She Gathers Beauty | Living Your Wildly Naked Truth

Hello dear listener. Today I share that the podcast is moving from a weekly offering to a seasonal offering. I’ll be taking a hiatus from recording new episodes so that I can focus on the next book as well as another very exciting and expansive creative project. I’ll be back with fresh new insights, offerings, and a heart full of love!

We also work a bit with change, being present, and exploring the ways in which we can hold ourselves back from living the life we long for. 

Sometimes we have to let go of something in order to do so. This can bring about loss, grief, and uncertainty. 

And yet, turning toward ourselves, toward the life calling us now is a great liberation.

Letting ourselves be pierced by the changes, by this moment, exactly as it is.

Be inspirited—let yourself be held.

You are nothing but love.

I look forward to being with you when it’s time to pick up the chalice of this podcast.

In the meantime, I am still available. You can be with me near the hearth fire—your own private hearth fire. Visit www.shegathersbeauty.com to learn more about spending sacred time with me.

There’s also a nice library of episodes to listen to. I’d love to know some of your favorites if you’d like to reach out! Visit the link above for contact info.

If you’ve enjoyed this or any other episodes, please leave a rating and loving review. That’s the best way for people to find us.

As always, may you know that you are sacred. This moment is ceremony. And you get to live your wildly naked truth.

Vast blessings & love,

Wendy

Wendy explores the importance of honoring our daily needs as a way to be available for knowing and tending to the desires and aspirations beckoning us into the life we long to live. 

This episode looks at homecoming as it relates to turning toward, not away from, the fires happening both around and inside us. Coming home to ourselves in very basic ways increases our ability to be present in a challenge and available to joy, healing, rest, truth, and relaxation. These are dynamic, game-changing keys to being part of the great revolution happening now.

Stillness is an essential ingredient to tending the hearth fire of daily life. What is living at the center of you? Let’s look at how often we get lost in checking off to-do lists moving from task to task and choose something different.

Life’s grand invitation at this time is to lean into and build upon supportive and nourishing practices that feed us—body, mind, and spirit—helping repair hurt, be with uncertainty, and be nurtured more. We can’t be fed from perpetual exhaustion.

How can our daily choices be acts of grace and devotion? I provide simple practices that can help increase ease, clarity, and focus and cultivate greater trust in the goodness available to each and all of us. We explore the empowered surrender of a one-word prayer, the beauty of making offerings and gestures of love to nature and hence, ourselves, and other sacred, daily practices. 

How I found this altar built out of words, plus how it can be used: “let your desires counsel you.”

Turning inward and locating stillness. Dropping into the profound calm of our breath, leaving behind stressful to-do lists and excessive task-oriented ways of being, if even for a moment or two. 

When we know what we really need and act on that, we increase our ability to create a larger vision of wholeness from trust, spaciousness, clarity, and creativity. 

Rest and repair create more room for our gifts and wisdom. We can draw upon the powerful practices of ritual. I share a few of my own personal practices, including water offerings, rattling, and journeying to commune with my helping spirits. 

Everything is ceremony. We can turn our gaze toward the sacred in each moment.

BONUS: at the end of this episode, I take you on a guided visualization into your heart cave where you can relax, receive, and enjoy a special offering that has been waiting for you. 

Come home to the quiet stillness that is you. 

Remember, you are sacred. This moment is ceremony. And you, dear heart, you get to live your wildly naked truth. 

If you’d like to learn more about my offerings, visit www.shegathersbeauty.com.

Today Wendy shares a poem entitled “Of Belonging” and sets a sacred place to welcome in the topics of relevance, refuge, and reverence. She addresses loneliness and isolation, chaos, and the longing for more ease and connection. ”We are not broken.”

Today Wendy speaks to the power of dreaming and the Dreamtime, the potent portal of resting into the mystery and the darkness.

The opportunity to release AND receive. Practical ways of showing up in an active state of surrender by recording our dreams.

Poems as thresholds to bridge the whole and holiness of mystery. I share two poems from my book, The Reach is (W)holy.

“Cultivating Yin” poem. Ways to catch our undone dreams and struggles. The stirring of sadness and hope. Darkness and fear and the ability to be called into a deeper truth.

Exploring the elegant edge that leads us back to the center of ourselves.

Dreams that are asking for our full attention. Our ancestors asking to be honored, received, longed for, invited. 

Inviting grief to the table and inquiring, “what do you wish for me to know about you?”

How can we be a bridge between the worlds? How can we plant new seeds while resting for ourselves, for the ones who have gone before us, and those who will come after?

The darkness helps us see, know, and understand what is really living inside of what is True.

We came equipped with tools to see, know, hear, and understand in various ways.

What we are supposed to know and how we are supposed to be can be vastly different from what is true and longing for us. 

Accessing the hearth-fire of your heart for steadiness with a simple breathing practice.

The powerful practice of asking yourself “what feels good?” This is a way to cultivate yin. To know and acknowledge the sacred available in the moment. And to catch, receive, hold, gather all that is needed. This “vessel” can also empty out what is needed, too.

A few ways to practice recording and retrieving our dreams so we can be aware of what they want us to know, do, be.

Dreams as a part of the Great Call Back—calling back all of our parts (for more on this topic, see previous episode). 

Weaving together all the pieces of our life in the midst of mystery unfolding.

The importance of sharing our dreams, as well as helping others understand their dreams. 

The significance of being a reflection of the Dreamtime for our community, family, and the collective at large. Our dreams often have medicine to share and don’t just belong to us individually.

“Clear Seeing” poem. How are you being written? What is your heart’s promise?

Letting mystery do what it does—letting it nourish you and teach you how to trust.

May you be deeply nourished.

May you remember, you are sacred.

May you remember, this moment is ceremony.

May you remember, you get to live your wildly, naked truth.

Today we explore the sacred threshold of endings and beginnings.

We dive deeply into our vision and trust with the poem:

The Truth About Gathering Joy 

There is a story I will tell 

about not compromising

living a life of big love

 

trusting truth

 

this story is rooted in magic 

beautiful but not always pretty

moments down on the ground 

wailing

praying

empty

begging 

 

do not be fooled

these times are perhaps the (w)holiest 

 

I will build a circle of sacred for you

to embody the desire you are holding

 

this is the medicine for all of us now

 

all

of

us

 

now

 

the fire has already been lit

many are waiting for us

to join them there

 

wisdom keepers are pouring gifts through the dense mists of fear

 

you will hear how to love your passion 

into creation

taste the truth perched 

on your lips

 

some of what you love will choose a new form

you will let your sadness want you

float in your blood like eager lanterns of hope

 

you will close your eyes and trust

your hands know what to hold onto 

 

and how to let go

 

you will let your desire council you 

visit the place where longings live

 

often

 

your soul will make itself known in your body

a new song will emerge from your bones

 

this is how you will know your own fierce story

the only one you can live

 

so many of us making new stories

from the ones already undone

 

sometimes 

it’s closer than you think

 

this is a story about deep love.

 

~Wendy Candida Havlir Cherry, 2020

 

Holding hope and fear, joy, and sadness at the same time.

 

Working with trust and the ways your body knows what to do. 

 

What will you hold onto from this year (and your entire life) and what will you let go of?

 

How will you be held?

 

A short guided meditation—flowing with the divinity and grace of your breath—available right here, right now, in the home of this moment.

 

The sudden uprising of yes in your inhale & the rest and letting go in the descent of your exhale—and the pause in between.

 

In the length of our longing, belonging arrives.

 

The Mistress of Longing comes to us as a dear friend and companion of deep love. She is hope and a reminder that we are never alone.

 

Moving into a deeper relationship with your life—and permission to (be)long. Imagine moving beneath what you perceive you long for and into the holiest and wisest doorways of your soul’s true knowing—an oceanic love—longing is an ever widening expansion into true home and union with the sacred.

 

Life is a constant divine invitation—a divine hand reaching for you—how will you reach back? What parts of yourself will you step toward? What parts of yourself will you no longer reject but instead gather and embrace? With wild and holy abandon?

 

Wind & Water poem from my first book, The Reach is (W)holy.

 

As you move toward 2021, how are you holding death and life? And the idea that grace is infused in every moment, even when you feel dismantled? 

 

Meeting ourselves and others from a place of compassion and messy alchemy. 

 

Writing prompt: How am I wild AND holy? When have I felt wild and free, liberated, holy, truly myself? When have you chosen yourself regardless of what might be the result? What is true about you now? What are you willing to choose no matter what? How is life asking you to come out of the darkness and say yes to something new and into the light? What am I willing to no longer compromise?

 

May you know boundless blessings. Thank you for listening. 

 

As always, YOU are sacred. This moment is ceremony. You do get to live your wildly naked truth. May it be so! 

 

Big love & rose petals,

Wendy

Greetings Beautiful & Wild Soul. Join me as I share an honest moment, let truth bring ease and freedom, and choose being over doing.

May you know the magic and miracles available from not holding on so tightly to how things should be, how you should be, and let the answers come as they are ready. 

Let us stand together at the beginning, where mystery and truth meet. 

Let us remember ourselves back home, choosing curiosity, trust, and love.

May the holy days remind you of your wholeness and may you feel every blessing and possibility.

If you'd like to enjoy more, scroll through the library of previously recorded episodes and see what nourishment finds you.

Thank you for listening. Sharing this space with you means the world to me. I'll be back in 2022!

Enjoy this Sacred Replay. Today we explore:

The opportunity to gain clarity and soulful insight in the darkness. 

The mysterious power of yes.

Acknowledging the many kinds of ancestors and the magic we have to offer them. 

Rumi’s poetry and lineage—words as a  sacred portal.

Unwrapping the gifts only available in the darkness and retrieving an expansive vision. Gravitating to the hearth-fire for warmth and rest. 

What is asking to be honored within and around you now?

“Solstice Birth,” a poem written for me by Morgan Farley, a magical being I met because I said yes to a very special and life changing opportunity.

Katie Hess and her incredible flower alchemy @lotuswei.

Numinous presence and clarity in the darkness is ever waiting and available for us as we walk through life. 

Nature’s truth longs for you.

Becoming who you already are—you are already the entire feast.

”Deep in your body there’s a door,” from the poem, “Solstice Birth” by Morgan Farley—

——a ritual you can use to access the truth and mystery of you that came while I was recording. 

Your life is an altar. Whatever you have, use that.

YOU are an altar. 

Say yes to what inspires you.

”The Guest House,” by Rumi. 

What “guests” are arriving for you? What is your emotional landscape like now?

We are not alone. Saying yes can lead to miracles. It can happen in so many ways, even when we are down on our knees. Even sobbing is a yes.

Letting your yes—your longing—be honey for your heart.

Your inhale can be a yes. Your exhale a softening.

May you know you are sacred and that this moment is ceremony. And may you live your wildly naked truth. 

Thank you for listening. If you like what you heard, please leave me some stars and a favorable review. To learn more about me and my offerings, please visit www.shegathersbeauty.com or @shegathersbeauty on Instagram and Facebook.

My helping spirits made it crystal clear that a message needed to come through for this episode and I'm so glad they did. I think you will be, too. 

This message takes us on a journey to meet three sacred messengers who have something special to offer us as we make our way to the end of 2021 and into an expansive view of 2022.

Gift yourself 15 minutes of deep self-care and receive what your guides want you to know. Enjoy how far you've come on your own journey and be gifted with something fresh and new for your soul's path.

If you'd like to take these messages even further, visit my website to view my current offerings in The School of Wild & Holy.

https://www.shegathersbeauty.com/tsowh

This is a writing ritual to help deepen your awareness and access the velvety remedy that lives in your heart center.

Allow your words to become an altar, an offering for your life today, and all the days to come.

If you'd like to dive into more heart-centered teachings and soulful connections, join The School of Wild & Holy and be moved.

https://www.shegathersbeauty.com/group-offerings

I made something for you, beautiful listener! As we enter into the holiday season, there's no better time to increase self-care, receive kindness, feel restful, and practice coming home to the center of us.

You are wild light. 

Magnify your love and radiance.

Enjoy this guided meditation to experience reverence for all that is sacred within. Light a candle, get comfortable, gift yourself ease, love, clear-seeing, and comfort.