A Winter Sun

There was a distinct moment this year when I noticed the change in the light. It was mid-November around 3ish and I was taking a breath from work. Looking out the window, I noticed the slant of the sun and said out loud to no one in particular, “that looks like a winter sun.”

Daylight savings can often bring a more noticeable change in the timing of the sun, but for the most part, I’m grateful the changes are mostly subtle rather than a sudden, drastic plunge into more darkness.

Noticing the afternoon winter sun on that November afternoon hit me with a wave of nostalgic memories of getting off the school bus to Christmas tunes during homework with hot cocoa and the glee of twinkle lights and candle flames.

So while my summer-lovin heart felt a little sadness knowing we’d start seeing less and less of the sun’s rays, I remembered the magic that exists in the growing darkness that arrives every year for a time.

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It doesn’t last forever so let’s enjoy it while we are here.

In fact, after today, the days begin to get the slightest bit longer! But in the meantime, I’d like to leave you with this poem someone dear shared with me:

BLESSING FOR THE LONGEST NIGHT

All throughout these months

as the shadows

have lengthened,

this blessing has been

gathering itself,

making ready,

preparing for

this night.

It has practiced

walking in the dark,

traveling with

its eyes closed,

feeling its way

by memory

by touch

by the pull of the moon

even as it wanes.

So believe me

when I tell you

this blessing will

reach you

even if you

have not light enough

to read it;

it will find you

even though you cannot

see it coming.

You will know

the moment of its

arriving

by your release

of the breath

you have held

so long;

a loosening

of the clenching

in your hands,

of the clutch

around your heart;

a thinning

of the darkness

that had drawn itself

around you.

This blessing

does not mean

to take the night away

but it knows

its hidden roads,

knows the resting spots

along the path,

knows what it means

to travel

in the company

of a friend.

So when

this blessing comes,

take its hand.

Get up.

Set out on the road

you cannot see.

This is the night

when you can trust

that any direction

you go,

you will be walking

toward the dawn.

—Jan Richardson

from The Cure for Sorrow

Merry Solstice dear one. Let’s welcome Winter in with all of its lessons, blessings, and gifts. xo!

Our Needs Change

The other day I was telling my man the plans I had to sign up for a collection of different yoga/pilates/dance classes online, in order to get into a more regular movement practice.

After hearing my plans, he said, “I thought you didn’t like group classes.”

I don’t. Usually.

If I had my choice, my preferred workout is just me and my tunes and the weights at the gym during the mid-afternoon before the after work rush of fellow gym-goers arrive.

But with the arrival of COVID, I've had the hardest time working out with just me and my tunes in my home (we don’t have weights here, so it’s all body weight or soup cans). So my needs have changed. I’m finding that having a set time, date, and teacher is what supports me to partake in moving my body these days (besides the daily hikes at the dog park).

So having that question asked of me out loud by my husband got me contemplating this: sometimes our needs change.

I began to reflect on other areas where this was also true for me.

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Prior to 2020, I found that doing breathwork on my own to my own playlists plus a sprinkling of attending other breathwork groups was a good mix for my own emotional, energetic, and mental well-being. During the stay-at-home orders here in Minnesota and especially after George Floyd’s murder, I found that once again my needs had changed.

I needed to breathe much more regularly and it was really hard to get myself to just lay down and do it on my own, so I signed myself up for weekly groups or individual sessions with my favorite practitioners over the summer. That frequency has since slowed with the arrival of fall as the craving for more physical movement was beginning to call my name.

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What once worked for us might not work any more.

Having needs isn’t a bad thing - it’s a HUMAN thing, so getting good at listening in to what your body, mind, heart, spirit are needing for nourishment and care is key, knowing that it’ll shift and change as we do.

As we grow and evolve, so do our needs. As the world and seasons change, so do our needs.

In the summer, it’s easier to stay up late with the sun and get up early. We might feel more into eating raw veggies and fresh salads and lots of fruits. In the winter, we might need to snuggle in to sleep more and drink warm teas.

In some stages of life, maybe our creativity soars or our hobbies take the lead. Maybe we need more quiet time to process or maybe we need more community connections and activities.

During a pandemic, we might need to offer more grace to ourselves and to our families/coworkers/neighbors. We might need to unplug from the news more or give ourselves more time to reply to emails. We might need more space for creating and we might need more bodywork.

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As we begin to travel into darker and colder days, what is your winter plan? What do you need right now that’s different than what you’ve been doing for yourself?

With the arrival of the holiday season whilst navigating a pandemic, how might we do things differently?

I recently read an article by Priya Parker, author of *The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters* - a book I just read for book club - and she poses a great reframe for what we are experiencing. She says that we have the opportunity for improv. Where we can see the challenges we are facing as an OFFER rather than a curveball. A chance to “reinvent new ways of being together that are safe and still carry some magic”.

“…more creative, phase of reinventing the holiday is asking what is needed from the holiday at this time, rather than the usual question of what the holiday demands of us. Don’t start with questions like, What’s the best way to brine a turkey? Start by asking, What is it that we need this year for this Thanksgiving?… And then figure out the form that makes the most sense.” - Priya Parker

So my wish for you is space for you to ask yourself “what do I need?”, clarity and insight in response to the question, and the resources, creativity, and support to give you what it is you need.

I’m very grateful to have you as part of my community. I know there’s a lot of newsletters and blogs and posts on social media these days, so if you made your way to the bottom of this post, THANK YOU. Your attention and focus here is very much valued and appreciated. Sending vibes of gratitude your way as you navigate this time. xo

Heart Massage

On the new moon last weekend, I took a 3 day Craniosacral Therapy trainging with my mom and was immersed in the study of fascia, cranial bones, cerebrospinal fluid, and how the body is all connected. (And how we too are all connected!)

I didn’t intentionally sign up knowing it was a new moon, but as you know I’m a moon lover, so being in student mode and having a beginner mindset during a “new beginnings” phase of the cycle felt pretty aligned.

One of the reasons I took the class was to learn more about supporting the body. Energy and emotions are my jam and I love working in these fields of the subtle body. But especially this year, I’m being called to also learn how I can more deeply support your (and my!) physical body of bones and tissues and fascia and cellular memory, in addition to the work I do with emotions and energy.

One of my favorite parts of the class (there were many!) was hearing this statement about the heart and the breath.

Because the heart sits above the diaphragm and is attached to it by the pericardium surrounding the heart, each time you breathe, the heart moves with the movement of the diaphragm.

Isn’t the body amazing?

So my wish for you this cycle: when your heart aches (whether from too much sorrow or so much joy), bring your focus to your breath and intend to give that aching heart a massage from the love and strength and tenderness inside of you.

I’ll share more on how my practice is expanding soon, but for now, I’m sending lots of love to you and your heart. xo!

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P.S.
Friday night breathwork is tonight and we’ll be breathing around shadow work if you’d like to join us (live or sign up to get the recording to do on your own time.) 2020 has been the perfect storm of bringing our shadows up to the surface so that we can give them the due diligence and respect of doing our personal work for collective healing. We can’t do our spiritual work without doing our shadow work. We’ll use the breath to help us get uncomfortable, to witness what might be hard to look at, to exhale away any shame/guilt/fear, and hold ourselves lovingly as we peel away the next layer of wounding/healing. Traveling together into the underworld and coming back to the surface with the medicine, lessons, story that is meant for us.

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!