Tending Inner Autumn

Hi <3,

Sharing a quick reminder about practice this Sunday and a simple tool for everyone.

This Sunday is our monthly Community Movement, Mindfulness & Meditation class, 10:30-12pm (@ Cowee School in Franklin NC)-- consider this a time to integrate the natural, intelligent shifts and changes that come with seasonal thresholds (hello Autumn) and an opportunity to settle into the heart of things (the core, essence, truth) via practices and tools that center us in presence, stability, belonging, meaning, courage, soul, and interconnection.

If you can’t make it or would appreciate a simple step-by-step take home practice, I gotchu:

• Carve out 5 or so minutes

• Check in and see if there is anything else you need to be 2% more comfortable (eg. pillow, water, a wiggle, deep breath, etc.)

• Begin to breathe in a way that feels presencing, supportive to you

• Rub your hands together to generate warmth and when you're ready, bring your hands over your ears for a few breaths and invite your ears; the perception of sound, the having to hear, to settle, to soften, to not have to do anything...then rub your hands together again and cover your eyes for a few breaths, inviting the eyes to soften, to not have to do anything, then rub your hands together a final time and rest them over your heart space, feeling your heart here with you, your interconnectedness, your belonging, next rest your hands over your belly and soften your belly 2% more, softening into your power and courage, lastly, bring your hands to you upper thighs and rub your hands down the thighs from the top to the bottom, noticing what pressure and pace feels nice, and sense, feel, imagine wiping off a few molecules of what feels overwhelming, expired, too much

• When the above is complete, take a final few moments to breathe and notice how you feel and feel a sense of gratitude for this time to come back home to yourself

Autumn season in Ayurveda is governed by the elements of air & ether, which possess the qualities of subtle, light, mobile, quick to change and easily uprooted, stirred, and churned. A classic antidote to keep us from getting overwhelmed by these elements is to do less, to let the senses settle, to come back home to the heart and our inherent power, to integrate. This is one of many simple practices and pathways for tending to inner Autumn. Many blessings!

@tbalahy

Something for the harvest~

Harvest by Brit Washburn

On the kitchen counter, three ripe tomatoes
a heap of sweet onions, a pile of potatoes

caked with dirt, but sacred for that,
like hands calloused from work, or the skin's 

star chart of scars-- here, where the nail went in,
here where the dog's teeth, here the knife;

here, where the scalding water spilled, here,
where the car door slammed closed; here

where our children grew ripe like fruit, 
here, where your mouth named the hurt--

faint now, like the taste of rain in wine,
or the sense of something missing,

or the memory of our bodies
as gardens before the harvest.