LunarMusings

Wellness Wednesday: Mad at Jon, Preparing Dinner and Like Water For Chocolate

I love my man.  Love. Him.  Like crazy, head over heals, dumb in love with him.  Anyone who knows us in person, can certainly attest to this.  But last night?  Oh. My. Goddess.  I was soooo mad at him I had to fight the urge to throw big things in his direction!  So mad... No... actually, I was PISSED.  I share this with you, not to cross boundaries or to tell you something he isn't already aware of, but to give you context.  (We are by the way, better.  The charge is still dissipating, but good communication skills, and practice go a long way for moving through conflict.)

While in this state last night, I went downstairs to start preparing dinner for us.  I was actually contemplating staying holed up in the loft all night long, fuming, but my hunger kicked in and downstairs I went.  I found myself grating carrots for our salad with a vengeance.  Every time I slid... no... rammed that carrot over the grater, I replayed the story and all the ways I really wanted to respond to Jon over and over again in my head.  Until out of no where, my deeper wisdom must have kicked in, and I stopped, took a deep breathe and put it all down.

I startled myself when I realized what kind of energy I was infusing our food with.  All that frustration, reaction and anger all going into our gorgeous fresh salad with each stroke.  I just stopped and continued breathing, because I needed to eat, needed to prepare food, but didn't want to pour all this negativity into it, and didn't quite know how to step out of my storm of emotions.

I love preparing food.  Its an art, much like all other art is.  We express ourselves and communicate through the things we create, and food is wonderful in that we ingest intention and the life vibration not only contained in the food itself, but in the intent of the person who prepared the food to begin with.  I have always known this, and although there are long stretches of time when the only intention I pour into my food is the pleasure of actually preparing it, I have also very specifically poured healing, love, community and magic into my dishes.  I certainly never want to imbue a meal with my own drama of anger and being caught up in reactions that are sourced from my own unconscious crap!

So I shifted.  It took me some minutes, but I shifted.  I brought myself down a bit, reminded myself that although I was angry and that was totally fine, I was and will always be deeply in love and committed to this man, and what was happening in that moment was perfectly normal and fine.  And that although space needed to be made for me to feel what I was feeling, I also wanted to bring in what I thought would be helpful and healing to us in that situation and what would be most supportive to our love.

Taking a deep breath, and approaching the food on the counter like a prayer, I began to prepare again.  This time, honoring my anger, and bringing clarity, communication, healing, abiding love, resolution and nourishment to help our bodies repair and regenerate after the stress of conflict.  This brought back the pleasure in cooking and also reminded me of how powerful cooking with intention could be. 

It also reminded me of that amazing gorgeous movie Like Water For Chocolate.  Tita's cooking was so imbued with her love, passion and sorrow, that anyone who ate her dishes would be swept up in the storm of her emotions.  I so love this movie, and tried to find some youtube videos and came up with this one.  I really didn't want to provide you all with one that was dubbed in English, because quite frankly it loses some of its magic.  For those who do not speak Spanish, I think the movie still translates!  So just as a set up, Tita, is in love with Pedro, and he is married to her eldest sister.  One day he brings her flowers to celebrate her year anniversary of cooking for the family and in her joy she cooks up a quail dish filled with the rose pedals he gave her, and the passion she feels for him... Everyone at the table gets swept up in the fire of her passion... including the middle sister who literally begins to burn...  such a great movie. 

*There is nudity in this clip as well as an unfortunate killing of a quail*

 

So... how do you prepare your food? Do you enjoy it? Do you think about what it will do in the bodies of those you are feeding, including your own? What is it like to think about it as a healer witch preparing the potion that will create shifts and changes and growth in the bodies of those who ingest the culinary potion? Its an amazing way to frame the act of cooking no? Oh and PS... I still think he's a hottie!

New Moon In Taurus 2009

 

The New Moon in Taurus will be at 8:23 PM PDT.  This is a luscious moon.  Taurus is earthy, decadent, invested in family, comfort, the home, hearth, financial security, sensuality and luxury.  Taurus isn't comfortable with fast changes due to its fixed earth nature, but oh, can this moon be a wondrous pleasure trove for the senses!

Taurus is all about the manifest tangible.  The real, material existence.  And right now for me, this is the fun and delicious aspect of the process I feel I have been going through for a while now.  In the middle of my inner work with lifting and transmuting the walls I have around my ability to manifest in the world, this Moon comes and gives me a sense of play and pleasure around it all.

I have been so angst driven lately with uncovering and figuring out the message of the Magus in my life.  Trying to really understand why it is that I block the abundant universal flow from being free and clear in my life and in my body, I have been mired.  I have been in my head and frustrated.  But there are other way of working through a process.  Journals, words, talking, meditating, thinking... all good ways to work through things, but so is pleasure, sensation, movement, enacting in real time the luxuries of taking care of your home, setting up beauty in your space, caressing your lover in new sweet ways.

What I have been re-membering with the Magus is the process by which we energetically manifest things or situations in our lives.  In short, I have been refreshing my magical skills.  And due to some of the work that I have been doing lately I have bumped up against blockages that have really stifled my ability to manifest specific things in a direct and efficient manner.  And being so caught up with this, I have stopped having fun.  Taurus feels like permission to really indulge in the manifested physical aspects of my life.  And to really go ahead and manifest things just because they may be pleasurable and indulgent in my life.

This is big.  And exciting!  One of the things I have really been thinking about lately is my love life.  My Beloved and I are doing great and have established a pretty consistent pattern of living up here in our new Mountain living lives.  But the other day while entangle in that yummy lovers embrace I realized that our ability to engage in each other romantically whenever and wherever we want is also a colossal form of abundance.  And so it got me thinking.  ;)  How can I or better yet, how would I love for our romantic time to be?  What new and creative ways can we play at creating new rituals, new forms of connecting? 

This is also encouraged by the fact that Spring is here, and my lusty nature is just waking up in such fun ways!  And in ways that seem unrelated, but really aren't, this practice of manifesting physical forms of pleasure and fun, is an exercise in becoming better at manifesting monetary and material wealth. I know that it sounds like a stretch, but all of life is play.  Its all a game, and there is this potent sense of abandon and detachment when in play and in pleasure.  And its those very same qualities that infuse manifesting of wealth, resources and material with a very successful skill.  Its all the same.  And the answer is in the ability to savor, feel, receive through the sensory system of the body, not the mind.

So my intention for this New Lunar Cycle is to play with how and what I manifest.  To indulge in my Beloved in sensuous creative ways and savor the abundant magic floating in the air during this Spring time.  I have my very clear and specific list of the things that I want to draw into my life, and now I am actually going to infuse that list with play and fun.  We deserve that.  ;)

Blessed be.

Wellness Wednesday: You And The Earth

I just got out of the bath, my hair is wet, the windows in the house are all open and all I want to do is bask in the sun naked, and letting the air dry my hair.  Having a real Winter is making this Spring so much sweeter, and what a great way to feel on Earth day!

And as I try to really give thought to what Earth Day is about, and how I feel about Gaia (Mother Earth) I can't help but go back to the Mirror.  You know the one...

I consider how I treat and honor or dishonor my own internal ecology.  How am I doing that to the planet? When I pollute my body with foods that are toxic for me, if I can do that to myself on purpose, what am I doing to the planet?  And so what does my daily care routine look like in my relationship to Mother Earth?  How do I re-member that my self care is the caring of all beings and environment around me as well?  And bigger yet, how do I keep that in mind in a balanced healthy way, not a codependant icky way?

These are big questions.  And really thats all I offer up for us today.  Questions.  I believe that when we live in the questions, we are always moving, always growing.  Questions have a magic that way... keeps us in a motion towards awareness.

So, tonight, Jon and I are heading out to a Sustainable Idyllwild meeting here in town.  We will be talking about non religious, spiritual perspectives for creating and maintaining community as a cornerstone to sustainable living, and we'll learn about the concept of Time Banks - a barter system in which giving and hour of service (of any kind) earns an hour of service in return.  Its community building through reciprocity, which sounds amazing!

Enjoy the rest of this gorgeous day, wherever you may be!

Favorite Things This Week

~Bench Monday
~Earl Grey tea
~Twitter
~ Jesse Reno
~This Poppytalk  shop
~The scent of my Lover's skin
~My MacBook Pro
~My camera
~Brandi Carlile

What's making you smile and feel happy this week?

I'm Yours On This Sunny Saturday Afternoon

I dare you to remain there, in your seat while this song plays! Or... you can get up and move your body to the joyful rhythm of a Spring day. Muah! (shout out to Magdie for finding this jewel)

Wellness Wednesday: The Structure Of A Day

Part of what my new life here in Idyllwild has blessed me with is the time luxury of designing my days exactly as I want.  This sounds marvelous, but has been quite a challenge for me.  My free days lay before me with endless choices available.  I came up here and immediately thought, "this is it!  I will finally design my life to contain EXACTLY what I want it to, do EXACTLY what I want to and not spend a minute doing something that feels like its sucking the soul out of me! Woohoo!  I'm free!"

Well...  ;)

One of the things I am learning I struggle with is this sense of time scarcity.  When I lived in Long Beach I had a J.O.B.  A place that I reported to on a consistent basis.  I had to be there.  And so it became what I thought was a huge hindrance to the things I really wanted to be doing, or the things that I wanted to have in my life, but couldn't find time to do because I had to be at work in 2 hours.  So I wanted to practice yoga on a regular basis as well as meditate, but I would construct all these stories or scenarios about how I wouldn't have enough time if I had to get ready and leave in a certain amount of time.  And art?  Forget it... I had this idea that there was no way that I could properly engage in a creative flow if I had to be in bed by a certain time in order to go to work the next day.  I believed that the only way I could really get the creative juices flowing was if I had unlimited amounts of time so that I could lose myself and go wherever the creative impulses would take me.

And so I excused away the fact that I wasn't incorporating into my day the kind of self care I needed, or if I incorporated the activities that were really important to my soul. 

So then everything changed.  I moved to a cabin in the woods in a small town and I work for myself out of our home.  Every minute of every day belongs to me.  (insert scene here where I am twirling with gleeful abandon on top of some grassy hill) ;)  I eagerly journaled and visioned my ideal day, my ideal life, with all the self care and meaningful soul fulfilling activities I wanted to have in each day.  That list has changed a bit over time but it looks something like this:

yoga

sadhana/meditation

connect with Jon

conscious artful cooking each day

writing

go out and photograph the beauty

take long walks

create, paint, weave, spill

bath/abyanga oil massage

read

administrative stuff (email, marketing, accounting, etc)

And then several times a week, find time to socialize with friends, go out for fun with Jon and circle with Sisters.

This is a lot I know.  And this is what is important to me, what your list looks like will probably be different.  And for the first 8 to 10 weeks of being up here there was no schedule whatsoever.  I was in a complete free-fall with my life.  No structure, endless choices, over indulgences in sleeping, single minded projects and movie watching.  I know that this period of time was important and so normal.  I went from having a traditional life, with a job and structure that was external to a life of absolutely no structure whatsoever.  For the first time in over 22 years I was not working for someone else and I wasn't playing by anyone else's rules.  Suffice it to say it was a transition and transformation that I am still moving through.

But I've learned that structure is important.  And it doesn't have to be something that I feel I have to rebel against or resist.  It serves me, and this time I get to choose what that structure looks like.  I am slowly creating patterns for myself that design my days, my life exactly how I want them to look and feel and manifest.  Its a slow process and I know that I am so lucky to have the freedom I do.  I didn't feel I had this freedom when I was living my more conventional life.  But I know now too that this was an illusion and part of my scarcity thinking.  Because even with all this freedom I have, I still have moments when I tell myself I can't get to the task I want or need to because there won't be enough time.  This was a huge revelation for me, and spoke to a deeper issue I work with on a daily basis about my sense that there just isn't or won't be enough for me.  But that is for another post.

Right now, I have for the most part integrated my daily morning yoga practice and meditation practice.  I do it every morning, unless I am not sleeping here and we are away or I go through a week of self rebellion where all I seem to do is sit around and not get much done. Part of working through this for me has been getting a very clear view of how I self sabotage by not taking responsibility for me choices, my desires and for creating my life.  Realizing this has made it a bit easier I think to bounce back from days when I just don't do anything. So now what I am focusing on next is fully integrating this pattern of morning practice.  I want yoga and meditation to be part of my life no matter where I am.  This is also in preparation for when Jon and I are traveling abroad.  I don't want my self care practices to be dependent on my external environment. 

I am still sporadic or perhaps erratic with cooking, reading, oil massage, administrative stuff, and connecting with Jon.  We are both super self absorbed when we are working on something and so if either one of us is deep into a project, dinner together gets sacrificed, or general connect time through the day gets completely forgotten and we both end up eating separately or at different times, and usually some half attempt at a good meal.

I'm rambling a bit, I know. But I am really looking at this as the opportunity to very specifically design my life, and its not just the broad strokes of a big picture, its the day by day, the mornings, the attention, the rhythms that I create for myself by embracing discipline and structure that I set up for myself.  Again... it all comes from within.  Which in the last day or so has begun to feel so empowering. 

What do you want you days to be like?  To look like?  To contain?  What are the things that are important to you, the things that will shape the life and person you want to have and be?  Tell us, and lets hold space for ourselves and each other as we continue to manifest the lives we want for ourselves.

Bohemian Knitted Lariats!

 

I have finally posted my Bohemian Lariats on etsy! 

Go check them out at Lunar Adornments!

A Little Ogden For Your Friday Evening

Wellness Wednesday: Whats Feeding Me Now

 

~Walking outside
~Making friends in the community
~Weaving
~Lentils and Rice
~Neck massages
~Fire red
~ribbons of color
~hot hot baths with Cedar oil in it
~Sisterhood
~the mystery within
~accountability
~Wellness Buddy
~Sahasrara Im...
~More lentils...
~My Beloved
~The Dance
~The Fool
~Stretching my mid back
~Drawing
~Patty Griffin
~Wearing turquoise
~Smoothies
~Being measured with my money
~Looking deeper inside
~Possibility
~Deep breathing
~Daily Sadhana practice
~making lists
~the one lone dread in my hair
~the way Tucker moans in pleasure as he burrows himself into bed
~Skype dates
~Self facing
~Truth telling
~the sounds of the birds, crickets and frogs that have miraculous appeared after a quiet and cold Winter.

Whats feeding your mind, heart, body and soul right now?

Wellness Wednesday: Aromatherapy

I have mentioned the use of essential oils before and have received quite a few emails and comments about it.  Although I am no expert, using essential oils has been a huge part of my massage practice and my own personal Wellness practice. 

Aromatherapy is the use of volatile plant oils for psychological, physical and energetic well being.  Oils can be used to enhance physical health, tissue healing, detoxification, antibiotic, antiseptic, antiviral, and antibacterial purposes just to name a few.  Scents are also used to enhance mood and clear the mind.  The aroma of oils also affect our subtle energy bodies, povided a sense of grounding, protection, balance and energizing.  Aroma's can be used to enhance meditative states,  open up our energy centers (chakras), realign our center after a long day of chaos or trauma. 

The bible to have for all things Aromatherapy is The Complete Book of Essential Oils and Aromatherapy.  It lists over 600 different oils, their properties, uses for all sorts of different ailments and needs and so much more.  Its truly the best way to immerse oneself in the world of Aromatherapy and for me has continued to be a huge resource over the last 10 years or so.

I have bottles of oil in my massage bag, in my medicine cabinet, in my purse... There are those that I always use and resupply and then there are new ones that I am called to have use for new purposes. 

Oils I always have on supply:

Tea Tree Oil ~ powerful antiviral, antibacterial, antifungal medicine. It helps boost the immune system, great for cuts and injuries, and I use it to brush my teeth!  Yes... I don't use toothpaste, instead I use about 4 drops of tea tree oil on my tooth brush and brush away.  Its a strong taste that takes some getting use to, but I actually love the taste and my mouth and teeth feel amazingly clean.  Its also great to gargle with when you have  a sore throat.

Lavender ~ Always.  Always.  :)  Its a great scent to wear, and for me its a soothing, centering and protective oil.  I use it for massages, headaches, my bath water, and when I am preparing for my Sadhana/Meditation practice I have used it on the palms of my hands, soles of my feet, my Crown Chakra and my belly.  It helps relax, balance and soothe nerves.  A must have.

Sandalwood ~ This is an amazing oil.  Its heady and such a potent reminder of India for me.  It is used as an aid to elevate one closer to the Divine.  It can be placed on the Crown Chakra and the tail bone (Root Chakra)  It opens you up, and can be a bit disconcerting and overwhelming for those who are not able to be firmly in their bodies as well as open to the spiritual energies that can surge while in ritual or in a deep practice.  It is also a wonderful oil to use as perfume, particularly when combined with a less sweet but woodsy oil, like patchouli, or cedar wood.

Patchouli ~ What can I say?  Its the witchy hippie girl in me.  ;)  I use this as a base for the oils I wear.  Usually I will combine this with Lavender, or Sandalwood, sometimes along with Lavender if its a summery sunshiny day I will mix a smidgen of orange oil in as well.  Yum! 

Cedar Wood ~ This is wonderfully grounding.  I use this on massage clients that have a hard time staying in their bodies.  It soothes and is a wonderful energetic shield from drama and energy vampires.  I used this while in Vegas a lot, by putting it on the soles of my feet and on my heart to keep the space around me easy and rooted but flexible.  Its been my oil of choice lately and I also used this in Vegas.

Other oils I have used:

Clove Oil ~ I used this a lot while traveling through India.  Its a great anti-parasitical and I would add 3 drops in my water bottle each day to prevent any parasites from affecting me.  My water tasted great, and I'm happy to say I came back from my two months abroad with no extra buggies on board for the ride!

Peppermint Oil ~ Love this for water as well.  Just one drop in a 32 oz bottle of water can make it a lovely and refreshing drink, especially great in the summer.  Peppermint is also great for waking you up and clearing the mind.

Sage Oil ~ Great for mental clarity and clearing away negativity.  I also find this oil to be protective and grounding for me when I combine it with Vetiver or Cedar.  In massage this oil often wants to be placed in the upper center of peoples backs, just at the Heart Chakra level where we tend to armor ourselves from hurts or disappointments. 

Vetiver Oil ~ Another woodsy oil.  I love this, especially in combination with other oils to where.  This is a very calming, balancing and grounding oil.  Seems to work well on massage clients who tend to be anxious, particularly about being touched.  I apply it to their feet when I begin the massage and it tends to soothe them.

I hope this helps some of you!  I have other oils that I have used and will use over time, but this gives you an idea of what I'm working with.  Aromatherapy for me is an amazing way to attend to the subtle energies running through and around me.  Scents are so powerful in setting our moods, a tone for how to be in a situation or through out the day, and its a great way to hit a "reset" on yourself after depleting yourself.

If you use oils as well,  I would love to hear about it!  Share in the comments below so that we can all read about it.

Be Well everyone!