The time has come for us to move!
Change can be hard + scary. But fear not. Change invites growth.
And so you can find us here, at our new home >>> http://www.animaldelatierra.com
Stop by on your travels. Rest your feet and take a deep breath. There are many more stories to be shared!
*Que exit music*
This past weekend was the start of the ten-month clinical program in Ayurveda at the dhyana Center. Two full years have passed since I have been a student new to the teachings of Ayurveda, just trying to find my voice. Now I am assisting the teacher and taking part in learning and practicing more advanced body work therapies alongside her. Each day I am blown away by how much has changed in such a small amount of time. And each day I am pleasantly surprised by what I am learning from perfect strangers, who quickly become adored allies.
What has perhaps been the steepest learning curve for me, in my studies of Ayurveda, has hands-down been pulse. To even explain what pulse is to someone who has never had their pulse read by anything but a heart monitor began as a challenge. Fortunately enough, my teacher is one of the few who still teaches pulse. Her explanation of the art and science has been refined over more than twenty years of searching for words to inform students of what they are reading on the blood vessel.
My teacher simply says, pulse is the oldest form of blood cell analysis. If we were to hook up a heart monitor to the patient as we were reading their pulse, we would have a technological avenue backing up our findings. The truths that can be found in reading someone’s blood vessel are much more felt by the person when they are relayed by human hands, hearts and minds. And what I am so giddy about is that when it comes to reading pulse, one can’t just go in, read and monologue the patient’s health history. Pulse requires a real dialogue between practitioner and patient for any real truth to be revealed. It requires the person who is reading to be sensitive and realistic about what core piece of information this person needs to hear to change their story in the place where they are ready for change. And it requires, and this bears repeating, the person receiving the reading to be honest and true to themselves about what sadhana or routine suggested to them that they will go home and do.
People want to change. People seriously know and can distinguish their beneficial routines from a bad habit. And people are eager to hear a core piece of information about their health that could take them one step further in a direction of health. However, people don’t always assimilate and absorb the medicine they are being turned onto. They don’t always take action. Even when they know that doing it is good for them! As students of medicine, practitioners or doctors, it is not our responsibility to force change on them. It is not our place to tell someone what they should be eating, or how they should be living. Firstly, we don’t know what its like to be in their bodies. And secondly, that is a grand expectation that we may be brewing if we ever find ourselves holding onto the perspective that we can actually change a health story for someone.
To refrain from launching into philosophical foundations of the breath and I am, I’ll simply say that our place as students of this medicine is to witness. To observe, through pulse, what conditions someone’s health is in. And from there, to be neutral about what it is in what we are witnessing for us to share with them. If we go in holding any expectation of changing someone because we know what they need, we may hit our own wall as well as theirs, because we have gotten in the way of observing what is. We have formed a belief of what is, and our view has been distorted. Even if what we see is a perfectly happy and healthy person, we are holding ourselves in belief. Not in reality.
Just a few last words on this phenomenon that is pulse; “the bloodsong” as my teacher calls it. The steep learning curve of learning pulse is honestly a wave I’m still riding, but when I first heard about murmuration, all kinds of crazy nonsense began making conceivably-crazy-sense. If you’ve never heard of murmuration, I recommend highly you visit this link:
http://www.wired.com/2011/11/starling-flock/
Best understood by cutting-edge physics, murmuration is the highly misunderstood act of a flock of a starlings thousands strong, creating a beautiful show of unity and unbelievable precision as they move across the sky, as one.
An article I found about murmuration states this:
At the individual level, the rules guiding this are relatively simple. When a neighbor moves, so do you. Depending on the flock’s size and speed and its members’ flight physiologies, the large-scale pattern changes. What’s complicated, or at least unknown, is how criticality is created and maintained.
It’s easy for a starling to turn when its neighbor turns — but what physiological mechanisms allow it to happen almost simultaneously in two birds separated by hundreds of feet and hundreds of other birds? That remains to be discovered, and the implications extend beyond birds. Starlings may simply be the most visible and beautiful example of a biological criticality that also seems to operate in proteins and neurons, hinting at universal principles yet to be understood.
Hear that? The phenomena of murmuration also seems to mirror the way proteins and neurons operate in the body. Hmm.
I guess what I’m trying to say here is that what is going on inside the body can seem like a complex equation, but it always adds up. We simply need to remember that common phrase, “as above, so below.” There is always cause for each effect. Our health or lack thereof can be broken down into a series of logical equations the same way the united front of a flock of starlings can be seen and understood by the movement of each individual bird and its neighbor.
But overall, our body is a whole. The movement of one part, affects the next. And on and on.
Posted in Complementary Medicine, Healing
This past Spring, while the birds and bees were out buzzing about, I was in a classroom taking an Anatomy and Physiology course. On a particular class, a licensed Acupuncturist, Herbalist and Medical Qigong practitioner came in to talk with us about Chinese Medicine theory, Western Medicine, Acupuncture, Herbology, Nutrition, and very importantly, “the birds and the bees.” In short, she questioned where we stand physiologically and mentally with our own sexuality. Bet you didn’t expect that to be brought up at an Anatomy and Physiology course. Well, neither did I…but it did turn out to be the greatest A&P class I’ve ever taken!
We gathered in a circle to share stories, and watched an enactment between practitioner and client, and seriously played with our wonderment at the birds and the bees. And more specifically, why do we culturally refer to sex as the birds and the bees?
Birds build nests to prepare for their offspring and bees are busy bumbling to all the pretty flowers in the neighborhood, spreading pollen so that plants can reproduce. The magical work of these animals is definitely overlooked if we only work with their nature when we’re educating about sex. Don’t get me wrong, sex is important for our well being physiologically and mentally when we share a healthy outlook on it. I joke around with my friends about the statistics you hear of young men who think about sex every ten seconds. I don’t joke about it in any way that would be shameful, but I just wonder, what if every ten seconds, boys were literally thinking about birds and bees? If this were our reality, I believe the awareness around colony collapse disorder and rapidly disappearing species would be spread around the world so fast, we would have a cure to save all the birds and the bees in one day.
Juliette de Bairacli levy has said, “where bees can live, man can live. With the bees disappearing, this is a warning. Man cannot exist without the bees.”
I recently came across a very special woman who likely thinks about the birds and the bees more often than anyone else; and has transformed her vision into magical, healing action. The woman’s name is Sophia Rose. She is the founder of La Abeja Herbs, which is Spanish for The Honeybee. Sophia is an herbalist, a nomad, an inspiration. This is her completely true story of how she came to find love in the honeybees:
La Abeja was borne out of the passionate devotional love I felt and continue to feel for Honeybees. In 2011 I was completing training and clinical residency at the North American Institute Of Medical Herbalism. At that time I was in the clinic seeing clients a couple days a week and in the midst of writing my thesis, the Magikal + Medicinal Uses of Solomon’s Plume. My greatest joy that year was gathering and crafting all of the wild medicines for the clinic’s apothecary. I felt as though I had truly found my calling. Up until that point in my life, I’d felt that my Soul’s Path had been fairly clear–I’d always known my next step, even if only vaguely. But as my graduation from NAIMH drew near, I felt totaly uncertain as to how I wanted to proceed, as an herbalist or otherwise. One evening, I was alone in my bedroom–high up in the Rocky Mountains–four months into the punishingly windy subzero Winter. I was watching Queen Of the Sun, a movie about colony collapse disorder and the implications of life without bees. I was suddenly overcome with a mix of grief and joy and fervor. Tears streamed from my eyes and I clutched at my breast, gasping. And while I was moved by the film, it wasn’t the reason for my tears. They were, rather, the result of my realization that I was meant to devote myself, totally, to the stewardship of Honeybees.
Photo Courtesy La Abeja Herbs
La Abeja Herbs is currently stewarding the growth and continuation of life for all in many unique places. I would joyfully travel to any one of these places Sophia Rose calls home to meet her and collaborate with the work of La Abeja Herbs. I hope we cross paths soon, though I can’t say where. Honeybees are so footloose, they can’t be pinned onto a map. Again, these are animals which hold up a radical mirror reflection of our own nature. It seems, most of us have forgotten what the birds and the bees really stand for: growth, regeneration, healing and interdependence with all life.
It’s time we listen closer to the softest and sweetest sounds of those creatures who we surely couldn’t live without. You can learn more about the work of La Abeja Herbs here. And you can find more information about how you can help the bees here.
Photo Courtesy La Abeja Herbs
For all of those things in your life that you delight in, and maybe don’t always remember to share your gratitude for having it in your life, thank the birds and the bees. What world would this be without them? What would we think about every ten seconds without them?
When learning a new language, any good teacher will stress the importance of immersing yourself in it. You can do this by surrounding yourself with fluent speakers who will aid your brain in truly taking in whatever new way of communicating you’re studying. This way, you’re not just learning it; you’re living it.
Photography and Art by The Lexicon of Sustainaibility
My absolute favorite source for immersing myself in the language of sustainability is The Lexicon of Sustainability. The photograph you see above was created by the Lexicon as a project to help students discover and reconnect with their local food systems called “Project Localize”. The project has been a huge success and continues to inspire students and teachers to take their knowledge into their collective community and strike a match for sustainable change in their local food production system. I urge you to sit down and take some time to browse the education that The Lexicon of Sustainability has made easily accessible through picturesque scenes translated into just-the-right-combination-of words and short documentary videos available on their website. Find the beauty here: http://www.lexiconofsustainability.com/
Photography and Art by The Lexicon of Sustainaibility
I’m especially excited by their work because many of the farmers, ranchers, lexicographers, artists and researchers happen to have roots near my native habitat. This means that when I gaze out on the land that holds my heart and that still holds many mysteries for my mind, I smile to imagine these caretakers making change happen right over the next hillside. And as the effect of their efforts ripples out, I’ll feel and see the change in my homeland. Their research is thorough and their practices are the product of trial and error and an earnest desire to preserve the health of this place for the next, (hopefully) more sustainable generation. Their work is multi-faceted and unique to their livelihood, and similarly compelled by the Ancient saying, we do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.
Photography and Art by The Lexicon of Sustainaibility
So now that you know what awaits you at your fingertips, (as there is a true abundance of information on the language of sustainability once you decide its time to immerse yourself in it!) I’m going to change the subject, unfold a layer, or even be so bold as to pull on this thread and see where it’s connected to the rest of the world. Because frankly I can’t help but connect these random tangents that excite me back to the source that wells in my heart. Now, are you ready?
Here we go!
The one thing that all of these innovators, pioneers, and educators whose stories are shared on The Lexicon have in common is that they have dedicated themselves to undergoing an immersion in what makes their hearts beat and their minds race so that they can lead by example. The immersion I undergo in learning my beloved languages of Ayurveda and Animals is for one sole purpose: to learn to live it so I too can lead by example.
Photography and Art by The Lexicon of Sustainaibility
It is a simple lesson, but also a constant, difficult one: Those of us who want to change the world are told that we must first change ourselves. And those of us who stumble awkwardly and fall down constantly trying to be that change we want to see in the world then ask, (something like) “how did Ghandi make this look so easy?!” And the answer we receive is more often than not, “Why are you asking me? I don’t know. He was just being Ghandi.” However soon enough we inevitably find that Ghandi, for instance, didn’t just speak the language of change with grace, but he lived it with all of its growing pains. Finally then, the story of free and easy living and saving the world is demystified as we find it’s time to let go of wishing we could only be Ghandi, for example, and decide to learn to live this language that speaks graceful truth.
And so the fun begins!
Elizabeth Gilbert wrote in her groundbreaking novel Eat, Pray, Love as she set out to change her relationship to pleasure, devotion, and balance in Italy, India and Bali:
Destiny, I feel is also a relationship- a play between grace and willful self-effort. Half of it you have no control over, half of it is absolutely in your hands and your actions will show measurable consequences. Man is neither entirely a puppet of the gods, nor is he entirely a captain of his own destiny; he’s a little of both.
We gallop through our lives like circus performers balancing on two speeding side-by-side horses – one foot is on the horse called “fate” the other on the horse called “free will”. And the question you have to ask everyday is, Which horse is which? Which horse do I need to stop worrying about because it’s not under my control, and which do I need to steer with concentrated effort?
Our relationship to language and the way that we speak and live it, is one of our greatest tools for healing ourselves and realizing changes we pray for. We can pray for change, happiness and peace in our lives and in the world, but as Gilbert writes, our free will and fate is a relationship and half of the job is ours. We will see change when we immerse ourselves in the language that speaks to our hearts longing for happiness and our minds love of the greatest mystery, peace. I can’t tell you what that language is specifically for you, but I do believe that fundamentally and at it’s very core, it will embody the practice of Sustainability.
Photography and Art by The Lexicon of Sustainaibility
Sustainability is the ability to continue a defined behavior indefinitely. And if you’ve never cared to learn the definition of the word sustainability before now, well then I assure you could still be living a sustainable life, only you aren’t an etymology geek like myself. I cared to learn the definition and see how it’s changed throughout history, because if it isn’t embarrassingly evident by now, I am really interested in the roots of languages and how they are used to sustain relationships.
There is one frustrating, stubborn and hot-headed aspect to language that I have a problem with however, and that is it’s ability to cause a real lack of communication. Think of political jargon, empty promises and manipulating framing. The reality of language is, some people use it to show how much they care and others use it to show how much they know. Those of us who use language, whatever dialect it may be, to talk our way into the hearts of those we want to help are using it as a tool to show how much we care. This style of communicating can build a strong bridge to someone’s heart that will make words, eventually, unnecessary. And the opposite style of communication, which is not specific to any one dialect, is the use of language as a tool to show how much you know. This kind of use of language is tricky, as if you aren’t careful to spearhead communication in conjunction with the language of how much you care, you will become increasingly more reliant on words. This form is often abused by people acting selfishly or without consideration for others.
It can be hard for some people to pick up what place others are communicating from if they aren’t aware of where they are coming from themselves. However, the intelligence and intuition of animals can always detect what place people are communicating from; genuine or ingenuine. When working with animals, communicating how much you know will get you absolutely nowhere, unless they know first how much you care. This is something I’ve learned from the great Horseman and teacher, Buck Brannaman.
The Lexicon of Sustainability connects the dots and builds a beautiful language based in sustainability studies that’s easy on the eyes ~ http://www.lexiconofsustainability.com
Learning to communicate from a genuine place of caring so that we can get across how much we know is the foundation of the language of sustainability. If we can come from these places in our interactions with all things, then whatever language we speak, we will be speaking our graceful truth. My teacher of Ayurveda, DeAnna Batdorff says that if we speak equally from our hearts and our minds, our voice will come together and always communicate graceful truth. Our voice is a gift, and we are responsible for taking great care in sharing it with the world.
How much care this takes, in immersing ourselves in the language of sustainability is dependent upon what our graceful truth is. You’re the only one who knows what it’s like to be in your body and live with your heart and your mind. All I can really say knowing my body and the way it communicates and relates to the world, is that if I want to sustain my feelings of happiness in my heart and peace in my mind, I need to be working with animals to play with grace and willful self-effort and utilizing diagnostic tools of Ayurveda to help myself find that balanced place of belonging in the world where there is a hole in the shape of me, and live there.
To simply conclude, I suppose that living in a sustainable way for me, requires as much care as I truly care to sustain.
Photo Courtesy The dhyana Center
Posted in Healing, Homesteading
Tagged ayurveda, graceful truth, homestead, language, local, love, mother earth, relationships, respect, slow living, sustainaibility, The Lexicon of Sustainability
Ancient folklore describes the horse as being created from the ocean.
From Juliette de Bairacli Levy’s Herbal Handbook for Farm and Stable, she writes “Legend tells that the horse, stallion and mare were created from the sea waves and emerged white as sea-foam…further legend from Greece tells of Chiron the centaur (half horse, half man) who, long ago, was so wise in knowledge of medicinal herbs that heroes and demi-gods went to him worshipfully to be his pupils.” If you’ve ever experienced the fortune of running with horses on the beach or in gentle waves, you may have already gotten the feeling that they belong on the seaside. Juliette, the famed grandmother of herbal medicine for animals who was one of the biggest influences in bringing herbal medicine to the states, writes that “the horse flourishes when raised by the sea or within reach of sea winds… and certainly benefits greatly from the addition to the daily food of iodine and general minerals-rich seaweed (of most types, though deep-sea kelp is the preferred one).”
The reason I write this is because, first of all I haven’t written in a while. And second, the reason is because of an ocean of emotions in my life that has me learning to breathe under water…again. While it seems most of my existence on this planet has been time spent around horses and their magnetic hearts, because that’s where I gravitate to now, in truth the first few years of my life were spent in the water. When I was young, I could swim better than I could run. I could say that by the first time I rode a horse I gave up my sea legs for the saddle, but I never really gave them up. Water is in my blood, not just in my physical body, but in my family tree. My Grandfather was a passionate fisherman and raised every one of his children by the sea. My Dad has likely spent the greater part of his life in water, whether surfing, diving for treasure or swimming just for the hell of it. And I amazingly enough got to grow up exploring California’s coast line with my father, in search for the perfect wave.
My family tree, if I was to illustrate it, would look like deep-sea kelp because we are inextricably linked to an ancient ocean of wisdom. We all learned to swim before we could walk. We, like horses thrive on sea breezes and make our roots close to the coast, our homes sprawling up and down the California and Baja California Coast. Knowing the roots and listening to the stories that are dug into the roots of my family tree warm me deeply. And when grieving needs to happen or when we let go of some of our losses, I believe we can ease our pain by looking to our oceans.
We all have an ocean within us, in Ayurveda it is related to the kidneys and our lymphatic system. One of my anatomy teachers goes as far to say that our bodies, as a whole, are one big ocean. Every one of our cells is bathed in water, and within every one of those cells there is more water. When we look deeply, we see that the macrocosm and microcosm of the environment to the body and the body to the internal environment keeps on scaling down until our microscopes can no longer scale down. Life, in its full field of vision is one amazing spiral which shows us time and again that what it outside of ourselves is within ourselves too.
Photo Courtesy La Abeja Herbs
During clinic this past week at the Ayurvedic healing center where I am working on my residency, the lead practitioner in my group was speaking to the importance of staying hydrated to begin to change anything in our health. They way she explained hydration has stayed with me, as she said that when our bodies are well hydrated and we are stressed, we are able to bend. But when we are dehydrated and we become stressed, we don’t just bend, we break. So what is the lesson here that the ocean, horses, our families and trees especially have to teach us? The lesson is wonderfully simple enough: when we take care of our oceans, (not just kidneys, lymphatic system but our WHOLE BODY) we will be better able to bend with stress, not break apart from it.
The Ancient’s may have believed that horses were created in the ocean, but I recently learned from a friend a new perspective on what it means to believe. Of course, no matter what we believe the truth will remain true, to believe could be seen sometimes as “being in the lie”. I cannot accept that to believe is to be caught in a lie, though sometimes it can be that stubborn beliefs can blind people to the real truth. I’m sure we’ve all come across what holding onto these kinds of belief can do. However, because my father is a fisherman I was raised on stories of what treasures and mysteries the ocean held, and see belief as an essential tool to have in our lives, (especially on the open sea). Each story my dad shared was incredible and unbelievable in its own way, but the lessons I caught onto in each story of the sea was that absence of belief in a story of shipwreck and encircling sharks may be the difference between life and death. As a fisherman, you may be taught emergency procedures and possess the knowledge of survival in such circumstances, but without a strong belief that you will survive, what will keep you looking for reassurances from lighthouses?
Our emotions are governed by the intuitive waters within ourselves. It’s been shown that we share with all living creatures in varying degrees these emotions, but I do believe that no one has ventured as far to say that all other creatures, in addition to having senses capable of feeling, are capable of belief. Whose to say something so daring anyway! Since belief in itself is a tool very similar to the mind in that we only know its existence because it tells us so. Therefore let me be as bold as to say that if belief works mysteriously in our process of making discoveries about ourselves, then other living creatures undoubtedly can believe, although maybe they have no use for it.
Since beliefs have the power to focus us on reassurances we are seeking, and blind us altogether if we are unwilling to give up that which no longer allows us to grow, I find it more useful myself to use beliefs only until they get me to a place of knowing. Indeed, knowledge can change and researchers and scientists discover new information all the time that changes the paradigm as we once knew it. However knowledge as a tool seems to me to be more flexible a structure than a belief as a system. The two are equally powerful when used properly and with finesse, however they can both trap us in shells if we aren’t careful to shed them once we are ripe to grow beyond them.
To clear this matter up requires some water. Where there is water, there is life, change, flow, growth and regeneration. Knowing and believing are tools that allow us to come to conclusions. But the truth is, no one cares what you believe or what you know until they know how much you care. To conclude, the best way to use knowledge and beliefs is to share them in such a way that demonstrates effectiveness and promotes experimentation. Find for yourself what is true. Let go to the deep tide that moves your stream of consciousness ever onward, keeping a healthy circulation going between knowing, believing and living so that your well of wisdom may never run dry. Strive for balance in your lifestyle, truth in your knowledge and forgiveness in your beliefs. As Sarah Crowell said and Sacred Ecology Films later wrote about, “The way we’ll hold it together is to hold it – together.”
Posted in Complementary Medicine, Healing
Tagged ayurveda, culture, faith, family, folklore, herbalism, horses, intuition, juliette de bairacli levy, nourish, ocean, sacred ecology films
Do we dream to escape or to become more fully realized? Or both?
Photo Courtesy La Abeja Herbs
When stress signals the body to react, do we fight, flight, or catch the signal in crossfire and take deep breaths? How do animals react to stress in their bodies? These are all questions to be mindful of in your life and in the lives of animals you relate to. If we can catch breath of the stresses going on in our bodies, we can formulate a routine and pathway to release them so they don’t go on to cause suffering. When I was young and stress fired my sympathetic nervous system, instead of releasing it any old way I developed a highly specialized therapeutic approach: running with dogs and racing with horses under the big fading sky around dusk time. These therapeutic romp sessions with animals always made me laugh and breathe so deeply with joy that every worry in the world would disintegrate beneath my feet.
During the most trying time of my life when I was faced with a lot of pain hurting those around me, I was fortunate enough to be able to escape with animals. As long as I couldn’t stop what wanted to happen from happening, I learned from animals how to follow the path of least resistance. Animals have a unique ability to sit with pain without having to let it become suffering.
Suffering manifests in so many ways that we could dutifully spend our entire lives studying every root cause of its manifestation and working to prevent it in any capacity. I like Ayurvedic medicine and philosophy so much because it teaches that no matter what suffering exists. It’s one of the Four Noble Truths. Can’t deny that, so might as well come to learn how to deal with it! Accepting its existence, we can learn to dig its roots out of the terrain we walk on. And better yet, we can learn to run light as a feather over the terrain that guides our path, regardless of the suffering that exists in it…with animals guiding us safely.
No rights to picture
Catching your second wind is what I equate to holding onto inspiration, a natural protection for us against stress. So long as we are inspired and our fires are stoked, we can release and manage stress in productive and therapeutic ways. Our level of inspiration and motivation changes naturally every day like high and low tide, making something as simple as staying inspired seem like damned never ending work. A wise old saying goes, if you love the work you do, you’ll never have to work another day of your life. For many of the people I know, this saying is a punch in the nose because they know while they don’t love their work, they can’t just quit. So what then? Well, to begin with, if we want to maintain a blissful amount of inspiration in our lives we have to look at our perspective of love and work. The only pain in this old saying is that people don’t think that love and work are interrelated. They see pleasure as the winning lottery ticket and work as they price you’ve got to pay to stay hopeful even when you’re only buying losing tickets. They think their passion is dependent on them working hard enough to earn the time off or the better living wage to pursue it. But what if we started looking at pleasure differently? Imagine that pleasure is a beautiful woman with a bored mind and work is an average man whose mind is on fire with passion. Maybe, just maybe pleasure and work are two imperfect beings made to come together to become one harmonious creation.
The way animals see it, pleasure is in the running like mad to catch prey, pleasure is in the resting and ruminating, and pleasure is in the learning from members of the herd or pack. The way humans see it, work is in the running like mad to get to work on time, work is in the taking a lunch break because we wish we were at home making waffles, and work is in the lessons from teachers and professors, because we don’t understand why we can’t just study what we want to learn about. We’re burned out on working so hard and we’re too parched to be inspired by our jobs when even holding onto inspiration takes work to endure. My question is not, why do we work so hard and stress ourselves out, but rather why are we making work void of pleasure? When work meets pleasure, a slight breeze blows your way. And when this wind passes you by, let it fill you up and inhale deeply and ask yourself what do I want to create tomorrow?
Photo Courtesy La Abeja Herbs
Inspiration is passionate like an animal who loves you even though you keep them locked up for most of the day, en yet elusive because as soon as you open the gate, even if you’re holding the other end of the rope that’s tied to them, true inspiration will always run away with you. Better yet, inspiration is a brilliant tease, as it’ll only provide you with enough information as to where it’s taking you to get you to take the next leap of faith. And when you take this leap, it won’t be about working towards tomorrow, or feeling pleasure from the past.
Better yet, even if we’re just dreaming here, let’s imagine that whatever we want to create tomorrow is running towards us. Boom. Here’s even another old saying to top you off, what you are seeking is seeking you. Sounds like a Beatle’s lyric I know, but it only means that its time for pleasure and work to come together and produce a beautiful inspiration that will shine such radiant light upon your life that will make you think you’re a little girl running with dogs and racing on horseback. You will wonder if you’re dreaming, but then at least you will know we do not dream to run away, but to run into what is wanting to run into us.
Posted in Animal Guided Education, Healing
Tagged animals, dreams, healing, inspiration, intuition, medicine, natural medicine, nervous system, purpose, stress relieving, suffering
I want to share every shred of happiness I feel in this world. The thing that has always enchanted me and driven me crazy about animals is that we cannot speak the same language. This truth I’ve always felt to … Continue reading
I like to see magic all around me.
I was born and raised in Sonoma County in Northern California, a very magical place. My family transplanted itself here because my Dad was a Sea Urchin diver, and the market for Sea Urchins was booming in this region. Coming from a picturesque Southern California town, my Mom initially saw the place that would come to be my hometown and said, “I wouldn’t be caught dead living here.” Today, here we are caught dead living in a small bohemian town in Northern California, a short drive from the Ocean, the City and the Mountains; pinch me. Having lived here my whole life, sometimes I see this place as a sleep-inducing field of lotus’ and want so badly to wake up. Traveling to foreign places is surely a wake up call. The things I take for granted in this place are luxuries in other places. If for nothing else, we should travel to remain humble that life is a gift. Sometimes I drive out to the Ocean and plunge into the cold salty depths nearly naked, and let my whole body become numb and I never feel more alive. And every chance I get I drive out to a horse ranch on top of a great hill where my two horses live and I run and muse about life with them. They are great listeners, but above all they are great communicators. I will share their stories, do not worry.
Animal as Medicine is a seed. It is years old in being dreamed, and still at this time I do not know what it will grow into, (though still, I dream). Looking back, it seems its creation began when my relationship with horses began. My journey with horses began when I was six, and finally at age eleven, I embarked on a deeply connected journey with a sweet mare called Jasmine. At the time my Mom had remarried and my Sisters and I moved to our new home in the country, which had a yard built to house horses. An utter fairytale. My hands have also cared for many wild horses, who have come into my life either as a companion for Jasmine or a teaching project for me, and have set wildfire to my dreams urging me to study in depth the true nature of horses and wild creatures.
I’ve heard a powerful healer say that we can believe what we want to believe, but the truth will always be the truth. Horses are a strong medicine for us; my favorite Ayurvedic herb that I use for regenerating the tissues and strengthen the reproductive system is Ashawaganda, literally meaning Strong like Horse. The incredible healer who taught me all about this herb, DeAnna Batdorff, is the reason why Animal as Medicine was rooted and given life through Ayurveda. I actually learned what Ashawaganda translated to mean at an introduction to Ayurveda class at the dhyana Center in the Summer of 2012. And right then and there, I gave up my plans and scholarship to study Natural Horsemanship at the University of Montana Western, and signed up to study in the Clinical Program in Ayurveda taught at the dhyana Center that Fall.
My life has been blessed with so many healing influences. I feel so deeply connected to the animals I take care of, my wild and beautiful friends and family, and Ayurveda as a lifestyle and a lifelong study, that I can’t honestly draw a line between where their influences end and mine begins. Of course, life is never without it’s trials and tests of character, and I hit walls and run into boundaries at times. Early this morning, my dear friend left a message for me to encourage me through a hard time I am facing and I want to share it with you in hopes that it may medicate your day too. I feel the need to share it not only with you but with all the animals around me. I always want to give them some sort of explanation as to why the whole process of domestication was beneficial to both the human and animal side of the equation, but I also feel they need now more than ever to be given permission to be wild again. It doesn’t mean that we will care for them any less than we do now, but that perhaps we will take better care because they will be in tune with who they truly are: wild beautiful creatures.
My wild and beautiful human friend spoke these words of advice that I love so much because they apply not only to me as she was intending, but to all the magical animals who I call medicine:
“I just want you to know that you can define yourself. It’s so important to support what you have, you’re so lucky to have family. But make sure that you nourish yourself and that you take care of yourself because after all what you’ve got is your own two feet, and your head and your beautiful mind. So don’t let your soul get mangled by what’s going on right now. Just stay grounded and be strong, because you are so much stronger than you might think you are. I know you can do this, I know you can get through it.” – A Wild and Beautiful Creature
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