This time last year I was leaving the scene of what felt like a crime, an initiation, and a rite of passage.   

I had begun my 45th year inside the peaceful, quiet scream of a Vipassana meditation retreat and left for 46 inside the belly of a war-torn, heart broken, and utterly epic Medicine Retreat.  In like a lamb, out like Kali Ma!  A lot happened in between those catalyzing moments of birth and death, of course.  Many more heartbreaks and triumphs and uneventful days came and went too and, if this last year taught me anything at all, it taught me how to let go of people and things that I love with a little more grace.

Maybe not all the grace, but a whole heck of a lot more than before.

Back in 2017 during some deep explorations with Ayahuasca I had under the care of Luis Eduardo Luna, I experienced a crystalline cascade of the impact of cumulative experience.  Each session with the medicine had to happen exactly as it did to allow for the next session to have the correct starting place, spaciousness, trajectory, and so on.  The work was tonifying and cumulative and each experience directly prepared me for the next one.  I believe this is true of all our lives and days and minutes.  We're constantly being invited to learn and apply what we've learned to the very next moment.  When we rise to this divine guidance, listen, and live into the promise of that listening, life becomes a sacred responsibility and creative act of love and service instead of an unconscious luge towards oblivion.  

The slow dissolution of my partnership with Brian, the abrupt and traumatic release of my beloved apprentice Danielle, the loss of steady teamwork in my business and on my farmstead, the shapeshifting friends turned ghosts, and all the losses between those losses were necessary and perfect and, somehow, miraculously I welcomed the changes quietly (mostly) and let myself be cleared out for some new delight, just like Rumi taught me.  An earlier Beana might have grasped tighter or fought harder but this new, old Bean mostly just let go.  

I let go of the love of my life and the dreams I held that we would get old together holding this hill and healing the people that flock here.  I let go of beloved students and beloved teachers whose time had come and gone.  I let go, for the millionth time, of the prospect of reweaving my blood relatives into resilient family traditions and new dynamics.  I let go of the vision I had for how I do my work, how I live in this body, and how I serve.  I did a lot less than I have in years (which may or may not be apparent from wherever you're sitting) and surrendered to the truth of my life.

It is here.  It is now.  It is this.  It is flawed.  It is perfect.

The ~400 folks that have come and gone from medicine retreats, the hundreds that have moved through other circles and ceremonies here, the thousands that I correspond with in the ether...all of them have been glossy clean mirrors, teachers, and messengers from the Universe.  As it turns out, old dogs can learn new tricks.  

I'm learning.  

In letting go and surrendering to IT, something happened.  I welcomed powerful new partnerships with Hanna and Adam and Juliana.  All of which have already bloomed into vibrant, deep, and generative magic that will impact many.  I deepened my relationships with my remaining Apprentices and witnessed them change and grow and find the courage to express themselves fully in their versions of IT.  I drew in an amazing community of support from Emma, and Ember, and Gordy and Joseph and got to hand over the reins for many tasks and asks.  I did - and am doing - the work of co-writing a new, platonic love story with Brian and learning so much about how to be alone together, sovereign and united, partnered and independent.  I birthed new concepts and offerings that center on collaboration, co-stewardship, and teamwork.  I began the work of building a temple and claiming my home on this hill.

If there's heartbreak, there's also profound love.  If there's confusion, there's also clarity.  If there's death, there's also rebirth.  There is always all of it and how we sing our songs, tell our stories, and weave our tapestries is where the meaning lives.

Since grounding myself on Beach Hill in the summer of 2017 I have gained a new perspective on time passing.  Up here things go very slow until they then go very quickly.  Years can feel like fractals, opening up into spiral upon spiral of deepening and, then in a day we realize that a year has come and gone and that one turn of the wheel contained lifetimes and was also over too soon.  Such was the story of 46.  

With wide eyes and the ultimate curiosity, I welcome this 47th year in gratitude and joy.  I've already realized every dream I've had the audacity to dream and I'm still here and still young.  What a gift to be asked to stay awake and keep dreaming.

Thanks to all of you who are on this journey with me.  Thanks to all of you who trust me with your tender hearts.  Thanks to all the makers of me, seen and unseen.  Thanks to life for continuing to live me.

With love,

Beana Bern