Winter is the most yin time of the year – the most receptive season.

Practice reserve.

Spring has not yet come.

We are still dreaming our dreams.

Practice listening to the stillness.

Practice waiting in the void.

Join our email for seasonal retreats, nature connects https://follow.it/drsaritaelizabeth?action=followPub

This is one of the amazing ways:

Mandala ~ Create sacred space. Choose 5-8 cards. Arrange them in a circle within concentric rings of found or precious materials like seasonal fruits/vegetables, flowers, leaves, shells, stones, sticks, feathers, etc. Choose an elemental center piece: an earthenware filled with soil/clay, a transparent vase of water, a bell, a wooden bowl, an incense burner. Cards and objects may also be arranged by cardinal directions.

Purchase Element Wisdom Card Decks here

Did you know you can search the card titles on the Cultivating Wellness Blog? 

Our real time project for 2022 and 2023 is adding musing about the cards. 

Send us your favorite ways to play and images for 10% off any card deck or the entire collection!

albertaorchard@gmail.com

Invoke your innate intelligence.

We have never had more immediate access to information. We can acquire certificates and degrees from the comfort of our own home. Opinions on most anything is available 24/7. Agenda and propaganda masquerade as news while dissenting voices are censored.

Intelligence is the ability to acquire, filter, sort and apply information. There are many forms of intelligence: artificial, abstract, logical, emotional, social, creative, adaptive, self-aware, critical thinking, problem solving. Intelligence is not an agency.

The proper place for human beings is between heaven and earth. Our birthright is heavenly connection and earthly incarnation.

Our innate intelligence surpasses that of an entire network of supercomputers. The question is do you know how to tap into it?

The revelation is in the slipstream. You can’t purchase it because it is not for sale. It is free. Priceless. You won’t find it on the internet.

You can invite it as you observe the dynamic patterns of nature. You can invoke from the ageless, timeless depth of connection to all that is.

But you must still the businesses, quite the babel.

Claim agency over your innate intelligence.

Interested in rewilding yourself? 

Seasonal wisdom helps us cultivate a closer relationship to the dynamic rhythms and cycles of nature, which is essential to healing dis-ease and optimizing our health. 73 days of inspiration, wisdom, instructions, nature cure, inquiries are available in 5 seasonal decks in our Element Wisdom Cards.

Learn more & purchase the entire collection or a single deck here

How can we develop healthy humility?
Passionate curiosity is a start.

In the asking, we engage the other and the ego is checked.

Service is a good middle.

How does it feel when we volunteer our best hours of the week, donate our most valuable items or fund a heart felt cause?

In the end, seek original origins.

Humilis is the Latin root meaning low.

By our own choice, consequence, or chance, true humility is often the outcome of experiencing great depth, deep troubles or profound sorrows.

Water, the element of winter, teaches us how to serve all, go underground and spring up when necessary, go deep and take many forms.

Have you ever considered your power, your drive or your will like unto water? I was raised up on the Tennessee River. The singing river has been harnessed to provide hydroelectric power to the multitudes at the expense of snails and darters and such.

In our highest, most healthy state our power is like a mighty river determined in it’s purposefulness. In our highest, most healthy state our drive is like a stream flowing around obstacles. In our highest, most healthy state our will is like a singular tributary merging with the ocean great.

#water #winter #fiveelements #river #ambition #power #will #drive #elementwisdomcards #wisdom#elements

The water element paired organs that peak in winter are the Bladder and Kidney (plus adrenals).

The bladder meridian travels from the inner canthus of the eye across the head down the back side of the entire body exiting out the little toe. It traverses all of us.

Many of the point names indicate their function: bright eyes, supporting yang, supporting middle, celestial pillar, soul door, spirit hall, spiritual celestial connection, soul gate.

Acupuncture treats all levels of the human – mind, body, spirit.

Treating the bladder points can not only treat our organs like the bladder or the eyes, but it can also treat our spiritual sickness. It can help us see through the eyes of spirit. The dark clouds of our emotions and thinking can be cleared to see the bright blue skies of divine perfection.

Winter is Dreamtime.

Make the connection to your internal visionary this winter.

Dream it.

Envision it.

The kidneys store jing – our primal energy.

This essence is to be guarded, protected, treasured not squandered or frittered away.

It determines our fertility, growth, development, vitality and longevity.

It is one of the three treasures: jing, qi and shen.

The kidneys are the expression of the water element in our bodies.

Their energy peaks in winter offering harmonious opportunities for winter support and healing.

Fulfilling our destiny is healing.

The way of this deep healing summons and joins celestial jing with our terrestrial jing.

In other words, jing is our DNA. In this is all the knowing, the unfolding, the potential manifesting, the blueprint. It is our lifetime’s greatest job to connect with heavenly order.

Jing is the seed and the wellspring.

For 73 days of winter support, musings, inquiries, instructions purchase a winter/water element wisdom card deck.

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The critical first step in healing is accepting things as they actual are.

We live in a world where there is plenty that requires our resistance.

However, healing requires courageous honesty about ourself, our perceptions, our motivations, our circumstances and their cause.

I have doubled down on my commitment to live a life in alignment with my core values and the elemental.

My winter healing so far has looked like:

Living without liquid stress.
I had habituated a high quality jasmine green tea morning ritual. I would make one small pot of green tea then refresh the same leaves until noon. Occasionally, I would have one cup of coffee on special or social times. Even this small amount of caffeine masked my ability to feel my natural response of stress (cortisol surge) or ease (endorphin release).

Now I can actually feel my body’s feedback system and dig deeper into the root causes. From this understanding, I make better choices.

Living for today.
The last few years turned many of our lives upside down. I made plans from a place of fear. These plans are falling apart. I accepted a graduate teaching position with unethically low wages and promises of great job to come. I also spent a huge amount of time, energy and resources developing online classes that would bring in a consistent stream of income and continuity of care for patients and the opportunity to meet new ones -that project never gained traction. I have released these plans.

I have come back round to the real. I am offering real Wellness gatherings & Nature connects in real time during 2023.

Plans made in reaction to scary and unsettling situations are suspect. Maybe we just don’t know what is coming and can learn how to be okay with that.

I am living in winter. Studying how water moves, how it changes forms.

#water #winter #fear #healing #5elements

What does the phrase ‘down to earth’ mean to you?

Earth Writing Exercise

Take a moment.

Find pen and paper.

Transcribe the phrase Down to Earth. 

Place both feet on the ground.

Take three deep breaths, expanding your ribs.

Write free associations of what ‘down to earth’ means to you for 90 seconds.

Wake the spleen, an earth organ with the exercise below. 

Repeat the automatic writing exercise.

Wake the Spleen

With both feet on the ground, raise your left arm.

Wake the spleen organ by tapping on your left side, one hand width below the arm pit.

Vocalize the sound of the spleen: whooooo (like the wise owl calling)- gutteral and brethless

Repeat eight times.

Shanren kan wo xinshi?  Wo xin shi!

Do I posses the earth attributes of integrity and deep trust?  Yes I do!

The phrase down to earth can refer to an approachable person.  Someone that is practical, plain spoken, honest, realistic, trustworthy, unassuming, unpretentious.

What did your list reveal? Which of those qualities do you posses? Which qualities would you like to strengthen?

If there is a quality you would like to embody or strengthen in yourself?

Try replacing the sound of the spleen with the quality that you wish to strengthen.  For example, tap ‘trust’ into your spleen.

The digestive organs are injured by stagnation.  Desk or remote virtual jobs, long hours of studying, research and writing keep us seated.  Relaxing and decompressing may also become habituated to screen time, gaming or media binging. Fatigue sets in from lack of activity; a sedentary life is injurious. Frankly, it is killing us slowly. The combination of oversitting and overthinking is a harmful combination for the earth organs,  particularly the spleen.  The lack of healthy circulation settles dampness deep into our systems. If you are prone to oversitting, please build in healthy habits. 

Set a timer at the desk for 30 minutes to take a 5 minute movement break out of the chair.

Shake away any accumulated worries, negative postures.

Take a few stretches or yoga poses.

Walk to the water station and hydrate.

Walk a few flights of stairs.

Take a walk around the block.

Learn and practice Heaven & Earth Rotation Daily

Heaven & Earth Rotation: Qi Gong Earth Exercise

1. Open the gates of heaven (top of head ~ meeting of ten thousand things) and earth (bottom of feet ~ bubbling spring) again. 
2. Pivot from the lower back with smooth and continuous action. The left palm, facing earth, pushes downward while the right palm, faces heaven, pulls upward. 
3. At the end of the pivot, alternate hand positions. 
4. Repeat 40 times while imagining healing, golden light internally healing and balancing your spleen, stomach and pancreas.

Purchase your element wisdom card deck to support your daily health & wellness journey

Cultivate wellness this Earth season by practicing exercises for healing the spleen with Qigong support.