Divine Creators so we can weave a new world into form. It is the divine child who sees God and sees only love in others without needing or taking anything in return, just because they are.
Let your inner child guide you to magic. Let them follow their hearts. Let their imagination soar beyond any lingering limiting beliefs. Let them trust in the miracles of life, this is their nature.
Will you remember the pure light that you are and let it guide you through life to where you belong? If you let the child within imagine the world, what would they dream? What would they create? What would they do without fear, unbelonging, and and instability running their reality? What would they do if they felt safe to be whole, fully expressed, and seen in their light and purity? If you have little ones at home, ask them the same! We need this medicine right now more than ever. We need to awaken the imagination, open our hearts, and remember the pure light within all beings.
Because this is the light that heals the world.
With love, wonder, and imaginative dreaming,
Ashlet River
P.S. Curious to journey with me in a soul regression and learn more from your soul’s history and encoded wisdom? These sessions are powerful, subtle attunements to your light, and pure True Tone of your soul’s essence. Just like the medicine of the child within, they require a letting go of mental controls and an opening to the wonder, imaginative possibility, and expanse of reality beyond your limitations. And this is where the magic is found. Reach out to learn more and book here.
Love this so much 🧚🏼
Such a powerful piece ~ 🙏🏻🤍🪽