⚡🤍 on the loss of my mentor, Carolyn Elliott
This is a deep one. If you're in a tender place, this might not be the right timing. And I honor if you put this away for another time.
Above, in my Monthly Maps session with Ineisha Paredes of Ignited Intuition, I asked how to expand. The answer - “slowing down and honoring protective energies.”
Lately, I've been thinking a lot about genius and madness and the soul.
A mentor I deeply admired - Dr. Carolyn Elliott - passed last week - to another realm.
Best known for Existential Kink, she was a wise and magikcal being.
Controversial too - but that is a story for another time.
And I feel she was much too young.
((Younger than me))
She had real genius.
And real madness.
She saw the world differently.
I found out on Monday morning and I felt angry at her for leaving, compassion for what she was wrestling with, and the wild blessing of having been touched by her teachings.
This year, in 2026, I learned from Carolyn the Solar Work - magickal coaching and healing work beyond what she'd ever offered before.
((I also learned why she uses "magick" instead of "magic" - but once again that's a story for another time))
The investment to work with her was way out of reach for me.
But I practiced power and I created a way.
And if I hadn't trusted my YES ...
I would have had to wait for another lifetime.
Let that one sink in.
Carolyn and I share the same birthday - January 16 - really.
Ineisha Paredes (from the reading above) is who let me know.
And I hope I'm able to honor what I received from her "by allowing her gifts to flow through me," as a colleague of mine recently said.
The last work she offered us was: "The Vow of Truth"
I can feel this guiding something to the surface.
I'm 47 now, and almost 30 years ago, when I was 18, I was admitted to a psychiatric hospital for wanting to leave this Earth.
I have shared that before.
But the secret I've held even closer to my heart is ...
I spent decades after that moment hiding the fact that I often still felt a little ... crazy. That ...
I experience the world differently.
I believe in fairy dust, and rainbows, and dragons, and the audacious hope that the impossible could somehow become possible for our world.
Carolyn never hid her crazy, she just shared who she was.
And I sometimes judged her for it.
She was so brilliant. I wanted her to be perfect too.
Which is ridiculous, as I look back on it.
((as it turns out, imperfection is kinda part of the human condition))
And if I'm even more honest, the madness in us is one of the most exquisitely beautiful things we can bring to this life.
Van Gogh is one of my favorite artists.
He saw the energetics of our world in ways most people can not.
Martin Luther King Jr is one of my heroes.
He saw a future others simply could not.
And I'll bet there is something of that in you too?
In your art or your writing?
Or maybe in one of your kids?
Or in a client or student you know?
"How could this happen?" I heard people say about her (and trust me I felt that too).
But if I'm honest, I recognize the darkness she carried.
The truth is it took me a hot minute to decide I wanted to be here on Earth (like decades).
Often shame pops up around those parts of my past.
And how next-level sensitive I've been all my life.
Even more shocking is that even now, as a full-fledged adult, I still deeply benefit from the tools I teach.
((Perhaps just like Carolyn with her own))
That is one of the things I loved about her teaching - she didn't pretend to be perfect - ever - and I admire that.
My heart still feels tender, my body still in shock, my mind confused.
And my spirit will deeply miss her guidance.
The way she could translate raw, mystical truths into understanding so effortlessly. The way she saw the nature of reality.
For today, I'm sitting with this magick:
What we wrestle with, is the most glittering treasure we can offer (even if we still struggle with it).
Maybe even more if we do. Because we are so deeply intimate with that experience.
This is the truth:
I didn't create the Joy Course I teach every year, because I'm an unusually happy person.
I created it because it saved my life.
Check out the FREE Joy Course Here
And I wasn't brave enough this year to really say that.
To share my real story publicly on YouTube.
If I teach the Joy Course again (which now I suppose I must!), I trust that Carolyn will be there kicking my butt to share my story more fully and to honor the parts that don't fit quite so neatly - just like she did.
Because the hope of my soul is that what I offer helps people experience the world differently.
In the best possible way.
That sensitive kids, and clients, and students get to choose to be here.
That it turns the madness we live with into sparkles.
The fairy dust touching the greatness in your soul and bringing it into form in our 3D world.
And I know that I can't have the impact my soul desires until I'm willing to be more honest about who I am.
Courage is a muscle.
Perhaps we build it together in this community.
Because I do believe the world needs your voice.
(Imperfect, brilliant, and totally messy).
I'm holding what this will mean for the kiddos Carolyn left behind.
And if I'm honest, I wish it simply wasn't true. That she's actually on an island somewhere having a great time, and will come back when she's ready for the next iteration of her great work.
I'm also witnessing the grief you might be holding this year (it's quite a time in the world).
And yet, I as I write these last few lines, I feel the deepest breath in my body.
They were penned as I drank my morning coffee, looked at the beautiful view out my window, and allowed myself tears.
Softness is the word I keep coming back to.
((it's a gift that one of our course participants gave me))
And softness is what "joy" has felt like for me this week.
I see and honor your true greatness.
And the mad genius in you.
I'm standing for your brightest destiny.
Anna ✨
