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

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

Don’t worry, be happy.

How to soothe your nervous system:

• Take a cold shower or plunge
• Splash cold water on face & neck
• Sing, laugh, chant, hum, & hug
• Restore the microbe of the gut
• Relax jaw tension
• Meditate on loving kindness
• Positive Social Connect
  

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Stimulation of the vagus nerve plays an important role in the management of anxiety and mental health issues. The vagus nerve is the longest running cranial nerve in your body. It is one of ten paired cranial nerves and runs from the stem of your brain all the way down to your gut. The word “vagus” translates to “wandering” in Latin, and the vagus nerve certainly does that. As the longest and most complex of all the cranial nerves, it starts at the stem of the brain, behind the ears before it meanders down the sides of the neck, through the chest, and eventually ends in the abdomen linking the brain to the heart, lungs, throat, and gut.

When we are in parasympathetic dominance we are able to rest and digest, rest and heal.

Vagus Nerve Connects the Brain and Gut

The vegas nerve is the sensory network that informs the brain of what’s going on in our organs, most specially the digestive tract (stomach and intestines), lungs and heart, spleen, liver, and kidneys.

People with good vagal tone can relax faster after a stress and are more capable of regulating blood glucose levels, reducing chances of diabetes, stroke and cardiovascular disease. Poor vagal tone, however, is associated with chronic inflammation and basket load of subsequent health issues. Recent research presented by the European League Against Rheumatism indicate that vagus nerve stimulation significantly reduces symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis.

Significant and important research has been making the news about a microbiota-gut-brain axis. Read up on this fascinating subject here. Also this article discusses the science behind gut microbiota, brain function and stress related disorders.

Relevant to Earth element health, I’ve collected these research links for you:

• Vagal mechanisms as neuromodulatory targets for the treatment of metabolic disease.
• Impact of blood glucose control on sympathetic and vagus nerve functional status in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus.
• Vagal afferents contribute to sympathoexcitation–driven metabolic dysfunctions.
• Role of the vagus nerve in the development and treatment of diet-induced diabetes.

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. 

Metal is the element of autumn. Theme of the season is value, worth, letting go of that which no longer serves, honoring our grief, integrity, magnetism, alchemy.

During an acupuncture session, I have a patient choose an element wisdom card or choose one for them.  Last week, I forgot to have the first patient of the day choose a card, so I sent it by text. Her card is You are Precious. I encouraged her to forward the picture to one or five of her beloveds. This is actually one of our ways to play (for 2 or more) Our element wisdom cards offer 73 daily in season affirmations, wisdoms, questions and health tips. Check our ways to play & purchase a seasonal gift today at element-wisdom.com 

I’ve been at this for more than 20 years – witnessing health in seasonal cycles, feeling pulses, giving healing treatments, guiding folks back toward their best self. I am an expert in mind, body, spirit treatment – more than 10,000 hours.

Autumn is the season of metal in Chinese Medicine. The energy is exacting, precise, cutting, reflective and alchemical.

Just as the trees drop their leaves, we too are to let go of the old. This is the natural rhythm of the season.

Many of us have outgrown jobs, relationships, locations. With integrity, now is the time to cut loose that which no longer serves you.

Sometimes these decisions come in a brilliant flash. The action required is crystal clear. At times, we are reconsidering change year after year. The action required is still murky. Reflect.

The time around the solstice will center us once again as the transition/earth season. The newness of how are choosing to live may feel, momentarily, unsettling.

We will dream up our next best life in the stillness of winter. We will rest and restore.

The spring will come, like it always does, and we will move forward anew.

Learn simple yet powerful ways to improve your health issues with my Element Wisdom Cards. 365 days of lifestyle practices, nature cure treatments, questions, suggestions and Jedi mind tricks!

What gems are you creating in your life? your community? your family?

Jade is considered a healing power stone in Asian medicine. 15-75 miles below the earths surface in zones where the tectonic plates collide, extreme temperatures of 480–1110°F and extreme pressures of 87,000–507,500 pounds per square inch metamorphic rock, dolomite, transforms. Suffice it to say, power comes out of enduring extreme situations. 

At our lineage ceremony marking the completion of our Chinese Medicine program at NUNM, each student was gifted a jade circle.  We completed a very intense cycle; we were forever changed.  I wrapped my stone with green threads and continue to wear it to this day, two decades later. This power stone embodies all the teachings, the struggles, the lesson, the ease, the delight. It is a treasure.

Next time you are feeling pressured.  Take a few deep breaths. 

Then ask yourself:  how can this experience transform me, transmute me, shift me, change me?

#gemstones #diamond #metal #value #seasonalwellness #element-wisdom.com

Mindsets and patterns dictate our actions. Our actions create our outcomes.  The fall season is the time for self-reflection and honest evaluation of our daily mental habits.  Our habits are responses or reactions to the stories that we tell ourselves.  Moment to moment awareness, returning to the breath and interrupting our mind talk with inquiry creates pause.

Purchase your Element Wisdom Card decks here

“If a job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well.”- E.L. James
 bio) #beyourbestself #elementwisdomcards #topperformance #custodialworkersrecognitionday

Allow your inner light to shine through as we move into days of diminishing daylight. Our moods may change with less light. 

Diamonds form from elemental carbon between 237,000 – 1.3 million times atmospheric pressure deep within the earth.  Carbon is the fourth most abundant element in the universe according to mass. This makes carbon rather ‘ordinary’.  However the brilliance of the diamond is acquired from intense pressure to ordinary carbon.  Like carbon, our extraordinary-ness is derived from our ordinary-ness plus stress.  The practice of being present moment to moment helps us appreciate the extraordinary in the ordinary.

Less direct ultra violet light during November-February inhibits our inherent vitamin D conversion.  To better understand this seasonal stress, This science article explores what qualifies as deficient in vitamin D and what effects a deficiency can have on you. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19460619/

Visit element-wisdom.com for more information about Element Wisdom Cards and how this self-care tool can help guide you in your wellness journey.

Purchase your Element Wisdom Card decks here

photo credit: Dimitris Christou