Dr Michelle Thall, my new Guest Blogger, writing about synchronicity and alchemy.
Michelle lives in Chicago and founded The Whole Wellness Project, LLC, a self-care community for women. In this blog she tells the story of how we became connected via my book Walking into Alchemy: The Transformative Power of Nature in which I recount my personal journey of walking the same 13-mile route through the hills and woods of Carinthia, Austria, every week for a year. After dealing with redundancy and depression, I found healing, peace, and true happiness through my walks in nature. The book serves as a travel diary, botanical journal, and mindfulness exercise, blending references to art, Shakespeare, theatre, music, ornithology, and meteorology. My aim is to inspire others to discover the rejuvenating power of walking in nature and to find their own path to well-being.
Michelle goes on to describe her amazing life journey and how walking is a constant that continues to bring her transformation and enlightenment.
Writing is a solitary activity, but one cannot live in a vacuum, so I am grateful to Michelle for keeping in contact. Writers need fuel and readers provide that fuel. I am delighted to host this blog and hope you enjoy reading it.
SYNCHRONICITY, ALCHEMY & FOLLOWING THE SOUL'S BREADCRUMBS, by Dr Michelle Thall
At 4:00 am, I gave up on sleep, peeled myself off the bed and stumbled to the desk, words in my head itching to be written. I scrawled across the journal page "Facilitating Transformation through the Alchemy of Community." I watched some TV until my eyes closed and tumbled back into bed. When I woke later, I continued listening to a podcast I'd begun the day before—Michael Meade's Fate & Destiny—just minutes in, Meade described the need for alchemy in transforming the leaden aspects of our lives into the soulful gold hidden within. I have heard him reference this gold many times, a treasure I continue to seek so I may share it with the world. But alchemy… really? Again? With seven references to "alchemy" in a matter of days, I knew it was a sign. But of what?
I paused the video.
"Why, why, why does alchemy keep appearing to me?" Oddly, this has happened before, but try as I might, my Google searches never produce more than bits about transforming base metals into gold and links to the book The Alchemist, which I've read several times.
My head still itched, and I knew I'd get nothing else done until I searched yet again. Resigned to going down the rabbit hole, I typed, "Why does alchemy keep appearing to me?"
Typing the question instead of the word was apparently just what the Universe wanted. The search yielded only one result: a blog post by Amelia Marriette, "What does walking into Alchemy mean? And What is Spiritual Alchemy?"
HELLO!
I clicked the link, and my eyes flew across the page...
Marriette described her experience with the word "alchemy," which revealed itself to her during a quest to walk a 13-mile stretch in Austria once a week for a year.
Wait… WHAT?
My heart skipped a beat. I stopped reading.
The synchronicity between her quest to walk 13 miles each week for a year and mine—to complete a 3-mile walk to the beach each day for 30 days—electrified me!
MORE please…
I read the whole blog and, sizzling with energy, found the "contact us" link, and set about sharing my story with Amelia. Focusing was a challenge—I was so excited to be heard. At one point, I noticed a dialog box pop up. "Hello," it said, but I wasn't interested in interacting with AI, so I ignored it and kept typing. When I finished my story, I clicked send and immediately bought Amelia's book.
Imagine my surprise when less than an hour later, I had an email from Amelia! And even wilder, that little "hello" I'd thought was a bot was Amelia herself!! Oddly, even to her, circumstances had lined up such that she knew I was reading her blog and had said hello. She thanked me for purchasing her book and asked me to let her know how the reading went.
This felt monumental! Alchemy had finally led me somewhere—to Amelia and her book! There was a connection between my experience of alchemy soulspeak and Amelia's transformative journey. Something was calling to me; things were lining up, and I was certain it was a divine sign that I was on the right track. It was exactly what I needed, in that precise moment, to inspire me to continue my journey.
***
I'm a seeker by nature. Since I was a little girl, I've scavenged for knowledge, truth, a better way to understand the world around me. In the last 10 years, though, it's become clear that what I've really been seeking all along is inside me—my true self, my right livelihood, how to be that which I was born to become—a journey across time and space, miles of road, inner and outer.
I've held a variety of jobs—accountant, manager, personal trainer, professor, wellness coach—across diverse disciplines—finance, human resources, exercise, research, education, spirituality.
But I've never reached my dream… to "Unite my avocation and my vocation…"Words from a Robert Frost poem, once read, never to let go of my head and my heart. I want to do what I was born to do, be the person seeded in my soul. And I want my doing to reflect my being—the hours spent interacting with the world outside me to mirror the divine in my soul. I believe this is my life purpose, and now, in 2025, I am closer to this reality than I ever thought possible.
In 2000, after years in corporate business, burned out, used up, and depressed, I went back to school. I earned a master's degree in Exercise Science, taught for four years before hitting the glass ceiling, and knowing I had to get a PhD to survive academia. So, back to school, where five years later, a doctorate in Exercise Psychology earned me a position at Bastyr University. I put my head down and barreled forward. After three years of teaching, it hit me that academia was worse than corporate America.
I was way past burned out; I could hardly get out of bed. So, I quit my job, moved home to Chicago, landed at my mother's house, and cocooned for a while. The one thing I knew was that I love teaching, and its predicate, learning. In 2020, after I'd healed myself, I started a women's wellness business. My idea was to create a safe space for women to explore their inner worlds and find joy by getting to know their multi-dimensional selves through self-compassion, creativity, and community.
Then I got stuck in the pandemic, in the struggles of daily living, in doubt, worry, fear, hate, anger, lack. One day, I bolted out the door, tears streaming down my cheeks, seeking the solace of the beach and the lake. I walked the mile and a half, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, the noise in my head overshadowing everything. But after walking the beach, breathing fully, picking up treasures from the sand, and watching the waves crash blue against the shore, I returned home a different woman—happy, energized, and hopeful. I'd found the same alchemy I went looking for when I discovered Amelia's post.
I knew if I could do that walk every day, I'd be happy every day, so I challenged myself to walk to the beach for 30 days, create art with the treasures I'd collect, and write about the experience. That was three and a half years ago, and I can still feel the joy in my heart. That LEAP, or Life Enhancing Activity Project, as it came to be called, spawned a how-to book, 30 articles published on Medium, 30 pieces of mixed-media art, and material for several more books, yet to be published.
Fast forward to 2025… As challenging as I believed our world was in 2020, it was nothing compared to what we face today. I will not sink into that here; it's too much. But I will say this: I am called to rise higher than ever before. I am shifting my focus from general wellness to spiritual wellness because that is what I see humanity missing most.
Our way of living lacks soul. I'm not talking about religion here. I'm talking about mission, purpose, who we are, why we are here, and how we go about saving ourselves and the planet we call home.
First, I must ground myself in my soul in every way that I can.
I am taking two big steps. The first is becoming an uBuntu Keeper through the soon-to-be-accredited uBuntu Civics Academy, founded by Anna-Mari Pieterse. uBuntu is an ancient South African way of being in the world. I describe this way of being as seeing all things as one… to know another as oneself, to feel the interconnectedness of all people, all life, the planet, the cosmos… to know the peace that comes from that collective awareness. It is compassion, self-compassion, and love.
At its core, uBuntu is a kaleidoscopic knowingness that individuality and commonality are not opposing forces; they co-exist in perfect harmony such that with every intention and action, a person simultaneously honors both themselves and the world at large. We inherently protect each other, all life forms, and the earth because injury to a part injures the whole. From this point of view, no one is "other."
The further I go on this journey called my life, I realize the truth of uBuntu—"I am because we are." I need the "we," the help and support that comes with a community that shares my worldview. Which leads me to my second big step. The Center for Courage and Renewal (CCR) is that community, and in April, I will begin an 18-month internship to become a Facilitator trained in their methods, which I love, honor and respect.
These two big steps put me squarely on the road to more alchemy, and a new realization bubbles up as I type…
Gold is not the end product of alchemy. Alchemy—the transformative process—is where the gold lies. Becoming, living, transformation… that is the gold.
***
New Book:
I am currently working on my next book, which has the working title of An Artist at War and Peace (1939-1965). A book for those interested in art, history, and the dynamic between conflict and the pursuit of peace. My father, Leonard Eason (1925-2015) is the artist in question. I am basing the book on my father's Second World War Diaries and artwork with extra information from his identical twin brother's unpublished autobiography, personal testimonies, family documents and yet more artwork - the Easons have been artists since at least the 19th century. The purpose of the book is to highlight perspectives often missing from discussions about the relationship between war, peace, and art.
If you have enjoyed this blog and would like to support my writing by gifting me 15 minutes of writing time, click here or hit the Buy Me A Coffee button below. You can also use the same link to get to the Extras section to purchase for just £1.99 a full-colour PDF of Walking into Alchemy: The Transformative Power of Nature
If you want to be one of my Guest Bloggers, don't hesitate to contact me via my website.
Links:
This is the link to the blog that Michelle read initially and how we became connected:
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