Dear Beloveds,

As we approach the darkest night of the year, I wanted to connect this crazy notion of Holiday with the reality of Global and Planetary suffering so readily apparent this year! Combine that with the juxtaposition of forced spending, forced joviality, forced display of competitive excess, and still, many of us, in a deep state of despair and grief. Soooooo… that said… I wanted to offer another perspective, which may be useful, from my own journey into the darkest night of the soul.

As you make your way into this journey of the Abyss, I see that you are frightened and hesitant to continue on this trajectory! I was too! Do you feel as if everything you believed true…lay broken, in ruins? I did too! Do you pull your hair, your clothes, in some ancient ritual of grief? Does food taste of ashes and sleep is a bad friend, who never visits anymore? Yes? I have returned to tell you that there is no way out. Only through…. I cannot save you the miles, I cannot save you the heartbreak, I can do nothing about this trial. But I will promise you that should you survive, and I know there are no guarantees, there will be a gift in your suffering. These are the things I learned from my passage through this dark night of the soul.

I lost my pride, I gained my humanity. I lost my security, I gained a deeper faith. I lost my mind, and I found my sanity. I learned that guilt and shame are useless emotions. That sharing our suffering, somehow lessens it and lightens it. I am not the same person I was before the journey of the Abyss, but I am better for it, although I could not see that then. When the light again dawns for you, and I do hope and have faith that it will, remember to be gentle with yourself and take your time in reentry in your daily life. Let things go that don’t need doing. Be kind, as you would to a new baby, just discovering the world for the first time. I remember that I did not want to wear the same clothes, I did not want the same home. I left my home town, since all others could see and smell on me was grief. There was no way to start again, with the old beliefs, the old habits. It all had to go.

I had to learn a new way to be in my own skin. I had to learn how to be alone with myself, and I began a new relationship with myself. One that acknowledged my difficult journey, and honored the new voice that emerged. It was the one that I had ignored so long ago, and I learned to listen and trust it.

Hopefully, You and this Beautiful Planet we coexist with, will emerge as a butterfly from the chrysalis of dissolution.. Having re-made ourselves from that which we had outgrown and no longer suited us in our new expanded awareness. To reemerge as the new creation with freedom, flight, and beauty as its gift!
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May your Holidays be Holy Days and your New Year the Greatest Year Of All, For EVERYONES SAKE as well as PLANET EARTH.

Love and Light,
​Satchi

GROW WHERE YOU ARE PLANTED, TO ROOT OR NOT TO ROOT THAT IS THE QUESTION.

I have three beautiful large garden pots that I have attempted to evict the current plant world tenants to put in some smaller, more colorful elegant ones. The first pot is a large beautiful soft verdigris color which I inherited from the original owner of the house and garden. Indeed, he actually designed the entire landscape… which I am grateful for! But this particular pot sits in a very visible spot close to the deck and walkway, and the inhabitant is for want of a better description is a weird alien looking evergreen. The other two, matching pots, I planted myself, with small spiky red plants that enhanced the others surrounding them, until they took over. I see these two pots every time I leave or arrive home.

On my first attempt to remove weird alien he held fast. I said “dude you are gonna get a new home” with more space and more permanent location in the front garden.” He said “Nothing doing”, this is my home! I turned the bottom of the pot over and found he had a thick tap root in the soil, pushed through the bottom of the pot. I broke it off, carelessly, and again tried to extricate him from the pot. Pieces of plant and flying dirt dislodged and no movement, and again he said, “This is my home!”  I surrendered, and apologized and left with a sense of shame and guilt at my disgusting “new owner” display. I decided he could stay and die a natural, dignified death, I would simply push him back from the walk and place a new prettier plant in front. 

On to my next conquest, the front matching red pots with overgrown spiky plant. I approached these guys with a bit more awareness, saying “here is a lot of water to loosen your soil, to prepare you for your move to your new location in the front garden”. Next day I started to attempt surgery with small spade and fierce pulling motions at base of plant…No go! They were not having it, neither one budged without lifting the 30 pound pot with it. So again, I surrendered.

This experience got me thinking about how hard it is for some of us to change. Even if an exterior force removes us out of our comfort zone and places us in the alien world zone, we resent the need to adapt. We kick and scream and protest loudly, how unfair life is. It is hard for us to take the long view, that perhaps the move is for the best and our future selves may thank us. 

Rootedness is considered a good thing, generally speaking, but can also be limiting, if our being longs for different soil. New seeds fly easily away from their home base. The more rooted a plant or person is, the harder it is to let go of the known, even if not ideal. My mom, who is in her nineties, decided she could no longer live alone safely, or happily. After a few months living with me, who adores her, she became unhappy, and I asked her,” what did she want to do?” She said “I want to return to Phoenix, where I raised my family with my husband, your dad…” She missed the familiar sites, roads, climate etc.… I understood, but was sad, since I really wanted to care for her.
Too much change, too fast, disorients us and makes it hard to land. But change is inevitable and home can become an inner place, where like a crab, risks the naked phase, and sheds his confining shell to create a larger, more comfortable one. So must we, from time to time. For eventually, at the end of our lives we must do likewise and step into our light bodies for the journey, to our true home.

So as we try on different locales, cultures, summer activities and travel, take yourself with you, but be willing to spread out a little and cross pollinate.

Love and Light,
Satchi Royers

Last night I dreamed I was high up in the clouds and needed to get a foothold on the ground, a giant boulder dislodged and I used it as a stepping stone down to the beautiful verdant green paradisiacal ground. 

I was retelling the dream to my life partner, when I heard the phrase, Head in the clouds feet on the ground. Knowing that it was an idiomatic expression I decided to research its meaning. I found a blogger and speaker, named Mike Robbins had made a similar discovery of the phrase while on a run.

He also had heard the expression and did not think much of it, until it presented itself to him running. You can look him up, he is quite the example of the expression, and his resume is impressive.

Referring back to my own life, I realized the wisdom and timing of this message from my guides or higher self. I needed to somehow craft a way to keep both orientations in my life, If I was to fulfill my purpose on this little blue sphere, called Earth. Mike talks about being dreamers and doers. He said you have to know where you fall on the spectrum, so you know where to put your energy in self-development. If you are like me, a dreamer, you need to take practical steps toward fulfilling your dream, partnering with doers that help you make the foundation steps towards the goal. If you tend toward the doer spectrum, the dream part of your life, may need nourishment, or the tendency is for ones world to become narrow and small. The doers need to associate with big dreamers or idea people. 

I had the belief that if I allowed myself to take care of the 3 dimensional business end of my life, I would become disconnected from my spiritual insights and gifts. It is the old worn out paradigm that we cannot be successful and spiritual at the same time. Yet there are many examples of people doing just that. Ophah, Martha Beck, Mira Kelly, Wayne Dwyer, may he rest in peace, and countless others. The Catholic Pope Francis is a perfect example of symmetry balancing Spiritual insights into practical policies for the churches adherents and other global agencies.
So back to the dream, I decided to pick up the mantle I had dropped, and finish my books (3) in process and continue development on J’eanne D’ Arc Road Tour, write blog posts to attract more readers and reach more people, to accept the speaking engagements offered and continue life coaching others to dream big with head in clouds and take action on fulfillment of dreams with practical feet on the ground steps…

Funny how a little dream can take you very far, with your feet firmly planted on earth…

Love and Light,
Satchi
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My heart is struggling with the lightness of the Holiday season and the heaviness of the world, both personal and impersonal. On the national stage, there is hardly a chance for peace anywhere, with shootings, bombings, war, and threats of war. There is the war of words, with the politicians all vying for a job that one wonders why anyone would want…

Refugees, another concern, echoing the story of Mary and Joseph and No Room at the Inn. For the coming birth of the messiah…prophesied or otherwise, as the lynchpin of the Christmas story. No one seems to connect the dots, why are so many Christians celebrating the birth of Jesus, and yet putting no welcome mat out for the stranger. Christians, are not the only ones skirting the issue of hypocrisy. Muslims and Jews too, forgetting what their holy messengers actually said.

I am reminded of the two most visceral John Lennon songs, “Give Peace a Chance” and “Imagine”. Listening to those lyrics, and remembering how long ago they were written. How long ago the holy books were written and yet, here we are forgetting and just plain being disobedient to the thing we have sworn allegiance to.

The master Christian said only two commandments were necessary, Love thy lord God with all thy heart, and love thy neighbor as thyself. He also said if a man should have anything against his neighbor, do not bring thy gift to the altar, better to make peace with thy brother that thou knowest, than praise God whom thou does not knowest.

How long before we finally lay down our hatreds, prejudices, weapons, and truly follow the commandment to love our neighbor as our self and forgive them that curse us and despitefully use us and forgive 70x7…? It is much simpler than how we have been conducting ourselves. We would have more energy and resources for the children and the planet and the ocean, and the rest of the created things put here for all of us to be responsible for.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, or Bah Humbug!

Love and light
Satchi

​While walking the streets of Bali, looking for little gifts for the people nearest and dearest in my life, I got lost. I walked and at every ten feet someone asked me if I wanted a taxi, today or how about tomorrow, I demurred and brought my hands in a gesture of greeting and thank you but no thankyou in this part of the world. I was kicking myself that I had not had a driver take me to the best shops and quickest solution. Shopping is not my favorite thing, and being constantly, mentally, interrupted causes my Highly Sensitive Intuitive Empathic self to over load. Soon I could not make my mind up on a single thing. I thought of an ice cream to give myself time to pause, but I did not want it.
I walked blindly through the hot, roughly paved narrow streets. My body was overheating and my mind as well. What was meant as a quick and dirty trip to satisfy my loved ones, I really was in Bali and I really did think of them and love them deeply, turned into an ordeal of witnessing and feeling the terrible need of others.

The need for self-respect in work, the need for money to feed their families, the need to satisfy the invisible bosses that some of these individuals work for. The need to communicate their gifts, their hearts, and many despairs.
I walked by a woman, making no such efforts, she was young, slouched almost laying in a doorway, skinny and dirty. There was no hope in her eyes, no response to stimulus of rich foreigner walking by. I could see her young son of 3 or 4 pleading with her, cajoling her to do something, anything. His language I could not understand, but his hand gestures and face and body posture, was pleading.  I walked by.

I registered so much in that moment that it threw me off balance, I forgot who I was and what I was doing there. My heart asked should I find food, should I give money, and what do you want of me God and Holy Helpers? I went to get Indonesian currency, since I had little right then, when I tried to find my way back to her and her son, I never found them.

There were many of her people near her and her son, I reasoned, surely someone will do the right thing. No matter if she is mentally ill or an addict or whatever, surely someone in her community loves her and wants to help. At least someone will care for that beautiful child? How many of us pass our neighbor by hoping that the responsibility is another’s, not ours who witnesses it.

But It is ours to do. We cannot collapse ourselves away from the suffering of others. We can begin to alleviate each other’s suffering one by one. We can start right where we are, in our homes, in our communities, in our larger context of others, wherever our heart directs us and finds us.

Recent research has shown that the brain is also in the heart. The cells that form the heart are neurites and self-organize and indeed think and feel. Since it is almost Thanksgiving and a time for Gratitude and sharing, be sure to listen to your heart brain and respond to those in need where you can.

Be the Good Samaritan, not passing by, but giving a helping hand, a smile, a blanket, a song, anything that you are moved to do. Act Now, you may never pass that way again.
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With love and light, from Bali,
satchi

I am sitting in Bali at a writers retreat. I hear distressing news about bombings in France and Lebanon, as well as the usual inhumanity to man that happens on an all too common basis. Once again I am struck with grief, and bewilderment, at how these horrible acts could ever be committed by someone that had a mother and a father and a sister or a brother, a friend or a child. Which is all of us, any of us that fit in one or more of those categories. 

For a moment I feel weak and defeat. I wonder what anyone can do about this, how to conduct oneself to be a help not a harm. And then I hear about Porte Ouverte! How the people not immediately in harm’s way offer sanctuary though social media, and make community instead of collapse into fear.

Yes. Yes Yes, that’s it... Open our doors, invite with love, refuse to give in to the darkness! Trust something bigger! Our Blood Beating Hearts!

Reminds me of the story of the Danish People putting the Star of David on all of their shirts, foiling the Nazi’s attempt at division, and self-preservation, the lowest of human instincts. When we refuse to recoil in fear, we rob the Evil of its intended target, our hearts, mind and bodies. We say Yes to love,

To community, NO to hate and isolation. We create both literal and metaphorical Sanctuary, a sacred space for love, a sacred space to heal, a safe place to lay down our burdens and grief. Someday soon, these kinds of acts will be unthinkable. Someday soon, all will awaken to the fact that every act of harm to another only bounces back to the one harming.   Someone once told me that a scar heals stronger than the skin around it, from the very necessity of the original hurt. We will come through this dark day and the days to come, stronger and more determined and resilient than ever before.

Open Door! Porte Ouverte! Our Hearts Minds and Bodies are depending on it! 

With love and light,
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Satchi
Bali

Hey kids! Big Bali Hai here!

Been writing a book here and having quite an experience. The setting is awesome; the people are great. Other than too little air conditioning in my room, all is well. However, yesterday I sat down to write some serious pages, my goal was 6,000 words! I reasoned that at that pace I may actually have something we call a shiitty first draft before it is time to go home.

Bali is the Eat Pray Love capitol and if you can’t write a book here, get a freakin day job peeps!

The Balinese are constantly tending to the spirit of things, with offerings, the beauty of which can make you cry. Even a little grain or two of rice for the creepy crawlers, ants, or Balinese, semut.

So, sorry to digress. But sitting in my room at the laptop, I felt the descent of the muse. I got excited and starting typing away. Then strange things started to happen. Now let me tell you in the interest of full transparency, I am no tech geek! In fact, I am somewhat geek challenged. My geek husband says, if it’s unbreakable, I can break it. He even thought companies should hire me to work out the kinks in their programs and hardware before release.  In the past I would say help, this thing is not doing what I want, he would come and take a look, and say, “how did you get there?” And things like, “I have never seen that problem or screen in my life!”

That is just scratching the surface, since I kill electronics and cause them to be wonky, due to my overabundance of electricity in my body. So speaking of Surface, that is my new laptop! I love it! Everything about it, makes me happy…I embarked on this journey with it, but had no time for tutorials, so I am continually discovering cool new functions. Which is fine, when you want to mess around. Not when you have a goal of 6,000 words a day and the curser for back spacing starts randomly erasing the words just typed on the page. Or because of the cloud the document you just labored over disappears while saving and you can’t see it or find it anymore. NOBODY UNDERSTSANDS THE CLOUD! 

See, right there, Surfy, my name for the laptop, just paused me, thinking I am making a capital mistake!

So I lose my first few pages, of course, me thinking, brilliant construction Ah I declare! NOOOO! Bring it back Angels! Stop it! I thought you wanted me to write this stuff down! Help! I start to cry and look skyward. Now I am afraid of my tool. What if it doesn’t like what I am writing.  Ala Hal in 2001! I sit back and decide to negotiate with electronic bosses.
Please I say, I will start to learn your brilliant ways of helping me, but I need you to dumb it down a bit, until I catch up. I simply want to type. No fancy stuff, I don’t even care about spelling just now. What do you know…things settle down and I begin again with writing my book? 2,000 plus words later the battery is getting low, my legs feel like lead and I want snacks and water and a walk.

When I come back, the little darling is all charged up and ready to go…Only now, she has activated new features…I know, scary right? Cortana has appeared and starts asking me to ask her anything. When I ask her how she get turned on, she says I have no information on that right now, ask me anything.
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Satchi