Positives to Pruning

There’s nothing like a fall (next week!) new moon to make me want to tackle my to-do lists and get down to business. There’s a crispness in the air and I’m feeling inspired for setting new intentions and clearing out some space. How ‘bout you?

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Our vegetable garden hasn’t done very well this year.

This is our third year of planting and I’m new to this type of growing.

The flowers in our yard are doing fantastic! But our produce production has been quite small. A few snap peas, a pepper, a handful of tomatoes, but that’s about it.

Something’s been eating our kale and for a long while we didn’t think we’d even get any tomatoes. The plants themselves were growing huge and tall, but no fruit! My husband finally took the shears to them mid/late-summer and pruned out a bunch of the bottom and inside branches to lo and behold finally, a few days later, find some little tomato beginnings (we’re actually going to have BLT’s tomorrow night with the one big one we got!).

Oh hello there!

But overall, it’s been a little disappointing and we’ve decided to make some changes for next year.

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Kind of like how this year has been, yeah? Disappointment mixed in with the small blessings and big changes. As always, nature is cueing us on how to navigate these waters of living. Prune. Cut back. Make changes. Create space. Celebrate the harvest no matter how big or how small.

Just like how dead-heading fading flowers gives energy back into the plant to create new blooms, so too do we need to prune out that old stuff that’s not really life-giving anymore. Habits, thought patterns, emotions, ways of being…. what’s sucking your life force and energy??

Of course way easier said than done. It’s a lot quicker to pull out the shears for the plants than it is to do our own personal excavating, so proceeding with kindness, compassion, grace is always a good idea. Finding a support team of practitioners, friends, loved ones is another solid plan.

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For me, I think this pandemic has been a much needed reminder to prune, much like our garden has been this year. I easily continue to do things because that’s just how I’ve always done them, but this time has been an enforced yet important pause to reflect on what really is working and what’s not. What worked before and what is no longer needed right now because of the conditions we find ourselves in? How is my work being called to evolve and can I let go of any attachment to how my brain thinks it’s all supposed to look? I took a workshop several weeks ago now from Amy Kuretsky called “F*ck the Hustle: Doing Business Differently” and it was inspiring to be in similar space with other biz owners and creatives. Being on retreat last weekend (and doing my first in person breathwork OUTSIDE since March) brought more willingness and excitement to look outside the self-imposed and society-placed boxes. I’m not quite sure yet HOW I’ll be doing things differently, but I’m enjoying the process of living into those questions and answers, while also holding any grief that naturally comes along with changes and pivots.

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Letting go, creating space, pruning are all great activities for the waning moon, actually. Which we just moved through that phase at the beginning of the week. We are, however, moving into the fall season next week and that is PRIME TIME for releasing. So perhaps with yesterday’s new moon energy we are still swimming in, we can take a pause for a moment, to listen inward to that quiet voice of Knowing, and after some internal reflection, choose something we are ready to prune away. What’s ready to be shed? How are you being asked to unfold? I’m with you right along in it and grateful we can do it together. xo!

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.