WHEN I MOVED from my cherished home in Windsor to the Waterloo Region shortly before the pandemic struck, everything changed. And not for the better. The space was different. The energy was different. Everything felt off. All the routines and spiritual practices that had nourished and grounded me for those three beautiful years prior to moving slipped away. Not completely, but significantly.

I think that losing my spiritual community and social circle all at once was a big part of feeling so alone and alienated. Of course everyone experienced the isolating impact of COVID in some life-altering way. Mine, like many others on the planet, just happened to play out in an unfamiliar city where I hadn’t really had a chance to make any new friends or connections yet.

Struggle and depression are familiar aspects of the human condition. Getting knocked off the beam is always a profound Tower moment in Tarot. It takes time, self-care, and patience to rebuild.

In assessing the rubble, it looked like M.Ixchel’s Healing Arts was one of the casualties, especially since I no longer had a Reiki practice. I considered closing this website and my Facebook page many times. Plus, I just wasn’t resonating with my patron goddess, Ixchel, anymore. She was the one who had come to me when I first began this journey six years ago, hence the inspiration for the name that was so similar to my own – Michelle. Yeah, M.Ixchel seemed appropriate at the time, but energies have shifted.

I realize now that our guardians, spirit guides, animal spirits, gods, and goddesses do come and go. Some of them change up over time as we ourselves change and continue to grow. We are a work in progress throughout our physical and spiritual lives, and the universe provides accordingly.

A MONTH AGO I committed to rebooting my yoga practice… and… I am over the moon happy that it’s somehow better than it ever was, even now as my 65th birthday fast approaches. Since developing my first practice in 1982, yoga has always been my anchor and saving grace. It is always the starting point from which everything once again blooms and falls naturally into place. Body, heart, mind, and spirit realign, thrive, and rejoice in renewed energy and profound gratitude.

The phoenix brushes herself off, adjusts her feathers, and gets down to the business at hand.

I think the best advice that any wisened crone can offer is to add a healthy variety of tools to your Life Survival Toolkit. Use what works, discard what doesn’t. Mine includes yoga, Reiki, prayer, meditation, essential oils, Tarot journalling, time in Nature, time with cherished friends and family… and more. Your toolkit is incredibly important, and everyone’s will look a little different, depending on what resonates and what works. Whatever it is, it should be something tasty that makes you feel good and at peace deep down in your soul.

Any successful, nourishing, and delicious recipe is a mix of all the best ingredients lovingly selected and combined in an inspired and intentional way. Come to think of it, every single thing in nature exists as a result of an alchemical mix of elements that came before it, including seeds, the plants that sprout from them, and yes, even us. We would not be here were it not for our parents and ancestors.

Wow… I did NOT anticipate that the word ‘mix’ would hold meaning so wondrously beyond my own personal toolkit and website name change, LOL. Kinda wild.

Mix Healing Arts embodies the zeitgeist of 21st century seekers exploring various traditions and approaches to healing and wellness.

Mix Healing Arts invites us to acknowledge and honour the interconnectedness of not only the environment and Nature, but of ALL life.

Mix Healing Arts invites us to rest, reflect, and heal ourselves so that we can in turn become shining beacons for other journeyers, wherever they may be along their own unique soul paths.