Meditation, July
the month at a glance...
At some point on our healing journey, we can hit a plateau or even a wall, our previous strategies no longer work for us.
Did you know that it is currently estimated that chronic-illness diagnoses are up 57% and there is an increase of 25% with mental health issues? You are not alone on this journey towards a healthier more vital you.
It is my honor to mentor people through 1:1 integrative nutrition coaching. I offer a free thirty minute Wellness Consult! Don’t hesitate to book your free support call today.
July Member Content: Week 1-Meditation; Week 2-Wellness Ritual; Week 3-VVV; Week 4-Reflection
Do you follow LG on IG yet? There are a lot of supportive suggestions, information, and recommendations posted there almost daily.
To prep for Vino, Verse, & Vinyl this month (oh my gosh, so juicy)…
Vino: Savenniéres, or Chenin Blanc if you have difficulty finding
By the way, it may be worth checking in with local wine bars or wineries if they are interested in hosting your VVV meetings. Nothing lost by asking! I am currently working on this for Highway 28 wineries in New Mexico.
Verse: Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel (this has a fantastic film adaption, too)
July heat marks a solar shift to the mothering and protective aspects of astrology. Cancerian energy is thought to be housed in breast and stomach. The Lion of astrology, Leo, is a fire energy is thought to connect to the heart. In considering this area of the body, Solar Plexus and Heart Chakras, makes me consider how to best nurture a fierce kindness. This month, let us invite in more balance through consuming kindness, both internally and externally.
Kindness is not meek or even, necessarily, humble. Kindness does not mean to people-please or deny the self. Kindness too does not mean to ignore pain and suffering around us. Kindness can be defined as a generous, friendly, and considerate spirit. It is not to be “nice”, as nice can be performative and forced, like a moral platitude.
To be generous, one must exist in a state of gratitude, their own cup running over with an abundance mindset. To be friendly in a sincere way, one must first love themselves. And to be considerate, one must have strong emotional maturity in which their ego does not rule them through reaction over response. These are all tenants of someone deeply conscious and healed (healing, as it is ongoing). Kindness is the result of someone built upon the four-cornerstones of emotional intelligence: emotional fitness, literacy, depth, and alchemy. Kindness, a generous spirit capable of grace, is an outpouring of loving consciousness of one who has been the depths of the shadow and returned with the “elixir” of life.
Speaking of the hero’s journey, where one would have potential to return from the other-world with the elixir of life, Joseph Campbell noted: “The hero’s journey always begins with the call. One way or another, a guide must come to say, ‘Look, you’re in Sleepy Land. Wake. Come on a trip. There is a whole aspect of your consciousness, your being, that’s not been touched. So you’re at home here? Well, there’s not enough of you there.’ And so it starts.”
Consider me, with the radical support of poet Naomi Shihab Nye, your guide to “wake up” from the “sleepy land” of consuming only sorrow and ego comfort, on the journey towards an abundant land of kindness. Activate your solar and heart chakras with kindness, the caring center of your being; let kindness be your nourishment for the month and see where you arise on the other side come August. Come on the trip…
"Kindness" by Naomi Shihab Nye
Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.
Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to gaze at bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.
Meditation
Sit with this poem every morning for the next week. Let it really begin to speak to you in new and surprising ways. Then consider the following questions: Where in my life do I know sorrow, right now? Where do I know kindness, right now? Don’t judge those answers, just observe them with curiosity. After, use the diaphragmatic breath-workpractice from June’s Ritual (4,4,8 breath) for 3-10 minutes. That is all you need to do for this first week to begin your journey to a life of more intentional kindness.
Be good,
Amanda
