My Ode to Maha

MY ODE TO MAHA // if you follow me on the socials, I’ve posted this love letter there and I apologize for the repeat. This Center for Healing is an important part of my journey through healing work, so I’d love to share it here with you as well.

Maha Rose Brooklyn has closed its doors and I’ve been wanting to share my memories since hearing the news and attending the beautiful closing ceremony with 100+ other souls who have been touched by her magic. But I’ve been resistant. Like, in writing something, my goodbye will be final and it will all be real and how could I possibly come up with the perfect thing to say to describe my love?! Well, the space has been lovingly emptied and the moving truck pulled away from the curb, so it’s pretty official and definitely real and here is my attempt to capture in words a tribute to a space (and a community) that supported so much of my blossoming.

Maha Rose was the first healing space I worked out of and I started there as a work-for-trade desk angel so I could rent the treatment rooms out when I had clients in my new budding baby healing practice. I would ride the subway 50+ minutes from Sunset Park to Greenpoint and I imagined this long commute was a statement to the universe that I was all in and committed to this work as a healing practitioner. While working there, I tried out a bunch of different workshops, helped folks pick out crystals, received my reiki attunement from Lisa @lisanelsonlevine, connected to fairy energy, had deep conversations, experienced acupuncture, and discovered the medicine of my life: breathwork. I held women’s circles, vision board workshops, community reiki, breathwork groups, and 1:1 sessions there. So much of my growth happened in that space and when I moved back home to MN, I knew I’d always have a place to land when I visited NYC next.

I never got to see her expansion when she grew to take on the space next door too, but I’m happy that my favorite memories of her will be of the OG Maha and those slow Monday mornings when I would arrive to work.

It would be quiet along the street outside as you’d see the tell tale signs of a magic portal with the string of white lights and jungle of plants that grew around the door. Stepping through that heavy red front door transported you from the grit of the city into an oasis of soft textures and soft hearts. The space would be quiet with the echo of a weekend of healing and connecting and loving. There was a feeling like she had swelled a little bigger over the weekend to hold all the souls who stopped by and this was her chance to settle back into her bones at the start of the week and I felt honored to witness this side of her. I’d often find glitter outside on the sidewalk and inside on the temple rugs which always put a grin on my face. When I’d arrive on those Monday mornings, I’d put on some soft music, start the bottomless pot of tea (nettle or marshmallow root was my favorite), light the candles, say hi to the plants, fairies, crystal friends, and take a few moments for deep breaths in the temple before writing on the chalkboard the upcoming schedule for the week, imagining who would come, the connections made, and the healing that would happen. With Lisa the artist at the helm, the space was always shifting and changing - a reminder that life never stays the same forever and I’d keep my eye out for the new pieces of art or the new arrangement of the displays.

I think the thing I’m most grateful for is how Maha Rose and Lisa and all the hearts I came into contact with showed me that healing work is a valid, necessary field of work to devote a life to.

That creativity and art collaborate with magic and healing. You don’t have to choose one over the other and there’s actually a community to belong to who are doing the same. There’s a place for everyone at this table of art + healing and it’s a worthy endeavor to embark on.

Someone at the closing ceremony said it feels like Brooklyn Maha is bursting into little chunks of glitter and isn’t closing, but instead being sprinkled worldwide - for each of us to carry parts of her with us into the collective. I’m here to do my part in continuing her legacy until her next shape takes form. Maha Rose Brooklyn, I love you forever - thank you for everything!

But, what are you grateful for?

As I settled into my quiet thinking time, feeling a little sleepy since I’d only had half of my coffee, strolling along the river’s edge at the dog park, I began the litany in my mind of all the things I need to do, tasks I need to accomplish, problems I need to solve, habits I need to change, places where I’m stuck......... and as I lifted my face to the sky, took a deep breath, and noticed the solidness of my feet on the sandy beach, I heard, “but, what are you grateful for??”

this life
I’m grateful for this life
for book club conversations
and breathwork buddy coven calls
for the spring of creative ideas after a dry spell

for the taste and ritual of coffee with coconut milk and a schedule that allows dog time in nature every morning to start the day

for living in a place with four seasons and the fleeting feeling of late summer where the subtle signs of fall start to show

for the process of creating and tending to The Healing Nook
and the zing of excitement and giddiness and groundedness it makes me feel

for all the books I’m reading
for the classes and trainings I want to take and all the other books I can’t wait to read
for the endless pursuit of knowledge, wisdom, understanding, evolution 

for all of the people, places, and experiences on this journey - even the painful ones, but especially the life-giving ones

for my husband
and for our home

for my Moonie Boy

for this body that is mine this lifetime
for how it sweats profusely when it’s humid and how my toes are cold when it’s frigid
for how it sometimes struggles and sometimes thrives
but mostly for how it houses this heart and this spirit and this breath

And after listing off THIS litany (of gratitudes rather than worries), my mood felt lighter and my heart felt bigger and my work ahead of me felt easier and the world around me felt brighter.

So, dear friend, what are you grateful for?

And do let me know! Let’s do this gratitude practice together. I’d love to hear!

Taking Time to Sniff

Lately, as we leave the dog park, Moon will be moseying slowly up the hill to the gate and towards the car. I often tell my husband that he’s putzy or lollygagging because he doesn’t want to leave yet, even though we’ve been there for over an hour.

Today, however, as he was sniffing some blades of grass near the car (and I was feeling impatient), I realized he’s mostly just living in the moment.

“Oh hey, what’s this smell?! Let me take a moment to explore this data. Now I’ll mark it with my own!”

Moon doesn’t know that the time on our parking is about to expire or that I have work to do when we get back home. He just knows that the sun is shining, the water of the river feels real fine, and that this spot right here smells reeeeeeeeally interesting.

Updating his “facebook”…

Which got me thinking about us humans (or at least MYSELF): how often do we get caught up in the doing (rather than the being)? How often are we rushing towards the milestones or living for the weekends or focusing only on the crossing off of the tasks on the do to lists?

We are in a waxing moon time in our moon cycle so taking action and doing actually align with this growing-to-full energy. And it’s always the right time to do action during an uprising where we can be working to support our community, fight for racial justice, and participate in our own inner healing work.

AND. How is it already August at the end of this week?! We when get caught up in the hustle and the grind, we sometimes forget to enjoy the process. It’s easy to fill our days with busyness and discover later that we missed the nuances of the present moment.

I know for myself that there’s a felt pressure of instant gratification where I want the vision I see for the future to happen right this minute and where I want all the knowledge from the books I’m reading to be absorbed through osmosis from pages into body in a snap.

So here’s a reminder for me, and for you if you need it, to also enjoy this moment, day, season, cycle. It’s also always the right time to stop and sniff the scents, breathe deep breaths, feel the air on our skin, notice the ground underneath our feet, to acknowledge our worth just as we are.

Let’s be like Moon and take a sniff, collect the data, and mark our lives with our own stamp of creativity, essence, and flair.

Goals in the Time of Covid

Earlier this month, someone mentioned to me that we made it to the half point of the year and how were my goals? And I thought, “who has goals right now?!” Mine have been sufficiently (or so I thought) thrown out the window as I’ve been navigating living in this moment in time with as much ease as I can despite the tremendous amount of stress our bodies, minds, hearts, nervous systems, spirits have been under.

Then I opened up my Moon Planner by Sarah Faith Gottesdiener a few days later on a glorious summer weekend and the reflection questions for end of June/beginning of July were prompting me to look back over the past several months and see what has transpired. Never having been able to predict how 2020 would unfold, I turned back to the beginning of my planner to the start of the year and looked over the goals (I actually like the word “intentions” better…) I had written for myself covering different aspects of my life.

And much to my surprise, some of the things I had written actually came to manifest, particularly in the category of service and helping the collective! Some things of course got lost in the chaos of the past several months, like I haven’t visited my grandma regularly, scheduled coffee dates with friends, nor have I committed myself to a movement routine that includes weights (hello gym being closed!), but it’s interesting to see that many of the things I value in creating a nurturing life have taken hold. And how cool is that?!

How about for you, friend? I often find the calendar year to be sort of an arbitrary way to track time compared to how much more I resonate with seasons and the lunar cycle, but it’s interesting to think about how we are halfway through 2020 and how have our perspectives, values, interests, mindsets changed? What’s stayed the same? What has taken hold as new habits? Where might we need to course correct? Where could we harness and focus more energy?

I often find it really easy to point out to myself all the places I need work. Let’s not forget to acknowledge the positive growth, the thriving, the successes!

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And also! I think it’s important to emphasize that it’s okay to NOT know. It’s okay to not have the answers or to not have goals. It’s okay to not be okay. We are living in a global pandemic and a global uprising after all.

I had a call with some of my breathwork colleagues today and it was actually a relief to hear others in similar boats to myself. That we are all just holding on (tightly or loosely) as we ride through the unknown together.

Sometimes I don’t know which way is up and where the hell am I going. Some days I know where my place is and what path I’m walking and some days I’m not exactly sure but feel like I’m still putting one foot in front of the other. I’m trying not to force anything and trying to discern what is a trauma response of freezing and what is actually me leaving space for inspiration/muse/Spirit to show up with the next right step.

I’m feeling some grief for folks (including myself) who have lost their physical spaces or their ability to do the work in person that they’ve worked so hard to build over the years. I’m also curious about the ways I (and we) are being asked to evolve and reinvent our work in ways that maybe feel more sustainable, accessible, less harmful, more aligned. I’m holding both the curiosity and the grief at the same time.

Art: @asjaboros

*****

So if you’re feeling that sense of limbo or stillness rather than “business as usual” or riding the waves of clarity and uncertainty or navigating the balance of doing and being, I see you. I’m with you.

Whether you’ve thrown your goals out the window or are still working towards them, I see you. I’m with you.

The beautiful thing is that we do have a set of tools at our table to choose from to help support us during these times, so now is a great time to dust some of those off or continue to lean on them. I’ll be doing that with you. Loving you bunches!