Short Overview: Dina Berrin is a certified life coach, intuitive guide, and author who helps women reconnect with their own inner knowing using tarot, numerology, and astrology. In this conversation, she shares the personal turning points that led her to build a practice around the gifts she once had to hide — and then goes through the portal to hear what her inner landscape has to say.

Guest: Dina BerrinIntuitive guide, certified life coach, and author of The Way Within: Igniting Your Intuition with Sacred Tools

Themes:

Intuition as the body's original language

Sacred tools as mirrors for self-recognition

The cost of hiding who you are

Personal transformation with collective ripple effects

Learning and teaching as a continuous practice

Chloe Buzzotta has spent nearly fifteen years living and working inside ecovillages, intentional communities, and permaculture projects. In this conversation, she shares what that experience has actually taught her — about community, about conflict, about the gap between the vision of regenerative living and the real work of building it. The episode includes a guided visualization and an honest look at what it means to trust your own intuition when the stakes feel high.

Themes:

- Ecovillages as experimental hubs for wider societal change

- The difference between stopping harm and building alternatives

- What community living requires is that we don't expect

- Individuation inside collective culture

- Trusting intuition over strategy in long-term vision work

GuestAdam and Kirsten — Co-Founders of RegenEarth Studio

ThemesRegenerative systems and collaborationTrust and inner alignmentSpeed versus rhythmRelationship as infrastructureBridging business and consciousness

OverviewIn this episode, Maria Gehrke speaks with leadership coach Marc Engel about the relational dynamics that shape how teams function. Their conversation explores vulnerability, deep listening, and the role of conflict in healthy systems. The episode concludes with a guided visualization revealing a landscape of spaciousness and stillness.

GuestMarc Engel — Leadership coach and founder of The Third Space

Themes

Organizational chemistry and relational leadership

The role of vulnerability and trust in teams

Conflict as a catalyst for growth

Systems awareness and collective intelligence

Spaciousness and grounding in leadership and life

Overview: In this episode of Through the Portal, Maria Gehrke speaks with leadership coach and spiritual guide Monique Renee about alignment, authenticity, and what it means to lead life from the inside out. Their conversation explores personal responsibility, the power of childhood curiosity, and how spiritual practices can help people reconnect with their natural patterns of energy and purpose. The session concludes with a guided portal visualization revealing a peaceful inner landscape of forests, wildflowers, and an open path forward.

Guest: Monique Renee — Leadership Coach and Spiritual Alignment Guide

Themes:

Inner alignment and intuitionLeadership as stewardship and responsibilityRemembering childhood authenticitySpiritual practices in everyday lifeVision as a felt sense rather than a fixed plan

Overview:In this live session, Maria Gehrke speaks with Dutch regression therapist Inge van der Graaf about burnout as initiation, the body as memory keeper, shadow work, and the courage to step beyond rational certainty. The session includes a guided visualization revealing an unexpected image of black light and gathering sparks.

Guest:Inge van der Graaf — regression and reincarnation therapist and guide for highly sensitive people.

Themes:

Burnout as a threshold

Somatic memory

Spiritual sensitivity and belonging

Letting go of control

Darkness as generative space

In this episode, Maria Gehrke is joined by Rachel Connor of Wordplay Coaching for a spacious conversation on creative courage, wholeness, and the quiet work of becoming. Together they explore fear, perfectionism, creativity as aliveness, and the role of compassion in authentic expression, followed by a guided visualization that reveals a powerful lighthouse metaphor.

Guest: Rachel Connor — coach, mentor, and facilitator supporting creative courage and authentic expression.

Themes:

Creative courage

Wholeness and self-compassion

Shadow and illumination

Creativity beyond art forms

Intuition, choice, and presence

In this episode, Maria Gehrke is joined by Tory Stephens — justice-driven storyteller and Creative Manager of Imagine 2200 at Grist — for a deep conversation on climate fiction, solarpunk futures, and the role of imagination in times of crisis.

Together, they explore:

Why dystopian stories dominate our cultural landscape — and what they do to our nervous systems

How hopeful storytelling can expand collective possibility without denying complexity

Solarpunk as a movement rooted in justice, community, and life-affirming technology

The importance of slowing down to envision futures beyond survival mode

The session concludes with a guided inner-vision meditation and a live visual reflection, inviting listeners to reconnect with stillness, imagination, and long-term care for future generations.

Host: Maria GehrkeGuest: Tory StephensFormat: Conversation, guided meditation, live visual reflection

In this episode of Through the Portal, Maria Gehrke sits with strategist and coach Tylney Taylor for a spacious, embodied conversation on sense-making, leadership, and the courage to trust what the body already knows.

Together, they explore the tension between left-brain strategy and right-brain intuition, how real clarity emerges through integration rather than analysis alone, and why meaningful decisions are often somatic before they are rational. The conversation culminates in a guided inner-vision journey, where Tylney steps through the Portal into a symbolic landscape that reveals a simple but powerful message: you’re already here—you just have to let it out.

This episode is an invitation for founders, leaders, and change-makers to slow down, listen more deeply, and reconnect with the inner signals that guide aligned action.

Topics explored:

Strategy as uncovering, not inventing

Integrating intuition, embodiment, and analysis in leadership

Somatic decision-making and collective intelligence

Fear, authenticity, and letting deeper work be seen

Inner vision as a source of clarity and direction

Guest:Tylney Taylor — Strategist, coach, and guide for mission-led founders and leaders. Tylney blends strategy facilitation, execution empowerment, and embodied sense-making to help people build work that matters without losing themselves in the process.

Host:Maria Gehrke — Visual Bard & creator of the Embodied Vision Portal

Episode Theme: A journey into play, resilience, and collective tending

In this episode, Maria is joined by Joey Clifton and Solomon Mehta-Slade, co-founders of the Change:Maker Collective, an online community supporting purpose-led people who feel overwhelmed or isolated in their mission-driven work.

Together, they explore:

The origins of the Change:Maker Collective

Why play and experimentation are essential antidotes to burnout

How resilience grows through connection rather than isolation

Rhythmic, seasonal community practices that support sustainable impact

A guided visualization into their inner landscapes

The meadow, the woodland, and the communal fire that emerged

What it means to live the change together — not as a slogan, but as a lived experience

Maria also creates a live, collaborative artwork based on Joey and Sol’s visions, weaving their imagery into a shared piece that reflects their purpose, their joy, and the community they are co-creating.

About the Change:Maker Collective

The Collective is a supportive home for freelancers, founders, solopreneurs, and mission-driven humans who want to do good and feel good while doing it. The community offers weekly sessions, somatic practices, co-working, coaching, and a steady web of connection that helps members feel resilient, rooted, and inspired.

Adam shares how heartbreak became the doorway into meditation and deeper awareness, how the Akashic Records became a surprising tool for clarity, and why integrating intuition with rational analysis leads to more aligned decision-making.

Together, Maria and Adam enter a guided visualization, exploring Adam’s inner vision space. What emerges is a vivid scene of homecoming, warmth, community, and a clear message: slow down and trust the path unfolding.

This is a gentle, spacious episode for anyone navigating change, seeking clarity, or wanting to better understand the bridge between intellect and intuition.

In this episode, we explore what makes the Camino such a powerful container for transformation — not only through its landscapes, but through its community, its rhythm, and the way it quietly rewires how we move through our lives.

From working in UK prisons to founding The Impact Activator, Mama J shares how she learned that money is simply another expression of love and how activating others can ripple healing through entire communities.

Guided by visualization, a luminous inner landscape unfolds for Mama J: a wall of smooth bright stones, a mountain, an eagle in flight, and a single message: “Be bolder.”

This episode explores what it means to build belonging stone by stone, to trust the unseen resources that arise when we follow our hearts, and to remember that we are never alone in the work we are called to do.

Listen if you’re longing to:

Reconnect with your purpose after a season of change

Believe again in the flow of support and divine timing

Feel the courage to be bolder in your own vision

Connect with Mama J:

The Impact Activator on Substack

Let Them Feel It — Book

Wing of an Angel — Book

→ Explore her work and the Harmony Map at sacredbusinessflow.com

It began gently—two voices meeting across a digital threshold.The soft sound of a dog in the background, laughter, and the warmth of welcome.A shared breath before stepping into a conversation about loss, liberation, and the quiet courage it takes to rebuild the sacred from within.

Currents of the Conversation

00:01 – The Call to BeginJim shares how his own search for belonging began in chaos — an abusive, alcoholic home — and how religion first appeared as refuge. Yet that same system later became constricting, a framework that could not soothe the ache within.

00:06 – The Crisis and the CrossingAs a megachurch pastor, Jim confronted the limitations of theology. Despite all the teaching and programs, people still suffered — and so did he. This honesty led to walking away from both religion and ministry, allowing him to rediscover what was truly real.

00:09 – The Compassionate RebuildingThrough years of listening and guiding others, Jim founded the Center for Non-Religious Spirituality — a space for those untethering from doctrine to heal, explore, and cultivate authentic spirituality.

00:11 – The Embodied TurnJim speaks of realizing that deconstruction isn’t just cognitive — trauma lives in the body. True healing requires embodiment, creativity, and somatic awareness. This recognition became the bridge to our collaboration: bringing art and embodied vision into spiritual reconstruction.

00:32 – The Visioning MomentWe entered a short visioning meditation, crossing an inner portal to glimpse Jim’s symbolic landscape. What emerged was a world of regeneration — composting pain into fertile soil, stepping from numbness into color, from despair into creative renewal.

00:42 – The Design SpaceJim shares images of composting and rewilding, of faith in life’s regenerative cycles. He describes a “design space” where people can metabolize suffering into wholeness — co-creating with life itself, rather than collapsing into meaninglessness.

00:50 – Words from the VisionIn his inner landscape, the words arose like seeds: rewild, regenerate, reconstruct, freedom, wonder, liberation. The sacred, he says, is no longer confined to belief but found in relationality — the mycelial networks of life itself.

Echoes from the Circle

“Trauma is stored in the body. Leaving religion isn’t just a change of mind—it’s a reclamation of self.”

“What’s missing for many is not belief, but belonging—to their own body, their own truth.”

“The most important reconstruction isn’t about forming new doctrines, but cultivating a new relationship with yourself.”

“All the hardship we experience can be composted into growth, if we trust life’s regenerative cycles.”

Roots and Realizations

Through Jim’s story, a deeper rhythm emerged: the truth that spiritual healing mirrors the patterns of nature.What decays is not lost.What falls away becomes nourishment for what is to come.

Leaving religion, for many, is a sacred composting. The breaking down of inherited beliefs, the grief of lost community, and the long, tender work of re-rooting in authenticity. Jim spoke of this as a design space for wholeness—a fertile field where people can metabolize pain, not bypass it.

Our guided meditation opened a vision of that regenerative landscape:the soil rich with the remains of old certainties,new shoots of curiosity rising through.Color returning.Life humming again.

It was here that the essence of the work came into view—not a rejection of spirit, but its rewilding.Not a turning away from meaning, but a re-entry into it, grounded, embodied, free.

Offerings & Mentions

* Center for Non-Religious Spirituality — a sanctuary for those deconstructing from organized religion.

* Deconstructionology — Jim’s Substack community for exploring post-religious spirituality.

* Upcoming six-week workshop series co-facilitated by me & Jim: Creative Reconstruction — an embodied, intuitive complement to the deconstruction process.

Meet Jim Palmer

Jim Palmer is an author, spiritual director, and founder of the Center for Non-Religious Spirituality. His work supports individuals healing from religious trauma and discovering a spirituality rooted in freedom, empathy, and self-connection.You can find his writings at Deconstructionology or learn more about his programs at nonreligiousspirituality.com.

Closing Blessing

May this conversation remind us that faith does not belong to any one system.It is the quiet pulse of life renewing itself through us—again and again.

The doorway we opened together still shimmers,waiting for the next travelerready to cross into their own rewilded becoming.

With Love,Maria Visual Bard | Creator of the Embodied Vision Portal livelovemaria.com

Subscribe to My Secret Garden newsletter, weaving art, mindfulness, storytelling, and insights toward a vision of a better life and world. Rooted in values like interconnection, reciprocity, and abundance. Reflections and gentle guidance for visionary individuals and regenerative groups who seek to bring depth, beauty, and belonging into their work.

Rooted in connection, guided by vision—here’s how we can co-create to nurture and embody transformation, vision, and the community connection that elevates it:

* Discovery Call

A free 30-minute call to connect, explore your needs, and see which offering best supports your path. Schedule here →

* Through The Portal - Susbtack Lives

Join me live as vision, creativity, and conversation unfold through meditation, dialogue, and intuitive painting. Guests share their work while experiencing their vision in a new way.

Schedule a discovery call here →

* Visual Essence Scribing

During your gathering, I quietly create a sketch that captures its essence—leaving you with a poetic visual reflection to share and remember.

Schedule a discovery call here →

* Embodied Vision Portal for Groups

A 90-minute session with grounding meditation, a sharing circle, and live vision painting to strengthen bonds and anchor your shared purpose.

Schedule a discovery call here →

* Embodied Vision Portal for Individuals

A deeply personal three-part journey to clarify, embody, and stay aligned with your vision. Includes:

– A 60-minute guided session with visualization and reflection

– A personalized integration journey, with postcards along the way

– A final detailed watercolor painting as your lasting visual portal

Schedule a discovery call here →

Land Acknowledgement

I acknowledge that the land on which I live is the ancestral home of the Potawatomi, Ho-Chunk, and Menominee peoples. These Indigenous communities cared for this land long before the arrival of European settlers and continue to contribute to its cultural and ecological richness today.

I invite us to honor the enduring presence and sovereignty of Native peoples and commit to learning from and supporting their voices and leadership.