Exploring Earth's Mysteries
Welcome to The Mountain Mystic Substack, Part 1
Welcome to The Mountain Mystic Substack - A space devoted to exploring the magic and mysteries alive on this Planet Earth:
Bringing magic into life as a lived and breathed, physical as well as mental, emotional, and otherwise energetic experience
Invoking and embodying a skillful relationship with Earth through myth, storytelling, and guided practice
Cultivating relationship with the feminine through Mother Earth, The Goddess, and sometimes, too, the Gods that support Her
Co-creating New Earth now - not as some esoteric, far-off, woo-woo space; but as a lived, experienced reality that is here for all of life, emerging now
It has become clear to me that, after years of subtly referring to my experiences in this realm, it is time to cut through the subtlety and speak straight to the heart of what is unfolding here on Planet Earth in my unique, wild and magical experience which has lead me to name myself as a New Earth Priestess.
What I mean is, it is time to create this Substack (blog) that is fully devoted to my workings as a New Earth Priestess - no longer covering it up under the guise of yoga and embodiment, or else, my adventuring out in the mountains. No. That time is done.
Now we are here to speak directly to what I name as modern day (New) Earth Priest/essing - that is, the practice of being in divine connection as we find ourselves ever-more-deeply grounded, embodied as the human beings that we are, directly connected to this Planet Earth.
No need to be a formally trained Priest/ess here. I do not care about your gender. What matters is the call: your heart and soul afire as you are welcomed to be part of a growing number of human beings intent on healing, and otherwise transforming life on Planet Earth for the betterment of all.
This is what matters: Healing, as well as growing, and otherwise transforming such that we move forward, as individuals AND as a collective, towards that brighter, more beautiful version of life on Planet Earth.
If this matters to you, then I invite you to continue onward.
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The betterment of all.
It happened back in the late autumn in 2022. I was deep in practice in what I may call temple space in the Rewilding Community (the space in which I am formally trained as a Priestess). My teacher was guiding us on some journey. I do not remember the details.
What I do recall is seeing my hometown forest: A land of ponderosa pine, here to speak to me, and to bring me a vision of what it means to be living and working in co-creation with Earth, herself.
To envision this forest, you have to know that it is not one that flourishes. Rather, it is one that burned down when I was a young child. Then, as I grew into adulthood, it burned again, and again). Where the ponderosa pine burned, it did not return. Instead, desert took over. The forest was lost.
I left home for a while. I went off on a journey of a very different sort compared to the one spoken to here. I went to Phoenix, Arizona to become a scientist and engineer. The path took me in. I excelled, and I believed this path would be my everything. That was, until I find that my heart and soul was guiding me elsewhere. To what, I had no idea. I just new that I had to leave the path of a Biomedical researcher. Something else was calling.
I returned back to my homelands in Northern New Mexico in the post Covid-19 pandemic days, with my own heart, soul, and psyche beat down by the bullshit of modern reality. Broken open, it is the forest that found me.
Walking among the skeletons of ponderosas (those that remain standing to this day, as well as those that have fallen, laying criss-crossed along what is now a desertifying floor), I awoke to a different way of sensing, and of knowing this world.
The trees began to speak to me. They spoke in creaks and groans, as well as whispers. They spoke while I hiked and ran the trails. They spoke to me as I rested in quiet, and in stillness on this land.
And, more powerfully, they spoke when I was entranced in practice in temple space.
This is when the vision came to me.
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Visions
Before I speak to the vision, you have to understand: this is not some “holy fuck I am being gifted by the oracle some grand vision that tells me all!” No. That sort of experience is best left to the movies.
In reality, visions show up lightly. We get pieces. We do not get the full, detailed story.
What I saw in the vision was my backyard forest. And what I saw is it growing.
What I saw, in my mind’s eye, is the forest (that which burned down over a quarter century ago) growing up in full force. As it did, it did not grow in isolation. It grew up as a whole ecosystem: plants and animals in diversity coming home, once again free to express as they will.
But the plants and trees and animals did not emerge is isolation. They grew up in connection to humanity. The forest - it burst forth in connection to my hometown: to community; to humanity.
I received the message clearly. The forest was asking me to help it regenerate. But in doing so, it did not want to come back to the same toxic, misaligned world that had burned it down. It coming back, it wanted me to help shape a world, anew.
My own wild journey into spirituality
Before going forward, you have to understand that it took me a long time to be convinced to follow any sort of spiritual path. For the first 26 or so years of my life, I kept myself far from anything too “spiritual,” and certainly anything connected to any religion. I just could not stand how spirituality and religion painted pictures of a path that took us away from our bodies and this Earth so that we could get elsewhere, up to some high and mighty space separate from our embodied experience and this Earth.
Back in those days, firmly rooted as a scientist and engineer, I sought out the technical, directly tangible information and practices that could help me heal this great mess of things on Planet Earth. I received my Bachelor’s, then Master’s degree in Biomedical Engineering. I researched the mind just as I researched the body. I dove deep into the world of stem cells as therapy to neuro trauma. I wanted information and answers that could help me understand why we are suffering so greatly; and, to help me heal humanity.
What I found left both my heart and mind lacking in fulfilling answers. Yes, humanity was indeed need of healing, but the path of science and medicine embedded in an outdated, awfully toxic patriarchal structure was showing me that it just could not serve the way it needs to.
I loved science, and continue to do so, just as I love and honor medicines that can help us to heal. But we need to do things differently, and for that, a full paradigm shift becomes necessary.
My soul, inclined to seek out the path that could nourish my curiosity while bringing forth the healing that this world needs, would send me off on a wild adventure devoted to creating a new way to bring through the information, the practices, and all else that can bring our world what we now need most on this Planet Earth.
I never thought that spirituality would be the space that would welcome me in. But it did, and here I sit today offering that very path that I once sought out: one which I know offers that paradigm shift that is needed in this world.
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An aside worth speaking to…. Why start another Substack?
I’ve been on Substack for a few years now, writing over on We Are The Forest as a space of embodiment for a grounded approach to spirituality. In this space, I like to weave in the mystery and magic of embodiment work, and of this Earth. But I do it in a particular way. In that space, we focus on the tangible, weaving our way into the energetic. On occasion, I dare to get a bit esoteric, but I never reach too far.
Here, I wish to do things differently.
There is a call to open up to greater mysteries alive on this Planet Earth, and no matter how many times I ignore it, it keeps coming back around to ask that I open the door to share in this space.
The fact of the matter is…
These mysteries, held by Earth, herself, as she holds ancient wisdom, and as she keeps evolving, are here to be known through you, and through me, and through us all.
The invitation does not need to be answered with a yes by you. But if it is, I know that Earth (in her many forms) is ready to share with you, and through you, a way of being on Planet Earth that has never been known before.
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Often, I feel like I am being dishonest with my readers by not sharing the whole picture
. I focus solely on practices that are, well, directly “practical”: that directly address the problems we are facing within self; and, within the world around self. I call upon yoga and practical meditation techniques for relieving anxiety, cutting through the overwhelm, and becoming more deeply connected into Nature. It is a space I love and continue to devote myself to, because I recognize a need to directly address the challenges we are facing in this world.
But it isn’t everything, and my heart longs to give you everything.
Meanwhile, here in my own life, I follow my heart-centered curiosity as I continue to turn towards the mystical, and the magical parts of life.
Over here in the mystical and magical, I go into circle and I connect with The Divine. He/She shows up in many shapes and forms, and the energy that is present is that which continues to move me, to shape me, and to guide me into spaces I never dreamt of witnessing nor experiencing.
This has been a long road since my science and engineering days. And, although I still honor the spaces in life we get to be technical and precise and hold ground in the physical… well, this just isn’t one of those spaces!!
We Are The Forest is a Substack publication devoted to staying grounded and centered within the physical workings of reality. It is a space for embodiment practice that weaves some spirituality into what is practical and useful.
Here, with my new The Mountain Mystic publication, I desire to do things differently.
Here, let us explore the mystical realms, being guided into the wonder of this world as we open to the magic of where it all takes us. Let us do it through our own embodiment, because, well, this is the most powerful way I know how to do it!
If we are to open to that which is mystical, ethereal, and otherwise difficult to grasp within our clear knowing; well, we best be grounded, embodied as we reach towards the mysteries.
And, if we find ourselves able, perhaps we get a glimpse, or else one wondrous moment of understanding.
Most importantly, perhaps we become part of something bigger
Today I ask, what is next?
What is next? Well, today, I was led to begin this second Substack publication.
I recognize it as directly tied to the Circles that I am now facilitating - held live on Zoom on offered for free with a heart-centered desire to cultivate a communal space for practice.
What comes next? I guess we will see.
Until then, make sure you are subscribed here to The Mountain Mystic.
If it calls to you, check out the Circles I am offering.
And, if it calls to you, follow my We Are The Forest subscription as well, so that we focus on the grounding and centering practices that connect us to life as is lived on this planet.
Big love,
Katie
