Dear Peeps
As we move into summer proper now and the days (amazingly) start drawing in and we start slowing down to take time with family and friends and rest and recoup and, perhaps for some of you, reassess the rest of the year.
I have taken time myself since full moon to bake bread, forage with a friend and strain and bottle the medicines I made in May. I love the feeling of having nettle and dandelion oils and tinctures in my cupboard.
If you want to try foraging this summer and don’t quite know how and what, this book Forage In Summer: The Food and Medicine of Britain’s Wild Plants by Robin Harford, may be a good place for you to start.
He writes about foraging being “This ancient path of the forager reconnects us to the vital, to wildness, to creation, to what is, in effect, the very pulse of life itself.
One of the most direct ways to experience this is to consume this wildness.”
I particularly love and know the feeling of this bit. “Take it into our bodies, where like a sleeper agent, it lies dormant until you have eaten enough to change the structure of your blood, thereby changing your brain and how you relate to the non-human world...
Instead, these plants' stories are a way to help you sense into the future and understand our ecological function (as a species) within the world.”
Besides playing with herbs I’ve been crawling. Yes…. A lovely patient mentioned the difference a friend experienced doing this and I thought I would try it for myself as I missed the crawling stage as a baby. I am beginning to feel the benefits mentally and physically. I balance the different crawling exercises with spine twisting and back bending postures.
“Crawling helps to ‘reset’ the central nervous system. Imagine coming home from work or school full of anxiety and stress. Well, crawling around on the ground is one way to help relieve your body of that stress. Finally, crawling is good for boosting self-awareness and a sense of self.
….It’s a way to tie together your entire sensory system. The more you crawl, the more you establish, restore, and cement reflexive strength.
... crawling around the floor for a few minutes at a time is not just good for your body, it’s also good for your brain. Crawling activates the development of the corpus callosum, getting both sides of the body working together. When you start new exercise patterns, what the nervous system does is build new connections which is one of the reasons dancing provides significant cognitive benefits.”
One of the things I do as a therapist is give my patients self-care techniques or exercises, which, as a qualified yoga teacher I explain, demonstrate and observe to help maintain a consistency of release, be that physically, mentally or emotionally.
Videos I’ve watched. Ex Google Officer finally speaks out on the dangers of AI – Mo Gawdat. As an inexperienced and naive person re AI this was an interesting insight into AI.
A quote from one of my CranioSacral therapy tutors
Allow yourself to
Truly meet a place inside
where you feel a disconnection
Although this sounds simple,
the experience is profound
-Full Body Presence
Suzanne Scurlock
I keep tweaking my blogs (this month quotes in red) to try to make them easier to read. Please feel free to offer suggestions.
I wish you all a happy, nourishing summer break.
Blessings
Trishx