A balanced nervous system constantly dances between internal and external orientation- what is happening around us and how it affects us. It holds the question: where do my needs and desires overlap with the group and where do they feel in conflict? How do we come together in mutuality and reciprocity, each with unique perspectives and needs?
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These questions have been central to humanity since the beginning of time. Since we realized we need each other to not only survive but also to thrive. And that the gifts we have to share come from our own voice.
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These questions are often relegated to the realm of the philosophical. And even the realm of the political. But rarely do we engage with them from our bodies. This is a mistake.
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Who are you when no one is watching? And who are you when others need you to be? Whose voices and stories weave themselves through yours when you speak? What is your relationship with the earth? How does it (the plants, the animals, the water, the other humans) nourish you? What do you give back that is yours to share? How do the ripples of your needing and wanting, of your emotions, ebb and flow with the group? With life?
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Next time you walk through a field or unsprayed grass, let yourself take in the biodiversity- all the individual pieces that make up a rich whole, thriving through tension and mutualism. Then look at carefully cultivated monoculture grass- each the same, fewer bugs, less resiliency. Which is more natural? Which holds more life?
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The time has come to embrace who you are, and let that grow you into someone who can embrace others, too. Both for how you are similar and also for the ways you are different. For what you envy and what you celebrate. “The world was wide enough... for both Hamilton and me” (Lin Manuel Miranda)
August 10, 2020
Looking at these messengers, I feel a softness steal into my body. I feel comfort. A slower heart beat and pacing. The rhythms of seasons. Of the ebb and flow of relationships. Of rooting to rise to rooting to rise... eventually to flower and fruit and die.
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There is in invitation to notice this week softness. To notice love. To attend to vulnerability. To give what is growing the support it needs. To trust in a timing that is not of the mind or the plans.
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We each have within us masculine and feminine forces. This is a time to explore the more feminine aspects of growth, of evolution, of relationships.
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What are you incubating within you? How will it evolve our legacy as humans? Within your relationships where are you looking too much for perfection or the fitting in of sameness? Within healthy boundaries and trusted containers, are you willing to let the discomfort of dissonance, of different perspectives and values and dreams shake you up, help you grow? How does belonging feel different than fitting in?
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Be brave and soft, dear ones.
Rune: Berkana (Growth and Incubation influenced by the Divine Feminine)
Sacred Mother and Goddess oracle: Gaia (Evolution)
Equine Wisdom oracle: Attraction (Love’s Potential; Relationship’s Challenge; Emotional Resonance)
Equine oracle cards by Linda Kohanov with art by Kim McElroy.
Sacred Mothers and Goddesses oracle deck by Claudia Olivos
August 3, 2020
Full Moon:
Freyja (Sensuality); Blank Rune (Destiny); Equine ‘Point of View’ (Discernment; Constructive Comparison; Grounded Ambition)
Equine wisdom cards by Linda Kohanov; art by Kim McElroy
Sacred Mothers and Goddesses cards by Claudia Olivos
This week:
Lalita (Follow Your Bliss); Rune Jera (Year, cycles, harvest)
Sacred Mothers and Goddesses cards by Claudia Olivos
The common theme is exploring what’s possible when we are fully embodied. When we are connected with our wants, desires, needs. With our intuition, and our senses. When we pause in the split second before we make *meaning* about people/events and instead craft our action and word responses based on what our physicality is showing us *about ourselves* in the situation. Linda Kohanov reminds us that “healthy cynicism questions the self before others.” To be clear on what we bring to the table, we must know ourselves. Which means not just knowing how our minds work but also how our feet walk, how our breath shifts, where and how we have been taught to think in either/or.
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For this week, more specifically, we are being invited to play. To laugh. To remember that seeds planted and nurtured with joy and discipline will yield better fruit than those simply toiled over. To know that our right actions can only be found on *our* path- not the path of another. As Mary Oliver says, “let the soft animal of your belly love what it loves.” That’s how you know you are on *your* path.
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Open yourself to the feeling tone of the images. Notice what they awaken in you. Notice how your breath shifts, if it does. Notice if you close or open in response. Notice what memories or desires are stirred within you. Life is a series of unending recalibrations. The tiger is only a threat if it’s actively hunting, otherwise it’s just a tiger. Your body can discern. Your body allows for nuanced and flexible responses.
Courage, dear It’s time to come home.
July 27, 2020
Our ancestors live on in our bones, in our blood, in our DNA. We are living, evolving memorials to those who came before and whether we have children or not, we will each of us become ancestors in our own right. The legacy we leave? The world and the effects of our choices and actions.
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There is something elemental and almost frightening about the full potential of our impact. Just as there is something elemental and frightening about how utterly insignificant we are. Everything we do matters AND we are one piece of a Whole so immense we can’t even begin to comprehend.
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Whether you can trace your ancestors or not, know that there is beauty they have left you... and there is mess. They couldn’t clean it up in their time. Perhaps we can in ours. To do this, we must be willing to look into the shadows, to plum our inner-landscapes for topographical clues, to wait for flashes of insight and to then trust what we find there. To evolve the beauty we will leave behind. To leave less mess.
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What kind of world are your actions on a trajectory to leave? What do you feel in your bones is yours to illuminate? What gifts pump through your veins? What wounds drift in your currents, waiting to be held? Know that these are unique to you, and also something you have inherited. How will you steward them? When the time comes to pass them on, what will you have evolved them into?
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This is the realm of symbolism, of imagination, of potential energy. We stand on their shoulders. We aim higher.
Rune - Othala (ancestral inheritance/ lineage)
Goddess Oracle : Psyche (third eye knowledge and intuition)
Equine Wisdom Oracle: Lightning Horse (Flash of Inspiration; Glimpse of the Next Level; Unmanifested Possibility)
Equine wisdom oracle by Linda Kohanov, art by Kim McElroy.
Sacred Mothers and Goddesses oracle by Claudia Olivos of Olivos Art Studio
July 20, 2020
Joy is not the absence of challenge, pain, the messiness of being human- joy is the blossoming that happens when aligned with soul’s purpose and secure in belonging and connection (to self and Other).
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Taken together, these guides remind us that joy is a practice. That envy points us to what our heart longs for. That we are not islands and it’s only through balancing listening with action that we can dance.
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Where in your life may you be feeling jealous and what might that jealousy show you about your heart’s true longings? What actions can you then take or practices can you engage in that will start your feet moving in that direction... with integrity? Where your dreams are met with resistance from people or circumstances outside your control, where can you shift your own dance to acknowledge others (without giving up what makes you, you)? Who in your life is dancing similarly right now and can you move towards them? Where in your life does joy already exist? And where there is pain and struggle, what might those things be showing you about your relationship to joy?
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Courage, dear hearts. What you seek is seeking you.