We were lucky enough to spend the last week or so before school starts up floating in the ocean and practicing our best “go with the flow” moves in the high tides of the Aquarius Full Moon and the hurricanes blowing past our waters. August is my favorite feeling water month. The water feels softer and warmer than it does during the other summer months. The excitement of summer finally getting here after the long winter and spring(ish) months has quieted down and we can truly let our bodies relax into the energy of warm summer waters.

This August we spent our time offering our hearts to the water and the letting go process that I often don’t let myself feel. Sinking into the waves that lap over our floating bodies, it takes some trust this year to stay afloat. We are surrounded by moon jellyfish, a benign slippery crystal clear creature that squishes by. I can look through their bodies and I contemplate the concept of transparency. What can we truly look through in our lives without the veils of belief systems, judgements and projections dressing up the illusion of transparent truth. We experience the feeding frenzy of striped bass chasing the minnows, chubs, and alewives into shore. I try not to startle and move too fast as the fish jump around us, breaking the silent stillness of dusk with their fins slapping the water. One hundred, maybe two hundred, birds descend upon the waters, piercing the silence with their cries of delight. They feed happily. Aggressively. Freely. It is true joy being out here in the water, just observing. Every day I offer my denser energies through the black belt of my sacral energy center to the water that has been my companion for almost my whole life. I stand solid footed in the warm water, calling out to the nature beings softly, but surely. Building relationship with the energies of nature has become a natural part of my life. I engage in the sacred reciprocity of breath, offering an exchange of my light, my CO2, to the plants around me as they freely offer me their sweet oxygen. My lungs fill, and I hold it for a second, savoring the moment as I imagine my cells lighting up like stars in the night sky as they oxygenate. In my mind I see my own blood deepening it’s rich red tones as it fills with oxygen.

I exhale and let my breath fog an imaginary window in front of me. Ujjayi. I release into the breath and let go. By the time we are finished swimming for the night, our bodies heavy with waterlog, our fingers and toes wrinkling up with the wetness and the cold, I feel sedated and calm. I silently ask the Universe to allow me to feel this serene when I am not in the water. I long to carry the feelings of satiety and peace, wonder and awe with me wherever I go. But I know that in the storm of today’s world, with the excitement and worries of starting another year of counselling in the schools that I may not be perfect at this. And so I practice. This night and every night, I will continue to practice just going with the flow.

Celebrating can be done in as many different ways as there are diverse creations on this earth. It is a personal experience, a testament to your own inner joy and creative flow. Sometimes we flow heavy, sometimes, we flow lightly. That’s ok. A celebration doesn’t have to be a giant event. It is of the heart. Not of expectations and rules. That being said, there is some value in ritual. A celebration held routinely over any period of time assists our mindset in moving forward with those energies. Play gratitude. You become gratitude. The more you play with it, the easier it becomes to feel it. Your practice becomes a learned behavior and you begin to change your inward self to match your outward practice.

Isn’t that a great idea? So make those celebrations as delicious and beautiful as humanly possible! You will reflect those beauties yourself internally!

This full moon you might want to start with a list of the things you are grateful for and some quiet time alone to reflect. Or you might want to do some drumming, some music play to allow yourself to feel the energies of the moon flow. You might want to take a walk, visit a place of natural beauty….the way you build your ritual is really up to you. This month we went down to the beach and did some awesome night swimming in the full moon tide. We played and laughed and became silly as we spent hours in the water just being. Then I made an offering to the moon from flowers and candy and fruits and sprinkles and placed it at my apacheta or altar outside. I called to the moon and to my Rual Kuna in gratitude for all I have been given “today and every day” as I always say. I connected with other healers to celebrate, us each in our own time zone and space. And in gifting the moon my gratitude, I allow the energies within me to have the strength to let go of what no longer serves me. In the quiet playfulness of my space I see behaviors and thought patterns that I really need to GIVE UP AND GET GONE! And in doing this, I flow into the next moon phases naturally, effortlessly. I begin to empty as the moon wanes. By the time the new moon comes around, I will be empty enough to set new intentions of manifestation at the New Moon! I will build those intentions over that 2 week period until the next full moon when I will reflect in gratitude for what has been manifested. And the cycle repeats again. Each month, something newly revealed, newly adopted, newly released in a beautiful dance of balance and harmony.

I am right now in the middle of a beautiful retreat with MoojiBaba, my most beloved teacher and guide. He has my undying gratitude for these retreats, held virtually, from his space in Monte Sahaja, Portugal. They keep me going during the isolation of the pandemic and the rigor of a very busy life. They keep me pointed and focused on my awakening, which is already inside me, inside all of us, waiting to be recognized again, when I get caught in the doings and the sayings of the mind. He reminds me that my practices are still doing and that they can be used against me as another mind attack if I get too attached.

As I wait for our next contemplative time together, I wanted to get out there one of his very important teachings.

We learn who we really are by first learning who we are not.

I am not my fears. I am not my doubts. I am not my belief systems. I am not my awards. I am not my titles. I am not my hate or my sadness. I am not the roles I present. I am not even my memories. I could keep going….What are you NOT?

Getting to the heart of what you are not brings you to the place of perfect stillness and awareness of what you really ARE. That which you are is eternal and unmoving. It is stable. It is complete. It is everything you are looking for and more. This is a felt experience that I want to share with you.

It doesn’t mean you have to give everything up or go live in a forest. I used to be afraid of that. It means you bring that discovery of emptiness, of stable and complete awareness with you wherever you go.

Now, I have 9 minutes to join my prayer group and my “doing self” says I should not be late. HAHAHA. I too have much to continue to discover and engage in this practice. Namaste

This summer isn’t just turning up the heat in our yards! The energies this summer are smoldering around us, lighting up for us beliefs that no longer serve us so that we can see them and burn them away. The heat is giving a voice to energies that demand to be spoken and heard. I see the conflicts over masks and vaccinations to mirror a greater spiritual divide in our country between those who will sacrifice and those who will not. Those who need to work on setting firmer boundaries and those who are confident enough not to care. Evidence, all in all, that we are actually a nation, a world, of people that are healing collectively, albeit sloppily. Let us engage now our Loving Witness and not identify with one side or the other but instead see each side as a greater piece of the whole. For who has never responded with fear? Who has never responded with selfishness? Allow yourself to sink into the simple awareness of all that is you and you see both sides are already there. This is a simple practice, an awareness practice of feeling the Oneness within and around you as nothing so very separate after all. Breathe deeply of the love that is there and come out to the other side ready to help those you love find their heart even in the heat of debate.