bathing with a rock

Wash it off

Wash it off
​Living in an urban environment bombarded with all types of frequencies 

I live in berkeley off a busy main street, maybe you’ve heard of University Avenue in Berkeley, California?  Berkeley is a place famous for its morphic resonance of radical activism and has been “my street” for the past 9+ years.  Attracted to what the Ohlone people, still thriving here, call the meeting place ripe with the willingness to talk about the tough things. I choose to thrive here as an urban witch.  Close to the density of humanity, learning the vivid spectrum of interbeing.  

I remember when I was in Herbalism school, walking down University Avenue to a burrito shop for lunch, walking really slow.  Because legitimately I look for the plants, pushing through the cracks, noticing in them their tenacity to grow through, literal hard places.  Learning about what isn't written in ‘wild foraging’ or cultivated herb books.  It isn't glamorous to see milky oat tops growing besides this day-in-age tumbleweed– the disposable mask…But there they are blowing in the breeze a reminder that life is here, underneath the hard places. Whispering, their soothing nerve nourishing song.  I found through a magickal veil the place I now live/work. 
Sometimes it's too loud here…I can hear, feel, see, smell, and in some cases touch the chaotic pulse of this urban wild west. Someone screaming down the street, talking to beings only they can see.  It’s a lot to navigate.  I do a lot to tithe back into the community, as my efforts to offer a community antidote, for this Ohlone land is a meeting place.  Moonlodge is such an offering, open to any womb yin willing to sit in the darkness.
And
I remember to wash it off. ​

Ok, that reads callus, let me explain my growing relationship with water.  Water is everywhere, in three famous forms; solid, liquid and vapor (I’m a mother of a seven year old, we homeschool, and science is fun;).  Not only does water take on form like a chameleon, water stretches. It always reaches for the union of the whole and the incredible nature of water is in yo/u/s (yo- I, you, us).  
Whoa.
Let’s deepen the current, as it were, and dive into the spirit of water.  Water holds resonance, be cold, dry, hot, moist, sad, angry, maybe even splashing with joy.  Quantum physics reminds us that the witness influences matter.  Yeah, your thoughts, words, feelings, ideas, have influence over/with water.  We humans are, on a healthy well hydrated day, about 70% water.  Ok, so footnote that, and water stretches it never breaks, that's even through time!  So the water in you is ANCIENT, as in it has been on the planet longer than humans.  Yeah, soak that in.  
If water has memory you hold lifetimes, and have access to the memory of lifetimes of multiple earth dwelling (not limited because shooting stars are real) species.  Ok yes, I am a mystic and I am looking to blow your socks off.  Mostly to call forth a reckoning of response-ability.  You as a conscious witness have a choice to be influenced by your inner waters or to influence your inner waters, mostly both.
Believe me I know trauma is real. All of us humans on this planet can feel the spectrum of emotion. And in the deep feeling current of emotions is an ancient language that connects to our interbeing. We are all connected from the inner well(ness) of our waters.  Every moment we make a choice to focus on what was happening or what is happening.  There was this cafe I worked at here in Berkeley, during my Saturn return, where we served water in pitchers featuring affirmations; love, trust, peace, joy, abundance, and breathe.  It was a potent gesture to add ritual to an otherwise unconscious routine.  Today I deepen my water ritual routines, with awareness of not only what I put into my body but what I wash off.  ​

35 weeks pregnant, henna ritual by design

Glamour Magick is something I developed out of being fully pregnant with, my vote for humanity, a baby, our future and during such “interesting times.”  It started out with lipstick and not wanting to eat synetic anything (have that enter into the future) or buy too much plastic when the ocean is filled with the stuff.  Now years later, it is a lifestyle and a ritual routine.  The other day a friend wanted to talk to me about this new curly hair supportive shampoo and I was beside myself…I became awkward.  Yes, locking in moisture in my curly locks is important to me, But at what cost to the environment (my/our macrocosm?) And by the way do you see my gorgeous hair, I don’t need it…but I get it humans just wanna connect and share. 

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​Here let me share with you. 
I have been soap free for over ten years.  That's on my head and my body, except for washing my hands with Dr Bronners (did you know they tithe 40% of their profits!) singing the birthday song, obviously, i'm not gonna spread a virus, calm the worry. But on my body I use a rock.  I told a friend this recently, and she asked where to buy this kind of rock.  I had the hugest chuckle…I found my bathing rock next to moving water, because of the quality of texture of friction worn rock.  Water like, ocean and river.  Not pumice stone, which is far too gritty.  Then when I have worn my rocks medium to fine grit too smooth to exfoliate with, I give it back to the Earth, sometimes I get very ritualistic with the gesture and sometimes quietly. 
When I bathe with a rock I remember what matters in me and realize to transmute the living trauma through my body.  So the next being who comes into contact with the waters that have touched through me resounds in prayer.  Sometimes my prayer is simple, sometimes it's epic…

I forgive this moment and let go, 
in this moment I reach to accept 
we are all trying our best, 
Buddha says we’re all suffering through our humanity 
Needing, wanting, reaching, 
Compassion is the ultimate wisdom.
Christ asks us to remember forgiveness 
and this act of acceptance is the ultimate form of Love.
In these gestures Thoth speaks to the alchemy of sovereignty
I am the collections of my actions 
Interconnected in our uniqueness by the choices we individually
Choose to harmonize of our own free will.

So I present to you this living question:
How are you resonating with y/our water?