GREETINGS GODDESS!
It has been a little while since I have written you. It has been both an introspective and an active winter. It’s been a rich time during which I have been experiencing both tragedy and ecstasy.
I am struck by the way life will deliver some of the most intense experiences a human being must navigate along side some of the most exquisite joy we can handle. This is what the last 3 months have been like for me.
It has all had me looking closer and deeper at my life and what I am here to give and how I may best serve you.
To move from the broad to the specific I’ll share that my brother, who I was very close with and lived a mere minute away from me here in San Francisco, passed away in November.
You may remember in my last post (found here) I was caught in New York City in the heart of Hurricane Sandy and witnessed some of the chaos and challenge that created there. After days of being caught in NYC, I was finally boarding the plane to leave and then received the call about my brother. Imagine my devastation.
What followed was some of the ecstasy – a trip I had scheduled to The Big Island of Hawaii where I was a DJ for a week-long Ecstatic Retreat at a gorgeous retreat center playing some of the best music sets I’ve played to date alongside other electronic music luminaries like Bluetech and members of The Desert Dwellers. We hiked to a live lava flow and got right up and personal with Pele. The island energy is so nourishing. I did a lot of healing by the ocean there.
Here are a few pics from that experience:
With some healing and perspective, my brother’s passing became a gift wrapped in a painful package that has solidified my commitment to live my life as alive and happy as I can be.
So I began inquiring deeply into what is in alignment with that. Asking what is true if I were to drop the stories of what I think it should be.
I returned from Hawaii to the planning of my brother’s memorial and time with family. I wrote my brother’s obituary and his eulogy doing my best to honor his life and the great man he was.
Two weeks later I followed that up with a scheduled trip to Mexico to play a big international festival called Synthesis to honor the turn of the Mayan calendar on December 21st. I got to play the most extraordinarily beautiful stage I’ve ever played alongside more musical luminaries next to one of the Wonders of the World – the Chichen Itza pyramid.
I witnessed some incredible healing take place between the creators of the festival and the local Mexican government – the whole festival experience literally providing a microcosm view of the macrocosm of what the whole “shift” is about on the planet – moving from being “me” referenced to “us” referenced – to being in community and communion with the people and the planet around us.
We then went to the beach in Playa del Carmen and Tulum. Not a bad life!
With my honey Shane at the pyramid on December 21st:
The stage:
Performing:
A gorgeous cenote we chilled at afterwards:
Even with and through the devastation, even as I was swimming in sorrow and confusion, I have been granted stages, opportunities, and platforms to share my gifts in a bigger way. All the while, I also had the privilege of supporting incredible clients in their reclamation of their gifts and their creative essence and the birthing of their work in the world.
I have let myself be with all of this using my pain as my fuel, willing to sit in the open questions, and showing up vulnerably and courageously as I am.
What I know now even more than before is that we don’t have to wait to heal, we don’t have to wait to have it all figured out to do what we are here to do. We just show up and take the next step, and as feminine creatures, it’s especially important to let ourselves feel what we feel as we go.
At times in my past I let my challenges slow my progress. The low points of life can take us down if we let them and sometimes we have to. I barely left my room for a week when I got home from NYC – I just had to sit there with it all. I slowly found movement I believe because I gave myself stillness.
When I returned from Mexico, I gave myself more stillness to really listen. I stopped trying to create on top of everything. The questions I repeatedly asked myself were:
“What is real?”
“What is my gift to give?”
“What do I truly WANT to give?”
And slowly through the veils the answers have been finding me. And I allowed the things not in alignment with that to die – to fall away and to allow the pure truth to take their place.
What you will see from me this year are the answers to those questions that pierced through the pain and arose from the pleasure.
Here are the words that are the themes I will be exploring and teaching around this year:
creative confidence, life as art, liberation, expression, global engagement
I’m excited. 🙂
In the meantime, I invite you to slow down from the frenzy of New Year priorities, goals, resolutions, and action items. Go inside and ask yourself what you are to do. I guarantee your answers lie within.
As always, I am grateful for your presence here with me. I I so look forward to sharing more with you. More is coming really really soon! Like this coming week soon. 🙂
In Gratitude,
Alia
P.S. I am honored to be featured in the current issue of Origin magazine – the one with Erykah Badu and Richard Branson on the cover. It’s on stands at places like Whole Foods and Barnes & Noble. It is a gorgeous magazine chock full of inspiring people and content. This is my feature sharing about what I find powerful in a woman.
