Do you ever look back on a moment and wonder, Did I fully appreciate it? Was I truly present to the magic so generously offered by the Divine?

These are the thoughts that have lingered with me for days after a serendipitous moment during our first evening at Melbourne Beach.

The sun was setting, darkness slowly settling across the shoreline. My children and I stood visiting with family. The kids were frolicking in the surf while the adults drifted through the familiar rhythm of beach conversation. Around us, people laughed with beers and beach drinks in hand, enjoying the last light of the day.

The crowd began forming a single line stretching down the beach, reminding me of a game of Red Rover waiting for its invisible opponents. We quietly stepped toward the water and out of their way, assuming some sort of beach game was about to begin. We certainly weren’t interested in being trampled.

Then my sister-in-law called my name.

“Baby turtles!”

She motioned frantically for me to come, running toward me and then back toward the turtles. She was practically wagging her tail with excitement.

And then we saw them.

Dozens of newborn sea turtles, laboring through the sand with single-minded determination, instinctively moving toward the ocean. Toward home. Toward the Mother.

A miracle of life unfolding before our completely unprepared eyes.

My children bubbled with wonder. Bystanders filmed with their phones. Cheers erupted as the first tiny turtles reached the water and disappeared into the waves, carried gently forward by the retreating tide. Some people chose a single turtle to follow, silently willing it onward. Others simply watched the steady procession of one impossibly small life after another making its way toward the sea.

I stood there wondering how we had stumbled into such a moment.

People wait years, even a lifetime, hoping to witness a sea turtle hatchling’s first journey to the ocean. And there we were, in exactly the right place at exactly the right time, with no expectations at all.

Whether you call it luck, grace, or something else entirely, I couldn’t shake the feeling that we had been invited into something sacred.

Only later did I realize we had arrived on the very day of my Jupiter return, a celestial cycle that comes only once every twelve years. Whether coincidence or grace, the moment settled into me with the unmistakable feeling of blessing.

As I think back on that evening now, I realize I spent most of it shepherding my children, making sure they didn’t accidentally step on a baby turtle. At first, I wondered whether I had somehow missed the miracle because I was so focused on being responsible.

But maybe I hadn’t missed it at all.

Maybe presence doesn’t always look like standing still in awe.

Sometimes it looks like protecting what is fragile.

Sometimes it looks like making space for wonder to unfold in someone else.

My children were free to lose themselves in the mystical magic of that unforgettable moment because I was quietly watching over both my babies and the turtles.

Only afterward, in the stillness of reflection, did I realize that I, too, had been part of the miracle.

And perhaps that is the deeper gift.

Sometimes we don’t recognize the sacred while we are standing inside it.

Sometimes understanding arrives only after the tide has carried the moment gently out to sea.

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I felt the fear bubble up from deep inside me.

How would the words be received? Would they be misinterpreted? Would they create distance between us?

The fear was palpable.

I deleted the message. Rewrote it. Thought, maybe if I add a disclaimer to explain what the message is not supposed to mean.

And then I stopped.

Just fucking stopped and observed myself.

Here is what I saw.

A pattern.

Deeply ingrained.

Silencing myself for fear of being misunderstood. Seen as too much. Too open. Too vulnerable. Afraid of being rejected, pushed away, shunned for expressing myself honestly. For showing up as who I am, completely and unapologetically.

I’ve noticed this pattern most in my relationships with men, where the old fear of being “too much” still whispers the loudest.

And then I thought,

Fuck. This. Shit.

Is what I am saying here true?

Yes.

Is what I am saying here harmful?

No.

Then just fucking say it.

I censor myself constantly.

I’m not even sure I should write the word fuck in this post. But that is the truest expression of what is rising from my soul.

What am I afraid of?

Whoever reads this and doesn’t like the word fuck may simply not read another post. They might tell me I suck. Either way, why do I care?

The people who feel compelled by and connected to my writing will read, think, hell yeah, and come back for more.

I could spend a lot of time analyzing this pattern, breaking it down into its constituent parts. Truly, it’s a complicated web of lived experience, inherited family trauma, childhood wounds, and cultural programming, all woven together by the fear of rejection and abandonment.

But here’s what I want to say to all of that.

In the words of one of my many spiritual mentors:

Fuck That Shit, Svaha.

I am ready to step into Voice.

To tap Unmute.

To move beyond the fear of rejection and abandonment into the power of Truth.

To speak my Truth while staying ever mindful of the power words carry and the harm they can do when used unconsciously.

But asking my feelings and thoughts to crawl silently back into the protective cave of my broken heart?

No more.

The time is now.

Tap Unmute.

Sing, Soul.