Dear Heart,
I am so grateful that for a few sweet moments you and I are able to gather in this place of shared awareness. I hope that there is something here for you that reflects, resonates, and celebrates the life you are living.
I've been in a more reflective place recently approaching my birthday, celebrating it, and visioning my next journey around the sun. The thing I have been reflecting on is life itself. Life force. Cycles of life. Cycles of transformation. Cycles of death. Cycles of rebirth. How all of nature cycles, how all of life cycles. I was voice dictating something into my phone about the beauty of flowers as they wither, and my phone turned "wither" into two words: with her. My heart dropped towards my feet as I felt the energy of divine wisdom. I love how some refer to the Goddess who goes by 10,000 names, the great cosmic mother, the infinite possibility of the womb, the nourishing energy that is holding space for each and every one of us on our journey of life. With her.
How do you/me/we expand our capacity to hold space for the fullness of life? I think the days habituated on control and contraction are withering. I sense you/me/we are building our capacity and trust towards a deeper embodied knowing and reverence for impermanence and the inherent nature of change that is built into the reality of life.
Can you feel it?
Can you feel the life force that animates your body and animates all of life around you yearning to LIVE?
I saw it last week in a group of pre-school children. The night before my birthday weekend was my son's pre-school end of the year celebration. They were so alive! Shining light like fireflies, radiating their being into the world as naturally as the sun itself. Being witness to this playful carefree emanation of joy was such a good medicine for my heart and gratefully also a foreshadowing of my own end of the school year celebration. The school year of age 42. (Here’s a video of this joy.)
In a nervous system course I’m taking, there's an exercise to notice when your body feels the most safe. Safety in this context is not necessarily about assessing threat. It's more about building capacity to notice: when do I feel safe inside myself? In what places, with what people, doing what things is it easiest for me to attune to the goodness inside myself and in the world around me? When can I release hyper-vigilance and bracing? When do I authentically feel myself shift into a place of allowing, of flow and ease?
The prompt was to think about a place from your childhood first. I started to tear up because the place I felt the most safe growing up was dance class. In the midst of the chaos of life, there was a place where I felt I could regulate my nervous system by moving energy, authentically expressing myself, and feeling connected to something bigger than myself in the group energy. Dance class for me was a refuge, a sanctuary, an honest place to be with and create art out of life's myriad moments.
I cherish the opportunity to have received this gift of regulation through movement and now to offer it to others. I also cherish the opportunity to receive moments in time when the music, the setting, and the people align, and I can surrender to the dance of life moving through me and all around me.
With this awareness swirling and spiraling around, it felt aligned to honor the last year and be ushered into the next dancing for four hours to the music that most uniquely touches my heart, mind, body, and soul. For this birthday, I chose to receive the gift I most love to give: an opportunity to dance! Getting by with a little help from my friends, we went for it with an overnight trip to Chicago to see the Grateful Dead/Dead & Company Show at Wrigley Field. It was epic. I danced and immersed my whole mind, body, heart and soul.
Last year was the first time I heard the term "deadheading" when referring to gardening. I took it to another place and started listening to the Grateful Dead as I worked in the garden and tended the flowers. For anyone who's not familiar with the term:
Deadhead (verb): to remove dead flower heads from a plant to encourage further blooming; (noun) a person who enjoys the music of the Grateful Dead and in doing so, is often inspired to dance, removing stagnant energy to encourage further blooming.
This is it!
I want to be grateful when I'm dead and grateful when I'm alive.
I want to be willing to more gracefully release what is already gone and open up energy for more life force to move through for the new growth that is also happening.
I want to be able to courageously move in the direction of my own aliveness.
And so it is. For you, for me, and for all who are able to choose it.
The concert was on June 10th, so when I laid down in bed on my birthday, my cup was full. I woke up the next morning to my favorite weather (mist). As I walked to make an offering to Lake Michigan, I felt the strong wind in my hair and moving my shirt. I took a moment to let my arms open up and receive the transmission of the wind. As someone with a lot of air in my chart (Gemini sun, Gemini moon, and Gemini Venus), I started to tear up when I got it. The wind was a reflection of my own inner movement. What a gift to come and reconnect to the Windy City, to the heartland.
Nature is the master nervous system regulator because of the way it infuses us with life force. Nature is the master teacher on how to hold space for the teachings of cycles and change. And Nature is the master at holding space for us, humanity to live.
I offer gratitude for my life and for yours.
I offer gratitude to the landscapes that restore my soul and the ones that restore yours.
I offer gratitude for the opportunity to dance and through movement, remember.
I offer gratitude for all of the ways that you/me/we hold space for each other.
I offer gratitude for the potency of prayer I feel move through my body in a Qoya Inspired Movement Class, a Nature Offering, and the Rituals we gather for.
I offer gratitude for each and every time you/me/we feel supported in the fullness of the life we are living.
Under this new moon in Gemini, known for its adaptability, curiosity, dance with duality, and magic making, may your life be blessed as you dance in the direction of your own aliveness.
With so much love,
Rochelle
p.s. Our Early Bird Discount for the Peru Retreat is available through June 30th! Click here to learn more about the retreat and apply for a spot.