MANY WOMEN, MANY STORIES Ep 4 : DAMARIS CHRYSTAL, Black Walnut Tree

Resisting labels and expectations of society is easy for DAMARIS CHRYSTAL who has spiritually communed with NATURE in a way we're confident you will find inspiring and profound in this bonus episode. Join Nicoa as she taps into the depth of Damaris' many life stages of identity on this earth. She gives some snippets of her career choices and a way of Being that was completely numbed, without meaning that finally woke her up and forced a life worth living choice. She chose to stay on this earth and by doing so opened an expansion into the the clair senses: Clairvoyance, Clairaudience, Claircognizance, Clairsentience which validated her existence on this planet.
Her story is profound and will be shared at Many Women, Many Stories conference November 17-19th!

Learn more about DAMARIS:  damarischyrstal.com

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At MWMS, the aim is to document and share women's strengths, creativity, perseverance, and vibrant lives in a sacred gathering. The project is multi-cultural and multi-generational, and it helps to highlight the positive qualities and powers of the feminine while encouraging creative action.  JOIN US, WE NEED YOUR PARTICIPATION and FEEDBACK for this inaugural event!

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Our mission is to tell a new story through the MWMS project. This story highlights women's worth, resourcefulness, and desire to make the world better for everyone. By sharing the wisdom and experiences of women who have undergone healing and transformation, we hope to inspire young girls and women to become self-empowered leaders and take positive action.

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By participating in the project, viewers and participants can gain new insights and ideas to integrate into their lives. We hope these stories and the accompanying experiential apprenticeship program will challenge and influence the distorted view of women and girls in today's

Transcript

Nicoa Coach: 0:01

Grab your coffee and join me Nicoa For a caffeinated conversation about life. I'll be talking to people who have chosen to walk their own paths and just like me, are creating a life by design. I hope it will give you the inspiration you need to do exactly the same. Hello, damn, Chris, how are you this morning?

DAMARIS CHRYSTAL: 0:26

Good morning, Nicoa. I'm cold.

Nicoa Coach: 0:30

And I'm over here halfway between cold and hot with my sleeveless shirt and my sweater behind me. So it's that middle of that fall season in your in the mountains. So tell us where you're you're dialing in from this morning.

DAMARIS CHRYSTAL: 0:43

I'm dialing in from Grayson County, Virginia, which is in the very southwestern corner of Virginia. And I'm at about 3500 feet on 45 beautiful wild acres that I feel very mated to.

Nicoa Coach: 0:59

Oh, wow. Well, I bet it is cold up there right now. We still have some nice sunny weather down here in Wilmington. And we're so excited that you're coming to visit this part of North Carolina. You said it was for the first time you haven't been to the coast yet to Wilmington,

DAMARIS CHRYSTAL: 1:15

not to Wilmington. When I lived in North Carolina, I used to live in Winston Salem until I moved up here. And when if I went to the beach, I always went to Emerald Isle. So that's the only part of North Carolina coast I've been to.

Nicoa Coach: 1:29

Well, you're gonna love it. And we are really honored to have you as one of our speakers at the many, many women many stories conference that kicks off November 17. This is part of our many women many stories series. And you are one of the speakers one of the breakout speakers I understand. So let me do a quick introduction. And then let's just talk about what your role is going to be for the event. I loved your feedback to me when I asked you to send me an overview. So it makes so much sense that you're located on 45 beautiful acres. You have communed with nature in so many ways. And I love what you said, you know, you're not one for defining yourself by labels, and, or even words, but and yet you said, let me share with you some defining words just to make us all feel better, right?

DAMARIS CHRYSTAL: 2:23

You asked about me, I was trying to comply.

Nicoa Coach: 2:27

You did a nice job of playing the game, right? The Game of Life that we've designed out here on this planet and some of the words that you shared I find so beautiful, Earth loving, crow dreaming, death walking, spirit tending, ancestor listening. And I don't know what this means. But you said with black walnut tree? Could you share with us a little bit about who Dameron is, underneath these

DAMARIS CHRYSTAL: 2:56

words? Okay, well off skip immediately to black walnut tree because black walnut tree is a nature spirit that I'm in constant contact with. And it's a nature spirit who has a body who not all nature, spirits have physical bodies, but this is a black walnut tree that is right outside my northern windows. And the branches go over my studio and the roots go under my studio. And so when I sleep at night, I feel very held by this very loving presence. And when I'm kind of not quite getting an idea of what needs to happen at a particular time, I'll go to black walnut tree and say, I'm stuck. Can you help me and black walnut tree sends me images that I'm able to actually understand and translate in my mind. And then I proceed on that information and always works out really well. So this is a very deep daily relationship I have with a nature being who has consciousness and who communicate. Yes.

Nicoa Coach: 4:02

Yes. And I'm not surprised at all. And not only are we integrated with spirit, and have the ability to tap in and channel messaging from the spirit world or the universe or God or whoever, however you want to define it. Right. But your message and your approach to participating with this event is to talk about that connection with nature. Yes. So tell us a little bit more. So I love that introduction. How have you come to be this woman connected to nature as part of your identity?

DAMARIS CHRYSTAL: 4:37

Well, it was a long, tentative process in certain ways because I didn't know what I was doing. So I was just exploring. I came to a time in life where things were really difficult and I didn't feel like I could go on. And I took action on that. And in the process of doing that. I had like this spirit actual intervention that blew my mind, I had no idea what had happened. That was like, all this information suddenly appeared in my consciousness. And physical reality started shifting for me. And I started seeing dead people, I started communicating with nature spirits, I could hear them in the woods, I could hear singing in the woods when nobody was, I could walk around at night with the circle of light around my feet. So I could see everywhere I could go without tripping. And my partner at the time found this just to Unreal. And he would set up a obstacle course, that's, for me to walk. To prove that I actually, you know, was was seeing this I had liked to see by that he couldn't see. And my cats would come into that light. And every time they would walk into that circle of light, they would turn into these beautiful little matrices have colored lights that were pulsing. And

Nicoa Coach: 5:59

this is fascinating. And I'm sure our listeners are like, say what? Yeah, to even back up. So you, you have been going down a path. And I don't want to steal away the content of your presentation when you will be with us in November. But you have been going down a very traditional path. And I noticed something in your summary, you said at the age of 40 is when you had that moment, and you thought I can't go on. I had my little midlife crisis at the age of 40. I think it had been a long time coming. But I quit my corporate world, I stopped the game, I removed myself in many ways. Talk to us a little bit about you before. And then we've already had a little picture of you now, but tell us the difference.

DAMARIS CHRYSTAL: 6:47

The difference was primarily that I couldn't feel my life. I had repressed so many responses to my circumstances, that I could no longer feel really what my true responses were. And I had no grief, I had no joy, I had no frustration, it was just this flat line, as if I were already dead. And I found that absolutely intolerable. And I refuse to accept that as an existence eventually. But before that I had really tried to pretty much please my parents who are adoptive parents, and they put a lot on me to marry well, to basically not have a good successful career, but to have a fallback as being a teacher. This was quite a many years ago. But this was their thoughts at the time that I needed to, number one, have a husband take care of me. But if that didn't work out, I needed to be able to teach. And so I did everything they asked of me. And I was still rebel at certain ways. I started doing glass work, and I opened my own business. And I worked with kids that were deprived in the less economically fortunate areas of Winston Salem at bartended for a while which they found really appalling. But then I worked my way into managing some businesses I managed to restaurant and then I managed a an iconic bookstore in Winston Salem that everyone went to that had a used bookstore, a gift shop a cafe, I sponsored adult courses in literature and networked with the local universities like Wake Forest and Salem college. And it was really interesting, but really disturbing work for me, because I'm not great as a manager, because you have to have these relationships with people that feel like they're based on some sort of inequity. And I didn't like that feeling, you know, because that's the way the owners wants you to behave. I didn't like that. And I went back to school at the time to get a Master's in Counseling, which didn't work out either for me. And I just led me to this place where I was so unhappy. I was in my second marriage. And my husband was very well to do from an old well to do family. We had a beautiful home, I made beautiful gardens, and it was just as empty as you could possibly be. And it had to stop. So I stopped it. You know, and I didn't know how to stop it by stopped it.

Nicoa Coach: 9:33

Well, it sounds like you were really at a crossroads. And you're knowing and learning and I'm so grateful that you made the choice to shift into a new way of being versus the alternative. And I'm really excited to hear more about your offering for the event because you're going to bring the audience back to an awareness of that connection with nature. Can you give us a little teaser as to what they're experience will be like when they participate in November,

DAMARIS CHRYSTAL: 10:04

I'm going to be telling a story from a part of my life when I moved up here to Virginia from North Carolina. And I bought this beautiful land that was full of ancient Hemlock trees. And they caught, basically a pest disease and started dying. And all the hemlocks in this part of the country are dying, or have already died. And so I'm going to recount a story of what I went through in my grieving with those trees, how I related to them, how they responded back to me, and then how that segwayed to finally having a certain kind of acceptance, with the loss of all those trees here. And then, years, I mean, years later, after the all the grandmothers and grandfather trees had died, I came across a young hemlock tree. And it spoke to me of something that seemed radically uplifting, and totally just jolted me into a different kind of awareness that is optimistic and moving, and beautiful. And that is not just about trees, but about all of life here on the planet. And I know when I've told this story to other people, as I did to the people who have organized many women, many stories, that they find it really moving, and it touches their soul and their hearts, and it helps them kind of look at the planet and their lives here in a different way, a way of deep relationship and with the sense that nobody really dies, ultimately, your bodies die, but your spirits don't. And so that's going to be what I have to offer.

Nicoa Coach: 11:54

We are nature. And that is your topic. And I'm so excited. I think that summary is beautiful. And not only did you share a teaser, but you were able to share what you hope people will gain from that. They have that knowing, is there anything else you'd like to share, or anything you'd like to say to encourage people to participate in this event with us?

DAMARIS CHRYSTAL: 12:18

One thing I'd like to share is that I've had a long relationship with Aria, who has started this group. And she's the person who invited me when she lived in Blowing Rock, North Carolina, she would host me at her home, and I would meet with clients there. And I know that anything are you touches is golden, because she has this incredibly big heart. But she also has a really, really fine intellect. And she is articulate in ways that many people aren't. And I know from all the years I've been in relationship with her, that she wants to give to people opportunities for them to have a thriving life, whatever that means to them. That is also in balance and in harmony with the earth. And so knowing that that's her intention, I couldn't say no, when she asked me even though I'm always get a little nervous about speaking up in front of people.

Nicoa Coach: 13:18

Well, you seem quite calm and, and confident in your engagement today. And and you're absolutely right. She's a special soul. And for those of you listening, if you haven't already listened to her interview, we did a quick teaser with her. And it's also on the podcast under ARIA Donahue. But dangerous crystal, you are a beautiful soul and how if people were interested in getting in touch with you, I think you have a website or how can they contact you?

DAMARIS CHRYSTAL: 13:46

Through my website? I have a contact form on my website. Danvers crystal.com, very easy.

Nicoa Coach: 13:52

gammarus crystal.com. I will make sure and add that to the show notes. And I just want to thank you for spending the morning with me even though it's a very short window. And I can't wait to meet you in person in November.

DAMARIS CHRYSTAL: 14:04

Oh, I'm so looking forward for you being there. I didn't know for a while that you're going to be there. That's great. Thank you, Nicola.

Nicoa Coach: 14:09

Yep, I'll be there the whole weekend. And I can't wait to connect with everybody in person. Lots of hugs will be happening, I'm sure. Yeah.

DAMARIS CHRYSTAL: 14:16

Well, it's important to hat to have this inaugural weekend and help this group get their ways because every woman I've ever met, even if the woman seems at first like she has nothing to say, or if she's had a very conventional, placid life under underneath it, there's just this wealth of stories that always connects us that we're so connected in our stories.

Nicoa Coach: 14:39

Absolutely. We are connected in our stories, and it's one of the reasons I do this podcast. I can't I feel compelled. And I can't not tell my story and I feel as if sharing my story, just as I'm sure you feel the same is going to help people help themselves, find their own voice and we're the role models and and may I May I share your age, by the way? Sure, yeah. So it says here that you're a beautiful 70 years old, look no older than then my age or be gosh,

DAMARIS CHRYSTAL: 15:10

well, maybe I need to get closer.

Nicoa Coach: 15:14

Yeah, these filters are great. We're not saying. But I love that we are bringing a variety of people together. I also loved when you said something about your chrome life. Yeah. And I was like, I want to be this this chrome, the woman in the chrome body. as I age, I feel really connected to each of you who I've spoken with already. And I think that weekend, will bring us together in a wide set of generations to connect to that, to that wisdom. And again, I just want to thank you for being here. And I hope everyone will check it out at many women, many stories.com. And I don't know what else to say, is there anything else we should say before we hang up the cameras?

DAMARIS CHRYSTAL: 15:58

Well, just you mentioned the crone body. And I do want to say to that, that in a culture that obsesses about youthfulness, and being fast and being sharp, and being always on the money, and always prepared to be visually acceptable, and to basically comply with the dominant cultures, theories about how we need to live. And they're definitely just theories. But I find that aging and getting to a place where you accept your aging, even though you know, in some ways it might make you invisible, or might make you less valued, that that self acceptance after a lifetime of feeling this performative anxiety is such a beauty to experience and I think it really frees women to really become much more participant in their own lives and share what they have learned over a long lifetime. And so those crone years can be incredibly precious.

Nicoa Coach: 16:57

I'm ready. I'm gonna go ahead and embrace it. Now. I just I don't need to wait till I'm 70 I want to be that woman now. And so thank you for pulling me along and role modeling for me and everyone else listening and I can't wait to meet you.

DAMARIS CHRYSTAL: 17:13

I can't wait either. Nicoa Thank you so much for your time this morning. Thank you. Okay. Bye bye. Hi.

Jennifer Gardner: 17:21

Thanks for joining us for a caffeinated conversation. Subscribe to Coffee with Nicola for more stories from people living a life by design. You can also find inspiration on Instagram. Just follow coffee with Nicola and check out our website Coffee with nicoa.com and that's Nicoa N IC O A. We look forward to talking with you soon. And enjoy your coffee between now and then.