Mink Creek at Alberta Orchard Wellness

Winter, according to the wisdom of the elements, is about dreaming, resting, relaxing, restoring, recharging and germinating seeds which will break through the thawing frozen ground of winter come spring when energy naturally moves upward and outward.  Plans made and action taken in harmony with the greater cycles of the cosmos, are much more likely to come to fruition. Over the last few years, I have been observing, studying and syncing myself with the elemental cycles as practiced by the ancients. I often call it ‘re-wilding’ myself. I started with Seasonal Wellness classes in 2015. In 2019 I printed 5 seasonal Element Wisdom Decks – 73 cards for each season totaling 365 days of clinical pearls, lifestyle tips, jedi mind tricks and some deeper dives into traditional medicine, physchology and spirit.

Nourish the water element during the winter season:

•  Go to sleep early and rise with or just before the sun rises. I use an alarm clock only when I have an important appointment.  Natural light awakens me if my internal clock has not.  I am learning to trust this more and more each season.

• Unplug: allow yourself to disconnect from all technology when the sun sets.  Yes, you read that right: read a book, light a fire, make a cup of tea, color, paint, play board games, take a long bath, make music, make love.  Do nothing. Need convincing? Check the research:
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  • Technology, sleep & children
  • Sleep complaints & technology

• Watch every sunrise and sunset possible. Everything has a beginning, middle and end.  Watching the sun rising and setting reminds us as does observing our breath:  the beginning of the inhale, the middle of the inhale, the end of the inhale, a gap or turning, the beginning of the exhale, the middle of the exhale, the end of the exhale, a gap or turning and so it goes.  The most blissful moments as well as the most awkward or difficult days have a beginning, middle and end.  Our breath is like the incoming and outgoing tide of our life’s ocean. Following these cycles develops equanimity; equanimity undoes suffering.

• Be with water as often as possible:  the ocean, rivers, creeks, waterfalls, springs water sound machines, aquariums, you tube water videos. Last winter, I planted 90 ferns in the creek that runs under the screened porch of my off grid tiny house (check back for that blog post).

• Observe how water moves and flows around obstacles. How can we be more like water in our movement in our inner and outer worlds?

• Replace one of your bathroom lights with a red light, so as not to wake your adrenals into a cortisol rise if you need to get up during the night.

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Wolf Bay Sunset, Alabama Gulf Coast

Divine Feminine Divine Masculine: Guest Blog Post by Teresa Cribelli, PhD, Eminent Reiki Master

Reiki is a, gentle, compassionate method for bringing energetic balance and clearing on the physical, emotional, and mental levels. Because Reiki is about balance, it can be especially helpful at the changing of seasons.  All versions of Reiki are compassionate and loving with the capacity to bring deep peace and healing, while Eminent Reiki^TM focuses on balancing the feminine and masculine energies we all carry within us. Fall and winter, seasons that are energetically feminine, provide us opportunities to focus on our inner world.  In traditional societies located in parts of the world with changing seasons, the winter was a time of quiet and reflection (not inaction, but a turning to the inner forces that nourish and revitalize us).  It was a period of stored seeds and pickled vegetables and preserved fruits, of relying on the resources harvested and built up during the bright spring and summer months.  Winter shifts us from the outward, masculine seasons (yang) to the inner, feminine seasons (yin).

Murmurmation (Yin). collage. Teresa Cribelli

Reiki energy can help us calibrate our physical bodies with these seasonal energetic shifts.  During winter the focus may be on the feminine, but that does not mean the masculine goes away.  Rather, the changing seasons can be seen as a pendulum that moves between the inner and the outer, the revitalizing feminine and the energizing masculine.  Winter is in balance with summer; the two are part of the whole, and when they operate in equilibrium, each supports the other – the masculine and feminine in balance.  There is the very old Greek story of the goddess of the harvest, Demeter.  When her daughter, Persephone, is kidnapped by Hades and taken to the Underworld, Demeter falls into a deep depression and winter remains well into the time of spring and summer.  The world withers into dust and grey skies and people cannot grow their seeds.  The feminine out of balance leads to inertia.  In another Greek myth, Helios the sun god, in the form of a charioteer drives his team of horses across the sky each day, bringing warmth and energizing light to the world.  When his son, Phaethon, steals the chariot one morning and loses control of the horses, the day lasts for weeks, and all of the plants on earth catch fire and burn. The people are thirsty and hot and again have no food. Too much yin and the earth stagnates, too much yang and it burns.

Divine Yang. collage. Teresa Cribelli

As we move from summer into fall, we can look at this as rebalancing on the macro and the micro levels – the masculine seasons moving into the feminine seasons both within and without.  While the seasons lean toward the feminine or the masculine, over the course of the year, they are in balance. 

This is a useful way to think about Eminent Reiki^TM; bringing balance to the feminine and the masculine energies so that we are nourished and energized year round.

Reiki Description

The practice of Reiki is an ancient healing art, one that is the energy of love and compassion. It supports us through clearing and balancing the energies of the systems and bodies, creating opportunity for health and wellbeing on all levels. Reiki can be received with the practitioner’s hands on or off of the body. The client simply relaxes and receives as the practitioner senses where clearing is needed and allows the Reiki energy to flow to the source of pain. Reiki energy can only be used for positive outcomes.  An all-purpose tool that introduces ease and grace into the lives of those who receive and practice it, Reiki is a cherished method of thousands. There are many types of Reiki practiced on Earth at this time; each variation is an expression of love and support.

Eminent Reiki^{TM is} a new approach to Reiki with a special male/female component unique to the Eminent Reiki^TM process. Not only are the male and female used together to create a special healing experience, they are specifically blended together into a new energy that is part of the Eminent Reiki^TM attunement.  A key component of healing is balancing the male and female within and Eminent Reiki^TM addresses this need specifically in the energy and approach to healing.

For more information, visit the Eminent Reiki^TM website:

http://www.eminentreiki.com and check these research links below:

Effect of Reiki Therapy on Pain and Anxiety in Adults: An In-Depth Literature Review of Randomized Trials with Effect Size Calculations

Reiki Is Better Than Placebo and Has Broad Potential as a Complementary Health Therapy

Reiki Reduces Burnout Among Community Mental Health Clinicians

River City Mural, collage. Temerson Square. Tuscaloosa, AL

Click here for the UA annoucement and more about Teresa’s  Ephemeral River City Mural Project. Catch it while you can! (east side of Coppertop Bar y’all)

What got you interested in Reiki?  What training have you received?

My pathway to practicing Reiki began with acupuncture.  About 20 years ago I consulted an acupuncturist for a chronic pain condition (an MD recommended I try acupuncture – traditional western medical treatments had not been effective for managing my pain).  I began to feel much better after two weeks of acupuncture treatments, and I found that when the pain returned at night (I had been having trouble sleeping) I could make it go away by meditating on the acupuncture points used in my sessions.  Through visualizing the acupuncture points I could attain the same level of relaxation I experienced when I was being treated.  It was an accidental discovery that ended up being life changing.  

In a sense, acupuncture taught me how to meditate and relax, but at that point I still saw moving energy as something outside of myself, I needed a third party to help make the shift.  About ten years later my sister became a Reiki practitioner and gave me a session after I suffered a painful miscarriage.  Her hands became hot during that session and it felt so healing – relaxing and calming on both a physical and emotional level – that I knew I wanted to learn how to do it too.  From there I took the Eminent Reiki^TMclasses in Colorado and received my attunements.  This past summer I received my level three Master Practitioner attunement in Eminent Reiki^TM, a version of Reiki that focuses on balancing the masculine and feminine energies we all carry within us.  My original intent when I first started practicing Reiki was to help relax and heal physical ailments, but in my self-practice I have found I focus more on emotional healing.  Reiki can be a wonderful method for letting go of worries and anxieties from the past.

What got you interested in collage?

I love illustrations and images – it is has been something I have been attracted to my entire life. When I was five I ripped all the horse pictures out of a hand-me-down set of story books.  I could not read yet, and I wanted to free the illustrations from the books.  I had so much fun arranging and re-arranging those horse illustrations before I realized with a shock that books were not supposed to be torn apart.  Nonetheless, I kept coming back to making collages.  I used to shellac images of animals from Ranger Rick magazine onto scraps from my father’s woodpile, and I still have a collage I made in second grade art class.  It contains an image of a plastic horse and cowgirl from a toy catalog, a sewing machine, some aluminum foil, and a photo of Evonne Goolagong,the tennis player.  I have no idea why I put those subjects together at the age of seven, but they illustrate the thrill and power of collage – juxtaposing seemingly unrelated images together in interesting ways.  For me it is a form of meditation.  It is a way of expressing my inner world, an aspect of myself that does not manifest in a linear way. 

How do Reiki and/or collage change your day to day experience of the world?

Both are a form of meditation, of accessing the calm center that is inside all of us. Reiki helps relax and release in the realm of energy, while collage facilitates self-expression.  Both help bring to consciousness what needs to be healed or understood or joyfully expressed.  It is a way to practice self-love.  As physical objects collages also become a meditation  – for me and the people who view them.  By contemplating the juxtaposition of images, we can, to quote the photographer Minor White, “[learn] to make chance moments occur by looking at anything until [we see] what else it is.”  This shift in perspective can facilitate healing and true self expression.

Teresa offers Reiki sessions at Alberta Orchard Wellness. Please utilize our online booking 2 step process or contact our office for pre-payment and scheduling: 

Click to pre-pay.reiki-treatment 

Click to book appointment

(xià zhì夏至)

It’s the longest day of the year so let’s celebrate the start of summer! The summer solstice happens between June 20 and 22 in the Northern Hemisphere, marking the start of summer and the point when days start to become shorter and nights longer. The summer solstice is not the same day and time every year because the calendar does not exactly correspond to the Earth’s rotation. For 2019, here in Alabama, the Sun reached its greatest height in the sky on June 21 at 10:54 a.m. Central Time.

Passionflower (Passiflora lutea) at AOW

We are technically still in the Earth phase, or Doyo, which is the transitional time when the seasons change (see last week’s blog post). Working in the Earth’s soil not only is nourishing to our spirits but there is evidence that it is actually supportive of our mental health as the microbes in the soil interact with the  gut-brain axis by connecting the emotional and cognitive parts of the brain with our intestinal systems.  At Alberta Orchard Wellness, we are continuing our project of clearing invasive bamboo, kudzu and pesky ground covers while cultivating the native groves of our mulberries, blackberries, passionflower (genus Passiflora), persimmon, strawberries and poke (genus Phytolacca) on the property in the permaculture fashion of observing and interacting with nature. We are weeding out that which no longer serves and planting competition crops such as mini clover to cultivate our wildness. Invasive plants are the greatest threat to our natural species much as invasive thoughts threaten our original nature. The cultivation of the desirable traits within ourselves like: generosity, virtue, renunciation, wisdom, energy, patience, truthfulness, resolve and loving kindness is truly a remedy to our suffering. To learn more about these click here

The summer solstice marks the peak of the yang energy for the year and begins the yin energy of the year. Yin and yang represent two opposite forces that are mutually dependent and interdependent in the balance of life. This dynamic balance forms the basics of Chinese medicine as the movement from the original source of all things. The Yin Yang Symbol is also known as the Tai Chi symbol.

Yin Yang interdependent interconnected

This ancient Yin Yang symbol, is a circle divided into two equal portions by a wave-like line with one half shaded (Yin) and the other half left unshaded (Yang). The Tai Chi or Yin Yang symbol was created by the observation of the sun’s cycles. The ancient Chinese used an eight-foot tall pole, posted at right angles to the ground to observe the cycles of the sun and record the length of shadow cast. They used six concentric circles and then divided the circles into twenty-four sectors in order to record the length of the shadow every day. The shortest shadow was observed on the summer solstice while the longest shadow was cast on the winter solstice. After connecting the lines and shading the Yin for the summer solstice, the familiar symbol emerged.

The word “solstice” is derived from the Latin words “sol” (sun) and “stitium” (still or stopped). During the summer solstice, the sun’s relative position in the sky at noon does not appear to change much so that it appears to stand still. During the rest of year, the Earth’s tilt on its axis causes the sun’s path to rise and fall from one day to the next.

qi gong warmup at AOW

You can continue to cultivate wellness during this Earth season by practicing exercises for healing the spleen  with Qi gong support. Stand with your feet touching the earth (or visualize this if indoors) in the universal stance, emulating a horse riding posture, with a relaxed yet dignified upright spine. Wake up the meridian and organ networks with three to five minutes of qi gong shaking then relax and feel the energy of the earth support and heavenly flow within your body. Wake the organ spleen by tapping and repeating eight times the sound of the spleen: whooooo  (like the wise owl calling to us). Open the gates of heaven (top of head ~ meeting of ten thousand things) and earth (bottom of feet ~ bubbling spring) again. Seal the Vessel with a Kegel of the pelvic floor. 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.  At the end of the pivot, alternate hand positions.  Repeat 40 times while imagining healing, golden light internally particularly healing and balancing your spleen.

Embrace the season, tend to your gardens, and do good work for your body like practicing Qi gong or Tai chi, the art of embracing the mind, body and spirit. The principles of these ancient practices are based in Daoist philosophy, the Book of Change, I Ching, and the continuing flow of two opposing forces yin and yang.

Tai chi and Qi gong have gained in popularity and classes are now available in many cities at community recreational centers, yoga studios, and even churches and places of worship. Several options for the instruction and practice of Tai Chi can be found in Tuscaloosa including classes at Yoga Bliss and the YMCA. Check out the links below and get your chi on!

http://www.yogablisstuscaloosa.com/tai-chi.html

http://www.ymcatuscaloosa.org/tai-chi/