Dear Tender Heart,
I invite you slow down enough to take three deep breaths. Notice how your body responds to that invitation.
This email is an invitation to honor the Full Moon in Aquarius, Pachamama Day in Peru, and Lughnasadh in the pagan Celtic tradition or Lammas in the Christian tradition, both to celebrate the first harvest, the mid-point between summer solstice and the autumn equinox in the Northern Hemisphere.
What do all those things mean to you in your life?
What is being illuminated under the full moon as you dance with the Aquarian calling of your future self? Do you feel the pull towards more nourishing systems and insights on what’s required for more harmonious relating?
When is the last time you asked nature for some good advice? There may be no better day than today to blow a sincere prayer of appreciation from your heart into three leaves and a flower. What is the nature right where you are offering to teach to you? Are you willing to listen?
As the wheel of the year continues to turn, August 1st is the midpoint between the summer solstice and autumn equinox in the Northern Hemisphere. Can you feel that transition in the nature around you? Can you feel the parts of yourself that are also harvesting fullness, noticing more from all of the sunlight and curious about ways of being that preserve and sustain the life force and growth the sun has offered you?
I invite you to look at all of these questions through a more communal lens. Aquarius is the most community oriented of all the zodiac signs. Scientific studies prove and popular thought leaders like Esther Perel share the Aquarian idea that, "The quality of your relationships determines the quality of your life."
Let’s look at that a little more closely.
Can you make a little time to do an assessment of your relationships?
How is your current relationship with yourself?
Your relationships with others (pick a few people)?
Your relationship with your work?
Your relationship with nature?
Your relationship with spirit?
Your relationship with life?
May this be a day to deepen the honesty, care, and reverence you have with your relationships.
Here are a few suggestions to get you started. When you feel the energy is good, roll with it and let your intuition guide you. If you get overwhelmed, slow down, pause, take care of yourself, and come back when you have more capacity. You can do these in any order and any time!
BEGIN WITH COMPASSIONATE CURIOSITY
Imagine beginning with compassionate curiosity, especially things that are in need of healing. Find the tender place in your heart where you can sense the ache for love and harmony. Be curious about the tender place in the perceived other. Do you also sense they ache for love and harmony? Be with that part in yourself. Speak to that part in them.
You must feet it inside yourself to be able to really connect with another in that place. Vulnerability is where we connect and shame is how we isolate. Can you be compassionately curious on where it is time to step out of shame and where it is time to step into vulnerability and connection?
When compassionate curiosity is guiding you, notice what happens next.
MOVE YOUR BODY, GENTLY AND KINDLY
I offer you a 5-minute video to explore some compassionate curiosity in your body with the circling pillar of a Qoya Inspired Movement class. My dear friends Luci and Sam have been working on a Qoya album for over a year, and this is one of my most favorite songs. For our process in creating it, I sent them a video of me moving with me with my narration guiding someone through each pillar of class, and from there, they created music to match it! I’m excited to share more with you later, and to spark your compassionate curiosity today, I offer this free video here.
MAKE A NATURE OFFERING
After this paragraph, I invite you to close your eyes and feel into the instructions that are for you. You might receive a vision of hugging a tree, offering a flower to a stream, walking around a lake, lying down and looking up at the clouds. You might receive guidance to do something quick and heartfelt or long and ceremonial. In the spirit of Pachamama Day, a day to renew your commitment to deepening your personal relationship with nature, I invite you to listen and feel into the intuitive way that is just right for you to do today.
Here’s a few photos of the many Nature Offerings I’ve made this week!
LUGHNASADH AND LAMMAS
In the Celtic pagan tradition, August 1st is a day to celebrate the beginning of the harvest. It’s also celebrated as a Christian holiday with appreciation for harvest as well.
Maybe you have a garden you can ceremoniously receive from? Maybe there is a farmers market you can go to and receive from someone who tends the land in your community? Maybe you could honor the growth you have experienced the since the seeds of spring were planted?
Maybe you could celebrate your journey with something, big or small, in some way to appreciate yourself, your life, and the journey you are on alongside the one we are all on together?
Over the weekend, when I went to visit Gloria, the creek by my house, I heard:
To celebrate is to love.
To celebrate something is to love it.
Try that the other way around.
When you want to learn to love, learn how to celebrate.
I celebrate you.
I celebrate the way you’ve grown, are growing, and will continue to plant more seeds that will also grow.
I celebrate the depth of your heart that navigates a world that can seem upside down, committing to practices that center love, compassion, and opportunities for healing.
I celebrate the earnestness of your being genuinely curious around what will be the best next step for yourself that also supports the greater good.
I celebrate the awakened part of your consciousness that has space to be compassionately curious.
And I thank for you for going on the journey of this newsletter today. I hope there is a piece that is deeply nourishing for you.
And if you’re in the mood for a one-hour Qoya class, I taught one today for the Global Paqo School Qoya Cohort on the theme of “Deepening Your Personal Relationship with Nature.” I offer this class to you as a gift, and you can sign up to receive it at the bottom of this page. The group we meet with is very intimate and somewhat vulnerable to share the depth of some of the themes we are exploring. Please come with kindness in your heart.
May this full moon in Aquarius illuminate our Mother Earth to celebrate Pachamama Day, to say thank you in the tradition of Lughnasadh and Lammas of the first harvest, and be a reflection of the sacred cycle we are inexplicably woven into. May we find ways to look life in the eye with love and celebrate in small and big ways, in the sacred space of our hearts and together.
With love,
Rochelle