Dear All The Woman

2.25.2015 -
I have been seeing and experiencing so many woman's freedom lately. As I reach out and search for that community my heart screams for I realize that we are many and we are strong! We just have to  be vulnerable and willing to join together and become an unbreakable force! Their stories, their strength their vulnerability and their fight... It's unexplainable the feeling I get inside! Empowering, liberating, strong and proud. Women, warriors, queens! 

I am finding unbelievable joy reconnecting with woman from my past coming out of abusive marriages, abusive parental homes, conservatism, control, spiritual, verbal, physical, sexual, emotional abuse, fear and bondage. Women stepping out, standing up, speaking with their own voices, fighting and finding their own way. I feel like we are in a revolution of power and fight for equality like never before. And I can't explain the tears that come and the joy that bursts from my soul. Woman living in their stories and starting to thrive instead of just survive. 

I celebrate you. I celebrate us. 

"I crave the ones who've seen confusion and known struggle; who have pulled themselves up from the shackles of heartache and strife, disappointment and darkness, exhaustion and drain and have risen with a hearts open and unwaveringly wide as the ocean itself. Give me those people. The brave and the vulnerable, the wise, the ones who care for a world, and how to better it along with themselves. To know their ability in making waves, in shifting patterns with tides and in creating change. Let us become that open ocean. And make it rise." 
- Victoria Erickson  


"Dear all the women who ever existed over the entire span of human history,

I wish I could say I’m sorry. I wish I could apologise for everything you have been through. Starting with the woman whose heart was painted black with an apple in her hand. I want to scoop you all up and whisper it into your ears. I wish I was an enormous giant so I could gather you all together, hold you close to my Kilamanjaro of a bosom, and give you all your secrets back.

To those ancient girls who were born under stars and hidden in caves, and those women who were ordered to keep their goddesses quiet, or whose icons were stuffed away, their ancestral eternal flames stubbed out like cigarettes – I wish I could have tattooed your words on the hemisphere of my giant back to keep your libraries safe.

To the first slave women, whose bodies were used to bear children they never got to see, whose language was ripped from their lips, whose spells were stomped on.

To those taken from their warm homes and put on the backs of horses, forced onto ships and passed around like toys for grown men, whose skin was the wrong shade of culture, who fought till their nails bled – I wish I could have reached down with my arms thick as the Milky Way and pulled you from the pain.

To all those who believed men when they said that women are wicked, evil creatures, or that they weren’t allowed to make decisions because they get their period, or it was their fault for what they were wearing, or they shouldn’t have been out alone, that they had it coming, or they can’t because they’re just a girl, or God didn’t love them if they didn’t bear sons, or that God didn’t love them at all – I wish you didn’t have to hear that. I wish my timeworn stone-pillar fingers, covered in moss, could muffle your ears.

To all those daughters who were born disappointments, to those mothers who hated themselves and cursed their own bellies as a result, to those little girls forced down the aisle to stand with an old man, a cruel man, a heartless man, a loveless man, a violent man – I wish I could calm your panicked hearts, lift your veils and kiss your brows with my shoreline lips.

To those who were punished for having miscarriages, to those who woke in the night screaming, their white sheets dyed red, their tears slapped from their faces – I wish you knew that it wasn’t your fault.

To those left for war, widowed and abandoned, to those who weren’t allowed an opinion, who believed themselves inferior, who were placed in the dark alone as an incubator for the heir of a king, for an heir with balls, for a billionaire businessman, for the man of the house, because it can’t be a house without one – I wish I could borrow the sun and light your darkened rooms.

To those whose love was called witchcraft, their hips told not to swing, their lips told not to part, their hands told not to hold, their tongues told to never be bold. To those who knew the ways of nature and were blamed for terrifying weather, wars, murder and chaos, who stupefied priests, who disobeyed and died screaming, shot with feathered pens, burnt with consecrated candles and hung with the string of their holy robes. To those whose ancestors couldn’t save them, whose prayers had no effect. To those whose stories were left untold on blank pages in history – I wish I could bundle you up in my mountain-range embrace, and fill my veined rivers with ink so you can correct these wrongs.

To those who gave birth without so much as a freakin’ Panadol, or who became ill and were told it was punishment, who were kept in dungeons and basements, or back rooms, or distant towns – I wish I could rock you softly in my crescent-moon cradle.

To those who were treated so badly they themselves became cruel and infected entire bloodlines – I wish you epiphanies.

To those little ones brought up in nunneries, who were told their natural desires were a disease, their menstruations the work of the devil, a monthly curse – I wish I could fill my giant salt-lake heart with your tears and use it to baptise the ignorant.

To those who betrayed their sisters and never pleaded forgiveness. To those whose husbands wandered into other bedrooms, leaving cold sheets behind. To those who lived in perpetual fear, whose eyes never once looked up, to those girls who were taken from a farmhouse to a palace against their will, whose fathers tried to hide them, their beauty their curse. To all those who lived as prisoners in paradise, their faces hot with outrage – I wish I could scoop you up in the crystal lakes of my palms and let you float there till you are cool.

To those who were ashamed, to any who were shamed, to anyone who ever shamed a girl for being attacked, raped or beaten – I wish I could forgive you.

To anyone who spoke up about freedom or feminism, who started a revolution, who rallied, changed, created or fought – I wish I could encircle you with meteorites to deflect the slings and arrows that come your way.

To those brave hearts who swelled with service and joined the army, only to be humiliated and belittled by their own peers – I wish I could encase you in the strongest metals from the earth and furnish you with unbreakable swords.

To those who painted, sculpted wrote, designed or invented something spectacular only to have their husbands take credit.

To those who were told they shouldn’t drive a car because of hot flushes, and that new vacuum cleaners were a revolutionary kind of freedom, who received an ironing board for their birthday, who were given the Pill as a liberation but really just to make them more available, no strings attached, when free love turned out to be mostly about guys sleeping around, and the other pills were to keep you quiet and presentable, and by the way the boss is coming to dinner – I wish I could wake you from what turned out to be a dumb dream, so you could drive to work and take your seat at the boardroom table.

To those who felt the need to inject their faces with disease to feel young, to those who felt they were inadequate and put fake salt pillows in their breasts, broke their own noses, cut their own skin, or made themselves sick in the name of thin – I wish you already felt beautiful.

To those who were so scared of ageing they poured chemicals on their faces, terrifying their teenage children, who had always thought their mothers were the most magnificent creatures on earth – I wish I could swoop in with my mirror the size of the sky and show you what your children see.

To all the weak mothers who didn’t protect their daughters from leather belts, backs of hands or turning midnight doorknobs – I wish I could’ve strengthened you.

I wish I could have wielded Saturn’s rings to shield every woman who was ever Jill Meagher or any woman that was just taken from the street.

I wish I had that power.

To those who burned with ambition only to be told their job is strictly to be mothers, wives, cooks and cleaners. To those who aren’t allowed to have an education, to those who had to read books in secret and undertake clandestine classes – I wish I could build you a castle for a school, complete with silver soldiers to protect your beautiful minds. I wish my brain was the size of the universe, able to store a billion solutions to a million problems.

To the women who were told not to try, to stick to being supportive, to swallow ambition, to those who tried and were laughed away, or who succeeded and were jeered and insulted, and held to different standards, hounded out of positions of power, or who were thought unsuitable for leadership because they had young children to take care of, or because they didn’t have young children to take care of – I wish I could arch my back and push up islands in the sea beneath your bobbing chaff bags, so you could climb out and start new and better worlds, or at least try and fail, like anyone else.

I wish I could stretch out my Amazon river of a spine, sail all of you to these islands, across cultures, lands, tribes, generations, religions and eons, so we could talk, share our stories, lace our hearts together to form a bridge so long that it reaches all the way to the next generation, so they know whatever happens they have us, they can tap into this giant pulsating suspended wisdom at any moment, they are never alone.

And when they hear people say that all girls are bitches and that women can’t work together, or that they shouldn’t speak, up, or that they’re too emotional to be CEOs, or that their life has no worth simply because they were born female they’ll laugh, because they know about this crazy ancient heart bridge.

I wish I could hurl myself back in time, to the first season, to the debut episode, to the pilot, and let the girl with the apple know that people are going to try and make out that she was an add-on accessory to Adam, that people will try and pretend she’s a slave and not a creator, that her job was to serve man not God, or the God that man decided.

I want her to be strong, tell the truth, and show her daughters there’s no need to ever be afraid.
I wish there was no need to ever be afraid.
To all the women who ever existed over the entire span of human history,
I wish you knew, I’m sorry.Dear all the women who ever existed over the entire span of human history,
I wish I could say I’m sorry. I wish I could apologise for everything you have been through. Starting with the woman whose heart was painted black with an apple in her hand. I want to scoop you all up and whisper it into your ears. I wish I was an enormous giant so I could gather you all together, hold you close to my Kilamanjaro of a bosom, and give you all your secrets back.

To those ancient girls who were born under stars and hidden in caves, and those women who were ordered to keep their goddesses quiet, or whose icons were stuffed away, their ancestral eternal flames stubbed out like cigarettes – I wish I could have tattooed your words on the hemisphere of my giant back to keep your libraries safe.

To the first slave women, whose bodies were used to bear children they never got to see, whose language was ripped from their lips, whose spells were stomped on.

To those taken from their warm homes and put on the backs of horses, forced onto ships and passed around like toys for grown men, whose skin was the wrong shade of culture, who fought till their nails bled – I wish I could have reached down with my arms thick as the Milky Way and pulled you from the pain.

To all those who believed men when they said that women are wicked, evil creatures, or that they weren’t allowed to make decisions because they get their period, or it was their fault for what they were wearing, or they shouldn’t have been out alone, that they had it coming, or they can’t because they’re just a girl, or God didn’t love them if they didn’t bear sons, or that God didn’t love them at all – I wish you didn’t have to hear that. I wish my timeworn stone-pillar fingers, covered in moss, could muffle your ears.

To all those daughters who were born disappointments, to those mothers who hated themselves and cursed their own bellies as a result, to those little girls forced down the aisle to stand with an old man, a cruel man, a heartless man, a loveless man, a violent man – I wish I could calm your panicked hearts, lift your veils and kiss your brows with my shoreline lips.

To those who were punished for having miscarriages, to those who woke in the night screaming, their white sheets dyed red, their tears slapped from their faces – I wish you knew that it wasn’t your fault.

To those left for war, widowed and abandoned, to those who weren’t allowed an opinion, who believed themselves inferior, who were placed in the dark alone as an incubator for the heir of a king, for an heir with balls, for a billionaire businessman, for the man of the house, because it can’t be a house without one – I wish I could borrow the sun and light your darkened rooms.

To those whose love was called witchcraft, their hips told not to swing, their lips told not to part, their hands told not to hold, their tongues told to never be bold. To those who knew the ways of nature and were blamed for terrifying weather, wars, murder and chaos, who stupefied priests, who disobeyed and died screaming, shot with feathered pens, burnt with consecrated candles and hung with the string of their holy robes. To those whose ancestors couldn’t save them, whose prayers had no effect. To those whose stories were left untold on blank pages in history – I wish I could bundle you up in my mountain-range embrace, and fill my veined rivers with ink so you can correct these wrongs.

To those who gave birth without so much as a freakin’ Panadol, or who became ill and were told it was punishment, who were kept in dungeons and basements, or back rooms, or distant towns – I wish I could rock you softly in my crescent-moon cradle.

To those who were treated so badly they themselves became cruel and infected entire bloodlines – I wish you epiphanies.

To those little ones brought up in nunneries, who were told their natural desires were a disease, their menstruations the work of the devil, a monthly curse – I wish I could fill my giant salt-lake heart with your tears and use it to baptise the ignorant.

To those who betrayed their sisters and never pleaded forgiveness. To those whose husbands wandered into other bedrooms, leaving cold sheets behind. To those who lived in perpetual fear, whose eyes never once looked up, to those girls who were taken from a farmhouse to a palace against their will, whose fathers tried to hide them, their beauty their curse. To all those who lived as prisoners in paradise, their faces hot with outrage – I wish I could scoop you up in the crystal lakes of my palms and let you float there till you are cool.

To those who were ashamed, to any who were shamed, to anyone who ever shamed a girl for being attacked, raped or beaten – I wish I could forgive you.

To anyone who spoke up about freedom or feminism, who started a revolution, who rallied, changed, created or fought – I wish I could encircle you with meteorites to deflect the slings and arrows that come your way.

To those brave hearts who swelled with service and joined the army, only to be humiliated and belittled by their own peers – I wish I could encase you in the strongest metals from the earth and furnish you with unbreakable swords.

To those who painted, sculpted wrote, designed or invented something spectacular only to have their husbands take credit.

To those who were told they shouldn’t drive a car because of hot flushes, and that new vacuum cleaners were a revolutionary kind of freedom, who received an ironing board for their birthday, who were given the Pill as a liberation but really just to make them more available, no strings attached, when free love turned out to be mostly about guys sleeping around, and the other pills were to keep you quiet and presentable, and by the way the boss is coming to dinner – I wish I could wake you from what turned out to be a dumb dream, so you could drive to work and take your seat at the boardroom table.

To those who felt the need to inject their faces with disease to feel young, to those who felt they were inadequate and put fake salt pillows in their breasts, broke their own noses, cut their own skin, or made themselves sick in the name of thin – I wish you already felt beautiful.

To those who were so scared of ageing they poured chemicals on their faces, terrifying their teenage children, who had always thought their mothers were the most magnificent creatures on earth – I wish I could swoop in with my mirror the size of the sky and show you what your children see.

To all the weak mothers who didn’t protect their daughters from leather belts, backs of hands or turning midnight doorknobs – I wish I could’ve strengthened you.

I wish I could have wielded Saturn’s rings to shield every woman who was ever Jill Meagher or any woman that was just taken from the street.

I wish I had that power.

To those who burned with ambition only to be told their job is strictly to be mothers, wives, cooks and cleaners. To those who aren’t allowed to have an education, to those who had to read books in secret and undertake clandestine classes – I wish I could build you a castle for a school, complete with silver soldiers to protect your beautiful minds. I wish my brain was the size of the universe, able to store a billion solutions to a million problems.

To the women who were told not to try, to stick to being supportive, to swallow ambition, to those who tried and were laughed away, or who succeeded and were jeered and insulted, and held to different standards, hounded out of positions of power, or who were thought unsuitable for leadership because they had young children to take care of, or because they didn’t have young children to take care of – I wish I could arch my back and push up islands in the sea beneath your bobbing chaff bags, so you could climb out and start new and better worlds, or at least try and fail, like anyone else.

I wish I could stretch out my Amazon river of a spine, sail all of you to these islands, across cultures, lands, tribes, generations, religions and eons, so we could talk, share our stories, lace our hearts together to form a bridge so long that it reaches all the way to the next generation, so they know whatever happens they have us, they can tap into this giant pulsating suspended wisdom at any moment, they are never alone.

And when they hear people say that all girls are bitches and that women can’t work together, or that they shouldn’t speak, up, or that they’re too emotional to be CEOs, or that their life has no worth simply because they were born female they’ll laugh, because they know about this crazy ancient heart bridge.

I wish I could hurl myself back in time, to the first season, to the debut episode, to the pilot, and let the girl with the apple know that people are going to try and make out that she was an add-on accessory to Adam, that people will try and pretend she’s a slave and not a creator, that her job was to serve man not God, or the God that man decided.

I want her to be strong, tell the truth, and show her daughters there’s no need to ever be afraid.
I wish there was no need to ever be afraid.
To all the women who ever existed over the entire span of human history,
I wish you knew, I’m sorry."

Valentine's Day

2.17.2015 -

These two handsome goobers woke up and came in our room 45 min too early on the morning of their valentine's day school party to remind me in a still half asleep little voice that I couldn't forget we have to go get flowers for their teachers before school. How could one ever get annoyed at being awakened before the sun over something like that!

Valentine's made for friends for their school party!


Valentine's day shouldn't just be for lovers, it's for all those that love and that is everyone. It’s about taking the time to speak, listen, and care about those around you. It's a day to pay a little extra attention to the feelings of not only the people around you, but also yourself. To celebrate the people around you and to celebrate yourself. Instead of it being a day to celebrate how much somebody else loves me, I like it to be a day to love and celebrate myself and those that deserve to be reminded of their worth and value in this world. Like I said in my valentine's day blog post last year...
The notes, the flowers, the extra special things, the extra long hugs and extra exaggerated kisses only mean anything at all because of the other 364 days of the year spent with those I love. The only reason valentine's day means anything special at all to me is because of the crazy love, insane hard road, ups and downs, tears and laughs I have had with those I love the rest of the year. It's just a day we can celebrate that love and journey. It shouldn't leave. It should stay all year and if it doesn't stay all year...what is the point of this day then because then we have nothing to celebrate on it. Then it just becomes a shallow silly holiday to people with expectations and unmeaningful performances.

Wichita Mountain Valentine's Day Hike

2.16.2015 -

"Some people are born with tornados in their lives but constellations in their eyes. Other people are born with stars at their feet but their souls are lost at sea." - To be able to see the good with having been born into a tornado. To be able to be okay with that, accept that, was one of the bigger challenged of my life. But my tornado has turned me into the good that I am. I have let it I have fought for it. I have found my constellations. I learned how to turn it into good instead of letting it plow through and destroy my life every day. It will not destroy the stars I now know are there. It will not destroy the stars around me.

Kick self doubt in the balls and keep fighting fearlessly. Go high and higher still. Fall down and get back up. Trip and stumble but keep on going. Rest and recover then keep taking steps forward. Conquer the uncertain. When you get stabbed with the cactuses of life sit and bleed and cry and then get up again and leave those cactuses in the dust. Stand on top of your mountains and laugh and throw your hands up and yell like a champ. This is you life. This is your choice. This is your fight. This is your story.



These two guys scaled up and around and over mountains like pros carrying their own backpacks with water and walkie talkies and all. They ate up the adventure of it and we will definitely be doing more hiking in the future. I expected the coming back down part to be a bit of problem. I figured they would be tired and done. But they held up all 4 miles minus the last 1/4 mile or so they started complaining a bit about their legs hurting! They're my little warriors.



"Real woman are strong, resilient, independent, unstoppable; they can never just settle." - "I am a hot blooded fighter and I am fearless. I say if I am beautiful. I say if I am strong. You will not determine my story. I will."



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A Birthday + Annie The Pig

2.09.2015 -

Birthday morning sleep in's and breakfast in bed...

...and then they hid me away in the back room to prepare a "surprise". Okay so they got me. Good. I had no clue my best friend was going to pop out and I had not even a hint that she was about to make an inside joke become very real. Too real. In minutes I had a freakin' miniature pig running around my house and I swear I still can not believe that this actually honestly happened.




She honest to goodness had me believing this was for serious my birthday gift not a joke until a few minutes after they left and Sam gave it away it really was a joke only because he wouldn't stop laughing and I know he would never want a pig either and I WAS going into slight panic mode. "What am I going to do with this thing! I hate pigs!"
She was dead serious about how I could start a blog for Annie my pig and take her everywhere and when we move to California I can walk down the streets with her and we will become famous. Talk about a really, greasy, prickly haired squealer. I seriously had no idea pigs were THAT loud. And I have no idea how I will ever top this. to get her back...I don't think I can.

Ah to making sweet, horrid, epic, memories with amazing people. How will one ever forget such a birthday! Simply can't happen. And it puts a smile on my face and makes me shake my head everytime I think about it. Can't you just feel the piggy love...

"I love getting older. My understanding deepens. I can see what connects. I can weave stories of experience and apply them. I can integrate the lessons. Things simply become more and more fascinating. Beauty reveals itself in thousands of forms."

Each birthday I have had in the last 3 years has gotten better and better.
What is a birthday anyways? Why do we have them, what are they for? Why do people have expectations of others on their birthday? Why do we expect others to celebrate us on our birthday? Why are we not celebrating ourselves? My birthday means something incredible to me now it certainly never did before I started my healing. It's about celebrating me being here on this earth. It's about self love and worth. It's about knowing I am here for a reason no one else is here for. It's a day to keep dreaming for myself, loving myself, bettering myself, reaching for new heights. Whatever you believe about yourself on the inside is what you will manifest on the outside.

This year I'm doing something different. My whole birthday month I’m making time to make things happen for myself. I'm doing some things that make me feel alive. I'm accomplishing some goals I've wanted to do and checking some more things off my bucket list. The last six months my everything has been re-adjusted. Priorities have had to shift. Life has done figure eights and sharp turns. I have put my business on hold, moved homes, learned and have had to grow and stretch myself in ways I would never have expected to anytime soon. And while I know that isn’t going to stop anytime soon I have come to learn that shouldn’t/doesn’t stop the dreaming. The dreams are still there they have just had to change a little. The goals are still there just having had adapted some.

I like getting older. I don’t have that urge/desire people have of wanting to go back and relive any age/younger age. That actually scares the shit out of me. To relive the horrors. I have never felt more alive, more myself, more strong, more free, more worthy, more powerful than I do right now. To love my life and believe my life is my message and my story. And to believe that is a good thing. To believe that is enough. To live and not run.


So my birthday week I invited these 4 woman amazing woman in my life out for a girl's night! These beauties that keep me going, so often keep my sane, build me up, understand, listen, goof with me, get my heart smiling again when I feel faint. Who are all so VERY different but yet all so VERY amazing! Who keep me dreaming. Who don't try to say the right thing but just be. Real. Honest. As it is. As they are. The ones I know I can be me around completely. The ones that are not at all okay with just settling. Being with them for 7 hours straight was more filling that I can even express. We are doing a stay inside pj and movie night next time...though the movie might get skipped altogether with deep conversation and dreaming!

When I No Longer Believe The Lies

2.05.2015 -
Words don’t sting as much when I no longer believe them to be true. When I know the truth and have undone the lies. Rejection and judgement doesn’t stab so much when I know who I am and have come to love who I am. When I really genuinely love myself, who I am, how I was made, the quirks, the flaws and the amazingness. When I don’t think things about myself anymore like my voice sounds stupid on the phone or on video. When I can look in the mirror and see all the beauty instead of things “not good enough”. When I can be passionate about the things in my heart without feeling guilty about it. When I see the parts about myself that I was always told were bad and see them as really actually the amazingly good stuff about myself. When I don’t depend on anyone else to give me anything I think I need, or to try and bring me fulfillment. When I can be with myself alone and enjoy it. When I can no longer hear their voices in my head confirming the lies or pointing fingers. When negativity towards me starts to feel foreign and without power. When I don’t have to hide me. When I don’t even think about hiding myself. When I see the smiling faces that turn my way instead of all the frowning ones. When I live life without stopping in fear of others, or doubts or hurtful thoughts. That is how I see I am truly finding free. That is how I see how far along my healing has gone.

Aaron & Breanna

2.02.2015 -
These two are crazy, corny and full of love and life. I had a blast shooting in the mountains with them for a couple of hours and I can not wait for their spring wedding!