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.

Join me as I share my own behind-the-scenes process about betrayal and the path back to sovereignty. This is a story about my body and what she's trying to show me when I choose external validation and reject the most sacred love story of my life--choosing to be the poet of my own heart. I live for poetry and often the subject is about love and longing. Recently, I've been able to see how every poem I write is a love letter to my soul. Explore the ways your body will tell you when you've strayed from true self and true home--and the myriad ways we have grown to diminish ourselves when we place our love and power in someone else's hands. Knowing the feeling sense of "diminishment" can be a potent signal to step back into ourselves. I wonder if you know all the miracles waiting for you on this day and all the days to come when you choose to fully occupy the wild country of yourself? I wonder if you're open to the vast potential living within you? What will it take to walk love's wild edge and choose yourself again and again? What if every prayer, poem, and love song was written for you? Life mirrors the possibility for homecoming in each moment. Especially when we abandon ourselves. Cancel culture and self-abandonment. Daily preventative practices that summon our sovereignty and restore soul are so important. Perhaps now more than ever. If you haven't already listened to episode 64, "Be Coated With Love," now is the time. This is an Akashic reading for our community that provides powerful instruction for heart tending, protection, and feeling love(d). At the end of this episode, I share a short, guided heart ritual for homecoming. Special Offering: Let's summon the power of this time of year and feel deep connection to self & others. Join us for a very special storytelling series as we approach the threshold of releasing this year and all that has come, and enter into a new year and all we are becoming in sacred community. Be seen. Be sovereign. We begin this Sunday, November 21st with the story of The Ugly Duckling. It's not too late to sign up and gather round the hearth fire with us. https://www.shegathersbeauty.com/group-offerings

Tell me, what is your yes? What is alive within you? What is life asking you to release? To fully embody? The way you feel, it matters. The way the moon is moving inside you, it matters. How are you meeting the wild edges of yourself? What will you give yourself permission to be, feel, do, receive, believe, give? There’s always a threshold opportunity to help us embody our yes. This life is a constant ceremony—and everything is a love story. The power in believing in your love—and leaning into the unknown. I beg you, don’t let go of your hallelujah. If you’d like to receive a love note from my heart to yours and be supported while you’re living at your edges, you can sign up for my newsletter here: https://www.shegathersbeauty.com/ Poems shared in this episode: She Is Mine, Lion’s Moon, The Curve of Yes, and An Unplanned Gathering of Love.

Be coated with love is the theme for this week’s episode, channeled from the Great Akasha. Make your favorite cup of tea and listen in. Let yourself get cozy and comfy and see how the message translates to what you’re experiencing. We are being invited to trust where we are, let go of any ideas about right and wrong and let life surprise us. We’re offered a daily practice for the month of November to help us “grow into ourselves.” There’s a lot of medicine packed into this little episode—I hope it brings some comfort and blessings to you.

What if the tenderness living wild and alive inside you is a prayer? How is it being answered? What if our tenderness and vulnerability are a prayer? How are you praying? Even in the silence, your heart is asking for something. One of the miracles available is our ability to see how the answer arrives. Especially when it doesn’t arrive the way we think it will. Your desire is a prayer, even when you won’t let yourself feel it. Answers arrive when we liberate our longing—when we give it free speech to take up space. How are you living wide and taking up space? There’s a community of revolutionaries rising and I share more about that and #longingproject in this episode. You can learn more at https://www.shegathersbeauty.com/longing-project You get to live your wildly naked truth. May it be so.

Today I open the Akashic Records, revealing a potent message for the listeners of this podcast. I briefly describe the Akasha and share what often happens for those who are the recipients of these messages. The Records are a sacred space for us to access Truth from the great Storehouse of all that is, remember our sovereignty, life purpose, and provide myriad expressions and opportunities to receive healing, upliftment, and ceremony. The ritual of and ways to receive an Akashic Records Reading. A guided relaxation and deepening into the presence of being held. The Blue Lotus shares Her message with us: it is dark and yet there is so much light; the message is about remembering hope; even in darkness, Great light and beauty is happening; darkness is the mystery of all life; life happens with death; the Blue Lotus is a great healing light reaching for us, inviting us home; this time is the Great Gathering Sacred; breathe now, She says; Open and rest, open and rest; what moves away from you is meant to, it will return your Truth back to you, with noble wisdom; You are Noble Wisdom; lower your gaze to the center of yourself, to the center of everything, where we all are, held in the center of Her; She holds the vast and luminous great mystery; the stars are Her heartbeats, Her eyes, and I’s, the multiple perspectives of Her, which is us; we must forget and re-member ourselves again; release and let go, strength and clarity is returning now; re-chord your dreams, your vision, your hopes, and aspirations, belong to this homecoming now. The Blue Lotus offers a nighttime practice and ritual for deep rest, healing, and homecoming. Thank you for listening. If you’d like to receive your own Akashic Reading, you can book yours here https://www.shegathersbeauty.com/booking/akashic-records-intuitive-reading. Many Blessings and All Love.

What are you growing into? What do you long to embody? What if something you experienced was the last time you’d experience it? What if the last kiss you had was the last one? And what if it wasn’t but you let yourself remember that everything will change—how would you bring your whole self into the next kiss? Into grief and sadness? Into this moment? Into whatever you love? Appreciating being here. What can you find home in right now? Being rearranged, knowing the sacredness of it, even when it doesn’t feel that way. Inviting the breath in, letting it show you the way with its elegant rhythm, moving in and out. If you pick one thing to wear today that would represent how you want to live into this moment like it’s the last moment, what would it be? Your favorite shirt? A piece of jewelry? An essential oil? Choose comfort and ceremony. How will you wear your love? Slowing down and growing into the journey of this life. Letting longing be birthed as a spark from within. Getting acquainted with the fire of our soul. The practice of living your wildly naked truth. Remembering to trust. And the trust in remembering. I share the poem Deep Violets, Wild Pines. Where can you let go of being so careful and live your you-ness now. Seek it out. What would living more wildly look like? Begin a new alchemy. “Wear your love like perfume.” Saturday, October 23rd, join me for Permission, a luscious and sacred virtual retreat. https://www.shegathersbeauty.com/booking/three-divine-doors If you’d like to receive invitations to special offerings and love notes from me, visit www.shegathersbeauty.com to sign up for my weekly newsletter. As soon as you land on the home page, a little note will pop up and you can sign up there.

How do we hold our intentions, longings, dreams, and desires while simultaneously not holding too tightly to any particular outcome? Explore the immensity of how so many of us are being asked to let go, be redirected, and move into the center of our lives. I share a personal story about being rear-ended and all the ways I gained clarity that sometimes we need to be rerouted. *Trigger Alert: this is a fairly mild, or “gentle” story about a car accident I was in. It comes at the beginning of the episode. If in any way that feels like too much, you might fast forward to the middle of the episode or skip this one. When we experience trauma, it’s so important to let someone help us move through it. Please reach out to someone who is a trauma-informed practitioner, a therapist, a friend, a shamanic healer—someone you can trust to help you find peace, comfort, safety, and healing. Letting go of practicing learned self-abandonment and choosing our whole selves instead. Taking up space and having full permission to claim that which has been unclaimed within us. Working with embodiment and presence practices in order to locate who and where we are and where we might be being nudged to go. When we’re re-directed or rerouted, we are ready. I share the poems “The Song” and “The Dream” by Naomi Shihab Nye. An invitation to my upcoming offering, Permission: Moving Through Sacred Thresholds, October 23rd, from 1:00-4:00 pm EST. This is an experiential virtual retreat, designed as a sacred container to come home to yourself, and uncover and say yes to your deepest truths. During our time together we will merge the practical with the mystical. You will experience what it’s like to live your yes and be supported by and deeply connected to your soul’s longings. For more information visit https://www.shegathersbeauty.com/booking/three-divine-doors.

You are not broken. You are wounded. And inside the wound, is your remedy. The world might be broken. Systems and infrastructures certainly are. But we aren’t. We’ve forgotten the truth of who we are. Your remedy involves your soul’s dream. And your soul’s dream is part of the collective dream. Lingering for a while in curiosity widens our capacity to dream again. We suffer when we forget this. How can you give yourself permission to be present with your sense of woundedness while also being open to finding the remedy there, as well? The (w)holiness of Eve and her longing. How gifts become wounds and wounds, gifts. Thank you for listening! If this episode or previous episodes inspire or resonate with you, I invite you to join me for Permission: Stepping Through Sacred Thresholds, an afternoon virtual retreat on Saturday, October 23rd. We’ll explore the topic of lingering inside the gift of you, the dream of you, and the moving toward knowing and living the truth of you. In this spacious and sacred experiential retreat, I will provide a safe and grounded container to explore your yes and the healing and expansion you’re ready for. This virtual retreat is for women who feel as though they are standing at a crossroads and sense or know it’s time to step forward and be who they are in a new way and are ready to be guided by their own inner wisdom keeper and the support of a beautiful and intimate collective, my shamanic practices and helping spirits, and the elegant nature of soulfulness. Participants will walk away with a much clearer picture of what’s truly calling them and how to take the next steps forward, while feeling aligned with their authentic truth, desire, and sense of belonging. Here’s the link to learn more and save your seat for Permission: Stepping Through Sacred Thresholds https://www.shegathersbeauty.com/group-offerings

Embracing the harvest: gratitude, reflection, and calling in. Join Wendy to explore the deeper call of what it means to honor grace in your life right now. How are you being invited into an experience of expanding joy, meaning, passion, creativity, and love? What would it be like to hold the intention of just being you? What are you harvesting and celebrating now? What are you still hungry for? I share from personal experience what it means to follow soul’s call, how I devote myself to love, divinity, and my path, through change, challenge, and uprooting my entire life. Permission to be terrified, ask for help, live supported, and make your life sacred. Longing is the embodiment of sovereignty when we are willing to know and trust our truth. Longing goes deep into the roots of us. It is why we are here. It is a generous expression of soul. It is your divinity whispering into you the way to get home. It’s not a “beach read,” it’s the book of your life. There is a gorgeous seed of light living inside each of us. Now is the time to let the layers fall away so that the light can grow. Our desire is that light. Claiming what is unclaimed within us is how we come home. You are allowed to change, to move your life in a new direction. You are allowed to rest. Reflect. To let things fall away. To begin again. To create. To love whatever you love. “There is no such thing as one way liberation.” —Glennon Doyle You are here to be you. And you are so much more than you know. “Accept the nudge, be moved by love.” Home is a deeper expression of who you really are—and home will always show you this. I share the poems See-saw & All This Time. ”I want to know what you ache for but do not say.” Create your own map so that you can freely explore the home of you in your fullest expression. To join our revolution of desire, visit https://www.shegathersbeauty.com/longing-project. and to treat yourself to a luscious afternoon virtual retreat, join us on October 16th for Permission: A Sacred Threshold to Your Desire https://www.shegathersbeauty.com/booking/three-divine-doors.

In this popular replay, Wendy shares a love story. Three of them, actually. The Mistress of Longing Poem; words chanted over me during the Dreamtime and the bones of the book that came as a result. Sending postcards to ourselves. Having a love affair with yourself and your life exactly as it. “You are already the entire ocean.” Reminders to carry on with grace and hope, truth and trust. Falling in love with a numinous presence. Our deepest longings and values and how our lives depend upon them. Trusting the truth of this moment, impermanence, and letting longing lead the way to the life we want to live. The path to living my wildly, naked truth and what I value. Falling in love with a woman and our path of beauty. Intimacy, sensuality, creativity, and connection. Giving and receiving. Cultivating our love affair and some of the ways we tend our hearth-fire. Personal growth, healing, and the expansion available through relationship and co-creation. Tending the flame. Cultivating courage. Leaping into the great unknown—what can you hold onto? How do you wish to be more intimate with your life? Walking through the last 4 months of the year. Making contact with what you value and living in love. ”Longing brought you here—births you again and again.” ~The Mistress of Longing. Remember, you are sacred. This moment is ceremony. You get to live your wildly, naked truth.