say hellooo evolved substack.... Soul Conservation
NEW breathwork 6 week series + cold ocean dips at south melbourne surf life saving club. dive in!
“Truly, we know that we cannot really subsist on little sips of life. The wild force in a woman’s soul demands that she have access to it all…” - Clarissa Pinkola Estes
In 2016, a small group of women began gathering in my local hood. We came to slow down, to be still, to sit in yin shapes, to escape our children, our roles, our duties, and to share our real feelings. I was not experienced in teaching yoga. I told stories, guided poses, and told them to listen to their bodies and breathe. Fresh from quitting my “successful career”, I had no idea what I was doing. I just knew I had to follow something truer and not waste one’s time with things that had no soul.
Ten years is a season. My girls were only five and six years-old then. Now this version of me, forty-seven, is a bit slower and a lot less enlightened than my algorithm is promising. I’m adapting to accept this is not a loss of power.
The passage of decades somehow simultaneously makes you feel more solid and less solid at the same time. It’s like where one area weakens, another strengthens. The power learns to change form and shifts from outside - to inside. I’ve been working with a weights trainer and she’s helped me reduce a significant amount of hip pain while discovering power in dormant muscles. This is after an eleven year hiatus from gym.
While there, I noticed a thirty something woman, a familiar face from my treadmill days, someone who used to come to my classes. In an uncanny way she reminded me of myself. A young mum trying to hold everything together. Part of her drawn to something deeper, part of her holding back. She wore cynicism and sarcasm like armour. Beneath that, though, was a restless, untamed creativity, something she’d learned to suppress just to get through. She’d quieted her own stories to stay safe. There was no room in her life to tend to unfinished emotional business. She carried too much, everyone else’s burdens, everyone else’s weight.
And she was tired.
Over a post-workout coffee she shared; “I feel called to share my stories and write a book but I don’t want to produce another new-agey self absorbed seeking memoir. I don’t want to put something out there that already exists.”
I could relate. Not a single publisher has ever wanted to pay me for my stories (yet). In fact, every rejection letter delivered various feedback:
- No thank you.
- Try harder next time.
- I found it sickening to read.
- It will not sell.
- How many instagram followers do you have?
I felt a responsibility to take the conversation somewhere more nuanced, where it gave her a way in. “If you try to give an audience what it wants by chasing social media trends and worrying what ‘they’ will think, you’ll end up abandoning your own soul genius.”
There are defeatist mind stories that control you, and then there are the bigger stories that you’re born into. Where a woman’s bigger stories are stored, that is where she’ll find her genius. Storytelling isn’t about gaining attention, it’s how we make sense of a soul that’ll outlive us.
Who am I really beyond all these social roles?
What expression am I truly here to bring to the earth community?
On a soul level, we’re each like a myth that was part of the world before we were born or conceived, and even after we die. Poet David Whyte refers to it as “the largest conversation you can have with the world.” An essential singular story episode in the unfolding larger series of the Cosmos.
That story has always been calling you. You won’t forget the day you first hear it ring, any current project, person or job that interferes with that story suddenly falls away as vastly insignificant. It has claimed you and you are changed by it. You must tell it.
Which leads me to this new Substack evolution.
Something is taking shape.
Soul Conservation.
Soul Conservation has emerged in response to the fast, furious, and fake stories in our current climate. Conservation means the protection and preservation of natural resources. Life energy, breath, and soul story.
What could happen if we get conservation right?
A Soul Conservationist is someone who seeks to alchemise and transform their inner life as much as the outer eco-system. Someone who leads with soul, and is invested in the journey inward as well as outward.
My unique niche as a Soul Conservationist is to guide souls through the breath and death thresholds of their middle passage rites. With life, comes death. And within life comes endless cycles of endings, beginnings and becomings.
I’m writing for a return to adventure. A return to animal instincts. To cosmic wisdom. To nature. To serve the whole, not the role. Remembering the planets, the people and all its creatures are part of a wider story.
A new offer:
Breathwork - 6 week sunrise series
Starts Friday May 15th - Ends Friday June 19th
South Melbourne SLSC: 7am - 8am (warm inside)
breathwork + cold ocean plunge (optional) + hot drink (optional)
The South Melbourne Surf Life Saving Club has invited us to host a 6 weekly sunrise series of breathwork. A slightly shorter class than usual, sixty minutes to suit an early bird time. We’ll do 50 minutes of conscious connected breathwork followed by an optional ocean dip and coffee/chai.
A little context on why this practice and community matters to me right now.
It’s how I get through the change of seasons when it’s easier to drift away or shut down. To step out of the habits and patterns that’ve boxed me in and stare at the horizon to see that there are infinite possibilities.
morning breathwork clears contraction.
cold salty plunge reduces pain and inflammation in joints, as well as the obvious natural dopamine affect.
And I need actual humans to hug and be accountable with to make sure it happens
If you’re in Melbs, enter this anchor in your Friday diary and watch the world rearrange itself to match your new vibe. The very oxygen we breathe comes from the ocean.
To attend, must have some previous experience with a breathwork practice. If you’re unsure, respond to this email and we can arrange a chat.
Buy a casual class or commit to the whole package x 6.
The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you. Don’t go back to sleep. - Rumi
