This is the month of the ancestors. The time when the veil thins, when the whispers of the past call us towards the unwritten future.
Just above the laptop screen, I see my ancestor altar. It’s time to add another photo, another story, another life to honor.
We get to claim as ancestors all who have loved us, inspired, taught, and held us. Even if we’ve never met or we share no blood.
Today I claim my teacher, soul sister, mentor and friend. My soulful biz coach, Terra Christoff made her untimely, yet astoundingly graceful, exit this week.
Terra is a bright, shiny light. A believer in the unseen, the you-better-believe-it’s-absolutely-possible! A lover of the earth, a dog momma, a wife, a playwright.
She believes that women on purpose will change the world. And that your purpose emerges in a culture of belonging. She lovingly created a space safe enough for me to shed my very own sister wound that kept me playing so scarily small.
Terra lives life fully, without reserve. With her whole heart and her unapologetic soul.
It’s hard to write about her in the past tense.
Terra is still very much among the living. I breathe life into her soul work as I write to you.
I honor her wild and precious life by honoring the wild and precious calling of my own soul. By showing up for this wild ride, even and especially when it hurts like hell.
I honor her by creating safe space where you can do the same. Where your heart and soul can emerge from the conditioning of your past.
Where you can be the most free, most loving, most inspired version of yourself.
Where you can live on purpose and make a difference with this, your own wild and precious life.
When it’s over, I want to say all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.
When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.
I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.
– Mary Oliver, “When Death Comes” (excerpt)
The invitation, for each and every one of us, is to take the world into our arms, to love with all our might, to let your guiding light within lead you boldly in the direction of soul-inspired purpose and joy.
Terra’s last words to me, after learning of the recent betrayal that had shattered my heart in a million pieces were, “I’m picturing both of us thriving!”
What a blessing that was! What a blessing she is.
This is the month of the ancestors.
Who are you claiming as your ancestor? And in what way will you honor their life with your own?