The things I create and share—writing, women’s circles, art, workshops, one-to-one work and more—are the ways I open and hold space for what I’ve long called the “soul curious.”
What I mean by that term is having the innate desire to explore the depths of ourselves and the mystery that connects us to what is bigger and other than ourselves. While it’s spiritual, yes—even mystical—it’s also beautifully mundane and every-day.
We are most fully alive when we are living our lives awake to both our ordinariness and our extraordinariness at the same time.
Psyche, soul, god, source, spirit, magic—whatever it is you want to call the connection we each have with the divine—needs us to be curious about it and awake and alive to it. It wants our attention and devotion.
This is my path, and it’s what I help other women cultivate.
Hello, I’m Lisa Hatlestad
What I do
I integrate deep engagement work with archetypal astrology, divination, and spiritual/creative exploration to help women better know & understand their core natures, unearth the ordinary and extraordinary magic within them, and recover their sense of true belonging in the world.
I facilitate workshops and women’s circles that feed our innate need for kinship and self expression.
I share writing and other forms of creativity that shines a light outing the dark to connect us to one another and to Life.
I Am
…an adoptee, a writer, creative, wife, seeker and perpetual learner, lover of nature, animals, knitting, collage and art journaling, walks in the woods on overcast days, and wandering and digging around in thrift/junk/antique/book shops. I’m a Taurus Sun/Leo Moon/Leo Rising and an Enneagram 4. I’m an extroverted introvert …I need quiet and solitude, and I love an audience.
When I was four, my adoptive mom died suddenly, leaving our family stunned and bereaved. I grew up an un-mothered daughter. From a young age, I’ve carried an insatiable curiosity for and attraction to what is hidden just beneath the surface of ordinary life.
My husband and I have been married over 30 years and have shared our home with many pets over the years, including the sweet dogs we fostered during the years I was actively involved in dog rescue. We currently share space and love with our two cats and senior dog. Our home is situated on a small wooded lake in Minnesota, on the traditional land of the Anishinaabe and Lakota people.
The complexity, paradox, and complication
…I carry isn’t comfortable, but it is my source of medicine. It leads me to be true to myself and adds rich meaning and beauty and depth to my life and the work I do with others.
I think this is true of all of us. Any piece of our true selves that we diminish, bypass, or reject leads us away from our inherent magic and belonging.
ALL the work I do is devoted to helping us re-member and re-claim that.
The inter-spiritual community of which I’m a part—A Mighty Kindness—holds at its core that kindness toward oneself and others will be our collective liberation as a planet. I want to live in a world that is kind and liberated.
I am committed to the learning and work I need to do to make and uphold safer spaces that are as kind and life-affirming for others as possible, and that confirm the dignity and agency of those within them. I’m committed to holding myself accountable for any of my actions and words that may cause harm, and to learn from my mistakes and create repair as best I can.
What Matters to Me
My official-ish bio
I am master certified in life and women’s sexual intimacy coaching, with additional training and experience in integrative hypnosis, shadow work, mind-body/somatic work, depth astrology, and circle facilitation.
Over the years, I’ve coached hundreds of humans, trained hundreds of coaches, and taught and coached in various developmental training programs for coaches, including co-facilitating with with Sonia Wright, MD in a women’s sexual intimacy coaching training designed for certified coaches, medical personnel, and other professionals who work with women.
While the above has been deeply satisfying work, my viewpoints and approaches have expanded over time and in congruence with my own practices and beliefs. I still use the skill of coaching, but it is not the totality of what I do or who I am as a practitioner. One of my teachers uses the term “deep engagement work,” and I’ve adopted that term as a “name” for my own intuitive, multi-faceted work with humans. In the end, it’s never about what one calls their work, but the impact it has.
In addition to my private practice, I serve as a Lantern Keeper facilitator within A Mighty Kindness —a modern inter-spiritual movement conceived by the wonderful Rev. Jessica Steward. I’ll be facilitating the majority of the circles I do in there.
I’m also a perpetual student of Karen Hawkwood, who uses the lens of archetypal astrology through which to “go deeply into the push-pull of the human experience with integrity and skill.”
Want to get to know me (and you) even better?
Subscribe to the Dark Muse
The Dark Muse is my free newsletter named after the spirit that whispers creativity into my soul. She’s visited me in dreams many times in the form of a praying mantis. Among the lore and symbolism of mantises are themes of spirituality, stillness, and contemplation. The New Latin from Greek root of the word Mantis literally translates to Diviner. How’s that for magic?