Holiday Resources

Sending big love and deep breaths as we journey into the holidays together. This time of year is strong for many of us: family karma, travel, cooking, gifts, gatherings, people. If things are intensifying, know that you are not alone. Resources are here like yoga, massage, and breathwork. A simple practice like 5 deep belly breaths is a powerful way to meet ourselves in the present moment and gain perspective.

As we bring consciousness to witness strong emotions, this helps to metabolize life experience and release inner blocks. May we all open to deeper freedom, peace, and happiness that is our true nature, our own soul.

Your Primary Relationship

Relationship to oneself is the primary relationship in each of our lives. In the years since my divorce, I have been on a journey to understand and embody this. As I slowly adjust to living solo, I explore how to embody the qualities I often seek in a relationship with another person. How can I provide these for myself?

I have learned recently how external structures of a committed relationship - like marriage, owning property, having children, or living together - are different than feeling secure in the relationship. These external demonstrations of commitment have a cultural and social history, but may obscure a felt-sense of truly being secure and emotionally connected with one’s partner. I would highly recommend the book Polysecure by Jessica Fern to explore this topic.

One gift of the meditative arts is that they provide a method to deepen relationship and attune to oneself. I often come to the Buddhist practice of "calm abiding," being with what is, being with myself in caring presence, non-judgment, and equanimity. In times of feeling lonely or down, I lean into the many dimensions of my practice: cultivating a beautiful and nourishing home practice and leaning into the support of community by going out to practice yoga, chanting, and meditation with others.

I find that deepening my primary self-relationship regenerates me and, over time, has created a reservoir of supportive energy I can access within myself through the rituals and rhythms of how I live.

A life you don't have to escape

Our book club just completed In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction by Gabor Mate. Learning about personal and cultural dimensions of addiction, I was interested in the ways we all cope and go unconscious when life is too much. The socially acceptable, legal, and gentle addictive substances and behaviors we all use in some way. Which leads to the million-dollar question: how to create a life you don't have to escape, medicate, or recover from?

It feels like this has been my project for the last 6 years, or maybe since the very beginning. Creating a life that I want to live. One that inspires and delights me, that helps me grow, and challenges my capacity without depleting me. This dynamic balance translates across dimensions of my life: home, work, social, relationships, spirituality.

So much of this depends on my own authenticity. Showing up for the people and situations in my life in a way that is true to me. Finding my voice and sharing my experience. Becoming skillful to change course when needed. Learning to take good care of myself and create a life that I love.

Goddess Celebration

We recently finished a Hindu holiday - Navaratri - nine nights of the Goddess. This celebration has helped me understand my own cycles of creativity. Three different goddesses are celebrated for three nights each, as we honor and attune to their elemental energies. 

Our next kirtan will be a celebration of these Goddesses: Durga, Lakshmi, and Saraswati. I hope you will join us Friday October 25 for a transformative Goddess Celebration!

Durga is the warrior goddess and loving earth mother. Her energy is fierce, defending us from destructive forces in the world and our own minds. Durga energy clears the field, cutting away what no longer serves our growth, the old that inhibits the new. This part of the creative process is necessary and usually uncomfortable.

Lakshmi is the goddess of abundance, generosity, and true wealth. Her energy is a flow of giving freely; as we give and let go, we make room for what can be received. She and Durga both hold us in the mystery, the void just before something new is created. There is an element of faith as we take creative action while releasing control of the results. Lakshmi encompasses material and spiritual abundance, as a full life has both.

Saraswati is celebrated at culmination of the holiday. She is the “flowering one,” bringing fruition, beauty, and manifestation of our actions. Saraswati is the goddess of learning, arts, music, language, all pursuits that have an expansive creative reach. She is also a holy river of ancient India, invoking this quality of creative flow.

Here is a full creative cycle: clearing the land, tending the seeds, and nurturing them into flowering. Eventually, the flowers and leaves die away, having served their purpose, and the cycle begins anew. It can be easy to limit creativity to only the flowering, obvious results. Like our own breaths arise and subside, creative energy rises and falls. Like trees change through seasons of growth, it is necessary to go underground, to rest, to replenish the nutrition of the soil/earth.

Change of Season is a Portal

In Eastern medicine, the change of seasons is a portal where imbalances in our bodies and minds may arise so they can be released.

Individuals with more fire in their constitution may experience this during transition of summer to fall. This may manifest as inflammation, acidity, rashes, or being overheated physically or emotionally.

One interesting remedy for excess fire element is to give blood. It is important to note that this is not for everyone.

In particular, giving blood may be too taxing for individuals who have a tendency for deficient conditions like low body weight, fatigue, or chronic health conditions. Ppeople who don’t menstruate may experience many benefits from giving blood. Check with your doctor to see if you are a good candidate to give blood. You may benefit your health as you help save a life!

Developing Self-Trust

I am so happy to share some expansions today. A few days ago, I celebrated my transition into full self-employment. I have loved working at the Dragontree Spa for these past 5 years. It connected me to a heart-centered community while I worked toward many goals, including creating my massage practice and buying a home.

In a practical way, these expansions include:

  • Friday & Saturday availability at my massage practice

  • Tuesday 10:30am yoga, both in-person and online

  • Taking on new massage clients with special needs

  • More personal time and space to resource myself


I look back with awe at this process of setting a goal, working toward it, and seeing it through into reality. In my younger years I believed that being spiritual meant I didn't have personal goals, that all of my energy was directed to benefit others in selfless service. This ideology left me feeling at odds with myself, that I couldn't trust my feelings to guide me toward my higher potential. Brene Brown observed, "Unused creative energy is rarely benign." I felt this quality of subtle self-destruction as I restrained my self expression.

Years down the path, I am grateful to integrate a middle-way quality in my spirituality - not too tight, not too loose. There is an essential engagement with my life (and I believe, my karma) when I feel my desires and pursue my dreams. Like keeping a promise to a friend demonstrates integrity and builds trust, self-trust develops when you follow through on a commitment to yourself.

Giving & Receiving Compassion

I spent this last weekend deepening my training in Thai massage. Compassion is the center of this powerful and nurturing form of massage.

Giving the massage includes cultivating Metta, loving kindness, and the highest wishes for the recipient. And in receiving this healing art, one receives this cascade of compassion.

I feel deeply nourished from immersing in this healing atmosphere. It was a soul treat to relax, focus, and breathe with a group of beautiful people for three days! Talk about the power of nervous systems resonating together. I am once again in awe at the power of touch to support healing on physical and emotional levels.

One more takeaway from the weekend is that yoga is a Thai massage you give yourself :)

Slow Motion Cures Commotion

"Slow motion cures commotion" is a poem and potent teaching from Zen master Paul Reps.

The frenetic activity of summer begins to distill into the essence of autumn. We have a moment of pause in the Earth season, here between Fire and Metal.

I am seeking out ways to slow down in my life and in my practice. When don't I need to be quick and efficient? An existential question for a Vata Pitta.

Sometimes it's getting out of the car slowly, being mindful of my posture. When my mind is frenetic, I have been connecting to the earth. Focusing my mind where my body touches the ground to be in the sensations of the here and now.

I return to the fundamentals of meditation, which are anything but basic. Repeating a mantra with my breath as I meditate. Returning to my body when I drift into past or future day dreams. Seeking out group practices to cultivate community connection and inspiration. Finding the support I need to practice just as I am right now.

I highly recommend Zen Flesh, Zen Bones, a beautiful book with translations and interpretations by Paul Reps. He had a special connection with my teacher and spent time at Shoshoni.

A Release of Long-Held Tension

Today I wanted to share a breakthrough that happens for some people during their massage sessions. It seems that bodies release deeply when they express their needs. How can we pursue this deeper release?

When someone makes a request or shares about their experience during a therapeutic massage, I will often feel a corresponding shift in their tissues. Like a release of long-held tension. I understand this as a special manifestation of the mind-body connection, an indication that it is transformative to voice one's experiences and needs in the moment. I imagine they are venturing into new territory to verbalize their body experience with another person and make requests.

I apply this in my life when I am at a choice-point to express something or keep it internalized. As I learn my mind-body system better and better, I can tell when my resistance to expression is keeping me small, avoiding a growth edge. Especially when sharing feels like a big risk.

Recently, I heard ego defenses defined (in video below) as temporarily abandoning authenticity in order to behave in a way that you believe, on an instinctual and unconscious level, is going to ensure your survival. As social creatures, it can be risky to express feelings and needs. It is a high risk with a high reward to communicate and be authentic in spite of some internal fear. The high reward is deeper connection with others, because we are showing up in our fullness. Other things in life are low risk, low reward. And we get to choose.

For more on authenticity and high risk, high reward, check out this video by Heidi Priebe.

Processing Through Creativity

Last week I celebrated my Dad's end-of-life anniversary. He was a professional musician who passed at age 47 from ALS, which he lived with for 4 years. His illness was a deeply defining life experience for me on many levels. As years go by, I understand more and more how his creative process helped him through these final years.

A year and a half into this health journey, my Dad was full-time in a wheelchair with a bit of finger movement left. One day, his brain and my hands dissected a computer mouse and we rewired it so he could accomplish a click with a tiny movement of his thumb. He had a head mouse where small head movements would move the cursor on the screen. 

Since he had all day to sit, he worked on an album, inputting note by note to create full songs. Friends would come to lay down live tracks and he would create midi instrumentation. With 30% lung capacity, he whisper-sang one of the songs.

Looking back, I see with new vision how immersing in this final project helped my Dad process the intense life experience that was happening. There is always room for creativity, even, or especially, when life gets really hard. It is so essential to focus on things of beauty and bring something new into existence, in whatever dimension you are inspired. I feel a new understanding of how important art is: how it connects us to the mystery of life and renews creative energy.