Coming Back To Center

It has taken nearly seven years. It was then that we first decided that we wanted to move to Colorado from Connecticut. It took years of visiting this amazing state to find the land that called us home. We are so blessed to have found our Forevermore on a mountaintop in Florissant. We are this lands stewards, caretakers, and guardians. We share these 80 acres with all the creatures of the land, with the mountains and the red rock, with the Ponderosa Pines and Douglas Fir, with the endless sky that is often dancing with Hawk and Raven, with the landscape of Bear, Coyote, Rabbit, Elk, and Mountain Lion.

Moving from a home that we have lived in for twenty years with our five children has been an adventure, a burden, a bore, a bonding experience, a cleanse and so very much more. But it has taken time. LOTS of time. And since there are only 24 hours in any given day, it meant having to put some things down and to push pause.

That meant having to let go of some things, one of which was writing my Spirit Blog. While I did continue to write, to work with clients, to teach programs and hold retreats, this was one of a few of my favorite things that I had to let go of due to a full plate and not enough time.

Finally, I am coming back to center. It feels good to have two new programs ready to launch on August first, (see notes below) and to dive back into my Spirit Blog. Additionally, soon I will begin a new Facebook page called Mountain Medicine Woman. Here I will share some of life on the mountain and some of the wildcrafting that I do and shamanic practice that is part of my day.

So, what do I mean by coming back to center? Think about a time of overwhelm in your life, a time of some chaos, stress, or struggle. We all have been there. And we usually come out the other side, maybe a bit tired, with some new lessons under our belt, and filled with relief that we can put whatever the stress was behind us. But then what? How do you come back to center?

For me, it is a reclaiming of things I had to put aside that are important to me. It is doing self-care to help remind me of how valuable my body temple is. It is pausing and savoring the preciousness of life that I had lost sight of. It is getting back into the arms of Mother Earth and being one with Her. It is re-engaging in my spiritual practice with a new breath. It is remembering what I am passionate about, what brings me joy, what causes me to lose all track of time as I delight in moments of wonder and awe.

What happens when I come back to center? Everything seems to re-align. My energetic vibration glows with positivity. My body shines with strength and health. My thoughts are alive with possibilities. My heart-space grows and the Universe responds.

Yes, we all can get pulled off track. We all can get buried in tasks. We all can be slammed by stress. It is part of life. I don't know how to live life fully and not have this happen once in awhile. But, it is a choice on what we do after the storm. Coming back to center is the best soul medicine I can choose for me. And the better I care for me, the better I can be in soul service.

If you are interested in my newest programs, visit The Shamanic Priestess Path or The Quest of the Shamanic Priestess under programs on my website, www.womenwithinsight.com

Food for the Soul

I often notice that whenever someone I care about is suffering self-care has fallen by the wayside. I notice that getting a good night's sleep, some kind of exercise or body movement, making healthy choices in food and doing something that they enjoy and brings them pleasure are not even considered. I also notice that these are the very same things that people lose sight of when they become too busy.

We live in a society that is success driven. We are often seeking happiness. Almost any conversation can lead to beauty or health. And yet, we don't seem to understand the connection, or perhaps it is the disconnect, of nurturing the body, mind and soul.

Years ago, I had a professor who shared with me his belief that in order for someone to truly feel whole, to experience well being and to obtain happiness they needed to tend to the needs of the body, mind and the soul, not just one or two, but all three together. Leaving any one of these unattended would prevent fulfillment and one would always feel something was lacking.

You don't have to look to far to find ways to nurture your body. There are plenty of resources that will enlighten you to what your body needs to obtain the just right weight, activity and rest. Additionally, there are so many options one can chose to help bring rest to the mind, positivity to the thoughts, challenges to expand and keep alive the brain and distraction to relieve stressful thoughts.

But often we struggle with finding what it is we need to feed our soul. What satisfies it? What delights it? What gives it pause to rest? How do we engage with it on a daily basis and tend to its needs? For each of us there are different answers to these questions. But, just asking the questions is part of the honoring. Be assured the answers will come in time.

There are some "tools" that I have found that help me uncover my soul's needs. Nature is the perfect environment. There is something about taking a hike or sitting beneath a tree or swinging in a hammock that unlocks the door the conversation with the Universe. Here I am able to entertain the ideas that bubble up of what I need or long for, what delights me and how can I find ways to invite this into my day.

Writing in a journal often gives my soul voice. Slowly the words come together to explore the possibilities of what I could do with my free time or what my spiritual practice desires. Within the lines of my journal I begin to see a pattern forming and the solution to my situation presents itself and I am able to manifest something of value.

Taking the time to nurture our soul is as equally important as the time we spend taking care of our body's needs and our mind's thoughts. This time spent will enrich our day and our spiritual practice. It will help us feel more and more whole, happy and full. The balance becomes complete and the world responds in kind with more and more possibilities for us to embrace to maintain our well being.

Blessings, Lisa

Sacred Kitchen Alchemy

How do you honor your body temple? How do you listen to your body's messages? In what ways do you bring your spirituality into your kitchen? Do you prepare your foods thinking about the energies that they will bring to your body, mind and soul? Perhaps it is time to bring sacred kitchen alchemy into your home.

What is sacred kitchen alchemy? It is a way of recognizing that every item of food we eat contains essential energies. Understanding these energies and how they can serve us is the everyday magic we have access to. Understanding that eating mindfully is about far more than counting calories. It is about choosing foods that serve our body well. It is about intention setting. It is about recognizing that eating seasonally insures we are getting the most nutrition that food item can offer us. As we learn to listen to our body and soul's needs, we then can respond accordingly.

Sacred kitchen alchemy is also about bringing some of your spiritual practices into your kitchen. Ritual is a part of our day already. We celebrate with food during holidays and on special occasions. But making the "ordinary" days special with ritual brings a mindfulness to our meals. We can honor ancestors, celebrate the season, invoke certain energies, awaken our senses with different plant spirit energies through spices and vibrant produce and more.

Color magic is an important aspect of sacred kitchen alchemy as well. Every color offers us its own unique energies. Knowing what these are, we can make food choices to generate these energies within and we can decorate our tables in specific colors to create that energy as well. There are so many possibilities.

The season and the phases of the moon can be celebrated and explored  in sacred kitchen alchemy. Recognizing these and incorporating their celebrations brings a new awareness to our food preparation and meal choices. Each moon honors a new cycle, each season an new phase and our bodies respond in harmony.

We often find ourselves in a rut when it comes to mealtime. Or in our busy lives we find we make poor choices when it come to honoring our body through food. Bringing an awareness to our meals, our food preparation and our body, mind and soul's needs creates a relationship with the sacred and cooking. Delight, honor, intention and wonder can be a part of what is often looked at as ordinary and mundane.

To learn more about Sacred Kitchen Alchemy and to join in an upcoming 4 week program, beginning March 8th, visit http://www.womenwithinsight.com/sacred-kitchen-alchemy/

Blessings, Lisa

The Sacred Ritual

As a ritualist I often will turn to my practice to bring alignment to my needs with my hopes, to highlight intention in my actions, or to shed awareness to my words. Doing so establishes an honor to my efforts and an energy to them as well.

Rituals can be found in many spiritual books and websites. My most favorite and often most effective are those though that come from my own being as they have my breath in them, my heart and passion and my longings and awareness. Some rituals have many layers to them and can be quite deep in process and ceremony, while others gain tremendous power from their simplicity.

Rituals can be done to honor seasonal intentions, life's rites of passage, healing opportunities and more. They can be done at specific times of the day, phases of the moon or during significant life stages. I think that rituals can be as unique and splendid as the person acting upon them.

For some, the word ritual creates a snag, yet we are surrounded by them in our day to day lives. Many have rituals that they perform around the holidays, for example. Take the kissing beneath the mistletoe or the breaking of a turkey's wishbone, these are rituals. Rituals can be done at life events such as the tossing of the bride's bouquet at a wedding or the showering of a mother to be at a baby shower. Rituals also can be quite sacred and based on a person's spiritual practice, such as the various rituals we perform at the time of a loved one's death.

The next time you are facing a major life event, try creating a ritual that can honor this passage. Bring to the ritual specific intentions, honor from where you have come and to where you are going on your life's path, or choose symbolism that helps embody the essence of this time for you.

Perhaps a ritual can be created to honor an intention you are setting for yourself. Where do you want to focus your energies? Are there colors that, for you, create powerful meaning about this? If so use them. Is there an action that you can do that embodies this intention that you can incorporate into your ritual?

Bringing your creative self to your ritual planning allows you to incorporate so many different things that can have great meaning to you; music, family artifacts, images, colors, flowers, crystals, food and more.

Bring your playful soul out and allow it to dance with the sacredness of your ritual. See what comes to mind, what awakens and what longs to be honored. Whether it be small and private or more festive and community based is up to you, but the sacred act of bringing ritual to your practice can create a tremendous amount of power, healing, beauty and celebration to your moment of recognition. It will most certainly create a memory making event out of it so that you can often recall the intent of the moment, the special role it played in your life and the way in which your brought your soul's energies to your spiritual practice and life event.

Blessings, Lisa