There’s a Yiddish saying - Too Humble is Half Proud. Consider me full proud because it’s been a delight to discover just how fabulous Ensoulment Coaching is.
“Thank you for a sweet clean and perfect shaped container for learning, being held, being seen, being guided, joyfully expressing and feeling into. It has profoundly helped me reconnect to the wisdom in my soul and I cannot wait to continue on with the work and be guided by Annie-Rose and all of her spirited teachings.” - Jackie, Client
And Now, Meditations on the Season
Where I live it’s the dead of winter, and I do mean dead. The earth has frozen and thawed and frozen again, heaving up stones like loose teeth. It is not an easy time for hope. My dad was the most spiritual person I’ve known, and the most devoutly atheist. While the mere mention of “G~d” sent him into offended tirades, the mere whiff of a blossom sent him into a swoon. One of his favorite games was to look at old photographs from the turn of the century, pick one tiny figure from the crowd, and stare until he felt, with every fiber of his being, that that person had been ALIVE. “Every person has a life” he’d remind me, sometimes embarrassingly, on the subway, pointing at a stranger as evidence. To him it meant every person is a Universe.
Tomorrow is my dad’s birthday, and it is also one week since Renee Nicole Good’s state-sanctioned murder, a national reckoning that has brought to light the 34 deaths due to I.C.E. since the beginning of 2025 including Keith Porter earlier this month. I have a practiced way of emotionally distancing myself from news, but this one pierced right through. A 30-something queer white activist like me, doing I.C.E. monitoring just like I do every Tuesday morning.
My political training nagged me to interrogate why my heart softened now when I know there have been other, non-white non-citizen deaths before. Then my magic training swooped in to remind me - follow the energy. Help the power grow bigger, don’t tamp it down with shame. If this is the sacred path to my tears, so that I may remember how to Not Get Used To This, then follow that path and make the path wider.
In Jewish time we are approaching the month of Shevat, a deep winter month holding a deep contradiction. Its iconic holiday - Tu B’Shevat - celebrates the return to life. Tu B’Shevat, the new year of the trees, marks the season when sap begins to invisibly stir and rise.
So back to my papa’s stubbornly vibrant outlook. Oh refuser of a greater power, oh devout believer in All We Have Is Each Other. I think today he’d say — You are ALIVE.
Then no more words. We’d be outside pressing our faces to the rough bark to feel the sap rising. The sap that is your tears, that is your signal threads and your neighbor lists. The sap that does not need you to have hope. It rises simply because it is ALIVE. Keep your face to the tree until you feel it, keep your fingers to your own pulse until you believe it.
Happy birthday Dad. And big sappy love to each of you reading this.