Simple Free Play

To find what is true for you

From the birthplace of yoga in Rishikesh, India, to my birth state of California and the house my second child was born in.

Remember your roots.

That’s the theme for this eclipse season, which feels full blown rebirth including the mush that precedes the gush and push and miracle of babe to bosom. We’re in cycles of birthing and shedding all the time.

Remember your roots—what it is you’re in the process of birthing.

That’s the name of this substack. It originally came through as the tagline for my website during one of my morning walks on the dusty mixed forest road front our old home in Ellijay, Georgia.

Its meaning unfolds and roots deeper over time.

Remember who you truly are, beyond this body form, beyond all the identities and all the labels you hold so dear. Be grounded in the present moment.

Bring the wisdom you’ve gained from spirit and mother earth into the here and now. Be natural. Come back to your natural state: satchitananda (truth, unbounded consciousness, bliss), authenticity, remember you are nature—not separate from nature.

As you deepen your relationship with Self—get to know yourself—this if reflected back to you in pools of light: cloud, puddle, raindrop, icicle, lake, ocean, sea, eyes of your beloveds pouring back into you. Until, sometimes, maybe fleetingly at first, all you see is the Beloved.

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This February, in India, I studied of the Sri Suktam sadhana, an exploration of abundance in the sound current of Goddess Lakshmi, well beyond chanting the 15 verses.

After living and working in the Bible Belt and traveling the far reaches of the U.S. for the last 6 years, I know many people still get uncomfortable by words like God or Goddess. If that’s you, think of Lakshmi as an archetype for abundance in all its forms.

In short, abundance is an idea we tend to have as something outside of us, and we often attribute it to material wealth. It’s so much more than that: health, connection, receiving life’s play as a gift—even the challenge and hardship that encourages growth.

Reaching this keen-eyed discernment entails uprooting and healing the lies of unworthiness that we bought and sold to ourselves, so we can open up to receive, perceive, and appreciate the lusciousness that is this life.

Just as we humans are comprised of all the planets and all the signs of the zodiac in varying degrees, we contain and have relationships with all the archetypes of existence. We don’t want to cling to a distorted relationship with abundance—or anything else, for that matter.

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Landing back in California, I’ve been integrating this sadhana into my daily practice, as I navigate a full time day job with homeschooling 3 children, the roles of wife, mother, friend, teacher, student, and establishing myself in the short term goals I’ve been so reluctant to claim.

The truth is every worthy goal I’ve ever set aloud has come to be. Not immediately. But in its time. Yet, over the past few years I’ve resisted writing down or even getting clear on my deepest longings.

The drive of my early motherhood, knitting, nature crafting, candle making, gardening, simple free play, mountain climbing, art, nature, nature, art has given way to what feels more serious and less true. Workbooks and online math. Work staring at a computer. The siddhi of spreadsheets.

It’s not that we don’t do the things that were cornerstone for our family when the children were very young. We do it amidst the so many other less simple things that have begun to clutter our days.

If anything, this eclipse season, is calling for us to pause. In stillness, outside, in connection with the growth of spring or the release of fall, re-establish yourself in your values. How do you value yourself? This is the seed of abundance. Quality not quantity.

As, in a garden, planting with little ones (or with me, let’s be honest), when the seeds sprout, thinning the sprouts is important. Carrots needs space to root. Cilantro needs space to spread. The space provides the freedom to grow at the perfect pace in just the right time.

What’s most important to you and what do you want for your family? Where have you been compromising in ways that don’t serve your values? What can you pare back?

Take some time this week to look back and see what’s been created through you. Gaze at it in wonder. You’ve never been alone. You are always co-creating. You are always planting seeds. Slow down enough to notice what you’ve been sowing. And make some intentions for what you wish to sow.

Accept that in this sowing is a letting go. For in what we say yes to harbors some solid No’s.

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For me, after India, I find myself not wanting to lose the glow while simultaneously realizing the stickiness of that thought and the blunt inertia produced by the sneaky, subtle expectation of dimming. What if, instead, I expected radiance, amazingness, nature, art?

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The first morning back at home after being away for 2 weeks, I sit at my altar, yellow daisies at the feet of the goddess, dried and gone to seed. Someone has been here, loving this aspect of me in my absence.

The kids in my lap or on my side, big and big and bigger, nestled, adoring, devotion requited simply—oh so truly happy to see me as I breathe in this moment and want to bottle its essence.

The conversations of separation anxiety, mothering my mother as daughter, the dreams, the stars and clear skies (God, they do hang like grapes here), taking out the garbage, balance, playing another awesome game created by Rowan. Time to sit, time to clean, time to hike, run, bike, free.

Daisy asks me to finger knit with her on the couch; I say I’ll get my knitting instead and we’ll sit together. On the way, I see the pillow I’ve been meaning to mend, so I set that up instead. Suddenly, I’m covered in stuffed animals that need mending (or the birds that need new batteries to sing their song). So there we sit, all tending and mending to the things we love. The swirl of a life of a householder. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

And yet, sometimes I’m so done with the mundane. The stifle feels so real. I still get hung up on the responsibility of a full time job that supports. Us. That the Divine has used time and time again as a messenger for abundance and director of where we are meant to be locationally.

This eclipse cycle has brought me back to the mush of the chrysalis pre-butterfly goo.

In the light of the moon a little egg lay on a leaf. One Sunday morning the warm sun came up and pop! Out of the egg came a tiny and very hungry caterpillar.

You know the book, where Eric Carle says cocoon instead of chrysalis and us Virgos get all erudite and pedantic (cue eye roll).

Seriously, though, a tiny caterpillar eats and eats and grows a million times its size, hangs upside down from a leaf or whatnot, turns into a soft shell of itself, stiffens, hardens, shrinks, liquifies into utter goo, and transforms into an entirely new creature with wings, breaks free from its cage, er, shelter, dries in the sun, and flutters away to nectar. That is so creative!

Pure magic.

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My beloved, allow yourself to be in the inner softness of this tender state. Patience, compassion, no rush. Feel it, so it has a chance to be seen. Whatever if tender right now is here to be cleansed. Re-seen, re-imagined, revised. It’s our current state that gives meaning to our memories, past, present and future.

6 planets in sidereal Pisces for this eclipse on March 29, so, yeah, you’re feeling it. Pisces is here to bring emotions of the deeps to the surface. Old patterns in relating to self and other are rising up for transformation. Endings are a prevalent theme; know that in every ending is the seed of beginning—part of the ever emerging field of self realizing Self.

Hold it all in reverence. You are the butterfly. What a miraculous wonder you are. Give yourself the space to be in awe of yourself—your whole journey and all parts of you—especially the ones you like to hide.

You are so blessed.
We are so blessed.
I am so blessed.

Infuse your energy, your home, your family, and your life with this blessing.

Visit the water this weekend and let her wash it all away—whatever is ready to go, let it flow back into the memory, creativity, and renewal of water. As in a baptism, allow yourself to be revived.

How are you feeling?

Love,
Heather