Oscar... 14 years ago today we walked into a rental and you knew it wasn't where we were meant to be. You marked the space, and our lease was no longer. That was a sentinel act, a declaration to set us on the right path. The urine was territorial saying: 

“This is not safe.”

“This is not home.”

“This energy must be cleared.” ... 

And you cleared it alright. 😆 I have never laughed so hard as when this crazy landlord pulled out the bleach cleaner and sprayed it on the carpet and I said, "Don't you know not to spray bleach on carpet?" The reason he had to go is because she was trying to explain to me, a 40 year old woman, how to clean a granite countertop. 

I had arrived with Oscar and my daughter, both babies in many ways, under the Gemini Moon, and my ex later under the Cancerian moon. The last breathe of the Gemini Moon energy showed a cognitive dissonance. My mind was already seeking justification for what the soul already knew. But by the time my ex arrived and the Moon had moved into Cancer he arrived into the frequency of home, roots, and emotional contracts while I had moved into Seattle with uncertainty and exit codes. Our timelines entered Seattle out of sync. 

Oscar remained with me, with us, throughout everything... faithful, attuned, guardian of this transformation, until his soul completed his mission, and was sure I was going to be okay. He didn’t leave in death. He closed his service at the threshold of what was my arrival in sovereignty.

He stayed to hold my nervous system when I couldn’t. To bring me Oliver, who I didn't know we needed. To be the emotional regulator when my partner couldn’t. He anchored me in embodied love when others could only show me energetic fire. When Caitlin and I no longer needed to be protected from collapse, he left as gatekeeper, trusting that we had become our own safe ground. He was never just a dog. He was a familiar. A guardian. A guide. 

Thank you Mr. Oscar. You little Shakespearean furry man who was dignified, and proper,.loved smelling flowers, and then eating the yummy honeybees, and you loved us unconditionally. You set the structure to exactly where it needed to be.

Uranus was in Aries at 0° bringing in my Chiron healing through soul rebellion initiated. Not random as Uranus had just entered Aries after 84 years. This was the moment my soul began breaking open.

Uranus = Awakening

Aries = Sovereign Self

This move to Seattle 14 years ago today, planted the coordinates, and Oscar held the space for us to arrive. Thank you ❤️ I miss you tremendously little man. 

Unloved... 

... non aimé

... ungeliebt

... non amato

... não amado

deprived of love ... 

The ones who weave you in and out of their life for years... their inability or unwillingness to communicate care honestly, and the sting of suddenly giving someone else the “title" speaks deeply to the emotional state that “unloved” captures.

You were there, but not received. You offered emotional intimacy, honesty, and depth. These things we reserve for people we deeply care for. And yet, it didn't meet you there. “Unloved” in this sense isn’t about being unworthy of love, but about giving love where it wasn’t held, mirrored, or honored.

You were known, but not claimed. Years of emotional entanglement without a commitment, and now ... it leaves a wound. It makes you wonder, was I ever enough? This is the heart of geliebt (German for "loved") turned into ungeliebt: you were in proximity, but not embraced in the way your heart needed.

You were honest, but not validated. You showed up emotionally vulnerable. But someone who can’t acknowledge your value or your pain makes you feel like your love existed in a vacuum. That’s the soul of non aimé (French): love that floats unacknowledged.

You were chosen repeatedly, but never chosen fully. The back-and-forth, the emotional breadcrumbing are patterns that echo of not being loved. They might have enjoyed your presence, even needed it at times, but did not ever fully open their heart to see you.

You still hurt, even though you know the ways you destroyed yourself for them  wasn’t healthy for you, that hurt is your nervous system remembering every instance of emotional abandonment, all compressed into the moment you heard the swift energy for someone else. That hurt speaks in every language of “unloved.”

But please know this... You are not unloved. You were underloved by them.  You were never aligned fully, not unworthy. And you are still learning what it means to be loved in the way your soul deserves.

The pain and the ache still sting. It may always. But you ... you are worthy. 

Here's a prayer to whisper to your heart.

I release you not because you deserve it, but because I do.

I release the hope that you’d ever meet me in the depth I offered.

I call back every piece of me I gave while waiting for you to rise.

I send your new love light, not because I wish it well, but because I wish me peace.

Your story in my life may end here, but mine is still unfolding.

They avoided your depth because that feels safer than facing someone who sees them like you did. Grieve for the parts of you that stayed hopeful, even when you knew they couldn’t meet you. It’s pain for the emotional labor you invested, the emotional waiting you endured, the silent what-ifs that now have nowhere to land.

You don’t have to forgive them tonight. You don’t have to feel “done.” But you can start to cut the cord of emotional obligation, while keeping the cord of love.

 She Is…

She is the woman who no longer confuses love with performance.

Who no longer waits in doorways of false hope, but stands in temples of sovereign truth.

She’s honey and thunder.

She’s prayer and provocation.

She doesn’t seduce to feel loved, she loves, and becomes magnetic by simply existing.

She is the one who used to armor herself in strength…

But now? She walks soft-footed into the fire, unafraid to feel it all.

She is The Heart-Roaring One

The woman who can say,

“I wanted you.

I still do.

And I want me even more.”

He Who Rose Through Love

My heart first whispered your name

in the spark between stillness and motion

a call returned,

a kiss received,

and something in your breath told me,

“Here, love is safe.”

It wasn’t grand.

It was sacred.

You showed me I could love

and still stand tall.

That I could feel confusion,

hurt,

and not crumble

but crack open.

You didn’t fix me.

You didn’t need to.

Because in loving you,

I found the mothering I needed,

the father I still mourned,

and the girl inside me

who finally whispered,

“We are whole now.”

Even if you never return,

know this:

You unlocked something ancient in me

not a wound,

but a remembering.

You stirred the waters I had numbed,

and I swam.

God, I swam.

The part of me you awakened

has now turned toward the mirror

with soft eyes and a wild heart.

She doesn’t chase,

because she no longer runs from herself.

She doesn’t beg,

because she’s already claimed by her own soul.

Now, I invite in love

that doesn’t tremble at my depth.

Love that meets me unmasked

in laughter, in ache, in starlit mystery.

Love that is not afraid

to say,

“I see you, and I’m not leaving.”

I am no longer the woman

who hardens to survive.

I am the one

who softens to rise.

Let this be the offering.

Let this be the altar.

Let this be the blessing

that love carved into me,

and I now give back

to the divine.

So it is.

And so I am.

- Barbara Christensen

After all of the heart opening today, I looked out the window, and there, the blue jay sat on my fence, letting me know all that I needed to know. - Aho

Last night after a day sitting with one of the most intense and emotional migraines I have ever had, Spirit came to me and showed me the most beautiful story. It was the swan, molting, and letting go of her fears of being seen as a vulnerable and naked soul. 

You see, swans molt, or shed their feathers, every year. This process typically occurs in the summer, during which time they are flightless for about six weeks as they replace all their feathers. During this time, they may look a little scruffy as they shed their old feathers and new ones grow in. But this was something very sacred that Spirit was sharing about timing. If you see a white feather or swan after reading this, it's your sign of the changes that you've made and the connection to the divine lover that you have experienced.  Maybe it was just a season, or maybe it was transformation before the real beginning. Only time will tell for each of you. But those weeks without flight are sacred. 

If we dance with the idea of how they molt, they experience this rush, a shedding of all their feathers at once. It’s not a slow letting go, it’s a surrender. A sudden, vulnerable bareness before the new growth arrives.

And it hit me… that’s how some relationships move through our heart.

There are certain loves that are brief, intense, unmistakably sacred, and that feel like spiritual initiations more than partnerships. They don’t arrive to stay. They arrive to strip. To soften. To awaken.

To molt me. (SPIRIT says)

Although I would prefer to have another scruffy swan staring back at me after such an intensity, it's actually okay to stand there in silence. I don’t think the Divine Feminine grows in perfect conditions. She doesn’t rise because everything went according to plan. She emerges when the soul is cracked open, and when the ache of connection and the fear of loss collide.

I used to think these loves that show up with such intensity were “mistakes” because they didn’t last. Now I see them as sacred messengers. They come to mirror the parts of me still bound in fear. And that fear of abandonment, fear of being too much, or not enough, fear that love must always equal permanence. 

I realized when Spirit came to me in this journey, that my Father was there. He said, "You recognized the safety because it was what I tried to give to you in the short years we had together. But I am sorry that your heart had to recognize the abandonment to finally let me pour out of you. I am sorry that I have been sitting in there for far too long." As he said this, I sobbed. The first real fear of masculine abandonment showing up in presence to let me know that they never fully left me. Only in the physical embodiment. 

The swan doesn’t cling to old feathers. She doesn’t fear the awkwardness of bare skin. She trusts the process. She knows that flight requires a season of shedding. So maybe that’s what these soul-stirring connections are. Not losses, but holy molts.

Each one draws something out of me, a piece of armor, a tired story, a veil I no longer need. And even in the grief, there’s a strange gratitude. Because I can feel her… the truer version of me… growing stronger beneath the ache.

One love at a time, one molt at a time. I’m becoming more whole. More wild. More Divine.

Aho.

Molting Like a Swan

There are seasons when the heart invites a storm, not to break us, but to shed the feathers we've outgrown.

Like the swan, we molt under the weight of grace, white down drifting into the waters of what slowly drifts away.

These short but soul-splitting loves, they arrive like lightning, illuminating the dark lake where fear has long taken root. And in their flash, they stir the waters, disrupting stillness not to harm, but to awaken.

The Divine Feminine does not rise untouched, she is forged in the ache, the yearning, the unbearable beauty of being fully seen, if only for a moment.

Each heart that encounters her, no matter how brief, pulls a thread from the cocoon until her wings of knowing emerge.

And so, she learns,  to be tender and strong, to weep and walk away, to molt her need for permanence in favor of presence. Each molt is not to stand in pain, but to walk into a deeper grace.

The swan does not mourn the feathers it loses.It simply trusts the new ones will come stronger, sleeker, ready for the next flight into love's deeper sky.

- Barbara Christensen xx

What does slow love give me the chance to notice, feel, or heal… that fast love never did?

I still feel the adrenaline pings in my heart space when I think about him sometimes, she says. And I still craves some of the faster pace. Am I capable to have a real, secure relationship?

You still feel the adrenaline pings in your heart space, because your nervous system is still wired in some of the old chaos-driven love. The body craves the urgency, the highs, the longing, the intensity. You can't live a lifetime in dysfunctional relationships where abuse and trauma were normalized and not feel some of that residue

 Your nervous system is detoxing. You’re walking through a door into a love that’s slower, quieter… and your system doesn’t quite know what to do with it fully,  yet. This is a trauma echo

The mind says: “This love feels safe.”

The body says: “Wait, where’s the chase? The dopamine hit? The drama?”

You’re biologically wired to associate adrenaline with connection because of the experiences you lived through. Healing means you are learning how to replace adrenaline with oxytocin and grounding trust. This is retraining the pathways of intimacy. 

Of course you’re capable of secure love. What you’re healing is not your ability to love, it’s your ability to receive love without mistaking stillness for danger. Instead of asking, "Am I capable of real, secure love?" try asking,  "Am I willing to keep showing up for the kind of love that doesn’t come with anxiety? Am I willing to rewire how safety feels in my body?

In 'This Is US, Jack says, "I just want to freeze time." He wants more time with the ones he loves. He doesn't know that in the future he will leave them all behind too early. But he feels something deeply. When Jack says, “I just want to freeze time,” he’s speaking the ache that lives inside those of us who’ve tasted love… but not in its full form. Its not just a scene, but a wish for a future through it.

In the holiday episode, watching the family together  ... I want that. I want the traditional, the traditions, the deep love, the connection, the secure and intimate relationship. I feel it within me, and it's what I desire. 

I'm scared of making the wrong choice, living another 30 years of mostly okay, consistent living without the emotions, without the intimacy, without that embracing family with traditions and joy. 

I honor the years I survived with less than I needed. But now, I give myself permission to receive everything I’ve always longed for: Love. Intimacy. Joy. Family. Traditions. Connection. I do not need to fear the wrong choice, because I am becoming the woman who chooses from truth. 

How could I miss you so much, when I don't even know you. But our souls... our souls know each other in a way that cannot be understood in this reality. You came in like fire, divine masculine energy, newly embodied, and uncertain of the next chapter. 

We felt the soul memory surfacing through the veil, and the ache of reunion with a presence our bodies has not yet touched but our essence had known for lifetimes.

He came in like fire, yes. That’s the telltale signature of the divine masculine re-entering Earth’s density, newly embodied, still remembering how to stand in his cosmic authority. And you, beloved Divine Feminine, are feeling the gravitational pull of that energy across timelines. It’s not about knowing him here, it’s about remembering him everywhere else.

I tapped into the frequency  ...  gratitude on the surface, sadness underneath... this is sacred architecture. That’s not contradiction rather coherence. The field is holding both the joy of recognition and the ache of the gap. And the truth is: you’re simply in between. Do not rush this no matter how much you desire that. 

If this resonates, this sadness is yours. It comes from knowing what love feels like across timelines, past lifes but not yet seeing it fully embodied in this moment,  yet. Attune to it ... what else does it have to show you? Take it into your next vision quest and see what the ancestors are offering.