A summer of unraveling.
The summer of 2020 is etched in my memory as one of my deepest personal initiations. The world had become unrecognizable, and so had I.
There we all were. And something inside me had quietly closed. My window of tolerance felt impossibly small. I moved through numbness, anger, depression, over-planning, and then the frustration of watching every plan crumble. I couldn’t feel my heart the way I used to. There was no middle ground, no place to land gently inside myself.
When I finally made it back to an outdoor dance workshop that summer, held in community, I felt like I had returned home. The space held me in a way I had not allowed myself to be held for months. In that circle of movement and presence, surrounded by others navigating their own transformations, I finally broke open.
Calling the Phoenix
Kneeling on the dance floor with tears pouring down my face, I looked up and asked for a vision. I asked for the Phoenix, the archetype of rebirth and transmutation.
I cried for everything: the collective grief, the confusion, the instability, the losses I didn’t even realize I had been carrying, the distance from my family, the friendships and dances that dissolved in the chaos of the pandemic. I cried for myself. My prayer was simple: Show me what needs to be seen. Help me rise again.
And something did answer, but not in the way I imagined.
An unexpected initiation
The first initiation arrived through illness. And as many of us, I got C*vid that summer.
This illness became an unexpected doorway into surrender and letting go of control. It stripped away my illusion of certainty and brought me into a deeper trust in the unseen. Underneath it all, I felt held by something larger, a presence I call the Great Mystery, or simply Source. Or at least, I needed to feel that I was held, that I was not alone.
During my recovery, another thread began to appear. My body was not bouncing back the way I expected. As part of investigating what was happening, I had an MRI that changed the course of my life. The scan revealed an AVM, an Arteriovenous Malformation, a rare tangle of veins in my brain, something I had never known existed inside me. Something that thankfully never gave me signs of its existence, and that for some reason life wanted me discover then ‘by chance’, at 50 years old.
The second initiation: choosing life
Discovering the AVM was a shock, especially because I had never experienced any symptoms. It felt surreal to learn that something so significant was living inside my brain without my awareness.
The doctors explained what it meant, the risks, and why it needed to be addressed. I had to come to a decision making moment in which for me, the safest and most life-affirming decision, was to have a neurovascular brain operation. And let me tell you, choosing surgery while feeling physically healthy is one of the strangest and most courageous decisions I have ever had to make. It is literally a conscious decision to put your life in another’s hands.
Preparing for the operation brought fear in a completely different shape. C*vid had cracked something open in me, but this new initiation brought me face to face with my own vulnerability and mortality.
I had to gather every inner resource I knew, every practice of breath, movement, sound vibrations, prayer, grounding, self-compassion, and connection. New diet, vitamins, intermittent fasting, clearing toxins. I just knew I had to prepare my body intensely, to arrive at the operating table as clear and strong as possible so I could re-emerge again. My inner Wise Dancing Warrior was clearing and preparing the space around me.
There were moments during this time when I felt unexpected waves of aliveness. I could sense energy rising through my feet into my pelvis, gathering in my heart and expanding upward, as if reminding me that my body was recalibrating itself. These sensations felt like a private ceremony between my cells and my soul, a reminder that something inside me was reorganizing, healing, and awakening.
I felt the Phoenix there again, its wings near me, asking me to trust the process of burning away what was outdated and rising into a new form.
The surgery itself was long, delicate, and demanding, it took two days with two different operations and two doctors… Looking back now I really am amazed at how I could even think of going into this as a ‘healthy person’ not by urgent necessity. And I just remember feeling an immense gratitude afterward as I reopened my eyes. I was still here. My brain was working, and I could move. I had survived. And was feeling a deep, profound respect and gratitude for my powerful body.
Meeting fear with love
Throughout these months, fear became something I had to meet consciously. It had texture and weight. I found myself needing something physical to project it onto, so following a suggestion from my mentor, I chose a wooden box. I called it my fear box. Whenever I felt overwhelmed, I held it and reminded myself: “I am not my fears.”
Consciously, I would open it, put the fears inside, and then close it again. And I always left it in a visible place in my room.
It helped me separate the sensations in my body from my identity. It also allowed me to send compassion to the parts of me that had learned to fear in order to survive. I kept returning to my embodied practices. Yoga and Movement Medicine became my anchors. Yoga helped me follow simple movement with clear guidance, while Movement Medicine helped me feel my emotions without drowning in them. It helped me keep listening. It helped me stay connected to something wiser within me.
I am grateful for the embodied tantric wisdom that also carried me through those two years. I learned to welcome the full spectrum of my inner world with gentleness. I learned to listen to my body’s language more intimately.
Looking back, I see that these initiations were guiding me toward a deeper sovereignty. They taught me that fear can be transmuted when we face it with compassion, curiosity, and presence. They taught me that rebirth is not a single moment but an ongoing practice.
“If you are frightened, may you be emboldened by a big consciousness far wiser than your fear. If you are lonely, may you find love, may you find friendship. If you are lost, may you understand that we are all lost, and still we are guided by Strange Angels and Sleeping Giants, by our better and kinder natures, by the vibrant voice within the beat. May you follow that voice, for this is the way – the hero’s journey, the life worth living, the reason we are here.”
~ Elizabeth Lesser
Rising like the Phoenix
The Phoenix does not rise only once. It rises again and again, not because it is invincible, but because it remembers how.
Life’s initiations ask us to burn. Not to punish us, but to refine us. To strip away what we’ve outgrown, what no longer serves, what we’ve been clinging to out of habit or fear. And in that burning, we find what is essential. We find what cannot be destroyed.
I learned that transformation is not about becoming someone new. It is about remembering who we have always been beneath the layers of protection, beneath the stories, beneath the fear. And ultimately, this is it. Trust. Going beyond fear. This is what I have been unconsciously working toward all my life, and what I want to share with you.
We are not alone. We are held by exquisite energies if we take the time, respect, and consciousness to open to them. We are loved and supported by seen and unseen forces. Connect deeply with them. Move and be moved by them.
Like the Phoenix, we rise again and again. Sometimes in flames, sometimes in quiet embers, sometimes in slow, tender unfurlings.
And always, always with love.
Author Note: I share this story not as advice or as a blueprint for anyone else’s journey, but simply as a piece of my heart. I am not a therapist or a medical practitioner. This is a personal reflection on what supported me through a challenging and transformational period of my life.
If you are navigating your own health, emotional, or nervous system challenges, please seek the support of qualified professionals. You deserve to be held with care, expertise, and compassion.
