Shambhala Yoga & Dance recently interviewed me about “wellness” for one of their newsletters. Sharing the article here as well!

The way I think about wellness has changed many times over the past twenty years (which is when I started to seek and pay attention to this term/approach/way of being in life). At this point in my journey wellness to me means relationship. In that wellness is relational; not transactional. Being in relationship with your organs, body, breath, thoughts, behaviors (or, in other words, relating to the “me”) is often an initial step of wellness and one that is never complete. As the “me” evolves and becomes more and more well, then start to see yourself in relation to others–plants, animals, humans, situations, the ecosystem in which you live or the “we” because wellness expands beyond the individual and into the whole collective. Wellness is about being in balanced relationship, or relating, with all that is around and accepting while also nourishing and tending to what needs tending at the same time. 

Lately, the practice that has been helping me get into alignment is to go swing dancing! 

This practice of swing dancing nourishes my need to co-create in the present moment which is incredibly energizing and uplifting. It also activates deep listening to myself, the energy, the music, and other people. Whether I’m dancing with another person or by myself, the practice of dancing with both established patterns or steps combined with improvisation creates new pathways in my brain and body. It also nourishes new connections and ways of relating (to myself and others) while tricking myself into doing active cardio (which I avoid otherwise). I couldn’t even move my foot into a position ten years ago and now dance is a key to my wellbeing. After ten years of showing up, the “me” is starting to turn into a “we” as a multitude of healthy connections have been made in the swing dance community and are now flourishing. 

As a former “non-dancer” I promise it’s possible to learn! Just like yoga, or learning how to offer reiki, dance is all about repetition and to keep showing up for yourself. If you’d like to start, have someone show you a step, try it, adjust, try again, realign, try again, take a break, come back, try again, see what happens. There are many free outdoor dances in the summer (at least in NYC but in many cities) and they almost always include a lesson. 

There’s a pretty potent full moon out there (and moving through us) today! Emotions may be heightened, energy may be demanding, you may feel stalled or stuck (as a result of the mars retrograde) and perhaps holding on is the exact right thing for today… (or any day).

If you are curious about the places in your body and breath where there are patterns of holding (some of which may serve you, others may not), I invite you to take twelve minutes today and listen to/experience this new Guided Meditation to Release Holding. Release may be what’s needed (or maybe not)… and through exploring this question in the mind, body, and breath, shifts are bound to occur. 

Available now on Apple Music, Spotify, YouTube, and all other digital music stores. (International Release).

If this isn’t your jam today, I have a bunch of other meditations and yoga nidras available, including one that focuses on the Full Moon energy in general. 

Sit or lay down, rest, recover, and give yourself a moment of internal medicine, should it be what you need.

Oh, letting go… easier said than done? How many times have you been told to “just” let it go or to “get over it already”? How many time have you tried to let go of something you know in your heart isn’t serving you? Or are completely unaware of the patterns you hold? Letting go is complex and is embedded into our psychology, energy, and bodies often with the wrapper of fear, lack of safety and harm or hurt.  

If I can control something–a situation, an emotion, a problem, someone else’s behavior, then I can pretend to feel safe. For a moment. Or a day. Until something else comes to ripple through the tendencies I hold. The tendencies you hold too. 

Patterns are not inherently good or bad… everything is neutral. However, they can start to tip in or out of balance… and that tipping point is often a moment when all the internal alarm bells go off. “Wait… let me grasp onto something, anything… let me keep the order in the chaos, let me make something else happen, let me feel something else. If only I could have held onto this, that wouldn’t have happened. If only they could have done that, this never would have happened. I will never forgive them. I will never let it go.” Any of that sound familiar? Or what do you have to add into the cauldron?

In the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali there is a word to describe the practice of non-clinging: Aparigraha. This concept is defined as “non-attachment”, “non-grasping”, “non-coveting”, and “non-hoarding”. I borrowed the definition from this website because it’s easier than writing it over again. 😉 

I have several blog posts on this theme and how it relates to every-day life. The first was written in 2016 and the last in 2020 and here we are again. I laugh at the thought that letting go is not letting go of me. Haha. 

 In the last two months I recognized a pattern in me where I followed up constantly with everyone to make sure they were doing what they said the would. To ensure what was “supposed to” happen. Whether it was my place to do so or not. Not only is this often annoying and confronting for people, it sent out the signal: I do not trust you to do the things you said you would do. For me this lack of trust was something I held onto. If I let it go then everything would fall apart. If I didn’t keep expending my energy making sure everything was moving forward as agreed and planned then… what? Then the world would collapse. My world would collapse. 

With this realization came practice. I had to (and wanted to) stop. 

And… within the first few days of stopping… things *did* fall apart. I was meant to participate in an event but never heard from the organizer. They had said they would email me and so I decided to let go and trust the outcome. They never followed through. So I didn’t go to the event (I had no details of where it was or what time). 

Other wonderful things flowed into that day and I felt every part of me wanting to check in. To make sure it happened. 

I got a text halfway through the day asking if I was coming? I replied, with love, saying I didn’t receive the information so wouldn’t make it there now. 

And, much to my surprise, nothing “bad” happened. In fact, who knows, but maybe the communication didn’t come from that person for a myriad of reasons. Maybe not going kept me safe in some way I will never know. The outcome completely different. Maybe there was no reason whatsoever and nothing to understand. No sense to be made.

This is also a practice, for me, of not being “the responsible one.” I forget things too. I make mistakes too. While I usually am very good with time and following through with commitments, of course, I also “mess up” and things “fall apart” and… that is okay. (I share in depth the concept of working with your inner archetypes in Holding Space to Heal: A Conversation with Holly Ramey).

Falling apart is okay. It is, actually, a necessity of living. Having expectations that aren’t met can lead to direct conversations about how you feel; what harm was done and how will you (and the other person) do it differently next time? “Messing up” requires grace and forgiveness. When someone else doesn’t do what I expect, instead of trying to will or control them into doing it, can I instead express myself and my needs? Can I let go of what I want them to do? How I want them to be? And instead accept and meet them with love. Meet them where they are. Can I do that for myself? (Here comes in the practice of Loving Kindness for Everyday Life)!

Letting go and forgiveness go hand in hand, I’m learning. Because once something has happened, it’s up to me to trust a new agreement and then move on. To not rehash what happened before again, and to reset in the present moment. To actually, for real, let go and trust that whatever the outcome, I am safe. Or not… and I will try my best to make it through.

And, it reminds me that if we can practice letting go with the seemingly smaller things of everyday life, then we have more capacity to navigate the the big ones. For when things do feel like they are falling apart in moments of crisis or grief. The ability to let go at those times… to truly surrender… is one that reinforces all the other practices and tendencies we have developed. To choose to find ways of letting go when you do have relative safety better equips us to move through or break through those moments of unexpected falling apartness. To be comfortable with the ultimate letting go, one day, of death, and to not live life trying to control even that outcome.

I spent a few days last week feeling grey. It was grey outside, the energy I felt both collectively and personally felt grey. A bit stuck and uncertain how to make decisions given our shared pandemic.

I reached out to Holly Ramey for a Reiki + Tarot Session and she helped clear out a bunch of old stuck energy. Which helped it all to move. Helped me remember that not only was this a temporary grey it was also part of a larger internal process that has been going on for some time. That process needed me to rest.

A few days later, my vitality returned and I started to write you this newsletter. My heart laughed because in that place of grey I forgot just how much new growth is happening. Just how many new offerings have been coming through too. So focused on what isn’t, I forgot what is. I forgot to honour those blah days and grey times just as much as the bright spots.

So what are those new offerings?

Holly hosts an excellent podcast called Tarot Talk and she invited me to be a guest. It launches here today and you can listen to it on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you listen to podcasts. In it we discuss various forms of working with our unconscious Self through the dream, bridging that world with our physical one, and why the dream world is so important to our wellbeing. I also share some of my own journey and how my work has evolved through yoga nidra, dream sharing, and dreaming with the plants.

Dreaming with Sumac: A Plant Spirit Short Read also launches today! It’s funny to realize now because right before I had those four days of grey I had just finished sending Sumac’s eBook off to Amazon. Sumac embodies the sacred masculine, the stag, and the energy of action. Among many other special gifts (and potent Vitamin C), Sumac’s fire-y energy helps you manifest what it is you would like to create in life and help you balance your inner fire. I adored spending so much time with Sumac while we were writing. I even created a short video with a beautiful antler made of her berries. Part of me felt a bit sad that our time together in this way was over.

Each one of these eBooks is a birth of sorts and as something new is birthed, something is also lost or dies. So those times of grey spent in between are necessary. To grieve, to nourish and to just let yourself be.

After any time of expansion or time spent in the solar/masculine energy of “doing” we need too the lunar/feminine energy of “receiving.” It reminds me of a yoga concept of spanda. Spanda is the expansion and contraction of absolutely everything. Part of the practice is in not being attached to one of these states or the other but knowing how to flow through the entire pulse of being.

To surrender any attempt to control and instead work with the energy of the moment, whatever it may be.

***

This post was originally a newsletter. If you’d like to sign up, you can do so here.

After four and a half months spent at home during the pandemic, I had the opportunity to stay at a friend’s house for a week in Toronto. Since I’ve been nomadic for the last three years, I leapt at the chance to feel that sense of movement again. To reclaim the traveler within.

I did what I always do after arriving at a new place, I went for a walk with my camera.

As I walked down an empty alleyway half scanning to make sure I was safe, half feeling as though I was, I felt a magnetic pull towards a concrete wall. Then saw that there were plants growing right out of it. The plants snapped me out of my internal dialogue and I paid attention. Noticed. There they were, bursting right out of this human construct.

What did it take for those plants to arrive there? The earth that must be present in the cracks, the wind or water that landed the seed in just the right place where it could break through. Not only did these plants arrive there, they survived and thrived.

As I spent more time with the various different plants I felt their wild nature. Their power, palpable.

It made me wonder more about the meeting of city and nature. This wall, as walls are apt to do, contained, protected an area, separated. Sometimes those are necessary aspects of walls. Sometimes they are harmful. I started thinking of the harmful aspects not just of physical walls: the separation of people by race or gender or religion or anything really, the physical walls countries have built in the name of politics, the walls we build within our own minds and selves. The beliefs we carry as truths.

The destruction of nature.

The plants have occupied the wall. They put themselves somewhere they aren’t supposed to be, dug in their roots, and by that very nature created change. Something in the wall had to give to allow space. Something had to shift and a bit less separation became possible as a result.

Will these plants eventually break down the whole wall?

Will someone put up another or let it transform into rubble?

Breaking down is necessary.

Then I started to think of what we pave over. In the natural world and within ourselves. What parts of you are so constructed by another that you aren’t really sure of your true nature? Can you remember what it is? Before it was divided and developed? Contained?

What is the natural world that was once here? What did it look like? Does the imprint remain embedded within the city?

The plants presented themselves for these photos. It wasn’t until that night a thought arrived to share them in some way. Secretly, I’ve always wanted to offer a photo exhibit. I spent some time with each photo, feeling into the contrast of concrete and nature and seeing how even they aren’t separate. The plants wanted to become brighter, the concrete darker, to highlight even more of the conversation.

So I welcome you to a virtual gallery exhibit, city meets nature: a study of resilience. Take your time with the images and see what surfaces for you.

Each one is also available for purchase on Etsy until December 2020.

How are you?

How many times are you asked that question? How many times do you answer authentically?

Years ago, when I was still working in a corporate environment, I started an experiment.

I started answering that casually asked question honestly every time I was asked. Even in the elevator or walking in past the coffee machine in the morning. Any response ranging from, “I’m actually feeling amazing today, thanks,” to “I’m exhausted,” or “not so great, really.”

Sometimes the response on the other side was confusion, or hesitancy and, more often than not, it’s met with an authentic exchange. I let people know about the experiment which usually put them at ease.

This is a practice I have continued and it’s now so embedded I now forget to hide how I really am from others.

Last week I went out for one of the first times since the dawn of COVID. I had my new mask and was in a place following all of the proper protocols and still I could feel my entire nervous system stress. When I got to the checkout the friendly man behind the counter asked, “how are you today?”

“Stressed,” I responded without thinking.

His heart opened to receive that answer and he said, “yes, it’s stressful, isn’t it?”

This helped me take a deep breath and find some relief.

We chatted back and forth a bit and, as he handed me the receipt, he said, “let me tell you what I tell my kids every night before bed. Tomorrow the sun will come up again.”

I felt my heart well up with tears of gratitude and let them flood my eyes as I thanked him. Reminded and awed in the beauty that can come when we are able to be with what is.

Last week I subbed a yoga class that was recorded. I didn’t realize it was being recorded and it led me down a similar path of acceptance and love, by offering a window into my heart and Self that I had never let myself see before. A window for me to witness the path of authenticity we have been co-creating together through practice. I wrote a bit about it here if you’d like to read more in case it might resonate with you.

Let’s try again: how are you?

Take a moment and feel into your heart. Notice the sensations there.
Scan your body and feel into the places that bring you discomfort and those that bring you pleasure.

Without judgment, check in and see what is present for you right now. Whatever it may be.

***

This originally came through as a newsletter, posted here a few days later. If you would like to sign up for future newsletter updates, you can do so here. No pressure of course.

I don’t offer yoga classes in order to produce content.

You would be hard pressed to find a photo of me in a yoga pose, though there are a few (mostly done for fun and in the moment). For me, these are conscious choices as I’m sure they are for everyone. I don’t record videos of my online classes either. I do write these posts with the spirit of offering, not one of forcing content through a tube.

When I first stepped onto the mat in October 2005 it was only because my Naturopathic Doctor prescribed yoga for me to help heal my gut. I had tipped significantly out of balance in many ways and my body was showing it through excessive candida overgrowth. It ripped through my entire system and every part of me was compromised, exhausted, leaking, and foggy.

Yoga was the last thing my beleaguered body wanted and it was what, unbeknownst to me, my spirit craved.

I went to one class a week for years. Held in community halls and church basements around the town where I grew up and where there was only one yoga teacher at the time.

When I moved to NYC in 2010 it took three months before I was called to go to a class. I went one January night to a studio that became a home for me as a student and then as a teacher.

I had no intention to teach when I started my teacher training. None.

In my mind I could barely “do” yoga and so what right did I have to teach it?

The first time I offered a guided shavasana, I knew. I felt something energize within my heart as I watched my partner relax. I could see her energy settle and lay down. It felt magical and powerful and humbling.

Little by little, I gained the confidence to teach family, then friends (two at a time in my Brooklyn apartment) until one night spirit orchestrated an opening. A teacher didn’t show up for a class I was going to take. I shyly offered those who had assembled that I could… try. Completely unprepared (or so it seemed) the class came through me. Details I would never remember again. It all simply appeared and unfolded and then fell away. My heart soared! The kind students clapped! I was initiated.

What I love about teaching yoga is being present with what is. The energy that each person brings and contributes in the room (or now, on the screen) is different every time. As is mine. Yoga then becomes a co-creation or union between us. Feeding one another. Seeing what will emerge. Playing with energy and helping it to shift. Transform.

A great improvisational, intuitive dance of tapestry flowing, being tugged, shaped, left alone.

What is needed in this moment may not be what is needed in the next.

To me, part of the artistry is in not looking back. Not grasping. I’ve learned through time about my own internal chatter that used to eat me alive, tying my gut up on knots, after a class (or life moment) when I didn’t do something “right” or well (according to my own internal measure). Through repetition of noticing this response after teaching, I’ve learned self-forgiveness. Learned how these “mistakes” are often helpful teaching moments.

I’ve learned that every time I get into my head, worried, assuming that student over there didn’t like class. Caught up in my own stories of not being good enough or unable to meet unspoken needs. Sure enough that person would always be the one to say, “that was exactly what I needed.” Offering yoga, of course, isn’t about being liked. It isn’t a popularity contest. Or a performance.

Offering yoga isn’t about me at all.

The more I can step out of the way and let spirit come through, the better.

The few forays I’ve had into creating meditation and yoga nidra recordings were strong heart-pulls to offer in a wider way. My Heart Connection album was the first attempt at creating something that could reach more people in an accessible way (provided people had access to the Internet). For me, it was a crucial first step in letting my voice be heard. To allow an opening to help others while also facing my own fear of criticism.

When I offer in that energetic co-creation in person or on Zoom, everything just flows. There’s just one take.

I like that there’s just one take. Whatever happens, happens. It’s spontaneous, intuitive, creative, and focused. It comes through my heart, my gut, my whole being. We all take what we need from it, incorporate, release, and move on. This affords me a chance to practice non-grasping.

To trust in the energetic imprint of class that remains and shifts as its own being.

To not look back.

My vibration changes as soon as there’s a microphone and the thought of an “audience”. Suddenly that flow is choppy and I record and edit until it feels “good enough” to release into the world. It’s different.

For these reasons, I’ve always chosen to not record my Zoom classes or to create online classes either. To me a class offering is meant to exist only in the moment.

This past week I got the chance to offer a class via Zoom through a studio. I didn’t realize until halfway through class that it was being recorded. I felt a moment of panic, then laughed internally at myself, immediately feeling grateful that I didn’t know ahead of time and continued with the class. Since I didn’t expect to do anything with the recording, I remained in that co-creative spirit. Class flowed. What came through was unplanned, inspired by the moment. It was authentic. Not forced.

When I looked at the video afterward I had a chance to see a reflection of myself I’ve never seen before and was shocked to feel love. My heart flooded over with love for that person who was just being herself. The person I’ve been so hard on so many times before and in so many ways. There was no measuring stick. No criticism. No pain. I had a chance to see myself doing something I love and standing in my truth. I had a chance to witness and accept myself fully without judgment. This is not something I have done before.

It was an unexpected gift.

I allowed myself to receive it.

Then, from this loving heart, I let myself share it too.

I spent the other weekend in my closet.

On a Wednesday I had an idea appear during my yoga practice for a new meditation and yoga nidra album. I jotted down the idea and names for the recordings that night before bed. Spent the next day dreaming with it and then set to work over the weekend, fueled with an unusual amount of powerful, strong, focused energy channeling through me. Filled with inspiration and radiating, full of potential and excited with a clear undistracted mind.

Using my closet as a sound booth and pretending that I know how to sound edit on my laptop (I learn so much each time). At 11:46 pm on that Monday the album was complete and uploaded for distribution.

It happened so quickly that afterward, I wasn’t sure exactly what had happened. I felt confused, empty, a bit lost for a few days, and tired. After a such a charged active birthing experience, uncomfortable with the pause.

The pause of waiting for the work to appear out in the world vibrated through me with worry. How will it be received? Is it “good enough”? What if I made a mistake? I can’t fix it now. Will people get something from it? Will they even listen? Am I creating “too much” lately? Maybe I should hold back… What if the stores reject it? Was it too soon after the last one? Will they like it? What if they don’t?

All these thoughts interspersed with a love of creation and what had come through, trust in the process, and hope. Hope that this experience of channeling and being cast in the role of the midwife is to be of service in some way. Hope that these offerings will help someone somewhere somehow. Love in the experience itself.

As the recordings popped up in different places over a week later, I felt a sense of stability and then, with a deep breath I came back to center and remembered… to get out of my own way and ego, try to listen, and let go of the outcome. Always, to love. To love the parts of myself that call out within those surfacing questions because that is really what they’re asking to receive and to offer that love to others as well.

To love in the nature of being and connection inherent within us.

My heart now is truly ready and joyful to offer to you…

Nature Connection: Guided Meditation & Yoga Nidra. This new album includes four unique practices to help you connect with and access the world of plants, trees, and lunar cycles while simultaneously traveling deeper into your own inner world. Discover the support you need right now, what helps make you feel connected, and the beauty around and within you while building a deeper relationship with the natural world, your own true nature, and what you would like to manifest or create.

The entire album includes the following:

Connect with a Tree Meditation
This short seated meditation helps you merge with a tree quickly on a deep level. Finding a connection with a tree at your center helps you build a relationship to the tree world and to embody and feel into the nature of our fellow tree beings.

Tree of Support Yoga Nidra
A yoga nidra practice designed to help you explore what support means, feels like, and looks like for you. Connect with a tree for guidance and receive the support you need at this time.

Dreaming with Dandelion Yoga Nidra
A yoga nidra practice designed so that you can enter the world of the plants and dream with Dandelion. Enjoy an adventure and find out more about what community and connection means for you.

Full Moon Yoga Nidra
A yoga nidra to connect you with the energy of the moon, lunar cycles, and the beauty in nature here on earth, beyond, and within.

You can listen to or purchase the entire album or any one of the tracks that calls to you.

Available now on Apple Music, Amazon Music, Spotify, YouTube, and all other digital music stores.
(International Release)

All of a sudden I am fueled with tremendous amounts of creative energy. It’s been like a force from outside moving through me. I was reminded that now is the time of Bealtaine or Beltane!

Beltane is an ancient sacred ritual and rite of passage marking the cross-quarter point in the year between the Spring Equinox and Summer Solstice. A time of that bubbling up of potency from the land below and showering down from the stars above, culminating in transformative, sexual and creative energy ready to start fertilizing any seeds in need of growth. I wrote about this co-creative energy last year while in Glastonbury.

Healing the creative part of myself has been a big aspect of my journey. From being terrified to pick up a pastel and draw to listening to fragile parts of myself that want to write a book and unknown creative yearnings of my voice that I never would have considered until they appeared.

I’ve started to understand more and more how the nature of creativity isn’t just those “creative arts” that many of us put on a shelf as adults but it is the fabric of life. To create a life means to also nourish the energy of creativity within you. To build trust in your intuition. Your voice. Whatever it may bring forth. Whether it’s how you design your day, energy, meals or contemplating the best outcome or solution at any point in time.

The more you build your creative muscles, the more options you have to choose from and the more possibilities you can imagine. As this grows within you, it is shared out into the collective and others also grow their creative potential. The more this happens the more we all start to co-create with one another and with other forces, elements, sensations. If we want to participate in creating a future world, I believe we must each start by healing our own creativity first.

It’s from this place that I am so delighted to offer Your Creative Power: Yoga Nidra Album.

This album includes four unique practices to help you connect with your creative life force (or to just enjoy some delicious time for yourself).

Your Heart Spirit Guided Visualization
This short seated meditation is designed to help you feel into the sensations at your heart, see the elements within you, and connect with your true spirit.

Guided Deep Relaxation
A practice done laying down where you scan and relax your physical and energetic body. This is useful at any time and, in relation to creativity, it can help you find release so that creative energy flows more.

Book of Life Yoga Nidra
A yoga nidra practice designed to help you see the stories in your life you’d like to shift or release as well as the new ones you’d like to create.

Your Creative Power Yoga Nidra
A yoga nidra practice designed to help you discover more of your creative voice, gifts, power and specifically see something you’d like to create in your life or bring into the world.

You can listen to or purchase the entire album or any one of the tracks that calls to you.

Available now on Apple Music, Amazon Music, Spotify, YouTube, and all other digital music stores.
(International Release)

I hope that these recordings serve you well and nurture your creativity.

(If you’d like more information about how Yoga Nidra helps shift beliefs and heal creativity, my book and audio workshop, Yoga Nidra for Everyday Life shares even more about the benefits of this practice).