i did a thing.

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today i am writing.  


today i finished the artists way by julia cameron.  i have been trying to cultivate a morning pages practice for most of my life.  then i decided to read the actual book where the concept is introduced and low and behold i have been able to write every morning with few exceptions for almost four months maybe even five.  the book is designed to take you through a three month, 12 week journey back to your creative self.  assuming that creativity is the energy of source and that we as humans are animated by creativity.  I LOVE THIS BOOK.  and so i want to celebrate my love of this book by letting you all know i finished it.  

this months yin message...

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it is hard for me to begin. putting myself into motion brings up fear. the somatic yin yoga that i practice, teach and study is an examination of what is present in the body. this work as i understand it currently (i believe that understanding evolves as one actively engages in study and practice) is a way into ourselves so that we may witness our deepest needs, tend to them and grow into our most honest selves. selves that are capable of compassion. human vessels of generous hearts and resilient souls. i imagine this work of embodiment, of sitting with ourselves, as a way to understand and value our worth, inherent in our existence.

this work is also one of the ways i am unlearning white cowardice nee supremacy. as a white cis gendered queer women of colonial ancestry i am acutely aware that i walk a path close to appropriation when i am participating in yoga culture. i am navigating this path because i need to practice being in my body with myself. precisely because our country is founded on the dis-embodiment of an entire group of white people who captured, kidnapped and imprisoned black people to exploit their labor. in order to create the cultural context of race, in order to convince oneself that it is okay to capture and enslave another human one must disembody. this ancestral colonial wound of disembodiment is immense. it is rarely acknowledged. we live it in the ways that certain bodies are worshipped and objectified while other bodies and ways of existence are marginalized and systematically oppressed and murdered. we often discuss race, white supremacy and racial inequality as issues that Black people must reckon with. but the onus, to understand this moment in time as the consequence of the enslavement and exploitation of african people, is on white people. it does not feel good to acknowledge these ancestral traumas of perpetration. we (white people of colonial ancestry) have to sit and know this discomfort in order to admit that our world as we know it, amidst pandemics, and state sanctioned racial violence is the consequence of that enslavement and exploitation. this concept is one that i have been working on for years. and am just now beginning to articulate as i study yoga in more depth. i am always willing to be in conversation about my white privilege and how to unlearn and dismantle white cowardice nee supremacy.

simply because the more i study the eight limbed path, i am only beginning, the more i realize and understand yoga is a practice about living peacefully with others. not good vibes only shit, but grounded inner peace that is witness to all life: trans queer plant, anima, human, earth space stardust life, and all the death and messiness that comes with existing.

and so this practice, this learning and unlearning, is how i want to be in the world. it is how i honor the lives of those who have gone before me. it is the way i will help others heal. this work is how i value my worth, inherent in my existence.

full moon in leo.

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i have been wanting to write a book for a long time. since i was a little girl i have wanted to collect all of my thoughts and share them with the universe.

i have the alphabet tattooed on my body as a reminder of all the words that i have access to. i am a writer. it helps me integrate my emotion into my body of knowing. and yet. i set this goal to write a book and now the last thing i can do is pick up a pen and write. i am fighting resistance of the deepest kind. i created a 40 day practice to help me unweave this knot of writers block. today is the 40th day of this practice and i am still as perplexed about my lack of words.

my daily practices that i come back to when i am untethered; writing, movement, meditation, drawing, planting, sewing are nowhere to be seen. perhaps it is the dark time of my soul as i climb out of all the emotions of 2020. maybe it is the death grasp of this pandemic that has me grieving silently, deeply, without having to know my way out.

i often take care of others before i take care of myself. i like to share all the tools i have and the books i read that helped me be who i am. i like to share the artists that reflect my experience, or push me to understand others. i cook other people food before i feed myself. i make tea for others while mine gets cold. some of this is healthy, it is my love language to care for others, specifically feeding them, physically and spiritually. but i can derail my own needs, i tend to put what i need on the farthest burner form me, i’m talking the neighbor’s backyard fire pit not even in my own kitchen.

this morning as i sat with my tea alone, my wife was sleeping and the dog was playing outside in an inch of new snow, i heard loud and clear that focus; centering myself in my own practices, is the key to unraveling my resistance.

what does centering my own practices look like? it looks like i am going to have to let go of a lot of shit. literally and figuratively. i am going to have be very meticulous in my work and time allocation. creating massive boundaries that i am capable holding and maintaining. this doesn’t feel new. it is something i have known for a long time. i get distracted very easily, one of my closest friends in college told me i was a shiny penny person, and i was so pissed at them. i still get angry at his insight today. but i am. i am curious and want to learn all the things in the universe. i always have been. my favorite poet: mary oliver, writes that attention is the beginning of devotion. and i believe because I AM capable of spreading my attention in so many directions it leaves me devoted to and in awe of the universe. i don’t ever want to give up the wonder i hold for the universe. but and its time to shrink the scope of my lens.

i want to write a book. i want to publish a book about loving ourselves. it is hard work to love ourselves, it is not possible without inquiry and vulnerability. it is hard work to write a book. and this resistance to who i am and what makes me feel most like myself is apparently a part of it. i needed to struggle through my 40 day practice to realize just how far from myself i am. and so i find myself in the inquiry stage of this process. again.

this full moon in leo, although she is hiding behind the most opaque of grey cloud cover, illuminates. she is asking me to focus on what it is that gets me to myself. she is asking me to drop the bullshit. she is asking me to stand in her light and focus on how i can show up despite the resistance, in the middle of the resistance.

because if i am not full then i have nothing to give. if my needs are not met, then i am incapable of giving to others. and this book, this writing process is a gift to you. it is something i am called to share, because living is hard and painful and full of sorrow and grief and loss and anger. and yet it is full of joy and laughter and delicious food, and juicy supportive relationships.

i hope this full moon finds you filling yourself. deciphering what it is you most deeply need so you may give of yourself freely. to be in service to others is a great honor. may your heart be full and inspire others to give of themselves.

in all the messy frustration of writers block i send you this small offering of prayer to remember what it is you need. so you may be you.

with love,

cathlinstar

an evolving understanding of who i am and what i do for others.

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i began coaching years ago.  i made a real go of it.  business cards.  intake forms.  branded worksheets.  expensive software and platforms.  fancy business retreats, a famous client, and  mastermind coaching circles.  it didn’t stick.  i was miserable.  i was lying.  i was completely faking it.  i was walking through all the motions of health coaching, of having an online business.  in 2018 in front of dear internet made friends i cried my eyes out in the desert.  i screamed into the night how much i hated coaching. i broke open and admitted to myself and my colleagues that i was failing.  

that trip was transformative in a lot of different ways, the way transformation usually shows up, confusing and surreal.  sort of like the snowstorm and rainbows that punctuated that trip.  those women will forever be in my soul for witnessing each other and allowing room for all of us.  it was truly magic.  thank you amy for dreaming it into reality.  more on that later.

on that trip i decided to shut down my coaching practice.  it was a strong message that i had been ignoring for a long while.  if you know me  you know i believe magic loves a void.  those are sacred words.  when i live by them my life is full of fantastic love and joy.  once i let go of my coaching practice, once i admitted to myself that i didn’t want to talk about food with people anymore.  there was room for something else.  because love found me on the full moon in the desert that winter.  it has been gestating as many dreams and manifestations for over three years now.  

because love is a seasonal plant magic product line.  because love is personalized somatic yin yoga classes.  because love will be embodiment coaching.  because love is dark moon dinner party’s.  because love is many things.  all found at cathlinstar.com 

i make plant magic.

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all of my life i have put dried plants in glass jars. i cut up my dried wedding bouquet and put it in a mason jar. its on my book shelf. i love to make art for people i love and send it through the mail. now i have put it all together and i am sending people art i love in the mail. welcome to plant magic for everyone. this is small seasonal experiment in honoring all the earth is and can be. and what happens when we create our own rituals to honor ourselves and the earth.