💫 Awakening our forgotten power that fuels true health

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I may be late to the party, but I finally watched Moana—at the recommendation of a wise, spiritually grounded new friend (shoutout to Dr. Ellen Vora, author of The Anatomy of Anxiety)—and I was floored. I didn’t expect a “children’s movie” to hit so deep or feel so relevant to the moment we’re living in. But this story reveals something profound: a forgotten blueprint for how we lead, heal, and regenerate. In this newsletter, I want to explore the pearls from this sweet film that speak directly to the kind of power we need now—for our health, our families, and the planet.

In a story so different from the traditional hero’s arc of conquest and domination, Moana’s journey shows a different kind of strength: a uniquely feminine strength that we can all access. She does not win through force and dominance. She wins by connecting—by seeing the light in others, even in those cast as her enemies. She listens to her ancestors and asks for their guidance. She follows the whispers of Spirit across the ocean, trusting her bond with forces greater than herself. She literally defeats the demon by drawing it to come to her in a display of feminine magnetism. Her leadership is not built on war, but on relationship, trust, heart-based intelligence, and strength. She builds her team not by issuing commands, but by touching hearts and respecting the core wounds in others.

As we look around our world today, it can feel as though we are surrounded by darkness: corporations and people poisoning the soil, the air, and the water with invisible synthetic toxins; industries stripping away biodiversity and the Earth's life force; plastic filling our oceans; coral reefs completely dead and colorless; widespread metabolic dysfunction quietly draining the battery of humanity. Against this backdrop, the loud, polarizing chaos of the political arena can make it seem as if destruction is the only power that exists.

But this movie reminds us there is another way that can be a part of the fold:

• A way filled with light.

• A way of graceful strength.

• A way of storytelling, community, cycles, connection, and spirit.

This is the rising of the feminine. As author Lynn Twist so beautifully writes:

What if there isn’t actually any darkness or “evil,” but rather a lack of wholeness? I don’t believe the injured bird of Humanity is anyone’s “fault”. It’s certainly not “The Patriarchy’s” fault. It’s not “The West’s” fault. I believe we’re simply in an imbalanced cycle that the vast majority of us are all propagating, leading to a dysfunctional ecosystem that we’re all now living in. But we can change this. We have to change this if we want to see life continue and prosper.

The feminine wing honors the truth that creation does not happen at a constant, extractive pace. Feminine creativity happens in cycles—like the seasons, the tides, and the phases of the moon. Women are lunar beings who exist on a 28-day moon cycle, inherently reflecting the cycles and patterns of the cosmos. This is a fact, not a metaphor. You can’t create human life without ovulation, and you can’t have ovulation without a cycle that has both yin and yang phases of hormones. Cycles are required. And nature thrives through rhythms of creation followed by rest, restoration, and fallowness. Rest and emptiness are necessary for the miracle of creation (think: autumn and winter, luteal and menstrual phases, ebb and low tide, waning crescent and new moon phases). 

Yet the modern world rejects, even demonizes, these cycles. It demands constant productivity, endless yang energy, and punishing speed. It labels rest as weakness, and thoughtful nurturing as wasted time. It shames those who sit down to pray, rest, grieve, or listen for spirit as "lazy" or "unserious." 

I know this firsthand; I’ve received this commentary in my own life, and I know there is absolutely no amount of productivity or “success” I can achieve that will shield me from judgment from certain parties if I so much as take a short beat to breathe, recover, and cultivate. So I choose to ignore that noise and have complete faith in my process—as Kabbalah teacher David Ghiyam says, choosing to have “certainty beyond logic.” (PS: Follow David’s Instagram and Podcast for a daily dose of inspiring Kabbalah wisdom). I choose to see this type of judgment as a spiritual test… a test of “How committed are you, Casey, to your feminine power and light, and to your faith in what you sense you need to Create in this lifetime?” 

Because I know, deep in my true self, that if we buy into this distortion—and reject periods of rest, reflection, and synthesis as wrong—we are actively fighting the very forces of true, sustainable, maximal creation. The Creation (with a capital C) that honors not just output, but legacy. Because what we create should not only serve the moment—it should serve life “seven generations” from now, and much more. This principle of thinking with a mindset of “seven generations,” rooted in Indigenous wisdom, reminds us that our choices today ripple out at least 150 years into the future. Quantum entanglement tells us our choices today ripple for eternity. We are either birthing a more beautiful, livable world—or we’re just busy. So yes, we may look productive. We may produce “stuff.” We may create “content.” But are we producing what we were born to, what we were brought from the Spirit world into human form for? Are we producing what is required for the propagation of a stunning, beautiful, continuously generative world of life, which must be rooted in love? Or are we not? It’s really one of the only questions that matters. Take stock. (For inspiration on thinking about purpose, listen to my favorite song from Moana: How Far I’ll Go).

The feminine – which can live in all of us – but is uniquely potent and channeled in a Woman’s form – teaches us that real power comes from honoring the invisible currents.

• From trusting the unseen.

• From slowing down.

• From listening to the ancestors.

• From believing that we are not separate from nature, but expressions of it. And when we respect cycles, we can create miracles.

  

  Moana listening to the spirit of her grandmother to guide her.

When we fight the natural cycles, we exploit. When we honor them, we regenerate.

We see this distortion clearly in what we have asked of women in today’s society: to work as though they don’t create life or raise children, and to mother as though they have no work. There is virtually zero cultural allowance for the natural ebbs and flows of creation, rest, and restoration – unless you ruthlessly create that world for yourself at great cost. The idea of a woman having “Seasons” of life — the most natural thing in the world and good for everybody — is considered lazy; The cultural message is: “do it all, all at once, or you’re [expletive] worthless!” The result is a silent crisis—rising rates of neurodevelopmental, behavioral, and chronic disease problems in children, and an epidemic of depression, anxiety, autoimmune disease, Alzheimer's dementia, obesity, and infertility in women. How is this good for anyone?

And this same pattern of imbalance is mirrored in the Earth itself. In industrial agriculture, we have demanded that the soil produce endlessly without rest, without replenishment, without reverence. We have treated the Earth's feminine force of creation as a machine to be extracted from, not a living being to be cared for. The consequences are devastating: plummeting soil fertility, vanishing topsoil, collapsing soil biodiversity. Food grown in depleted soil is less nutritious, leaving our food system fragile and disease-prone.

The way we view women and the way we treat the soil in America both reflect the same broken belief: that life should produce without limit, without rest, without gratitude. That life is not a miracle. That we can extract and pollute for the sake of perceived “comfort,” “convenience,” and “wealth”—and then “fix” the damage later with technology. That innovation, rationality, and money are King. That the process of creation is inherently broken and needs to be fixed with machines and control. That homogenization is safer than complexity. These are all fallacies. And sadly, women themselves have bought into this distorted paradigm and often propagate it more than anyone. Too many are not standing up for the quiet voice inside that knows the truth. The change I think must start with women—not by initially demanding from men or governments, but by returning to and reclaiming their own wisdom about the sacred cycles of life and the sacred power of creation they hold, and building their life around that knowledge like the world depends on it. And by standing in that generative, life-giving confidence, women can help inspire wholeness in the communities around them, allowing others the strength to rise to the occasion.

Like Moana, leadership today demands that we stand in that invisible strength—guided not simply by conquest, but by connection. (This is why the first words of my book are, very intentionally: “Everything is connected.”) This isn’t an either-or; sometimes force is necessary, and nature itself uses ample force—but in ways that strategically support healthy, diverse, life-filled ecosystems.

The greatest act of strength in our modern, tech-obsessed world is to know that we are nature, to believe in the miracle of life, to trust the Spirit is real, and to then make bold and brave choices that reflect all of this. It is a leap of faith to root yourself in this way of life, but I think it might be our best way to build and steward regeneration of something that endures.

In a stunning essay published by The Free Press this week (my favorite news outlet by one million times; mad respect to Bari Weiss, Nellie Bowles, and their entire team), similar themes to this newsletter are explored. I urge you to read it: Things Worth Remembering: Gaze Out the Nearest Window, by Luke Burgis. It unpacks the following poem, which we will all benefit from reflection on: 

Luke wisely states:

We need vision, not just velocity.

After reading all this, what comes up for you? Where can you lean into this way of thinking in your own life?

✍️ Read more:

• Newsletter #31: Evolving feminism to divine feminine

• Newsletter #48: 🐄 The quickest path to healthy humans: love the soil

• Newsletter #39: ♻️ Metaphor of illness as a path to healing

With good energy 💓

Dr. Casey

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