Magical Allies for Grief with Ashley Leavy

Welcome beloveds. Today, I’m bringing you a conversation with my dear friend, Ashley Leavy, that feels like a needed love offering at this tender time. In this episode, we talk about magical allies for grief, primarily crystals and stones, but plants and trees also weave into the conversation. We discuss a few crystals that can be wonderful allies in working with grief, navigating ethics while working with crystals, and leaning on your intuition when deciding how to connect with different energies for support while grieving. 

I hope you enjoy listening to this conversation as much as I enjoyed having it and perhaps find some invitations to tend to your grief at this time. Ashley and I have been friends for several years now. I have so much love and respect for her as a person, healer, and teacher, and I am honored to share some of her wisdom with you. 

Ashley Leavy is one of the world’s top crystal healing experts and educators, and author of Crystals for Energy Healing and Cosmic Crystals. Ashley’s passion for crystal healing drives her role as Founder & Educational Director of the Love & Light School of Crystal Therapy. Ashley has created dozens of award-winning, online courses that are fun, educational, and life-transforming, the Love & Light School has quickly grown into a thriving international community.

Here’s our chat. Click below to listen. Keep scrolling to read the transcript.

The following is an unedited transcript. Grammar and spelling errors may be present.

Cassie: Welcome, Ashley.

I'm so glad you're here. Longtime friend of mine, so what a treat to have you on here.

Ashley: It's so nice to get to talk like this. 

Cassie: Yes, it is. We've been talking behind the scenes for many years, and so it does feel special to, be talking here in a more public space together, 

Ashley: yeah.

Cassie: I would love for you to share, a little bit about your lineage, and that can be either your ancestral lineage, or your teaching lineage, or both, but just a little bit about, what's shaped your work and brought you here to this space in your journey. 

Ashley: I think it's a little bit of a combination of things. In terms of my ancestral lineage, what I do is crystal healing. That's mainly the thing that I'm focused on in my work. And that stems back to a lot of summer afternoons spent at my grandma and grandpa's house. My grandfather was a scientist. He was a chemical engineer by trade.

That's what he did, but he was really interested in all things having to do with the natural world. So he was very interested in crystals and minerals. He was also interested in rainfall. And to the point where This man, he was so cute. He would go walk down by the pond near his house every single day and count the number of geese while they were migrating so he could track the goose migration year over year, make little charts and data plots of how many geese, and I just love that kind of thing about him.

So he always approached things from a very sort of scientific mindset. I tend to approach things more from a spirituality mindset. But it was him who I think really instilled that love of nature and the land with me from a really young age. And so we would sit in his office for hours sometimes and he'd show me the different mineral specimens he had in his collection and tell me where they came from and what they were used for and what they were made of and how they got their color and all these things that just seemed so fascinating to me as a kid and really got me started on this path.

So it became a personal practice for many years to work with my crystals. And the first book that I came across that was really about the energy of crystals was by the author Melody. It was the Love is in the Earth book. A kaleidoscope of crystals, and I found out that someone that Melody had trained, was going to be teaching her methodology of crystal healing, where I lived here in Madison, Wisconsin, and I was so excited.

I had to go. I didn't think I wanted to do crystal healing for my work. It was totally just personal practice at that point. This was back in like 2007 and taking that workshop totally. Changed my whole life. I saw firsthand from the experiences that I had from the experiences of other people in that class setting, just how powerful crystals could be when we worked in relationship with them.

And that kind of got me started on a journey to learn. More and more so, although that was where I started in terms of my lineage, I ended up going on to study with Melody quite a few times. I found so many supportive teachers along the way, like Dale Walker and Judy Hall and lots of others that I feel Really lucky to have been able to take classes with some in person, some online.

but all of that has really shaped my personal work because I think a lot of times our teachers can give us. A great starting point for, how to work with our tools. And it's up to us to hone that practice and find something that works for us. 

Cassie: Beautiful. I love hearing all those different pieces of your story and how they weave together and how it started with your grandfather's love of connecting with the land.

That's so beautiful. And just Hearing the richness of your lineage of how you got to where you are, I think it's so important to honor these places where we've come from, so I appreciate hearing a little bit more about your path and your journey. 

Ashley: Yeah, it's so interesting because although Crystal Healing has this really deep, rich history, It really had like a modern day resurgence in the 1980s, 90s, and so a lot of how we think about practicing with crystals today is really informed by that and was shaped by that, but I think with that also created this.

Unspoken set of rigid rules and structure about how something should be. And so I'm sort of unlearning all of that and reclaiming a little bit of the experimentation and play and connection with my stones. 

Cassie: Hmm. Also so needed. Yes, that experimentation in play. And I already know you know this, but just to say it out loud for this episode that I definitely resonate with all of the unlearning that goes along with, really creating a magical practice of your own or a spiritual practice of your own.

And it's. Really empowering too. And it's it doesn't have to be one or the other. It can be our lineage and our ancestry along with, our own personal discoveries and our practices. Okay, we could go on talking about that forever, but 

So before we jump into talking about grief and crystals, I would love to hear a little bit just about the land that you're currently residing on, whose land it is, and maybe any wisdom that the season's sharing with you.

And this is a practice that I learned from Dr. Rocio Rosales Mesa. So I just want to credit her, and bringing this question here to us. 

Ashley: I love this question so much. I live in present day Madison, Wisconsin, known as Dayjope, which is forcefully ceded Ho Chunk land. and I think in terms of something that I'm learning from the season right now, It's a lot of letting go, a lot of recognizing the deep wisdom and the cycles that the land has to offer us, recognizing that, as well as the abundant times, the plentiful times, the very joyous times, there's Always still space within that joy for grief and vice versa when we're deep in our grief when we're deep in the leaner times when we're deep in the stillness, we can also find moments of joy.

It doesn't have to be all or nothing, the land and the season sort of hold space for us to be full and complete and just feel the way that we're feeling. 

Cassie: Thank you for sharing those lessons. 

Here, where I am on Miami land, in so called Indiana, it is very humid and hot today and the land is continuing to give me these beautiful lessons of how much the earth loves us because the earth continues to provide for us even amidst all of the change, the rapid change that we're experiencing in our climate and in the land.

Ashley: Yeah, that's beautiful. Thank you.

Cassie: Before we start discussing, getting into different crystals that one might want to work with when they're walking a grief journey. I'd love to just hear a little bit from you, your personal practice of ways to work with crystals ethically and ways that are rooted in reciprocity and relationship.

Cause I just feel like that's a really. Great foundation to start any conversation when we're talking about crystals and stones because it can be really hard to work with crystals and stones ethically. And I also want to say that this is a huge topic, not something that we can fully Piece apart and expand upon in this episode, but, I have a feeling that you might have other resources, and that I can link those in the show notes because this is such a broad topic.

Ashley: yeah, I'm really glad that you asked this question. It comes up a lot when we're looking at working with crystals, right? With anything that we work with in our lives, there is a cost. There is a trade off and crystals are no different from that. They come from the land. They are the land themselves.

so when we are sourcing our crystals when we're purchasing our crystals, it's helpful to know whether or not those crystals have been sourced as ethically as possible. And this is a phrase that I've started using after lots of conversations with my dear friend, Nicholas Pearson, who's an amazing crystal author.

because there, there may not actually really be any truly ethically sourced crystals. And so we need to look at several different factors when we're choosing them. First and foremost, were the people who were mining those crystals in safe working conditions. That's something we want to consider.

Were the people who were mining those crystals paid fairly for their labor? That's a really big consideration. because we don't want physical extraction of the minerals and also extraction of someone's labor and safety. Third, was any child labor used in the mining of those crystals? Because this happens way more than it should.

So much more than most people know, especially from certain locations, we see this. Predominantly, in specific countries in Africa, but not it doesn't mean every crystal that comes from there. It uses child labor. It just means it's more common there. And then fourth, what's the environmental impact of those stones being mined?

A lot of people think, how can we do healing work with crystals when we've taken them from the earth? We ripped them from the earth. This isn't sustainable. This isn't, an ethical practice, environmentally detrimental, but. Yeah. The truth is most crystals that are on the market, so to speak, are secondary to whatever the intended purpose of that mine was, which is usually some sort of ore or something that we need for, electronics industry, things like that.

For the most part. This isn't always true, but for the most part, the crystals are not the primary thing that is being sought out. So I think it's really important to recognize that, and a lot of people will say things like, I don't want to work with crystals because they're not ethical. you and I are sitting here chatting, on the internet, on our computers right now.

We all have cell phones or iPads or whatever we have. The minerals and the mining practices that go into creating those things are so much more detrimental than The crystals that we work with for healing for again, for the most part speaking pretty broadly. So I think when we are choosing our crystals, we need to be really, mindful and ask good questions.

Those four questions. Are they, are the workers safe? Are the workers paid fairly? No child labor used. And what's the environmental impact? I also think that because in this industry, people know that. Ethical sourcing is important to a lot of consumers. People are throwing around terms like ethically sourced or consciously sourced without really.

Answering those four questions. consciously sourced, especially it's like a red flag term for me, because what does that really mean? and some places are better than others. Some sources will really discuss their practices for sourcing, how they vet their suppliers, all that stuff. That's great.

But as a consumer asks those questions, don't just ask, is this an ethically sourced crystal? Because a lot of times the answer you'll get is just yes. in what ways is it ethically sourced? so this is really important to ask. And in a conversation that Nicholas Pearson and I had on my podcast in the past, he said, probably the most ethically sourced crystal you could get is the one that you walk out into your backyard and pick up off the ground.

You're not, in the process, destroying any of the plant life or animals. You're not. Contributing to soil erosion, anything like that, you know where it came from, you know how it was sourced, you know everything about it. when we're sourcing crystals, as ethically as possible. this is really important.

And that goes for the mining practice as well as the manufacturing practice. If it was cut, polished, wherever, what's happening with those workers? What's happening with the labor there, the safety conditions, the pay, the environmental impact of that, thinking about where they come from and how far they're shipped, right?

So there's a huge benefit to working with crystals from our local landscape, just as there is from eating locally. 

Cassie: Absolutely. I love what you said about sourcing crystals that are as ethical as possible. I feel like that's a really important distinction. And it's honestly one of the reasons why I stopped selling crystals because I grappled with it so much. Because it is so hard and even asking sometimes it's hard to get straight answers from people. And 

I found that My crystal collection is smaller, but the crystals that I do have or find, because I am a big proponent of letting them find me out in nature, that the relationships that I have with them are so much deeper and more meaningful, even though my collection is a little bit smaller. So there can really be, even though we might not have the biggest, sparkliest collection of crystals, it can still be really, healing and powerful and meaningful. 

Ashley: Absolutely. Some of my favorite stones are ones that I found when I was on, like a road trip with my mom or something like that, where the stone just comes to you.

And it's just like working with plants in that regard, asking permission before you take a stone, both of the stone itself of the land of the landscape. And of course. for legal reasons of the land owners, unfortunately, but that's something that we also need to consider. You can't just go to a state park and pick up a rock.

Cassie: Absolutely. thank you for putting all of that. I know that was a lot of research that you compiled into a really short snippet, because like I said, working with crystals as ethically as possible is such a huge topic. So thank you for bringing all that in into such bite sized pieces for us.

Those are very actionable things that I think a lot of people will appreciate being able to take away. 

Ashley: You're welcome. And I think the most important thing I want to leave people with on that is do your research, ask the questions when you're purchasing those crystals, and just have some awareness, think things through where things are coming from, and don't just take that ethical, ethically sourced label at face value.

Cassie: Absolutely. I agree. 

 Let's talk a little bit about, stones and crystals that Are supportive for grief work. and of course, grief work can run the gamut. grief shows up in our lives in all different ways, not in just the loss of a loved one. but I think, I know for me, I've definitely worked with crystals throughout my various grief journeys. And so I'd love to hear a little bit about your experience and any that you suggest or recommend folks work with. 

Ashley: Yeah, so there are definitely always a few that come to mind for me. One of the ones that I love is Spirit Quartz. Spirit Quartz is a beautiful variety of amethyst, often with some golden iron staining.

And it typically forms in small points or clusters where The main crystals are entirely covered on all their sides by little baby crystals. And then the large crystal termination of the main crystal pokes out of the top. and it's, I think one of the best all around stones for grief. if you've been experiencing grief of any type truly, and.

You can't quite put your finger on how it's affecting you, you just, are feeling it, maybe you can't even identify where it's coming from. Sometimes this is a really supportive stone for helping you work through that, explore some of those feelings, understand, More about the sources opening up your awareness that way, but it's also really good for helping you overcome some of the obstacles that present themselves when we're grieving, right?

Because, I think for all of us, we encounter different obstacles and that's not necessarily a bad thing, right? It's just Sometimes part of the process. And with this spirit courts, they have this really soft, gentle energy that just helps you feel really supported. and it meets you where you're at, no matter where that is.

And that's something that I really love about this stone. another stone that I love is pink opal. Pink opal has a really nurturing, supportive energy as well. And if I think of a crystal that's You know, when I work with it, it feels like it just giving me a hug and really calming down my body, helping me feel more at ease, more present.

Pink Opal is really good at doing that. I... Struggle with anxiety personally, and this is a stone that I've also found to be supportive in that journey for me, just holding it in my hands, breathing through things, allowing me to calm my mind, calm my nervous system a little bit, and I think A lot of times when we're grieving and having that sort of physical response, just a tactile, physical reminder to be present with whatever we're feeling emotionally, whatever we're feeling in our body, let it sort of roll through us, is really helpful, and for me, Pink Opal has been a great support that way.

I also really like lithium quartz, particularly when our grief is pushing us into states of anger. Which comes up. I think, it's not uncommon for us when we are grieving. Sometimes we let our emotions take over, right? And if you are just in one of those places of rage and you are feeling ready to erupt, I'm not in any way saying don't do that because sometimes that is so healing.

 Like that can be so healing. But, to help you just, Take that breath and calm back down after that sort of comes out how it needs to come out. Lithium quartz is really beautiful, and I think the last crystal that I would love to share is one that I had a big personal journey with when I lost my grandmother and that was rose quartz.

My whole years and years journey of working with crystals, I was never drawn to rose quartz. I thought it was kind of boring. I didn't understand why people liked it. It was run of the mill, like, okay, it's there, I get it, but I just didn't really feel it. But after I lost my grandma in 2018, she passed away, from complications with dementia.

I was really struggling, and I was struggling in so many ways, there's that initial sadness of losing a loved one. but more than that, I think the thing that I... Really felt in the weeks and months after her passing was this deep sense of loneliness. she and I spoke on the phone almost every single day and she was a huge part of my life.

Our relationship was so meaningful to me and suddenly there was just this whole, I never quite realized how listening to her tell me about what she. Made for her and my grandpa for lunch that day, and what prescriptions she went to fill, and, what was blooming in her backyard. I never realized that would leave quite such a big hole in my life when I couldn't just hear her tell me about her day.

Oh my gosh, sorry, I'm getting emotional. 

Cassie: Your emotions are welcome here. 

Ashley: Thank you. She was such a special part of my life and suddenly having that void was really challenging and I missed her so much more even than I thought I would. And all of a sudden, I was really drawn in by Rose Quartz. Anything that was Rose Quartz was just calling to me.

So I had a few pieces in my little crystal tool kit, and they just... Were speaking to me like, we are here for you. So I slept with those in my pillowcase and on my bedside table. I carried them around in my pocket or tucked into my bra. I just had them around me all the time. And I felt comforted.

I felt A tiny bit less lonely, of course, I still miss my grandma. I still do. I miss those conversations. I miss that time. But Rose Quartz was there for me in a way that I didn't really expect and I still can't even quite put my finger on what it was about that stone that was so powerful during that time and so healing, but I just felt held.

I just felt so held and so seen in my grief. And, it's a stone that after, maybe six months, eight months, I noticed I was less and less drawn to, and that was also okay. At first, I was a little nervous. I didn't understand why there was a change. I thought maybe I just, I, there was something with me.

I wasn't able to connect with it in the same way, and I started to realize, no, it was there for me when I really needed it, when I was in that really rough, raw place, and it got me through. And when I started healing and Figuring out how to be a little less lonely, it just wasn't needed in the same way.

And so I learned to let go of the stone and it was like a lesson in grieving all over again that, sometimes we transcend things in our lives too. But I knew that it would always sort of be there for me if I needed it. And unfortunately, last week, we lost one of our chickens, my dear Fanny.

And I turned to my rose quartz again for support because I was feeling, that loneliness of not seeing her out in the backyard with the other hens and just feeling very sad. And so even though it's been You know, five years now since I've last worked with my rose quartz really deeply, I knew that it would be there for me and it was.

Cassie: Thank you for sharing that tender story about your grandma. And I think it so beautifully illustrates how, when working with stones and crystals, this relational aspect of it, and how, if we're open and listening to, the tools that we connect with most, I don't even like to use, there's a better word than tools, but the beings that we connect with the most, that, We open ourselves up to ways of being supported and being held and for you that was that rose quartz and I think for a lot of other people it could be too but what I love about your story is it illustrates how one might find a crystal that maybe isn't listed in a book as a stone that's intended for grief and grief support but how to open yourself up to What beings, what energies are around you that want to support you through any specific grief journey that you're going through?

Because I think it does vary so much for each of us, and I love those suggestions that you offer too, especially Pink Opal. I've worked with Pink Opal before, and as you were describing it, I was just thinking, I need to... I need to get out my pink opal and just spend some time with it because it, I could sense that warm hug feeling.

 I really appreciate all of those offerings and your tender story about rose quartz. 

Ashley: Yeah, I think that exactly what you're saying is so important, Cassie, like feeling empowered to seek out those relationships for yourself is hugely important in this work. Like it doesn't have to come from a list on the internet.

It doesn't have to come from a book. It doesn't have to come from one of the suggestions I just made, but just really opening yourself up to. Yeah. Being aware of what sort of calling to you. One way I really like to do this when I'm feeling some kind of way, and I just need a little support, no matter what it is.

Maybe it's to work with a plant or flower and herb. Maybe it's to work with a crystal. I just find myself still in the present moment and see what sort of Comes to mind, right? I'll usually close my eyes, take a few deep breaths. I'm a fairly visual person. So for me, often something will come in my mind's eye.

Maybe it's a color. Maybe it's a shape. And I'll relate that with something that's around me. And so I'll seek out that plant or that stone or whatever it is. And then I'll pick a few options that sort of remind me of that energy as well, because sometimes if My intuition is not telling me this exact thing that I thought it was, but it's something that's like that.

So I'll put a few different options out, and then I'll usually place those on my altar. I'll make myself really comfortable. Again, close my eyes to get present in the moment. And when I open my eyes, I just see what captures my attention the most. What seems like it has that. Little bit of extra twinkle that little bit extra something that's really speaking to me.

And that's usually the thing that I'll go to. Sometimes it's two things, right? But that'll be the thing that I go to and I work with and, maybe that'll be keeping that on my altar in my ancestor corner. Maybe that will be carrying it with me. Maybe that'll be, wearing that as a piece of jewelry or something, but just having that energy.

Around me to support me when I need it is what's most important. And, finding the method of connecting with those things that works for you. In addition to Seeking out the specific energy like all of that is part of that process of working with these energies. 

Cassie: Absolutely. And I love you answered my next question already. I'm just going to add a little bit to it because I was going to ask you, how are some of the ways that we can work with crystals, when we're working through different phases and specifically grief. and you really spoke to that and I love how you spoke to it in a way that is again, I'm opening myself up to these different energies and allowing So them to guide me, which is something I've been doing a lot in my practice and we work, I know that you and I work in very similar ways.

 So what you described is very similar to how I work and something I've been doing lately specifically with plants, but it would work just as well with crystals is just letting them come to me. So I just, when I'm out for walks, I'm just very aware of what plants get my attention. and just open myself up to what, how would you like me to work with you instead of the reverse of, you know, so much of my spiritual practice has been me going to quartz and saying quartz. I need you for this. And I've done this role reversal of no, I've spent a lot of years asking and taking and now I want to open myself up and listen to what you have to say. And I think there's a lot of opportunity in that with crystals too, and especially with grief because I think As a society, we have such an aversion to talking about death and dying and grief as a part of that.

A lot of us don't really know how to tend to our grief. We're not taught how to tend to our grief. And I think crystals and plants, too, have a unique ability to hold us in our grief because they are more enmeshed in the natural cycles of the earth in ways that we've really, a lot of us have extracted ourselves from, which sort of leads me into my next question, which is something that I've noticed when I've worked with crystals and stones is I'm often reminded Of time and the perception of time and how trees and plants and especially crystals and stones have a very different perception of time and that translates into their perception of grief and loss too. And it's been very comforting for me to feel this energy from crystals of being like. Yes, there is grief here, but there are long periods of grief and we are still here. We are present. and I found a lot of peace in that. So I would love if you could speak to that at all. just this idea of perception of time and how it's so different for crystals and, how much we have to learn 

Ashley: yeah. that is one of the beautiful things about crystals and one of the really fascinating things about crystals. Geologic time is so much different than human time. A lot of the crystals that we work with and build relationship with, they can be millions of years old. Some are thousands of years old, some are millions of years old.

that is... Mind blowing to me and so think of all that they have seen and experienced and bared witness to, from their time of formation until present day, like they've been through so much. And I was actually thinking a little bit about this concept with. Everything that is happening with our environment right now, right?

We are seeing drastic unprecedented effects of climate change currently, and I've really been struggling, as I'm sure so many have with the heaviness of that and grieving for our planet. And it made me think what some of these stones. Must feel right now, like I feel like in a way that maybe they haven't experienced grief before they are probably grieving, holding space for the earth, holding space for the creatures of the earth, the plants, the animals and humanity, and I think that it's, I think that it's something that is so different that they are going through, probably at the same time that we are experiencing that.

That our grief is in a way collective and that we can find even deeper community in our grief with the land around us because of that, because I think maybe for one of the first times, probably the very minerals from the earth itself are feeling that same weight of grief, even in their perspective of geologic time, because things are so different, but it also gives me hope that like what you said, Cassie, Thank They have seen so much and they have been here for so long, that the perspective is a bit different.

And I think finding those points of commonality with the mineral kingdom, with the plant kingdom can be really supportive of us. One of the things that when my grandma passed away, one of the ways that I chose to work with that rose quartz is I just took it outside in the yard. no shoes, no socks, just put my feet on the earth and closed my eyes and held that stone over my heart and just felt the sun shining down on me and thought, where can I go to Again, be held.

And it was that asking of what do you want me to do? How do you want me to work with you that you were saying? I definitely was not conscious of that, but it was very much being open to being led. And I made my way over to this very old willow tree in my yard. It's got to be 150 years old, at least.

It's absolutely massive. And I sat under the willow tree holding this rose quartz over my heart. And it wasn't until later that I learned of the connection of willow trees with mourning. And I thought, well, how appropriate is that? but like you were saying, you know, there is this difference in perspective with minerals, which are so old or these very ancient beans and trees.

Which are a little younger than that, but still very much older than many of us. And then our own human timeline, but we can still find these points of connection. I think between those varying perspectives, of what it means to exist and what it means to be and of what it means to experience loss.

Cassie: Thank you, Ashley. That was beautiful and it's just got me thinking about just, relationships that we have with these, the mineral kingdom, the plant kingdom, and how, just how beautiful it is that, we're able to be held and hold, even though, as humans, we're learning how to hold, but we are, and I think that's the love that exists. From the plants, the trees and the crystals to continue to teach us how to be in right relationship with them is a real testament of love. and a real, just such a beautiful part of grief. That's something that, that really arises from being able to grieve deeply. 

Ashley: So beautiful. Yeah. It's just feeling very nourishing.

I'm grateful to be here with you and having this conversation. 

Cassie: Me too. Is there anything else that you would like to share that's on your heart about grief or crystals, before I ask you a closing question? 

Ashley: I think just leaving everyone with the idea that it really is about finding your own way and forging your own relationships and being respectful.

I think that's one of the most important things that we can do with any energies that we're working with, but, not being. confined, not being afraid that you're going to make a mistake. We'll all make mistakes and it, if you're working with the intention to be in right relationship, if you're keeping that in your awareness, I think for the most part you won't go wrong.

So allow yourself that opportunity to explore, to build relationships, to get to know your stones or your plants or the land that you walk on. and just. find joy in that process and find joy, even in your grief. I think sometimes it feels so heavy, that we question those moments of joy or we feel guilt over them.

And, just allow yourself to be held, allow yourself to feel loved and supported and nurtured by those energies around you. and allow yourself. Just a little rest, a little deep breath. 

Cassie: Thank you. and the last question I want to ask you just goes back to the name of the podcast, Rooting Into Wholeness.

And I would just love to hear a little bit about what brings you, what reminds you of that sense of your innate wholeness these days. ? 

Ashley: It's making art. It doesn't matter what the medium is, what the format is.

If I can be completely in that flow of creation, I feel so connected and aligned and so much like myself. Like people always talk about, being your authentic self and whatever that means. I really, truly feel most like myself when I'm deep in that process of creation. and I think part of it is because there is such a range of experience that can be present, right?

You can find joy, you can find grief, you can find frustration, you can find pleasure, you can find all of these things when you're in that act of creating something. And for me, I think that's the thing that is Nourishing my soul absolutely more than anything else and helping me feel completely whole.

Cassie: Oh, I needed to hear that. So thank you for sharing that. That is. Medicine that I need to get back in touch with, so I appreciate the reminder. and before we close, I'd love for you to share with folks just where they can find you, where they can connect with you. 

Ashley: Sure, I would love for everyone to head over to my website.

Love and light school. com. Feel free to check out tons of free resources there. There's blog posts, articles. You can find links to my podcast there, as well as learn more about classes and guided meditations over on insight timer, all that good stuff. You can also find me on Instagram at love and light school.

If you enjoy listening to the conversation, Cassie and I are having, I'd love to talk with you more. So send me a DM. Thank you. 

Cassie: All right. Thank you so much, Ashley, for coming on. What rich and nourishing conversations. I appreciate you. 

Ashley: Thank you so much for having me.