January 12, 2024
Late winter tends to be a difficult time for many people, due to seasonal imbalances, post-holiday exhaustion, and internal pressure to succeed with self-imposed “resolutions.”
This time of year, in the northern hemisphere, nature beckons us inwards, towards firelight, candlelight, hearth, and home, to reflect and in some ways hibernate, to ferment deep longings and desires into new creative impulses and personal growth opportunities in the coming spring!
Over the Yule season, I completed a practice of 13 Holy Nights of contemplation, from December 24 through January 6. This was my decade anniversary of my very first Holy Nights practice, in 2014, the year I graduated from Ayurvedic training.
Each night I imagine the place of our Earth within the cosmos, and from our perspective, the position of the planets against the backdrop of the constellations, of which our people have told stories since the dawn of time.
It is my practice to listen to these stories, to listen deeply to the wisdom of the stars, and to send my prayers out, through the starry skies, to the All Father, the Great Creator, God, True Source and send my Love deep into the heart of the Earth, who embodies the physical expression of Sophia, Wisdom, and through which we have the endless stream of Mother Goddesses and their associated Saints, in every tradition.
This New Year’s midnight was crowned with the shining light of Jupiter, the great Guru, teacher, and joyful wisdom keeper, with the Moon keeping watch over head, having waxed towards fullness on December 26th and then waning towards inward contemplation and a new moon, January 11; meanwhile the Sun held court in the underworld, below the horizon, as it does each night (if only we seek his counsel in our dreams).
These Holy Nights gave me reason to believe we are experiencing both extraordinarily difficult times, with the grief on the planet heavy and the rage hot, and incredibly fertile times, with the veil of illusion lifted from our eyes and the resulting clarity nearly blinding. It is our choice whether we pause in the pain of the clarity – or squeeze our eyes shut and look away.
We have a choice. We have always had a choice. Towards the fullness and wholeness of who we always have been and are, or the brokenness which provokes us towards further separation and cyclical pain.
I’ve done many years’ worth of my own self-care practices, using Ayurveda to support my mind-body-spirit wellbeing, meditation, and shamanic journeying to get to the deep roots of pain in my psyche, and ancestral lineage work, which has taken me to Denmark, Norway, and the east coast of the United States, the origin-point on this continent of my ancestors.
In these ways, I walk the talk of healing, wholeness, and support, and have had my support team reflect to me, that they see within me that I am the medicine I recommend – my plant allies live and express energetically through me, which benefits my family, my community, and my patients/clients.
Over four centuries ago a great poet named John Donne wrote that “no man is an island,” and this Ayurvedist, too, seeks the support of her community healers. I have a circle of allies (both plant kingdom and fully human) who support me, including yoga teachers, massage therapists, Ayurvedic bodyworkers, Core Synchronism practitioners, Shamanic guides, Chinese Medicine doctors, Acupuncturists, Chi Gong masters, Anthroposophists (who read the wisdom of the starry skies through Astrosophy), Vedic astrologers, pillars of mystery school circles, and Christian Hermeticists… to name a few.
And it has been reflected to me that 2024 is a critical year for community.
It has been suggested to me that every circle that forms must have proper boundaries and permeability – much like the way I present gut mucosa to my clients. Ha! And that within the circles that we form with others, for it to be a circle that seeks Truth, each member of the circle must acknowledge their sovereignty as a pillar that upholds the Truth. There is truth and there is Truth. Lower-case truth is a single perspective, it is one-sided, and it is fallible. Big-T Truth is accountable to the whole. It is universal. And it requires years’ worth of silent contemplation to arrive to it. And as with many things worth attaining, the journey is the destination.
The journey also begins to open the circle. Closed circles will eventually collapse under their own weight, while open circles, with an inner striving to attain verticality of Spirit and enlivened Thought, will spiral up. They will evolve, reaching the same point in the circle to go deeper and deeper or higher and higher in thought, deed, and purpose.
This is the nature of true community.
I invite you to join me in true community.
I’m here to walk the talk with you. As guide. As patient advocate. As conduit for your healing. You are the healer. You are already whole. My role is as a mirror, to reflect to you what needs polishing in your mental processes, your physical body, and your spiritual practice.
Reach out – about anything! In true community, I’m happy to share my resources with you, to research for you what is causing you discomfort, disease, or pain, to help you solve your medical mysteries, and to accompany you if you find yourself needing multi-modal care in the face of complicated diagnoses.
Most importantly, I’m here to celebrate with you all the mini miracles of the mundane in day-to-day life. I have recipes to share (my Ayurvedic bookshelves and digital database have hundreds), simple self-care practices to offer, and hands on healing to channel as you rest Deeply. Into. Your. Wholeness.
Walking with you through 2024! Happy New Year!