Wind, Wings & Spiritual Awakenings

The Spirit of Change

The beginning of 2025 was personally marked with a new sense of power, self-trust, joy, excitement and auspiciousness. This was going to be an amazing and abundant year! I woke up the morning of January 7 knowing we were expecting some pretty fierce winds. I’d lived in Los Angeles for 18 years and have always been fascinated with the Santa Ana Winds. Growing up in small town Ohio, we’d never experienced such intense hot, dry winds. We got plenty of thunderstorms, snow storms, even a nearby tornado here and there - but all of that was nothing in comparison to the Santa Anas.

I had no idea what was about to unfold or how the trajectory of my life would change…

Sunset in Joshua Tree on my 44th birthday - four days before moving here.

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Enter the first plot twist of 2025: the LA wildfires. Those fierce Santa Ana winds led the way for those fires to decimate large swaths of LA. We even saw a fire tornado. Yeah, that’s a real thing. No one expected or could have even imagined this. I’ve certainly never lived through or seen a natural disaster of that scale. At one point, I was surrounded by wildfires within 10 miles in every direction. Apocalyptic? You bet. And while the rest of the world moved on, as life does, the city and it’s people are still dealing with the personal, environmental, and economic impacts months later. Reconstruction has only just begun, the Pacific Coast Highway is finally set to reopen at the end of May, and ocean advisories were only lifted in April.

Enter the second plot twist of 2025: turns out those fires were the final straw and the impetus to take action on the guidance I’d received nearly a year before to move to the desert. It’s been exactly one month since I moved to the Joshua Tree area - four days after my 44th birthday - and I’m now a full-time resident of the Mojave desert after being part-time since March. I’ve had a long-time love affair with the desert and have previously written about it’s expansiveness and magic both HERE and HERE.

While I’ve been coming here regularly since 2019 for my solo hiking treks, I’m still very much in a period of adjustment. And while I was completely supported in this transition, it was not without a few (or several) bumps in the road. Moving a couple hours away didn’t seem like that big of change…Well, change is a funny thing.

As a cardinal fire sign, I’m an initiator. I can leap into adventures without much thinking or planning and enjoy just figuring it out as I go. While I love the courageousness and brazen boldness of this quality about myself, I did underestimate the stress it would cause on my energy body, physical body, and the sense of destabilization and grief I’d experience from leaving a city I called home for close to 20 years.

Back to the Wind.

I live up on a mesa, so it is particularly windy up here. In fact, it’s been unseasonably windy [and cold] since I arrived. Nothing like the elements to test your resolve and resilience. And the irony here is I journeyed to the Spirit of Wind back in January after the LA wildfires broke out. I started working on a piece then about the messages I’d received from Wind and Fire, but it kept shifting and changing direction - much like the Wind. It never felt complete. In fact, every piece I’ve started since January has continually shifted. Nothing has felt complete or “ready for publishing.” It’s actually felt like I don’t even have a foundation from which to write [or speak] at all. My perspectives, paradigms, truths - all in a constant state of change.

Sunset view from the Mesa.

Wind is a living, breathing being. We must honor, thank and take note of the lessons and messages that Wind brings. Since arriving in January it has tossed me about, blown up and shaken off the dust and in many ways has mirrored [or lead] my internal shifts and switches these last several months. There are starts and stops, fits of rapid activity followed by periods of calm and quiet, sudden changes in direction...

It’s the rhythm of Nature.

This experience has shades of a spiritual awakening. It’s uncomfortable for one, and as I’ve written about before, awakenings aren’t always gentle. Sometimes we do get shaken awake. Even looking at what’s happened globally over the last five months - we’re in the thick of it. We are collectively being shaken awake. Like it or not, here comes change. The alarm has sounded and now it’s time to get quiet and listen. Not with our minds, but with our hearts.

IF we can take a moment to pause [and not get reactive], to build a deeper connection with our hearts and physical bodies we can begin to tune into the rhythms of the Universe. To Wind, to Fire, to Water, to Earth. To Creation. The signs and synchronicites are ever-present if we are aware. By getting into a deep state of observation, both at the micro and macro, we begin to shift into a different way of Being. We learn the language of God or Source or whatever you want to call it. Full awareness. Full processing. Pattern recognition. Understanding. Wisdom. For all it’s diversity and opportunity, America [and even Los Angeles] are quite provincial. There’s this element of ego where we think our way is the best and only way. What if we’re wrong?

What if speaking this language of the Universe is the real power? The truth behind the illusion. Dropping into deep awareness and observation of our physical sensations, emotions, thoughts, what’s happening in our immediate environment, and what’s happening across the country becomes data collection. We’re not judging or getting reactive. We’re simply collecting the pieces of this puzzle of existence and seeing what takes shape. This isn’t about escaping to 5D or returning to our Star family. This is mastering the dance between the physical, viseral human experience and our soul experience.

Winds of my Soul

So as I sit here now, writing outside on my patio with the sun warming my legs, I’ve come to accept being in this state of radical change. This is where I’m at - some in-between state of being, unbecoming, and not fully formed into the next version of myself. Somewhere in between the known and unknown. And instead of waiting until I feeling complete, certain and fully transformed into the next version of myself, I decided to show up, be and write from the discomfort and awkwardness of this transitory ephemeral place. To be uncurated, unfinished, uncertain, maybe even a bit messy, but truthful amidst the rapidly shifting Winds of my soul.

So here we are.

Journey to the Spirit of Wind

It’s Tuesday January 7 in Los Angeles. I knew of the wind warnings and woke that morning excited. I’ve always loved the energy of the Santa Ana winds. Much like water feels cleansing to people, the wind has always felt cleansing to me, but with more force, excitement, passion…and more possibility.

These winds always felt like the ushering in of change. The energy shift was palpable. I woke up excited and went outside to walk my dog and allow the wind to blow off all the dust - the stagnant energy and the old things that I was ready to release. By 10am I was in acting class and into the afternoon we remained in this creative bubble. It was a particularly powerful day of work with us artists, and I left feeling on fire.

Since my phone had been on silent, I was completely oblivious to the fiery destruction that was ravaging our city. I raced home to do a Shamanic Journeying meditation - phone still on silent.

I was going to journey to the Spirit of Wind. It was somewhere around 3pm as I closed the shades, lit candles and laid down with my headphones.