☀️ Held at Love Shine Play ☀️

Something opened and deepened inside me at Love Shine Play—something that felt very cellular. Like roots spreading underground. Like petals softening toward the sun.

As a teacher, I spend a lot of time holding. Holding space for breath, for transformation, for the wild and tender unfolding that happens in a room of people practicing together. I love that work. It’s sacred to me. And still—it can be hard to let myself be held.

At Love Shine Play, I felt held in the most unexpected and nourishing ways. By the grounded presence of familiar teachers I deeply respect. By new voices and new rhythms that stirred something fresh in me. By hands that supported me in backbends and forward folds. By music that brought tears to the surface. By moments of stillness that asked nothing of me but to breathe.

🐝 Cross-Pollination & Vision 🐝

I moved between modalities all weekend—singing, flowing, resting, dancing, receiving. A cross-pollination of teachings and traditions and energies. I got to taste so many kinds of presence. It reminded me how necessary it is to step into new spaces, to let curiosity lead, to stretch beyond the known.

In one hypnotic movement journey led by Sianna Sherman, a vision came to me: a hummingbird. Darting from flower to flower, light and focused, moving pollen through the garden. That image stayed with me. Cross-pollination is essential to life, to creativity, to resilience. And it takes courage. To leave the familiar bloom. To trust that something will meet you when you land.

🌱 A Resilient City 🌱

The city of Asheville itself holds this kind of strength. A place that’s been through so much since the hurricane last year—grief, loss, rebuilding. And yet the energy in the rooms was deeply alive. Tender. Awake. There’s something powerful about gathering in a place that knows what it means to begin again.

To Amanda and Sarah, the founders of this festival—thank you. Your vision is a living, breathing thing. You created a field that allowed so much healing to happen. And to every teacher, every space holder, every songkeeper—thank you. It mattered.

🌀 Ease in Risk 🌀

There was a line read during Luna Ray's cacao ceremony that kindled my fire. A poem by John O’Donohue—“For a New Beginning.” One line especially stayed with me:

“Learn to find ease in risk.”

That was it. That’s what this weekend taught me again and again.

To cross-pollinate, we have to move. We have to step into the places we’ve never been. We have to trust that the world is full of unexpected friends and medicine. That night, on a total whim, I ended up taking myself to see Widespread Panic—their final show of a 3 night run. I could see the venue from my hotel room. I’ve loved them since I was young, and I hadn’t seen them in years. It felt wild to go alone. But I went. I danced. I made friends. I laughed. I let joy hold me. It was one of the most affirming things I’ve done in a long time.

🌳 Rooted in Devotion 🌳

My intention for the weekend was simple but strong:

Rise in courageous leadership.

A leadership rooted in presence and clarity.
A leadership that returns, again and again, to what matters.

I remembered why I do this work. I remembered that the world needs all of us to show up more fully—not someday, but now. With our gifts, our quirks, our wounds, our wonder. With devotion.

I remembered that every time I do that—every time I bring more of myself into a space—I create a pathway for others to do the same. And when others show up fully, it invites me deeper into my own truth.

This weekend, I stood in the presence of embodied, revolutionary teachers who lit something in me. I feel steadier now. More whole. More rooted in my power, my purpose, and my love for this work.

🫶 Gratitude 🫶

This is a deep bow to all of it: the music, the movement, the teachers, the land, the laughter, the strangers who became kin, the flowers that opened their faces to the hummingbird.

I’ll keep carrying this. I’ll keep creating space for others to feel it too.

May the nectar we gather become the elixir we offer—shared in devotion, stirred by courage, and passed from heart to heart.

With Love & Devotion,

Angela