Yesterday we had a glorious sunny day here on the Oregon Coast (Lincoln County) and every rejoiced and took in the radiance pouring down from the heavens. What a blessed shift from the gray of winter and early spring. We love the rain, of course, or we wouldn’t live here. But the arrival of sunshine brings balance to our bodies and smiles to our faces!
I completed my celebration of the day with a walk through Spring Pond near my home. What I was delighted to discover was the party that Nature was having within this blessed area. The plant life was sparkling and full of conversation. The water, though mostly calm, was reflecting great love and peacefulness. And the birds! Goodness. My entire walk I was being serenaded by a choir of bird songs, from osprey to wren’s, robins and ravens. What a delightful experience. My whole being just soaked it in.
This morning I awoke with the intention of another sunny day, but instead was greeted by gray morning skies. Feeling heaviness come over me, I sat in bed and cleared my energy, putting forth the intention of inner peace and harmony. Yet, the inner dampness that I felt was palatable and troubling. Gratefully, over the years I have gained a deep awareness of how to bring my whole body (physical, mental & feelings) back into balance fairly quickly and in enjoyable ways.
Self-Awareness
Being aware of my body’s physical and emotional constitution is helpful for me in these situations, as it allows me to go within and have deep conversations on how to bring my system into balance and rejoice in whatever the outer environment is displaying on a given day. Truly we are on journeys that are created from the inside out. Don’t like what you see on the outside? Change what you are thinking, feeling, experiencing on the inside.
Our constitutions are part of how nature expresses through our bodies. Physical, mental and feeling (emotional) constitutions are part of how our Presence experiences and learns from our journey on Earth. Do you know what your overall constitutions or doshas are? Read on ♥
There are many ways to understand our multibody systems regarding their constitutions. In addtion, there are many tools that can assist us in understanding our body’s energy balance and how it interfaces with nature on an ongoing basis.
Here are three systems that I know and how I utilize them to create and maintain balance within me:
- Ayurveda – in the system of Ayurveda, I am a mix of Vata and Pitta dosha types. This primarily means that cold/cool weather can make me cold in my body core, while hot weather at first warms me and then can cause a heat imbalance. Interested in learning your dosha or doshas? Here is a link for an Ayurveda body type quiz: https://lifespa.com/ayurvedic-health-quizzes/body-type-quiz/
- Astrologically: My sun sign is Pisces and I have a tri-water configuration in my system. So no matter the season, you will generally find me by water. Astrology signs are based in the four elements of water, air, fire and earth and have insights into your body’s relationship to nature, Gaia and the cosmos.
- Are you an empath? Understanding how you interface through your senses is also of great importance. People primarily interface through their vision, hearing and feeling senses. The one that plays mostly into this conversation of balance is if you are an empath or someone who takes in information and energy through your feeling body. If you are, then being aware of the energy you are feeling as yours or “the worlds” plays a key part in creating and maintaining balance within yourself. If you are unsure if you are an empath Judith Orloff, MD has an empath quiz on her website: https://drjudithorloff.com/quizzes/empath-self-assessment-test/
Inner Conversation and Response
So on mornings such as today, being aware of my overall constitutions and doshas allowed me to go within my awareness and listen deeply to what my body was telling me and how to bring joy back into all levels of myself. I was feeling damp and part of me just wanted to cry. The dampness was my physical essence being too Vata, too much water, and the wanting to cry was at least in part my energetically taping in empathically to the collective of other people who were also wishing for more sun to warm them inside and out.
So my first realization was that I required more fire energy in my being. My response was to put my attention on colors and foods in the rays of fire: yellow, orange, red.
- Yellow – is both a fire and joy color and associated with liver health. I reached for a lemon, heated up some water and blessed myself with a simple liver detox while taking the color of yellow into my being, feeling the sun’s energy through my inner eye and heart connection to the fire element.
- The next thing that came to mind was having a dose of the echinacea and goldenseal tincture I had on hand. Goldenseal is a wonderful drying herb which I have become friends with over the months of living in the damp environment of the Oregon coast. J
- Smoothie with warm ingredients: When we think of creating smoothies they tend to be yin in nature. I love having smoothies in the morning to provide my body with a solid nutrition base for the day. Today, since I require more heat I added ginger, cinnamon, and turmeric to the mix of blueberries, banana, apple, kiwi, and almond based kefir.
Ginger, cinnamon and turmeric are all warm foods, while the other ingredients gave me a bit of the rainbow regarding nutrition. Upon drinking this elixir, all levels of my body immediately felt better.
- Next, I energetically stepped out of the consciousness of sadness around the grayness, choosing to do some Earthing while I did so. What is Earthing?
This followed by a bit of yoga and some basic exercises and I am now smiling through and through! So while the gray is currently the predominant color of the sky, the sun is shining within me. So now, I’m off for a walk at the ocean.
Blessings to your day and remember that we create our world from the inside out, and through the beautiful bodies that our Spirit is expressing here on Earth, we are very, very much a part of Nature. For all of Life here on Earth is Spirit in form.
~ Kathryn Shanti Ariel, The Nature Whisperer and founder of Earthwise Institute
