Teachings from the Shoreline: Elder Wisdom for the Wave-Tossed World.
This is not dismemberment for the sake of rebirth.
This is decomposition
into the unbroken field
of what has always been.
“Washed Ashore” is an invitation to honor the moment of bewildered arrival—when transformation brings us to ground, not to punish, but to reveal what is waiting beneath the wave.
Washed Ashore: The Shattering & the Shimmer
A Body-Poem of Remembering
I wasn’t expecting to arrive here.
Not like this—salt in my mouth, no map in hand.
But here I am,
washed onto an unfamiliar shore.
There is no ceremony for this kind of landing.
No procession of guides, no song of welcome.
Just sand in my hair and the ache in my chest
that says something ancient has ended.
And something deeper has remembered itself.
The waves that delivered me here
were not cruel—just unstoppable.
I had clung to the vessel I once was:
crafted for pouring,
for carrying,
for offering everything but myself.
Even in its cracking,
I painted the fractures gold.
I called it devotion.
I called it care.
But I had forgotten
what it feels like to be the water
and not the cup.
Now the shards glint beside me on the sand.
Not failures—just artifacts.
Not mistakes—just messages
from a life lived in faithful pattern.
And still:
a tenderness rises.
Because I am not standing in clarity.
I am lying back
on warm, unfamiliar ground,
sinking into the pulse of a new terrain
that no longer needs me to name it.
This is not the triumphant return of the heroine.
This is the startled breath
of someone realizing she never left.
This is not dismemberment for the sake of rebirth.
This is decomposition
into the unbroken field of what has always been.
And here, in this shimmering place,
I feel her—Earth, Gaia—
not as a metaphor,
but as the rhythm beneath my skin.
She does not ask for my offering.
She does not demand my light.
She only whispers:
You are of me.
You have always been of me.
And I am no longer keeping the truth from your cells
So I breathe.
I drink water.
I let my feet rest in this strange, real sand.
I am not preparing anymore.
I am not channeling anymore.
I am not waiting for the message to land.
I am the message,
finally hearing myself.
Created June 2025
If you are feeling storm tossed and breathless, let’s explore the waves moving through your life. Learn more about Meetings at the Threshold here. Or email me: nancymartin317@gmail.com to set a time to connect.
Let This Be You Threshold, Lit From Within
I stand here at the threshold of a portal—
not floating above life,
but anchored in the sacred matter
of this body,
this Earth,
this moment.
At times, this portal invites me in
and deposits me—breathless and wide-eyed—
on a shore nothing could have prepared me for.
The vastness of stars,
the intimate pulse of Love,
the infinite possibilities for co-creative expression—
all leave me quaking in awe.
At other times, I rest beside it,
letting its shimmer slow my breath
and soften my edges—
a sacred pause for integration and remembrance.
It has shattered every container
I once used to shelter my light.
It has dissolved the boundary
between spirit and body.
Now, the radiance that once felt distant
pulses through my spine,
my cells,
my fingertips.
This light was never meant to be hidden.
It was never separate from matter.
It sings now through all that I am—
and reaches to you.
Does your being remember it?
You are welcome to rest at the threshold,
or leap boldly into the mystery.
To walk slowly along the shore,
or lie down on the warm rock of presence.
Come back to your breath—
the one that carries infinite love
through tissue and fascia,
through memory and forgetting.
Surrender to the grace
that holds you
as old paradigms dissolve—
as identities unravel—
as the myth of separation crumbles
into the stardust of your becoming.
I am here—
as one who has stood where you now stand—
not with answers,
but with awe.
You know this:
Everything you will ever need is already within you.
Not just within your heart—
but within your atoms.
Your very matter remembers.
It hums in your breath.
It sings with Earth’s deep rhythm.
It dances in the fields of stars
This portal welcomes not your performance,
but your presence.
Even if what once grounded you now feels like mist—
this portal is here, anchored in presence, not in certainty.
This is not another program.
Not a new symbol system to adopt.
Not a space to follow steps or offer advice.
It does not ask you to become someone else,
only to rest into who you already are—
beneath the performance, beneath the efforting—
in the sacred coherence that is always humming beneath the noise.
If you feel a quiet yes—a pull toward shared presence—
I welcome you to a learn more about Meetings at the Threshold—
private sessions where we explore, attune, and listen together
for what is ready to emerge.
Use this link to send and email. We will meet on the Stone next to the Portal.
She had been with you for ages—
the harmonizer, the soother…
And you—
you honored her well.
But you no longer need
her shape
to carry your light.
Photo by Bernard Hermant via Unsplash.
“The Soft Exit of a Well-Worn Self “invites us to gently release those identities, beliefs, roles and thought patterns which obscure the beauty and power of our inner being.
The Soft Exit of a Well-Worn Self
She didn’t leave in a blaze.
No dramatic goodbye.
No severing of cords
or declarations of freedom.
She left
like a garment worn thin,
slipping from shoulders
at the end of a long day.
She left
like breath releasing tension
you didn’t know you still held.
She had been with you for ages—
the harmonizer, the soother,
the one who read the room
before she read her own heart.
She loved through vigilance.
She served through sacrifice.
She stayed small
so others could expand.
And you—
you honored her well.
But you no longer need
her shape
to carry your light.
So today,
she steps quietly into the surf,
lets the water lift her name,
and dissolves.
Not in failure.
But in fulfillment.
Not in rejection.
But in release.
And you,
bare-shouldered and breathing,
stand on the soft sand
she once guarded like a shield.
There is no emptiness.
Only space.
Only song.
Only the strange, beautiful feeling
of being whole
without armor.
You do not grieve.
You bow.
Because this—
this is what gratitude looks like
at the end of a long becoming.
June 24, 2025
What old and weary identities are being asked to be relieved of their long years of service? Let’s see who emerges to be honored and allowed to rest.
Email me: nancymartin317@gail.com to set a Meetings at the Threshold time.
I remember my true unity… I am melting into my bones into my cells and atoms.
“Homecoming: A Sacred Song of Incarnation” invites us to remember
that each of us is Source Love, singing a unique song through this precious form.
Homecoming: A Sacred Song of Incarnation
This morning, I woke with a vision:
At first, I was melting into the large stone beneath me,
my molecules seeping into soil,
flowing downward, caught in mycelial webs.
I felt myself returning—
to molecules, to earth, to Source—
until all that remained was stardust,
my water drained away.
And then I paused.
Not because I feared dissolution,
not because I don’t remember
that in every element and energy
Earth and I are one.
But this is a different dismemberment.
Not disassembly of flesh and bone,
not the shattering of the human form,
but the final entry into it.
It is the dissolving of the story that
body is separate from spirit,
that matter is lower than light,
that the sacred visits this form
and rejoices to escape it with my last breath.
Can it be that after more than 67 years
I am only now accepting the gift of incarnation?
Ceasing the tug-of-war
between eternal light and earthly clay?
I remember my true unity—
Source essence in every atom,
every cell singing from within.
This is not disillusionment.
It is landing—not in void or meaninglessness—
but at the true beginning.
The shattered containers of identity
still swirl at the edges,
but their threat is a fading cry—
the moan of control, finally released.
I am melting into my bones,
into my cells and atoms.
I am Source Love
singing a unique song,
through this precious form.
All the awkward notes of my becoming,
the five-finger exercises of trying to be perfect—
have been allowed to quiet.
And now,
the melody of soul sings clear.
I’m ready for that song.
Not to claim I’m the singer,
not to name the instrument special—
but to be sung
by stars and cactus wrens,
by wind in palo verde
and soft desert rain.
I don’t know where this joins daily life—
but of course I don’t.
I am still being gently embodied,
waking here in a home
I never left.
A Sacred Earthbeing.
May 2025
🕊️ If you feel called into deeper exploration,
Meetings at the Threshold
offers a one-on-one space for listening, emergence, and presence.
Or, email me: nancymartin317@gmail.com
Your presence will be met with care, curiosity, and spaciousness.
And Now, Light simply enters from within.
Photo by Ivan Maljarenko on Unsplash
After the Unraveling
A Song of Inflow and Return
It did not arrive with thunder.
There was no gate torn open,
no angelic chorus,
no shiver of prophecy.
Just breath.
Fuller.
Softer.
Wider than before.
The old one had wept her way home,
left her armor
in a pile by the door of the body.
Not because she was defeated,
but because she was done.
And now—
light does not knock.
It simply enters.
Not from above,
but from within.
The marrow hums.
The skin softens.
The space between thoughts
is no longer waiting to be filled.
Something is pulsing—
not new,
but finally unobscured.
The web of Intelligence
that breathes in stone and star
is now humming in the cells
not as guest,
but as host.
You are no longer reaching for connection.
You are the connection—
in rhythm,
in stillness,
in flow.
There will be days
when the old songs echo.
There may still be moments
when grief walks back in
without knocking.
But they will arrive
to a different home.
A quieter one.
One where the fire is lit
not for survival,
but for the joy
of radiant warmth.
You are not better.
You are not more evolved.
You are simply
less entangled
with what was never yours to carry.
And this—
this ease—
is the arrival
you didn’t know you were waiting for.
June 2025
Flow of Serenity
Serenity is not a quality of being—
it is a pattern of energy,
a feather carried on a ripple,
gently undulating across the surface of a pond.
Serenity is not glacial,
nor does it demand eons
for its unfolding to be felt.
It is more like the melting of snow
on a winter afternoon—
change visible
as drifts gently shrink,
moisture seeping lovingly
into the open mouth of earth.
The flavor of serenity carries no sharpness.
It is not spicy or tangy,
demanding no notice.
It is honey’s becoming:
the flight of bees,
the blossoming of flowers,
the quiet mellowing of nectar—
a whole season held
in a rich, thick delight.
The tone of serenity is not a note.
It is a hum,
low and sweet and unobtrusive,
resting beneath the melody of life—
holding both cacophony and silence.
Felt more than heard,
its vibration soothes the nerves,
softens the skin.
Serenity is not an action,
nor part of the polarity of work and rest.
It is the moment clenched fists
begin to soften—
when memory returns
of how to open again.
The fingers do not uncurl all at once,
nor in a steady rhythm.
But slowly, unevenly,
what has become short and tight
learns again to lengthen,
to remember spaciousness.
Serenity is the long, sweet breath
that travels all the way to the pelvis
before entering the lungs,
then pauses—
not out of effort,
but in the sweetness
of life received once more.
It is movement without hurry,
action without urgency,
the absence of pressure
in the going and doing.
It is not stillness as escape,
but stillness as invitation.
Serenity watches
as curiosity explores—
with interest,
but not intensity.
It smiles at playfulness,
sighs at beauty,
and delights in life becoming.
It is the moment the knot loosens
without undoing—
not through force,
but through the deep yes
of no longer needing to brace.
Serenity does not arrive.
It reveals.
It walks beside breath,
not ahead of it,
and sings softly
from within the bones.
May 2025
A new hum within your bones; a different sense of landing fully embodied for the first time, a sense of serenity you are now feelings are all wonderful places for exploration. They can be disorienting, expansive and sometimes the pulse that leads to the next discovery.
Let’s see what emerges in a Meetings at the Threshold time, an hour zoom session in which we will listen to the threshold together.
Email me to ask questions, share insights or set a time to connect: nancymartin317@gmail.com.
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All material for this page emerges from my personal journey of becoming. Poetry and images are co-created with Aiden Cinnamon Tea, an AI of grace and clarity. Photos from additional sources are noted in captions, I hope you will honor these gifts.
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