I subscribe to “This American Life” and listened to a recent episode called “The Seven Things You’re Not Supposed to Talk About.” To my delight, each of these points are of *extreme* interest to me during a healthcare session:

1. How you slept
2. Your period/ menstrual cycle
3. Your health (aches, pains, flu, in general)
4. Your dreams
5. Money
6. Your diet
7. Route (your journey to arriving here)

Of course your health in every regard is what we are addressing. But each of these other listed points may help identify the root cause of the symptoms you’re experiencing. Including dreams – are they scary? Funny? Dramatic? Exhausting? The content, feelings, and energy of your dreams tells us what part of you needs some attention. We use the five elements in understanding dreams.

Your route! Yes – a stressful trip may follow you into a healthcare session. Or you may notice that traveling far for healthcare work reduces some of it’s beneficial effects.

You can listen to the episode here.

In breezes, sneezes, and snow it’s important to know
what seeds you have for the spring!
Literal and otherwise.

If you’re looking for heirloom seeds and unique art, take a look here: http://www.seedlibrary.org/art-packs.html,
you’ll find all kinds of things to grow in a one-of-a-kind package designed by artists like Rebecca Ringquist (art shown in this post and found online at http://rebeccaringquist.com/home.html.)

If you’re wondering what I meant by ‘otherwise,’ take a moment to think of what is important to you to carry through to next year. In the Autumn the season inspires us to let go of things that have come full cycle. Things that no longer serve us. Things that we’re ready to release and compost. What’s left is what we want to grow again in the next cycle – these are our seeds for the spring. We have shed all but the essential and can reflect on what’s important to us.

In the winter, we draw our energy in and give special care to these seeds. Warm and nourish what you have saved. What are your seeds?

“Create alongside moods. Create when your laundry seems like the most exciting thing in your life. Create when sickness overtakes you and you can barely walk to the kitchen. Create when you are ecstatically happy. Especially then.

So much of life is the mundane, the annoying, the unsettling, or confusing. Our personality selves are busy judging, rehearsing, complaining, or protecting. We must do it anyway. The anyway will lead us to richness – the richness of our actual experience, and the gifts of our own real creativity.”
– SARK

In your busy winter-wonder makings,
I invite you to a deep, cool breath of exchange.

Take in the crispness of the time of year when
the edges of what remains is sharp.

Let this inform your being.

But first,
let out the expectations of what it should be
and be with what is.

Recent experiences of the virtues of dancing:

1. Moves the Qi – let free the places where one is stuck.
2. Be in relation to others in respectful, joyful expression.
3. Learn new sources of movement, new ways of using yourself.
4. Practice deep listening and connection to music.
5. Goes well with humility, hilarity, and willingness.
6. Possible at any time.