Heart Mountain Wellness

10/14/2025

New podcast time… 👂🎧☕️❤️

10/14/2025

✨ Sharing a Rare Visit from Peru – Don’t Miss This! ✨

I’m helping spread the word that our dear friend Roman Hanis, co-founder of Paititi Institute, is here in the Pacific Northwest this month — his first visit since 2019! I love his Breathwork and Dreamwork so much… I went to Peru with Paititi!

Roman Hanis co-founder of Paititi institute carries over 20 years of Amazonian, Tibetan, and Jungian teachings, weaving ancient wisdom with grounded, practical tools for transformation. We’re so lucky to have him back — and all events are small, intimate, and already filling fast.

🌬️ Amazonian / Tibetan Primordial Breathwork & Cacao
📍 Corbett, OR | Oct 17 (4–8 PM) & Oct 18 (2–6 PM)
Limited to 12 participants per session
https://paititi-institute.org/retreats #/event/1024/corbett-or-amazonian-tibetan-primordial-breathwork-w-ceremonial-cacao
https://paititi-institute.org/retreats #/event/1025/corbett-or-amazonian-tibetan-primordial-breathwork-w-ceremonial-cacao

🌸 Seed of the Heart – Family Workshop
📍 Corbett, OR | Oct 19 (1–3 PM)
A beautiful day for children and parents to explore emotions, nature, and ancestral wisdom
https://paititi-institute.org/retreats #/event/1031/portland-oregon-seed-of-the-heart-children-parent-workshop-on-emotions-nature-ancestral-wisdom

📖 Beyond Ayahuasca – Book Talk
📍 PNW Integrative Service Center, Portland | Oct 21 (6 PM)
Please bring your own copy of the book – Roman won’t have extras on hand
https://paititi-institute.org/retreats #/event/1033/1-international-bestseller-beyond-ayahuasca-book-talk-with-roman-hanis

🌙 Awakening Presence through Dreamwork & Tea
📍 Heart Mountain Sanctuary, Camas, WA | Oct 23 (6 PM)
An intimate evening of dream exploration, heart wisdom, and sacred tea
https://paititi-institute.org/retreats #/event/1026/portland-or-awakening-presence-through-dreamwork-and-tea

All events are on the Paititi FB page: https://www.facebook.com/Paititi.Institute/events

All events are on the Paititi retreat page: https://paititi-institute.org/retreats #/events

If you’ve ever wanted to experience Roman’s work, this is a rare opportunity — he hasn’t been here in over six years! Space is very limited, so please register early.

With gratitude for helping spread the word 🙏🏻❤️🏔️
— Joanna Wiley @ Heart Mountain Wellness

After 10 years of holding our retreats in the Andean mountains we are thrilled to be returning to the Amazon Rainforest, our original home! Join us in the jungle for a hero’s journey of self discovery into the infinite human potential. Together we will transcend the layers of our individual and co...

10/09/2025

✨ I LOVE ELDERS ✨

I grew up close to grandmothers, wisdom keepers, and old souls who carried the medicine of time. The stories, the silence, the steady hands that remind us who we are.

In our Archetypal Mesa Medicine Wheel, the Elder is where we arrive at the threshold of the Hero’s and Heroine’s Journey — when experience ripens into wisdom, and our medicine becomes an offering to the world.

The Elder is not about age… it’s about embodiment.

It’s the moment we stop seeking and begin living as the teaching — grounded, humble, and awake.

To the grandmothers and grandfathers, mentors and mystics, wisdom keepers and truth tellers — thank you for holding the light for all who come after.

THE CRONE

The Crone is a woman who no longer menstruates physically, she is now a fully embodied wise woman.

With many moons behind her and the experience she has acquired, she can now turn her attention to being a guide for the young. Being free in her body - no longer worried about pregnancy, pretense or deep fluctuations in hormones, she has come to a serene place of acceptance...an embodied dance with the rhythms and energetics of life.

I have been guided by grandmothers with silver hair as magnificent as the moonlight for a very long time in my dreams, it has helped me develop a keen appreciation for the Crone, it has allowed me to see aging as an exquisite and delicate gift. It has helped me make healthy choices in the now and embrace with subtle anticipation the day when I too will be a grandmother to the children of our world.

In ancient times and cultures, the Crone was revered. The Crone was consulted for matters of importance and well being of tribes. Children and grown alike would come for advice and storytelling to the skirts of the Crone.

The gray hair was looked at as stripes of honor and the wrinkles as badges of courage and experience. When a woman’s blood flow would stop coming it was said she no longer needed it, as she had accumulated the wisdom of the moon enough to embody it and invite it to stay.

These wise women understood the importance of death and renewal at such a cellular level they no longer needed to be reminded every month.

In todays culture, the Crone is in great danger of being crushed. In a society where faster, better, younger is the theme and tattooed into our consciousness every day… The elders are very often overlooked and seen as nuisance, annoying, slow, their beauty is smudged over and often shoved into care homes or confined to a bedroom in the house, Google has now usurped the throne of the wise one.

We see Maiden archetype everywhere- the endless pursuit of youth.. From a multibillion dollar market of beauty products to the movie screens.. Everyone wants to be young, plump and fresh. We see the Mother archetype- the caring loving mother and as Lara Owen mentions in her book, although limited- it is even revered in religion.

But the Crone...where is she?

She is hidden, she is stashed away… all that power hidden in her belly and nowhere to go. She has been pushed to abhor her post menopausal state, as though it is a condemnation rather than a blessing, as if not being able to birth children is now a curse that spills inward into a barren womb.. All that wisdom rejected, unacknowledged, dishonored in exchange for the pursuit of staying young and ‘fertile’ only to be ridiculed and mocked by a society that in paradoxical cruelty repudiates the Crone as well.

No, the Crone cannot expect to be accepted without first accepting herself, knowing that her bones are indeed each day becoming more and more one with the earth...

The silenced Crone cannot demand a place in a society where she too has helped exile this archetype.

This is why we need to speak of Her, the Crone- the holy guide that lives and will one day emerge from you and when it does… you will have a choice: will you let her in and feast on the banquet of your holy life experience or will you shut the door in her face and leave her out to starve in hopes that the maiden and mother, whom have left, will someday come back.

Many times I have wanted to write about the Crone even create for it but I am held back by the misleading belief that I have to be one to speak of it.

‘No more...' my sleeping crone has whispered, ‘you must begin to pave the way for my visit.. planting seeds along the path that may bloom for my homecoming.’

Resting and gestating in me, she is harnessing strength to come and live fully, to guide, to teach, to dance, to remind, to slow me down, to make me softer, to be reflected on my skin and in my gaze when the time comes.

So in the meantime, I will speak of the Crone to our children and to anyone that will hear - I will honor the magnificently wise women I am surrounded by, sisters hiding their beauty behind veils. I will remind them, I will whisper, I will nudge, I will invite….

‘Take off your veil! You are holy sacred wise woman, you are here, you are a message… now is your time to guide!’
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Red K Elders Art

10/09/2025

My sweet friend Vesper is hosting an Honoring the Dead Event at Grief House on October 25th, 2025 at 5pm. As a death doula myself, this is such an important topic and the potent time of year when the veils are thin. 🕯️✨🙏🏼🧡

We’ll gather for community altar building, a silent potluck Dumb Supper with our ancestors, and an evening of fire, poetry, tarot, and ritual stations to honor loved ones and process grief.

10/07/2025

🌿 Welcome to Heart Mountain Sanctuary

Heart Mountain Sanctuary is our home temple — a sacred space where community, ceremony, and creativity meet.

�It’s our tea room, our elixir bar, our ashram, and our classroom — the living heart of Heart Mountain and Mystic Temple in physical form.

For the past year, we’ve gathered here to honor the turning of the seasons — Equinoxes, Solstices, and the sacred gateways of Samhain and Beltane — weaving our prayers into the land, the tea, and each other.

Known by many as our Ashram or Truth Temple, this sanctuary is a place where people come to speak, listen, heal, and remember. It’s a space of warmth and wonder — where a cup of tea becomes ceremony, where laughter and silence share the same altar, and where we remember what is real.

As the seasons turn inward, the Tea Temple opens its doors once more — welcoming new gatherings, sound journeys, women’s circles, and sacred community offerings throughout the year ahead.

You’re invited to come sit in circle, sip a tea, share your medicine, and be part of the unfolding magic of Heart Mountain Sanctuary.

10/07/2025

Samhain stories and medicine. 🕯️✨☀️

Samhain, Fairies, and the Dead.

The period of Samhain is a time when our consciousness seems much more attuned to the Otherworld.
For some, this means the return of the ancestors and the dead, whereas for others, Samhain is a time when the decidedly non-human beings of the Otherworld are more active.
Although scholars tend to argue about this separation, (and which may be the real "reason for the season"), I tend to find the parallels much more interesting, personally.


A good example of this is a local ancient site which is reputedly a place where many people have seen both a fairy-girl, and a ghost.
As the ghost in question is also that of a young girl I am inclined to think that people are reporting the same type of encounter but from different perspectives, depending on their beliefs, and, maybe, expectations.
In Irish folklore this crossover between fairies and the dead has a very long tradition. In fact, in all of European fairy-lore, as far as I can tell, this is a subject which is very difficult to separate.
The work of anthropologists such as Carlo Ginzburg and academics such as Professor Claude Lecouteux, to name but two, demonstrate that within the minds of those who encounter these supernatural beings it is often a matter of cultural lenses as to whether the account is recorded as folklore, fairy-lore or a ghost story.
Really, as Ginzburg's book, The Night Battles, shows us, it is very often a combination of all three.

The most famous example is that of The Wild Hunt where both fairies and the dead parade through the countryside on certain nights as well as being accompanied by witches who are transported to the parade in their dreams.
In this account from the Irish folklore archives we have an example of a woman who is taken by the fairies after she has died following a transgression.
https://www.duchas.ie/en/cbes/5215809/5214400/5233675...
However, a contrasting example is this account in which a woman is taken to the fairy Otherworld in her physical form and returned days later.
https://www.duchas.ie/en/cbes/4758474/4747124

In Ireland, we have countless tales of a person being taken by the good folk both before and after they have died on the mortal plane.
From stories of brides seen after they have been buried, to accounts of maidens who disappear into a fairy fort, it seems that a physical body can be taken to the fairy Otherworld as easily as a persons soul.
At least, that's how it is usually framed.
But what about the beings described as fairies or ghosts?
How can they interact with both human beings and the dead at the same time?

The term fairy is roughly 900 years old in all of its various spellings and associations. For some, this means that using the term fairy to describe an older supernatural-being is inaccurate, but based on what fairies themselves have said about their own concept of, and place within, time, our descriptions of them mean very little in the grand scheme of things.
(Unless they are insulting and disrespectful descriptions, of course! It's a whole other ball game in those circumstances!)

Fairies not only seem to belong to a different flow of time, they also seem to bring this power or effect to wherever they appear and whoever they appear to.
And this may give us an interesting answer to the fairy-girl or ghost I mentioned at the start of this piece.
We often hear of someone losing their way when they visit a place associated with fairies. Whether this is being pixie-led at a stone circle or stepping on a 'stray sod' in a field known to be frequented by themselves, it is as much a stepping out of time as it is a loss of one's sense of direction.
In almost every case of being pixie-led the person who becomes lost not only describes not knowing how to get back but also complete changes in the surrounding landscape itself. In many cases vast forests appear where there were none a moment earlier and there are even reports of huge mountain ranges being sighted where none could possibly exist.

Irish tales of the Banshee often contain odd details such as the Banshee referring to generations of a family who have not been born yet, as if she is seeing events in the future. Fairies themselves have a habit of foretelling, cursing and prophesy as if they are outside of the everyday bounds of time.
We can even notice this in fairy tales such as the Sleeping Beauty.

The Irish wise-woman Biddy Early was said to be able to tell the future by reading the patterns within a bottle she was given by the fairies.
The words of the fairy in the texts, The Knight of Staufenberg, as well as the Lay of Lanval describe how she can move outside the bounds of time, “Where I wish to be, I am.” and “Where I want to be, there I am too.” she tells us.
There is something powerful and ominous, almost, in the words of this being.

It seems difficult, then, to call these encounters as being that of either fairies or ghosts. If we are merely seeing an image of something outside of our own experience of time then perhaps the fairy is in fact a human being captured in the fairy realm but unable to see us in return as they are existing in another time entirely.
Or, if the fairies are able to capture the dead, and are, perhaps on some occasions, the dead themselves, then how do we distinguish at all?
A further tangent here is the tradition of burying unbaptised babies at sites associated with fairies. This is a complicated and sensitive subject and I have written about it in more detail here: https://www.facebook.com/CircleStoriesDavidHalpin/posts/920713701610640?__tn__=K-R

As those who have delved deeply into this subject will testify to, there are no simple answers here. My own view is that to make our way forward we have to grapple with all of these philosophical concepts.
While folklore is a wonderful resource, it is not going to provide answers unless we also acknowledge that fairy sightings continue today. The world-view of our ancestors was different to our own and their understanding of the beings we call fairies was shaped by the prevailing cultural paradigms and influences.
By overcoming our prejudices with respect to the term fairy we can examine ancient tales and accounts as well as contemporary examples without having to fit the experiences into one category or another.

The folklorist Andrew Lang tells us that when a person enters a stone circle time becomes meaningless. He writes that when an encounter with the other crowd occurs, "A person gains a gift of vision to see past and future events and the viewless forms of air."
Our ancestors took responsibility for the interactions which occurred at these ancient sites and ethereal connection points.
They guarded the words and rituals for a reason as the transformative power at these places was not to be taken lightly.
Perhaps, by following their example, the ongoing sighting of the fairy-girl/ ghost can be examined from a less restrictive context and open up a path closed off by current attitudes.

(C.) David Halpin.
Art credit: Devils and Witches in the Woods by Esao Andrews.

10/01/2025

Happy October 1st! Remember to sprinkle cinnamon on door ways ☕️🌀💞💫

“Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit!”
🍁A blessed first of October to You!🍂

Saying “Rabbit rabbit rabbit" aloud upon waking on the first day of a new month is an old charm to ensure good fortune throughout the month.
✨🐇🐇🐇✨

“Additionally, the Rabbit and Hare have also long been associated with the Goddess and were the totem of several: the hare to Artemis and Hecate, the sacred rabbit to Aphrodite, to Holda who was accompanied by several torch-bearing hares, to Cerridwen and Freyja who both had hare attendants, and, of course, to Eostre who was said to have taken the shape of a hare at each full moon and whose Anglo-Saxon counterpart, Ostara, was often depicted with a white hare by her side.

There are many more goddesses associated with or attended to by both rabbits and hares and, in such, these gentle creatures can assist us in becoming more attuned to the lunar cycle. All rabbits in general are associated with the Moon, magick, luck, love, creativity, success, sensitivity, agility, spontaneity, abundance, rebirth and, of course, fertility.”

~ Patricia J. Martin
https://www.controverscial.com/Animals%20and%20Witchcraft%20-%20Rabbits%20and%20Hares.htm

🐰NOTE: In addition to the article above, throughout Mesoamerica, the rabbit also attends the goddesses Coyolxauhqui and Ixchel, and in Chinese mythology, the Moon goddess Chang’e has a rabbit companion who mixes an elixir of life in a mortar and pestle.

Art: Maggie Vandewalle, “Familiar”
Maggie Vandewalle Watercolors

10/01/2025

✨ Pick Up Your Body Butters This Weekend - October 4th & 5th ✨

Fresh at the Albany Rasani Fair — NEW Beeswax Blends of our Pain Potion and Amanita are ready for you!

🌿 Each one is handcrafted with love, local organic apiary beeswax, and healing oils.
�🌙 Created on the full & new moons, each batch is artisanal, unique, and deeply nourishing.
�🍂 Stock up now — autumn is here and your skin will thank you.
Stop by Joyelle’s booth and they will help you find your perfect butter. See you soon!!!!



https://rasanifair.com

09/24/2025

This Thursday, September 25, 2025, Lorenz Sell from Sutra is interviewing Roman Hanis from Paititi Institute.

I’ve had the gift of working with both of these lineages of wisdom and innovation. I trained with Sutra - creating truly embodied, transformational spaces online, and I continue to admire Sutra’s vision and the heart they bring to online platform and connection.

With Roman and Paititi, my journey has been even deeper — I’ve participated in retreats both here in PNW and in Peru, as well as online practices in dream work, breathwork, and qi gong. Their work continues to open pathways of healing and integration for me personally, and I can say from direct experience, it carries profound medicine.

I hope you can join the FREE call! Here is Sutra’s invitation:

“Roman recently published a new book called Beyond Ayahuasca. It is now an international bestseller in the shamanism category on Amazon.

In this conversation we’ll explore how ancestral wisdom can guide us in facing today’s challenges with deeper alignment in our lives and communities. If you’re a coach, facilitator, or leader interested in how indigenous wisdom can support your work, this session is likely to offer insight and inspiration.

I hope you can join us. The conversation takes place this Thursday, September 25th at 12 pm ET, 9 am PST.”

Please register for free here:

Join us for a live conversation with Roman Hanis, co-founder of the Paititi Institute, as we explore indigenous wisdom, healing, and collective transformation.