Month: August 2024

Celebrated as the first harvest August 1-2, Lughnasadh {pronounced LOO-na-sah} is halfway between the summer solstice {Litha} and the fall equinox {Mabon} and is a time to give gratitude for the first fruits of the earth, and traditionally, grains. Lughnasadh is named after the Celtic god Lugh who also held the title ‘Artful Hands’ and was known as a warrior, poet, sorcerer, crafter, and blacksmith.

Lugh was known as the ‘many skilled’, a master of many talents. As the god of oaths, he held domain over rulers and nobility, enacting justice.

How to celebrate :

Give gratitude for abundance : start a daily ritual writing down what you are thankful for on slips of paper, placing them in a jar or bowl, and in adding to this collection, watching that when you reflect on gratitude, your ability to see blessings multiplies! Honoring Lugh, contemplate the fruits of your labor, appreciating your hard work, favorite qualities, talents, and reflecting on what you’ve accomplished.

Show off your skills :

Celebrate the ‘many skilled’ Lugh by hosting a games night. You can hold board, tabletop, or classic games such as chess as well as more modern variants such as charades or bean bags. Athletic outdoor games can include races, tag, and other team sports or friendly sporting competitions {you can create unique silly contests as well!}.

Talent show :

Share what has come to fruition : bring and present your crafts, art, writings, instrument playing, baked goods. Host a fashion show and model your flower crowns.

Collect + reflect on seeds :

Collect seeds for next planting season. Make a corn husk, grass, or plant doll, and next year when planting the next season’s garden bury it as a symbolic offering to the Earth, returning what the Earth has provided back to the Earth. Reflect on how to nourish that which nourishes you, that to let something go means to plant the seeds of new beginnings, and meditate on the cycles of nature, life, and decomposition.

Honorable Harvest :

Robin Wall Kimmerer shares how to harvest in right relation : Ask permission of the ones whose lives you seek. Abide by the answer. Never take the first. Never take the last. Harvest in a way that minimizes harm. Take only what you need and leave some for others. Use everything that you take. Take only that which is given to you. Share it, as the Earth has shared with you. Be grateful. Reciprocate the gift. Sustain the ones who sustain you, and the Earth will last forever.

Decorate your altar with :

Symbols of the harvest such as : Cornucopia, wicker baskets, sheaves of grain, corn husks, sunflowers, scythe, garden shears, the Tarot cards the Sun and Strength, and symbols of your skills / talents.

Colors : tones of a field ready for harvest such as yellow, gold, bronze, brown and green.

Incense and herbs : rosemary, basil parsley, mint, rose, frankincense, sandalwood.

May you have an abundant honorable harvest.

Transformative Therapeutic Touch-stones :

Are you seeking reparative attachment experiences? Were you adultified and never got to be cared for aš a child?

If so, your inner child/teenage parts are probably grabbing the steering wheel of your life in order to get their needs met or protect you from a projection of past harm transposed into the present.

I would like to support you in applying my hypersensitive autistic pattern recognition to bring clarity to your inner landscape.

This week I was the guardian angel to a journeyer with the intention of receiving a reparative nourishing mother experience of feeling safe and joyful.

I combined my knowledge of transpersonal somatic therapy with bodywork and for 12 hours alternated between utilizing my studied intellect to identify patterns in their constellations of relating, while concurrently employing my embodied empathy in excavating deep tissue release of stored trauma, and also smoothing out the waves of catharsis through weaving in more integrative soothing light touches of petting / combing / scalp massaging the head.

I call this somatic window of tolerance work, where we pendulate between naming, releasing, and reassigning long standing bound up patterns with the soothing gentleness of head caresses, a body-wide tidal breathing that integrates intensity.

This high touch work provides a reference point for feeling safe in the body, a Somatic anchor. This physical pattern of feeling loved can then be a touchstone compass that creates the capacity for you to know when you are moving towards or away from this healthy Nourishment. Thus, we create your unique map, orienting towards accurate calibration with your body as an instrument of the subconscious, speaking it’s native tactile tongue.

Emancipatory embodiment can completely transform entrenched patterns, and I am honored to work with you at the evolving edge of therapeutic touch. Please reach out for support or send beloveds who would be helped by an ally this way.

Accessing subconscious wisdom : Dark Feminine Freedom

Emerging from my birthday chrysalis and honoring this full moon, a steady through line is highlighted – applying the depth of my capacity to delve into the subconscious and bridge these mercurial learnings back to the conscious mind.

In work as the founder of Earth Body Temple, I have been observing that the archetype of the dark feminine iš cresting in the collective consciousness. Briefly, the dark feminine is associated with the : subconscious, wild, undomesticated, instinctual, passionate, fearless, liberatory, transformative, fertile void as well as Eros, righteous rage, dissolution, and decomposition.

I describe my autism as a raw exposed nervous system that results in a mind boggling depth of detail in my sensory perception that is exponentially higher resolution than average. This often overwhelming sensitivity is a gift and a challenge and leads to an unusually intense life. 

I am unable to turn these perceptions off, and when I attempt to censor the findings I become a dysregulated canary out of alignment with my justice sensitivity, which gets tricky when the insights are related to interpersonal behavior, hierarchical systems, or the culture at large. 

While learning how to work with this ‘naked emperor’ honesty, I have run into challenges when others are not prepared to receive these vulnerable, revelatory, and life-altering insights. I am learning that I have to discover ways to provide informed consent to those around me about my tendency towards truthful transparency. I am attempting to define this role as a healer-jester or a motivational Movement Muse. I welcome novel frames on how to explain these proclivities. 

Thankfully, the unique gift of these traits can come through to you in providing a deep perspective tracking how your subconscious communicates through your body and through my acting as an ally in bringing these stirrings to your conscious awareness. This elucidation helps you redirect patterns of behavior and happenstance nervous system regulation techniques into directions that are more supportive to your wellness. I apply this somatic therapy informed attunement to provide nuanced perspective in how your subconscious translates through your soma so that you can experience greater thriving through a deepend connection to yourself, others, and the Transpersonal. 

If you are experiencing confusion, wishing to expand your access to your own embodied wisdom, or seeking subconscious support, please reply. 

On this full moon in capricorn, additional methods to connect to the dark feminine include : 

~ Reorienting away from chronos – linear clock time, and towards kairos – sacred, cyclically aligned timing. 

~ Practicing utilizing your intuition in low stakes scenarios.

~Deepening into a lucid dreaming practice {on the suggestion of a congregant I have begun meditating in my lucid dreams and this not only stabilizes dreaming, but also results in Siddhis such as levitation}

~Perceiving life from inside of your body, especially through your generative organs.

~Honoring the night and spending time in the darkness.

As a birthday gift to help me illuminate my path : what unique traits / skills / experiences have we shared that point to my purpose? If we all suddenly received UBI and you could give me a completely new job that has never before existed based on my passions, what would it be?

How does you subconscious speak to you?