Sarayu Wild & Well

30/04/2026

Usually when we speak of “others,” we mean those on the outside: the ones we hold dear, the ones whose eyes we search for understanding, whose hearts we long to reach. It’s vital to attune to them… to how they’re making sense of their experience, what keeps them up at night, what haunts them, stirs them, brings them alive.

But between any two living beings, there exists a third thing: the relational field itself. An invisible temple. An alchemical vessel. Alive with its own autonomy and intelligence, the field is not a backdrop but an equal partner in the dance. It listens. It remembers. It dreams with us. It infuses its own body into the body of the couple.

This is the matrix of Hermes, guide of thresholds and the unseen, who whispers to the alchemist as she tends her vessel with quiet devotion; loving not only the gold she seeks, but the rawness of the lead, the mess, the mystery – the wild chaotic unknown wisdom essence of the materials as they interpenetrate and disclose.

As we tend to the outer other, another figure stirs within: the inner Other. An orphaned piece of soul, wandering the corridors of psyche and soma. It lives beneath the narrative, beneath the known, with its own longing to be understood, felt, held, and included within the larger ecology of soul.

Relational alchemy is not only practiced across from us, but within; in our capacity to sit with the unlit corners of our own being. To feel, listen, and accompany what has been exiled. For if we cannot bear loving contact with our own interior chaos, we will struggle to remain when it shows up in those we love.

And maybe this is the secret role of the Beloved - not to soothe or complete us, not to make it always safe, not to always conform to egoic organization, but to bring the fire of love ablaze… reintroducing us to the vastness, majesty, and wild, undomesticated wholeness of the human heart.

30/03/2026

Catharsis is not the same as integration.

In shadow work and deep emotional–somatic practice, these two are often conflated. But something essential depends on our ability to tell them apart—not in theory, but in the fire of immediate experience: in the belly, the breath, the heart, the throat.

As the lost orphans of psyche and soma surge, they do not long simply to be released through spiritual or psychological practice. They yearn for relationship—for that mysterious third space where they can be known, felt, heard, and understood.

There is a growing emphasis on expression—on releasing, purging, acting out what has been repressed. And while expression has its place, something essential is being misunderstood. Because expression alone does not reorganize the psyche.

You can intensify an emotion. You can amplify it. You can even build an identity around it. None of that guarantees transformation.

In fact, without a holding environment—without the capacity to stay present in the body—these expressions can become patterned. Familiar. Even addictive. The system learns, “This is what we do with this energy.” But it does not learn anything new.

This is why catharsis, on its own, often leads to repetition—the same anger, the same shame, the same cycles, just enacted more consciously or more dramatically.

Integration asks something much more subtle. Not: how do I express this? But: can I stay with this?

Can I feel this in the body without collapsing into it? Can I remain in relationship with it, without needing to discharge it immediately?

Can I become curious about what it carries, rather than organizing around its intensity?

Because what we are meeting is not just emotion. We are meeting history—adaptations that formed in moments where there was not enough support, not enough safety, not enough attunement.

And these parts do not need to be performed. They need to be met. Gently. Slowly. Over time.

This is not as exciting. It does not lend itself to spectacle. But it is what allows something new to emerge.

Where there was compulsion, there is now space. Where there was reactivity, there is now choice. Where there was enactment, there is now relationship.

This is the slow alchemical work—not rehearsing the pattern more vividly, but gently, over time, becoming free of the need to repeat it.

14/01/2023

We can’t just go straight to love, forgiveness, or to deep acceptance, without first holding and making sense of the pain and hurt at the root of relational trauma.

The little one cannot accompany us here, yet; denying or forcing this only results in more misattunement and empathic failure. It will close their little heart.

The one carrying the pain must first be heard, felt, and understood; contained within a field of safety from which they can tend and release the burdens of the past. This will unlock an organic unfolding of a truly embodied acceptance and forgiveness.

We can’t just storm the castle and grab the philosopher’s stone, even by way of our most “powerful” spiritual experiences. There’s a journey that has to be made: into the shadow, the somatic unconscious, into reunion with the lost ones of psyche and soma.

All healing is relational in its essence.

These ones dwell not in the light but in the endarkened regions of bodily and subcortical circuitry, and in the hidden forests of implicit memory.

Inside the neural network, in the underworld passageways of the body and the unconscious, are those young parts of ourselves, pieces of soul, wandering around by way of a time machine.

They have a way of becoming solidified, crystallized, and frozen in time. From that state, they continue to reach out to us, expressing their longing to return home, arriving through our dreams and fantasies, voices and imaginations, unexpected moods and feelings, and unexplainable sensations in our bodies.

They also appear as the Other in our lives – as intimate partner, friend, parent, child, and the ones who irritate and inspire us the most.

At times, they will manifest in ways that will feel dysregulated, scary, shaky, and unsafe. The little one doesn’t “want” to be dysregulated, but that’s all they know, that’s how they spin and twirl and disclose essence.

They come not as an obstacle to our path, but as the very path itself. They arrive as its representative, as an ally of integration, an emissary of wholeness.

Photo by Ria Sopala

28/05/2021

There is no general, abstract spirituality and healing. There is only that concrete, sensitive, attuned activity in the moment which is unique and specific to your own soul.

Your nervous system is the alchemical vessel that you, as alchemist, enter into as you mingle with the metals and minerals of pure feeling, emotion, image, and vision.

It is an act of kindness to craft your our own neuroplasticity and soul-tending journal, updated with the results of ongoing alchemical lab work: a list of tangible actions you can take in a moment of activation, when you’re falling down the rabbit hole, caught in a shame-spiral, or tangled up in the old circuitries of self-abandonment.

To slow down and interrupt the momentum of billions of instants of habitual consciousness, and meet the moment with fierce, wise, loving compassion.

Not with some general and abstract idea to “be present” or “let it go” or “choose love over fear,” but to get really concrete and specific with 8 or 10 things you can do in the fires of now to take care of yourself, to bring you back into that ventral vagal state of safety and connection.

Sensual, tactile, embodied actions you can take that work for you and are attuned to your own unique nervous system. Actions which involve your body, your feet on the ground, your senses, the earth and her mercy.

To put these in writing, with a special pen and journal, turn it into a book of poetry, a novel of soul-tending, as a way of stating to your soul: “I’m listening, I’m going to take care of myself, I’m going to experiment, I’m not going to abandon myself in those moments when I need my own embodied presence more than ever.”

In doing this you might be surprised how the soul reaches out to meet you halfway, or more than halfway, with guidance, vision, creative thought, dreams, intuitions, synchronicities, and other ways of inviting you into its world.

The soul is a shape-shifter, dancing and twirling and emerging inside and around you, calling you into the wildness of its nature and intelligence.

Photo: wandering into the green and blue portals of Crested Butte

09/05/2021

Through trial and fire, against the odds, you have grown to trust that the world can be a safe place and you have every right to walk here. You have made parents of your instincts, intuition and dreaming; you have allowed love into where it had never before been received; you have grown life where once it was barren. With just a few found and trustworthy seeds, you have nurtured the greatest harvest in your humble life of belonging.

To the multitudes of souls out there for whom Mother's Day is an excruciating reminder of what you yearn for but have never known, these words are for you.

25/01/2021

This 👇🏻let’s start responding to ourselves with love instead of shame when we feel deeply triggered ♥️ when we can love our triggers we can start to transform them xx ultimately, they are trying to keep us safe. Even though they may not be aligned with our present, they were a necessary part of our past.

29/12/2020

Forgive yourself for how you chose to survive. Forgive yourself for the desires you judged harshly. Forgive yourself for indulging in things that took up your time but didn’t fulfill you. Forgive yourself for declaring yourself as someone you’re not. Forgive yourself for your chosen avenues of negative expression. Forgive yourself for all the times you didn’t add value to others. Forgive yourself for what you discovered about yourself that you didn’t like. Forgive yourself for whatever ugliness you saw in yourself. Forgive yourself for not correcting what you think you should have. Forgive yourself for the parts you couldn’t respect. Forgive yourself for all these judgments. Forgive yourself for not being able to forgive yourself before.

~ Emily Maroutian

Photography: Micha Sauer

27/12/2020

When we deny or suppress anger, our anger is likely to be internalized & turned against our bodies. ⁣
⁣
Anger is perhaps the most misunderstood human emotions. There are many misconceptions about it. Some people perceive anger as bad or immoral & feel that becoming angry makes them a bad person. Others believe that anger is the opposite of love and feel that expressions of anger have no place in close, personal relationships, or in the family. Another common, yet incorrect, belief is that being angry at someone implies that one is accusing that person of wrongdoing.⁣
⁣
Anger, like all emotions, is neither good nor bad. It is just a feeling like all other feelings. People forget that it is not the anger that gets them in trouble but how one thinks about and deals with this feeling that can become a problem.⁣
⁣
When people think about anger it is not unusual to think about it only when it becomes explosive. However, it is not unusual for people to internalize or cover up feelings of anger under other feelings.⁣
⁣
Anger is the emotional response that we have to an external or internal event perceived as a threat, a violation, or an injustice. ⁣
⁣
Anger is an adaptive response of the fight or flight response, which in turn has evolutionary usefulness of protecting us from danger.⁣
⁣
Emotions are triggered by internal (thoughts, feelings, physiological states) or external events. Such events are immediately interpreted by our thoughts (often not conscious). That interpretation then gives rise to internal neurochemical reactions. At that point, we experience the emotion and we react to it either internally with more thoughts or emotions and/or externally through behavior and actions.⁣
⁣
The experience of anger is learned and varies from person to person. For example, someone may cry when they feel angry while someone else may yell, while still someone else may become withdrawn.⁣
⁣
We usually learn how to experience & deal with anger in our families of origin. ⁣
There may be families where emotions are constantly expressed regardless of the consequences, while others may not be able to tolerate any show of emotion. ⁣
⁣
Our biological response in conjunction with the experiences we were exposed to during our crucial developmental stages establishes the parameters of our emotional experience and expression, including anger.

Learning about healthy aggression is essential for so many of us. Healthy aggression allows us to grow and learn. It help us to survive in the world. It is what motivates us to assert ourselves and set boundaries.

Also very important, is building our biological capacity to be with all body sensations and emotions and impulses, while also being connected to the present moment, the environment, and others around us.

A big part of therapy is working with what we call healthy aggression. This is learning to feel & tolerate our fight/flight response and using this “force” to feel empowered, speak up, and set boundaries. Many somatic interventions allow us to feel our force in small dosages so that we can learn to tolerate our body sensations and still be present and connected with others.

27/12/2020

Self-compassion involves two actions. First, we set limits to reduce habitual negative thoughts and behaviors, second, we must repeatedly practice being...

27/12/2020

HOW THE LIGHT GETS IN

"If we can learn to listen, maybe life will tell us how it needs to regenerate. In the ancient ways, the leader was not the one who told people what to do, the leader was the one who listened, watched the signs, was attentive to the inner world.

Sufis talk about the “ear of the heart.” This is something you learn in the relationship with the teacher. I spent 20 years sitting at the feet of my teacher listening. You learn through listening. You learn how to listen to what is between the words. You learn to listen to the heart, to the soul. You listen to people’s dreams, the signs in their lives. And similarly one can listen and watch the signs in the world around us.

The earth is calling to us, sending us signs of the extremity of its imbalance through earthquakes and tsunamis, floods and storms, drought, and unprecedented heat. These are what Thich Nhat Hanh calls the “Bells of Mindfulness” awakening our awareness to where it is needed at this moment in time."

—Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

From: How the Light Gets In: Interview with Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee: http://tinyurl.com/ng3yup4

In this interview with writer Pat MacEnulty, Sufi teacher and mystic Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee discusses Jungian philosophy, the teacher-disciple relationship, oneness, and his hopes and fears for humanity.

25/12/2020

Wishing you all a joyous, safe, and reflective holiday time. Thank you for sharing your hearts and journeys with me this year – your suffering, your chaos, your courage, and your love.

This time of the year can be difficult for many, opening a portal into feelings and memories of deep loneliness, shame, sadness, and rage, activating wounds held in our families of origin as well touching into the intergenerational transmission of trauma and pain.

We may also have some positive associations with the holidays – joy, connection, play, and belonging – a childlike innocence as to what the holidays symbolize to us.
And, for many of us, it can be a complicated, unresolvable mix.

Let us take a moment to tend it all with one another, including the joy and the grief, the loneliness and the connection, the sweetness and the ache.

And open together into the archetypal mysteries of birth and death, crucifixion and resurrection, transfiguration and transmutation, each an essential portal into the depths of the soul.

We’ve been through so much this year and lost many of our familiar reference points, unsure where to look for refuge and meaning, with the rug pulled out from underneath us. Not only external, but internal quarantine, asked to turn toward the shattered and the unlived within us.

To take a moment to touch and to shepherd this – not only the loss of health and life, but of the dream of the way we thought it was all going to turn out.

Rebirth is tied intimately to our willingness and capacity to grieve, a holy activity not always honored in our world. But here we are, the misfits of despair, ecstasy, sorrow, and wonder, knowing the aliveness we long for will only be found in embodied attunement to the full spectrum.

The process of “falling apart” is not some great cosmic error or mistake we need to correct or repair, but an emissary of wholeness, a way shower of what will emerge from the ashes of reorganization.

It is love, of course, that will guide the reorganization. But it is love, too, that is the substance of the ashes, and also the tears…

See you all in 2021 ❤

Photo: Lapland light c/o Andreas