Are you crying because of the love?

Hello, friends!

Happy Spring Equinox this week.

The equinox is a moment of perfect balance between the duality of darkness and light. Recently, I have witnessed some of the deepest darkness of my lifetime—both personally and on the world stage. And yet, alongside it, I have also experienced some of the most luminous, loving, and healing moments.

Our world and culture are steeped in duality—black-and-white thinking, us-and-them dynamics. But even amid the chaos and destruction so prevalent today, remarkable acts of bravery, love, and kindness continue to shine through. I want to be in service to that.

I am deeply committed to understanding how we can stand up and 'fight the good fight' while remaining anchored in the greater light. How do we walk the 'middle way,' as one of my teachers, the Dalai Lama, says—as a recognition that truth often lives in the tension between opposites? The space of both/and, where darkness and light, struggle and love, fear and courage coexist. A space where we can say no and stand up for what we believe in, and still hold to the goodness within us. A sacred meeting ground where what seems separate begins to reveal its deeper unity and connection.

I want to share some more beautiful art with you this month. Andrea Gibson, a nonbinary poet, artist, and activist, has profoundly shaped my experience of being alive. Their work opens, breaks, and heals my heart all at once, reminding me of the beauty that persists even in the depths of pain. I was grateful and gutted to see the film about them, Come See Me in the Good Light, at the Boulder International Film Festival this week—a film that won the People’s Choice Award at Sundance and the BIFF this year. Who would have thought a documentary about a poet facing metastatic terminal cancer could be so funny and life-giving? And yet, it is.

I humbly insist that you see it as soon as it becomes available. It is powerful and transformative.

There is a moment in the film when Meg, Andrea’s partner, asks, “Why are you crying? Are you crying because of the love?”

I felt that in my core because I felt that I knew exactly what she meant. We only cry because we love.

Lately, I have been crying a lot—at this beautiful film, at the profound loss and change rippling through my life, at the gift of my incredible community and the grace of their support, at the atrocities unfolding in places I love, at humans creating beauty in the midst of great challenge, at the harm we enact on others, at the gift that art can offer, and at the tenderness and impermanence of this life.

We cry because we love. Grief and love are sisters. When I grieve, I cry for what I have lost that I love, for what I long for that I love, for what I wish I could protect, honor, and hold closer. I cry for the love I still want to give.

I grieve when I witness unkindness—not just for the harm done to someone I love, but also for the light I know is within every being, even those who cause pain. I grieve for what they must be missing, for the wounds or beliefs that have led them to shut down parts of themselves to such a degree that they can cause such pain to others. I grieve for the love that has been buried, yet still longs to be seen.

At another moment in the film, Andrea says: Every emotion is tolerable if we just label it all as love.

Andrea’s poem I have included below speaks directly to that truth. If we can love the brutal, beautiful, heart-rending experience of being alive, we recognize its preciousness.

When I work with a patient who is suffering an injury, I see all the misalignment, symptoms, and pain in their system as love. The body remains locked in the time and space of the traumatic moment, as if it were still happening, holding on for dear life—because it loves you that much. If your neck believes you are still in that car accident, it will hold on forever, trying to protect you. We get frustrated when the body won’t let go, but really, it is love at work. Healing comes when we lovingly and appreciatively let the body know the moment has passed. Then it can shift into loving the life that exists now, rather than holding onto the past in an effort to keep you safe.

I see this truth every day—in my work, in my spiritual practice, in my own heart. Every emotion is love. It is your life force moving. Grief, joy, fear, devotion, anger—all of it is a tender, raw, sometimes heart-rending experience of being alive. Of loving so much that we try to hold on forever, protect, open to, long for, or resist what is now true in this ever-changing life. Love is inside all of it.

Knowing that is awakening. And offers the potential to experience the magic of just being alive.

Wishing you a heart cracked open, and fortified in that opening, by the power of the love within you.

If you enjoy these newsletters or know of someone who might benefit from my work or upcoming programs, please share this with them! Thank you!

Share Seeds of Light Elizabeth Astor

Women’s Retreat

October 6-18th, 2025

With a collective experience of over 20 years in Nepal, Elizabeth, Shannon, and Tiphaine have woven countless memories with the land and its people—through treks, retreats, sacred ceremonies, and shared laughter that transcends language. We are honored to invite you to experience the deep love and rich connections we’ve cultivated here, and to offer you a personal journey of healing and growth.

$3,600 for shared accommodations; $4,200 for single accommodations.

I am so excited about this retreat! It is going to be amazing! Come Join Us!

Register Now

Tuesdays, 6pm-7:45pm MT
On Zoom

April 1, 8, 15, and 22nd, (skip April 29th), May 6 and 13th

$460 for the 6 session series

This is a 6 session series. The sessions build on each other. My request is that you attend at least 4 of the 6 sessions, to create group continuity and to integrate the material.
Recording of each class will be available.

Only one spot left!

This group is offered to healers, therapists, and those wanting to learn how to utilize their intuition to help others.

I am offering this online for the first time. It has been such a joy to teach this group numerous times in person, and I am excited to extend it out to those of you far and wide online.

Both as a modern world citizen and as a healer/health provider, utilizing our intuition will become more and more of an essential skill in the years to come. Being willing to follow your own intuition and your multi-sensory capacities when working with others is an indispensable skill to truly benefit your clients.

Email me at essentialwellbeingboulder@gmail.com to sign up.

A Monthly Group

This is an ongoing group that meets monthly online with Elizabeth to practice how to ride the waves of the challenging moments in our lives and work with our different mind states. We practice ways to cultivate resilience, self connection, and deep wellbeing. Our time together includes teachings, guided meditation, as well as space for questions, discussion and sharing.

We would love to have you join us!

We gather on zoom 2-3pm MT, the 3rd Tuesday of each month.

$20 / Month

Register Now

I love everything Andrea writes. Their work simultaneously opens, breaks, and heals my heart. Being human—living in a human body and keeping my heart open to the raw reality of living—has often felt like a confusing, tender, and challenging experience. This poem made me want to embrace, cherish, and fully inhabit it all in a way no other piece of art ever has. I hope you enjoy it.

TINCTURE by Andrea Gibson
Imagine, when a human dies,
the soul misses the body, actually grieves
the loss of its hands and all
they could hold. Misses the throat closing shy
reading out loud on the first day of school.
Imagine the soul misses the stubbed toe,
the loose tooth, the funny bone. The soul still asks, Why
does the funny bone do that? It’s just weird.
Imagine the soul misses the thirsty garden cheeks
watered by grief. Misses how the body could sleep
through a dream. What else can sleep through a dream?
What else can laugh? What else can wrinkle
the smile’s autograph? Imagine the soul misses each falling
eyelash waiting to be a wish. Misses the wrist
screaming away the blade. The soul misses the lisp,
the stutter, the limp. The soul misses the holy bruise
blue from that army of blood rushing to the wound’s side.
When a human dies, the soul searches the universe
for something blushing, something shaking
in the cold, something that scars, sweeps
the universe for patience worn thin,
the last nerve fighting for its life, the voice box
aching to be heard. The soul misses the way
the body would hold another body and not be two bodies
but one pleading god doubled in grace.
The soul misses how the mind told the body,
You have fallen from grace. And the body said,
Erase every scripture that doesn’t have a pulse.
There isn’t a single page in the bible that can wince,
that can clumsy, that can freckle, that can hunger.
Imagine the soul misses hunger, emptiness,
rage, the fist that was never taught to curl—curled,
the teeth that were never taught to clench—clenched,
the body that was never taught to make love—made love
like a hungry ghost digging its way out of the grave.
The soul misses the unforever of old age, the skin
that no longer fits. The soul misses every single day
the body was sick, the now it forced, the here
it built from the fever. Fever is how the body prays,
how it burns and begs for another average day.
The soul misses the legs creaking
up the stairs, misses the fear that climbed
up the vocal cords to curse the wheelchair.
The soul misses what the body could not let go—
what else could hold on that tightly to everything?
What else could see hear the chain of a swingset
and fall to its knees? What else could touch
a screen door and taste lemonade?
What else could come back from a war
and not come back? But still try to live? Still try
to lullaby? When a human dies the soul moves
through the universe trying to describe how a body trembles
when it’s lost, softens when it’s safe, how a wound would heal
given nothing but time. Do you understand? Nothing in space can
imagine it. No comet, no nebula, no ray of light
can fathom the landscape of awe, the heat of shame.
The fingertips pulling the first gray hair
and throwing it away. I can’t imagine it,
the stars say. Tell us again about goosebumps.
Tell us again about pain.

I am loving connecting with thousands of people all over the world with the meditations I offer on Insight Timer.

This guided meditation, In the Winter of our Lives, is a practice for the “wintery” moments of our lives; when we don’t know, when we feel frozen or confused. By opening up to the true resource available within us, breathing in and around our experience, and opening to what is, we can let winter be winter, and make space for the potential of spring.

Guided Meditation