While the story begins at least a decade earlier—across multiple lifetimes, really—for the sake of focus and brevity, I’m narrowing the scope here to 2017. That year marked a profound opening and reorientation.

I had begun studying with brilliant and masterful spiritual teachers, and Kundalini was unmistakably awakening. Not because I was seeking a “Kundalini Awakening,” but because I was listening—attending closely to the direct experience of this pure spiritual, feminine life force as it began to move. It offered its own signs and signals, illuminating the path from within.

Two years later, while sitting a Mahāmudrā retreat, that force released fully. In deep absorption—stillness, silence, presence—a geyser of golden, champagne-like effervescence surged up the central channel and out through the crown. Illumination. Dynamism bursting forth from stillness. The movement was undeniable and unmistakable, marking a turning point not only in my spiritual life, but in how reality itself was known.

Although I speak of a Kundalini process, the lineage shaping this awakening has been unmistakably Tibetan Buddhist, Bön, Dzogchen—particularly the lineage of Guru Padmasambhava, who began teaching me directly on January 4th, 2020, along with his consorts Yeshe Tsogyal and Mandarava, and a wider mandala of dakas and dakinis.

What followed was a long arc of devotion, practice, transmission, and integration: early encounters in my twenties, when the lineage seemed to start following me around; intensive retreats in my thirties with Pointing Out the Great Way; a figure–ground reversal in 2020, where I was no longer Dara with a spiritual path, but the one claimed by the path; and finally, a year-long retreat in 2024 that dissolved what remained of the inner landscape.

Now, at the end of 2025, I can feel this chapter coming to stillness, a completion. Over the past nine years, the awakening process has stripped my being down to its rawest essentials, and then some. Today, I find myself both more grounded and capacitated, and at the same time more boundless than ever before.

Every unfolding along the way has been in service of preparation. What is clear now is that this initiatory phase is complete. I find myself stepping onto a new vista—what has been prepared meeting what never required preparation.

If you’ve sat with me over the past month, you may have noticed this shift—a deepening, a widening, a growing silence. In recent weeks, many sessions have ended with people in tears: of awe, of gratitude, or simply without words. I’m not trying to make sense of this so much as noticing it. Something is settling. The field is deepening. People are touching their true nature. An innate purity is being recognized.

I’m here to serve what’s emerging.

Over the coming year, retreats will begin, and new ways of sitting together will open. For now, I’m content to rest in this silence and let it reveal the way forward. Thank you for being with me on this journey—especially over the past year, as I’ve emerged from retreat and into what I now recognize as the final phase of a long chapter of preparation.

As I look ahead to 2026, my partner and I, along with those close to us, are approaching the fulfillment of an intention we’ve held for some time: a dedicated space for in-person gathering—retreats, classes, and ceremonies. This space, and this home, are meant to be a sanctuary for deep listening, healing, and awakening.

We are deeply grateful to those who have already helped bring the physical space into being. Now, we’re ready to furnish it with the same care and intention. If you feel called to support this project, we’ve created a simple wish list of items that will help complete the space.

Contributing in this way is a participatory act—one thread in the weaving of a shared tapestry. We become whole together.

Thank you for your presence in our lives, and for any way you choose to walk with us as this vision continues to reveal itself.

→ Shop the list here

Additionally, if you’d like to honor the turning of the year through Effortless Presence, you’re warmly invited to sit with me and my partner, Sami Badawy, on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day, at 11AM EST.

- New Year's Eve (12/31): Sami will guide a meditation for the transition and closing of this year; a completion process.
- New Year's Day (1/1): Open the year with me in silent presence. We'll bask in the ground of Being together. Nothing to do.
- Here is the link for both sessions.
- 11AM EST. No recording.

The silence here is intricate, refined, and revealing.

Join us in crossing the threshold into a new era of collective presence.