Hello Fellow Body-Mind-Hearts –

I have recently recommitted to my Soul work. This is work that is exploring my own and the worlds’ depths and connection with each other and how I can invite that into each moment and relationship. One of the things that I am reminded of over and over again is that this kind of work is not about improving myself but about deepening and ripening. 

Our society (I have ceased to call it a culture as I am not seeing much richness or originality in our current Western ways of life) is very focused on the project of perfection and endless improvement. As if who we are and what we bring into the world is not worthy or even welcome as the unique gift it is. In fact, we are often told we come in as a blank slate! Anyone who has witnessed the distinct differences in siblings of the same family will testify that that is not the most accurate description. We are told to fix our bodies, improve our psyches, fit in and integrate and seek a never fulfilled goal of perfection that is prescribed from some unknown and unspoken source.

I am way more interested in growing more as a human and having more capacity for relating than fulfilling another’s idea of me. I love the idea of ripening…like a fruit…into a rich fragrant presence in the world; offering my gifts and skills as nourishment for those I come in contact with. I welcome your ripening into your unique presence in the world so I can taste the juiciness of your never to be repeated being. What would it be like if we stopped trying to fix, improve, repair and instead move closer to an intimacy with life that welcomes the messy, imperfect and funky as part of the whole experience of being here? What if in that moment of welcoming we find more possibility than improvement ever offered? 

The process of ripening is cyclical and nourishing…a plant blossoms and the blossoms become fruit which feed an animal (yes, we are animals too!) and spread their seed or become compost and support a new cycle all over again. What richness and beauty that is. How much more fulfilling than grabbing for an end goal that is never really going to manifest?

This is a potent consideration as we take up our different practices of consciousness. Do we practice to improve and perfect or do we practice to deepen and connect? Are the practices here for just our own benefit or for the good of all through us? I believe that it is more about our relationship with self and other (other being any other…seeming objects, humans, animals, green ones, the world) than just getting better at the action or inaction of the practice?

My invitation to you is to drop the incessant demand to fix and perfect and instead enter into a deeper exploration of relationship with all that is within and around you. Let this messy, painful, beautiful and wild life be like fertilizer for your ripening and move towards a deeper intimacy with life. We can support each other in our juiciness. 

Guiding Lights…

My mentor and teacher for over a decade was the first one to really offer me the embodied ways of ripening my Soul. Susan Harper is a wise being who, just by her presence alone, imparts a way of relating that is nourishing and revealing. She has spent most of her life traveling the world offering deep teachings on how to deepen into embodiment and intimacy with this journey of living. Now, with all the changes from the pandemic, she is even more accessible with many online workshops and trainings. I hope to see you in one of her beautiful offerings soon.

May we endeavor to deepen our relationship with our inner landscape and surrounding breathing world

May we seek to ripen as human beings rather than trying to be seen as ‘perfect’

May we welcome all encounters of life as fertilizer for our soul

May we offer kindness, compassion & beauty everywhere we go & in every interaction

Practice Prompts:

• Take some time to consider how you approach your practices and your life. Is it a project to fix and improve or a process of deepening and relating? What are some of the little or large ways you can shift the tendency of going for an end result product to cultivating an ongoing process of relating?
• Take time to pause regularly throughout your day to check in with the momentum at which you are moving. Be curious if this is in service to the larger societies needs or to your own. What rhythms and cycles nourish and sustain your process of ripening?
• Partake in some of the delicious ripe fruit of the season and contemplate the cycle it went through as a reflection for your own process of living and being.
• My private practice is currently full. If you would like to learn more about my offerings please email me or schedule a free 20 minute Exploratory Session and get your name on the waitlist.

Upcoming Live Streaming Practice Opportunities:

• Slow Flow Yoga, Mondays, 9:45-11:15am PDT, livestream through Seattle Yoga Arts (Note new start time!)
• Continuum Inquiry Playshop, Monday, Aug 8, 5:30-7:30pm PDT livestream through Body of Insight
• All Levels Yoga, Sunday, Aug 21, 10-11:30am PDT, livestream through Two Dog Yoga
  
• Autumn Mini Retreat: Tending the Time of Surrender, Saturday, Sep 17, 2-4pm PDT, livestream through Seattle Yoga Arts
• On Demand Yoga Practices…All Levels… through Seattle Yoga Arts (practice with me anytime, anywhere!)

Inspirational Wisdom:

The Most Important Thing

I am making a home inside myself. A shelter
of kindness where everything
is forgiven, everything allowed—a quiet patch
of sunlight to stretch out without hurry,
where all that has been banished
and buried is welcomed, spoken, listened to—released.

A fiercely friendly place I can claim as my very own.

I am throwing arms open
to the whole of myself—especially the fearful,
fault-finding, falling apart, unfinished parts, knowing
every seed and weed, every drop
of rain, has made the soil richer.

I will light a candle, pour a hot cup of tea, gather
around the warmth of my own blazing fire. I will howl
if I want to, knowing this flame can burn through
any perceived problem, any prescribed perfectionism,
any lying limitation, every heavy thing.

I am making a home inside myself
where grace blooms in grand and glorious

abundance, a shelter of kindness that grows
all the truest things.

I whisper hallelujah to the friendly
sky. Watch now as I burst into blossom.

~ Julia Fehrenbacher