Earlier this week I shared on Instagram about a conversation I had last summer with an Intuitive I deeply respect. She has a rich educational and spiritual background, and the work I've seen her do, such simple, non-invasive approaches, have led at least a half a dozen people I personally know toward healing. It's really incredible, honestly.

Last year around this time I met with her, and there were two things, among many, that really stood out to me. The first was that she told me a shift was coming, and that many in her community could sense it. She didn't say it would be a pandemic, or a shift in human rights, or political upheaval, or anything specific. In hindsight I don't even know if she knew for sure, but she knew a shift was coming. She said people will rise and people will sink, and her advice was to get ready. 

As we approached Fall 2019, I wondered a few times if a few different events were the start of the shift. And maybe they were. It became really clear in March 2020 when the pandemic hit, and again when George Floyd was killed in my neighborhood, that the shifting was fully upon us. 

I'd wondered if I'd been getting ready or avoiding, because in the year since I'd seen her I'd mostly leaned into my healing, but sometimes you imagine that the thing you need to be doing is more tangible, less fluid. I quit drinking alcohol (didn't have a problem, just got sick of feeling "meh" for days after even one drink), switched to a plant-based diet (this makes me feel really good!), did so so so much yoga, and stopped reading the news so much (this was maybe the best thing I did overall). I was getting ready. The stuff I had started avoiding were the things I needed to avoid.

The other thing she mentioned was that the other idea I had floating around in my head was a good one, and maybe even the idea of all my ideas (you know what I mean? Like how we noodle on so many things, wonder on so many things, but many of them are just nothings). I knew instantly what she was referring to, and it kinda stunned me, because I'd never told anyone. She said to focus on it. Start working on it. 

That brings me to Letters and Lockets. It's taken a year for me to formalize an idea to communicate so much of the humanity I encounter on a daily basis when I read the stories you share with me. When I am stunned with emotion by your losses, your hopes, your milestones and your grief. I say it all the time, and I mean it: Your stories are the most inspiring, moving part of this little corner of the world I've created in lockets. I don't care how deep in the trenches you take me with your truth. I admire your humanity. I admire everyone's humanity.

So, I was working the other day not in my beautiful studio but my unfinished basement while me kids swung around on trapeze bar hanging from the rafters ten feet from my head (because COVID turned up all regular scheduling), and I started to consider how I could begin to compile and share your words, and my words, on a consistent basis. This thing here is part of my own shifting forward.

I started building up Letters and Lockets, which I hope will be a weekly newsletter and blog filled with the humanity I encounter daily. If you wanna sign up to receive the newsletter, scroll down and you'll see a little sign up bar at the bottom of this site.

Thanks for being here.

Warmly,

Allyssa