Loto Journal
Through personal storytelling and letter writing, follow our Founder, Jennifer Axcell, as she travels the 🌎 globe as a digital nomad and Desert Mother, exploring Consciousness, rest, and Self-care.
Including thoughtfully created blog content about somatic healing practices, nervous system regulation techniques, and contemplative practices, Loto Wellness Collective’s blog focuses on the art and science of rest and renewal, drawing inspiration from Christian mystics, monastic wisdom, modern neuroscience, and depth psychology.
Reader’s Note: In an attempt to bring a conscious sense of responsibility to our language (where inclusivity and equality matter), in our Loto Wellness Collective blog content, except for direct quotes, the pronouns often used for God are They/Them in reference to I AM. When referring to Jesus specifically, the pronouns He/Him are used. Also, we have taken the liberty of capitalizing the term “True Self” so you will know that we are not referring to the “false self” (psychological egoic self), but the foundational self that we are in God.
Whales and Boats
Conscious Travel
The Returning: The Way of the Explorer
Rather than seeking God “out there,” the Explorer turns inward—not in self-absorption, but in humility—trusting that deeper awareness does not lead away from God, but into God.
The Returning: The Way of the Intellectual
The Intellectual encounters the Divine through reading, theology, history, philosophy, scripture, and sacred inquiry. Their devotion looks like open books, marked pages, late-night questions, and the holy insistence that truth matters.
Learning How to Eat, Pray, LOVE—Part 3
Learning How to Eat, PRAY, Love—Part 2
Learning How to EAT, Pray, Love—Part 1
The Returning: The Way of the Enthusiast
Enthusiasts live with a holy expectancy that God is always up to something — always revealing, always surprising, always moving. They feel God in music, worship, dance, creativity, synchronicity, and divine interruptions.
To the Enthusiast, life is a sacrament. Everything is pulsing with potential and shimmering with Presence.
The Returning: The Way of the Caregiver
Caregivers meet God not in grand missions, but in small mercies. In washing a sink full of dishes for someone who’s overwhelmed. In sitting beside a friend who has no words left. In showing up when it would be easier to turn away.
Mothering
As the tears came, so did the truth: even grown women need mothering.
Surrender in Suffering
Wisdom of the Forest Dweller
North Americans spend over 93 percent of their waking hours indoors or in cars (and the other 7 percent is spent walking between buildings and cars). And while there is an extraordinary exuberance and diversity of wild plant and animal life dwelling in our midst, still the urban environment is inhospitable to the majority of species on our shared planet. Regular—or any—experience of deep wilderness is missing from most of our modern lives. Without such contact, our radiant mental and physical intelligences are being diminished.
The Returning: The Way of the Activist
For the Activist, compassion is not a concept — it is a calling. Justice is not ideology — it is worship. Action is not distraction — it is prayer embodied. This pathway is where the heart of God touches the wounds of the world. Where faith becomes flesh and love becomes action.
The Returning: The Way of the Contemplative
The Contemplative pathway is less about what you do and more about who you are becoming. It is the slow, steady descent from the mind into the heart — the place where God speaks in silence, and where the soul finally remembers the sound of its own name.
For the Contemplative, prayer is less about speech and more about presence. Less about effort and more about surrender. It is the practice of resting in Love, rather than performing for it.
Honoring Indigenous Voices This Thanksgiving
When we listen to Indigenous voices, we're not being "political.” We’re being Christian. Not the empire-shaped version — the Jesus-shaped one.
The Slow Path Back to God: Why Contemplation Still Matters
Contemplative prayer flips that whole dynamic. It’s less “Lord, do something” and more “Lord, show me what is already true.” It’s less striving, more surrender. Less performance, more Presence. Less noise, more spaciousness.
Mirror Twins
So let me leave you with a question, one that's been weighing on me lately: Who in your life reflects you back to yourself — not the version you wish you were, but who you truly are right now?
And maybe the harder question: Are you willing to look?
The Returning: The Way of the Ascetic
The Ascetic pathway is for those who encounter the Divine not through abundance, but through simplicity. Not through stimulation, but through stillness. Not through addition, but through the sacred work of subtraction.
The Returning: The Way of the Sensate
The Sensate meets God through the senses — through color and fragrance, through texture, taste, and sound. For them, beauty is not ornamentation; it is revelation.
Fear of Being Seen
I know this residual fear of being fully seen—in my truth, in my body, in my voice—has kept me playing small. But next year is calling me into expansion, into more trust, into a bolder embodiment of what I've been cultivating all along on my healing journey. These mirrors I face are preparing me for what's to come.
Contributors & Collaborators
Loto Living and Loto Journal, would not be possible without the ongoing support and generous contributions from an incredible team of writers, artists, healers, editors, creatives, and pastors.