Excerpt from The Sabbath of Women by Lara Owen:
Traditionally Native American women went to a moon-lodge while they were bleeding and bled onto moss, sitting on the earth. They consider the relationship between women and the earth to be very important, and this relationship is nurtured by bleeding onto the earth. When women do this they have a direct cellular connection with the earth, which grounds and centers them.
When I was first introduced to the idea of bleeding onto the earth by a friend of mine I thought it sounded a little silly, a little pretentious. But I started doing it tentatively, and began to feel a flicker of connection to something very old. One of the problems I had was figuring out how to do it. Native American women used to sit on moss in the moon house. Where was I supposed to sit and bleed? Even if I went and found a nice piece of earth to sit on, I didn’t want to stay there for the whole time. Then I started using cloth pads to absorb my blood and soaking them in water before I washed them. I realized that I could pour the soaking water onto the earth. So now that’s what I do. The water is a beautiful red, and I pour it onto the ground around plants, and the act of doing this fills me with a feeling of connection, of rightness, of being at peace with something that is often neglected in modern life. Simple acts of value, simple knowledge.
It’s like chopping wood, rocking a baby, baking bread, drinking from a fast flowing mountain stream. It’s one of those acts of being a human being that is timeless, of eternal value, part of the steady round of life and death. The cells that die in my body, that are carried in the menstrual blood, are food for the earth. What dies gives birth. What dies feeds those who live and will live.
If I ignore my blood I get distanced from this knowledge. I fear and dislike my blood–for without the knowledge that it too is food, that it too is a gift I bear, then I see it as purely loss. A waste of blood, a waste of time, a baby that wasn’t conceived. Whether I desire pregnancy or not, my blood is always a gift. And it is a gift in a literal sense, as well as a psychic gift to myself. It is a gift from my body back to the earth: the mother that has fed and nurtured me every day of my life.
If you feel bound, you are bound. If you feel liberated, you are liberated. Things outside neither bind nor liberate you, only your attitude toward them does that.
Sri Swami Satchidananda
Still a little jetlagged from our trip to the Philippines, so I got out of bed at 05:20 to do some yoga in the backyard
& DID MY FIRST SUCCESSFUL FREESTANDING HEADSTAND TODAY.
Fkyeah, grrrl <3
I’ve lost around 5lbs since coming to the Philippines at the beginning of May. All the swimming, hiking, outdoor yoga and fresh/natural food feels great for my body! Unfortunately, I feel like I lost some muscle mass during my week-long stay at Pagadian City Hospital with dengue fever—I’ve been craving protein like a lion since I got out X)
Nov. 2010:
I’ve named this blog “fittings wheels” because my friends call me Wheels, a nickname derived from my surname, Wheeler. My weight was never a problem until the beginning of 2010, when psychiatric medication I was put on affected my metabolism and appetite to the extent that I gained over 40 lbs (I’m only 5’3”) in 2 months. The medication also makes it incredibly hard to lose weight, but I’m trying! I also had to relocate from Brooklyn, NY to Virginia at the end of 2009, a change that has significantly affected my fitness level. I went from walking and biking everywhere to sitting in highway traffic all the time! But here I stand, just trying to lose that extra tire :)
———-
NEW:
Since starting this tumblr, I have reached my original goal to fit back into my pre-weight-gain clothes. I am once again comfortable in my own skin, and even feel a little sexy sometimes ;)
Tumblr and Sparkpeople.com were incredibly helpful communities that have helped me expand my knowledge about healthy nutrition. However I didn’t really start shedding the extra inches until I was taken off the antipsychotic/anti-seizure/migraine pharmaceutical Depakote. One of this medication’s most infamous side effects is weight gain, and not just 5lbs or 10lbs. I gained over 40lbs in less than 3 months, an almost dangerous amount and rate for my 5’3” frame. And my experience was not out of the ordinary. I read scores of testimonials from patients who said the same thing: this medication made me gain weight that I could not lose. Fortunately, my excess weight practically melted off when I was tapered off Depakote, and without my calorie intake changing all that much. In addition, my energy level and general contentment potential both soared once I was taken off the meds. I can confidently say that safely coming off antipsychotics has been one of the most positive experiences of my life. However, I know that I am one of the lucky people who only needed this medication temporarily—many patients are on it for life once prescribed.
If you or someone you know is prescribed Depakote, please be advised that it will almost certainly cause the patient to gain weight, maybe 5lbs, maybe 50lbs. In my experience, the weight was not impossible to lose, but being on Depakote made it much harder to get rid of. My doctors did not emphasize this side effect at the beginning of my treatment, and boy do I wish they had!
Feeling so at home here.
Sitting Meditation with the Saint of Recoletos Falls
Naval, Leyte, Philippines
2011Meditation is painful in the beginning, but it bestows immortal Bliss and supreme joy in the end.
– Swami Sivananda
(Source: blisswheelr)
On vacation: my first time in the Philippines, my mother’s native country!
Full Wheel at high tide on Higatangan in the Philippines
Yoga teaches us to cure what need not be endured and endure what cannot be cured.
– B.K.S. Iyengar
(Source: blisswheelr)
Siik remix of “Sweetest Thing” by Lauryn Hill.
Beat is Tsutchie – “Two Tears”.
…like the kiss on the collarbone.
(Source: blisswheelr)
Fed & got fed at the vegan potluck at Concrete this afternoon!
Vegan mexican pasta + raisin yams + spaghetti + quinoa crispbread + kimchi chips
Cinnamon chocolate coconut quinoa on brown rice quinoa crisp bread
(via blisswheelr)
