Last year was one of the most (r)evolutionary of my life. There’s been tremendous soul growth and blessings around every corner as I delved deeper into the Great Mystery and the call of my soul. I listened IN and trusted the stirrings within my body more fiercely than ever before. And though there were deeply challenging moments to move through, both individually and collectively, overall 2017 was full of miracles beyond miracles. I’m thrilled to share my top 10 highlights with you!
The fierce feminine has been a sturdy anchoring guide and a wily challenger all the way, asking me to be more of who I truly am and share that with the world unabashedly while I help others to do the same. I have continued to shed all that no longer serves me and be a fire keeper burning away what no longer serves our global village. This 12 months has transformed me to my core and alchemized my own potential from the ashes of what once was. See what transpired below!
1. Co-facilitating the “Remember Your Future” Retreat at MENLA
In 2016 my life was transformed by becoming a Qoya Movement teacher. This profound practice has helped me to return to my body and truth more than any other tools. So I was deeply honored to be asked to start the year off by co-facilitating a Qoya spiritual retreat at MENLA Mountain house just outside of Woodstock, NY, along with my soul sisters Rochelle Schieck, the founder of Qoya Movement, Tami Brunk, shamanic astrologer & Madeline Giles, the founder of Angelic Breath Healing. If only these sacred objects could speak, they would reveal the secrets of the Universe and the magnitude of transformation and fierce vision that came through the collective during our retreat. So powerful to co-facilitate with such deeply reverent and holy women. It helped us all to feel honored, humbled, and heart cracked open, ready for the New Year. It was also the first time I led my “Your Soul’s Calling Collage” Process! It’s like next level vision boarding coming from your soul voice instead of your egoic mind.
2. Birthing my 7 Month Initiation into the Fierce & Sacred Feminine
Along with the help of Goddess ISIS, I birthed a vision into form that had been stirring in me for more than 6 years: an in depth sisterhood circle, mystery school and deep dive spiritual immersion. This past year the theme was Wild Women ARISE, in 2018 we begin again in Feb as Sovereign Sisters Rising. It’s an intimate container of transformation and emergence for women to rise together into their full power, wildness and primal source creativity to serve the greater good as embodied leaders. This (r)evolutionary program is part high priestess healing temple, part soulful deep dive into wild & ancient earth based wisdom, and part container of alchemical transformation to activate your innate power & untapped potential. Journeying through this 7 month initiation and holding space for my sisters to RISE has been the greatest gift of my life thus far. I can’t wait to gather again on Feb 11th for our first full day urban sisterhood retreat at the #SOULSPARKLE Sanctuary in NYC. This particular gathering of 13 powerhouse women will be supporting each other in birthing their sacred work in the world. There’s only one spot left, so if you feel the call I encourage you to set up a heart to heart with me to see if it’s a good fit for you!
3. Participating in International Soul Art Day as an In-studio Artist
I was honored to be one of the 5 in studio artists for this year’s International Soul Art Day with Laura Hollick just outside of Toronto, Canada. We held space for thousands of Creative Spirits from around the world who were connected virtually to create art together for the day. As a collective, we stirred a profound cosmic vortex of creativity and consciousness rising. I was being broadcasted on a live-webcam around the globe along with my soul sisters Jen Mazer, Whitney Freya, Alexis Cohen and Rachel Archelaus creating a profound web of oneness and transformation. The ripples of healing still reverberating through the atmosphere. So soul nourishing and juicy!!
4. Facilitating Expressive Arts at Blue Spirit Retreat Center in Costa Rica
5 years ago I first learned of Blue Spirit Retreat center (a sister campus of Omega institute in Rhinebeck) and had the distinct intuition that I would teach there one day. My dear sister, Rochelle Schieck, helped to make that dream a reality, when she invited me to facilitate two expressive arts experiences during the week long Fierce Feminine Qoya retreat in April alongside Inuitive astrologer Virginia Rosenberg and Tami Brunk. This week in the jungle and fierce heat, wrapped in the warmth of grandmother ocean, was one of the most deeply healing of my life.
What I love most about both attending and facilitating spiritual retreats is that through the support of Beloved community and sisterhood we are able to release and let go of what's no longer serving us, so we can live into our full potential and intentionally co-create our lives as a great masterpiece for the good of all. We collectively dream a new world into Being and help to usher in a new paradigm each time we gather. Like an acupuncture needle on Mother Earth, the healing waves ripple out from the center of our sacred circle across the globe. I’ll be there again this year as a participant in the Qoya Collective Retreat which I can’t wait for!!!
5. Teaching at Barnard College for their Entrepreneurs in Training Camp for the 3rd year in a row!
I am so grateful for my soul sister Nathalie Molina Niño, the founder of Brava Investments, for bringing me in three years ago to be a teacher for the Entrepreneurs in Training Camp for high school girls every summer at Barnard College. This badass group of young ladies learn skills to take over the world through entrepreneurship and leading with their BIG hearts, brilliant minds and shameless SPARKLE! More than half of these power-houses have already started their own businesses, tackling some of the worlds biggest problem, before even finishing high-school! I'm in awe of their light and (r)evolutionary potential. It's such an honor to behold their brilliance and help to inspire the future embodied leaders of tomorrow!
6. Launching my First Large Scale {SOLD OUT} Weekend Immersion in NYC!
Our Ignite the Fierce Feminine Within Immersion weekend in NYC fully activated my superpowers of creating containers of alchemical transformation, powerful medicine spaces that allow you to come as you are and leave as MORE of who you are, Sparkling SHAMELESSLY in the world. They are woven womb spaces to help you come home to your body and birth your full power into Being. This particular cauldron of transformation & re-birth for emerging women leaders, entrepreneurs, healers, and trailblazers helped 30 women to shed all that was no longer serving them so they could step into their full sovereignty and authentic power at this historic time. The sacred sisterhood circle and temple space was epic and deeply transformational for us all, especially our sisters in the Congo who received a portion of the sales via Women for Women International to go towards their own year long personal development training.
It was also one of the first times in my life that I was able to experience myself in my fullness and pure raw authentic truth. I created a container deep enough to hold ALL of me, my big energy, creativity, passion and power that all served as an asset to ignite the women in the room instead of being “too much” as I’ve always been told. I have never before felt such aliveness coursing through my body! It was destiny brought into Being along with the support of my sisters Madeline Giles, Parashakti & Elana Bell as co-holders of the space…I also received some of the biggest compliments I’ve ever heard from the participants! “This weekend was a cellular shift for me, and FAR more than I could have dreamed possible. I’ve done all of Tony Robbins courses and events and he’s coached me personally, and I’m telling you, sister, you brought the whole Tony Robbins experience in full feminine force.” and also "Lainie is the real deal. She walks her talk and she is highly, highly committed to transformation. She gave an experience that you feel in your bones, you leave here literally transformed. Through the #IFFW immersion I am leaving knowing who I truly am..." (tweet it)
Get on the waitlist HERE to join us for Ignite the Fierce Feminine Within in 2018!!!
I'm deeply honored and thrilled to go even BIGGER in 2018 in partnership with my incredible event doula Vanessa Viglietta Dessert of The Superwoman Solution!!!! She has helped me lift all of my solo events this year and I couldn't have done it without her. As she likes to say, she's "my ride or die witch!!!" LOVE IT!!! LOVE HER!!! So grateful to be continuing the journey into 2018 as a powerhouse team and lifting some new sisterhood initiatives together too, so stay tuned!!!
7. Being a Leading Voice for the Fierce Feminine
This has undoubtedly been the year of The Fierce Feminine, and I was deeply honored to be a leading voice, carrying the torch for her in the world. The Fierce Feminine is rising whether we like it or not. She’s rolling off of countless tongues and entering a myriad of dialogues in diverse communities across the globe. Since the burning times, we have feared expressing our innate wildness and ferocity. We have tamed ourselves, kept ourselves small, not spoken up for fear of being burned. But the Fierce Feminine is having a resurgence. She is here with us now and not willing to put up with this s%@! any longer. Like the volcano goddess Pele, she is erupting whether we’re ready or not, filled with fiery passion and righteous courage, seething with moral outrage, ready to make her mark on the world and play full out. It’s time for us to stoke the Fierce Feminine Flame within to burn away all that no longer serves us or our world in crisis.
From the #metoo movement to the Silence Breakers, we are RISING. Even my blog on the 12 Keys to Ignite Your Fierce Feminine in a World in Crisis this year went viral!
Mother Earth is having her #metoo moment now too, the original mother, the Great mother that holds us all. She is crying out, increasing her pitch and volume each day with the continued rape (aka fracking), molestation and assault (aka deforestation), neglect (climate change), and harassment (aka pollution). For the sake of the next 7 generations and beyond we have no choice but to awaken and usher in the new paradigm of love and connection: connection to our own bodies, to the body of the earth and to each other as a human family. Our survival is dependent on our awakening now and fostering the rise of the fierce feminine to help heal our world. If not you, who? If not now, when?
8. Claiming my Role as a Mapmaker of Destiny
I have been an artist all of my life, but it wasn’t until two years ago that I shifted to being a sacred artist of life and creating Shamanic Healing Artworks that are layered with deep meaning, purpose, healing, prayers and intentions for all those who behold them. I created my first large scale work during International Soul Art Day mentioned above and brought it home to complete it, only to discover that it was a map of my destiny and what is emerging in my life now. I have also been commissioned over this last year to create several works for dear sisters to honor and celebrate major transitions in their lives. I look forward to continuing to see what emerges as I work with my theme for 2018 of “Follow the He(art),” and continue to birth new creations into the world from my deep connection to the great Cosmic Yoni!
He(art) for me is our unique medicine, our #SOULSPARKLE, that which only we can bring. Our sacred work and offering to the greater web of all life straight from our heart center. (tweet it) It's connected to our deep fierce feminine well of compassion as well as moral outrage. I believe it's one of the greatest gift we can offer to our world. What will YOU create for us in 2018?! I can’t wait to see!
9. Gathering the Women
Hint: can you notice the theme of holding space for women to rise emerging in almost all the posts before this one?!
I just so LOVE creating these sacred containers of transformation, powerful medicine spaces that allow you to come as you are and leave as MORE of who you are, Sparkling SHAMELESSLY in the world...giving you permission to be UNAPOLOGETICALLY who you are. Through depth inquiry, expressive arts, embodied movement practices, group process, guest healers, modern shamanism and copious ritual and ceremony we remember who we truly are and why we're here at this most powerful time in history. We can’t do this journey alone, nor are we meant to. Fierce sisterhood is a non-negotiable now. We need consistent, foundational support for these turbulent times we’re in. And I have continued to receive the call to GATHER THE WOMEN!
I know in my bones that we need to continue to gather in sacred circle. (tweet it) We have lots to talk about, and even more actions we need to take. Let's support each other in the turbulent times ahead. We need each other now more than ever to help live into our purpose for being here at this most powerful time in human history. Come be embraced by a close knit group of sacred sisters that will champion you, cheer you on, support you and be a reflection and constant reminder of the Divine within you and your blazing bright light. Come be seen, loved unconditionally, known, accepted, and celebrated for the truth of who you are. Come dance, dive deep, and delight in copious ritual and ceremony! We’re waiting with open arms for you sister! Get on the waitlist for upcoming sisterhood gatherings here and get a free gift: The #SOULSPARKLE Starter Kit!
10. Founding The Sacred (R)evolution™
This is a little hint about what’s to come in 2018. But know that it will serve to welcome us home to our bodies, the earth & the great web of all Life.
You can also find out more on our soon to be released {insert fiery drumroll here} PODCAST!!! The Sacred (R)evolution™. Be the first to get episodes here.
I’ll be channeling Fierce Feminine transmission as well as inviting in special guests to join me: Sovereign Sisters who are rising into their full power, owning their sacredness, delivering their deep gifts to meet the world’s deep needs and are unstoppable because of it! We’ll be diving deep into life, entrepreneurship, Divine legacy, following the call, spirituality, relationships, body love, blood magic, pleasure and most of all The Sacred (R)evolution™ that is upon us. This (R)evolution of love and reverence for self, other and our world/earth to which I am a cosmic servant. This bi-monthly nourishing dose of inspiration, activation and practical grounded advice will help you to be UNAPOLOGETICALLY who you are and Sparkle SHAMELESSLY® in the world for the good of all. Join us here sister! ----> thesacredrevolutionpodcast.com
You can also hear more about The Sacred (R)evolution™ and where my own work in the world is headed on my recent interview with Phoenix Na Gig on Wild at Heart Radio - Medicine from the Moon Cave.
In this interview I stand in the wisdom of the Waning Moon with my red hot and holy fire truly giving you permission to be in your raw authentic truth and radiance! For what I have learned on this wild journey is that our ‘too muchness’, as women, is great medicine for our world. Let me say that again. “Our ‘too muchness’, as women, is great medicine for our world. (Tweet it)
Welcome 2018!!! Thrilled to see what the Great Mystery has in store!
Sister, now it's your turn!!! I'd love to hear your highlights from 2017. What were some transformational moments that really stood out for you and helped you to become even MORE of who you truly are? Please share below in the comments and I look forward to continuing this journey with you. Be sure to sign up for updates on future gatherings! We'd love to be in sacred circle with you soon!