Wild Sacred Journey: day 4

Some days are filled with precious treats that may not look like much to another person. I am coming to learn that it all depends on your perspective. Are you looking for magic, miracles, and treasure? Are you seeing what's in front of you with wondrous and gratitude-filled eyes?

This morning, I was surprised by a beautiful English rose, still closed and smelling delicately. Gifted to me from a garden and a heart. It is so fragile and delicate that just looking at it brought me back to all that is worth loving and caring for in this world. Throughout today, it has slowly opened, becoming more fragrant and yet even more vulnerable... more fragile. And that makes it precious and noteworthy, all at the same time.

Then, later this afternoon, I was gifted a piece of the first harvest of ginger - also a gift from the garden, watered and fertilized with love, given from the heart. There are few things more precious and miraculous than fresh ginger. If you've never had a chance to have some, you're missing out! Ginger takes a long time to grow. You plant it in soil, deep down, and then wait until you give up all hope it will grow... and only then will you start to see shoots. Then it takes more time and more care. But when you harvest it, it is tender - no need to peel, no stringy quality. Just crunchy, sharp flavored, with beautiful colors of yellow, pink, and green, covered in a glorious coat of dirt.

Today is one of those days - filled with small gifts that ripple out much larger than they are because of the love, care, and tenderness they represent. And I see them because I choose to look for wonder and miracles, with gratitude.

Wild Sacred Journey: day 3

Today I felt tired. Don't get me wrong, I got up and had quite a productive morning. I didn't even realize how tired I was until I got to yoga and rested my forehead down in child's pose and realized that I could stay right there for the entire 60minutes and feel really good about it.

Turns out I didn't stay in Child's pose for the entire class, but I also had no agenda and no goals and had given myself complete permission to quit at any time I wanted. And so it was a very peaceful practice - strong, but unbelievably gentle and accepting and compassionate. It felt good in my body, it felt good in my mind, it felt good in my breath.

Then I got home and I was so in my body that eating lunch was an absolute joy - completely nourishing on all levels. I had made potato gratin last night (it's bangin'... in case you were wondering) and finally got to eat it today, along with a nice big salad. I put dried fruit and tuna and avocado on my salad so there were different textures and flavors. Every part of this lunch felt good - senses engaged and satiated and belly happily full.

I was going to take a picture of my beautifully delicious lunch to share with you all... but then I got caught up in eating it. And so all you get is the empty plates. And I'm not even sorry.

We are meant to live in our bodies. We are meant to experience pleasure and joy in our bodies. Even when the news is full of the devastation caused by nature and humans. Even when surrounded by fear and anger. We can breath a little deeper. We can fully validate our own experiences with no need to justify or explain. We can nourish ourselves. And in so doing, we can transcend, even if just for the moment it takes to chew.

Wild Sacred Journey: day 2

As I mentioned in my re-branding announcement post, I'm honoring this new version of me with a post everyday of something that brings me back into touch with the full depth of this wild, sacred journey. Here's day #2!

I love autumn - the colors, the crisp air, the rain, the desire to hibernate coming on - a little bit of permission to slow down. I wrote this haiku a couple of weeks ago and in the warm sun today, I saw a tree that brought it back to mind:

Even in a hot autumn
the trees are not fooled,
rooted in rhythms of stars

Welcome to your Wild Sacred Journey (day 1)

As we can all agree, life is a journey and it takes us places that were unexpected. When I started Fertile Ground Yoga about three years ago, I used a free website because I had no overhead and wasn't even sure this was all going to work. I was coming out of an 8-month period where I had to move every two months. I was only teaching a few classes. I doubted myself and my ability to do this.... whatever this was. 2013 was ending and 2014 was beginning and I took a leap of faith.

The journey of these last few years has brought me to a place I would never have imagined. I have now been supporting myself solely teaching yoga for a little over a year. I am teaching about 10 classes per week (give or take a few). I have led workshops, daylong retreats, and even several weekend-long retreats. I set my schedule. I maintain my website. I come up with material and try and network... when I remember to. It has been challenging and rewarding and so many other things. Every part of running this business has brought up my limiting beliefs. And I have faced some deep-seated fears about finances and being good enough. And I have grown: in confidence, in scope, in experience.

Last Fall, I answered a call from deep within that I hadn't even known I had and began a two-year Integrative Energy Medicine Training. As I began, a little voice inside me knew that this program and saying 'yes' to this new path on my journey would cause me to outgrow the Fertile Ground of my original business. I was right. It has taken a year of being present to the ever-increasing clarity of who I am and what message I am walking on this Earth, but at this time but I am finally ready to announce my new business name: Wild Sacred Journey.

In all of this change, I am still me. In fact, I am more me than I have been in a while. And my hope for this journey is that is brings me back, again and again, to being more myself. I have reached deeper places of knowing the limitless, sacred spirit that resides in this body, And I have reached deeper levels of compassion for the limited-but-still-wondrous human form that I have for walking this journey. And I have a stronger connection to the wild heart that holds space for the intersection of these two truths. Yoga is a journey of going deeper and deeper into ourselves to find the hidden treasures of this life, and what's the secret to growth and cultivation and fertile soil, but this wild, wondrous, sacred journey.

I hope you will continue to join me in practices, meditations, retreats, and other offerings. Information about me can now be found at wildsacredjourney.com

For the month of October, I am celebrating this change by posting one blog a day of something I saw or heard or experienced that reminds me I am on a wild sacred journey. Join me?